The cabin door swung open and Molly belly-crawled onto the deck until she could see me. "Who started shooting at us?" "Bad guys!" I cringed as another round hit the side of the boat and peppered me with wooden splinters. "Obviously!"
Lady Placida smiled. "History seldom takes note of serendipity when it records events. And from what I have heard, I suspect an argument could be made that you very much did earn the title." "Many women have earned titles, Your Grace. It doesn't seem to have been a factor in whether or not they actually received them." Lady Placida laughed. "True enough. But perhaps that is beginning to change." She offered her hands. "It is a distinct plea..
Magic came from life itself, from the interaction of nature and the elements, from the energy of all living beings, and especially of people. A man's magic demonstrates what sort of person he is, what is held most deeply inside of him. There is no truer gauge of a man's character than the way in which he employs his strength, his power.
I might not have any magic available to me, but that didn't make me any less of a wizard, one of the magi, the wise. That's the true power of a wizard.
I'm..." I felt a little ill. "You're saying... I'm pregnant?" My double threw up his arms. "Finally, he gets it." In years and years and years of experience as a wizard, I'd dealt with concepts, formulae, and mental models that ranged from bizarre to downright insanity-inducing. None of them had, in any way whatsoever, ever prepared my head to wrap around this. At all. Ever." --
She put her hands on his face, and whispered "Death is nothing to me, chala. Not if we are together. Death is not to be feared." She leaned forward and kissed his mouth, very gently. Then she rested her forehead against his. "Being taken from one another. That terrifies me. It terrifies me. I will go to any wasted wilderness, to any horrible city, into any nightmare to keep you at my side, chala, and never flinch. I never have. But do not a..
The Carpenters had a threshold more solid and extensive than the Great Wall of China. I would not be in the least bit surprised if you could see it from space.
I leaned into Karrin a little and said, next to her ear, "You ready for this?" "Only a lunatic is ready for this," she said. I could hear her smile as she spoke. Then she turned her head and, before I could react, planted a kiss right on my mouth. I almost fell off the Harley. She drew her head back, flashed me a wicked little smile, and said, "For luck. -style." "You are so hot right now," I told her."
My brother threw up his hands. "What does a woman need to do, Harry? Rip her clothes off, throw herself on top of you, and shimmy while screaming, 'Do me, baby!'?" he shook his head. "Sometimes you're a frigging idiot."
There was a click of high heels in the hall behind us, and a young woman appeared. She was pretty enough, I suspected, but in the tight black dress, black hose, and with her hair slicked back like that, it was sort of threatening. She gave me a slow, cold look and said, "So. I see that you're keeping low company after all, Ravenius." Ever suave, I replied, "Uh. What?" "'Ah-ree," Thomas said. I glanced at him. He put his hand flat on the top..
The stupid part is that he isn't interested in... in getting serious. We get along. We have fun together. For him, that's enough. And it's so stupid for me to get hung up on him.
I looked from the gadget-readied spear and body armor to my slender staff of plain old wood and leather duster. "My dick is better than your dick," I said."
If your new boss wanted yo on the island, wouldn't she just have told you to go there?" Thomas asked. "Seems like," I said. "Taking her orders is pretty much my job now." Molly snorted softly. "Maybe I'll grow into it," I said. "You don't know." Thomas snorted softly."
I told you," Molly said, never looking toward me. "It's in the past. Leave it there." "You listening to my head, kiddo?" Her mouth twitched. "Only when I want to hear the roar of the ocean."
This is what it looks like when someone's fighting for his soul," she said. "He needs his friends to believe in him. The fastest way for us to help make him into a monster is to look at him like he is one."
The vampire's true appearance was grotesque--but it wasn't as bad as some of the things I had seen in my day. Some demons were a lot worse, and some of the Elder Things could rip your mind apart just by letting you look at them
When a mortal dreams, all kinds of strange things can happen. When a wizard dreams, it can be even weirder. Sometimes, dreams can be intense enough to create a little, temporary world of their own.
I flicked a comb through my wet hair, for all the good it would do, and said, "How do I look?" "Mostly human," she said. "That's what I was going for." --
Holy water, a couple cloves of garlic, vials of salt, and iron fillings filled the basket, intended to be door prizes for anything that showed up in an attempt to suck my blood, carry me off to faerieland, or sell me stale cookies.
I am somewhat proud of this," Mab's cold voice said. "To be sure, the White Christ never suffered so long or so terribly as did this traitor. Three days on a tree. Hardly enough time for a prelude. When it came to visiting agony, the Romans were hobbyists."
Peabody may not have seen the man turn into a grizzly, but he was bright enough to know that Injun Joe was getting set to adjust another relative ass-to-ears ratio.
Science, the largest religion of the twentieth century, had become somewhat tarnished by images of exploding space shuttles, crack babies, and a generation of complacent Americans who had allowed the television to raise their children.
There were guns on the coffee table. Like, a lot of them, broken out on cloths, being cleaned, leaned against a nearby chair, where a large equipment bag waited to receive them. Karrin's favorite little Belgian carbine was there, along with what looked like a couple of space guns. "New toys?" I asked. "I'm a girl, Harry," she said, rather smugly. "I accessorize." "Is that a bazooka?" "No," she said. "That is an AT4 rocket launcher. Way bett..
At one time in my life, a shapeshifted, demonically possessed maniac crashing through a window and trying to rip my face off would have come as an enormous and nasty surprise. But that time was pretty much in the past.