Friends and Enemies

Alan Wolfe entered Alex’s large house. The place was getting to be familiar to him, especially the music room and the bedroom. Of course the Venture noticed the dark glasses, everyone would. And they would all know what it meant.

The Gangrel was grateful that the loss of his blue eyes, replaced by fierce yellow ones, was not too disturbing a mark. He would be able to pass his eyes off as very odd, but necessarily supernatural in many cases, though it would bring him attention he may not want. It could have been antlers like Johnny, or like the tails that both of the other Gangrel had. Perhaps it was because he was a watchman, a sentinel, that his beast came out in his eyes first.

But Wolfe was no less ashamed. Alex looked into his golden eyes thoughtfully, they didn’t disturb her. It was her opinion that kindred were monsters, a statement that Alan rebelled against. Yes, they were cursed, but they had free will, and they could choose their actions, their courses, even as Alex said, to choose to end their life and escape the curse entirely. Matters of the soul had been much on Alan’s mind since his frenzy, and he’d spent his quiet hours as the moon dimmed to a crescent thinking about his beast and his soul.

Alex frustrated him. At one moment it seemed that she actually had some affection for him, that she was attracted to him. But the next she said that some other bestial mark would only have been interesting to her, that she found Black Johnny and Brightwind intriguing. Alan was a little surprised about himself that he cared if she was attracted to him specifically. Well, as he was arguing, he was still very human, and humans had feelings, had desires, had egos.

Alex was different, older, and she had lost much of what made her human. But not all of it. There were times when that human part surfaced and Alan actually liked Alexandria, when his desire for her went beyond paying off a debt, beyond the physical attraction to a beautiful woman. And then there were the times when she was all vampire, distant and calculating, and it was only his obligation that forced him into her bed.

It was different with Sasha. She was still human, and she was so alive. They picked up the lab equipment she would need and began to set it up. Alan asked her about it and the bright young woman chatted amiably about the function of each machine and how she was going to use it. For a man who had been educated during the civil war, the actual functions were beyond his understanding, but he enjoyed listening to her.

He was sorry that he had to go back to Alex, as…enjoyable as those meetings were. It was a very different sort of companionship, the two women. Alan even began to wonder if Sasha could be attracted to him. The last weeks had been full of reminders of his living days, living needs and desires. While he had suffered at the hands of the beast had the mark to show it, the remains of his human soul had been fed and nurtured as well.

While it might have been nice to have Sasha stay at his apartment to sleep, he had to understand that it wasn’t well furnished, and he couldn’t quite see fit to complain that she asked him to dive her home, the young mortal wrapping her arms around his middle and laying her head against his back.

What enjoyment there was vanished with the car that hit them and then sped away. Wolfe gripped the handlebars, trying to keep control of the bike, but Sasha was slipping. He reached for her, but had to abandon that attempt to keep the bike from tipping and she fell. Wolfe planted his foot and spun the bike around. Sasha was hurt, but alive, though Alan didn’t get to worry about that for long before the sudden rush of premonition. He didn’t know if Auspex heightened a sort of sixth sense as well as the traditional five, but he was grateful enough as he threw himself over Sasha and flame lit up the night.

They were further from the blast than he had been the first time, but chunks of flaming debris rained down around them, and pelted Wolfe’s back. The Gangrel scooped her into his arms, feeling the strangeness of a mortal heart beating rapidly against his chest, and cleared the area.

He stopped the bike when they were safe. Sasha was dazed and she’d said something had cracked inside of her. He’d been talking to her just before the blast. She needed help. A hospital was the first place to go, but Alan also knew that what would take weeks of healing, his blood could do in moments.

Alan wasn’t about to ghoul her when she wasn’t able to talk about it, so he left her at the hospital. Dawn was close and he couldn’t stay, but he promised to call her and visit if he could.

She’d been drugged when he called the next evening, but her ribs were only cracked, not broken and she said that she would probably be discharged by morning. Alan closed his phone gratefully as Alex appeared in her front door.

The Ventrue woman had demanded eight hours of his time tonight to make up for lost time. It was going to be a real test of his stamina and creativity. By the time he left, she’d know everything that he knew or had even heard of. But when he saw her in a suit, rather than the elegant but sexy dresses she usually greeted him, he knew that there was going to be more lost time.

She led him to her car and they set out to the Gangrel Preserve to meet as primogen. She held his yellow gaze and made it clear that tonight he was not present as interpreter, but an advisor. Alan soon found that none of the primogen, even Alexandria, were pleased at the lack of action concerning the bombings. Prince Dorian seemed unconcerned, and the police and media only seemed to be going through the motions of dealing with the situation.

They asked Wolfe to relate what he knew of the bombings since he has been nearby both explosions, and Alex asked permission to view them in his mind.

Valerton had never had a vampire sheriff before, not under the loose control of the Gangrel, and not even under the Camarilla control of the Ventrue. The primogen were beginning to think that Valerton needed one, and that Alan was best suited to the task.

Wolfe considered that carefully. No one had ever asked him to ride his scouting trips around the city, or to fight off the few Sabbat incursions. No one ever asked him to stand up and protect them, it was just something he did. He did it because no one else was and it needed to be done.

If he became the Camarilla Sheriff, he would have authority to back him up, the power to call on others or to question them, even the ability to argue his mind with the prince or primogen. And if Brightwind lost control again… But it would also place him under the control of the prince and elders, force him to abide by Camarilla rules, and at times, it might also turn him against other Kindred, even his own Clan.

Johnny argued the cons with Alan in private, almost trying to talk him out of it. Wolfe thought that it might be the fact of his friendship with Sasha more than the office of Sheriff that angered him, though. He was not pleased that Alan had followed his own judgment in that matter.

But Alan was able to decide. They couldn’t force him to do anything as Sheriff, just as he didn’t let his sire force him to kill Sasha. Gangrel feet were not nailed down, and there was no problem that couldn’t just be left behind. Alan wouldn’t turn against his clan any more than he would turn against the mortal woman he had decided to protect, and he would use the powers of the Sheriff to do what no one else was doing.

The trip back to Alex’s house was as quiet as the trip out to the Preserve, but this time Alex kept her beautifully sculpted face turned towards Alan, watching him. Her smooth white face seemed troubled, though she showed so little that Wolfe always had a hard time reading her. But the reason for her disquiet troubled Alan more.

As she watched his thoughts, she saw places in his mind where his memories had been taken. Cut out or rewritten like film in the editing room. And not just recent memories either, but someone had taken old memories from before the embrace even.

If it wasn’t bad enough that someone had violated him in this way, Alex refused to restore his memory. Her arguments that it may have been done for a good reason and the implication that she could take the very memory of her revealing the changes to him only made Alan more angry.

