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 Harps was the first unit to reach him, which was okay with us. Call it the sin of pride, but there wasn’t a CU who didn’t want to be the ones to get the bastard. Smyler wouldn’t come out, even though we had him surrounded. Finally we tossed a couple of incendiaries in after him. That worked. Maybe he didn’t want to die the same way twice, I don’t know. Anyway, when the flames started, he came out quick enough.
Did I say he was like a rat? More like a spider, at least when he came scuttling out of a hidden hole in the mountain of twisted metal and jumped down before we could even lift our guns and aim, his baggy, hooded black sweatshirt flapping and that ugly, long weapon in his hand. Smyler jumped on an angel named Zoniel so quick that he managed to stab him three times before Sam hit him with the butt of his assault rifle and knocked him off. Zoniel was so badly wounded that he had to get a new body, but Smyler got Reheboth even worse, putting that wicked, four-edged blade right through his eye and into his brain. Reb got another body, too, but he also retired from Counterstrike soon afterward and got a job upstairs. Said it wasn’t the getting stabbed so much, but that face-to-face moment with the guy just before the knife went in. Said he’d never seen anyone so happy.
The Highest Himself only knows how many more of us the little shit might have damaged, or how many of us might have gone down from friendly fire, because he was horribly fast and everybody was shooting wildly. But someone got lucky and raked him with an M4 full of silver rounds and took half his leg off. Smyler started trying to crawl away, leaving a trail of blood like a snail’s track, and at first I thought I was hearing his death-gasps, but after a moment I realized he was laughing in a terrible, dry, whispering voice. Laughing.
I was close enough to put a dozen bullets into his head, and I was just about to do that when Leo stopped me.
“No,” he said. “We’re not sending this one back.”
I didn’t really get what he meant, and I was even more confused when he emptied a clip into Smyler’s legs. Blood and bone splinters and ruined flesh flew everywhere, but the horrible thing still wouldn’t stop laughing. Leo stepped up, kicked away the long pointy thing lying near the killer’s hand, and then put his boot under Smyler’s gut and turned him over.
“Good God Almighty,” Sam said. I probably said something similar.