Ax Murderer Quotes

The problem with cats is that they get the same exact look whether they see a moth or an ax-murderer.

I love Nudge, Nudge is a great kid, but that motormouth of hers could have turned Mother Teresa into an ax murderer

Death row is a nightmare to serial killers and ax murderers. For an innocent man, it's a life of mental torture that the human spirit is not equipped to survive.

The truth is, if you go to Warren, no matter what is going on in your personal life—hair trouble, existential malaise, ax murder—you do the reading.

Once more, this is love: it rings and you open up unless it looks like an ax murderer.

Terrible’s eyes narrowed; he gave Chess the kind of look most people reserved for ax murderers. Ax murderers who killed children. And kittens.

All right," she said in a low, determined voice. 'I'll go along with this. But you are not, under any circumstances, to refer to me again as 'the future Mrs. Bobby Tom,' do you understand? Because if you say that just once, just once, I will personally tell the entire world that our engagement is a fraud. Furthermore, I will announce that you are-are-" Her mouth opened and closed, She's stared out strong, but now she couldn't think of anything terrible enough to throw at him. An ax murderer?" he offered helpfully. When she didn't reply, he tried again. " A vegetarian?" It came to her in a flash. "Impotent!

Sharks are like ax-murderers, Martin. People react to them with their guts. There’s something crazy and evil and uncontrollable about them.

Greetings, ax murderer! I was just wondering how you like your eggs?

Sydney did not believe in life after death, but in her experience, admitting this could lead to long and complicated discussions in which people seemed to think that since she did not believe in God or the afterlife, there was nothing to stop her from becoming an ax murderer.

What's to be believed? Or does it matter at all? When mass murder's been answered with mass murder, rape with rape, hate with hate, there's no longer much meaning in asking whose ax is bloodier. Evil, on evil, piled on evil. Was there any justification for what they did—or was there? We only know what that thing says, and that thing is a captive. The Asian radio has to say what will least displease it's government; ours has to say what will least displease our fine patriotic opinionated rabble, which is what, coincidentally, the government wants it to say anyhow, so where's the difference?

With blue vinyl-tile floor, pale-green wainscoating, pink walls, a yellow ceiling, and orange-and-white stork-patterned drapes, the expectant fathers' lounge churned with the negative energy of color overload. It would have served well as the nervous-making set for a nightmare about a children's-show host who led a secret life as an ax murderer. The chain-smoking clown didn't improve the ambience.

‎"He sang the song of the sword, keening as he fed his blade, and Rollo, standing thigh-deep in the creek, ax swinging in murderous blows, blocked the enemy's escape. The Frisians, transported from confidence to bowel-loosening fear, began to drop their weapons.

What’s to be believed? Or does it matter at all? When mass murder’s been answered with mass murder, rape with rape, hate with hate, there’s no longer much meaning in asking whose ax is the bloodier. Evil, on evil, piled on evil.

Blue had once intercepted a set of e-mails on her mother’s computer; one of Maura’s male clients had ardently begged Maura to bring Blue “and whatever else you cannot live without” to his row house in Baltimore. In the reply, Maura had sternly informed him that this was not a possibility, for many reasons, chief of which that she would not leave Henrietta and least of which that she didn’t know if he was an ax murderer. He had e-mailed back only a sad-face smiley. Blue always wondered what became of him.

I hardly know you, Augustus Waters. You could be an ax murderer

What do you mean, ruined?" From the way Emily swallows slowly, you'd think we were talking about smoking crack. "Compromised. By...by another man." "Oh!" I say, too loudly. "You mean, if the girl's not a virgin, the guy won't marry her?" She nods, her eyes wide, as if being a non-virgin is akin to being an ax-murder.

Eadlyn, you're under a lot of stress. We understand. And short of becoming an ax murderer, there's nothing you could do to make me love you less." I laughed. "An ax murderer? That's your limit?" "Well...maybe even then." She winked at me.

