by Liz Braswell
Whitney opened his mouth and closed it again several times. “Richard is dead,” he finally said. “The Mai killed him last night.”
“Oh,” Brian said. “Darn.”
“See, this is exactly what I mean!” Chloe said, frustrated. “Sergei was killing his own people for power, your people are killing your own people just for—I don’t know, old rules. Maybe power as well. And for what?” She looked around at everyone gathered there. “What really has been the reason you both have been at each other’s throats for so many thousands of years?”
“The Order of the Tenth Blade exists to protect humanity from those stronger who would easily defeat them,” Whitney said dramatically.
“Would you take a look?” Chloe threw her hand out at her Mai friends. “If your intelligence is half as good as ours, you know that there are less than a hundred of us in the West. A hundred, Whitney. That’s less than the Native Americans, or Tibetans, or Jews, or any other dwindling, oppressed minority!”
“Hey,” Amy muttered. “I don’t think we’re dwindling.” Paul kicked her to shut up.
“Forget the Tenth Blade: one good earthquake or fire or dirty bomb or terrorist attack and there’d be no more Mai west of the Mississippi. When was the last time, exactly, the Mai actually posed a threat to continued human existence?”
“We have always been there to stop it,” Whitney said, drawing himself up. But from the looks on the younger members’ faces, he wasn’t really convincing anyone.
“And let us not forget the original reason for our existence,” a middle-aged woman said, stepping forward. “The villages and cities that were wiped out—”
“Because you raped and murdered one of our sisters!” Igor said, also stepping forward.
“Five. Thousand. Years. Ago. Jesus Christ, guys, let it go!” Chloe glared back and forth at both of them. “And may I remind you”—she addressed this to the Order—“the Mai are not vampires who prey on the living. You are not vampire slayers who protect the innocent.”
“They are fell, foul beasts spawned from the pits,” one of the other Tenth Bladers spoke up. “Their existence is anathema to God. Thus they are punished to never have a home and never commingle with true humans.”
“You sound like the Rogue,” Chloe muttered. “Who, by the way, is an insane psycho killer. And anyway, the whole five-thousand-year-curse thing seems to be over. Brian and I have not only, uh, kissed multiple times, but…” She didn’t want to say it, but if it would further the cause, as it were, well, illusions of her chastity didn’t really count much against dead bodies. “Last night, we, uh … Look, anyway, the point is, he’s fine.”
There were shocked looks from everyone, especially Amy. Chloe had sworn to her years ago she would be the first to know when It happened. Technically, it wasn’t “It” yet—she had no desire to get pregnant on top of everything else that was going on in her life right now. But what happened was close enough to It to count.
Brian was blushing furiously, trying to meet his dad’s eyes.
“In fact,” Chloe said, raising her voice so everyone could hear—and hoping she wouldn’t be considered a slut, “I made out with another human before I ever even met Brian.”
“Wait, what?” Brian looked shocked and a little sad.
Chloe ignored him. “And he’s fine, too. Look, the point is, there is no divine thingy against Mai and humans, uh, loving. We can mix and mingle and mate with no dire consequences.”
“The curse seems to have been lifted because we helped save two humans,” Kim spoke up, “Chloe’s mother and Brian.”
Chloe didn’t want to meet Alyec’s eyes, which were wide with disbelief. No doubt there would be awkwardness and explanations later, even though they were split up.
But her assumption that he was thinking about her was suddenly dashed when Alyec grabbed Amy and kissed her, long and hard. A little too long and hard—Paul and Kim began to look away nervously—but Amy didn’t resist. At all.
When they came up for air, Alyec looked her in the face. Amy took a breath, waited a moment, then shrugged. “Nothing. I mean, it was great—but I don’t feel weird or anything.”
This was not exactly how Chloe had imagined humans and Mai would start to get along better, but hey, it was something. And come to think of it, her usually extroverted friend had been kind of quiet recently. It was only fitting that she steal the spotlight for a moment of silliness during an otherwise deadly encounter.
