My mother had vanished again.
She did it every two years like clockwork, and her absence meant we’d be moving again … soon. So I did what I always did when I found the stocked fridge and the note – I ran. The knots in my guts and a startled cat were my only company as I sprinted along the top of a wall and down a dark alley. The wall ended at a narrow gap separating a head shop and tattoo parlor, and I spider-crawled between the buildings with knuckles bitten by the rough edges of the bricks. It was a free-run fueled by an early diet of superhero fiction and a fierce need to lose myself in survival mode. I dropped the last six feet, slipped into the tattoo parlor through the broken back door, and then vaulted the stair rail to hit the basement floor. My lungs burned, but my hands were steady when I stopped to loosen my backpack. I took a deep breath, slipped behind a shelving unit, and stepped into the underworld of Venice.
The prohibition era rumrunner tunnel forked into a bigger branch already colored with graffiti that felt more like one-upmanship than art. The smaller fork was jammed with boxes and pallets and other junk that kept the easy access taggers out. Old places had history, and I loved history – especially anything hidden, secret, or underground – which meant the jammed tunnel wasn’t a deterrent to me; it was like an engraved invitation.
I heard the hiss of spray paint just as I turned the corner. Two bangers in respirators were throwing up tags, and though their drawing skills were decent, the tags were all gang signs and territory markers. Bangers were sheep with fangs as far as I was concerned. Anyone who needed to belong to something that badly didn’t have the confidence to stand alone. And alone was all people could ever count on in life. I turned the corner and slipped through an opening at the far end before the bangers saw me.
The long, narrow passage was like my own private art gallery, with vintage tags that felt more visionary than vandalism. The standout was an old tag from 1972 signed by someone named Doran – a spiral symbol that looked ancient and vaguely Celtic. A spiral I wanted to copy.
I flipped on my Maglite and a rat darted away down the tunnel. I shuddered, imagining disease-filled fleas leaping off the creature as it ran, then focused my light on the mostly brick walls of the narrow space. There was a clean plaster facing next to Doran’s spiral.
I set the Maglite on the floor, pointing up like a candle, opened my backpack, and pulled out a World War I gas mask. Besides not wanting to give myself cancer, I wore the mask to hide my face. My black hooded sweatshirt covered long dark-gold hair tied back in a braid and whatever minor curves I’d managed to grow in seventeen years. The gas mask kept me looking like any other tagger – skinny, fast, and vaguely male. Someone would have to be pretty close to see I was a girl, and frankly, no one ever got that close.
I fitted a new tip to my red can and started on the center spiral. The paint laid down easy, and by the time I got to the fourth one the tightness in my chest was letting go. The sun-like circles were a good way to mark my time living so close to the beach in L.A., and they practically painted themselves. But then things got weird: the spirals started to … glow. Like daylight peeking through the cracks in a door. Not possible with standard Krylon paint. At night. In a dark tunnel. Not possible at all. I flipped off my Maglite to see better. Maybe the fumes really were getting to me.
Something moved. The rat? I froze in place and saw a shadow at the far end of the tunnel shift. I had great night vision and I loved the dark, but shadows creeped me out. Darkness was just dark. Shadows could be anything.
Something was there and it was time to go, so my brain instantly clicked into ‘flight’ mode. I could drop the backpack if I had to run, but it could be a weapon too. I slid the can back inside just as a scuffling noise came from the tunnel entrance. I was trapped. By the bangers, or someone else?
“Dude, there’s nothing down here.” A surfer voice. Right, someone else.
“I’m telling you, man, he said it would go down tonight. We’re supposed to keep the kid from running.” The second whisper sounded nervous. These jokers were up to nothing good, and I backed myself against the wall to become one with the bricks.
“There’s no one here. Your intel is faulty.” Something in Surfer’s voice changed. Like someone else just came in. Someone Surfer was afraid of.
“My ‘intel’ is never faulty. It’s this tunnel. Tonight. Tom saw it.” A third voice spoke quietly in a British accent. The Englishman’s voice was slick and reptilian, and my guts twisted unaccountably.
