Her back was pressed against a tree and she tried to still her beating heart so that her predators wouldn't hear. They were sensitive, the Black Spirals who sought her, but they couldn't sense her as she got closer to Turtle Pond. She could hear them slathering as she crossed behind the weather monitoring station, Belvedere Castle. Her legs were tired, but she started running for the pond's edge. Her torn 501's caught on an ragged bush near the water's edge and she stumbled.

The Spirals had been chasing her since July 23rd, the last Moot. She knew why they chased her, they wanted to turn her from Gaia to the Wyrm. But that was true of all Garou. Caitlyn would die before she let that happen. She knew why they chased her specifically; that was because her mother had been Garou and her father a wealthy human, most of who's family were Wyrm servants.

She was rare. Not in that she was get of Garou and human, but that she had a place in the tribes at all in spite of her father's family.

It was a well kept secret, the true lineage of Caitlyn Munro. Her father had bought her way into the Glass Walker tribe by virtue of obscene amounts of money. Her mother had borne a son, long before Cait herself was born and Ian, her brother, had been lost somewhere in the Umbra for years. Cait had never met her Bone Gnawer brother, but she had pictures and stories and maintained a healthy hatred of the man who had been raised in Garou society with the freedom Cait had never known. His side of the story didn't particularly matter. She didn't care that as a Bone Gnawer he was at the low end of the Garou totem pole. She only knew the jealousy that burned inside her for his privileges and base acceptance.

She was not like most children of werewolves and humans who led normal lives without feeling the call of the moon; but everyday she wished she were. Cait had come to tentative terms with being a werewolf when she turned eleven and her body began it's changes. She wasn't sure she would ever come to terms with what being a werewolf made her do.

She lay on the grassy ground of the park in mid-summer and tried to catch her breath when the howling began. The horrifying sound reverberated through the trees and she felt her hot blood run cold. It was only a few more feet to the edge of Turtle Pond and she scrambled onto her hands and knees, shaking as the Symphony of the Abyss sounded around her.

She looked up, across the pond and her dark eyes flew wide in the moonlight. "Simon!" She screamed as she skidded to a stop at the pond's edge. Seeing the man with whom she'd spent the last several months living was somehow reassuring. The one Garou who accepted her totally without question was holding an Uzi. Somehow he'd known she was in trouble. "Get out of here!"

Simon "Flash" Gentle smiled as she yelled her warning. He could see his lover across the pond and the dark, shadowy forms of the Spirals that crept up behind her. "Don't worry babe!" He called to her, confident. "Everything's under control! Just JUMP!"

Cait knew better than to trust him in this. He was always overly optimistic when it came to the odds. She heard saw Simon's face go paler in the light as he moved toward the opposite edge of the pond. These Spirals would not live long, but they were here, now in his park and it was clear he felt the fear of the Symphony clutch at his soul.

"Shit," she murmured. Gathering her lithe body, Cait jumped into Turtle Pond.