Edna and Whitney looked appalled, as did other older members of the Order—and Olga and some of the kizekh. Chloe might be mistaken, but some of the other ones looked intrigued. Not everyone can study sexy cat people without getting a little intrigued. Opposites attracting and all that.
“The Rogue was just arrested, by the way,” Paul interrupted, looking at the news on his phone. “About an hour ago. He’s wanted in connection with over a dozen murders…. Uh, anywhere else I would say it’s the death penalty with the sort of proof they have against him, but I think he’s probably going to be committed.”
“Welcome to America, lads,” Chloe said sweetly to the Tenth Bladers. “And you all were born here. This is the way justice happens, not through vigilantes.”
“You risk exposing the existence of your own people in doing this,” Edna said, but from the baffled look on her face it was obviously a move none of them expected.
“How?” Chloe asked. “You really think that they’re going to believe a raving serial murderer when he tells them that all of his victims were actually cats, with claws and slit eyes? Look, I’m still proposing a truce. A real truce. You can go on watching to make sure none of the kitties go rabid and start a killing spree, but no more violence. If something happens—on either side—it gets dealt with by the police. No more gang wars, no more internecine, uh, necines, and guess what that will mean? No more innocents gunned down along the way.” She gave Brian’s dad a hard look in the eyes.
“Even if we were to take you up on this ’truce,’” Edna said, covering for Mr. Rezza while he recovered from the remark, “there still remains the little problem of inequity.”
“What do you mean? Sergei’s dead, Richard’s dead, the Rogue will probably go to prison or whatever,” Chloe said, thinking furiously. But she came up with nothing. “We’re even.”
“Not exactly.” Brian’s dad cleared his throat and spoke up, once again at ease. “There is still the matter of our member who Sergei killed at the Presidio. As far as I can tell, no Mai were even permanently injured in the tussle.”
“What do you want me to do about it?” Chloe asked before she could stop herself. As soon as she said it, she knew it was a mistake.
“What Edna said. Equity. The boy Sergei killed and Sergei are dead. But the Mai who killed Richard is still alive. Sacrifice him or her, and we will consider your truce.”
Whitney smiled an easy smile of confidence. I’ve won, it said.
“No!” Ellen cried, not with fear, but fierceness. She grabbed Dmitry’s arm, her claws extending, her eyes slitting, elongated canines coming out.
As one, the Tenth Bladers stepped back. Chloe could see why just the Mai’s existence might terrify some people. Seen this way, they really were kind of like monsters.
“Ellen,” Dmitry said calmly, “if this is what the Honored One chooses, this is what must be done.”
Chloe panicked. All of her posturing about peace and truce and it had come down to this—a situation she couldn’t win. Leaders sometimes have to make sacrifices they don’t like or don’t want to, to achieve their goals. But she couldn’t just coldly offer up someone—someone she had watched Star Wars with, someone she knew—to die to seal a truce of her making. He even looked willing, as if he was ready to pay for what he had done. Or maybe it was just a look of hopelessness after Sergei’s betrayal of the Pride.
With one word, Chloe could send him forward, let the Tenth Bladers kill him, and guarantee a lasting, bloodless future between the Mai and the Order of the Tenth
Blade. Wasn’t it worth the death of one person?
Yes. But not his.
She could offer up someone else, however.
“No, not Dmitry; he was doing what he thought was right at the time.” Chloe took a deep breath. “I offer you myself in his place.”
Eighteen
A single white gull traced a gentle arc over everyone’s heads before heading out over the water. In that one instant, everything was hushed. Then it was over.
“What?” Amy, Brian, and her mom all shrieked at once.
“As the Chosen One, I have nine lives to be given in protection of my Pride,” Chloe said slowly. “I think this counts as protecting our future. I offer up one of my lives in the name of ’equity’ if this will mean a truce.”
It was hard to say who was more shocked—the Tenth Bladers or the Mai. The Mai looked more horrified, the Order of the Tenth Blade more confused.
