by Liz Braswell
“Hey, little guy.” Chloe figured that being Mai, she should be able to speak cat or something—but apparently not. It paused, its licking for a moment, then went back to work.
“You shouldn’t be up here. Are you lost?”
Chloe crept closer to it, making the tchk tchk noises that Amy’s cat always came running to. She crouched down and started to extend her hand, but the little cat leapt up to the top of the chimney, out of her reach.
“Mirao!” it said again, louder.
“Come on, easy now.” Chloe dug her toe claws into the brick and prepared to push herself up. “You might be able to outrun a normal human, but I’m afraid—“She swiped her hand up, but the little cat jumped down and ran faster than Chloe’s claws could come out, scrabbling its feet like a cartoon. “Kitty!” Chloe called, beginning to get annoyed.
She ran across the roof after it, but it leapt over the side of the building.
“No!” Chloe looked down to the street. She couldn’t see into the darkness below, even with her cat eyesight.
“Mirao!”
Chloe looked up: the cat was on the roof of the far building, patiently waiting for her. It must have dived down to a window ledge and then climbed back up again. “Mir-ao!”
“I get it now. You want to play, is that it? We’re playing tag?” It wasn’t a lost little kitty—it was an alley cat, or a sky cat, more like. This was its world, and it just wanted to play with a newcomer. “Okay!”
Chloe grinned and leapt. The cat waited a moment, as if giving her a fair start, then took off—pausing now and then to make sure she was following.
This is great. I should totally get a cat, Chloe decided. And it wasn’t as if her mom could really object to having one in the house anymore.
Whenever she got too close, Chloe made herself slow down; neither she nor her playmate wanted the game to end too soon. She smiled, wondering what they might look like to a random bystander: a witch and her familiar flying across the upper stories of the city? A large cat hunting a smaller one? Maybe they would just dismiss it. Halloween was just around the corner; anything supernatural seemed possible.
Suddenly the dairy cat veered to the left, down to the top of a fire escape.
“Ha! Getting tired?” Chloe taunted.
The cat gave her what she could have sworn was a nasty look.
“Okay, but I can’t play too much on the streets with you,” she warned. “I can’t let other people see me.”
“Mirao!” The cat turned and slipped down the metal stairs like a black Slinky.
“Is this your home? Are you showing me your—?” Suddenly Chloe stopped, forgetting the cat entirely. The fire escape led down into a dark dead-end alley, apparently unused except for garbage collection. Most of the pavement was pocked and puddled with slick black flats of shiny city water.
There was an ominous outline that cut into the oily reflections, large and organic and shaped suspiciously like a body.
And there was a smell … a familiar smell…
Chloe leapt straight down the last two floors, landing in a crouch just inches away from the edge of the shape. She crawled over closer and as her eyes adjusted saw what was indeed a human body, unmoving and broken looking.
It was Brian.
Five
“Oh my God—“
Chloe put a hand to his neck, carefully retracting her claws. There was a pulse—but it was sluggish. His skin was cold and clammy, as if his body could no longer fight the chilly environment around him.
“Chloe?” Brian croaked.
Chloe ran her hands over his body, trying to see and feel what was wrong. He moaned and struggled a little—it didn’t look like his neck or back were broken.
He held his hands over the top of his stomach, just under his chest. When Chloe pushed them aside, warm, syrupy blood seeped out. His entire shirt was soaked, and slow rivers of it ran down his sides and congealed in the water. A knife wound. Of course it was a knife wound. While the Order of the Tenth Blade used nine daggers to kill all nine lives of a Pride Leader, it took only one dagger to kill a member of the Order who betrayed them.
“You were supposed to run away—to disappear!” Chloe cried, trying not to panic.
Brian tried to say something, but nothing came out. He took a deep breath and opened his eyes. For a moment he saw her clearly—or at least the shape of her, since it was too dark for human vision—and smiled. Then he passed out again.
