Death is certain, Aleran—for all of us. That being true, we know that all of those we love will either be torn away from us, or we will be torn away from them. It follows as naturally as the night aft...
Death comes, old man. Its hand is on your heart now. And your life has been spent in vain.
Crap, I said. I’m quite eloquent in times of crisis
Could just be Chicago. Which can be just as scary as Mab, some days.
Could a man's heart, his soul, perish and yet leave him walking and talking as if alive?
Come with me if you want to live, I said. Excuse me? No time, I said. It isn’t your fault, but you’re into some bad business, Harvey. There’s a woman with two hired goons about to come up your back st...
Chicago is what a polite person would call a colorful place. It’s a den of crime and corruption. And it’s a monument to architecture and enterprise. It’s violent and dangerous, and an epicenter of mus...
Chicago is an alien citadel, a source of power and terror. Mordor, basically. (One does not simply walk into Mordor - except that was exactly what everyone in the story did anyway.)
By the time I got home, it was after two o’clock in the morning. The
But even with centuries of experience, I doubted any of them had ever been hit with a water balloon. Or with a holy-water balloon, either.
Bosun! Aye, skipper? Reinforce the mainmast, hang out all the laundry, and warn the witchmen! Let’s make the old bitch fly!
Booya! I drunkenly howled from the ground. I choked a little on the dust as I staggered back to my feet, my heart pounding, my whole body alive with strain and adrenaline. I stabbed a pointing finger...
Books were expensive, as well. But she’d read enough of them to know that they were only as valuable as the contents of their writers’ minds—and to her it seemed that a great many writers, had they be...
Bob, I asked. What is all my stuff doing here? Oh, Bob said. That. Well. Bianca got the idea, somewhere, that your stuff might explode if anyone messed around with it. I heard the wryness in my voice,...
Bikers don’t wear all that leather around simply for the fashion value or possible felony assaults. It’s handy for keeping the highway from ripping the skin from your flesh should you wind up losing c...
Being called dangerous by a cat could mean a great many things, but it was generally delivered as something of a compliment.
Because even if they are doing something immoral, I'd be an idiot to start criticizing them for it if I wasn't perfect myself. Smoking is self-destructive. Drinking is self-destructive. Losing your te...
At five feet and small change, a hundred and not much, she didn’t exactly look like a tough Chicago cop who could face down monsters and maniacs with equal nerve. Chicks like that aren’t supposed to b...
And if I was to die, I was not going to go out in a gibbering heap of terror.
And besides, she was curious. She had questions. And answering questions was very nearly always more important than caution.