Nick has decided that being in Houston is more important than gaming, and doesn't show up. Both Bruce (Cyrus Billings) and Tim (once Shepherd) show up, and Dave (Jack Cross) joins the game.
Jack Cross is originally from Los Angeles, but has since been forced to flee to Houston. Most of his unlife has been spent fighting tooth and nail against whatever enemies of the Camarilla he can find in an effort to garner enough favor to become an Archon. A long-ago Childe of Prince David, he has returned to San Antonio to try and curry additional favor with his Sire. David is quite happy to see him again, as he has all manner of "little jobs" for his wayward Childe.
Personally, Jack is a vampire with impact. He's a huge black guy with a penchant for driving a '76 Mustang and wearing badass clothing (carved haircut, black trenchcoat, armored vest).
Laurence Archer is a fanatic. Once a curiously-slender gargoyle studded with razor-sharp spines, he has worked hard upon himself with Vicissitude to rebuild himself as a scruffy, wily fellow with an 80's scruffy-bad-boy attitude going. He has done a number of slimy things in the past, most recently helping a Caitiff friend of his escape a blood hunt (primarily through Vicissitude).
In his time, he has managed to acquire two ghouls (one researcher and one mechanic). He has also developed substantial contacts with regional newspapers and television stations, and has some ability to influence them all across Texas.
Jack thunders into town in his '76 Mustang and quickly makes his way to the Dominion to speak to his Sire, Prince David. He first makes reacquaintence with the Prince's two long-time hatchetmen, Crask and Sattler. Crask looks like Artemus Gordon (from The Wild, Wild West) and has a dramatically pleasant manner despite his rather messy job. Sattler (the mean one) looks and acts much more like the Wild Man of the Misty Mountains, an effect that doubtless improves his effectiveness in his chosen profession to no end.
Prince David meets with Jack in his library. David comments that Jack surely wants to engage in high-profile, risky assignments. Coincidentally, he's got just the thing: there is a group of extremely effective witch-hunters operating in the area. There are about five of them, and with their attack last week upon Vincent's Haven have destroyed a total of four Kindred over the past five years. They are well-trained and equipped, favoring MP5 submachine guns, body armor and tear gas. Their normal strategy is to attack in daylight, overwhelming the ghoul defenders with tear gas and concussion grenades. Their most recent victim was a Malkavian named Shepherd. Because they took his body away, it is possible that they are trying to question him. They also attacked the Tremere Vincent Cray, who has subsequently gone to ground in the Tremere Chantry. Nastasha (the Chantry head) is currently making all the normal excuses to prevent anyone from getting access to him.
The Prince has already had Crask investigate any common enemies the victims of the witch-hunter attacks have had within the community. Unfortunately, there are several: a couple of local Brujah clan members (including Laura Jones), Beezel (a local Tremere) and one Malkavian. In the case of Beezel, in one case the emnity was great enough that it would not have been surprising for the matter to end in the death of one side. The other two involved only disagreements over control over a business that could have been resolved quietly. The Brujah Laura Jones is a recent Embrace (only eight years ago), and is something of a social climber willing to step on a few heads if it gets her what she wants. The removal of the two Brujah slain by the witch-hunters made it substantially easier for her to gain a position of responsibility in the local Brujah community. The Brujah Frank James, an avid supporter of Laura Jones, seems to be amused by taking the role of threatening force behind her.
The Prince believes that this particular witch-hunter group is controlled by Kindred, especially because their targets seem to be so well-chosen. Also, most real witch-hunter groups seem to accelerate their attacks against Kindred as they gain knowledge, something that these fellows have not done.
Jack inquires as to any other coterie mates Vincent Cray and Shepherd might have had. The Prince gives him Cyrus Billings' name, mentioning him as a local Gangrel. Jack then asks what he should do if he should manage to locate Vincent. The Prince urges him to start out with polite conversation, but if that fails he shouldn't worry about calling in Sattler to pistol-whip him for a while.
