1
2
3
5
8
12
20
33
52
83
133
213
340
543
867
1384
2208
3346
3522
5443
5619
6757
7581
7864
7865
7866
7867
7868
8098
8422
8625
8752
8832
8882
8913
8932
8945
8953
8957
8960
8962
8963
8964
8965
▲
▼
| Link | Quote | Stars | Tags | Author |
| 17d49fd | Static blared from the blood-streaked screen of her boxy television set, and a fallen lamp cast angled shadows over Sophia's mutilated corpse. Her murderer wasn't human. It was a faceless wooden mannequin with jointed limbs, like a life-sized version of an artist's posing doll. One of its hands ended in a wooden nub, the other in a jagged, rusty knife. The mannequin hunched over her body and plunged the blade into Sophia's stomach over and .. | Craig Schaefer | ||
| fcad580 | I didn't murder Carl Holt, but to be fair, I had been planning on it. My girlfriend got to him first. She snapped his neck and left him dead on his partner's kitchen floor. I just burned the house down when she was finished. Nobody should have been able to connect me to that mess, though. Nobody. | Craig Schaefer | ||
| 22b0127 | Carl Holt," I mused, fighting to keep the surprise from my voice. "Oh, I remember him from the news. Wasn't he that corrupt cop who was killed with his buddy, the Satan-worshipping porno director?" | Craig Schaefer | ||
| 8d4146e | Your traveling companion is a highly successful narcotics dealer." I held up a finger. "Point of order. She was arrested for marijuana possession twice, growing it once, and all three times the charges were dropped. She's never seen the inside of a courtroom." Harmony's lips curled into a pert half-smile. "And that, Mr. Faust, is why I call her 'successful." | Craig Schaefer | ||
| 0a4209e | C'mon, clock's ticking. Let's go pick a fight with an evil billionaire wizard. | Craig Schaefer | ||
| 3b0fc2c | A use-name is an alias of sorts in occult circles. True names have the power to conjure and bind, but we have to call each other something or else the entire supernatural world would be reduced to "hey, you" and "that guy over there." "Caitlleanabruaudi," she said, or something similar to it, but my mind suddenly felt fuzzy and some of the syllables sounded like they could only be pronounced by a mouth with two tongues." | Craig Schaefer | ||
| e6ab1c2 | There are some sounds, and some languages, that are so alien to our nature that the human brain naturally rebels at them. You'd think we'd take that as a hint. "Caitlin?" I managed to stammer, the rest slipping away from me. "Caitlin," she echoed. A sliver of tongue flicked across her pomegranate lips, as if tasting the name and coming away satisfied. "Yes. You may call me that. Now go." | Craig Schaefer | ||
| 41c0b81 | The only thing more dangerous and unpredictable than a junkie is a junkie with a loaded gun. | Craig Schaefer | ||
| 88e56f5 | Luck comes naturally when you make it yourself. | Craig Schaefer | ||
| 1f2e6b0 | Can he?" Margaux said. I shrugged. "He wouldn't be the first racket boss to get taken down in Vegas, not by a long shot, but he's got access to the kind of resources no human gangster could dream of. Bugsy Siegel didn't have a direct hotline to hell." "Actually," Bentley started to say, then shook his head and fluttered his hand in the air. "Never mind." -- | Craig Schaefer | ||
| d2d4835 | It was professional courtesy backed up by the promise of mutually assured destruction. He could take out any one of us, if he put his back into it, but he knew that would bring every magician in the city down on his head at once. That was one fight nobody would be walking away from. | Craig Schaefer | ||
| 1363549 | Yeah." Gary nodded. "She said that too, that it was your gun. Said this whole thing was your idea." My eyes narrowed to slits. Rookie technique. Make me think Jennifer was in the other room, rolling on me, so I'd do the same to her. One problem: Jennifer was my sister. Not by blood, people like us don't mark our family lines by blood, but she was my sister. She'd put a noose around her own neck before she'd put one around mine. I looked at .. | Craig Schaefer | ||
| 74a3a72 | I looked at Harmony. Harmony looked at Gary. She knew he'd overreached and blown it. So did Lars. Only Gary himself was too dumb to figure it out. I cleared my throat. | Craig Schaefer | ||
| 74c62f6 | There was a modern family for you. Demon mom, human dad, cambion kid. Just like Caitlin and me, minus the kid and the wedding rings. Wasn't sure how I felt about that. | Craig Schaefer | ||
