Wife

Katherine is aprofoundly potent Cainite for someone no other Kindred has ever heard of before. And that’s how she prefers it. In fact, should no one ever learn the true extent of her personal prowess, so much the better. Over eight centuries ago, a young woman named Ecaterina was Embraced in Prague following her near-rape at the hands of a pair of Ventrue-paid mercenaries. The mercenaries both met their just ends, but not before shattering Ecaterina’s jaw as she tried to resist them. Ecaterina’s Brujah sire did what he could to repair the damage, but medicine at the time was spotty at best. Despite her physical shortcoming, however, Ecaterina rose to a prominent position among the Kindred. Her native origin, as well as her Brujah powers of charisma, made her something of a local hero to the Kindred of Prague’s Old Town, much to the frustration of the city’s Ventrue prince. The prince himself had lied to the city’s mortal rulers about the source of money used to make developments or so goes Ecaterina’s claim of which she informed the leaders of the dynasty. Her ruse to depose the hatedventrue failed, however, as the mortal rulers saw in the prince a convenient ally, while all Ecaterina represented was a firebrand. Finding unlife increasingly unpleasant in Prague, Ecaterina eventually fled, aligning herself with the nascent Anarch Revolt. Marauding with the anarch “sabbats” across the Old World countryside, Ecaterina turned her back on the unwholesomely artificial (‘society” the Kindred had built for themselves, instead preferring the honesty and freedom the anarchs offered. Her allegiances with the anarchs lasted for perhaps two centuries until the Convention of Thorns. As the anarchs bowed down to the ‘Camarilla” that had suddenly proclaimed itself lord over all Cainites, and even her fellow Brujah heeled at their Ventrue and Toreador masters’ feet, Ecaterina went berserk upon hearing the news. She formally pledged herself to the cause of the anarchs-cum-Sabbat, rising to become a significant member over the centuries. Europe slowly but inexorably became Camarilla domain as time passed, however, despite the fervor of the Sabbat. As the Old World became more and more hostile to the presence of the Black Hand, Ecaterina was among the first of the immigrant Kindred to the New World. She stayed inNew York City, helping to establish the growing community as a haven for Sabbat strength. Elders of the sect recognized her contributions as well as her longtime service to the Sword of Caine and made her a bishop of the city. In the nights of centuries to come, she would share that title with other luminaries of the Sabbat cause, including Archbishop Polonia himself. To Ecaterina’s growing disappointment, the Sabbai seemed to be changing its face over the years. The seci suffered internal dissent, culminating in three civil war! and costing untold unlives. It appeared that the Olc World cause to which she had rallied vanished in thc presence ofNew World lawlessness. Tzimisce andlasombr;. dominated the sect numerically, making it more of i vehicle for clan politics than ideological revolution, anc too often the ages-old foe of elder oppression fell by thc wayside for the sect’s elders to push their own agendas. Ecaterina’s ultimate disillusionment with the seci came at the latter half of the twentieth century. A raw fledgling, only nights since becoming True Sabbat, chal. lenged her for the title of bishop at the Palla Grad. At first, Ecaterina simply sneered at the neonate, knowing that with a flash of her talons she could end his unlife. T h e Cainites of New York had grown jaded, however, anc many jeered her for refusing a foolish Monomacy that she had every right to deny. She looked to her fellow Sabbai prodigy, Polonia, who could only shrug and give a discon. solate look. She shook her head and accepted, hurling thc stupid Cainite from an overpass to the howls of the assembled mob. After defeating the challenger, she turned to face the crowd and addressed them. “Is this all that remains of the Great Jyhad? Are we so sluggish and contented that instead of fighting our holy cause, we fight each other? You are jackals! You are beasts and spoiled fledglings and abortive failures. How any of you can call yourselves True Sabbat and not end your unlives with purifying flame, I don’t know.” Then the Black Hand struck. A pack of Assamite antinibu, led by a Lasombra, poured out of the shadows behind Ecaterina and struck her down with darkness, poisoned vitae and brutish Roman swords. In the chaos the fall of a bishop! -scores of Cainites fled every which way, separating the assassins from their trophy. Ecaterina’s CHAPTERTHREE: ALL IHL B ~ m m 61 body or her ashes, assuming she had met the Final Death were nowhere to be found. Whenkaterinarose, almost 30 years had passed. She awoke in a cold concrete cell, a disused electrical room in a subway tunnel. By her side lay an empty leather-bound book, the sort of thing one keeps a diary in. Returning to the surface world, Ecaterina remained incognito. She recognized none of the Cainite faces she saw in 1996 New York. That she had somehow survived was a miracle-and she also owed her unlife to whomever had dragged her to torpid safety, though she had no idea who that was, the book being her only clue. Such being the case, she couldn’t reasonably present herself to Polonia, assuming he was still bishop, because the assassination attempt might have been his. So it was that a broken, empty Ecaterina seized upon news of recent clashes with the Camarilla in New York City to reinvent herself as Katherine Wiese and pose as a member-in-exile of the Ivory Tower come to help the cause and reclaim her lost status. Carefully avoiding the archbishop she found to still possess his unlife, she crept quietly into a position of prominence with a few meager victories over the Sabbat to her (new) name. Many Kindred assume her to be an ancilla with prodigious luck. Only one knows her to be the Cainite she truly is, but if he hasn’t met his own Final Death, he has yet to expose himself. Tonight, Katherine has become a moderate voice among the Damned, very active in the politics of the undead. She keeps her strengths to herself, knowing that a powerful Caini- er, Kindred who exposes herself merely places herself in the line of fire. She is a skilled player at the Jyhad, now willing to sacrifice pawns in her ruses much as the leaders of the Sabbat sacrificed her own hopes. To Katherine, however, the end of the Jyhad is not winning, but surviving, and she will throw whomever she must into the fangs of the Anted- elders, that is, to ensure her own success. Also, she intends to find out to whom she owes this %eon," as it’s called here in the Camarilla and negate that debt as soon as possible by the most expeditious means. Finally, she must resolve the issue of Polonia. While she was bishop, she respected his means if not his ends, but she has no idea whether or not it was he who ordered her eliminated. At the same time, she must maintain enough cover for herself not to expose her survival to him before she determines his guilt or innocence. Katherine’s success is too recent for other Kindred to know just how mercenary she is. While they know that she is of some means and reputation, her cutthroat ways have not yet become so commonplace that her fellows distrust her immediately.

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