The Sacrifice Chapter One
    
Crystal ran like the wind, her lissome legs carrying her far into the
night. She persued the deadliest of prey but felt little fear for she was a
mighty hunter. Yet even one such as her needs to tread with caution, for
even the wolf can be prey to the tiger. An analogy most apt in her case.
She bounded into a clearing and saw her prey in the stark moonlight. She
smelt his fear and went in for the kill. Her prey did not have a prayer.

Within two weeks, Crystal was again in hot pursuit, but this time she was
the prey. Following the dictates of her elders, she ventured into the
unfamiliar concrete jungle known as the city and there she met a foe whose
power was such that even her prowess would be insufficient to subdue him.
With startling speed, she managed to out run her persuer until she made the
proverbial wrong turn into a dead-end alley.  She turned quickly, thinking
to elude her foe before she was trapped and slain so far from her beloved
wilderness. In a flash of teeth and claws, three horizontal gashes appeared
as if by magic on her belly, her persuer had found her. He was a Garou,
what the mundanes call a werewolf, in crinos form: the dreaded half-man,
half-wolf shape that Garou could assume at will. He stood at the mouth of
the alley, his claws dripping with her blood as his tongue licked his
slavering jaws, anticipating the kill. 
    
Then a calm, modulated voice cut into this ancient rite of death, "Let the
girl go, Garou." The werewolf turned almost nonchalantly, to see what
bothersome insect had deigned to interrupt his feeding. After all, he was
Storm-of-Rage, accounted the mightiest of his tribe. He had little to fear
from other Garou, let alone mundanes. He almost laughed when he saw that
Crystal's would-be knight in shining armor was a slim bespectacled man
wearing a stained lab-coat. The man held an Inthaca shotgun in his hand
pointing at Storm-of-Rage's chest but the Garou was not afraid of a
mortal's plaything. When the man beheld the warped form of Storm-of-Rage,
he yelled, "By the Lord, a Black Spiral Dancer!" and discharged a round at
the tainted werewolf.

 His buckshot met only empty air however. Before he could blink,
Storm-of-Rage casually leapt over the lethal cloud of flying lead, grabbed
him by the head and slammed the man into a wall. Bone gave way with an
audible snap and the man slowly slumped down the wall, leaving a trail of
blood. Storm-of-Rage licked his chops, pleased at the unexpected piece of
meat that lay in an ever-widening pool of blood at his feet. He would
devour the Mundane-after he had dealt with Crystal. He turned to find her
in Lupus form, preparing for combat. Before Crystal could blink, he was
upon her, administering his favorite maneuver, the Entrail Rend. Crystal
gasped and fell to the floor, stunned by the speed and savagery of his
strike. She watched impotently as her vision started to blur. Before the
darkness overcame her she heard the discharge of a pistol as if it were her
death knell.

The light slowly filtered its way into her vision as Crystal slowly and
painfully opened her eyes to survey her surroundings. Immediately, her
superior senses began processing information, even in her debilitated
state. The place smelt of antiseptics and medicines but underneath it all
there was a musty smell. "Where in the heck am I?" She asked her self as
she took in the room's d�cor or rather the lack thereof. Soft, soothing
music played in the background and the walls where a gentle blue. Aside
from her bed, some medical equipment and a few potted plants strategically
positioned to break the monotony, the room was bare. 

"Who ever made this set up really took pains to make the people here well
at ease," she mused. Her sharp ears picked up footsteps outside her door
moments before it swung open. Crystal quickly shut her eyes and calmed her
breathing in order to feign sleep. 

The door opened silently on well-oiled hinges. A young, pretty buxom
brunette stood in the doorway as Crystal fluttered her eyelids and
pretended to slowly awaken. "Teacher, she's finally come around," the
brunette called out in a melodious voice. The man from the previous
encounter entered the room. Crystal's eyes widened with shock when she saw
that he was still among the living. She could attest to Storm-of-Rage's
strength and she did not think that a mere Mundane could survive his
attentions. Upon closer examination, she noticed that he had not escaped
unscathed, his gait was slow and halting as if he was struggling with great
pain and his skin was unnaturally pale. 

Crystal was not in such great shape herself. Her abdomen had been bandaged
and a drip was attached to her left arm. Being Garou herself, she knew that
she would eventually heal even from the most grievous wounds but in her
mind a tiny voice told her that if she was left to die in that alley would
she have long joined her ancestors in Gaia's eternal hunting grounds;
preternaturally fast healing or no. Her pride swiftly quashed that voice.
She decided against projecting hostility and went with the "dazed
damsel-in-distress" routine.

