Constantine - The Novelization - Whoa is (Not)

Constantine didn't even glance back. The bouncer got threateningly to his feet and Chazbacked away, thinking:Someday, John. Someday.--Constantine pushed through a metal door, stepped out onto the landing over the cavernousroom-a room far, far bigger than the nightclub upstairs. Impossible to tell, for sure, how far itwas down to the floor. It was a vast chamber with many lights and other sorts of glows in it, yetdark for all of that. The farther wall wasn't visible at all - the light-flecked dimness might've goneon forever. The lights only dented the darkness, didn't illuminate much past their small circles.Smirking, thudding dance music played from somewhere within the walls.He started down the stone stairway, cutting through level after level of tables and bars. At onetable was a small group of businessmen in suits. They seemed ostensibly normal, but when oneof them filled shot glasses from a bottle of Evian, another waved his hand over the water - and itturned instantly into what looked like red wine. And, Constantine knew, that's probably just whatit was: a truly divine vintage.At another table, two girls in their early twenties looked up at him - and their eyes began toglow as they watched him pass. He heard their flirtatious whispers, their giggles - and he felt abit uncomfortably undressed. He sensed they had quite literally undressed him with their X-rayeyes.Still Constantine descended. At one of the many bars set off to one side of the stairway, ayoung man, seated on a stool, extended his long tail to wrap around the waist of a girl sittingbeside him: a girl with jet-black eyes. Just jet black, no whites. In that same bar a manlike beingwho was perhaps ten feet tall, or a little more, spotted Constantine moving down the stairs - andbeat a hasty, nervous retreat to the exit, ducking to go out the door.Constantine paused - not because of the giant; he was old news - but because Ellie was smilingat him, from a table near the edge of the bar's balcony. She was sitting with two men - one black,the other white. When the two men turned to glance at Constantine they showed just the flickerof halos. Ellie had no halo, of course.Funny to see her with them - but not unusual in this club. That was the point of the ClubMidnite: It was neutral ground for supernatural beings, and those who trafficked with them."Hey, John! Want to party?" Ellie asked, her tail twitching invitingly.''I'm a little short tonight.""I can fix that."She was, after all, a working... creature.Constantine shook his head and waved good-bye. She turned back to her demi-angels as hecontinued down the stairs, passing people and nonpeople; from the comers of his eyes glimpsingwings, tails, horns; turning a couple of times to look at some of the more distinct ones: acrookedly smiling man whose arms and legs and head were detached from his torso and floatingin the air near the places they should be connected to but not touching them, the limbs sometimesspinning in place in a way impossible for people with joints; a man with a winged skull sitting onhis shoulder, a sort of pet nuzzling his head like a cockatoo, now and then tearing off bits of ahuman heart and feeding them to the sniggering skull; a black woman whose gown seemed to bebrilliant red rippling satin, till he saw that it was made out of flame, real fire that exuded from herunharmed skin; a prominent senator chatting up a creature with the body of a woman and thehead of a large snake, the creature somehow seeming surprisingly pretty, for all of that.At last Constantine reached the level he was looking for, and set off down a corridor cut intothe onyx wall. At the end of the corridor, he found two imposing doors of some indefinablematerial that might have been frozen time.He waited. Knowing Midnite was aware of him out here. Seconds ticked past.A wave of dizziness swept over him as he stood there, till at last he gathered his strength and