Fledgling_ a novel Part 12

I had not known him. He must have been one of my brothers but one I had not met. He had died in one of the three houses I had not entered.

I stared at the spot for a long time and caught myself wondering what the Ina did with their dead. What were their ceremonies? I knew something about human funeral services from my vampire research. I had read through a great deal of material about death, burial, and what could go wrong to cause the dead to become undead. It was all nonsense as far as I was concerned, but it had taught me that proper respect for the dead was important to humans. Was it important to Ina as well?

What had been done with the remains of both my male and my female families? Had the police taken them? Where would they take them? I would have to talk to Wright about that and perhaps to Theodora. She worked at a library. If she didn't know, she would know how to find out.

But if I somehow got the remains, what could I do but bury them or scatter their ashes after, perhaps, a more thorough cremation? I didn't know any Ina rituals, any Ina religion, any living Ina people.

I found another place where someone had died-a symbiont this time, a female. I had not met her. I was grateful for that. After a while, I made myself go to the house that had been my father's. I walked through it slowly, found two spots where symbionts I did not know had died. Then I found two that I did know-the two men I had met in Iosif's huge front room, Nicholas and Yale. I stood for a long time, staring at the spots where the two men had died. I had not known them, but they had been healthy and alive only a week before. They had welcomed me, had been friendly to Wright. It did not seem possible that they were dead now, reduced to two smudges of burned flesh that smelled of Iosif and of their own individual human scents.

Then, in the remains of what must have been a large bedroom, I found a place that smelled so strongly of Iosif that it had to be the spot where he died. Had he tried to get out? He was not near a window or a door. I got the impression that he was lying flat on his back when he died. Had he been shot? I found no bullets, but perhaps the police had taken them away. And if there had ever been a smell of gunpowder, it had been overwhelmed by all the other smells of burning and death. Iosif had certainly burned. A small quant.i.ty of his ashes were still here, mixed with the ashes of the house and its contents.

He was definitely dead.

I stood over the spot, eyes closed, hugging myself.

Iosif was dead. I'd hardly begun to know him, and he was dead. I had begun to like him, and he was dead.

I folded to the ground in anguish, knowing that I could do nothing to help him, nothing to change the situation. Nothing at all. My family was destroyed, and I couldn't even grieve for them properly because I remembered so little.

"Shori?"

I jumped up and back several steps. I had been so involved with my thoughts and feelings that I had let someone walk right up to me. I had heard nothing, smelled nothing.

At least I could see that I had startled the person who had surprised me. I had moved fast, and it was dark. She was looking around as though her eyes had not followed my movement, as though she did not know where I had gone. Then she spotted me. By then I understood that she was human and that she didn't see very well in the dark, that she smelled of my father and that I knew who she was.

"Brook," I said.

She looked around at the devastation, then looked at me, tears streaming down her face.

I went to her and hugged her, as she had hugged me when we met. She hugged back, crying even harder.

"Were you here when this happened?" she asked finally.

"No. We were supposed to move in tonight."

"Do you know if ...? I mean, did you see Iosif?"

I looked back at the place where Iosif had died, where a very small quant.i.ty of his ashes still remained. "He didn't survive," I said.

She stared at me silently, frowning as though I had said words she could not understand. Then she began to make a noise. It began as a moan and went on to become an impossibly long, ragged scream. She fell to the ground, gasping and moaning. "Oh G.o.d," she cried. "Oh G.o.d, Iosif, Iosif."

Someone else was coming.

Brook had come in a car, I realized. I had been so focused on my own distress that I had missed not only the sound and smell of a person walking up to me, but the noise of a car as well. Now someone else was coming from the car-another human female. This one had a handgun, and she was aiming it at me.

I jumped away from Brook, ran wide around her, leaping through the rubble as fast as I could. I reached the woman with the gun before she could track me and shoot me, and I knocked the gun from her hand before she could fire and grabbed her. I absolutely did not want to spend another day and night recovering from a bullet wound.

This woman was also someone I'd met-Celia, one of Stefan's symbionts. She had been in his kitchen with two other women whose scents I was glad not to have found.

"Celia, it's Shori," I said into her ear as she struggled against me. "Celia!" She lifted me completely off the ground, but she couldn't break my hold on her. "It's Shori," I repeated in her ear. "Stop struggling. I don't want to hurt you."

