Fledgling Read online

  “Shori?” the man asked. I liked his voice at once, and he smelled . . . safe somehow. I mean his scent made me feel safe, although I couldn’t say why. Then I realized that he was looking at me, had spoken to me. And what had he meant by that one word?

  I stood away from the chimney.

  “How did you survive, Shori? Where have you been?”

  He was calling me “Shori.” I let out a breath. “You know me, then,” I said. “Of course I do! What’s the matter with you?”

  I breathed a little more, trying to decide what to say. The truth seemed humiliating, somehow, admitting such a significant weakness to this stranger, telling him that I knew nothing at all about myself. But what else could I do? I said, “I woke up weeks ago in a cave not far from here. I have no memory of anything that happened before then. And ... I don’t know you.”

  He reached out to me, but I stepped back out of his reach. “I don’t know you,” I repeated.

  Off to one side, I saw Wright come to attention. He didn’t point the rifle at the stranger, he pointed it downward. He held it across his body in both hands, his right forefinger near the trigger, so that aiming it at the man would only be a matter of moving it slightly.

  The man dropped his hand to his side. He glanced at Wright, then seemed to dismiss him. “My name is

  Iosif Petrescu,” he said. “I’m your father.”

  I stood staring at him, feeling nothing for him. I didn’t know him. And yet he might be telling the truth. How could I know? Would he lie about such a thing? Why?

  “And I’m . . . Shori?”

  “The name your human mother gave you is Shori. Your surname is Matthews. Your Ina mothers were distant relatives of mine named Mateescu, but in the 1950s, when there was a great deal of suspicion about foreign-sounding names, they decided to Anglicize the name to Matthews.”

  “My mothers . . . ?”

  He looked around at the rubble. “Listen,” he said. “We don’t have to talk here in the midst of all this. Come to my home.”

  “I lived . . . here?”

  “You did, yes. You were born here. Doesn’t this setting stir any memories?”

  “No memories. Only a feeling that I’m somehow connected to this place. I came here when I was able to leave the cave where I woke up, but I didn’t know why. It was as though my feet just brought me here.”

  “Home,” he said. “For you, this was home.” I nodded. “But you don’t live here?”

  He looked surprised. “No. We don’t live males and females together as humans do.” I swallowed, then asked the question I had to ask: “What are we?”

  “Vampires, of course—not that we call ourselves by that name.” He smiled, showing his very human-looking teeth, except for the canines, which looked a little longer and sharper than the other people’s, as my own did. If his teeth were like mine, they were all sharper than other people’s. They had to be. He said, “We have very little in common with the vampire creatures Bram Stoker described in Dracula, but we are long-lived blood drinkers.” He looked at Wright. “You knew what she was, didn’t you?”

  Wright nodded. “I knew she needed blood to live.”

  Iosif sighed, then spoke wearily as though he were saying something he had to say too many times before. “We live alongside, yet apart from, human beings, except for those humans who become our symbionts. We have much longer lives than humans. Most of us must sleep during the day and, yes, we need blood to live. Human blood is most satisfying to us, and fortunately, we don’t have to injure the humans we take it from. But we are born as we are. We can’t magically convert humans into our kind. We do keep those who join with us healthier, stronger, and harder to kill than they would be without us. In that way, we lengthen their lives by several decades.”

  That got Wright’s attention. “How long?” he asked. “How long will you live?”

  “Yes.”

  Iosif took a deep breath, then said, “Barring accident or homicide, chances are you’ll live to be between

  170 and 200 years old.”

  “Two hundred . . . I will? Healthy years?”

  “Yes. Your immune system will be greatly strengthened by Shori’s venom, and it will be less likely to turn on you and give you one of humanity’s many autoimmune diseases. And her venom will help keep your heart and circulatory system healthy. Your health is important to her.”

  “Sounds too good to be true.”

  “It is mutualistic symbiosis. You know you’re joined with her.”

  Wright nodded. “It scares me a little. I want it to be with her, need to be with her, even though I don’t really understand what I’m getting into.” After a moment, he asked, “How long do your kind live?”

  “Long,” Iosif said. “Although we’re not immortal anymore than you are. How old do you think your

  Shori is?”

  “I’ve been calling her Renee,” he said. “I’m Wright Hamlin, by the way.” “How old is she?”

  “I thought she was maybe ten or eleven when I met her. Later, I knew she had to be older, even though she didn’t look it. Maybe eighteen or nineteen?”

  Iosif smiled without humor. “That would make things legal at least.” Wright’s face went red, and I looked from him to Iosif, not understanding.

  “Don’t worry, Wright,” Iosif said after a moment. “In fact, Shori is a child. She has at least one more important growth stage to go through before she’s old enough to bear children. Her child-bearing years will begin when she’s about seventy. In all, she should live about five hundred years. Right now, she’s fifty-three.”

