Human nature was all about shifting blame...and responsibility. How else could you explain concentration camps and genocide and all the awful things people did to each other every day? They just carried on life and pretended like the evil didn't exist, as long as it was happening out of their direct view.

Here," Myrnin said, his voice still gentle and low. "Amelie said you had to work. No one said you had to work alone." He picked up the next part and slotted it in, took the screwdriver from Claire's numbed fingers, and fastened it with a couple of deft, fast movements. "I'll be your hands." She wanted to cry, because it was so sweet, but it wouldn't do any good.

She dug in her backpack, found her cell phone, and checked for coverage. It was kind of lame in Morganville, truthfully, out in the middle of the prarie, in the middle of Texas, which was about as middle of nowhere as it was possible to get unless you wanted to go to Mongolia or something.... Claire started dialing numbers. The first person told her that they'd already found somebody.... The second one sounded like a weird old guy. The third one was a weird old lady. The fourth one... well, the fourth one was just plain weird.

There were things out there in the world, things that vampires feared, and now those things were here. She was only seconds out of a very light, fitful sleep, but she knew that the nightmares had followed her effortlessly right into the real world. The draug. They weren’t vampires; they were something else, something that moved through water, formed out of it, dragged vampires down to a slow and awful death.

You couldn't be romantic if your life depended on it." "You know what's lucky? Most bad guys don't ask you to be romantic on command, so that probably won't matter.

You're dead," I repeated. "So why are you in my dream?" He raised the bill of his olive drab ball cap with one finger. " Good question. Morbid, isn't it?" "What?" "Dreaming about dead peolpe. Creepy. You ever see a therapist about that?" "I'm not -" Even in dreams, I couldn't win an argument. Even when he was dead.

Claire was struggling through last summer’s diary volume when Myrnin popped in through the portal, wearing a big floppy black hat and a kind of crazy/stylish pimp coat that covered him from neck to ankles, black leather gloves, and a black and silver walking stick with a dragon’s head on it. And, on his lapel was a button that said, If you can read this, thank a teacher.