Avery, I can personally guarantee that Nash will not ax-murder you or allow you to be ax-murdered by anyone else while I’m gone.

Where's the truth?" he asked quietly. "What's to be believed? Or does it matter at all? When mass murder's been answered with mass murder, rape with rape, hate with hate, there's no longer much meaning in asking whose ax is bloodier. Evil, on evil, piled on evil.

Am I picking you up tonight?” he asked. “Or do you still think I'm an ax murderer who might break into your house and off you and your family?” “Pretty sure you'd go all parkour on us. Instead of using an ax.” “Parkour? You think I'd use your family as an obstacle course?” “What?” I asked. He smothered a laugh. “Parkour is non-contact.” I felt my face redden. How was I supposed to know all that guy crap?

What's to be believed? Or does it matter at all? When mass murder's been answered with mass murder, rape with rape, hate with hate, there's no longer much meaning in asking whose ax is the bloodier. Evil, on evil, piled on evil.

I will torture you for a human eternity, during which time you will beg me for death by an Opus 24/24, or an ax, or a thousand snakebites. I can see the future, Daniel, and I am looking forward to it, every excruciating second of your murder and dismembedment. Isn't that a wonderful English word, dis-member-ment?

Do you remember anything about last night?" he asked. Her stomach churned as memories of the night before swam into mental view. Oh, she recalled a few things. How could she forget? She took a solid gulp of her coffee. "I remember vodka, an ax murderer, and a marriage proposal." "Good. The important things." He nodded.

Your relaxation exercise is to be chased by an ax murderer.” He laughs. “And you go out seven nights a week. No wonder you’re stressed out, you crazy bastard.” He pulls me to him by my T-shirt and kisses me on the lips. “Lucky I have you to fuck me calm, then, isn’t it?” “Damn straight,” I pant.

being contradictory is more important than being right.

Nothing takes the edge off a stressful day better than watching someone getting decapitated by an ax murderer. When I’m feeling a little depressed, nothing blows away the blues like hearing the screams of an unlucky hunter while mutated bears shred him into mulch. Just the thought of someone unable to get their car engine to start while their undead relative smacks the windshield with a hammer drops my anxiety to a manageable level.

Giving an A is a fundamental, paradigmatic shift toward the realization that it is all invented—the A is invented and the Number 68 is invented, and so are all the judgments in between. Some readers might conclude that our practice is merely an exercise in “putting a positive spin” on a negative opinion, or “thinking the best of someone,” and “letting bygones be bygones.” But that is not it at all. No behavior of the person to whom you assign an A need be whitewashed by that grade, and no action is so bad that behind it you cannot recognize a human being to whom you can speak the truth. You can grant the proverbial ax murderer an A by addressing him as a person who knows he has forfeited his humanity and lost all control, and you can give your sullen, lazy, secretive teenager an A, and she will still at that moment be sleeping the morning away. When she awakes, however, the conversation between you and her will go a little differently because she will have become for you a person whose true nature is to participate—however blocked she may be. And you will know you are communicating with her, even if you see that she is tongue-tied or too confused to answer you just then. When we give an A we can be open to a perspective different from our own. For after all, it is only to a person to whom you have granted an A that you will really listen, and it is in that rare instance when you have ears for another person that you can truly appreciate a fresh point of view.

Jonathan Edwards is sometimes criticized for having too dim a view of human nature, but it may be helpful to be reminded that his grandmother was an incorrigible profligate, his great-aunt committed infanticide, and his great-uncle was an ax-murderer.

DALE sat in the reeking Buick, looked at the light glowing in the second-floor upper left window, listened to pellets of sleet bouncing off the windshield, and thought, Fuck this. He backed the rattling old car down the long lane, pulled out onto County 6, and headed back south. Dale had seen enough scary movies in his life. He knew that his role now was to go into the dark farmhouse by himself, call, “Is somebody there?,” go fearfully up the stairs, and then get cut down by the waiting ax murderer.

