“You backbiting, poisonous, treacherous, deceitful, wicked, clever girl. If this works I'll buy you a pony.”
“In the name of the Pizza Lord. Charge!”
“I died. I died and someone made a clerical error and I am in Heaven.”
“Karrin."
She looked up at me. She looked very young somehow.
"Remember what I said yesterday," I said. "You're hurt. But you'll get through it. You'll be okay."
She closed her eyes tightly. "I'm scared. So scared I'm sick."
"You'll get through it."
"What if I don't?"
I squeezed her fingers. "Then I will personally make fun of you every day for the rest of your life," I said. "I will call you a sissy girl in front of everyone you know, tie frilly aprons on your car, and lurk in the parking lot at CPD and whistle and tell you to shake it, baby. Every. Single. Day."
Murphy's breath escaped in something like a hiccup. She opened her eyes, a mix of anger and wary amusement easing into them in place of fear. "You do realize I'm holding a gun, right?”
“All of those faeries and duels and mad queens and so on, and no one quoted old Billy Shakespeare. Not even once.”
“Sometimes the most remarkable things seem commonplace. I mean when you think about it jet travel is pretty freaking remarkable. You get in a plane it defies the gravity of a entire planet by exploiting a loophole with air pressure and it flies across distances that would take months or years to cross by any means of travel that has been significant for more than a century or three. You hurtle above the earth at enough speed to kill you instantly should you bump into something and you can only breathe because someone built you a really good tin can that seems tight enough to hold in a decent amount of air. Hundreds of millions of man-hours of work and struggle and research blood sweat tears and lives have gone into the history of air travel and it has totally revolutionized the face of our planet and societies.
But get on any flight in the country and I absolutely promise you that you will find someone who in the face of all that incredible achievement will be willing to complain about the drinks.”
“I put on the boots and kicked some monster ass.”
“Just like credit card companies, or those student loan people. Now there's evil for you.”
“The noise was deafening, and no one could have heard me anyway as I let out my own battle cry, which I figured was worth a shot. What the hell.
"I DON'T BELIEVE IN FAERIES!”
“Wait. You don't understand. I just wanted it to stop. Wanted the hurting to stop."
I smoothed a bloodied lock of hair from her eyes and felt very tired as I said, "The only people who never hurt are dead."
The light died out of her eyes, her breath slowing. She whispered, barely audible, "I don't understand."
I answered, "I don't either."
A tear slid from her eye and mixed with the blood.
Then she died.”
“I stretched out my hand, adrenaline and pain giving me plenty of fuel for the magic, and called, 'Ventas servitas!' Wind leapt out in a sudden spurt, seizing the Unraveling and tearing it from Aurora's fingers, sending it spinning through the air toward me. I caught it, stuck my tongue out at Aurora, yelled, 'Meep, meep!' and ran like hell.”
“I could buy that she would murder me in a fit of rage, poison me out of flaming jealousy, or bomb my car out of sheer, stubborn pique. But she would never do it and feel nothing.”
“For me chivalry isn't dead; it's an involuntary reflex.”
“Unicorns," I said. "Very dangerous. You go first.”
“I slammed the doors open a little harder than I needed to, stalked out to the Blue Beetle, and drove away with all the raging power the ancient four-cylinder engine should muster. Behold the angry wizard puttputt-putting away.”
“It rained toads the day the White Council came to town.”
“Dresden. Am I interrupting something?"
"Well, I was going to settle down with a porn video and a bottle of baby oil, but I really don't have enough for two.”
“Billy squinted at me. "Why are you letting them go?"
"Because they're real."
"How do you know?"
"The one I was holding crapped on my hand.”
“Monsters are born of pain, and grief, and loss, and anger. Your heart is full of them.-
-"And?"
And it makes you vulnerable.”
“Here's where I ask why don't you spend your time doing something safer and more boring. Like maybe administering suppositories to rabid gorillas.”
“I'm pretty sure lurking in a dark alley to mug me with your apology isn't the usual way to go about saying you're sorry. But I didn't read that Mars-Venus book, so who knows.”
“As I pulled into the parking lot, I reflected that odds were that not a lot of clandestine meetings involving mystical assassination, theft of arcane power, and the balance of power in the realms of the supernatural had taken place in a Wal-Mart Super Center. But then again, maybe they had. Hell, for all I knew, the Mole Men used the changing rooms as a place to discuss plans for world domination with the Psychic Jellyfish from Planet X and the Disembodied Brains-in-a-Jar from the Klaatuu Nebula. I know I wouldn't have looked for them there.”
“Yes, I was standing on nothing but congealed starlight. Yes, I was walking up through a savage storm, the wind threatening to tear me off and throw me into the freezing waters of Lake Michigan far below. Yes, I was using a legendary and enchanted means of travel to transcend the border between one dimension and the next, and on my way to an epic struggle between ancient and elemental forces.
But all i could think to say, between panting breaths, was, "Yeah. Sure. They couldn't possibly have made this an escalator.”
“Still going with the phallic foci, eh? Staff and rod?"
"They make me feel all manly.”
“No one was standing in the shadows smoking a cigarette or looking about with a shifty-eyed gaze. I couldn't see anyone quickly hiding a bloody knife behind his back or twirling a moustache, either. That ruled out the Dudley Do-Right approach to finding the killer.”
“It’s a rational sort of fear that puts a lawn chair down in the front of your thoughts and brings a cooler of drinks along with it.”
“And the fae have a way of making sure that further bargains only get you in deeper, instead of into the clear. Just like credit card companies, or those student loan people. Now there’s evil for you.”
“Sometimes the most remarkable things seem commonplace. I mean, when you think about it, jet travel is pretty freaking remarkable. You get in a plane, it defies the gravity of an entire planet by exploiting a loophole with air pressure, and it flies across distances that would take months or years to cross by any means of travel that has been significant for more than a century or three. You hurtle above the earth at enough speed to kill you instantly should you bump into something, and you can only breathe because someone built you a really good tin can that has seams tight enough to hold in a decent amount of air. Hundreds of millions of man-hours of work and struggle and research, blood, sweat, tears, and lives have gone into the history of air travel, and it has totally revolutionized the face of our planet and societies.
But get on any flight in the country, and I absolutely promise you that you will find someone who, in the face of all that incredible achievement, will be willing to complain about the drinks.
The drinks, people.
That was me on the staircase to Chicago-Over-Chicago. Yes, I was standing on nothing but congealed starlight. Yes, I was walking up through a savage storm, the wind threatening to tear me off and throw me into the freezing waters of Lake Michigan far below. Yes, I was using a legendary and enchanted means of travel to transcend the border between one dimension and the next, and on my way to an epic struggle between ancient and elemental forces.
But all I could think to say, between panting breaths, was, 'Yeah. Sure. They couldn’t possibly have made this an escalator.”
“In 1960, Joy wrote of her experiences raising Elsa in the bestselling book Born Free which was adapted into an Academy award-winning film. In 1980 Joy was tragically murdered on her reserve, but her conservation work continues through the Elsemere Trust.”
“She licks her lips, and then there is darkness.”
“Estamos atados a este mundo por una cadena de oro, y no nos atrevemos a cortarla por miedo a lo que haya después de la caída.”
“The barber's assistant asks if I am a Swede. An American? Not that either. A Russian? Well, then, what are you? I love to answer such nationalistically tinted questions with a steely silence, and to leave people who ask me about my patriotic feelings in the dark. Or I tell lies and say that I'm Danish. Some kinds of frankness are only hurtful and boring.”
“It's only a sure defeat when you stop trying.”
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