I pretended to think, stalling for time. Something you want, something you…oh, right! It just arrived. A big pile of ‘fuck you’ with your name on it. I gave him the finger. Sullivan frowned. What? I s...
It looked like a cutoff valve. Assuming I had any idea what I was looking at. Assuming it would work. Assuming the whole rig wasn’t an elaborate fail-safe, a trap that would start the killing rain as...
Magic is not, as a general rule, the healthiest of passions or the gentlest of muses.
Monsters always prey on the people who’ve already been beaten down.
Most confidence games depend on the mark not knowing they’re being conned. The Kansas City Shuffle depends on the mark knowing it. Not only do they have to see you coming, they have to figure out your...
The machinery joining the vats was a nightmare jumble of pipes and flanges. Since you couldn’t really hire a professional plumber to set up your deathtraps, some clever techie on Angus Caine’s payroll...
The world is full of good men who make bad decisions, I told her. Sometimes it works out. Sometimes it doesn’t. You just have to figure things out the best you can. Make the best choices you can. Choi...
Watch your mouth, Emma said. I can’t…I can’t even deal with you right now. Go to your room. We’ll discuss this in the morning. Mom, c’mon— I could see Emma’s eyes flash copper from across the room, gl...
We’ll put in at a private airport—the owner goes deaf and blind if you kick him twenty bucks—and head for this place in the French Quarter. Restaurant with a sideline in moving contraband. They know m...
What about the second floor? Coop said. Any other security up there? My gaze flicked to the screen. I kept seeing the other photos, the ones I couldn’t show them, fresh in my mind’s eye. Yeah. But tha...
What is this? Artie squirmed helplessly in the chair. What, you want revenge? Is that what this is all about? You think that’s gonna make you feel better? Movement caught his eye, beyond the wall of b...
Whatever the Garden had once been, now it was seething with corruption. Abundant life. It makes me laugh, in retrospect. Mr. Faust, did you know that there’s a medical term for abundant life? For cell...
With that fence it’s a total blind approach to the back door, I thought. Anyone could be hiding around that corner. Guards don’t care. They’ve run this route a thousand times for a thousand days; they...
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’...
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 s...
Hie! it cried in a buzzing voice, like a thousand flies fluttering their wings in unison. You! On our wavelength! Carry our message! It’s heavy, made of rocks! You aren’t real, Sophia repeated like a...
I hit the arrow key one last time and froze. I’d captured it, all right. It nearly filled the frame, so big it would have to squeeze through the loft’s doors to move around. Or squirm through. I could...
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.
The key to walking around places where you’re not supposed to be is to look like you’re too important to be interrupted. Most people are non-confrontational by nature, and if you give them a good reas...
This should set you free. It’s okay, Stacy. You’re going to a better place. Um, Daniel? Caitlin said beside me. Yeah? She shook her head. You do know she’s going to hell, right? I froze, my fingers ti...
Showing 201 to 220 of 220 results