Down Among the Worms

Down Among the Worms Chapter of Beneath Cold Boughs
The streets of Presidents Row
Chapter 2 of The Widening Gyre
Chronology
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In Bloom	Seeping Through the Skin

Diana and Jane encounter someone who may actually know what has happened to them, and Condor Acquisitions gains a new contract as a first step toward Empire.

What Happened

Discoveries

After some final discussion with Suleiman, the three left the unsettling silence of the abandoned school. The lights and life of the city bloomed about them as they drove through the gates, leaving a very ordinary looking building behind, nothing like the abandoned relic they had met Suleiman in.

The next morning, Jane had her first day of work at Condor Acquistions and was privy to Diana’s grand plan to find whoever owned what throughout the city so that she could leverage and buy them out, climbing to the top rather than “scurrying in the dirt and ruins” as she saw ‘fools’ like Suleiman doing. To that end, Jane was set to work finding suitable property to acquire in Harton, Lockham and Manton and she gladly interpretted that as an excuse to get out of the office.

It was in the breezy, boho streets of Harton that she smelled it. The sharp-sweet tang of suffering hung in the long shadows cast by the great sycamore in the heart of Moth Park and as Jane drew closer a half-seen mirage found her – two figures, low and loping between two and four limbs, chased a third, a woman, through foliage and hedgerow until they set savagely upon her. Unsettled by the experience, Jane caught the eye of a concerned passerby, a congenial older man who introduced himself as Peter Grey, who had seen nothing of Jane’s vision but listend to her words without judgement. He grew quiet when she asked about strange thing happening in the park, before telling her about a girl who had been found dead in the culvert a couple of years previously. Such a tragedy, dying so young.

After the conversation died and they parted ways, Jane continued into Harton, noting buildings and wondering how exactly she was supposed to find places for Condor to buy when she caught sight of a bookshop. Something about it caught her eye and called to her, and she stepped inside. Within was an eclectic mix of academia, literature and esoterica, a scattering of browsing customers, and a tall woman who Jane knew was like her. After letting Jane call in Diana, the woman – who introduced herself as Nicole Morgan, owner of the White Raven – spun a tale about being “monsters, beasts of nightmares and legends wrapped in human flesh”, of Hungers and the need to control them lest be rules by them, and of a Dark Mother who they were all Children of. Jane was interested but Diana was nonplussed, having no time to waste on superstitions when she was running late for a meeting.

Welcome to the Row

That meeting was with Megan Roth of Ormwood Development to discuss a contract for Condor involving properties in Presidents Row. Ormwood Development had interest in the area as part of a later phase of the Ormwood Development Project. Officially, the project was for management of several properties in the Row, but if people in the area were to happen to sell their properties to Condor then Ormwood Development would be happy to buy them in turn for a suitable markup. After Diana’s expertise in handling things in Willowgate, it was felt that such talent for closing would be well suited to this contract.

Sensing a chance to twist things to her own advantage, Diana took advantage of her new gifts to squeeze further details and a far better deal out of Megan. If she could acquire the commercial properties in the block within a month, Ormwood Development would buy them back at 45% above market value. Diana dismissed Megan once the deal was agreed and luxuriated in the sense of power she had exerted. Feeding on the weak felt good.

That afternoon, Jane and Diana took their first excursion to the Row to get a feel for the area Condor would have to acquire. It was a worn down stretch of Ormwood on the far side of the Interstate from Willowgate, full of cheap retail and cheaper housing decorated with Stars and Stripes gang signs. The block ODP wanted was one of a dozen that formed an impromptu retail strip, backed by unimportant tenements and duplexes and dotted with empty lots.

They started with the dingy bar on the corner and immediately felt the air sour when they appeared. Out of place with too much money for somewhere like this. The barkeep tried to talk to them but was crushed into silenced by an empowered glare from Diana. Attempts to find weak points to attack only soured things and earned glares from a stern-faced old man proudly wearing a MAGA hat. They moved on, trying the pawn shop instead and found Diana’s planned patter getting called bullshit by the brutish man behind the counter.

The barber was the only one to listen to Diana’s proposal. A young man with a perfectly trimmed beard who was interested in the idea of selling so that he could set up shop somewhere with more money than the Row. That would have been enough to count as a good start if Diana’s inhuman senses had not seen something other to the man, a hint of sanguine chains about his neck and the copper tang of blood on his breath. What was happening in the Row?

People Appearing

• Jane Barrows – Encountered strange experiences and people in Harton.
• Diana Graves – Explored new opportunities in Presidents Row for Ormwood Development.
• Peter Grey (First appearance) - Genial older man met in Moth Park. Concerned by Jane's reaction to something he could not see.
• Nicole Morgan (First appearance) - Eerie bookstore owner. Encountered by Jane by chance when she stumbled into the White Raven, told Jane and Diana something of themselves.
• Megan Roth - formalised the Presidents Row contract with Condor, and was squashed under Diana's Hunger.
• Joe Halligan (First appearance) - Owner of Halligans bar in Presidents Row, shocked into silence by Diana in an effort to force a sale later.
• Jayden Green (First appearance) - Employee of 5 Circle Couriers, resisted having a wedge driven between himself and his boss by Diana and Jane.
• Tom Paulsen (First appearance) - Pawnbroker in Presidents Row. Talked big, made implied threats and called Diana a bullshit artist.
• Manny Farelli (First appearance) - Barber in Presidents Row. Pleasant fellow, ameanable to selling to expand business.

Locations

• Moth Park - worn-down inner city park dominated by an immense sycamore, where Jane saw afterimages of a woman hunted and met Peter Gray.
• White Raven - independent book shop in Harton, large selection of classics, academia and "esoterica".
• Garcia's - hipsterish sandwich house in Harton.
• Presidents Row - worn down stretch of Ormwood beside the Interstate
  • Halligans – dingy corner bar
  • Paulsen Loans – study-built pawn shop.
  • Farelli's – family barber shop.

Notes

• Diana fed her Hunger for the first time, forcing a deal out of Meg