Constantine - The Novelization - Whoa is (Not)

--The night hummed with engines, flashed electric light on chrome; neon signs blurred throughcar exhaust. SUVs and Hummers snorted, jostling for space on the streets like rhinos heading fora water hole. Angela and Constantine, driving through L.A., took it in the way leopards take in ajungle. Looking at very little directly - but aware of everything.Angela's own SUV drew up at a stoplight near the BZR brokerage and public relationsbuilding. She looked up at the black, monolithic BZR offices. It was one of those buildings thatseemed to suck in all the light that should have reflected from it; there were reflections of otherbuildings, but they were tinted, compressed, as if the building had eaten, absorbed their images;held them trapped.She glanced at Constantine, grim and pale beside her, and thought about suggesting a SWATteam. She could find some excuse to make it happen. Tell the precinct a story. If it didn't workout, it'd ruin her career. But what did it matter? After what she'd seen, she believed that the endof the world was coming - unless they could stop it. Any risk was worth taking.But she knew what Constantine would say: Cops? They'll just get in the way on an operationlike this.There was something she had to ask him, while she still had the chance. "John, if Isabel killedherself to save mankind, why is she in Hell?""Take your life in despair, you go down... rules. Spiritual physics. No grand plan. Justrules." He pointed at the entrance to the BZR parking garage. "There. On the left."She pulled into the parking garage, wound her way through the spiral labyrinth that protects allsuch buildings, level after level, till she found a visitor's space. She parked - and Constantineturned to her. His eyes locked on hers. He reached into his coat pocket, then put his arms aroundher. They were cheek to cheek. For a moment sexual energy flickered between them. His armswent around her neck, teased at the nape.Strange spot for him to pick, she thought. But maybe it was their last chance to have that kindof memory, before they both died in this cold steel and glass monolith. Maybe...Then he drew back - no longer touching her at all - and she saw he'd clipped Hennessy'samulet around her neck.She realized that she'd drawn her psychic field in again. Otherwise she'd have known whatConstantine intended. But perhaps she had been right after all... in a way. It was just a questionof timing. There was some kind of unspoken intimacy between them. She knew Constantine wasafraid of it - but she also knew that it felt right. They fit together somehow.He nodded toward the amulet he'd hung over her bosom. "Think of it as a bullet-proof vest,"he said.''I'm coming up there?" she asked."You're staying in the car."She thought about that. Was this male chauvinism? Or was it about an expert taking over,like a homicide detective taking over from the uniformed cops?Maybe he was right about that - maybe she'd put up with it. And maybe she wouldn't.She let her psychic antennae reach out a little as he got out of the car. Questing... and shelearned that there would be work for her yet.--Balthazar stood at the mirror in the BZR brokerage executive bathroom, adjusting his collar,his hair, his look. A squeaky - clean mirror. Stainless steel and immaculate tile and tracklighting.He thought about how different the executive washroom would be in its Hell version. He hadgrown to prefer Earth's version of things. Nice clean bathrooms, sometimes; gardens withouthuman heads protruding from the ground; fountains that didn't spout slime; people not covered by