Nine Lives of Chloe King

by Liz Braswell

  “This is your car?” Kim asked, getting into the backseat without being asked.

  “Don’t ask,” Chloe recommended. “And buckle up.”

  “It’s … very nice,” she said doubtfully, unconsciously imitating Valerie’s earlier comment.

  Chloe checked the rearview mirror a couple of times to see how the girl was handling it, but Kim looked steady no matter how fiercely Alyec took the turns; she had one hand braced on each side of the car and swung between them, bouncing.

  “This is great.” Chloe sighed. “This is just what I need.”

  “I’m glad.” Alyec leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. Except for their occasional sort-of dates, they had actually been far less physical in the last week than … well, ever. Sergei never said anything aloud about his feelings toward Alyec, but it was obvious there was a tension between them and some invisible line her boyfriend could not cross. But it didn’t feel like a normal “don’t date my daughter” scenario; Chloe got the feeling that if it were anyone besides Alyec, it might have been okay. She made a mental note to ask someone about that sometime—maybe Olga.

  “Hey, Kim,” Alyec yelled to the backseat, trying to be sociable. “You ever see Star Wars?”

  “Of course I’ve seen Star Wars,” she snapped; the you idiot was understood.

  There was a long pause.

  “Who’s your favorite character?”

  Chloe caught the girl’s eyes widening.

  “The … ah … furry one. Not only do his physical characteristics set him apart, but the … obvious subservient dynamic between him and the … uh, protagonists indicate his role as either a hero-ally or comic-mentor archetype.”

  “So what you’re saying,” Alyec said philosophically, squealing around a corner, “is that you’ve never seen Star Wars.”

  Kim glared at him. Chloe was glad their cat abilities didn’t include anything like shooting lasers from their eyes. If they had, Alyec would have been fried.

  “No. I have not seen Star Wars,” Kim admitted, then looked out the window so she wouldn’t have to look at them.

  Chloe laughed.

  In the theater she wound up sitting between Kim and Alyec, since he and Igor and Valerie all insisted that since Chloe had brought the other girl, she had to sit next to her. Actually, it wasn’t so bad. Kim was inordinately pleased with the popcorn, another humanlike thing Chloe had a hard time comprehending. But the girl with the hidden cat ears relished every bite, using her claw to spear one kernel at a time and carefully deposit it on her tongue, never taking her wide, unblinking eyes off the screen.

  Igor and Alyec shouted lines with the characters and other lines at the beloved heroes with the rest of the crowd. Valerie and their two guards watched it in silence. Chloe had to answer a lot of whispered questions from Kim but didn’t mind; she knew the script by heart and found it kind of fun to initiate a newbie.

  “What is that they are on?”

  “A consular ship.”

  “Spaceship?”

  “Uh, yeah. Starship, really.”

  And:

  “Why is everyone cheering? What is the significance of that being a space station and not a moon?”

  And:

  “Stupid Alyec. I was closer than I thought. This story taps perfectly into Western archetypes—from the hero to the quest to the tragic hero. It is right out of Joseph Campbell. In fact, there are even parallels between it and the Egyptian story The Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor. …”

  “So, in the other movies, do they reveal Darth Vader as being Luke’s father?” Kim asked casually, picking up a flyer and looking at the upcoming releases.

  Alyec’s jaw dropped. “How did you know that?”

  “It is pretty obvious, if you know anything about mythology and religious tales,” she answered smugly. Chloe grinned, then noticed Igor trying to win a stuffed animal from one of the claw vending machines for Valerie. “Hey, win me a toy, huh?” she demanded, handing Alyec a dollar. Then she pulled Kim after her into the women’s room.

  “I don’t have to go,” Kim protested.

  This is so not like Amy. Chloe sighed. She would just have to make the best of it. She pouted into the mirror and applied more lip gloss. Kim watched her without saying anything, taking off her baseball cap briefly so she could scratch her ears.

  “Hey,” Chloe suddenly said, remembering. “What was that you were going to tell me the other day? About the pride leader?”

