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
I woke to find Vera and her servant tenderly changing my bandages. The wrist had almost completely healed, the ragged marks of Block’s teeth now covered with new, pink skin, but what was astonishing was that my wrist seemed to be growing new bone already. I don’t know what they put in these Hell-bodies but they heal faster than the ones Heaven provides, and at that moment I wasn’t complaining. The worst of the pain was gone, nothing left but a mild throb, and although my brain still prickled when I first woke up, I had a sense of physical well-being I hadn’t felt since beginning my infernal adventure.
“You are doing so well!” Vera said when she saw I was watching. She got up quickly, as though sitting on the bed of a man awake was different than sitting on the bed of a slumbering invalid. “I think you are ready to go outside. Would you like that?”
No shit. I was feeling surprisingly well, and although the timer in the back of my thoughts was still ticking, I nodded. A chance to reconnoiter could only do me good.
“Wonderful,” she said, and the look of pleasure on her pretty face was girlish. Why was this woman in Hell? Did I even want to know? “Then we shall go out tonight. Francis and Elizabeth are having a party, two of my very closest friends, and you shall be my escort, handsome Snakestaff.”
I suffered getting dolled-up by the two women with as much good grace as I could muster, since no matter what secret worries I might have, Vera had done me nothing but good so far. Eventually they rigged me up in what they thought of as suitable clothes, including a tie and what seemed a distinctly Victorian-looking long coat. A pretty damn fancy outfit. Once I was dressed and seated, Vera herself very tenderly tied the tie, a narrow affair more like a ribbon than anything I was used to. I thought it made me look a bit like a posh Old West gunfighter (with a skin condition and yellow eyes). “It’s the climate, of course,” she told me, breathing on my ear. “Too hot for an ordinary tie.”
“Do I have to wear one?” I’ve never liked the things.
Vera gave me a look of undisguised horror. “Do you think I could take you to meet my dearest friends without you being properly dressed?”
While I waited for her to finish her own preparations, I sat stiffly in a chair and watched brawny Belle tidy my room. “She likes you,” the big woman said with a distinct twinkle in her eye. She pushed heavy furniture around as if the pieces were made of balsa, then swept beneath them. “She thinks you’re handsome.”