Constantine - The Novelization - Whoa is (Not)

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his lips were too heavy to move. He managed to say, "Isabel...."Even in Hell, it's all about context. Satan knew who he was talking about. "What about her?""Let her... go home ...."Satan wasn't easy to surprise. But Constantine had genuinely surprised him. "You would giveup your life so she could go to Heaven?"Constantine managed a nod.And Satan was pleased. Constantine wasn't asking for his own life. That meant that Satancould have Constantine to play with, and right away. Satan disliked delaying gratification. Andhe would get far more personal satisfaction from torturing Constantine than in playing withIsabel, whom he scarcely knew."Fine," Satan said.There was a pause. Things were done, invisibly, in the space of that pause.--In the hydrotherapy room, Angela was awake, lying on the floor, weak but breathing - and atthe same time she was in a kind of dream state, a condition of psychic receptivity that broughtabout visions. True visions.So it was that she found herself with her sister again, the two of them once more little girls ona swing set in the park. The swings were moving together, and Angela and Isabel, two little girls,were holding hands as they swung... looking at one another, waiting for the right moment to letgo. The two of them, holding hands, would jump as they had so many times from the swing, toland together laughing in the soft dirt…Now! Up they went, out of the swing, holding hands for a moment in midair.Angela was coming down, about to land on her feet - but Isabel kept going upward, kept flyingup, slowly, into the air, like a helium balloon released to ease into the sky. She kept the grip withher sister's fingers for just a moment. Beaming at her...And then Angela let go - knowing she was doing something for her sister by letting go. AndIsabel drifted upward, spiraling slowly into the sky, into a blue that was unimaginably deep,astonishingly perfect.--Things were accomplished, in that pause, after Satan said, Fine.A spirit was released from Hell - and found itself in Heaven, where there was celebration ather arrival, and many things came clear to her at last...."Welcome, Isabel," said her grandmother. "Welcome, my darling. I'd like you to meet somefriends of mine - and I don't think you ever met your grandfather.... Oh - and here's a friend of afriend. His name is Chaz.... "--"...it's done," Satan finished. He looked at Constantine - and it was a look that contained acontinuum of torment. "Time to go."Constantine nodded. All he could manage. Lifted one hand, just a little, toward Satan - toshow his readiness.Satan reached down and took his hand, pulled him toward him, toward the doors. On the otherside of the doors was something other than more hospital. It was now a doorway to Hades.Satan drew Constantine after him......but the corridor seemed to stretch out on the way to the door. They couldn't seem to getthere. They moved, and yet the door remained the same distance away. They weren't reallygoing anywhere at all.Constantine's other hand lifted up - something was pulling him in another direction. Awayfrom Hell. Constantine's other hand was held by someone else.
His hand was in God's.Satan dropped Constantine's hand - recoiling in ineffable, infinite, space-spanning anger."The sacrifice!" Satan roared. Realizing that Constantine's willingness to sacrifice himselffor Isabel had been noticed: had saved him. Constantine was dying, nearly dead - but he wasn'tgoing to Hell. He was going to Heaven. Satan was to be cheated.Satan shook his fist at the light shining from above."No! This one belongs to me!"Constantine's rising hand - drifting up toward Heaven - now drifted down toward Satan for amoment, middle finger extended.But it wasn't Constantine doing it - God was giving Satan the finger.Satan combusted with rage, lifting his fists and igniting into a figure of fire. He pointed aflaming finger at Constantine. "You will live, John Constantine! You will live so you will havethe chance to prove that your soul truly belongs in Hell. Damn you - you will live!"Satan plunged his blazing etheric hand into Constantine's body, deep into his breast, liftinghim up off the floor with the thrust.Constantine screamed in agony as Satan scooped the cancer from his lungs, ripping out a massof diseased tissue with a nasty yank, trying to make it as painful as possible. He releasedConstantine...…and Constantine dropped to the floor in a heap.On his hands and knees, Constantine felt strength pour into him. He took a deep breath...filling healthy lungs for the first time in years.He looked at his wrists. They had sealed up - he was healed top to bottom. Satan had givenhim a new lease on life - but he'd done it only so that he could one day try to get an eviction.Constantine heard Satan's voice in his mind as the dark angel went through the door, back tobrood at home - and to heat his son.I'll have your ass sooner or later, Constantine. What's a few more years to me? You're afuckup. And you're mine.And then Satan was gone - as much as he ever is. Constantine looked around. Didn't see anyheavenly glows. Didn't feel that divine touch that'd been so exquisite, moments ago. God wasgone too.But then again - He never is.