He stalked the grounds of Alex’s manor while the Venture waited inside, expecting a lover to return. Tonight, she was the elder, the primogen, the vampire. Even as they made love, Alan was lonely.

The next evening Alan paid a visit to Sasha’s professor, Doctor Marshal. She’d received a message from him, threatening that if she did not go public with her findings about the Robin Red, that he would publish it without her. Until he arrived on the campus, Wolfe actually thought that this was going to tumble into bloodshed. Johnny would not take kindly to the interference of mortal scholars in this matter and it could very well drive him to kill Doctor Marshal and Sasha, yet killing Doctor Marshal might be the only way to prevent that violence. Alan cursed and wished again that he had mastered Alex’s teachings already.

But as he approached the professor’s office, it occurred to him that everyone at the school was under the impression that he was her boyfriend. He thought up the story even as he told it, using as much truth as he could. Truth, he was quickly discovering, makes the best lies.

The professor agreed to wait for Sasha to recover from her accident before taking away her first major discovery, and no one had to die. Unfortunately, Sasha was no longer at the hospital and all records of her had been moved. Someone had taken her.

Alan clashed with Alex over it. Nothing could happen in the hospitals without her knowing and this was too much of a coincidence for it to be anything other than by someone’s doing. Alexandria had Sasha moved to the downtown hospital and had given a sample of her blood to Johnny, who had been able to identify her as a kinfolk.

Wolfe knew that as primogen and as the woman holding his life boon, that she could ruin Alan for his outburst. As an elder, she was well within her power to kill him for it. But it didn’t stop Alan from yelling and arguing with her. After all he had done to protect her, that shield of secrecy was torn away. Alan felt vulnerable and exposed, and angry. It became an argument of the worth of mortals and the fate of Sasha.

To Alan’s surprise, Alex gave Sasha up. While she could have been a bargaining chip, could have been used against Alan or lupines or to curry favor with Johnny Tempest, she just let her go. Wolfe was always stunned to see the human in Alex emerge, but also very glad.

Wolfe surprised himself with how much he missed Sasha, and with how worried he had been. He called David and asked him to meet with him and Sasha’s roommate Janice at the hospital. Johnny and Brightwind now both knew about Sasha and her heritage, though he didn’t think they knew about her ability to see spirits yet. But it was a dangerous time, if it hadn’t been already, and Alan knew that he might need David’s help protecting her.

David was obviously attracted to her, which annoyed Alan. He had no personal claim on Sasha, he didn’t really know what he was to her, but he was annoyed all the same. He comforted himself by reminding David that Janice and most of Sasha’s friends thought that he was her boyfriend.

David and Janice left them alone and even though she was lying on the couch in the living room of the apartment, the evening took on a more intimate air. Alan filled Sasha in on what was happening, realizing just how much trust he was placing in this mortal girl. He was reluctant to leave, but already he had delayed a visit to Johnny for some time. After all the favors and errands he had done for the elder Gangrel, he finally had the opportunity to learn from him again.

His lessons in the powers of Protean and Dominate took up much of the night and it was growing late by the time that Alan and Alex fell exhausted into the sheets. He stroked her damp hair as they talked, and the Ventrue agreed to remove the earliest block in his memory.

They were fragmented and painful, but powerfully vivid. He saw his youngest sister Anastasia in bed at the Wolfe house in Valerton. This must’ve been after she changed. Anastasia was sick, trembling, unable to even keep her form. She whimpered and shifted from woman to wolf painfully. Alan saw the woods around Valerton, branches and roots encrusted with the Robin Red lichen. He saw the forest in flames, red-tinged smoke rising into the daytime sky, birds dropping from the air. He saw himself carrying Anastasia from the woods, the gutted carcass of a deer behind them, its spilled entrails dark with Robin Red. The memories were disjointed and shuffled about, occurring out of sequence and still with gaps, but the overall picture was clear.

The Robin Red lichen had plagued Valerton before. Alan was willing to bet that the other blocks in his memory hid other outbreaks of the parasitic lichen. But what did that have to do with the bombings in town? Why would the Prince alter his memory of that? Had he discovered who the bombers were? But Alex was too tired to pursue those answers now.

Wolfe checked in with Sasha and promised to visit the following night and was surprised once again, not by his own impulses, but by the hurt tone in Sasha’s voice. He’d said he’d return tonight and see her, but had not. She’d waited for him, hoping to see him again. Wolfe had to wonder again just what she was to him, and what he might be to her. Friends? Definitely…he’d even told her that, and it was a rare honor. In fact, she was the only friend he had.

Tomorrow evening he would wake with Alex. He owed her his time and attentions, but maybe tomorrow night would bring no new surprises. Maybe he could visit Sasha and make sure she was well, and they could have an evening where they didn’t have to worry about anything else.

Frenzy

Alan Wolfe kept his eyes down as the bell jingled. It was a quiet sound this late at night in the empty store. He walked to the rack of sunglasses and spun the large plastic cylinder.

The explosion. Someone had set fire to a computer store, blown it up with some incendiary device. It was all over the news, but they didn’t know much about it. Usually by now the police could tell the media things like what kind of bomb it had been, professional or homemade, what accelerants were used. But all that went out into the newspapers was the damage done and the fear in the small city.

With Ventrue behind both the media and the police, Alan wondered why nothing was being done to find out what happened and to stop the panic. Wolfe had half expected to read in the news that a freak gas main explosion was the cause of the destruction.

He knew it was more, though. Alan had been riding the streets and had seen two figures come out of a broken window in the store. They had a good lead on them, but Alan gave chase; it was what he did. When he dismounted his bike in the alley next to the store and went up the fire escape ladder as he chased them to the roof, he could smell their faint scents. But for some reason, he couldn’t place them.

The two dark shapes leapt from the top of the building, their leaps carrying them easily across the side street to the building on the far side. As Alan crossed the rooftop to give chase, he had a sudden flash of vision, one of the occasional surges of insight he’d had since learning Auspex. He saw the building erupt into flames just seconds before the bomb went off.

It had been enough time for Alan to sprint to the edge of the roof and throw himself off as well. He choose the opposite direction that the bombers had taken, choosing the cover of a larger building rather than the chance to catch them. He would only have that chance if he survived this blast. He hit the window of the taller building, glass shattering around him and slashing at his face and hands. He rolled into the building and threw himself behind the first piece of large furniture he could find.

Flames roared into the building just behind a shockwave of heat. Everything burst into flame as the fire surged at the Gangrel. His beast roared in fear, instinctually rebelling against one of the only things that could truly kill it, and Alan struggled with it. The fire slammed into him, and the beast seized control. Consumed by fear, he ran smoking from the building.

Alan recovered himself a few blocks away. He had not caught fire, thankfully, though he was badly burned. The supernatural fortitude of his clan might have saved him, although he knew that for a Gangrel he was soft and weak. Wolfe seethed at himself, angry for his loss of control.

