Quotes By Author: Ilona Andrews

“He’d spent the night in the boat. Next to the spaghetti queen.William glanced at the hobo girl. She sat across from him, huddled in a clump. Her stench had gotten worse overnight, probably from the dampness. Another night like the last one, and he might snap and dunk her into that river just to clear the air.She saw him looking. Dark eyes regarded him with slight scorn.William leaned forward and pointed at the river. “I don’t know why you rolled in spaghetti sauce,” he said in a confidential voice. “I don’t really care. But that water over there won’t hurt you. Try washing it off.”She stuck her tongue out.“Maybe after you’re clean,” he said.Her eyes widened. She stared at him for a long moment. A little crazy spark lit up in her dark irises. She raised her finger, licked it, and rubbed some dirt off her forehead.Now what?The girl showed him her stained finger and reached toward him slowly, aiming for his face.“No,” William said. “Bad hobo.”The finger kept coming closer.”

“She surveyed the carnage behind him. “Did you have fun?”He showed her his teeth. “Yes.”

“Jack didn’t fully get Jesus. Audrey tried to explain it, and he could repeat it back to her, word for word, but he still didn’t comprehend most of it. The best he could gather was that Jesus lived long ago, told people to be nice, and they killed him for it. At the end, he asked who was Jesus’ necromancer and if he was in the Bible, then Kaldar couldn’t stop laughing and had to sit down.”

“Love makes you helpless,” Daniela said. “You think about the object of your affection all the time. Your happiness or misery depends on another person’s mood. You give up all power over yourself, hand it to the person you love, and trust that they will be gentle with it.”

“Everybody has something, that one thing they must do to feel happy. I think this is yours, and I want you to be happy. You don’t have to do it, but it’s here if you choose to come back to it.”

“It took a qualified wizard to detect a summoning in progress. It required only a half-literate idiot with a twitch of power and a dim idea of how to use it to attempt one. Before you knew it, a three-headed Slavonic god was wreaking havoc in downtown Atlanta, the skies were raining winged snakes, and SWAT was screaming for more ammo.”

“I was conceived because it would be good for my House to have an heir and because my parents’ genes ticked the right set of boxes. You were probably conceived because your parents loved each other.””According to our mother,” Bern said, “he was conceived because she was too wasted to remember a rubber.”Mad Rogan stopped chewing.”I was conceived because my mother skipped bail. Her boyfriend at the time threatened to call the cops on her so she had to do something to keep him from doing it,” Bern said helpfully.Awesome. Just the right kind of information to share.”Aunt Giselea isn’t the best mother,” I said. “There’s one in every family.”

“Because he has the best equipment in the City and he knows how to use it!”

“What’s that?””That’s my attack poodle.”

“Georgie, stop trying to resurrect the shoes. They were never alive in the first place.”

“I came to the table, pulled up a chair, and sat. “Everyone brought a pet. I feel left out.” An enthusiastic howl broke the silence, and Grendel bounded through the doorway. He galloped through the steak house, skidded on the floor, smashed into my chair, and dropped a dead rat on my lap. Awesome.”

“I ripped my left arm out of his hand and slammed my elbow into his solar plexus. He exhaled in a gasp. I lunged for the dagger and sat on top of him, my knees pinning his arms, my dagger on his throat.He lay still. “I give up,” he said and smiled. “Your move.”Er. I was sitting atop the Beast Lord in my underwear, holding a knife to his throat. What the hell was my next move?”

“I’ve never created a riot before. I did cause a brawl at the last formal. A large number of young women there actually arrived with the expectation of seducing me into matrimony, and a couple of their mothers came to blows. It was hilari—I mean, dreadful. Simply dreadful.”

“I have a serious question.””I will give a serious answer.””Can a god be killed?”The humor drained from Roman’s face. “Well, that depends on if you’re a pantheist or a Marxist.””What’s the difference?””The first believes that divinity is the universe. The two are synonymous and nonexistent without each other. The second believes in anthropocentrism, seeing man in the center of the universe, and god as just an invention of human conscience. Of course, if you follow Nietzsche, you can kill God just by thinking about him.”

“I gave him my best cryptic smile. He did not fall down to his feet, kiss my shoes, and promise me the world. I must be getting rusty.”