  Wright opened his mouth, but didn’t say anything. He just stared, first at Iosif, then at me. I knew that Wright was twenty-three, sexually mature, and aware of much that went on in the world. If Iosif was telling the truth, I was almost twice Wright’s age, and yet I knew almost nothing. Someone had taken away most of my fifty-three years of life.

  “Who did this?” I asked, gesturing at the ruin. “Who set the fire? Did anyone else survive?”

  “I wasn’t here,” Iosif said. “I don’t know who did it. And I haven’t found ... any other survivors. I’ve arranged for the other people who live in this area to keep their eyes open.”

  That got my attention. “You were careless. Raleigh Curtis wasn’t just keeping his eyes open. He was going to shoot Wright. He did shoot me.”

  “Accident. He didn’t know you were one of us. If he’d seen you clearly, he wouldn’t have fired.” “Why would he want to shoot Wright?”

  “He didn’t know Wright was with you.”

  “Iosif, why shoot anyone over this rubble? Only the people who did this should be punished.”

  He stared at me. “Someone burned your mothers and your sisters as well as all of the human members of your family to death here. They shot the ones who tried to get out, shot them and threw most of them

  back into the fire. How you escaped, I have no idea, but we found the others, burned, broken . . . My people and I found them. We were coming for a visit, and we actually arrived before the firemen, which meant we were able to get control of them and see to it that they recalled this place as abandoned. When the fire was out, we cleaned up and covered up because we didn’t want the remains examined by the coroner. We searched the area for several nights, hunting for survivors and questioning the local humans, finding out what they knew and seeing to it that they only remembered things that wouldn’t expose or damage us. In fact, the neighbors didn’t know anything. So we didn’t catch the killers. We thought, though, that some of them might come back to enjoy remembering what they’d done. Criminals have

  done that in the past.”

  “To enjoy the memory of killing ... How many people?” I demanded. “Seventy-eight. Everyone except you.”

  I wet my lips, looked away from him, remembering the cave. “Maybe only seventy-seven,” I said. I

  wanted badly not to say it, but somehow, not saying it would have made me feel even worse.


  Iosif touched me, put his hand on my chin and turned my head so that I faced him. He or someone else had done that before. It felt familiar and steadying. He had straight, collar-length white-blond hair framing his sharp, narrow face and large gray eyes with their huge dark-adapted pupils. He still didn’t look familiar. I didn’t know him. But his touch no longer alarmed me.

  I said, “Someone found me as I was waking up in the cave. I don’t know how long I’d been there. Several days, at least. But finally, I was regaining consciousness, and someone found me. I didn’t know

  at the time that it was ... a person, a man. I didn’t know anything except . . . I killed him.” I couldn’t bring myself to say the rest—that I’d not only killed the man, but eaten him. It shamed me so much that I moved my face away from his fingers, took a step back from him. “I still don’t know who he was, but I remember the sounds he made. I heard them clearly, although at the time I didn’t even recognize what he said as speech. Later, when I was safe with Wright, I was able to sort through the memories and understand what he said. I think he knew me. I think he’d been looking for me.”

  “What did he say?” Wright asked. He had moved closer to me.

  It was terrible that he was hearing this. I shut my eyes for a moment, then answered his question. “He said,‘Oh my God, it’s her. Please let her be alive.’”

  There was silence.

  Iosif sighed, then nodded. “He wasn’t from here, Shori, he was from my community.”

  I looked at him and saw his sorrow. He knew who the man was, and he mourned him. I shook my head. “I’m sorry.”

  To my surprise, Wright pulled me against him. I leaned on him gratefully.

  “I sent my people out to hunt,” Iosif said. “We thought you would have survived, if anyone did. Only one of my men didn’t come back from the search. We never found him. Where is your cave?”

  I turned to look around, then described as best I could where the cave was. “I can take you there,” I

  said.

  Iosif nodded. “If his remains are still there, I’ll have them collected and buried.” “I’m sorry,” I repeated, my voice not much more than a whisper.

  He stared at me, first with anger and grief, then, it seemed, only with sorrow. “You are, aren’t you? I’m glad of that. You’ve forgotten who and what you are, but you still have at least some of the morality you were taught.”

  After a while, Wright asked, “Why did you think she had a better chance of surviving?”

  “Her dark skin,” Iosif said. “The sun wouldn’t disable her at once. She’s a faster runner than most of us, in spite of her small size. And she would have come awake faster when everything started. She’s a light sleeper, compared to most of us, and she doesn’t absolutely have to sleep during the day.”

  “She said she thought she was an experiment of some kind,” Wright said.

