Despite the horror, we survivors were endowed with a will to survive. Or instinct. Or maybe it was faith.

The wolf had begun hunting human prey. They were plentiful in the dark city streets and provided enough good meat to satiate his gnawing hunger. He was still very careful not to let any who saw him live. To do otherwise would displease the Master. He would only stalk those people that were foolish enough to walk alone in the night

Middling monsters died at the point of pitchforks, burned with torches, or at the butt of silver-capped canes wielded by angry, geriatric Poles. Middling people were dime-a-dozen, emptied souls, shorn sheeple, human husks. A good monster didn__ worry about what it was doing; it just did it. A true predator didn__ worry about guilt, or being popular, or anything. It just cruised along, living for the kill, surviving. A good person, well, she__ put a bullet in her head or weigh her feet down and throw herself into the Chicago River, holding her breath until she went to the sludgy, filthy bottom, and had to open wide and breathe water until she died.

The creative process is a cocktail of instinct, skill, culture and a highly creative feverishness. It is not like a drug; it is a particular state when everything happens very quickly, a mixture of consciousness and unconsciousness, of fear and pleasure, it's a little like making love, the physical act of love.

Hi Maggie, it's nice to see you again,' he said, smiling so sweetly I thought I might need insulin.

I'm a five-hundred-year-old born vampire with an ever-expanding wardrobe, a serious cosmetics addiction, and enough outstanding Visa charges to fund a small third-world country.