by Liz Braswell
Chloe carefully leaned her bike up against a boulder and climbed on top of it, hugging her knees to her chest and sucking in the view.
I wish I could feel this way forever.
Chloe wished there was some way to store this entire moment, not just the visual image, but smells and feelings and all. Like in a stone or something that she could keep in her jewelry box and take out when she needed to relive the moment.
Chloe leaned back and lay on her back, looking up at the sky. In the sun and the wind and silence the cogs in her mind slowly began to fall back into place; the monkey wrenches and other acts of mental sabotage from the last few months slowly disappeared. The background chatter in her brain quieted. She just was.
And there, hidden by the mental graffiti, were the answers that had always been there. It wasn’t a great revelation, a message from the Twin Goddesses or her mom or the beyond; it was just Chloe. Speaking clearly to herself.
She sat up and pulled out her phone, regretful that the moment was over but resolved.
She called information so that her phone number wouldn’t show up on caller ID and asked for Whitney Rezza when she was patched through, telling the receptionist that it was Chloe King.
“Why, here’s a call I never expected,” Whitney said with his usual light sneer, like someone at a yacht club.
“Mr. Rezza, Alexander Smith killed Sergei yesterday.”
“Really? Now, that’s kind of unexpected. Good for him.”
Chloe kept her inner calm, refusing to snap or get sarcastic. “Actually, the two were working together. To kill all descendants of the previous true Pride Leader. Like my sister. And me.”
“I don’t believe that for a moment,” the older man said promptly.
Chloe wondered briefly if anyone on either side had ever seen a spy movie. Of any sort. It was like the idea that two enemies working together for a common goal was preposterous.
“Well, they were. I know: I was there when the Rogue killed him. They both talked about it. But look, that’s not really why I called.”
“Oh?”
“As the new Pride Leader—the Chosen One—I am offering a truce.” She took a deep breath. She wasn’t overstepping her authority; she was the new leader. People like Igor would have to just toe the line.
Right?
“We’ll let the death of Sergei be the last violence between us. On my word,” Chloe said with resolve.
“Hmmm … a fascinating idea …”
Chloe held her breath.
“… but no, sorry, not that interested. This is the first time in years our Order has had a cause worth coming together for; why settle for a truce when we can proceed to wipe out the rest of you? I really should thank you, you know…. The little showdown at the Presidio you arranged really did wonders for our morale and purpose.”
What did that mean? There is power in war, that’s what that means, Chloe realized grimly. Their last major strategic maneuver against the Mai was when Whitney lost his wife to a random gang member who was unconnected with anyone…. Since then, the Order had been little more than a bunch of violent, slightly overglorified Masons, with secret rules and rituals but not much in the way of actual targeted attacks.
“I mean, good luck as the new leader and all—but really, they’re going to be a bit like chickens with their heads cut off for a while, aren’t they?”
He sounded so smug. Chloe needed one last thing, one card that would leave him disturbed. Give him something to think about.
“Thank you. By the way, Whitney, how’s your son?” And with that, she hung up.
Secrecy. That was the problem on both sides. Secrecy and ritual. If it had been her, if she had been leader of the Mai years ago when they first came to America, at the first sign of attack from the Order she would have immediately had the top lawyer on racial crimes/crimes of hate on their ass. Blown their cult public. Paul had once shown her the list “Top 10 Things Not to Do as an Evil Overlord” on the Web, and in the top ten was that when the gang of heroes approaches, you do not unleash the hounds of hell upon them; you call the local police and have them arrested for trespassing.
I’m telling, Chloe decided, in as whiny and childish a mental voice as she could manage. She called information again and had herself redirected to the tip line that was on the news before.
“Hi? I have some, uh, information on the guy who was murdered in the movie theater yesterday?”
“Can you come down to the station so we can take a full report?” the person at the other end asked in a brusque and businesslike fashion.
“I’d, uh, rather not. I was, uh, buying some… stuff from a … friend inside—I saw the whole thing, but I don’t want to get involved.”
“All right,” the woman grumbled, “tell me what you saw.”
Chloe told her the entire story, skirting around her own presence as a member of the scene and focusing on the Rogue and Sergei. She described both perfectly—which finally got the other person’s attention; it was obvious that Chloe wasn’t just repeating what she saw on the news because she described the shuriken that went flying into Sergei’s throat. She told them everything she could remember about the Rogue, from his dumb ponytail to the slashes on his arm, and added vague rumors from “on the street” about an insane guy with knives and a penchant for Hong Kong-style fighting. The policewoman thanked her and hung up.
“There,” Chloe said, picking up her bike. “I told. Deal with that, Whitney Rezza.”
Abiding by her new policy of no more secrets, Chloe decided to drive to the Firebird mansion that night without bothering to try and hide her tracks. It was ridiculous, anyway; Whitney knew who Sergei was, and everyone knew that Sergei ran Firebird. And for that matter, the same probably holds true for the Tenth Blade. All of Whitney’s friends must have known he belonged to some private club—it wouldn’t take a genius to follow him there one day.
