The Docks smelled particularly awful that evening. The tang of spoiled liquor, the slick of decaying sea life, the rancor of aggressive mold all combined in the fog that had rolled across the boardwalk. While most of the residents shrugged it off as an unfortunate synchronization of cleaning schedules, other residents had suspicions. Every last Dock Goblin old enough to walk had a dagger in their belt, and sigils painted on their foreheads in paste made from herbs and animal blood. When asked about their curious behavior, those that didn't change the topic or outright ignore the question unanimously replied "It's Tradition" with no further qualifier to context.

No one saw the burly Swiss man enter the fog, yet he surely enough emerged from it, heading towards the creaking, opened gate to a manor most recently vacated. Luminous, near ultra-violet eyes cast blossoms in the fog, scattered through the vapor in complement to the gold cones from the streetlights arched above. Blizzard-white hair, stuck into wild tufts in all directions, revealed their contrast to the gray around it as the figure nudged open the gate with his fingertips, allowing the groan of metal on metal to ring out in the relative lull. Each step from the spit-shined military boots rang through the thick air as he approached the door, arms loose at his sides, and chin up, alert.

The manor, though lacking in width, bore enough ostentatious spires and stained glass work to paint it as an old wizard's sanctum, oft rented out to like-minded tenants. Though the grout and mortar appeared new, the meticulous geometry placed into each and every eave and angle spoke of Victorian spirituality married with medieval superstition, colliding with 20th century efficiency; truly, the manor appeared a product of its locale. The must of rancid plasma and rusted iron shavings, however, gave some hint as to the nature of its most recent occupants.

The windows were dark, and the interior produced pops and creaks, adjusting to the reprieve of weight and motion, bellowing its recent emptiness like a waking yawn and stretch. As Geiseric Valk, hulking revenant mystic, set his fingers to the locked front door, his brows drew in and his lips pursed forward, his ear turning towards the house in suspicion.

His nostrils flared as a sneer began, the expression stiff, as if new. He drew his fingers across the door, releasing the bolt lock within. Next, he traced them down, undoing the lone of reinforcements that connected to its exterior and frame. With a final rotation, he unlatched the key-lock at the door's handle, and with a closing fist, he untethered the cobweb of mystical wards and alarms that spread across the domicile. He pressed down the latch with his thumb, and with a twist of his hips, he pushed the door open, stepping into the interior.

Diego's head dropped to his chest after he locked the door behind Geist, still tense around his shoulders and tight in his lips. He stood still, eyes closed, then with a twin shake of his hands, turned towards the stairwell across the room and began his climb.

His senses buzzed in the unfiltered, unprotected state of the manor. He picked up the whispers of the goblins outside as they passed; gutteral, trilling spits and hisses whose tone of hostility betrayed the fear they placed in their superstitions. He had invested much into the metaphysical wards and talismans around the chantry, and their dissolution at the twist of the Revenant's hand set his already uncanny senses on edge.

"Hnh..." He laughed to himself as he reached the landing, and quieted his mind to listen, to reach out into the ether and hear the tremors of the world around him, to catch a note from the astral tuning forks that resonated in each mind. The spirits around the dock seemed excited, perhaps spurred on by the little green semi-primitives that waddled along the piers. No voice in that crowd seemed distinct, save for one.

The tone of the thoughts seemed almost mournful, grave. It trailed in images of ash, of blood, and of fire. Large sections of thought dulled, like curtains blowing before the moon on a windy night. He dared to look at the haze's edge, to see behind the curtain...

Diego's eyes shot wide with panic. Scarcely used, and begrudgingly learned so many centuries ago during his days chasing House Goratrix, the Tremere dared to bring his brute force to bear, clearing the rest of the stairwell in a single leap and splintering the slats of the hardwood floor, landing in a scramble to the study. The books that remained were all but basic tomes of woodcuts, Enochian diagrams, simple treatises on mystical philosophies that awaited nearly all visitors, save for one. Bound in a very suspiciously soft, thin leather scored to appear like serpent scales, the book sat high on a darkened shelf, in amidst more eye-catching tomes on demonology and conjuration, all as false as the 'worm' on an angler's lure. The only light that peered through came from a dull sheen of moonlight, flickering in intensity as the fog rolled out towards the sea.

The High Lord trembled, and he hated every bit of it, every ounce of that reminder that he still remained beholden to human, to animal instincts and reactions while possessing all of the means to become something more than even the immortal scholar he purported himself as. He swallowed as he churned the blood inside of him to stabilize his mind and settle his nerves. With a twitch of his hand, he drew the roller-attached ladder toward him from across the room, a reminder of the power he possessed, and climbed it to take the book from the shelf. His fingers came within an inch of the tome before the moonlight spread wide from the window behind him, and a very large, very warm presence loomed above.

