Ilona Andrews

“People view us and our vampires as abominations," Ghastek said. "They call the undead inhuman, not realizing the irony: only humans are capable of inhumanity. Four thousand years of technology, with magic shrinking to a mere trickle before the Shift, yet the world was just as evil then as it is now. It's not vampires or werewolves who committed the worst atrocities, but average people. They are the serial killers, the child rapists, the inquisitors, the witch hunters, the perpetrators of monstrous deeds. The shackles on my wall are the symbol of humanity's capacity for cruelty. I keep them to remind myself that I must fear those who fear me.”

“She pivoted on one foot, turning her sword. Fast. Her head snapped toward me. Dark eyes stared straight at me. I detected no fear. Instead it was a look of challenge. So not a mouse after all, but something more. This could be interesting. I'd let her dance in the dirt a bit more. She was fun to watch.She crouched with her hand out. What the hell was she doing... "Here, kitty, kitty, kitty." Oh my God, she was retarded and I was going to kill Jim.”

“Because you are the one. You are better than me in some things, and I am better than you in others...I don’t mind being a bit like you. I hope you don’t mind being a bit like me.”

“You’re a prickly, stubborn, spirited woman.”“Don’t forget crude, rude, and vulgar.”“Only when it suits you. You’re sly when occasion calls for it, direct to the point of forgetting tact even exists, sarcastic, fierce, I did mention stubborn, didn’t I?”“Yes,” she said dryly.“You’re also smart, kind, gentle, beautiful, and always cling to your personal integrity, even when it’s in your best interests to abandon it.” A little warm feeling spread through her chest, and even her natural suspicion that he was lying couldn’t quite extinguish it. Where was he going with this? “You’re also quite funny,” he said.“Oh, I amuse you?” He gave her one of his devastating, slightly wicked smiles.“You have no idea.” Arrogant ass.“And all of that means what?”“Just that I mean to have you.” She frowned at him. “I mean to have you, Rose, you and all of your thorns. I’m a disagreeable and stubborn bastard, but I’m not a fool. You didn’t really expect me to pass you up, did you?”

“Cajun stomp?""You heard me, swamper. And keep your hands to yourself.”

“You enjoyed it. It made you feel alive. You were looking kind of green." You bastard. "Oh, so it was a lifesaving kiss.""Well, if you want to put it that way ...”

“Did I ever tell you that you are like sunshine in the middle of the night?”

“Who is there with you?""Raphael"Kate's voice snapped. "I'll be in Atlanta in three hours. Where are you?""I said it's nothing major.""Bullshit. You wouldn't work with Raphael unless the Apocalypse was imminent and that was the only way to prevent it.”

“Kate had never met a person she didn't want to protect, preferably by hacking at the hostile parties with her sword.”

“Andrea, in less than twelve hours, Atlanta will be full of demons. They will kill, feed, and release more demons. What emergency is more important than this one?She hesitated. "I'm not supposed to disclose this. There's a man. His name is Roland..."I almost punched the wall. "What is he doing that's so damn crucial? What, is he building another tower? It will fall like all his other ones. Or did his eye finally grow back and he decided to have a battle to celebrate?”

“Bran grabbed my hand,pulled me to a chest, and swung the heavy lid open. A white cloth covered the contents. He jerked it aside. Human heads filled the chest."Oh God."He scooped a mummified head from the chest by a scalp lock and thrust it at me. "All of them are mine."This was officially the weirdest version of "come down to my place and I'll show you some etchings" I've ever been hit with.”

“Damn boudas. I tell him he's under siege and he goes to take a nap.”

“They really kicked me out?" "Refunded the tuition and everything." Julie blinked a couple of times coming to grips with this tidbit. "So what happens now?" "I expect you'll be a bum. Homeless and jobless begging on the street for a crust of bread..." "Kate." "Oh, alright, I suppose if you come by the office once in a while I'll give you a sandwich. You can squat in the office on the floor when it gets too cold outside. We can even get you a little blanket to lie on...”

“Say 'pop.'" "Pop?" "That was the sound of me pulling your head out of your ass.”

“They had picked up Julie's scent hit wolfsbane lost her and found her trail again at the crumbling Highway 23 except it was two hours old and mixed with horse scents. She was hitchhiking. Great. Awesome. At least she always carried a knife with her. When I relayed this to Curran he shrugged and said, "If she kills anybody we'll make it go away.”

“What’s this ”“A needle.”“What should I do with it ” He’d walked right into it. Too easy. “Please use it to pop your head. It’s obscuring my view of the room.”

