Work Text:
It was all so very silly, in retrospect. He had first caught wind of the Ankaran sarcophagus when it was still being safely transported aboard the Elizabeth Dane. Really, it was a significant discovery for the archaeological community — but his own interest was initially quite minimal. Not every ancient sarcophagus contained an Antediluvian, of course. It wasn’t until the Elizabeth Dane drifted into the Port of Los Angeles spattered with blood and without its crew that he began to drift towards the City of Angels, curious about the rumors and the incidents surrounding the sarcophagus if nothing else; the crew’s disappearance and bloody handprints on the coffin. Not every ancient sarcophagus contained an Antediluvian, but it also never hurt to check.
L.A. had a dreadful feeling in the air. Perhaps the city just felt like that, smothered by years of Anarchist infighting and clashes between the sects, but all his contacts reported feeling the same. It made him feel like a dog, instinctually aware of a brewing storm. Except it all made so very little sense — local kindred seemed to be convinced it was the natural effect of the sarcophagus, an omen of Gehenna; the air itself seeming to scream that something was wrong. Yet everything he read supported his initial hypothesis that the sarcophagus contained nothing but a thoroughly human corpse. If nothing else, it gave him a place to start, for the oppressive feeling in the air was arguably a more fascinating phenomenon to research than the sarcophagus; he wondered if it was some form of mass hysteria contributing to the frenzy around the sarcophagus rather than the other way around. Regardless, he needed to find out what was inside.
It was primarily instinct and a curiosity about a Sabbat stronghold in a city that ran so deeply Anarch, at least historically, that led him to the warehouse. That same sense of dread was more intense there, almost suffocating — where before it had been just grating enough to be noticeable, here it was borderline migraine-inducing. Like the air pressure surrounding the warehouse was unnaturally low. It was so distracting that the sudden explosion of the warehouse barely caught him off guard; it felt so unsurprising, like it was only natural that something catastrophic would happen when the air felt like that. He was reminded of the way one of his contacts spoke: that this dread was merely an omen of things to come. It made sense, then, that the air would lighten after the flames of the warehouse erupted into L.A.’s night sky — like relieving a can of pop from the pressure built up inside. He paused, waiting for relief, but the air seemed as heavy as ever.
His eyes found the figure fleeing from the explosion quite easily. It was the same fledgling he’d seen snooping around the drug dealer’s den only a few nights earlier; the Prince LaCroix’s newest pawn, embraced around the same time the Elizabeth Dane had drifted into port if his sources were correct. Approaching them was an easy thing. They were fresh enough not to truly understand fear and danger yet — they spoke of werewolves and wraiths, silly things. And they seemed oblivious. It would have been unremarkable had they not been the only kindred he’d spoken to who seemed unaware of the oppressive feeling in the air. Even he, someone not local to the area, had clocked what others had meant when they said dread. Perhaps the fledgling was simply too young or thinblooded to have developed a kindred’s instinct. Or perhaps there was something more interesting going on.
He should have foreseen someone getting to the sarcophagus before he did. He didn’t even believe an Antediluvian slept within and he wanted his hands on it; of course the clans, sincerely fearing their end, rushed to take it before someone else could. Still, he found their paranoia irritating. All could be cleared in a matter of minutes if he could simply inspect the damn thing. At least he could rule out LaCroix as the thief. He may have tried to get under the fledgling’s skin a bit, but they seemed just as irritated that the sarcophagus had been stolen as he was. It appeared LaCroix might be his fastest way to examining the sarcophagus.
As he observed the sarcophagus from its place in LaCroix’s office, he had to admire the resourcefulness it must have taken the fledgling to finally acquire this ancient rotted box. Not all clans were cults, but the Giovanni came awfully close — he was sure dragging something as large as a coffin out of their base of operations within the city came with a few good stories. None so interesting that it would distract from his examination of the sarcophagus, of course. He hadn’t the time nor the resources to gather all the information he could from it, but his cursory lookover had quickly revealed they wouldn’t be able to crack it open without some sort of key. Unless LaCroix’s lackey wanted to take a stab at prying it open with their bare fists, but he wasn’t inclined to watch that unfold. What he had hoped would be a trivial problem solved by knocking on Dr. Johansen’s hotel room door quickly devolved into what would be another series of petty goose chases upon discovering Johansen’s abduction. A series of goose chases for LaCroix’s fledgling, of course, as he would be far better suited to continuing his examinations of the sarcophagus.
The oppressive weight in the air had felt worse than ever after the Sabbat’s attack on the Venture Tower. His Beast seemed to scream at him to flee from Los Angeles, but he had come so close to prying the lid off the sarcophagus; all that was left to do was await the fledgling’s return with the key. He had taken to idly padding around LaCroix’s office in his Protean form in response to his Beast’s whimpers of fear. He felt more secure like this, like he could vanish into the night at any second or tear open an attacker’s throat. As he nosed at the sarcophagus, eyeing its iconography once more, a peculiar scent caught at his nose — like tar and copper. He walked the perimeter of the room, curious of its origins, but no — it was strongest at the sarcophagus. As though whatever was inside had the gritty scent of… circuitry. Machinery. A shoddy, homemade, ticking bomb, if you would. How very silly indeed.