One Kiss: An Apocalyptic Urban Fantasy (Transmissions from The International Council for the Exploration of the Universe., #1)

Please state
Where
and
When
this correspondence was found and then put it in the nearest inter-dimensional pathway. You will be informed in reply where and when it was set adrift. Our object is to find out the Direction of the Deep Currents of the Universe.

Locality
where
found?

Depth

Date
whe
n found?

Name of Sender

Address

I hope this works. I've never tried attaching anything to our research messages before. Only 4% are found and responded to. Perhaps you have no idea what this is, what the Deep Currents of the Universe are. More than likely, if you can understand this, then it is much like your ocean. In my world we first started putting messages into bottles in order to track the currents of our waters. When another dimension responded it shocked us. It's possible in your world the dimensional portals are still unknown to your scientists. After decades of study they are still mostly unknown to ours, hence this message. We still use the same methods we did over a century ago. Though now it is the currents of the Universe that we throw our bites of data into.

But I have not broken all protocol, and risked my career, in order to talk about my world or the methodology of The International Council for the Exploration of the Universe. I did it to talk about Darling Price.

I have interviewed many inter-dimensional creatures but none of them like Darling. Enclosed you will find the recordings from the first day's sessions. I hope the file is not too heavy to float. I feel a great nervousness that I will be too late, or that you will not understand the impact of these interviews. I fear that my world is lost, but perhaps yours can be saved.

I will send out more when I can. Please respond. Tell me that you've received my message.

****

D
arling Price's hair is dark; it falls over her shoulders in shimmering waves. It's glossy like a record, catching the light in white lines. Her eyes are a very intense green. Alarming, powerful. She avoids eye contact. "Bad things happen when I look a person in the eyes. Everyone except Megan."

"Tell me about Megan," I said.

"She is the thing that saved me. I was going to kill myself, and kill people with me, and just drag the whole world down. I felt like reality was twisting around me and... she stopped the world and I got to live."

"Since her leaving?"

"Leaving," she hiccuped a laugh, "is that what you're calling it?" Darling stood up and turned to the wall. Her black leather pants were the same shiny black as her hair. On her hips hung a white belt; it tilted to one side, where her gun hung. Silver pistol, not as shiny as her hair. It looked used, scuffed, strapped to her leg for too long.

She raised her hands above her head and rested them against the cinder-block wall. Her fingernails were short, painted the same matte metallic as her gun. She turned back to me, running a hand through her hair, pushing the long locks away from her high cheekbones and arched brows. "She was taken. I want you to write that down. Megan did not leave me."

"Okay," I said, dutifully picking up my pen. "Please continue."

She looked at her empty chair, the long hair falling to cover her fine features. It exposed her shoulder, bare except for the strap of her tank top. Surprisingly erotic under the fluorescent light. Darling sat down and leaned onto the table between us. "Do you have a cigarette?" she asked.

"You can't smoke in here," I said.

She smiled slowly, her eyes warming; a sensation began to tingle along my jaw. "Give me a tobacco stick, and I'll tell you my story."

I waved to the guard.

Darling sat back, pushing the chair away from the table, and extended her legs out straight. "And a beer," she said. "I'd love a beer."

I nodded.

Moments later, a fresh cigarette hanging from her lip, the smoke curling around her and seeming to want to brush up against her hair before dissipating into the air, she began to tell me her story.

CHAPTER ONE

T
wo months after Megan disappeared I walked into our apartment and realized I was used to it being empty. When did that start? I wondered. When did I give up on Megan being here? At her bedroom door I paused and, leaning against the doorjamb, looked into the space.

It was not cold or stark like the crime scene photos. This was Megan's place, and it was warm and inviting. It felt almost alive to me. Clothing, barely contained by the closet doors, peeked out. A dark wood dressing table was covered in pill bottles. I'd lined them up neatly and there they sat, like little soldiers, waiting for their mistress to return. Polaroid pictures, squares of color with Megan's red hair the unifying theme, were tucked into the frame of the mirror.

I could still smell her perfume. I crossed the room to the dresser and picked up the small bottle of Gilt. I held it to my nose. The smell wafted up to me and I closed my eyes, sensing her there.

She'd worn Gilt ever since we moved to Crescent City. Before we had a place to live, before we got our first gig, Megan bought a bottle of Gilt. She paid for it with the money we earned playing on the streets. Megan cobbled together pennies and dimes to buy Gilt. And I never questioned her. She was a star. Megan knew her path; my only job was to follow.

After replacing the bottle of perfume on the dresser top next to a pair of gold dangling earrings, I went and sat on the bed. I ran my hand across the quilt, smoothing it against the mattress. Megan had left the bed unmade and I didn't fix it until days after she disappeared. I couldn't stand walking by the door and seeing it like that, as if she'd just gotten up to go to the bathroom.