The Prince concludes with the thought that the witch-hunters probably did San Antonio a favor by offing Shepherd, as he was the Childe of a particularly terrifying Elder who may now elect to spend less of his attention on the area. His opinion of Vincent is possibly less charitable: he sees the Tremere as a craven whiner who contributes little or nothing to the community. He is unsure about Cyrus: the Gangrel could be either a real future asset or an accident waiting to happen. He emphasizes that the last witch-hunter attack was extremely obvious, carried out in broad daylight in a prominent neighborhood, and needn't be repeated. Even worse, the Toreador Archon Malice is in the area to investigate the Fall of El Paso. David is eager to ensure that she has no reason to pay attention to San Antonio.
Jack arranges to purchase a warehouse near the old cattle yards to use as a Haven. He reasons that the out-of-the-way locale will make it less-likely that vengeful forces will be able to follow him there. Besides, even if they do the collateral damage will not reflect badly upon the Prince.
Laurence Archer drives into town from Houston, promptly landing in the Prince's household to introduce himself. He meets with both Sattler and Crask, who respond to him as appropriate to their respective idioms.
Oddly enough, the Prince appears fairly happy to see him. He gets right down to business, and requests permission to live in San Antonio. He explains that he left Houston because, "Bad things happened, feelings were hurt, and things just sort of fell apart." He expands upon this rather vague statement with the explanation that he and his onetime coterie were savaged in a bungled attack upon a local Sabbat pack. The attack went so badly that the surviving members of the coterie concluded that someone must have sold them out. None of the coterie could trust each other enough to want to stay together, so they scattered to the four winds. Laurence further notes that he just wants to put Houston behind him.
Prince David assures him that he is welcome to stay, provided no Houston-related troubles follow him. Laurence asks if he may bring his two ghouls, one researcher and one mechanic, into the city as well. Prince David gives him permission. The Prince then asks, "What Clan are you, anyway?" Laurence explains that he does not know his Sire, but a Tremere who tasted his blood told him that he is a Gargoyle. To counteract the obvious consternation that appears upon Prince David's face, Laurence promptly offers his services as an errand boy or freeland triggerman. He also promises that he knows how to keep his mouth shut, at least until someone hauls out Dominate or Presence. Prince David smiles politely, explains the standard rules, and bids Laurence good evening.
When Laurence emerges from his interview with the Prince, he is intercepted by Sattler. Sattler introduces himself, then asks, "Got any hobbies?" Laurence reluctantly admits that he plays pool. Sattler immediately offers, "Hey, we've got a pool table back there. Let's play a game!" Laurence agrees. Along the way, Sattler draws Jack into the game as well.
The three of them then play pool for about 20 minutes, while Sattler politely interrogates them about their plans in the city. By the end of the game, Laurence is convinced that Sattler doesn't really want to play pool, and in fact doesn't even like Laurence. Jack is likewise convinced that the only reason he's there is because it would have been impolite to leave him sitting in the waiting room all alone.
Cyrus crawls his way out of the ground on a pleasant Friday evening, says hello to his ghouled dogs, and heads out to try and figure out who's trying to kill him. After Otto admits that he doesn't know anything about people trying to off him, he elects to hunt down some of Angel's guys. He heads over to a bar frequented by Angel's goons, with then intention of causing trouble. He succeeds beyond his wildest dreams. He steps into the bar, a place where every sign is in Spanish, including the bar's name, and sits down next to a fellow he recognizes as one of Angel's goons. The situation quickly degrades: the entire bar goes silent as Cyrus walks in and tries to order beer. The goon next to him tells him to leave, then breaks a mug on Cyrus' face when Cyrus refuses. Cyrus is undamaged. Cyrus, convinced of his own unstoppability, simply grapples the man and drags him outside while three of his friends attack with improvised weapons. He gets outside the bar with a screwdriver planted in his side, but nothing that seriously impacts his operations.
