NaNoWriMo Writings

1788 words

This time, Ragest wanted to be sure to make it to Providence. He used to know how to get there, especially through the woods and using what would now be considered “back roads”. Most of those back roads constantly intersected with the three and four lane roads in Warwick. He knew the names of the roads, but the names had changed in the last four hundred years.

He followed Route 2 north, avoiding the highway and keeping to the side of the road. It was still early, and he found his way to a Burger King. A few people sat in the parking lot, checking their phones. He had his choice of meal.

He tried the door of an SUV, and it opened because it was unlocked. {{str 8, 7, 9, 8}} The woman in the driver’s seat stared open-mouthed at him. He closed the door with his right hand and took her right hand with his left.

Ragest turned on whatever charm he could, which wasn’t as much as say, a Ventrue, but it was enough to at least put her at ease by the time the over head light faded. {{Manipulation 9, 6}} Gently, like a lover, he caressed the left side of her face with his free hand, and leaned in.

She surprised herself, surrendering to this man who had just jumped into her car. She tilted her head, exposing the artery. When he Kissed her, she let out a sigh of pure pleasure and ecstasy. In all his years, it was a common sound coming from a woman, something that he half-expected every time he did this.

He drank his fill, leaving her woozy and dizzy. She dropped her phone on the floor as he released her. She closed her eyes, cottony sleep coming down on her.

He locked the door behind him.

 

#

Filled with borrowed blood, he continued north, avoiding the lights and surveillance cameras as he ran in the darkness. When he crossed the line from Cranston into South Providence, he knew he had come upon the rougher section of town.

Everything was dirty, even the snow. Yellow or black or gray slush crunched under his feet. The gray covering the buildings was supposed to be snow, but looked like cotton out of the fields. Not quiet white, but closer to being gray.

For a moment, he was cast back to the first time he went to Virginia, to see the slaves at work in the cotton fields, picking the puffy white flowers, trying to avoid the brown branches in them. How the fruit of their labor would be taken from dirty fields to the gin, loaded in, separated and washed and rinsed, ready to be thinned out and spun for thread. Those were the days, when everyone knew their place.

Now, he focused on the well-lit McDonald’s in front of him, full of cars in the parking lot with their competing bass and rap. He remembered South Providence as being where the richer section of town was, and now…the houses that were considered mansions were long gone, replaced with tenement apartments, vacant lots, and abandoned houses.

Ragest continued north, out of the neighborhood. The Travellers’ Hostel was at the farthest north of South Providence, overlooking the expressway. He crossed the bridge over the still-busy highway, and found himself on what he thought was familiar ground.

But it wasn’t.

Before him was a large auditorium that looked like it had been built in the 1960’s, at the height of Andrew Lloyd-Webber. Oval shaped, it had frosted glass windows along the top of a silver metal sheet that jutted out like an awning above the sidewalk. The six doors looked like simple beige plywood with silver encasing them. The building was dark.

He walked past the building to the base of a tall building right after it. A blue shield with a caedecus logo hung on a billboard about sixty feet in the air, back lit with “Blue Cross Blue Shield of Rhode Island” in black letters to the right of the blue shield. It could be seen easily from the highway.

Ragest walked around the base of the building, next coming upon mills that he was familiar with. However, there were no factories spitting out coal smoke, and no children running through the archways and the cobblestoned streets. No teenagers hawking their father’s, grandfathers’, or uncles’ wares outside of the factory as they waited for workers to come out, their money in hand.

Instead of the factories, they were nightclubs. Most were closed—he didn’t know if they were permanently shuttered, or if it was just the wrong night to have a club open. Regardless, he approached the area cautiously.

Ladies of the night hung around outside the clubs. Most looked well-used, and would probably be acceptable to a man coming out after drinking about six hours. That, he calculated, meant the poor slob of a man would have started drinking since four in the afternoon.

It was early, merely 11:30 according to the digital red clock he saw through the window of one of the bars. He could grab a snack here.

Ragest opened the door to the bar—and it was merely a bar, not even a nightclub. A very long bar stretched along the inside wall, and three bartenders of both sexes stood around, bored. It wasn’t very busy, so he couldn’t really dip in, suck blood, and leave. {{Chr, Appearance 10,2.9,2,1,8,6}}

The female bartender stood up straight, dropping her phone in her apron. “What can I get you?”