"Where am I?" She asked in a halting voice that was not entirely faked. 
"You are in my lab, Miss... "       
"Crystal, Crystal Demeter."
"Miss Demeter, I am Percevial Promethus and you are currently residing in
my humble abode."
"You keep cardiometers in your house?" She smirked wryly as she gestured at
the device next to her that was monitoring her heartbeat."
"I am a doctor. I live in an apartment above my clinic."
"Oh."

His explanation was superficial at best and did little to assuage her
suspicions. How could he survive an attack by a Garou? She HEARD his neck
snap, any mundane would have been felled by such an attack and yet, here he
stood before her relatively unharmed. The only viable explanation would be
that he was NOT a Mundane. If he is not human then what was he? His scent
was wrong for another of Gaia's children or one of those blood-sucking
leeches that preyed on humanity. He was not rotting so he was not a Risen
and he was not of Changeling blood either. That only left the meddlesome
mages. She silently thanked the Auspice that allowed her to study under the
Oracle. Her teachings held her in good stead and allowed her to identify
most of the supernatural threats that roamed the world.
 
She slowly replayed their last encounter in her mind. He did not succumb to
the delirium when he beheld a Garou's Crinos form like most Mundanes. He
knew of the Garou and of the Black Spiral Dancers. "Is he of the Wyrm or
against it?" She mused. She was in Lupus form when she passed out so he
knew that she too was a werewolf. All this knowledge made him a most
dangerous enemy, or a very useful ally. Knowing all this, she supposed she
should not have been surprised by his next question.

"So tell me, what's a Black Fury doing here in Ontario, so far from her
native home? The cities are usually the province of the Glass Walkers, your
tribe leaves this place well enough alone." 

THAT certainly gave Crystal pause. This man knew of the tribes and could
place her accurately as a Black Fury. This man could easily jeopardize her
mission. She toyed with the idea of eliminating them but there was no honor
in such a deed. The giggling brunette with a vapid vacant expression was no
threat. And how powerful a mage could he be if he needed a shotgun to
protect himself? Besides, as loathe as she was to admit it, she DID owe
him. Perhaps if she told him just enough of the truth, she could recruit
him to her cause.   

"One of the sacred Cairns has been under heavy attack, one that is guarded
by members of my tribe. My elders sent me to this place in order to recruit
the help of the local Glass Walkers and perhaps if I am lucky, a Silent
Strider or two."

"Rare indeed does the tribe that spawned myths of the Amazons seek aid.
This Cairn must be exceedingly valuable if you are willing to swallow your
pride to deal with Mongrel-born filth such as the Glass Walkers. This
invasion force must be formidable in the extreme. Black Spiral Dancers
reinforced by Banes perhaps?"

Crystal could not stop herself from staring at him. This individual knew
far more than was prudent to reveal. The way he described the Glass Walkers
echoed the sentiments of her more hide-bound pack mates. His description of
the Cairn's attackers was not that far off the mark either. Tainted
werewolves and some new type of fire-spewing demons have already decimated
her pack. Then she remembered the words of the Oracle. "Be wary of Mages
who promise aid. They have ways of draining the mystic energies of a Cairn
dry to power their infernal magicks. Truck with them at your own peril."
Then suddenly something clicked in Crystal's mind. That archaic speech
pattern reminded her of the Oracle. If he were as old as the Oracle, that
would make him centuries old and a mighty individual indeed. She made a
mental note to proceed with all due caution.

"You appear to be a Mage of some skill. Don't deny it, I can smell the
musty old tomes that most Mages have a fetish for. What can we offer you in
order to enlist your help in the coming struggle?"

Shock registered on both Percevial's and the brunette's faces for an
instant before they collected themselves.

"I must ponder on this for a time. Rest well in the meantime, Lara here
will attend to you if you need anything," he said as he gestured to the
brunette who no longer had the vapid expression any longer. Instead, her
look was meticulously analytical as if she were examining this from all
angles. Under her scrutiny, Crystal felt uncomfortably like a bug in a bell
jar. In the blink of an eye, an apparent air-headed bimbo morphed into a
calculating, formidable individual, she would bear much watching in the
coming times.

Looking at the G-Shock watch that she acquired for its sheer practicality
(Its kinda hard to estimate the time of day by looking at the sun when you
are in a building.) she found that she had been unconscious for quite a
length of time, three whole days in fact. 

Only after the next dusk did Percivial return to give his reply. He warned
that his aid would not come cheaply. Worried that he would demand a
powerful fetish or worse, sexual favors in return for defending the Cairn,
Crystal waited in apprehension.

