I turned down Halloween parties every year, where people wanted zombies raised at the stroke of midnight or some such nonsense. The scarier my reputation got, the more people wanted me to come be scary for them. I'd told Bert I could always go and threaten to shoot all the partygoers, that'd be scary. Bert had not been amused. But he had stopped asking me to do parties.

It makes me nervous when you keep answering all my questions with 'I don't know.' " "Me, too," I said.

His parting shot to me had been, "I don't want to love someone who is more at home with the monsters than I am." What do you say to that? What can you say? Damned if I know. They say love conquers everything. They lie.

Neal stood, kicking free of the clinging curtain. "I'll kill you." I drew the firestar and pointed it at him. "I don't think so." "She is pack now," Sylvie said. "You fight one of us, and you fight all of us." Edward raised his eyebrows at me. "What is going on, Anita?" "I think I've been adopted," I said.

I would rather you love me, but if not love, fear will do.

Death is the last intimate thing we ever do.

Twenty-three stories up and all I could see out the windows was grey smog. They could call it the City of the Angels if they wanted to, but if there were angels out there, they had to be flying blind.