by Liz Braswell
“Now, that’s something I can help you with,” Amy said, grinning. She dug into her enormous pink coat pocket and triumphantly pulled out a rugged but shiny techno-gadget. “And it has a charger. Here.” She handed that over, too.
“What are you, Q from James Bond?” Chloe asked. “What is this?”
“A walkie-talkie,” Amy explained proudly. “We’ve got one, too. Keep it on, and we’ll always be in contact—untraceably.”
“Wow. This must have been expensive. …”
“That’s a nice model,” Brian said approvingly, looking over her shoulder. “It’s a newer one than my dad sells. Hey, doesn’t it have—?”
Paul kicked him. Chloe blushed, wondering how much it must have cost her friends.
“Thanks, guys,” she said, trying not to cry again. “You really are my support team. Even if,” she added, with a grin at Amy, “you dress like a pimp.”
Twenty-one
Chloe made Brian stop following her after they got to the other side of the bridge, not wanting to lead him to Sergei’s house—although the way he didn’t question where she’d gone made her wonder if maybe the Order of the Tenth Blade knew more about the Mai and their whereabouts than they were letting on. But Brian was a man of his word, and even though she paused often to scent the wind and listen for his footsteps, she found no trace of him. At one point she ran back and trailed him to see if her senses were correct, and they were: he had wandered back over the bridge. He’d stopped halfway across and looked back, maybe hoping for a sign of her. Finally he stuck his hands in his pockets and continued the rest of the way hunched over, looking at the ground. Not a silent, highly trained soldier of an elite order, but rather a failing hero—as though nothing good was going to happen if he wasn’t there to protect her.
Something burned in the pit of her stomach when she saw him like that. Chloe had to fight back an almost overwhelming urge to chase back after him and grab him. She could just see it: He would hug her and lift her high off the ground. And when he put her down, he’d put his hand under her chin and kiss her—But that was when the dream broke off.
That could never happen. That would never happen.
But watching him walk away from her toward San Francisco, she knew he could never be just a friend, either.
I love you, Chloe.
She let herself savor Brian’s words one more time before heading back to Sergei’s house.
Sergei was in his office with Igor, Olga, and some of the other higher-ranking Mai at Firebird.
“Sergei?” Chloe flashed an apologetic look to everyone else in the room, but it wasn’t really heartfelt.
“Hello, Chloe,” he said amicably. “We’re a little busy right now. …”
“My mom is gone.”
Everyone on the other side of the desk shifted and looked at each other in surprise. Sergei raised his eyebrows.
“I snuck out,” Chloe said, coming farther into the room. She was slightly ashamed, but honesty really was the best policy in this case. Here was an army of people already on her side who could help her, trained with techniques and abilities specifically geared toward hunting and finding people. “I went to go see my friends, Amy and Paul—they were worried about me.” She tried not to look at Sergei’s face, terrified of the disappointment she might find there. “They told me they thought she might be missing—our house didn’t seem lived in, and she wasn’t answering phone calls. So I went home—“There were some sharp intakes of breath from everyone around her. “She’s obviously been taken, or kidnapped, or something. Days ago. Maybe right after I came here.”
There were murmurs and low discussions. Olga gave her a sad look. Sergei bit his lip.
“I’m very sorry, Chloe.” He sounded sad, but not surprised.
“We’ve got to do something,” Chloe said, trying to ignore the sound of resignation she heard in his voice. “She might not be dead yet—we could track down whoever has her … like a hunt. …” She trailed off.
“I’m afraid we can’t do that.” Sergei looked down at his desk, as if he’d been expecting her to ask that, or this was the answer he had been forced to give others before. “Call the police if you want from one of our private phones, tip them off. But we cannot get involved.”
“But this is my mom,” Chloe said, desperately trying to think of some way of convincing him, of some point that he would accede to. “She raised me—and kept me safe until you found me.”
