Hellblazer 2 - Subterranean
Page 27
“Lady,” she said, “return him to me, as you promised.”
I have preserved him, giving him the air he needed, in my river, came the reply. He returns to you, the breath preserved in him. This boon I give you in honor of your ancient bloodline, child of fairies.
“Bless you, Lady!”
The body floating down the river suddenly stopped floating, and a current that shouldn’t have been there carried it back, against the main current of the river, to the rusted ladder. The body began to thrash, the head lifting free of the water, sputtering, spitting. Maureen grabbed Constantine’s hand and pulled him to the ladder.
He gasped and spat more water. “Christ on a Vespa but that’s foul! Pull me in closer, darlin’, will you?”
She helped him up on the ladder. They climbed to the concrete bank. “Bloody hell, that was unpleasant,” he said, putting on his trench coat, teeth chattering. “Cold. The Lady came through, though. Kept enough air moving into my lungs, all the time I was under. I want a shower.”
“Do you think it’ll work?”
“I think he was convinced. I sent him a little message there at the end to complete the illusion. If the Servants of Transfiguration reckon me for dead, they’ll leave us alone. Only, I’ve got to leave town for a while. Lay low somewhere to make sure. Can’t even tell Chas, for now. Let them think my body wasn’t recovered . . . Shite I’m cold . . . Wish I hadn’t given away me smokes . . .”
Constantine reeked of the river, and he was cold and wet, but he was feeling lighthearted, quite uncharacteristically cheerful. Like a world of weight had been lifted off his shoulders. As if his “suicide” had actually been a kind of ritual enactment of death—a kind of cathartic death. And his coming back, an enactment of rebirth.
He glanced at Maureen—thought about Kit for a moment. He made up his mind he wasn’t going to write to her, after all. Sometimes the omens spoke loud in a man’s ear. And somehow—he didn’t miss her so much now. Not with Maureen here.
Not so very many minutes later, with Constantine huddled in his trench coat, they were climbing the stairs to his flat. Geoff and Bosky were just coming out, and looked “busted” when they saw Maureen and Constantine.
“How’d you get all wet, John?” Geoff asked.
“Never mind that,” Maureen said sternly. “Where do you two think you’re off to after I told you to stay here?”
“We were just going to a jeweler’s, see if they could give us a, what do you call it, an assay or whatever it is,” Geoff said, “on these . . .” And he showed them the bag of jewels he’d taken from Spurlick.
“Well!” Constantine laughed. “Look at that, Geoff! You’re rich, boy! Funny old world, innit?”
“I’m rich? We’re rich! You saved my life, John. We all did our part. We’ll share equal, like. This is enough for all of us!” Geoff declared. “And I’ll need someplace to live; don’t want to be a sponge. What do you say, we can go on a road trip for starts.”
“Yeah!” Bosky said. “We can buy a van! Or one of them big American SUV things!”
“Funnily enough, a road trip, the four of us, is just what I had in mind,” Constantine said, looking at Maureen.
She looked at him coolly. “So, you think I’m just going to go off with you on a road trip, do you? A man I barely know . . .”
“Oh, right, I shouldn’t have—”
“. . . but then again, that’d be a pretty bloody good way to get to know you. Now wouldn’t it, John?” She smiled and put out her hand.
He cleared his throat. Put on a look of cool detachment. And said, “Yeah. It would.”
And then he took her hand in his, and they went into the flat together.
About the Author
JOHN SHIRLEY is the author of many novels, including Demons, Crawlers, In Darkness Waiting, City Come A-Walkin’, and Eclipse, as well as collections of stories, which include Really, Really, Really, Really, Weird Stories and the Bram Stoker Award-winning collection Black Butterflies. His newest novels are John Constantine: Hellblazer–War Lord and, for Cemetary Dance books, The Other End. Also a television and movie scripter, Shirley was co-screenwriter of The Crow. Most recently he has adapted Edgar Allan Poe’s Ligeia for the screen. The authorized fan-created Web site is www.darkecho.com/JohnShirley/ and official blog is www.JohnShirley.net.
Table of Contents
Back Cover
Preview
Titlepage
Copyright
Quotes
HELLBLAZER: SUBTERRANEAN
Dossier on John Constantine
Prologue
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
About the Author