Rachel Caine

What time is it?""Three a.m. Michael's making a snack. You want anything?""Um...no. Thanks." She slid off the couch and then stood there like an idiot, unwilling to leave because he was still smiling and...she liked it. "Who won?""Which game?""Oh. I guess I was asleep for a while.""Don't worry. We didn't let the zombies get you." This time, his smile was positively wicked. Claire felt it like a hot blanket all over her skin.

And then I heard the ring of metal on concrete, and I went cold, because one of them had found a piece of rebar lying around, and I knew with sudden certainty that these guys were going to kill me right here on this stupid sidewalk, for nothing, without even the reason of knowing my name or hating my politics. They were just going to kill me because they needed to kill something, and I was handy. At least zombies would have had a reason.

This won't stop her from getting elected...Stupider people get elected all the time. It's America. We love the sleazy. And the crazy.

This won't stop her from getting elected," Shane said. "Stupider people get elected all the time. It's America. We love the sleazy. And the crazy." "I would like to think better of us," Claire said, "but yeah. You're right.

Let's say that it belong to me as much as it belongs to anyone alive today. If I am, strictly speaking, living. The old word was undead, you know, but aren't all living things undead. I dislike imprecision.

Michael...Michael got bitten. And now he's a vampire. But he doesn't remember becoming one, and that's a big problem. So if you see him, don't, you know, hug. He bites. He doesn't mean it, though.

So, been attacked by any vampires yet?""Not one.""Zombies? Giant spiders? Water monsters?"It's been really quiet on the supernatural front""Too bad, 'cause I got attacked by a devil dog. It was not awesome.

You know,' Shane said twenty minutes later, 'I'd feel a whole lot better about the two of us if you didn't think i was the go-to guy for breaking and entering.'She felt a flash of guilt about the breaking-and-entering part -but she had called him- just before her heart did a funny little painful flip and she heard him say again in her head THE TWO OF US.

Myrnin was heading for Kim when she picked up a crossbow lying on a table nearby and shot him pointblank in the

Oh, Claire," he said. "You think me a far better man than I am. That's kind, and flattering." "Are you saying that you -""Doughnuts!" Myrnin interrupted her and darted away, to zip back in seconds with an open box.

She was almost at the top of the steps, and Shane was right behind her, when she heard Myrnin say, in a quiet voice that was like the old Myrnin, the one she actually liked, "I'm sorry, Claire. I never meant - I'm sorry. Sometimes I don't know... I don't know what I am thinking. I wish... I wish things could be like they were before.

Nobody's cut out for this town," Shane said. "Nobody sane anyway.""Says the kid who came back.""Yeah, kind of proves my point.

Welcome to Morganville.You'll never want to leave.And even if you do...well, you can't. Sorry about that.

You've turned into quite a bossy little thing," Myrnin said. "I think I might like it.

He hung up on her. She'd just been hung up on by a disembodied brain in a jar. Fantastic.

Myrnin said softly. "And how is it that you do not understand that HERE, in THIS place, this girl belongs to me, not to you?

You can't go around... licking things that come out of a water treatment plant. That's just... unsanitary.

Does it give you deja voodoo how alike the houses are?""That's deja vu, and I hate you right now.""For narcing on you to your mom? Wait until you hear what I tell your dad."From the sly grin on his face, she knew what he was thinking."Don't you even think about it.""I could tell him about the time we-""Hell, no.