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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

And so the ephors asked, and I answered. I tried to tell the truth when I could (it makes keeping track of the lies easier) but there were just too darn many things I didn’t dare mention, too many laws of Heaven that I had stomped all over while trying to get to the bottom of the whole mess. They knew that my demon-lover Caz had given me information but they definitely didn’t know what else had happened between us, which was good, because I was pretty sure fraternizing with the enemy was a capital offense in the angel business, and I had gone a lot farther than “fraternizing.” They also knew that my buddy and partner Sam Riley, aka Advocate Angel Sammariel, had been secretly working for a group that hijacked souls belonging to either Heaven or Hell and offered them instead a “Third Way” that both sides of the ancient struggle were pretty eager to obliterate. They also knew Sam had escaped, but luckily they hadn’t found out it was because I’d let him go. (They also didn’t know that he’d had offered to take me with him to the Third Way’s new-minted afterworld. I still thought about that sometimes.)

As I think I said, I’ve never just stood up and lied to Heaven before. I’ve kept many a not-very-angelic thought to myself, of course, but I always told the truth about what I was doing and whom I was doing it with. But the last couple of months had changed all that: truth was no longer an option. If my bosses found out what I’d done I’d be sentenced to the nastiest pits of Hell or, if I was lucky, I’d just have my memory wiped and start over again, another fledgling angel learning how to keep his robe clean and sing Hosanna. So I lied and kept on lying.

“. . . As for the last part, well, it’s all in my report.”

“Which we have absorbed with interest,” said Terentia. “But we have called you here so you can relate your experiences again, and perhaps, with our help, discover details which were inadvertently left out of your report.”

How could a guy resist such thoughtfulness? “Well, as I said, when the monster attacked me in the abandoned amusement park, Angel Sammariel took advantage of the distraction to escape. I didn’t see where he went. By the time the ghallu was dead, there was no sign of him.” (Fighting the monstrous ancient demon—and almost being swallowed by it—had definitely happened, I promise you. It was the oops-Sam-got-away part that hadn’t.)