"Miss Demeter, I will help your pack to defend the Cairn until such a time
that the current threat has been quelled. I will also help you negotiate
with the Glass Walkers of the city. My price for this is thus: At any one
time, I may demand a service from your pack that must be freely given and
honorably accomplished if not by you than by your Tribe. Do you freely
agree to my terms?"

As he spoke, every syllable reverberated with power. Crystal had no doubt
that he had cast some sort of dweomer to render this verbal agreement more
binding than the Fetters of Fenris. It was the first time that Crystal had
had any indication whatsoever of his true power. She was hesitant to
entangle her pack as pawns of some two-bit spell-flinger but what choice
did she have? The situation was desperate. Heck, with three days gone by,
Crystal wasn't even sure that her pack had survived. He even threw in
negotiations with the Glass Walkers to sweeten the pot. Oh what the hell,
even if this deal turned sour she could always kill him right?

"On behalf of my pack and my tribe I accept." 

"So it has been pledged, so it shall be done."

At this point, he grabbed her right hand with his and Crystal could have
sworn that his hand had glowed for a moment.

"Lara inform the Council of my whereabouts and doings. My new associate and
I leave at moonrise. Crystal you are probably healed enough to travel I
presume?"

Truth be told, Crystal did not feel one hundred percent healed but she
gritted her teeth and growled, "naturally." She swung herself off the bed
and irritatedly ripped off the drip. "Ready when you are," she said
sardonically as she motioned to the door.

"I shall gather certain items that can aid in your cause. Lara, escort her
to the entrance if you please?"

As Lara and Crystal walked down the hallway, Crystal could feel the
hostility radiating from Lara like a black sun. When they reached the
pinewood door, Lara slammed her hand into the wall in front of Crystal's
face.

"Should I discover that my teacher died due to your treachery, do not
expect either you or your pack to live to see the next moonrise." The steel
in Lara's words belied her now once more vapid expression. Crystal looked
Lara squarely in the eyes and was assaulted by fear, a rare occurrence in
her young life. She had little doubt that the woman or whatever she was
would fulfil her promise.

"Your 'teacher' knew better than to question the word of a Black Fury. We
are honorable warriors, not assassins."                

"Good," Lara said coolly and removed her hand from the stone. There etched
in the concrete was her palm print driven so deep that Crystal could almost
see the fingerprints. 

"Ah I see that you ladies are 'bonding' as these New Ageists put it. Shall
we leave or do you want to get in touch of your inner child first?"
Percevial reappeared with a satchel, a shotgun and ceramic armor underneath
the lab coat. Crystal stifled a giggle. Her new ally looked like a
mad-scientist-turned-urban-warrior. 

The meeting with the Glass Walkers went well, much better than she had
anticipated. Crystal had entered the city feeling that the others sent one
of their youngest members on a fool's errand to save her from what they
expected to be a protracted slaughter of Gaia's defenders. Crystal expected
at best a few meely-mouthed excuses but little in the way of real help.
Perhaps an adventurous youngling to join her so that he could get laid once
he was 'a knight in shining armor who rescued the damsels in distress in
the hour of their greatest need'. At worse she expected to be laughed at
and thrown out of the city on her shapely little behind. Instead, they seem
almost cowed in the presence of Percevial and almost to a man,
err...werewolf they pledged their help.

Leading a small army of werewolves and one silent Mage, she trekked to the
Cairn, heart hammering in fear that she would find the mangled corpses of
her sisters strung from tree to tree. She was fearful that the Cairn had
already fallen under the sway of the Wyrm and that it would spew out vile
horrors that would make short work of her 'war party'.

Crystal nearly jumped out of her skin when a voice rang out a most clich�
phrase.

"Halt! Who goes there?"

Noticing that Percevial was rolling his eyes with disgust muttering
something about "having the imagination of a brick" Crystal called out in a
ringing voice, "It is Heart-of-Crystal with the requested reinforcements."

A lithe figure sprung a treetop and swept Crystal into a crushing embrace.

"Sister, you have returned! If only you had not. Our situation is dire, so
many of us have fallen. I pray that you have not come home only to die."

"Fear not Jean, I've brought help in the form of the neighboring Glass
Walkers and one Mage." 

"A soceron here? What did you have to promise him to elicit his aid?"

"A easily fulfilled promise. Do not mock him lightly, he's the guy who took
out Storm-of-Rage."

Jean's eyebrows rose skeptically at that but she was willing to take her
sister's word for it. 

