by Liz Braswell
She thought about her mom, who hadn’t known what she was getting into when she’d decided to raise Chloe on her own.
Amy’s walkie-talkie buzzed.
“Hello?” she asked distractedly, still staring at the pictures.
“It’s Brian. Look … I can’t talk much now.” He was panting as though he were running, and Chloe could hear street sounds in the background. “Listen, I was just over at the … Order’s place and found an earring. Does your mom wear big blocky silver things with patterns and black in the etchings…?”
“John Hardy,” Chloe said calmly, both shocked and unsurprised. “Does it kind of look like animal plating? Like of a snake? Or like spheres that have been squished flat, almost into polygons?”
“Bingo. I don’t think anyone in the Order wears anything like them.”
“Can you … can you get her out?”
“I don’t even know exactly where she is, Chloe. And people are becoming suspicious of me over there. If we tell the police, it will amount to nothing—my dad’s very experienced in avoiding that kind of trouble.” There was a long pause. “Chloe, if you are planning some kind of raid, you should know—it’s going to be a bloodbath.”
Chloe didn’t say anything.
“Some people have been waiting years for this kind of direct confrontation. And while the Mai may not carry weapons, we do.”
Chloe felt trapped and uncertain. “Have you told Amy and Paul?”
“Not yet. I’m meeting them in a few minutes to give them back their walkie-talkie—they’re very possessive about it. Maybe the three of us together actually can think of some way of extricating your mom secretly. Anyway, three heads are better than one. And your friend Amy seems pretty experienced at the whole hacking and breaking-and-entering thing.”
She smiled at that. “All right. Thanks. Keep me posted.”
“Will do!”
Chloe hung up and put the picture of the Mai woman back on the bed with the others. Then she flipped open the phone again, dialed Brian’s home number, and waited.
“Hi, this is Brian Rezza—if you’re looking for Whit Rezza, you can reach him on his cell at 415-555-1412. Leave a message. Thanks!”
She hung up. Then she dialed again, carefully remembering the number.
“Hello?” A rich, masculine voice answered the phone.
“Hello, Mr. Rezza. It’s Chloe King.” She paused for a long moment, working up the courage to speak her next sentence. “I want to talk to you about a trade. Me for my mom.”
Twenty-five
Chloe Waited on a rock in the middle of the Presidio, obviously by herself and open to attack.
This was one of the most central, hidden areas in the mazelike complex of abandoned army buildings, a long-empty row of houses that were small and neat and as kept up as a suburban dream—but completely empty. The grass was trimmed on the little shared green the houses all looked out on, and the rock on which Chloe sat had obviously been moved there from somewhere else. Lucasfilm was moving its headquarters or something there at some point; for now, the area at dusk was as weird and perfect and lonesome as a Tim Burton set.
Chloe sang a little song to keep up her spirits, but all she could think of was “New York, New York.” It still had a lot of 9/11 connotations to it, patriotic and stirring—fitting for her current mood in the empty military base. But her voice was reedy and got lost in the wind; she kicked her heels like a little girl and waited for something to happen.
As the breeze changed direction, she caught a scent. Human. A few of them. And something familiar—a warm scent, a comforting skin smell.
“You can come out here,” Chloe called carelessly. “I’m all alone.” She tried not to get too excited, but they really had brought her mother with them. The exchange would happen. And no one would get hurt. Except for maybe herself.
Whit Rezza stepped out of the shadows. He wore a long, flowing raincoat that made it look like he was about to get on a plane for Europe, not negotiate for the release of a captive. Following him was a younger man in khakis and a black leather jacket, propelling her mom forward with a gun to her head.
“Chloe!” her mother said, trying to cut the sob of relief into a direct order. “Get out of here. These people are insane.”
“No can do,” Chloe said cheerfully. “It’s my fault that all of this stuff is happening, and I’m going to fix it.”
“Chloe, leave this instant,” her mother said again, standing up straight and looking over her glasses at her.
