Part 1 || 10 | Momo

A Tale of Three Gunslingers

“It took time setting up a routine to keep Ryder’s power in check,” Momo said and took another pull of her root beer slurry. “So I worked with the Muse Inspector to help her channel it with our standard-issue sidearms as an outlet. It took a lot of trial and error, but we managed to . . .”

Momo then noticed her younger sister looking down at her empty plate, her face still beet-red after she had told her younger sister about the smooching part.

“You’re still hung up over it?” Momo said.

“That was my first kiss!” Sakura said, then at Ryder: “And I was asleep, you perv!”

“Girl, you had it easy,” Ryder said and snorted, then took a pull from her own root beer slurry. “I had to kiss seventeen other girls who either bullied me or watched me get bullied. So don’t give me any of your lip!”

But then Momo saw an opening to get at Sakura’s nerves and leaned over, whispering just loud enough for her sister to hear, and said, “Are you curious about it?”

“I’M NOT!” Sakura said.

“Sure you’re not,” Momo said.

Several patrons looked towards their table, and some of them told their kids to ignore the three rude girls, warning them in whispers to not be like that when they grow up. But then their warnings backfired on these helicopter parents whose kids asked them what a ‘kiss’ was or what a ‘perv’ was or whether or not they could get cooties from doing whatever that was.

Which made Sakura blush.

And made Momo and Ryder grimace.

So to change the subject, Momo looked at her watch (9:24 a.m.) and saw that she had two hours to kill before heading back to the Muse Bureau for those reports. Faced with extra time, she rolled her options through her head before saying, “While we’re waiting for the reports, why don’t we drop by the target’s house? You know where Judy’s house is, right?”

Sakura and Ryder traded glances.

“A stakeout?” Ryder said.

“Only if she’s there,” Momo said.

“And if she’s not there,” Ryder said, “what then?”

“Then we’ll just check the place out for a bit,” she said. “And if we still have time, we’ll drop by the target’s school and poke around there for a bit.”

“But why do that, anyway?” Sakura said.

“Because you’re going undercover there,” Momo said before taking another pull of her root beer slurry.

“As what?” she said.

“Just guess.”

Sakura just stared at her before saying, “No way.”

“You guessed right,” Momo said. “You’ll be going there as a transfer student.”

Sakura gaped. “You’re kidding!”

“I’m not,” Momo said.

“But why me?”

“Because you’re the same age as Judy,” Ryder said and took another pull of her root beer slurry.

“So are you!” Sakura said.

“I know that,” Ryder said, “but don’t forget what your sister said about my case. If I stay there for too long, my powers might have adverse effects on the students there. If you go, you’ll be our eyes and ears there instead, while your sister and I will handle everything outside of school.”

“Also,” Momo added, “try to make friends with Judy if you can, but don’t be too obvious about it, okay?”

Sakura stared. “Go undercover?”

“That’s it,” Momo said.

“And while you’re there,” Ryder added, “listen for any rumors or conspiracies of any kind in Judy’s presence, whether they’re about her or otherwise.”

“Seriously?” Sakura said.

“Yep,” Momo added. “What do you say?”

Sakura just looked down at her empty plates and empty glass, then looked up at Momo and smiled, saying, “I’ll do it if you take me here every weekend.”

Momo crossed her arms over her chest and deadpanned, saying, “You’ll get fat, you know.”

“No, I won’t,” Sakura said. “Take it or leave it. Oh, and are you gonna drink that green tea?”

Momo looked down at her untasted green tea, and her stomach lurched at the thought of consuming it after downing the rest of her root beer on top of the two cakes she had eaten. The last thing she wanted was to throw up after her sugar rush and the sweet aftertaste lingering in her mouth, so she slid over her green tea in Sakura’s direction.

Sakura took it and slurped through the straw, then smiled and said, “I’ll go with your plan then.”

Now it was Momo’s turn to trade glances with Ryder, saying, “See what I mean? She’s a garbage disposal unit!”

“Maybe you can put it on the Muse Bureau’s tab,” Ryder said. “That might take care of it.”

Momo put her fingers between her brows, feeling the start of an on-coming headache she wasn’t sure was the result of a sugar rush or Ryder’s suggestion or Sakura’s demands, but she knew one thing for sure: this was going to be one of those cases. Yet she took a deep breath and said, “Geez, have it your way!”

“Thanks, sis. I knew I could depend on you,” Sakura said with a beaming smile and big cherry blossoms blooming behind her, till she started slurping more of Momo’s green tea like she was playing a flute. “Mmmmm, this tastes really good. I might have some next time.”

“God, you suck!” Momo said.

“She’s that kind of sister, isn’t she?” Ryder said.

“Yep,” Momo said and downed the rest of her root beer in one gulp and clinked her glass on the table.

So Ryder downed her own glass and clinked it on the table.

“Stop copying me!” Momo said.

Ryder smiled with black dahlias blooming behind her and said, “Only if you treat me, too.”

Momo just gaped at Ryder, staring at her partner and protégé sitting on her treacherous ass and aligning herself with her bratty little sister, both with twin tails. Sakura had the cutesy little ones, while Ryder had the long ones, and both she-devils smiled up at her: two against one.

“All right, you win already!”

“Yes!” they both said.

“God, you both suck so much!” Momo said.

But to add insult to injury, Sakura slurped more of Momo’s green tea.

Which pushed Momo over the edge. She glared at the two twin-tailed she-devils with a flash of her eyes, making them cling to each other at the sight of Momo’s long locks of hair floating up like pythons behind her shoulders. “There’s only so much I can take before I snap,” she said, “so don’t push your luck, unless you want to die!”

