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
The station doors were open. I leaped through, nearly knocking myself out on the first of a series of switchback barriers. Instead of a vast open space, like anyone would have expected in such a large public building, the whole thing had been turned into a rabbit run of mazy walls. I had no time to try to puzzle it out, but luckily the walls were only a little higher than I was tall, and I could still see the broad bottom of the lifter tunnel at the center of the concourse. Apparently, Blindworm had been built with a more conventional hellish population in mind and only modified later.
Just like The Infernal Fauna of the River Phlegethon, the sociological peculiarities of Blindworm could occupy a team of scholars for decades, but all I wanted to do was to survive the next minute or two. I sprinted through the maze, committing about thirteen or fourteen Blindworm Cardinal Sins by not only overtaking other citizens from behind but literally knocking them over so I could get past. The hounds were right behind me, and the Blindwormers who got in my way didn’t curse me long; I heard an entire train of shrieks and mayhem noises behind me as the locals found out what I was running from.
I burst out of the first set of walls into what had been the center of an old concourse, divided now into a beehive of isolation stalls where the passengers could wait. In a continuation of my run of shitty luck, none of the lifters was signaling, which meant that all the doors were still closed. There were no indicator lights to let me know which ones would be available next, either. For all I knew, the next five lifters to arrive might be on the opposite side of the huge central column.
A deep, reverberating snarl made me leap forward just in time to avoid the hellhound that came barreling out of the passage behind me, an unlucky commuter in his huge jaws. The beast shook the poor, screeching bastard like a terrier with a rat, then dropped the limp body when he spotted me.
I backed toward the lifter column, guns drawn, as the hound came toward me. I had tested Riprash’s pistols enough to know I couldn’t trust any shot much beyond ten paces, so I waited. But as I tried to keep my gun hand steady and the barrel pointed at its sloping forehead, two more hounds scrambled out behind, one of them chewing contemplatively at the tattered remains of a leg wrapped in a bloody dress.