Strange Practice (Dr. Greta Helsing, #1)

by Vivian Shaw

Ruthven set the kettle on a burner and lit it with a blue pop of gas.

Transitions are on point, seriously.

equanimity.

like a panicky octopus,

Quite a creditable swoon, if I’m any judge; Ruthven caught you in his arms very prettily indeed, just like in the films. I expect he felt quite pleased with himself.

Fass knows him all too well.

the Tyburn, the Fleet, the Effra, the Westbourne,

Look up later.

why are madmen, human or otherwise, suddenly objecting to our presence now?”

And not to leave you out, we’ve got a ton of thio-2-propene-1-sulfinic acid S-allyl ester.” Ruthven looked at her, one eyebrow slightly raised. “Which is what exactly, when it’s at home with its feet up?” “Allicin,” she said. “Derived from garlic.

Greta nodded, finishing her toast and licking butter off her fingers, and Varney had to look away in something of a hurry.

Oh goodness.

Gretalina.

You’ve gone the color of good bond paper

“I think the transport authority would notice a bunch of crazy monk guys genuflecting to their light fixtures,” Cranswell said. “Like, even in London that’s weird.”

This got me giggling.

“Ten points for vocab,

Varney was more than a little mortified,

Oh Boy. Poor Varney, lambasted by the modern Bachelorette Frog!

I cannot, however, fly a helicopter, play the piano, or compose lyric poetry, and don’t ask me to keep houseplants alive.

See kids: there is such a thing as a perfect Vampire.

mirabilics,

From Mirabilis. Wonderous, miraculous, amazing, et al. Ie. Feats that inspire in their defying of logic.

pneuma.”

Soul sciences.

It’s like instant genetic engineering, in a way.

Change someone’s pneumic signature on the higher planes to indicate he’s got a tail and bang, there he is with a tail on the prime material plane, for as long as you keep the influence on.

“He is human, and may receive absolution?”

Varney and his fucking obsession with divine forgiveness. He may be too far gone to convert to amoralistic humanism at this point... Ugh. WhatamIonaboot??

Asmodeus.

Jinn! Ifritti then???

postvital

That's a made up word for undead/afterlife entities and I like it. Here's my made up word in answer: Cymera. It's a made up word for cyborgs, genetic chimeras, and other human-like hybrids.

It was clear that Greta had ceased to exist entirely in her world, and that she had just joined the ranks of People Briefly If Hopelessly In Love With Edmund Ruthven.

Of all the people he could have selected to accompany him in a highly dangerous activity involving a powerful source of ultraviolet radiation, a couple of vampires ranked near the very bottom of the list.

This line had me rolling!

“It has to be me,” she said, biting off the words, “because I’m the only person qualified and capable of taking care of our guest, and because I have responsibilities to the rest of my patients and to London’s supernatural community in general. I am not replaceable.”

So who's to protect her then? The ghouls???

“Put those back,” he said. “I have had to overlook a number of personal inconveniences just lately, but I am not having you ruin the edge on my good knives by using them to chop up violent lunatics. If you insist on coming with us, go and get one of the damn swords over the dining room mantelpiece, and try not to hurt yourself with it.”

there was an access door in the brick wall, fastened with a padlock that Ruthven twisted open as if it had been made of chewing gum.

We get it. Vampires are incredibly strong and Vampyres are incredibly sexy. Chill out.

The first intimation Greta had of the Gladius Sancti’s presence was when the flaming bottle came through the bedroom window.

Called it.

her mind felt like a cauldron full of poisoned soup, chunks of thought swirling and bobbing chaotically in an unpleasant murk.

“August Cranswell, you know damn well that thing’s a jumped-up lightbulb, nothing more than a bit of engineering with ideas above its station,”

He coughed, bringing up dark and bitter blood, and thought: Asmodeus was right, after all: I was a mistake.

All she could understand right now was that he was dead. That Fastitocalon was dead. All of everything was over, because he was dead, and gone beyond her skill, and he was—had been—all she had left.

He drew in the smoke, eyes closing, and sighed it out with the air of someone coming to grips with an unpleasant necessity.

infernocelestial

Sobranie Cocktails,

“I have a question,” he said, raising a finger. “Yes?” said Samael. “I quit a couple years ago, but … can I bum a cigarette?”

Same.

intimation

That has got to be the third time it has been used.

“Didn’t he have nice manners,” said Ruthven into the subsequent silence, sounding slightly hysterical, and fainted dead away.

Ruthven came around fairly quickly, in time to catch Greta telling the others about the house fire, whereupon he promptly fainted again.

“If I may,” he said, drawing their attention. “I’d like to propose a toast.” “To what?” Cranswell wanted to know. “‘No more crazy monks—cheers’?”