Mari Mancusi

“So not only do I have to go out and fight evil villains, I have to take up woodworking, too?”

“You know, being bitten by a vampire one week before prom really sucks. No pun intended.”

“Curiouser and curiouser, as Alice in Wonderland would say…”

“Real men don’t kiss with the gentleness of a butterfly’s wing.”

“I can barely breathe. I feel like I’m going to explode. Jake Wilder is kissing me. French-kissing me. Is he even supposed to be French-kissing me for the play? I thought… Oh, who cares if he’s supposed to or not. He is, that’s all that matters.”

“Eternity is a long time and it doesn't always work out that way," Jareth says, a bit bitterly. "It's worse to love someone and then lose them, then to never love at all.”

“It’s just a party, right? What could possibly go wrong?”

“Once bitten, totally smitten.”

“Holy fu-" he starts then catches himself."Yes,this tithe will be most pleasing to her Goodness." Me and Magnus exchange amused glances.”

“Now Sunny, don’t get mad, but …” Rayne begins, her voice trembling. I shoot her an angry glare. “But WHAT, Rayne?” “I, uh, think you’ve accidentally been turned into a vampire.”

“But you have to take control of your destiny. And sometimes that's not easy.”

“Did you… need something?” he asked in a tight voice. I swallowed hard, my mind racing with a million things to say. The fear pricking at me, telling me I had one last chance to wimp out. To walk away. But I shook my head. No. Not this time. “Yes,” I said simply. “I need something.” “And what, may I ask, do you need?” I met his eyes. “You.”

“For the record, I would have made a very lousy romance heroine.”

“And then he kisses me. Yes, the beautiful vampire, the dark general, the one who never gets close to anyone, leans in and presses his lips against mine. This kiss is soft. Gentle. Light. Like a butterfly’s wing whisking my lips.”

“They should install elevators in this place. What if they turned a handicapped person into a vampire? Talk about your discrimination lawsuit waiting to happen.”

“For all I know, the guy is Dracula.”

“Once a generation there is a girl born who is destined to slay the vampires.”

“I never said becoming the slayer would be a field trip to a Justin Bieber concert.”

“O-kay. Kind of freaky. I’m now standing in an actual tomb, in pitch darkness, with only a vampire to keep me company. Last week if you’d sworn on a stack of Bibles that I’d be okay with all of this, I wouldn’t have believed you.”

“I would have made a very crappy book heroine.”