“None of this would have happened if you hadn’t adopted me,” Chloe said.
Her mom rolled her eyes and almost stamped her foot. “Chloe, would you shut up? I love you and I’m your mother and I’m telling you to run away while you still can!”
“How much did he tell you?” Chloe demanded. “What did he tell you about me?”
“I told her the truth,” Whit said. “Well, up to what she could handle.”
“He told me that there’s some sort of Russian Mafia connected with your biological family and they’re involved in … I don’t know, bad crimes or something, and that they had lured you in. And that they needed to protect me from them—that they would come after me. And that you had been involved in a murder. Whatever the story, this gentleman has a gun to my head, so I’m guessing that the truth is a bit skewed.”
“You never believed anything we were telling you?” Whit asked, a little surprised.
“Piss off,” Chloe’s mother spat.
Her daughter couldn’t help grinning. “Don’t worry, Mom, it’s for the best.”
“You would do well to listen to your daughter,” Whit suggested mildly. “For a member of the Mai, she is surprisingly logical.”
“Yet you’re still going to kill me,” Chloe said, rolling her eyes.
“You killed a member of our Order.”
“I did not. I tried to save him,” Chloe said, leaping down from the rock, frustrated.
“Yes, that’s what my son keeps saying.”
“That’s because it’s the truth!” Brian stepped out from around a building, throwing stars ready in his hands.
“Brian?” Chloe said, surprised.
“Brian?” his father said, confused.
“Brian,” Richard spat. “I should have known you were going to try to save the cat bitch.”
“Don’t talk to my son that way,” Mr. Rezza snapped, surprising everyone.
“Since when does the Order start carrying guns, you coward?” Brian demanded, coming closer, eyes locked on the other young man’s.
“How did you know I was here?” Chloe asked, relief washing over her. She still had every intention of saving her mom and keeping the bloodshed to a minimum, offering herself up as a sacrifice—but she was also extremely grateful that there suddenly might be options other than her possibly being killed.
“I didn’t. Once I was pretty sure that they had your mother, I kept an eye on my dad and followed him and Dickless here.”
Brian didn’t look like the brooding, complicated man she knew; he strode forward confidently, never taking his eyes off the gun, every inch the hero she wanted him to be. The wind blew his thick dark hair back, and his face was livid with anger.
“I saw her reach her hand down to try to save Alexander when he slipped—with my own two eyes!”
“But why would she do that?” his father asked, sounding genuinely confused and a little exasperated.
“Because she’s a good person, Dad.”
“You saw that when you were at the bridge helping her,” Richard said, jerking his chin in Chloe’s direction. “I’ll bet.”
“Yeah. That’s right,” Brian spat. “Sue me for trying to help an innocent girl you sent a psycho killer after.”
“So the betrayal is complete,” Mr. Rezza said wonderingly. “Of the Order, your forefathers, your own father, your mother—”
“Don’t you dare bring Mom into this,” Brian yelled, aiming one of the shuriken at his dad.
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“I cannot—will not—protect you from whatever action the Order takes against you,” his father said levelly, not looking at the weapon targeted on him. “Or random acts of revenge.” He said this to Brian, but his eyes flicked toward Richard.
“Will you listen to yourselves?” Chloe said, suddenly weary. She had watched the whole fight between father and son in silence and finally couldn’t take it anymore. “Kidnapping innocent people … hired assassins … revenge and protection and betrayal and weird secret societies that go from generation to generation. It’s insane! Both you and the Mai. This is America in the third millennium. AD. Leave all that other shit back in Europe and the Dark Ages where it belongs. You think of yourselves as self-appointed protectors of the human race, but you’re nothing but a group of barely restrained vigilantes waging a war on people who never did anything to you!”
“The Mai killed my wife,” Whit began, with great emotion.
“No, they didn’t. Brian told me. She was killed on a raid that you sent her out on.”
Chloe’s mom turned to look at Whit. “You lied even about that? That’s sick!”
