Nine Lives of Chloe King

by Celia Thomson

  Paul looked deeply uncomfortable, though he tried his best to hide it.

  “And your mom doesn’t know any of this?” Amy asked, amazed.

  Chloe shrugged. “This has all been kinda recent, and it’s all kinda hard to believe. I was thinking about maybe trying to sneak over to see my mom tonight after you guys,” Chloe went on dully. “But smarter than last time. Not just, like, walking up to the front door.”

  “Oh. Uh.” Amy and Paul exchanged another look. Paul cleared his throat again. “That’s another reason we wanted to see you, Chloe.”

  “I think your mom’s missing,” Amy blurted. “I broke into your house about a week ago and it was like no one had been there for a while.”

  Chloe stared at her, mind numb.

  “We were going to call the police,” Paul began.

  “I have to go home,” Chloe whispered, and then, without another word, she turned and ran.

  “Wait! Chloe!” Amy called out to the figure disappearing into the night.

  “Chloe!” came a new voice, masculine, from somewhere above them. “Chloe! Don’t go! It’s a trap! Chloe…!”

  Paul and Amy looked at each other, then ran after their friend.

  Chloe ran until her lungs shrieked from the cold air and lack of oxygen, until her insides stung with heart attack pain. Even with her Mai strength and speed, she was pushing herself far harder than she ever had. When a car blocked her way, she leapt, sinking her hand claws into its roof and pulling herself over it like a pole vaulter, leaving the driver with a horrible tearing sound in his ears and the image of rabid dogs and werewolf movies in his mind. She stuck to the streets and lower levels, not wanting to waste any time with the sort of stunts she usually enjoyed on her nighttime runs. She felt her foot claws trying to come out, straining at the fabric in her sneakers. On one landing, they finally pushed through the soles of her Sauconys, grabbing the dirt below her to push her forward.

  Chloe ignored the shadows around her. She was far too fast a moving target this time to worry about an ambush. She was only concentrating on one thing: the nightmare that had kept her awake since the whole thing began. Bringing the violence that was now part of her life home, onto her mom.

  She ran up the steps and unlocked the door, slamming it open, and threw herself in.

  “Mom?” she called.

  A step in and she instantly knew something was wrong.

  The air was stale, as Amy had suggested; there were no recent human movements, warmth, or smells in there except for her friend’s. None of her mom’s perfume, soap, or skin scent was less than a week old. And there was a rancid, rotting scent beneath everything, like the drain in the sink hadn’t been cleaned in a while.

  Chloe flipped on the lights. Everything looked exactly the same as it had the last afternoon she’d been there, except for a few glasses that were put near the sink. Maybe when her mom had come home from work and found that note of Chloe’s—she looked around frantically. There it was, by the phone. Scribbled in her mom’s handwriting on it was Keira’s number under her name; Mrs. King had fully intended on checking up to see if her daughter really was where she said she was.

  Hummus. Chloe realized what the sour smell was. She followed it to the fridge, where a clump of it trailed down the outside of the door. It was so unlike neat freak Anna King that Chloe felt her heart stop when she saw it. She opened the door and saw the open container of hummus, now molding.

  On its surface, the word help had been sloppily inscribed.

  Nineteen

  I can’t believe this.

  The first coherent thoughts Anna King was able to form as the drug wore off were incredulous and disbelieving. She opened her eyes to confirm what she was sure couldn’t be true.

  She was tied to a chair. Just like out of the movies, she had come to, tied to a chair.

  It was a very comfortable chair, more like a La-Z-Boy or lounger, and she wasn’t tied to it exactly like in the movies, but still. Her arms were belted onto the tops of the armrests—the chair had been neatly altered specifically for this purpose. Her feet were connected to each other by some sort of hobble, rendering it impossible for her to walk, much less get up, but that did not prevent her from being able to switch to more comfortable sitting positions.

  She closed her eyes again, still sluggish and sleepy.

