Chapter 38: Night: Kendra and the Gunslinger Girl | Then (Scenes 1-6)

Night: Kendra and the Gunslinger Girl

Then (Scenes 1-6)

Friend, face me so and raise
Unto my face thy face,
Unto mine eyes thy gaze,
Unto my soul its grace.

—Sappho (trans. Henry de Vere Stacpoole),
Sappho: A New Rendering,
“Friend”

1

Nico’s kiss was like the kiss Kendra herself had given to Roy Dolan before going to sleep. It was a warm and familial kiss, a kiss of sisterly affection and trust. In the world of kisses, there were three kinds (the family kiss, the loving kiss, and the kiss of death), and Nico’s was like a breath of mountain air or of water from a spring. It was a kiss that fed Kendra’s soul and stilled her quaking heartbeats into serenity.

Before Kendra could speak, Nico kissed her eyes, as well, then took one of Kendra’s hands and pressed it onto the center of her chest, making Kendra gape.

At this, a knowing smile pursed Nico's lips.

Kendra said, “W-what are you doing?”

“My eyes are now your eyes,” Nico said, “so what I see, you will also see."

“But why?” she said.

“Because I trust you,” Nico said, and Kendra’s mind flashed onto those same words Kendra said to Roy Dolan before going to sleep in his bed. “I need your help to find my sister, and another pair of eyes will cover more ground. You think you can keep up?”

“I’ll try my best,” Kendra said, “but where are we looking?”

So Nico led Kendra by the hand down the steps—

2

Into another dream sequence and another set of stairs, a spiral staircase descending into God knows where. In her other hand, Nico carried a lamp lighting the way in the darkness.

Kendra reached and ran her fingers on the stucco as she followed her guide, then leaned over the railing and looked up at the dwindling oculus of light from the skylight, then peered down through the darkness at the flickering glow of another light at the base of the stairs, where it emanated from an open doorway.

At these details, Kendra knew this was another dream sequence, different from her own and one she had never visited before.

She turned to Nico and said, “Where are we?”

“Underground,” Nico said. “Mara and I used to come down here when we were children, though it’s been years since we last visited this place.”

Kendra rolled Nico’s words through her mind and said, “How do you know she’s here?” And she felt Nico’s grip tightening around her knuckles. “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”

“It’s okay,” Nico said. “I feel her presence somewhere around here, is all.”

“Do you know where, exactly?”

Nico shook her head. “Like I said, it’s been years since I’ve been down here. My memory’s hazy.”

They continued on in silence after that, reaching the base of the stairs and passing through the open doorway into an underground of intersecting tunnels constructed of masonry and mortar, overlaid in stucco and lighted with wall sconces overlooking a series of doors.

Passing by each door, Kendra noticed a sign hung above each lintel, each one with the name of various towns and street addresses she had never heard of, each giving off a strange aura as though they opened into other worlds beyond. And each time they passed a tunnel intersecting the one along which they walked, Kendra noticed yet more sets of doors along more sets of tunnels bisecting more sets of tunnels with more sets of doors. The place was a grid-like maze, and she cringed at the thought of getting lost here.

After a time, Kendra was about to ask where Nico was going when Nico stopped at a door with a rusted yellow sign overhead and hung the lamp on a hook over the door that shimmered in its glow. In the flicker of the wall sconce and lamp, it said,

1900 Yellow-Brick Boulevard, Larkington, NV,

which manifested vague impressions of L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

“I’ve never heard of that street before,” Kendra said.

“Guess where that street’s in,” Nico said, but when Kendra blanked out, added, “I’ll give you a hint. It starts with an R and ends with an R.”

There was only one place in the city of Larkington that had two Rs in its name, so Kendra said, “You’re kidding me, right?”

“I’m not kidding.”

“Rancaster district?” Kendra said.

Nico paused, then said, “Yes and no,” and smiled, giving Kendra the impression that she was holding back on something, as she reached for the door knob and opened the door into another world beyond Kendra’s expectations—

3

And pulled Kendra past the threshold across a century of space-time between 2018 and 1913.

Kendra stopped, and Nico looked back at her. “What’s wrong?”

Kendra remained silent, looking around and wondering where Nico had taken her. From her memories of the 1939 technicolor adaptation and the book she read on her tenth birthday, Kendra expected little Munchkins and a bright road of yellow brick against a backdrop of bucolic countryside and sunny blue sky, not this . . . wherever this was.