With most of the bar population convinced that whatever business Cyrus has with Angel's man should be a private matter, Cyrus drags him into a disused G. W. Junior's hamburger joint to interrogate him. The gangster promptly pulls out a pistol from an ankle holster and shoots Cyrus in the face, doing no damage. Cyrus politely asks the man to drop his gun; the fellow complies. Cyrus then asks him where his boss is, to which he answers that he doesn't really know, and even if he did he couldn't tell. Cyrus, frustrated, satisfies himself by beating the guy senseless and feeding him a point of his blood. Before he leaves, Cyrus gets the guy's name from his driver's license. Cyrus departs convinced that he has 1/3 blood bound Ricardo Carranza to him.
Shortly after Cyrus has his "encounter" with Angel's goon, he feels an unconquerable pull drawing him towards the Dominion. Cyrus follows it and finds himself upon the Prince's doorstep. Crask opens the door and asks, "Why are you here?" Cyrus explains, "I don't know, buut someone wants me here." Crask responds, "Ah. I see. Please come in."
With a minimal delay, Cyrus is brought in to speak to Prince David. The Prince essentially asks him what he's been up to, any why he has been so hard to find. Cyrus responds by pouring out his various troubles, including his multiple run-ins with car bombs, the structure hits upon his garage, and the fact that his cellphone was disconnected.
Prince David appears suitably concerned. He has Crask give him a cellphone, just to make sure that he remains reachable, then has Crask take a statement of all the things that have happened to him.
Near the end of the conversation, Cyrus happens to mention that he was a cop once. The Prince asks where, and Cyrus replies, "North Dakota." Prince David then asks if he was Embraced in North Dakota, to which Cyrus answers that he was Embraced in Chiapas. The Prince is a touch taken aback by this admission, and asks if Cyrus knows who his Sire was. Cyrus allows as how he doesn't know, but does know that just before his Embrace he was gunned down by a group of Mexican gangsters.
The Prince leaves the conversation a touch more suspicious of Cyrus and his past than he had been before.
Jack Cross and Laurence Archer head over to the City Council building, which happens to be one of the city's Elysiums. They intend to look for the Brujah Laura Jones. At the City Council building they are met by a pair of park rangers who ask them a few questions, then provide directions on how to find Ms. Jones in the lounge area on the fourth floor. They tell the characters to simply act like they belong there should they run into anyone. On the way, it is clear to the characters that at some point in the past the City Council voted that a lot of money be spent upon this building.
In the lounge, the characters see a short, red-haired woman who must be Laura Jones. She is speaking to two men in cheap Cambodian suits and sneakers. A tall, husky fellow with a handlebar moustache stands nearby. The red-haired woman introduces herself as Laura Jones, and then introduces everyone else as two of the three Hansen brothers and Hank Ketchem (the dark-haired bull of a man). During the introductions, a staggeringly foppish guy with long, blonde hair, moustache and goatee steps in to join the informal reception line. He says that his name is Gauche, which somehow seems extremely appropriate.
Jack asks Laura about the deaths of the Brujah Kathleen Brown and Allan Scanlan. He implies that she gained substantially from their deaths. She counters with the thought that they were young, inexperienced, and unlucky: they must have done something that tipped the witch-hunters off to them. She dismisses their deaths as mere inconveniences, and goes on to dismiss the two other deaths attributed to this particular witch-hunter gang, James Johnson of the Toreador and Shepherd of the Malkavians. She concludes by denying that she knew anything about their deaths.
When Jack brings up the matter that she may have gained substantial influence from the deaths of the two Brujah, Laura again dismisses the argument, then deftly sidesteps. She explains that at the time of their deaths, she was equally ranked to both of them, but that both of them were really stand-up types. She then points out Ketchem as an example of a real suspicious troublemaker among Kindred: "He goes out of his way to make sure that people get hurt, just so they get his message." She notes that he probably also wouldn't have gotten along with a boy scout like Allan. She finally admits that if anything happened to Ketchem, she would benefit, but that she'd still need to investigate the matter.
Jack finishes with Laura, then calls up Cyrus on his new phone. Cyrus agrees to meet, and suggests that they all meet at the entrance of the AA #1 Junkyard. On the driver over, Laurence calls up his researcher ghoul and reads off all the names of the Brujah he just me. He asks the researcher to find out whatever she can manage about these folk. The researcher comments that the fact that Laurence cannot provide full names or other data to start with, and this will make progress difficult.
