BooksBarbecue
Back Happy Hour In Hell Save as PDF
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

Grand Duke Eligor looked less human than he did on Earth, but for the moment he also looked less demonic than the monstrous form that had overtaken him as he dangled me by my neck a couple of feet above his office carpet back in San Judas. His blond hair was shaved very close to his head, and his facial features were bonier and older than on his Kenneth Vald persona. Less like a California billionaire and more like the fascist dictator of some imaginary Northern European country, a creature of hard angles and fierce, unyielding principles. But it was definitely him, Eligor the Horseman, my least favorite demon. My hackles went up. I was relieved I was in shadows, that my treacherous, underwhelming disguise wasn’t visible to him, even from this distance.

Only as I (and most of the other patrons) sat staring at Eligor settling into his seat did I have a moment of wondering where Caz was. That only lasted a moment, because once the grand duke had seated himself, one of the guards at the back of his box opened the door, letting in a gleam of pure white gold.

That was Caz, of course.

twenty-four

fickle

MY HEART felt as though it had stopped, literally stopped, and would not start again. Caz’s face was rigid, blank as a mask. She wore a long red dress whose spatters and splashes of white made her a mirror of her master, an even clearer mark of Eligor’s ownership than the guard who seated her next to the grand duke and then stood behind her chair like a jailer.

Oh, God, my heart. Everything came back in a moment, our desperate nights together, the months of longing since, and it was all I could do not to climb out of my seat and run toward her. The crowd, many of them still whispering, had turned back to the action as the emperor stepped up to sing again, but I couldn’t look away. I can only imagine what my face must have looked like. Finally, Vera’s elbow applied briskly and with obvious anger to my ribs brought my attention back to the stage, but I could think of nothing else for a long time. I snuck a few glances at Caz, but she was never looking at me or anyone else in the audience, not even looking at the performers. Instead she sat like a frightened schoolgirl, eyes downcast. Eligor ignored her, watching the action below through a pair of opera glasses.