She was not at the concert any more. She looked around the rustic room, blinking. What the hell? The singer had her in his arms still. There was no balcony between them now. His hands slid into her hair, keeping her head still. "Not yet," he begged, ...
Dixon was alive again. Consciousness was upon him before he could get out of the way; not for him the slow, gracious wandering from the halls of sleep, but a summary, forcible ejection. He lay sprawled, too wicked to move, spewed up like a broken spi...
Mistresses, have you ever noticed that when we disagree with a male – I hesitate to say ‘man’ – or find ourselves in a position over males, the first comment they make is always about our reputations or our monthlies?” One of the new women ...
A computer search would have given me a list of pertinent cases, but without that I had to read everything. That is harder by far, but you end up learning a lot more. I was forced to remember cases because making copies of everything was too expensiv...
For shit’s sake, it wasn’t like there was a twelve-step for being the Scribe Virgin’s kid: Hi, I’m Vishous. I’m her son and I’ve been her son for three hundred years. HI, VISHOUS. She’s done a head job on me again, and I’m trying not ...
I leave her to chemically combust and find Wren in the student council office, filling out extremely interesting paperwork. He’s buried behind piles of the stuff. I can barely see tufts of his blonde hair poking out. I reach into the paperwork pile...
So they spread the paintings on the lawn, and the boy explained each of them. "This is the school, and this is the playground, and these are my friends." He stared at the paintings for a long time and then shook his head in discouragement. "In my min...
Then little Gerda said the Lord's Prayer; the cold was so intense that she could see her own breath; it came out of her mouth like smoke. Her breath became thicker and thicker, and took the form of little angels who grew larger and larger as soon as ...
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun; Coral is far more red than her lips' red; If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. I have seen roses damask'd, red and white, But no such roses see I ...
As the sun went down outside, the television screen started completely lighting up the room in obnoxiously bright colors at hyperactive speeds. The conversation had been slowly rising in volume and frequency, as everyone started becoming more delinqu...
I stand before her, meeting her eye to eye and nose to nose. My head takes a slight bow as I clench my fist. “I should have just killed you like any other bloodsucking vampire.” “So why didn’t you?” She tiptoes, clenching her first as well....
His feet went banging down some stairs. He closed his eyes. They went through cinders and dirt, his heels gathering small windrows of trash. A dim world receded above his upturned toes, shapes of skewed shacks erupted bluely in the niggard lamplight....
If you had to pack your whole life into a suitcase--not just the practical things, like clothing, but the memories of the people you had lost and the girl you had once been--what would you take? The last photograph you had of your mother? A birthday ...
A kind of second childhood falls on so many men. They trade their violence for the promise of a small increase of life span. In effect, the head of the house becomes the youngest child. And I have searched myself for this possibility with a kind of h...
Argh!" Thalia pushed me, and a shock went through my body that blew me backward ten feet into the water. Some of the campers gasped. A couple of the Hunters stifled laughs. "Sorry!" Thalia said, turning pale. "I didn't mean to—" Anger roared in my ...
Quick as a flash, Sawney Rath's eyes hardened. "Then I'm ordering you to skin Felch alive!" He took the otter's paw, closing it over the knife handle. "Obey me!" The crowded clearing became as silent as a tomb. All eyes were upon the Taggerung, await...
Here she tossed her foot impatiently, and showed an inch or two of calf. A sailor on the mast, who happened to look down at the moment, started so violently that he missed his footing and only saved himself by the skin of his teeth. 'If the sight of ...
You need to eat more." (...) "Then I'd get fat, and you wouldn't like me." Johnny tweaked her nose in teasing response and shifted her into a more comfortable position with her back against his chest. Her head lolled against his shoulder, and his arm...
Did I never explain to you about love, Reva?' Pa asked. I gave him a look, and he laughed uncomfortably. 'I guess not. Let me put it in a way you'll understand. Love is like stinging nettles. Only they prick from the inside out, starting at your hear...
You are unwilling to pay that price, even knowing that the consolation prize is not only to learn every philosophy that has ever existed, but ones which have not yet been conceived? Even knowing that if you do not accept, you will soon cease to learn...
Liall realized that this was the first time he had really been alone with Scarlet. He stood up and held out his hand. The blanket dropped from his shoulders. "Come here." Scarlet reached out to him tentatively and Liall quickly dragged him into his a...
