Constantine - The Novelization - Whoa is (Not)

FIVEThere's something about a Sunset Boulevard motel room, Constantine thought, sitting on theedge of the bed and taking a judicious swig from the Jack Daniel's bottle, especially coming upto dawn: furnishing semiotics saying that life is short and everything is trash - except how youfeel. That's what matters. So make yourself feel good and do it now. He chuckled, feeling thesweat cool him as it dried on his naked flesh. How did he get all that from a cheap seascape, achipped dresser, a TV set showing MTV without the sound on, a butt-scarred blue carpet, bluecurtains, bedclothes in a rumpled heap? But that was the message."Oh shut up," he said aloud. "You're drunk.""You talking to someone I ain't aware of?" Ellie asked, passing the cigarette they were sharing.She wasn't asking it jokingly. She looked like she was in her early twenties, though of coursethere was no telling what age she really was. Lying on her belly beside him, her big eyesreflecting the Li'l Jon and the East Side Boyz video on the wall TV, she was naked too, but morecasual in it, like a cat comfortable in its fur. She was slender and curvaceous both; she was avixen and a sylph both. She was tautly muscular and languid both.He managed a short drag without coughing and handed the cigarette back. She got up on herknees and took the fifth of Jack."Lung cancer, huh?" she said. She drew deep, deep on the cigarette, and laughed softly - thesmoke jittering out with her laughter as she exhaled. "That's funny as shit, John." She drankfrom the bottle and put it on the floor."Yeah. Hilarious. So, Ellie - you didn't answer me before.... "'We got distracted. You seemed happy.""Sure. But uh - any unusual soul traffic, maybe? New prophecies? Strange artifacts turningup?"She put the cigarette in her mouth, squinting past the smoke, and began dragging her longfingernails up and down his spine, smiling maliciously - he could see her in the mirror under theTVConstantine thought: Wall-mounted TV. Like in that waiting room for terminal cases..."Lung cancer, John! No wonder the Boss is in such a good mood."Constantine grimaced. The Boss.She rubbed and scratched, harder. "All those saints and martyrs slipping through his grasp.His own foot soldiers sent back to him in chunks...""Ellie…?""He's going to take all that out on you, John. He's going to enjoy ripping your soul to shredsuntil the end of time.""Ellie...""You're the one soul he'd actually come up here himself to collect if he could. And you knowhow much he despises this place.""Ellie. A break here?"Ellie took the cigarette out of her mouth and blew a smoke ring. Constantine could hear acleaning woman pushing a cart by, outside the window.Ellie considered. She shrugged. "No. Nothing out of the ordinary in my day-to-day." Shereached down and got the bottle again, took a long pull. "And brother, that's saying something.""Is he really your boss?""Not really - I'm more like a contractor these days. If he was my boss, you'd be dead by now.I'd have killed you my own self."