“Dude, Tom’s so scared of you he’ll say you’re the King of England if he thinks it’s what you wanna hear. And now I’m thinkin’, fifty bucks ain’t gonna cut it.”
“Leave now and you’ll never stop looking over your shoulder.” Slick’s quiet menace made me shiver. I believed him, and instinct screamed at me to run.
“I wanna see what’s comin’. Hit the light.” Nervous Guy’s voice shook.
“No light!” Slick yelled too late. The beam hit me square in the chest.
“What the hell is that?!” I was really glad I still had my respirator on. But Slick’s next words sent an earthquake down my spine.
“Grab her.”
I spun on the balls of my feet and sprang away down the tunnel. When I was out of range of the flashlight I reached out to both walls and did my best Spiderman impression, practically flying up the sides with all four limbs. My spine pressed against the curved brick ceiling of the tunnel, and I closed my eyes with that ‘if I can’t see them, they can’t see me’ rationale.
“Where’d she go?” Nervous Guy screeched. “She was just here!”
Slick’s voice was cold in the darkness. “Get the light. She’s still in this tunnel.”
“No way, Dude. I’m telling you, she disappeared.” Surfer walked right under me. And like most people, he didn’t think to look up. It’s why ceilings made such great hiding places.
I froze as Slick’s flashlight beam hit Doran’s spiral. He touched it gently, and then retrieved my respirator. I couldn’t see his face, but I thought I’d never forget the sound of his voice.
“You can’t hide from me little Clocker.”
I shuddered at the threat in his words. Clocker? He had the wrong girl, and only sheer force of will kept me silent.
Finally, a few curses and a dying battery later, Slick and his henchmen slithered away.
My night vision cleared and I was alone. I spider-walked myself back down the walls and fumbled for my flashlight. I wanted to be long gone. I found my way back to the tattoo parlor through the door in the basement and was just about to sling my backpack over my shoulders when it was ripped out of my hands. I bolted for the stairs and slammed into someone beefy. “Ooof!” The guy went down hard on one knee.
“Grab him!” A deep voice shouted.
Not if I could help it.
“Stop! Police!”
I closed my eyes with a sigh. This was not going to end well.
I may have lived on the edge of legal sometimes, but I wasn’t a bad person. Yet here I was being driven home by two pissed-off cops. Officer Beef, named in honor of the massive chest that was losing its war with gravity, had hurt his knee when I accidentally ran into him and was particularly annoyed to discover I was female. Apparently, I hit hard.
“So you think you’re pretty tough? Down there defacing private property.” The Beef’s partner was a short, arrogant Napoleon type.
“The tunnels are non-jurisdictional.” The look I got from Napoleon through the back seat grate would have been less painful with a dagger attached. The Beef swallowed a chuckle and then looked out the windshield skeptically. “Windward and Pacific you said?”
“We’re in the loft above the Venice Beach market.”
“We?” Napoleon had a sneer in his voice I didn’t like.
“My mother and me.”
“Her name?” He had his notebook poised to write.
“Claire Elian.”
“Father?”
“Deceased.” My tone stayed perfectly even.
“Hmm. Mother’s occupation?”
“Artist.”
“Figures. Names her kid Saira – ‘Sigh-ra’ – instead of something normal and pronounceable.” I didn’t bother to point out he had just pronounced it.
I directed them to the back alley and led them upstairs. I already had my key in my fist, and was startled to find I didn’t need it. The door was wide open.
The Beef looked sideways at me. “You leave it like this?”
I shook my head and the Beef was in front of me in a flash, weapon out, signaling to Napoleon. The main room was in chaos, with art supplies, books and papers everywhere. I followed The Beef into my mother’s bedroom and sucked in a breath. Total disaster. I grabbed the key hidden at the bottom of Mom’s headboard and unlocked the paint cabinet. Passports and cash were still there, but the antique clock necklace my dad gave her a million years ago was not. Napoleon entered from the kitchen. “Clear. No sign of the mother.”
“She’s working.” The lie sat heavily on my tongue. And worse, they knew it.
Napoleon smiled. “There’s the phone. Call her.” Jerk.
