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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

And now I had another mystery to wonder about: What was angel Walter Sanders doing in Hell? I couldn’t believe it was a coincidence that he’d been stabbed by the same guy trying to get me, and then just happened to wind up down here in Hell. Smyler claimed he was taking his orders from Kephas. Did that include an order to take Walter off the game board first? Walter had been wanting to talk to me back at the Compasses that night—was it something to do with all this? Then, of course, his “death” and banishment to the nether regions had wiped all that away . . .

It came to me so suddenly and so powerfully that I barely noticed the mists rising around my feet, which meant I was close to the bridge. I should have been capering with joy, but a new thought had blossomed like a nose-pimple on the morning of senior prom, and it would not be ignored, even at this triumphant moment.

Walter, in his Krazy Kat form, had come up with something just as I parted from him and Riprash and the rest. “I remember something about the voice that asked me about you!” he’d called as I climbed into the landing boat. I’d had no idea what voice he was talking about, but what if he’d remembered something from when he was still an angel? What if that was what got him sent to Hell in the first place?

I was so caught up in these questions I almost brained myself on a low-hanging ceiling, which wouldn’t have done my throbbing head any good. I was tired, stumbling, but I couldn’t shut off the thoughts.

What had Walter told me? Why hadn’t I listened more carefully? Yes, I had been worrying about a lot of other things just then, like fang jellies and hogsquids, but I was furious with myself now. The answer to everything, maybe—or at least the answer to who’d sent Smyler after me—and I’d let a few minor things like hellhounds and self-surgery flush it out of my memory.

I came out of the last stony passage a mere hundred yards or so from the gate and that ugly, glorious bridge. As I hurried toward it I struggled to remember everything from that moment I’d left the Bitch—the rotting smell of the Bay of Tophet, Riprash’s huge hands passing me the cannonball that was going to weight my descent to the bottom, Gob’s interested, skeptical face, and Walter in his damned form, looking like something that could only be found living in trees on Madagascar.

What had he said?

And then it came to me. “It was a child’s voice,” he’d shouted as I lowered myself into the dinghy, desperate to let me know, to help me, even though I was leaving him stranded in Hell. “A sweet, child’s voice!”