“She's a slinky sort of person, no angles at all; and magnetic - you can't take your eyes off her. She's dressed like a Westerner, but her eyes have a slant to them. They are the eyes of an Easterner. She doesn't walk like our women do, she seems to writhe all in one piece - undulates is the word. ("Kiss Of The Cobra")”
“When she comes down to supper I don't like her any better; in fact, a hell of a lot less. She's put on a shiny dress, all fishscales, like this was still India or the boat. On her head she's put a sort of beaded cap that fits close-like a hood. A mottled green-and-black thing that gleams dully in the candlelight. Not a hair shows below it, you can't tell whether she's a woman or what the devil she is. Right in front, above her forehead, there's a sort of question-mark worked into it, in darker beads. You can't be sure what it is, but it's shaped like a question mark. ("Kiss of the Cobra")”
“She thrust out her arms wide, in strange ritual of triumph, as Mimi Brissard had in Paris. She was a black, ominous death-cross against the starlight for a moment. Then she turned slowly, her eyes two green phosphorescent pools, toward where the helpless secret service man lay. ("I'm Dangerous Tonight")”
“Stahl trailed him upstairs, across a mezzanine, and out into the darkness of the sloping balcony. Tom gave the aisle his torch so his guest could see. On the screen below a woman's head was wavering, two or three times larger than life. A metallic voice clanged out, echoing sepulchrally all over the house, like a modern Delphic Oracle. 'Go back, go back!' she said. 'This is no place for you!' Her big luminous eyes seemed to be looking right at Lew Stahl as she spoke. Her finger came out and pointed, and it seemed to aim straight at him and him alone. It was weird; he almost stopped in his tracks, then went on again. He hadn't eaten all day; he figured he must be woozy, to think things like that. ("Dusk To Dawn")”
“She was beautiful, only hers was the dark beauty of night, just as Sherry's was the bright beauty of daytime. Her hair was raven-black, ending in a sort of widow's peak low on her forehead, and her face and arms were alabaster- white. Her gown was a clinging thing of swirling black, almost like smoke, and two peculiar shoulder-draperies she wore, hanging down loosely and caught at the wrists, almost suggested great triangular wings when her arms were in motion.Her lips were a red gash in the pallor of her face, and they glistened as though she had daubed them with fresh blood instead of rouge."What's your name?" I asked."Call me Faustine," she said low. I saw her staring fixedly at me, with a sort of half-smile on her face, but her gaze rested a little lower than my own face. I fingered my neck uneasily. "Is there something on my collar?"("Vampire's Honeymoon")”
“Beside her, her husband could only splutter, and he stopped even that when she half turned to flash him a smile - the instinctive, brilliant smile of a woman who knows what feeble creatures men can be. You couldn't learn to smile like that. It was something a woman either knew the minute she was born, or never knew at all. ("I'm Dangerous Tonight")”
“Play it, Eddie, don't be foolish;' she urges. 'Now's the time, break the spell once and for all, prove to yourself that it can't hurt you. If you don't do it now, you'll never get over the idea. It'll stay with you all your life. Go ahead. I'll dance it just like I am.' 'Okay,' he says.He taps. It's been quite some time, but he can rely on his outfit. Slow and low like thunder far away, coming nearer. Boom-putta-putta-boom! Judy whirls out behind him, lets out the first preliminary screech, Eeyaeeya!She hears a commotion in back of her and stops as suddenly as she began. Eddie Bloch's fallen flat on his face and doesn't move again after that.They all know, somehow. There's an inertness, a finality about it that tells them. The dancers wait a minute, mill about, then melt away in a hush. Judy Jarvis doesn't scream, doesn't cry, just stands there staring, wondering. That last thought - did it come from inside his own mind just now - or outside? Was it two months on its way, from the other side of the grave, looking for him, looking for him, until it found him tonight when he played the Chant once more and laid his mind open to Africa? No policeman, no detective, no doctor, no scientist, will ever be able to tell her. Did it come from inside or from outside? All she says is: 'Stand close to me, boys - real close to me, I'm afraid of the dark.' ("Papa Benjamin" aka "Dark Melody Of Madness")”