I didn’t move. Napoleon nodded at The Beef. “Once she’s in I don’t see much chance of her getting out, especially when they see this.”
“Who? When who sees this?” I didn’t like the pity in The Beef’s eyes.
“Child protective services.” Napoleon was dangerously smug. “They’re the first call for minors.”
“I’m seventeen.”
“Still a minor in California.”
“I have a British passport.”
Napoleon snatched it from my hand. “Immigration is next on my list.”
I glared at him, and The Beef must have felt bad because his tone softened. “Are you sure there isn’t someone we could contact?”
I looked from The Beef to Napoleon, and bit my tongue, hard. “My mom will be back in a couple of days.”
“Then she can bail you out, if she can get through the paperwork before you’re assigned.”
The Beef looked me right in the eyes. “We need a family member, Saira. There must be someone who can prove a relationship.”
I tasted blood. There was someone.
That someone was waiting for me when I stepped off the British Airways flight in London: Millicent Elian. I hadn’t seen my grandmother since I was three years old, and yet she still matched my vague memory of a tall, steely woman with iron eyes and a grim mouth. My mother couldn’t stand her. Not a big surprise given the way she was sizing me up, probably wondering if I was worth the effort. Granted, I wasn’t really dressed to impress in skinny jeans, combat boots, and a hooded sweatshirt. Perfect for the street. Not so impressive to a proper English noblewoman.
“I see you got his height.” Millicent’s tone was not flattering.
“Hello, Millicent.” I knew I should be more polite and call her “Grandmother,” considering she just kept me out of foster care, but she hadn’t really earned the title.
“And his manners, too, evidently.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
Millicent gave me a once-over like I was about to get wiped off her shoe. “At least you favor Claire.”
“I don’t suppose you’ve heard from my mother.”
Millicent’s eyes narrowed. “How long has she been gone?”
“Since Tuesday.”
“Four days. She’ll call tomorrow, or Monday at the latest.”
I glared. “How do you know that?”
She ignored me. “I have a car waiting.” Of course she did. Millicent’s fancy gray Rolls Royce waited at the curb outside the airport, and her fancy gray driver held the door open for us.
“Home, Jeeves,” she said with total authority.
“Jeeves? You’re joking.”
“I don’t joke.” Millicent’s expression didn’t change.
Jeeves caught my eye in the rear-view mirror and very slowly, he winked. It wasn’t much, that wink, but it was something.
“I trust you still go to school?” Millicent’s gaze was direct.
“Yes.” A new one every two years. Not so conducive to making friends, which was fine with me, but it made my mother nuts. She didn’t get that friends were a liability to the perpetual new kid. It was easier for me to just blend into the background, and practically a rule of thumb for a seventeen-year-old free-running graffiti artist.
“Then you shall start at St. Brigid’s boarding school on Monday.”
“Boarding school? I don’t think so.”
Millicent spoke sharply. “Our family has gone to St. Brigid’s since 1554, and it’s appalling to me that you’ve never been educated there.”
“Considering you kicked my mother out of the family, it shouldn’t be a surprise.” I was already on thin ice – might as well see what it took to crack.
To my complete surprise, Millicent practically snorted. “I didn’t kick her out of the family. She left us.”
“Right.” I said it under my breath, but it was full of snark and her eyes narrowed.
“Saira Emily Elian. Like it or not, you are a lady, and you will behave like a lady in my presence. Is that clear?” I looked away. My mom was not strict with me, and I was used to doing pretty much what I wanted. This thing with Millicent wasn’t about my manners, it was about control. Over me. She wanted it, and I didn’t want to give it up.
I fogged the window next to me with my breath and absently began tracing Doran’s spiral design from the Venice tunnel, but when I felt Millicent’s gaze burning a hole in the back of my neck, I wiped the window clean.
The Rolls Royce turned down a long driveway guarded by huge trees on all sides. They made me feel like a little girl stepping into a fairy tale – the kind with evil queens and enchanted forests that swallowed wandering kids into their depths. When the trees opened up, a massive building loomed in front of us. The place felt like a fortress with forbidding stone walls, and I could feel Millicent’s eyes on me.
“Welcome to Elian Manor.”