Fledgling_ a novel Part 11

She pulled back and said, "Not here." She took my hand and led me up the stairs into a room whose walls were covered with books. There was a sofa and two chairs also piled high with books and papers. In the middle of the room was a large, messy desk covered with open books, papers, a computer and monitor, a radio, a telephone, a box of pencils and pens, a stack of notebooks and crossword puzzle magazines, a long decorative wooden box of compact discs, bottles of aspirin, hand lotion, antacid, correction fluid, and who knew what else.

I stared at it and burst out laughing. It was the most disorderly ma.s.s of stuff I had run across, and yet it all looked-felt-familiar. Had I once had an equally messy desk? Had one of my mothers or sisters? I would ask Iosif. Anyway, it was the opposite of the living room downstairs, and that was a relief.

Theodora had been clearing books off a chair so that I could sit down. She stopped when I laughed, followed my gaze, and said, "Oh. I forget how awful that must look to strangers. No one ever sees it but me."

I laughed again. "No, this is who you are. This is what I wanted to see." I drew a deep breath, a.s.suring myself that she was still free of me, still unaddicted. She was, and that was a good thing, although it felt like a flaw I should fix at once.

"I write poetry," she said. She almost seemed embarra.s.sed about it. "I've published three books. Poetry doesn't really pay, but I enjoy writing it."

I took some of the books off the sofa and piled them on the chair she had been clearing for me, then took her hand and drew her to the sofa. She sat with me even though she didn't want to-or she didn't want to want to. I felt that she was teaching me about herself every moment. I turned her to face me and just enjoyed looking at her. She had waist-length, dark-brown hair with many strands of gray. Her eyes were the same dark brown as her hair, and the flesh at the corners of them was indented with arrays of fine lines-the only lines on her face. She was a little heavier than was good for her. Plump might have been the best word to describe her. It made her face full and round. She wore no makeup at all-not even lipstick. She had been at home, relaxing without her family around her.

After a moment, I leaned against her, put my head on her shoulder, and she put her arm around me, then took it away, then put it back. She smelled remarkably enticing.

"I don't understand," she said.

"I don't either," I said. "But the things I don't understand are probably not the same ones giving you trouble. How long do we have before your family comes home?"

"They're visiting my son-in-law's family in Portland. They won't be home until tomorrow." The moment she said this, she began to look nervous, as though she was afraid of what I might make of her solitude, her vulnerability.

"Good," I said. "I need to talk to you, tell you my story, hear yours. Then I have something to ask of you."

"Who are you?" she demanded. "What's your name? What ... What ...?"

"What am I?"

"... yes." She looked away, embarra.s.sed.

I pulled her down to a comfortable level and bit her gently, then hard enough to start blood flowing on its own so that I could be lazy and just take it as it came. After a while, I said, "You told me I was a vampire."

She had not objected to anything I'd done even when I climbed onto her lap, straddled her, and rested against her, lapping occasionally at the blood. She put her arms around me and held me against her as though I might try to escape.

"You are a vampire," she said. "Although according to what I've read, you're supposed to be a tall, handsome, fully grown white man. Just my luck. But you must be a vampire. How could you do this if you weren't? How could I let you do it? How could it feel so good when it should be disgusting and painful? And how could the wound heal so quickly and without scars?"

"You don't believe in vampires."

"I didn't use to. And I never thought they would be so small and ... like you."

"I've been called an elfin little girl."

"That's exactly right."

"In a way, it is. I'm a child according to the standards of my people, but my people age more slowly than yours, and I have an extra problem. I may be older than you are in years. As far as my memory is concerned, though, I was born just a few weeks ago."

"But how can that-?"

"Shh." I started to get off her lap, and she tried to hold me where I was. "No," I said. "Let me go." She released me, and I sat beside her and leaned against her.

"Three, maybe four weeks ago," I began, "I woke up in a shallow cave a few miles from here. I'm being vague about when and where because I don't know enough to be exact. During my first days in the cave I was blind and in and out of consciousness. I was in a lot of pain, and I had no memory of anything that had happened before the cave."

"Amnesia."

"Yes." I told her the rest of it, told her about killing Hugh Tang, but not about eating him, told her about hunting deer and eating them. I told her about Wright finding me and taking me in, and about finding my father and brothers. I told her the little I knew about the Ina and about what an Ina community was like. I told her I wasn't human, and she believed me. She wasn't even surprised.

"You want me to be part of such a community?" she asked.

"I do, but not yet."

"Not ... yet?"

"My father is having a house built for me. Come to me when the house is ready. I'll see to it that there's s.p.a.ce for your books and other things-a place where you can write your poetry."