The clinking of silverware and the talking stopped, and all heads turned at the sight of an angry Medusa-like young woman in their midst. So mothers covered their children’s eyes, and fathers covered their children’s ears.

As such, both girls apologized. Then Sakura and Ryder took off the plastic lids from their cups and discarded the straws and downed their drinks in one gulp, Sakura downing the rest of Momo’s green tea and Ryder downing her soda.

With that, Momo raised her hand to catch the waitress’ attention and said, “Check, please!”

A Tale of an Empty House

The door to Judy Windermere’s bedroom moved on its own, closing shut, then opening on smooth hinges and letting Momo and Ryder and Sakura into the room. Momo shushed them with a finger on her lips, and Ryder and Sakura nodded that they understood. Then Momo manifested a blank omamori charm, pinned it onto the partition next to the door, closed her eyes, and said under her breath, “Search,” and she snapped her fingers.

The hiragana for searching the premises flashed on the charm, spreading a neon light out across all the walls and floors and ceilings of the bedroom and out into the hallway and beyond. It spread across the upper hallway and down the stairs and into the floor below them, encompassing greater and greater portions of the house in its holographic light.

And for a time, they waited in silence.

When the neon hologram encompassed the whole interior of the house, Momo’s eyes flashed a neon green, and she said, “The target’s not here.”

“Where could she have gone?” Ryder said.

“Don’t know,” Momo said, “but it’s just as well. We’ll ask the Muse Inspector where our target’s at when we get back, but not before we inspect the evidence.”

“Where?” Sakura said.

“There are books scattered on the floor below us, one in the living room and three in the family room,” she said and led them through the upper hall and down the steps into a living room without another word. But on reaching it, she paused at the bookcases lining the walls from the window at the front entrance to the edge of the hallway that ended at the entrance to the kitchen.

Ryder whistled and said, “Geez, this chick takes the cake when it comes to bookworms.”

“I know, right?” Momo said, looking around the living room for the one book she detected, and spotted a volume on the console table next to the wall and went to get it and picked it up. “Our target’s a fan of Sherlock Holmes,” and she opened it to a bookmark at the start of “The Adventure of the Empty House,” then noticed the entrance door, still left ajar.

Sakura crept up to the door, then turned back and said, “Did our target run out of the house?”

“Maybe,” Momo said.

“But why?”

“Don’t know,” she said, placing the book back on the console table, and entered the kitchen and into the family room, then waved her companions over and pointed at the three volumes lying parted face down on the floor. “There they are.”

Sakura and Ryder followed after her.

Then Momo picked the volumes off the floor and read the cover titles, saying, “The Green Eyes of Bâst by Sax Rohmer, Dracula by Bram Stoker, and Collected Stories by H. P. Lovecraft: our target’s also got a taste for vintage horror,” and she turned them over and viewed the open pages, skimming through them. “Ryder, Sakura,” she added, handing two of the books face up to her partners, “read the passages to yourselves, while I read the one I’ve got here.”

Both girls took the books in their hands, Sakura getting the Stoker book and Ryder getting the Lovecraft book, while Momo kept the Rohmer book.

Time passed as they all read the passages to themselves, and once they were all finished, Momo said, “What sticks out to you, girls?”

“Dracula’s ‘basilisk’ eyes,” Sakura said.

“A dead man’s ‘glassy, bulging eyes,’” Ryder added.

“Mine’s the same,” Momo added. “It just has ‘the eyes’ seen through a window in the darkness.”

“Say,” Ryder said, “do you remember what the Muse Inspector said about the witnesses?”

“Yeah,” Momo said, rolling Nathaniel’s exact words through her head. “He said the witnesses felt they were being watched, and some even saw a pair of eyes.”

“You think these books caused it?” Sakura said.

“It’s the other way, I think,” Momo said.

“You mean our target?” Ryder said.

“Yeah,” Momo said, “but we don’t know yet if Judy’s the cause or not,” and she reached out her hand. “We’re not keeping those, so hand them over.” They did, and Momo placed the volumes with their pages facing down on the floor as she had found them, then went over the passage of the Rohmer book in her mind and looked over at the blinds obscuring the patio window and added, “Let’s check one more thing.”

“What’s that?” Sakura said.

So Momo pointed at the blinds obscuring the back patio with thin slits of daylight peaking through them and said, “Over there,” and she manifested three omamori charms and gave two of them to Ryder and Sakura. “Put those against the window, press your hands against them, and close your eyes.”

They did as she said, and once Momo placed hers over the window behind the blinds, pressing her hand over it against the glass, she closed her eyes and said, “Reveal yourself!”

Eyes flashed, and they jerked her hands away.

They were breathing hard.

“What was that?” Sakura said.

“Was that even real?” Ryder added.

“God, I don’t know,” Momo said as the image of two red glowing eyes lingered in her mind, “but whatever that was, we need tell the Muse Inspector about it,” and she led the way back through the dining area and kitchen into the living room and ascended the stairs, followed in two by her companions.

“Back to the Muse Bureau?” Sakura said.

“Not yet,” she said as she cleared the top step and entered Judy’s bedroom, followed by Ryder and then Sakura. Momo pushed the door closed, manifested another omamori charm, placed it over it (“Open!”), and snapped her fingers, and it opened into the women’s restroom of another building. “We’re poking around the target’s school, remember?”

“Ugh,” Sakura said.

“No complaining now,” Momo said and passed the threshold, followed by Sakura and Ryder.

TBC