Nine Lives of Chloe King

by Liz Braswell

  I don’t know where Chloe is, but I’ve had word from her that she’s safe.

  Brian

  P.S. Don’t talk to Alyec about this anymore either.

  “Where did you get his e-mail address?” Paul asked, wanting to solve that mystery before he tackled any of the other number of issues this missive brought up.

  Amy sighed. “I cut out of school early on Wednesday and went over to Chloe’s house. I broke into her computer. I also e-mailed him from there.”

  “You did what? Why?”

  “Because Alyec won’t talk, Chloe’s still missing, and we still don’t know anything!” she said, beginning to feel less defensive and more pissed off. Her blue eyes flashed and she stood, putting her hands on her hips. It would have been a far more effective gesture if the pen hadn’t chosen that moment to pop out of her hair and fall to the ground.

  “Besides that message from Chloe herself, two people have already told us she’s safe—two people close to her. What more do you want?” Paul said, his voice also rising.

  “What do you mean, ’two’?” Amy asked, frowning.

  Already caught, Paul didn’t have time to retreat into his blank look.

  “What do you mean, two?” Amy repeated, pushing her face closer into his. “Brian and who?”

  “I talked to Alyec,” he finally admitted, “after you totally accused him of everything. I talked to him calmly and rationally, and he told me that she was fine, and he would tell her that we were worried about her.”

  “Oh, so that’s how it is?” Amy shrieked. “You approach Alyec all man-to-man like after your hysterical girlfriend screws everything up and he just tells you everything?”

  “It worked, didn’t it?”

  “Assuming he’s even telling the truth. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me about your little breaking-and-entering routine?”

  They both fell silent, staring each other angrily in the eyes. Then they both looked away. The answer to both the questions was the same: they were afraid the other was going to disapprove and freak out over it.

  Which was exactly what had happened.

  Then Paul laughed. “I can’t believe you actually broke into the Kings’ house.”

  “I know where the key is,” Amy admitted sheepishly, also smiling.

  They were quiet again, too full of their own thoughts to say anything, for the second time that evening—and for the millionth time that week.

  “When I was there? At Chloe’s?” Amy began, quietly and more calmly. “It was weird—like it hadn’t been lived in for a while. Nothing was messy, but it just had this stale feeling. A little dusty or something.” She screwed up her eyes, trying to think about the last time she had been there, before they’d walked across the bridge, the last time they’d seen Chloe. “I don’t think the glasses near the sink were washed,” she hazarded, “but I’m not sure.”

  “Too bad they have voice mail,” Paul said with a wry smile. “You could have seen if the answering machine light was blinking out of control with all the calls we left her. I don’t suppose you have their password for that, do you?”

  “No,” she pouted. “If I did, there are a lot of messages I left over the years that I would have erased an hour later, when I calmed down.”

  Paul smiled and ran his hand up through her hair at the base of her neck. Amy closed her eyes and pushed her head back into his hand.

  “Maybe it’s time we called Mrs. King at work,” he suggested quietly, picking up the phone.

  Amy looked at him in surprise, then at her watch. “It’s ten after five—she’ll definitely be there.”

  He dialed and Amy pressed her head to the other side of the phone.

  “Greenston and Associates,” the receptionist said in a deep, interested, expensive-receptionist voice.

  “Hello, can I speak with Anna King, please?” Paul spoke in an even voice. His tone might have been youthful, but the sound was polite and professional, something Amy never could have accomplished.

  “No, I’m sorry, she’s away on vacation this week. Can I help you or direct you to another lawyer?”

  Amy and Paul looked at each other.

  “Uh …” Paul cleared his throat. “Where did she go?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t divulge that kind of personal information,” the receptionist said regretfully. “I hope it’s someplace warm.”

  “When will she be back?”

  “She has a lot of vacation time saved up, so I’m not exactly sure precisely which day—would you like her voice mail? She often checks it when she’s away.”

  “Uh, thanks anyway. It’s nothing urgent. I’ll call back in a couple of weeks.”

  “Thanks for calling.”

  He slowly hung up the phone. Both of them stared at it.