“Fuck,” Chloe swore. Where could she take him? If she brought him to a public hospital, he’d be a sitting duck for the Order to finish the job. She couldn’t protect him twenty-four/seven and had no idea how to go about hiring a bodyguard—especially one that didn’t work for Brian’s dad’s security company.
There was home, where she had taken Alyec after Brian wounded him by the bridge. But as much as that thought appealed to her, Chloe had made a firm decision not to put her mom at risk again with her strange life. The Tenth Blade had already broken into their home once to kidnap Chloe’s mom; bringing a man there they wanted dead was just asking for trouble. Which left only one option: the Firebird mansion. The home base of the Mai.
“Holy ironic justice, Batman,” she muttered as she knelt down to gather Brian up in her arms.
Once again the similarities between Chloe and a real superhero ended when she realized that carrying him all the way to Sausalito would not only be impractical, it would be really slow. And there was no way she was going to be able to get a cab that would be willing to pick up a girl with her bloody, injured boyfriend. Of course, the bus was out, too.
She resorted to the only superweapon she had: her cell phone. She punched the numbers quickly. Alyec had a car, but only when he stole it. Which left…
“’Sup?” Amy’s cheery voice came over the other end.
“Amy, I need you—it’s an emergency. I found Brian—bleeding to death in an alley. I need to get him help.”
“Ohmygod. Where are you?”
“Somewhere near Chinatown.” She looked around, but the alley had no name. “Track me on your phone.” Amy had the other matching GPS cell phone so they could track each other; the only downside was that its screen wasn’t very big, and Amy had to look at it while driving.
“I’ll be there ASAP.”
With the little bubble of normal conversation over, Chloe became more aware of the loneliness of the alley and the silence of Brian. She couldn’t remember much of junior high first aid and hoped she was doing the right thing by tearing off the sleeves of her shirt and tying them around his wound. Apart from that and trying to keep him from rolling through the puddles—though even the dry part of the cobblestone lane wasn’t a particularly sterile environment—there was little Chloe could do besides comfort him and wait.
“What’s going on here?”
Chloe turned to look at the owner of the new voice. A pair of boys, too healthy to be street people, too confident to be scared of a lonely alley. Both were muscled. Asian. All in black … gang members.
“You got a problem?” the other asked, smiling. Take away the attitude and the tattoos and it was obvious they were barely twenty. And actually pretty good-looking.
This could go two ways, Chloe realized. One of which was that they could turn out to be reasonably decent local guys who just wanted to help. But Chloe wasn’t going to wait around to see if it was the other—more likely—possibility.
With a frightful hiss she leapt up, extending her hand and foot claws, making sure her slit eyes flashed in the light. In two springs she was a foot from them, yowling and swiping her claws.
“Li Shou!” one of them cried. Then they turned around and fled.
“Almost too easy,” Chloe murmured. She retracted her claws and walked back to Brian, who suddenly looked a little too still. She knelt beside him and began stroking his hair. “Stay awake—you’ve got to stay awake. …”
He groaned in response, but his mouth was moving like he was trying to say something.
“Leave me,” he whispered. “They’ll be back. It’s over. …”
“Not on your life, sweetie,” she said with a forced grin. “Help’s on the way.”
“Chloe …” His lips moved more, but nothing came out. Chloe leaned closer. Then he fell back, unconscious.
“Brian, no,” she whispered, her eyes filling with tears.
Ten minutes later Amy arrived in her brother’s old black station wagon. Chloe took most of Brian’s weight because of her superior strength but needed Amy to hold him straight and steady in case there was actually something wrong with his back.
“Holy shit,” was all her friend said. They carefully laid him down in the backseat and, completely unconscious, he didn’t even groan. His skin was deathly white.
“Sorry,” Chloe said, taking the driver’s seat. “The hideout’s kind of a secret, and you’re going to have to blindfold yourself somehow. …”
Amy looked a little piqued, but only for an instant. “No problem. As the loyal sidekick, I should expect to be put into ridiculous situations.” She leapt into shotgun and pulled a jacket over her head.
