The Camarilla lost much ground along the East Coast in its recent war with the Sabbat. But the sect claimed one of the greatest prizes in the world control of New York City. Of course, the Camarilla was never entirely absent from the city, but in recent years no clan held so firmly there, among the enemy, as did the Tremere. Now the story of their covert activities and greatest victory is told.

New York, A City Teetering on the Brink

A fledgling prince restlessly pacing the battlements. A Tremere novice walking the razor wire tightrope.

In the wake of the Camarilla liberation of New York, the real battle is just beginning. A floodtide of refugees, immigrants, opportunists, prospectors, pariahs, carpetbaggers, Anarchs, pioneers and outlaws washes over the city-each of the newcomers intent on carving out his own piece of the blood-red Big Apple. Everyone has a dream, or at least a scheme.

Antigone Baines thinks of herself as the veteran of many lifetimes. There is a trick to picking your way along the Widow's Walk-the treacherous precipice between the quick and the dead-and dancing away again, unscathed. A magic of names. Among the halls of the Chantry of the Five Boroughs, Antigone is usually called Novicia in accordance with her rank in the steel-jawed hierarchy that she has come to know as the Tremere Pyramid. Sometimes, in scornful whispers, they call her Jackal, because that is her job: Pyramid security. Like Anubis, the laughing, jackal-headed, warden of the dead, Antigone keeps careful guard over the house of the undying. She cannot, however, anticipate that her job is about to become rather more complicated.