two children, near a vendor's cart.Angela heard Xavier catch h<strong>is</strong> breath at the pain and Angela realized caught up in the sensethat the gunman was still at hand-that she hadn't called an ambulance yet. She got her littlewalkie-talkie from her purse. "Officer down. One shooter. Officer down, need ass<strong>is</strong>tance…"<strong>The</strong> man with the pleasant smile, h<strong>is</strong> hand moving below her line of sight..."Officer down..."And suddenly she was spinning, her gun up and aiming. Firing before she could think.All in a split second as some part of her was silently shouting: I can't do th<strong>is</strong>! Stop!But she felt something more powerful than instinct: a primal certainty and a conviction, fromway down inside, that if she didn't do th<strong>is</strong> then she and Xavier and others would all be dead,before another word could be spoken.And so she shot the man with the puzzled smile right through the forehead.Have I shot the wrong man? Mary, Holy Mother of God, have mercy on me....<strong>The</strong> other people around him screamed and ran to the right and left - like a curtain of peopleparting to reveal the man sinking to h<strong>is</strong> knees... with a silenced 9mm p<strong>is</strong>tol in h<strong>is</strong> hand.He flopped forward, facedown, not even twitching. Quite dead.Lowering the gun, she glanced down at Xavier, who was staring up at her, grimacing. "Youscare me," he said.Didn't sound like he was kidding.She looked at the gun in her hand. She closed her eyes...It had happened again.--"You know, Angela, th<strong>is</strong> <strong>is</strong> starting to make a few people nervous," Captain Foreman said,scratching in the short br<strong>is</strong>tles that passed for h<strong>is</strong> hair. He was an ex- Marine and he'd kept thehaircut. He looked at her with h<strong>is</strong> small, blue eyes, and the lines on h<strong>is</strong> tanned face deepenedwith h<strong>is</strong> frown. "Shooting four people in six months - doesn't happen too often, Dirty Harrymovies aside.""Yes sir, but uh - it's not as if any of it's my idea," Angela said."You know, you can sit down in that chair there."She was standing almost at attention in front of h<strong>is</strong> desk, in h<strong>is</strong> downtown office. Pictures ofh<strong>is</strong> kids on the wall, framed certificates of commendation, a smell of pipe tobacco. "No thankyou, sir."She knew she was being petulant, acting the martyr by refusing to sit, but she felt like she wasbeing hauled on the carpet for just doing her duty."You're thinking you should get a medal and not a hassle," Foreman said, leaning back, h<strong>is</strong>chair creaking.She felt her face redden. "<strong>Not</strong> a medal, sir - but, maybe, not a hassle.""Tell you what I think. I think it bothers you, too, all these shootings in a short time."She let out a long breath. He had her there. All four shootings had been instinctive. All fourhad been one-shot-one-kill affairs, instantly lethal. All four had been people no one mourned, noone complained of losing. Murderers, every one. A child killer, a vicious enforcer for a druggang, a bank robber who'd already killed a hostage, and now a lunatic, a random shooter.And in every case she'd just found herself in the vicinity. Just following a feeling. And everytime she'd been right.She tried not to think about her s<strong>is</strong>ter. How what had happened to Isabel could be happeningto her. She tried not to think about the voices she'd heard, the ghosts she'd seemed to see as achild. She couldn't let herself believe all that was coming back. Because that had been madness.But how could th<strong>is</strong> be madness? She'd been..."... right every time," the captain was admitting."That's the damnable thing. <strong>The</strong>y all checked out to the bone. You probably will get a
commendation, when things quiet down. But we still have to suspend you pending investigation.It's just routine. I'm sure it'll be fine.""I know, Captain.""Dodson - there's nothing you want to tell me about th<strong>is</strong>?""Like... what?""I don't know. Just.... next time you have one of these, you know, these hunches, callsomebody before you ... follow up. I mean - not if there's a shooter right there, but...""I know what you mean, sir.""Okay. We'll see you in the morning at the inquest."She nodded, and walked out, thinking, He's right.I'm scared by th<strong>is</strong> thing, too.