Nine Lives of Chloe King

by Liz Braswell

  Paul and Amy froze; Mrs. King did, too.

  Suddenly Chloe had a path, a thing to do.

  She ran, sprinting for her mom. That was why she was there.

  “No!” Brian screamed, and made for Sergei. “Leave her alone!”

  And Sergei fired.

  It could have been meant for Brian, or it could have been meant for her mom. Chloe would never know. All she was sure of was that this was her fault, her doing. She dug a claw into the ground and pushed herself forward.

  There was very little pain when the bullet first entered her flesh.

  But when it hit her heart, it was like her entire body caught on fire.

  “Chloe! No!”

  She had no idea who was screaming: it could have been male, female, or a number of people.

  She crumpled to the ground.

  Her heart was very loud in her ears, and the ground was very cold under her head. The rest of her was on fire, as though she were being burned alive.

  She listened interestedly to the muted sounds around her and the slow thumping of her heart.

  After a few more beats, it stopped entirely.

  Twenty-six

  Blackness. Echoes.

  The sounds of something distant that might have been water dropping, but thicker. Wind howled somewhere, but no breeze touched her face.

  Chloe recognized where she was even before she opened her eyes.

  She was farther back from the edge of the cliff than the first time, when she had come to this place after falling off Coit Tower. Far below was what looked like a pool of mercury that bubbled and rippled uncertainly.

  She noticed things she hadn’t before: directly overhead there were millions and millions of stars and galaxies and strange planets she couldn’t have named, far more terrifying than the emptiness she had thought was there. It was like she was at the end of the universe, the end of everything.

  Something screamed, low and insistent. When she squinted, Chloe could just make out shadowy forms flickering in and out of sight, just beyond her vision, impossible to hold for more than a second. Like they weren’t there—or like they were an optical illusion.

  Chloe backed away to the edge of the cliff, putting as much distance between them and her as she could.

  “Chloe. Saht.”

  It was a whisper, a purr, and a growl all combined.

  One shadow hovered closer than the rest, lingering.

  “Daughter.”

  “M-mom?” Chloe asked, quavering. The shade had no recognizable form, slipping back and forth from something vaguely bestial to something upright.

  “Now you know your destiny. Go back.”

  “But wait—what is this?” Chloe asked desperately, trying to grasp at things she knew in her heart were fleeting and impermanent. “Where am I? What happened to you?”

  The shadow wavered and shifted, like there was extremely hot air between them.

  “Return to your living mother. She is reality now—as I am, in your past.”

  Chloe didn’t understand. She opened her mouth to ask something more, but a rush of hot air hit her on the chest like a fist. Chloe flew backward off the cliff, into the darkness below.

  Life, when she returned to it, was pain. She reached into her chest with her claw and with an agonized groan pulled out the bullet that was lodged there. Blood poured down her front and slowed to a trickle as she watched. Soon it stopped entirely, and she felt an itching where the skin and sinew began to knit.

  Sounds began to make sense around her, not that she cared. Murmurs of, “She is the One!” and, “Why isn’t she dead?” and just, “Chloe!” from the people who simply loved her. The fighting seemed to have stopped; several of the Mai were on their knees before her.

  Her mother was beside her, making sure she was okay.

  No, wait—her mother had carefully angled herself between Chloe and the Tenth Bladers, shielding her daughter with her body. Whit’s men shifted hesitantly on their feet, starting to raise their guns and then dropping them, unsure what to do.

  Shakily Chloe got to one knee and then rose from there. It hurt every part of her, but she stood.

  “Anyone,” she said, loudly and evenly so everyone could hear her, “human or Mai ever touches my mother again, I’ll kill you. I will hunt you down and kill you. And I have seven lives left to do it in.”

  Chloe put her hand to her side, which still burned. She leaned over a little to ease the pain, facing Whit and his remaining Tenth Bladers. “Listen to me: I did not kill the Rogue. He fell off the bridge when I was trying to help him back up. I have never hurt anyone. Neither has Alyec or Kim, or Paul or Amy. Or my mom. You can all leave us out of your little war.”

