Rose’s notes from “Lessons”

Notes by Ash

Just as my quest for dinner, or just anywhere I can rest began, I heard that howl. That primordial dirge that just says, “fuck around and find out”. I was a little unnerved at first but I carried on, only to hear the same howl along with another distinct howl on the opposite side of the road.  The howling sounded again, and I managed to pinpoint the creatures on both sides of the road ahead. An odd sensation burrowed its way into the monster under my skin, a visceral fear almost like the way I react with fire. I turned back just before I reached them, and soon after a car from before nearly ran me over as he screeched behind me. The driver was so horrified his eyes looked like they were glazed over with white.

Unfortunately I was driven off the road, banging my bike up and ripping open a new wound on my leg. My instincts drew some blood from that thing inside me, mending it quickly as I hopped back onto the bike and began pedaling as fast as I could towards civilization and away from what had scarred that man’s mind.

I made good ground, but eventually the monsters caught up to me, one trying to block my path and another going to flank my side. Both of them appeared as massive, bipedal wolves with muscles so dense you’d think they lace their kibble with anabolics. In a split second I called the blood to make my body move faster than any human being could, blasting off like this bicycle had just been given the horsepower of a motorcycle.

I quickly zipped between the gargantuan wolves, passing before the one waiting to clothesline me could move to strike, or the other could catch up to me. I managed to leave them behind in a cloud of burnt tire smoke as my celerity pushed this bike much farther than its mechanisms were ever intended for. In the process I may have escaped danger, but I also reduced my bike to scrap metal.

After this encounter I trashed the bike, trashed as it was, along with all my clothes. Super jacked werewolves that knew exactly where I was that far into their territory? Hell to the fucking no dude, not risking them catching my scent.

Just after all I could think of was the sun coming up in a few hours, where I’m sleeping for the day, and how I could best get a handle of things instead of fucking up every turn. I need advice from somebody that’s been doing this for longer than a week. So I started looking, and when I look I find.

Soon after I arrived in Rockville I found some markings on the outside of a punk bar, and with enough badgering and pointing out the supernatural graffiti outside I got in contact with another vampire, or Kindred as she says. In exchange for a favor at a later date, she taught me that and all the basics I’d really need to survive meeting others of our kind. Then she also fed me and put me up for the night. This woman is Vandy Rae, she’s kinda like a cool step-aunt I guess.

The next night I took my trip to the borderlands, where the eventual Battle of Bowie would happen. I had a hard time scrounging up a one-night haven, and ended up just burning through my supply of blood to move a crypts impossibly heavy stone door. Thank Christ for Mary Pine and her coffin.