Ink Demon Quotes

Beware of books. They are more than innocent assemblages of paper and ink and string and glue. If they are any good, they have the spirit of the author within. Authors are rogues and ruffians and easy lays. They are gluttons for sweets and savories. They devour life and always want more. They have sap, spirit, sex. Books are panderers. The Jews are not wrong to worship books. A real book has pheromones and sprouts grass through its cover.

I will say it one last time: Demonation! The feeling of it! There are no words -how can there be?- to describe what it feels like to become words, to feel your life encoded, and laid out in black ink on white paper. All my love and hatred, melted into words. It was like the End of the World.

I’m going to make you forget every man you ever knew I’m going to heal your heart from every broken I love you I’m going to take on your old demons, chase the shadows until day; I’ll cherish you forever and never go away. I’m going to love you, like you’ve never seen Darlin’ I’m the only man that you’re ever going to need.

I answer your desires, I fulfill them beyond even your expectations and I obey whatever you demand.

He was the very devil stalking her, and she was an angel chased by demons straight to him.

She managed a bored sigh. “I suppose we could do one picture, but a group shot won’t work. Nyx, how about one of you with your favorite child? Which one is that?” The brood rustled. Dozens of horrible glowing eyes turned toward Nyx. The goddess shifted uncomfortably, as if her chariot were heating up under her feet. Her shadow horses huffed and pawed at the void. “My favorite child?” she asked. “All my children are terrifying!” Percy snorted. “Seriously? I’ve met the Fates. I’ve met Thanatos. They weren’t so scary. You’ve got to have somebody in this crowd who’s worse than that.” “The darkest,” Annabeth said. “The most like you.” “I am the darkest,” hissed Eris. “Wars and strife! I have caused all manner of death!” “I am darker still!” snarled Geras. “I dim the eyes and addle the brain. Every mortal fears old age!” “Yeah, yeah,” Annabeth said, trying to ignore her chattering teeth. “I’m not seeing enough dark. I mean, you’re the children of Night! Show me dark!” The horde of arai wailed, flapping their leathery wings and stirring up clouds of blackness. Geras spread his withered hands and dimmed the entire abyss. Eris breathed a shadowy spray of buckshot across the void. “I am the darkest!” hissed one of the demons. “No, I!” “No! Behold my darkness!” If a thousand giant octopuses had squirted ink at the same time, at the bottom of the deepest, most sunless ocean trench, it could not have been blacker. Annabeth might as well have been blind. She gripped Percy’s hand and steeled her nerves. “Wait!” Nyx called, suddenly panicked. “I can’t see anything.” “Yes!” shouted one of her children proudly. “I did that!” “No, I did!” “Fool, it was me!” Dozens of voices argued in the darkness. The horses whinnied in alarm. “Stop it!” Nyx yelled. “Whose foot is that?” “Eris is hitting me!” cried someone. “Mother, tell her to stop hitting me!” “I did not!” yelled Eris. “Ouch!” The sounds of scuffling got louder. If possible, the darkness became even deeper. Annabeth’s eyes dilated so much, they felt like they were being pulled out of their sockets. She squeezed Percy’s hand. “Ready?” “For what?” After a pause, he grunted unhappily. “Poseidon’s underpants, you can’t be serious.” “Somebody give me light!” Nyx screamed. “Gah! I can’t believe I just said that!” “It’s a trick!” Eris yelled. “The demigods are escaping!” “I’ve got them,” screamed an arai. “No, that’s my neck!” Geras gagged. “Jump!” Annabeth told Percy. They leaped into the darkness, aiming for the doorway far, far below.

-You find the metal, I’ll make the bell,” said Liam. “Listen, this rampage sounds like it’s going to make a real mess out of the city. I just got my studio rebuilt from the last fire, and I’m fairly certain my insurance doesn’t cover ‘acts of archangels.’ At least, not without a large deductible. Any ideas on how to stop the ritual?"-

BOOK BEAUTY Here's the end of that story about the old woman who wanted to lure a man with strange cosmetics. She made a paste of pages from the Qur'an to fill the deep creases on her face and neck with. This is not about an old woman, dear reader. It's about you, or anyone who tries to use books to make themselves attractive. There she is, sticking scripture, thick with saliva, on her face. Of course, the bits keep falling off. "The devil," she yells, and he appears! "This is a trick I've never seen. You don't need me. You are yourself a troop of demons!" So people steal inspired words to get compliments. Don't bother. Death comes and all talking, stolen or not, stops. Pity anyone unfamiliar with silence when that happens. Polish your heart with mediation and quietness. Let the inner life grow generous and handsome like Joseph. Zuleika did that and her "old woman's spring cold snap" turned to mid-July. Dry lips wet from within. Ink is not rouge. Let language lie bygone. Now is where love breathes.

