When I said those words, I heard them roaring with approval in the street below, a ghost of a sound rolling up the walls and penetrating this studio. Benji smiled triumphantly, gazing at me as if I were a god.

“For now, you must do as I say,” I said into the microphone. “You know what I am going to explain to you. But you must hear it again. No quarreling whatsoever amongst yourselves. No one, but no one, must strike out at another blood drinker. This is forbidden! And you must hunt the evildoer, never the innocent. There are to be no exceptions. And you are to have honor! You must have honor. If you do not know what honor is, then look it up in your online dictionaries and memorize the definition. Because if we do not have honor, we are lost.”

I sat there in silence for a moment. Again, they were roaring and cheering in the street below. I was gazing off and into my thoughts. I knew the lights were flashing as calls were coming in from all over the world. Through Antoine’s earphones I could hear him greeting each caller, and stabbing the lighted button to put each caller on hold.

The Voice had not said a word. And I wanted to say more as to the Voice, and so I did.

I was brief on this. But I said it.

“Understand, Children of the Night, that the Voice may have knowledge to share with us. The Voice may have gifts to give to us! The Voice may well become a precious gift to us in himself. The Voice is after all the fount of all we are; and the Voice has only just begun to express himself, to tell us what he wants us to know. No, we must not allow ourselves to be duped by the Voice into destroying one another. Never. But we must have patience with the Voice. We must have respect, and I mean this, we must have respect for who and what the Voice is.”

I hesitated. I wanted to say more.

“The Voice is a mystery,” I said, “and this mystery must not be treated by us with hasty and foolish contempt.”

Inside me there was a silent convulsing as if Amel were responding and wanted me to know he was responding, but he didn’t speak.