jennifer roberson's books, art & animals
SINNERS AND SAINTS
Volume 2 of Blood & Bone contemporary fantasy series
MARCH 2021
hardcover | e-book | audiobook
“Kneel,” he said, teeth shining. “What’s the phrase—bend the knee? Yes. Do that.” He pointed at the floor. “Now. To me.”
Remi and I, perhaps five feet away with a checkerboard of parquet beneath our boots, stared in blank, open-mouthed amazement.
He didn’t say it. He roared it.
“Know that I am Shemyazaz . . . that I am the first among them, the first of the bene ha’elohim . . .”
His expression wasn’t angry. It was transcendently ecstatic.
“I am Shemyazaz . . . and before we fell we were the Sons of God!”
Remi was mightily impressed by the lava tube. He oohhed and ahhed over it until I finally asked if he hadn’t noticed something as large as a subway tunnel on his way in.
“I wasn’t a sentient person on the way in,” he said.
“What were you on the way in if not a sentient person?”
“Pretty much a potato.”
It made me laugh. “Mashed or hashed?”
“I also wasn’t semantically inclined on the way in to sort out what version of food I felt like.”
I nodded. “Are you semantically inclined to sort out what you feel like now, food or otherwise?”
“I might could be.”
“Well?”
He stopped walking, tucked his chin and looked down at himself. Then he raised his head and presented me with an expression of exceptional blandness. “What I am . . . is as down to earth as horseshit in a meadow.”