“Know this, Hazard,” he edged out, ignoringHazard’s enthusiastic glare. “I’ll kick your ass if you piss me off any more.” Jesse paused, as ifimagining the scene, then added with childish spite, “Oh, and I’ll laugh too.”“Give me a cigarette burn while you’re at it?”“Just shut up. Your attempt at sarcasm makes me want to barf.”“Good, I’m glad.”

“Tell you what, you let me go, and I’ll ask you plenty of questions about your race. Until then, I’m slightly distracted with how this little vacation on the good ship Holy Sh*t is going to pan out for me.”

“we all collide. It made him think of Newton’s third law of motion:for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. It was like, whenyou collided with someone, they would not be in the same position as theyused to be. Everyone equally affected one another.”

“we all collide”

“My name’s Lassiter, and I’ll tell you all you need to know about me. I’m an angel first and a sinner second, and I’m not here for long. I’ll never hurt you, but I’m prepared to make you pretty goddamn uncomfortable if I have to, to get my job done. I like sunsets and long walks on the beach, but my perfect female no longer exists. Oh, and my favorite hobby is annoying the shit out of people. Guess I’m just bred to want to get a rise out of folks—probably the whole resurrection thing.”

“Okay, okay, okay … go to your corners, boys. This is a nice Aubusson carpet you’re standing on. You get blood on it and I’ll have Fritz so far up my ass I’ll be coughing on his hankie.”

“Hey, what are you doing, little one? You want more? You are just too much . . . you . . . oh, no . . . not the quivering lip . . . oh, no.” Nalla let out a giggle. “Outrageous! You want more, and you know you’re going to get what you want because of The Lip. Jeez, you’ve got your father wrapped around your little finger, don’t you.”