Butler, Octavia - Fledgling

“What’s going to happen to me?” he asked as we went. He seemed frightened but resigned. He had

been in Ina hands long enough to know that there was no escape, no way of refusing his fate, whatever it turned out to be.

“I don’t know,” I said. “You do your best for us, and I’ll do my best for you. Relax and answer all

questions truthfully.”

When we reached Daniel’s house, I saw that the Gordons had gathered in the living room. There were no symbionts present. That was interesting. I had not even thought of awakening my symbionts to bring them along. If Victor died tonight, I didn’t want them to see it happen. I didn’t want to confront them

with the reality of what could happen to them if some Ina who hated me got hold of them. But they knew, of course. They were all intelligent people. They even had some idea of what I could do to them if I were to lose my mind and turn against them. But they trusted me, and I wanted—needed—their trust. They didn’t have to see the worst.

I sat with Victor. He was alone and afraid, actually shaking. He needed someone to at least seem to be on his side. He was the alien among us, the human being among nonhumans, and he knew it.

“His name is Victor Colon,” I told the Gordons when we were settled. “Victor,” I said and waited until he looked at me. “Who are they?”

He responded in that quick, automatic way that said he wasn’t thinking. He was just responding obediently, answering the question with information he had been given. “They’re the Gordon family. Most of it.” He looked them over. “Two are missing. We were told there would be ten. Ten Gordons and

you.” He glanced at me.

I nodded. “Good. Relax now, listen to their questions and answer them all. Tell the truth.” I looked at the Gordons. They must know more than I did about questioning humans who had been misused by Ina. I would leave it to them as much as possible.

Preston said, “What else are we, Victor? What else do you know about us?”

“That you’re sick. That you’re doing medical experiments on people like the Nazis did. That you are prostituting women and kids. I believed it. Now, I don’t know if it’s true.” He was trembling more than ever. He jumped when I put my hand on his arm, then he settled down a little. “They said we all had to work together to stop you.”

“How many of you were there?” This was from Hayden, the other elder of the group. They were centuries old, Hayden and Preston, although they looked like tall, lean, middleaged men in their late forties or early fifties, perhaps. Their symbionts had told me they were the ones who had emigrated here from England, arriving at the colony of Virginia in the late eighteenth century.

“There were twenty-three of us at first,” Victor said. “Some got killed. Jesus, first five guys dead and now just about everyone else . . . Today there were eighteen of us.

“Eighteen.” Hayden said nodding. “And were they your friends, the other men? Did you know them well?”

“I didn’t know them at all until we all got together.” “They were strangers?”

“Yeah.”

“But you joined with them to come to kill us?”

Victor shook his head. “They said you were doing all this stuff . . .” “Where were you?” Preston asked quietly. “Where did you get together?”

“L. A.” Victor frowned. “I live in L. A.”

“And how were you recruited? How were you made part of the group that was to come for us?” Victor frowned. He didn’t appear to be in pain. It was as though he were trying hard to remember and

understand. He said, “It almost feels like I’ve always been working with them. I mean, I know I wasn’t, but it really feels like that, like nothing really matters but the work we did together. I remember I had been watching TV with my brother and two of my cousins. The Lakers were on. Basketball, you know? I needed some cigarettes. I went down to the liquor store to buy some, and this tall, skinny, pale guy

pulled me into an alley. He was goddamn strong. I couldn’t get away from him. He . . . he bit me.” Victor looked down at me. “I thought he was crazy. I fought. I’m strong. But then he told me to stop fighting. And I did.” He stopped talking, looked at me, suddenly grabbed me by the shoulders. “What do you people do to us when you bite us? What is it? You’re goddamn vampires!”

He shook me. I think he meant to hurt me, but he wasn’t really strong enough to do that. I took his hands, first one, then the other, from my arms. I held them between my hands and looked into his frightened eyes.

“Answer us honestly, Victor, and you’ll be all right. Relax. You’ll be all right.” “I don’t want you to bite me again,” he said.

I shrugged. “All right.”

“No!” he shouted. And then more softly, “No, I’m lying. I do want it again, tomorrow, now, anytime. I

need it!” His voice dropped to a whisper. “But I don’t want to need it. It’s like coke or something.”

I suddenly felt like hugging him, comforting him, but I didn’t move. “Relax, Victor,” I said. “Just relax and answer our questions.”

The Gordons watched both of us with obvious interest. Daniel, in particular, never looked away from me. I supposed that I was as much on trial as Victor was but in a different way. What did I remember? How well did I compensate for what I didn’t remember?

Did they still want me? I thought Daniel did. His scent pulled at me. His brothers smelled interesting, but his scent was disturbing. Compelling.

I sighed and dragged my attention back to Victor. I looked from Preston to Hayden. The others had left the questioning to them so far.

“Victor,” Preston said, “where were you taken after you were bitten for the first time?”

“The guy had a big Toyota Sequoia. He told me to get in and just sit there. I did, and he just drove around. He was spotting other guys and picking them up. I guess I was his first catch of the night. He caught five more guys, then he took us all out to some houses up above Altadena, up in the San Gabriel Mountains, kind of all by themselves on a dead-end road. His family was there. They all looked like him—tall, lean, pale guys. And there were a lot of other just ordinary people.”

There was a stir among the Gordons. They didn’t say anything, but I could see that they knew something. Most likely, they knew which Ina family lived aboveAltadena in the San Gabriel Mountains. I had no idea how far away these places might be, but they did.

“Victor,” Hayden said, “when did all this happen? When were you taken and bitten for the first time?”

He frowned. “More than a month ago? Yeah, it was that long. Maybe six weeks.”

I could see what was coming. I stared at the rug, needing to hear more, needing to hear everything, but not quite wanting to hear it. It was only reasonable that Victor had been one of those used to kill both my families.

“So you’ve done other jobs, then, haven’t you?” Hayden continued.

“Up in Washington State, yeah,” Victor agreed. “We did three jobs up there.” “How did you get there?”

“They flew us up in private planes with all our gear. Then we rented cars. Followed the maps we were given.”

“So they gave you new identities? Credit cards?”

“Not me. Five of the other guys. And they gave them plenty of cash. They had cell phones, too. They’d call in when we were ready to do a job and tell us to go ahead. Then they’d call in afterward and we’d

be told what to do next, which was mostly to get motel rooms and wait for the call to get into position for the next job. The five guys they chose, they were all ex-military. One used to be Special Forces. They told the rest of us what to do.”