1

I extended a hand to the Rabble in the spirit of friendship and tolerance. Such forward-thinking always foments dissent, as I might have learned by studying the mistakes of my mentor in the glory days of London, before Mithras's return. Modern mortals have a saying for this: No good deed goes unpunished.—from the journals of Arundel, Prince of Ottawa

There is blood beneath your fingernails, remnants of a nightly ritual that has somehow become routine. Your Hunger stirs deep within, lured by the scent, but you cast it from your mind—there are more important matters afoot.

The full moon casts its ruddy blessing on the Blood Hunt, spiriting your band of assassins through long-cast shadows among the irregular peaks and valleys of an unattended construction site. You lance through the night—a deadly arrow seeking the heart of a vampire you'd heard much of but never knew—Robert Ward, defected from the high society of Ottawa's Camarilla elite to endure in the filth among the clan-less and Anarchs.

Long years of leisure befitting your rank have left your survival skills blunted, but the thrill of the hunt has brought old instincts once thought forgotten back to the surface, seething with untapped potential. You know this to be true—you can feel it in your bones—but one siren song calls above all others, driving you to distraction: There is blood beneath your fingernails.

Next

Your feeding before the hunt had been a hurried one, and you'd left your victim dazed as you dabbed your mouth, Sheriff Qui impatiently ushering you to join his motley band of Kindred and mortal mercenaries for the hunt. The smell of blood on your fingertips conjures images of the mortal shivering while you slaked your thirst, their wide doe-eyes glassy and empty of concern. In the decades since your Embrace, you've distanced yourself from the horror of your nightly existence, not the least of which was divorcing yourself entirely from the indelicate art of finding your own victims.