The characters meet each other and develop a healthy quantity of distrust in the process. They exchange information, particularly about the various attempts against Cyrus' life. Cyrus suggests that Beezel is behind the three bombing attempts, as the assassin in the last attempt mentioned Beezel's name. Laurence suggests that the assassin may just have been trying to frame Beezel, a suggestion that Cyrus thinks about for some time. By the end of the conversation, everyone has decided that the thing to do is drive to the Tremere Chantry and interview Beezel.
The Tremere chantry is about eight blocks from the City Council building. The building proper is an old 17th century chapel, surrounded on all sides by an eight-foot masonry wall. The entire property is surrounded by streets and dotted with large, spreading trees. The gate is remote-controlled, and features a small annunciator box for visitors.
Jack pulls up at the gate, and introduces himself to the voicebox. He informs the guard on the other end that he wishes to speak to Nastasha or Beezel. A few minutes later, the gate opens and the guard instructs them to drive through and park in the visitor's slot. Inside the compound, it is clear that all the windows in the building have been bricked over and further reinforced with iron bars.
The characters are met by Isaac, who very much looks the part of a Jamaican vodoun gang leader down to the sapphire teeth. Isaac explains that he can't invite anyone inside, as the Clan is doing some renovation inside. He suggests that Beezel is currently tied up in a ritual, but can be available in perhaps forty-five minutes.
When Beezel finally emerges, he is dressed in the hippest nightclub outfit he can find, including a shirt that cannot be buttoned past his navel and a surprising collection of gold medallions. Jack asks Beezel about his recent problems with "hunters." Beezel proceeds to list off the whole collection of attacks that the characters have made against him, including the time when they put sugar in his gas tank and the recent incident in which they harried him for fifteen minutes on the freeway with automatic weapons firing caseless ammunition. Jack then asks what Beezel knows about the attacks on other people. Beezel immediately uses this opportunity to mention the attack upon Vincent's place. He freely admits that Vincent is a gutless weasel, and is certain that he set Shepherd up. After all, he points out, Vincent put Shepherd in a vulnerable upstairs bedroom where he was just asking to be slain. Jack comments that nobody seems to know much at all about these hunters. Beezel then goes off on a tirade about how it's often hard to track down witch-hunters, because they normally hit Kindred without a lot of coterie connections.
During the whole discussion of Vincent's many flaws, the characters notice that Isaac is standing to the side with eyebrows raised. He is clearly fairly surprised that Beezel is bad-mouthing another Clan member in front of outsiders.
At the end of the conversation, Beezel asks if the characters could give him a ride to the Prince's Haven so he can put in his required appearance. He explains that his car isn't working right now, and his truck recently got shot up. Laurence drives him over and waits for an hour until his interview is done. Laurence notices that Beezel looks quite tired after the interview. Beezel tells Laurence that he'll get a ride home with Crask.
Shortly after Beezel's interview is done, Sattler calls Jack cross and offers him a number of interesting tidbits. In particular, the Prince is convinced that if Beezel is behind the hunters he's impossible to break. He has managed to determine that Beezel is not behind the bombings, but is behind a certain amount of political and financial monkey business directed towards Vincent's influence (including an IRS audit of Vincent's PAC and a bogus paternity suit). Jack asks Sattler what he knows about the Brujah Angel. All Sattler knows is that he's a gang leader with a lot of money on tap. Sattler isn't able to find any useful information to indicate why Angel might have been gunning for the other Kindred slain by the witch-hunters. Sattler assures Jack that Beezel has already been reprimanded for his extra-curricular activities.
Having finished with Beezel, the characters drive over to Carter Towne, the public housing project known to be frequented by many of Angel's goons. The place proves to be across the street from the old, abandoned, city coliseum. The characters park in the coliseum lot and walk across four largely-deserted lanes of traffic to enter the complex. They note that there is a tremendous collection of derelict vehicles up on blocks scattered throughout the open spaces in the complex. Oddly, there are also a few surprisingly nice vehicles around. The local inhabitants that are visible are generally engaged in activities unlikely to make them candidates for Citizen of the Year, including one hispanic guy who seems to be selling drugs and a couple of black guys warming themselves by a fire in a car trunk.