“Chloe, we all feel terrible about this,” Sergei said with feeling. “But I cannot risk the dwindling kizekh on such a mission. There are few enough of them as it is to protect us. And as for a hunt in the city—we cannot face that sort of exposure. Ever. The Order of the Tenth Blade would love nothing more than to see us out and around San Francisco; it would give them the excuse they need to attack in heavier forces. Not to mention if the police took notice. No, I’m sorry, Chloe, we cannot risk such a thing. Especially for a human.”
The businesslike attitude with which he closed the discussion jarred Chloe even more than what he’d said.
“But this human … is my mother. …” She tried not to cry.
“I’m sorry, Chloe,” he said again, a little more kindly. “There are so few of us. It is terrible that we have to so selfishly look to our own survival, but I’m afraid that is the way it is.”
Chloe looked to the other Mai in the room, but most looked away or down at the floor. Only Olga met her gaze, with a sympathetic sadness.
Chloe thought about saying something sarcastic and final, about how they weren’t a real true family, but realized that if she opened her mouth or even stayed half a second longer, she would begin to cry. She turned to leave, trying not to run.
Sergei sighed loudly behind her. “Someone have Ellen and Dmitri follow her again. She’s going to look for trouble.”
*
But she didn’t go looking for trouble immediately.
First she called the Ilychovich household and left a message; that was all she could do—as far as she knew, Alyec didn’t have a cell phone, and she should know, right? Then she wandered around aimlessly for a while, trying not to check her voice mail too often, miserably wishing he would somehow know to call or show up. She finally wound up in the library, which was dark, empty, and quiet; good for thinking. Chloe made her way over to a window seat and tucked herself up in it, looking outside.
It was a beautiful, surreally bright night, like something out of a painting or Narnia. The sky was a deep, rich blue, the moon a silver, detailed orb of shining white that made perfect beams when Chloe looked at it through her eyelashes. The great emerald lawn was a rich shade of black.
Chloe hadn’t been outside in daylight for weeks, but it felt much longer—like a lifetime. She felt a strange, removed feeling. It reminded her of the clinking of glasses as her mom cleaned up dinner, like there was some order to the world that she wasn’t quite part of. She couldn’t help feeling a little stupid. Life wasn’t like TV, and she had definitely not been whisked away to her Happily Ever After. No one could do that, she realized. Not even an ancient, hidden race of people with powers like lions who gathered in prides.
There were no real superheroes.
Why had she assumed that just because they had these abilities, they would automatically come to the aid of the weak, defenseless, and—most of all— innocent? Rationally, she understood Sergei’s reasons: there wasn’t a huge population of Mai to begin with. Like pandas. Losing even one panda was a problem, too.
But forget helping to rescue her mom just for the sake of doing good; Sergei wouldn’t do it for her. Didn’t he … well, if he didn’t love her, didn’t he care about her? Didn’t he care about saving the woman who was responsible for keeping Chloe—one of their kind—safe until she could join them? Couldn’t he do Chloe this one favor?
The moon slowly glided across the sky, inching toward midnight, and Chloe watched the intricate shadows in the grass grow and change direction.
She was
still at the window hours later when Kim came padding in, carrying a sheaf of papers and clippings and photographs. She wore a long black turtleneck sweater and a black skirt that went to the floor, making her look like an ancient priestess. A cateared female— and, Chloe noted wryly—a pretty sexy priestess.
“I have some pictures for you. Your relatives … I mean, they might be.”
“I thought you didn’t want to talk about it.”
Kim sighed patiently, as if she had expected this response but didn’t feel the need to apologize.
“How did you know I was here?”
Kim blinked once, then touched her nose.
“Of course.” Chloe looked back out the window. “My mom’s gone. You were right about my ’human parents’ being in danger.”
“I’m … sorry that I was right.”
“Sergei and Olga and the others … they won’t do anything. They won’t help me. They won’t risk the kizekh. …” She pounded her fist on the window sash. “And what can I do? If I try to go out, Sergei’s goons will drag me back to make sure I’m ’safe.’ If I manage to get out—and get anywhere near my home without an army, the Tenth Bladers will get me. …” She trailed off. “I guess I’ll call the police, like Sergei said. It’s the only thing I really can do.”