  “Now can we do something?” Amy finally demanded.

  Seventeen

  This was a different sort of dream, restless and real. It was daylight and silent; Chloe’s feet made no sounds in the harsh grass beneath her feet. The broad blades cut into her soles, but it didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was the hunt. She saw her quarry on a rolling hill below her, a familiar doe who paused to watch a plane overhead. There was something wrong with that, but through her thickened mind Chloe couldn’t figure it out.

  With two powerful leaps she flew over yards of scrub, landing in the middle of the perfect road that separated her from the kill. The pavement was velvet black with solid yellow lines and seemed to focus all of the sun’s heat on her. She prepared to leap again.

  The deer turned toward her, as if it had known she was there all along.

  “Chloe,” it said, in an achingly familiar voice.

  Chloe froze and screamed, but no sound came out.

  *

  She sat up suddenly in her bed—no, the couch. It was the middle of the night—no, she checked her clock and it was only seven thirty. Another nap, she realized. Chloe had drifted off to sleep again while she tried to plow through The History of the Mai It was Bible thick and combined all of the confusing names of a Russian novel and the deadly dullness of a badly translated history text. She fell asleep fairly easily these days; if she was full, warm, and not immediately occupied, it seemed like sleep was the inevitable next step.

  Chloe rubbed her temples with her knuckles. The doe in her dream had spoken with her mother’s voice.

  It was the scariest nightmare Chloe had ever had.

  Just a few weeks ago she’d been fighting with her mom, making up, going to work, and hanging out with her friends. And now she was … not. She fingered the soft, richly colored velvet spread she had slept on. She squinched one eye shut, noticing how she could suddenly see all of the individual furry threads in different shades of ruby, like through a magnifying glass. Then they turned darker and matted down, sucked up into the weave of the fabric, as her tear was slowly absorbed by it.

  She sat up again.

  “I have to get out of here,” she said aloud. “I want…” She couldn’t quite figure out what she wanted. She ran a hand through her hair. A haircut? Some new vintage clothes? She leapt up and ran out of the room, suddenly terrified by the silence.

  Out in the hall she slowed herself down, embarrassed by her behavior. Then she pulled her cell phone out of her back pocket and turned it on. Technically she didn’t need to use it for this phone call—no one cared; in fact, they probably encouraged her speaking to Alyec. Only an eighth of a battery left and she had to talk to him now.

  “’Alloo?” he asked, accented, as if he expected someone Russian to call.

  “I need to go out,” she said without preamble.

  “Chloe!” She could hear the happy boyish grin on his face. Simple, just glad that she had called. “Didn’t you just go out on a hunt?”

  “I don’t want …,” she growled, shaking her hands in frustration. If she couldn’t make Alyec understand, she was doomed. “I just want to go out and do something normal. Fun. You k
now? Fun? Like a date?”

  “I don’t think Sergei will let you out alone with me. I’m a pretty strong boy, you know, but not a trained bodyguard.”

  “Okay, okay.” Chloe thought furiously. “We’ll make it a group date. He can’t object to that, can he? A bunch of us—whatever goons he wants to send along with us— we’ll all go out. To a movie together. How about that?”

  She fell back against the wall and slid down until she was sitting on the floor. “I just want to go out,” she said miserably. “I want to eat popcorn.” Not wild deer. “I want to drink a blue slushy, watch stupid previews, and use a crappy public bathroom with ugly tiles and mirrors that show all my zits.”

  There was a long pause at the other end. She waited for Alyec to ask about that last thing—she wasn’t sure why she had said it but remembered when she and Amy used to go in before and after a movie and make faces and put on lip gloss. Amy would complain about the size of her nose, wrinkling it, and Chloe would bitch about getting breasts too early.

  He didn’t let her down.

  “I’ll see what I can do. But your skin is perfect, Chloe. You have no zits.”

  Sergei said he couldn’t refuse a thing to his adoptive daughter, which was how Chloe, Igor, Alyec, Valerie, a couple of the kizekh—the same ones from the other night—and Chloe wound up sitting around the lounge with the entertainment sections of different newspapers.

