The following is an excerpt of my work on pages 2-10 and 141-144 of The Blood, White Wolf Publishing, 2007. The cover art is by Aleksi Briclot.
It wasn't his usual haunt. Most nights Reyner stayed within a few blocks of 23rd and Army Drive, mingling almost invisibly with the scruffy bohemians and menacing street fixtures with a practiced ease that left him free to ponder things besides how to stay under the radar. That corner of the Rack had become his by common law, though he had never so much as suggested that this was so to another. Still, rare was the occasion when a visitor did not first pay his respects before treading on his de facto domain. So long as others steered clear of the corner of 24th and Falkland, he had no beef with them. But something was in the air tonight, and for the first time since his priscus' tawdry little drama four months prior he felt an oddly pleasant compulsion to venture beyond the security of his traditional hunting grounds.
The Pavillion wasn't more than a fifteen minute walk past Pete's Liquors, but the popular nightclub and the boisterous streets around it were no less foreign to the shadowy newcomer than would be the labyrinthine passages of a Damascene bazaar. As was his way, Reyner stayed mostly in the shadows, uncertain of his ability to blend in easily with the roving throngs of intoxicated partygoers and cigar-smoking Young Turks whose sleek mobile phones and high-limit credit cards contributed to their conviction that they were invincible. Latin music was not something that he had any special affinity for, but there was something about the place, something beyond the exotic rhythms and the lively play of dancers' shadows against the curtains that hung inside the club's full-length windows that drew him nonetheless. A dozen or more people loitered outside the glass doors smoking cigarettes and glistening with perspiration, laughing, flirting, and ready for whatever the night would bring them while the bouncers surveyed the vicinity for signs of trouble and the law. Reyner hung back just enough to avoid scrutiny and then he unleashed his senses and opened himself up to the flood of sights, sounds, smells, and sensations that drenched his surroundings yet went unnoticed by most. The pulse of the Salsa band traveled through him along with the din of the horns and the daring vocals making his skin hum in syncopation. The cacophony of other voices, the shuffle and clatter of shoes, the clinking of bottles and glasses, and the ambient mourn of traffic, electricity, and rustling leaves all poured into his ears and set him afire. Streetlights, the glow of neon and tobacco, and the patchwork smear of faces, garments and jewelry, and the fleeting flashes and lingering grays of the rest of the night blazed in his gaping eyes like a magical carnival ride before the gaze of a child. Colognes and knock-off perfumes lay like an unpleasant rind over the rich, heady aroma of flesh, sweat, grime, and yes, blood, the stink of the street's refuse and decay a mere afterglow in his nostrils. The silent figure drank this all in, transfixed by the barrage, stealing for himself a few moments of hedonism before attenuating these heightened perceptions and putting them to practical use.
Reyner focused on the bouncers, filtering out all else as much as he could, listening to the words that passed between them and the customers, and then on the tinny voices transmitted through their earpieces until he heard their names. A side door was manned too from the inside, and he removed himself to that location, dimming his magnified senses completely and rapping on the glass, dripping with condensation from the swelter of the gyrating crowd inside. He spoke the names to the heavyset man inside whose lack of interest was evident from the faint hue that shimmered around him, visible when Reyner squinted and let his vision blur just so. A moment later he was inside, the door closing behind him and the cloying swamp of body heat, moisture, seething flesh, stinging alcohol, and maddening sound enveloped him so completely that he required a few seconds to orient...
