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Back Happy Hour In Hell
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

I did my best to make the narrow passages behind me difficult for my pursuers, pulling down stone and other debris wherever I could. I’ll also confess to running down a few side-tunnels when the pursuit had fallen far enough behind me that I couldn’t hear them, then scenting the false trail by sprinkling it with my own piss before dashing back to my chosen path.

One of the problems with being in Hell, I realized as I darted through holes and across open places like a frightened rat, was that you could never really relax, never stop to think about what was going on. I’d learned that lesson the hard way from Vera’s house, where I did relax, precisely when I should have been thinking.

I might have chosen to come here, but it certainly hadn’t been because I thought it would be fun. Leaving Caz out of the equation for a moment, I tried to make sense of what had happened and what I’d learned, on the very off chance that I’d survive to do something about it.

The undead horror Smyler had told me he received his marching orders from Kephas him-or herself. Could that be possible? I’d assumed it was Eligor who so badly wanted me silenced, but now that I thought about it, Kephas had at least as much to lose as the grand duke if the feather that signified a secret deal between important angel and important demon fell into the wrong hands. But would a heavenly VIP like Kephas try to destroy another servant of Heaven, even an unpopular one like yours truly? Then again, I’d wondered for years if a high-ranking somebody had silenced my old mentor Leo, my top-kicker in CU Lyrae. How much harder was it to imagine that one of my bosses sent a dead murderer to shut me up?

But Kephas was only a disguise for what I guessed was a fairly powerful angel: I still didn’t know who my real enemy might be. What good would it do to escape Hell and save Caz if I promptly got bumped off by my own side? Or even worse, got Sam’s whole Third Way thing pinned on me? My record didn’t look good: my best friend Sammariel had been working for the Third Way mutiny all along, but when I had a chance to nab Sam, I let him go. Then I’d gone on an illegal jaunt to the actual factual Inferno to rescue my demon girlfriend and had even made a deal with Eligor the Horseman, right in his own demonic palace. I mean, really—how much spin would Kephas need to make me look literally guilty as hell? Not much.