  “Yes. Some of us have tried for centuries to find ways to be less vulnerable during the day. Shori is our latest and most successful effort in that direction. She’s also, through genetic engineering, part human. We were experimenting with genetic engineering well before humanity learned to do it—before they even learned that it was possible.”

  “We, who?” I asked.

  “Our kind. We are Ina. We are probably responsible for much of the world’s vampire mythology, but among ourselves, we are Ina.”

  The name meant no more to me than his face did. It was so hard to know nothing—absolutely nothing all the time. “I hate this,” I said. “You tell me things, and I still don’t feel as though I know them. They aren’t real to me. What are we? Why are we different from human beings? Are we human beings? Are we just another race?”

  “No. We’re not another race, we’re another species. We can’t interbreed with them. We’ve never been able to do that. Sex, but no children.”

  “Are we related to them? Where do we come from?”

  “I think we must be related to them,” he said. “We’re too genetically similar to them for any other explanation to be likely. Not all of us believe that, though. We have our own traditions—our own folklore, our own religions. You can read my books if you want to.”

  I nodded. “I’ll read them. I wonder if they’ll mean anything to me.”

  “You’ve probably suffered a severe head injury,” Iosif said. “I’ve heard of this happening to us before. Our tissue regenerates, even our brain tissue. But memories . . . well, sometimes they return.”

  “And sometimes they don’t.” “Yes.”

  “I know I had a head wound—more than one. The bones of my skull were broken, but they healed. How can we survive such things?”

  He smiled. “There’s a recently developed belief among some of our younger people that the Ina landed here from another world thousands of years ago. I think it’s nonsense, but who knows. I suppose that idea’s no worse than one of our oldest legends. It says we were placed here by a great mother goddess who created us and gave us Earth to live on until we became wise enough to come home to live in paradise with her. Actually, I think we evolved right here on Earth alongside humanity as a cousin species like the chimpanzee. Perhaps we’re the more gifted cousin.”

  I didn’t know what to think—or say—about any of that. “All right,” I said. “You said the Ina people live in single-sex groups—men with men and women with women.”

  “Adults do, yes. Young males leave their mothers when they’re a little older than you are now. They live the last years of their childhood and all of their adult years with their fathers. I’m the only surviving son of my father’s family so my sons have only one father. Our human symbionts may be of either sex, but among us, sons live with brothers and fathers.

  Daughters live with their mothers and sisters. In a case like this, though, since you’re not fully adult, you would be welcome to join my community for a while—until you get your memories back or relearn the things you need to know and until you come of age.”

  “I live with Wright.”

  “Bring him with you, of course, and any others you’ve come to need. I’ll have a house built for you and yours.”

  I looked at Wright and was not surprised to see that he was shaking his head. “I have a job,” he said. “Hell, I have a life. Renee . . . Shori will be all right with me.”

  Iosif stared at him with an expression I couldn’t read. “And you will teach her about her people and their ways?” he said. “You’ll teach her her history, and help her into the adulthood she is approaching? You’ll help her find mates and negotiate with their family when the time comes?” He stood straight and gazed down at Wright. He wasn’t that much taller than Wright, but he gave the impression of looking down from a great height. “Tell me how you will do these things.” he said.

  Wright glared at him, his expression flickering between anger and uncertainty. Finally, he looked away. After a moment, he shook his head. “Where?” he asked.

  “A few miles north of Darrington.” “I’d want to keep my job.”

  “Of course. Why not?”

  “It’s a long way. We’d . . . have a house?”

  “You’d be guests in my house until your house is finished. We’re interested in keeping Shori safe and teaching her what she needs to know to get on with her life. You’re already a greater part of her life than you realize.”

  “I want to be with her.”

  “I want you with her. But tell me, what’s your life been like with her? What do your friends and neighbors think about your relationship with her?”

  Wright opened his mouth, then closed it again. He stared an Iosif angrily.

  Iosif nodded. “You’ve been hiding her. Of course you have—lest someone think you were having an improper relationship with a child. Once you’re living with us, there will be no need to hide. And to us, there is nothing improper about your relationship.”

  eight

  That same night, Iosif flew Wright and me up to see the community that was to become our new
home. As we arrived, we could see from the air five large, well-lit, two-story houses built along what was probably another private road. There were also two barns, several sheds and garages, animal pens, and fields and gardens, all a few miles north of the lights of a small town—Darrington, I assumed.

  Iosif promised to fly Wright and me back to the ruin later that night so that we could pick up Wright’s car and go back to his cabin. If things went as Iosif intended, we would move in a week. He gave us each a card that showed his address and phone numbers and that gave directions for driving to his community. He said he would send a truck and two people to help load Wright’s things onto it. Anything that didn’t