City of Dark Magic

Only the passionate were immortal, it seemed. If you fought, screwed, screamed, laughed, or otherwise experienced life intensely, for better or worse, you left a record. Those who lived a quiet, well-behaved, well-tempered life? Gone without a trace.

What do you know that you’re not telling me?" "I don’t know what you know, so I don’t know what you don’t know.

Prague. Praha. The name actually meant “threshold”. Pollina had said the city was a portal between the life of the good and … the other. A city of dark magic, Alessandro had called it.

Men were ridiculous, in all cultures and across time.

Sometimes it was just better to blow shit up.

History should be studied but not worshipped.

Isn’t it funny that only twenty years ago, they were down there cowering in terror that we trigger-happy, decadent, capitalist Americans would go nuclear on them any minute? Little did they know our secret weapon was Starbucks.

The city was in a panic, though a panic in Italy means most people still stand around coffee bars drinking espresso and Prosecco.

It wasn't enough to be alive. Everyone needed something to live for. Or die for.

This place was just a pile of old stones. Pretty stones arranged in intriguing ways, but just old stones. “And outdated wiring,” her father would have added.

Dig your nails deep enough into the back of a Soviet, and eventually you'll find a Russian.

Eleanor was all apologies, but Sarah enjoyed seeing a bit more of the Czech countryside. You probably couldn't say that you had really seen a country if all you had seen was a city or two. You had to see where the food was grown, what the riverbanks looked like, and what the highway manners of the inhabitants were.

Rules of science.” Alessandro shrugged his elegant shoulders. “And what are those? We don’t even know how this works.” He pointed to his head.

Prague is a threshold.” “A threshold?” “Yes. Between the life of good and … the other.” Sarah thought of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. “I’m not going to have to fight demons, am I?

...how strange and frightening and intoxicating life could be.

Charlotte Yates loved humanity with all her heart, but she really had to draw the line at individuals. For the most part they were incredibly stupid, clumsy, selfish, and criminally shortsighted. Look, for instance, at who they voted for.

You see de white gown she wears, richly embroidered, showing de family’s wealth and influence,” said Daphne authoritatively. “De red rose in her hair symbolizes her Spanish ancestry. De prayer book in her left hand to display de Catholic allegiance.” “What does the dog symbolize?” Sarah asked. Daphne blinked at her for a moment. “De dog is just a dog,” she said, finally.

Charlotte Yates didn’t especially care for music. All that abstract mooning about. Words, that was what moved people. A good play was worth a thousand symphonies.

She hadn’t really counted on having to measure pedagogic dick length with a whole tribe.

The Nazis had been one thing. The communists were another. But now there were academics crawling all over the palace.

Served her right, really, having sex in a supply closet of the Boston Hyatt. But George had smelled like oranges and leather and he had bent her over one of those carts housekeeping wheeled around with soaps and shower caps and dry-cleaning request forms. That had been fun, and afterward she had pocketed some shampoo and conditioner.

Ludwig’s enormous, awe-inspiring genius, his productivity, his prescient modernism were all contained in music. Beside that, the letters to the Immortal Beloved looked no more impressive to her than bathroom stall graffiti: L.V.B. luvs his I.B. Wishes she wuz here.

The cold war was over, but all the little games persisted. It was a good thing those puppets in the Middle East had been too busy grubbing around in their deserts to play any serious role in international espionage ... She took a calming moment to visualize the entire Arab world as a giant parking lot. Lovely.

They just didn't make them like that anymore. Nowadays she was lucky to get some mild flirtation from some leather-faced NRA lobbyist. Forget about doggy-style on an eighteenth-century canopied bed by a certified KGB agent who said things like “beg for it my little Yankee poodle.

... reminding her that life was short, and that soon she, too, would be one of the wraiths floating around the castle. But only if she really lived first, otherwise there would be no trace of her at all. Only the passionate were immortal, it seemed.

There. She had at last located the source of her sadness. It was people. Charlotte Yates loved humanity with all her heart, but she really had to draw the line at individuals.

Only the passionate were immortal, it seemed. If you fought, screwed, screamed, laughed, or otherwise experienced life intensely, for better or for worse, you left a record. Those who lived a quiet, well-behaved, well-tempered life? Gone without a trace.