The Stolen (5 page)

“Also, I told Valerie and Olga to scare you up some clothes. What are you, size eight?”

Chloe jumped. A brief worry that he might not be taking care of her in a strictly fatherly fashion must have flashed over her face.

Sergei chuckled. “My family were leatherworkers, Chloe. In Sokhumi. I grew up among vests and coats and saddles and knowing how to fit a customer.” Sergei put his arm around her shoulders and began to lead her out.

“Uh, can I ask one question? If it's not rude?” she ventured.

“Anything, Chloe.”

“Why does Kim—I mean, do we all … I mean … the ears?” She made a motion with her finger.

Sergei rolled his eyes. “Kim is a very religious person. She is following a particular path to bring her closer to the Goddesses. In her beliefs, it is what we all looked like a long time ago.”

“She …
wants
to look that way?”

“Something like that. She's a very intelligent and pious girl, but kind of … zealous.” The older man said it in the exact same tone Alyec had said “a freak.”

“Do you worship—?” She wanted to say “the Goddesses,” “ancient Egyptian gods,” or some such, but
it was hard while they passed copy machines and short-sleeved cubicle slaves at messy, piled desks.

“It is hard for anyone who grew up in the shadow of the Communist Soviet Union to really worship anything,” he said gently. “I follow Sekhmet as best as I can. Olga was raised sort of Russian Orthodox, with some worship of Bastet, too.”

They stopped in an office of slightly calmer people with bigger desks. Chloe recognized Igor, shouting in Russian on a phone. Standing next to him was an assistant, a boy about Brian's age, with trendy thick glasses and a look of resigned hopelessness.

“Is everyone here … Mai?” Chloe whispered.

“To the last one. I built up this little real estate empire so everyone could have a place to work with their own people if they chose.”

“Does everyone … in the pride … work here?”

Sergei shook his head. “Valerie, Igor's fiancée, is a model. Simone is a dancer. And Kim does her own thing, as they say. But it's difficult for us to hold down corporate jobs—people can sniff out the wolves among the sheep, or the cats among the … well, you know. We don't fit in.”

Chloe looked at Igor. He seemed like a normal overworked human male. His tie was thrown over his shoulder and his shoes were trendy. He took notes with a pencil and played with a desk toy as he spoke. But the way he arched his back, and the way the light hit his
brown eyes and made them glow for a moment, and the way he swung his head to look at Sergei and Chloe and didn't blink—taken all together, there was indeed something very different about him.

Igor put one hand over the receiver and held out the other when he saw Chloe and Sergei standing there.

“Hello,” he said in an accent that was noticeably Russian.
Or noticeably something
.

“I'm Chloe.” She felt something strange poke her on her skin as she shook his hand—and realized that his claws had come out and were gently pricking her.
A secret greeting,
she realized, trying to do it back. She pressed too hard, though, underestimating her strength. Igor pulled back his hand, grinning ruefully, and sucked on the pad of his palm where she had drawn blood.

“I've never done that before,” Chloe said, blushing. “The handshake thing.”

Sergei thought it was hysterical.

“That's my girl. A man-eater!” He slapped her so hard on the back, she almost pitched into Igor's lap. But he was already shouting back into the phone.

“Igor is my right-hand man. I'd be helpless without him,” Sergei confided. Somehow, Chloe didn't believe that. “Right now he's working on an old, uh, massage parlor near Union Square. We plan to put franchises in it, like Starbucks. Maybe a Quiznos.”

“That's terrible,” Chloe said before she could stop herself. “I mean, that must be very profitable.” She
paused. “But I mean, it might have a bad history, but at least the place has, you know, an interesting one. Not a strip-mall-y one.”

“Ah, you're one of those.” Sergei sighed. “If it's any consolation, we just worked with the city to turn the space next to a vacant lot into a city-subsidized childcare center for low-income women and the lot into a community garden for them.”

“Hell of a tax break,” Igor whispered, holding his hand over the receiver again.

Sergei frowned at him, and the boy went meekly back to work.

“At least consider a bookstore,” Chloe pleaded. “Even a Barnes & Noble.”

“Look at this, I have my own little spiritual adviser.” Sergei fluffed the hair on her head. “Maybe we'll put you to work while you're not in school—like an intern. Then you can make your voice heard. Heh. Come, let's order lunch.” He whirled his arm around Chloe's shoulders, and dragged her with him.

“The emergency meeting
of the Order win now come to session.”

It was a lot less formal than most of the meetings Brian was forced to attend: in daylight, no less, and in normal street clothes.
Well, street clothes for me. Suits for all of these old
—

“Purpose?” his father asked ritually, for the stenographer to take down. Brian watched in disgust as his dad, Whitney Rezza, flexed his fingers, admiring the ancient gold ring and his own manicured fingernails. Metrosexuals had nothing on
his
dad. He'd practically invented the style.

“To determine once and for all what to do about Chloe King,” said The Nonce. The Nonce was Edna Hilshire in real life and a dead ringer for Dame Judith Anderson. Her age, short hair, dry wit, and sharp, piggy little brown eyes all made her seem as powerful as she was—so were most of the inner circle of the Order.
Rich, white, and mostly middle-aged. Brian's grandfather, the venerable Elder of this Conclave, was
ancient
. He at least seemed to understand Brian's hesitation to go along with the group about Chloe, if not forgive it.
Or permit it, more importantly,
thought Brian.

