Fledgling_ a novel Part 17

"Shori," he said, making a greeting of my name.

Of course, he was a stranger to me. "You're Daniel Gordon?" I asked.

He frowned.

"If you and your people are this alert," I said, "you must know what's happened to my family-to my mothers, my sisters, my brothers, and my father. It almost happened to me, too. I had a serious head injury. Because of it, I don't remember you at all. I don't remember any part of my life before getting hurt. So I have to ask: Are you Daniel Gordon?"

After what seemed to be a long while, he answered, "Yes, I'm Daniel."

"Then I need to talk with you about what's happened to my family and, very nearly, to me and my symbionts."

Daniel looked at Wright, at our joined hands, at the two women in the car. Finally, he nodded. "You and your people are welcome here," he said.

There was an almost-silent withdrawal of armed watchers. I saw a few of the humans around Daniel's house and the houses of his nearest neighbors lower their guns and turn away. I turned to the car and beckoned to Brook and Celia.

They came out of the car and up to us, and Daniel looked at them, lifted his head and sampled their scent, then looked at me again. He recognized them. I could see that in his expression-realization and surprise.

"Those two ..." He frowned. "They aren't yours, Shori."

"They were my father's and my brother Stefan's. They're with me now." I knew they smelled wrong, but if he knew what had happened to my family, he must know why they smelled the way they did-of both the dead and the living.

"We must question them," he said. "We've heard what happened on the radio, read about it in the newspaper, seen it on television. Two of my fathers even went up to look around. And yet even they don't understand any of this. Who did these things?"

"We'll share everything we know," I said, "although that isn't much. We came here because we need help against the a.s.sa.s.sins."

"Who are they? Do you have any idea?"

"We don't know who they are, but we killed some of them when they attacked us." And I repeated, "We'll tell you all we can."

"How did you survive?"

I sighed. "Call your brothers and your fathers from the shadows, and let's go into your house and talk."

His fathers and brothers had gathered around us in near silence and just far enough away to prevent my symbionts from seeing them. They were listening and sampling our scents and looking us over. I didn't see that it would do them any harm to examine us in comfort and with courtesy.

Perhaps Daniel thought so, too. He turned, opened his door, switched on a light, and stood aside. "Come in, Shori," he said. "Be welcome."

We went up the steps into the house, into a large room of dark wood and deep green wallpaper. A large flat-screen television set covered much of one end wall. Beneath it on shelves was a large collection of tapes and DVDs. At the opposite end of the room was a ma.s.sive stone fireplace. Along one side wall there were three windows, each as big as the front door, and between them and alongside them, there were tall bookcases filled with books. On the other side wall there were photographs, dozens of them, some in black and white, some in color, most of them of outdoor scenes-woods, rivers, huge trees, rock cliffs, waterfalls. They would have been beautiful if they had not been so crowded together.

There were a great many chairs and little tables around the room. We and the brothers and fathers who came in after us found places to sit. Wright, Celia, Brook, and I sat together on a pair of two-person seats at the fireplace end of the room. The fathers and brothers Gordon sat around us, surrounding us on three sides, crowding us. Our world was suddenly filled with tall, pale, vaguely menacing, spidery men, and I was annoyed with them for being even vaguely menacing and scaring my symbionts. I watched them, wondering why I was not afraid. They seemed to want me to be afraid. They stared at the four of us in silence that was as close to hostile as silence could be. Or maybe they only wanted my symbionts to be afraid.

My symbionts were were afraid. Even Wright was afraid, although he tried to hide it. He couldn't hide his scent, though. Celia and Brook didn't try to hide their fear at all. afraid. Even Wright was afraid, although he tried to hide it. He couldn't hide his scent, though. Celia and Brook didn't try to hide their fear at all.

I looked at Daniel who sat nearest to me. "Do you believe that I or my people murdered my families?"

He stared back at me. "We don't know what happened."

"I didn't ask you what you knew. I asked whether you believe that I or my people murdered my families?"

He glanced back at his fathers and brothers. "I don't. I don't even believe you could have."

"Then stop scaring my symbionts. If you have questions, ask them."

"You're a child," one of the older men said. "And the two women with you are not your symbionts."

