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Back Happy Hour In Hell
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 wandered around long enough to get a feeling for the Circus, paying close attention to exits, hiding places, and good and bad spots for making a desperate last stand. Then I sloped back to my room at the Ostrich to rest and think. Neither of those came easy. Every time I started to get a little focus, I would see Caz’s wan face again in that mirror and my thoughts would be scattered like bowling pins. I had never dreamed it was possible to want something or someone so much, and the fact that I had almost no chance of getting her just made me more obsessive. I fell asleep and dreamed of her, of course. In the dream she kept telling me to forget her, to turn away and go back, but even in my dream I couldn’t give her up, and so I followed her into endless shadow.

What went on at the Amphitheater of Commodus on the first day of Wolf? Well, it was pretty much exactly what you’d expect during a holiday in Hell in front of a quarter of a million gathered demons and damned souls, and all of it was ugly, ugly, ugly.

The holiday festivities began with the ritual slaughter and dismemberment of dozens of types of animals and damned souls, the kind of fun that would have been familiar at a real Roman colosseum, except neither the animals nor the damned could die. That didn’t stop horrendous, bloody things from happening, and in many ways it was worse to see creatures suffering that badly and knowing that even death wouldn’t end their pain. Then the races began, leading up to the big one, the Lykaion Rally, which drew most of the betting action. The track around the outside length of the amphitheater had been turned into an obstacle course with every manner of hard, hot, and sharp object you can imagine, then a gang of a hundred or so naked sinners were set loose at the same time to make their way once around the track, probably about two or three miles long. They had to make this circuit past the “ordinary” obstacles—pits of flaming oil, forests of barbed wire, and what looked like minefields—but also dozens and dozens of armed demons and ferocious beasts.