Kelley Armstrong

“Cleavage is great," she said. "Like an extra pocket.”

“You forget, darling, I am the local psychopath." ~Clayton Danvers, Bitten”

“I just... I understand you might want to start dating more seriously, and that means dating someone from town. But if you're going to do that..." This time he took a long drink of coffee, and the mug was still at his lips when he said, "I like Daniel. He takes care of you."I blinked. "Oh my God. Did you really just say that? He takes care of me?"Dad flushed. "I didn't mean it like-""Takes care of me? Did I go to sleep and wake up in the nineteenth century?" I looked down at my jeans and T-shirt. "Ack! I can't go to school like this. Where's my corset? My bonnet?”

“I might be half Derek's size, but I was the one who sounded like a two-hundred-pound beast plowing through the woods.”

“A guitar twanged from the far-off radio. Country music. Damn. They'd resorted to torture already.”

“Picture a place called the Karma Kafe and it'll save me the bother of describing it. There was nothing in it you wouldn't expect, from the Buddha flowerpots to the wallpaper decorated with symbols that probably said, "If you bought this just because it looked pretty, may Buddha piss in your coffee, you culturally ignorant moron.”

“I was...a journalist...though my typical beat was freelancing articles on Canadian politics, which never included any mention of demonic phenomena, though it might explain the rise of the neoconservatives.”

“Clearly it was time to consider rescheduling that optometrist appointment I'd missed last fall.”

“Rafe grinned. "So we are dating?""No. You have to pass the parental exam first. It'll take you awhile to compile the data. They'd like it in triplicate."I turned to my parents. "We have Kenji. We have my cell phone. Since we aren't officially dating, I'm sure you'll agree that's all the protection we need."Dad chocked on his coffee.”

“This is so cool,” I said as Dad walked away. “Have you met the tattoo artist? Is he hot?“He’s a she,” Mom said.“Is she hot? Cause I’m still young, you know. My sexual identity isn’t fully formed.”

“Got your text,” he said when I climbed out. “How much did it hurt?”“Not at all,” I said. “Apparently, I can’t get a tattoo because I’m a witch.”“I could have told them-” He stopped. “Oh, you said witch.”“Ha-ha.”

“With no chance to take off, I had to play my role, searching for the rendezvous spot, which gave me the excuse to look for an escape opportunity. Maybe a hole in the wall too small for Tori’s mom to follow me through or a precarious stack of boxes I could topple onto her head or an abandoned hammer I could brain her with. I’d never “brained” anyone in my life, but with Tori’s mom, I was willing to try.”

“Tell her to be quiet, and she got louder. Tell her to stay back, and she pushed me into the line of fire. Tell her to watch for our pursuers, and she hovered at my shoulder instead. Open the door to listen, and she wanted to drag me back inside.Ah. The beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

“He stood and inhaled, then walked a few more feet, stooped, and prodded a chunk of rabbit fur.“I’m definitely thinking something with more body parts,” I said. “Like a head.”He gave a snort of a laugh. “It’s probably around here somewhere, but I suppose you want the parts attached, too.”

“He rolled his eyes. "First, my Dad's Korean and my mom was Swedish. Second, I totally suck at math. I don't like cuckoo clocks or skiing or fancy chocolate either."I sputtered a laugh. "I think that's Swiss.”

“Simon's walls were covered in what looked like pages ripped from a comic book, but when I squinted, I realized they were hand drawn. Some were black-and-white, but most were in full color,everything from character sketches to splash panels to full pages, done in a style that wasn't quite manga, wasn'tquite comic book.”

“It's because when we sneeze, our soul flies out our nose and if no one says 'bless you,' the devil can snatch it.”

“I'd been staring at the search term for at least five minutes. Oneword. Necromancer.”

“Do you like manga?" she asked after a minute. "Anime?""Anime's cool. I'm not really into it, but 1 like Japanese movies,animated or not.""Well, I'm into it. I watch the shows, read the books, chat on the boards, and all that. But this girl I know, she'scompletely into it. She spends most of her allowance on the books and DVDs. She can recite dialogue fromthem." She caught my gaze. "So would you say she belongs here?""No. Most kids are that way about something, right? With me, it'smovies. Like knowing who directed a sci-fi movie made before I was born.”

“Maturity is highly overrated.”

“I put you through hell and then I only made it worse, all the mistakes I made trying to get you back.''I've forgiven you.''Forgive, yes. Understand, yes. Forget, no.”

“When the subject of kids first came up years ago, I'd joked that the only thing I could imagine worse than me as a mother was Clay as a father. I couldn't have been more wrong. Clay was an amazing parents. The guy who couldn't spare a few minutes to hear a mutt's side of the story could listen to his kids talk all day. The guy who couldn't sit still through a brief council meeting could spend hours building Lego castles with his kids. The guy who solved problems with his fists never even raised his voice to his children. And if sometimes Clay was a little too indulgent, a little too slow to discipline, preferring to leave that to me, I was okay with it. He supported and enforced my decisions and we presented a unified front to our children, and that was all that mattered.”

