Constantine by John Shirley, Kevin Brodbin Page A

thinking hard, trying to catch his breath. Only it wouldn’t quite come back. His lungs felt like they were full of broken glass. Remembering the ancient gray cloth he was still clutching, he wrapped it tightly around his right hand, as Angela drew her gun, breathing hard herself as she squinted into the darkness. “What’s out there?”
    Something was out there - flapping around maybe a dozen yards away. Something big, in a roiling darkness of its own making, like a squid hidden in its ink cloud.
    The light on the statue was fading, as if dialing down - but it was more like the darkness itself was thickening, to such an extent that it smothered the light, however bravely it tried to burn through.
    “Did you say talons?” Angela asked. “From what?”
    “Something that’s not supposed to be here…”
    Now he could almost make them out, like scraps of pure murder fluttering in the darkness.
    Leather-winged shapes, their brandished claws catching what little light there was, as if the light were their prey; flying predators from the astral world, gathering for the kill…
    “Close your eyes!” Constantine said, taking out his lighter.
    “What? Why?”
    “Because!”
    She merely stared at him.
    He shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He flicked the lighter on, a small flame flickering feebly against the congealing darkness, and lit the sacred cloth around his hand on fire - the cloth from the robe that Moses wore to Mount Sinai.
    As he swung his arm at the restless darkness, the cloth ignited with an unnatural flammability, making a flash so bright Angela yelled and covered her eyes.
    The strobelike circle of light lit up a dozen winged demons, a few yards away and coming right at them - shiny-black, reptilian, gargoyle like but sleek, jaws bristling with needlelike teeth; missing the tops of their skulls like most soldier demons, the brainpan scooped away; their bat wings bigger than a condor’s spread; their talons lifted in front of them like the claws of hawks about to pounce on mice. The nearest was a split second from Angela’s throat.
    But the circle of light from the igniting cloth expanded instantly outward in a ring of punishing flame, consuming the demons. The flame swept through the air, sizzling the demons’ material forms away, leaving little but malodorous wisps of smoke.
    All but for one, farther off than the others, that flapped away into the night, screeching.
    And as the demon flew off, the streetlights came back on in its wake. The light seemed bright, cheerfully technological, as if nothing had happened.
    One of the demons had been not completely consumed; its body was a rubbery, smoking shell, lying in the street. Constantine nodded toward it, muttering, “Demons stay in Hell, huh? Tell them that.”
    Angela suddenly bolted for a comer of the building, bent convulsively over, and retched into the trashed-up alley.
    “Don’t worry,” Constantine said, “it happens to everyone the first time. It’s the sulfur.”
    As he considered taking the demon’s remains for evidence to show Midnite, a semitruck turned the comer, roared past them - and drove right over the demon’s husk, shattering it into featureless ashes.
    Spitting, Angela returned from the alley. Constantine found a handkerchief in his coat pocket, picked some old food crumbs off it, and handed it to her. She looked at it suspiciously.
    “My handkerchief’s not especially flammable,” he said.
    She dabbed at her mouth. “I saw wings… and teeth… They were flying. What the hell were those things?”
    She blinked at him.
    He shrugged. “Demons. Ghouls.”
    Constantine looked around. Wondering if another attack was imminent. “Seplavites, actually. Scavengers for the damned.”
    She shook her head. “You can’t be serious. This is impossible… “
    “Yeah, so everyone keeps telling me. And you know what - I don’t think they were after me.”
    He looked at her, suspicions beginning to coalesce.
    There were many forces at