Constantine - The Novelization - Whoa is (Not)

was hunkered by the covered shape. He was an older Chinese guy in a white coat, the pensclipped in his pocket leaking ink stains: a doctor, name of Zhen. He glanced up at her, hesitated,then lifted the tarp."No, no, no. No...," Angela heard herself say."No, Isabel..."She knelt by the body and her tears fell on her sister's pale, bruised face. Her twin sister,Isabel, in a bloodied nightgown. The dream had been with her all morning and she'd known,even before hearing about a suicide at Ravenscar, that the dream had been real - had been aboutIsabel, not Angela. But then again, Isabel owned a piece of Angela's soul. That's just how it waswith twins.Sobbing without sound, she found herself looking at Isabel's wrist. She was expectingsomething more than just a patient ID band. In the dream, there had been an insignia there,marked in a welt on her wrist. It wasn't there now.She felt she might crumble, looking at her sister.Death was so absolute, so without mitigation. She would never be able to comfort her sisternow. She'd put off a visit to the hospital that week...Angela felt Xavier standing at her elbow. She had to get control of her voice, swallowing afew times before she could manage, "She... fell from the roof?"Xavier hesitated. Then he admitted, "She jumped."Jumped? No. Isabel wouldn't do that. Not with her beliefs. No."I know it's hard to accept," Xavier said gently."But she was sick... "Isabel wouldn't kill herself."Angie...""She wouldn't. Period.""Detective," Xavier said. Reminding her, with his emphasis on that single word, to beobjective. "There was surveillance..."She looked at Isabel's face, and then signaled the coroner to cover it again.The job, she told herself. Hang on to that. You're already under scrutiny for the shootings.Don't fall apart now."Surveillance? A security camera? Then ... I want to see that tape."Xavier sighed. "You sure you want to put yourself through that?""Just arrange it. Please. Do that for me.""All right. We can do that right away. Security's on the first floor, behind the foyer."Angela turned away and forced herself to leave her sister's body behind.But she couldn't abandon her sister. Alive or dead.--Ravenscar had a comprehensive "mental hygiene" facility, where Isabel had died. But the restof the hospital was devoted to cardiology and to oncology; to cancer and chemo and little roomswhere terminal patients withered away, like waiting rooms for that final physician, DeathConstantine walked past one of those rooms.Through the open door he glimpsed a gaunt, bald woman propped up in bed, gazing sightlesslythrough a fog of heavy medication at the wall-mounted TV.Once it was terminal, why couldn't it just take you? he wondered. Why does God have to drag thesemiseries out?He realized he'd unconsciously taken a cigarette from his coat. He was flicking it unlit fromfinger to finger in his right hand. It wouldn't do for Dr. Archer to see that.He put it away and went into the examination room to wait.