“Jack didn’t fully get Jesus. Audrey tried to explain it, and he could repeat it back to her, word for word, but he still didn’t comprehend most of it. The best he could gather was that Jesus lived long ago, told people to be nice, and they killed him for it. At the end, he asked who was Jesus’ necromancer and if he was in the Bible, then Kaldar couldn’t stop laughing and had to sit down.”

“Help me, I can’t breathe, your ego is pushing all the air out of the room.”

“You’re like a god from a Greek myth, Saiman. You have no empathy. You have no concept of the world beyond your ego. Wanting something gives you an automatic right to obtain it by whatever means necessary with no regard to the damage it may do. I would be careful if I were you. Friends and objects of deities’ desires dropped like flies. In the end the gods always ended up miserable and alone."— Kate Daniels”

“Great, now I’ve turned into a manga character who repeated everything everyone said.”

“Fuck the pack. I gave them fifteen years of my life. I fought for them, bled for them, and the moment my back was turned, they attacked my wife. I owe them nothing.”

“Hard to protect your food, with your ass anchored." He saluted me with the doughnut. "When you're ready to talk, call me. You know the number."He walked out.”

“Peope, especially unhappy people, want a cause. They want something to belong to, to be a part of something great and bigger, and to be led. It's easy to be a cog in a machine: you don't have to think, you have no responsibility. You're just following orders, doing as you're told.”

“She had wailed loudly enough to wake the dead and make them call the cops.”

“This man was a rogue, not because circumstances forced him to be a criminal but because he was born that way. He was probably conning his mother out of her milk the moment he could grin. He'd charm the clothes off a virgin in twenty minutes. And if the poor fool took him home, he'd drink her dad under the table, beguile her mother, charm her grandparents, and treat the girl to a night she'd never forget. In the morning, her dad would be sick with alcohol poisoning, the good silver would be missing together with the family car, and in a month, both the former virgin and her mother would be expecting.”

“Minutes passed by. A little blue butterfly landed on my nose. I blinked at it and it fluttered to my ear. A big yellow butterfly gently floated over and landed on my paw. Soon a whole swarm of them floated up and down around me, like a swirl of multicolored petals. It happened in my backyard, too, if the magic was strong enough. Butterflies were small and light, and very magic sensitive. For some reason I made them feel safe and they gravitated to me like iron shavings to a magnet. They ruined my ferocious badass image, but you’d have to be a complete beast to swat butterflies.If a baby deer frolicked out from between the buildings trying to cuddle up, I would roar. I wouldn’t bite it, but I would roar. I had my limits.”

“My point is, I would never hurt you or your family.”I raised my chin at him. “If you tried to hurt my mother, I would totally kick your ass.”“Aha.”“Yes. You would be lying on the ground, crying, ‘No more, no more,’ and I would be kicking you in the stomach, wham, wham, wham!” He laughed softly.”

“Curran and I mixed about as well as glycerin and nitric acid: put us together, shake a bit, and hit the deck as we exploded.”

“You were joking about the whole please and thank you thing, right?""Meant every word." A little light danced in his eyes and he very deliberately said, "Baby."No.He laughed. "You should see your face right now.""Don't call me that.""Would you prefer 'darling'? Or maybe 'cupcake'?" He winked.”

“Humans tend to segregate the world: enemies on one side, friends on the other. Friends are people we know. Enemies are the Other. You can do just about anything to the Other. It doesn't matter if this Other is actually guilty of any crimes, because it's a matter of emotion, not logic. You see, angry people aren't interested in justice. they just want an excuse to vent their rage. And once you become their Other, you're no longer a person. You're just an idea, an abstraction of everything that's wrong with their world. Give them the slightest excuse, and they will tear you down. And the easiest way for them to target you as this Other is to find something that's different about you.”

“What do you think?" he asked, his voice deep and commanding.I eyed him. "Impressive, but too much."He leaned toward me, the blue eyes smoky with a promise I was shure he could fulfill. I tried not to think of the bedroom."Too much?""Yes. I like the menace. It's very masculine, but he looks like he would screw everything in sight and call me 'wench”

“Kid 1: *examining my gorgeous strawberry and blueberry pies*: Wow, Mom, your pies don’t look awful this time.Me (Ilona): ...~A little later~Kid 2: *wandering into the kitchen*Kid 1: Hey, you’ve got to see these pies. *opening the stove*Kid 2: Wow. They are not ugly this time.Kid 1: I know, right?”