  Amy and Alyec ran forward when she began to sway, each throwing one of her arms over their shoulders. Paul and Kim followed.

  “As for the Mai …” She looked directly at Sergei. There was no proof that he’d actually sent assassins after her mother, but he was the second person that evening to train a gun on her. “Home isn’t Mai or human. Home is home. And I’m going home now.”

  She put out her hand and her mom took it.

  Clasped, unnoticed in her other hand, was her mother’s silver earring, the one Brian had found. She looked back at those they left, the wounded, the dead, the respectful Mai, and the confused humans.

  Brian was not among them.

  Chloe, her four friends, and her mother walked quietly out into the night.

  Twenty-seven

  Two Mai and two human teenagers sat in a booth at the Washington Diner, silently drinking coffee or hot chocolate, picking at a large order of cold, greasy fries topped with thick bright ketchup that reminded everyone there too much of blood. The fluorescent lights made everything harsh and lifeless. The late-night waitstaff was grumpy and standoffish, which was fine for the four gathered, who had no urge to socialize with strangers.

  Alyec, Kim, Paul, and Amy sat uncomfortably, like distant cousins long separated at a family reunion told to go make friends with other kids their age. Kim had borrowed a scarf from Amy and wrapped her head with it like a babushka, hiding her ears. The waitress had just rolled her eyes—she was used to the late-night freaks who came in.

  “So …,” Paul said, playing with a fry. “What does this whole … being-the-One thing mean?”

  Kim had her paws wrapped around a mug of hot chocolate and was staring into the depths, looking spacey even for her.

  “It means she is the natural leader of this pride. That her mother was probably the previous leader and that she, like her mother, fulfills all of the traditional requirements: loyalty, bravery, compassion, fair-mindedness, and a willingness to come up with solutions to seemingly impossible situations.” Kim pulled herself together a bit, falling into her usual didactic role. “It means that her ka is true and noble and that she would do anything to defend her friends and family. It means she has nine lives—or seven now, as she said. And other … less definable traits.”

  Paul and Amy nodded mutely, and even Alyec seemed interested in the subject, like it was news to him.

  “It means Alyec is no longer next in line to be leader,” Kim said carefully.

  “That’s okay; too much responsibility,” Alyec said, trying to be humorous—but it came off sounding bleak. Even he wasn’t untouched by the events of the night.

  “From what you’ve said, it sounds like that Sergei guy should no longer be the leader,” Paul said slowly. “That it really should be Chloe.”

  Kim nodded mutely and looked back down at her hot chocolate.

  “Did you see those two old freaks?” Amy spoke up, voice wavering. “It was like Mr. Rezza and Sergei were off in their own little world. … Did you see how he treated Brian? Like either one of them is likely to give up power. Ever.”

  “I have never seen violence like that before,” Kim said into her mug, then looked up, wide-eyed and shocked, like a child. “I’ve seen fights and duels, but…”

  Alyec nodded, leaning on
his hand. “I know. I thought it would be fun or something.”

  Paul and Amy looked at each other. Paul reached out his hand and squeezed hers.

  “We didn’t end up doing anything to help her,” Amy finally said, frustrated. “We were supposed to be doing all this detective legwork crap, and none of it mattered. …”

  “If it wasn’t for your idea with the walkie-talkie, we never would have found her,” Alyec pointed out.

  “We were there.” Kim looked up at all of them. “Supporting her. I think that sometimes, that’s enough.”

  “One thing’s for certain,” Alyec added, stirring his coffee with a claw. “Her life is going to get even more complicated and a lot more dangerous from now on. …”

  Twenty-eight

  Chloe and her mom sat on the couch, mostly silent. It had taken over an hour just for Chloe to tell her mother the story and another hour for Mrs. King to ask the inevitable questions.

  Mrs. King got out some expensive scotch and downed a shot. She offered Chloe some, but Chloe declined, wanting cocoa instead. Mrs. King made it for her, going through the movements robotically.

