Constantine - The Novelization - Whoa is (Not)

Materialized it here. Something missing from that cardboard box of Isabel's effects....He opened his palm and showed her-a broken hospital band, delicately scented withbrimstone. On it, the name: ISABEL DODSON.''I've confirmed it," Constantine said, sitting up. "She killed herself. And she's damned for it."She took the band from him, gripped it tightly, as if that would help her hold herself together.Tears streaked her cheeks.Constantine caught himself wondering how he could help her.Help her! Help a woman whose sister is trapped in Hell for all eternity! What an ego I'vegot!Still - he opened his arms to her. It just felt right....And she tumbled into them, her shoulders shaking with sobs. "Not her," she wept. "Me! Nother - me!"Wanting to take her sister's place, Constantine supposed. Only, if she knew what it was likethere, what endless torture, perpetually renewed, really meant - what infinite hopelessness couldbe - she might not be so generous, sister or not.But he simply held her, rocked her in his arms and said nothing. Feeling rather odd - he hadn'tfelt this close to anyone in a long time. Sure he'd had sex with people - and with semipeople.That got you physically close. But this was another kind of intimacy entirely. Something thatreached deeper inside you. Touched something he'd thought had gone completely numb.After a while, she straightened up and wiped her eyes. “How…?”He knew what she meant. How had this happened to someone who feared death by suicide,who renounced any possibility of it?Constantine had no answer for her. He just looked into her eyes. Felt a shock, gazing intothem. So he tried to look away. And failed... Her gaze effortlessly held him.Finally, feeling a deep-seated physical weakness engulfing him from within, he said, raspily,"I... need to eat."She nodded, and took a deep breath. "Sure. Let's get out of here." She helped him to his feet.Really, he just wanted to get away from this room - and the pull of her gaze. Stop up thatfeeling of vulnerability. Get back to his fuck-'em-all Constantine persona. That persona,mocking and always ready to take aim, was what felt comfortable. It was like the butt of an oldgun, molded by long use to his hand.But the question still hung in the air. How?--A bleak, almost featureless, cramped little office; a computer, several disused old filingcabinets, a calendar. A door leading into the morgue...The lights were still burning here, even at this time of night. Maybe they never turn them off,Father Hennessy thought. Murder didn't sleep; why should the coroner's office? In the City ofAngels, the Los Angeles County Coroner was forever open for business.The metal door of the morgue was open, suggesting that someone had just been here and wasabout to return.Hennessy stood a good chance of being arrested, and spending at least a night with the DTs ina jail cell, if he went any further with this.He decided to take the chance. He was onto something important. He didn't know what itwas, but he knew it mattered.And that meant that he mattered. It'd been so long since he'd felt that way. To feel like youwere contributing something, that you were good for something more than a doorstop: Thatfeeling had once been everything to him - and for a long time everything had been lost to him.He wished he'd brought some liquor with him. He was going to be alone with the dead - andthe voices were starting to come back, to nag at his inner hearing. He knew that some of thepurgatorial dead hung around their bodies for a while before wandering on. Some of them