Constantine - The Novelization - Whoa is (Not)

thousands of leering insect mandibles chewing industriously at his soul...Constantine chuckled. A dry, toxic chuckle. "They exorcised me - like pulling a tooth thatwasn't there."The teenaged John Constantine writhed as the words struck him; they were words of powerand he could feel them resonating within him, digging at him like a surgeons probe - only therewas nothing there to be exorcised. There was only the excruciating irony of the demonwatching... standing carefully out of range of the flicking holy water.The boy screamed in agony - of being unable to communicate the truth. The hypocrisy of thesituation seemed to turn the holy water into burning drops of hydrochloric acid.--Now, Constantine rubbed his wrist. Feeling defenseless under the relentless grip of Angela'scompassionate gaze. Knowing she was seeing - for a moment - the boy hidden underneath theman.He shrugged. "I started to believe I was crazy. You think you're crazy long enough... you finda way out."He realized she was looking at the jagged scar on his wrist."You tried to kill yourself...."Constantine had to laugh. "I didn't try anything...."--Seventeen-year-old John Constantine on his knees in his bedroom. With a pair of scissors inhis hands. And he wasn't there alone.There were teachers, doctors, lawyers, garbage men - you knew them by their work clothes,their affectations. But you couldn't normally see what Constantine saw now: their fangs, theirtails, their horns and scales. The demons in human uniforms lounged on his bed, leaned on hisbureau, against the wall, all of them smiling encouragingly, arms crossed, not trying to urge himon - just that friendly, passive encouragement. Waiting for him to kill himself.It wasn't just entertainment. It was important to them that he kill himself. It would end hispointing them out to people. And it would put him thoroughly within the grasp of their Master -which was something that the young Constantine didn't understand.Constantine grinned defiantly at them. He would go to the afterlife and he would escapethem....Not knowing, really, or not believing, that suicide was a one-way express ticket to eternaldamnation. To Hell... and not figuratively.He slashed his wrists, deep, and let the blood spurt; it came out to long, appreciativeexhalations from the demons crowding the room.And applause.The cut was deep. His blood pressure plummeted. The room seemed to spin away into astreaked blur...--"I didn't try anything," Constantine repeated."But you're still here. Alive," Angela pointed out gently. Sipping her tea. Quietly watchinghim.But one of her hands was balled up so that her nail was digging into her palm. This storymade her think of Isabel. Where Isabel was."It's not my doing... that I'm still here," Constantine said.He remembered... and the memory nearly sent him into a convulsion right there in therestaurant decades later. His shoulders tightened, and he gripped the edge of the table....