A Hand in Hell

Chapter 1

There was a little myth floating around this city. One of my favorites, actually. Bits and pieces of it varied from person to person, as is the tendency with myths and legends, but there was one thing that remained consistent: a red car.

Now, the driver of the vehicle was a constantly changing aspect of the tale. A young male, all muscles and tan skin – no, no. A tall man, with graying hair and little real muscle tone. Or, maybe, a female. Pretty, ugly, chunky, sexy, blonde, brunette, D-cup, B-cup. No one knew what they saw. Yet, in every telling of the flawed story, the driver was bad news. The why of it all was never static enough to consider this a consistent part of the legend, however. Some say the driver killed whoever was closest to the car. Others thought differently, promoting tales of kidnappings or robberies or anything else they could come up with.

It was all hilarious to me, though. Each reason brought up another debate, another group of inconsistencies. Did the driver, clearly a male, kill only females? What if he only kills males? As a robber, did he go after banks? Or was it always petty convenience stores?

None of it mattered, of course. It was just a myth. Some people were cautious around red vehicles, but that was the legend's only effect on society. Nobody outside of the city even knew it existed. But, if anyone had cared to pay more attention to the details of each individual telling, had picked out the truths from the mass of lies, had bothered to put it all together, it would have explained why so many people tended to go missing in this particular area.

At this, I just laughed harder.

Thinking about the legend only brought a smile to my face now, though, as I sat outside a night club in my fourth generation, gorgeous red Viper. I'd gotten it almost as soon as it had come out the year before, but I'd always been driving red Vipers. Red was my favorite color, after all - not to mention my trademark.

The car was off to make my presence at the end of this dark alley just a bit less conspicuous. It was nearly morning, so there was no one going into the club, and everyone coming out was either drunk off their ass or too high on whatever they'd gotten in there to notice anything but the equally fucked up person supporting them. It was always funny to watch, since walking just wasn't their friend. I imagined driving wasn't much better.

I looked at my face in the rear-view mirror, growing bored with the unchanging task of staring at the door, of watching and waiting. The light of a nearby streetlamp glinted on the dark lenses of the sunglasses I wore, covering the vivid crimson of my eyes, and my lips parted in a wide ivory grin as the redness flickered like a flame behind the tinted plastic. I was always tempted to leave the glasses off, to terrify the world with my blood-red stare, but I knew better. I was the stuff of legend, you know. If I made myself too conspicuous, where would the fun be in all of this?

My eyes flicked away from the mirror at the sound of the heavy door creaking open again. The alley was empty now but for the single girl staggering into the dim morning, supported only by her small hand on the brick of the wall. She squinted into the darkness as if even that were too bright for her – ocean-blue irises, richer than any I'd seen before. My breath caught; my smile evolved into something more gruesome.

This was it. This was who I'd come for.

I slipped out of the car and into the chill of the early morning, the sharp snap of a stiletto heel on the asphalt bringing her head around. "Hey, babe," I said, my voice and my face all worry and concern. "You don't look so good. Do you need some help finding your car?"

"No," she slurred, finally sliding out from between the door and the wall, allowing the rusty metal to shriek and slam shut. She leaned heavily against the wall, her palms flat against it and her fingers spread wide. "No, no. I'm...I think I'm good." She took a step forward, but, unsteady on her own six-inch spike heels, she lilted off to the side and fell to her knees before she could take another.