"How long?"

"I don't know. No more than a year."

She shook her head. "I don't want to wait that long."

I was surprised. I had been careful to let her make up her own mind, and I had believed she would come with me, but not so quickly. "I have nothing to offer you now," I said. "I'll be living in rooms in my father's house. He says you can come, but when I saw what you have here, I thought you'd want to wait until you could have something similar with me."

"I have no patience," she said. "I want to be with you now."

I liked that more than I could have said, and yet I wondered about it. "Why?" I asked her. I had no idea what she would say.

She blinked at me, looked surprised, hurt. "Why do you want me?"

I thought about that, about how to say it in a way she might understand. "You have a particularly good scent," I said. "I mean, not only do you smell healthy, you smell ... open, wanting, alone. When I came to you the first time, you were afraid at first, then glad and welcoming, excited, but you didn't smell of other people."

She frowned. "Do you mean that I smelled lonely?"

"I think so, yes, longing, needing ..."

"I didn't imagine that loneliness had a scent."

"Why do you want me?" I repeated.

She hugged me against her. "I am lonely," she said. "Or I was until you came to me that first time. You've made me feel more than I have since I was a girl. I hoped you would go on wanting me-or at least that's what I hoped when I wasn't worrying that I was losing my mind, imagining things." She hesitated. "You need me," she said. "No one else does, but you do."

"Your family?"

"Not really, no. This is my home, and I'm glad to be able to help my daughter and her husband by having them come live here, but since my husband died, all I've really cared about-all I've been able to care about-is my poetry."

"You would be able to bring only some of your things to my father's house," I said.

"A few boxes of books, some clothing, and I'll be fine."

I looked around the room doubtfully. "Wright and I will be moving tomorrow. I'll need your telephone number so I can reach you. If you don't change your mind, we'll come back for you and your things the Friday after next."

"Promise me."

"I have."

"Will you stay with me tonight?"

"For a while. Have you eaten?"

"Eaten?" She looked at me. "I haven't even thought of eating, although I suppose I'd better. Do you eat regular food at all, ever?"

"No."

"All right. Come keep me company in the kitchen while I microwave something to eat. I don't think I should miss very many meals if I'm going to be with you."

"Exactly right," I said, and enjoyed every moment of the flesh-to-flesh contact when she bent and kissed me.

Ten.

No one came for us on Friday.

When the night was half gone, Wright tried to phone Iosif-tried each of the numbers he had given us. At first, there was no answer, then there was a computerized voice saying that the number he was calling was out of service. He made several fruitless attempts.

"We need to go there," I said.

He looked at me for a moment, then nodded. "Let's go," he said.

I grabbed a blanket from the bed, thinking that we might have to spend part of the coming day in the car. I didn't want to think about why that might happen, but I wanted to be ready for it. Thoughts of the burned-out ruin that had been my mothers' community jumped into my mind, and I couldn't ignore them.

Wright was not certain how to reach Iosif's community. His maps didn't show the tiny community, of course. Iosif's card contained a sketch of a map that turned out to be hard to follow. We got onto what seemed to be the right side-road, but found no turn off where Wright had expected one. We tried another side road, then another, but still did not find the community.

Finally, I did what I hadn't wanted to do.

"This is no good," I said. "We're in the right general area. Find a place to park, and I'll go out and find the community. I can find it by scent if not by sight."

He didn't want me to go. He wanted to keep driving around or, if necessary, go home and try again during the day.

I shook my head. "Find a safe place and park. I need to go to them and see that they're all right. And if ... if they're not all right, if this is anything like what happened to my mothers, you can't be there. If my father or my brothers are injured, they'll be dangerous. They might not be able to stop themselves from killing you."

"And eating me," he said. He didn't even make it a question.

I said nothing for a moment, stared at him. Had the human symbionts told him or had he guessed? I hated that he knew but clearly, he did know. "Yes," I admitted finally. "That's probably what would happen. Park and wait for me."

He parked on the highway at a place where the road's shoulder was wide. "This will do as well as anywhere," he said. "If anyone wants to know what I'm up to, I got sleepy and decided to play it safe and catch a nap."

"If you have to move," I said, "wait for me somewhere south of here along the road. I'll find you. If you have to leave the area-"

"I won't leave you!"

"Wright, hear me. Do this. If you're in danger from the police, from an Ina, from anyone at all, leave me, go home. I'll get there when I can. Don't look for me. Go home."

He shook his head, but he would do it. After a moment, he said, "You honestly believe you could find your way to my cabin from here?"

