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
“What do you want?” I must have sounded terrified, because I was. I had already been down to my very last reserves of belief—of faith, if you will—and now things had become dramatically worse.
“What it want?” Smyler gave a little chortle, as crisply dry as the shake of a rattlesnake’s tail, t-t-t-t-t-t. “It want the feather. Come a long way for the feather. Tell where it is, or it will have the wicked angel’s eye in its pocket and the wicked, bad angel’s heart in its lunch box.” Suddenly the deformed mouth spread in what must have been a grin. “Bad angel is sweetest meat. Bad angel always taste so good.”
twenty-six
immortalized
EVEN WHEN free and carrying a gun, I had barely survived my encounters with this murderous little bastard, but this time I was tied to a bed after being drained by Lady Zinc for many days. I couldn’t really think of anything to do but stall.
“Why do you want the feather?” I asked, knowing damn well he wanted it for his master, Eligor. “I mean, I don’t have it here. I couldn’t give it to you even if I wanted to. I’d have to get back to Earth. You know what I mean, right? The real world?”
Smyler only poked the blade a little harder into my eyelid. I swear I felt it touch the surface of my cornea. Not good.
“Feather,” he said. “Give it.”
“I don’t have it!” I wondered if he was too stupid or broken to understand, and as my already shaky faith in a negotiated solution began to dwindle, I slowly drew my legs up a little closer to my body. “I can get it for you, though, but you have to get me out of here—”
He leaned in even closer. His breath . . . I won’t even try to tell you. Vermin. Disease. Open grave pits. “Want feather,” it whispered. “Now.”
I jammed my feet against Smyler’s skinny chest and shoved as hard as I could, with particular care to aim him toward the dresser stacked with glassware and other breakables. He weighed practically nothing, as light as a nine-year-old child, and I was able to get enough strength into my surprise shove to send him flying like a badly made kite. He crashed into the dresser and took at least half the objects off the top, a cascade of breakage like Hummel Armageddon. I put my full weight against the strap I had been working on for days and yanked down as hard as I could. I felt it give a little as the remaining leather stretched, but it held. It also hurt like eleven bitches on a bitch-boat.