The Stolen

by Celia Thomson

  When he looked at her with those large, white-blue eyes and that childish, hopeful expression, Chloe just wanted to hug him and tell him everything was all right. She wanted everything to be all right. She wanted him to have her best interests at heart.

  But … Kim doesn’t like him. What are her reasons? Chloe once again wondered. Actually, Alyec didn’t really like him either. Olga was carefully neutral on the subject. The only person Chloe knew who admired him completely was Igor, Sergei’s sort-of protégé.

  He’s not my real father, Chloe reminded herself. Where the hell was Sergei when I needed to learn how to ride my bike or couldn’t figure out how to multiply fractions or when Scott Shannon turned me down for the dance and asked Liz Braswell right in front of me?

  “I understand,” she said, and it was sort of true. “I’m just sad. And I feel helpless.”

  “I know.” He kissed Chloe on her forehead. “But remember, the Tenth Blade doesn’t usually hurt humans. If they’ve taken her, she’s probably fine, just a little shaken up. They’re trying to lure you out, not hurt her.”

  She nodded, for some reason suddenly almost overcome with the urge to cry.

  “Good.” He patted her on the knee and stood up. “Are we on for a game of chess tomorrow? Lunch, maybe?”

  “How about Scrabble?” Chloe suggested instead.

  Sergei groaned. “Oh, good. A game designed for knowledge of English words. You just want to win for once, Chloe King. Okay, Scrabble it is.” He grinned and left, his surprisingly thick and stubby legs rocking him out of the room. From the back he almost looked like some sort of alien from Star Trek.

  As Chloe settled back down into her covers, she suddenly noticed the photos that she had left out on her bed. Had Sergei seen them? Would he care? Should she be worried?

  Questions kept her awake for a long time before she finally fell asleep.

  As a kid, Brian had known there were secret rooms in the Order of the Tenth Blade’s chapter house. As he grew older and advanced in the Order, some were revealed to him.

  But he knew there had to be more.

  And if the Tenth Blade was in fact holding Chloe’s mom, they would probably keep her in some area Brian didn’t know about.

  As a kid, he had made incredible drawings and plans of where he thought the other rooms might be. While many of these floor plans were lost or had been destroyed by his father, a few had survived, stuffed into boxes of memorabilia and report cards. As soon as he got home from Chloe’s house, he dug them out and pored over them, trying to remember what he could, picturing the old Victorian with eyes closed, estimating area and distance. When he had done as much as possible, he paid a visit to the house.

  Mrs. Chung let him in, smiling and kind and looking exactly the way she always had from the first day he had been there. She was tiny but perfectly erect, grandmotherly but formally dressed, like the maitre d’ at a fancy Chinese restaurant, her hair always up in elaborate pins. Whit Rezza might own a security company that constantly invented and sold the latest computerized systems, but in the end, few things could beat the watchful eyes of a human doorkeeper, one who was polite but firm with strangers, friendly with guests, and much better equipped than a computer to pick up the emotions of those who came in.

  “Is everything okay, Brian?” she asked, looking as though she still wanted to pinch his cheeks.

  “I’m having a sort of crisis of faith, Mrs. Chung,” he sighed, telling her part of the truth. It was easier—and made it less likely that she would detect what he was up to—than an outright lie.

  “Oh, I don’t know about all that, but I’m sure it will be fine.” She always claimed not to know what went on in the house whenever anyone—even members—tried to talk to her about it. She stood by the line that it was a private club. Brian doubted that she was really quite so innocent.

  “Thanks, Mrs. Chung,” he said as she took off his coat and went to hang it up somewhere.

  Brian was well aware that cameras and monitors might be anywhere—he even knew where a few were. So he made his movements random—first to the library, where he said his hellos to a few of the older members who were sitting around reading or napping. He flipped through the latest Sports Illustrated—besides the dedication to violence, it really was, after all, an ordinary private club—and eventually rose, asking if anyone wanted tea or coffee. No one did.

