The normal group turns out: Tim (Shepherd), Nick (Vincent Cray) and Bruce (Cyrus Billings). We don't actually manage to turn out on time, but we get pretty close.
Vincent learns that the ghoul Cyrus killed last session was Martin Krebs, and belonged to Karen. She ranks in the Chantry at the same level as Vincent. He discovers that the guy was a phenomenal private investigator, with a tremendous knack for being in the right place at the right time when he was looking for something.
Krebs had just recently returned from Van Horn, a town about 80 miles from El Paso, heading towards Austin. He had been investigating a number of deaths that happened there about a month ago. Several ghouls and humans belonging to Austin Ventrue disappeared there, and are suspected to have been killed. The town is not actually in Sabbat territory, but is getting close. Karen presents a CD-ROM that was found upon Krebs' body. The CD-ROM holds a series of digitized video clips taken from a convenience store surveillance camera. The first clip shows a group of seven surprisingly unconcerned seven people in paramilitary gear carrying MP-5 submachine guns and wearing ski masks. A hotel is visible through the store windows. They say nothing, engage in some preparations, then head out across the street. They carry themselves with amazing nonchalance, considering the way they're carrying automatic weapons in a public place.
The second clip is timed an hour later. It shows the same group of figures returning to the convenience store. Two of them are not wearing their ski masks. One appears to be a young Asian woman with heavy features, the other is a muscular black male. The group are carrying two bodies and several extra firearms. A before they act with surprising nonchalance, enough so that Karen is totally convinced that they are Kindred acting under Obfuscate.
This event (and the video) are about a month old. The ghouls who disappeared included one private investigator working for Sattler and two thick-necked guys good at security procedures. Based upon Martin's notes, they checked into the hotel but never checked out. Their vehicles were gone in the morning, and their rooms had been stripped of practically everything movable. Their hotel is the same one visible in the surveillance tape, and the dates match exactly.
Karen notes that she allowed Martin to have a lot of independence in the way he operated. As a result, she didn't have a chance to speak to Martin and get his full report before he was killed.
The Tremere take this information with a variety of attitudes, ranging from Beezel's wry amusement to Vincent's blunt bafflement. Nastasha actually provides some useful information: she knows that the black man and the Asian woman are Caitiff who had been in San Antonio about five years ago. They disappeared because they committed certain acts regarded as criminal by the Prince. She thinks it strange that nobody had heard much from them since then, though it looks clear that they were exiled by the Prince.
After the weekly Malkavian meeting of last session, Screamin' Joe calls Shepherd aside to ask, in very subtle terms, if he's decided which Path he wants to follow. Shepherd is on the verge of simply blurting out, "Oh yes! I very much want to follow the Path of Death and the Soul!", but Joe quiets him with the warning, "Don't say anything! Talk around it! These people are all crazy, and they all have Auspex." Shepherd takes this warning, and verges into a nonsensical discussion of a time-share condominium development called, "The Death and the Soul Estates." The conversation makes even less sense after that. Joe arranges to meet with Shepherd tomorrow night, with the "blueprints."
After speaking with Joe, Shepherd heads over to Brain to chat with him. He finds Brain dressed stylishly in his lab coat, anti-ESD shoes, and Brain Augmenter. Shepherd asks him about several gadgets he's interested in. He finally establishes that he wants one of the Animal-Repellent devices Brain had used some time ago. Brain agrees to deliver one, and proposes that in return Shepherd should kill the first three people he meets who are named Vincent. Brain then relents, and merely requests that Shepherd do some kind of favor for him in the future. He provides Shepherd with some instructions: the device uses 4 D cells and has four settings: one for insects, one for vermin, one for all animals, and one that shouldn't ever be used.
After meeting with Brain, Shepherd calls up Don Chapman, his gunstore ghoul, and asks about caseless assault rifles. He's conceived a desire to have a half-dozen of the things. Don notes that H&K made about 120,000 of them before the German government decided they didn't really need new guns. It will take him about two weeks to get some. Shepherd orders a half dozen of them, with 6000 rounds of ammunition.
The group gets together at Mad Dog's to plan their immediate future. They have a weary argument over the relative merits of taking down Angel (whom Cyrus is convinced has to be the Sabbat mole) over simply heading to El Paso and taking the town apart.
The characters finally decide to try and spy on Angel for a couple of weeks, until Shepherd's guns show up. At that point, they will worry about what to do next. Shepherd proposes to pull his tracking devices and whatnot out of mothballs on Thursday, two days hence: he admits to having a previous engagement (with Joe, though he doesn't tell the other characters that) on Wednesday.
