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
So, the sugar and spice boys were here. The good thing, though, was that I saw no sign of Caz herself in the crude clearing that served as a parking lot, and no obvious way to get the grand duke ‘s car farther up the mountainside, so it suggested they were going to wait there for her. I ducked back into the rusty gondola in case one of them decided to look up.
The sudden thought of having Caz alone was enough to make me almost breathless, but the cable car still crept slowly as a caterpillar, leaving me with nothing to do but look at the scenery, which by Hell’s standards was pretty interesting. I could see now that Pandaemonium was actually built on a series of hills, with the great black city walls around the outside. I was traveling up the tallest hill, Mount Diabolus, which showed bones of black obsidian and a variety of plants and trees growing on it, mostly in shades of red, black, and gray. (One thing I had begun to understand is that absence of color itself could be a punishment, and I was certainly getting tired of those colors. No wonder the infernal gentry liked to dress up.)
But it was only as the tram car shuddered its way into the uppermost reaches of the peak that I saw the true glory of the place, such as it was. Nestled between the peak I was ascending and the dark jut of the nearest of its neighbors was a saddle in the hills, and in it, surrounded by wiry trees and black grasses, was a lake, flat and shiny as an irregular mirror.
The tram ground to a halt in the rotting remains of the hilltop station. I got out.
“I almost didn’t believe yesterday had really happened,” she said.
Caz stood at the edge of a path between the dark trees. I hurried toward her, but although she let me take her in my arms and kiss her, after a moment she wriggled free and not too gently.
“What’s wrong?”
“Walk with me,” she said in a flat voice. I took her chilly hand as we stepped under the trees, which looked like the scorched remains of a pine forest. It was clear, however, that underneath the black char, beneath the gray soil, the trees were still quite alive.