Chloe burned rubber pulling out, and as she turned onto the street, a man-shaped shadow hugged the wall near the entrance to the alley, watching the car go. But one person couldn’t have done this to Brian…. It looked like he had been beaten from all sides at once. And it wasn’t like the Tenth Blade to skulk in the shadows: if they knew a Mai was there, they would have come out and tried to kill Chloe, too.
She didn’t begin breathing normally until they were going over the bridge, shooting past the National Guard, who had been on her ass after the big duke-out with the Rogue.
Ignoring the niceties of road and right-of-way, Chloe took the car off road the moment they turned onto the street that led to Firebird.
“My brother’s going to kill me …,” Amy muttered from under the jacket.
Chloe drove around to the back of the estate and honked the horn, shouting, “It’s me!” as she barreled up to the gate, which the guard opened just in time for the car not to crash into it. On the old TV show the Batmobile came roaring through a discreetly hidden tunnel into Wayne Manor; Batman didn’t need Alfred to let him in.
Must do something about that.
She pulled up to the kitchen, or back entrance, door and jumped out. By the time she had jumped out, someone was already opening the door, curious about the late-night intrusion. When she saw who it was, the female Mai bowed her head. “You have come back, Leader.”
“I need to get him into a bed or something,” Chloe ordered. “Help me.”
The woman opened her eyes and sniffed the air. “But he—and she—are human!”
“Can I take this off yet?” Amy asked, still in the front seat under the jacket.
“Please! I’m begging you!” Chloe cried, frustrated.
“The One doesn’t need to beg,” the woman murmured. She called behind her in either Russian or Mai; Chloe wasn’t listening enough to be able to tell the difference.
That’s Eleni, Chloe thought distractedly as the woman hurried back over to the car to help her with Brian. Eleni was one of the Mai who had most recently come from Turkey, like Chloe’s biological family. “Just two more minutes,” Chloe told Amy.
Among the other Mai who showed up—some blearyeyed, some wide awake—was Ellen, the kizekh who used to be Chloe’s sort-of bodyguard when she had lived with them full-time, just a short time ago. Her partner, Dmitry, wasn’t with her, which was unusual. She grinned at Chloe before giving a slight bow, genuinely glad to see her back. Everyone else bowed deeply and politely eased Chloe out of the way while carrying Brian in.
“Where are you taking him?” Chloe asked.
“The emergency ward, Honored One.” Ellen winked. “Don’t worry—we’ll have him fixed up good as new.” The Mai disappeared down the halls of the house at a trot.
“Emergency ward? We have an emergency ward?” Chloe wondered as she took Amy by the hand and followed them. There really is a whole little world inside these walls.
This was obviously one of the oldest parts of the mansion. She hadn’t been here before and was struck by the narrow stone hallways and cold, damp smell—like there was a well or a cellar nearby. Something caught inside Chloe: this was an old house, like right out of something on PBS, and she had full non-museum-pass access. She could even live here if she wanted.
They wound up in a dark room whose lights came on a second after they got there, switched by a female Mai rubbing her eyes and pulling on a white lab coat. There were two hospital-style beds, what looked suspiciously like a gleaming, stainless-steel operating table in the middle of the floor, and antique metal cabinets full of medical equipment. The floor was old wood, completely clashing with the sterile nature of everything else.
Ellen and the other Mai carrying Brian carefully put him on the operating table.
“A human?” The doctor was a tiny woman with a body like Tinkerbell and huge, dark hazel—almost brown—eyes, a color unusual among the Mai. She was probably in her late thirties, but it was hard to tell.
Ellen quietly jerked her head at Chloe.
“Oh.” She bowed her head and spread her hands, palms up, a curt but heartfelt gesture of respect. Then she immediately began examining Brian, who made pathetic little sounds as she prodded him.
“Why does the other human have a jacket over her head?” Ellen whispered to Chloe.
“I was trying to keep the location of Firebird secret,” Chloe whispered back, not wanting to tear her eyes from Brian. The doctor was ripping off Chloe’s make-do bandages and probing the wound. Instead of normal medical instruments she used her claws, with amazing precision.
