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
I felt like his pain was my fault, too, but it had to be better for him to know he didn’t belong in Hell, didn’t it? It wouldn’t have been kind to leave him in ignorance. That’s what I tell myself, anyway. “Well, if you think of anything, let me know. Because something is definitely weird. You were attacked by the guy they sent after me, then . . . you just never came back. I expected they’d put you in a new body . . .” I broke off, having noticed something happening on the horizon, where The Headless Widow had grown taller as it approached, so that it now looked almost like Gravejaw House itself had taken to the river. “Is Niloch’s ship . . . on fire?” I stared, positive that I was seeing things. Certainly it was too convenient otherwise, for our enemy simply to catch fire. “Riprash!” I shouted. “Come here!”
When the ogre arrived, the cloud of smoke and fire around the Widow had spread out a good way on either side, and I truly began to believe that fate might have saved me from an extremely unpleasant end to my infernal vacation. “It’s fire, right? It’s burning?”
Riprash didn’t look like someone ready to celebrate. “It’s fire, right enough. But it’s not their boat burning. Fact, whatever it is, it’s coming toward us.”
“What? Is it a gun? Did they fire something at us?”
I never got an answer, at least not from Riprash, because the dark cloud full of fire was growing so fast that I couldn’t see Niloch’s ship any more. A moment later something shot over our heads, flaming like a tracer bullet. It hit the deck, bounced once in a shower of sparks, then smacked into the far gunwale. A nearby sailor threw a bucket of black Styx water on it.
“What is it?” asked Walter, but a moment later a dozen more whipped past us and we could see that they were birds, gray and plump and fast, and every single one of them on fire.
A couple struck the mizzen sail and started the fabric smoldering. A pair of simian deckhands scrambled up the lines to put it out, but even as they climbed several more birds struck the mizzen and the topsail. Another winged blaze came hurtling over the water toward us, bobbing crazily, and smacked right into Gob, catching in his hair and setting it alight. Riprash roared and grabbed the boy, then leaned out over the rail, stretching his huge arm to dunk the boy in the river and extinguish the flames.