Soleil's laughter warmed him when he thought nothing could. She moved something inside him, things he thought dead or never there in the first place. She brought out his desire to be better. She chased his demons away.

An offer indeed," said Lord Brandoch Daha; "if it be not in mockery. Say it loud, that my folk may hear." Corund did so, and the Demons heard it from the walls of the burg. Lord Brandoch Daha stood somewhat apart from Juss and Spitfire and their guard. "Libel it me out," he said. "For good as I now must deem thy word, thine hand and seal must I have to show my followers ere they consent with me in such a thing." "Write thou," said Corund to Gro. "To write my name is all my scholarship." And Gro took forth his ink-born and wrote in a great fair hand this offer on a parchment. "The most fearfullest oaths thou knowest," said Corund; and Gro wrote them, whispering, "He mocketh us only." But Corund said, "No matter: 'tis a chance worth our chancing," and slowly and with labour signed his name to the writing, and gave it to Lord Brandoch Daha. Brandoch Daha read it attentively, and tucked it in his bosom beneath his byrny. "This," he said, "shall be a keepsake for me of thee, my Lord Corund. Reminding me," and here his eyes grew terrible, "so long as there surviveth a soul of you in Witchland, that I am still to teach the world throughly what that man must abide that durst affront me with such an offer.

She was a mimicry of a façade fashioned from the half-truths of her life. She was a beautiful abomination, patched together from the most pristine and terrible parts she could find. She was a black crystal of many cuts and facets whose dark glow suffocated and entranced those it washed over. There was a pointlessness in her eyes and apathy in her stature, and further in, past the symphonies of nightmarish screams was a blinding light. All the capability she could ever ask for kept in a place she would never reach. She chose the ice rather than the fire, shivering and hard with heat sparse, for while a flicker can exist in freeze's cold, it's heat will not radiate, no matter how bold. She took my face in hands that would make ice seem warm and whispered a blizzard into my ear, a cascading song of fear after fear. The lies she spilled, mixed with regrets and appeal, were cloaked in the inferno of her rage, the anger, the only thing that really made her real. This was her one semblance of life, a bottomless and endless void of proportions vast with a calamity of fusion and fission streaking through, a mindless hue, an emotion with a face, a darling of her race. The cracks spew darkness from within her ever so pale skin. They congregated on her curves and flesh in black and churning rivers and streams. They flooded every dip with blackness. They filled every hollow with unstable curiosity, this is her release, this is when she is free. The faces of deceit always laugh, they never wallow for their lies are a pleasure tool, her insides are contorted in laughter the same way, just as slick, just as cruel. A crude combination of fascination, of animation, of the darkest demons of them all. She was poetry written in pen, scratched and scribbled again and again. Ink splattered across the page, and within those scrawled words, those small, sharp incisions, an image can be seen, and you're left to wonder what, in the end, this all could mean...

Beeswax, with its subtle undertones of smoke and honey. The smell of ink on wet paper, the sickly-sweet smell of decay. The sweat of clean bodies, the scent of burnt gloves. She loved the crackle of the fire and the clang of the tools. She loved the magic of sweat-streaked alchemists who blew down metal pipes and created bubbles within molten glass. She loved the flawless final chapter, the glistening undulations as smooth as ice.

I want to defend Ben Bella just as I am going to defend Boumedienne. Ben Bella was not the 'demon' that the nervous, demagogic communique of 19 June accused him of being, no more than Boumedienne is the 'reactionary' that L'Unita wrote about. Both are victims of the same drama that every Third World politician lives through if he is honest, if he is a patriot. This was the drama of Lumumba and Nehru; it is the drama of Nyerere and Sekou Toure. The essence of the drama lies in the terrible material resistance that each one encounters on taking his first, second, and third steps up the summit of power. Each one wants to do something good and begins to do it and then sees, after a month, after a year, after three years, that it just isn't happening, that it is slipping away, that it is bogged down in the sand. Everything is in the way: the centuries of backwardness, the primitive economy, the illiteracy, the religious fanaticism, the tribal blindness, the chronic hunger, the colonial past with its practice of debasing and dulling the conquered, the blackmail by the imperialists, the greed of the corrupt, the unemployment, the red ink. progress comes with great difficulty along such a road. The politician begins to push too hard. He looks for a way out through dictatorship. The dictatorship then fathers an opposition. The opposition organises a coup. And the cycle begins anew.

