Constantine - The Novelization - Whoa is (Not)

to tell her... how very final it was. But could she bear to think of Isabel that way - forever?"Angela..."She looked at him attentively. Waiting. He cleared his throat. "Let's... take a walk."--Hennessy stepped over the body of the Pakistani man he'd knocked out, and over the brokenbottle he'd knocked him out with, to get at the liquor behind the counter. He had an infinite thirstin him. Like the fires of Hell burned in him and only the liquor could put them out. Sure, liquorfed fire, everyone knew that. But it didn't matter - he had to drink, and drink.He screwed the top off a Jack Daniel's bottle, sucked at the bottle's mouth, hard, hard, and fora moment there was a burning golden flow - and then it was gone. He frowned down at thebottle. It was empty. Couldn't have drunk it. It must've been empty all along."What the hell are you selling here?" he asked the man moaning on the floor.He went to another bottle, twisted off the cap, tilted it back. Same effect. More and more andmore... bottle after bottle. All empty!But the thirst wasn't gone - it was redoubled, if anything. That arid pit was deeper and darkerthan ever.Balthazar, in the champagne aisle, was watching with a faintly amused smile, his own bottle,expensive and sealed, in hand.He watched as Hennessy smashed the top off a J&B bottle, tilted it back, cutting his lips, sothat blood flowed to mix with brown liquor overflowing his mouth. Red and golden brown,prettily intermixing on the priest collar. Most amusing.But to Hennessy it still seemed as if every bottle was empty.That's when he saw the angel. The God-slave, as Balthazar thought of them, was in the bodyof a young Hispanic stock boy coming out of the backroom to stare around at the wreckage, at hisgroaning boss. Rushing to Hennessy's side as the ex-priest - staggering, seizing, twitching withalcohol poisoning - grabbed a corkscrew and jammed it, twisted it, into his own hand. He mustdrink something... anything. His own blood if nothing else...But before he could put his hand to his mouth, Hennessy collapsed, the stockboy catching him,lowering him gently to the booze-puddled, bloody floor. The stockboy glaring. Knowing.The stockboy looked up, his eyes meeting Balthazar's.Balthazar grinned. Unconsciously flipping that coin between his fingers. And hurried out theexit.The stockboy turned to smile at the spirit that was rising from Hennessy's body. Nodding atthe ghostly Hennessy, to confirm-You made it.Hennessy paused only once to look back at his ravaged body. Oh, what a relief to be free of it.The demon had, ironically, done him a favor.One time, as a boy, he'd gotten lost in the woods, and fallen among ants, and they'd workedtheir way under his clothes, along with the sweat and grit, stinging him. At last he'd found a coolclear spring, and he'd taken his clothes off and bathed in that spring, and what an unspeakablerelief it had been....That's what it was like now. His body was that soiled, pestilential garment, set aside; and nowhe felt cleansed. The demon gone, the desire for liquor gone. Instead there was a feeling thatdesires were just a kind of background music for a dance he was only now learning.He saw before him an emerald meadow, and beyond it an impossibly pristine lake reflecting acity of light. He saw old friends drifting near to him; family members, his grandparents. Somany had made it here.Hennessy praised the Highest, grateful that he had not surrendered his faith. He had mademistakes, he had fouled himself with alcohol - he had started to be a kind of parasite, for money.But he had never lost his faith; it had remained inside him, tinier than a mustard seed. Which was