by Faith Hunter
Page 1
The World According to Jane:
Note from Carol: Fans of the series know that Jane has her own unique perspective on the world around her. This section represents the gamut of her thoughts and feelings about her own experiences and state of mind, as well as the often puzzling world she now finds herself living and working in.
“I’d never understand the rich and dead or their servants. ” (Skinwalker, 101)
“Cradling my injured arm at my waist, I was out of the hood pretty quickly, but I stuck to the shadows, dangling the head. I figured even the most jaded and cynical inhabitant might report a bloody girl in a party dress carrying a severed head by its hair. ” (Skinwalker, 125)
“I had never been to a party as froufrou as this, and I already hated it—designer party clothes, party social manners, and party people milling around chatting. Give me a beer keg, a radio blasting country music, and a bunch of security experts discussing guns, edged weapons, and Harleys and I was fine. This was agony. ” (Skinwalker, 159)
“The man was too good-looking for my own good. ” (Blood Cross, 73)
“I’d rather be shot, stabbed, or chewed on by a rogue vamp . . . than go through being fitted for a formal gown again. ” (Blood Cross, 78)
“I held my two selves still and fought down anger and insult. ” (Blood Cross, 94)
“Thinking about men was frustrating and tied up my mind in barbed wire. ” (Blood Cross, 156)
“Angie curled into my side, yawned again, and promptly fell asleep. Happy was far too mundane a term to describe my feelings. There had to be another word better suited to this sappy, sentimental, fiercely protective sensation that thumped through my chest with my lifeblood. Had to be. And it was followed by a jolt of fear, intense and icy. I knew it couldn’t last. Nothing this good ever could, which terrified me down to my toes. ” (Blood Cross, 167)
“Great. Small talk in a hospital. Two things I hated at one time. ” (Blood Cross, 179)
“Lonely wasn’t something I ever felt—not ever—but the black hole inside me was so empty, so deep, it was a caving in of my soul, imploding like a mountain falling in on itself. A separateness that might be loneliness. ” (Blood Cross, 183)
“Summer in New Orleans is not for the fainthearted. ” (Mercy Blade, 18)
“I was about to play a hunch, go with my gut, and unlike in TV-land, guts were notoriously unreliable. ” (Mercy Blade, 205)
“It was vengeance never satisfied, the empty place in my soul that justice should have filled was still dark and cold. ” (Mercy Blade, 259)
“Weres had human feelings, thoughts, hopes, and dreams. And it was likely I was going to kill some, deliberately, with malice and intent. Vengeance wasn’t Christian. Vengeance was something darker. Older. Vengeance was blood-sworn. Blood promising blood. ” (Mercy Blade, 259)
“I wished I had a body for each soul, so I could be in two places at once. ” (Mercy Blade, 281)
“My occupation has a definite ick factor. ” (Raven Cursed, 2)
“Harleys weren’t built for stealth. ” (Raven Cursed, 23)
“It was Sunday morning; I should be getting ready for church instead of lying to cops. Yeah, I was going to hell. ” (Raven Cursed, 54)
“I’d rather fight an old rogue-vamp in my underwear, with my bare hands, than deal with relationship problems. ” (Raven Cursed, 77)
“I wiped my eyes. I never used to cry. Never. But then, I never used to have friends. I never used to put them in danger. I never used to kill humans. My life was changing and it was all pretty much sucky. ” (Raven Cursed, 95)
“I had tried to find that ancient, human, Cherokee part of myself, to wake it up and merge it with who I was now, creating one cohesive self. I felt that if I did, if I could find my ancient self, I might find something important, might finally feel whole. But I was fractured, broken, and I didn’t have the time, not now, for self-analysis and soul-searching. Someday. Someday. ” (Raven Cursed, 103)
“Cats didn’t care who liked them, as long as everyone else knew their place—at the cat’s feet, under the cat’s claws. ” (Raven Cursed, 143)
“I was getting complacent in the world of vamps, weres, humans, and tech. I needed to take better care. ” (Raven Cursed, 206)
“Though I had been raised nondenominational Protestant, not Catholic, guilt is something all Christians understand. ” (Raven Cursed, 242)
“I’d never had a family, but as an investigator, I knew that family secrets were the very worst. They destroyed so much. Sometimes they destroyed everything, as if, after decades in the grave, the dead reached out to shatter the living. ” (Raven Cursed, 261)
“Weird, the things you notice when you were nearly killed while killing and beheading a vampire, and now were trying to make logical decisions while bleeding to death. ” (Raven Cursed, 310)
“I’d rather face a pack of wolves than try to comfort someone. ” (Raven Cursed, 341)
“There wasn’t much I liked better than yanking a vamp’s chain. ” (“Cajun With Fangs”)
