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.