Nine Lives of Chloe King

by Celia Thomson

  She said it unconvincingly.

  “Come on,” Chloe said, exasperated. “It’s a Friday night. You have exactly jack shit reading to do. I don’t care how homeschooled you are; classes are over for the day, chiquita.”

  Kim looked her over again, curious about Chloe’s strange energy and goodwill. I certainly haven’t displayed a lot of it since I came here, Chloe realized.

  “I haven’t been to a movie in a long time,” Kim hazarded, closing her book.

  For some reason, Chloe couldn’t imagine Kim ever going to a movie. “Great. Get your coat. Come on.”

  “Do the others know you’re asking me?”

  She said it in the same infuriatingly calm, even tone she always used—which kind of reminded Chloe of Paul—but there was a catch in her voice this time, the subtlest swallow. Her eyes were large, her pupils so wide that you almost couldn’t tell they were slits.

  The armor of the pious scholar had just cracked a little, and Chloe felt a rush of pity for the poor girl, aloof and alone. But if she did or said anything that was the slightest bit patronizing, it was all over.

  “No, but I totally think there’s enough space in the cars.” She had no idea if this was true, but it was the correct answer. Kim looked relieved at Chloe’s brashness, the assumption that everyone would just do what she said—and let Kim come—without question.

  “I’ll get my coat, then, and meet you in the lounge.”

  “Uh—what about your … ?” Chloe indicated her ears, not sure what to say. “I mean, is it going to be all right?”

  Kim gave what was almost a smile through her teeth, pointy and sharp. “Yes. They always just think I’m some freaky goth kid.”

  Chloe smiled back. “Right on,” she said, holding her fingers in a peace symbol.

  Now that she thought of it, why did she just assume that the others would go along with whatever she said? Chloe wondered at her behavior as she went back to watch Alyec and Igor. Why would anyone disagree? Did people think Kim was that much of a freak and a pariah?

  Alyec was jumping up and down, moving his body with the game pad, using his claws occasionally for a tight move. He threw his entire body into the game. Igor sat stock still, a serious look on his face, fingers barely moving across his own game pad. And he was royally kicking the other boy’s ass. The two guards, looking almost like CIA agents, stood in the background, quietly waiting.

  “Hey,” Chloe said. She threw herself onto the couch with one leg over the side. “I just ran into Kim. She’s gonna come with us.”

  “You’re kidding,” Igor said, but all his concentration was on the game.

  Valerie came in, looking like a movie star. The cat was very strong in her, and even without Kim’s eyes or ears, there was a barely contained power and sensuality beneath her features. Her eyes were heavy-lidded, like Sergei’s, but with long lashes and a smoldering look. She slunk like a cat, too, smoothly and languidly. Her hair was lighter than Alyec’s, an almost Marilyn Monroe blond. But natural.

  Chloe tried to work up a little envy, but it was hard: she admired the other girl too much.

  Of course, the fact that she had seen her take down a deer bare-handed might have something to do with the whole lack-of-envy thing.

  “Ah, crap,” Alyec said, throwing down the game pad as Igor executed his fatality. “You lucked out.”

  “No,” Igor said easily, sliding back to put his hand on Valerie’s knee, “you just suck.”

  “I’m ready,” a voice said behind them.

  Everyone in the room turned. Kim stood, all bundled up in a fake black fur coat that went down to her knees. A black baseball cap was pulled down over her ears. Giant black Doc Martens, several sizes too big to fit her foot claws, clunkily covered her feet. She looked a little defensive.

  “That’s a … very interesting outfit,” Valerie said, as tactfully as she could manage.

  Kim gave her a cold, dismissive look.

  “I don’t think we can fit everyone in the Explorer,” one of the guards said.

  “That’s okay,” Alyec said smugly, drawing on his leather jacket. “I have a car with me.”

  “Oh no,” Chloe realized. “It’s not…”

  But he just grinned.

  * * *

  It was, in fact, the exact same hatchback he had stolen before from the senior running back at school. Igor and Valerie went with the two guards, muttering something about Alyec’s proficiency at driving.

