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.”
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
fit in our temporary quarters could