  He went to the kitchen, counting his steps, and poured himself a full cup of coffee to give himself an excuse for walking very slowly. Then he proceeded down the hallway to the stairs, counting his steps and trying to determine the length of the staircase.

  While Brian did all this, he tried not to think of Chloe, partly because he was afraid it would affect what he was doing. And partly because it was too complicated to think about.

  Five, six, seven, eight … About eight and a half paces to the stairway.

  He had first been assigned to track her over a year ago; because of her adoption records, they had suspected that she was a Mai. He had tracked others before her, ones who already knew their heritage, and while it was never up to him to kill them—or decide to kill them—they always seemed different enough, alien enough for him to think of them as not quite human. Even discounting their greater strength and agility, they moved strangely, for one thing. Sometimes they cocked their heads when smelling for something, which made them look entirely animal. Late at night Brian had once caught a flash of a female Mai’s face as she raced through a pool of streetlight and saw the catlike slits in her yellow eyes.

  Chloe was just a normal high-school girl. Well, not quite normal. She was on the edge of the social crowds but never resentful of them. She had an amazing attitude toward work—Brian had seldom seen someone her age so committed to a crappy job. At least half the time Chloe showed up early at Pateena’s and often stayed late to help the manager close up, without complaining or demanding overtime.

  The Tenth Blade ordered him to get closer, to get a better reading on her and how close she was to discovering her background. He did as he was told.

  He’d arranged their first “accidental” meeting at Pateena, the place where she worked. Liking her instantly was unavoidable: Chloe was funny, passionate, gorgeous, and had a spark of something else Brian couldn’t put his finger on. Energy, verve, something that made him want to go everywhere with her, do whatever she was doing, not be left out in case he missed something great.

  But he’d never counted on her liking him back.

  Or having to decide how much to tell her. Or having to choose between betraying her or his father and the way he had been brought up, all the people he had known since he was a kid, the way of life he had always lived. In the end, he’d made a half-assed decision to come to her rescue at the bridge when she was fighting the Rogue without telling her anything beforehand. Not that she’d really needed his help.

  And he’d screwed it all up again anyway. While there were Tenth Bladers waiting in the Marin Headlands for her to go running by, he hadn’t really had to throw the shuriken so hard into Alyec’s leg to stop them from going that way.

  He knew that Alyec really wasn’t the cause of the trouble—that one way or another Chloe would have realized she was different and, even worse, if she’d done it alone, the Order of the Tenth Blade would have simply killed her.

  But the other boy could kiss her.

  While Brian was forced to walk a strange tightrope with Chloe between friendship and something more, Alyec had no such difficulties. He was free to pursue any level of relationship with her, without having to worry about dying from it.

  Brian was on the third floor, in a small complex of secret rooms where the real library was and where he was pretty certain there were more secret rooms, ones he didn’t know about. He did a few quick calculations in his head and noticed how the decorative architecture was confusing, with excessive paneling and wainscoting, bookshelves set up in mazelike arrangements, lots of extra crown molding, cornices, and other random decorat
ions.

  A flash of something on the floor caught his eye. Brian bent over and picked up what could have been a gum wrapper. It was actually a silver earring. It looked expensive, patterned, and faux ethnic—and far too modern for anything Edna Hilshire would wear.

  Brian quickly thought about all the other female members of the San Francisco chapter. Only two of them had access to this room besides Edna. Sarah-Ann never wore jewelry, except for a Sodalitas Gladii Decimi pendant, and Tyler always had a pair of simple diamond or pearl studs.

  “What are you doing here?”

  Of course. Of course Dickless would see me come in and follow me here. He was probably monitoring the security cameras.

  Brian didn’t turn around immediately, pretending to continue looking for a book.

  The excuse he’d originally been going to use was that he had lost a knitting needle somewhere—his hobby amused some chapter members and annoyed some others, who thought it was unbecoming and housewifeish for a member of the Order of the Tenth Blade. Like flash camouflage, his answer would probably amuse or annoy an interloper, completely disarming any suspicion.

