"'Perhaps the Shrike is gone,' says Father Hoyt. 'Perhaps by collapsing the anti-entropic fields you've freed it forever. Perhaps it's carried its scourge elsewhere.'
The Consul shakes his head and says nothing.
'No,' says Sal Weintraub. The baby is sleeping against his shoulder. 'It will be here. I feel it.'
Brawne Lamia nods. 'So do I. It's waiting.' She had retrieved several ration units from her pack, and now she pulls heating tabs and passes the units around.
'I know that anticlimax is the warp and woof of the world,' says Silenus. 'But this is fucking ridiculous. All dressed up with nowhere to die.'"
pp. 20-21

"I looked out at the garden. The path glowed whitely, almost eerily in the dark. 'The Core works toward its own ends,' I said, knowing as I spoke that no human being knew that...