The world she entered was a far cry from the children’s fantasy portrayed on screen and on the page. The street seemed of a different era, with Queen Anne-style homes squeezed together in close regiments along narrow sidewalks, a wide yellow-brick boulevard intersecting smaller yellow-brick streets, and Edwardian street lamps dotting the sidewalks and casting a flickering glow against a lugubrious night sky. And at the corners of her eyes, she kept seeing shadows of various humanoid shapes flitting by her, though she couldn’t view them when she faced their direction.

Kendra keping looking around, but no one besides Nico and herself were walking the streets here.

“What is this place?” Kendra said.

“This was the Rancaster district before the War,” Nico said, and on seeing Kendra start, she added, “What’s wrong?”

And again, thoughts fluttered through Kendra’s mind with superstitious dread, for she had listened to the stories that veteran cops like Officer Todd Curvan sometimes told on certain nights when a chill blew out of the Sharps Valley Sand Dunes and condensed into a spectral fog over Larkington and lingered over the old Rancaster district. They shared stories of various portals into other dimensions and even an ‘underground city’ full of otherworldly cryptids, and Kendra always thought they were just stories meant to tingle her spine on spooky nights, but here she was in just such a place.

Still grasping Kendra’s hand, Nico said, “Don’t be afraid. You have nothing to fear here. You only need to open your eyes.”

“What do you mean?” Kendra said. “I can’t see anyone else here.”

Nico kissed her eyes again, then took one of Kendra’s hands and pressed it on the center of her chest, then said, “Concentrate on my heart beating. Let your heart sync up with mine, and you’ll see what I see.”

So Kendra closed her eyes this time, shutting the empty street out of sight, and focused her attention on the warmth of Nico’s chest, on Nico’s heartbeats thumping against her palm, on the sound of its rhythm beating in Kendra’s ears, and on the essence of Nico’s life force seeping through Kendra’s hand and up her arm and into her own beating heart. And with each heartbeat beating like a drum in her ears and heart, Kendra felt the veil lifting from her eyes as if the sluggish weight of slumber relinquished its host.

When Kendra opened her eyes again, she found herself in the same street teeming with pedestrians: men in fedoras and bowler hats and vests and ties and long coat jackets and loafers, women in wide-brimmed hat and long hobble skirts and tailored jackets and fur coats and gloves and muffs, and boys in berets and sailor shirts and overcoats and knickerbockers or sailor pants, and girls in large hats and overcoats and knee-length skirts.

Everywhere Kendra looked were men and women going about town, boys and girls following their parents to nearby destinations, and everybody else having somewhere to go, while Kendra herself had no idea where Nico was taking her.

“Do you see now?” Nico said.

Kendra, speechless, only nodded, then noticed Nico in her own wide-brimmed hat and long skirt and jacket. “You can’t be serious.”

“Speak for yourself,” Nico said. “You’re the one sticking out, not me.”

Kendra looked down on herself and saw the torn Mandarin dress that she'd worn back in her collective dream dive with Celia and Colbie last night, without a hat or a jacket to protect her from the cold nighttime air. It was enough of a difference that many of the other passersby glanced at Kendra, and some took second glances at her, and a brave few took third and fourth glances or just stared at the underdressed stranger in their midst, who was now the observed of the observers.

“What’s going on?” Kendra said.

“We’re in a pocket dimension,” Nico said. “We’re the outsiders.”

“Sounds like a teen movie to me.”

Nico shook her head, took Kendra’s hand again, and started pacing down the sidewalk paralleling the yellow-brick avenue, ignoring the glances of curious passersby, then turned away from the avenue into a narrow lane away from prying eyes.

“Where are you taking me?” Kendra said.

“Somewhere less conspicuous, so we can get our bearings,” Nico said, cutting through yet another hidden thoroughfare that bisected a row of old Italianate buildings and led into a quieter street where she stopped and faced Kendra. “This seems as good as any around here.”

“Good,” Kendra said, crossing her arms over her chest and staring hard at her wayward guide into this whacked-out Wonderland of an acid trip, “because I have no idea where you’re taking me, or any idea what’s going on. Explain yourself!” 

Nico seemed to waver a bit under Kendra’s glare, then heaved a sigh and said, “I’m trying to jog my memory, okay? I haven’t been here for years.”

“Then how do you know Mara’s here?”

