“My brother has absolutely no sense of self-preservation or survival instinct,” Eli said. “He has no idea we’re out here. We could be silver-eating, flesh-regenerating, vampire zombies, and when we busted through the door to eat his brilliant brain, he’d look up and say, ‘Huh?”

“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.”

“You let the cops in. Thy've brought in a ram to take down the front door. A white chick in an evening gown will settle the cops faster than a brother with guns.”

“I would give,” he said, his voice rough, “everything I am to keep you from being hurt.”

“Yeah. You treat him like a son or a soldier, instead of like a brother. He wants you to like him and admire him and love him. Maybe in that order.”

“Sometimes when the poop hits the fan we should block it and run, sometimes we should haul off and knock it for a loop back at the spinning blades. Wisdom is knowing two things. One is which time is which. The other is that no matter what you do you're gonna get crap on your hand.”

“People of all faiths are responsible to help the weak, the downtrodden, the sick, and the helpless, especially children. And of all the religions in the world, Christians are the only ones that are commanded not to judge, yet we do every day -- gay people, ethnicities different from our own, people in mixed relationships, people with gifts they were born with, power they were born with, genetic mutations they were born with, illnesses of the brain and body. I've got a little girl's mother to save, and, yes, she's a witch. Are you gonna make it possible for me to save her?”