The North Korean capital, Pyongyang, is a city consecrated to the worship of a father-son dynasty. (I came to think of them, with their nuclear-family implications, as 'Fat Man and Little Boy.') And a river runs through it. And on this river, the Taedong River, is moored the only American naval vessel in captivity. It was in January 1968 that the U.S.S. Pueblo strayed into North Korean waters, and was boarded and captured. One sailor was killed; the rest were held for nearly a year before being released. I looked over the spy ship, its radio antennae and surveillance equipment still intact, and found photographs of the captain and crew with their hands on their heads in gestures of abject surrender. Copies of their groveling 'confessions,' written in tremulous script, were also on show. So was a humiliating document from the United States government, admitting wrongdoing in the penetration of North Korean waters and petitioning the 'D.P.R.K.' (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) for 'lenience.' Kim Il Sung ('Fat Man') was eventually lenient about the men, but not about the ship. Madeleine Albright didn't ask to see the vessel on her visit last October, during which she described the gruesome, depopulated vistas of Pyongyang as 'beautiful.' As I got back onto the wharf, I noticed a refreshment cart, staffed by two women under a frayed umbrella. It didn't look like much—one of its three wheels was missing and a piece of brick was propping it up—but it was the only such cart I'd see. What toothsome local snacks might the ladies be offering? The choices turned out to be slices of dry bread and cups of warm water. Nor did Madeleine Albright visit the absurdly misnamed 'Demilitarized Zone,' one of the most heavily militarized strips of land on earth. Across the waist of the Korean peninsula lies a wasteland, roughly following the 38th parallel, and packed with a titanic concentration of potential violence. It is four kilometers wide (I have now looked apprehensively at it from both sides) and very near to the capital cities of both North and South. On the day I spent on the northern side, I met a group of aging Chinese veterans, all from Szechuan, touring the old battlefields and reliving a war they helped North Korea nearly win (China sacrificed perhaps a million soldiers in that campaign, including Mao Anying, son of Mao himself). Across the frontier are 37,000 United States soldiers. Their arsenal, which has included undeclared nuclear weapons, is the reason given by Washington for its refusal to sign the land-mines treaty. In August 1976, U.S. officers entered the neutral zone to trim a tree that was obscuring the view of an observation post. A posse of North Koreans came after them, and one, seizing the ax with which the trimming was to be done, hacked two U.S. servicemen to death with it. I visited the ax also; it's proudly displayed in a glass case on the North Korean side.

I looked at him. He sat in the darkness, with his brows knitted tightly together, as though trying to grasp something, to understand the inconceivable, to pinpoint the moment when everything suddenly got out of control and the point of no return was officially passed by both sides – the future murderers and their victims. The new Reich sorted us into two kinds and now he suddenly found himself among those who held an ax above our miserable heads.