“She wouldn’t have been killed if a human hadn’t been attacked and killed by the Mai, forcing us to call the raid—”
“Okay, just stop,” Chloe said, throwing up her hand. “Each side can claim a million random violences done back and forth on them—”
“Since the Slaughter five thousand years ago, when you wiped out an entire country of humans,” Whit interrupted. “And I will not be talked to by a teenage girl, Mai or human, like that. As for ’random violences,’ Miss King …” He stepped forward as he spoke, glaring at her. “While luring you out of hiding was important, we’ve done this to protect your mother—who was as good as dead the moment you took up with Sergei.”
Chloe’s eyes widened.
“Oh yes,” Whit chuckled, “I know Sergei. And his habits … Did you know that male lions, when they take over a pride, often kill all the cubs fathered by other cats?”
That gave Chloe pause.
“We kidnapped your mother for her own sake. To keep her safe.”
“It’s amazing the lies you continue to tell.” Sergei came tapping up the previously empty road, his expensive shoes echoing against the pavement. Behind him were seven deadly looking Mai, all trained kizekh. Unlike a troop of humans, they didn’t march in unison: they prowled and sniffed the wind and kept their unblinking slit eyes on the enemy.
“There are four more hidden behind the house and two over there,” one of them hissed to Sergei. “They reek of machine oil. … They must all have weapons, guns, except for the two behind that bush.”
“I suppose this was inevitable, wasn’t it, Sergei?” Whit said easily, turning from Chloe as if she were dismissed. Richard tightened his grip on Mrs. King.
“Nothing is inevitable,” Sergei replied crisply. He cocked his head, and two of the Mai disappeared into the shadows to take care of whoever they found there. “Since when has the Order stooped to kidnapping innocent women?”
“As soon as you sent out assassins to kill her, you murdering animal!” Brian’s dad began to lose his cool; black anger shone in his eyes.
A gunshot went off, muffled, somewhere among the houses. No one jumped except for Chloe. There was a thump and a growl somewhere else—like they were in the middle of a horror movie, with horrible things happening all around them in the dark.
“Um, was this little secret meeting of mine secret to anyone?” Chloe asked, partly of the world, partly of Brian. Mostly it was a failing attempt to lighten the situation. She had tried to fix everything herself and avoid a fight—and what she’d done was bring the opposing parties together, armed, at an out-of-the-way place where no one would have any idea what was going on.
Young, feminine screaming—and a not-so-feminine male shriek—came from the bushes.
“Wait! We’re not sworders—uh, Bladers—don’t hurt us!”
“Amy?” Chloe said, recognizing the confused voice. Two of the kizekh slunk into the open, one with an iron grip around Amy and Paul.
“They’re with me,” Kim said, stepping out of the darkness. Alyec was next to her, cursing in Russian and wiping blood off his arm.
“How did you … ?” Chloe looked at them in wonderment. Everyone really was here.
“I am the best tracker in the Pride,” Kim said, drawing herself up straight.
“And the walkie-talkie I gave you?” Amy said, stepping carefully away from the scary-looking soldier with his mouth open and canines bared. “It’s got GPS.”
“We knew where you were every minute. We tracked you on it.” Paul was camo-chic, in army pants and a tight-fitting camouflage windbreaker.
Chloe had a thousand questions: How had they all gotten to know each other? How had they gotten together? How had Amy and Paul reacted to Kim? How were Kim and Alyec getting along?
But most of all, she felt like sobbing in relief. All of her closest friends had come to help her out. To save her.
“Paul, Amy, go home!” Mrs. King ordered. “You too, Chloe. I don’t know what the hell is going on, but you need to get out of here.”
“The deal was Chloe for you,” Whit said, pulling his attention away from the four new teenagers and back to Sergei. “We are prepared to let that deal continue, no questions asked, no blood, everyone goes home safely.”
“You’re trading a woman’s life for that of her own daughter?” Brian said bitterly. “I guess I should have seen that coming. After Mom … I should have known.”
