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
I probably just looked like his old Uncle Pitchfork or something. Worse, despite Temuel’s promises, maybe the little creature had recognized the demon body the archangel and Lameh had given me. Either way, I didn’t want that conversation, so I brushed past him. I was a few steps down the gangplank when I realized something about the busy dock looked wrong. Not the weird, insectlike beasts of burden being loaded with cargo, nor the other ghastly, half-naked creatures sweating beneath the whips of the overseers, some of them so deformed it was a wonder they could work at all, let alone carry such huge loads, but something far more disturbing.
Riprash stood on the dock, but he was completely surrounded by armed demon soldiers, a dozen of them or more, all wearing Niloch’s white bird claw insignia. What was worse, Niloch himself sat mounted on the back of a tall and only slightly horselike insect creature, and Riprash was talking to him.
Niloch saw me so quickly it seemed like he had been looking for me. For a moment I was convinced Riprash had sold me out, and I cursed myself for ever trusting a demon. After all, that was what had landed me here in Hell in the first place.
“And here he is, dear, dear me! How charming!” His bony tendrils wavering in the sea breeze like the fronds of a sea anemone, Niloch spurred his weird insect-horse toward the base of the gangplank. “Riprash has just told me of your bad fortune, Lord Snakestaff! It is a credit to you that you have climbed so far back after such a nasty little trick.”
I was frozen on the top of the gangplank. “Trick. Of course . . .”
Riprash turned and gave me a look of what I assume was mute pleading: It’s hard to tell when so much of a person’s face has been ruined. “Yes, I told him how you were betrayed and abandoned in the lower levels by your enemies.” He turned back to Niloch. “Snakestaff needs only to reach the lifter, Lord Commissar, and then he’ll be right as rot.”
Niloch let out one of his whistling laughs. “Of course, of course, but first he must come and take his ease with me in Gravejaw House and tell me about all the adventures he has had!” He almost sounded sincere, but even if I’d trusted him I wouldn’t have wanted to go anywhere with that fluting, inhuman thing. “Surely you must be longing for a proper meal, Snakestaff, hmmm? Delicacies, yes? And I shall see you have some proper clothes, too. Going naked as the crawling damned will not smooth your passage back to Pandaemonium. They are dreadfully judgemental up at the capital.”