But it had happened, and it could not be taken back. Alan selected the darkest pair of sunglasses on the rack and tried them on. It turned his gaze into something hard and black and cold.

He went to the register and dropped the sunglasses on the counter along with a crumpled wad of bills. The clerk rang them up and straightened out the bills. He looked up just as Alan was plucking the tag from the shades and made a surprised grunt.

Wolfe looked at him for a moment with his tawny yellow eyes, eyes that belonged to a wolf, not a man, and slipped the shades on over them.

Half Moon Balance

Alan Wolfe spent the nights riding. Alexandria Dorian waited for him at the end of the week, his tutor in the Ventrue power to dominate minds. It was an appointment he both feared and looked forward to.

Politics were fertile grounds for corruption and kindred politics were worse. His debt to the Ventrue primogen obligated him, and gave the woman more power over him than anyone one person had in a long time. He owed her more than his own sire. But the prize she offered was appealing; the ability to control minds and erase memories, a talent that would make his job as a guardian easier.

He might’ve preferred studying with Black Johnny, and learning the shape of wolf and bat, which would have made his scouting easier, but this would encourage the Ventrue to give him the room he needed to do his work.

When Alan rose and noticed the finger-print dust on his motorcycle, he wished he’d begun the domination lessons earlier. The police had found his bike, and taken his gun. There was shot in the wall of the home where he’d fought Brightwind-ikthya, and they would probably be able to match it.

He paced around his bike, learning all his senses could tell him from the scene. The half moon lit his way as he drove into Kenning, a plan forming. There was a chance that he could divert this before it became a problem, before lives – his own and innocent mortals – were risked. If this worked, he could survive this with something like honor.

Wolfe turned himself into the police, giving them enough truth to satisfy their needs, but not enough to endanger the masquerade, and therefore their mortal lives. And it worked.

The Ventrue seemed pleased, or at least mollified. He had managed to play by their rules and his own at the same time, a delicate balance where a misstep would bring about bloodshed and cost Alan his humanity if not his life.

The full moon shone in through the window of Alexandria’s manse, reflecting on the skinny black piano, and the creamy white skin of her breast. She complimented Alan on his handling of the police and summoned a servant to demonstrate her powers. With powers like those, Alan had to grudgingly admit how much easier it would be to protect mortals from the things they might see.

He sat next to her on the piano bench, her arm brushing his shoulder. Even as unschooled in the subtle things as Alan was, he knew it could not be an accident. Nor could her choice of short piano bench as opposed to the large armchairs in the room or the black gown that exposed so much of her skin to the moonlight.

Dismissing her servant, Alexandria complimented him by being honest and straightforward. She was lonely. Surrounded by the vampires, even the blood of her clan, she held no one close. Even her father now stood across a divide from her, their designs clashing for the first time in a millennium.

Her solitude touched Alan, stirred something inside of himself. He suddenly wanted to leave and go back to his apartment and open his trunk, to bathe himself in memories of times when he had friends and family, but that would only deepen his own loneliness; remind him of all he lacked now.

The physical attraction was strong, but there were many beautiful men and many beautiful women in Valerton. The college brought in a parade of youth and vigor. Even Alan, handsome in his own way if not as shockingly gorgeous as Alexandria, would have little trouble finding a lover for a night if he wanted. But their shared loneliness brought the two vampires closer together. They were both vulnerable, carefully letting down their guard and exposing this longing.

The trust placed in him by Alexandria touched Alan as well. He knew enough about the politics of kindred to know that this could be powerful leverage against her, or a tool against him.

They made love in the early hours of the morning, underneath the spreading canopy of her bed. She’d not had a lover in eight centuries, and her memories were distant. What’s more, sex had changed drastically since her age. Manuals like the Kama sutra had spread into mainstream culture, and the sort of kinky fetishes undreamed of in her time were jokes on sitcoms and on every page of the internet.

Wolfe left before dawn. He was still too much independent, still too untrusting to spend the day in her bed, whatever the attraction. At another time, they might sleep in each other’s arms, but their need for companionship was sated for now. What little he knew of modern sex was a wealth of knowledge and pleasure for her, and it had been good. When he returned for his next lesson, he knew that Alexandria would receive a lesson as well.

But Wolfe had no illusions, and the primogen made that clear. While their liaison would become public knowledge soon (and the Toreadore were really going to be after him now), he knew their relationship for what it was. He owed her his life and whatever she asked of him. He was attractive enough, and she respected him enough. He was safe, and this was a deal. No more.

Alan was threatened by the loneliness, regardless of his beautiful new lover. While their partnership was not cold, it was bounded by rules and necessity. But Wolfe was beginning to wonder if he might have a friend in Sasha Black.

The grad student was struggling to fight the Red Robin lichen that was devastating the Gangrel Preserve, but they needed lab space and equipment. Alexandria (Alan had begun to think of her by her first name; it was hard to think of someone he’d slept with by last name alone, and the Ventrue elder seemed to welcome it) had answered the second challenge. Her hospitals provided the equipment Sasha needed and the cost was a drop in the bucket compared to his existing debt to her. The first challenge was more difficult.

The only answer Alan had was to offer up his own haven. His apartment was small, but nearly empty. Once he’d removed his trunk and packed away some of his clothes, it became adequate space for the small, improvised lab that Sasha was constructing.

There was a pact of trust between Alan and Sasha as well. She was beginning to take Alan at his word, and put faith in him when he answered her questions – or refused to. And he had been telling her more. She was fiercely intelligent and was capable of making great leaps on limited information, her instincts and sharp senses helping her to fill in the gaps. She knew enough already that if their secrets were found out they would both die, so he told her the rest. It was past the point where information would be more dangerous; she was in deep enough that now a lack of knowledge was more deadly.

Wolfe watched her and listened to her as she set up her equipment and began her tests. Most of it was well over Alan’s head, his school days were long in the past, and his schooling was a hundred and fifty years behind the times, but Sasha was patient and explained anything that he asked of her. And he responded by answering more of her questions. His answers were short and informative; he was no longer in the mood for tale-spinning, but she drank up all he told her like a sponge.

In a way, it was almost fun. They had a secret, something only the two of them knew and their conspiracy bound them tightly together. Each depended on the other for their life, and they both believed fiercely in their goal. Alan appreciated her company and he aid…and he was beginning to enjoy her presence. Even more, Sasha seemed to be enjoying spending time with him as well.

All of the same threats were arrayed against him; the danger was deepening if anything. But the difference was that the challenge was not his alone. They were in it together. It was only a half moon, but the night seemed a little brighter.

Memories

He went into his bedroom, a small empty room. In the closet hung Alan’s single suit and a mis-matched array of t-shirts and jeans. And in the back of the closet was a small trunk. He drug it out of the closet and carried it into the living room.

