The Stolen

Alyec’s famous barking laugh echoed down the hall. Amy looked: he was slamming his locker closed and waving goodbye to his friends Keira and Halley—very non-Chloe friends—and balancing his flute case on top of his notebook. Off for a music lesson.

  Amy realized this was her perfect opportunity to thoroughly interrogate the untrustworthy jerk. She snuck along twenty feet behind him, keeping her back to the lockers, Harriet the Spy style. She needn’t have bothered, though: Alyec was too busy waving to people in the main corridor to notice her.

  As soon as he turned down toward the music wing. Amy double-timed her tiptoeing until she was almost four feet behind him. She didn’t have to do it too quickly, though: he was dragging one of his legs a little. What is that, some kind of new cool-guy walk?

  She smoothed her big dark red hair back and put on her best frowny face. She wished she could do the cold-blue-eyed thing—she had the eyes for it, after all—but somewhere between her freckles and “aristocratic” nose, she tended to come across more goofy and pleasant than aloof.

  “You could just, I don’t know, talk to me like a normal person,” Alyec said causally, without looking behind him.

  After she got over her surprise, Amy was so angry at being caught out she almost stamped her foot.

  “Where’s Chloe?!” she demanded. “I swear to God, Alyec Ilychovich, if you fucking hurt her …!”

  A couple of students toting big, cumbersome instrument cases turned the corner, giggling and holding sheet music.

  Alyec easily scooped an arm around Amy and pulled her into an empty practice room. He put his hand over her mouth and held a finger to his own. They stood there, his ice blue eyes locked on her own blue ones, insisting that she stay quiet until the two other students had passed.

  He watched out the door to see if anyone else was coming and then took his hand away from her mouth.

  “If you’re not going to talk to me normally,” Alyec said with a faint smile, “at least don’t go throwing a psycho fit about it in public.”

  The room was mostly dark, on an inside wing with no windows. It was small and cluttered with the sort of desks and chairs small groups of students would sit in while practicing. In just a few minutes some teacher would come in and flip on the lights and the next period would begin. But for now it was just the two of them, and they were very alone. Alyec’s chiseled-perfect face was inches from Amy’s.

  “You … jerk!” Amy lifted up her foot to stamp on his toes. He very neatly spun her away so she was at arm’s length.

  “She is home sick today, that is all,” he said patiently.

  That was what all the teachers had said when Amy had asked them, too.

  “I know she said she was safe, but I saw what happened on the bridge,” Amy said, sticking out her chin.

  Alyec’s blue eyes widened, and for once he didn’t have a comeback.

  “What’s all this about?” she demanded. “Why was someone trying to kill Chloe? Twice? You know. I know you know.”

  He opened his mouth, looking for something to say. “She really is just sick at home. With her mother,” he repeated lamely.

  There was a long, tense moment between them, Amy glaring at him, daring him to lie again. He finally looked away.

  Amy slammed her fist up into his stomach.

  “Jerk!” she said again, stamping out into the hallway as he leaned over, hand to his belly. She knew she couldn’t have done any real damage with her small wrists and the “artist’s hands” that Chloe always made fun of, but at least he looked surprised. Amy spun around.

  “Chloe is my best. Friend. Ever,” she hissed. “If anything happens to her because of you, I’m getting my cousin Steve to beat the living shit out of you—and anyone else you know!”

  She turned and left, adrenaline—if not exactly triumph—ringing in her ears.

  Chloe Was Snoozing, The History of the Mai resting on her lap, its old leather cover making her sneeze occasionally in her sleep. This was her second time trying to get through the dense text since she’d arrived, and the second time it had put her promptly to sleep.

  She was dreaming again. This time a cat as large as a person walked toward her quietly. Chloe waited for it to tell her something useful or do something….

  “Am I disturbing you?” it said.

  Chloe jumped, finally awake. She was not dreaming. The weird and ghostly visage that had terrified her the night before was standing patiently before her. That’s just Kim; she’s a freak, Alyec had said.

  And boy, was he right.

