Chapters (60)
- DAW Books Presents
- HAPPY HOURINHELL
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Dedication
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- prologue
- one
- two
- three
- four
- five
- six
- interlude
- seven
- eight
- nine
- ten
- eleven
- twelve
- interlude
- thirteen
- fourteen
- interlude
- fifteen
- sixteen
- seventeen
- eighteen
- nineteen
- twenty
- twenty-one
- interlude
- twenty-two
- twenty-three
- twenty-four
- twenty-five
- twenty-six
- twenty-seven
- twenty-eight
- twenty-nine
- thirty
- thirty-one
- thirty-two
- thirty-three
- thirty-four
- thirty-five
- thirty-six
- thirty-seven
- thirty-eight
- thirty-nine
- forty
- forty-one
- forty-two
- forty-three
- forty-four
- forty-five
- forty-six
- forty-seven
- forty-eight
- epilogue
“Too bad that you have to go. You should meet some of the other Lifters. Your message will mean a lot to them.” His terrifying face grew almost cheerful. “Wait! I am bound to deliver those slaves to the commissar at Gravejaw. If you go with me on the Bitch you’ll travel much faster, and you can find a lifter when you get there. That should speed your journey to the Red City.”
All this talk of lifting and lifters and bitches had me boggled, but I was not going to look this particular gift ogre in the mouth. “You mean you’d really help me?”
“I would do any service I could.” He spoke with a strange weight to his words. “Can’t you guess what your message means to me and mine?”
I couldn’t, not really, but clearly it meant a lot, and I was going to do my best to ride that wave all the way to the beach. “Yes, of course.”
“I ask only one favor in return.”
Shit, I thought, here it comes. Does he want to drink some of my blood, or eat one of my eyes? “And that is . . . ?”
“Tonight you must come with me to fellowship.”
Not quite as bad as I’d feared, obviously. “Certainly. But I still don’t understand. How will you get me to Gravejaw so much faster than I could walk?”
He laughed. “By boat, of course—my ship, The Nagging Bitch. Otherwise it would take you a hundred lanterns or more. But on Cocytus’ broad back, we’ll be there in nine.”
Well, thank you, nasty, foul river, I thought. I guess you’re not all bad.
Obviously, I still had a lot to learn.
The fellowship meeting, as Riprash called it, took place in a spot so disgusting it’s a miracle I remember the actual meeting at all. You’ve never really been in a sewer until you’ve been in a sewer in Hell. This one was made of what looked like mud brick, and smelled like . . . well, there just are no words for it. If I hadn’t been wearing a demon body, I suspect my sinuses would have committed suicide on first contact with that nose-scorching odor of death and shit and shit and death.
Still, bad smells were nothing compared to being caught by one of the gangs of Murderers Sect guards who patrolled the waterfront, so Riprash’s fellowship meetings were always held deep in the tunnels. It was ridiculously crowded with two dozen of us perched on the edge of a drainage culvert, but everybody just squeezed up as close as they could, because even in Hell, even among those being punished for all eternity, nobody wanted to go splashing around in that stuff.