Daniel said, “Shori, we didn’t know about your mothers. There was apparently no news coverage. Do you know why that was?”
“Iosif and two of my brothers covered it up. He said they did. And even so, there was some local coverage. He convinced local reporters and apparently the police that my mothers’ community had been abandoned, that someone burned a cluster of abandoned houses. That’s news, but it’s not important news. And he saw to it that some of my mothers’ neighbors kept an eye on the place. He thought the killers might come back to gloat.”
Preston shook his head. “I see. Iosif must have worked very hard to keep things quiet. Brook, did he say anything to you about his effort to cover up and, perhaps, about his effort to investigate?”
“He told me what happened,” she said. “He didn’t understand how it could have happened, who could have been powerful enough to do it. He said it must have happened during the day—that that was the only way Shori’s mothers could have been surprised. And he thought Shori might have survived if anyone did. But … I don’t believe he thought of it as something that would happen again. I never got the impression that he was worried about it happening to our community.”
Celia nodded. “Stefan flew down with him to help with the neighbors. They took Hugh Tang and some other symbionts with them to search for survivors. They really did think it was just a single terrible crime. I mean, you hear about people committing mass murder—shooting up their schools or their workplaces all of a sudden—or you hear about serial murders where someone kills people one by one over a period of months or years, but serial mass murder … I don’t think I’ve ever heard of that except in war.”
“Iosif didn’t know anything,” I said. “I talked to him about it. He was frustrated, grieving, angry … He hated not knowing at least as much I hate it.”
There was a brief silence, then Daniel spoke to Wright. “What about you? You’re the outsider brought into all this almost by accident. What are your impressions?”
Wright thought for a moment, frowning a little. Then he said, “Chances are, this is all happening for one of three reasons. It’s happening because some human group has spotted your kind and decided you’re all dangerous, evil vampires. Or it’s happening because some Ina group or Ina individual is jealous of the success Shori’s family had with blending human and Ina DNA and having children who can stay awake through the day and not burn so easily in the sun. Or it’s happening because Shori is black, and racists—probably Ina racists—don’t like the idea that a good part of the answer to your daytime problems is melanin. Those are the most obvious possibilities. I wondered at first whether it could be someone or some family who just hated Shori’s family—an old fashioned Hatfields and McCoys family feud—but Iosif and his sons would have known about anyone who hated them that much.”
Philip Gordon, younger than Daniel, older than William, said, “You’re assuming that if Ina did it, they used humans as their daytime weapons.”
“I am assuming that,” Wright said.
“We don’t do that!” Preston said, his mouth turned down with disgust.
“I’m glad to hear it,” Wright told him. “Of course I didn’t think that anyone Iosif would introduce to his female family would do that. But there are other Ina. And your species seems to be as much made up of individuals as mine is. Some people are ethical, some aren’t.”
I watched the Gordons as he spoke. The younger ones listened, indifferent, but the older ones didn’t much like what he was saying. It seemed to make them uncomfortable, embarrassed. I wondered why. At least no one tried to shut Wright up. That was important. I wouldn’t have wanted to stay in a community that was contemptuous of my symbionts.
I also liked the fact that Wright wasn’t afraid to say what he thought.
The Gordons talked among themselves about the possibilities Wright had offered, and they didn’t seem to like any of them, but I suspected that their objections came more from wounded pride than from logic. Ina didn’t use humans as daytime weapons against other Ina. They hadn’t done anything like that for centuries.
And Ina were careful, both Preston and Hayden insisted. No Ina would leave evidence of vampiric behavior for humans to find. And according to Daniel, Ina families all over the world were happy about my family’s success with genetic engineering. They hoped to use the same methods to enable their own future generations to function during the day.