"Kieran Frostwood"

10

As a rule, Nosferatu didn't handle face to face interactions. Clans like the Ventrue or the Toreador, with their suite of supernatural mind-control arts and their non-hideous faces, could handle that work. But you and Dove were alone on the road, and she needed someone who could deal with the cops, crooks, fixers, and drifters you dealt with night after night. She taught you how to hide your deformities behind a mask of shadow, and sent you out to clear the way for her operations.

Face hidden in shadow, you interacted with the strange shadow-world where normal life brushed up against the existence of the Kindred. It felt like you knew everyone in Texas who worked third shift. And you worked hard to make sure they didn't know you: you were just a shadowy figure in a low-slung cap, asking a few questions, handing out the occasional "reward" for good information. You lied, threatened, bribed, and (when you had no other choice) even persuaded people to help make the Dove's work a little easier and to help her avoid hunters, then got back in her Lincoln as she delivered parcels, transported nameless VIPs loyal to the Prince, and handled the occasional bit of really ugly work.

You always listened, and that's what saved you. That last year, even regular people were talking about federal agents acting strange, organizing with local police, getting ready for something. The hunters had been quiet all year, and you could guess why. You told the Dove, and she told the Prince, but he didn't pay attention to mortals, except as food. You thought about pushing the issue, but you were just a fledgling, and the Dove had work to do.

They came when you and the Dove had just finished a hard courier run and were back in town, staying in a windowless suite in the newly-opened Hilton Americas-Houston. The kill team knew what you were, and the agents knew what sunlight would do to you. They blasted a hole in the wall; you both would have been destroyed, except that you and the Dove had anticipated trouble. Your own people showed up the moment the agents attacked: local off-duty police, lured into your service with the promise of good money and a bit of excitement.

The agents cut through them in seconds. But that gave you and the Dove time to run, half-blinded by sunlight, to the nearest elevator. She told you to flee with her into the garage, but you knew your job. You got her into the elevator, then ran for it to draw them off.

You never saw her again. A week later, still recovering from your burns, you learned that the Prince was dust. You waited until nightfall, stole a car, and got out of Texas, and you didn't come back.

And after all that, ten years on these miserable desert highways, scraping by on the "charity" of your elders as you run their errands. You've lost your edge, the clarity of your focus, sacrificing specialization in order to learn trick after trick, in order to survive from night to night.

If you were still alive, you'd be middle-aged.

The elders of the Kindred are lies wrapped in flesh: undeath is no promise of immortality. You've seen a hundred Cainites born into the night, only to die a few months later at the hands of hunters or their own kind, or just because they didn't know what time it was.

Strange that you're going to die young.

The air ripples. It smells like burning metal. You never should have bought a hatchback.

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