The Angel of the Crows

We are very bad at making choices. It is a kindness of our Maker to remove that choice from our remit.

On my wrist, where he had nicked me, there was a black mark like a tattoo, a sigil that looked a little like the tracery for a stained glass window.

The gaze of a vampire was notoriously mesmerizing; I kept expecting my will to cave before his-and I thought perhaps he was expecting that, too-but I did not lower my eyes.

It infuriated him as only a sneer from someone you’ve already marked as dinner can.

He is mine and you cannot have him.

I slumped once in a fashion I hoped might look like an addict’s ecstacy and concentrated on not vomiting.

My choice was between the vampire and the hemophage. Moriarty was a bad risk, but he was better than that.

You cannot have him. He is mine.

As he spoke and his fury grew, I saw his fangs drop and his eyes burn redder and redder; his face became a twisted caricature of a human face, the terrible fangs gnashing with every word.

I disliked the sound of their laughter; they sounded intoxicated, although not with alcohol. They had something-or they thought they had something that would let them negotiate with a vampiric hunt. They were drunk or a feeling of invisibility. And that did not bode well for their prisoners.

Listening to Small’s slow approach was far worse than if he had simply appeared in front of the grille like the Devil in a pantomime.

Vampires’ teeth are not as horrible as a hemophages’-few things are as horrible as a hemophage’s teeth-but they are no pretty sight.

Moriarty listened intently, golden eyes-the eyes of a beast in a man’s ascetic face-fixed on me.

Vampires can go for weeks without feeding, but they do not like to. Hence their red lamps and courteous ways. A true, deeply enthralled addict will let his or her vampiric Master feed daily if asked to-although vampires, wise and old and cold-blooded and with a large population of addicts to choose from, generally do not do so.

The vampires could no more make a nest of hemophages into a vampiric hunt than a flock of peacocks could make a mouse into a bird.

No unregistered has a job that suits thir hungers, Doctor, a fact you know as well as I do.

Hemophages are drawn to each other’s company just as…as hellhounds are.

I don’t know why women have the reputation for gossip when in my experiences men are just as bad. Small certainly was. He was particularly interested in other unregistered hemophages.

Werewolves are taught from an early age not to lose their temper unless they do so with intent.

Is your oath still binding?” Crow asked cautiously. “He betrayed me,” Anuvadaka said. “You cannot keep faith with the faithless.” “Then will you help us find him?” “I must, mustn’t I?” said Anuvadaka with another of his lopsided half-sad smiles. “Since it is my fault that he is still out there to be found.

If he had bitten Mr. Sholto, he would have savaged everyone in the house. Perhaps I did the wrong thing, but I had sworn an oath to him, and at that point, he had not broken his promise to me. Thus I spared his life as he had spared mine. He showed his gratitude by beating me for it.

He made no secret of the fact that his three friends-and the Agra treasure-came first with him. And he was very angry with me for killing Batholomew Sholto.

Like almost all of your people, police officers don’t often look up. And I have learned to navigate London in the five years we have stayed here. It is not too different from the jungle in its own way.

I do hold grudges, even though I shouldn’t.

I think perhaps all of the Fallen are insane-it’s just that some of them stay rational, such as the Fallen of Afghanistan who can fight with the partisans. They can still make treaties. But they ae still irrationally bent on destruction and revenge.

I know who Mr. Small was, for there were very few English prisoners, and especially not Englishmen imprisoned for killing for killing an Indian man-but he and Dost Akbar had killed the man by feeding on him, which I have noticed the British find particularly loathsome.

I have had many names. Perhaps you will call Anuvadaka? It means ‘translator’, which was my job.

In the window of the flat above a tobacconist, a red lamp told the senasation seekers and the addicts where to find the vampires.

Cerberus automata do not track by scent. They track the psychic residue that human beings leave on everything they touch. This makes them particularly formidable, for while you may disguise your scent or cross your trail, you cannot disguise your psyche.