Chapter 3; Adriana

I was ninety-seven percent sure that he was a monster, the other three percent said, "Well maybe he was born with a deformity." He was my taxi cab driver to the Durfs and he didn't have any eyes. He had an eye where his mouth should be.

How does he eat?

The question didn't matter because I was hesitating outside the passenger door. My hand rested lightly on the handle as my mind went over the possibilities.

I could slice his head off with my long bladed dagger.

I could choke him with my silver chain

I get into the car and wait for him to make the first move

"Are you going to ride or not?" A voice that could have been his asked. I did need a way to the house and honestly I was too tired to go Cabbie hunting in this crowded train station.

"Yeah, sorry." I plopped down on the seat. "You have really nice teeth." I tried not to smile myself at my little joke.

"Where to?" The voice sounded like it was coming from the steering wheel that he was gripping tightly.

How do other humans see him as? Does he look normal or do they just not look at his face out of some ancient magic? My cult and I discovered that humans—most of them that is—only see what they want to. If they saw everything then maybe they didn't' need to be so ignorant. Adults say that children are ignorant when they cry about the scary monsters under their beds when they are so much more on reality then the rest of the world is.

I read out the directions and awaited his attack.

"May I?" I reached timidly for the controller on the radio. His hand reached out to catch mine but I pulled away when my eyes looked onto his palm. Where there wasn't a small mouth—lips, teeth, tongue and all—there was something else.

Death.

He's been marked by my cult—I must kill him.

I fingered my own rose shaped ring that matched the mark on his hand. This ring, like its sisters, was made of black silver and tainted in god's blood. It was bewitched by Hecate and her daughters and dried by the lost suns that only Apollo has access to even though Artemis knows where they are and has been to the land. You can't find that in your history textbook.

There are only three in existence. They bring no harm to humans—mortal beings, animals—everything but is engraved permanently by the rose shape.

Which one had done it? Emily maybe? Emily is the eldest and most aggressive of or cult. Maybe it had been Vikki. She may be young but she is manipulative and has a heart of rock just like mine. Hm. I wonder how this monster is enjoying being abandoned by everything immortal. The gods would help him if they cared enough but they don't. He is yet to feel the pain of the Black Rose.

Lucky for him the Black mark also prevents him from reappearing any time soon. Maybe in the next few decades he'll come back but his soul is being harmed as he drives the taxi—as the poison of the rose fills him.

"Have you driven my friends before?" I asked with my eyes on the passing buildings that caged me in with their huge shadows. Giants—the honorable kind. This is not my home. I do not fare well in cages and the same goes for cities—I love the country and the freedom of the unyielding horizon.

He grunted—I think. I knew better then to reveal their names to a monster. Once an immortal knows your face and name—your identity—the game is all over. You're dead.

"I see they couldn't kill you." I spoke like we were discussing the pretty clouds that were blood red with the sinking of Apollo's chariot—or that's what the old stories say, I'm not sure if I believe that there is a man in there.

It was a risky thing to do on my part. Emily would be very angry with me if she knew I was revealing my identity to a monster. I would have to kill him or he wouldn't stop until he killed me. I could do this for what ever made him bare the mark—for whatever he did to this innocent race of mortals.

The car slowed to a stop outside of a cute house with a big porch and one of those porch swings that could fit like three people at a time. There were potted plants on the steps and under the windows. I saw that there was a pick up truck with some logo for a construction company and there was a white minivan. I hated it. Luckily Vikki or Emily would be brining me my motorcycle, I wasn't riding around in one of those things.

The depressing house made me even more angry and ready to kick this guy's butt. I missed my rundown little foster home where no one cared if I didn't show up for dinner or for breakfast the next day. These surely will be the kind of people that will want me present at both so we can discuss our feelings and out outlook on the world which both, for me, are fairly dim.

I didn't move to leave just yet. I could hear the little click in his brain as he pieced it all together. Click.

He turned around to look at me in the face. My eyes—something in them scared him like all of my other prey. These were eyes like a wolf—the lonely moon eyes.

Click.

He rounded on me but I was too quick to pull my dagger from my leather fur boots and drove it home into his chest. Gold dust exploded all around me like in a sand storm.

