“I am proud of you, Allison Sekemoto,” he whispered as he drew back. “Whatever you decide, whatever path you choose to take, I hope that you will remain the same girl I met that night in the rain. The one decision for which I have no regrets.”
“This would be so much easier if [Allie] hadn't killed the jeep."
"For the last time," I growled at [Jackal]. "I just pointed out the street that wasn't blocked off. I didn't leave those nails on the road for you to drive over.”
“You know,” Jackal said, kicking a rabid in the face, sending it reeling, “it seems that whenever I’m with you, I’m constantly fighting my way into places I really don’t want to be. The sewers, the Prince’s tower, a bloody freaking church.”
“Seeing as this is probably my last hurrah, I don't suppose I could get you two bleeding hearts to massacre a village with me? For old time's sake. - Jackal”
“If we are talking about choice and regret, what has happened cannot be undone. And dwelling on the past changes nothing. You will only drive yourself to insanity if you do.”
“Because I know that you, at least, won’t turn on me if something better comes along,” he elaborated. “Because you have that disgusting sense of loyalty that keeps getting you into trouble. And because you aren’t half bad in a fight, either.” His expression moved between arrogance and pity. “I figure I can be the smart, practical, logical one and you can be the pretty, hotheaded, overemotional one, and between us, we’ll be ready for anything.”
“Oh, isn’t that sweet,” came Jackal’s loud, mocking voice... “Let’s make goo-goo eyes at each other in the middle of a stinking corpse field, how very romantic.”
“No.” Kanin’s voice was suddenly hard, terrifying. “You are simply using your demon to hide from what you really feel. Because you are afraid of what that means, that it might be painful. It is far easier to be a monster than to confront the truth.”
“That sounds about right for this group. You bleeding hearts are going to be the death of me, I just know it.”
“He was right. My ruthless, murdering blood brother had been right all along.”
“You are so bloody frustrating!” he roared, back fisting another rabid with the axhead. “Do you really think the cure is worth this? You think I’d be here now if that’s all I wanted?”
“Oh, heads are going to roll for this. I’m going to set up a special lane and use their skulls for bowling balls.”
“This asshole had better open the door,” Jackal growled, spinning his fire ax in a graceful arc as the horde came on. “I didn’t come all the way to Eden to be eaten at the damn gates. Some might call it ironic, but that just pisses me off.”
“Humans are ever resilient, and their will to live surpasses everything else. Do not lose hope, Allison.”
“Go ahead, tell him that everything is going to be fine. All the meatsacks are perfectly content on their happy little island, Sarren has given up world destruction to raise kittens, and the magic wish fairy will wave her want and turn shit to gold.”
“Well, I can answer that,” Jackal said breezily, and bared his fangs in a lethal grin. “He can die. Painfully. After I rip his other arm from the socket and shove it so far down his poetry-spouting piehole that he chokes on it. What I don’t understand is why we’re standing up here yapping away when we should be down there kicking in his door. So, come on, team.” Jackal’s gaze was mocking but dangerous. “Let’s go kill ourselves a psychopath.”
“I’m still going to eat them. How much is going to depend on how seriously they piss me off by the time I get in there.”
“You've always had me, Ezekiel," I managed, meeting his bright blue stare. "Time never mattered. Vampire or human, if we had forever or just a few years, I'd always choose to spend it with you.”
“Aw, isn’t that sweet.” And Jackal sauntered into view, smirk firmly in place. “But don’t wait around on my account. It’s not like I can’t wait for yet another riveting night of listening to you people whine at each other. Oh, woe is me, I’m a vampire. I’m a horrible monster who eats babies and murders bunnies, boo hoo hoo.”
“Oh sister,” Jackal mocked, pretending to wipe away a tear. “Listen to you, sounding just like a real vampire. I’m so proud.”
“So, this is me, all of me, forever. No more looking back. No more regrets. From now on, vampire girl-” he lowered his head, brushing his lips across my skins “-I’m all yours.”
“Rescuing bloodbags and saving puppies.” He sighed. “That sounds about right for this group. You bleeding hearts are going to be the death of me, I just know it.”
“No,” he said simply, as if this was something he’d known all along. “You’re still the same.”
“Open your eyes, Kanin. Your favorite hellspawn is a demon, just like the rest of us. Only now, she’s finally realized it.”
“Puppy, I am getting so tired of listening to you whine about this,” he snarled at Zeke. “This isn’t rocket science. If you don’t want to be a monster, don’t be a bloody monster! Be an uptight stick in the mud like Kanin. Be a self-righteous bleeding heart like Allison. Or you can stop agonizing about it and be a fucking monster.”
“He might actually be a decent bloodsucker. And by decent, I mean a proper, murdering, ‘I eat babies for breakfast’ vampire. It’s always the nice ones you have to worry about.”
“There is a difference between killing while in the throes of Hunger or Blood Frenzy, and giving in to the monster. Once you fall, once you willingly cross that line, it changes you. Forever.”
“I would think you’d be grateful, puppy. Kill some rabids, burn down a church—I don’t see a downside here, do you?”
“Leaving the vehicle, its slaghtered passengers, and another small piece of my humanity behind.”
“You stand there, braced. Cloud shadows race over the buff rock stacks as a projected film, casting a queasy, mottled ground rash. The air hisses and it is no local breeze but the great harsh sweep of wind from the turning of the earth. The wild country--indigo jags of mountain, grassy plain everlasting, tumbled stones like fallen cities, the flaring roll of sky--provokes a spiritual shudder. It is like a deep note that cannot be heard but is felt, it is like a claw in the gut...
...Other cultures have camped here a while and disappeared. Only earth and sky matter. Only the endlessly repeated flood of morning light. You begin to see that God does not owe us much beyond that.”
“Marcellus, bishop of Rome, being banished on account of his faith, fell a martyr to the miseries he suffered in exile, 16th Jan. A. D. 310.”
“It would be a year next Monday, a year since she’d left them. More and more he found himself reliving her final weeks, that crazy emotional roller coaster when the best and worst of times came together in a kaleidoscope of dark shadows and brilliant colors.”
“Susan and Elizabeth ran to him and grabbed his hands. “Race us, Daddy … come on, race us.” Their voices sounded almost the same as they pulled at him and jumped up and down on the sugary white sand.”
“Kandel argues that when psychotherapy changes people, 'it presumably does so through learning, by producing changes in gene expression that alter the strength of synaptic connections, and structural changes that alter the anatomical pattern of interconnections between nerve cells of the brain.' Psychotherapy works by going deep into the brain and its neurons and changing their structure by turning on the right genes. Psychiatrist Dr. Susan Vaughan has argued that the talking cure works by 'talking to neurons,' and that an effective psychotherpist or psychoanalyst is a 'microsurgeon of the mind' who helps patients make needed alterations in neuronal networks.”
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