--Constantine walked into the hydrotherapy room, looking for Angela... and seeing her againstone wall, sitting up, hugging her knees. But smiling at him. Alive.He knelt beside her. Saw the spear lying near her. The Spear of Destiny itself."Thank you," Angela said."No problem," Constantine replied, as casually as he could manage.She couldn't help but smile at that. He couldn't help but smile back.He heard a moan, turned to see Gabriel, hunched up, shaking near the opposite wall. Stumpsof torn cartilage protruded from his back. A pattern of sinew and bone, burned into the floor nearhim, was all that remained of his wings.There was red blood, very human blood, dripping from the stumps of the angel's wings.Constantine grinned in satisfaction, as he retrieved his Holy Shotgun from the floor."Human...!" Constantine chuckled.Gabriel grimaced at that verdict. But didn't deny it. He had been punished by being turnedinto a mortal. Without God's protection - withdrawn when he made the pact with Mammon - he'dbeen subject to Satan's superior magical powers... and Satan had punished him by turning himinto one of those he despised. A human being."You don't deserve to be human," Constantine remarked, hefting his shotgun thoughtfully,approaching the erstwhile angel.
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Styrofoam cooler. Last month, openi
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wreckage, both of them hoping no on
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at the furious response. That thing
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"What? Why?""Just MOVE THE DAMN CAR
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"Like I said, John, I found you som
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two children, near a vendor's cart.
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and making the whole as long as a b
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Much less killing anyone. They have
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Outskirts of Mexicali, MexicoThe ol
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--In another part of the hospital,
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hostel in JanSport packs sharing a
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He nodded. It was true enough.She t
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"You're better off without another
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fumbling with the remote to turn it
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scattering creatures.Heart thudding
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Constantine didn't even glance back
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"And... I saw a soldier demon tryin
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gray dirt on that side; brown and g
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himself much, he pointed over her s
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were their prey; flying predators f
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y Jacob Needleman.He smiled. This w
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Just keep moving. You can stay ahea
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Materialized it here. Something mis
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Molly's Burger was unusually crowde
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thousands of leering insect mandibl
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Angela reached out and put her hand
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to tell her... how very final it wa
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who. Lucifer and his boys. Demons a
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"Show me her room," Constantine sai
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ELEVENConstantine didn't explain ho
Page 64 and 65: Constantine glanced at her, smiling
Page 66 and 67: The darkness seemed to thicken arou
Page 68 and 69: getting two women into bed and putt
Page 70 and 71: Let go, he urged her, mentally. If
Page 72 and 73: THIRTEENFrancisco had decided to ch
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Page 76 and 77: moment perhaps glimpse a snarling f
Page 78 and 79: Balthazar was writhing now. Wailing
Page 80 and 81: "It's okay now." Yet his voice was
Page 82 and 83: "Xavier.""Why am I not surprised."T
Page 84 and 85: infused with sacred symbols, divine
Page 86 and 87: "You know," Constantine said, ponde
Page 88 and 89: of him that was ultimately more rea
Page 90 and 91: Constantine cooked a pan of religio
Page 92 and 93: Chaz looked at Midnite more serious
Page 94 and 95: He'd sound like those lunatics who
Page 96 and 97: The darkness reached its maximal th
Page 98 and 99: madman, yet freighted with meaning
Page 100 and 101: Constantine had come out of the con
Page 102 and 103: second-sight. "You think Satan's so
Page 104 and 105: mumbling castings, so that they wer
Page 106 and 107: NINETEENConstantine and Chaz burst
Page 108 and 109: oaring out:"Into the light I comman
Page 110 and 111: He was supposed to be immune. He ha
Page 112 and 113: seconds?"Satan thought about it....
Page 116 and 117: Gabriel cleared his throat. "Then..
Page 118: the smoke away, and went to the fir
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Constantine - The Novelization - Whoa is (Not)

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