  And Chloe was reminded how, no matter what your race was, whether you were human or Mai, trying to get more than three people in a group to decide on a movie was a royal pain in the ass.

  “I would like to see The Russian Ark,” Valerie said. “It’s still playing at a couple of art houses.”

  The two guards nodded in approval.

  “Kiss ass,” Chloe muttered.

  “Well, okay,” Valerie admitted gamely. “I would rather see the new Hugh Grant movie.”

  “Is Julia Roberts in it?”

  “No, but Reese Witherspoon plays his niece. …”

  “No, thank you,” Alyec said, sticking his tongue out in disgust.

  “How about Hills of the Dead?” Igor asked.

  “Yeah!” Alyec agreed, leaping, Mai-like, onto the back of Igor’s chair and looking over his shoulder.

  “Absolutely not,” Valerie said, sticking out her jaw— a lot like Amy. “Horror movies freak me out.”

  “That’s the point, dumbass,” Alyec said. “I hear Raymond Salucci did the score,” he added to Igor, who nodded excitedly.

  “It’s gonna suck,” Chloe said hesitantly. Honestly, she didn’t mind—but Valerie did look really upset.

  “How about The Return of the King?” the other girl suggested, offering a compromise.

  “I’ve seen it four times already,” one of the guards replied, shaking his head. Chloe shot the scarred older man a look. He just shrugged. Although she was almost positive that he was one of the ones from the night she’d been ambushed by the Tenth Blade, the other kizekh, the woman, had called him “Dima,” but tonight he had introduced himself as “Dmitri,” and she was pretty sure that was the name Sergei had used, too. She didn’t know what the woman’s name was. Living here is worse than being in a Russian novel.

  Chloe scanned the newspaper, hope dwindling. She didn’t really give a rat’s ass what they saw—as long as she was out, at a movie, with crowds of normal people around her. Well, she thought as she eyed the two guards, already standing protectively behind her, somewhat farther around me. The guards had their arms crossed like storm troopers.

  “Hey!” She suddenly had an idea and flipped through the newspaper, looking for the right ad. “The Red Vic always shows Star Wars at midnight on the weekends.”

  “I thought it was Rocky Horror,” Igor said.

  “Theater one. Theater two always shows Star Wars.” She finally found the ad, the sort of cheap, tiny five-line text-only ad that gave away the theater’s independent nature. “Yep. Midnight tonight.”

  “Fine with me,” Alyec said, still balancing on the back of Igor’s chair.

  “Okay,” Valerie agreed.

  “Absolutely!” Igor grinned, big, thick white teeth showing for the first time since … well, since Chloe had met the serious young man. Even the two kizekh nodded. Who, after all, could say no to Star Wars?

  “Let’s get ready and be back here in an hour,” Igor said, looking at his watch. “An hour,” he added, giving Alyec a look.

  “That still gives me time to kick your ass in Soul Calibur,” Alyec said with a sweet smile. Valerie rolled her eyes and gave Chloe a look. Chloe smiled back, sympathizing. But she felt pretty sure that she could kick Igor’s ass at it, too.

  “You’re on,” Igor agreed, suddenly leaping up so that his chair tipped backward because of Alyec’s weight, sending the other boy flying. But he did a neat little flip in the air and landed on his toes and one hand—somehow reminding Chloe of Nightcrawler in X-Men United. Who needs movies when you are a mutant?

  She went back to her room to brush her hair and grab her jacket. The only makeup Chloe had with her was cherry-tinted lip gloss. She put it on as thickly as she could and mourned the fading of her healthy skin to a pasty paleness from being inside for so long. She grabbed her cheeks and pinched them hard, remembering something out of Gone with the Wind or some other old movie. It gave her a little color; she hoped it would last.

  Kim was padding silently upstairs as Chloe headed back to the lounge, reading a book she held before her with the deference of an ancient monk reading his hours. The brown tunic-length sweater with bell sleeves that she wore did nothing to detract from the image.

  “Hey,” Chloe called, catching up to her. “Want to go to a movie? A bunch of us are going.”

  Kim looked at her as if it was the strangest thing she had ever been asked.

