“The upshot of her tirade was that I was the devil's spawn and should be locked up in a tower before I unleashed hordes of the living dead to slaughter them all in their sleep. Well, maybe that's an exaggeration, but not by much.”

“Don't talk to the crazy kids. I longed to shout back that we weren't crazy. I'd mistaken her kid for a ghost, that's all.I wondered whether they had books about his sort of thing. Fifty Ways to Tell the Living from the Dead Before You Wind Up in a Padded Room. Yep, I'm sure the library carried that one.”

“Then he reached up and tore my shirtfront open. "Not much to see, is there?" I said, struggling to talk with a crushed windpipe. "I know, I know, they can fix things like that these days. Call me a feminist, but I think a woman's worth should be defined not by the size of her bust, but - " I rammed my fist up into his Adam's apple. He grunted and stumbled back. "- by the strength of her right hook.”

“Go out and ask her into the alley.”Clay looked at Jeremy as if he’d just been told to dance the rumba on a public thoroughfare.I bit back a laugh. “Just walk over to her and point at the alley. Maybe say…I don’t know…something like ‘fifty bucks.’ ” I looked at Jeremy. “Does that sound right? Fifty?”His brows shot up. “Why are you asking me?”“I wasn’t—I just meant, as a general…” I threw up my hands. “How am I supposed to know how much a hooker costs?”

“A G-Rated story? About taking some deformed baby and locking him up? And if it was true, and this poor guy had been locked up in there for decades, and someone threw in a perfectly good woman, what the hell do you think he'd do with her? Play Parcheesi?”

“Nonsense, Chloe. I certainly hope you aren't afraid of cemeteries" "Um, no" Tori said. "It's the bodies buried in them that worry her. Uh, you know, dead bodies? Potential zombies?""Don't be silly. You can't accidentally raise the dead.""Chloe can.""I've heard Chloe is quite powerful, but I'm sure she doesn't need to worry about raising the dead yet.""She already has. I was there""I-it's true." I said. "I raised subjects of Dr. Lyle's experiment, buried in the basement.. Then I raised dead bats in a warehouse, and a homeless guy in a place we tried to spend the night." "Bats?" Tori said, nose wrinkling."You were asleep. I didn't want to wake you up""And for that I thank you."~~Margaret, Chloe and Tori”

“You want to keep looking?" I asked."Yeah, maybe.""I'll leave you to it, then." I started for the door."No." He said it quickly, and reached for my arm, but stopped before he touched me. "I mean, if you're tired, sure, but you don't have to."Derek doesn't want her to leave ♥”