The cabbie and his car were gone, leaving me and my suitcases alone in the street with sand blowing around in the wind. Ew. Monster internals. I shook my leather jacket so that the gross sand stuff would slide off of me. I didn't need to smell like them too. They smelt so bad.

Ding, dong. It couldn't just be as simple as that. This house just had to have a whole freaking song to go along with it.

Not only must there be a song but also the girl who answered the door made me sick. She was my age and blond. I hate blonds. She had that small little look about her with big blue gemstone eyes. Her eyelashes had way too much black gunk on them and her cheeks were rosy from the cold that came from behind me—from inside me.

It might just help if she put on pants and a sweatshirt. It was March for crying out loud! You don't wear booty shorts and flimsy little t-shirts. The only decent thing she was wearing was her fuzzy pink slippers which matched the rest of her…pink.

She watched me too. We were sniffing each other out. What I hated, loved me. She smiled huge revealing a few dimples. Must she get anymore cutesy? I could just imagine her room. Our room. I'm supposed to share her room.

"You must be Mary!" The girl exclaimed happily. "Hah. Oh wait! That's me!" She made a joke, I should laugh. I tried my best and the girl's eyes glimmered with a new friendship on the way. If that's what floats her boat, what ever.

"I'm Adriana Lee." I extended my right hand formally. I wasn't allowing this pink fuzz ball to give me any kind of hug.

"Oh, Audrey—you're going to love it here!" Ma! Dad! She's here!" She shouted over her shoulder. "Come in, meet your parents!"

Foster parents.

A boy about two years younger than I—possibly fourteen or fifteen—stood inside with his two blond parents. They were all blond. It helped a little that the males of the house had brown eyes—more like puppy dogs, innocent—but still…I'm a brunette—I don't belong here.

"Hiyah. I'm Eleanor Gest." Okay so they aren't named the McDurfs but that's still how I think of them. Durffy, like Smurfs but pink and they don't wear sock hats. "This is my husband Jim." She placed a pink manicured hand on the man wearing paint splattered pants and a big smile.

"Brian, but most just call me by my last name." His eyes grazed over me like most boys' do. I faked a smile for this country family living in the middle of a crowded city.

"You're so cute!" Eleanor grabbed me into one big pink hug.

"Thanks." I awkwardly slithered out of her arms.

"You must be tired." Jim said sympathetically or he was feeling awkward at the long stretch of silence as we stared at each other—pink and silver assessing each other.

"I am actually." I laughed to the best of my ability.

"You can rest in my room once we give you the GRAND TOUR!" Mary made large gestures with her arms.

"Sounds great." Inside I whimpered, it really sounded everything but.

I wish sometimes that monsters were as easy to figure out as humans. I basically had Mary's whole life story down by the time I was finished with the 'Grand Tour'. I wondered if she knew that she still didn't know anything about me yet. Humans liked that—knowing you as what they want you to be. To them I'm not a sly silver serial killer—to them I'm just as pink as the rest of them.

The tour ended in Mary's room. And guess what! I was right. I almost ran out of her little room screaming for my dark, crowded room that I used to live in. Or maybe that park bench with the hobo asleep on the news papers looked better then this. I wondered if that guy would be okay with me sharing his bench.

Her room is pink.

Oh, no, pink is an understatement. Her room is pink. The walls, the feathery pillows that decorated the pink arm chair and the twin pink beds—it was all pink! Her curtains, floor, desk and door were white. She didn't have closet doors, no, she had beaded curtains that were—you guessed it—pink. I felt like Strawberry Shortcake barfed on this room.

Pink.

She gestured to her room with a proud smile. Eleanor and Jim put my suitcases on the bed next to the window.

Good.

"What do you have in here? Rocks?" Jim asked jokingly. He was close. All of my weapons and emergency equipment was in that suitcase he held in his right hand. The other two were for clothes. I'm still a girl even if I'm not the typical waving-my-pompoms-in-your-face girl. I liked clothes. It beat the alternative.

"Shoes." I shrugged. Mary looked even happier if that was possible. She looked like that her smile might get too big for her face and explode. That mental image was looking really nice to me right now.

"You girls don't need any help unpacking?" Eleanor asked hopefully to get to know me better. She won't know anymore then she knows of me now. They'll think I'm perfect then I'll burn down the library and they can only look on and ask 'why', they won't know me.