After a moment, she stopped struggling. "Shori?"

"Yes."

"Did you do this?"

That surprised me into silence. Celia was one of the two black women in the kitchen. She had seemed friendly and interesting. Now there was nothing but grief and anger in her expression.

Brook came up at that moment and said, "Celia, it's Shori. You know she didn't do this."

"I know what she did to Hugh!" Celia said.

I let go of her. Hugh Tang was symbiont with her to Stefan. They were family.

Celia jabbed her fist up, clearly meaning to hit me. I dodged the first jab, then grabbed one fist, then the other. She tried to kick me, so I tripped her and took her to the ground.

She lay stunned for a moment, breathless and gasping since I fell on top of her. She glared up at me. I couldn't think of anything helpful to say so I kept quiet. She and I lay on the ground. After a moment, she looked away from me and her muscles relaxed.

"Let me up," she said.

I didn't move or loosen my hold on her.

"What do you want me to do, say 'please?'"

"I truly don't want to hurt you," I said, "but if you attack me again, I will."

After a moment, she nodded. "Let me go. I won't bother you."

I took her at her word and let her up.

"She says Iosif's dead," Brook said.

Immediately, Celia confronted me. "How do you know he's dead? Were you here when all this happened? Did you see?"

I took both their hands, although Celia tried to s.n.a.t.c.h hers away, and led them over to the place where Iosif had burned. "He died here," I told them. "I can smell that much. I don't know whether it was only the fire or whether he was shot, too. I couldn't find any bullets. But he died here. A few of his ashes are still here."

I looked at one woman, then the other. Both now had tears streaming down their faces. They believed me. "I don't remember anything about Ina funerals or beliefs about death," I said. "Do either of you know other Ina families-Iosif's mothers perhaps-who would be able to do what should be done?"

"His mothers were killed in Russia during World War II," Brook said. She and Celia looked at one another. "We went to Seattle to shop and visit our relatives. That's why we weren't here. The only Ina phone numbers I know from memory are the numbers of several of the people who lived here and some of your mothers' phone numbers." She looked at Celia.

"I knew some of our community's numbers and Shori's mothers' numbers too," Celia said. "That's all."

It occurred to me then for no reason I could put my finger on that Celia was much younger than Brook-young enough to be Brook's daughter. Brook was only a few years younger than Theodora but except for very small signs, she appeared to be the same age as Celia. That, I realized, was what happened when a human became an Ina symbiont while she was still young. Wright would age slowly the way Brook had.

I pulled my thoughts back to the rubble we stood in. "When did you go into Seattle?" I asked.

Celia answered, "Five nights ago."

"I won't be able to visit my relatives many more times," Brook said. "My sister and my mother are aging a lot faster than I am, and they keep staring at me and asking me what my secret is."

Celia and I both raised an eyebrow and looked at her in the same way. She noticed it, glanced at the spot where Iosif had died, and whispered, "Oh G.o.d."

I took a deep breath, glanced at Celia, then left them and walked toward Stefan's house. They followed, saying nothing. Then they stood outside the site of the house while I walked through the rooms, finding five symbionts, including the two I'd met when I met Celia. And I found a misshapen bullet inside a charred plank. I had to break apart what was left of the plank to get at it, but once I had it, I found a faint blood scent. One of the symbionts. The bullet had pa.s.sed through the man's body and gone into the wood.

Finally, I found the place where Stefan's body had fallen and burned in one of the bedrooms near part of the window frame. Had be been trying to get out or ... might he have been firing a gun at his attackers? I couldn't be certain, but it seemed likely to me that he died fighting against whoever had done this.

I went back to Celia and shook my head. "I'm sorry. He didn't survive either."

She glared at me as though I'd killed him-a look filled with grief and rage.

"Where," she demanded. "Where did he die?"

"Over here."

They both followed me to the place where Stefan had died curled on his side, limbs drawn tight against his body.

"Here," I said.

Celia looked down, then knelt and put her hands flat in the ashes, taking up some of what remained of Stefan. For a long time, she said nothing. I glanced to the east where the sky was growing a little more light.

After a while, Celia looked up at Brook. "He was shooting back at them," she said. "He could have made himself do it, even if they came during the day. Days were hard on him, but he could wake up enough to shoot back."