I looked at him with disgust. He had already heard me answer this. I repeated the answer exactly: "They were my father's and my brother Stefan's. They're with me now."

"You don't have to keep them," he said. "They can have a home here ... if you took them only out of duty."

"They're with me now," I repeated.

The older man took a deep breath. "All right," he said. "Tell us what you know, Shori." And the pressure on us eased somehow, as it had when the guns were lowered outside. I felt it, even though I hadn't been afraid. I looked at my symbionts and saw that they felt it, too. They were relaxing a little.

I turned back to face the Gordons and sighed. After a moment of gathering my thoughts, I summarized the things that had happened to me. I talked about awakening amnesiac in the cave, about Hugh Tang, finding the ruin, finding Wright, and later finding my father, who told me that the ruin had been the community of my mothers, then losing my father and all of his community except Celia and Brook, going to the Arlington house and almost dying there, discovering that our attackers were all human ...

One of the Gordons interrupted to ask, "Were you able to question any of them?"

I shook my head. "We killed several of them. The rest escaped. We only just escaped ourselves. The fire had attracted attention, and I didn't want to have to deal with firemen or the police."

"You weren't seen," Daniel said. "Or if you were, it's being kept very secret. There's been nothing in the media about cars escaping the scene, and none of the sources my fathers created have phoned to tell us about anyone escaping. The police seem very frustrated."

"Good," I said. "I mean I didn't know whether or not we were seen. We spent the next night in our cars in the woods. Then, because Brook had been here once, I thought I could get her to bring us back here."

A Gordon who looked about fifty and who was, almost certainly, one of the two oldest people present spoke with quiet courtesy: "May we question your symbionts?" He had a British accent. I had heard BBC reporters on Wright's radio back at the cabin talking the way this man did.

I looked at Celia and Brook, then at Wright. "It's all right," I said. "Tell them whatever they want to know." They looked alert but not afraid or even uncomfortable. I nodded to the older man. "All right," I said. "By the way, what's your name?"

"I'm Preston Gordon," he said. "I'm sorry. We should all introduce ourselves." And they did. Preston and Hayden were the two oldest. They were brothers and looked almost enough alike to be twins, except that Hayden was taller and Preston had a thicker mop of white-blond hair. Their sons were Wells, Manning, Henry, and Edward. And they in turn were the fathers of Daniel, Wayne, Philip, and William. William was, I suspected, only fifteen or twenty years older than I was. Although no one said so, I got the impression that I'd met most of them, perhaps all of them, before. What did it say to them that I couldn't remember any of them now? It embarra.s.sed me, but there was nothing I could do about it.

Preston directed his first question to Brook. "Did you recognize anyone among those your group killed? Had you seen any of them before?"

"No," Brook told him. "I didn't get to see all their faces, but the ones I saw, I had never seen before."

William asked, "How many did you kill, Shori, you personally, I mean."

"Three," I said surprised. "Why?"

"Three men," he said and grinned. "You must be stronger than you look."

I frowned because that was a foolish thing to say. Of course I was stronger than I looked, just as he was stronger than he looked.

Daniel said, "Shori, we didn't know about your mothers. There was apparently no news coverage. Do you know why that was?"

"Iosif and two of my brothers covered it up. He said they did. And even so, there was some local coverage. He convinced local reporters and apparently the police that my mothers' community had been abandoned, that someone burned a cl.u.s.ter of abandoned houses. That's news, but it's not important news. And he saw to it that some of my mothers' neighbors kept an eye on the place. He thought the killers might come back to gloat."

Preston shook his head. "I see. Iosif must have worked very hard to keep things quiet. Brook, did he say anything to you about his effort to cover up and, perhaps, about his effort to investigate?"

"He told me what happened," she said. "He didn't understand how it could have happened, who could have been powerful enough to do it. He said it must have happened during the day-that that was the only way Shori's mothers could have been surprised. And he thought Shori might have survived if anyone did. But ... I don't believe he thought of it as something that would happen again. I never got the impression that he was worried about it happening to our community."