He wiped the dust off the top with his hand and unlatched the heavy trunk. It had been some time since he had opened it. His athro, Johnny, had taught him to remember the past, to relive your life as a way to remind himself that he was not a beast. This trunk had been an important part of learning that lesson.

On top was a quilt. Wolfe handled it gently, lifting it out carefully so it wouldn’t snag on anything else in the trunk. A century and a half had faded the squares, but he could still make out each of the squares that his mother had sewn together. The quilt had been passed to Alina, Alan’s oldest sister, and it had been handed down for three generations before it was forgotten. Wolfe took it back and had kept it since. He sharpened Alan Wolfe lay on his couch, shifting and turning. The sun had risen, but sleep had not come for him yet. He wished he could have been out of town, away from his current troubles, with the protective cover of solid earth all around him.

He was alone facing many unknowns. The deadly lichen, Sasha’s heritage and powers, the tangled web of prestation that the Ventrue had caught him in…. it was more dangerous by far than clashing with Brightwind or driving Sabbat packs away from the city.

The thought of the roaming Sabbat packs brought a pang of loneliness. Wolfe was of the garou blood, yet he had no pack. Every challenge he faced, he had to face alone. He sat up and went to the window. He was beginning to feel the drowsiness brought on by daylight, but he still felt restless. He may fall asleep soon, but he would not rest. Wolfe pulled the shades on his window and flinched back from the stronger sunlight.

Gangrel were fiercely independent, and his athro, Johnny Tempest, had taught him to fend for himself. Gangrel sires left their childer to find their own way. Gangrel roamed the land, beholden to no one. Their powers let them run or fly where no other kindred could, and their fortitude let them stand up alone against many threats.

Wolfe let the shade fall. His skin was burned red; smoke curled up from his body like steam. He was getting stronger, but the strength he found himself wanting was that of a pack. How long had he been alone?

It had been five years since he’d had even an impersonal lover. Of the Gangrel, while none but Brightwind bore him ill will, the only one he could hope to call friend was David Grace. One friend, and a distant one, in a hundred and fifty yearshis scent and breathed deeply, but any trace of scent his descendents might have left was faded and gone.

Wolfe set the quilt on the couch next to him and took out a picture frame. He saw himself, looking only a few years younger than he saw in the mirror these nights, with one arm around a pretty girl. They smiled in the picture, radiating a happiness that the faded photograph couldn’t dim. Wolfe remembered being in love. He felt like he would never be alone again, now that Lisa was there. They shared every thought, even the insignificant things, so much that it was as if they had one mind. They could complete each other’s sentences, could guess what each other were thinking, and her presence in his heart filled him.

Next was a baseball mitt, the leather so stiff with age that Alan hadn’t tried to open it in twenty years. His hand would not fit regardless. It belonged to a ten year old boy, Peter Wolfe. The name was scrawled in magic marker on the forty year old mitt. Pete died in a car accident at sixteen and the Wolfe family line was ended.

Wolfe reached back into the trunk of memories again and brought out a belt. Like the baseball mitt, it was old, old leather, but it had been so often used that it was as soft as cotton. Anastasia had given this belt to Alan for Christmas the year he’d married Lisa.

There were more mementos scattered in the bottom of the trunk, dusty reminders of a time when there were people he loved in his life. Now there were only people to protect, and the people he protected them from.

When the sun had climbed a little higher, either weariness or loneliness had driven Alan into sleep. The quilt was spread over his legs, and he slept with an old picture and a belt clutched to his chest.

Alone

The moon was full and it sang in Wolfe’s veins. It was a night he would have preferred to spend on the open road, the throttle of his motorcycle open wide, or perhaps underneath the moon in the woods, running and hunting. Johnny Tempest had shown a younger Alan how giving free reign to some of the beast’s impulses could keep it from taking control when it was not welcome. Tonight was a great night to play with the beast.

But Johnny sent an owl and Wolfe found himself with a task to do. A little chiminage for his mentor, the proper favors done for those who guide and teach you. In his old, cluttered and musty cave Johnny sent Alan after Brightwind. He was to bring him back alive of course, an irritation that Wolfe as well used to.

Tracking him through the woods led Alan across the path of two university students, one of who had the look of pure blood about her. Wolfe would have loved to speak to her more, to see if she knew her heritage, but Brightwind was still out there and Johnny Tempest needed him.

It wasn’t an opinion that Wolfe shared, but he was obligated. And so he ran on, and when he saw that his trail was heading for Kenning, he rode. It was a chance to let the beast out a little.

The ranger kicked the door of the cheap house inward and saw Brightwind at his occasional slaughter. It was a good thing he had had the chance to let the beast out on its leash first. The mad Gangrel shaman always brought out the worst in Alan.

Brightwind-ikthya hadn’t gotten to the woman yet, though the man was strewn around the room, so Alan shot him in the back. It wasn’t honorable, but the woman needed to be protected. Besides, with the full moon high, Alan was spoiling for a fight, and if they fought too hard and the shaman died, Alan would cry no bloody tears.

But Christian didn’t go down, even with his back shredded by two barrels of buckshot. He turned and caught Wolfe unready, gouging deep runnels in his side. They twisted and threw each other, clawing and snarling. Both were on the edge of frenzy. Wolfe got a lucky swipe across Brightwind’s face that sent him reeling to the floor, one ear dangling. It was enough to keep him down for a while. A piece of broken chair through his chest would keep him until Black Johnny wanted him up again.

Alan left quickly, without a word to the trembling mortal. There was nothing he could do to lessen the horror or her loss. He was no great liar; the only things he might say would only deepen the horror.

The bloody scene just put Wolfe in a mood to kill, but it also led Brightwind to the attention of the Ventrue. His carnage had dominated the front pages, and once Wolfe’s involvement was known, the whole tale of the hunt and fight blew around the city like a scrap of newspaper on the wind. None of the mortals were talking about the strangeness of the attack, only the bloodiness of it, but the Prince was not going to be happy to hear of it.

Alan prayed to God and Gaia that Brightwind would be condemned. If he wasn’t attacking people, Wolfe wouldn’t have to protect so many of them. And all of those people that he hadn’t gotten there in time for would still be alive…

But that was up to the Prince. Wolfe had other things to worry about that he felt were his responsibility. The university student, Sasha Black, for instance.

It cost $300 and Wolfe had to patiently answer some questions for Alexandria Dorian, but he found her, and found out enough about her to gain her trust.

The girl was kinfolk, although what tribe she descended from was anyone’s guess. Her mix of ethnic features might’ve come from anywhere as far away as the distant Stargazers to the Nordic Fenrir, or maybe the Shadowlords. Or perhaps the mixed bag of genes that might mark a Silent Strider. But just as importantly, Sasha was a shaman like Brightwind.

