Free Once Upon a Time in Hell by Guy Adams

fall back in place. Now get out of here, you're holding up the line."
    I looked behind me and noticed there were now a couple of other people waiting to do business.
    "Thank you," I said, and stepped to one side, bumping into an old man who had been standing too close.
    "Sorry," I said, "bit unsteady on my feet."
    "Take a minute, son," he said. "I'll come back to you."
    I looked at him and his face fell into place. "Oh yes, it's all your fault in the first place, ain't going to forget you in a hurry am I?"
    "Imagine not," he pulled me to one side. "Now try and also remember that nobody else can see me, then you'll figure why it is people are looking at you funny."
    I looked to my left and saw a little girl, maybe eight or nine, dressed in the prettiest little silk dress. She was staring at me in utter confusion. My heart nearly broke to see her in a place like this. Kids died, sure, it was a fact of life, but you hoped they would find themselves in better circumstances than a riverboat floating on the minced up bodies of the dead.
    "Hey little lady," I said, "don't mind me. What's a pretty little thing like you doing here?"
    "Choke on my hot shit, whore-master," she replied, and walked off.
    "Did you..." I was shaking my head in shock.
    "She's no more a little kid than I'm an old fart," he said. "You're going to have to get used to not taking everything at face value. Now let's go and find you a seat at Agrat's table."
    I pocketed my chips and followed him back to the far corner where the game of five card stud was coming to the end of a betting round.
    "So what is it we're after?" I asked. "Just so I know..."
    "Agrat's power is in incantations. We need her to practice one on me."
    A hairy-faced beast was clearly losing what little he had left. He looked like a poster I'd once seen for a dog-faced boy at a carnival sideshow, every part of his body covered in thick, greying hair.
    "I'm about cleaned out," he admitted, tugging nervously at the hair on his left temple, "I'll go all in."
    "That's wonderfully sporting of you," said Agrat, offering him a smile that looked as valuable as the pot. She offered her cards: a flush that spit all over his triple eights. "I hope you one day get to win some of your life back, I'm sure it was very interesting."
    "Mainly people kicking me up the ass, I imagine," he said, "if this last half hour's been anything to go by."
    He stood up and the old man pushed me towards his empty chair. "Remember to repeat what I say," he reminded me. "Tell her you want to take his place." "Right... erm... Any objection to my sitting in?"
    The table looked up at me as if noting a passing buzzard that had just taken a dump on the carpet.
    "Try and be a bit more aggressive," the old man said. "You don't get anywhere in cards by acting like an old maid."
    "Problem?" I said. "If you'll play with a motherfucker whose face looks like an old hooker's snatch I can't see why you wouldn't play with me?"
    "Yeah," said the old man, "maybe not quite that aggressive."
    "Fuck you, no tail," said the hairy loser, "this snatch-faced son of a bitch will bite your goddamned head off unless you learn to watch your mouth. I may have lost about ten year's worth of memories tonight but I don't intend to lose my pride as well."
    He squared up to me.
    The old man sighed and shook his head. "Can't back down now, that would look even worse. Punch him."
    I fair crumbled at that suggestion, made all the worse by the fact I couldn't question it, not without everyone thinking I was even more of a lunatic, talking to thin air.
    "Punch him," he repeated, "I'll help."
    The dog-faced man loomed in close, his breath as thick and fruity as my old mule's farts.
    I figured I was in a fight already, nothing I could say was likely to turn the situation around so I might as well just join in with conviction. I punched him in the stomach and it was like hitting an old mattress. It clearly hurt me more than him because he didn't move a muscle.
    "In the