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
It took everything I had not to follow. Instead, I waited a decent length of time, tidied things up a little, then made my way out of Chateau Machecoul to the crowded streets. They looked different now, but it was hard to put my finger on why. More familiar, perhaps. The Halloween parade of hideous shapes and faces was never quite as bad in the expensive parts of the Red City, anyway, but it was still horrifying. If you dropped an ordinary human being into the midst of what I was seeing, they would have made a pants-wetting conversion on the spot to the most puritanical religious sect they could find. But to me, still floating on the high of having been with Caz, it looked endurable. It looked . . . ordinary. I really was beginning to get used to the place.
It was worse than when I quit smoking. Just knowing I was going to see Caz again in a short time made waiting for that time to pass the most painful, frustrating thing imaginable. It wasn’t just that I was going to see her and be with her, it also meant I could finally take her away. But it had to happen soon. After all, I had other problems besides Caz. I didn’t have any idea how long I had been in Hell by Earth reckoning, and there hadn’t been much I could do about it anyway, but if I was away too long I was going to have serious trouble with my job. But I was almost done. Now that I’d found her, all I had to do was steal her from one of the biggest, meanest bastards in the universe and then sneak her out of Hell. It was impossible, I knew, but just being near her again had reminded me that I really had no choice.
According to Lameh’s implanted memories, to escape I would have to get us both back to the place I’d come in—the Neronian Bridge, many levels below Pandaemonium, on the outskirts of one of the deep Abaddon layers. But whether it was entirely rational or not, I no longer wanted to go anywhere near the lifters. It wasn’t just that my experiences had been so horrible, although that was very much in the picture, but because they were so easy to police, with only one outlet at each level. I was pretty sure it was no accident that Hell had been set up like some kind of ideal fascist state.
But if I didn’t use the lifters, I needed to make some other arrangements, and that’s why I headed to the shipyards down by the Stygian docks.