Nine Lives of Chloe King

  It is kind of a lame-ass cop-out, Chloe realized, but she hoped it sounded good and that her friends would accept it. She wasn’t going to be responsible for more people she loved getting hurt because of her.

  “We can do other things,” Amy protested weakly.

  “You aren’t trained like the Order, and you don’t have the abilities of the Mai,” Brian pointed out. “If you got involved in an actual fight, you’d be seriously injured or killed. I hate to sound clichéd, but this isn’t a game.”

  “Do a search of all of the newspapers for the last two weeks,” Chloe suggested quickly before Amy yelled at Brian again. He has such a habit of coming off as well meaning but a little high and mighty. She wondered if his father was like that and, if so, how he managed to retain control of his organization. “We need to see if there’s anything, anything about a missing person, a body, someone in the hospital. …” She didn’t say “the morgue,” but Chloe could tell by the look on Amy’s face that it was understood.

  “Do we have any idea who kidnapped her?” Paul asked.

  Chloe looked at Brian helplessly.

  “It could be either the Mai or the Order at this point,” he answered, shrugging. “Both have a motive.”

  “Why would it be the Mai?” Chloe demanded. “What would they want with my mother?”

  “Chloe, she’s your biggest connection to the world of humans.” Brian knew this was a touchy thing to say in front of her two best friends, but he had to say it anyway. “If they thought you would completely go over to their side—”

  “What do you mean, over? I live with them—they’re my race and my family and want to get to know me and protect me from people—humans—who want to kill me!”

  “I’m just saying we should keep it open as a possibility,” Brian said as calmly as he could. “As you said, they are extremely protective of their race.”

  “But what you’re saying still doesn’t make sense, Brian,” Amy said unexpectedly, before Chloe could speak. “The Mai have no reason to take Mrs. King. What would they do with her? Why not just”—she glanced at Chloe, having a hard time saying it—“why not just have her turn up dead on the news? Then Chloe would have nowhere to turn, and she would have to stay with them.”

  “They would never do that,” Chloe said slowly. “And they may want me to stay, but they’ve been nothing besides supportive and—“She didn’t know what to call it.

  There was something about having a guy like a father play chess with her and eat pizza, about having a group of people who she could just lounge with instantly accept her, not act pissed off or angry—or date her other best friend. They accepted her without conditions. Once she’d appeared, she was just there, part of the Mai, like she had always been and always would be.

  Plus—and here was the bit she wasn’t going to reveal to anyone present yet—the Mai made perfect bloodhounds. As soon as she got back, she planned on telling Sergei about what had happened. Even if he was reluctant, Chloe bet she could wheedle a couple of kizekh out of him to help track down her mom. And deal with her captors, if necessary.

  “All right…,” Paul said, obviously not entirely convinced, but enough to not press it. Brian’s face was carefully neutral. “She hasn’t turned up dead yet, and whatever this was, it happened a while ago. But…” he paused. “There doesn’t seem to be a logical reason for either side to delay your finding out about it. Is there anyone else we should know about? Someone else who might have taken your mother for some different reason? Who might not have anything to do with any of this at all?”

  “Yeah, sure,” Amy said, making a face. “Because two obvious secret organizations with hidden agendas aren’t convincing enough for you, Paul?”

  “Well, I mean, what if it was someone else close to you, Chloe—another interested party, with a totally different x factor?” Paul suggested.

  “Like who?”

  Amy’s eyes suddenly widened with realization of who fit the bill perfectly. “Like … your dad, Chloe?”

  “No way.” Paul shook his head. “That’s not what I meant at all. Why would he come back after all these years and do something like this? I don’t remember him being that kind of psycho—and my parents don’t talk about him that way.”

  “Yeah, I’m afraid I’m going to have to vote negatory on that, too, Ames,” Chloe said, physically shaking her head free of all the different theories. She checked her cell phone. “Okay, look, I gotta go. I’m going to have to keep this off—it’s got no juice left.”

  “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 cat-eared 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 pri
vate 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.”