A new year and it was black. A New Moon left the sky a blanket of distant diamonds and the city dark. On a rooftop Luna held a cat in her arms, gentle stroking it's twitching body. She had been hungry and taken just enough from the creature. It was kind enough to be there when she needed it. It was still alive because the notion of drinking until it died seemed unwise to Luna. Something about being the end of a year and the beginning of a new one had given check to her urges.

Looking out across the bay her attention is dominated by Alcatraz Island. It was a dark mass with a few lights. It was a prison, a place of cages, suppressed emotions and cold. The island itself was cursed, at least that is what people say in the bars on the water front. It's said the tribes that tribes that once lived in the bay held it cursed and rarely traveled to it. Perhaps that is where the Lion is? Caged somewhere on that island? Perhaps the Devourer is the curse? A cage of stone and earth holding it in place?

So many questions that need answering. The Lion, the Chinese artifacts, the shapeshifter. So much and never enough hours. She turned, shifting in her perch and looked back at the buildings of the slums and then beyond and up to the homes of the rich kine and kindred. How little any of them know what's under their feet and what is looking down at them.

In the desert people knew better. They weren't lulled into dumbness by all the possessions they amassed. In the desert the more you had, the more it weighed you down. The slower and closer to death you were. People knew they weren't alone. Coyete and his people with their tricks and magic. White Wolf and his kin, dancing and prowling along tracks under Mother Moon. Wicked yee naaldlooshii, walking their Ways. In the old places, the deep places and the high places, those behind in the First World whisper to those that can still hear. And their were people like Luna, like what she had become.

Luna can't quite place them in the cosmology as she understood it. She had been calling herself a skinwalker. That was partially true. In time all Gangrel gained the ability to shapeshift but since not all 'vampires' or 'kindred' had that ability it wasn't a definitive label. Yee naaldlooshii was perhaps better thought not perfect. It would do for now. She knew some Kindred called themselves Damned or cursed. Cursed by the White Man's god. Well he's not my god and he hasn't been in these lands all that long. There had been a gangrel outside of Tombstone that had answered her a few questions and told her a few stories. That one had scared her. He fed on other kindred like she did on cats and horses. He was old and powerful, but he had stories. Stories of the coming of the white man in the south and tales of ancient Mexican kindred that ruled before the coming of the white kindred.

So then what am I? Us? The Fourth World is ruled by Death. Is what is in us a little piece of him when we come back to our bodies? An interesting notion but didn't feel exactly right either. Death was wise, the 'beast' as others called it seemed wild and blinded by raw rage. Perhaps we're what's left from of the earlier worlds? Echoes from wickness and anger that drove Man to new ones.

Luna pondered these things, watching the city sleep. She would dig deeper to find answers. Whatever she was, she was going get the better of it. That what the Dragons seemed to be about. Yes. I'll become better and then I'll hunt down Gorehowl. Then we'll see. Everyone will see.