Tormented by visions she could not explain, she was on a heavy regimen of anti-psychotics and medication to treat paranoia and hallucinations. None of which worked of course, everything she saw was real. Wolfe did his best to explain, but how could he tell her what to make of visions he could not see himself?

What mattered was that she believed him, and that meant she might let him protect her. And she was in more danger than she knew.

Wolfe contacted David Grace, his kinain, for help. Things might swiftly grow out of Wolfe’s very limited control. He was Gangrel, and all he knew, all he controlled was himself. He had no need for power over mortals and such. But that meant that protecting Sasha was going to be difficult. David was young and inexperienced, but he would help. Properly motivated and free of harano, the young Gangrel could do well.

Alan saw four main dangers to the kinfolk girl, and he felt uneasy facing any of them.

The first was Sage, the younger of the town’s Nosferatu, whom Alan himself had asked to help track Sasha down. She knew he had an interest in her, knew he’d been looking for her, and she knew much of what he knew about her. She wouldn’t give the information away, but she might sell it.

Alexandria Dorian was the second threat. She’d given Alan information on the medications that Sasha was taking, and though Wolfe had traded news of his own to her and cancelled the debt, it still left her with the knowledge that Sasha Black was important, or at least of note. She already as much as owned Wolfe’s life and she’d carried that debt for over ten years. What she’d do with this information he couldn’t begin to guess.

The other two dangers were closer to home. Black Johnny embraced Christian Brightwind because of his ability to see the spirits and had tolerated his rampages for more than a hundred years because he needed him. Sasha, who had the same powers but lacked his madness would be an attractive victim for him. Wolfe had no way to prove it, but he felt that given the chance, Johnny would replace Brightwind with the young kinfolk. As much as Wolfe would love to see Brightwind dead, he felt it was his duty to protect Sasha first. Let the Ventrue and the other urrah sell out mortals for that kind of victory

The last threat was Brightwind himself. If only because he would fear being replaced just like Wolfe saw, he would want her dead, regardless of whether or not Johnny would truly discard him. Beyond even that, Wolfe knew that the sadistic shaman would happily gut her after a long violation, if only for sport. Wolfe couldn’t begin to factor in what the banes that flocked around the mad Gangrel might urge him to do, but he feared it would be no more pretty.

Alan felt deeply isolated and alone. There was no one he could trust, not even the unreliable youth David. He looked up at the moon alone and wished for his sister, young Anastasia. No one else had been closer, nor more trustworthy, not even Lisa. These were big problems for one Gangrel to face. But he didn’t have a choice. He knew who he was, the garou blood was too strong in his veins, even if he hadn’t bred true. The garou were Gaia’s protectors, and so was he.

One hundred years

Alan Wolfe walked just a pace behind the elder vampires, keeping quiet except when the squirrel on his shoulder squeaked something for him to say to his companions. But tonight there were new exhibits, so much of the talk was of the art, and both the squirrel and Alan were quiet.

They say that life is short. People say, “Has it really been that long?” Each year seems a long time, but when you look back on it, even a hundred years goes by quickly. Johnny told Alan that he had a destiny, something important and different than any other vampire. In more than a century, he never told Alan what that destiny was, or even if he truly knew its shape. But he was a good teacher in everything else.

He patiently taught Wolfe to control the Protean powers of his body, to master the Eyes of the Beast, Wolf Claws, and the power to meld with the earth. He taught Alan to speak clearly to animals, to refine his speech so that he could understand and make himself understood. And he showed him the trick of sharpening his senses, the beginnings of opening the mind in the power known as Auspex – a power unknown to most Gangrel.

Horses and wagons gave way to cars and motorcycles. Guns became ever more sophisticated. Electricity went everywhere. Radio and TV and computers came and went, replaced by newer machines and devices.

Through the decades, Alan did what he did best: protect people. It wasn’t like the superheroes that sprang into being with the war fervor of the first half of the twentieth century. It was more like the law enforcement that Alan occasionally served in life.

He saw himself as a sort of one man posse, a ranger always scouting for mortal dangers, Sabbat that strayed too close to town, or signs of anything else that might threaten the Gagrel or the town of Valerton. It was a thankless job. He was not a Sheriff as the vampires knew them, he had no recognition, no power or prestige. But he had purpose.

Much of that purpose, it seemed, was to act as a kind of counter for Christian Brightwind. Born on a reservation when the US Government had just thrown his people into the west, he had been a dangerous psychopath even in life. But he could see and hear the spirits around them, the beings that were foe and ally to the garou. His embrace tempered him not at all.

Rua came to Alan for help. Brightwind had stolen a mortal woman from Valerton and it turned into one of their bloodiest fights. Wolfe ran with Rua, the other childe of his sire, and they tracked down the dark place in the woods where Brightwind had built his latest decrepit shack. There were screams coming from inside.

Alan cursed, hating the other gangrel. He was notorious for kidnapping, slaughtering and raping women, and even his hunting tended towards the bloody.

Rua crashed through the door to the cabin with Alan right behind her. Brightwind was on the ground, pinning a screaming woman to the dirt floor. Disgusted, Alan could see his hips pumping and a long, brown-furred tail waving in excitement.

They charged forward together, Rua closing her jaws on his tail and pulling, Alan grabbing him by the shoulders. They yanked him off of the poor girl on the floor and threw him to the floor, even as his victim curled in on herself, sobbing. But Brightwind did not stay down. He was back on his claw-tipped feet and leaping onto Rua with a snarl.

They fought in turns, biting and clawing at each other, the flimsy cabin shaking with each impact. They tried to get the woman to stand and flee. She was in only slightly less danger being so near such a terrible fight than she had been as the shaman’s helpless victim. The only time Alan ever saw Rua take human form was to grasp the girl by the shoulders and pull her to her feet. She pushed her stumbling ahead of her out of the cabin and ran with her.

Alan leapt on Brightwind as he tried to follow his prey and they tore at each other as the shack finally collapsed around them. Alan remembered trying to fight for his unlife, even has he tried to spare Brightwind’s. Johnny Tempest had made it clear that his unlife was important. The mad Indian didn’t seem to have the same reservations, however.

Wolfe knew that had the fight not ended there, that either he would have broken and killed Brightwind, or else the shaman would have killed him. Thrusting Brightwind back into a jutting spar of broken wood stopped his rampage though. Alan stood and bled and fought to gasp air and calm himself. He had been as close to frenzy as he had ever been.

He was tempted to leave Brightwind there. Even with a Gangrel’s fortitude, the sun would take care of him once and for all. But then why had he gone through all the trouble not to kill him? It took some time for Alan to find a bird who hadn’t been frightened off by the carnage and who would take a message to Johnny. Alan decided to let his sire collect his other progeny. If he failed to collect him before the sun rose, it wouldn’t be on Alan’s head.

