AN/ This chapter contains my favourite line from the movie. It's Beeman's last words to Constantine. I'd like to thank my reviewers and betas for their feedback. Hope you enjoy this chapter. Oh, and wish me a happy birthday! I turn 18 on April 24.
Back at Ravenscar hospital, Angela was explaining Isabel's history to Constantine as she showed us where her twin had died. Her voice echoed in the hydrotherapy room. "Séances, Ouija boards, channelling. Our father thought she was just trying to get attention. She certainly did that." We approached the pool where Isabel's corpse had been found. "She'd tell everyone about the things she said she saw. She'd scare my mother…" Angela sighed. "…half to death. And then she stopped talking for almost a year." We paused at the edge of the pool.
"So you had her committed," Constantine stated.
"Yeah." she admitted.
"How long?"
"Two weeks."
Now we were up in Isabel's room. Earlier John had asked if we could go there. I knew why. He best of anyone should know that someone like Isabel would want to leave something behind for their loved one, and that something could prove to be a vital clue. On the way up I suggested to Constantine that the bond Angela and Isabel must have had when they were young would have exceeded beyond that of usual twins. If one of them was psychic, then there was a good chance the other was as well.
"This time," Angela continued, sitting on the inside window ledge. "She'd get better then she'd get worse. Recently a lot worse." Constantine began to search the room, though he wasn't sure what for. I stood in the corner by the window and bed. My assignment opened the closet door and peered inside. "That symbol that was cut in the dead guy's hand…" Angela inquired. "…does it have something to do with this?"
Constantine turned and looked at her, wondering how she came to that conclusion.
"I'm a cop, John, remember?" she replied. She was investigating this as well, only for different reasons.
John felt along the top of the light box above the bed. "You don't walk off the roof of a building without leaving something behind."
"And I showed you everything she left behind in that box." Angela shrugged, assuming he was wasting his time. "But feel free."
"Maybe she left something else," Constantine suggested, expressing his line of thinking. He knelt, opening the drawers in the bedside table. "Not something a cop would find. Something just for you." He stood and faced her. Angela seemed uncomfortable considering that Isabel might have left something for her. "You were her twin, Angela. Twins tend to think alike" Constantine pointed out.
"I'm not like my sister," she insisted.
"But you were once," Constantine pointed out. He approached the detective and elaborated. "When you were kids. When you'd spend every second with each other. You'd start a sentence, she'd finish it. She'd get hurt, you'd cry."
Angela looked away. "That was a long time ago."
By now, John was right at her side. "That kind of bond doesn't just disappear."
"There is nothing here," Angela snapped. Constantine grabbed her elbow and forced her to her feet, dragging her to the middle of the room. "Hey!" she protested.
"She planned her death in this room," Constantine reminded her.
Angela didn't like where this was going. "Come on…"
He turned her around forcibly, holding her by the shoulders, making her look at things from his point of view. She struggled, but Constantine was still strong enough to hold her still.
"Careful, John," I said, fearing he might hurt her physically. She would probably get bruises from his rough handling. If he heard me, he gave no sign of it.
"She thought it up right here. Right where you're standing. She knew you'd come. She counted on you to see what she saw, feel what she felt, know what she knew." Angela stopped struggling, and became stilly defiant. "What did she do, Angela?" Constantine asked.
Angela was still resisting. "How should I know?"
"What did she do, Angela?" he repeated.
"I don't know."
Constantine turned her around and got in her face. He herded her back into a wall using his physical presence and voice. Unless I was mistaken, he used some psychic power to bully her as well. He also changed the question, made it more personal. It was like he was taking a sledgehammer to a brick wall; sooner or later she was going to crack. "What would you do?"
"I don't know." she insisted.
"What would you do?"
"I don't know."
"What did she do, Angela?"
"I don't remember."
Now he was getting angry. "You know what she did!"
"I don't."
"What did she do, Angela?" Constantine raised his voice.
"I don't know." I could tell she was weakening. She couldn't meet his eyes any more.
"You know what she did! What are you afraid of?" Angela thumped against the wall with a small cry and I winced. "WHAT DID SHE DO, ANGELA? WHAT DID SHE DO?"
"I DON'T KNOW!" she screamed, wrenching away from his grasp. She ran to the window in tears. The room went very quiet. I was extremely glad Constantine's abuse wasn't directed at me. I wouldn't have been able to take it. Angela sighed deeply, leaning on the sill. She buried her face in her arms and sobbed for a second. Then she looked up, sweeping her hair out of her face. She looked through the window…no, at the window, at the glass itself.
"When we were girls," she said quietly. She took a deep breath, remembering. "We would leave each other messages." I looked to John. He was listening intently. "In light. In breath." Angela exhaled on the window. "On the windows." Condensation frosted the glass, making words appear, protected from the moisture by the natural skin oils smeared on the surface. I noticed it was the same phrase over and over: Cor 17:1.
Constantine walked up and underlined one of the phrases with his own finger. He and I knew what it referred to.
"We have to go," John said. There was a sharp tone of urgency in his voice. He breezed out of the room. I cast a glance to the still upset Angela and followed him out.
"John. John!" I called. He stopped and turned to me. "Shouldn't you at least make sure she's okay?" I demanded, pointing back to the room. "You gave her quite an emotional beating back there."
