Derek Landy · 288 pages
Rating: (4.2K votes)
“Ladies and gentleman," he said over the speakers, "welcome aboard this recently liberated Gulfstream V. If I could have your attention for just a few moments, I'd like to go over the safety features of this aircraft. It has an engine, to make us go, and wings, to keep us in the air. There are seatbelts, which won't do you an awful lot of good if we fly into the side of a mountain.”
“This is stolen? We're in a stolen jet?"
"Not stolen," said Donegan Bane from the co-pilot's seat.
"Almost stolen," Gracious corrected.
"Semi-stolen," said Donegan.
"Quasi-stolen," said Gracious.
Aurora's frown did not turn upside down. "So is it stolen or not?"
Donegan and Gracious hesitated.
"Yes," they both said together.”
“Donegan Bane and Gracious O'Callahan - the Monster Hunters. Adventurers, inventors, authors of Monster Hunting for Beginners and it's sequels, Monster Hunting for Beginners is Probably Inadvisable and Seriously, Dude, Stop Monster Hunting.”
“Annis had never been a people person, unless ‘people person’ was defined as a person who ate people.”
“You said I was your number-one pick."
"And you are. In our hearts. Alphabetically, though, Dusk comes before you.”
“Who's your friend?"
"I'm glad you asked that," said Tanith. "Her name's Darquesse and she's lovely. You'll love her, you really will. She's so funny and nice and she's great to hang out with."
Sabine frowned. "Isn't she the one they're saying will destroy the world?"
"OK, Sabine, for a start, I don't know why you're being so negative about this. How about waiting until you've met her before you start judging her? Think you can do that? Secondly, it's not destroying the world, it's destroying some bits of the world.”
“Aurora sagged. "Why is it," she asked, "that every time I'm with you two we end up stealing something big?"
"We always return it," Donegan said, a little defensively. "Maybe not always in one piece or necessarily to the right person but return it we do, and so it is not stealing, it is merely borrowing."
Gracious looked at him. "It's a little bit stealing."
"Anyone who leaves a private jet just lying around deserves to have it stolen."
"It wasn't lying around," said Gracious. "It was locked up tight. It took us an hour to dismantle the security system and get inside."
Donegan looked at him. "You're not helping.”
“While my insides may be rotten, I still like a good reason to kill someone. It has to be either business, personal, or out of sheer boredom.”
“Sanguine chuckled. "I like you, boy. You got optimism in these bones. I like you so much that I ain't gonna tell you what I did to poor old Jethro, the first Jethro, may he rest in peace, may they someday find his head.”
“I have a question," said Jack.
"Questions later."
"You keep sayin' sneak in and sneak out stuff. My question is-"
"No questions."
"-once this Starke bloke realises he's been robbed-"
"I'm pretty sure I said no questions."
"-the owners of the other weapons are gonna heighten security, so won't that mess up our mission?"
"First of all," Tanith said, "we have a no question rule. I literally just established it, like right there. I know you were here for that because it was two minutes ago. Now, I understand that you're used to being my enemy so your natural inclination is to do the opposite of whatever I say, but you're just going to have to get over it. Agreed?”
“They feed you."
"I eat people. They don't give me people to eat. They give me animals. That's barbaric. At least people have a fighting chance to get away. The animals they give me are already dead. It's sickening, that's what it is."
"Annis, you're a unique individual.”
“It’s a stereotype,” he hissed. “It’s a damn stereotype and it’s harmful. If this catches on, we’ll have all sorts of sorcerers running around, waving wands and chanting spells. Do you know how ridiculous we’d look?”
Tanith shrugged. “I liked Harry Potter.”
“This ain’t about Harry Potter!”
“You liked Harry Potter as well.”
“They’re good books,” he snapped, “but I do not agree with this wand business. All those guys down there, criminals and mobsters and gangsters, and who are they taking orders from? A wizard with a wand. How can they take him seriously? How are they going to take us seriously when we attack?”
“We could wear disguises," said Frightening.
Aurora nodded quickly. "Like a false beard. I've always wanted to wear a false beard."
Vex frowned. "But you're a woman."
"Exactly. They'd never suspect it was me.”
“I have chiseled features. Look. Look how chiseled they are. And my teeth are at least as white as his. You seriously think he's good-lookin'?"
"I do," said Tanith.
"Right," Sanguine said and nodded. "I'm gonna kill him."
She kept her laugh soft so it wouldn't travel. "I think he's good-looking, but I think you're better looking."
"Oh," Sanguine said. "I mean, yeah. I am. I'm glad you noticed.”
“Jethro, you have been a most helpful captive."
"Are you... are you going to let me live?"
Sanguine's grin grew wider. "Not even remotely.”
“Sabine pulled herself out of the water behind him, and glared up as she hung there. "You spat on me.”
“Sanguine took a moment, finding it hard to process the information. "He... this guy uses a wand? For real? He actually uses a wand? Like a wizard?... Don't the other Necromancers have any sense of pride? What's he gonna do next, fly around on a broomstick? This ain't Harry Potter.”