  Kim looked startled. She licked her lips and tried to speak didactically, but something was worrying her. “Um, just that the leader of the Pride has to be the first to charge in and the last out of battle. The leader has to stay to defend the weakest, run into a burning house to save the slow. The leader gives his or her life for the Pride. Up to nine times, if necessary.”

  Chloe laughed. “like a cat, you mean? Like …” Then she suddenly noticed how grim the other girl looked. “You’re serious,” she realized.

  “A true leader proves him or herself,” Kim said quietly. “It comes out in battle. In war. In times of danger and catastrophe. Usually leadership runs in families. Sometimes a Pride gets lucky and several warrior family members rule together. But sometimes it does not; sometimes a person rises up in a time of need when there is no one else. And is killed and rises again.”

  “Pride leaders have nine lives?” Chloe repeated slowly, to make sure she understood.

  “Not all… pride leaders. But true ones do. It is what protects our race.”

  Coit Tower. Her fall. The dreams. The lions. “This wouldn’t have cost him a life. Assuming he even has more than one.”

  Chloe opened her mouth. “Are there … uh … others? Who can do that?”

  “Well, there were,” Kim said almost mournfully. “As I told you, the only daughter of our pride leader—the one before Sergei—was murdered before she had a chance to prove herself, and no one else of this generation has shown any signs. Or risked their lives to find out.”

  Kim was gazing steadily into her eyes. Chloe blushed and turned away. She couldn’t deal with this now. Pride leader? But sooner or later, she was going to need to think about what Kim had said.

  When they got home, Chloe went immediately to Sergei’s office. It was very late, but he didn’t have normal sleeping patterns, and she wanted to tell him what a great time they’d had … and maybe talk about finally getting to call or see her mom. She would have said something to announce her presence, but about four Twizzlers were crammed into her mouth. Alyec claimed he had won them from the prize machine at the movies. Twizzlers were definitely not one of the prizes—only cheap sniffed animals and plastic jewelry and stuff like that—but Valerie said that apparently Alyec had spent an additional five dollars to the one that Chloe had given him trying to get her something and had finally given up and gone to the concession stand. Chloe had laughed—that was definitely something lighthearted and stupid that someone like Brian would never do.

  The older man was standing behind his desk, talking urgently to one of the upper-ranked Mai in his company and two of the kizekh.

  “So we agree. She presents too many liabilities, I’m afraid. Something will have to be done to remove her—”

  He suddenly noticed Chloe, his blue eyes fixing on hers without recognition—for just a second. Then he warmed up. “That’s all for now, gentlemen. Thank you.” All three nodded at him in a way that was practically a bow and almost backed out of the room facing him, as she had seen Olga and Kim do.

  “What was all that about?” she asked, sliding into one of the enormous chairs that no one had been sitting in.

  “Someone who is not working out at the company,” Sergei said quickly, shuffling papers together on his desk and sitting down. “We will have to let her go.”

  “Why did the goons have to know about it?”

  “They are not goons, Ms. King. They are highly trained warriors.” He and his adoptive daughter locked eyes for a moment. Then he sighed. “It is not about an
employee, you are right. It is about a member of the Order of the Tenth Blade we have to try to eliminate. I am not just the leader of a company that employees my people, Chloe: I am also pride leader of the Mai. There are ugly and distasteful things that go along with such responsibilities.”

  Chloe nodded, but her mind raced. She had never seen a female member of the Order. That didn’t mean there weren’t any, and she had certainly never seen any of its leaders, so maybe she was someone in charge. But usually someone used the term liability —at least in the movies—to mean someone on the home team. Like someone who has some good points who still has to be gotten rid of.

  Not me, right? The thought flashed through her brain, and Chloe tried to hide her concern.

  Chloe did present extra danger to the Mai, especially with her stupid stunt the other night. But no, there were too few of them left for the pride leader to just randomly go around and have them murdered.