  “This is your car?” Kim asked, getting into the backseat without being asked.

  “Don’t ask,” Chloe recommended. “And buckle up.”

  “It’s … very nice,” she said doubtfully, unconsciously imitating Valerie’s earlier comment.

  Chloe checked the rearview mirror a couple of times to see how the girl was handling it, but Kim looked steady no matter how fiercely Alyec took the turns; she had one hand braced on each side of the car and swung between them, bouncing.

  “This is great.” Chloe sighed. “This is just what I need.”

  “I’m glad.” Alyec leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. Except for their occasional sort-of dates, they had actually been far less physical in the last week than … well, ever. Sergei never said anything aloud about his feelings toward Alyec, but it was obvious there was a tension between them and some invisible line her boyfriend could not cross. But it didn’t feel like a normal “don’t date my daughter” scenario; Chloe got the feeling that if it were anyone besides Alyec, it might have been okay. She made a mental note to ask someone about that sometime—maybe Olga.

  “Hey, Kim,” Alyec yelled to the backseat, trying to be sociable. “You ever see Star Wars?”

  “Of course I’ve seen Star Wars,” she snapped; the you idiot was understood.

  There was a long pause.

  “Who’s your favorite character?”

  Chloe caught the girl’s eyes widening.

  “The … ah … furry one. Not only do his physical characteristics set him apart, but the … obvious subservient dynamic between him and the … uh, protagonists indicate his role as either a hero-ally or comic-mentor archetype.”

  “So what you’re saying,” Alyec said philosophically, squealing around a corner, “is that you’ve never seen Star Wars.”

  Kim glared at him. Chloe was glad their cat abilities didn’t include anything like shooting lasers from their eyes. If they had, Alyec would have been fried.

  “No. I have not seen Star Wars,” Kim admitted, then looked out the window so she wouldn’t have to look at them.

  Chloe laughed.

  In the theater she wound up sitting between Kim and Alyec, since he and Igor and Valerie all insisted that since Chloe had brought the other girl, she had to sit next to her. Actually, it wasn’t so bad. Kim was inordinately pleased with the popcorn, another humanlike thing Chloe had a hard time comprehending. But the girl with the hidden cat ears relished every bite, using her claw to spear one kernel at a time and carefully deposit it on her tongue, never taking her wide, unblinking eyes off the screen.

  Igor and Alyec shouted lines with the characters and other lines at the beloved heroes with the rest of the crowd. Valerie and their two guards watched it in silence. Chloe had to answer a lot of whispered questions from Kim but didn’t mind; she knew the script by heart and found it kind of fun to initiate a newbie.

  “What is that they are on?”

  “A consular ship.”

  “Spaceship?”

  “Uh, yeah. Starship, really.”

  And:

  “Why is everyone cheering? What is the significance of that being a space station and not a moon?”

  And:

  “Stupid Alyec. I was closer than I thought. This story taps perfectly into Western archetypes—from the hero to the quest to the tragic hero. It is right out of Joseph Campbell. In fact, there are even parallels between it and the Egyptian story The Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor. …”

  “So, in the other movies, do they reve
al Darth Vader as being Luke’s father?” Kim asked casually, picking up a flyer and looking at the upcoming releases.

  Alyec’s jaw dropped. “How did you know that?”

  “It is pretty obvious, if you know anything about mythology and religious tales,” she answered smugly. Chloe grinned, then noticed Igor trying to win a stuffed animal from one of the claw vending machines for Valerie. “Hey, win me a toy, huh?” she demanded, handing Alyec a dollar. Then she pulled Kim after her into the women’s room.

  “I don’t have to go,” Kim protested.

  This is so not like Amy. Chloe sighed. She would just have to make the best of it. She pouted into the mirror and applied more lip gloss. Kim watched her without saying anything, taking off her baseball cap briefly so she could scratch her ears.

  “Hey,” Chloe suddenly said, remembering. “What was that you were going to tell me the other day? About the pride leader?”