  The drug was thick in her mouth, like a morning-after-Nyquil hangover but a thousand times worse. They’d given it to her after they’d slipped her out of the house. As soon as she opened the door, she knew something suspicious was up. Years of living in the city first by herself, and then later as a single mom, had made her sensitive to vibes. They were polite and the woman in the group had asked if they could come in. When Anna had said no, they’d somehow wound up inside anyway. She’d pretended she wasn’t scared, putting pieces of dinner away. They talked about her daughter, and the trouble Chloe might be in, and how they wanted to help. She’d written the word help in the hummus, inspired and terrified.

  It was a good thing she’d done that, too, since a few minutes later she was trying to scream and they had a gag over her mouth and there was a big, sleek car like out of the movies and she was taken away into darkness.

  “Mrs. King,” someone was saying gently, trying to wake her up more.

  “Anna,” she corrected instantly, in lawyer mode. She blinked a few times before managing to keep her eyes open. Someone had thoughtfully taken her glasses when they kidnapped her and had put them on her when she was passed out.

  The room came into focus after a couple of moments of blurriness. She was in an office or a library, nicely appointed with a thick wool rug and big mahogany desk. A man was leaning back on it, almost sitting, legs crossed. He was a large man, middle-aged and white, with a sleek patience in his eyes that Anna the lawyer instantly recognized as a direct result of having money and/or power. He was dressed in a suit without the jacket, his tie loosened.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked politely.

  She opened her mouth to tell him precisely how she was feeling, but nothing came out, like she had used up all her speech with her name before. “Water,” was all she managed to croak instead.

  “Of course.” He turned to look at someone blocked from her view by the side of her chair—she had begun to think of it as her chair—and made a little motion with his hands. Quiet footsteps went off to do his bidding, no questions asked. Money and power, she decided.

  A moment later someone handed him a glass of ice water. He came forward, and just when Anna was afraid he was going to feed her, he unlatched her left arm and let her take the glass herself. She didn’t drain it instantly; this was not a time to show weakness. Instead she took polite, demure little sips, as though she were at a dinner party.

  “Is that better?” the man asked.

  “Where’s my daughter?” she countered.

  “What?” the man said with wry amusement. “You don’t think she’s at her friend Keira’s house?”

  “What have you done with my daughter?” Anna repeated.

  “We haven’t done anything, Anna. Although Chloe is in a lot of trouble—she has fallen in with a bad crowd and has been involved in a murder.”

  The doubt that flashed through Anna King’s mind registered nowhere on her face. “I don’t think so,” she said.

  “Well, I’m afraid she has.” The man sighed, crossing his arms. “One of my friends—one of my colleagues—is dead because of her.”

  “You keep not saying that she killed him,” Anna noted, sounding exactly like the attorney that she was. “’Involved in a murder’ and ’dead because of.’”

  The man laughed, and his full, jowly chin shook a little. His voice was rich and beautiful, and every time he used it, Chloe’s mother hated him more. “You are absolutely correct, of course; this is not a black-and-white world. We have no actual proof that my friend is dead.”

  “Why am I here,” Anna said wearily, “and where is Chloe?”

  �
�Chloe is with her new friends, most likely. To make a long story as short as possible, Mrs. Ki—Anna—your daughter’s biological family is from a long line of … well, I guess you could call them warriors of a sort, or maybe a hunting caste—more than anachronistic in this day and age. Anyway, her people want her back. We have reason to believe they contacted her about a month ago and are fairly certain she is with them now.”

  Anna stared at him for a long moment before speaking. Even though she was the one tied to a chair, with her blondish hair coming out in wisps around her cockeyed glasses, she didn’t feel like she was the ridiculous one in the room.

  “Do you mean to tell me that some crazy ancient Russian Mafia wants Chloe to join them like her parents did?”

  “Something like that, yes.”

  “If you care so very much about my daughter’s welfare, why aren’t you talking to the police or to me on the phone instead of kidnapping me and tying me to a chair?”

