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
The passenger-blob stopped inside the door, and its weight actually made the massive car tilt. The shapeless face swiveled toward me for a moment but then slowly kept turning, examining the entire empty lifter, as though I was so insignificant that before it acknowledged me it had to establish what someone not being there looked like. Being alone in a confined space with the thing made me feel trapped and queasy. This was no mere infernal salaryman. This was something old and powerful.
The door closed. The thing stretched its flat, muddy paw to the wall. When it spoke its destination, I was so disturbed by the squelchy, inhuman voice that I only registered some moments later that it had said, “Tartarus Station.”
Something was seriously wrong. I knew a bit of Hell’s geography, both from Lameh and my travels, and I was pretty fucking sure that the direction to Tartarus Station wasn’t up, where I was going, but down. Way down.
Then the hissing and the trembling crested and the lifter started to drop. I stared in dismay. The mud thing looked back at me, as disinterested as a statue.
“We’re . . . going down,” I said finally.
The thing gave me as much response as it thought my observation deserved, which was none.
“But I’m going up,” I said, trying to keep the panic out of my voice. “That is, I need to go up. To Pandaemonium. It’s important.” The thing just stared at me with those glowing egg-yolk eyes. “I’m not joking! I need to go to Pandaemonium!”
At last it opened its mouth. The words came out in sticky chunks, like someone digging in a bog with a shovel. “We have taken control of the lifter. We have been given a priority task by the Mastema. Use of the lifter will be returned to you when we have departed.”
The Mastema was one of the most powerful tools of the Adversary, a security group of sorts, like the SS were to the Nazis. But I had already guessed that this guy was bad, bad news.
In the silence that followed his proclamation, I heard the announcement voice whispering in my ear as we flashed past Gravejaw again, then Greedy Pile, Cellar of Organs, Cocytus Delta, Brownwater, Toe, and Cocytus Landing. In just a few moments we would be hurtling down through Abaddon where I had first entered Hell. My heart was hammering, but I was so obviously outclassed and outranked by the mud man that I dared not make a fuss. Perhaps once he got out, I could simply make the elevator go back up again.
Did I really think it would be that easy? Well, let’s just say I was hoping.