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
He wiggled his no-knife arm out of my grip and wrapped it around my skull, then squeezed until I thought the blood was going to fountain out of the top of my head. I could hear sirens, and I prayed they were getting louder, but it was hard to tell because my brain was full of thunder and red light. I’d lost my pistol somewhere on the ground but still had the cosh in the forearm of my coat, so I started smashing it against his skinny back as hard as I could, over and over, praying that I could crush one of his vertebrae or at least rupture a kidney.
He laughed. The horrible, pinched face was right beside mine, and if I hadn’t been fighting for my very life the stink alone would have made me throw up. As it was, my eyes stung, and not just from sweat. I could feel the sinewy strength in his slender neck and that horrid, jutting jaw trying to close on my ear, my cheek, anything it could tear at, and all I could do was try to keep my head stretched as far away as possible while I crashed the metal bar against his spine.
“It like dancing!” Smyler whispered. “Oh, yes. It dance to glory!”
But now the sirens were too loud to ignore. At least one police car was coming down the street toward us fast, lights glaring and jouncing as the cruiser bounced over speed bumps. I felt my attacker go slack for just a moment, distracted, and I risked loosening my right-arm grip just long enough to swing my weighted sleeve into the back of his skull as hard as I could. I’m stronger than most normal people, and although the hoodie he was wearing muffled the blow a little it would certainly have knocked any ordinary assailant cold if not DOA. My attacker just shook his horrid head as though his ears had popped on an afternoon drive in the mountains, then shoved my skull back against the ground with a nasty, cold hand. I braced for steel in my guts.
“See you, Bobby Bad Angel,” Smyler whispered. “Soon!” Then he sprang up and was gone, over somebody’s garden hedge and away into the darkness. As I struggled and failed to sit up, I could see the lights of a half dozen open doors, and people standing at their windows looking out. Then the spot from the police cruiser fell on me, filling the world with painful white light, and that was the last thing I remembered.