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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

When day had passed and only the afterlights burned, the dockworkers went home. Riprash took us out on deck and showed us around the ship like a retiree displaying his rhododendrons. The Bitch was halfway between a garbage scow and a Chinese junk, long and low, with sails that must have looked like bat wings when they unfurled. It was built with timbers that didn’t seem to match, and was so smeared with tar all over that the ship might have been made from chewed licorice. But from what I could gather from Riprash’s proud descriptions, despite its age and decrepitude, The Nagging Bitch was state of the art when it came to things like shackles, cages, and tools of punishment. I tried to smile and look impressed, but when you’re looking at a thing with metal teeth meant for digging into someone’s crotch to prevent escape . . . well, like I said, I tried to smile.

Riprash had apparently decided he liked me. He showed this newfound solidarity by clapping me on the back from time to time, hard enough to make my bones creak. He also introduced me to the hellish rum he liked to drink, which tasted like bile and gasoline and packed the clout of pure moonshine. No, I didn’t ask how it was made, or from what. Riprash loved to watch me trying to swallow the stuff and rewarded me for the entertainment of seeing me cough, retch, and sputter by telling stories late into the night when I would rather have slept.

But the liquor helped, and it wasn’t that the stories were bad. In fact, by Hell standards my new, large friend’s tales were quite sweet, really, of a simple ogre and his slave ship having interesting adventures around the infernal world. By local standards, Riprash was really an okay guy. Yes, he’d killed a few people—a few hundred, more accurately—during the course of his life, and he had trouble thinking of the damned souls he trafficked in as anything other than mobile meat, but once we got to know him I never felt afraid of him, and there’s very few hellfolk I can say that about. Including my girlfriend.

The ship set sail just before the first day-lamp was lit. Riprash let us out on deck once we were underway so we could look around. The Nagging Bitch had so many black sails that the masts looked like some kind of vampire nesting trees. Weighted down with a hold full of caged slaves, she wallowed so low that the river was constantly slapping over the gunwales, and the deck was always at least ankle-deep in Cocytus sludge. but I was delighted to breathe the (comparatively) sweeter air outside the cabin.