Besides, if you wouldn’t duel with Lord Everly when he called you a cheat, you certainly wouldn’t harm poor Lord Howard merely for touching my arm.” “Wouldn’t I?” he asked softly. “Those are two very different issues.” Not for the first time, Elizabeth found herself at a loss to understand him. Suddenly his presence was vaguely threatening again; whenever he stopped playing the amusing gallant he became a dark, mysterious stranger. Raking her hair off her forehead, she glanced out the window. “It must be after three already. I really must leave.” She surged to her feet, smoothing her skirts. “Thank you for a lovely afternoon. I don’t know why I remained. I shouldn’t have, but I am glad I did…” She ran out of words and watched in wary alarm as he stood up. “Don’t you?” he asked softly. “Don’t I what?” “Know why you’re still here with me?” “I don’t even know who you are?” she cried. “I know about places you’ve been, but not your family, your people. I know you gamble great sums of money at cards, and I disapprove of that-“ “I also gamble great sums of money on ships and cargo-will that improve my character in your eyes?” “And I know,” she continued desperately, watching his gaze turn warm and sensual, “I absolutely know you make me excessively uneasy when you look at me the way you’re doing now!” “Elizabeth,” he said in a tone of tender finality, “you’re here because we’re already half in love with each other.” “Whaaat? she gasped. “And as to needing to know who I am, that’s very simple to answer.” His hand lifted, grazing her pale cheek, then smoothing backward, cupping her head. Gently he explained, “I am the man you’re going to marry.” “Oh, my God!” “I think it’s too late to start praying,” he teased huskily. “You-you must be mad,” she said, her voice quavering. “My thoughts exactly,” he whispered, and, bending his head, he pressed his lips to her forehead, drawing her against his chest, holding her as if he knew she would struggle if he tried to do more than that. “You were not in my plans, Miss Cameron.” “Oh, please,” Elizabeth implored helplessly, “don’t do this to me. I don’t understand any of this. I don’t know what you want.” “I want you.” He took her chin between his thumb and forefinger and lifted it, forcing her to meet his steady gaze as he quietly added, “And you want me.” Elizabeth’s entire body started to tremble as his lips began descending to hers, and she sought to forestall what her heart knew was inevitable by reasoning with him. “A gently bred Englishwomen,” she shakily quoted Lucinda’s lecture, “feels nothing stronger than affection. We do not fall in love.” His warm lips covered hers. “I’m a Scot,” he murmured huskily. “We do.” “A Scot!” she uttered when he lifted his mouth from hers. He laughed at her appalled expression. “I said ‘Scot,’ not ‘ax murderer.” A Scot who was a gambler to boot! Havenhurst would land on the auction block, the servants turned off, and the world would fall apart. “I cannot, cannot marry you.” “Yes, Elizabeth,” he whispered as his lips trailed a hot path over her cheek to her ear, “you can.

For a year or so Father had been murdering Margaret two or three times a week. He did this in various ways. The first time he snuck up behind her with an ax at dinner, startling everyone, not least Margaret herself. After that it was gunshots, poison, hanging, whatever. Sometimes it was a surprise, sometimes not. Another time Father pierced her heart with a stiletto, but only “after telling her what he would do, setting the knife before her on a silver tray, and letting her contemplate it for three full days and nights. Carolyn would have supposed that the ax would be the worse of the two, but Margaret seemed to take that one in stride. After a day or so of looking at the knife, though, she started to do that giggle of hers. And after that, she never really stopped.

I didn’t think we were being quiet, particularly. High heels may have looked dainty, but they didn’t sound that way on a tile floor. Maybe it was just that my dad was so absorbed in the convo on his cell phone. For whatever reason, when we emerged from the kitchen into the den, he started, and he stuffed the phone down by his side in the cushions. I was sorry I’d startled him, but it really was comical to see this big blond manly man jump three feet off the sofa when he saw two teenage girls. I mean, it would have been funny if it weren’t so sad. Dad was a ferocious lawyer in court. Out of court, he was one of those Big Man on Campus types who shook hands with everybody from the mayor to the alleged ax murderer. A lot like Sean, actually. There were only two things Dad was afraid of. First, he wigged out when anything in the house was misplaced. I won’t even go into all the arguments we’d had about my room being a mess. They’d ended when I told him it was my room, and if he didn’t stop bugging me about it, I would put kitchen utensils in the wrong drawers, maybe even hide some (cue horror movie music). No spoons for you! Second, he was easily startled, and very pissed off afterward. “Damn it, Lori!” he hollered. “It’s great to see you too, loving father. Lo, I have brought my friend Tammy to witness out domestic bliss. She’s on the tennis team with me.” Actually, I was on the tennis team with her. “Hello, Tammy. It’s nice to meet you,” Dad said without getting up or shaking her hand or anything else he would normally do. While the two of them recited a few more snippets of polite nonsense, I watched my dad. From the angle of his body, I could tell he was protecting that cell phone behind the cushions. I nodded toward the hiding place. “Hot date?” I was totally kidding. I didn’t expect him to say, “When?” So I said, “Ever.” And then I realized I’d brought up a subject that I didn’t want to bring up, especially not while I was busy being self-absorbed. I clapped my hands. “Okay, then! Tammy and I are going upstairs very loudly, and after a few minutes we will come back down, ringing a cowbell. Please continue with your top secret phone convo.” I turned and headed for the stairs. Tammy followed me. I thought Dad might order me back, send Tammy out, and give me one of those lectures about my attitude (who, me?). But obviously he was chatting with Pamela Anderson and couldn’t wait for me to leave the room. Behind us, I heard him say, “I’m so sorry. I’m still here. Lori came in. Oh, yeah? I’d like to see you try.” “He seems jumpy,” Tammy whispered on the stairs. “Always,” I said. “Do you have a lot of explosions around your house?” I glanced at my watch. “Not this early.