“I can’t be certain, if that’s what you mean,” Nico said, “but I feel her presence somewhere around here. I just need to get used to this place again, so I can pinpoint where Mara is, that’s all.”

At this, Kendra wished Celia was around to pinpoint Mara’s location the way she did for Mara and Nico’s body over the Rancaster district from her dorm room. Even though Celia was a pain in her ass at times, Kendra needed her help, but help was not forthcoming.

You are reading story Days of Blood and Roses: A Magical Girl Thriller at novel35.com

So Kendra said, “Can we at least get out of the cold? I’m freezing!”

4

“Wait,” Colbie said to Nico, sensing a synchronicity that was just on the edge of her comprehension, “how did you and Mara get into this underground in the first place?”

“It was through our dreams,” Nico said. “Mara and I often share collective dreamscapes when we sleep together.”

Mara blushed and said, “Nico, geez!”

“I’m just being honest, okay?” Nico said.

Mara sighed. Colbie and Kendra traded quizzical glances, as though each had some hentai-esque idea of what these sisters were talking about and smiled at Mara and Nico, but Mara and Nico glared at Colbie and Kendra as if to say, ‘Don’t go there.’

So Colbie and Kendra left the idea hanging there.

Kendra turned to Nico and said, “Are you sure you want me to take the lead on this one? You know more about this crazy place than I do.”

For a time, Nico seemed to consider Kendra’s offer, perhaps still on the fence on whether or not ‘to take the lead,’ perhaps thinking of something else, for she remained silent in her thoughts. She turned to Mara and said, “After you stabbed Colbie, do you remember what happened next?”

Mara looked at Kendra and said, “I remember you rushing at me and knocking me out. I don’t remember the impact, though.”

“I was angry that time,” Kendra said. “A lot of shit happens when I get angry.”

Mara nodded, feeling Nico’s gaze linger on her, then had a brainwave on the edge of her thoughts. “Wait, I think I remember something else.” Then she blushed.

“What is it?” Nico said.

“I . . . At some point, I thought I was kissing you, Nico,” Mara said, “but it turned out to be Colbie. I don’t know why that happened, though. It kind of surprised me.” Which was an understatement, for Mara blushed yet again.

“I think you should take the lead on this one, Nico,” Kendra said. “You were the one who did it, not me.”

“Did what?” Mara said, looking at Nico and then at Colbie. “What did you do to me?”

“Do you want the short answer,” Nico said, “or the long answer?”

“Both.”

“Come on,” Kendra said. “Let her have it.”

So Nico let her sister have it. She went up to Mara and kissed her and said, “That’s what I did to you. That’s the short answer.” She then paused for a bit, organizing her thoughts. “This is the long answer, but bear with me, okay? This was weird, even for me.”

Mara acquiesced, finding more reasons to blush in one awkward meeting with her sister in Colbie’s presence, and let Nico collect her thoughts.

Nico seemed to notice and glanced at Colbie, then said, “We reached an inn on a nearby street and ordered something to eat. Kendra filled me in on what happened in the old Rancaster district, and everything leading up to that, but something didn’t add up. We . . .”

5

The air in the inn smelled more like that of a saloon than an actual inn, filled with the scent of burning cigarettes and booze, both cheap and expensive, and charged with the moisture of ozone just before a storm. It was an inn catering to the dregs of the old Rancaster district: the drunks, ruined whores, and flat-broke gamblers. Kendra kept complaining about the stench, saying that Nico should have chosen a better establishment, but Nico said that there was a storm coming, and getting caught out in the rain in winter was the last thing they’d want to do.

As for Nico, she was almost at her wit’s end trying to explain how she knew her sister’s location in this part of the Phantom Realms to her stalwart companion, Kendra.

Kendra just wasn’t the type of girl to accept things at face value, being the daughter of one cop and the stepdaughter of another cop. She said, “Look, I’m not saying it didn’t happen that way. Maybe it did, or maybe you experienced it that way, but it still doesn’t make sense.”

“But these are dreams I’m talking about,” Nico said, “not reality. Dreams don’t always have to make logical sense.”

“True,” Kendra said, “but glitches in the matrix don’t make sense, either.”

“Because they’re anomalies?”

“Yep,” Kendra said. “They still have to make some kind of sense, though, even if we can’t understand them yet.”

“I guess you’re right about that,” Nico said. “There’s a lot about dreams I don’t understand.”

