Damn Him to Hell

Начало книги

On a noisy Friday night inside Chesty’s pole-dancing bar and restaurant, no one heard the gargoyles scream until the front door crashed in.

The pounding rock music in the bar screeched to a halt—not an unusual occurrence or a reason for alarm. The DJ often had to spin albums with a hand crank, since anything electronic developed a personality of its own in the Zone. But this time, the shrill aiieeeee of the town gargoyles shattered the abrupt silence.

Like most of the other patrons, I’d been boogying hard and was annoyed with the abrupt cutoff.

Glimpsing two old people falling through the distant door, whacking at each other, I shrugged off the fight but puzzled over the earsplitting shrieks. The rest of Chesty’s clientele returned to eating and drinking. The girls on the poles put their clothes back on and wandered off until the DJ could get the music rolling again.

Drunk on appletinis and sweaty from dancing off my exultation, I wiped my brow with the back of my arm. The persistence of the unholy screams raised my hackles, despite the buzz I’d been working on. The bar area didn’t have windows, so I slipped inside the office I used to share with Ernesto, the club manager, to look out the small one there.

Читать дальше →