Heather's Library

In the Forests of the Night
by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

Triste witches: vampire hunters. They look like humans, must eat, have blood and heartbeat like humans, but are immortal.
(Triste is a French word meaning "sad.")

p.74 "You are no longer human, Risika. Humans are your prey. You have never felt sorrow for the chickens that you killed so that they could grace your plate. The animals you raised so that they could be killed. The creatures you put in pens so that you could own them. Why should you feel differently toward your meal now?" ---Ather

p.75 "Evil? ... The world is evil, Risika. Wolves hunt the stragglers in a group of deer. Vultures devour the fallen. Hyenas destroy the weak. Humans kill that which they fear. Survive and be strong, or die, trembling because the night is dark." ---Ather

p.81 "I no longer try to understand the ways of humanity. Of course, maybe I'm just being hypocritical. My kind is often just as cruel to our own. We are simply more direct. We need no one else to blame our violence on. If I kill Aubrey, it will be because I hate him, not because he is evil, or because he kills, or for any other moral reason. I will do so because I wish to do so, or I will not do so because I do not wish to. Or I will not do so because he kills me first, which is the end I expect." ---Risika

p.109-110 "The green viper has been replaced by the world serpent from Norse mythology, which played a part in the destruction of the world ... the Greek Echidna, mother of all monsters ... the Norse monster Fenris, the giant wolf who swallowed the sun." ---Risika, on Aubrey's tattoos

p.121 "Even without the new hotel suites that house the mortals, the new bars, the new gyms, and the paved streets, New Mayhem is still an invisible town. The bartenders never ask for ID, the hotel doesn't keep records of who comes and goes, and ne nightclub is as strange as an ice-skating rink in Hell. No one ever comes, no one is ever there, no one ever leaves--at least, there would be no way to prove it should anyone ever look for receipts, or credit card numbers, or any written record of who was there." ---Risika