  “Well, that brings us to your first question, doesn’t it?” The man uncrossed his legs and put his arms behind him, supporting himself on the desk. “You are here because the Mai are extremely dangerous. In situations that have occurred before, with adoptive children of American parents, they have been known to kill the parents to ensure complete loyalty of the child and to cut off all connections with the rest of the world.”

  “And again, why do you care?”

  “The Mai don’t play by normal rules—they are like a gang, but far worse. Very much like the mob you mentioned. My organization exists to protect the public from them. To limit their influence. Hopefully one day to destroy them completely.”

  “How charitable of you.”

  “My wife was killed trying to save someone from the Mai,” he said softly. “I don’t want you or anyone else suffering the same fate.”

  Both were silent for a moment. The corners of the room were obscured in gloom, and there were no windows. She was someplace secret, dark, and impossible to find. Mrs. King felt like squirming, both from his gaze and from sitting still for so long, never mind how comfortable the chair was. She didn’t, though. “Why am I”—she pulled at her right arm—“still tied to the chair if you’re just trying to protect me?”

  “Anna, if we had come to your house and told you what I just did, would you have come quietly along with us?”

  He did have a point.

  “It was imperative to get you out of your house as soon as possible, as quietly as possible. Any one of a number of things may happen next—someone, a hit man from the Mai, may be sent in to kill you—or Chloe herself might try to sneak out and visit you, encouraging them to have you killed, even if they hadn’t decided to before. Remember, they want complete control of their members’ lives. I’m sorry about any unpleasantness, but this really was the easiest way. Now we can keep you safe while seeing what can be done about Chloe.”

  “Will you release me?”

  “Yes—but I’m afraid we’re going to have to keep you confined for a time. In a much nicer room than this,” he added quickly and apologetically. “The temptation for you to leave and try to find your daughter would be far too great.”

  So let me get this straight. The “good guys” are holding me captive so I can’t get hurt seeing my daughter, who is being held captive by the bad guys who don’t want her out seeing her mother.

  “What is going to happen to Chloe? Can you”— save sounded too melodramatic—“get her?”

  “Of course.” But there was something in his face, a slightly surprised look, as though he had already dismissed Chloe and her fate. As though Anna herself and her safety were all that mattered now. He probably considers her one of “them” now. Chloe will get no help here.

  “Who are you people?” she demanded, half sarcastically.

  “I’m afraid I—”

  “Can’t tell me that either. Yeah, of course.”

  “You can call me Whit,” the man offered.

  Anna had every intention of escaping as soon as she saw a way. She might not return home; she agreed with her captor that would be a pretty dangerous thing to do. But she would go immediately to the police and call the cult hodine and tell them about everyone.

  Twenty

  Chloe Was Still sitting on the floor, head in her hands, when Brian came in.

  “It’s all my fault,” she said miserably.

  He knelt down and she buried her face in his shoulder. “It is not your fault.”

  She shook her head, trying to wipe the tears away.

  “We should leave here soon,” Brian said as calmly as he could. “I gave the members of the Order who were patrolling here false tips that you were seen at Pateena’s. But it’s only going to be a few minutes before they get there and figure out that it was a trick.” She nodded and sniffed. He stood up and looked around. “Are you sure she’s gone?”

  Chloe nodded again, wiping her face and pointing to the bowl of hummus.

  “O … kay …,” Brian said, raising his eyebrows. “Your mom is certainly a … resourceful woman.”

  Chloe tried to smile. She felt embarrassingly weak, like a child who needed to be taken care of in a time of crisis, and here was savior Brian, rushing in to fulfill the role of hero. But she needed that right now.

  “Ohmygod Chloe.” Amy burst through the door, wheezing, bent over. Her hair was frizzing around her face like a solar flare, and several strands were plastered to her face with sweat. “Youreneversupposedtoreturn-tothesceneof—“She took a deep breath and noticed Brian. “Who the hell is that?”

  “This is Brian. Brian, Amy,” Chloe introduced formally, feeling a little ridiculous.

