It was only supposed to be a brief stop-over in New York, just a day spent wandering through the town until he could get on the connecting flight to Chicago, and from there, make his way back to a place he hadn't seen in...well, actually, it wasn't that long ago, but it felt like ages. It was only supposed to be a day-long stopover, then Nate heard the voice ripping through his mind.
Nate sat pensively in front of the public computer terminal, at one of the many internet cafe's that now littered the city. His fingers, which had spent the first ten years of his life in a bulky crinos form, still gave him trouble with some of the finer tasks, such as typing on a keyboard. Add to this the fact that he now only had one hand left with which to do this and...well, it looked as if Nate would have to work at this for a while.
One hand, yes. Nate glanced at the empty right sleeve of his trenchcoat, a sleeve that would forever remain empty for as long as the coat belonged to him. Goddamn leaches, since when did they have any right to exist? Even though he wasn't human, or even born into a human family, Nathan had still heard tales in his homeland of mythical creatures that subsisted on the blood of the living. Like most people around him, and like all the garou he had talked to, he had believed them to be nothing more than figments of an overactive imagination. Then, he received the letter.
It was shortly before Nate was supposed to take part in his second raid on a Pentex compound, when the letter arrived. It turns out, vampires are real enough, they are just even more adept at hiding among humanity than Garou are...until now. The letter was from a sept in Cairo, demanding the assistance of any Strider that had been to Africa. Nate, having spent several years there with his almost forgotten mentor before his trip to Wisconsin, had little choice but to answer the summons. Once in Cairo, he stepped off the plane, and into Hell.
The leaches were attempting to complete what they had failed centuries ago, the complete annihilation of the Striders. In the jewel of the Nile, the ageless city of buried dreams, Cairo, they had come out of the shadows and swiftly struck and Garou and kinfolk, sept and caern. The Garou, caught off-guard by an enemy whose existence they had all but forgotten, desperately rallied and called in whomever would help. The call was answered. Fera and werehyenas came in from the inhospital realms of the Sahara, briefly putting aside their differences with the Garou to face down a common enemy. Striders from around the world came, leaping at the chance to reclaim their lost heritage. Nate came for vengeance, because no other cause, no empty claims of 'heritage' and 'honour' would have inspired him to. The letter contained one simple message: His mentor, the one who had revealed to him the path to Wisconsin, where Nate had shed new light on his buried past, had been slain, then revived. She lived now as an Abomination, a werewolf cursed with undeath. Nate traveled to Cairo to do what he felt no one else had the right to do, put her out of her misery.
Every time Nate slept since those months, the images came back to him. Nights clouded with an unnatural darkness, stalking a foe whose realm was everywhere the sun wasn't. Attempting to slay enemies that were already dead, yet could never truly die, watching as those that fought along side him fell, one by one, in a hail of sharpened silver, or collapsed as the lifeblood was drained from them by multiple undead assailants. The worst one, though, was his visions of his mentor, Alera. Under the thrall blood-slavery, she had attacked him mercilessly when he finally found her, slicing his right arm off with her silver-sabre fetish. For the second time in his life, Nate had gone into frenzy. As the blood poured from where his arm used to be, he tore apart the one who had taught him nearly everything he knew with his remaining claws.
Having done what he came to do, Nate no longer had any reason to tarry in Cairo. The sword of his mentor, Silverdust, by his side, he took the next flight out of the city. He wished to return to what he was beginning to think of as his home. He wanted to see his pack again, he wanted to see Morgan. His flight went to New York, where he would wait a day until he could grab a connecting flight to Chicago. At least, that was the plan...then he heard the voice.
When he left pack Sardukar to go to Cairo, Nate had thought the mystical link that had connected him to them had been severed. Now, though, he was no longer certain. Late during the night, he had been wandering the streets of the city, when a sudden scream for help had torn through the inside of his skull. Nate had reeled, not because of the scream, for he had heard more than enough of those in Cairo, but because of the voice itself. Morgan! The link must have still been there, albeit faded. The pack was in New York?
Now, the next morning, Nate began to type, haltingly, with his left hand. He decided that perhaps he should stay here until he figured out what was going on. The words began appearing on the input field of the email he was sending, "Dear Damon..."