We need to get to the Chakara Forest,” I said, turning to Kamala. She had not moved once since I sank into that memory. She had not laughed, nor gnashed her awful teeth, claggy with blood. “You changed,” she said slowly. “What?” Kamala whinnied. “You looked different. Shade-play, shadow-play against my eyes. Trust me, false queen”--she paused--“maybe queen, I know shadows.” “What did I look like?” “Like ink-spills and umbra, cloudless nights and winter mornings. Lovely, lovely,” said Kamala in her singsong voice. “But you wore no crown of blackbuck horns and something swirled across your skin. I almost tried to taste it, but I did not want to get swatted by a maybe-deity. Maybe-deity! Maybe-deity! Oh, what a song.” I glanced at my arm, ignoring Kamala as she pranced about in a circle, tossing her head and singing maybe-deity so loudly it might summon thunder. There was nothing on me but the crust of sea-salt and dried ash. I dusted it off. Kamala’s words put flesh on the bones of my hope. Still, that didn’t give me as much comfort as I’d like. I was asking a flesh-eating demon for comfort.

We all have purpose. We are all guardians. We are the angels and we are the demons. We are all gods if we choose to be. Believe.

Your want is my dream.

I was born to the demons that hounded me. They wanted my submission to their corruption like blood ink on paper signed with my name. I could have run, But where is the power in that? Instead, I became a demon myself in order to master them all. Own your demons.

We had a row about it, actually. She claimed Drek had nothing to do with Jewish people, that he was a kind of chaotic demon and she’d been inspired by a plague doctor’s mask, but I mean, we all need to examine our unconscious biases, right?

Any priest could make a god for you, on a scrap of parchment with some spit and a smudge of black ink. He would name it for you and then it might act in your favor. If you ate the god, or rather the parchment bearing his name, you might have visions or be able smite an enemy with a thought. You could also banish demons who had procured temporary lodgings in your body.

But he didn’t share them, not before he said to Athalar, “Luna’s Horn was a weapon wielded by Pelias, the first Starborn Prince, during the First Wars. The Fae forged it in their home world, named it for the goddess in their new one, and used it to battle the demon hordes once they made the Crossing. Pelias wielded the Horn until he died.” Ruhn put a hand on his chest. “My ancestor—whose power flows in my veins. I don’t know how it worked, how Pelias used it with his magic, but the Horn became enough of a nuisance for the demon princes that they did everything they could to retrieve it from him.” Ruhn held out his phone, the picture of the illuminated manuscript glaringly bright in the thick shadows. The illustration of the carved horn lifted to the lips of a helmeted Fae male was as pristine as it had been when inked millennia ago. Above the figure gleamed an eight-pointed star, the emblem of the Starborn. Bryce went wholly still. The stillness of the Fae, like a stag halting in a wood.

Ho-ly shit… I don’t know what is in the damn water over here or what deal Mr. and Mrs. Rowe made with a demon, but as I stand here staring at Derek’s brothers while they move blocks of hay… are they blocks? Shit, are they hay? I don’t know, it’s yellow and in a block form, but that’s not the point. The point is, they are fucking gods, and I am starting to see why everyone is into those polyamorous romance books.

A lot of people died,” Ithan growled. “Children died.” “And more will soon die in this war,” Aidas countered coolly. “Hel’s armies shall strike at your command, Bryce Quinlan.” The words dropped like a bomb. “Bullshit,” Ruhn said, face crinkling as he snarled. “You’re waiting for the right moment when we’re all at war with each other, so you’ll be able to find a way into this world at last.” “Not at all,” Aidas said. “I already know the way into this world.” He pointed with a paw to Bryce and inclined his head. “Through my lovely Bryce and the Horn on her back.” Hunt suppressed a growl at the word my as all of them looked to her. Her eyes remained fixed on Aidas, her lips a thin line. The Prince of the Chasm said, “It’s your choice in the end. It has always been your choice.” Bryce shook her head. “Allow me to get this straight: You’re here to convince me to rebel against the Asteri in front of all these people? And what—sign up with Ophion? No, thank you.” Aidas only chuckled. “You should have looked more carefully at the cats picking through the trash in the alley of Ink Street this morning. Should have picked a more discreet location to discuss the rebellion with Fury Axtar.” Bryce hissed, but said nothing as Aidas went on, “But yes—by all means, turn rebel. Help Ophion, if you need some authority to answer to. I can tell you before you undoubtedly ask, I have no information about the connection between Danika Fendyr and Sofie Renast.” Bryce growled, “I don’t even know any Ophion rebels.” Aidas stretched out his front paws, back arching. “That’s not true.” Hunt stilled as the demon yawned. “There’s one right behind you.” Bryce whirled, Hunt with her, lightning poised to strike. Cormac Donnall stood in the doorway, shadows fading from his shoulders. “Hello, Agent Silverbow,” Aidas crooned, then vanished.