  Kim looked startled. She licked her lips and tried to speak didactically, but something was worrying her. “Um, just that the leader of the Pride has to be the first to charge in and the last out of battle. The leader has to stay to defend the weakest, run into a burning house to save the slow. The leader gives his or her life for the Pride. Up to nine times, if necessary.”

  Chloe laughed. “like a cat, you mean? Like …” Then she suddenly noticed how grim the other girl looked. “You’re serious,” she realized.

  “A true leader proves him or herself,” Kim said quietly. “It comes out in battle. In war. In times of danger and catastrophe. Usually leadership runs in families. Sometimes a Pride gets lucky and several warrior family members rule together. But sometimes it does not; sometimes a person rises up in a time of need when there is no one else. And is killed and rises again.”

  “Pride leaders have nine lives?” Chloe repeated slowly, to make sure she understood.

  “Not all… pride leaders. But true ones do. It is what protects our race.”

  Coit Tower. Her fall. The dreams. The lions. “This wouldn’t have cost him a life. Assuming he even has more than one.”

  Chloe opened her mouth. “Are there … uh … others? Who can do that?”

  “Well, there were,” Kim said almost mournfully. “As I told you, the only daughter of our pride leader—the one before Sergei—was murdered before she had a chance to prove herself, and no one else of this generation has shown any signs. Or risked their lives to find out.”

  Kim was gazing steadily into her eyes. Chloe blushed and turned away. She couldn’t deal with this now. Pride leader? But sooner or later, she was going to need to think about what Kim had said.

  When they got home, Chloe went immediately to Sergei’s office. It was very late, but he didn’t have normal sleeping patterns, and she wanted to tell him what a great time they’d had … and maybe talk about finally getting to call or see her mom. She would have said something to announce her presence, but about four Twizzlers were crammed into her mouth. Alyec claimed he had won them from the prize machine at the movies. Twizzlers were definitely not one of the prizes—only cheap sniffed animals and plastic jewelry and stuff like that—but Valerie said that apparently Alyec had spent an additional five dollars to the one that Chloe had given him trying to get her something and had finally given up and gone to the concession stand. Chloe had laughed—that was definitely something lighthearted and stupid that someone like Brian would never do.

  The older man was standing behind his desk, talking urgently to one of the upper-ranked Mai in his company and two of the kizekh.

  “So we agree. She presents too many liabilities, I’m afraid. Something will have to be done to remove her—”

  He suddenly noticed Chloe, his blue eyes fixing on hers without recognition—for just a second. Then he warmed up. “That’s all for now, gentlemen. Thank you.” All three nodded at him in a way that was practically a bow and almost backed out of the room facing him, as she had seen Olga and Kim do.

  “What was all that about?” she asked, sliding into one of the enormous chairs that no one had been sitting in.

  “Someone who is not working out at the company,” Sergei said quickly, shuffling papers together on his desk and sitting down. “We will have to let her go.”

  “Why did the goons have to know about it?”

  “They are not goons, Ms. King. They are highly trained warriors.” He and his adoptive daughter locked eyes for a moment. Then he sighed. “It is not about an employee, you are right. It is about a member of the Order of the Tenth Blade we have to try to eliminate. I am not just the leader of a company that employees my people, Chloe: I am also pride leader of the Mai. There are ugly and distasteful things that go along with such responsibilities.”

  Chloe nodded, but her mind raced. She had never seen a female member of the Order. That didn’t mean there weren’t any, and she had certainly never seen any of its leaders, so maybe she was someone in charge. But usually someone used the term liability —at least in the movies—to mean someone on the home team. Like someone who has some good points who still has to be gotten rid of.

  Not me, right? The thought flashed through her brain, and Chloe tried to hide her concern.

  Chloe did present extra danger to the Mai, especially with her stupid stunt the other night. But no, there were too few of them left for the pride leader to just randomly go around and have them murdered.

  “These are tough decisions,” he went on, “things that hopefuls like Alyec don’t understand. Things that make a man old before his time.”

  “Alyec?”

