You haven't really lived until you've pushed through the swinging doors of a roadhouse saloon and heard the music stop as everyone looks up at your shadowed figure. That Carly Rae Jepsen cover band will never forget what happened that night, as you strode into the back room and forced a dealer you knew—a guy you knew from junior high with blond dreadlocks and a fondness for mysticism—to give up the location of the "horseman" or give up two fingers. He chose the former. Lucky him.
You made a lot of enemies that night, but this is a war—and your side is losing. And your gamble paid off: as the ice wind dies down and the snowflakes drift to the cold ground, you see your prey clearly for the first time.
It's a man in white arctic camouflage, face hidden by goggles and a fur-lined balaclava. Despite his modern assault rifle and the ruggedized tablet computer on his hip, he's mounted on a tall black horse. He's thrust what appears to be a steel lance into the snow. It whips back and forth in the cold wind. Yet, somehow, flies swarm around him in thick black clouds, droning so loudly you can hear them.
You know you should focus on the moment, but your thoughts turn to everything you have learned since your First Change. About the enemy. About Gaia, the living earth. You were not always what you are now…
Your parents weren't really religious, but they caught the tail end of the Satanic Panic when they were kids back in the '90s, and they…just didn't like you. They never liked you, your aggression and arrogance, how easy lies came to you.
You didn't much like yourself, either. So when your parents threw you out—sent you to live with your grandmother, but you knew what they were doing—you walked away from everything. Grandma's jewelry got you over a grand at various pawn shops. You used that cash to get started.
You didn't know what you were doing at first, of course. You got arrested twice, but you were still a juvenile, so you were able to wiggle out of the mess. Then you got smart, focused your anger, learned to move fast and talk faster, learned who stayed bought. But when you closed your eyes, you saw teeth and blood.
And when that drifter found you one night, you thought you were dead, or worse. But Clay said he'd been watching you for a long time. He'd known your grandmother, he said. She was dead. You didn't care and neither did he, but he had to take you home. You knew that he had answers, knew it in your bones and your teeth, but he wouldn't say anything. Just took you back to your parents. He was stressed out, dirty, creepy, constantly looking over his shoulder, and your parents didn't even thank him.
Ungrateful. Unimpressed. Tried to get you ready for the funeral, even though, who cares? What did grandma ever do that was so important? And you just got…so angry.
Clay never really forgave you for what happened. As if it were your fault. As if he didn't have teeth on the inside, just like you.
Where is Clay now? He should be here with the others. With the pack. Where is everyone?
Next
Pushing away memories of your First Change, you sniff the air and look around. Nothing but swirling snow, and the horse and rider picking their way past the dead trees. It's time to act. Clay says you've disappointed him twice before. He says he wants you to really join the pack, but not as a failure. Not as a burden. Everything you've done these past few weeks has led up to the destruction of this monster.
You chose this night for a reason: the same moon hangs in the sky as the night of your First Change. A moon that gives you strength and focus. That defines who you are as one of Gaia's champions. The Garou. The werewolves.