“I turned. Tall, Dark, and Sinister was rapidly approaching.”

“Sinclair doesn't love your sister." "Not yet." I said darkly. "Give him time.""Look, I'm sure he's interested in her—""Wait till you see her. Just wait.""Like he doesn't have pussy thrown at him from cars?""What a horrifying mental image.”

“Oh my God", Marc rhapsodized. "Who is that ?""An asshole," I mumbled, turning back to him and picking up my tea. I was so rattled I sloshed some of the hot liquid on my hand, but I didn't feel a thing."He's coming over here !" Marc squealed. "Oh my God, oh my God, ohmyGod!""Will you get a hold of yourself?" I hissed. "You sound like a girl with a crush. Ah-ha!”

“You know, they did let you have that room,” I said. “In fact, I think they’re assuming you’ll use it, as opposed to lingering in strange hallways.”She responded to me with, “Girl, I am bored outta my tits.”“Can we have one cross-country quest without talking about your tits?”Her pretty dark eyes went narrow and thoughtful, and she caressed her cheek with a long fingernail colored jack-o’-lantern orange. After a thoughtful pause, she shook her head. “I don’tsee how.”“I figured.”

“Hi," the werewolf said. He was dark-haired and broad, with gold eyes, big hands, and a feral scruffiness that Cole felt and instantly responded to. He had the weird urge to kill a cow and present it to the stranger. Two cows.”

“Have you lost your teeny tiny mind, you too-tall, too-skinny, too-crazy jerk?”“Oh, look who’s talking, Miss Let’s Blunder Around the Time Stream and Hang the Consequences! Thanks to you, we’ve got a dead Marc and alive Marc in the same timeline . . . in the same house! Thanks to you, I got chomped on by a dim, blonde, undead, selfish, whorish, blood-suckingleech when I was minding my own business in the past.”“Don’t you call me dim!”“Um. Everyone. Perhaps we should—” Tina began.“Wait, when did this happen?” Marc asked. He had the look of a man desperately trying to buy a vowel. “Past, an hour ago? Past, last year? Helpme out.”“Oh, biiiiig surprise!” Laura threw her (perfectly manicured) hands in the air. “Let me guess, you were soooo busy banging your dead husbandthat you haven’t had time to tell anybody anything.”“I was getting to it,” I whined.“Then after not telling anyone anything and not being proactive—or even active!—you grow up to destroy the world and bring about eternalnuclear winter or whatever the heck that was and how do you deal with your foreknowledge of terrible events to come? Have sex!”“An affirmation of life?” Sinclair suggested. Never, I repeat, never had I loved him more. I was torn between slugging my sister and blowing myhusband. Hmm. Laura might have a point about my priorities . . . but jeez. Look at him. Yum.“—even do it and what do you have to say for yourself? Huh?”“You’re just uptight, repressed, smug, antisex, and jealous, you Antichristing morally superior, fundamentally evil bitch.”Laura and Marc gasped. My husband groaned.”

“I—I adore you, too. Well, I don't know if I adore you. That's not really the word I'd use. But I—I—" I managed to wrench it out. God, this was hard! "I love you.""Of course you do," he said, totally unsurprised."WHAT? I finally tell you my deepest, most personal feelings and you're all, 'Yeah, I already got that memo'? This, this is why you drive me nuts! This is why it's so hard to tell you things! I take it back.”