  She was a skinny and oddly built girl, willowy and sleek. Her hair was shorter than Chloe’s, shiny, full, and black—almost blue-black, almost Asian. She had high cheekbones.

  And velvety black cat ears.

  Big ones. The size they would be if a cat’s head were blown up to human proportions.

  Her eyes were an unreal green, slit like a cat’s, completely alien and lacking the appearance of normal human emotion. She wore a normal black tunic-length sweater and black jeans. She was barefoot; her bony toes had claws at the end and little tufts of black fur. Chloe couldn’t help thinking about hobbits, except the girl was drop-dead gorgeous. She seemed about Chloe’s age, but it was hard to tell.

  “Uh, no, I was supposed to be reading anyway,” Chloe said, running a hand over her face, trying not to stare.

  “I’m afraid I gave you a bit of a scare when you arrived. I’m sorry—I do not usually expect, new, ah, people to be wandering around late at night.”

  “Hey, uh, no problem. My bad.” Chloe kept on trying to look elsewhere, not sure what to say, still trying not to stare.

  “I am—”

  “Kim, yeah, Alyec told me.”

  The other girl looked annoyed. “My name is Kemet or Kem, not Kim. No one calls me that, though, thanks to people like Alyec.” She sighed, sinking gracefully into the chair next to Chloe. “Kemet means ‘Egypt.’ Where we are from originally, thousands of years ago.”

  Chloe made a note to ask her about that later, but something else intrigued her more.

  “Is that your given name?”

  “No.” Kim stared at the floor. “My given name is Greska.”

  “Oh.” Chloe tried not to smile.

  “You can see why I wanted to change it.”

  “Absolutely.”

  There was a moment of silence. Kim was looking into Chloe’s face as curiously as Chloe was trying to avoid staring at the other girl.

  “So we’re from Egypt originally?” Chloe asked, trying to break Kim’s icy, blinkless gaze. She closed the book. “I … uh … hadn’t even gotten that far.”

  “We’re first recorded, or history first mentions us there: ‘Beloved of Bastet and guarded by Sekhmet.’” Kim took the book up and flipped to a page with a map on it and an inscription in hieroglyphs. “We were created by her, according to legend.”

  Chloe didn’t know where to begin with her questions—Created by? Ancient legends? Kim is my age and she can read ancient Egyptian writing?

  “Most of us in this pride are from Eastern Europe—”

  “Wait, ‘pride’?”

  “Yes.” The girl looked up at her coolly. If she’d had a tail, it would have been thumping impatiently. “That is the congregation our people travel in. Like lions.”

  “And Sergei is the leader of the … Pride?”

  “No, just this one in California. There are four in the New World. Well, were. The one in the East is also primarily made up of Eastern European Mai.” Kim flipped a few pages and showed another map with statistics and inscriptions, lines and arrows originating from Africa and pointing toward different places: migration routes to lower Africa, Europe, and farther east. “The pride in New Orleans tends to be made up of Mai who stayed in sub-Saharan Africa the longest. They like the heat,” she added with a disapproving twitch of her nose.

  “And the fourth one?”

  “It was … lost,” Kim said diffidently. “Anyway, we have been driven all over the world, aw
ay from our homes. Our pride managed to live in Abkhazia for several hundred years after we left the Middle East for good.” She pointed to a little area shaded pink to the northwest of Russia, on the Black Sea. “The people there remained polytheistic long after the Roman Empire declined, Christianity swept the world, and Baghdad was destroyed by the Mongols.”

  “I get the feeling that there’s a ‘but’ in here somewhere….”

  “Many Abkhazians were driven out in the middle of the nineteenth century to Turkey by domestic warfare with the Georgians. We got caught up in it and families separated, some staying, some fleeing, some going to the Ukraine or St. Petersburg. And then again, not so long ago, just when some started to move back and reunite with lost branches, there was new violence.”

  She put the book down and twitched her nose again—more like a rabbit than a cat, Chloe decided. It seemed to signal a change in emotion.

