Callandra’s eyes refocused. She was no longer in her apartment, she was stalking through hospital corridors. Her hand was wrapped around the hilt of a sword, hidden beneath her billowing overcoat.

She turned a corner, her Beast rose in anger as she took in the sight of a tall Kindred backing away from her. His fangs flashed as he stepped over the body of a man or woman in a full enviroment suit, an automatic rifle scattered to the side.

Callandra swung the sword out in a wide arc as she moved forwards towards the viewing window, noticing the sign “Haematology”. In the lab were two more Kindred, she knew one of them, a maladjusted and low born Ventrue going by the name Voltaire.

Her Beast, already stirred to the point of frenzy, spiked at the sight of him… she knew she was there to kill him. She flung her body over the broken shards of the viewing panel into the lab. Voltaire backed away against the wall, screaming and babbling. The other Kindred, dressed in biker garb turned and snarled at her, slamming his fist directly into the side of her face.

Callandra’s head snapped to the side, suprising her, the force of the blow should of sent her flying backwards. Instead she turned her head and she heard a familiar vocie uttering from her lips, a voice not her own.

Leos Mikulas’ baritone rolled out intoning “Flee”. The biker laughed and landed another solid blow.

Callandra heard the distinctive chatter of an automatic weapon. She felt the multiple impacts in her back. She turned her head to see the tall Kindred throw the rifle away.

An impact in her chest threw her back to the floor. The last thing she saw was the biker holding her dead heart.

Callandra’s eyes opened, she whispered “Leos”

The Unbound crashed through the door of the Hospital’s fire exit. Going up against two city elder’s had been… fun. In addition they had what they wanted, documentation about some kind of Kindred plague referred to as Malkavia, M or the Affliction. Details had been sketchy as Isambard Smith had been too busy downloading the files from the Haematology mainframe. It was enough to know that the plague had originated with the Ventrue as a bloodline and through experimenation by agents of the Ordo Dracul it had become communicable outside the clan.

It came as no surprise to Spider, Thorn or Smith that Leos Mikulas had wanted the information to be destroyed. With the information, the Ventrue clan could be blackmailed or made pariahs. That was exactly what Levente Keleman had done.

What came as a surprise to the Unbound was when they turned a corner, they ran straight into Leos’ childe Callandra Mikulas and the New Blood Coterie.

The tension between the two coteries was palpable. It took the Unbound a moment to notice that Smith had faded away without a trace. Callandra threw back her hair and challenged them for tresspassing. Thorn shrugged taking threatening steps forward. “Whose going to stop us?”.

Ares Van Helsing stepped from the deep shadows outside the Eclipse nightclub. He stared daggers at Thorn as shadowy shapes appeared fro every alleyway, nook and crevice… an army at his command.

Thorn flashed his fangs and backed down. Too many and too far from home. Spider broke the tension directing everyone’s attention to the mists that were rising around them… within seconds vision had been limited to a few metres.

The Kindred to a man collapsed to the floor, their spatial awareness lost as reality twisted accompanied by sound like white noise.

The mist thinned a little as the Kindred climbed to their feet. Something had changed, their sensations were sharper, their Beasts were closer to the surface, the very ground seemed to throb with a living pulse.

They became aware of two figures standing at the edge of their vision, simply waiting but obviously watching them.

Ares Van Helsing approached warily. One figure to his left was about eight foot tall, dressed in a volumous cloak. Its head comprised of an old fashioned street light, its lantern like panes of glass drizzled with the moisture of the mist. Within, suspended in air was a whitened human skull, boasting fangs that dripped blood.

In one clawed hand it grasped a cane, topped with a transparent crystal. Within lay a miniature city scape. Ares vampiric eyes could see that it was sculpted to remarkable detail… it looked too real. The being’s other hand reached out and gestured to come closer.

Ares backed away. His footsteps took him back into the heavily muscled chest of the other figure. Lucien stood before Ares, his face changing as he grasped the vampire under the chin and lifted him off his feet. The sound of stretching and growing sinew matched the out growth of fur across Lucien’s entire body. “The time has come vampire of new blood, choose the path to follow.”

Ares stared at the wolf’s face that was inches before him. He nodded towards Lucien. The other figure faded into the mists. Lucien dropped Ares to the ground. His voice was snarled with barely contained rage.

“Hisil. Corrupted. Path. Follow. Learning. Stop Regent. Not Kindred. Not anymore.”

Lucien pointed towards the west. A massive vortex sucked the mists into it in the far distance. The air screamed as it was pulled towards the vortex, shapes could be seen desperately fighting and struggling to free themselves. A deep, dark shadow spread out from the centre of the vortex where it hit the ground, somewhere in the direction of Blackgate Sanitarium.

Lucien pointed towards the south. The grim and forbidding University rose up, seeming to dwarf the surroundings.

Lucien snarled again “Path”, before transforming into a giant wolf easily the size of a horse and barrelled past the group of stunned vampires, howling, towards the Karlov Most.