“I hardly think that’s fair,” someone from the back of the crowd of the Order called. “It’s not really like anyone’s going to permanently die on their side. …”
“Oh, shut up, Carlos,” Edna snapped. A pair of tourists walked by, well within hearing range, pointing at the sea lions. “Whitney?”
“The choice is yours, Mr. Rezza,” Chloe said quietly. “You can let the killing go on or be remembered as the leader who brought peace to both sides.”
“And in a group that has a five-thousand-year memory, that’s not too bad,” Olga added. “For both groups.”
That was it. That was key. Blood sacrifice, sure, but ego was everything. Whitney was getting old, and it was obvious Brian wasn’t going to follow in his footsteps. The line that had ruled as head of the Order ended with his generation. His second choice, Richard, was dead.
The two tourists didn’t seem to notice what was going on as they pushed their way through the Mai and the Order to get closer to the sea lions. The kizekh and soldiers of the Tenth Blade shifted uneasily, but after two bright camera flashes the couple waddled off again, happily oblivious.
“Chloe, don’t do this,” Brian whispered.
It wasn’t like she exactly wanted to. Dying twice by mistake and coming back was strange—and, if you really put a lot of thought into it, possibly explainable. Her fall from Coit Tower and survival was a miracle. Being shot in the heart and recovering, well, it was really weird, but not completely unheard of. And her little trips to the Mai afterworld? Low-oxygen-to-the-brain hallucinations.
She didn’t have the trust in the Twin Goddesses that Kim had. She only had experience.
Chloe hoped her fear didn’t show.
There was a long, tense silence as everyone watched Brian’s dad, waiting for his response.
“I think it would be … amenable to us, this solution you propose,” he said slowly. There was something strange in his face as he looked back and forth between Chloe and Brian. Almost like he realized that his son, brutalized by his own people, was in love with a member of the race he hated.
Guess who’s coming to dinner, Chloe thought, trying to bolster her courage.
Whitney gestured to a couple of Tenth Bladers. “Make sure no one … comes by and interrupts us.” Several military-looking men and women slipped quietly into the thinning crowds that strolled by the pier on the boardwalk.
“Do you really want to do this?” Kim asked, approaching her closely. Not saying no, not encouraging; just making sure. A salty breeze whipped around the two of them, muffling their voices.
“I think,” Chloe said, trying to control her breathing, which was a little fast and shallow as her heart beat out of control. “I think the Mai’s biggest sin is selfcenteredness. Being too self-involved. A little too inward looking, don’t you think?”
Kim raised an eyebrow, trying to understand Chloe’s crazy thoughts.
“What have we ever done for anyone except ourselves?” Chloe added.
Brian wheeled himself over to her.
“Are you insane?” Amy shrieked again, also coming closer. “You don’t have to do this.”
“I really do,” Chloe said, taking her friend’s hand.
“It will be by ritual dagger,” Whitney said, coming forward. He stopped short when he saw Brian holding Chloe’s other hand and the terror in her eyes.
“Can—“Chloe tried to steady her voice. “Can it be Brian?”
Both father and son looked equally surprised.
“I don’t see why not,” Whitney said finally. “It is … it used to be a high honor, performing this kind of execution.” There were hisses and murmured angry noises from the Mai. “It’s only fitting for the son of the head of the Order to do it. But the rest of us will be standing around closely to make sure there are no tricks.”
“Wow, Dad. Thanks,” Brian said sarcastically.
“Brian, I…” His father’s eyes traced every injury and bruise and scrape and bandage on his son. “I didn’t think they would—”
“Try to kill me?” Brian demanded. “What did you think Dickless was going to do when you gave him free rein on the ’betrayer’?”
But Chloe was pulled away from the family reunion by Dmitry. “Honored One,” he said softly, kneeling on one knee this time, looking her in the eye. “It is my duty—it is my honor to die protecting you. Let me do this.”
Chloe shook her head, trying to smile but failing. “I’m your leader, and I’ve chosen. So there it is.” And just one more second of your pleading and I’m gonna wimp out.