Its smell hit the 'absolute terror' senors of Diego's brain, first. He remembered the wild dogs that ran through the Toledo slums in his youth, combined with the memories of the caballeros who stomped through on their 'holy' excuses to trample their lessers underfoot. Even while on the ladder, its head was above his own, slowly drawing in breath, and slowly releasing it through a damp nose. He expected a growl, a snarl, anything indication that what stood behind him was as it appeared. In that dilation of time that adrenaline brought on, he only felt the harsh rake of hooked talons tear down his back, white sparks lighting the walls as they spat out from the wound.

Diego slid down the ladder and landed in a puddle of his own blood, bent back like a bow and kicking his legs against the ground, fangs popping into fullness with gritted teeth and a hard wince of pain. He looked through his squint to the hulking assailant, wolf-headed with black-red fur and inkwells for eyes, and swung up one of his hands, focusing his will... and finding absolutely no result other than more protests burning in his back. He nearly slipped in his blood as he shook, as his mind fell away from his rattled center to fall back into the arms of the Beast that drove his thirst.

Diego's blood sprung into action, driving itself into his strength as he launched himself from prone to airborne, fingers reaching to claw at the Lupine's muzzle while aiming his fangs for any available port to bite down. A hand the size of a toddler grabbed the frenzying blood-drinker's arm and stepped backwards, swinging Diego like luggage to slam face first into the library's wall.

His sinuses crumbled from the impact, and the pain rattled his eyes, yet soon the Blood rushed into place to set him to rights, far easier than the tears along his back. He pushed off against the wall and kicked his legs at the manwolf's long midsection, hoping to land at least one hit to spur him into pain. Not a one strike landed cause those large, dark eyes to so much as blink. The wolf tore straight down Diego's front, shredding his vest and his pectoral muscles, and causing his arms to fall back wide. The bit of sentience that sat helplessly in the mystic could have sworn he heard a sad, soft sigh come from the beast, and that his brows knit in pity before he took hold of the vampire's neck, fastened his grip, and pulled upwards.

* * * * * * * *

Centuries-old bones tumbled and broke on the floor as flesh dried and flaked off, staining Clark's fur gray from the elbows down. He stared at the skull in his hand, like a cynocephalic Hamlet, then released it to the pile, dropping his hand and his head. Gradually, the fur, the muzzle, and the height receded, settling him at six-and-a-half feet, hair still wild and tinted with red in its wiry, dark explosion from his head and around the patchy spots around his cuspid-pronounced lips. He seemed caught between the cold brutality of his previous form and the nimble intellectualism of humanity, ill-fitting in his jeans, All-Stars and overcoat.

Clark's deep brown fingers snuck into his jacket and drew out a small, wooden-carved ring, etched with the image of a striking cobra. Climbing the ladder to reach eye-level with the tome, he reached for it, settling it in his fingers with a deep inhale... and a hard growl in the back of his throat. "... Okay... Okay..." He pulled it out with his fingertips, shaking and setting his lips hard together as he slowly dislodged the serpentine tome from its sconce. "... Who makes a book you can't even open without hell breaking loose? 's inconsiderate."

He felt the ring get tighter around his finger as he held the tome just inches away from it, nearly burning into his skin. Clark's nearly-human figure leveled a look that combined shame with frustration at the carved cobra-face, as his free hand dug into his pocket to withdraw a blown-glass frog the size of a thumb. He set the frog figurine against the book and sighed through his lips, watching it turn from clear, to murky green, and finally to black before dropping it to the floor, letting it shatter into a fine dust to mingle with the vampire's.

The werewolf closed his eyes solemnly, nodding in thanks to the frog-spirit, then finally closed his hands around the tome. The wooden cobra unwound from his fingers and bored into the book, setting it ablaze in a cold blue fire. The skin on the cover grew goosebumps. It sweat. It stank to high heaven of human fear. This only settled the erstwhile arsonist as he watched, blinking only once before the ghost-fire finally condemned it to vapor.

With his work done, Clark climbed down from the ladder and pressed his palms together, with his thumbs against his head, chanting in a tonal, throaty language that seemed between a dog's mournful howl and a prayer of benediction before bringing his hands to his chest, then releasing them to his sides.

Still in his not-quite-human state, he looked back towards the window, catching his own dark eyes in the reflection. At his next blink, he vanished from the manor, leaving the ash and bones for the goblins kicking through the door downstairs.