They arrived at five to eight and stepped out of the limo. “Wait here, Bill,” John said.

“Yes, Mr. Howe,” said Bill.

John and Richard walked up the massive stairs to the Headquarters and entered a lobby. A different receptionist from the one they encountered earlier smiled and said, “Sir, the Senate is waiting for you, in there.” She pointed to the Great Hall.

“Thanks,” said John. As they approached the entrance to the hall, they saw two guards outside. For a moment John was scared that they were there to take him away. “I have come to meet the Senate. Let me in,” he said, trying to hide his fears. The guards opened the massive double door.

Once again, Senator Gars greeted them. “It is time, Leader Howe,” he said. He led them inside the Great Hall silently as the others watched their movements. John stepped up to the podium, and observed the faces of each member of the Senate. There was nothing he could read from them. No news reporters stood by to cover the story. The Senate did not want any more publicity and so strict orders had been given to ban reporters from the Headquarters. They were also not allowed anywhere near John’s Estate, nor the Regnum Central area.

John spoke: “Senators of Regnum, I have come now to hear your voices and to act on your behalf.” A feeling of anxiety crept up his spine when he scanned their faces; he was afraid they might not be with him. Had they perhaps planned to throw him in prison? If they had, there would be nobody to protect him. Despite these thoughts, he continued. “Whatever it may be, let it be heard and let it be followed.”

Senator Blake stood up and said, “From hereon, the Council has been disintegrated. A majority of the votes dictates that all the members, excluding Richard Bacon, shall be detained for further hearing on the accusations put forth by General John Benjamin Howe. They will be tried and the court hearings will be overlooked by the Justices of the Supreme Court.” He read from a scroll, “You, John Benjamin Howe III, General of the Army of Earth and Council Leader, have hereby been appointed Supreme Leader of all Regnum. From now on, after this appointment, the Senate, the Judiciary, and all other governmental bodies will be under your command, for the good of all Regnum. You will be responsible for implementing the return of human life on Earth. Richard Bacon, you have been appointed Vice-Chancellor of the Leadership of Regnum.” Blake rolled up the parchment and said on behalf of his fellow senators, “However, before we grant both of you these posts, we have a question to ask you.” All eyes were on them like predators.

“And that is?” asked John.

“What is your plan for the next year, in terms of this coming war? What will be the fate of the Rebels, if you are to bring them here, and why, more importantly, did they take Alexander Howe, your nephew?”

“Well, let me begin, Senators, by thanking all of you for your decision. I assure you that you have made the right choice in appointing me Supreme Leader with Richard Bacon on my side as Vice-Chancellor. I promise you as I have promised myself and the people of Regnum that soon we shall be the People of the Earth once again! I love the Earth, as much as anyone else does. It belongs to me, you, and to all of us. We are its children and we have been banished against our will. I do not propose that we cooperate with the vampires and let them stay on the Earth, for they will not accept it. Therefore, I say we take what is ours by force. We must train our men to fight in battle, on land, in air, and by sea. We must destroy them and reclaim our home. I propose a mission, firstly to rescue my nephew, Alexander. I admit I allowed it to happen because I knew he would be in safe hands. The Rebel known as General Nikolas Gareng is a very close friend of mine, and before taking away my nephew, he gave me a message.” John took out the canister and the scroll.

“Nikolas,” he continued, “has promised me that Alex will be safe with him and the other Rebels. They have become stronger since the last time we met them, and now they will be our greatest ally. If you did not notice, they were covered in silver at the time of the kidnapping. This shows that the Vampire Government is preparing by testing on the Rebels for immunity against silver, so that they can defeat us in this war to come. We too must prepare, and with the Rebels on our side, with their enhanced powers, we will be unstoppable. I suspect tomorrow we will receive an ultimatum, for we have breached clause 108765. In return we will send them an ultimatum: give us Alex, or it shall come to war!

“Now, there is a confession I want to make.” He thought for a moment about what he was going to say. “My nephew has been captured by the Regime because he is the Falsifier, a man and a vampire, believed by the Anisaei to be the one to bring about their destruction.” For a moment, it seemed like what he had just said hadn’t registered in their minds.

“Wait a minute,” said Senator Keegan, a woman sitting at the far end of the hall, “Are you saying that your nephew, the boy we know as Alexander Howe, who graduated from Regnum University as the valedictorian of his class, is a vampire?”

To this, some of the other senators remarked:

“Unbelievable!”

“This is completely wrong!”

“If we had only known!”

Senator Gars ran towards John and whispered to him, “What you’re saying is shocking, John. How do you expect us to believe this and to accept you now as our leader?”

“I just do.” He faced Gars with complete resolve.

Gars returned the look and gestured for silence. As the noise died down, he said to John with a smile. “I’m glad you were honest about it. I’m with you.” The Senators erupted once again and started cursing John. Some of them even left. “Senators, listen to me!” Gars pleaded. “What John Howe has said is quite unexpected. Nevertheless, we mustn’t react in such a way. After all, Alexander has been a citizen of the Regnum as long as any of us has been. He has proved himself to be a man of great caliber, in his thoughts, in his words, and in his actions. Never has he shown contempt for any of us and he has done so much, in terms of helping this society in whatever way he could. Granted, he is a vampire. Yet you would allow other vampires on board the Regnum; those who we call the Rebels. Besides, Alex is more human than vampire. According to Leader Howe, he is our only hope.

“His behavior only shows that vampires, if they are on our side, can be trusted. I say that Alex should be rescued and that the Rebels can come on board the Regnum, under one condition. That is: if any harm is done to any human of the Regnum by any one of the vampires, they are to be deported back to the Earth. We will not send them back to the Government, but to Antarctica, for we know no vampire is allowed to set foot on that land without prior permission from the higher order, from Anaxagoras himself. Under these terms, he shall be accepted. Is that understood?” Gars turned to John. The latter nodded. “All those in favor?”

Total silence. Then, one by one, they spoke the word, “Aye!”

Alex had the same dream as the previous night. He saw the emerald cross with the serpent entwined around it. Once again there was the same comforting, white light between him and the emblem.

He heard a voice, Anaxagoras’s perhaps, calm, yet icy. “Alexander, your time is soon approaching.”

Alex turned around looking for the owner of this voice, but there was none. He saw a stairway, carved into the walls and leading to a cave. There was a dim light coming from it. He walked up towards the cave and entered. The flickering light came from above him. It was not white, but rather like a yellow flame. “Alexander,” the voice said again, “You must follow me. Listen to what I have to say.”