Even bullets are nothing compared to the ax murderers in people’s eyes.

He started to move on, but I held his arm tightly. "Wait, wait. I don't think I understand you. What do you mean, they eliminate species?" "They eliminate them. They will make Earth as much like the Yeerk home world as possible. They will destroy most of the plants and all of the animal species except those they eat." I let go of his arm. I rocked back and grabbed at the air for balance. I felt like I'd been hit by a far. "No," I whispered. "That can't be. You're just saying that because you don't like Yeerks." The others were staring. No one was moving. Ax looked around at us. His eyes narrowed. "Don't you know? Don't you know whom you're fighting?" "We know they take over people's minds," Rachel said weakly. "Yes. And that is one of their great crimes. But the Yeerks are more than that. Yeerks are killers of worlds. Murderers of all life. Hated and feared throughout the galaxy. They are a plague that spreads from world to world, leaving nothing but desolation and slavery and misery in their wake." -Animorphs #4, The Visitor page 64

And how can evil be the mere absence of good? Is genocide the absence of something, of what? Of kindness? Were there no kind Nazis? Of love? Were there no Maoist revolutionaries who loved their families? Evil is an act, we commit evil proactively, it doesn't simply emerge in the absence of good. When you don't put a dollar in the donation tin in the front of the convenience store it doesn't mean that an ax murderer was created. We human beings have one set of actions described as "good" and another set described as "evil.

or even an ax-murderer

My favored mulching method is to cover the ground between rows of plants with a year’s worth of our saved newspapers; the paper and soy-based ink will decompose by autumn. Then we cover all that newsprint—comics, ax murderers, presidents, and all—with a deep layer of old straw. It is grand to walk down the rows dumping armloads of moldy grass glop onto the faces of your less favorite heads of state: a year in review, already starting to compost.

mean, Phaethon? In Ancient Greek, that means The Shining. His dad was the sun god, so I guess it makes sense. Still, any kid named after an old movie with Jack Nicholson as a psycho ax-murderer—that kid is not going to have a happy life.

Not many kids can say that when their toilet is stopped up, they get Seven Fingers, the ax murderer, to help them out, either.

One day in November, I moved Skittles into color-specific piles on his chest while a murderer chopped away at teenagers having sex onscreen. Doesn't even make sense, Jeffrey said. He's not exactly quiet. They would have heard him coming. Too busy listening to each other coming, I said. Jeffrey coughed so hard he dislodged the Skittles. Could you be more vulgar? he said. Actually, yes, I could. It's just the truth. Who's going to notice an ax murderer sneaking up on you when you're in the throes of passionate sex in a dirty, disease-ridden barn? If you're horny enough to get it on in there, you're not going to notice anything.