  “I’m an orphan, just like you,” the girl continued bluntly. “My parents were killed or separated during the Georgian-inspired violence in 1988, before the Wall fell. They say I had … a sister …,” she said slowly, looking at Chloe with hope. “A year older than me. When I saw you come in, I thought we looked alike—and … maybe …”

  Maybe a little, except for the ears, was Chloe’s first, defensive reaction. If you took away the ears, they actually did look a little similar: dark hair, fair skin, light eyes, high cheekbones.

  What if it were true? Chloe had always wanted a sibling, especially a sister; Amy was the closest she had, but it still wasn’t quite the same, like someone you could whisper to in the middle of the night or talk about your crazy parents with. Someone who you could scream at when she borrowed your favorite piece of clothing without telling you and then brought it back reeking of cigarette smoke or just plain ruined.

  Someone who could tell you it was okay when you suddenly grew claws.

  So maybe she’s a little freaky, but a sister is a sister….

  “There wasn’t any mention of siblings when my parents adopted me,” Chloe said gently. “My parents told me they asked—they kind of wanted siblings to raise together.”

  “Ah, Slavic bureaucracy. Who knows what they recorded and what they didn’t?”

  “They never said anything about a place called Abkhazia either….”

  “The issues surrounding it and the country itself are not commonly known to Western … ah … normal people.”

  “Well, I’ve always wanted a sister,” Chloe said softly, hoping to cheer up the other girl.

  “I have been looking for years.” Kim sighed. “Sergei has a whole department dedicated to trying to track down all of our relatives: parents, family trees, missing cousins…. We even send things out for genetic testing to establish relationships.”

  “Wow. That’s impressive.” Actually it sounded a little nuts, like a more proactive version of Amy’s grandmother and her family tree obsession.

  “It’s survival, Chloe,” Kim said, fixing Chloe’s eyes with her own. “There are very few of us left.”

  Both of them were silent for a moment.

  “Ah, Chloe!” Sergei came bounding in, arms outstretched as if he was going to hug her again. She shrank reflexively back, not from distaste but fear of being squeezed to death. “My meetings are over, and it is time for lunch.” He stopped short of actually hugging her, giving a casual, uninterested nod toward Kim. “I thought you could join me. We’ll get some nice salads or whatever you young kids eat today. And I can show you what we do here.”

  “Sure, if you don’t mind….” She turned, but Kim was already silently padding out of the room, again, like Olga, backing away, facing Sergei until the last minute before turning.

  “Also, I told Valerie and Olga to scare you up some clothes. What are you, size eight?”

  Chloe jumped. A brief worry that he might not be taking care of her in a strictly fatherly fashion must have flashed over her face.

  Sergei chuckled. “My family were leatherworkers, Chloe. In Sokhumi. I grew up among vests and coats and saddles and knowing how to fit a customer.” Sergei put his arm around her shoulders and began to lead her out.

  “Uh, can I ask one question? If it’s not rude?” she ventured.

  “Anything, Chloe.”

  “Why does Kim—I mean, do we all … I mean … the ears?” She made a motion with her finger.

  Sergei rolled his eyes. “Kim is a very religious person. She is following a particular path to bring her closer to the Goddesses. In her beliefs, it is what we all looked like a long time ago.”

  “She … wants to look that way?”

  “Something like that. She’s a very intelligent and pious girl, but kind of … zealous.” The older man said it in the exact same tone Alyec had said “a freak.”

  “Do you worship—?” She wanted to say “the Goddesses,” “ancient Egyptian gods,” or some such, but it was hard while they passed copy machines and short-sleeved cubicle slaves at messy, piled desks.

  “It is hard for anyone who grew up in the shadow of the Communist Soviet Union to really worship anything,” he said gently. “I follow Sekhmet as best as I can. Olga was raised sort of Russian Orthodox, with some worship of Bastet, too.”

  They stopped in an office of slightly calmer people with bigger desks. Chloe recognized Igor, shouting in Russian on a phone. Standing next to him was an assistant, a boy about Brian’s age, with trendy thick glasses and a look of resigned hopelessness.

  “Is everyone here … Mai?” Chloe whispered.

  “To the last one. I built up this little real estate empire so everyone could have a place to work with their own people if they chose.”

  “Does everyone … in the pride … work here?”

