Quotes from Richard Kadrey

The necromancer is the Blue Fairy to my Pinocchio and I want to be a real boy again.

He jackrabbits to the stairs, but instead of running away he turns around and does a merry little soft-shoe routine. When he's done he sings "Rum-tiddley-um-tum-tay" before disappearing down the stairs. I stagger back to the apartment with a handful of blood and embarrassment. Fuck Hollywood is at the door when I get there.

I've got to think about this. I thought Abbot was a stand-up guy, but how well do I know him outside of the few deals we've made? He's the Augur. Power is his business. Everything else is secondary. Including me and a load of nine-to-five civilians downtown. I need to think about this more. But mostly I've got to watch my back. If something happens to me, what happens to Janet and Candy and the others?

I sit there on the bed feeling foolish and angry and completely confused by the world. After the craziness last night, I thought that today I might get a day off from the shitstorm. But, if anything, the situation is even worse.

Beautiful. Now I have to burrow like a groundhog into Mason's basement to the same room where he summoned those things to take me Downtown. Nothing can possibly go wrong with this plan.

There was moonshine, moonshine to quench the devil's thirst. The law they swore they'd get him, but the devil got him first.' Robert Mitchum wrote that for Thunder Road, the year of our Lord, 1958.

He snatches the mask off completely and says, "We came all the way up from Santa Ana to see this shithole and we're not leaving without having a drink." "Santa Ana? Why don't you go back down south and sneak a pint in Disneyland? That'll make you feel edgy too, Beaver Cleaver.

The smell that hits me is almost overwhelming. Familiar and alien at the same time. Hellion food tastes like what a butcher shop throws in the trash and then a hobo sleeps on it for a couple of days.

It's the kind of stink that would turn a buzzard vegan.

I was telling him about those fake cop pendejos from the other night." Kasabian does a theatrical shudder. "I had to make him stop. The whole cutting-off-heads thing. It's triggering for me, you know?

I'm always careful. It's whiskey that isn't careful.

Try to stay calm," I say as I shove She-Ra into my pocket. "Things are going to be okay." But I'm not 100 percent sure who I'm trying to convince, and even as I step into a shadow for Max Overdrive I have a bad feeling I'm wrong.

Shit," Jonny mumbled as he stepped on something soft and clinging in the doorway of the abandoned hotel. Then "Shit" again as he recognized the accuracy of his curse.

Do they wear masks?" Kasabian says. I think about it for a minute. "Yeah. The ones I've seen." "So they must be scared too." "Maybe. Maybe it's camouflage. Or who dies and who doesn't is just part of the game. The way they decorate their masks, it's like Halloween in the psych ward.

There's something magical about the sound of breaking glass. Especially around a mob. It works for both humans and Hellions. If you want to start a riot, throw a bottle.

It's part Halloween, part metal show, and part pagan rite to some forgotten blood god. I remember Abbot told me that the virus can get into your brain and turn you strange. I just never imagined how many would be hit with it or how strange they would get. And he was right about something else too. Not all of the Shoggots are scarred. A fair number are as fresh-faced and normal looking as Mr. Rogers in his sweater.

Sometimes we do dumb things to amuse women.

Why don't you tell me about why you're here?" says Ray. Before I can answer, Carlos says. "Despite appearances, Stark here is dead." Ray cocks his head and looks at me. "I wouldn't have guessed," says Ray. "You wear death well.

No one's going to look out for us but us. We're just bugs on God's windshield. You need to get serious and work with me on this or we're both going to end up in Tartarus.

It seemed to be going well. You see, a Qliphoth can only possess an imperfect and impure body, one that's sinned. Of course, that describes all humans except maybe for the saints. When I eat a possessed person's sins, their body returns to a pure and holy state. With nowhere left to hide, the Qliphoth is ejected like someone spitting out a watermelon seed.

LOS ANGELES IS a busted jukebox in a forgotten bar at the ass end of the high desert. The city only exists between the pops, skips, and scratches of the old 45s.

The cuisine was French and Japanese, snow peas or glazed carrots arranged with surgical precision around thin and, to Jonny, mostly tasteless cuts of beef. When he commented on this to Conover, the smuggler explained to him that the meat came from Canadian herds that still consumed grain and grazed in open fields, not the genetically altered beasts that hung from straps, limbless and eyeless, in the Tijuana protein factories.

Maybe Sandoval and Roger can share a room. Do puzzles and go to physical therapy together. Maybe discover that they both secretly love Jell-O. Have a real TV-movie bonding experience.

Ray looks over to see what Carlos is talking about. He has good control of his face. He's done this before. Ray never looks shocked, but the momentary spike in his heartbeat and his pupils dilating tell me all I need to know.