| cd6000b | How about you, Dan? What do you do for a living?" Well, Ben, until recently I was a hired wand for the biggest gang boss in Las Vegas, but we had a falling-out, so mostly I just run short cons and sometimes busk on Fremont Street doing sleight-of-hand tricks for spare change. I guess you could say I'm sort of a criminal bum. "I'm between jobs right now," I told him. "The economy being what it is." | Craig Schaefer | ||
| 2bc2720 | Hey, you don't have any financial background, do you?" "I robbed a bank once," I said, and Caitlin kicked my shin under the table. To their credit, Emma and Ben favored me with polite chuckles. Melanie smirked. I liked the kid. "Daniel is too modest," Caitlin said." | Craig Schaefer | ||
| 5477e5f | So, Emma. Where are we on the ranch project?" "We're signing tomorrow. Things couldn't be running any more smoothly." "Ranch project?" I asked. Emma beamed at me. "It's a coup." 4. "What kind of coup, exactly?" I asked, though part of me thought I might be happier not knowing. Damn my curiosity." | Craig Schaefer | ||
| 0dde89b | She tapped her iPhone and showed me the screen. An aerial photograph looked down over a sprawling, dusty desert ranch. I half expected to see a tumbleweed rolling down the main thoroughfare, or maybe a couple of cowboys out for a high noon showdown. | Craig Schaefer | ||
| 9472442 | It's not all sex work, of course. Any business of that size needs support and grounds staff--" "Gee, Mom." Melanie's voice dripped with sarcasm. "Can I get a summer job there? I'll be the best jizz-mopper ever!" "Melanie!" Emma snapped. I quickly shoved a forkful of prawn in my mouth, trying to keep myself from laughing, but I couldn't hold a straight face. Melanie grinned at me, sensing a kindred spirit at the table. "Language," Caitlin to.. | Craig Schaefer | ||
| f6caa54 | She doesn't dare come after us head-on, not now." "We did," Caitlin said with a faint murmur of pleasure, "slaughter most of her associates." | Craig Schaefer | ||
| b8756cb | She arched one eyebrow, incredulous, and tilted her head. "Daniel? Did you forget who I work for?" In retrospect, it was a dumb question on my part." | Craig Schaefer | ||
| ab9f239 | The problem with doing magic under pressure is that the pressure drowns out the flow, the rhythm. It's like trying to play jazz with a gun to your head. | Craig Schaefer | ||
| cceed98 | If you want to be human, you'd better go buy a house in the suburbs, play golf, and cheat on your taxes, because that's the closest you're ever gonna get. | Craig Schaefer | ||
| 99eaca6 | The gun was an equalizer, but only when it came to the cambion. Sullivan would just swallow the bullets and spit them back out at me. | Craig Schaefer | ||
| 49d1161 | Redemption Choir. Half-demons who want to be human," I said. "So they're the good guys." "No," I said. "They're nuts, and they just kidnapped a priest. They're the bad guys." "Who's AB?" "Special Agent Harmony Black. FBI agent, trying to bust Nicky Agnelli. Honest cop, as far as I know. Straight shooter." "So she's a good guy." "No, because she also wants to bust everyone who Nicky's ever done business with, including me, and Lauren Carmich.. | Craig Schaefer | ||
| 5a7955d | I nearly dropped my fork. "Say that again?" "Human servants, so we can go where--" "No, not that, the second part. The stupid part. You guys are actually Satanists? Like real, no-kidding, play your heavy metal album backward and bark at the moon Satanists?" Mack blinked. Zeke looked like he was fantasizing about killing me. "It's not stupid," Mack said. "We have a place of high honor awaiting us--" "Yeah, it is. It really is. So this is how.. | Craig Schaefer | ||
| 710a74c | At this range, a gut shot from a .32 probably won't kill me. Oh, I won't be loving life, but I'll be alive and conscious enough to squeeze this trigger twice. Now, you take a blast from my piece? You'll be lucky if your spine's still intact." "He's bluffing," Zeke said, but it came out more like a question than a statement." | Craig Schaefer | ||
| c17b9ea | Help me?" I shouldn't have looked, but I did. The silhouette of a bloated man cowered in the dark, extending a fat, trembling hand with half its fingers gnawed to stumps. "Please," he wheezed. "I can't stop eating, and they keep bringing me more--" "Sorry," I said, shaking my head and moving on." | Craig Schaefer | ||
| 0950ce8 | There are few things more dangerous than a zealot with discipline, | Craig Schaefer | ||
| 2027a38 | I'm taking my cash and going somewhere with sunny skies, frosty drinks, and no extradition treaty with the US. | Craig Schaefer | ||