It was too late. Not only had Brightwind abused her and violated her. When the girl managed to kill herself during his rape, he’d embraced her so he could continue.

They fought again and again. Sometimes it was merely a push or shove if they crossed paths but more than once they fought with bloody claws. Wolfe couldn’t be there to stop every attack, every violation made by the insane Gangrel, but his every request to be allowed to kill Brightwind, if he could, was denied. Though his relation to Johnny was teacher to student and their bond was not personal or warm, Brightwind was the point that strained their ties the most.

Thankfully Alan got along well with all of the other Gangrel, though he was not especially close to any of them. That just wasn’t how Gangrel worked. But there was David, a Silver Fang kinfolk brought into the clan.

He was young and fair, marked strongly by his blood, but too old for the change to still be possible. Akemi came to Alan, desperate and afraid. Brightwind had found out about David’s bloodline and wanted to kill a Silver Fang – He had clashed with the Garou before and saw a chance at vengeance.

Alan couldn’t spare the time to track down the notoriously elusive Rua, so he faced Brightwind alone. The fight was as bloody as any other, and though Wolfe sent Brightwind into torpor, he nearly lost his own life. Sadly, fleeing from Brightwind, David fell into a ravine and not only shattered his legs, but suffered a head wound that caused him to loose much of his memory.

Johnny asked Alan to re-teach him about his kin. Wolfe was reluctant, he wasn’t the boy’s sire and he wasn’t a teacher, but Johnny had done much for him and he couldn’t refuse.

He went to Akemi, who had sired the youth and offered his help in teaching the boy. Alan left most of the first lessons to David’s sire, but when he was ready, Alan took him and told him the same stories that his father once shared with him. With legend and fable, Alan bridged the shared history of Garou and Gangrel.

But it was hard for the boy, whose wounds hadn’t been healed by the embrace. Each night it took concentration and the power of the blood for him to mend his crooked legs and to heal the dent in his skull. While he had learned much about his lineage and his new state, he remembered nothing of his own life, and that was something that neither Akemi, nor Alan could give him back.

David never got his confidence, often lamenting the fact that he never changed, or his crippled condition. Alan remembered a dim word from his father: harano. A deep gloom that ran like a deep chasm in every garou, into which they might fall in dark times. This chasm was especially wide and deep in the Silver Fangs. Even bright Anastasia had felt it.

Wolfe and Akemi discussed it as the first years passed, but there was little they could do for David. He would learn and adapt, or he would die. Akemi looked at Wolfe, guilt and sadness in her eyes. She felt that the harano was her fault. She had attempted to give David the chance she had never had, that so few Gangrel had, and ask David to choose unlife. David refused. But when he was crippled and dying, Akemi took his blood and gave him hers, though she knew she should have let him die. It was the only time that Alan had ever been mad at Akemi.

The last time that Alan was called on by Johnny to fight for the Gangrel was when the Ventrue came. It was when the University was established in the early 80’s, drawing students from all over America and down from Canada as well to study bio-chemistry. In those days designing pesticides for crop-dusting and new fertilizers was a newly growing industry.

The venture came and began buying everything, and soon Brujah and Toreador followed, where only five years before, no one but the Gangrel and Nosferatu showed any interest in Valerton. And with the Ventrue setting themselves up and kneeling before a Prince, they looked to the Gangrel to do that same. The Gangrel weren’t big on kneeling.

The fighting was sporadic, but intense. The Venture swiftly took control of the police and brought in their own hired guns, sending ghouls to fight the Gangrel in the woods and to protect their new, tall buildings. Perhaps if the Brujah had been of the motorcycle-riding persuasion they might have seized rule. But the rebels that came to sink their fangs into the University were older and more scholarly than martial. The Ventrue knew they had no edge over the wolf-clan.

So they sued for peace, choosing not to try to exorcise their princely praxis on the Gangrel so long as they were left to pursue their aims in the city. As a gift, they purchased vast tracts of woods and mountain and gave them over to the Gangrel. Now our territory was legal. The deal worked out fine, it’s not as if Alan and his clan had designs for the city or interest in its politics.

Ten years later, they help Alan’s life in their hands, though. The first Sabbat sortie in years, a test of the new territory. Wolfe didn’t feel any loyalty to the Camarilla or to the Ventrue, but the need to protect was part of who he was.

The Sabbat sortie was driven back in a gunfight like a firecracker; loud and bright, but over quickly But in that shootout, Alan was peppered by automatic fire. By standing up and continuing the fight, he helped to win the night, but he also condemned himself.

The Prince called for his head, the Masquerade threatened and too important not to punish any transgressors severely. But his own childe, his own mortal daughter, stood up to him, and saved Alan’s life.

Alan watched her pale back, revealed by the low cut of her gown, and wondered why she’d spared the life of one not particularly powerful Gangrel. Her owed her his life, and nearly anything she asked for he was obligated to give, but she asked for nothing.

He wondered what he game was, and just how patient the centuries-old Ventrue was. But he would have to wait. Wolfe wasn’t a schemer or a plotter. He was just a lone watchman. He couldn’t wait to get back to his motorcycle, the road and the woods.

Gangrel

Alan Wolfe kept his bike a little under the speed limit. Not that he was worried about getting speeding tickets or getting caught, but because he was on his way to meet with the most powerful vampires in Valerton, and if he rode too fast his one good suit would wrinkle. While he didn’t much care that he had only the one suit for these meetings, it was a good idea to at least make sure it was presentable.

As he rode, he sent his mind back in time again.

There had been more and more instances of banditry north of Valerton. A band or bands of men from Canada would ride south, harry a few towns and then fall back across the border. It wasn’t something that the Silver Fangs were worried about because most of their power was in invested in their own secret paces. Their influence in Valerton was small. Besides, they had their own battles to fight.

But this one was Alan’s fight. He’d never been able to stand to see someone picking on anyone else. Alan had first learned to fight standing between Anastasia and a group of older boys. It was only the first of many times he’d bloody and get bloodied for his siter or his other siblings, and as he grew older, he only expanded the people he’d fight for to include the clerks at the mercantile, the tellers at Lisa’s father’s bank, the people of Valerton and the surrounding towns.

Wolfe suspected that these were more organized men than he had ever heard of, maybe something like the Cowboys who’d terrorized Texas until Wyatt Erp had ended their spree of violence with one of his own. Alan signed on as a town sheriff and rode after the bandits.

But in two weeks of raids and riding after them, the posse couldn’t catch them or stay on their trail. There’d been a few exchanges of gunfire, but that was mostly at the time of the raids. Once they turned and left, there was no catching them.

Alan’s first hint that there was more to this than uncommonly disciplined thugs was when he was crouched in the shattered window of the bank that belonged to his father-in-law, trading fire with the bandits. One of them jumped up and ran for his horse. Alan shot him in the back.

