Sorry, we've got ghosts.

Wordlessly I looked back at him, astonished that a kiss on the palm could be so intimate.

I saw the logic that they used, and the death of a thousand cuts as experimental scientists slowly chipped away at the belief that the world was an inexplicably powerful, magical place. Ultimately they failed, though. The magic never really went away. It waited, quietly, for people to return to it when they found the science wanting.

I know,I can smell it, too.

You persist in this romantic vision of what it is to be a vampire, but despite my best efforts to curb it I have a taste for blood.

Yes, I see that you are behaving like a prince but that doesn't mean you won't behave like a devil at the first opportunity.

It was a brutal picture, a tug-of-war between two equal but opposing impulses. It had the ring of truth, however.