Chloe woke up the next morning to frenzied banging on her door. She woke with a start and jumped out of bed in the blink of an eye. She ran to the door and opened it to a slit. It was Gregory.

"The Pope demands your audience. Now," he said with stress in his eyes. "Throw clothes on and let's go."

Chloe affirmed her comprehension and closed the door. She quickly pulled on some jeans, a shirt and some shoes. She ran to the washroom to rinse her mouth out with a mixture of toothpaste and water, ran her fingers through her hair and opened the door again.

"That was fast!" said Gregory with approval. They walked quickly down the hall to the Pope's chambers.

"Am I in trouble?" Chloe asked.

"I think so. You and your friends, it would seem. They're already in his chambers. Something about a Red Guard... I don't know. I didn't catch all of the details. At least you didn't take forever to get ready. That would have made him madder."

Chloe gave him a tight lipped smile as they walked on. She thought she knew what this would be about, but she couldn't understand why the Pope would be upset to have a new member of the Red Guard. She would have guessed he'd be happy to have another protector, and she had to admit she was surprised that maybe Felicity had been right about the problem with the young man's social status.

They arrived at the large doors that signified they had reached the Pope's chambers and the Swiss Guards outside of his door frowned at Chloe as they opened the doors for her to enter. She looked at them and made a face once they couldn't see her anymore.

"They might have missed that, but I didn't," said the Pope from his place at the window. Chloe startled. She hadn't seen him there, although she didn't know how she could miss him all dressed up and formal looking as he was.

"Sorry about that. They were giving me dirty looks. I was just returning the feeling," she said with a hopeful smile at the Pope. He didn't laugh.

Chloe noticed that Quinn and Felicity weren't in the room and immediately started to worry. Gregory had told her they were here. Where had they gone? The Pope saw her looking around. "They are in the other chamber. I want to hear your side of the story first."

"The story?" asked Chloe.

"The story of this new Red Guard. Why did you stop the vampire from his activities?" asked the Pope with a critical eye.

Chloe stared at the Pope. He said 'activities' just as if the vampire had been going for a morning stroll and not devouring some poor soul. "Clearly, I stopped him when I realized the human was a tourist," said Chloe without batting an eye.

The Pope tilted his head and looked at her with mild disbelief. "And when you realized he was simply a degenerate?"

"Your Holiness, I knew it was one of Your children and insisted that we do what we could to save him from damnation. He wasn't dead, and I knew he'd turn into a vampire. We... I couldn't  condemn him to an eternity of damnation through my inaction," she said sincerely.

"I see. Well, you succeeded. He survived the virus halting procedure. However, he is the lowest of the low. He doesn't even speak English... or Italian, for Heaven's Sake. His position here is not going to work. He is going to be transferred to Brazil, immediately," said the Pope.

He motioned to someone behind her and Chloe turned to see a member of the Swiss Guard nod and turn away, heading to the other chamber. He came back right away followed by Felicity, Quinn and a young man dressed as a priest. Chloe saw his deep brown eyes, looking around the room in awe. She looked to Quinn and Felicity and was not happy when she saw the emotions in their eyes. They were both distressed, scared, upset. She turned back to the Pope.

"What are you going to do?" she asked.

The Pope nodded again to the Swiss Guard and Chloe watched without understanding as the Swiss Guard approached the young priest holding a cross. She realized too late what the Guard was doing as he raised his arm, holding the cross by the long end. He struck the priest hard in the heart. Chloe looked in horror as the priest disappeared in a cloud of dust. She turned her eyes to the Pope in shock and disbelief.

"I'm glad to see the transfer went smoothly." He looked satisfied as Chloe stared at him. He looked her in the eye and said, "Every wretch you save and turn into a Red Guard will be transferred in the same manner." He flicked a wrist at the Swiss Guard. The guard quickly took Felicity and Quinn by their arms and led them out of the room. The Pope continued to look at Chloe. "I told you to kill the right ones, Ms.Desjardins. Perhaps you will heed this warning more carefully now. You sleep under my roof and those Guards will do whatever I ask of them." Her eyes went wide. "Yes, Ms. Desjardins, you may want to think on that."

And then Chloe would swear that his eyes glowed red. Red? She stared hard and they were, for sure. She felt her heart drop to her stomach and the breath leave her body. Her mind raced through every vampire movie she had ever seen, and his eyes matched perfectly. So different from the others' she'd seen in Rome so far.

"I think you might be right," she stammered. And then he stepped aside and she left the room in a hurry.

She walked right past Felicity and Quinn in a daze, headed straight back to her room. They followed her in silence and sat on her bed when they reached her room.  Chloe closed the door softly and sat on the bed beside them. She was in shock. "I think Johnny and Sigur are right." she whispered. They looked at her with blank expressions, neither one of them had said a word yet. "I think the Pope is a vampire," she said it so softly that she was sure no tape recorder could have picked it up. In fact, she wasn't even sure that her friends had heard her words.

They all sat on her bed and stared at nothing.