  “Oh, here’s your earring,” Chloe remembered, taking it out of her pocket. It gleamed dully in the light. She turned it over in her fingers, staring at it. “It’s so random. … Such a tiny chance that it fell, and that Brian found it.”

  “Give your mother a little credit,” the older woman said with a wry smile, indicating how both of her ears were bare. “Every time they moved me, I dropped another piece of jewelry or whatever, hoping it might provide someone a clue as to where I was. I think I’m out about three thousand dollars’ worth of the stuff.” She handed Chloe her cocoa and shook her head.

  Chloe smiled—it was still too soon to grin. I really do have the coolest mother. She couldn’t imagine Mrs. Chun or Amy’s mom thinking to do something like that. But her face darkened again as she thought about moms and the other thing she had to tell hers.

  “I saw my biological mother,” she said after they had been silent for a while. “When I was, uh, dead.”

  Mrs. King looked up at her through slightly glazed eyes—dim from the evening, not the drink. There were bruises and scrapes on the side of her head where the gun had been jammed against it. Her usually pixie-perfect hair was tousled, and her glasses were bent. Chloe wished she didn’t have to see her mother this way—she might have thought her mom was a perfectionist bitch sometimes, but seeing her like this was almost unbearable.

  “What did she say?” her mother asked after a moment.

  “She said that she was proud of me and that I should go back and rescue you—that you were my real mother, too.”

  It was a difficult thing to say, but Chloe was glad she had.

  Even when her mom began to cry and hug her.

  They finally said good night, somehow both knowing it was safe for now. Chloe had meant every word she had said about killing whoever tried to attack her home again, and the Mai seemed to respect her now. And the Tenth Blade had something to think about.

  She wearily climbed the stairs to her room, wanting desperately the hot, cleansing water of a bath but too exhausted to seriously consider the effort of running the water or waiting for it to fill.

  Chloe sat on her bed, empty of all thought, trying to kick off her sneakers without bending over to untie them.

  She was startled by a tap at the window.

  Brian was there, his frame obscuring a surprisingly clear night full of stars. Chloe felt her stomach lurch for a moment when she saw him. There was blood on his face and hands; where he tapped, an ugly dark blotch remained.

  Chloe leapt up and pushed open the window.

  “Brian!” she cried. He was holding his shoulder, like there was a wound there.

  A bullet wound, she realized, catching a faint odor of metal and powder. It smelled like poison to her, like death.

  “Hey.” He smiled weakly. “I’m all right. Nothing too serious.”

  “Come in—I can get some bandages. …” He was balanced on the outside of the sill as neatly as if he were Mai, and she was afraid he would fall if he lost too much blood.

  He shook his head. “I can’t. I just came to say goodbye.”

  She didn’t understand; it was all over. The good guys had won—and he was a good guy.

  “Why? What’s the—?”

  “I’m a dead man,” he said wearily. “Richard is basically calling a fatwa on me—as a traitor to the Order. And my father refuses to protect me. You never quit the Order while you’re alive.”

  “But you had no choice! You told me! Your father made you.”

  He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. I said my vows when I was fourteen—and now I’m a wanted man. I have to disappear.”

  Finally Chloe began to cry, streams of silent tears coursing their way down her cheeks.

  “Brian, it’s not fair. You were just trying to help me. It’s all my fault. …”

  “Nothing is your fault, Chloe.” He reached in and grabbed her hand, squeezing it. “Nothing is your fault. You’re good, kind, and smart…. I have no doubt that you’ll make a great leader to your people.” He looked her seriously in the eye. “But you know that you’re a top to-kill on the Order’s list, right?”

  “I know,” she said sadly.

  “My hanging out here would only put you in more danger, Chloe.” He took his hands off hers and began to stand. “I love you,” he said, and kissed the glass near her face.

  She leaned forward and kissed him back, the cold glass between them keeping him safe from her.

  Then he fell into the night, disappearing into the city.

  Chloe covered her face with her hands and wept.

  Epilogue

  Sergei sat at his desk, hands clasped under his chin as though he were praying. He had run a claw through his hair, fixing it, but there was blood on his cuffs from when he had taken down one of the younger members of the Order, pulling at the tendons in the boy’s neck while closing his fingers.

