"Don't your kind usually travel in packs?"
Nate cast a wary eye towards the alley the voice came from. He had finally made his way to Chicago, seeking some sign...any sign of the Milwaukee garou. All that he was told was that any in this area had been sent into battle against the leeches in the city.
'Go home,' Kathryn had told him. Great, home was gone. From what he heard, the sept was destroyed, taken over by the Spiral Dancers, set up by Damon, someone he had known from a long time ago. So now, Nate had gone into the city proper. He didn't care about any war with the the undead. He didn't care about the wants and needs of some vacuous 'Garou Nation'. He had a past to find. He had asked Kathryn, the Spiral Dancer who had proven invaluable in avenging his mother's death at the hands of his father, for help.
A gap in his memory. Sometime, so many years ago, between when he saw his mother die, and the time he became the student of Prints-in-Sand, his mentor in Cairo, something happened. Something that spanned the course of several years. Something he had no memory of. ...Yet it was something that had left a voice, a nagging voice, inside his head. A voice which occasionally made demands of him. Demands that involved seeking out the Wyrm, and, contrary to the Litany, not destroying it. Rather, examining it, trying to see if there was a way to cure its affliction without the need of violence.
To put it bluntly, the little voice inside his head demanded breaches of a majority of Garou traditions and laws. It was annoying, to say the least.
It was fairly persuasive as well. The Wyrm, allegedly, was the penultimate font of all that was wrong with the world around him. According to any Garou he asked, anyways. But if this were so, why wasn't he convinced? If anything, the Garou seemed to be its own worst enemy. Its pointless traditions, blind obedience, mindless attacking of anything 'of the Wyrm'. Something wasn't adding up here. The most open-minded werewolf he knew was, in fact, a Black Spiral Dancer.
The sum result of all this was his presence in Chicago tonight. So now, he warily eyed the alley that the voice had come from. The city, from what he heard, was infested with leeches, who had apparently decided they really didn't like the Garou in the city. Hence the aformentioned war. Presumably, the owner of the voice was, likewise, a leech.
"Not all of our kind travel in packs," he replied, "Of course, maybe my pack's just around the corner. Or maybe they're right behind you, sneaking in to end your unlife while I distract you."
The voice from the darkness replied, Nate could almost hear the smile on it, "I doubt it. I've been watching you for the past half hour. You don't have the look of someone who's part of a pack."
Nate shrugged, he'd be damned if he were going to let this bodiless voice fluster him, "Pack or not, it doesn't really matter all that much to me. The more important question is, what are you going to do about it?"
"Well," mused the voice, "If I were one of the fools participating in this pointless blood-hunt declared by that short-sighted Prince Lodin, I'd probably attack you. As it stands, I'm not going to attack you for someone else's reasons, only for my own."
"I have my own," Nate said bluntly, then without warning, leapt towards the dark alley, summoning Glitterdust to his hand in the process.
The sword swished through empty air. Nate felt a slight breeze as the vampire leapt over his head and landed in the street behind him. "And that would be?..." he asked, unsheathing a silver dagger of his own.
Nate twisted and kept on the offensive, unleashing a flurry of strokes at the undead, "Survival."
The vampire wielded the dagger skillfully, parrying the blows. There was a preternatural quickness in his movements, not too much of a surprise, considering his undead state. "You definately seem well suited for it, survival that is, you've lasted up until this point."
Nate felt himself losing some ground. The vampire became slightly more reckless in his attacks, forcing Nate on the defensive. Still, Nate was able to deflect every thrust and slash, "Are you implying that I won't survive past this point?"
Growling, Nate pushed forward again. The thin blade of silver described a thinner red line on his arm. But the sacrificial gambit paid off, and the vampire was once again placed on the defense. The two of them engaged in an elaborate dance on the dark street, the occasional flash of silver highlighting the intricate movements between them. The spinning, parrying, thrusting, and riposting spiralled in an ever tighter circle. Were it not for the fact that both were fighting for their lives, it would have looked almost like an erotic dance. The crescent moon glinted off two spinning cascades of ivory hair, themselves surmounting the two lithe bodies as they danced closer and closer together.
As suddenly as it had started, the dance stopped. Nate's sword, Glitterdust, lay on the shoulder of the vampire, its blade a mere twitch away from decapitating the undead. Likewise, the vampire's dagger sat poised at Nate's chest, the sharpened point seeking to plunge into the heart beating beneath. Their faces, as if determined to match the blades, were mere centimeters from each other. Nate's increased breathing, due to the flow of adrenaline and rage, rather than exhaustion, formed a start contrast to the complete lack of respiration from the undead. Nate caught a whiff of the charnel scent of forgotten tombs. It was repulsive, yet strangely exciting at the same time. The lips of the undead, close enough to kiss, or bite off, moved to speak. Nate caught a glimpse of the sharpened fangs beneath. "To be honest," The vampire replied,"I can't say for certain. We seem...well matched. May I know your name?"