“Oddly enough, I find the best hostages are the live ones. - Karl”

“When you accept a leadership role, you take on extra responsibility for your actions toward others.”

“Maybe my expectations for honesty are too high.”

“Remembering. Forgetting. I'm not sure which is worse.”

“I'd always thought of myself as an open-minded person. I had no patience with anyone who put down other kids because of their race, religion, or sexuality. But that's just one kind of open-mindedness. There's another kind, too, the kind that's willing to see people for who they really are and admit when you were wrong about them. That's the part I still need to work on.”

“‎"If you want that kind of thing, call Nick. His advice is shit, but he really likes to give it.”

“Elena?""Yes, unless Nick found a woman in the forest, which I suppose wouldn't be too surprising.”

“Bigger room, darling. Like I said, we need a bigger room.”

“Just show him that I didn't need his apology, I guess. Show him that I was okay. Better than okay. I was happy, in spite of everything he'd done to me, and no, I didn't forgive him. God help me, I would not forgive him.”

“I don't forgive him," I said."Hell, no, you don't. And why should you? So he can feel better? Get on with his life? And what's he done to help you get on with yours?”

“And the lesson is that I should always wear these, so no one asks me to do anything crazy like climb onto a roof. ~Jaime Vegas on why she wears three inch heels on a mission”

“So, let me get this straight," he said to me. "You save my ass and you're a loser. I stick up for you because of it and I'm a hero. How does that work?""I don't know. But it's so sweet.”

“The secretary moved in to block Simon as I followed Thierry into the office. As the door closed, I heard her whisper, "I think it's very sweet, you sticking up for your brother like that.""I'm not trying to be sweet," Simon said, raising his voice so Thierry could hear. "I'm trying to be fair. But apparently no one's interested in that.”

“You wanna fight?" I asked.He looked up at me and, for just a second, hesitated, then said, "Yeah. I do.""Well, I'll save you the trouble. You win.”

“Don't talk to the crazy kids. I longed to shout back that we weren't crazy. I'd mistaken her kid for a ghost, that's all.I wondered whether they had books about his sort of thing. Fifty Ways to Tell the Living from the Dead Before You Wind Up in a Padded Room. Yep, I'm sure the library carried that one.”

“Release the demon under promise that I'd be repaid handsomely, my enemies destroyed? Hmm, where had I seen this before? Oh, right. Every demon horror movie ever made. And the horror part started right after the releasing part.”

“No. Harsh truth was better than comfortable lies. It had to be.”

“I had to take responsibility, even if it meant saying no to an authority figure, because I was the authority on me.”

“The upshot of her tirade was that I was the devil's spawn and should be locked up in a tower before I unleashed hordes of the living dead to slaughter them all in their sleep. Well, maybe that's an exaggeration, but not by much.”

“Wild dogs? Or just Clayton?-Nick Sorrentino (Bitten)”

“The part about me being an 'okay sorcerer'? 'Not great'? No I believe I missed that.-Lucas Cortez (Dime Store Magic)”

“It's a road!"I patted his back." It's a lovely road. Now which way do we go?"Corey looked one way, the brown ribbon extending into emptiness. He looked the other way, saw the same thing and his shoulders slumped."Damn.”

“It's a road," Corey said, pointing."A dirt road," Hayley muttered."So? We've been slogging through the forest for two days. What do you want? A six-lane highway?”

“I'm just saying it's not time for that either. We need to focus and having Maya moon over Rafe is making everyone uncomfortable."Rafe grinned. "Doesn't bother me.”

“Yes," I said "You were saved by a girl. Horrible, isn't it?"He slid out and looked down at my bare legs. "Not just a girl, but a half-naked one. Now that's hot. If I'm still unconscious, don't wake me, okay?”

“His gaze travelled down me, then zipped back to my face. "Sorry.""Focus, Rafe.""I am. Just on the wrong thing.”

“I got to eavesdrop at a window. As Clay said, I did have another option. I could wait in the car and let them fill me in later. So, eavesdropping it was.”

“Go out and ask her into the alley.”Clay looked at Jeremy as if he’d just been told to dance the rumba on a public thoroughfare.I bit back a laugh. “Just walk over to her and point at the alley. Maybe say…I don’t know…something like ‘fifty bucks.’ ” I looked at Jeremy. “Does that sound right? Fifty?”His brows shot up. “Why are you asking me?”“I wasn’t—I just meant, as a general…” I threw up my hands. “How am I supposed to know how much a hooker costs?”