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 was about to tell her that I could not reach the floor, not nearly, when I realized that I was standing an inch deep in the very muck she was talking about. I lifted my foot as far as I could and heard a dollop of something unpleasant drip from my toes and splatter the floor. I tried again and managed to bend my knee and lift my foot as high as my own waist, but it was still far from my shackles. I twitched, trying to fling the stuff at my wrists, and felt it splash across my chest and shoulder. I tried again. And again.
I don’t know how much later it was when the bolt rattled and the door swung inward, but I had been in complete darkness so long that the light of a single torch was blinding. Bells jingled softly. It was Niloch’s torturer—sorry, “jester”—Greenteeth. The warty thing lurched closer to examine me, its mouth full of poisonous sharpness like a Viet Cong pit trap. The jester was short, but its stunted arms and legs were heavy as a gorilla’s, and though it scarcely topped my waist I had no doubt that Greenteeth outweighed me. I gripped the manacles in my aching hands and wondered when it would notice they weren’t around my wrists any longer.
“Ready, you?” it asked in a disturbingly wet voice. I still couldn’t make out any eyes, but I could tell it was examining me, especially my bloody arms, pawing at my skin and tasting its cold, knobby fingers. “Trying to get free? Of course, of course, but not too much hurt things. Will spoil the music of what soon we do.” It reached out a hand so it could stroke my chest. Even with all the pain I was already in, the clammy touch of the thing made me shudder and flinch backward. “Oh, no. No fear. Together we will work for goodness. Together we will make something wonderful, quite.”
Then Greenteeth finally noticed that I had slipped my cuffs and was only holding them. Still no eyes, but the toothy mouth gaped in surprise. I didn’t give the horror time to raise the alarm, but kicked as hard as I could where I thought it might be vulnerable, somewhere between the legs and the chest. It dropped the torch, which guttered but did not go out, and as it stumbled and fell onto its back, wheezing with what I hoped was severe, crippling pain, I jumped onto it with both feet, then proceeded to leap up and down as hard as I could, paying no attention to the sensation of bones cracking beneath my heels because I had no idea how strong the thing might be. When the body got too slippery for me to maintain my balance I stepped down and started kicking, working its head and chest.