remember her

The air in the crypt was still, so still you could hear the beating hearts of those alive and waiting with bated breath to see what the madwoman who orchestrated this would do next.

The Garou, in her ceremonial, draconic gown, stood looming over the Clan founder, staked to the wall, unable to do much more than tremble. In her hands, the werewolf clasped a vial on a silver cord, topped with a cork that supported a bat-shaped ornament, full to the brim with crimson vitae that seemed to shimmer with electrical energy.

“You...”

“Lupine whelp-”

“So all those years of domineering come to a head. Your insatiable curiosity led you to this damned state and for a thousand years you got away with one of the gravest crimes a kindred could commit. You traded the boundless possibilities of Awakening for the iron grip of vampirism. But that alone wasn’t enough. Being Tzimisce wasn’t enough. Being a bloodline wasn’t enough. You came for the veins of the Cainites’ last hope, and you wiled your way up the ladder until his childer were hunted like dogs. All so you could one day rule the world.”

“You know nothing, mongrel...”

“I know you stole Saulot’s life. I know you stole the title of Clan. I know you stole safety from a people who only wished to heal, and drove half of them into the arms of monsters. And I know you stole my sister from me.”

“Do you honestly think… that I hand-pick every neonate that comes into this Pyramid…? Your worthless neonate means nothing to me… you lupines truly are primitive and uneducated...”

“The history books always did play you out as a grand chessmaster. Clan Tremere makes no mistakes, they say. Everything is carefully planned, and if it wasn’t, it becomes part of the plan. Does the name Anya Lily Blackwood mean nothing to you?”

“A rebellious little thing...”

“You’re aware of every blood sample in this Chantry, and the kindred who belongs to it. Because that sample is taken, magically, during the ritual of the cup. You take pains to ensure that every member of this clan is bonded to you in servitude. And yet, look beside me. Zviad Tiryaki was never bound to you. Makvala Sadik, Prince of Seattle was never bound to you. Lucine Fox was never bound to you. But they aren’t the ones you need to be worrying about. The Camarilla will never know that a Prince stood by my side in this moment, Tremere.”

“That’s nonsense, I have eyes everywhere...”

“Oh, you certainly do. All the better that the Eldest was here to disable each and every one of them.”

That title seemed to give him pause. “The original Fiend...”

“At this very moment, my tribe has this Chantry surrounded, on both sides of the Gauntlet. Even if you were free, your wards are broken and your blood magic is neutered. Even you, as powerful as the Original Thirteen, are as a mere man in front of me now. Pathetic and immobile. But even my tribe isn’t what you need to worry about.”

“What do you want from me, lupine… why have you gone to all this trouble, to invade the most secure location in all of Kindred history...”

“I can see it in your eyes. I see Saulot there, struggling to break back into the world and continue his work to save the world. You’ve been holding back having your soul subsumed for a thousand years, and maybe you’ve only succeeded because he is loathe to take another life. In this, your final moments… I want you to remember her name, Tremere.”

“What...”

“Remember the name Anya Lily Blackwood. Burn it into your mind, what you stole from me. In all your careful planning, you never once thought that her sister would be a Garou, did you. You never thought to investigate her family ties further. You assumed she would fall right into the Pyramid structure, have her individuality crushed and make another pretty little chess piece. You assumed we’d never be a problem even after she proved mouthy and untameable. You assumed that kindred society would eliminate her for her fire.

“I want you to remember her name, not for what trouble she’s caused your inscrutable plans of world domination, but because of what you stole from me. I want you to remember the name Roscoe Ortiz, because your greed and lust for power gave rise to the sire-eating tradition and cost him his first love. I want you to remember the name Midnight Vargas, because she was given a reason to dread her own mortality because you took her lover from her. I want you to remember Makvala Sadik and Zviad Tiryaki, because you had them embraced and stole their child from them. I want you to remember Reva Sharma, because Zviad’s madness led to her cousin’s embrace and further ruined her life.

“But most of all… I want you to remember me. I want you to remember Zora Snapdragon Blackwood, the ghoul you never expected. The one you got run out of a city for embracing her sister. Remember me. Remember Ears-of-Bat, Fools-The-Reaper, Walks-With-Death, Gaia’s-Daughter, Keeper-of-Balance. Remember that a thousand years of karma have finally come for you in the form of my voice and my anger and my scars.”

The Garou opened her arms in a wide gesture and raised her voice to an angry shout. “Join me, my brothers and sisters! Howl into the sky! Join your voices with mine! Today, we raze a tyrant’s fortress and revive He Who Defeated The Wyrm!”

“What?!”

She locked eyes with the man, stone-faced. Her eyes began to glow a haunting violet, and the room seemed to shake and tremor with her words. “I bid you to rise, Dragon of the East. I call you from the depths of your captor, Keeper of the Third Eye.

“I summon you, Saulot.”