  Sergei chuckled. “He is one of the ones ’in line’ should something happen to me. Or at least that’s what he thinks.”

  “Why not Igor? Hey … do you have any Sprites?”

  “Perhaps Igor. There are many good qualities about him,” Sergei said, reaching into the mini-fridge by his desk and taking out a couple of cans. He passed one to Chloe. “He is responsible and serious—but he is going to be married soon. Some would say he lacks a certain, ah, aggression. He is more of a president than a CEO, if you know what I mean.”

  Chloe nodded, concentrating on opening her can and making a Twizzler into a straw. There was too much new information to think about.

  “I’m feeling a little hungry—what do you think about half sausage, half pepper?” he asked, punching the number for the pizza place on his phone. Chloe nodded again. Then he noticed her inserting the Twizzler into her Sprite. “Chloe, whatever are you doing?”

  Sergei had enjoyed learning how to bite off both ends of a Twizzler to make it into a straw and laughed heartily about how you were really supposed to do it with cheap champagne. They’d had a nice game of chess—he’d beat her roundly, of course, but gently—and he’d told her all about growing up in the Communist Soviet Union, both the food lines and the amazing education and intellectu-alism that Chloe had only read about.

  When they left, he gave her a bear hug good night, but as soon as she began heading back to her room, the uneasiness she’d had about the meeting she’d interrupted came back. For the first time ever, the term cult came to her mind. Not that there weren’t actual reasons in this case: they were a different race, completely set apart. But that didn’t change the suffocating totality of the Pride; even when Chloe was allowed to do normal things, like going to the movies, it was with other Mai. She was completely cut off from the rest of the world.

  When she got back to her room, Chloe opened her phone and dialed. She had left too many people on the outside worried for too long. It was time to see her family and friends. But she would do it differently this time, intelligently. Far from her home and the watching eyes of the Tenth Bladers.

  “Brian? I have to see you. …”

  Eighteen

  The next day Chloe was still thinking about her mom, Paul and Amy, even Brian.

  “Hey.” Chloe knocked on the temple door as she walked in. As expected, Kim was there in the corner, meditating or reading a book or something.

&nb
sp; Kim must have detected something in her tone, because when she looked up, one of her eyebrows was already cocked and suspicious.

  “Can you do me a favor? I want to go out and meet a friend—a human one. Would you mind providing an alibi? I’ll tell Sergei you’re, like, instructing me in the way of the Mai or our history or the twin goddesses or something.” She tried to make it sound as casual as possible. “That way the goo—uh, kizekh won’t follow me.”

  “You want me to cover for you,” Kim said in her even, toneless voice.

  “Yeah,” Chloe said uncertainly; she had no idea what the other girl was feeling.

  “All right,” Kim agreed just as tonelessly; she flicked her ears once and went back to her book.

  “Hey, thanks! I owe you one.”

  The other girl just grunted, not looking up again.

  Chloe turned to go, not sure what to do, feeling like the interview was over.

  “I really enjoyed last night,” Kim suddenly said unexpectedly, eyes still glued to whatever she was reading. “Thank you for inviting me.”

  This was about as much joy as she was ever going to get out of Kim, Chloe realized. She smiled. “No problem. We should totally do it again.”

  She turned to go but couldn’t. Chloe realized she had already asked way too much of Kim, but the question had been gnawing at her since the possibility had been raised.

  “So, uh … did you find out any more? About my parents? If my mom, was, uh, the previous Pride leader? Because, you know …” Chloe trailed off.

  That caused Kim to look up. She fixed Chloe with her eyes and closed her book.

  “Your biological parents, whoever they were, are probably dead.”

  Chloe jumped at the harshness of these words; while they were most likely true, they were spoken completely emotionlessly. It was like she had been slapped.

  “You should worry about your human parents now, Chloe. They are alive. And they are probably being watched and probably in danger.”

  Chloe thought about the Tenth Bladers who’d caught her when she’d tried to go home. Home was a trap. They were expecting her to return home at some point. But what about her mom, the bait?