Strangely, her mom didn’t have a problem with her borrowing the car. Technically speaking, even though Chloe only had a learner’s permit, Anna King decided that her daughter was safer with access to wheels than just showing up in a taxi.
“You call me every half hour,” her mother insisted. “If you miss one and I mean one phone call, I’m calling the police. You understand?”
“Yes, Mom.” She didn’t even say it sarcastically. Frankly, Chloe was amazed that her mom was letting her go so easily.
“And let’s have a word … I know, ’David Bowie.’ If you say that, then I’ll call the police—okay? Those will be our safe words.”
“Okay,” Chloe agreed, wondering how she could work the rock star’s name into casual conversation while her captors/tormentors were listening. “But I think I might need to stay there overnight. …”
“Then call me every three hours after 1 a.m., and I mean it, Chloe King. You may be their leader, but you’re still my daughter, and you’re still under eighteen.”
“Yes, Mom,” Chloe agreed dutifully. She had already planned on keeping the GPS phone on the whole time. So far, none of the Mai besides Kim and Alyec knew about it.
By the time Chloe arrived at Firebird, the sun had set—and the news on TV had changed.
“I think you’d better look at this, Chloe.” Kim had been waiting for Chloe in the driveway, perched on top of the ornate marble fountain that marked the center of the turnaround in front of the entrance. She looked worried, which panicked Chloe: her friend usually didn’t react to anything.
No one was in the lobby; no one was in any of the offices. Many of the top people were in Sergei’s office, their slit eyes wide and dismayed in the half-light, soaking up the rays of the giant TV he had behind a curtain.
There was another reporter outside the theater, talking, but the photos being flashed in the corner when he turned the story back over to the deskman weren’t of Sergei—they were of people he had murdered.
Chloe focused on the TV and serious-looking reporter on-screen.
“… now that the FBI
is involved. Investigators report that Sergei Shaddar was a criminal mastermind involved in some Eastern Bloc terrorist organizations. Information from Georgian officials suggest that many of the murders he carried out in his homeland were disguised under the cover of civil violence between the Georgians and the breakaway state Abkhazia.”
Chloe looked at Kim. “Keep watching,” the other girl whispered. “It gets crazier.”
“Shaddar was also involved in a number of other murders in the United States, possibly including the murder of a girl whose wounds and method of murder perfectly match those of Mr. Shaddar.”
A photo of the girl who had been Chloe’s sister was shown in the corner now.
Believe me yet, jerky? Chloe wanted to mutter to Igor, but that wouldn’t have been a very leaderlike thing to do.
Instead she sighed, shook her head, then raised her voice, flipping on the lights.
“Could everyone who isn’t Olga, Igor, or Kim please leave the room?”
Everyone turned to face her, blinking against the bright light. A dozen pairs of eyes went back to nearly humanlike round pupils.
“And please ready the, uh, auditorium for the seven o’clock meeting. Could one of you make sure that there’s a TV, with access to the news, or a giant projection screen, or something like that?”
Heads nodded: “Yes, Honored One.” Chloe tried not to notice how relieved and grateful and hopeful the faces were as they passed and looked at her. Even the receptionist who had sneaked in behind them to watch the news bowed her head.
When they were all gone, Kim closed the door.
“Anyone want to say anything?” Chloe asked, looking back and forth between the three of them.
Olga took the opportunity to start crying. “I never knew!” She coughed. “I can’t believe …”
Her eyes went slitty again and her claws came out as emotions overcame her; Chloe realized that of all the Mai she knew even a little, not once had she seen the older woman transform at all.
“I can’t believe it either,” Igor said softly, but the blank look in his eyes said otherwise. “He was like a father to me. …”
“May I suggest a little perspective?” Kim asked in one of the coldest tones Chloe had ever heard her use. “In other orphan cases like Chloe’s the human parents have ’randomly’ disappeared or turned up dead, like with Chase…. You cannot tell me you didn’t suspect something.”
Neither of the other two said anything. Olga looked vaguely shamefaced, however.
“Don’t ask, don’t tell, huh? All right, the past is the past,” Chloe said. She fought a surge of disgust and anger as she thought of her own mom and the traces of Mai presence that Kim had found around her house. “I am declaring an official moratorium and amnesty right now. In the future, there will be no more murders. And if someone suspects something, it gets dealt with normally through the police—not covered up, okay? Listen.” Chloe looked at her watch. “I have to call my mom in, like, five minutes, but before then I want to reveal some of my secret plans.”
Plans that she had worried about and gone over in her head and had found nothing wrong with—but that she still doubted.
“Igor, until—well, until further notice, you’re now acting president of Firebird. Olga, consider yourself CEO.” The Mai boy blinked a couple of times at this in a way that wasn’t entirely human, shocked out of his snit by the sudden weight of responsibility. Chloe went on. “No matter what happens, real estate is not in my future, and human resources is not in my immediate future, as nice as the thought of finding more misplaced Mai may be. I really do plan on going to college. Oh, and let me reiterate one last time—“Chloe fixed her eyes on Igor’s. “Sergei. And the Rogue. Were working. Together. Which revelation will also no doubt appear in the news sometime in the next few hours after the police release the information.”
