Chapter Thirty-Four - To the Heart

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The Pope took one last strike at the Red Guard he was fighting and succeeded in staking him in the heart. Chloe felt sick as she watched her comrade turn to dust. The Pope turned to look for the voice with some surprise. Everyone seemed to stutter in their violence as the voice continued on.

"It looks like your rule is coming to a rather quick end, Marcellus," the voice continued, permeating the air.

"Is that you, Ethan?" the Pope asked. "I wonder how you managed to get inside these walls?" The Pope looked at Chloe with a mixture of respect and hate. "If you wanted to have rich blood, Ethan, you could have just moved to a country where I have no power."

"And miss the culture of Rome? I don't think so, Marcellus. You know I've never been one to give up easily."

"And you decide now is the time?" growled the Pope.

 "I've waited patiently. It's been hundreds of years."

"Since the darkest of dark ages, yes," replied the Pope turning his head to look at Chloe. "Is that what you want? A return to the dark ages?" he asked.

"You've been leading a different kind of dark age, Your Holiness," she whispered hoarsely. "Keeping people in poverty for your own benefit. Stopping birth control, risking lives, taking lives, taking tithes from the poorest of the poor. You are deplorable."

"This," he shouted at her, "is nothing compared to what it could be! You are opening the door to Ethan, of all people? Do you have any idea what he stands for?"

I have no idea what Ethan really stands for ,thought Chloe with panic that she quickly tamped down. She trusted him because Derek trusted him. She glanced down to the ground.

"That's what I thought," scoffed the Pope. "He stands for anarchy. Chaos. Is that what you want?" the Pope demanded with his glowing red eyes.

"We want more equal footing for everyone," said Felicity. "We want to not feel sick every time the news shows refugees landing on Italian shores."

"Is that all?" smiled the Pope, "Why didn't you just say so?"

"Well, there was the minor issue of you killing those who questioned you," Quinn chirped from where he stood over a pile of ashes.

"Oh, that?" smiled the Pope, "Only a time or two, really. And did anyone really like Jessica anyways?"

The Red Guards shifted their feet uncomfortably.

"Regardless," said Ethan. They all looked to his form as he stood just beyond the goat's blood pool. He looked to the pulpit and leaped calmly from one pew to the next as he spoke. He isn't in any danger from the blood, thought Chloe, he's just performing for everyone. He was almost dancing from one pew top to the next. "Your Guard is correct. Your time to rule is over. We need to be able to access more nutritious blood. The stuff you're providing is terrible."

The Pope rolled his blood red eyes in exasperation. Chloe noticed that the human cardinals had started to move towards each other and stood in a group at the edge of the altar. They watched everything with wide-eyed wonder. They truly had no idea, she thought. She noticed that their future leader watched everything without wonder. His face was simply grim and he seemed to be taking it all in calmly.

"Fine, what is it you all want, then?" the Pope tried to reason.

"Oh, the time for bargaining has passed. Maybe you should have tried that with Jessica instead of killing her," said Felicity. Chloe looked at her with admiration. She would make a great new leader of the Red Guard.

The rest of the vampires seemed to stroll in behind Ethan now. Chloe thought they all looked rather smug as they stepped foot into the Sistine Chapel. She couldn't help thinking it just seemed wrong to have a bunch of vampires in such a sacred place.

"So what is to happen here, then, since the fighting seems to be over?" the Pope chuckled.

"It is? But we just arrived," said Ethan gesturing to the vampires behind him. They started to climb up on the pews behind Ethan.

The Pope looked panicked as he looked to the Red Guards, "Don't be fooled!" he cried out. "Whatever he's promised you, it won't be like it is now."

"That's the idea," growled Felicity.

"You're making a mistake," the Pope whined loudly in a high pitched voice.

"I don't think so," Chloe heard another of the Red Guards call out. 

Chloe wasn't feeling so confident as she looked at the vampires approaching the pulpit. Is this the right thing? she thought frantically. But she had already chosen her side, and it was far too late to switch now. She took a deep breath as she saw some movement starting up again.

Chloe felt the gun in her belt and took it out. She thought of Jessica as she felt the steely grip of the weapon. It seemed pretty anticlimactic to shoot the Pope. Too quick, she thought. But really, any death would happen fast. She pulled the weapon up in front of her just as she saw Quinn approaching the Pope in his fighting stance. Quinn glanced her way and grinned. Chloe knew that her aim was not the best, but she aimed for the Pope's heart anyways... hoping to at least hit some part of his body. She felt confident with the weapon, knowing that at least she couldn't hurt any fellow Red Guards with it's right-side-up crosses.