--Chaz had just pulled up in a d<strong>is</strong>creet, shadowy comer of Twenty Lanes' parking lot. He took<strong>Constantine</strong>'s bag from the trunk of the taxi, followed him toward the door of the bowling alley."Ever think if you told me more now and then, maybe I could help you out?" he asked<strong>Constantine</strong>."Nope," <strong>Constantine</strong> said, without so much as a glance at Chaz, as he led the way inside.Anyplace else, th<strong>is</strong> much no<strong>is</strong>e and clatter, the sounds of things crashing down, would be asign to take cover from a landslide. But in a bowling alley it was normal. Most of the lanes weregoing strong at the Twenty Lanes as <strong>Constantine</strong> and Chaz crossed the lobby, walking past thepimply young man renting shoes, past rows of the house balls in cabinets, all in bright primarycolors."Bowling shoes - what a scam that <strong>is</strong>," Chaz remarked."Just get me Beeman, now please," <strong>Constantine</strong> said, looking down the lanes at somebodycurving a ball in for a perfect strike. He could shoot a gun straight as Buffalo Bill, he couldpunch like a son of a bitch, he could summon fire sprites and wind elementals, he could trap ademon in a mirror, and he could see the astral world - but for the life of him, he couldn't roll oneof those hooks to get a strike. Bowling technique was an esoteric mystery to <strong>Constantine</strong>.Drive me here, get me Beeman, blow my nose, Chaz thought. Aloud he said, "Question: Howmuch longer do I have to be your slave?""You're not my slave, Chaz, you're my very appreciated apprentice. Like Tonto or Robin orthat skinny fellow with the fat friend from the old movies." <strong>The</strong>y'd crossed the bowling alley tothe exit on the far side."When do I apprentice something besides driving?" And, he thought, signaling eccentrics whohide out in the back of bowling alleys?But <strong>Constantine</strong> had already slipped through the exit door.Chaz growled to himself. "No. Really. Great. We'll do lunch."He sighed, went to the ball rack for lane thirteen, as always, and ran h<strong>is</strong> fingers across thehouse balls. Only one was bright pearly white. He held it in one hand, took a grease pencil andwrote NEW GAME on the overhead, then stepped onto the pol<strong>is</strong>hed wood, prepping for a bowl.He winked at a pretty brunette girl watching from the next lane. Her buff young boyfriend didn'tlike it. Chaz bowled, and the hook was perfect. <strong>The</strong> strike was a mathematical inevitability,every ball going down just when it should. <strong>The</strong> brunette grinned.He returned the smile and, resignedly, went back out to the cab.--<strong>Constantine</strong>'s apartment was small - but not as small as it looked. He pulled a chain hangingdown the right-hand wall as he came in, and the far wall shuttered open, revealing a farther room
- Page 2 and 3: Styrofoam cooler. Last month, openi
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Constantine glanced at her, smiling
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The darkness seemed to thicken arou
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getting two women into bed and putt
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Let go, he urged her, mentally. If
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THIRTEENFrancisco had decided to ch
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insects and sores and infinite regr
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moment perhaps glimpse a snarling f
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Balthazar was writhing now. Wailing
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"It's okay now." Yet his voice was
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"Xavier.""Why am I not surprised."T
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infused with sacred symbols, divine
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"You know," Constantine said, ponde
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of him that was ultimately more rea
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Constantine cooked a pan of religio
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Chaz looked at Midnite more serious
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He'd sound like those lunatics who
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The darkness reached its maximal th
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madman, yet freighted with meaning
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Constantine had come out of the con
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second-sight. "You think Satan's so
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mumbling castings, so that they wer
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NINETEENConstantine and Chaz burst
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oaring out:"Into the light I comman
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He was supposed to be immune. He ha
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seconds?"Satan thought about it....
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his lips were too heavy to move. He
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Gabriel cleared his throat. "Then..
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the smoke away, and went to the fir