  It had been a long time since Sergei had personally gotten involved in a fight. He had missed it—there was something incredibly stirring and visceral about protecting your people with your own body. That was one of the signs of a real leader.

  A real leader knew what to do during peacetime as well, knew how to manage a modern bureaucracy to gather his people safely, to work the system and reunite families and keep them all employed and safe and hidden. He had done exactly that for the past fifteen years or so. I am a leader, he told himself, and no one is going to take that away. Certainly not some little girl from San Francisco.

  He opened a drawer, using his claw to undo the lock, and took out a small, nondescript gray cell phone. He dialed a number with his thumb, claws receding.

  “Hello, Alexander? First, let me offer my condolences,” he said with a chuckle, “since everyone seems to believe that you are dead.

  “In other business, I thought we could help each other out again. Remember the pride leader’s daughter? The one you, ah, took care of with my… assistance? It turns out she has a sister, Chloe King. Yes, you’ve met—Yes, she’s the One….

  “And I can help you find her. So you can take care of her as well.”

  THE CHOSEN

  For Gg Re and Billy, love and congratulations.

  One

  “Hey, King, how you feeling?”

  Chloe closed her eyes and sighed, resisting the urge to rest her head against the locker behind her. She knew Scott was just being friendly—he wasn’t even making a joke—but the reality of Chloe’s situation was exhausting. All her life she had been content to surf the shallow waters of the pond of highschool popularity, reveling in her basic anonymity.

  Of course, all that was over now.

  “I’m still a little tired,” she said, turning around with a wan smile. “But mostly better. Thanks.”

  “Dude, that shit is serious. My cousin got it and he had to be homeschooled over the summer, he was so far behin
d.” Scott adjusted his headphones and made a gunlike gesture at her. “Peace out.”

  Why did it have to be mono? she wondered for the fiftieth time that day. Coming down with Epstein-Barr was the fake excuse Sergei had fed the school’s administrators about Chloe’s long absence, and even now that the dust had settled, Chloe didn’t think sharing the real reason for her absence would go over too well.

  Sorry about the whole not-showing-up-at-school-for-a-few-weeks thing, Chloe pictured herself saying to the principal. You see, I’m a cat person and had to hide with others of my kind in a gigantic mansion called Firebird that also houses a real estate firm while this ancient Masonic-like cult tried to hunt me down because they think I killed one of their assassins. Oh, also, I have nine lives and am apparently the spiritual leader of my people, who believe they were created by ancient Egyptian goddesses.

  Nope. Chloe couldn’t imagine it would fly.

  “But couldn’t it at least have been a brain tumor? Or even a nose job?” she wondered aloud. She watched Scott walk down the hall, slapping hands with actual friends. He was only someone that Chloe knew vaguely before, but at least his reaction was better than most. Keira Henderson, for instance, kept telling everyone how there should be a special health class devoted just to STDs and Chloe.

  Of all the things Sergei had done to her, the mono/“kissing disease” lie was up there with the worst. Well, of the things she could actually prove he’d done, that is. It was hard to pin down exactly when keeping her safe from assassins had turned into just plain keeping her. And while the Order of the Tenth Blade was an organization whose sole purpose was to wipe out the Mai cat people, they had kidnapped Chloe’s mom, insisting it was for her own protection. At the showdown in the Presidio their leader swore that Sergei would stop at nothing to cut Chloe’s ties to her human friends and families, and even though Chloe had come to see Sergei as sort of a surrogate dad over the previous few weeks, she found herself wondering if it might be true.

  Chloe had really hoped life would get back to normal when she left the Mai, returned home, and went back to school. No such luck. Not yet, anyway. The Order was reasonably quiet now that Chloe had given up one of her lives to save her mom and everyone realized she was “the One.” Plus—and Chloe wasn’t even really talking to anyone at Firebird right now—her feelings toward Sergei were still unresolved, Brian was missing, and, well, she was still torn between him and Alyec. And everyone thinks I have mono. Great.