  “This is Brian?” her friend said incredulously. She looked him over, up and down so carefully that he began to fidget under her gaze. “You are way hotter than Alyec.”

  Chloe shook her head with impatience. “Where’s Paul?”

  “He’s coming. The, uh, you know”—she mimicked taking a drag from a cigarette—“slow him down.”

  “That and managing to skip every gym class since the dawn of time,” Chloe muttered. Now was not the time to have people separated. The Tenth Blade “patrols” might have let them pass for now, but what if they were just waiting for more orders? And what if the Mai noticed she was missing and thought Brian was trying to abduct her? “We’ve got to find my mom.”

  “Absolutely,” Amy agreed, still panting. “Where do you think she went?”

  “Now, wait a moment…,” Brian began, putting his hand up to Chloe’s friend.

  “I don’t think she went anywhere. I think she was taken.” Chloe pointed to the bowl.

  “Hey.” Paul came in, trying not to huff, his face turning red as a result. For the first time ever, he actually looked healthy, with pink cheeks.

  “This is Brian,” Amy said, grabbing Paul’s arm.

  “Hey,” Paul said again, waving and still trying to breathe normally. It was amazing, Chloe reflected. His clothes were still perfect. Of course, Puma originally made athletic gear, but still…

  “Chloe’s mom has definitely been kidnapped,” Amy said, catching him up on things. “We’re working out how to find her.”

  “We aren’t doing any such thing,” Brian said, exasperated. Suddenly he seemed a lot more than just a couple of years older than Chloe and her friends. “You two are now officially done with this part of the story. I thought I made that clear in my answer to that e-mail you so unwisely sent me.”

  “Oh, suddenly Mr. Studmuffin here is charge of everything,” Amy snapped, putting her hands on her hips and sticking her chin out at him. “Where the hell did you come from, anyway? ’We two’ have been friends with her forever.”

  “I appreciate that,” Brian said through clenched teeth, “but this is very. Dangerous. Stuff. Your friend has been involved in what might be considered a murder. A group of people are out for her blood. Another group of people are out to protect her at all costs. And now her mom is gone. Hello? Not the safest avenue for you two.�
�

  “I’m right here, people,” Chloe muttered.

  “What makes you so qualified for the role of detective and bodyguard?” Amy had come closer to Brian and, even though she was a head shorter, pressed her nose up as far as it would go. Paul was still trying to catch his breath, watching without saying anything.

  “He is … was … is?” Chloe said, looking at Brian uncertainly. “A member of the Order of the Tenth Blade.”

  “The kooks who are trying to kill you?” Paul asked, amazed, finally able to speak.

  “Yeah, but he saved me on the bridge. …”

  “How do you know he’s not a double agent or something?” Amy demanded.

  “I’m not,” Brian said.

  “I don’t,” Chloe added.

  “He doesn’t seem like it,” Paul offered.

  “Well, you’ve taken a sudden switch,” Amy said, rounding on her boyfriend. “I thought Alyec was the one you trusted.”

  “Okay, everyone, stop,” Chloe finally said. Brian obviously knew what he was doing and had a pretty good idea of what was best for everyone, but it was also crystal clear that her friends weren’t going to listen to him. “Arguing here, the four of us, from three different factions, isn’t going to help anything. And it’s just keeping all of us nice and neatly in the same spot for someone to come along and pick off.”

  “What faction are we?” Paul asked.

  “Innocent,” Chloe said, gritting her teeth. Amy started to say something, but Chloe interrupted her. “No, shut up, it’s true. There’s no reason to put your lives in danger. But from what I understand, the Tenth Blade won’t hurt humans, and I don’t think the Mai like attracting too much attention to themselves. You’re in a perfect position to help on the detective side. Like the home base people.” Amy and Paul looked at her blankly. “Like Oracle in Batman,” she said desperately. “Like Willow in Buffy. Before the whole witch-powers thing. Like Pete in Smallville.”

  “Oh, cool,” Paul said, relaxing and suddenly looking into it. Amy looked doubtful but nodded.