President-elect Regina Moore looked in the mirror for perhaps the hundredth time that morning, even though not a seam on her peach-colored suit was so much as a millimeter out of place and not a single short black hair escaped the matching hat on her head. She was ready for the swearing-in, at least outwardly. Emotionally, she wasn’t so certain.
Regina turned from the dresser and sat on her bed. There were many factors in support of her taking the presidency, all of which she had used in making her decision. First and foremost was the mandate of the office, which was to promote the nation of Transylvania and to speak for its citizens both at home and abroad. Many countries at best distrusted vampires and at worst wanted to see them wiped from the face of the Earth, and that did not sit well with her, so the need was there.
Further, she had been elected by an overwhelming margin by what few vampires had so far chosen to relocate to Romania, the country chosen to be sold to their species, and the Prime Minister had thrown the full weight of the government behind her. Of course, there had been no other contenders for President, a fact she could interpret as a positive or a negative, but she chose the former.
No, what bothered Regina was whether or not she could make a difference. She had been conscientious as a human being, not a bleeding heart but still giving to the needy and recycling to save the planet, yet when the first wave of vampires began to appear she had feared them as much as the next person did. She hated nobody, yet she’d found herself wanting the menace to be stopped. If someone like her felt that way, she figured that most of humanity could never find it inside themselves to tolerate vampires. An interspecies peace was nearly impossible; neither Atlas nor Hercules would have envied whoever assumed the office she would have in just a few minutes.
There was a knock at the door.
“Who is it?”
“Etienne,” came the muffled voice.
“Come in.” Regina stood and faced the door. In came Etienne Moreau, her hand-picked Chief of Staff, who at thirty-one was exactly half her age. He had been an attaché to the French embassy in Italy, before that a lieutenant-colonel with the Gendarmerie, and he spoke seven languages. No one else sent for her consideration had come anywhere close to those qualifications.
“Good morning, Etienne,” Regina said.
“Madame President-elect,” Moreau said with a mock-frown, “I woke you at just after six.”
“You’re right. My apologies.”
“Think nothing of it, Madame. It is perhaps the biggest day of your life, so you can be forgiven for the minor lapse.”
“Always the most tactful person in the room,” Regina said with a smile. “So, is it time yet to go to the ceremony?”
“In a moment. First I want to make certain you’re good to go. Actually, first I need to ask if you received the bouquet Prime Minister Calidori sent. He was adamant that I get back to him.”
“Yes, I got it.” Regina waved a hand to the flowers sent by the Prime Minister. To say they were a bouquet was to call the Grand Canyon a pothole. There were dozens of long-stemmed roses in more colors than most people knew existed, and the pot they came in had been accompanied by its own stand. As an Italian, Calidori sure knew his way around grand gestures, though whether this was out of genuine well-wishing or to soften her up for their upcoming policy debates was anyone’s guess.
“Excellent,” Moreau said. “Now, how ready are you?”
“More than I’ll ever be,” Regina answered. It was a vague reply, she knew, but going into all her fears wouldn’t make any positive difference. On the other hand, doing so could bring Moreau to doubt her ability, though he’d never say it, and that could lead to a morale problem among her staffers at precisely the time she needed those around her strong. She fed off them, but they fed off her first.
“Good,” Moreau said. He simultaneously knocked on the door and pulled out his cell phone. He held up a finger to the black-suited agent who entered the room, then spoke into the phone. From his end of the conversation, Regina gathered he was informing the Prime Minister’s staff about the status of the flower delivery. He hung up seconds later.
“Madame President-elect, this is agent Jeremy Dawson. He’s heading up your security detail.”
“Welcome to the team, agent Dawson,” Regina said warmly.
“It’s my pleasure, Ma’am. You’ll be safe under my watch.”
Regina took note of the security man’s voice. “Are you from North Carolina, Agent Dawson?”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“And where did you go to college?”
“Chapel Hill.”
“I’m a Blue Devil, agent. Is that going to be a problem?”
Dawson smiled. “No, Ma’am. Basketball isn’t my sport.”
Regina nodded and turned to Moreau. “Shall we?”