"I could," I said. "If I have to, I will." I took his hand from where it was still resting on the steering wheel. Such a huge hand. I kissed it then turned to go.

"Shori!" he said.

I had opened the door to get out of the car, but his tone stopped me.

"Feed," he said.

He was right. I was probably going to have to cover a few miles and face I-didn't-know-what. Best to be at full strength. I shut the door and kneeled on the seat to reach him. He lifted me over onto his lap, kissed me, and waited.

I bit him deeply and felt him spasm and go hard under me. I hadn't bitten him this way for a week, hadn't taken a full meal from him. I had hoped we would share this night in our new quarters. I liked to take my time when I truly fed from him, tear sounds from him, exhaust him with pleasure, enjoy his body as well as his blood. But not now. I took his blood quickly, rocking against him, then stayed for just a few minutes more, licking the wound to begin its healing, comforting him, comforting myself. Finally I hugged him and got out of the car. "Stay safe," I said.

He nodded. "You too."

I left him and began to run. We were in the right general area but were, I thought, south of our target. Wright had turned off too soon. I ran along the road, alert for cars and for a telltale wisp of scent. I was moving in a generally northerly direction through woods, alongside a river that sometimes veered away from the road and sometimes came close to it. I pa.s.sed the occasional house, cl.u.s.ter of houses, or farm, but these were strictly human places.

After a while I did catch a scent. I didn't bother about finding the side-road. I followed the scent cross-country through the woods, past a house that had been almost completely hidden by trees. I didn't care about private property or rugged terrain. All I cared about were the scents drifting in the air and what they could tell me. I stopped every now and then to take a few deep breaths, turning into the wind, sorting through the various scents. Running, I might miss something. Standing still, eyes closed, breathing deeply, I could sort through far more scents-plant, animal, human, mineral-than I wanted to bother with.

There was a gradual change. After a while, what I smelled most was smoke-old smoke, days old, and ash clinging to the trees, stirred up by my feet, by the feet of animals, by cars on the narrow little roads I crossed.

Smoke and burned flesh. Human flesh and Ina flesh.

When I found my father's and brothers' homes, they looked much like the ruin of my mothers' community. The buildings had been completely destroyed, burned to rubble, and then trampled by many feet. My father and my brothers had been there, but they were gone now. I could smell death, but I could not see it. I did not know yet who had died and who had survived. Someone had come for my male family, and whoever it was had been as thorough as they had when they came for my mothers and my sisters.

The place that had been Iosif's community was full of strange, bad smells-the scents of people who should not have been there, who had nothing to do with Iosif or his people. Whose scent was I finding? The arsonists? Firemen? The police? Neighbors? All of these, probably.

I stood amid the rubble and looked around, trying to understand. Was Iosif dead? And Stefan? I hadn't even met my other three brothers and their symbionts. All dead? None wounded and surviving in hiding?

Then I remembered that some of Iosif's symbionts worked away from the community, even lived away from it part of the time. Did they know what had happened? If they didn't, they would be coming back here soon. They would come, needing Iosif or one of my brothers. When they found out what had happened, they would have to find another Ina to bond with just to survive. Could I help? Was I too young? I was definitely too ignorant. Surely they would know of other Ina communities. If they had come home and found only rubble, they might already have taken refuge in some other community.

When had the fire happened? Days ago, surely. The place was cold. Even the freshest human smells I found were all at least a day or two old.

Who had done this and why? First my mothers' community, now my father's. Even Iosif had had no idea who attacked my mothers. He had been deeply angry and frustrated at his own ignorance. If he didn't know, how could I find out?

Someone had targeted my family. Someone had succeeded in killing all of my relatives. And if this had to do with the experiments that had given me my useful human characteristics-what else could it be?-then it was likely that I was the main target.

I began to run again, to circle the community, stopping often to sample scents more thoroughly and hunting for fresh scents, any hint that some member of my family might be alive, hiding, healing. I found the narrow private road that led to where the houses had been, and I followed it out to a two-lane public road. There, I closed my eyes and turned toward where Wright was waiting. I could get back to him in half an hour.

But I didn't want to go back to him yet. I wanted to learn all I could, all that my eyes and my nose could tell me.

I went back to the rubble-charred planks, blackened jagged sections of wall, broken gla.s.s, standing chimneys, burned and partially burned furniture, appliances, broken ceramic tile in what had been the kitchens and the bathrooms, unrecognizable lumps of blackened plastic, a spot where an Ina had died ...

I stood still at that place, trying to recognize the scent, realizing that I couldn't because it was the wrong scent, that of a dead male whom I had not met, burned to ash and bone, definitely dead.