Cyrus is able to identify the dealer as one of Angel's ghouls. As soon as the dealer sees the characters, he runs. Jack, Cyrus and Laurence give chase. Eventually, they catch him and Laurence interrogates him in Spanish. The dealer insists that he doesn't have a boss, and that he paints houses for a living. Even after threats, the man only admits that he's afraid of his boss, but doesn't know where he is. Jack then makes him hold a message to give to his boss the next time he calls: "Come out of hiding and speak to me or I'll destroy your business. - Jack Cross." He is forced to have Laurence repeat the message to the man several times (in Spanish) before he the dealer finally gets it right. After the dealer runs away, Laurence realizes that the guy probably does know how to speak English.
About forty-five minutes later, Jack Cross finds a message on his car phone machine from Angel. Angel sounds a bit dubious, but leaves a phone number. Jack calls back. Jack pushes for a face-to-face meeting, a demand that Angel only reluctantly agrees to. He says that he will call tomorrow around 21:00 and provide a location that he feels is safe. Angel comments that he's being hunted by a sociopath named Cyrus, and guesses that Cyrus might be sitting next to Jack. At this point, Cyrus grabs the phone and threatens Angel for bombing him three times. Angel appears geniunely confused about Cyrus' threat.
Angel calls at 21:00 as agreed, and tells Jack that the meeting will be at the Alamo. Jack picks up Cyrus and Laurence and heads over. They meet a park ranger in front of the building. He checks Jack's ID, then lets them all in. As soon as they get into the building, both Cyrus and Laurence light up with disciplines to search out whatever ambush Angel has put in place. Laurence turns on Visceratika and identifies all two other people in the building. Cyrus reaches out with Animalism and summons up a rat to sit on his shoulder. They find Angel standing in the building alone.
Angel is dressed in high gangsta style, with a leather jacket, smoked glasses, and a razor-waxed goatee. The instant Jack and Cyrus walk into the room to see Angel, Laurence steps back and hides himself against the wall with Visceratika. The conversation starts out badly and goes downhill from there. Angel accuses Jack of being, "The Prince's new nigger." He also denies knowledge of either witch-hunters or firebombs, despite Jack's assertion that everyone else seems to think that he's suspect #1. Angel explains that he's never hired assassins, and in fact is simply a businessman who wants to keep to himself. Cyrus protests that Angel has hired men to set three car bombs on him. In response, he calls Cyrus a, "fuckin' coyote-man" and suggests that if he's getting bombed, it's his own damn fault.
Jack asks Angel about the deaths of Kathleen Brown and Alan Scanlan. Angel says that Brown did a lot of scutwork, messenger stuff, and probably poked her nose into something she shouldn't have seen. Scanlan he describes as a nice kid, but stupid as a brick. He makes the disparaging comment that the fellow probably didn't have a single ghoul in his haven when the witch-hunters came in.
Angel continues to whine that he's got to go into hiding because he's got some crazy Malkavian following his guys around with a camera and a boom mike, taking pictures and going back to his stupid-ass coterie mates saying, "Hey! Angel's guys are selling drugs!" He continues to complain about a whole series of things the characters have done to him over the months. He speaks in generalities, never referring to anyone by anything more specific than Clan, but has very complete knowledge of their activities.
In more recent outrages against Angel, some rat redneck psycho went into a bar some of his guys frequent, dragged one of his ghouls out, taking a screwdriver in the back in the process, then proceeding to beat the guy silly. He complains that he went through a lot of trouble to calm down a potential Masquerade breach over the whole screwdriver-in-the-back thing, and never even gets a lick of thanks for it.
Overall, Angel comes off as a whining bastard.