Constantine sighed. He was exasperated, but he realised I was right. When Angela emerged, now more composed, Constantine did ask if she was all right.
"Yeah, I'll be fine," she responded. She kept walking and Constantine and I fell into step with her. "Where are we going?"
"Back to the bowling alley. I know someone there who can look up that Bible reference," Constantine explained.
Angela seemed distracted as she drove. I didn't know for sure what was going through her mind, but I guessed she was churning over the events that just happened in Isabel's bedroom. Constantine lit a cigarette and asked if he could use her car phone to call the guy at the bowling alley.
"Hello?" Beeman's voice crackled through.
"Beeman, I need you to look up Corinthians 17:1," Constantine told him.
"W-why, John?" Beeman inquired. He sounded understandably uneasy. I clutched the back of John's headrest, an ill feeling developing deep in my gut.
"Just do it! And hurry!" Constantine commanded.
"Okay, okay, John, just hold on." There was a pause as Beeman dug out the book from his collection.
"John, there is no seventeenth act in Corinthians," Angela protested.
"Corinthians goes to twenty-one acts in the Bible in Hell," Constantine explained.
There was a pause as this sunk in. "They have Bibles in Hell," Angela said.
"Paints a different view of Revelations," Constantine continued. "Says the world will not end by God's hand but be reborn in the embrace of the damned. Though if you ask me, fire's fire." He finished his latest smoke and tossed the butt out the open window.
Beeman's voice came hauntingly back in over the speaker phone in Angela's car. "16:29, 16:30. Oh my, this is certainly not good." I frowned at the understatement. I was doing everything I could to keep myself from receiving visions of Beeman and the predicament he had found himself in. I had already witnessed Hennessy's death and I did not want to see Beeman's too. In place of the visions came waves of anxiety. "'The sins of the father would only be exceeded by the sins of the son,'" Beeman read.
"Who's son?" Angela demanded.
Constantine knew who, but it didn't make sense to him. "But he can't cross over, B," he said in the direction of the phone. "Impossible to cross over," he muttered, shaking his head.
"Who's son?" Angela asked again. "God's son?"
"No, the other one," John corrected. "Devil had a son too."
"Of course he did," I muttered, rolling my eyes. That's just the thing the devil would do. Can't let God have all the fun, can he?
"Here it is," Beeman said. I knew what he was looking at; the same cross and circle symbol that had developed a habit of popping up everywhere. "This is the sign of Mammon, the son of the devil." This realisation brought a fearful awe into his voice. "Well, hold on, it says here-"
There was a rattling noise in the background. The fear in Beeman's voice doubled. Constantine picked up on it. "Beeman?"
"Yeah, sorry, I'm…I'm sorry, no, I'm right here. Um…" he swallowed. "It says uh… Mammon has no patience for his father's rule and yearns to forge his own kingdom of fire and blood." There was another ominous rattle from Beeman's end of the line. "Yeah, Mammon would be the last demon we'd ever want crossing over to our plane." I didn't smile at his attempt at a joke. Neither did Constantine or Angela. "No, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, I'm reading. Seems to be a loophole."
"Always a catch," Constantine said.
"Um…" Beeman continued, his voice becoming more and more uncomfortable. "It says first Mammon would have to possess a very, very powerful psychic."
Angela looked at Constantine and made the connection. "Isabel."
"But that wouldn't be enough," Beeman went on. "To cross over, Mammon would need um, divine assistance. To cross over, Mammon would need the help of God." Even Beeman sounded like he couldn't believe it.
"The help of God?" Constantine repeated, thinking how that could possibly work.
"It says -" Beeman was cut off by a loud thud. I sighed quietly, knowing his time was almost up. We could hear the sounds of the bowling lanes working, though I knew only one other being was there.
"Beeman?" John asked, concerned.
Beeman also seemed to know his time was running out. "John, look," he said, a tremor in his voice. "I know you've never had much faith, you've never had much reason to, but that doesn't mean that we don't have faith... in you."
The line went dead. All of a sudden, it seemed very dark inside the car.
"Beeman?" John asked, becoming more worried. "Beeman?" He looked to Angela. "Drive. Fast." She stepped on the gas. I bit my lip, knowing it was already too late.
As soon as we arrived, the three of us leapt out of the car. John burst through the double doors and into the bowling alley. Angela and I struggled to keep up. We paused in the middle of the vast room as a horrible smell reached our senses. It triggered memories and even more urgency. "Beeman!" John called, sprinting away. I raced after him.
Behind us, Angela put her hand to her nose. "Sulphur…"
"Beeman!" John hollered as we ran to the back. We burst through another door and darted up a small flight of stairs. Then we started down the narrow shaft that led to Beeman's working area. "Beeman!"
A dreadful buzzing noise filled the air, sending shivers up my spine. We slowed as we neared Beeman's body, slumped back in his chair. The source of the din was a huge swarm of flies and they were having a field day around him. Constantine removed his coat and ran up, half hoping that it couldn't be true. He used the coat to remove as many flies as he could, enough so we could see Beeman's face. His eyes were red and lifeless, and he had flies swarming out of his mouth. It took everything I had not to scream.