“I’m not a public speaker. Not at all. It’s easier to shoot first and divide up the dead later, but maybe I was growing up. ” (“Cajun With Fangs”)
“Though he had attacked me, I offered up a prayer for the spirit of my enemy, Cherokee-style, to the Christian God I had worshipped for all the life I remembered. Wondering if there would come a time when God no longer heard me, or worse, when I no longer prayed. That happened sometimes when one wandered into unfamiliar spiritual areas. ” (Death’s Rival, 18)
“No one would stop for a bloody, Amazon-sized woman on the side of the road, so I had to get moving before the sun rose. ” (Death’s Rival, 42)
“Not sure where the calm actions were coming from. Training or instinct. Maybe both, taking over when my mind went on hiatus and my soul was aching. ” (Death’s Rival, 55)
“I was, for the first time in my adult life, essentially homeless, friendless, empty, and alone. ” (Death’s Rival, 58)
“I didn’t recognize myself anymore in the killing machine I was becoming. ” (Death’s Rival, 59)
“He had no security consciousness about him at all. We could have been two ninja attackers or even a couple of Angus steers, and I didn’t think he’d have noticed us enter. ” (Death’s Rival, 134)
“Having men in the house was going to seriously impact my comfort clothes. ” (Death’s Rival, 141)
“Even here, out of the city, miles away, I could feel him inside me like a ghost crouching in the corner of my brain, like a demon’s dark shadow, waiting to command me. ” (Death’s Rival, 153)
“Being normal was no proof against horror. ” (Death’s Rival, 197)
“My job was hard on friends. Or I was. ” (Death’s Rival, 208)
“I had no training for paramilitary raids. My combat style was more along the lines of stake ’em and run. ” (Death’s Rival, 233)
“If I thought it was weird to have so many men I was interested in all in one place, my inner cat was just happy about it. ” (Death’s Rival, 234)
“Jealousy skulked through me on pointy little claws. ” (Death’s Rival, 247)
“I was part of the world of vamps whether I liked it or not, and that meant being part of vamp politics. I hate politics. ” (Death’s Rival, 258)
“But nothing in life is set in stone and nothing in life is promised us. Not happiness, not joy, not love. Everything was variable and mutable and inconstant. ” (Death’s Rival, 300)
“There was something about this town. Every time I came here, things got so freaking complicated. ” (Blood Trade, 55)
“I’d rather fight a
score of rogue vamps than face a difficult social situation—and this was going to be bad. I just knew it. ” (Blood Trade, 155)
“After a time, old pain became like a living being, with breath and self-determination. ” (Blood Trade, 231)
“This was a rescue job, not a pole dance. ” (Blood Trade, 273)
“People of all faiths are responsible to help the weak, the downtrodden, the sick, and the helpless, especially children. And of all the religions in the world, Christians are the only ones commanded not to judge, yet we do every day—gay people, ethnicities different from our own, people in mixed relationships, people with gifts they were born with, power they were born with, genetic mutations they were born with, illnesses of brain and body. I’ve got a little girl’s mother to save, and yes, she’s a witch. Are you gonna make it possible for me to save her?” (Blood Trade, 302)
“I was getting pretty good. I had astounded Evan several times today and it wasn’t even lunchtime yet. ” (Blood Trade, 334)
A Partial Listing of Jane’s Weapons
Silver-plated main gauche (knife)
Walther PK 380
Benelli M4 Super 90 (Can use regular ammo, but Jane uses hand-packed silver fléchette rounds when hunting silver-sensitive bad guys like vamps and weres)
M32, six-shot launcher
Heckler & Koch (nine-millimeter handgun)
. 32 six-shooter
Kahr P380
Colloidal silver spray in canisters
Vamp-killers (steel-edged knives plated with silver)
Stakes (ash and sterling silver some with small knobs on the ends so she has something smooth to shove forward)
Holy Water
Clan Pellissier, Blood Family Historical Chart
Judas
The Eldest Son of Darkness. Sire of:
Claudia Acete, a former slave of, and freedwoman of, Nero. Turned in Rome in AD 50. Dame of:
Rufinus Agricola, a Centurion in Hispania, turned in what is now Spain, in AD 125. Sire of:
Cesar and Ordonius Frunimius turned in Spain in AD 400. Traveled to what is now France. They created a large blood-family and returned to Rome, where they fomented a blood-feud against the Sons of Darkness in AD 950 and were destroyed. Dual sires of:|
Alazais Chevalier, turned in France in AD 900. Was taken by the Eldest Son of Darkness and forced into his blood-family, as a slave, in reparation of the blood-feud that killed Claudia Acete. The son felt a strong attraction to the boy and took him as companion, sharing his scions, his bed, and his own blood. This gave Alazais great strength. When his time of servitude was up, he left Roman territory and returned to France where he became the sire of:
