Constantine by John Shirley, Kevin Brodbin Read Free Book Online Page B

attack than that: an assassin spirit hidden away in his flesh. He protected himself, yes, but spells and blessed amulets were like computer firewalls. There was always a way to “hack” them.
    But he’d sense it, if it were an attack. He’d know.
    And he felt nothing like that. All those years of smoking was explanation enough.
    “I wish I had something more encouraging to show you, John,” Dr. Archer was saying. She was a no nonsense woman in a white coat, a longtime acquaintance of Constantine.
    “Things I’ve beaten,” Constantine said, slowly, looking at the X rays, “things most people have never heard of. And now I’m going to be done in by this?”
    “You wouldn’t be the first, John.”
    “Come on. You saved me before. You can do it again, right?”
    “This is… aggressive.”
    Meaning it was just too late. Constantine sighed.
    “Not that simple, huh?”
    Aggressive. Interesting term to use, considering Constantine’s life.
    Maybe related to why, Constantine mused, his own magic could not save him. He kept himself walking around by drawing life energy from on high - but that would carry him only so far. To really destroy the cancer would take a miracle - and he was not on the right side of the Lord’s ledger, the side that gets the occasional miracle.
    He had thought to feel a kind of barrier, when he’d tried healing himself through magic. But he’d thought the obstacle might be psychological - the sorcerer’s psychology was a constant problem in magical workings. You had to have your mind in precisely the right state to make magic. And he had been in a self-destructive mood for a long time. Too many people had died around him. He thought of that lean, pockmarked ghost on the street. He’d failed him. And all the others who’d died. Feeling like a failure made him depressed - and that left him with his guard down. Vulnerable.
    But maybe it wasn’t that. Maybe the dark powers couldn’t attack him directly - but they could block the spirits who healed, once he got sick.
    And he had every reason to believe Hell wanted him dead. Hell hungered for John Constantine. It owed him an eternity of torment for frustrating so many of its plans…
    He stared at the dark mass in his lungs, until Archer switched the light off. Then the diseased lungs vanished. He just sat there, on the edge of the exam table, staring into space.
    “Twenty years ago you didn’t want to be here, Constantine,” Dr. Archer said, smiling sadly.
    “Now you don’t want to leave. You should have listened to me.”
    Constantine lit a Lucky Strike. If Archer was going to needle him…
    Archer snorted, glaring at the cigarette. “That’s a good idea.”
    A long vengeful drag of smoke. It felt good - and it spurred him to an ugly wet fit of coughing.
    He found the Vicks bottle in his coat pocket, swigged right from it, twice. The coughing eased. He took one more drag, blew a plume of smoke at the ceiling, and stubbed out the cigarette on a stainless steel instrument tray.
    Archer waved the smoke away, coughing herself.
    “John - you need to prepare. Make arrangements.”
    Constantine managed a dreary chuckle as he got up and headed for the door. “No need. I know exactly where I’m going.”
    --
    Angela strode through the hallway, looking for the elevator. She just wanted out of the hospital - if she could only find the way. She’d been here many times, but now it all seemed strange to her. The fluorescent lights overhead buzzed-they seemed so horribly loud. One of them flickered, in a kind of semaphore. A steel table on wheels, covered with a white cloth, waited beside an operating room door. She had a feeling if she looked under the white cloth something terrible would be there.
    Ridiculous.
    Where were the goddamn elevators? She couldn’t get oriented. She forced herself to stop and take a slow breath.
    She remembered when her mother had died she’d felt nothing at first, or so she thought, but for weeks afterward she