  But Richard had a real grudge against him and still thought that the two were competing for Whit’s affection and eventual leadership of the Order.

  “Richard,” Brian said formally, only turning around after he pretended to be done with whatever he was doing. “How are things going for you?”

  “What are you doing here?” Richard repeated. His eyes were black and intense, and his hair was black and intense, too. He sneered so much, it looked like he was constantly trying to stop a runny nose.

  He was also smaller than Brian, which suited Brian just fine. Brian walked up to him as close as possible without making it an actual insult, looming over him.

  “Not that it’s any of your business, but I am experiencing a crisis of faith,” Brian said, with just a touch of excitement in his voice to make it seem more real. “I wanted to read through the Sidereal Codex again and think about the vows.”

  “Don’t you think it’s a little late for that?” Richard demanded, retaining his sneer but obviously accepting the excuse.

  “Remind me to tell the others that you’re the go-to guy for spiritual support,” Brian said, rolling his eyes and walking away.

  “You can’t just leave the Order,” the other boy spat after him in a final attempt at ruffling his feathers. “Nobody just ‘leaves the Order.’ It’s for life.”

  “Whatever,” Brian called back.

  “Even your father knows that, Brian. He understands the rules and lives by them. He’ll do what’s right. For all of us,” he added.

  Brian kept walking, but the smile he could hear in Richard’s voice left him feeling cold.

  “Get anything yet?” Alyec needled.

  “It would be a lot easier to ‘get’ a scent if you weren’t wearing so much cheap cologne,” Kim growled.

  “It’s not cheap! It’s Eternity, by Calvin Klein!”

  Chloe winced, fingering one of her mom’s rings that lay next to the sink. The whole thing would have been funny if her mom’s life wasn’t at stake. Alyec seemed to rub all of Chloe’s female friends the wrong way, not just Amy.

  The three had escaped the mansion with little attempt at covering up their trail; with Kim’s superior hearing and smell, they’d managed to eventually evade the two kizekh who had followed them. Alyec had crowed in triumph, but Chloe wasn’t so sure it really had been just that easy; perhaps Sergei thought it was safe enough for her with Alyec and Kim.

  Closer to Chloe’s house Kim had detected two seemingly random people who, on closer inspection, were making fairly regular circuits of the area around the house. The three Mai simply waited until there was a break and dashed in.

  “This is where you live?” Kim asked. Normally the girl was immediately down to business, but she seemed genuinely interested in Chloe’s life before the Mai. She moved her head back and forth, taking in everything in the living room and kitchen, eyes wide at the coffeemaker, the little TV on the counter, the garbage cans, the books on the coffee table….

  “Yeah. Pretty sweet, huh?” Alyec threw himself down on the couch, making it clear that he had been there first and was much more familiar with the territory.

  “This is where I found the … uh, ‘clue.’” Chloe opened the fridge and showed her the hummus. Kim came forward to smell it, then buried her nose in her hand.

  That had been fifteen minutes ago.

  While Alyec made the occasional derisive comment and Chloe looked around for other, obvious out-of-place things that only she would be able to notice, Kim moved around the rooms, sometimes upright, sometimes on all fours, trying to catch a scent. She spent an inordinate amount of time with her nose close to, but not touching, objects, sniffing them—and Chloe couldn’t quite watch. It was too inhuman.

  “Here,” Chloe said, slipping in between Kim and Alyec, who were glaring at each other. I’m glad I have such great, supportive, helpful friends, Chloe made herself think. But maybe I should have brought only one of them. She reached into a cabinet over the sink and pulled out a full bag of gourmet coffee beans—another sign her mother hadn’t been there in a while. Normally she would have been through a “tasting”-size bag like that in about a week. She broke open the seal and held it under Kim’s nose.