You shouldn’t be here. If their demonic ink had mouths, I imagine that’s what they’d say to me. Right before they’d eat me alive.

The shadow smiled at him. So Hunt smiled back. And then the shadow spoke. “You would do well in Hel.” Too drugged with agony, Hunt didn’t even quiver at the familiar male voice. One he’d already heard in another dream, another life. “Apollion,” he grunted. Not Death at all, then. He tried not to let disappointment sink in his gut. “What a sorry state you’re in,” the Prince of the Pit purred. He remained hidden in the shifting shadows. The demon prince inhaled, as if tasting the air. “What delicious pain you feel.” “I’d be happy to share.” A terrifyingly soft laugh. “Your good humor, it seems, remains intact. Even with the halo inked anew upon your brow.” Hunt smiled savagely. “I had the honor of having it done by Rigelus’s hand this time.” “Interesting that he would do it himself, rather than employ an imperial hag. Do you detect a difference?” Hunt’s chin dipped. “This one … stings. The hag’s halo felt like cold iron. This burns like acid.” He’d just finished voicing the last word when a thought slammed into him. “Bryce. Is she … is she with you?” If they’d hurt her, if Apollion gave one suggestion that— “No.” The shadow seemed to blink. “Why?

Micah purred, unaware of the camera mere feet away, “I saw the footage of you in the Comitium lobby. You gave your Archesian amulet to Sandriel. And she destroyed it.” His broad hand clamped around her neck, and Bryce squeezed her eyes shut. “That’s how I realized. How you realized the truth, too.” “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Bryce whispered. Micah’s hand tightened, and it might as well have been his hand on Hunt’s throat for all the difficulty he had breathing. “For three years, you wore that amulet. Every single day, every single hour. Danika knew that. Knew you were without ambition, too, and would never have the drive to leave this job. And thus never take off the amulet.” “You’re insane,” Bryce managed to say. “Am I? Then explain to me why, within an hour after you took off the amulet, that kristallos demon attacked you.” Hunt stilled. A demon had attacked her that day? He found Ruhn’s stare, and the prince nodded, his face deathly pale. We got to her in time was all Danaan said to him, mind-to-mind. “Bad luck?” Bryce tried. Micah didn’t so much as smile, his hand still clamped on her neck. “You don’t just have the Horn. You are the Horn.” His hand again ran down her back. “You became its bearer the night Danika had it ground into a fine powder, mixed it with witch-ink, and then got you so drunk you didn’t ask questions when she had it tattooed onto your back.” “What?” Fury Axtar barked. Holy fucking gods. Hunt bared his teeth, still forbidden from speaking. But Bryce said, “Cool as that sounds, Governor, this tattoo says—” “The language is beyond that of this world. It is the language of universes. And it spells out a direct command to activate the Horn through a blast of raw power upon the tattoo itself. Just as it once did for the Starborn Prince. You may not possess his gifts like your brother, but I believe your bloodline and the synth shall compensate for it when I use my power upon you. To fill the tattoo—to fill you—with power is, in essence, to blow the Horn.