“You shut up, Brian. I’ve had just about enough of your lip about your mother for this lifetime,” his dad growled. “You’re unworthy to even speak her name.”
“Ah, father and son.” Sergei sighed. “I do so love the warmth in human families.”
“What would you know about that?” Richard demanded, jamming his gun into the side of Anna’s face for emphasis. “Don’t cats screw anything that moves and then move on?”
“You’d better muzzle the child, Whitney. Don’t let him start what you can’t finish,” Sergei said, waving his hand in the air. It was clawed. Chloe wasn’t sure if Brian’s dad understood what that meant: that he was just about ready to attack.
“Finish? Like when you finished off entire villages—”
“That was five thousand years ago,” Kim pointed out as calmly as possible. She and Alyec had slowly put themselves in between Amy and Paul and the rest of the people there. Amy bobbed her head around so she could watch what was going on; Paul just looked confused.
“Um, yeah.” Chloe cleared her throat and spoke up. Just to let people know that she was still there. Wasn’t she the reason everyone was here tonight? No, I’m just an excuse, she realized, looking at the fanatical faces around her. Both sides were itching for a fight, a real one, after years of uneasy sort-of truce in this country. Led by two middle-aged leaders who felt they had something to prove.
“Maybe we can talk about this,” Chloe’s mother suggested, also as calmly as she could. “There seems to be a long-standing dispute between your two groups here.”
Chloe was horrified to see tears running down her mother’s cheeks—of fear or pain as the gun was jabbed into her temple, she wasn’t sure. My mother. Something inside Chloe finally snapped.
“Sir! Ramirez is down!” A young man wearing an outfit similar to Richard’s came running forward with a gun, four neat lines of blood across his face. “We were attacked from behind—he’s bleeding badly, sir. But we got one of them good.”
“A preemptive strike, Sergei?” Whit demanded, pulling a short, curved sword out of his coat.
With a snarl, the female kizekh who had been arguing with Kim leapt at the soldier.
Ellen, her name is Ellen. Chloe had watched Star Wars with her just a few evenings before. She was completely Mai now, eyes slit and fangs bared and tearing into the young man like he was paper.
From then on everything happened in slow motion.
; Silently, Richard took the gun from the side of Chloe’s mom’s head and pointed it at the lion woman. Almost in aftereffect, muffled blasts afflicted Chloe’s ears, three bangs, one after the other.
Brian immediately made for Richard, a look of raw hatred on his face.
Amy and Paul looked at each other, confused, then Amy screamed ever so slowly; Chloe couldn’t make out the words, but she and Paul began to run.
More Tenth Bladers came out of the night. Chloe was stunned by their numbers—at least a dozen; far more than the kizekh had thought. They must have been hiding downwind. Why had Brian’s dad brought them all? It was just supposed to be her and him. Even the dickhead holding the gun to her mom’s head was a surprise….
As in a bizarre instructional film about reproduction, each Tenth Blader found a Mai, each Mai found a Tenth Blader, and they all began throwing weapons or struggling in the dust. Even Kim and Alyec. The look on Kim’s face—white-eyed horror turning to rage as someone attacked her, as if she couldn’t quite believe it. Alyec tried to shove her out of the way….
Chloe didn’t know what to do.
She had come here to save her mother. And now what? What could she do?
No one was attacking her; the struggle was going on inches from her feet, the very one she’d been trying to prevent.
Sergei neatly avoided Whit’s attack with the knife, moving far more agilely than a man of his age should have been able to. Before Brian could reach Richard, Sergei brought his square hand full of claws down like it was a giant paw and cuffed him squarely on the side of the face; Richard fell down instantly, and Sergei neatly retrieved the gun as he did.
“Nobody move!” Sergei demanded, spinning around and leveling the gun at Mrs. King. “Call off your men, Whit, or I’ll shoot your captive.”
Chloe couldn’t quite believe what was happening. It made sense—the Tenth Bladers would do anything to protect a human, but still … was he serious?