Celia nodded. "Stefan flew down with him to help with the neighbors. They took Hugh Tang and some other symbionts with them to search for survivors. They really did think it was just a single terrible crime. I mean, you hear about people committing ma.s.s murder-shooting up their schools or their workplaces all of a sudden-or you hear about serial murders where someone kills people one by one over a period of months or years, but serial ma.s.s murder ... I don't think I've ever heard of that except in war."

"Iosif didn't know anything," I said. "I talked to him about it. He was frustrated, grieving, angry ... He hated not knowing at least as much I hate it."

There was a brief silence, then Daniel spoke to Wright. "What about you? You're the outsider brought into all this almost by accident. What are your impressions?"

Wright thought for a moment, frowning a little. Then he said, "Chances are, this is all happening for one of three reasons. It's happening because some human group has spotted your kind and decided you're all dangerous, evil vampires. Or it's happening because some Ina group or Ina individual is jealous of the success Shori's family had with blending human and Ina DNA and having children who can stay awake through the day and not burn so easily in the sun. Or it's happening because Shori is black, and racists-probably Ina racists-don't like the idea that a good part of the answer to your daytime problems is melanin. Those are the most obvious possibilities. I wondered at first whether it could be someone or some family who just hated Shori's family-an old fashioned Hatfields and McCoys family feud-but Iosif and his sons would have known about anyone who hated them that much."

Philip Gordon, younger than Daniel, older than William, said, "You're a.s.suming that if Ina did it, they used humans as their daytime weapons."

"I am a.s.suming that," Wright said.

"We don't do that!" Preston said, his mouth turned down with disgust.

"I'm glad to hear it," Wright told him. "Of course I didn't think that anyone Iosif would introduce to his female family would do that. But there are other Ina. And your species seems to be as much made up of individuals as mine is. Some people are ethical, some aren't."

I watched the Gordons as he spoke. The younger ones listened, indifferent, but the older ones didn't much like what he was saying. It seemed to make them uncomfortable, embarra.s.sed. I wondered why. At least no one tried to shut Wright up. That was important. I wouldn't have wanted to stay in a community that was contemptuous of my symbionts.

I also liked the fact that Wright wasn't afraid to say what he thought.

The Gordons talked among themselves about the possibilities Wright had offered, and they didn't seem to like any of them, but I suspected that their objections came more from wounded pride than from logic. Ina didn't use humans as daytime weapons against other Ina. They hadn't done anything like that for centuries.

And Ina were careful, both Preston and Hayden insisted. No Ina would leave evidence of vampiric behavior for humans to find. And according to Daniel, Ina families all over the world were happy about my family's success with genetic engineering. They hoped to use the same methods to enable their own future generations to function during the day.

And the Ina weren't racists, Wells insisted. Human racism meant nothing to the Ina because human races meant nothing to them. They looked for congenial human symbionts wherever they happened to be, without regard for anything but personal appeal.

And of course, there was no feud. According to Preston, nothing of that kind had happened for more than a thousand years. Nothing of the kind could happen without a great many people knowing about it. Iosif certainly would have known, and he and his mates would have been on guard.

"Speaking of being on guard," I said loudly.

The Gordons stopped and one by one turned to look at me.

"Speaking of being on guard," I repeated, "it's good that you have people guarding this place now, but are you also keeping watch during the day?"

Silence.

"We haven't been," Edward said at last. He was probably the youngest of the fathers. "We'll have to now." He paused. "And, Shori, you'll have to stay with us until this business is over, until we've found these killers and dealt with them."

"Thank you," I said. "I came here hoping for help and refuge. If I stay, I might be most useful as part of your day watch."

That seemed to interest them. "You can stay awake all day, every day and sleep at night?" William asked me.

I nodded. "I can as long as I get enough sleep," I said. "If I'm allowed to sleep most of the night, I should be all right during the day. And ... it will keep me out of your way."

There was an uncomfortable silence. I had noticed that a couple of the unmated sons were already beginning to fidget as my scent worked on them. And Daniel tended to stare at me in a way that made me want to touch him. I liked his looks as well as his scent. I wondered whether I had liked him before, when my memory was intact.

"I'll need you to tell your day-watch symbionts to listen to me. When the killers attacked the Arlington house, they were fast and coordinated. If I'd been just a little slower or if Wright had been slower to wake up Celia and Brook and get them out, we might have died."

