Paora laughed. “Quit? We don’t quit. We die. Oh, he might give the Artifact up. I hope he does. And then somewhere down the line he’ll be dragged back into the game under another name, or he’ll get it back, or he won’t have it and he’ll get killed. That’s how this works. I don’t know why everyone doesn’t know that, but it’s true.”
"Leather's a cool boss. If we keep our noses clean for a few weeks? Then she'll forgive us and the next time we fuck up it'll be another speech. But, y'know, if we fuck up before that? She wasn't kidding last night. She's got no sense of perspective. She will burn your house to the ground and laugh while she's doing it." He laughed. "She doesn't always look crazy or sound crazy, but trust me, man. She's crazy."
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Landon rubbed his eyes. “So how about you?”
Emily looked nonplussed. “How about me what?””
“Do you think I should quit? Or stay the course?”
“Jesus Christ, Art. The oven? Pallid Jan cooked her?”
Emily felt a lurch down in her stomach. “Hey!” she snapped. “That’s my sister you’re talking about. I’d appreciate it—”
“Yeah, well – she’d have appreciated more than three calls a year and your snide-ass judgment from high school straight through until the day before she got – what, par-broiled? Was the oven set to bake or what? But we don’t always get what we want, do we?”
Salome made a face. “Can’t you pretend to be enthralled with me and hang on my every word? These interruptions grow tiresome.”
“You know what it is? It’s smug. No. No, it’s misogynistic. All these bad girls really need is a good hard dicking and then they’ll be sweet innocent little flowers and they’ll happily prance off into the kitchen and bake shit.” She shook her head. “I don’t know how the heroines put up with it. I really don’t. But then, I was a piss-poor heroine.”
“So. You’re Artifact.”
Landon paused, then snorted. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m Artifact.”
“Seemed dumb to dance around the subject. It’s pretty obvious. I mean, Jesus. You call the Lieutenant ‘Jayce.’”
“Everyone calls the Lieutenant Jayce.”
“No one calls the Lieutenant Jayce, Donny. Jesus Christ.”
“Jesus – look at this!” She stabbed her finger at the bed. “That quilt cover’s silk. You know how to get bloodstains out of silk? You been reading Hints from Fucking Heloise, Marco?”
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