CONSTANTINE TM a Novelization by JOHN SHIRLEY Screenplay by KEVIN BRODBIN and FRANK CAPPELLO Story by KEVIN BRODBIN
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CONSTANTINE TM A Novelization by JOHN SHIRLEY Screenplay by KEVIN BRODBIN and FRANK CAPPELLO Story by KEVIN BRODBIN This is dedicated to all the writers and artists who made the Hellblazer comics so very cool.... Acknowledgments Thanks to Micky Shirley, Paula Guran, Charles Kochman, Steve Korte, Ed Schlesinger, and the writers and producers of Constantine. Exactly when the world is not expecting it, exactly when we're sure of ourselves that's exactly when the Old Gods Return and sweep our cities... BACK INTO HELL!" -Blue Oyster Cult, "The Old Gods Return," from Curse of the Hidden Mirror ONE The Sonoran Desert, Mexico he devil rose up, and spun, and seemed to hiss at Francisco before settling back into dust. It was just a dust devil, a swirl of desert wind, but to Francisco, the desert's uninhabited places T had always seemed invisibly peopled-and dust devils were a hint of that secret life. He muttered an unfelt prayer to the Holy Mother and turned back to the dump, not so very far from Chihuahua, where more than a dozen human basureros crept about under the overcast afternoon sky. They were scavengers - like Francisco himself the poorest of the poor, hunched over among the moraines of trash, picking at it the way field workers plucked at strawberries in the harvest up north. But here they searched for saleable clothing-especially shoes-pieces of copper, batteries that could be sold to the unwary as if they were new, appliances that could be repaired or might seem to be intact, even bits of edible food. Families. Children digging through trash alongside rats and crows and sometimes turkey vultures. The ninos sometimes getting sick from the things they rooted about in: poisons from old computers, dumped chemicals. Syringes. Tainted food. It was dangerous work, but you never knew... Once, Francisco had found some money in an old purse, enough for a whole evening's chido caballo, the best heroin he'd ever had. Remembering the purse, he bent over, poked gingerly at a Styrofoam cooler. Last month, opening one of those, a swarm of wasps had come up and stung him so much he was sick for a week. Still... The cooler was empty but for a few dead flies. Francisco sighed. He'd found nothing that day but a pair of mildewed tennis shoes he doubted he could sell. The dump was pretty much picked through. He shivered, thinking about heroin. He was too poor to sustain much of a habit-the withdrawal was over long ago. But all he thought about was getting more. The relief of dope; the end of pain, until the dose wore off. There had to be a way to get out of this life. He had tried everything he knew since his mother had died and his father had abandoned him, not far from here, at the age of twelve. How many years ago? Twenty? He had even lived for a while as a chapero. But he couldn't deal with being a whore for homosexuals. He wasn't like that. He straightened, looking at the tennis shoes, tied together, dangling in his left hand. Useless, grayed, full of holes. Not even good for replacing Francisco's taped-together cowboy boots. He tossed the tennis shoes away, muttering, "No tengo ni un puto peso..." He had found nothing, had not a fucking penny. "Ay, Francisco! Mi hijo. d'Que pedo?" That was Herve, a squat, rag-clad older guy, mostly tooth- less-maybe not so much older, it was hard to tell, with his hair so patchy, his skin reddened from days outdoors picking through the dump with the other scavengers. He'd had a bad glue-sniffing habit, too. He might not really be much older than Francisco but he acted like his old man. Nothing but a sanguijuela. A leech. "I'm not your little one, Herve, and where's that dope you promised me when I gave you that radio?" Francisco asked, in Spanish. "It's coming, my boy! Hey-you see that old church across there?" "Church?" Francisco squinted through the swirls of dust at the horizon. He could just make out a cross, crooked against the sky, not much else. Maybe a quarter mile off, maybe more. "Nothing but a hole where there was a church." "I heard there was a man asking about it-asking over at the village who owned the land. He said he was a professor, some kind of history thing, he thought there was something there to find. If we could go there before he buys it..." Francisco was intrigued-but suspicious. "Why do you ask me about this? If you think there's something there" - he