“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.”

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

“According to Francis, Narkis and Zoltar have been plotting against their dad.” “He did name his boys Narkis and Zoltar.” “Good point. I’d have shot him too.”

“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?”

“Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord,’” I whispered, the words familiar from Scripture. “But not this time, God. You had your chance.”

“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.”

“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.”