“Saracen Rue knows things."
That's what Dexter Vex was told all those hundreds of years ago before they first met. He couldn't remember who had introduced them - Skulduggery? Ravel? Ghastly maybe - but when he'd been asked what magical discipline Saracen had chosen, he'd been assured that "Saracen Rue knows things." That was all.”
“You zapped your own brain?"
"And it didn't do me any harm apart from the dizziness and the vomiting spells and the weirdly persistent ringing in my ears. Also the blackouts and the moodswings and the creeping paranoia. Apart from that, zero side effects, if you don't count numb fingertips. Which I don't."
"Because he also lost the ability to count," said Donegan.
"That was temporary," snapped Gracious.”
“I thought we were a team," Annis said.
Tanith looked down at her. "We are a team."
"And Sabine? Wasn't she part of it, too?"
"She was a very important part. She was payment."
"Are you going to betray us like you betrayed her?”
“This isn't the first time I've used this, and the test subject showed no signs of impaired cognitive ability."
"Who was the test subject?" asked Aurora.
"I test everything out on myself before taking it into the field."
She stared at him. "You zapped your own brain?"
"And it didn't do me any harm apart from the dizziness and the vomiting spells and the weirdly persistent ringing in my ears. Also the blackouts and the mood swings and the creeping paranoia. Apart from that, zero side effects, if you don't count the numb fingertips. Which I don't.”
“I'm almost finished," said Wilhelm, wiping out a line with his sleeve and drawing over it.
"I never doubted you for a moment," said Vex, then looked at Aurora and spoke more softly. "I actually doubted him the whole time. He's really not very good."
Wilhelm turned. "I'm standing right in front of you. I can hear literally every sound you make."
"Wilhelm, please," said Vex, "this is a private conversation.”
“The girl looked down at her plate. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"Would it have made it easier to kill a murderer?"
The girl paused. "Yes."
"Then what kind of test would it have been?" Quoneel asked.”
“There's an I in menagerie. - Black Annis”
“I'm traumatized. My life flashed before my eyes.
You're life in re-runs would traumatize anyone. You're fine.”
“Darwin concluded that language ability is “an instinctive tendency to acquire an art,” a design that is not peculiar to humans but seen in other species such as song-learning birds. A language instinct may seem jarring to those who think of language as the zenith of the human intellect and who think of instincts as brute impulses that compel furry or feathered zombies to build a dam or up and fly south. But one of Darwin’s followers, William James, noted that an instinct possessor need not act as a “fatal automaton.” He argued that we have all the instincts that animals do, and many more besides; our flexible intelligence comes from the interplay of many instincts competing. Indeed, the instinctive nature of human thought is just what makes it so hard for us to see that it is an instinct: It takes…a mind debauched by learning to carry the process of making the natural seem strange, so far as to ask for the why of any instinctive human act. To the metaphysician alone can such questions occur as: Why do we smile, when pleased, and not scowl? Why are we unable to talk to a crowd as we talk to a single friend? Why does a particular maiden turn our wits so upside-down? The common man can only say, “Of course we smile, of course our heart palpitates at the sight of the crowd, of course we love the maiden, that beautiful soul clad in that perfect form, so palpably and flagrantly made for all eternity to be loved!” And so, probably, does each animal feel about the particular things it tends to do in presence of particular objects…. To the lion it is the lioness which is made to be loved; to the bear, the she-bear. To the broody hen the notion would probably seem monstrous that there should be a creature in the world to whom a nestful of eggs was not the utterly fascinating and precious and never-to-be-too-much-sat-upon object which it is to her.”
“One of the few times I’ve ever wished for a penis,” she said to Rae when the bartender stepped up to take the order of yet another male customer. They’d been waiting to be served for over twenty minutes. She’d even worn the red magic boob dress tonight, but unfortunately, its mojo offered no help in this particular situation.
“You haven’t had sex in six months,” Rae said. “If I were you, I’d be wishing for penises every night.”
“She nodded her head silently to the demons taking tea with her on the sofa.”
“I can not remember telling my parents that I was studying classics, they might well have found out for the first time on graduation day. Of all the subjects on this planet, I think they would have been hard-put to name one less useful in Greek mythology when it came to securing the keys of an executive bathroom. Now I would like to make it clear in parenthesis, that I do not blame my parents for their point of view. There is an expiry date for blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction. The moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you. What is more, I can not criticize my parents for hoping that I would never experience poverty. They had been poor themselves, and I have since been poor. And I quite agree with them, that it is not an ennobling experience. Poverty, entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression, It means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is something by which to pride yourself, but poverty itself, is romanticized only by fools. But I feared at your age was not poverty, but failure... Now, I am not dull enough to suppose that because you are young, gifted, and well educated, that you have never known heartbreak, hardship, or heartache. Talent and intelligence, never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the fates... ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure.”
“I told you I don’t do casual sex.”
He sat up, too, now. “Grace, there is nothing fucking casual about how I feel about you.”
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