Jean-Claude regards her steadily, unblinking. He does not remember a time when the witches have not monopolized the politics of the city, in truth. He has outlived generations of them sticking their fingers where they do not belong, and he will outlive generations more to come. Jean-Claude is a kind man, a sentimental vampire, but even he has his limitations. And to think that a vampire would submit to the rule of a human or witch is to imagine a tiger bowing to the superiority of man. They have sharper claws and larger teeth and they can rip them apart and eat them alive if they so desire. It simply is not done. The difference of course being that vampires know how to control their hungers. They are not the dangerous beasts of the wild, needing to be tamed, that the likes as Samantha no doubt sees them to be.

"Then they too have a great deal yet to learn," he says simply.