As the characters leave the Alamo, a loud gunshot rings out. Cyrus whirls and staggers as he takes four levels of damage (after soaking seven levels). The whole plaza is full of people, most of whom are standing about disoriented. Cyrus dodges behind a car to heal the damage while Jack and Laurence stand in the open, looking for the shooter. Laurence spots a good shooting point at the top of a nearby six-story building. Unfortunately, the building top is unlighted, making it difficult to see if there is a shooter actually there.
As Laurence heads towards his car, a bystander near him takes a bullet through the chest. Laurence moves to pull Cyrus into better cover. As Laurence moves him, Cyrus spots the shooter right where Laurence thought he should be thanks to the Gleam of Red Eyes. Bullets continue to rain down, striking Jack in the shoulder and a series of bystanders. Jack heads towards the building the shooter is using, hoping to get a chance at the sniper. He reaches the doorway with only the one bullet in him, then switches on his Auspex senses to smell his way to the sniper's position.
Laurence spends his efforts dashing about the crowd, looking for other members of Angel's gang, concluding after some time that the only attacker is the sniper on the roof.
Cyrus finishes healing himself, then transforms into a bat and goes flying up to look for the shooter, reaching the roof substantially before Jack does. He quickly notices that the shooter has placed a bar on the outside of the roof access door. Even worse, the door is covered by both a claymore mine. Finally, the sniper appears to have changed his focus from the street to the door. Cyrus flaps down to the edge of the roof behind the sniper, transforms back into man-shape, draws out his pistol, and shoots the claymore mine. It explodes in a satisfyingly loud bang. Cyrus follows up by shooting the sniper dead in one shot.
Disoriented by the sudden light and noise, Laurence looks up to see a pistol-packing figure on the roof. He reacts instantly, snapping off three shots, only then realizing that the figure was Cyrus. Laurence is quite glad to discover that his shots missed their mark.
Cyrus and Jack inspect the shooter's body. The shooter is carrying a large bolt-action rifle, a ski mask, and no body armor. He appears to have been Hispanic, with lots of tattoos and a single gold tooth. He looks to have been about 24 years old. His clothes feature immaculate black tennis shoes, gansta hip pants, and no ID. On closer inspection, the rifle proves to be a beautiful weapon, a custom-made hunting rifle (DIFF 7; DMG 10). Cyrus immediately resolves to keep the thing: he locates a good hiding place for it (one where the cops are unlikely to find it), then changes into a bat and flies away
Jack makes good his escape down the fire escape. He heads towards his car, finds that the police have cordoned off the area and are keeping people inside. He evades them by slipping through the back door of a coffee shop.
Laurence calls Crask to inform him what happened, mentioning Jack's name, but not Cyrus'. Crask says he'll be on the scene soon.
Meanwhile, Laurence spots a well-dressed, pale-skinned guy asking bystanders questions. Lacking Auspex, he isn't able to determine if the guy is Kindred, but is able to trail him fairly effectively. Unfortunately, the guy notices him, speaks to a couple of cops, and prevents Laurence from interfering further by having the cops hassle him for ten minutes, at which point Sattler and Crask appear on the scene. Laurence points out the guy to them, and learns that he has been following Douglas, "one of our people."
Laurence ends up explaining the evening's events to Sattler in detail, including the parts about the sniper and the explosion on top of the building. Sattler compliments Laurence on keeping the situation from blowing out of control, then heads off to help clean the mess up.
To complete the story, Jack ends up in a conversation with Crask over the phone. He explains that the characters were meeting with Angel in the Alamo, which was Elysium territory. In Jack's description, Angel was a belligerent asshole during the conversation, then had one of his men ambush them in the plaza outside (still technically within Elysium territory). To spare Cyrus from undue attention, Jack takes credit for detonating the claymore mine and killing the sniper. He claims that he's able to identify the shooter as one of Angel's men based upon the fact that he has a tattoo common to those gangsters in Angel's employ.
Crask's final question is about stories that someone in the plaza was shot in the head, and the lack of a body to match these stories. Jack explains that he got shot in the shoulder, though not badly, and that someone nearby got shot in the chest. He suggests that the witnesses might have been confused in the chaos, and misreported either of these incidents. Crask hangs up, satisfied with this explanation.
Each character gains four experience points.