“Then let’s investigate.”

“How do we do that?”

“Well, duh,” Kendra said. “By gathering intelligence.” When Nico blanked out on what she meant, Kendra said, “You know, interviewing the locals around here, writing down rumors and gossip, looking into any patterns that don’t fit into the norm. You know, that kind of thing.”

Nico looked at the wannabe gumshoe, wondering if she was a fan of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s work, or any of the movie adaptations based on it. “What are you, Sherlock Holmes?”

Kendra deadpanned. “I have connections to the police, you know.”

“And you think that makes you a detective?”

Kendra slammed her hands on the table and stood up, turning heads her way and glaring down at the doubting neophyte before her. “Listen, Nico. I’m the closest thing to Sherlock Holmes you’ve got, and you’re my bumbling Watson. If I seem to act like a know-it-all all the time, then I’m sorry, but you’ll just have to deal with it.”

Nico smiled at her words, for it was Kendra’s fiery determination that allowed her to pass Nico’s test. If this Kendra Tellerman could help her find anything on the whereabouts of her sister, Nico could endure stroking her ego for a bit. Besides, it was fun putting the razz on Kendra, once in a while.

“Well, if you promise to be the best Sherlock Holmes you can be,” Nico said, rising from her seat and stretching out her hand to Kendra over the table, “I’ll make sure to be your most devoted and loving Watson. Deal?”

At this, Kendra blushed and said, “What the hell are you talking about? You’re the one who raised the whole Sherlock shtick!”

“Do we have a deal?”

At this, Kendra looked around on hearing sniggers and come-ons from the rowdy patrons of the inn. Some of them were egging her on, and some even whistled.

“All right,” Kendra said, taking Nico’s hand. “Deal.”

Nico shook hands with her, then raised Kendra’s hand to her mouth and blew on her knuckles and kissed them like a suitor, eliciting more whistles and come-ons from the patrons in attendance.

Kendra pulled away. “What the hell?”

Nico smiled and winked at her. “Help me find Mara, and I’ll be anything you want me to be.”

“Stop it already, geez!”

6

After Kendra got dressed in a wide-brimmed hat and long skirt and jacket in a backroom, Nico and Kendra began their first leg of the investigation by interviewing the patrons of the inn, asking whether or not they heard or noticed anything strange going on in the district tonight or the night before.

Most of what they got was useless. Most of the patrons didn't notice anything, because they were too drunk, too depressed, or just plain too mixed up with their own pitiful selves to notice a Goddamn thing. One was at least a little helpful, though still useless, overall. One hoary patron, who was getting more tipsy with every shot glass he threw down his gullet, said that he noticed the air "shivering" (his word) last night, but that it could have been the wind chill. When asked where he was when that happened, he said he was heading to a consultation on Richet Square on the next street over.

Yet when asked what time the 'shivering' happened, he looked from side to side as if watching out for spies, leaned over the table, and said, "The bottom of the Devil's hour. Now don't tell anyone I told you that! He's got spies everywhere."

"Who's 'he'?" Kendra said.

"Nope," he said. "You won't get any more from me, thank you."

But Nico had an idea who this someone was, and going against her better judgment, she said, "Is this man named Aaron Rancaster, by any chance?"

The levity of the inn fell silent, and all heads turned towards Nico and the flighty patron she was talking to.

He said, "He has spies everywhere, even amongst an establishment such as this, so be careful mentioning him. He's a dangerous man."

All eyes were on both girls now.

"Sorry," Nico said. "I didn't know."

"Now you do," he said. "By the way, what's your name, miss?"

Nico was about to speak, but Kendra placed her hand on her shoulder and whispered, "I think we should leave."

That's when Nico realized that she had fucked up, big time. "Sorry about that. It won't happen again."

The patron nodded, and Kendra led Nico out of the inn, while the eyes of the other patrons followed them out of the door and into the nighttime air, thick with ozone and the threat of rain—

Tsuzuku

You can find story with these keywords: Days of Blood and Roses: A Magical Girl Thriller, Read Days of Blood and Roses: A Magical Girl Thriller, Days of Blood and Roses: A Magical Girl Thriller novel, Days of Blood and Roses: A Magical Girl Thriller book, Days of Blood and Roses: A Magical Girl Thriller story, Days of Blood and Roses: A Magical Girl Thriller full, Days of Blood and Roses: A Magical Girl Thriller Latest Chapter