When also I am told that a woman, called the Virgin Mary, said, or gave out, that she was with child without any cohabitation with a man, and that her betrothed husband, Joseph, said that an angel told him so, I have a right to believe them or not: such a circumstance required a much stronger evidence than their bare word for it: but we have not even this; for neither Joseph nor Mary wrote any such matter themselves. It is only reported by others that they said so. It is hearsay upon hearsay, and I do not chose to rest my belief upon such evidence.

Then what’s the problem? You keep telling me she’s just a job. So, fine. The job’s done. You found her. You trained her. Now she has to do her part. She has to kill Dmitri. Whether she can survive the battle or not doesn’t matter, and it isn’t up to you to decide.” Luc got up from the swing and went to Daniel. “Listen, man, I’m trying to be a friend here. You’ve been down here so long you’re starting to think like one of them. Quit trying to grow a conscience and just finish what you started.

Doyle: "What is it now, then?"Cordelia: "Isn't java supposed to be a coffee?"Doyle: "Ready to abandon the the Web project?"Cordelia: "No way. We have a chance here to make contact with the millions of people out there who are glued to their computers."Doyle: "All those millions, shunning human contact. I'll never understand it. Call me old-fashioned, if you like, but I want to interface with a face, not a hunk of plastic and glass."Cordelia: "Climb out of the Dark Ages, Munchkin man."Doyle: "It's leprechaun, and either way, I don't appreciate the insult.

When he’d woken that morning to find her gone, he’d used the time alone to clean himself up in every sense of the word. Decisions about his future had been part of it, but there'd been more, too. Because in all the time they’d known one another he’d been completely unconcerned with his appearance. Now, however, he wanted to show her the man he truly was. More than that, the man she’d helped him become: healed, strong, capable. No longer in the shadows, but bathed in light. No longer in need of saving or protecting or anything. Except her.

A demon seduced an angel in the middle of the nightand they gave the stars a glimpse.There was nothing casual about it, it was tender skin and battle scars breathless passion under storm clouds a rapid river stream mirroring the moon light. Until one day, he left her with nothing, just a bruised heart and carved memories iridescent wings chipped on the edges heat under her skin, like an ember burning low.I asked her, "What do you do after a love like that?"She laughed.And madness danced behind her eyes.But she flew so high the world was jealous.

Illium, his expression subdued as it had been for too many days, turned to her. “Mind if I have a go?”“Kick his ass.”Stripping off his shirt and boots, Illium held out his hand for one of Venom’s blades. Lips curving, Venom passed it over. “Sure you can handle me, pretty, pretty Bluebell?”“Did I ever tell you about my snakeskin boots?” A savage grin, and she knew Venom was about to bear the brunt of whatever haunted the blue-winged angel.Venom swirled his blade in hand. “I do think I need some new feathers for my pillow.

In August of 1998, I completed Seize the Night, the sequel to my novel Fear Nothing, one of many of my books in which a dog is among the cast of principal characters. Every time I wrote a story that included a canine, my yearning for a dog grew. Readers and critics alike said I had an uncanny knack for writing convincingly about dogs and even for writing from a dog's point of view. When a story contained a canine character, I always felt especially inspired, as if some angel watching over me was trying to tell me that dogs were a fundamental part of my destiny if only I would listen.

After a while I noticed that the pendant heart-shaped I wore around my neck, as every angel does, had begun to pulsate with blue light. I knew that this was thanks to Raphael and that he was sending healing energy for Joshua. I took my necklace off and gently put it round his neck so as not to wake him. The blue light grew stronger and started to flicker – then, drawing circles on the sick boy’s skin, it vanished around the level of his heart chakras. As blue light pervaded his entire body from head to toe, I could feel his burning skin slowly cool and his breathing became even.

I remembered Robyn telling me the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and how they'd survived: when the King chucked them in the furnace and an angel or someone went in with them. The furnace blazed all around them but they didn't burn.And it did calm me. I don't know if it was Robyn or an angel or even God himself was in the boot, but I was starting to suspect that whenever I wanted God, he was there. Only not necessarily in the form I wanted, or doing what I wanted...In the pitch of the black boot I clung to the image of a fiery furnace, and it wasn't the furnace or Hell either.

Daniel rested his hip on the counter, arms crossed, saying and offering nothing. “What? Are you thinking about sticking me with Luc permanently?” I laughed, the sound anxious. I waited for Daniel to laugh, too, at the sheer insanity of the idea. To reassure me he would never do something so cruel. But he stayed silent, something he was getting very good at. “You know something? Trying to have a discussion with you would work a lot better if you’d actually talk.” It was like riding on a merry-go-round, only without the merry. “You promised to stop keeping secrets from me, remember?

Something’s different,” Carlos continued. “Tonight you came in with no scowling or growling. Why thechange?”Robby shrugged one shoulder. “I’m trying to convince you I’m no’ crazy. If I kept doing the same thing when itwasna working, would that no’ be crazy?”“Good point.” Carlos rinsed the bowl and placed it in the dishwasher. “So you’re trying a new strategy tonight.”Robby removed the bottled blood from the microwave and filled a glass. “Tonight I saw an angel.”Carlos’s eyes widened. “And you’re still trying to convince me you’re not crazy?

Now drawing four fingers up the sides of her stomach, my hands create a kind of invisible wave that sounds beneath her skin. Molding her torso every which way as if it were clay for me to experiment, I study the lines of her iridescent form flowing in a rhythmic beauty that fascinates me into this fixation. My finger circles around the rim of her belly button as if to enjoy the sounds that might come from a crystal glass. Her every touch absorbs my ability to discern thought as I become rested in this feeling of absolute ecstasy. Life without her I know would indefinitely destroy me, having already solemnly delivered my spirit to this angel that comes down to be with me.

Is it love to worship a saint in heaven, whom you dare not touch, who hovers above you like a cloud, which floats away from you even as you gaze? To love is to feel one being in the world at one with us, our equal in sin as well as in virtue. To love, for us men, is to clasp one woman with our arms, feeling that she lives and breathes just as we do, suffers as we do, thinks with us, loves with us, and, above all, sins with us. Your mock saint who stands in a niche is not a woman if she have not suffered, still less a woman if she have not sinned. Fall at the feet of your idol an you wish, but drag her down to your level after that- the only level she should ever reach, that of your heart.

Love you,” Xavier said just before he drifted back to sleep.“Love you more,” I said playfully.“Not a chance,” Xavier said, fully awake now. “I’m bigger, I can contain more love.”“I’m smaller, therefore my love particles are more compressed, which means I can fit more in.”Xavier laughed. “That argument makes no sense. Overruled.”“I’m just basing it on how much I miss you when you’re not around,” I countered.“How can you possibly know how much I miss you?” he said. “Have you got some sort of built-in miss-o-meter that can give us a reading?”“I’m a girl; of course I have a built-in miss-o-meter.

The summer I turned eleven, I found out that ghosts are real. Guess it's hard to rest nice and easy in your coffin if you got stuff on your mind. Your soul stays chained to earth instead of zipping up to heaven to sing in one of the angel choirs. Sometimes ghosts show up in the msot peculiar places. Sometimes ghosts fool you. Then you are those ghosts that hang around because we have unfinished business. Business that sinks like old crawfish left in a bucket for a week. That's some nasty smell let me tell you. But the most important thing I learned is that ghosts can help you spill your guts before guilt eats you up and leaves a hole that can't ever be fixed no matter how many patches you try to steam iron across it.