As the man spun around, Alan saw that it was the same man he’d shot seven days ago in Stanton. Shot in the head. His fellows had grabbed him and thrown him over a saddle, carrying him away, but Alan was sure he was dead. Here he was, shot again, but struggling to his feet and mounting his horse.

Alan took some men and they went after them, and he quickly realized that the thing that made them so devilishly hard to catch was that they attacked at night, and they rode at night. Somehow, in all of their raids, never once was a rider unhorsed by a branch in the night, or did a horse step wrong and break a leg. It was happening to the lawmen every time they gave chase.

He was thinking this when he saw movement in the brush. He laid his shotgun across the saddle, trying to make it appear casual but point it towards the movement. A moment later, it was on the other side of him. Then Alan spotted the wolf. He stopped his horse and stared. Surely the Silver Fangs hadn’t gotten involved. The last he talked to Anastasia, there was some great danger on the other side of the mountain that was holding their attention.

There was another oddity. Wolfe’s horse was always unsettled by Anastasia and her pack. While she commanded more grace and nobility than a wild wolf, Anastasia was a predator, and the horse knew in its bones that it was in danger. But this wolf stopped the horse with a glance, and it stood there unmoving and unconcerned no matter how much Alan tugged the reigns.

The wolf dipped its snout and without warning Wolfe’s horse reared and threw him. He lay on the ground, fumbling for his fallen gun and trying to find the wolf again. The last thing he remembered was a fog creeping around him.

Alan remembered the mix of feelings, both confused and focused that he felt that night. He woke sometime later, not long because it was still dark, next to the carcass of a deer. It’s neck was punctured twice, but there was no blood. Wolfe might have considered this longer, but something else caught his attention.

Each tree and root and leaf and stone was clearly visible. The night sky still shown over heard, the moon was only half full, but it was like seeing the woods by daylight. Alan squinted and peered more closely at a branch. It was just vaguely outlined in red light, the way a room is lit when the fire burns down to just embers. Everything was limned ever so faintly in that red light, but it brought the darkness into startling clarity.

It occurred to Alan that he could run through the darkness without being slowed down. So he ran. Trees and branches whipped by, but the darkness hid none of it. Never the less, he brought himself to a halt when he heard gunshots and snarling. He drew his pistol and moved more carefully, peering into the shadows where nothing was hidden from him now.

Wolfe drew behind a tree when he heard someone crashing through the underbrush. “You can’t stop the Sabbat!” He heard clearly. Those moments were always sharp in Alan’s mind, even after all this time. “We’ll consecrate your blood, Black Johnny! We won’t settle for less than diablerie!”

With his new, strange, vision, Alna saw a man dashing through the brush. Occasionally, he would turn and fire a shot over his shoulder, as if someone or something was after him. Alan saw that it was the man that he had fatally shot twice.

Wolfe stepped out from behind the tree as the man turned to curse and fire again. He fired at point blank range, putting all six rounds into his back, then his chest as he spun, before he hit the ground. Alan reloaded calmly, stood over the bandit, and put a round into his head, and the other five into his heart for good measure.

He remembered the scene that waited ahead of him. Bodies torn apart, scattered this way and that, even the horses had been dragged down and killed savagely. But it wasn’t just the violence of the scene that was strange. A few of the dead men were old – wrinkled and frail with age. But Alan would have sworn that not one of the bandits they were chasing had been older than he was.

There was one more thing. Alan found wolf tracks.

He didn’t go home for weeks. When dawn arrived and he felt the terror boiling in his veins, he panicked. Alan ended up crawling under a log to hide, wondering what was happening to him. He hunted the next dusk, but when he shot the hare, he found himself licking the blood from his fingers and discarding the meat. Just like the deer. Once the panic and confusion began to fade, he realized that at dawn’s arrival, he slipped into the earth, swallowed by the dirt and not just digging into it.

The panic and confusion were gone, but they were replaced by a sense of abandonment. Alan no longer knew who he was…or even what he was. Nothing made sense anymore. It was a sort of bleak terror. But Alan remembered the wolf. If it was a Garou, then maybe it had answers.

It took Alan almost a month to track down the wolf, and in that time he learned to fear the sun, but also how to hide from it in the earth. He learned a craving for blood, and he learned to hunt with eyes that saw through the night and claws as sharp as any cat’s. Wolfe found that he could understand the songs of birds and the growls of dogs if he could hold their gaze, and that if he growled or chirped to them, they could answer his questions. And with each new thing he learned about himself, his questions multiplied.

The cave was old and well hidden in the deep woods away from Valerton, but also away from the Silver Fang caern. The trees and rocks were weathered and ancient, but more than just appearing as some old piece of the forest, they looked…lived in. The rock was worn as if often leaned against by many people over generations. Trees showed signs of scratching and there was a powerful animal musk. Alan checked his pistol, examining his last two bullets carefully. If there was danger, he would soon have to meet it with his bare hands – claws! – alone.

Wolfe’s eyes pierced the darkness, that dim red halo providing all the light he could ever need to see. He had looked at himself in the reflection of a stream, his eyes glowed red! Inside he saw that the cave was inhabited by more than an animal. There were slash-like spirals and lines drawn everywhere. They looked like a bear had dipped its claws in paint and inscribed these strange symbols by scratching the walls.

Alan poked around the cave for some time, looking for the owner of the scant tracks he’d followed and the source of the rumors the animals had told him. Alan knew he’d found the right place when the fog rolled into the cave.

The shape that came out of the fog, that the fog became if Wolfe could believe his eyes, was almost human, or almost animal. His hands were clawed, like Alan had discovered his could become, but his calves tapered down to hooves and not feet. The man’s face was as bestial as his body, his nose and mouth pushed out in a snout, fangs visible just beneath the lips. His ears were pointed and tufted with fur the same color as his dark and tangled hair. From his brow, antlers branched like an old tree; Alan couldn’t gather his wits enough to count the points. And the man-creature’s eyes were bright yellow orbs, black slits dilated wide to examine this intruder.

That was Alan’s first meeting with Black Johnny, the eldest Gangrel in the Valerton woods, and possibly in all of Montana. Wolfe quickly discovered that this beast-man was not a Garou or even a spirit like them, but a vampire, cursed by an ancient power. A curse that had been passed to Alan Wolfe.

It took no little talking, strangely accented by that snout, and quite a bit of physical force to subdue Alan and explain what had been done to him. By dawn, he sat in the back of the cave, with Johnny crouched at the mouth. Alan listened, but he was aware that Johnny was ready to stop him from fleeing.

Alan considered that he was cursed, but added to that the reason Johnny Tempest had done this to him. Those bandits were vampires belonging to something they called the Sabbath, a dark cult intent on slaying all other vampires. And they didn’t care who’s blood was shed in the process. Alan thought of the wonton destruction the bandits practiced and believed Johnny.

