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Theology had never really been his strong suit, but he was reasonably sure the Saviour had talked a lot about mercy.
Start the evening looking for fun, end the morning begging forgiveness.
Cardinal Zizka might have had the bland office, drab furniture, and stained fingers of a junior clerk, but her eyes were those of a dragon. A particularly formidable example that suffered no fools.
“The Church must, of course, remain faithful to the teachings of our Saviour. But there are tasks that must be undertaken, and methods used, to which the faithful and unimpeachable … are not suited.”
You have to treat people like oranges, Gal the Purse always said. Squeeze what you can from the bastards, then waste no regrets when you toss away their wrung-out skins. You have to treat people like stepping stones. Like rungs on your ladder. Or you’ll wake up one day with nothing but a set of bootprints on your own back.
She struck Alex as a woman not likely to be moved by anything short of an earthquake. And probably not far even then.
He had never had much patience for religion. What was it, really, but superstition with money?
Balthazar was caught where he spent much of his time: somewhere between contempt and envy.
He might know it was all flimflam, but to believe a lie was as comforting for the believer as to know the truth. For an instant he could not but wonder—is it truly better to be a woebegone cynic than an ecstatic dupe?
Balthazar outwardly goggled, inwardly boggled. The old bitch was making up the verbals on the fly! The wording of a solemn binding! The papal binding, no less!
“Sunny is, in some ways, your opposite.” “Meaning?” “She doesn’t say much. But when she does, it’s worth listening to.”
You can stack your doubts high before. You can polish your regrets up after. But while the fight’s on, your purpose must be pure. Kill the enemy. Don’t die yourself.
“The Church is not that keen on God, in my experience,” said Baron Rikard. “They think of him much as a lawyer thinks of the law. Something to be got around.”
“You’re a vampire,” snapped Brother Diaz. “Of course you hate the Church.” “On the contrary, I am a great admirer of the tenets of your religion. I merely find it a shame that the Saved are, as a rule, so little like their Saviour.”
“Pescara’s awful anyway,” threw in Baron Rikard. “Wouldn’t be caught dead in Pescara.” “You are dead,” said Vigga. “But I wouldn’t be caught.”
Every step was painful, but every step had been painful for two lifetimes, now. Jakob kept taking them. The paces don’t have to be quick, or long, or pretty. They just have to keep going.
Everyone’s scared all the time. Alex wondered what a vampire might be scared of. She decided she’d rather not know.
“Oh, I would never feed on someone to whom I had been formally introduced without express permission. It would be like eating a pet. Once they have a name it feels…” The baron gave a fastidious shudder. “So crass.”
Lying was a sin, apparently, unless you did it outrageously and persistently enough, in which case it qualified as scripture.
Why be ashamed? her mother always said. If people don’t like you, it’s their problem, don’t make yourself suffer for it. Fuck ’em, she’d always said. You’ll find enough folk want you to suffer, there’s no need to help the bastards. They never got Vigga’s mother to drop her eyes, and Odin’s beard, they’d tried. So Vigga didn’t drop hers, either. Not for anyone.
You want rescuing, you’d better get ready to rescue yourself. Maybe God will congratulate you afterwards, or something.
She really didn’t understand people at all, they were so weird. Dealing with them was like being slapped in the face over and over.
Why the Saved wanted to see their heroes being mauled and drowned and hammered and squished she’d no notion. Maybe they thought if Saint Cedric had got nailed hard enough, they wouldn’t have to get nailed themselves. In this she thought they were likely mistaken. There are always more nails around.
“Why do people insist on arguing when everyone knows they’ve got no choice?” “’Cause they wish they did have a choice,” said his granddaughter.
“There are fang-holes all over half these lads already. How you get people to agree to being chewed on is beyond me.” “I listen, I understand, I sympathise. I act, in short, with simple grace and good manners, and so people are drawn to me, rather than repulsed, as they are by you.”
“If there’s a secret…” mused Vigga, who’d either forgotten she still had her legs wide open or didn’t care, “it’s to never be shy about asking the question, and never fear what the answer will be, and waste no tears over the refusals, and clutch with both hands at any flicker of warmth that can be clawed from the uncaring darkness of existence.”
“I am Shaxep, Duke of Beneath. My greed is a famine. My envy a plague. My lust a flood. My fury a hurricane.”
“I have defied God and his angels,” he hissed. “I have bathed in blood and waded through gold. Kings … have abased themselves … at my feet. Do you truly imagine … you can stick me with a fork?”
“We all see the world through the lens of our own obsessions,” murmured Jakob.
“Oh, they love you,” he grunted. “The way you can only love someone you’ve never met and never will. They love the idea of you. The thought of becoming their best selves. Being redeemed. Made whole.” He shook his head at the crowds lining the square. “No matter who rules, the world will still be the world. People will still be people.”
“Happy endings are just stories that aren’t finished yet.”
“I have always desired, above all, to be thought a wise man. I have begun to realise it might even be a good idea to be one. And a truly wise man must accept that, however much he knows, there is always far more to learn.”
“If no one blamed themselves for the things they could not help…” She gave him a faint smile as she turned away from the Athenaeum and led them on towards the palace. “Wouldn’t the whole Church go out of business?”
“When I was young,” said Jakob, “I thought I was working towards something. Building to last. Some perfect state of things. Of the world. Of myself.” He gently shifted one leg under her, then the other. “You get to my age, you realise nothing lasts for ever. No love, no hate, no war, no peace. If a thing hasn’t ended … you haven’t waited long enough.”
“He who cannot die cannot run out of time to win redemption. To level your own accusation, reach your own verdict, pronounce your own sentence…” Brother Diaz gently shook his head. “That smacks of arrogance, Jakob of Thorn. That smacks of pride.”
“The problem with clever people is they think everything must be clever. The binding works on the soul, Balthazar.” He shrugged. “I’m a vampire. I don’t have one.”
“You have done three things men almost never do. Impressed me, interested me … and turned me down.”
