But nothing in life was set in stone and nothing in life is promised us. Not happiness, not joy, not love. Everything was variable and mutable and inconstant.

I figured even the most jaded and cynical inhabitant might report a bloody girl in a party dress carrying a severed head by its hair.

You gonna put on your big-girl panties and fight with the boys, now?” He looked over his shoulder as if he expected me to blush or something. “Who says I wear panties?” I was certain that he flushed red this time. Laughing, I left him shaking his head and went on inside to find the Kid. We had work to do.

Alarm stole over me on little kitten feet.

Chicken, yeah, that's me. I'd rather fight an old rogue-vamp in my underwear, with my bare hands, than deal with relationship problems.

Back to work. If I’m [writing] I’m not thinking about the crazy.

Vamps who are dying, or think they are, give a piercing, eardrum-bursting shriek, like the love child of a screech owl and a mountain lion on crystal meth, amplified like a seventies rock band.