A tense moment passed between them. An unspoken agreement was reached, and both leapt away from each other at the same time, landing on opposite sides of the street. "My name is Na..." Nate hesitated, something didn't sound right with that. He realized what it was, "My name is Nephrem Ka," he said, using his given tribal name.
"Nephrem Ka?" The vampire mused, "The forgotten pharoah?" Nate started, the vampire knew the origins of the name.
"And you?" He replied.
"Viktor," The undead replied, "Viktor Abd-al-Nitocris."
"Son of Nitocris?" Nate said, surprised. It would explain how Viktor knew what his name meant. Though very few, human or otherwise, knew the hidden history of Khem (or Egypt, as most called it today), those who did knew of what happened between Queen Nitocris, and Nephrem Ka.
"So, I'm assuming you're from Cairo as well?" Viktor asked.
"Yes," Nate replied, "It's been a while since the war there. Though I suppose," he said, holding up Glitterdust, "It's never too late to clean up a few loose ends from the war."
"A pity I was never involved," Viktor replied, "I left town quite a while before it started."
Nate paused, then lowered the blade. Viktor didn't seem the type to lie to avoid a fight. "So what now?"
"Your arm appears to be bleeding," Viktor said, licking his lips slightly.
Nate looked down. The dagger had given him a small cut, though its silver nature meant that he now had a blood-soaked arm. "May I?" Viktor asked, "The fight has left me feeling a little thirsty."
Nate was blank for a second, then suddenly realized what the leech meant. "Are you serious?" He asked incredulously.
"I promise, I'll take only that which has already bled out," Viktor replied.
Nate considered his options, "If I feel your fangs, your head will be removed," he said.
There was a sort of perverse thrill, Nate had to admit, of having the blood licked off by a vampire. To be honest, it didn't feel all that sickening. Nate found himself wondering what it would feel like to have the fangs pierce his skin, his vitality slowly ebbing from him, succumbing to this kiss...
His musings were interrupted by Viktor, "You do taste rather nice...if a bit gamey. Seems your tattoo, though, has gotten blood on it."
Nate jumped. Tattoo? It was as if an invisible hand had reached out through a year of memory and grabbed him. The tattoo, on his left arm. The one that had appeared to him then, and hadn't appeared since. Now Nate realized why. Last time, it had appeared when blood had coated his arm. Despite numerous experiments of trying to get it to re-appear, though, it had faded from view. Permanently, Nate had assumed. Now though, it had reappeared. Nate knew why now. The blood was the trigger, his blood was the trigger. But that alone wasn't enough. It was the silver, as well. Blood drawn by silver.
Nate realized his arm was still being held, and that Viktor was staring at the mark on his hand with an intensity that mirrored his own. "I guess it makes sense..." he mused, "I mean, you do fit the details given."
"What?" Nate said, once again completely lost.
"I have an...acquaintance, if you will," Viktor said, "A werewolf, older one. Some kind of tribal shaman. Anyways, long story short, I ended up owing him a favour. Well, 'bout a fortnight ago, he gets a visitor, another werewolf. Now, the shaman, he's not much to look at, half-hairless, slightly deformed, had a nifty little tattoo on him, though, a wicked looking spiral."
Nate hmmpf'd. A Black Spiral Shaman, it figured.
"Anyways," Viktor continued, "One night, he gets this guest. Now, she was as comely as he...well...wasn't. She simply tells him 'Nate is coming into town. He's ready to make the trip now. Give him the information you collected, oh, and give him this,' And she hands him this package with an envelope tied to it. And so, after she's gone, the shaman rummages around, finds his own envelope, and he hands the lot of it to me. He tells me, 'Look for the one missing an arm. Give him these. If you doubt you have the right one, mark his arm with silver, and a sign shall be given."
Nate looked down at the package that had been withdrawn from the depths of Viktors trenchcoat. "...Thanks," he said, more than a little overwhelmed.
"Oh, and there was one more thing," Viktor said, "Something I want to give you myself."
Before Nate could stop him, he found himself locked in a kiss with Viktor. For a moment, he considered struggling, then gave in and returned the kiss. There was a very brief, delightful pain as Viktor's fangs grazed his lower lip. Viktor slowly parted from him, his body rapidly turning to mist. His voice, hollow and indistinct, reached Nate's ears, "You really do taste good."
Nate stood in the street for a few minutes more, absentmindedly licking the blood off his lower lips. "Vampires," he said.