As I watched Bill, waiting with apparent calm for death to come to him, I had a flash of him as I'd known him: the first vampire I'd ever met, the first man I'd ever gone to bed with, the first suitor I'd ever loved. Everything that followed had tainted those memories, but for one moment I saw him clearly, and I loved him again.

As it was, I couldn't escape the feeling that I was out of my element. I found myself thinking of a book I'd left half-read at home and wishing I'd stuck it in my purse so I could pull it out now.

Everyone thinks I'm crazy, you know, because I can't tell them the truth; which is, that I'm driven crazy by all these thoughts, all these heads.

I held on to my better nature by my fingernails but I held on.

My brother, Jason, came into the bar, then, and sauntered over to give me a hug. He knows that women like a man who's good to his family and also kind to the disabled, so hugging me is a double whammy of recommendation.

Why was it librarians had such a prim image? With all the information available in books right there at their fingertips, librarians could be the best-informed people around. About anything.

And since I’m going to be in the neighborhood, you thought I might do as an escort? To an orgy?