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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

Panting, forearm bleeding from a bullet wound that I hadn’t even noticed, I slapped the wall and called out the name of a nearer stop, then quickly reloaded my gun out of the oilskin bag as the car slowed. When the door opened, I stepped out in as relaxed a manner as I could manage, and several other passengers stepped in, clearly oblivious to what had happened just a couple of levels down. A few of them noticed the bloodstains on the floor and the pair of hellhound teeth in the corner, both as big as my thumb, but this being you-know-where, they didn’t seem too upset.

I didn’t even look around the new station, but simply got onto the next open lifter, which was also going up, then got out and went down a couple of times, then up again, making sure that I wasn’t leaving Niloch and his hunters an easy trail to follow. When I thought I’d mixed it up enough, I jumped into an open, empty lifter in Ragged Armpit station and told it to take me to the Abaddon level, far below.

I was exhausted, of course, and skin-crawlingly nervous every time the lifter stopped and new passengers entered, but after I had traveled downward for a good while unhindered, I began to think I really was going to make it.

Then, at the seventh stop, two of Niloch’s soldiers got on.

forty

grey woods

LUCKILY, THE lifter was crowded and the two soldiers were talking to each other. Also luckily, they were just Murderers Sect and not the tougher, smarter Purified, the Mastema police. I sank back against the wall near the door, as much behind them as I could manage, and tried to look like just another infernal commuter on his way home, splattered in the blood and dog-brains of an average working day. Because of all my up-and-down trips to confuse the trail, I’d let Niloch’s hunters get past me, which meant I might run into them anywhere from here on down.

“His lordship is steaming,” said one of the soldiers, a bear-headed fellow with a neck big as my waist and shoulders you could build a house on.

“And he doesn’t look too good, neither,” said his companion with a guttural laugh. He was as big and ugly as his friend, although a little shorter. Both looked as though they could separate my head from my body with just a thumb and forefinger. “Did you see the commissar’s yap? Splinters on top of splinters!”

“If the spy hadn’t ruined my day with all this running about,” said Ugly Number One. “I’d shake his hand. ’Course I’d still rip it off him after that.”