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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

He tossed the fingers out to her as if he was throwing scraps to pets. I heard Bird and Porcupine and Baby Bear fighting over them, but I was in so much pain it seemed unreal. The Block raised the rest of the hand to his mouth and began tearing it apart and eating it in great, appreciative bites, the crimson muscles of his cheeks bulging as he smashed the bones between black molars. When he finished, he wiped most of the blood from his mouth and chin with the back of his meaty, hairy hand, then gave a small belch of appreciation.

“They will put you back on the lifter,” he said. “Remember that I could have taken more, Snakestaff of the Liars Sect. Tell your masters in the far heights that the Block could have sent nothing back but the head, and they still would have known everything they wished to know.” He gripped the edge of his chair with his two strong hands, lifting himself until the barbed wire stopped him. The slug-thing at the end of his ruined spine swung like the clapper of a church bell. I was too busy waiting to die from pain and nausea and fountaining blood to notice very much, but I heard him bellow, “This is my corner of Hell! I rule here! And if the great Black Master himself came to me, I would have my morsel of flesh from him as well. Yes, I would pick my teeth with his tail! Because I am Block the executioner! Block the butcher!”

He was still raving when Baby Bear grabbed me in his heavy claws and dragged me out.

I squeezed the torn end of my arm as tightly as I could while they dragged me back down those scream-echoing corridors, but I was losing blood very fast. I could feel my wrist bone digging into my good hand, but beyond that incredibly strange and painful sensation, I knew the rest of my body was slowly packing up its signaling apparatus and surrendering. As we reached the lifter even the wails of the tormented became muted, and the grotesque faces of Polly Parrot and her gang grew mercifully blurry. I felt a new pain, as though my stump was being sanded with broken glass: Baby Bear was licking the bloody wound. I slipped in and out of consciousness as we waited. It might have been a minute later, it might have been an hour, but the lifter finally arrived, groaning like an overloaded truck bumping down a steep hill. When the door opened, they kicked me a few times, then pitched me inside.