  “These are tough decisions,” he went on, “things that hopefuls like Alyec don’t understand. Things that make a man old before his time.”

  “Alyec?”

  Sergei chuckled. “He is one of the ones ’in line’ should something happen to me. Or at least that’s what he thinks.”

  “Why not Igor? Hey … do you have any Sprites?”

  “Perhaps Igor. There are many good qualities about him,” Sergei said, reaching into the mini-fridge by his desk and taking out a couple of cans. He passed one to Chloe. “He is responsible and serious—but he is going to be married soon. Some would say he lacks a certain, ah, aggression. He is more of a president than a CEO, if you know what I mean.”

  Chloe nodded, concentrating on opening her can and making a Twizzler into a straw. There was too much new information to think about.

  “I’m feeling a little hungry—what do you think about half sausage, half pepper?” he asked, punching the number for the pizza place on his phone. Chloe nodded again. Then he noticed her inserting the Twizzler into her Sprite. “Chloe, whatever are you doing?”

  Sergei had enjoyed learning how to bite off both ends of a Twizzler to make it into a straw and laughed heartily about how you were really supposed to do it with cheap champagne. They’d had a nice game of chess—he’d beat her roundly, of course, but gently—and he’d told her all about growing up in the Communist Soviet Union, both the food lines and the amazing education and intellectualism that Chloe had only read about.

  When they left, he gave her a bear hug good night, but as soon as she began heading back to her room, the uneasiness she’d had about the meeting she’d interrupted came back. For the first time ever, the term cult came to her mind. Not that there weren’t actual reasons in this case: they were a different race, completely set apart. But that didn’t change the suffocating totality of the Pride; even when Chloe was allowed to do normal things, like going to the movies, it was with other Mai. She was completely cut off from the rest of the world.

  When she got back to her room, Chloe opened her phone and dialed. She had left too many people on the outside worried for too long. It was time to see her family and friends. But she would do it differently this time, intelligently. Far from her home and the watching eyes of the Tenth Bladers.

  “Brian? I have to see you. …”

  Eighteen

  The next day Chloe was still thinking about her mom, Paul and Amy, even Brian.

  “Hey.” Chloe knocked on the temple door as she walked in. As expected, Kim was there in the corner, meditating or reading a book or something.

  Kim must have detected something in her tone, because when she looked up, one of her eyebrows was already cocked and suspicious.

  “Can you do me a favor? I want to go out and meet a friend—a human one. Would you mind providing an alibi? I’ll tell Sergei you’re, like, instructing me in the way of the Mai or our history or the twin goddesses or something.” She tried to make it sound as casual as possible. “That way the goo—uh, kizekh won’t follow me.”

  “You want me to cover for you,” Kim said in her even, toneless voice.

  “Yeah,” Chloe said uncertainly; she had no idea what the other girl was feeling.

  “All right,” Kim agreed just as tonelessly; she flicked her ears once and went back to her book.

  “Hey, thanks! I owe you one.”

  The other girl just grunted, not looking up again.

  Chloe turned to go, not sure what to do, feeling like the interview was over.

  “I really enjoyed last night,” Kim suddenly said unexpectedly, eyes still glued to whatever she was reading. “Thank you for inviting me.”

  This was about as much joy as she was ever going to get out of Kim, Chloe realized. She smiled. “No problem. We should totally do it again.”

  She turned to go but couldn’t. Chloe realized she had already asked way too much of Kim, but the question had been gnawing at her since the possibility had been raised.

  “So, uh … did you find out any more? About my parents? If my mom, was, uh, the previous Pride leader? Because, you know …” Chloe trailed off.

  That caused Kim to look up. She fixed Chloe with her eyes and closed her book.

  “Your biological parents, whoever they were, are probably dead.”

  Chloe jumped at the harshness of these words; while they were most likely true, they were spoken completely emotionlessly. It was like she had been slapped.

  “You should worry about your human parents now, Chloe. They are alive. And they are probably being watched and probably in danger.”