approached Herve, lowering his voice so the others wouldn't hear - "why wouldn't you go alone?" "Oh - because, like you say, I owe you something ..." Herve looked vaguely at the sky. Francisco scowled, thinking that Herve wasn't likely to be concerned about paying a debt. There was only one explanation: Herve was scared of the place. He was superstitious, even more so than Francisco. "You're afraid of something, Herve ... the place is supposed to be cursed?" Herve shrugged. "Some say. Not me. It's like I say. You're like my son. I want to share..." "Mi madre!" Francisco snorted skeptically. But he gestured sharply to Herve, nodding toward the church. He led the way across the rubbish, climbing over a rusting refrigerator, circling a rotting sofa, kicking a crow out of the way that pecked at something bloody wrapped in toilet paper. Francisco thought he saw a tiny little fetal hand, blue and delicate, protruding from the tissue, and he looked away, fixed his attention on the church. It was a good long walk. The dusk had come, and with it the wind had picked up by the time the two scavengers got there. Just the crust of a church was left. Some of the walls stood, leaning, supporting random sections of roof; some walls had crumbled. The doors had long been carted away. Sand duned against the walls, blown inside the church itself. There was a great heap of trash here, outside the door. At some point someone had used even this church for a dump. That was sacrilegious, wasn't it? But what did it matter? If God had ever been to this part of Mexico, Francisco figured, he'd left. "Hey-there's stuff dumped here no one's picked through!" Herve said, bending over a pile of random, rain-rotted clothing. "Ay! It smells bad! But look, here's a nice pair of shorts, not much stain..." Francisco was stepping deeper into the church, where part of the roof remained over the nave. He let his eyes adjust to the dim interior. The floor was covered with junk, partly cloaked by blown sand. Most of the junk was without value-he could tell at a glance. An old, broken cross leaning against the wall was half buried in the sand. But there-something shiny, picked out in a ray of light. Maybe an old rosary that could be sold. It might even be silver. He took a step toward it ... and stopped, feeling a strange chill, as if he'd stepped through an invisible wall into someplace cold. His mouth was dry. He wet his lips and called, "Herve-why don't you come in here, too?" "Yes, yes I will. I've found some copper..." He could tell by the older man's voice that he was making excuses, Herve was reluctant to go inside. He'd heard something about this place, all right. "Huevon!" Francisco shouted. "Carapecha Boon!" No response, except a clattering noise. Francisco shrugged, and muttered, "Melo paso por los huevos..." He pushed into the interior of the church-that's what it felt like, as if the air itself was resisting him. Or warning him. The shiny thing - where was it? He'd lost sight of it. A crunch underfoot - his boot had gone through something. He pulled it free and bent to look. He'd stepped through the dry-rotted wood of an old crate. It looked as if it had been buried under the tile of the Boor, and someone had dug up the tile recently. But they hadn't touched the crate. Why? He bent closer, and a sound vibrated the air in response: the sound of a million insects chewing at wood and quivering their wings. He imagined beetles and maggots chewing at human bones in a coffin, their sound magnified to a chittery background grinding, merging into a drone that rose and fell... But the sound couldn't be heard with his ears-it was heard in his mind. It's fear, he decided. Herve had awakened his superstition. Ignore it, Francisco. There's something in that crate - maybe what the professor man had been looking for. That suggestion came like a voice in his head. Even calling him by name. He shook his head, amazed that his imagination was so lively for once. He steeled himself, and reached down, slowly, into the crate, expecting to feel the sharp incisors of a rat biting into his fingers. Something he'd felt all too often in the dump. The gnawing sound was louder as he reached into the crate, and wetter - like the amplified sounds of a feast... crescendos of gnawing... The crate seemed empty, just empty space inside. But then his fingers closed over something firm, wrapped in cloth. A strange feeling shivered through him from the object: a feeling that laughed and growled and lifted him to his feet.