CHAPTER ONE

After a while of doing this, he started thinkin’. Most of his childer weren’t as powerful as he was – not that they could be, of course, ‘cause he was the Great and Powerful Nosferatu – just like he weren’t as powerful as his sire, who weren’t as powerful as Caine. And he started puttin' one an' one together. You see, back then, everyone believed in spirit's and totems. Everyone and everything had a spirit, and you could catch other folks’ spirits and bind ‘em and all kinda crazi ness. Nosferatu had been a hunter, and he firmly believed that when he caught and ate a bison, he gained the spirit and power of the bison. And when he killed and ate a tiger, he got that tiger’s spirit. So if he could get a hold of a vampire...you see where this is going?

So he gathered his “best” childer, the ones who were the fiercest and cruelest and most depraved, and left the rest to wander the world. He and his brood made a beeline back to the cave where Caine and his three childer and their childer were at the time (yeah, it was a cave – the Brujah and Toreador can talk up their First City crap till the Last Sunset, but it was just a cave). But he didn’t show himself. He told his childer to stay hidden. Then he made himself invisible and spied on the others. And a real nasty plan popped into his head.

Nosferatu used his powers to mess himself up real bad –
at least to make himself look like he’d been hurt bad. He waited till Caine was alone and then limped up to the Father, gaspin’ and moanin’ like nobody’s business.

Well, Caine got kinda concerned, ‘cause none of his childer or his childer’s childer’d ever been really hurt before. He asked what had happened. And Nosferatu said:

“O my Father, long I wandered in the far south. And whilst I hunted I came upon a creature the likes of which I had never seen – a beast half of wolf and half of man. And I approached it without malice and spake the words o. 'o it. And it heeded them not, but sprang' e and did unto me what thou now seest.”

Now of course, any of us modem Kindred woulda seen that story for the garbage it was,butthingswas simpler back then, and Caine was right taken. He rose up in a fury, swearing to find the wolf-man and destroy it. Guess he did, too, sort of, else why’re them Lupines always howlin’ for our hides? So Caine took off a-rantin’ and a-ravin’, like that

Tasmanian Devil on the cartoons, swearing vengeance on the wolf-creature and leaving the Three and the Thirteen on their own. Then ol’ Nosferatu went off and hid in the bushes. He waited for a while, and then he started changin’ his shape, like you and I do when we gotta go into a kine build in’. ‘Cept Nosferatu took the shape of his sire. And in that shape,he sneaked up on the otherTwelve,one after the other, while they were out hunting. Then he jumped his brethren, knockin’ ‘em down and clawin’ ‘em up, but bein’ careful to let ‘em getaway. Needless to say, they were scared bloodless by this turn of events –one of the Three tryin’to kill ‘em. The other Twelve ran wailin’ into the jungle, hiding in caves and holes. Nosferatu tracked ‘em down – he was the best hunter of the bunch – and took back his reg’lar shape. He spun a wild story about the Three goin’ crazy – ‘bout how they weren’t content with the mortals anymore, but had a craving for vampire blood. He said that the Three wanted