Percevial immediately made himself useful by healing some of the more
mauled Black Furies, even restoring those who were comatose. The pack had
been whittled down to eight and many of them bore wounds caused by silver
bladed weapons. The Glass Walkers automatically spent some time on their
backs healing broken noses and the like after some lewd suggestions to the
high-strung Black Furies. Their foes attacked under the cover of darkness
and the Cairn's defenders where awaiting the night with dread.  Percevial
channeled their nervous energies by requesting them to dig a seven-foot
ditch around the Cairn and the Black Fury encampment.

 Their endeavors were rewarded with a big ring in the ground and a few
cryptic promises from their resident magic user. All of the Garou gave him
a wide berth, especially the Glass Walkers. When queried on their behavior
they revealed that an exiled Shadow Lord had once duped them into removing
the resident criminal organizations for him so that he could become the new
lord of the city's underworld. When Percevial found out what was really
going on, he char-broiled the Shadow Lord into werewolf flamb� and warned
the Glass Walkers that if they ever tried to slaughter the Mundanes
wholesale like this again, there would be hell to pay.

Unable to assuage her curiosity of this strange man who had already saved
her life once, Crystal approached him and tried to strike up a conversation
as he was drawing some weird symbols in the ground while chanting in
something that sounded like Latin.

"So tell me, what kind of magic do you know?"

"My magicks generally are elemental in constituent, they rely on command
over the forces of nature." Seeing her lost expression, he sighed in
exasperation, "In layman's terms, I'm a Druid. Oh well, I've already
completed the summoning circle, I guess its time to give these skeptics
something to gawk at."

"Spirit of Earth, Gaia's bones, arise!" A towering behemoth of solid rock
erupted from the ground dripping soil and clumps of grass.

"Spirit of flame, Gaia's soul, arise!" A raging inferno shaped vaguely like
a man appeared before him. Before long, all four primordial elementals
where in attendance as the stunned Garou could only sit and stare on with
awe. 

"I think that your old friends are going to be in for a liiittle surprise
tonight."             
 
Next he had them pour water into the ditch and told them to ready as many
missile weapons as they could. 

Night came almost too swiftly, her ebon cloak stealing away the caressing
warmth of the sun. The sky was overcast, hiding the full moon that so many
had equated with werewolves. A low-throated howl broke the deathly silence
that had pervaded the camp. Red eyes glowing with hatred's light was the
only warning of approaching doom as the Black Spiral Dancers came in swift
as death itself, confident of finally claiming their prize. They found the
pathetic remnants of the Black Furies pack that defended this particular
Cairn stoically preparing for their last stand. Most of them contemptuously
strode over the water-filled ditch that they had earlier constructed. What
did these morons think they were? An army of termites? Suddenly a voice
chanted arcane syllables and the water in the ditch rose as an impenetrable
wall, cutting the Black Spiral Dancer Pack in half. 

The expression on the invaders' faces was enough to make even a face of
stone break into laughter. The cloak of invisibility that Percevial wove
over the twenty odd Glass Walkers dropped without fanfare, tripling the
defending forces. Winged horrors out of the nightmares of the most depraved
of men winged forth from the heavens intent of ripping the defenders to
bloody ribbons but were suddenly besieged from all sides by the elements
themselves given shape and form. 

Their brothers where futilely clawing at the impenetrable wall seemingly
formed of muddy water. Their winged allies that had brought pack after pack
of Black Spiral Dancers to the brink of victory had been effectively
neutralized. They now faced the grim defenders of the Cairn, among them
Black Furies who had seen almost two score of their sisters die under the
claws of other packs of Black Spiral Dancers and where practically
slavering at the prospect of revenge. The battle for the Cairn had been
costly to the Wyrm as well; four entire packs had perished trying to seize
the Cairn from those stubborn bitches. But they were the Alpha pack of the
region's Black Spiral Dancers, some of his mightiest minions.

 Their leader Storm-of-Rage was gone but they were still a mighty force.
About thirty Ahroun against roughly ten females. They were expecting an
easy victory, maybe some fun with any prisoners that they manage to subdue
instead of slay. Now the tables were turned ten Dancers against thirty
Garou and now it was THEM who had the powerful ally. More arcane syllables
were heard and then a conflagration consumed those on the other side of the
wall of water. I think that the muttered words of one particular member of
the pack summed up their feelings best, "Oh f***ing crap!" 

