Time of Judgement: Vampire. Gehenna: the Final Night
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A Race Against Armageddon For millennia, vampires have fed on the living, hidden in the shadows of mortal society. Legends say the undead descend from Caine, the first murderer portrayed in the Bible, who passed on his curse through his blood. Those same legends speak of a final reckoning, when Caine and his mad children will rise from slumber and consume all the undead. Vampires call this time Gehenna. For the vampire Beckett, a researcher among the undead, it means one last shot at understanding the mysteries of the get of Caine—and at outrunning his own sins. Vampire: Gehenna, the Final Night is the first act of the Time of Judgment, telling the story of a wide-ranging Armageddon among the supernatural entities of the World of Darkness®. Act One of Three dark fantasy ISBN 1-58846-855-0 $7.99 U.S WW11910 A Race Against Armageddon For millennia, vampires have fed on the living, hidden in the shadows of mortal society. Legends say the undead descend from Caine, the first murderer portrayed in the Bible, who passed on his curse through his blood. Those same legends speak of a final reckoning, when Caine and his mad children will rise from slumber and consume all the undead. Vampires call this time Gehenna. For the vampire Beckett, a researcher among the undead, it means one last shot at understanding the mysteries of the get of Caine—and at outrunning his own sins. Vampire: Gehenna, the Final Night is the first act of the Time of Judgment, telling the story of a wide-ranging Armageddon among the supernatural entities of the World of Darkness®. Act One of Three dark fantasy ISBN 1-58846-855-0 $7.99 U.S WW11910 ARIARI MARMELLARI MARMELLMARMELL Act One of the Time of Judgment Vampire: The Masquerade Fiction from White Wolf The Clan Novel Saga A comprehensive, chronological collection of the fourteen-volume best- selling Clan Novel Series. Includes all-new material. Volume 1: The Fall of Atlanta — foreword by Stewart Wieck; new material by Philippe Boulle Volume 2: The Eye of Gehenna — foreword by Eric Griffin; new material by Stefan Petrucha Volume 3: Bloody September — foreword by Anna Branscome; new material by Lucien Soulban (forthcoming) Volume 4: End Game — foreword by Gherbod Fleming; new material by Janet Trautvetter (forthcoming) The Victorian Age Vampire Trilogy A Morbid Initiation by Philippe Boulle The Madness of Priests by Philippe Boulle The Wounded King by Philippe Boulle The Clan Tremere Trilogy Widow’s Walk by Eric Griffin Widow’s Weeds by Eric Griffin Widow’s Might by Eric Griffin The Clan Lasombra Trilogy Shards by Bruce Baugh Shadows by Bruce Baugh Sacrifices by Bruce Baugh The Clan Brujah Trilogy Slave Ring by Tim Dedopulos The Overseer by Tim Dedopulos The Puppet-Masters by Tim Dedopulos The Dark Ages Clan Novel Series Dark Ages: Nosferatu by Gherbod Fleming Dark Ages: Assamite by Stefan Petrucha Dark Ages: Cappadocian by Andrew Bates Dark Ages: Setite by Kathleen Ryan Dark Ages: Lasombra by David Niall Wilson Dark Ages: Ravnos by Sarah Roark Dark Ages: Malkavian by Ellen Porter Kiley Dark Ages: Brujah by Myranda Kalis Dark Ages: Toreador by Janet Trautvetter Dark Ages: Gangrel by Tim Waggoner (forthcoming) Dark Ages: Tremere by Sarah Roark (forthcoming) Dark Ages: Ventrue by Matthew McFarland (forthcoming) Dark Ages: Tzimisce by Myranda Kalis (forthcoming) For all these titles and more, visit www.white-wolf.com/fiction Prologue: Twilight 7 Part One: Nightfall 35 Part Two: Midnight 149 Part Three: The Witching Hour 235 Epilogue: Dawn 333 © 2004 White Wolf, Inc. All rights reserved. Cover art by William O’ Connor. Book design by Mike Chaney. Art direction by Richard Thomas. Copyedited by Ana Balka. Editorial intern: Jonathan Laden. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical—including photocopy, recording, Internet posting, electronic bulletin board—or any other information storage and retrieval system, except for the purpose of reviews, without permission from the publisher. White Wolf is committed to reducing waste in publishing. For this reason, we do not permit our covers to be “stripped” for returns, but instead require that the whole book be returned, allowing us to resell it. All persons, places, and organizations in this book—except those clearly in the public domain—are fictitious, and any resemblance that may seem to exist to actual persons, places, or organizations living, dead, or defunct is purely coincidental. The mention of or reference to any companies or products in these pages is not a challenge to the trademarks or copyrights concerned. White Wolf, World of Darkness, Vampire the Masquerade and Vampire are registered trademarks of White Wolf Publishing, Inc. Time of Judgment, Gehenna the Final