Fledgling(39)

“Not if I can take them over. I’m going to try.”

“You’ll feed from them.”

“Yes.” I hesitated. “And I don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t remember anything about this. Iosif told me it had to be done when an Ina died and left symbionts, but he didn’t tell me much. He couldn’t know … how soon I would need the information.”

“Maybe Brook and Celia know.”

I turned away from him, looked out the window. The sun was well up now, and in spite of the threatening rain clouds, it was getting bright enough to bother me. I reached into the backseat, grabbed the blanket I had brought, and wrapped myself in it. Once I’d done that, except for my eyes, I was almost comfortable.

“Look in the glove compartment there,” Wright said gesturing. “There should be a pair of sunglasses.”

I looked at the glove compartment, decided how it must open, opened it, and found the glasses. They were too big for my face, and I had to keep pushing them up my nose, but they were very dark, and I immediately felt better. “Thank you,” I said and touched his face. He needed to shave. I rubbed the brown stubble and found even that good to touch.

He took my hand and kissed it, then said, “Why don’t you want to ask Brook and Celia what they know?”

I sighed. Of course he had not forgotten the question. “Embarrassment,” I said. “Pride. Imagine a doctor who has to ask her patient how to perform a life-saving operation.”

“Not a confidence builder,” he said. “I can see that. But if they know anything, you need to find out.”

“I do.” I drew a deep breath. “Brook is older. Maybe I’ll feed from her first and find out what she knows.”

“She can’t be much older. They look about the same age.”

“Do they? Brook is older by about twenty years.”

“That much?” He looked skeptical. “How can you tell?”

I thought about it. “Her skin shows it a little. I guess it’s as much the way she smells as the way she looks. She smells … much more Ina that Celia does. She’s been with my father longer than Celia’s been with my brother. I think Celia is about your age.”

He shook his head. “Brook doesn’t have any wrinkles, not even those little lines around the eyes.”

“I know.”

“No gray either. Is her hair dyed?”

“It isn’t, no.”

“Jesus, am I still going to look that young in twenty years?”

I smiled. “You should.”

He glanced at me and grinned, delighted.

“I think we’re here,” I said.

The car ahead of us had turned and pulled into the driveway of a long, low ranch house. There were no other houses in sight. We turned down the same driveway, and when Brook stopped, Wright said, “Hang on a moment.” He jumped out and went to speak to the two women. I listened curiously. He wanted them to pull into the garage that I could see farther back on the property. It bothered him that this house was connected with Iosif’s family. He thought the killers might know about it.

“You heard that didn’t you?” he asked me when he came back.

I nodded. “You may be right. I hoped we could settle here for a while, but maybe we shouldn’t. Even the police might come here to look for information about Iosif.”

He pulled the car into the garage alongside Brook’s. The garage had room enough for three cars, but there was no other car in it. “True,” he said. “But we won’t be able to use my cabin for long either. I already told my aunt and uncle that I was leaving.” He hesitated. “Actually, they sort of told me I had to go. They know … well they think that I’ve been sneaking girls in.”

I laughed in spite of everything.

“My aunt listened at the door a few nights ago. She told my uncle she heard ‘sex noises.’ My uncle told me he understands, said he was young once. But he says I’ve got to go because my aunt doesn’t understand.”

I shook my head. “You’re an adult. What do they expect?”

He pulled me against him for a moment. “Just be glad they haven’t seen you.”

I was. I got out of the car and stood waiting, wrapped in my blanket, in the shadow of the garage until Brook had opened the back door, then I hurried inside. There was, even from the back, not another house in sight. There were other people around. I could smell them. But they were a comfortable distance away, and the many trees probably helped make their houses less visible.

Inside, the rooms were clean, and there were dishes in the cupboard. There were canned and frozen foods, towels, and clean bedding.

“The rule,” Brook said, “is to leave the place clean and well-stocked. People tend to do that. Tended to do that.”

“Let’s settle somewhere,” I said to Celia and Brook. “I need to talk with you both.”

Wright had walked down the hallway to look out the side door. Now he was wandering back, looking into each of the bedrooms. He looked up at me when I spoke.

I shrugged. “I changed my mind,” I told him.

“About what?” Celia demanded. I looked at her and noticed that she was beginning to sweat. The house was cool. As soon as we got in, Brook had complained that it was cold. She had reset the thermostat from fifty-five to seventy, but the house had not even begun to warm up. Yet Celia was hot. And she was afraid.