Crossroads of Two Worlds

31- Hit The Road Jack

"We're taking a train?"

Adrian and Maya nodded at me like I was some stupid novice.

"You two are the most powerful descendants of gods in centuries, I'm a demiwitch, we're on a mission to save people that have been randomly exploding into dust, and we're taking a train?"

They both continued with their irritating shrugging and nodding.

Adrian finally spoke up, "Well, would you rather take a Greyhound? My dad says they suck."

I groaned and fidgeted a bit, "FINE! Let's go before we miss the train and have to take a bus."

............

I felt like an FBI agent. A moment ago, Adrian had passed me a manilla folder over the back of his seat. It would nave been really cool and secretive if I hadn't nearly dropped it and made the old woman next to me look at me like I was insane. I gave her my best "I'm an innocent little girl" smile and she turned back to her magazine. I guess I should take up acting.

Honestly though, woman! The entire train compartment was empty except for the few seats that had Maya, Adrian and I in them and she chose to sit where? Right by me! Thirty empty seats and she chose to sit by the uncomfortable twelve year old. It kind of made me want to offend her in some way, in any way. It also made this a bit harder. And she was invading my personal space. Thanks lady.

The folder contained all of the information that Chiron had been able to gather before we left. Meaning, not much information at all. This whole mission was kind of a shot in the dark but no one really had any choice in that matter. Frankly, I was surprised Chiron had gotten any information at all and stuffed it in this unnervingly thin folder.

The first thing I saw when I opened the folder was the word "Washington," in thick, bold letters.

Washington? The state? Out of all of the places this "villainous character" could have chosen to reside, he chose the generally unnoticed state of Washington? Weak choice.

I read on to find that in the folder Chiron had included the only other speck of evidence that anything similar to this had happened before. The only problem was that there were so many problems with everything written down in... 1976, which happened to be the last time anyone, any normal human or demigod, exploded into dust. They never came back. That didn't help my nerves be calmed down any.

Tanya Versooth was a sixteen year old daughter of Aphrodite, one of the badass ones. She had just gotten back from a mission where she rescued a valuable weapon from some unknown demons in California, and before she even had time to relate the details of the mission to Chiron, she exploded into dust right in front of her boyfriend. Chiron hadn't spoken of this instance since the time it occurred, and had told us so when he handed over the folder to Adrian in the Big House before we departed.

"You must be careful. This is rather... uncharted territory, even for me," Chiron warned us, standing before the three of us without his wheelchair. I had never seen him so worried. Which in turn made me worried. Crap.

Maya tilted her head to the side just as she always did when curious about anything, "You must have seen something like this before, you've seen everything."

Chiron shook his head, "Not everything, my dear. Not everything. But yes, once I did know something similar to happen. There were many differences but it is the only thing I can think of with any possible connections, and we need any connections we can get. Inside this folder you will find the case of Tanya Versooth."

And so we did.

Chiron had kept this to himself for decades? Impressive, and yet, it made me wonder what else the centaur had been keeping to himself for that long. But I couldn't blame him. Some things were just better to not talk about.