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
Somewhere just out of my sight I heard the great front doors creak as someone began to draw the bolt, which probably meant Niloch had finished searching the house, or at least had decided it was unlikely I was still inside. Any moment now he would come riding out with slaves and soldiers and his iron-mouthed birds, whatever kind of horror those were.
“You traitor! You are dooming yourself, too!”
Even as Heartspider’s voice rose to a pitch of despair I felt sure the commissar would be able to hear, I turned and yanked the hatch back open. It screeched as rusty metal rubbed on metal, resisting me, but I only had to get it up just a little way. I pushed the torch through and forced the hatch closed again, then started to run across the stony garden, heading for the shelter of a copse of petrified trees.
The ground shook. For a moment, the grounds in front of me were illuminated by a gust of fiery light as the burning gas forced its way out of the hatch, blowing the metal lid through the air like a communion wafer in a tornado. It almost hit me as it came down, digging deep into the ground, then a roll of thunder shook the ground again, and Gravejaw House vomited fire from half its windows.
Heartspider had been too stunned to speak, but as I crept back toward the hatch she began to beg me not to waste this chance. I’m not even sure she knew that I had caused the explosion. The flames were licking up from the tunnel as though the whole of the catacombs were on fire. The ground boomed and shook beneath me. When I steadied myself again I saw that one of the walls of Gravejaw House was toppling in an avalanche of old stone. I could hear a few screams from the part of the house still standing. Heartspider was right: I really didn’t want to hang out there very long.
I took the bundle of her bones from my shoulder and tossed it into the hatch. Heartspider’s voice shrieked in my ears. “Traitor! Traitor! I put my curse on—” And then she fell silent as the bones ticked down the hatchway tunnel into the inferno below, and she realized what was happening.
“Ah!” she gasped, like a drowning woman who had finally broken the surface. And then, as baking heat scorched her last remains to ash, she was gone.
“Yes, I did it,” I said, although I was talking only to myself now. “After all, a deal is a deal.”