So, going by this, it made no sense that the man who had cried when their cat had to be put down, who refused to watch scary movies, who joked that Claire was on her own if an ax murderer ever broke into the house, would be the same man who derived sexual pleasure from watching horrible, unspeakable acts. Claire

Salon writer Scot Sea, who said that his experience with his own autistic daughter helped him understand why a California man named Delfin Bartolome had shot his son and then himself. “The odor has finally made its way down the hall. When you see the balled-up pants and diaper on the floor, you know you are too late,” Sea began ominously. “A bright red smear across the door, the molding, the wall. Turn the corner and the bedroom is a crime scene. An ax murder? In fact, it is only your daughter at her worst.” He described a scene worthy of a slasher movie: “Splashes of blood glistening like paint, black clots, yellow-brown feces, and a 3-foot-in-diameter pond of vomit that your daughter stands in the middle of . . . hands dripping, face marked like a cannibal.” Parents in previous eras were spared these horrors, he explained, because “idiot” children were promptly “tossed down the well or thumped against the fence post.” For “educated” families in more recent times, he added, at least there was a way out—institutionalization. But now, desperate parents had to find their own ways out, as Bartolome had been forced to do with a handgun when he ran out of options. This was the harsh reality of raising a child with autism, according to Sea. (He neglected to mention that weeks before the shooting, Bartolome—described by his relatives as a loving and devoted father—had been laid off just before retirement, shunting him into a series of temporary jobs and putting his son’s future care at risk.) Shannon felt herself becoming physically ill while reading Sea’s article. Was this her family’s future? IV

I am Gregori, Jacques.” Gregori’s voice was power itself, yet soft and soothing. “A healer for our people.” Shea was lying across Jacques, her head on his shoulder, her eyes closed. She groaned— a low, husky sound that added fuel to Jacques’ rage. His fingers brushed the dark smudges along her swollen throat, and he turned a murderous gaze on Mikhail. “Leave us alone.” Her voice was barely a whisper, hoarse and raw. She did not open her eyes or try to move. “I can help him,” Gregori persisted, using his same compelling tone. The woman was so obviously the key to reaching Jacques. It was in the way he held her, the protective posture of his body, the way his eyes moved possessively, even tenderly, over her face. His hands were continually caressing her, stroking her hair, her skin. At the underlying command in Gregori’s beautiful voice, her long eyelashes lifted, and she studied his face. He was savagely beautiful, a blend of elegance and untamed beast. He looked more dangerous than the other two strangers did. Shea made an effort to swallow, but it hurt. “You look like an ax murderer to me.” This one has brains. Mikhail’s soft laughter echoed in Gregori’s head. She sees beyond that handsome face of yours. You are so funny, ancient one. Gregori deliberately reminded him of the quarter of a century difference in their ages.

I’ve been trying to think of the best way to get in touch with you. I found your address, but no phone number, and I—” “You know where I live?” He looked around a little nervously; she made it sound as if he was some ax murderer or something. “Let’s not get loud here,” he suggested. “I needed to find you. I looked you up on the computer. You bought a house.” “Oh, for God’s sake,” she said, rubbing her temples. She seemed to gather herself from within. “All right. What do you want?” Now this was pissing him off all over again. “Gee, was I confusing you? I want us to have a conversation, maybe talk about what happened to us. I wanted to tell you that it didn’t take me long to wish I’d been more…more…cooperative when we had the argument that broke us up.” “Well, Sean, it did actually take you too long,” she said. “So there—consider your mission accomplished. You told me. Now, can you please go away and leave me alone?” “No, I can’t,” he said. “So I get it—you’re still mad. We can’t really deal with that without talking.” “But I said I don’t want to!” she stated, raising her voice again. “Franci,” he said quietly. “Could we try not to make a big scene here…” “Look, I told you, I’m in a hurry. You still using the same cell number?” she asked. He nodded. “Great, I’ll call you sometime. Now, excuse me, if you’d please just leave me alone, I’d appreciate it very much.” Polite as that might’ve sounded, it was stated angrily, and people had stopped shopping and began watching them. She turned away from him and he grabbed her arm again. “Franci, I am not going away. This is important.” Suddenly

Nudge is a great kid, but that motormouth of hers could have turned Mother Teresa into an ax murderer.

Contrary to what the media tell us, I can certify that there are very few rapists, ax murderers, and meth lab motels out there on the open roads. Of course, they exist—and even one is too many—but ask yourself: if something terrible had just happened in your hometown, why would your "local" news be feeding you stories about a tragedy fifteen states away? 
Crime is down overall, folks. Breathe.