“By all means,” the Chief of Staff answered. He gestured to Dawson, who opened the door, checked around in the hallway, and indicated through a wrist microphone that the President-elect was on her way. He led them into the basement garage, where a motorcade of six vehicles awaited. The three of them entered the third car from the front, and the convoy pulled up a ramp and into the street beyond.
As the garage door shut behind them, the car turned right, reached the end of the block, and proceeded southeast toward downtown Bucharest. Prior to the 1989 ouster of Nicolae Ceausescu, leaders of Romania resided in the Royal Palace in Revolution Square, a lot closer to the capital city’s center than the small office building that Regina had requested be converted into her new home and seat of power.
They made their way across the Dambovita River, then down the Soseaua Kiseleff to the Arcul de Triumf – Arch of Triumph – that rivaled the one in Paris. Moreau, who had been carefully briefing the President-elect on ceremony procedures, stopped and stared at the reminder of his homeland.
“When was the last time you were home, Etienne?” she asked with quiet respect.
“In 2004,” he replied. “And who knows when I’ll be there again.” Regina could tell by his expression that his when was more of an if.
“You know, as head of state I have the power to assign ambassadors. France is a major nation, so I imagine they’ll be one of the first places we’ll set up an embassy.”
Moreau looked at her on the verge of tears. Ever conscious of his image, though, he choked them back. “If you’re so anxious to be rid of me, Madame President-elect, please let me know how I’ve failed you.” Regina laughed and let the Frenchman have his pride.
It wasn’t long before they were nearing the Parliament Palace, home of the government and site of the presidential swearing-in ceremony. Regina thought back to all of the similar rituals she’d watched on television. It filled her with a sense of place and history, but then it also brought her to despair. In each ceremony she’d ever witnessed, the new official had had family present, a spouse and at least one child. Regina had a family back in North Carolina, but they were still human and still residents of the United States. For many reasons, they had decided to not be a part of her new life, and after three years it still stung more deeply than had the bite.
Outside the front of the palace, the motorcade threaded through hundreds of the vampire hopeful, most of whom found more solace and friendship in their new peers than they had among their old ones. Some were new to the culture of fear and loathing that had always been aimed at minorities, while others had long ago developed thick shells but on some levels still felt the pain. These were people Regina knew her office was being set up to help, and that purpose brought her from her despair.
The cars stopped near where a dais had been set up. Dawson exited the front passenger seat and walked around to her side. After his agents were in place, he opened the door and let her and Moreau out. He then escorted them up the front steps and into the building, all the while scanning for possible threats even as his ground agents and rooftop snipers did the same.
Inside the main lobby, which had been cordoned off for the event, Prime Minister Enrico Calidori greeted her with arms wide open. He was a burly man with a fair amount of hair on his face and in other places, so the embrace he took her in was not the most comfortable, but she endured it with dignity. Practice made perfect, after all. Senators then greeted her, as did some other officials of whose names and titles she wasn’t completely certain.
“It is nearly time,” the P.M. said after checking his watch. “Are you ready?”
“Very much so,” Regina answered. A circumspect answer would not work as well with Calidori as it had with Moreau. The Prime Minister took her arm and the pair proceeded outside and back down to the dais. He stood in front of a lectern that faced perpendicular to the growing crowd, and she stood behind it. He asked her to raise her right hand and place her left on the symbol of a vampire’s cross etched into the lectern. She did so, and repeated the words of the oath segment by segment as he uttered them.
When the ceremony was over, the citizenry went wild with cheers. Then they went silent as Regina swiveled the lectern on its base so she could speak to them. The hugeness moment suddenly overtook her and her mind went blank. She mentally fumbled around for something to say, but words failed her. Then she focused on a sign so large it took eleven vampires to hold it up. “Deliver us from hatred,” was all it said, but it was enough to give her a place to start.
“You want me to deliver you from hatred,” the new president told her constituents. “Hatred comes from fear, and fear comes from ignorance. Ignorance, as you may or may not know, is not the same as stupidity, and that distinction is one that will carry us. We must look at those who hate vampires merely as those who don’t know us, and we must hold that they are intelligent enough to understand that we mean them no harm. We were all once as they are, and but for the grace of Fate they can be us. If we stress these similarities even as our differences are apparent, we can bridge the gulf and bring our peoples closer together.”
She paused, and they cheered. She basked in the common goal even as she knew the sharply uphill battle they all faced.
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