“What,” Mick said softly, “is Lad doin’ in me bed?”Hearing his name, Lad opened small, piggish, upside-down eyes, gazing with idiotic adoration as his whip-thin tail thumped the covers.“Ah.” Harry scratched behind one ear. “Well, see, ’e was lookin’ so forlorn, like, out in the courtyard by ’imself. Seemed an awful shame to leave ’im there all alone.”“Off!” Mick roared at the dog.Lad’s transformation was instantaneous. His tiny triangle ears folded back, his eyes narrowed worriedly, and he rolled so that he could crawl toward the edge of the bed on his belly.“Is that mud on his paws?” Mick asked in outrage.Harry glanced at the dog. “I do believe it is,” he said as if making a discovery.“Christ!” Mick watched disgustedly as Lad made the edge of the bed and slithered off, thumping to the floor. The dog seemed to think that his apology was done—or perhaps he’d already forgotten that Mick was mad at him—for he gamboled over as frisky as a lamb.“He’s not even me dog,” Mick muttered.Lad sat, one back leg sprawled out to the side, tongue hanging from his mouth, and grinned up at him. He completely ignored Harry, his supposed master.“The dog ’as a wonderful affection for ye,” Harry said brightly.”

“Women were something best bought, he’d found. Pay them, f*ck them, and send them away in the morning. That way avoided tears, recriminations, and feminine disappointment. Oh, and small things like being slapped across the face. Mick rubbed his jaw. But Silence wasn’t one of his whores, as Harry had pointed out. Mick couldn’t send her away. And he couldn’t let her starve herself—he wouldn’t let anyone hurt her, including herself.”

“Brian knows the affair is wrong. He's known from the moment Wendy first undressed in his office. But with her hot, wet tongue in his ear, and her taut, pink nipples straining against his starched white shirt, and with Mick Jagger's strident voice squawking about satisfaction on the tiny transistor radio, Brian's body refuses to obey.Instead of shoving Wendy out the door, he shoves her onto the unmade bed.”

“If he licked her there, she'd rob a bank for him. When she felt his tongue glide across her throat, she quivered all over. Mick tightensed his hold on her, and the bastard did it again.”

“Fate had a cruel sense of humor. It had been all his fault, anyway, whatever Mick or Gillia told him. Careless preoccupation and utter stupidity. Boyhood ignorance and negligence. He was only getting what he deserved, over and over again, for the rest of his life. If only in his dreams.”

“Then he said in his most excellent Mick impression, "Your powers are useless against Ninja Lords, O great zombie hunter! Surrender or feel the sting of the shuriken!”