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
It took me a moment to realize the second bell was a name. I was distracted, because Vera had been sitting at the foot of my bed but now stood, and I could see her whole. There was a lot to see. She was curvy but slender-waisted, with a graceful neck, and although she wore a long dress that covered her legs I suspected they were nice, too. Yes, even nearly dead guys notice things like that, even when they’re angels in demonic bodies. It had nothing to do with Caz, and it didn’t really have anything to do with sex, since I felt so weak I couldn’t have put up a convincing tussle with a ball of yarn. That’s just the way the male eyes and brain are hooked up. Go sue the Highest if you don’t like it.
Lady Zinc went out. I spent a moment surveying the room, which looked like Old Hollywood’s idea of the Middle Ages, including stone walls and a high window with no curtains, but I was too exhausted by the short conversation to even think about getting up and finding out whether the door was locked from the outside—whether I was a prisoner—because at that moment, I couldn’t have cared less. Some of the higher demons liked to play-act, I knew. Maybe this was all some elaborate game. It couldn’t be real, could it? I couldn’t actually be safe, at least for a while? Could I?
Safe or not, I was still exhausted by what I’d just been through. I sank back into the richness of a bed and the fuzziness of my wits and let sleep take me.
I woke up to find a very different woman in the room, this one tall and heavyset. I groggily remembered that dark-haired Vera had mentioned someone named Belle, and this woman did seem to be dressed in the plain style of a servant. Unlike her mistress, though, Belle was visibly demonic, with rough gray skin and spurs of horn or bone jutting through the hide at her shoulders, elbows, and other visible joints. I’d seen lots worse. I rasped out a request for water and she brought me a cup; when I had finished, she refilled it for me and set it on the stand beside the bed. She looked stronger than me, especially the weakened version of me lying in the bed, but she seemed kind enough, showing me a sort of smile and squeezing my hand when I handed the cup back to her.
“Don’t worry, sir. You will be well soon,” she assured me as she went out.