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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

Much as I hated the bitch, I didn’t stay to watch. The moment I could see a clear space, I stumbled past the bizarre reunion, ran, heart ratcheting, until I found the stairs at the far side of the cellar, then climbed for what seemed like days upon lightless days. Vera’s hoarse shrieks followed me for a long part of that journey, until I finally found myself in a regular part of the tunnels near the Terminus. From there I was able to make my way upward, to stand free at last beneath Hell’s vaulted, claustrophobic night sky.

I could never have guessed how glad I would be to see that terrible blank firmament again.

twenty-seven

chancery

ONE GOOD thing about Hell is that there’s never any problem getting rid of stolen goods, no matter how late it is. I’d had a lot of time to think between visits from Vera and her vampire groin, and I’d come up with a few ideas of what to do next if I ever got the chance. Now I had it.

Vera’s fancy neighborhood was on the edge of Sulfur Lagoon, a prestige location close to, among other things, the Night Market, a vast array of stalls and tents and shacks made of various awful things where you could buy or sell pretty much anything. Limping and bloody (two things that fortunately don’t attract much notice in Hell) I made my way to the market and asked around until I found the bazaar of a fellow named Saad Babrak who looked like a hairless tarantula from his neck downward and had a reputation as a discreet disperser of goods. In other words, a fence.

I could only hope Vera’s jewelry was good quality. I hung onto one necklace of lumpy, lagoon-grown pearls (I’ll explain why later) but dumped all the rest of the stuff on Saad’s counter and let him piss all over me in the guise of “bargaining.” I didn’t want to give in too easily because he’d remember that, but I also didn’t want to be there so long that Smyler or some other survivor from Vera’s house found me. At last I got a price I could live with, spent a little on the spot purchasing some of Saad’s other goods, including some clean clothes which I didn’t put on right away and a long, sharp, well-made knife with a backward-curving guard; the kind of thing I wanted to have in my hand the next time I wound up fighting for my life.