Empire of the Vampire (Empire of the Vampire, #1)

by Jay Kristoff

But I knew his fists like I knew my name. And I thought it love.

“Too much hate will burn a man to cinders, Chevalier.” “Oui. But at least he’ll die warm.”

Death-pale skin. A face carved from cruelty. He looked as if he’d leave bruises in the sheets where he slept.

know; there’s a difference between those who swim with the flood and those who drown fighting it. And its name is Wisdom.

“He told me one-fifth of three-eighths of fuck all.

‘We are hope for the hopeless. The fire in the night. We will walk the dark as they do, and they shall know our names and despair. For so long as they burn, we shall be flame. So long as they bleed, we shall be blades. So long as they sin, we shall be saints.’

“In my shaking hands was the most beautiful sword I’d ever seen in my life. Eloise, the Angel of Retribution, was wrought on the hilt, her wings flowing about her like silver ribbons. Bright whorls of silver rippled along the blade’s darker steel, and I could see beautiful script from the Testaments engraved down the length. “KNOW MY NAME, YE SINNERS, AND TREMBLE. FOR I AM COME AMONG THEE AS A LION AMONG LAMBS.

“No fear,” he bid them. “Only fury.”

I’m something of a bastard on the best of days. And that day was hardly my best.”

Gabriel tapped an empty leather pouch at his belt. “Behold the purse in which I keep my fucks for what you think of me.”

“THE PLACARD ABOVE the taverne’s door read THE PERFECT HUSBAND. The faded lettering was accompanied by a picture of a freshly dug grave.

“I fucking hate potatoes.” “Why?” “Eat the same thing every day of your life, coldblood, see how bored you get.” Jean-François studied his long fingernails. “A finer argument against the sacrament of matrimony I have never heard, Silversaint.”

sighed. “You can try to fill it with whatever you like. Wine. Women. Work. In the end, a hole is still a hole.” “And sooner or later, you all crawl back into your favorite one,” the vampire said.

“I squinted at the powdered curls atop the man’s head. ‘I think your cat’s dead.’

“‘You’re a drunken pig.’ The boy puffed up in his fancy coat and blew smoke in my face. ‘And we’ve as much need of you as a bull has of tits.’

“Ye hast the look of hammered shite, by the by.

My insides began making noises like they’d prefer to be outside, and could find their own way if I refused to show them.

“‘De León. Ye live.’ “‘Sadly.’

God didn’t want me. And the devil was afraid to open the door.’

God go with you.’ “‘I’d rather he minded his own fucking business, if it’s all the same.’

“‘I am come among thee as a lion among lambs!’

I swear, there were more pricks in those Barracks than at a hedgehog’s bachelor feast.

I loved learning the hymn of blades Greyhand showed us. Steel never judged me, see. Steel was mother. Steel was father. Steel was friend.

There’s nothing comes of quitting besides the knowledge you didn’t finish.”

tremble. Sweet Mothermaid, give me patience. Great Redeemer, give me strength. Almighty Father, give me sight.’

Pain had been punishment when I was a boy. But now it had become reward. Bliss in torment. Salvation in suffering.

One day as a lion is worth ten thousand as a lamb.

mist. As wealthy as a priest after the collection plate has been passed around, and as strange as the idea that the creator of heaven and earth needs the money in the first place.

“‘I’m no princess. I’m a fucking queen.’”

‘Best two ae three?’ “‘Kittens can’t count that high,’ I smiled.

But more, and truer still, there’s just no one with more to prove than the boy at the bottom of the pile. You feed a man your table scraps, he grows hungry long before he grows thin. And hunger can turn pups into wolves, and kittens into fucking lions.

It seemed for a moment she was a piece of the night itself come alive.

‘When in a storm, the wise woman prays to God. But she also rows for shore.’

“A life without books is a life not lived.

“‘… You’re going to make a very strange nun, Astrid Rennier.’

“‘Oh, oui, the holy virgin.’ Astrid rolled her eyes. ‘Let me tell you, if the Almighty offered me the platter of shit that constitutes divine motherhood and yet denied me the pleasure of a good roll in the hay beforehand, I’d have told him to go fuck himself.’