“How do you know that?” Igor asked, plainly mystified.
“Because I told them,” Chloe answered smugly. It was true: not in a million years did either side expect the other to go to the police.
The call to her mom was fast, the walk to the auditorium faster. Finally events were catching up with her, the calmness of the afternoon replaced by nerves over what she had to do in the next hour. Public speaking was not one of Chloe’s finer talents. It didn’t help that Kim wore a traditional off-white linen robe and makeup that was sort of Egyptian, kohl black around her eyes and under her chin. She tried to get Chloe to wear a robe, too.
“It’s not my thing,” Chloe flatly refused. “Our people should see what kind of a person I really am—not pretending to be.”
Kim didn’t argue.
The room was smaller than she expected; there really were only a hundred cat people, like a studio audience, ten by ten and packed. While it was a relief, it was also kind of sad: there were only three Prides in America, and this was one of them, and there were so few…. Chloe was the leader of a dying people, an endangered race.
Someone had set up the projection TV as she had asked, and all watched, horrified, the news about their old leader flicker across the screen through reporters’ mouths and on a colorful banner at the bottom. When she thought they had seen enough, Chloe nodded at the guy in the back—Mai A/V geek?—and went out on the little stage, behind Kim.
Her friend, now completely in her role of priestess, held out her hands, closed her eyes, and began to sing. Like the night of the Hunt, when Chloe had first heard a traditional Mai chant, this was just as strange and wailing. It was impossible to predict where the melody would go; Kim changed tone and octave without warning. It sounded as sad and alien as Chloe felt her people looked right then.
Suddenly she felt them right then.
As the hymn continued and she looked out at the faces, Chloe could feel the collective emotions of the group. Fear. Sadness. Expectation. We are so few! We have lost so many! And now this …
Hope, as they looked at her.
Igor was trying to pay attention, but feelings of betrayal and pain were so strong that he wasn’t really connected to the others.
She felt strange warmth, like everyone was where they should be: here they were, her Pride, together, waiting for her.
There was one off note, one small thing missing, like someone wasn’t there.
After Kim finished, Chloe stepped up, no longer afraid or nervous. Here were her people. She was their leader. She cleared her throat.
“For those of you who haven’t met me yet, I am Chloe King, Pride Leader and your Chosen One.”
It sounded so stilted and strange, but everyone was listening raptly.
“Sergei Shaddar was not your true leader. Though he had good intentions, they were carried out with evil means. The man you thought you were following to some sort of happy-ever-after brought only violence and death. Even those closest to him had no idea of the extent of his activities.” Of course, the kizekh probably had a pretty good idea, since he must have used them to carry out some of his directives…. But she would stick to her line of amnesty and forgiveness.
“When I met with him at the theater where he was killed, the Rogue was already there, waiting for me.”
There was no noise from the reserved Mai, but Chloe felt the collective shock of a hundred people.
“The two had been working together to kill all possible Chosen Ones, including my sister. I don’t know if Sergei actually killed any himself, but he told the Rogue where she would be and where I would show up, and Alexander did the rest. Once he had me in his sights, Sergei was also no longer any use to him and the Rogue killed him as well.”
“I cannot believe a Mai would kill another Mai! There are so few of us,” a Mai wailed.
“There are bad people even among us, just as there are good people among the humans, like my mom. And Brian. And Paul and Amy.”
Scanning the small crowd, she saw Alyec. Their eyes locked for a moment and he smiled—genuinely, without what had happened between them recently getting in the way. Supporting her. She s
miled back without thinking.
“My mother, your previous Chosen One—it was her dream to unite all of the Eastern European Mai, those who had been scattered by war and exile and violence and our curse.
“As your new Pride Leader, I believe it is time now that we are all together to embrace our new land fully.” There was a little hesitation at this—they were not all here yet, and where was she going with this? “Sergei was right about one more thing—you shouldn’t have to live here like rats holed up. You should be free to pursue your own destinies and come together because you want to, not because you’re forced to.
“You’re in America now, in some ways no different from any other immigrants. From now on we abide by its laws. That means no more revenge and wars with the Tenth Blade. They break the law—they will be punished accordingly. As you might have seen from the news, they are hot in pursuit of the Rogue. And you know why? Because I told them he was Sergei’s murderer.”
This time there was an audible gasp.
Kim was off to one side, Chloe suddenly noticed, talking with whoever it was running the TV.
“The police will track him down and arrest him. He will be punished for this and his other crimes. …”
“Chloe,” Kim murmured, coming to her side, “forgive me for interrupting, but Ivan has told me there’s something on the news we should see—he TiVo’ed the last few minutes. …”
“Put it on.” Kim nodded to the back and the projection television came on again.
Somehow Chloe wasn’t surprised to see a photo of her biological mother appear next to the CNN guy’s face, as one of the dead counted by Sergei’s hand.
“… Anastasia Leon, member and leader of an obscure tribe of Eastern European nomads, originally from Turkey, had returned to her people’s homeland. Investigators are now turning up evidence that she was one of the first of Sergei Shaddar’s political murders; the sources are unsure why. …”