  “Thank you,” she said slowly, “but I have some reading to do. …”

  She said it unconvincingly.

  “Come on,” Chloe said, exasperated. “It’s a Friday night. You have exactly jack shit reading to do. I don’t care how homeschooled you are; classes are over for the day, chiquita.”

  Kim looked her over again, curious about Chloe’s strange energy and goodwill. I certainly haven’t displayed a lot of it since I came here, Chloe realized.

  “I haven’t been to a movie in a long time,” Kim hazarded, closing her book.

  For some reason, Chloe couldn’t imagine Kim ever going to a movie. “Great. Get your coat. Come on.”

  “Do the others know you’re asking me?”

  She said it in the same infuriatingly calm, even tone she always used—which kind of reminded Chloe of Paul—but there was a catch in her voice this time, the subtlest swallow. Her eyes were large, her pupils so wide that you almost couldn’t tell they were slits.

  The armor of the pious scholar had just cracked a little, and Chloe felt a rush of pity for the poor girl, aloof and alone. But if she did or said anything that was the slightest bit patronizing, it was all over.

  “No, but I totally think there’s enough space in the cars.” She had no idea if this was true, but it was the correct answer. Kim looked relieved at Chloe’s brashness, the assumption that everyone would just do what she said—and let Kim come—without question.

  “I’ll get my coat, then, and meet you in the lounge.”

  “Uh—what about your … ?” Chloe indicated her ears, not sure what to say. “I mean, is it going to be all right?”

  Kim gave what was almost a smile through her teeth, pointy and sharp. “Yes. They always just think I’m some freaky goth kid.”

  Chloe smiled back. “Right on,” she said, holding her fingers in a peace symbol.

  Now that she thought of it, why did she just assume that the others would go along with whatever she said? Chloe wondered at her behavior as she went back to watch Alyec and Igor. Why would anyone disagree? Did people think Kim was that much of a freak and a pariah?

  Alyec was jumping up and down, moving his body with th
e game pad, using his claws occasionally for a tight move. He threw his entire body into the game. Igor sat stock still, a serious look on his face, fingers barely moving across his own game pad. And he was royally kicking the other boy’s ass. The two guards, looking almost like CIA agents, stood in the background, quietly waiting.

  “Hey,” Chloe said. She threw herself onto the couch with one leg over the side. “I just ran into Kim. She’s gonna come with us.”

  “You’re kidding,” Igor said, but all his concentration was on the game.

  Valerie came in, looking like a movie star. The cat was very strong in her, and even without Kim’s eyes or ears, there was a barely contained power and sensuality beneath her features. Her eyes were heavy-lidded, like Sergei’s, but with long lashes and a smoldering look. She slunk like a cat, too, smoothly and languidly. Her hair was lighter than Alyec’s, an almost Marilyn Monroe blond. But natural.

  Chloe tried to work up a little envy, but it was hard: she admired the other girl too much.

  Of course, the fact that she had seen her take down a deer bare-handed might have something to do with the whole lack-of-envy thing.

  “Ah, crap,” Alyec said, throwing down the game pad as Igor executed his fatality. “You lucked out.”

  “No,” Igor said easily, sliding back to put his hand on Valerie’s knee, “you just suck.”

  “I’m ready,” a voice said behind them.

  Everyone in the room turned. Kim stood, all bundled up in a fake black fur coat that went down to her knees. A black baseball cap was pulled down over her ears. Giant black Doc Martens, several sizes too big to fit her foot claws, clunkily covered her feet. She looked a little defensive.

  “That’s a … very interesting outfit,” Valerie said, as tactfully as she could manage.

  Kim gave her a cold, dismissive look.

  “I don’t think we can fit everyone in the Explorer,” one of the guards said.

  “That’s okay,” Alyec said smugly, drawing on his leather jacket. “I have a car with me.”

  “Oh no,” Chloe realized. “It’s not…”

  But he just grinned.

  *

  It was, in fact, the exact same hatchback he had stolen before from the senior running back at school. Igor and Valerie went with the two guards, muttering something about Alyec’s proficiency at driving.