“Ernie greets us again and slaps some glasses on the bar. A young-looking guy in the back of the room mutters something about "damn Cullenist" loud enough for me to hear. (Well, me and everybody else, since we've all got superhearing.) What's he talking about? What did I--oh wait, yeah, those vampire books with the sparkly vampires. Great.”

“Valkyrie made a face. "Bloody vampires."Ryan sat forward. "That was a vampire? That guy who looked like an accountant?""We don't talk about vampires," Skulduggery warned."But it was daytime. How could he have been out during the-""We don't talk about vampires!" Valkyrie said sharply.Ryan shrunk back. "Sorry," he said."Don't worry about it," Skulduggery told him. "Valkyrie used to date a vampire that's all.""We didn't date ," Valkyrie said immediately.Skulduggery held a hand up. "I'm not judging."Valkyrie scowled.”

“Since it was there, Larkin got another bowl, spooned up stew for himself.“He fights with us. We’re an army.”“An army? Talk about delusions of grandeur. What are you?” she asked Glenna.“Witch.”“So, we’ve got a witch, a sorcerer, a couple of refugees from Geall and a vampire. Some army.”

“It's all you think about, all you talk about, and all you want us to talk about. What in the world would we call something like that? Oh, yeah! An obsession!”

“I also think Valkyire’s ex-boyfriend will come in handy here.”Ravel frowned, “The dead vampire?”Valkyrie glared at him, “I think he means Fletcher.”“Oh. Sorry.”“Caelen was never my boyfriend.”“I didn’t mean to-““We never talk about Caelen,” Ghastly muttered.”“I’m really sorry, Valkyrie, Ravel said. “Fletcher’s great. He’s wonderful. I’m sure he’d be delighted to help, and having a teleporter here will certainly solve some problems. We’ll arrange that, we’ll get him over to you, start the ball rolling, as it were. Once again, sorry about bringing up the vampire.”Ghastly shot him a look whispered, “Why do you keep talking about him?”“I can’t help it,” Ravel whispered back. “Now he’s all I can think about.”“You realise,” Valkyrie said, “that we can hear you both perfectly well.”

“And what do you know, John's hands flew through the positionsof ASL in various l-got-this combinations."Is he deaf" the guy behind the cash register asked in a stagewhisper. As if someone using American Sign Language was some kindof freak."No. Blind.""Oh."As the man kept staring, Qhuinn wanted to pop him. "You goingto help us out here or what?" "Oh ... yeah. Hey, you got a tattoo on your face." Mr. Observantmoved slowly, like the bar codes on those bags were creating some kind of wind resistance under his laser reader. "Did you know that?"Really. "I wouldn't know."''Are you blind, too?"No filter on this guy. None. "Yeah, I am.""Oh, so that's why your eyes are all weird.""Yeah. That's right."Qhuinn took out a twenty and didn't wait for change-murderwas just a liiiiiittle too tempting. Nodding to John, who was also measuring the dear boy for a shroud, Qhuinn went to walk off."What about your change ?" the man called out."I'm deaf, too. I can't hear you."The guy yelled more loudly, "I'll just keep it then, yeah?""Sounds good," Qhuinn shouted over his shoulder.Idiot was stage-five stupid. Straight up.”