“An excellent question, well phrased. And were I any other vampire, I would not be able to do so. However, this house is my house, first and foremost. I built it, as I built several such in Morganville. I live in each of them in turn, and while I am in residence the Protections will defend me from any enemy, either human or vampire. While I am absent, they will exclude vampires, if the residents are human, and of course humans if the residents are vampires. Unless the proper permissions are given.” She inclined her head. “Does that answer your question?”

“Maybe.” Shane chewed on it a little, then said, “Why didn’t it protect Michael?”

“He gave Oliver permission to enter, and, in doing so, forfeited the house’s Protection. However, the house did what it could to preserve him.” Amelie spread her hands. “Perhaps it helped that Oliver was, in fact, not trying to destroy him but to change him.”

“Into a vampire,” Eve said.

“Yes.”

“Yes! I always wanted to ask why that doesn’t work. I mean, the vampires keep on biting, but…?”

Amelie said nothing. She seemed to be thinking, or remembering; either way, it was a long and uncomfortable silence before she said, “Have you children any concept of geometric progression?”

Claire raised her hand.

“And how many vampires would it take to turn the entire world into vampires, if it was so simple as that?” Amelie smiled as Claire opened her mouth. “My dear, I do not expect you to answer, though if you would like to work out the math of it and tell me someday, I should be most interested to see it. The truth is that we came very near to it, in my younger years, when humans were much fewer. And it was agreed—as it has lately been agreed among you humans—that perhaps conservation of game is a wise idea. So we—removed the knowledge of how to create more vampires, simply by refusing to teach it. Over time, the knowledge was lost except to the Elders, and now it is lost altogether, except in two places.”

“Here?” Claire asked.

“Here,” Amelie said, and touched her temple. “And there.”

She pointed at Shane.

“What?” Claire and Eve both blurted, and Claire thought, Oh my God I kissed him and he was a vampire, but Shane was looking odd, too. Not lost, exactly.

Guilty.

“Yeah,” he said, and put his hand in the pocket of his blue jeans. He pulled out a small book. The cover—Claire could read it from where she sat—read Shakespeare Sonnets. “It was all I could think of.”

He tipped it sideways, and the pages slid out, away from the cover. Sliced neatly at both edges of the binding.