“He isn’t so much flirting,” Cerise murmured. “Either he doesn’t like me or he doesn’t know how.”“Of course he likes you. You’re lovely. He probably just doesn’t get it. Some men have to be hit over the head with it. Her aunt rolled her eyes. “I thought I’d have to draw your uncle Jean a giant sign. That or kidnap him and have my evil way with him, until he got the message.”

“The only people who can have normal are the ones unaffected by all the fucked-up shit that happens around them.” - Curran”

“swore. “Barabas said you might say that. I’m supposed to tell you this.” Ascanio cleared his throat and produced a remarkably accurate impression of Barabas’s tenor. “Courage, Your Majesty.” “I will kill him.” “The Beast Lord or Barabas?” “Both.”

“It’s your duty as my best friend to be outraged with me.” “I’m outraged!” I snarled. “That bastard!” “Thank you,” Andrea said.”

“Runes, runes, runes... Runes. An inverted Algiz rune. The caption next to it said “Chernobog.” The Black God. Right. Of course, it wouldn’t be Chernobog, God of Morning Dew on the Rose Petals, but a woman could always hope.”

“Why the hell would anyone be eating at the Grease Trap? I’ve seen flies die from buzzing by that place.” Andrea crossed her arms. “Oh, I don’t know, probably because your career just ended and you are depressed and don’t feel like breathing, let alone going out, but your body still needs food and that’s the closest place to your apartment and they don’t mind if you bring a giant dog with you.” “What, you couldn’t find a Dumpster that was closer?” Andrea glared at me. “What are you implying?” “The Dumpster would have better food in it.” “Well, excuse me, Miss Fine Dining.”

“We can do subtle," I assured her."It's our middle name," Andrea added.For some odd reason Rene didn't look convinced.”

“It's not a loup cage, you know,' I told her. 'It's a holding cell. Or safe room. or secure room. I don't think Jim ever settled on a term he could live with.''Aha. It's a loup cage.' Andrea cleared her throat. 'I touched it with my finger and it hurt. Is that in case of marital problems?”

“If I fought for them and was crippled, they would all say nice things,and then they would replace me and forget I was ever there. You would stay with me. You would take care of me, because you love me. I love you too, Kate. If you ever became hurt, I would not leave you.I’ll be there. Wherever you want‘there’ to be.-Curran to Kate”

“I'm not ashamed of my human or my lynx form. I wear clothes because people force me to. I don't need to put on a costume every morning to feel better about myself."-Jack”

“Jack sheathed his knife, tied the dressed hare to a stick, and slung it over his shoulder. It wouldn't do for the meat to touch his school uniform. Might make the kill dirty.”

“Marriage was a trap. The moment the man said the word “I do” at the altar, he surrendered his freedom. He was no longer free to pursue other women. Staying out past the appointed hour required his wife’s permission. Getting drunk with his friends resulted in a fight when he got home. He’d have to report where he went, when he would be back, who he would be with, and why he would choose to do something else rather than stay home and pick out fabric for new drapes. A married man was no longer carefree. He was a provider, a husband and a father. The castle was no longer his.”

“Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. He had the two wards of the fucking Marshal of the fucking Southern Provinces in a stolen car. An entire continent away from where the two of them were supposed to be. In the Broken. Where they had beat up some Broken children. Well, if those children weren’t broken before, they were surely broken now. Fate, that broody, vicious, fickle bitch.”

“George grimaced. “Jack is spoiled. Things are hard for him, but he isn’t the only one who doesn’t have it easy. He gets away with crazy things because he’s a changeling and he’s different. Jack could behave better, but he stopped trying. He decided that he’s worthless and that nothing he could do would make any difference.”

“I know it's late, but could you find a book for me? It's called The Slavs: Study of Pagan Tradition by Osvintsev."Barabas sighed dramatically. "Kate, you make me despair. Let's try that again from the top, except this time pretend you are an alpha.""I don't need a lecture. I just need the book.""Much better. Little more growl in the voice?""Barabas!""And we're there. Congratulations!”

“Shane lowered his glasses on his nose and gave me his version of a severe stare.I leaned a little toward Luther. "Is this the part where I faint in fear?"Luther bit his lip. "He might also accept falling to your knees and holding your hands in humble supplication. Makes it easier for him to slap the cuffs on.”

“You think he's got 'government badass' tattooed on his chest?" I murmured.A faint grimace skewed Luther's mouth. "And 'I'd tell you but I'd have to kill you' on his ass.”

“I looked at him. "You really need to work on your threats. I can't tell if you're threatening me or inviting me for tea.”