by Liz Braswell
Kim just nodded, without explaining further. “I didn’t know her very well. She was killed by herself, far away from her home, at night.”
“Picked off because she was by herself,” Chloe said grimly. But something seemed familiar about what Kim had said—almost déjà vu. A dream she’d had, maybe: something about a girl running, panicked, in dark city streets. Being caught and having her throat slit.
“Yes … although the fact that it might have been the Rogue lends an interesting spin to the whole thing,” Kim said, looking at the picture again. “To send someone like that out after her means they were pretty serious about getting her, which means they somehow knew she was the daughter of a previous pride leader.”
“Do you think they know about me?” Chloe asked in a small voice.
“We still have no actual proof you are who we think you are,” Kim said carefully. “So I would assume they have even less of an idea.”
She imagined the man who’d attacked her running after this other girl, in probably the same fashion, running her down—without an Alyec or Brian to help save her. Maybe without so much of a fighting instinct. Killed by whirring throwing stars and tiny silver daggers.
“Why are they called the Tenth Blade, anyway?” Chloe asked.
“Because a pride leader has nine lives,” Kim answered. “It takes nine blades to kill the One. The tenth is for the Tenth Blader if he fails.”
Twenty-two
After She and Kim had made some preliminary plans for searching her house the next night, Chloe finally crawled off to bed, a thousand different thoughts and ideas crowding themselves into her brain. She had just drifted off, the pictures of her possible mother and sister laid out on the quilt in front of her, when Alyec showed up.
“Pssst! Chloe?” He knocked lightly on the door as he opened it.
Chloe blinked awake, then immediately sat up. “Where were you?”
“What?” Alyec asked, the eagerness on his face changing to dismay.
“I’ve been trying to call you. I tried calling you at home—”
“I was at a party,” he mumbled, a little shamefaced about having fun while she was stuck here.
“Why don’t you have a cell phone?” Chloe snapped.
“I do. Have one. Had one. Too many people started calling, so I don’t use it much anymore,” Alyec said defensively.
“My mom—she’s been taken. Kidnapped. Killed, I don’t know.” She sank back on her bed, trying to hold back the quiver in her voice.
He came over and sat on the bed next to Chloe and put his arm around her. “I’m sure that’s not true.”
“It is,” Chloe answered dully. “I went to meet Amy and Paul—“She knew she should have said and Brian but couldn’t deal with it right then. “And they told me no one had been home in a while. I went, and there’s no sign she’s been there for at least a week. She must have disappeared right after I came here.”
Alyec hugged her to him, waiting a careful moment before asking the potentially inflammatory: “You went back home? After the last time you were attacked?”
“What would you have done if it was your mom?”
“I would go to Sergei and we would instantly round up a posse and—”
“Sergei won’t do anything. Because she’s human.”
“Oh.” Alyec seemed surprised by this. “What a dickhead.”
Maybe this racial hatred thing is generational, Chloe thought. She hoped it was so.
“Why didn’t you take me along?” he asked quietly. “I would have gone with you. You know how much I love breaking rules.”
“It was something I had to do myself.” And it would have been pretty uncool for you to tag along while I was seeing my other boyfriend. “Alyec,” she said, sighing, “you get to go to school every day and do normal things with normal people in the outside world. I’m stuck here all day. Every day. Away from my mom and my friends and everything. I’m being … cloistered here.” She gave herself points for the SAT word.
“Kim seems to be okay about it,” Alyec said, a smile on his lips.
“I love her dearly, but she really is a bit of a freak, you know?” Chloe ran her hand through Alyec’s thick blond hair. “She said she would go back to the house with me and look for evidence or something.”
“I will go with you, too,” he said, kissing her on the side of her head, above her ear. “Screw Sergei. She’s your mom. Hey,” he said brightly, suddenly sitting back and looking at her, “this is the most naked I’ve ever seen you!”
Chloe caught herself looking down, forgetting what she had on. It was completely unsexy: a pair of blue-striped boxers Olga swore were new and an oversized, comfy, Old Navy men’s T-shirt. The neck was so big it hung off one of her shoulders. Except for that little bit of Flashdance, Chloe didn’t think she looked very naked at all.
“You have got to be kidding me,” she said, holding her hand against his head to stop him as he reached for her. “I look like a frump.”
“A sexy frump. A college girl, taking a break from her studies,” Alyec said, evading her hand and kissing Chloe on her belly. “A librarian at home. You don’t have any glasses, do you?”
“Alyec, shut up. Stop it!” She tried not to giggle. Her mom was gone, she had two boyfriends, she couldn’t trust anyone. … “We’re being serious.”
“As a good librarian should be. Chloe, tonight the area will be crawling with Tenth Bladers because you were probably seen. No—definitely seen. You, me, and the freak will go tomorrow night and figure out what happened. Okay?”
“Okay,” she agreed grudgingly.
He lifted the shirt up over her belly and pulled her boxers just the slightest bit down. Chloe was zinging all over as he brought his lips to her skin, both fearing and expectantly awaiting of his next move.
Which was to suddenly suck down over her belly button like a fish and blow air out the sides, making a ridiculous thirbrrrrty sound.
“Alyec!” She cracked up, hitting him over the head with a pillow.
“Chloe,” he said, more seriously, kissing her. “everything’s going to be all right. I promise.”
Then he really kissed her. It was even better than their little time-out in the janitor’s closet. He pulled her closer to him, sliding his hand up under her shirt. She felt the tips of his claws come out and pressed back into him.
“Al-yec!” came a booming male voice, pronouncing the name as Russianly as possible. Sergei stood in the doorway, hands on his hips, a growl on his face. He looked extremely leonine. “Do I have to establish a curfew in my own home?”
“Hey, she’s part of this, too,” Alyec said mock whiningly, sliding up and away from her in one quick movement.
Chloe wasn’t sure whether to scream, cry, or giggle. This was such a classic situation—one that she had never been in before. Besides being scary and embarrassing, it felt sort of warm and nostalgic.
“Get out, Alyec Ilychovich,” Sergei said, raising an eyebrow. There was a little bit of tired amusement in his voice as well. Chloe got the feeling that this was somehow not as bad as the whole sneaking-out thing. It was bad, but not unexpected, and not out of the realm of the legal.
Alyec slunk out after giving a brave salute to Sergei and blowing a kiss to Chloe. When he was gone, Sergei let out a sigh, a breath he must have held the entire time.
“That boy is a menace,” he said wearily.
Chloe covered her mouth, pretending to scratch her nose, desperately trying not to giggle.
“I just came by to apologize,” the older man said more gently, coming in and sitting on the edge of her bed. “I truly am sorry we cannot help your mother more. We should do everything we can for the woman who adopted you and brought you up and helped make you the wonderful girl you are.” He put his square, stubby hand somewhat clumsily on her own. “But these are tough times … and the Tenth Blade is in strange agitation over you. I do not wish to risk lives—there are so few of us. Do you understand?”
W
hen 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 Tracy Lynn 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.
Twenty-three
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 highschool 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 rando
m decorations.
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.”