Bryce slowed her retreat as she winced in pain, “And the apartment building? I thought it was Hunt, but it wasn’t, was it? It was you.” “Yes. Your landlord’s request went to all of my triarii. And to me. I knew Danika had left nothing there. But by that time, Bryce Quinlan, I was enjoying watching you squirm. I knew Athalar’s plan to acquire the synth would soon be exposed—and I took a guess that you’d be willing to believe the worst of him. That he’d used the lightning in his veins to endanger innocent people. He’s a killer. I thought you might need a reminder. That it played into Athalar’s guilt was an unexpected boon.” Hunt ignored the eyes that glanced his way. The fucking asshole had never planned to honor his bargain. If he’d solved the case, Micah would have killed him. Killed them both. He’d been played like a fucking fool. Bryce asked, voice raw, “When did you start to think it was me?” “That night it attacked Athalar in the garden. I realized only later that he’d probably come into contact with one of Danika’s personal items, which must have come into contact with the Horn.” Hunt had touched Danika’s leather jacket that day. Gotten its scent on him. “Once I got Athalar off the streets, I summoned the kristallos again—and it went right to you. The only thing that had changed was that you finally, finally took that amulet off. And then …” He chuckled. “I looked at Hunt Athalar’s photos of your time together. Including that one of your back. The tattoo you had inked there, days before Danika’s death, according to the list of Danika’s last locations Ruhn Danaan sent to you and Athalar—whose account is easily accessible to me.” Bryce’s fingers curled into the carpet, as if she’d sprout claws. “How do you know the Horn will even work now that it’s in my back?” “The Horn’s physical shape doesn’t matter. Whether it is fashioned as a horn or a necklace or a powder mixed with witch-ink, its power remains.” Hunt silently swore. He and Bryce had never visited the tattoo parlor. Bryce had said she knew why Danika was there. Micah went on, “Danika knew the Archesian amulet would hide you from any detection, magical or demonic. With that amulet, you were invisible to the kristallos, bred to hunt the Horn. I suspect she knew that Jesiba Roga has similar enchantments upon this gallery, and perhaps Danika placed some upon your apartments—your old one and the one she left to you—to make sure you would be even more veiled from it.

A Fallen warrior with the power of …” Aidas’s groomed brows lifted in surprise. His blue opal eyes narrowed to slits—then simmered like the hottest flame. “What are you doing with a black crown around your brow?” Hunt didn’t dare let his surprise at the question show. He’d never heard it called that before—a black crown. Halo, witch-ink, mark-of-shame, but never that. Aidas looked between them now. Carefully. He didn’t bother to let Hunt answer his question before that awful smile returned. “The seven princes dwell in darkness and do not stir. We have no interest in your realm.” “I’d believe it if you and your brethren hadn’t been rattling the Northern Rift for the past two decades,” Hunt said. “And if I hadn’t been cleaning up after it.” Aidas sucked in a breath, as if tasting the air on which Hunt’s words had been delivered to him. “You do realize that it might not be my people? The Northern Rift opens to other places—other realms, yes, but other planets as well. What is Hel but a distant planet bound to yours by a ripple in space and time?” “Hel is a planet?” Hunt’s brows lowered. Most of the demons he’d killed and dealt with hadn’t been able to or inclined to speak. Aidas shrugged with one shoulder. “It is as real a place as Midgard, though most of us would have you believe it wasn’t.” The prince pointed to him. “Your kind, Fallen, were made in Midgard by the Asteri. But the Fae, the shifters, and many others came from their own worlds. The universe is massive. Some believe it has no end. Or that our universe might be one in a multitude, as bountiful as the stars in the sky or the sand on a beach.

Ruhn looked ready to get into it with his cousin, so Hunt did both of them—and himself, if he was being honest—a favor and said, “We’ve been waiting on a Many Waters contact to get back to us about a possible pattern with the demon attacks. Have you come across any information about the kristallos negating magic?” Days later, he couldn’t stop thinking about it—how it’d felt for his power to just sputter and die in his veins. “No. I still haven’t found anything about the creation of the kristallos except that it was made from the blood of the first Starborn Prince and the essence of the Star-Eater himself. Nothing about it negating magic.” Ruhn nodded at him. “You’ve never come across a demon that can do that?” “Not one. Witch spells and gorsian stones negate magic, but this was different.” He’d dealt with both. Before they’d bound him using the witch-ink on his brow, they’d shackled him with manacles hewn from the gorsian stones of the Dolos Mountains, a rare metal whose properties numbed one’s access to magic. They were used on high-profile enemies of the empire—the Hind herself was particularly fond of using them as she and her interrogators broke the Vanir among the rebel spies and leaders. But for years now, rumors had swirled in the 33rd’s barracks that rebels were experimenting with ways to render the metal into a spray that could be unleashed upon Vanir warriors on the battlefields.

It was as if the demons in Zak’s ink were nesting under Stitch’s skin