Night, Clan Novel Saga, The Fall of Atlanta, The Eye of Gehenna, Bloody September, End Game, Victorian Age Vampire, The Wounded King, A Morbid Initiation, The Madness of Priests, Clan Tremere Trilogy, Widow’s Walk, Widow’s Weeds, Widow’s Might, Clan Lasombra Trilogy, Shards, Shadows, Sacrifices, Clan Brujah Trilogy, Slave Ring, The Overseer, The Puppet-Masters, Dark Ages Nosferatu, Dark Ages Assamite, Dark Ages Cappadocian, Dark Ages Setite, Dark Ages Lasombra, Dark Ages Ravnos, Dark Ages Malkavian, Dark Ages Brujah, Dark Ages Toreador, Dark Ages Gangrel, Dark Ages Tremere, Dark Ages Ventrue and Dark Ages Tzimisce are trademarks of White Wolf Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved. ISBN 1-58846-855-0 First Edition: January 2004 Printed in Canada White Wolf Publishing 1554 Litton Drive Stone Mountain, GA 30083 www.white-wolf.com/fiction This is the Time of Judgment Since the earliest nights, the undead have stalked the living, feeding off their blood to survive. According to the oldest stories, these vampires descend from Caine, the Biblical first murderer. Passing on their curse when they choose to remake another, the Cainites have become a parasitic culture existing in the shadows of history. In the modern nights, they lurk unseen among the mortal herd, forming their own sects and societies. For centuries, the greatest of these—the Camarilla—has enforced the Masquerade, a grand tradition enforcing secrecy and discretion on the undead. Even the Sabbat, the other great sect, built on the precepts of vampiric supremacy, enforces its own version of the Masquerade, lest the mortal herd rise and destroy the parasites among it. But greater threats loom on the horizon for the undead. The same stories that tell of the Curse of Caine also speak of his return, and that of the Antediluvians, the ancient vampires he first spawned and who will rise to consume the young. The Book of Nod, most celebrated of all ancient vampiric texts, calls this terrible time Gehenna, and lays out signs that will presage its coming, signs that many say have come true. These are the Final Nights and, at long last, judgment is at hand. A Matter of Perspective… Each act of the Time of Judgment trilogy adopts the point of view of the supernatural creature whose story it tells. Astute readers will note nods and small references to the larger supernatural world, but most vampires, werewolves, and even mages find their attention drawn to their own problems in these terrible last days. Thus, the three acts of this trilogy are more akin to three facets of a larger happening than sequential sections of a single tale. Each builds upon the others, but tells its own story. prologue: twilight Quiet! Hear the raven’s cry! The stillness of the wind rising on the street the towers hide the darkness of the day. When Lasombra’s dreams come true on the day when the moon runs as blood and the sun rises black in the sky, that is the day of the Damned, when Caine’s children will rise again. And the world will turn cold and unclean things will boil up from the ground and great storms will roll, lightning will light fires, animals will fester and their bodies, twisted, will fall. —The Book of Nod, “The Chronicle of Secrets” Taurus Mountains South-southwest of Kayseri (and Mt. Erciyes), Turkey And on top of everything else, it was hot. It shouldn’t have been. This late at night, the temperature in the mountains and the desert surrounding them should have dropped substantially. Tonight, though, the heat clung stubbornly to the mountainsides, refusing to let the setting sun drag it down, and the desert winds succeeded only in pushing that heat around in pockets of warmer air, rather than dispersing them entirely. The heat made an already difficult task that much more uncomfortable, and Beckett took a moment out of his preparations to scowl at no one in particular. Beckett wouldn’t really stand out in a crowd. Brown hair just a bit longer than was currently in vogue, brown jeans, a white denim button-down that wasn’t currently buttoned, hiking boots and a backpack nearly large enough to crush a man who tried to put it on at the wrong angle. About the only truly unusual feature were the sunglasses he wore even late at night, an attention-getter he’d never have worn if they hadn’t served the very specific purpose of hiding his inhuman eyes from mortal observers. For similar reasons, he wore a pair of gloves to conceal the coarse hair and thick nails that marked his hands, a further legacy of his blood’s bestial heritage. Still, these oddities aside, he looked for the most part like a hiker, perhaps a European traveling the globe to “find himself.” Actually, Beckett knew exactly where he was. He was, in fact, traveling the globe to find something—or, in the more recent past, someone—else.