| 403e4a4 | I will try to contact Caine," he said, "but I can't guarantee--" "That's it, hanging up. See ya in hell, Alton." "Wait! Wait, wait, wait! I'll do it. I'll call Caine right now and give the order." He fell silent for a moment, and I listened to his ragged breath. "You son of a bitch. If those soldiers die because of this, it's on your head." | Craig Schaefer | ||
| 5a77bf7 | You killed a buddy of mine, back at the shelter." "Yeah? What about the other three guys I killed? You didn't like them as much?" That shut him up, at least. The elevator door whispered open. Jennifer and I stepped into the cage, bathed in cherry light. The merc leaned in, swiped his keycard, and hit the button for the penthouse floor. "Bon voyage, asshole," he said" | Craig Schaefer | ||
| f7310c4 | I smiled. "Hey, 'Eve,'" I said. "Think you've got some uninvited guests." Now they were on three monitors. Teams of men in uniform black, huddled down behind riot shields, forcing their way into the Enclave lobby. A tear-gas grenade exploded on one camera, blanketing the lens in white smoke. On the parking lot view, a swarm of police cruisers ringed the building. "Oh, hey," I said. "Looks like the whole Vegas Metro SWAT division is here. Pl.. | Craig Schaefer | ||
| acd2f58 | Buy up the land it's on and the twenty acres around it in every direction. Post a permanent guard." "Satellite scans show a small village within that radius." "Shame," the Smile said. "The drug cartels are just getting bolder and bolder these days, aren't they, Ms. Green? I hear they've been known to massacre entire villages as reprisal for some imagined slight." Green nodded sharply. "Understood," | Craig Schaefer | ||
| 99def02 | All the danger, none of the reward. | Craig Schaefer | ||
| 32c9152 | Problem there," I said, "is you didn't keep track of them. The name Lauren Carmichael mean anything to you?" He shook his head, brow furrowed. "No. Should it?" "There weren't two tunnels. There were three. She found the third on a dig in Nepal. Your boys showed up to save the day. See, first they pushed Lauren into slaughtering all the witnesses, except for one." Bob blinked. "I...didn't intend for them to hurt anyone. That wasn't the idea .. | Craig Schaefer | ||
| 5c8bd30 | After a moment, she nodded to herself. "Oh, you little scamp," she murmured. "What is it?" She lowered her glasses, just enough to show me the burning molten-copper swirls of her eyes. Her real eyes. "He's marked by one of my kind," she said. "That's why he's so afraid to die. He literally sold his soul." | Craig Schaefer | ||
| c141182 | You either need to get some kind of guarantee of silence out of Nicky Agnelli--the kind that'll sew his lips shut for life--or start checking into countries that don't have extradition treaties. | Craig Schaefer | ||
| 4f789e9 | I liked my old place, a rehabbed motel room in the shadow of the Vegas strip. Really felt like home--until a psycho half-demon pitched a Molotov cocktail through my window. | Craig Schaefer | ||
| c9c006f | my list of requirements was hard to meet. Ideally, I needed quiet neighbors, a landlord who took rent payments in cash and wasn't picky about background checks, and hardwood floors for chalking down the occasional ritual circle. | Craig Schaefer | ||
| a185e4d | I don't know what rock you crawled out from under, but I do know this: you came in here under false pretenses, then you scared my husband, and you hurt our boy. That puts you about two notches lower than dog shit on the list of things I'm scared of. You're gonna leave now, and if you ever set foot on my property again, I'll end you." Naavarasi's eyes widened. Her lips curled as she said, "You impudent little--" Corman swung up the shotgun, .. | Craig Schaefer | ||
| 1f09499 | She slapped an envelope down on the table and loudly announced, "Fredrika Vinter, House of Vinter, champion of good taste. If you don't know what that is, I'll buy you a dictionary." | Craig Schaefer | ||
| 3d5d0a1 | This was the real blues, down-home raw and ragged, drenched with sweat and sex and the bloodied edge of a switchblade. | Craig Schaefer | ||
| 3f2d5ee | He was a rogue agent, acting without my prince's sanction. Also, we wrote a letter of apology. Don't know what else you want from us." "That's funny," I said. "I didn't get one. Did you send it to my old apartment? That must be why. See, it burned down while I was protecting that asshole from the Redemption Choir." "I'll see that you get a copy," Royce said." | Craig Schaefer |