Modern art is a waste of time. When the zombies show up, you can't worry about art. Art is for people who aren't worried about zombies. Besides zombies and icebergs, there are other things that Soap has been thinking about. Tsunamis, earthquakes, Nazi dentists, killer bees, army ants, black plague, old people, divorce lawyers, sorority girls, Jimmy Carter, giant quids, rabid foxes, strange dogs, new anchors, child actors, fascists, narcissists, psychologists, ax murderers, unrequited love, footnotes, zeppelins, the Holy Ghost, Catholic priests, John Lennon, chemistry teachers, redheaded men with British accents, librarians, spiders, nature books with photographs of spiders in them, darkness, teachers, swimming pools, smart girls, pretty girls, rich girls, angry girls, tall girls, nice girls, girls with superpowers, giant lizards, blind dates who turn out to have narcolepsy, angry monkeys, feminine hygiene commercials, sitcoms about aliens, things under the bed, contact lenses, ninjas, performances artists, mummies, spontaneous combustion, Soap has been afraid of all of these things at one time or another, Ever since he went to prison, he's realized that he doesn't have to be afraid. All he has to do is come up with a plan. Be prepared. It's just like the Boy Scouts, except you have to be even more prepared. You have to prepare for everything that the Boy Scouts didn't prepare you for, which is pretty much everything.

Yeah, well, nobody seems like an ax-murderer until the ax comes out.

Who are we getting?" I asked Victor. "An ax murderer.

Sanford, this story that my son appears to have instructed you to tell me features a young man who gets shot in the head nine times at close range with a .38 pistol, once in the chest at close range with a .22 rifle, then bashed over the head by you with the ax two or maybe three times, but even then he was still alive and required a final blow from Stewart. And that was also a blow to the head with the ax. At which point this unfortunate fellow finally decided that this world was not for him.

ax.

The Collapse of Society 21Look how the once faithful city has become as unfaithful as a prostitute! She who was once the “Center of Justice,” where righteousness made its home, is now the dwelling place of murderers!ap 22She was once like sterling silver, now only mixture; once so pure, now diluted like watered-down wine.aq 23Your rulers are rebellious and companions of crooks. They are self-centered racketeers who love a bribe and who chase after payoffs. They don’t defend the fatherless or consider the rights of a helpless widow. 24Therefore, here is what the Sovereign One decrees, the Lord God of Angel Armies, the Mighty One of Israel: “Ah,ar I will get relief from my adversaries and avenge myself on my foes!as 25I will bring my fiery hand upon you and burn you and purify you into something clean.”at God Promises Deliverers 26“I will restore deliverers as in former times and your wise counselors as at the beginning.au Only then will you be called the Righteous City and the Faithful City!”av 27Yes, Zion will be redeemed with justice and her repentant converts with righteousness.aw 28There will be a shattering of rebels and sinners together, and those who forsake the Lord will be consumed. 29You will reap shame from the idols you once delighted in and you will be humiliated by your cultic sacred groves,ax where you chose to worship. 30You will be like an oak tree with faded, fallen leaves and like a withered, waterless garden. 31The “powerful elite” will become like kindling and their evil deeds like sparks—both will burn together and no one will be able to put out the fire. a 1:1 Or “prophecy.

I cross my fingers and whisper, “Please don’t be an ax murderer. Please don’t be an ax murder—” I startle at the sound of a horn followed by a loud bark. “Need a ride?” My eyes widen at the sound of Declan’s voice. “No fucking way.” I bite down on my tongue and a metallic taste immediately floods my mouth.

but I’ve watched enough horror films to know that three people are less likely to get ax murdered or possessed by ghosts than two.

When one thinks of a romantic weekend, one imagines ax murder. Usually avoiding it, but tastes vary.

