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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

Once I’d cut myself along the brow line, forehead, cheeks, nose, and jaw, I dabbed away the slow-moving blood, then sliced the cord on Vera’s pearl necklace and began tucking the individual pearls into my bleeding weals. I’d seen a ritual like it on a National Geographic TV show; young guys in Africa or New Guinea or somewhere stuffing their sliced skin with stones and ashes to make impressive scars. I didn’t care about impressive, I just wanted to change the look of my face. I had almost vomited out my own heart when Caym the President seemed to recognize me. Ultimately I might wind up trying to fool Eligor himself, but as I had discovered to my surprise and shock, whatever process Temuel had used to get me into this body had left me looking a lot more like my Bobby Dollar self than I could risk. So, self-mutilation.

I kept drinking little nips of the firewater, and that blotted out the worst of the agony, but there was so much blood that I quickly soaked the few rags I’d lifted at the bazaar. No point in putting on my new, clean clothes until the bleeding stopped, so I dabbed my wounds one last agonizing time with Phlegethon-liquor, then laid myself down to sleep through the worst of the pain.

I dreamed of Caz, of course, of our last night together in Eligor’s hotel before he blew the fucking thing to kingdom come, but in my dream we couldn’t make love because bits of me kept falling off and crawling around on a floor slippery with blood. At one point I roused myself from the mattress long enough to douse myself in the burning liquid again, then did my best to fall back asleep, but I could actually feel the skin knitting together over my new scars—a disturbing, tingling sensation like ants dancing in little white-hot metal shoes. After awhile I just gave up and lay with gritted teeth, waiting for the pain to subside enough for sleep to come.

It took more than a few hours. I was beginning to feel right at home in Hell now—angry, miserable, hurting, you name it. Cheated, too. Like everyone else here, I was having trouble understanding what I had done to be suffering this way.