Trouble at the Harbor

The four had just settled in, when the Seneschal pressed them to divulge all they had found out during their investigation. After a few minutes, the main conclusions they had drawn at the Old Church were laid out and Taylor finally told them, what had seemed so urgent when they had arrived. With a worried look, the Nosferatu informed them, “My informants have just told me that several strange reports have come in from the harbor area. Apparently they are connected to our deaths and I would strongly urge you to investigate immediately. Most reports came from the Surrey Commercial Docks, so you should probably start there.” Before anybody could reply, one of the guards came over and escorted them towards the door. The drive to the harbor’s dock area was a bit longer than expected and it gave the team a moment to revisit everything they had found out so far. David thought about the four dead vampires and the idea suddenly put the whole immortality issue into perspective. ‘Seems like it can be over pretty quickly after all’, he reckoned, but he tried to push those feelings to the back of his mind, as the upcoming task was much more important. The four got out at the entrance to the commercial dock area, a vast space with a seemingly endless number of large metal containers that had been neatly stacked and placed in regular intervals. Several homeless people were rummaging the area and as nobody of the four vampires knew what exactly they were looking for, they thought it might be a good idea to question the local populace. Ruthven took some money out of his wallet and flailed it in front of one of the men sitting next to a shopping cart and a large cardboard box and asked, “Hey you! Did you see anything interesting these last couple of hours? Hey I’m talking to you!” But the man was sound asleep and would probably not have woken up unless the world was about to end. Victor tried a more gentle approach, “Excuse me sir, you didn’t happened to see anything out of the ordinary recently, did you?” The guy he had spoken to, had a baffled look on his face and mumbled to himself. “What? How? So little… but so… terrible…” As he was saying this, he kept pointing in the direction of a large shipping warehouse. “I think we might as well start our search over there”, Victor concluded and the team went off in the direction of the enormous building. On their way over, David noticed several scorch marks on the surrounding freight containers that looked like small hands had burned into the metal.

The front gate of the warehouse was made of massive steel and it was closed with a padlock. On the bottom of the door was a small hole, not bigger than a cat flap would have been. It seemed to have been cut open with a blowtorch, but it was too small for any of them to slip inside. Ian who had brought his immense sledgehammer grumbled, “Please step aside. I’ll handle this, easy!” He heaved the hammer over his head and aimed a blow at the padlock. With an incredible force he struck at the lock and the impact with the metal door gave off a loud bang. The lock however seemed intact. Ian looked at it with contempt and seconds later the group could hear a clicking sound, as the small metal object snapped into two. Ruthven opened the gate, which creaked spookily and the four vampires entered the premises. ‘If somebody is expecting us, they sure know that we are here now’, David thought to himself. The front on the inside of the warehouse was fitted with shelves, which were packed with crates of all shapes and sizes. On the far end, the team could see a light burning on the left side, around a corner made by several high shelves. One of the crates had a familiar looking symbol on the side, a mask – the kind they were in Venice during the carnival. “Isn’t this the clan symbol of the Nosferatu?”, David remarked innocently. Ian replied, “Well I’ll be damned! What do those guys need so many crates for? I’m curious what’s inside.” And before anybody could object, Ian had punched a hole in the side of the chest nearest to him. He pulled out his hand and was holding a blood pack. “Seems like the Nosferatu use this warehouse to ship in their blood products”, Victor concluded and nudged Ruthven into the direction of the light at the end of the row, adding “Let’s see what else we can find here.”

None of them was prepared for the sight that presented itself, once they turned the corner. There was a large metal platform, about a meter off the ground. A few steps led up to the giant round structure and in the middle of it was a small child crouched over and fiddling with something on the floor. The four went up the steps and slowly approached the boy. Victor, who was best at connecting with people, crouched down next to the child and said, “Hi there. What are you doing here all alone in this big and empty building? Where are your parents?” The boy did not react and kept scraping at the floor with his hands. They could see now that he tried to pry open a manhole cover that was sitting in the middle of the platform. Victor tried another approach, in the hope to connect to the child. “Are you trying to get down there? Why do you want to go down into that hole?” – “Cause I wanna go back to the ugly people. I was outside and everywhere they were afraid and I couldn’t understand and they were mean to me and told me to go away and then I was all alone. The ugly people were mean to me too, but I know them and I wanna go back!” – “You don’t have to be alone anymore, we are here now. You can come with us and we will find your parents. How about that?” said Victor in the hopes to get the child out of the warehouse. They were after all still hunting a dangerous killer. In the meantime the other three were looking around, hoping to find any clues as to why a small child would be sitting around in a warehouse in the middle of the night. The doctor finally managed to get the boy away from the manhole cover and Ruthven and Ian tried to lift it up in turn. The boy suddenly spoke again, “Will you hurt me like the ugly men do? I don’t want to be hurt anymore, please!” – “Of course we won’t hurt you. You are safe now. Let’s go outside and we will get you some food and a bed.” Victor took the child’s hand – he couldn’t have been more than eight – and went down the steps. Just as the boy wanted to step down, he stopped moving. Victor urged him on and asserted once again that he would be in safe hands with them. But the boy did not move and started to cry, “I can’t move. I’m stuck!” Suddenly the four noticed that the air in the room started to get hotter, like if a warm breeze had been carried in. Behind the boy, Ruthven and Ian were still trying to lift the cover and slowly got it loosened up. David was standing next to them, looking over their shoulders, but not contributing much to the effort. The Brujah went down on both knees and tried with full force to lift the metal plate up and finally the material gave in and he lifted the circle over his head. At the same moment, the boy stumbled down the stairs towards Victor, who caught him in both arms. With a bewildered look on his face, he hugged the child to his chest and left towards the entry gate of the warehouse.

In the moment that Ian had pulled the cover over his head, a whiff of damp air escaped from below it. David, who was still standing next to the two vampires, looked at the circular shape in Ian’s hand and could see a pentagon with continuing edges painted on the inside of the disck Just as he saw the drawing his head started to spin. Suddenly he was hearing church bells and his innards started to cramp up. The bellowing voice of an old man started to resonate in his ears, yelling, “Boy! You little unholy pest! Get back to the hole you crawled from and stay there! It’s my turn now!” He suddenly lost all control over his body and it was as if he had become a passenger in his own mind. The priest had regained control.