“You’re a protector, Alan Wolfe,’ Johnny told him. “I need someone to protect my clan, and the people we live with.” There was despair of course, mourning for a lost humanity. And all that he was raised to believe as kinfolk of the Silver Fangs went against what he was now. “Has who you are really changed, Wolfe?”

Alan was shocked into awareness. Was he different? He drank blood, his fingers could become claws, he could see in total darkness… but that was what he was, not who he was. He still missed Lisa and grieved for the family he had not gotten to have. He loved Anastasia and his aging mother, still beautiful, and his other siblings, just starting families of their own.

No, he supposed he hadn’t really changed who he was. He still wanted to make a good life for himself and for the people he loved. If they were in danger of being preyed upon by vampires of this Sabbat, he would protect them, cursed or not.

Wolfe Remembers

Alan Wolfe watched Christian Brightwind stalk away. He forced a deep breath through lungs that no longer worked and tried to calm himself. Just looking at Brightwind’s bestial face was enough to test his temper. Actually talking to the man was an invitation to frenzy.

But Alan knew that giving in to that would only mark his own face or body with the beast and give the psychotic Gangrel reason to smile. Instead he did as his mentor, Black Johnny, taught him. He made his lungs draw in another breath, and he remembered.

If it weren’t for this exercise, this meditation, Alan might have very well forgotten much of his own life. The mortal part of it ended more than one hundred years ago, and time was unkind to memory. But Black Johnny, once terrorized by his own beast, had taught Alan to relive the past, to keep it alive, and to use it to face the beast inside.

Even without the mementos of his past, Alan went back into his memories easily. Like remembering a book often read.

Valerton was just a small logging town, not much different than any of the mining towns or cattle towns in the wild west. Most of the land was untouched and unsettled. The Indians had mostly been settled onto reservations, but there were still problems, and the occasional fight started by one side or the other.

Alan Wolfe lived with his mother, and his grandparents in the cabin in the woods outside Valerton, where the Thomas family had lived as fur trappers for three generations. Alan’s father was Ivan Wolfe, a mysterious man who floated in and out of his life, as if drawn to his beautiful mother and his five children, but pulled away by other, unknowable things.

But when Ivan Wolfe came into his family’s life, he brought money, and stories. He told of a shootout against a gang of green-skinned demons. Alan knew that when his father had been courting his mother, that he had shot another man in a duel, so he did not doubt his the tale. Ivan told his children how he and his friends had once tipped a runaway train off its tracks. And he also told his children old stories from Russia. Tales about the wolf-kings and ancient czars, legends about the adventures of Winter Wolf and Pheonix and Falcon. Alan was told that the blood of the Silver Fangs, the princes of wolves, flowed in his veins.

They were happy times, helping his grandfather to check the traps and skin the catch, playing with his brother and sisters, and waiting for the rare, but achingly familiar sound of his father’s footsteps outside the cabin.

Then Harry Thomas died, and his wife followed soon after. Ivan came and took his family away from the cabin and helped them start again in Valerton itself. His money opened the Wolfe Mercantile, and Alan helped his mother to buy furs from the trappers and sell them east.

As Alan grew, he began to grow restless, thinking about the future and how to make a life for himself. His father continued to visit, but each time he paid less attention to his oldest boy, and Alan knew that his father was hoping he would show signs that he was a true Silver Fang. But he didn’t.

Alan remembered the disappointment, but he had been raised to accept it. His father was a distant figure in his life, more of a mentor than family. So Alan pursued his own life, going out with the wagons to Stanton where the trains would take their goods east, or to Kenning, where the riverboats would take their goods.

It wasn’t the happiest time in Alan’s life, but more because of the dissatisfaction that plagues all adolescents. The young man was trying to learn who he was, Silver Fang, shop keeper’s son, merchant? His greatest joy came from his youngest sister, Anastasia, seven years younger. They were more than brother and sister, they were best friends.

The Garou came for Alan’s youngest sister while he was on the way back from Kenning, riding shotgun on the family coach. Alan listened to his mother explain that the Silver Fang blood was true in her, but he was always regretted that he didn’t get to say goodbye.

Alan smiled, remembering how two years later he was riding and was almost thrown from his horse when it spied a sleek grey wolf in the middle of the path. Alan dismounted and ran to the wolf, throwing his arms around her. There’d been no doubt in his mind that it was Anastasia.

The reunion was full of conflicting emotions. There was joy, pure simple joy, at seeing each other again, but Anastasia came with news that their father was dead. And Alan also realized that there was a wall between them now that had not existed when they had both been young and had pretended that they were both Silver Fangs, battling the might Zmei on the steppes of Russia, wondering weather more dragons lived in the icy forests of Canada, and half-seriously planning to run away and have adventures in the north.

But there was still love. Anastasia had been traveling as well, and on her Rite of passage she met a woman that she thought Alan would like to meet. She told Alan that his blood was still important and that she desperately wanted nieces and nephews.

His sister was right. No one knew his heart better than her, and she had found someone with the same heart who lived in Stanton. A banker’s daughter, young and adventurous. Alan thought she was the most beautiful person he had ever seen. Alan courted young Lisa, and the Silver Fangs courted her father and his bank, insuring that no one but Alan would be accepted as a suitor.

Anastasia chose well and Alan and Lisa fell in love and were married. They were the last truly happy days in Alan’s life.

A year after their marriage, Alan and Lisa were trying to have children. He hoped to surprise Anastasia with news of a niece or nephew by her next visit. Instead, Anastasia held Alan while he told her that Lisa had been shot when the town sheriff and a gang of bank robbers broke into a shoot out in her father’s bank.

Alan had joined the posse to catch the criminals, but they had only caught a few members of the gang. Anastasia wiped the tears from his cheeks and promised him they would not get away. That night they set out together, following the gang north.

His sister’s promise was true, and while they could hide from a sheriff and a few rounded up deputies, they could not hide from a Silver Fang. Only one of the bandits survived to be hanged from a tree on the Canadian border.

That was when Alan found himself. He remembered it as the first time since Lisa died that he felt that he was doing what he was supposed to be doing.

There were other posses, and sometimes a tin star to go with them. He never gave up the Mercantile, because that was where the family was, but he never gave up riding shotgun on the wagons, and taking time to bring in a man if there was trouble. And just sometimes the Silver Fangs called, and Anastasia would ask Alan to run down a certain man, someone that the human law wouldn’t touch.

Alan had purpose, if not happiness. He had his siblings at the Mercantile, and his sister in the woods. Until the vampires came.

Wolfe blinked a few times, reminding himself to do it, as he came out of his memory. His life took more than a few moments to play out in his mind, but he had to be at the University in time to meet whatever animal Johnny sent to speak with the Primogen. He swung his leg over his motorcycle and started the engine.