“I’ll help,” Kim said simply.
“What?” Chloe looked at her; she hadn’t really been talking to the other girl, just getting her thoughts out.
“I’ll help. I’m the best tracker here anyway. We will return to the scene of the crime and look for clues.” She said this in such even tones that Chloe worried she was joking. Not that Kim had a great sense of humor or anything.
“Really?” Chloe asked slowly.
Kim nodded. “I can evade the goons, too. So, do you want to see these pictures?”
It was like the conversation was over as far was Kim was concerned. She had made her choice, and that was that. Chloe stared at her a little more.
“I’m totally thrilled, but I have to ask—why are you helping me?”
“You’re my friend,” Kim said, shrugging. “And I believe that once you tell him, Alyec will come along, too. Unlike him, however, I will not be expecting physical rewards from you.”
Chloe suddenly exploded with laughter—like she hadn’t since Alyec had teased her into a good mood in the middle of the school hall. That felt like it has been ages ago. Her face relaxed into a smile. It felt good.
She held her hand out for the photos. “Let’s see these.”
“That woman in the background—and clearer, here: she is the former pride leader. The one who might be your mother.”
Chloe took the picture from her. It was cracked and bent and had what looked like coffee rings in a corner. The woman in it was certainly not as pretty as Chloe, but there was a definite resemblance, with the high cheekbones and cupid’s bow lips. Her eyes were also hazel but darker, or at least they seemed shadowed in the picture. Her forehead was wider. She was handsome and had thick black hair that came down over her shoulders and covered her breasts. She was laughing, and her whole body was involved: her head thrown back, her hands on her hips, her mouth wide open, exposing perfect white teeth. There were deep creases around her eyes, like she had seen more of the world than her age would seem to indicate.
“Both my moms spent their lives helping people,” Chloe murmured.
“What do you mean?”
“My mother—my human mother—is a lawyer in a private firm, but she does a lot of work for legal aid. Mainly for a women’s domestic abuse shelter in the Mission District.”
“She sounds like a good person.”
“She is.” Chloe smiled weakly. “Thanks for not saying ’was.’”
Kim just blinked at her. Chloe wondered how much of the girl’s slow transformation to something more cat than human had affected her mind.
“How did you know my mom might be in danger?” Chloe asked aloud.
Once again Kim looked uncomfortable. “It only stands to reason,” she said slowly. “For one thing, she makes perfect bait for the Tenth Bladers to lure you out.”
“And …?”
“And if you are still asking the question, you are already familiar with the other possible answer.” She bit the sentence off as she finished it. Chloe knew she wouldn’t get more out of her about it. She continued flipping through the pictures.
“My friend Amy suggested that it might not have anything to do with the Mai or the Order of the Tenth Blade,” she added casually. “My dad left when I was really young— my mom’s story is that he went gradually psycho or something. It wasn’t exactly an amicable breakup.”
“I … don’t think he’s a likely suspect. Occam’s Razor— the simplest explanation is usually the correct one.”
“Yeah, that’s what I think, too,” Chloe said, sighing. “But it was kind of exciting thinking about him for a little while again, you know? I wonder what he’s doing now. …” She shook her head. “I didn’t know him very well. As a kid I thought he was a superhero, the best dad ever … and then an asshole for walking out on us. Of course, for a long time I blamed my mom for that.” Chloe frowned, thinking about the fight they’d had the night she discovered her claws. “Then it turns out that one of the reasons they split up was because of me…. They had very different ideas on child raising. Apparently he was this super-strict jerk, all about not letting me go out or date or—“She stopped and looked away from the photos to Kim. “Not letting me go—he made my mom promise before he took off. To not let me date.”
Kim came to the same conclusion she had. “Did your parents know what you are?”
