Nightlife

When life gives you lemons. . . You might as well shove 'em where the sun don't shine, because you sure as hell aren't ever going to see any lemonade.

We all have our security blankets in this world. Some are just sharper than others.

Most kids don't believe in fairy tales very long. Once they hit six or seven they put away "Cinderella" and her shoe fetish, "The Three Little Pigs" with their violation of building codes, "Miss Muffet" and her well-shaped tuffet—all forgotten or discounted. And maybe that's the way it has to be. To survive in the world, you have to give up the fantasies, the make-believe. The only trouble is that it's not all make-believe. Some parts of the fairy tales are all too real, all too true. There might not be a Red Riding Hood, but there is a Big Bad Wolf. No Snow White, but definitely an Evil Queen. No obnoxiously cute blond tots, but a child-eating witch… yeah. Oh yeah.

What're you still doing up? You know all good little ninjas should be in bed, visions of homicidal sugarplums dancing in their heads.

At least that's what his note said, along with a scathing reminder that dishes didn't wash themselves and the fungus in the bathroom was one day away from evolving into sentient life. I folded the note into an airplane and sailed it across the room. It ended up perched jauntily on top of the ancient television. It looked good there and I left it as a tribute to freedom-loving fungi everywhere.

Snap judgments? I'd gotten over those about the time I was toilet trained. Swore off diapers and faith in the human experience all in one week.

Most kids don't believe in fairy tales very long. Once they hit six or seven they put away "Cinderella" and her shoe fetish, "The Three Little Pigs" with their violation of building codes, "Miss Muffet" and her well‐shaped tuffet—all forgotten or discounted.And maybe that's the way it has to be. To survive in the world, you have to give up the fantasies, the make‐believe.

And who died and made you boss?" But I knew a lost cause when I saw it and was already pulling my hair back with nimble fingers. Niko slapped a shoulder holster against my chest. "No one. Like all truly great dictators, I seized that power myself. Now finish up. We leave in five minutes.

Every inner touch, every one of its fingerprints on my brain, burned like acid. It shredded the walls of my soul like tissue paper, it clawed its way into my very center, I couldn’t tell anymore where it began and I ended. It poured into me like a river into the sea, mixing, melding, until we were one. One. For better or worse. Until death do us part.

It is difficult to threaten someone who doesn’t have the necessary attention span to register fear.

There are a lot of truths in this world. When it rains it pours. It's always darkest before the dawn. He who smelt it dealt it.

There are monsters among us. There always have been and there always will be. I’ve known that ever since I can remember, just like i’ve always known I was one.

I didn’t comment on the large knife he slid under the pillow. We all have our security blankets in this world. Some are just sharper than others.

Grumbling incoherently, I fished in my jacket pocket for sunglasses. “Fear not, night dweller,” Niko said with mocking gravity. “It is merely the sun, something you would see more often if you would roll out of bed before late afternoon.

The front door had been secure at some point in time, I suppose, but now it usually hung ajar by a few inches, the gap‐toothed grin of a dirty old man.

Nice guy. Salt of the earth. The stick up his ass is just a bonus.” “Let us not make light of the rectally challenged.” Niko disposed of the mug with disdain, wiping his hand thoroughly on a towel afterward. “The condition is no doubt congenital. Completely beyond his control.

It’s an unfortunate fact of life,” Niko said with grimly amused resignation. “Where there are graveyards, there are flesh-eating revenants. Where there are cars, there are car salesmen.

But you know what they say. . . . Size isn’t everything. Of course the people that say that are divided into two categories: dickless wonders and those not facing the troll that could’ve eaten New Jersey.

The relationship between my brain and my mouth tended to be casual at best.

Luckily enough, we do have an entire bottle of wheatgrass juice.” “Your sense of humor isn’t all that it could be, you know that?” Goodfellow took the glass and stared into it morosely. He took a sip and the green in the glass was transferred to his face. “Holy Bacchus,” he sputtered. “That is against nature and all things divine.

She’d eat you alive.” “She would, would she?” Niko said dryly. “Seriously, Nik, she’s dangerous, a predator.” This voice-of-reason shit, it had to stop. It was a strain on my resources. His lip twitched. “And what, little brother, do you think I am?” Damn. He had me there.

Anyone with less intestinal fortitude, inhuman or not, would've been curled up on the floor sucking his thumb. I basked in the attention and took it as my due. I'd always known I was a star. Without me, the Auphe were nothing. I was the key, and the gate was a lock only I could open. At this moment I was, as I'd always suspected, God. Spreading my arms, I let my head fall back and closed my eyes, my streaming hair a silk touch on my shoulder blades. "Suffer the little children to come unto me." Opening my eyes, I smiled gently at the Auphe.

Alone: it was no way to live and it was no way to die.

The guy had guts—I had to give him that. Later on I was hoping for a first-hand look at them.

But hoping you never saw someone again is a damn sight different from wishing them dead.

Get a grip, change your shorts, and move on to the task at hand.

And who died and made you boss?” But I knew a lost cause when I saw it and was already pulling my hair back with nimble fingers. Niko slapped a shoulder holster against my chest. “No one. Like all truly great dictators, I seized that power myself. Now finish up.

Me? I was lucky to get a grunt from the local pizza delivery girl. And I had nice eyes too, not to mention a killer ass. There truly was no justice in the world.

Their work is timeless. It transcends the bubblegum pap that passes for music now. A Beatles song is a flawlessly executed kata. Anything else is simply wrestling in Jell-O,” he returned with disdain.