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Chapters (60)
  1. DAW Books Presents
  2. HAPPY HOURINHELL
  3. Copyright page
  4. Contents
  5. Dedication
  6. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  7. prologue
  8. one
  9. two
  10. three
  11. four
  12. five
  13. six
  14. interlude
  15. seven
  16. eight
  17. nine
  18. ten
  19. eleven
  20. twelve
  21. interlude
  22. thirteen
  23. fourteen
  24. interlude
  25. fifteen
  26. sixteen
  27. seventeen
  28. eighteen
  29. nineteen
  30. twenty
  31. twenty-one
  32. interlude
  33. twenty-two
  34. twenty-three
  35. twenty-four
  36. twenty-five
  37. twenty-six
  38. twenty-seven
  39. twenty-eight
  40. twenty-nine
  41. thirty
  42. thirty-one
  43. thirty-two
  44. thirty-three
  45. thirty-four
  46. thirty-five
  47. thirty-six
  48. thirty-seven
  49. thirty-eight
  50. thirty-nine
  51. forty
  52. forty-one
  53. forty-two
  54. forty-three
  55. forty-four
  56. forty-five
  57. forty-six
  58. forty-seven
  59. forty-eight
  60. epilogue

Riprash went on like this for a while more, then asked if any of the fellowship wanted to give testimony. I had thought I would be bored and restless, as I would have been in any religious meeting back on Earth, but instead I was fascinated. The first one to speak was a damned soul that looked more than a bit like a gingerbread man made out of moldy, ancient paper. He explained carefully that when he had lived on Earth he had been a thief in Antioch, and that although he had only stolen food to feed his starving family, he had been put to death by the Roman overlords and condemned to Hell.

“It’s good news to hear we might be free again someday,” he said in a slow, serious tone. “Good news. And I will do all I can to behave myself and learn the way to do that. Because I want to be free. It wasn’t fair, what happened to me. And when I’m free again, I will go find that shit-eating merchant who called the guards on me, and my bitch of a wife who didn’t even come to see me executed, and all the bastards who did come, and I’ll cut them all into pieces.” He might have been reading a laundry list. He’d been thinking about it a long time.

“Not sure you really grasp the details of the thing, fellow,” said Riprash gently as the gingerbread thief sat down again on the ledge above the stinking flood. “Not about revenge, this. About making ourselves better than we were.”

“I’ll feel better when that stinking merchant is dead,” the gingerbread man muttered, but already somebody else had risen to speak. This damned soul was female, although that wasn’t clear when she first stood up, because she looked more like a person-shape made of overcooked spaghetti, with eyeballs tucked into the tangle in place of meatballs. For a moment she stood, hesitating, winding her tendrils with equally limp fingers.

“Go on, then, love,” said Riprash in an encouraging tone. “It’s Deva, isn’t it?”

She nodded and seemed to find courage. Several more eyes emerged. “When I was alive . . . well, I was a very bad person. I’m sure I deserve to be here.”

“What did you do, dear?” Riprash asked. If you’ve never seen a ten-foot-tall monster making nice, it’s quite an experience.

“I lost my little babies.” A few of her eyes retracted into the forest of noodles or whatever they were. “No, that’s not right. I didn’t so much lose them as . . . I did away with them.”

I might have made a noise of surprise, but nobody else did. “Why was that, dear?” Riprash asked.