  Sergei shook his head. “Valerie, Igor’s fiancée, is a model. Simone is a dancer. And Kim does her own thing, as they say. But it’s difficult for us to hold down corporate jobs—people can sniff out the wolves among the sheep, or the cats among the … well, you know. We don’t fit in.”

  Chloe looked at Igor. He seemed like a normal overworked human male. His tie was thrown over his shoulder and his shoes were trendy. He took notes with a pencil and played with a desk toy as he spoke. But the way he arched his back, and the way the light hit his brown eyes and made them glow for a moment, and the way he swung his head to look at Sergei and Chloe and didn’t blink—taken all together, there was indeed something very different about him.

  Igor put one hand over the receiver and held out the other when he saw Chloe and Sergei standing there.

  “Hello,” he said in an accent that was noticeably Russian. Or noticeably something.

  “I’m Chloe.” She felt something strange poke her on her skin as she shook his hand—and realized that his claws had come out and were gently pricking her. A secret greeting, she realized, trying to do it back. She pressed too hard, though, underestimating her strength. Igor pulled back his hand, grinning ruefully, and sucked on the pad of his palm where she had drawn blood.

  “I’ve never done that before,” Chloe said, blushing. “The handshake thing.”

  Sergei thought it was hysterical.

  “That’s my girl. A man-eater!” He slapped her so hard on the back, she almost pitched into Igor’s lap. But he was already shouting back into the phone.

  “Igor is my right-hand man. I’d be helpless without him,” Sergei confided. Somehow, Chloe didn’t believe that. “Right now he’s working on an old, uh, massage parlor near Union Square. We plan to put franchises in it, like Starbucks. Maybe a Quiznos.”

  “That’s terrible,” Chloe said before she could stop herself. “I mean, that must be very profitable.” She paused. “But I mean, it might have a bad history, but at least the place has, you know, an interesting one. Not a strip-mall-y one.”

  “Ah, you’re one of those.” Sergei sighed. “If it’s any consolation, we just worked with the city to turn the space next to a vacant lot into a city-subsidized childcare center for low-income women and the l
ot into a community garden for them.”

  “Hell of a tax break,” Igor whispered, holding his hand over the receiver again.

  Sergei frowned at him, and the boy went meekly back to work.

  “At least consider a bookstore,” Chloe pleaded. “Even a Barnes & Noble.”

  “Look at this, I have my own little spiritual adviser.” Sergei fluffed the hair on her head. “Maybe we’ll put you to work while you’re not in school—like an intern. Then you can make your voice heard. Heh. Come, let’s order lunch.” He whirled his arm around Chloe’s shoulders, and dragged her with him.

  “The emergency meeting of the Order win now come to session.”

  It was a lot less formal than most of the meetings Brian was forced to attend: in daylight, no less, and in normal street clothes. Well, street clothes for me. Suits for all of these old—

  “Purpose?” his father asked ritually, for the stenographer to take down. Brian watched in disgust as his dad, Whitney Rezza, flexed his fingers, admiring the ancient gold ring and his own manicured fingernails. Metrosexuals had nothing on his dad. He’d practically invented the style.

  “To determine once and for all what to do about Chloe King,” said The Nonce. The Nonce was Edna Hilshire in real life and a dead ringer for Dame Judith Anderson. Her age, short hair, dry wit, and sharp, piggy little brown eyes all made her seem as powerful as she was—so were most of the inner circle of the Order. Rich, white, and mostly middle-aged. Brian’s grandfather, the venerable Elder of this Conclave, was ancient. He at least seemed to understand Brian’s hesitation to go along with the group about Chloe, if not forgive it. Or permit it, more importantly, thought Brian.

  “Directly or indirectly, she is responsible for the Rogue’s death.” This was said by weaselly Richard, the little yes-man Brian’s dad loved to keep around. Richard—Dick—might be Whit Rezza’s favorite, but almost everyone else referred to him as Dickfess. He was doing all he could to become leader someday. It was a position that Brian had once hoped for and had almost been guaranteed, due to his lineage, but then things had changed. Everything had changed when he met Chloe.