During the conversation, Cyrus gets a call from Slim, the Urban Cowboy Gangrel. Slim wants to meet with him. They agree to get together the following evening at the Palomino, near the pool tables. Slim explains that they've already repaired most of the fire damage.
Vincent is studying his books on Wednesday when William Drucker, the Tremere who originally taught him Auspex, saunters in and sets himself down in a manner that suggests he's going to wrest Vincent's time and attention away from his work for a long time. It soon develops that William is really just interested in which books Vincent is looking at. William happens to mention that Beezel often comes into the library to study the exact same books that Vincent had just been studying, often flipping to the exact same page that Vincent had been looking at. He suspects very strongly that Beezel is also liberally using Auspex upon them to try and figure out exactly what Vincent is trying to learn from them. Vincent, paranoid as always, notes to himself that he has actually studied a fair variety of information, not just on how to hide his aura after committing diablerie.
Screamin' Joe picks Shepherd up early Wednesday evening, then drives off north on IH35 for about an hour. Shepherd notes that Joe drives so fast that even folks who speed get upset with him. After some time, Joe heads east on a side road and drives for another hour, finally reaching a small town and an ancient, weathered church. Joe explains that it's time for a service. Shepherd nods and takes great comfort in the knowledge that he has two guns on his person, one of them loaded with phosphorous rounds.
The two of them enter and encounter a third person inside, dressed entirely in black from his sneakers to his executioner's hood. Another form, apparently that of a teenage male, is tied up on the altar. Joe introduces the hooded figure as "my assistant", and has him retrieve Shepherd's "New Bible." Shepherd has an uncomfortable feeling that the assistant is one of the Kindred who put him through the last ordeal he went through.
The "bible" the assistant comes up with is a heavy hardbound book titled "Death and the Soul" filled with descriptions of death and suffering straight out of the Middle Ages. Joe tells Shepherd must read the book and embrace the lessons inside. In the meantime, "tonight, we shall begin." Shepherd spends the next couple of hours helping Joe's assistant remove the life from the captive victim. Shepherd shudders as he feels another scrap of his humanity fall away (one point of Humanity and a matching point of Conscience).
Before the end of the evening, Joe gives him another book of blank pages. He instructs him to use it to record all his thoughts about his new philosophy. Shepherd takes the moment to write: "My sire is a total psychopath. So is the hooded guy. I am slowly going insane, but I think I'm going in the right direction."
Just before Shepherd and Joe leave, Shepherd notices the assistant piling the body of their victim into a large copper tub and spreading lye over it. Curious about this procedure, Shepherd goads him until he actually says, "You talk a lot."
Cyrus ends up playing pool with Slim at the Palomino for a bit. After a polite interval, Slim asks Cyrus if he's ever met either John Keeler or Nicholas Keeler in El Paso. Slim explains that John Keeler would have been the Prince of El Paso at the time, and that Nicholas was both his natural and his vampiric Childe. Slim notes that the Keeler line of the Ventrue are well-known for Embracing their mortal children. Cyrus says that he never met either of them, but did run into a bunch of Sabbat.
Slim then asks if Cyrus has ever been in the town of Van Horn, along the interstate. He claims that he's asking for the benefit of one of his coterie mates. Cyrus notes that he's probably driven through it, but never stopped there. Slim then presses, asking Cyrus why he went to El Paso in the first place. Cyrus explains that he did it on behalf of one of his coterie mates, but refuses to admit whom. Slim baits him, commenting that he's heard other people mentioning that Cyrus is a mindless goon for the Tremere. Cyrus stands firm, despite the provocation.
The conversation winds down after that. The two of them play another couple of games of pool after the conversation ends, which Cyrus loses badly. Finally, Slim makes one final request that Cyrus talk to his coterie mate. Cyrus agrees to do so, and let Slim know the outcome.
Sometime later that evening, Slim calls Cyrus back to find out if his coterie mates are willing to talk. Cyrus, who had talked to Vincent, allows as how Vincent wasn't interested in talking. Slim tries to sweeten the deal by pointing out that Ketchem knows something that Cyrus would like to know, and that he'd appreciate it if they could all meet to talk on the next evening, at 02:00 in the lobby of the Riverwalk Hilton.
The characters meet at Mad Dog's rather briefly, until Vincent insists that they meet somewhere else more secure. The group relocates to Cyrus' garage, protected securely by Shepherd's new Animal Repeller (also known as a white noise generator). Of course, Shepherd neglects to mention this to Cyrus until after he turns the thing on and drives all of Cyrus' trained rats away.
