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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

Already blood was pooling underneath me. The vibration of the lifter had almost shaken me senseless, and I seemed to be entering a long, black tunnel, crawling away from light and hope. I slapped my good hand against the wall, and as my other wrist started spurting again I tried to call out my destination. The words came in little wet blobs of sound, like bloody mucus: “The . . . Red . . . City.”

The lifter shook even harder, rattling me like a bug in a killing jar. Then the black tunnel of my thoughts collapsed around me.

twenty-one

terminus

“. . . FISTULA, POOR Meat, Heartbreak Soup, and Phlegethon Docks . . .”

I awoke to the sound of the lifter voice announcing the terrible places we were approaching and passing in quick succession. The pressure in my head was easing, although that was no longer the worst of my problems. As I struggled to make sense of things, the voice announced several more stops along the fiery River Phlegethon, during which time I managed to pull myself into a sitting position with my back against the lifter’s shuddering wall. My blood sloshing on the floor looked as though it might reach an inch deep if it ever puddled in one place. I felt like a smashed hourglass.

To my dull surprise, several more passengers had joined me while I was unconscious, an array of mixed sweets that altogether made for quite a diabolical little chocolate-box: beast-things, blob-things, and even a few almost humanoid shapes, mostly better dressed than what I had grown used to seeing. I couldn’t look at them long, since my eyes wouldn’t focus properly, but these more upper-crusty travelers seemed to have ranged themselves as far away from me along the lifter wall as possible. Under other circumstances I would have found it amusing, citizens of Hell fastidiously trying to avoid a little blood. Of course, not a single passenger offered to help me or even looked at me with anything deeper than casual distaste. As you might guess, Hell is not big on empathy.

When my head stopped spinning so damn fast, I tore a strip from my robe and clumsily tied it around the ragged stump of my wrist to slow the bleeding. If I had been in a human body, perhaps even in one of my enhanced angelic bodies, I would have been long dead, but this demon form was sturdy, at least in terms of blood loss. With the pressure easing, I would actually have felt healthier than I had in hours if I hadn’t been so weak and dizzy.

Then again, I had to admit, maybe I’m just feeling better because I’ve almost bled out. Maybe this is what it feels like to die in Hell—the nicest thing that happens to you all day.