“My neighbor raised a shaking index finger to point at the saguaro. "That moving cactus...and the big bug...and you, you spooky bastard. What are you?I stuffed my hands in my pockets and grinned winningly at him. "Why, I'm the Antichrist, of course.”

“I tend to vacillate between belief systems. Right now I'm kind of checking out the whole buffet, you know, and maybe in a little while I'll decide on what I want to put on my plate and chow down on.”

“That's the famous vampire Helgarson you're riding with, isn't it? Is he fond of lattes?""I don't know." I looked over at Leif, who was grinning-he was hearing both sides of the conversation, of course-and said, "Malina wants to know if you like lattes, and I want to know if you're famous.""No to both," he said, as we screamed onto the 202 on-ramp."Sorry, Malina," I said to the phone. "He's not famous.""Perhaps it would be better to call infamous. It is irrelevant at this point. What is relevant is that my sisters and I are not great warriors. Were the odds even and they did not cheat with modern weapons, I would say, yes, we could walk in and win a magical battle against most opponents. But we are outnumbered more than three to one.""How many are there?""Twenty-two. Some of them have firearms, but they are not great warriors either. And while they may be expecting you, Mr. O'Sullivan, they will not be expecting Mr. Helgarson to get involved. I imagine the two of you together will be quite formidable.""She's complimenting our martial prowess, Leif," I said to him."I feel more manly already," He said. The short distance on the 202 was already covered and we were merging onto the southbound 101."Hey, Malina, tell me how much you want to see us play with our swords.”

“But now that she was my apprentice, every such thought caused a guilty twitch in my neck, as if someone had dropped a sleek, stinky ferret there. Guilt ferrets are bastards.”

“Peace be with you," I said, and as I turned to resume my journey with Coyote, I added under my breath, "and asskicking be with me.”

“The grin on his face wasn’t the affable, friendly sort; instead, it was the sociopathic rictus of the irretrievably, bug-fuckeringly insane”

“You will respect my authori-tah!' Oberon said, in a passable imitation of Eric Cartman. I reminded him that I needed to concentrate. Sometimes dogs forget; they just get too excited.”