We start at a party, in the VIP lounge of the restaurant Blood Red in NYC, which is a well respected Camarilla domain, home to some of the most promising New World Ventrues.

Amongst them is Magenta Jones, chief aid to the local Clan Leader, and Smith, a brilliantly successful neonate who owns the premises and is the host of the party.

The party is held in honour of one William McDermott, born an Englishman, embraced a Bavarian. Although he is young of age and frail of generation, he has done ridiculously well with some stupid Web enterprise or something, and is now being honored by his clan members across the ocean. This William is not only a royal class asswipe, he is also a direct political rival of Smith within the clan, occupying a similar niche in a competing domain and seeming to do an even better job.

Attending the party are close to thirty of the clan's finest from both continents, most of them caring less for the rivalry between Smith and McDermott than for the opportunity to play politics with one another.

In the spirit of the new-world-vs.-new-world dance, Smith is expected to humiliate McDermott in some refined way (while Magenta is expected to make sure his notion of refinement measures up to the grown-up standard). McDermott, of course, is expected to do the same, and has been allotted ten minutes of speech time to do so, so Smith makes sure he is preceded by an incredible singer that will make him sound pale in comparison. And then he fucks up with the settings of the amplification system, just for good measure. And he makes sure that a few of the waitresses cough and chuckle at the right places. And that some people will start laughing when McDermott is not at all telling a joke. Refinement galore.

And it works better than expected too. Dear William really gets annoyed, and being annoyed he blunders even more, and that stresses him even more. Stress leads to annoyance, annoyance leads to fear, and fear leads to the dark side - which is exactly where Billy Boy is heading fast.

As a matter of fact, McDermott seems on the verge of Frenzy, which is an over-reaction, no matter how you take it. Smith is too busy coordinating coughs, but Magenta quickly gives orders to evacuate the mundys (hell, Chris Rock was MCing, in a stylized innuendo to some great Ventrue's shady ancestry, or temper, or something) and get ready to contain the Bavarian Child. A bunch of mean old vampires get ready to stake McDermott at the first sign of crackage, which would make anyone nervous, so it's little wonder when McDermott gets to his punch-line, the one that is supposed to make Smith look bad, and fumbles it like mad. It's slightly more of a wonder when he empties his glass, goes into spasms, and - quite literally - drops dead.

While everyone turns their eyes to Smith - the obvious suspect - Magenta is scanning the room for “anyone doing something”. She finds nothing in the room, but she hears a thump out in the street. Smith picks up the decomposing body, but McDermott's Sire jumps on stage and takes the body from him - almost ready to voice an accusation.

There is much murmurage in the club until Clan Leader O'Hara picks up the mic to address his flock. He finds out the hard way that the sound system is still set to sound like a necrophiliac moose in heat; gives Magenta a pissed look; and then drops the microphone in favor of his gifts. Everyone in the room (mostly Kin at this point) shuts up and turns to look at the suddenly imposing figure as he instructs everyone to clear the scene. Not you, Magenta. You stay right here find out what the fuck just happened. And have Smith close by, just in case you find out we need to put him to death by two flames (which is the usual punishment for getting caught).

Magenta does a staff roll-call and finds that of one of the outside guards - Roger, a 13th generation centenarian, rumored to be the oldest surviving Kindred of that generation - is not responding. Smith goes out and calls him on the radio until he hears his own voice from an ear-piece lying next to a pile of clothes with some ash inside it. Possibly the source of the aforementioned thump.

Magenta uses her spirit touch to examine the glass McDermott drank from before crashing and has a disorienting vision of rotating in space. When she later examines Roger's ear-piece, she has a similar experience, with added extra helping of portending doom and fear of a rising sun that will scour the earth of her and her kind.

Primogen O'Hara goes to report to the Prince. Magenta quickly follows, leaving the scene in the nominal care of Albert Saxonville, Ventrue muscle. Just about then a young Toreador makes it to the scene looking for Magenta, and telling Smith that clan Toreador is holding an emergency meeting following the sudden death of two very promising neonates. Magenta, who hears of this by phone, feels she is already on to a pattern and asks what generation they belonged to. The answer, remarkably enough, is 13.

Then Smith receives a summons via SMS from the Prince's secretary, and goes to give his version of the story. As he arrives at the Prince's chamber, he sees Abu-McDermott leaving, dissatisfied. Inside are already sitting Primogen O'Hara and Magenta, and Arafel, a truly scary and ancient dude of the Tremere.

It is then that all cell-phones, PDAs, mail clients, phones and faxes begin to spew - in fluent faux-old-English, which is the alignment tongue of all vampyres - the same single message: “Thine Childer are Dying”.