“My mom doesn’t,” Chloe said, pretty sure of the fact. Things like claws and litter boxes had not been brought up during the tampons and Advil discussion. “But what if my father knew?”
“Then your mother’s disappearance becomes even more complex. Aside from the Tenth Blade, I think I can say with some certainty that almost no humans know about us.”
“It would be on the news instantly,” Chloe agreed.
“Perhaps he was Mai,” Kim wondered.
“Um, no? The whole sex thing? She’d be all, like, dead and stuff?”
“Oh. Of course,” Kim said, blushing. She turned back to the manila envelope in her hand. “So you had no father growing up …,” the girl said, playing with the idea. “I can see why you would get attached to Sergei so quickly.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Chloe snapped.
“Nothing more than that he is a charismatic, charming, and powerful leader. A perfect father figure. A role he enjoys, I might add. There have been other … orphans he has attached himself to.”
Was Kim trying to make her jealous? But that didn’t make sense unless— she was one of those other orphans, who’d maybe gotten dumped when Chloe or someone else came along. Like Igor. He certainly looked to Sergei as a male role model. Maybe it was a warning?
“Did he take you under his wing?”
“Yes,” Kim said hesitantly, “when I first came.”
“What happened? You don’t seem to like him very much.”
“That was it. I never have.” Kim shrugged. “There is very little room for personal choice among the Mai, especially if you’re an orphan, being welcomed in by the only people who will—who can—take you. But something about him … I didn’t like him from the beginning. So I was raised by everyone and no one.”
Chloe thought about this, drumming her fingers on the photos. There was a lot of information in what the other girl had just told her, but she wasn’t quite sure what to do with it yet. So Sergei liked to take the lonely under his wing—what was wrong with that? It was nice, in a sort of den-mother-at-the-orphanage kind of way. And Kim was kind of a freak—maybe she just resented authority figures. Maybe this was nothing more than a slight personality clash of two very different people. …
But she didn’t rule out that it might be something more.
“Who’s this?” Ch
loe asked, suddenly coming across a much more modern picture. In it a girl was grinning, standing with her arm around another girl, at the top of what was probably the Empire State Building. Old-fashioned quarter-operated binoculars, the kind that looked like giant silver robot heads, were blurry in the background, and there was something distinctly urban and gritty about the landscape beyond.
Kim leaned over, saw the picture, and cleared her throat.
“That’s the girl who would have been your sister. If we are correct about your parentage.”
“My sister?” Chloe held the picture closer. The girl was darker than Chloe and older; the date on the back indicated that it had been taken a few years ago, and she already looked like she was sixteen or seventeen. Her hair was the same as Chloe’s, and there was a shape to her eyes that was similar; her nose was smaller, too. She had two fingers up in a V behind her friend’s head.
Kim’s exact words suddenly sank into her mind.
“What do you mean, ’would have been’?”
“She was the one I told you about who was killed by the Tenth Blade. The pride leader’s daughter. That would make you her sister,” Kim said patiently, making Chloe feel like more of an idiot. “It happened several months ago. We think it was the Rogue.”
“My sister?” Chloe said again, feeling it on her tongue. Again she felt nothing in particular when she looked at the photo, but the word brought a swirl of emotions.
“Why …?” she began. Tears sprang up in her eyes. It wasn’t fair. She’d wanted a brother or sister all her life and it turned out that she’d had one all along and she’d been taken from Chloe, scant months before they would have found each other. It was so wretchedly, horrifically unfair.
“I understand she was a lot like you, actually. Or you if you had been raised Mai,” Kim added thoughtfully. “I heard that she went out a lot by herself, doing a lot of things strictly among humans, and after her mother was killed, she was sent to live with her relatives, who were members of the New England Pride.”
“There’s a pride in New England?” Chloe asked. She remembered Kim mentioning the Pride of New Orleans, but colonial houses, white Christmases, and freaky cat people roaming quaint cobblestoned streets struck Chloe as strange. I guess that’s all relative these days, though, she thought.