Mary smiled again and waved her hand dismissively. "No thanks mom, we'll be fine."

She smiled sincerely at both of us. "Don't stay up too late, you have school tomorrow."

My sixth, first day of school. Eck.

"Sure thing mom."

Eleanor left the room leaving me and Mary to get acquainted. For a brief second I was more afraid of this pink girl then any monster, god, demigod or sorceress.

"So you said shoes?" Mary asked happily and skipped over to my suitcase with my clothes is it. She surprised me by un-zippering the weapon bag instead. I darted to her and plopped my hands down on the suit case possessively. She looked baffled for a few seconds then got over my behavior.

And I thought this would be awkward.

"Emily, how's it up there?" I whispered into my phone. Mary, as well as everyone else, was asleep. My window was open as I dangled my legs over the ledge two stories above the ground. I didn't have to hold onto the ledge as I whispered into the phone because my balance was perfect.

Em and Vikki would be on their night watch now.

"Pretty boring. I think we've wiped 'em out. Doesn't mean we wouldn't love to have you back boss." I waited patiently until Emily's voice spoke again. I could imagine the way the girls would be sitting. Weapons ready, as a shadow passed.

I stared into the bushes intently like I was on my own hunt. There wasn't anything immortal for miles. I think. It was hard to tell because my usually perfect senses felt stuffed up like I had a cold. Just incase, I had a dagger on the window sill next to me.

"False alert." Vikki breathed and I could hear it because that is just how silent they are—we have to be.

"So how are you handling things? Kill anyone yet?"

"I took down some weird Cabbie guy. One of you marked him so I killed 'em." It was hardly anything worth a gold star.

"Oh yeah. He charged me ten extra bucks for my ride. He said that there is a rush rate and I told him I'll give him a rush rate." She can get so aggressive sometimes. I could see her doing just that as her anger and frustration boiled over. Every gang needs someone like Emily but you also need some one like Vikki to calm her down when Emily gets too angry.

"That's why you marked him?"

"Yes ma'am."

"Idiot." I muttered away from the phone but she would have heard it regardless. My eyes were still trained on that spot in the bushes. I had the weirdest impulse to hop down and just run a perimeter check. I was just so…worthless right now.

The thin layer of snow that had fallen on the ground only an hour or so ago caught the moon's light and reflected it back so that each individual ice crystal looked like diamond. I knew that my hair did something quite similar to the snow and my eyes would match the full moon tonight.

"So, uh, how is the family?"

"Pink." The word was like a drop of sour concentrate on my tongue.

"Hey whatchya gonna do?"

"Hope that she doesn't try to get into my weapons bag again." I answered even though her question was rhetorical.

"Awh, she didn't." Em groaned.

"Almost."

"Rotten luck Adriana."

"You're telling me. Just imagine what I would have had to do if she knew what I was. I don't like killing innocents."

"You and me both. Mmm. Oh yeah. Vic and I think that it would be best for you to keep a log of what you encounter—kills, emotions, findings—you know, since we aren't there and you're so close to the entrance, if anything were to happen we could pick back up where you left off."

"Thanks. I'll start one once I get a notebook to keep it in."

"Hope that's soon. Aye! I got to go—good luck at school tomorrow! I'll bring you your bike by tomorrow morning!" The phone went dead after a few good swear words and some yowling from the other end.

They are doing what I am alive for while I'm safe on a window wondering if patrol duty would be worthless. I'm doing absolutely nothing really. Tomorrow. Tomorrow will be a new day and there will be more things to kill. I'll have my bike so I can sneak out and won't be bound to this house when the moon comes up. My favorite time of day—the end of it.

By tomorrow night I'll have this window open again but I'll be on the ground and running to my bike. I craved the adrenaline the speed of my bike brought me when I raced after a monster. My steel horse.

The Gest family will be the safest family for the surrounding hundred miles. This town will be wiped clean and I'll be moving on my way to the next one. I liked that thought—not being here anymore.

I looked at the bushes one last time before deciding to go back inside. I swung my legs into the room and dropped down without a sound. I gripped my knife and closed the window and put the screen back in place. Who would be watching this house anyway? No one important lived here.