“What are people drinking these days?”

“A guy like you?” She assessed him, and her nose wrinkled. “Maybe a rum and coke to keep things safe.”

“What if I don’t want to be safe?”

She rolled her eyes, as his scent became stronger. Dammit, he whispered to himself.

One of the male bartenders stood up straight too, also pocketing his phone, and his nose wrinkled up in disgust. “Who let the dog in?”

The female looked at Ragest, who did his best to gather up his threadbare coat to make himself look like he was freezing. That just wafted the scent around.

“Dude, how many dogs you got?” The other male bartender looked directly at Ragest. When he did, Ragest caught his eye. {{Chr, Manipulation: 5, 1, 5, 8, 5, 6}} The guy stood up straight. Ragest tilted his head. He wasn’t falling for his charms? What the hell?

“You gonna drink something or what, dude?” Even if he smelled bad, he knew he would be served if he had the money.

Unfortunately, he didn’t have the money. He could be considered a bum, just getting in out of the cold. There were ten people, total, in this bar. He could take them all if he had to. But he wasn’t going get chased out of here just yet.

He turned to the woman. {{Chr Manipulation: 9, 6, 5, 3, 6, 6}} She gave him a smirk in reply.  “This guy’s a bum. He ain’t got shit.”

The first male bartender waved a hand toward the door. “Don’t need your kind in here. This is a respectable establishment.”

{{Spend Blood Pool point}} Ragest stood up straight, widening his eyes, and this time glaring at the second male bartender again. He staggered back as if punched, a wave of pure, what, power? Command?

“Come with me,” Ragest said, walking out the door. The bartender followed, as if on a chain. Ragest could hear the other two bartenders telling him no, and him turning around to say, “I’m taking a break.”

Using the Power of the Blood like that, many higher generation vampires would be wasted and would therefore drain this poor young man. He had relied on his own abilities, but, as pointed out earlier, he was no Ventrue.

After feeding from the young man, he left him among the detritus of the alleyway. No one had bothered him.

Now, he just needed to take a visit to the library.

#

Ragest passed the restaurants and the bars, taking a left onto Empire Street. He passed so many restaurants and bars, that he didn’t know if the library was still down the street. After he passed yet another restaurant, he saw the right edge of the Providence library building.

He picked up the pace, jogging by the tiny mall and bar, and stood on the corner of Washington and Empire Streets, looking up at the old library.

But this wasn’t the library he was looking for. He walked down Washington, crossing to Fountain, and he came upon a bus terminal. Everything was closed; only a few late-night busses ran, going to Rhode Island Hospital and an express to Woonsocket. He walked through the well-lit area, passing by the parked busses and the bus drivers as they smoked or drank coffee. After crossing through that, he came upon a fancy hotel, which overlooked a three lane street.

It was late, so there weren’t that many cars on the street. He easily crossed the three lanes, to a bridge that overlooked a river. He knew this as Providence River, but it was an Indian name that escaped him for the moment {{Moshassuck River}}. After all, he left at 1802, so it was more than four hundred years since he’d been here.

“Hey, bro, got a light?”

Ragest turned to see another bum coming up behind him. The man held out the well-ended butt of a cigarette that he probably picked up off the ground at the bus station. Ragest looked at the dark-skinned man, remembering for a moment the Providence of the 1800’s, when free blacks often approached whites for things. Once he went South, though, things had changed. A lot. He easily fell into the master/servant role; after all, he knew what a ghoul was, and he made them as he needed them. Like Ceci.

“Don’t got no matches,” Ragest said.

The man raised an eyebrow. “Matches? Man, I don’t think they got matches or matchbooks anymore!”

“Well, I ain’t got one.” Ragest looked out at the river, flowing quietly beneath the bridge.

“You new here?”:

“Not really. It’s been a long time. Where’s the College Library now?”

“Fuckin’ Brown, Rizzdee, or URI?”

“Which is older?”

“Brown, I guess. Ivy League school an’ all. Fuckin’ snobby rich kids.”

“Yes. Where is the Brown Library?”

The man noticed that Ragest didn’t clip his words, that his accent was clearer. “Um…Up there. Behind the courthouse.”

Ragest nodded, and looked in the direction the man pointed. Across from the bridge was a large statue, and beyond that, a small courthouse. Ragest gave the man the barest of nods in thanks.