“a pink taffeta evening gown. It looked like it had run away from a junior highprom...The dress looked like a petunia on steroids to me.”

“Everyone turned towards me. The two female vamps smiled, most unpleasantly. They looked at me like I was a piece of candy and they wondered what sort of center I had. Soft and gooey, or hard with a nut in the middle? I'd had men undress me with their eyes, but I'd never had anything trying to picture what I'd look like with my skin off. Yikes.”

“I look like a biker slut from hell meets soldier of fortune pinup.”

“She'd been a good nurse, and now she'd never be a nurse again. She was bitter about it and had turned herself into the slut bride from Planet X, as if even in human form, she wanted people to know what she was now: different, other. Trouble was, she looked like a thousand other teens and early twenties who also wanted to be different and stand out.”

“There had to be a circle of Hell where you were eternally fourteen, eternally in junior high. One of the lower circles.”

“My right hand was sort of casually near my gun, without looking like I was reaching for my gun. It wasn't easy. Reaching for a gun usually looks like reaching for a gun. No one seemed to notice though. Goody for our side.”

“You look like shit." Jason smiled, without opening his eyes. "You sweet-talker.”