After they had summarily massacred (the Black Furies refused to call that a
battle) the demoralized Black Spiral Dancers, the nine (including Crystal)
Black Furies turned their attention towards the sky battle. Many of the
winged horrors were no more but one in particular was rallying the
survivors for a mass charge. He (it?) shielded most of his (its?) demonic
brethren from the flames of the fire elemental whilst tearing it to bits
with its claws. Its other friends did not fare so well but when this
particular monster evaporated the water elemental with a sustained burst of
hellfire, the tide started to turn swiftly. All this while Crystal that
Percevial was observing the winged monsters with a look of recognition, and
one of growing horror. When he saw the same individual destroy two
elementals, he realized that this was their leader. The leader was about to
turn on the air elemental when he shouted out something intelligible and
leapt into the sky 

"Oh no you don't," Percevial shouted as his body transmutated into a corona
of living lightning and arced forth to meet the leader with a blinding
flash. The charred, blacked form of the monster fell to the ground as the
living lightning reconstituted itself into Percevial.

"Anyone else want to play at being the hero tonight?" He asked menacingly,
hanging in midair. His body was beginning to shimmer with electrical energy
again, just as it did prior to his attack. If it were possible to read fear
in the hideous faces of the air-borne demons, one would probably have said
that they were terrified. A pair swooped down to collect the charred
carcass of their fallen lord and the rest fled as fast as they could,
ignoring a vestigial memory in their minds screaming at them to pay homage
to the floating figure before them. 

The ragged cheer of the Gaia's werewolves was cut short when the imposing
figure of the Mage suddenly when limp in mid-air and crashed to the ground.
Crystal ran to his side immediately, her concern surprising all but
herself. She found Percevial trembling uncontrollably, his complexion even
paler than when she had first met him.

"Are you going to be fine?"

"Yeah, just expended too much energy I guess. Turning into a living
lightning bolt does take quite a bit out of a person. Listen, take all of
the bodies of the Seraphim and burn them do you hear me?"

"The what?"

"The Seraphim, those things with the wings."

She helped him to stand unsteadily on his feet as the others rushed to
comply with his request. They had seen the wisdom of listening to this
individual's 'advice' no matter how ludicrous it was or how it grated on
their pride.                   

The carcasses of the Black Spiral Dancers were added to the pyre as the
Garou grimly disposed of their fallen foes. Percevial sat aside staring
silently at the flames, the very picture of meditative contemplation.
Crystal made her way to his side and sat beside him. The occupied Percevial
hardly registered her presence. 

"Why did you tell us to burn the bodies of those winged monstrosities? What
did you call them Seracream?"

"Seraphim," Percevial instinctively corrected. "They are a breed of
vampire. Wounds from combat can drive them into a dormant state known as
torpor but unless vanquished by the light of the sun or cleansing flames,
they may arise again after some time."

This gave Crystal quite a bit of consternation. If vampires and the Wyrm
had joined forces, the days of the true Garou were numbered. "You seemed to
recognize them. And fear them."

"I hardly fear the Seraphim. Rather I fear what portents their appearance
carries." Percevial debated inwardly the wisdom of continuing. He had
already said far more than was prudent but something in this particular
individual intrigued him and caused him to lower his guard. "Not a good
thing," he decided. "Oh well, there is no harm in telling her."

"Sometime during the Dark Ages, a new clan of vampires arose from the ashes
of an older clan. They were the Tremere and they were a clan of knowledge
and enlightenment. Showing a mastery of magick that was unparalleled by any
other clan, they were immediately assailed from all sides by vampires
fearing their power. Lacking numbers and refusing to use ghoul pawns as
cannon fodder, the Tremere created a new bloodline of vampires known as
Gargoyles. The Gargoyles ensured the Tremere's survival but most of the
clan treated the Gargoyles as little more than slaves. It was inevitable
that these beings, denied an identity, freedom and even the memories of
their mortal lives would someday rebel against their creators. The clan
paid a horrible price for hubris on that dark day and from thenceforth the
Gargoyles were free beings. However, one of their number mingled his blood
with the tainted vitae of a bloodline of infernalists known as the Baali.
Thus the Seraphim was born of this single Gargoyle warped beyond anything
that could even make a claim of humanity. Where the Seraphim are, the Baali
are undoutably near by. Dangerous foes, the Seraphim, utilizing demonic
powers from the Abyss along with the physical prowess granted to them by
their creators."     

Crystal just stared into space trying to digest this deluge of information.
She knew that vampires organized themselves into Clans but she did not know
of any of their names or abilities. Previously she had thought that Clans
were divided along personality lines much as the Garou were. She had learnt
more about the Garou's ancestral enemy in one conversation than she had in
all the time she had spent with the Oracle.
"You speak as if you were there."

Percevial grinned, "I once met a friendly Gargoyle. His relation of the
events surrounding his bloodline and their subsequent freedom was most
informative and....passionate."