  Chloe thought about the Tenth Bladers who’d caught her when she’d tried to go home. Home was a trap. They were expecting her to return home at some point. But what about her mom, the bait?

  “Okay, chill,” Chloe said, getting angry. She didn’t even feel like pointing out how she only had one “human” parent. Was Kim acting all pissy because she’d never had any real family at all and was jealous of her? “I just want to know, all right? Who gave birth to me?”

  “I will let you know as soon as Olga’s people have found something,” Kim said, opening her book again. The conversation was officially over.

  Chloe left, still confused by the other girl’s seeming animosity. Maybe it wasn’t jealousy—maybe Kim, the one friend she had actually made since coming here, was now keeping her distance because of the danger surrounding Chloe. The thought only fueled Chloe to get out of Firebird. Now.

  On the roof of the Sony Metreon, lying on her back and looking up at the sky, Chloe felt freer than she had in months. Thick clumps of gray clouds sped across the heavens like dumplings until they massed into a heavy blanket on the far eastern horizon. As they passed over the downtown area, they glowed orange from below, only regaining more natural shadows and sky colors as they headed out over the bay away from streetlights, neon signs, and other illuminating pollution.

  She thought about how easy it would be just to run from rooftop to rooftop, never returning to the Mai, never returning to her school, and never returning home. Just living in the night. Not a street person … a skyline person, like Batman without his cave or his mansion. She could probably survive with her Mai abilities—heck, she knew how to run down a deer now. How hard would it be to steal something from a convenience store?

  A lone figure came walking across the roof toward her. She didn’t move; she could tell by his walk, sounds, and smells that it was Brian. He almost tripped over her, she was so black and still, blending in with the harsh shadows of the buildings.

  He was perfect, like a vampire, his dark hair and eyes barely distinguishable against the night sky. The wind picked up and played with his hair a little, and he turned his head to look out at San Francisco. Chloe got a perfect view of his profile, from shadowed brow to bitten lips. A scarf waved behind him like the tattered cape of a worn-out superhero.

  He lay down next to her, also looking up at the sky.

  “Beautiful night,” he observed. “Feels like a storm is coming.”

  “I want to
run into it,” Chloe said. “I want to run away.”

  Brian didn’t say anything.

  “I have everything I ever wanted. A father figure. A rich father figure,” she added with a chuckle. “A family. Being told, once and for all, that I really am special”

  “I wish I was special,” Brian said with a smile, quoting Radiohead. “You’re so fucking special.”

  Chloe grinned sadly and sat up. She looked back down at him. The scarf that framed his head was soft chocolate brown and cashmere, knitted with intricate little cream diamonds in the pattern.

  “You made this, didn’t you?” she said, feeling the unbelievably downy ends and thinking about what had first brought them together, his funny homemade knit hat with the kitty cat ears.

  “Yep. Had a lot of recent angst I needed to get out.” He smiled ruefully. “You can always tell how upset I am by how crazy intricate the patterns are.”

  “You haven’t … seen my mom, have you?” Chloe asked wistfully.

  “No. My movements are kind of circumscribed these days. I got into a load of trouble after the whole bridge incident.”

  “Oh.” She didn’t say she was sorry. Chloe wasn’t sure exactly what she did feel. An overwhelming sadness. A sense of loss or of having too much. “The Pride … I think it’s like a cult.”

  There. She’d said it.

  “Welcome to my world.” Brian sighed, also sitting up. “You never hear the term used around the house, but there really is no line between ’cult’ and certain ’secret orders’.”

  “Hey, you’ve got freckles,” Chloe suddenly noticed, reaching over to touch his cheek. They were brown and added a lightheartedness to his features that wasn’t normally there, without making him look too cute.

  “I’ve been outside during the day a lot more recently. Since being, uh, dropped from your case. It’s been kind of nice. I’ve been shadowing your friends some, making sure that they’re okay, but it doesn’t seem like either side is interested in them.” He took her hand. “Thanks for trusting me, Chloe. For meeting me here. It means a lot to me.”