"We'll talk to our symbionts," Preston said. "We'll introduce them to you and tell them to obey you in any action against attackers, but Shori ..." He stopped talking and just looked at me.

"I'll do all I can to keep them safe," I said.

Fifteen.

The Gordons had a guest house at Punta Nublada.

It was a comfortable two-story, five-bedroom house, smaller than the sprawling family houses but easily large enough for us and as ready to be lived in as Iosif's guest house had been. It was usually used by visiting Ina and their symbionts or visiting members of the Gordon symbionts' families. Daniel said such people imagined that their relatives lived in a commune that had somehow survived from the 1960s. Then he had to tell me something about the 1960s. I might not have asked, but I found I enjoyed hearing his voice.

My symbionts and I moved our things from the cars into the house and relaxed for the rest of the night. There was canned and frozen food, as there had been in the Arlington house, and Wright, Celia, and Brook put together a meal. A short time later we were all asleep.

Just before dawn, though, I left the bed I was sharing with Wright and went to the room Celia had chosen. I was hungry but didn't want to be in too much of a hurry with her. I slipped into her bed, turned her toward me, and kissed her as she woke. Once the surprise and stiffness had gone out of her, I found the place on her neck where I could feel her pulse most strongly. I licked the dark, salt-and-bitter skin where I would bite her. She didn't struggle. Her body jerked once when I bit her, then it was still. Afterward, she dozed off easily, resting against me while I licked the wound I had made. Like Brook, she still wasn't enjoying herself, but at least she was no longer suffering.

When she was asleep, I got up, showered, dressed, and went outside while it was still comfortably dim. I meant to wander around, take a look at the place. But I found Preston sitting on a seat that swung from chains attached to the ceiling on the front porch of the guest house. He looked up at me, smiled, and said, "I hoped you would get up before I got too drowsy. I'm here to speak with you on behalf of the son of one of my symbionts."

I sat down next to him. "All right," I said.

He smiled. "We love our mates," he said. "Their venom never lets us go. We would be lost if it did. But our symbionts ... they never truly understand how deeply we treasure them. This boy ... I still miss his mother."

I waited, very curious. I liked him. That was interesting. I didn't know him, but I liked him. He smelled good somehow, not in the slightest edible, not even s.e.xually interesting, but good, comfortable to be with.

"One of my symbionts had a son," he said. "Then about ten years ago, she was killed in a traffic accident in San Francisco. She had gone there to visit her sister. I might have been able to help, but I wasn't notified until she was dead. Her husband is still alive, still here. He's one of William's symbionts. But in this matter ... Well, I promised father and son I would speak to you. The son is twenty-two and just out of college. He's heard about you and seen your picture. Last night when you arrived, he saw you for the first time. He says he would like to join with you if you'll have him. He has a degree in business administration, and I think you'll eventually need someone like him to help you manage the business affairs of your families."

I drew a deep breath and smiled sadly. "I don't know about that, but I think I need more symbionts soon. I don't believe three is enough, and I'm worried about hurting the ones I have."

"I wondered whether you were aware of the danger," he said. "You do need more people quickly. In fact, you need three or four more symbionts."

"I left one back in Washington. We have an emotional connection, but that's all so far. I refused to bring her because I didn't know what I would find here, and I didn't know whether I could protect her."

"With our help, you should be able to do that."

"And I have no home," I said. "I'll have to start from nothing. I'll do that, but with my memory gone, I'll need a lot of information from you. I don't really know how to be Ina."

"You do, I believe, even though you don't realize that you do. Your manner is very much that of an intelligent, somewhat arrogant, young Ina female. I think you learned long before you lost your memory that you could have things pretty much your own way." He smiled.

"You see that in my behavior?" I asked surprised.

"Yes, I do. Don't worry about it. A little self-confidence may be just what you need right now."

"I have nothing to be confident about," I said. "I really do need to learn all I can from you and your family."

"Of course you do. Ask us any questions you like. Best to ask only the fathers. You won't torment us quite so much."

I nodded. "I'm sorry about that. I know my scent bothers you."