One thing I gotta tell you right now; Stakeouts are boring as all hell and get out. Fenris left Adam and me high and dry while she pretty much hid in plain sight right in front of those Carnies. A couple of them even tossed her a couple of corn dogs – at least that's what Adam said they were, I couldn't tell from the distance we were at – which she sniffed at, tentatively took and carried off somewhere. Then we both lost sight of her completely.

Anyway, there we were, watching this Ravnos oversee the finishing touches on his big little travelling scam on the beach. Nothing of interest was going on; it all looked like the same old shit and shine when it comes to these rinky-dink travelling Carnivals. Finally I tried to spark up conversation.

"So Adam, what's your story anyway?" I asked.

"Why do you want to know?"

"I don't know," I answered. "I just figured we might as well get acquainted while we sit here with our thumbs up our asses. So seriously; how'd you manage to land such a sweet gig in the Ivory Tower so fast?"

"I'm good at what I do." He replied. "I always have been, even before I was turned."

"Really" I commented. I was genuinely interested now. "What did you do before?"

"I hunted psychos." He said. "What I do now is really not so different; certainly not if the subject has retained any of their humanity."

"You mean you were a detective? As in, you were a cop?"

Walker guffawed. "Not precisely; I was a Federal Agent with the FBI. You remember Yosemite Sam?"

I nodded. That was the name the press gave some nutcase who went around Yosemite Park shooting people, taking off their heads, shrinking them, and them leaving them in other parts of the park. He'd leave the previous head within twenty yards of the next kill. He did it three or four times before the Feds got involved; got two more before they finally caught him. Then I caught on. The Fed who caught him; his name made the papers, too. It was Special Agent Adam Walker.

"That was you who caught that freak?" I asked rhetorically. "That was only...what...four years ago! How long have you been one of us, anyway?"

"It was one full year ago last month." He replied. "I was on a case at the time. The evidence and victimology developed a profile which led to a suspect, and that got me too close to the truth, it would seem. I got sidelined by the Nosferatu who is now my Sire, and the actual perp slaughtered my family. I faked a nervous breakdown, retired from the Bureau, and proceeded to hunt from within the Kindred. I caught the fucker, and it turned out he was a Red Lister. This turned out to be my Sires' intent all along. He's a Servire, who put me before his Archon, then the Justicar, who presented the case to the Inner Circle; now, since I took out a Red Lister, I'm an Alastor. Does that answer your questions?"

It did. I nodded without another word. It was pretty clear that I hit a nerve. From the sound of things, one of the Clan basically bred him for job, maybe from the time he was still crapping his diapers. I heard that this kind of thing happened, but I didn't believe it. I do now.

"Good," he said. "Never mind that you're full of shit when you claim you think your missing Sherriff might be related to my hunt for Khemintiri, I don't care about that. Nor do I particularly mind getting roped into this stakeout; it serves to grant me a place in this city that will make my activities seem normal. What I'm interested in is your Seneschal. He's of the Hastings line if I remember, right?"

"Yeah..." I answered uncertainly. The thing was I wasn't sure I wanted to fuck with a line of Ventrue that pretty much owned the West Coast. Not only that, but even though most people think Cameron is kind of a dick...okay, he is kind of a dick, but I do consider him a friend. Or, at least as much of friend as any other Kindred can be a friend. Just because he knows what he wants, knows what to do to get it and is willing and able to do it isn't a reason to hate on the guy.

"If you were to look at the success the Hastings Line has had, especially here on the West Coast, you would see it is always on the heels of some sort of Setite activity. Look closer still, and you'd find that our subject was in some way involved; sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly. You'd also see that every single one of the Hastings Cities is ripe with social decay. I believe she's likely infiltrated your Seneschal's sphere of influence in order corrupt the line and subsequently the Ventrue Clan even more than she already has."

"Okay..." I was still unsure I liked where this was going. "So what do you need?"

"I need to know who he's close with." Adam replied. "Allies, associates, friends, who he confides in, I need all of that. Other than the Nosferatu, I mean. I can guess that through him, the Clans Nosferatu and Ventrue are in good relations right now. That is typical Hastings strategy."

What the hell, I figured. What he was saying was making sense. It didn't take a genius detective to figure out where he was going with this; he wanted to know who Khemintiri was most likely hiding amongst within those Cameron was closest to. He'd probably be looking at all of us in the Warren; which sucked ass but it had to be done.

"Well, there's Mercurio. He's a ghoul – a leftover from the LaCroix Praxis that Cameron took on. There's his Clan of course. There's Harpy Strauss and Primogen Tabetha of Clan Tremere, but they mostly just tolerate him because they view him as useful. Then there's Kaila. She's a Whoreador dancer over at Vesuvius. The two of them are bumping uglies; that gold-digging tramp's got him wrapped around her little finger. I will say this, about her, though; either she's got the Beast something nasty, or she's so old she makes Bertram look like a neonate."

That got his attention. His head snapped – I actually heard something crack in his neck – when he turned to look at me. "How long have they been together?" He asked.

"Roughly six months" I replied. "She showed up right in the middle of..." the Setite fiasco. I was about to say. Could that be how she got by undetected? Was she playing at being some random rose that romanced Cammie? According to what Adam just told me, it fit.

"We'll have to watch her." Adam said. "Still, she may have taken one of your numbers out and be impersonating them. She does this often and does without flaw, legend says. All the same, I have to know; have any of his associates had any sort of behavioral change recently?"

I could only think of one. "Tabetha has seemed distracted lately." I answered. "Then again, my network of Elysium agents says that has to do with some kind of in-Clan disturbance. Apparently Marko the Malkavian Primogen knows a little bit about that."

I'll tell you right now. I felt like crap spilling all this; and just because I was giving up free information. That part was nothing; we Nos share all this with each other anyway. I felt like crap because I felt like I was ratting out my friends to the cops. I wish he never told me what he did before he got turned. I wish I never asked.

"Thank you, Ajax." He said in a weirdly gracious manner. "We'll still have to check the others, but this Kaila and Tabetha sound like our prime candidates. I'll have to talk to this Marko as well." He stopped talking cold in his tracks and glanced out towards the ocean. I followed his gaze and could see what he could see; a mist rolling in from the ocean and all about the Carnie camp. That was probably Fenris trying to get a better lay of the territory. Judging by how low the moon was getting, the night was almost spent, and the Ravnos did not seem to be making any move to locate the Prince, let alone seek her acknowledgement. I was honestly stunned at how fast the night went by.

"It looks like we're going to be doing some introduction work tomorrow." I said, changing the subject. "Our guest doesn't seem to be at all interested in announcing himself. As for us, we best get underground quickly; when the moon gets that low over the sea, the sun comes up over the desert a lot faster than you might think."