“Directly or indirectly, she is responsible for the Rogue's death.” This was said by weaselly Richard, the little yes-man Brian's dad loved to keep around. Richard—Dick—might be Whit Rezza's favorite, but almost everyone else referred to him as Dickfess. He was doing all he could to become leader someday. It was a position that Brian had once hoped for and had almost been guaranteed, due to his lineage, but then things had changed.
Everything
had changed when he met Chloe.

Brian had never chosen to be part of this world of Tenth Bladers, unlike Richard, who chose to join of his own free will. There was something about secrecy, rituals, devotion, and danger that seemed to draw people in at every age, Brian reflected bitterly.

Brian never would have chosen this life for himself. If he'd ever had any choice, that is. That was how he'd somehow wound up at a committee meeting determining the fate of the only girl he'd ever felt strongly about. Maybe even loved.

“She is
not
directly—or even
in
directly responsible for his death,” Brian repeated tiredly for the thousandth time since that night, when he had returned home from the fight on the bridge. He ran his hand through his
dark brown hair, normally full, now lank with exhaustion and sweat. “Alexander Smith came to
kill
her, and she defended herself. What's more, when he slipped off the bridge
by his own actions,
she put out a hand to save him.”

“I find that highly unlikely,” Richard said primly.

“Shut up,” Brian snapped at him. “You weren't even there.”

“Easy, Novitiate,” Edna said. “You are almost out of line.” But she said it with a faint smile. “While I, too, find it hard to believe that
any
one, Mai
or
human, would try to help someone who just tried to kill her, the only witness we have at present is Brian.”

“Whose views are obviously prejudiced,” his father stated in the rich, stirring tones of a leader. “Let it be noted that I will not allow love for my own son to interfere with the facts of the proceedings.”

Like it's ever interfered before,
thought Brian.

“There is no proof of the Rogue's death,” Ramone, the minute-taker, offered. He was a tall, gaunt young man, every inch the Librarian he was supposed to be—except for his healthy skin tone and fairly radiant brown eyes. He wasn't much older than Brian but already sounded ancient. “I have gone through police and hospital records. No bodies have washed ashore, or been trawled, or—”

“That means nothing,” Brian's father said again. “He fell. Defending himself.”

“From a girl who was defending
her
self!” Brian protested.

“Strike that last statement,” Mr. Rezza ordered Ramone. “It is of no consequence and out of order.”

“You know, it was
you
people who first put me onto her case,” Brian said angrily.

“Yes, and we expected you to follow, befriend, and observe the Mai in question. We did not ask you to become her advocate!”

“Let us turn to the mother,” Edna interrupted politely, clasping her hands on the table. She too wore a ring of the Order, but it was smaller, in an orange gold that was different than that of Brian's dad's. “Is she safe?”

“For now.” Brian didn't miss the look his dad gave Edna:
We'll discuss it later,
it said.

“Well, that is one thing we can be grateful for.” The old woman leaned forward, spreading her hands. “Let us continue tracking Chloe, much more closely this time, using someone, ah …” She glanced in apology to Brian. “Not
directly
involved with her heretofore. As long as we know where she is, we can make our decision at any time, and meanwhile, we can watch to see if she does anything else violent.”

“That seems reasonable,” Ramone said.

“All right,” Brian's dad said. “Agreed. Brian, you are off the case.
Really
. If you are caught anywhere near Chloe King again—there will be consequences.”

Like what? You'll dock my allowance? You'll ground me? You'll somehow let Mom get killed
again? Brian's dark brown eyes burned with a rusty fire deep within. His father had punished him enough already for an entire lifetime. He couldn't possibly do any more.

“Where was she last seen?”

“Running away from the bridge. The National Guard was alerted to the Rogue's presence by her friends,” Brian mumbled.

“Her
human
friends,” Edna said. Brian nodded.

“She wound up on the Marin Headlands, but I lost her there.”

“Was anyone else with her?”

His father looked him straight in the eye. His were a rheumy old blue like a dark sky with clouds; Brian had gotten most of his looks from his mom.

Brian thought about Alyec, the drop-dead gorgeous “other” boyfriend of Chloe's, the high-school student, another Mai. One who could touch and kiss Chloe and not die from doing it, unlike Brian.

His nemesis.

“No,” he said slowly. “She was completely alone.”

“Take these over
to Misha,” the feral receptionist flatly ordered Chloe, dropping a stack of contracts into her arms.

Chloe sighed and began the task of trying to find yet another hidden office in the archaic complex that was Firebird. It was strange to go from a halogen-lit bright copy room with faxes, computers, copiers, and phones, for instance, to a tiny bathroom with a pull-chain toilet and a steam radiator that took up half the room.

Sergei had followed up his own suggestion that she intern a bit around the office to alleviate boredom and was paying her a fairly decent ten bucks an hour. Fine, she couldn't actually go out and spend anywhere, but the thought was nice. And she was learning a lot about the business of real estate, most importantly that this was one thing she definitely did
not
want to do when she grew up.