She knelt before Brian in his wheelchair to make it easier for him while pretending to adjust his clothes or something in case the patrolling Tenth Bladers missed some onlookers who might be concerned to see someone’s throat being cut. The depths of irony: she was trying to hide her own death.
“I can’t do this.” Brian shook his head. “You can’t ask me to do this.”
“It’s got to be done,” Chloe whispered. “This is the only way to bring peace to the Mai and the Order.”
“I can’t kill you,” he said weakly, a hopeless look in his eyes.
“I can’t trust anyone else,” Chloe said, kissing his forehead. She tried to ignore the sound of her mother weeping in the background, drowning it out by focusing on the barking sea lions. “I know you’ll be careful. Scarring, you know,” Chloe added with a smile, although she knew that Brian would understand what she really meant by ’careful’. This was the only way to bring peace, but Chloe couldn’t be sure that anyone beside Brian wouldn’t slit her throat six more times as soon as she woke back up.
Whitney handed his son the pretty silver dagger. It looked strangely familiar—then Chloe remembered the dream she had where she was her sister and the Rogue cut her down. Same dagger? Or a similar one?
Everyone gathered around them, Whitney the closest, still looking disturbed.
“This is sick,” Brian said weakly.
“Hey, I don’t trust your old man,” Chloe said, her voice shaking. “But I trust you, Brian. I trust you so much.”
“I love you, Chloe,” Brian said fiercely, a single tear running down his cheek.
“I love you, too,” Chloe whispered.
Then he drew the dagger across her throat, and she collapsed to the ground, dead.
Nineteen
When she opened her eyes and saw the strange view of space, the end-of-time galaxies and nebulas spinning above her, Chloe was actually relieved.
It was still a scary place, pitch black with distant echoing roars, on the edge of a cliff with shadows flickering all around, menacing and too close.
But it’s better than being dead. Really dead.
“Mother?” Chloe asked, getting up and fighting her urge to run. Her voice was lost in the infinitely great space, drowned by the hisses around her like a thousand candles going out. She walked away from the edge of the cliff, toward where the shadows were congregating.
Not that way. Not yet, a voice came to her, growling. A black shadow flame blocked her way. It was both upright and leonine at the same time, ma
jestic and animalistic.
“What do I do now?” Chloe pleaded. “Did I do the right thing?”
You have done the Tightest thing our people have witnessed in over five thousand years. Our Pride has never seen a leader like you, not even in me.
“Will we have peace now? Will we be safe?”
For a time—the hearts of both humans and Mai are fickle, Chosen Daughter. You have done the best you can to ensure any peace at all.
“Mother?” Somehow Chloe felt that her time with her mother was coming to a close. “Do you mind me seeing Brian?”
She could have sworn she heard laughter.
Being Mai is a state of mind, a spiritual state as well as that of the body. He loves you, too. What more do you want?
Chloe wasn’t sure what kind of answer that was, but her mother didn’t seem to be upset by the union.
“Thank you,” she said slowly. “I guess I’ll be going back now.”
Go with my blessings, Chosen Daughter.
There was nothing to embrace, or Chloe would have. The shade of her mother was only fire and air. She turned and faced the edge of the cliff. The winds of a thousand ages blew up it, lifting her hair and stinging her face.
She put her hands out like Superman and jumped.
Twenty
Chloe came to calmly this time, without a jolt or start. Because I chose to and was ready, she realized. Her head lay in Brian’s lap, sticky with blood. The wound on her neck was already drying up and knitting itself together as she lay there. In a moment, there would only be a faint scar. Like from the bullet. Like from her fall from the tower.
“Chloe!” Brian choked, hugging her as best he could in their two positions.
“That … kind of sucked,” Chloe said, trying to lighten the mood around them. Then she felt a strange sensation in her stomach. The brave leader and martyr pushed herself off Brian just in time to vomit all over the ground. When her neck pulsed, it ached like her worst cramps. One didn’t just die and recover immediately; even with Chosen Ones there was suffering in the process. She moaned once, unable to keep it in check.