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, middle-aged 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.