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"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.
"Very clever," Amelie said. "You gave them the cover, filled with words they did not want, and kept for yourself what was important. But what if I told you that it was the cover they were after, and not the contents?"
He looked shaken. "I had to play the odds."
"Wise gamesmanship," she said. "In fact, I told you that Oliver is unhappy, and so he is, because he has allowed that" - she nodded toward the pages - "to slip through his fingers. And so I find that I come to you for a favor."
His eyes lit up, and he said, "A favor? Like a deal?"
"Yes, Shane. I shall make a deal for what you hold in your hand, and I promise you that it is the only deal that matters, as I am the only vampire that matters. I will take the book, and destroy the last written record of how vampires may be created, which will ensure my continued survival against my enemies, who will not dare to move against me for fear of losing what only I know." She sat back against the puffed cushions, studying him very calmly. "And for this, you and all in this house will receive my Protection for as long as you should choose to have it. This will cancel any other, lesser contracts you might have made, such as the agreement you made with Oliver, through Brandon."
"Oliver - is Brandon's boss?" Claire asked.
"Boss?" Amelie considered that, and nodded. "Yes. Exactly. While I do not command Oliver, neither can he command me. Until he discovers the secrets I hold, he cannot unseat me in Morganville, and he cannot create his own followers to overwhelm mine. We are...evenly matched."
Shane looked down at the book in his hand. "And this would have changed that."
"Yes," she said softly. "That book would have destroyed us all in the end. Vampires as well as humans. I owe you a debt for this, and I will pay it as well as circumstances will allow."
Shane thought about it for an agonizing second, then looked at Eve. She nodded. Claire nodded when he checked for her approval, and then he held the book up. "Michael?" he asked. "Yes or no?" After another long second, he sighed. "Guess that's a yes. Well, anything that pisses off Oliver is a good deed, so..." He held it out to Amelie.
She made no move to take it. "Understand," she said, and her eyes were bitter cold, "that once this is done, it is done. Your Glass House will remain, but you are bound together. None may leave Morganville, after. I cannot risk your knowledge escaping my control."
"Yeah, well, if we go now, we're toast anyway, right?" Shane kept holding it out. "Take it. Oliver was right about one thing: it's nothing to us but death."
"Au contraire," she said, and her pale white fingers took it from his. "It is, in fact, your salvation."
She stood, looked around the room, and sighed a little. "I have missed this place," she said. "And I believe it has also missed me. Someday I will come back." She pressed the hidden catch on the arm of the settee, and without another word to them turned to leave.
"Hey, what about the cops?" Shane asked. "Not to mention all those people who tried to kill us today?"
"They answer to Oliver. I will make it known that you are not to be troubled. However, you must not further disturb the peace. If you do, and it is your fault, I will be forced to reconsider my decision. And that would be...unfortunate." She gave him a full smile. With fangs. "Au revoir, children. Do take care of the house more carefully in the future."
Her two vamp guards went with her. Smoke and silence. There was no sound on the stairs after. Claire swallowed. "Um...what did we just do?" she asked.
"Pretty much all we could," Shane said. "I'm checking the street."
They ended up going down together, in a group - Shane with the bat, Eve with the knife Jennifer had abandoned, and Claire armed with a broken chair leg sharp on one end.
The house was deserted. The front door was standing open, and out on the street, cop cars were pulling away from the curb around the big black Cadillac. A limousine was leaving, too. Its tinted windows cast back blinding reflections of the sun.
It was all over in seconds. No cars, no vampires, nobody hanging around. No Monica. No Richard. No Oliver.
"Crap," Shane said. He was standing on the porch, looking at what was hanging next to the doorbell. It was a black lacquered plaque with a symbol on it. The same symbol that had been on the book cover he'd sent to Oliver. "Does that mean she wrote the damn book, too?"