Vincent announces that Beezel is spying on him and insists that the characters kill him within the week. Even Cyrus starts to think that Vincent has taken leave of his senses. Then Shepherd proposes an alternate plan: the group needs to kill off not only Beezel, but also Maxwell and Angel. Cyrus agrees that this is a good plan, but first he insists that everyone head over to the Riverwalk Hilton to talk to Ketchem. Cyrus ends up calling on past favors to get everyone to show up.
The characters arrive at the Riverwalk Hilton at 02:00 and meet Slim in the lobby. He takes them up to room 233 to meet with Ketchem. Ketchem is very careful to only open the door wide enough for one person to enter, and then to immediately block it with his body. The characters are admitted one at a time, again with either Ketchem or Slim guarding the door. Vincent, ever the paranoid, complains at these precautions until Slim explains that they are intended to keep Obfuscators out. He then makes a point to scan the room with his Auspex, identifying one teenage black man Obfuscated in the corner, carrying a TEC-22. He points the man out to Ketchem, who identifies him as Terry, one of his Brujah compatriots.
The hotel room is fairly unexceptional, save that gray foam has been stapled over all the windows to deaden the sound and make it hard for peepers outside to see in.
Ketchem starts out by very bluntly asking, "Why did you want to go to El Paso?" Vincent acts difficult, asking him, "Who are you asking for?", but Shepherd cooperates by mentioning that they went to steal a resource from the Sabbat. After providing fairly substantial detail, Shepherd repeats Vincent's question, and Ketchem admits that he's asking for Karen. It develops that Karen is Beezel's Childe, even though there is little or no love lost between the two of them. It also develops that Lucas had been interested in Embracing Karen, and Embraced Vincent only because Beezel got to her first (specifically in an effort to get one up on Lucas). Faced with this rather hurtful truth, Vincent rather resignedly tells Shepherd, "Okay, tell him anything you want."
Shepherd obligingly pours out his story: he needed to go on an errand because he owed a debt to one of the Tremere, the black exorcist. He explains that the group went to dig up some bodies from a cemetery across the Mexican border, nearly got killed by lupines and Sabbat, then headed home. He has since decided that there have to be cheaper ways to get exorcisms done. Shepherd ends his story by asking Ketchem if this is all important because someone killed Karen's ghoul Martin Krebs. Ketchem asks, "How did you know?" Shepherd explains that one of the Malkavians found out, then bubbled out with the knowledge to everyone.
Vincent then points out that someone knew that the characters were going to El Paso, and that he thinks they were sent on a fool's errand. He as much as directly accuses Beezel of warning the Sabbat. Ketchem reacts with some disbelief: "You're saying that Beezel persuaded Isaac to send you on a trip to El Paso just so he could fink on you to the Sabbat and have you killed? Just how much do you think he hates you?"
Ketchem then takes Cyrus aside and tells him that he's in good with both Al and Doug, two local Brujah. Both of them are stand-up guys, but they have slightly checkered pasts, including a certain willingness to do wet work. Ketchem says that both of them have been approached by Angel, who was curious how much it would cost to have Cyrus killed. Angel didn't mention why, and Cyrus is local, so neither of them agreed to take the job.
Cyrus points out that he really hasn't done anything to make Angel particularly mad at him, and really doesn't even know a lot about the fellow. Ketchem tell him that Angel controls a lot of the drug and illegal alien traffic on the South side, and has a lot of money and underworld influence. He's got a lot of money to fling around, and has occasionally funded Brujah activities in the past. Some Brujah really like him, at least as much as any Brujah can like another. Cyrus asks what'll happen if Angel hires someone else to get him, and Cyrus retaliates towards Angel. Ketchem responds that some evidence would be good, but some Brujah will side with Angel no matter what. Ketchem, for his part, will loudly support Angel and then drag his feet terribly.
Just before Cyrus and Ketchem rejoin the rest of the group, Ketchem asks if Shepherd is really as crazy as he looks. Cyrus offers the following tidbit: "He's as wacky as a fruitbat." He also provides his take upon Vincent's psychology. To whit, he is a born politician, and as a consequence tends to hate everybody because he's driven to act like he likes them so much. Ketchem nods sagely and heads out. The characters depart the hotel soon afterwards.
Everyone gets three experience points. The plan for the immediate future is to get Beezel thinking Angel has something he wants. Beezel will surely do his best to weasel it away from Angel, which will get Angel visibly mad at him. At that point, the characters will be able to off Beezel without drawing attention to themselves. At some point about then, the assassins Angel has managed to successfully hire to kill Cyrus will probably appear and (assuming they don't succeed) provide a good reason for the characters to strike back at him.