Brook nodded. "He could have."

"That's what I thought," I said.

Celia glared at me, then closed her eyes, tears spilling down her face. "You can't tell for sure?"

"No. But I know there was shooting. I found a bullet that smelled of one of the other members of his household. And Stefan's position ... somehow it seemed that he might have been shooting back. I hope he hit some of them."

"He had guns," Celia said. "Iosif didn't like guns, but Stefan did."

It hadn't helped him survive.

"It's almost dawn," I said. "Will you drive me back to where Wright is waiting? I can direct you."

They looked at each other, then at me.

"Drive me to Wright, then follow us to his cabin," I said. "Although we'll have to find another place soon. The cabin is almost too small for two people."

"Iosif owns-owned-a house outside Arlington," Brook said. "Some of us used it to commute to jobs or to entertain visiting family members. There are three bedrooms, three baths. It's a nice place, and it's ours. We have a right to be there."

I nodded, relieved. "That would be better. Could other symbionts be there already?"

Brook looked at Celia.

"I don't use it," Celia said. "I haven't kept up with the schedule."

"I don't think anyone's there," Brook said. "If there is ... if some of us are there, Shori, they need you, too."

I nodded. "Take me back to Wright. Then we'll go there."

During the sad, silent trip back to Wright's car, I had time to be afraid. These two women's lives were in my hands, and yet I had no idea how to save them. Of course I would take their blood. I didn't want to, but I would. They smelled like my father and my brother. They smelled almost Ina, and that was enough to make them unappetizing. And yet I would make myself take their blood. Would that be enough? Iosif had told me almost nothing. What else should I do? I could talk to them. What I told them to do, they would try to do, once I'd taken their blood. Would that be enough?

If it wasn't, they were dead.

Eleven.

To get to the house that my father had bought for his symbionts and my brothers', we followed the highway through dense woods, past the occasional lonely house or farm, past side roads and alongside the river. I asked Wright whether the river had a name.

"That's the north fork of the Stillaguamish," he told me. "Don't ask me what 'Stillaguamish' means because I have no idea. But it's the name of a local Native American tribe."

Eventually we reached more populated areas where houses and farms were more visible, scattered along the highway. There were still many trees, but now there were more smells of people and domestic animals nearby. In particular, there was the scent of horses. I recognized it from the time I'd spent prowling around Wright's neighborhood. Horses made noises and moved around restlessly when I got close enough to them to be noticed. My scent apparently disturbed them. Yet their scent had become one of the many that meant "home" to me.

Wright and I followed the women's car talking quietly. I told him what had happened to my father's community and that Celia and Brook had survived because they were in Seattle.

He shook his head. "I don't know what to make of this," he said. "Your kind have some serious enemies. What we need to do is find some place safe where we can hunker down, pool information, and figure out what to do. There's probably a way to tip the police to these people if we can just figure out who they are."

As he spoke, I realized that I was willing to go further than that. If we found the people who had murdered both my male and my female families, I wanted to kill them, had to kill them. How else could I keep my new family safe?

My new family ...

"Wright," I said softly and saw him glance at me. "Celia and Brook will be with us now. They have to be."

There was a moment of silence. Then the said, "They're not going to die?"

"Not if I can take them over. I'm going to try."

"You'll feed from them."

"Yes." I hesitated. "And I don't know what's going to happen. I don't remember anything about this. Iosif told me it had to be done when an Ina died and left symbionts, but he didn't tell me much. He couldn't know ... how soon I would need the information."

"Maybe Brook and Celia know."

I turned away from him, looked out the window. The sun was well up now, and in spite of the threatening rain clouds, it was getting bright enough to bother me. I reached into the backseat, grabbed the blanket I had brought, and wrapped myself in it. Once I'd done that, except for my eyes, I was almost comfortable.

"Look in the glove compartment there," Wright said gesturing. "There should be a pair of sungla.s.ses."

I looked at the glove compartment, decided how it must open, opened it, and found the gla.s.ses. They were too big for my face, and I had to keep pushing them up my nose, but they were very dark, and I immediately felt better. "Thank you," I said and touched his face. He needed to shave. I rubbed the brown stubble and found even that good to touch.

He took my hand and kissed it, then said, "Why don't you want to ask Brook and Celia what they know?"