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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

I couldn’t figure out what was going on, and that scared me all over again. Why were the top brass arguing in front of me, a mere foot soldier? It didn’t make sense.

“Doloriel left Counterstrike because he was gravely wounded in a battle with Hell’s forces.” Karael almost sounded defensive.

“And now he serves the will of the Highest as a member of His holy advocates,” said genderless Raziel in a voice like quiet music. “Defending the souls of the worthy from the lies and trickery of Hell.”

“Perhaps,” Anaita replied. “But it was one of those selfsame advocates who conspired with members of the Opposition to create this wretched Third Way, causing all the trouble in the first place. And while there is no doubt that Angel Doloriel has been a brave fighter and an effective advocate, no one could dispute the fact that he seems to . . . attract trouble.”

“It is true,” said Raziel slowly, “that there have been times since I created the Advocacy when I wonder if we are asking too much of the Elect, requiring them to take on earthly bodies again, exposing them to all the temptations and despair that beset the living every day on Earth.”

They fell into silent conversation again, which was just as well because I must have been gaping like someone had broken a bottle over my head. Raziel created the Advocates? I had never heard that. In fact, I had never heard anything to suggest our existence came from anything less than a divine order from the Highest Himself. How important were these five angels? And why were they spending so much time with little Bobby Dollar?

Then an idea came to me, stealing over me like a fog, sending chills up and down my non-corporeal form. Something was going on here far beyond a fact-finding meeting, or even a meeting about something as important to these high angels as the renegades of the Third Way. Sam had told me that he’d been approached by a disguised angel that called itself Kephas, and everything about Kephas had suggested powers beyond that of Heaven’s rank and file, including the God Glove it had given Sam, a device or power or whatever it was that had allowed him to do so many unexpected things. Might Kephas, the revolutionary behind the Third Way, be a high angel like this quintet of ephors? Or, even weirder and more disturbing, was Kephas one of the Furious Five themselves?

The games they play in Heaven are incredibly subtle, but they’re still deadly—no, worse than deadly, because the loser’s lot is an eternity bathing in fire. What was I caught up in? And how was I going to avoid becoming a Bobby-colored smear in the grinding gears of heavenly politics?