Sex offenders were the least-respected convicts in any prison society; if a violator of Article 130 could have pretended that he was an ax murderer instead, or an arsonist, or a man who had filled a ditch with fourteen poisoned wives, he’d have preferred that to entering the prison as a sex offender.

question

You look like an ax murderer to me.” This one has brains. Mikhail’s soft laughter echoed in Gregori’s head. She sees beyond that handsome face of yours. You are so funny, ancient one. Gregori deliberately reminded him of the quarter of a century difference in their ages.

Nor would Marina, hewing to purely Party principles, let her stepfather find out about the death of his drunkard of a nephew, who looked like a dead man long before his live-in lover, an alcoholic with a face like stomach contents, killed the poor guy with a classic Russian ax. … Nonetheless, she refused to confirm this disgraceful death as a fact. For her anxious mother, who wasn’t allowed to see the real news, either, but who somehow could tell something bad had happened, the crime story became a vodka poisoning—which was also partly the truth since, according to the autopsy report, at the moment her nephew, unsteady on his feet, was leveled by the ax, his organism was as sloshed as soup and he had barely a few weeks to live. Nonetheless, Marina had to take care to maintain this person’s pseudo-life. … She just couldn’t zero him out—and evidently her mother, taking from the mailbox the latest transfer sent by Marina, still asked herself why her now grown-up relative didn’t show his face or come visit even for the holidays that had always been sacred for him, dates for reestablishing his rights and for being with his people. Doubtless, her mother secretly suspected that brusque Marina had insulted her relative—which was also true because the deads’ resentment for the living always seeps through the night and comes out on the wallpaper, and also because Marina had stashed the body.

Never before did it happen twice even within a month, but now, within minutes, Vic’s alter-ego took the helm. Again the Siberian forest echoed the death promise that was the war cry of the primitive tribe of Onu! The murderous blood lust that was part and parcel of primal man rang clear as Vic projected the banshee-like howl of her ancient people. She raised the ax above her head, and charged for the coming creatures!

A murder case is like a tree. A tall tree. An oak tree. It has been carefully planted and cared for by the state. Watered and trimmed when needed, examined for disease and parasites of any kind. Its root system is constantly monitored as it flourishes underground and clings tightly to the earth. No money is spared in guarding the tree. Its caretakers are granted immense powers to protect and serve it. The tree’s branches eventually grow and spread wide in splendor. They provide deep shade for those who seek true justice. The branches spring from a thick and sturdy trunk. Direct evidence, circumstantial evidence, forensic science, motive and opportunity. The tree must stand strong against the winds that challenge it. And that’s where I come in. I’m the man with the ax. My job is to cut the tree down to the ground and burn its wood to ashes.

I bounded across Newbury Street, Jack sprang to full form in my hand. His blade—thirty inches of double-edged bone-forged steel—was emblazoned with runes that pulsed in different colors when Jack talked. “What’s going on?” he asked. “Who are we killing?” Jack claims he doesn’t pay attention to my conversations when he is in pendant form. He says he usually has his headphones on. I don’t believe this, because Jack doesn’t have headphones. Or ears. “Chasing assassin,” I blurted out, dodging a taxi. “Killed goat.” “Right,” Jack said. “Same old, same old, then.” I leaped up the side of the Pearson Publishing building. I’d spent the last two months learning to use my einherji powers, so one jump took me to a ledge three stories above the main entrance—no problem, even with a sword in one hand. Then I hop-climbed from window ledge to cornice up the white marble facade, channeling my inner Hulk until I reached the top. On the far side of the roof, a dark bipedal shape was just disappearing behind a row of chimneys. The goat-killer looked humanoid, which ruled out goat-on-goat homicide, but I’d seen enough of the Nine Worlds to know that humanoid didn’t mean human. He could be an elf, a dwarf, a small giant, or even an ax-murderer god. (Please, not an ax-murderer god.) By the time I reached the chimneys, my quarry had jumped to the roof of the next building. That might not sound impressive, but the next building was a brownstone mansion about fifty feet away across a small parking lot. The goat-killer didn’t even have the decency to break his ankles on impact. He somersaulted on the tar and came up running.