“Someone clean this guy up with sterile towels while I work on him,” the doctor snapped. “The rest of you”—she looked up, managing to fix everyone with the same look—“get out!”
“Please, Honored One,” she added to Chloe after a moment.
Chloe paced in the small study outside that served as a waiting room. Everyone else went to bed, bowing obeisances and backing away from her just like she had seen them do with Sergei. The gestures seemed a little more extreme, a little more heartfelt than the ones for him, though. Ellen had brought the back of Chloe’s hand to her forehead as she bowed, like something a knight would do in the Dark Ages, swearing fealty. It was all a little uncomfortable.
Chloe had expected many things if she ever returned to the mansion or the Mai: disappointment about Chloe’s decision to leave them, anger over Chloe’s love for humans, sadness that they had “lost” someone to the outside world. Cold shoulders, at least. And maybe, from the slicker ones who wanted her back in the fold, hugs and kisses and smothering love. But certainly not worship.
It looks like they would do anything for me, she mused distractedly. Their immediate agreement to help Brian was unbelievable. Not only was he a human, not only was he once a member of the Tenth Blade, but he was the son of the head of the Order. The enemy was in their camp and they’d welcomed him with open arms. Well, sort of.
“So wait, what was that you were saying before? That I’m the hero and you’re my sidekick?” she finally asked, trying to distract herself with her and Amy’s previous conversation in the car.
“Yeah, like Batman and Robin. Xena and Gabrielle,” came the voice under the jacket.
“Um, we’re not gay. At least not me. And what about Paul? Who’s he?”
Silence.
“Arch-villain, maybe,” Amy countered. “Nemesis, perhaps. He’s already jealous of your powers. Right now he could be plotting your doom.”
“You, uh, you want to talk about something?” Chloe ventured. It was a strange way to have this conversation: while she was nervous about Brian, at Firebird, with her friend, who had a jacket over her head. Yet it seemed as good a time as any.
There was a pause. “No,” Amy said stubbornly, but she didn’t sound certain.
“I heard you and Paul talking at the co
ffee shop earlier. I wasn’t spying on you,” Chloe added quickly, reacting to the face she knew her friend was making. “I was practicing verb forms with Kim on the roof.”
“He wants to break up,” Amy said softly.
“And you …?”
“I thought it was pretty good…. I mean, it wasn’t perfect—he’s a little hard to get through to sometimes. But it’s a real relationship. Not like any of the other guys I dated … We were doing it right. Friends first, you know?”
“Yeah, but …” Chloe bit her lip, unsure how to say it. “Philosophy aside, do you like him?”
“Yes,” Amy said, a catch in her throat. “When he isn’t being a douche bag!”
“Did he start acting like this before or after you told him about graduating a year early?”
“Why?” her friend demanded.
“Well … it’s a big thing, Amy. Kind of out of the blue.” Chloe realized she was no longer talking about Paul. “I mean, it wasn’t like you were planning it all along. …”
“Well, your turning into a cat kind of came out of nowhere, too!” Amy snapped indignantly.
Chloe took a deep breath, forcing herself not to respond to that. It was hard.
“Yeah, but you’re going to be leaving us. Permanently—the beginning of the end, you know? It’s hard for me to imagine losing you. And I’ll bet it’s harder for Paul, who’s in the middle of losing his family. His parents have barely spoken since the divorce began.”
Amy grew silent and seemed to pull into herself a little, as if she was actually thinking about this.
Just then Kim came calmly padding into the room. “Hello, Chloe. Hello, Amy.” Once again, the girl with the giant cat ears was unfazed by anything; it was like she had been expecting them.
“Hi, Kim,” said Amy from underneath the jacket, like Cousin It.
“I think you can take off the blindfold now, if that’s what that is.” Kim didn’t smile, but Chloe was beginning to get used to the other girl’s extremely dry sense of humor.
She pulled Amy’s jacket off as gently as possible. Her friend’s frizzy hair staticked anyway, billowing around her head like a goth clown’s.
