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You step out from your bedroom. Gerard is taking off his jacket, placing it carefully on a hanger in the closet. It looks like he won't be going back out for a while. "What's going on, Gerard?" you ask.

He slips behind his desk and sits down with a sigh. You can tell that he's been busy all day—the life of a vampire's retainer is rarely dull. "Ms. Alisha Grey was attacked by a coterie of Tremere this evening," he says. "After she thwarted the assassination, the perpetrator fled into the sewers. Ms. Grey followed, along with her ghoul, Jonathan, and some mortal bodyguards. There was an entire coterie of Warlocks down there, hiding out in flagrant violation of the Fifth Tradition."

It's just like Bouchard told you. You suppose that means his information is solid, or at least that part of it. "They arrived and stayed in the city unannounced," you say. "That's not going to sit well with anyone, and it's a bad look for Corliss."

Gerard nods. "Alisha escaped and went directly to your sire. Jonathan is dead. Ms. Corliss had no choice, ma'am. She's ordered a raid to drive the Tremere out of Ottawa. You'll be joining them first thing at sundown."

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Chapter 7 Hospitality

Though your corporeal body rests still as the grave in your bed, your slumber is restless, mind filled to overflowing with a deluge of questions without answers, half-remembered glimpses of your mortal life, and anxieties about the Blood Hunt that will greet you when you wake. Of all the Kindred you might have expected to call a Hunt on a coterie of Tremere, Corliss would be dead last on your list. Of course, she hasn't been given much choice in the matter—Alisha saw to that. Was the Diva really attacked as she claims? You find it hard to imagine Ms. Grey running off into the sewers in pursuit of a would-be assassin, but stranger things have happened during your un-life here in Ottawa.

The whole situation fits with Bouchard's claims almost too perfectly. Had he been hoping you'd pass the information on to Corliss? The old Sewer Rat said that he respects the Tremere's position in the Camarilla, if not their invasion of his domain, but it wouldn't be entirely out of character for him to devise a way to remove the intruders and let the chips fall where they may once the Warlocks are the problem of surface-dwellers.

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