Chloe tried to keep her gun trained on the Pope but things started to move very quickly. She saw the Pope strike out at Quinn and was surprised to see Quinn fly about five feet before landing hard on his back. He got up quickly but the Pope was on top of him, she saw Quinn's head jerk and heard the bones in his neck snap in quick succession. Chloe watched as the Pope raised a stake over his head preparing to put an end to Quinn.

Chloe heard three gun shots echo through the Sistine Chapel before she even realized she had pulled the trigger. She saw the Pope's body jolt as the bullets penetrated his neck, shoulder and spine. Chloe closed her eyes in disappointment that she hadn't landed one in his wretched heart.

She watched as the Pope turned to look at her and shuddered as he smiled. "You missed, Ms. Desjardins," he hissed at her.

"Maybe I did," she replied as she saw Quinn rise behind him, "But he won't." She saw the Pope's eyes grow wide as a stake plunged through the front of his chest, piercing his heart thoroughly. In a flash, the Pope was no more than a pile of ashes. She smiled in victory as she looked into Quinn's eyes. She looked around to see the last vampire cardinal staked by Sigur. She was glad to see he was still fighting.

"Well done, everyone, well done," Ethan's voice thundered through the air. They all turned to see his self-satisfied smile.

The Red Guard gathered together around the alter, watching Ethan carefully. They had trusted the enemy of their enemy, but after hearing what the Pope had to say about him they were a little bit less certain when it came to the future. Is it easier to live with the devil you know? wondered Chloe. Indeed, as she looked at the faces of the ten Red Guards who stood around her, she saw the same thoughts in their eyes.

She glanced over to the human cardinals who watched the proceedings, unnoticed by Ethan, from the far end of the alter. They also looked unsure, but she saw a certain light of confidence and poise in the cardinal they had chosen for succession. Chloe felt a strange comfort from his presence.

"And now," Ethan grinned with his perfect teeth and spectacular blue eyes, "we can renegotiate the agreements."

"Technically, we should elect a new Pope to renegotiate the agreement," said Felicity, eyeing Ethan with subtle distrust.

"A human? Really?" sneered Ethan. "He'll be gone in the blink of an eye anyway. Why should we live by the word of a human?"

"Not much was clear about what happened after the Pope died, but that part was," Chloe interrupted with her eyes boring into his.

"Well, so much is up for debate, really. Isn't it? For example," he continued, "do we even need a Red Guard anymore? Nobody will be killing vampires now, will they? If we can eat who we want, what rules would you be enforcing?" Ethan fingered a stake blithely before he sent it flying with lightning speed into Philippe's heart. Chloe felt her knees go weak as Philippe disappeared before her eyes. No! Chloe screamed in her head. Her vision swam as she watched Ethan laugh with particular glee. "Oh god," he chuckled, "I've been wanting to do that for so long. You Red Guards have been a plague on our populations for centuries!"

Chloe looked to Ethan with hate-filled eyes, but he just smiled and turned to his vampires. "Who else wants to kill one?" he asked them.

Chloe felt surprise jolt through her body as Ethan suddenly disappeared in a cloud of dust and a stake clattered on the floor. She looked for the source, but nobody from her group had moved. She glanced to the cardinals, but there was no movement there either. Finally she looked to the vampires and saw a man standing there, heaving from the effort of the throw.

"Richard!" cried Felicity. And that explained it. Ethan had killed the wrong Red Guard. There was a bond between  Red Guard partners that was not easily broken, and certainly not by a vampire bite. Chloe watched a wild mixture of emotions dance across Richard's face. Pain as he glanced down at Philippe's ashes, a quick smile to Felicity and an anxious look around the room. He needn't have worried, none of the vampires seemed to want a piece of him in retaliation. 

How odd, thought Chloe. In fact,  as Chloe looked around at the scene before her she noticed that everyone seemed to be relaxing. There was even some laughter in different parts of the room as people realized the worst was over. 

However, Chloe realized there were now two power vacuums within the complicated structures created by Ethan and the Pope. Chloe recognized that during revolutions these were often the most dangerous times.

She looked to cardinal elector Francis and saw that he was looking at her as well. She casually walked over to the remaining cardinals who had fought during this fight. She respected their courage and fighting skill. She was quite certain they had each been responsible for at least one vampire death this night.

"Thank you for joining our fight tonight," she said with feeling as she looked each cardinal in the eye.

"It seemed to be everyone's fight," replied Francis. Chloe nodded her head in acknowledgement. "It seems to me the next step is to choose a new Pope," he continued, "but I feel like there's more to it than just that."

Chloe nodded. "Yes, things are complicated. We have much to discuss."

The End 



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Author's Note: I hope that you have enjoyed this story... although I do feel I've left it hanging a bit. Putting all of the pieces together after this sort of take over is pretty complicated. Please share your thoughts in the comments and don't forget to vote if you enjoyed the story. :) Thank you so much for reading to the end!! xoxo


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