A few day had gone by and Chloe was finally starting to come around to acknowledge what she knew. It had been a tough few days. She was constantly looking over her shoulder throughout the day, especially when there were Swiss Guards around. She didn't know if they had orders to watch her, kill her, or ignore her. They didn't seem to pay her much attention, so she started to relax a little bit more each day.

She'd had a terrible time trying to sleep. She'd had to position a chair under the door handle of her door so that nobody could force their way in. She was still terrified that someone would stake her in her sleep. So far nobody had so much as jiggled the handle. The Pope's threats had left her emotionally fragile and living in fear.

Felicity, Quinn and Chloe had spent less time together since the murder of the wretched Red Guard. That's how Chloe thought of that awful morning. She figured that they each needed time to process their feelings over what had happened. She hoped they didn't blame her for coming under the suspicion of the Pope, but she couldn't see how they wouldn't. It was, after all, her fault. She had pushed the issue of saving the poor man until they had given in.

Chloe had also avoided Johnny and Sigur. They both seemed confused by the constant rebuffs of their attempted interactions. They only threw searching looks at her now and she wasn't sure how to rekindle their friendship. She certainly wanted to. In fact, she reflected, she needed to. She needed them and their views and ideas. They had figured things out.

As the days had gone by and no harm had come to her or her friends, Chloe wanted to talk to them again. She had put a lot of thought into some theories and she needed to hash them out. However, neither Quinn nor Felicity seemed ready to talk about what had gone on, or what Chloe had said afterwards. She thought her best option was to speak with Johnny and Sigur.

She found them at dinner that evening and ignored their shocked expressions when she sat beside them with her plate loaded up with food. "Hey guys," she said.

"'Hey, guys', really? That's how you're going to start off after you've totally ignored us for days on end?" asked Johnny, "I don't think so."

"Ya, you are going to have to do better than that," said Sigur with a look of moderate hurt clear on his face.

She looked at them apologetically, sticking her bottom lip out ever so slightly. "I know, you guys, but wait until you hear what happened," she said quietly. "You won't be so mad once you know the reason for my actions."

Both boys were quiet and a little sulky. Chloe sighed heavily. "You know, I can't really talk here," she said taking a bite of mashed potatoes and chewing for a moment, "but we have a lot to discuss." She took another bite of her potatoes and then sat staring at them. They stared back. She raised her eyebrows at them, "So?" Still nothing. "Do you want to hear what happened or not?"

Johnny took a deep breath. Sigur shrugged his shoulders. "Will it put our lives in danger to know this information?" asked Johnny with a serious look on his face.

Chloe broke eye contact with them. She cursed lightly under her breath and felt the wind blow out of her sails. "Probably," she muttered. She looked up at them and was very surprised to see that their faces had lit up.

"It's better than we even thought," Sigur whispered excitedly to Johnny.

"There's no hunt tonight," said Johnny. "Do you want to go for a walk around the city to fill us in?"

Chloe's face lit up as well. She had doubted their tenacity for a few seconds there. "Yes, I would," she replied. She cut into a juicy piece of steak and dipped it into some A1 sauce. She savoured the meat with new vigour as she thought about telling these two about the Pope. They are going to wet themselves, she thought with a smile. She watched as they ate with new intensity as well. They were done within minutes and left the banquet hall in high spirits.

As they walked in the fresh air of Rome, Chloe told them what the Pope had done and she felt some relief in the sharing of this information. At least others would know if anything happened to her or the other two. "He had a new member of the Red Guard staked?" asked Johnny in disbelief. Chloe nodded. "Just like that? That is terrifying." He looked away with fear in his eyes and Chloe felt a stab of regret. He was right, of course, it really was a paralyzing kind of scary. And now it was theirs to share.

"Why didn't he call us in as well?" asked Sigur. "We were involved. We even helped carry him back to the Vatican."

This was true, but Chloe hadn't thought about it. "Maybe because you didn't know the transformation to Red Guard had been successful."

"But neither did you," countered Sigur.

This was also true. "Well, I'm the one who talked everyone into saving the poor wretch. And also, he just hates me anyways. I don't think it matters what I do, he isn't going to start liking me any time soon. Honestly, if he could've ended me that easily, I don't know why he hasn't done it already. Apparently it would be easy enough. He has lots of people willing to do his bidding."

"That's true," reflected Johnny, "but if word gets out that he's killing Red Guards, things could get really messy for him. He needs to have the support of the Red Guards. We keep things in balance for him as we enforce his laws. He really can't afford to be killing us. It is better for him if you fall in line."

"Also," pointed out Sigur, "you fit the typical description of the Red Guard members where as the wretch did not. I imagine this, along with the fact that everyone knows and likes you, offers you some protection."

Chloe felt a bubble of pleasure at this. It was nice to hear that people liked you. She couldn't really tell if they liked her or not, though she'd never felt disliked. "That's not even the craziest part, though, you guys," she said with some reservation. They looked at her expectantly. "His eyes glowed red when he threatened me."

"Like, in a red light? A reflection from a light in the environment?" asked Sigur.

"No. Like, from the inside out. They glowed like the stereotypical vampire from vampire movies. Blood red. Mad vampire red," she said quietly. She still couldn't believe it. Sigur andJohnny looked at each other with some weird sort of smugness. "Why are you looking like that? This information is freaky, not enjoyable."

"We knew it," whispered Sigur.

"Someone finally believes us," hissed Johnny with excitement.

"But what does it mean? What do we do?" she asked helplessly, as they crossed a bridge over rushing water.

"It means the Catholic Church is a bigger front than we even realized. At worst, some people may see the Catholic Church as being a money grab or something," said Sigur, "But this means that the Church is actually led by vampires. Well, a vampire. He controls His religious populations to feed His chosen people. And He controls the vampire population by using us to make sure that they eat who He says they should eat."

"This is crazy," said Johnny.

"So, would killing the Pope be good or bad?" asked Chloe.

There was silence as they all thought about this. The implications were far reaching and could impact every aspect of the world as they knew it.

"Good, if we replaced him with a human who could handle the truth. It would have to be a high standing cardinal in the conclave," thought Sigur.

"How do we do that?" pondered Chloe.

"We could spill some Holy Water on them and see what happens," suggested Johnny.

Chloe couldn't help it, she laughed out loud at the image of the cardinals being squirted with Holy Water. "Maybe we could have a huge water fight and accidentally shoot them all in the face."

"Or," said Johnny, breaking up the laughter, "maybe we should replace him with a vampire that we can control. That way we don't have to send any humans over the edge."

"I'm sure we can figure something out," said Sigur.

"Meanwhile, we need to find an 'in' with the vampires to see how much they know. What will be their reaction if we kill their leader, the Pope?"

Chloe mentioned that she's spoken with one of the targets briefly before she'd been killed, "It sounds like there's certainly some of them that would like to see some things change," she said. "It didn't sound like they know the truth about the Pope, though."

"It would make sense that only a few select individuals would know the truth," reasoned Johnny. "The fewer the people who know about top-secret information the better. When too many people know anything important, there are usually problems." 

"It stands to reason that the Pope and his fellow higher-ups keep their identity a secret so that the other vampires can never complain about them saving the best food for themselves," said Sigur.

"Well, then, something may very well hit the fan when the secret gets out!" said Chloe with a smile.