Flyers from our performances and clippings about our band hung on the wall above the dresser. She was gorgeous in every picture. Even in the grainy black and white ones she glowed. Leaning over the microphone, her hair falling long to one side, exposing her profile, mouth wide, neck extended, eyes squeezed shut—you could almost hear how powerful her voice was through the page. That was the hardest thing about Megan's getting sick, listening to the slow and steady erosion of her vocals. Megan sang until there was nothing left.

I was in the photos too, but always in the background, my long dark hair flopped over my face, fingers tense on the strings of my fiddle. There was nothing natural in the way I stood or beautiful in my form. Megan was the star, I was just a lucky moon that got to orbit her.

I fished under the bed and pulled out Megan's other box of clippings. Years ago I'd known this pile by heart, and as I flipped through the aging paper I realized that I still did. The ones on top, yellow and curled with age, were cut out of the local paper in Michigan. They told the story of the early and tragic death of a much beloved choir instructor, Mr. Man.

He'd led the school to great glory that year, winning the region championships. Megan Quick, 13, was the star of the show. In his obituary photo Mr. Man's hair was parted to the side; he wore a fitted suit and a dark narrow tie. There was a glint in his eye and a tilt to his chin that implied devilish fun. When he'd finally died most of that hair was gone. Only white fluff remained, clinging to the sides of his head, the top bald and flaky. Mr. Man's cheeks sunk in as the illness drained him, sucking the skin around his eyes into the hollows. Those once-bright orbs of light became dull and confused in his final days. It took almost a year for Mr. Man to die. At the end, people whispered that it was a blessing.

Later articles, printed off microfiche from the Crescent City library, followed up with the disappearance of two of his foster children. Thirteen-year-old girls, much missed and worried about by his widow. One of them, Darling Price, suffered from a delusional disorder, the paper informed its readers. Without her medication she could slip into a psychotic state.

I looked at the date on the article. We'd been gone two days when it made the paper. Megan and I would have still been riding trains, headed south to the only place Megan thought would be right for us, Crescent City. We trundled through a dark and dismal landscape lined with chain-link fence. Megan lit a fire in the car. Smoke pouring out the open door, she huddled in the flickering light, warming her hands, and I started to cry. I was trying to be quiet but Megan always knew when I was upset. She came over to where I sat, cuddled against some burlap sacks filled with grain. The smell was musky and familiar.

"Darling, you don't have to be afraid." I nodded, but the tears continued. "You're safe now. He can't hurt us anymore."

"But, Megan," I hiccuped. "Won't I go to hell?"

Megan's brow furrowed deeply and her eyes flashed in the dark. "Of course not."

"But it's my fault, Megan."

"No, it isn't. He deserved to die, so he got sick and died. That's what happens to bad people. That's proof that God is watching."

"No, Megan." I took a shuddering breath. "You don't understand, I wanted him to die."

"So. Did. I."

"It was when his chest hair turned gray, I knew that if I didn't stop then he would die. I was offered a sign, a chance, and I kept going."

Megan frowned. "Even if that was true, you still wouldn't be going to hell. You saved us both, Darling." My sobs became uncontrollable. Megan pulled a knife out of her bag. I saw it flash in the firelight for only a second before she sliced it across her palm. Then she grabbed mine and did the same. The sensation snapped me out of my tears and I stared at the blood, not feeling any pain. Megan pressed her bleeding palm to mine. "Listen to me, Darling." I nodded. "You are going to be okay, we are going to stay together forever. This is a blood pact. If you go to hell I'm going to be there with you. I'll never leave you alone. You are safe with me and I am safe with you." I nodded. "Say it."

"I am safe with you—"

"And you are safe with me."

"Forever."

I could almost hear her voice as I sat on the bed looking down at the photograph of Megan in the paper. I recognized that powerful young woman who'd promised me safety. She was all over the walls of this room; she lived in the hearts and minds of fans all over the city. But she left me. She didn't even say goodbye.

Big drops of tears fell onto the papers on my lap. I curled up into a ball, crushing the papers against my chest, and sobbed into her pillow, letting the grief rack through me.

My phone beeped at me, and at first I ignored it, not wanting to pull out of the misery, but when it chimed again I reached into my pocket and retrieved it. A reminder from myself that I was due at the hospital in an hour.

Sniffling and wiping at my eyes, I sat up. I placed the papers back into the box, letting my finger run over Megan's face before replacing the lid and slipping it under the bed. I straightened Megan's quilt and went to my own room to change.

****

M
y room wasn't as big as Megan's, but it faced the back so it was quieter. I unzipped my pencil skirt and shimmied it over my hips, then tossed it onto my bed. Unbuttoning my blouse, I crossed toward my closet and looked in at the crowded shelves. I slid the blouse off and threw it onto the bed. Opening my chest of drawers, I scanned through my bras hoping to find a bigger one. The one I wore felt too tight. There was nothing to help me, and I bit my lip thinking about Megan's bras. They were sitting in her chest of drawers. Why wouldn't I put one on?

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