  “What’s this for?” Kim said doubtfully.

  “They have little dishes of coffee beans out in fancy perfume stores and things like that,” Chloe said, shrugging. “To clear your head of all the previous scents. I thought maybe you could use it for the same thing.”

  Kim looked at her without blinking but took a deep whiff. Then she wrinkled her nose and did the cutest little wheezy sneeze Chloe had ever seen a human—Um, almost human—do. She put her nose to the air again.

  “Huh, it works,” Kim said in wonder, and got back to work, taking the bag with her and glaring at Alyec.

  “Hey,” Chloe said, remembering something. “How come the night you were teaching me how to do all those things you reeked of gasoline, not CK?”

  “Sometimes the Tenth Bladers use dogs,” he said, making little ears on the sides of his head with his hands. “Gas covers the scent. Also to keep you from recognizing me. No one knew if you were going to freak out over everything. Like if you would suddenly start talking about all of this to your mom or the press or whatever—my name wouldn’t be part of it.”

  “Well, I guess you guys lucked out about me, huh?” Chloe said dryly.

  She watched Kim continue to sniff around the apartment. She wished she could do the same sort of thing—she had tried, but the overwhelming familiarity of the house doused all other scents. Kim would occasionally point to an area or a section of a door or something, but all Chloe got was a strange unfamiliar smell, mammalian, but she couldn’t identify or distinguish it.

  She wished she could do something. Anything.

  From the fight at the bridge to here, back home, a few things had changed. This time it wasn’t Chloe who was in danger, but someone close to her. Last time she had been kicking a trained assassin’s ass, feeling every blow bring her closer to victory. This time she was just standing here, uselessly watching someone else do the only thing she could think of.

  Finally Kim stood up and shrugged. “There were two human males here and a woman who wasn’t your mother. There are traces of fear and a chemical smell that I don’t really recognize….”

  “O-kay,” Chloe said. “But what does this mean?”

  “It means that your mom was probably kidnapped, but the kidnappers didn’t kill her. The chemical smell—it means they used something to make her pass out,” Alyec said, leaping up and coming over to the two girls with a big grin. “It means that everyone’s probably right about the Tenth Blade taking her to lure you out.”

  Kim nodded slow, grudging agreement.

  “Well … now what?”

  “Now we should go outside and see what else we can learn,” Kim said, looki
ng worriedly out at the street.

  “You shouldn’t worry about the two Gerbers out there,” Alyec said, grinning. “I’ll lure them away and get back here ASAP.”

  “Don’t,” Chloe said as he went to the door, even though she knew it was the best thing he could do.

  “You think this is the first time I’ve done this?” He blew her a kiss and went out the back door, closing it silently as he went.

  “We’ll wait ten minutes and go,” Kim suggested.

  They were both quiet, watching the microwave clock.

  “I’m gonna run upstairs and get some of my own, you know, undies,” Chloe said after a moment.

  “Can I come?” Kim asked shyly. “I’d like to see your room.”

  “Sure.” Chloe shrugged. “C’mon.”

  She went upstairs, pushing her hands against the wall—something her mom hated—while Kim followed delicately behind. If this was an actual friend-coming-over scenario, there’d be snacks on the table or popcorn in the microwave, she thought dizzily. Here she was in her own house, late at night, her mom having “disappeared,” toting a cat-eared girl who seemed as anxious as a freshman to see how the cool kids lived.

  Chloe went to her dresser and began to look through its drawers, trying to disturb things as little as possible. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Kim looking around, eyes wide, paws spread as if she would like very much to touch something. Chloe wondered what the other girl’s room looked like: probably bare and ascetic, like its owner. Not covered in posters of Ani DiFranco and Kurt Cobain and Coldplay, not filled with IKEA furniture, not strewn about with Mardi Gras beads and scarves and other useless sparkly crap.

  Chloe had found Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday of her Paul Frank panty-a-day collection when she heard a slight hiss from her friend.