Daughter of Darkness (Kindred 1)

“I don’t understand, Daddy. Who was Mark Daniels?” I asked. I had been going to ask what was Mark Daniels?

“He was a member of a renegade family,” he said. “That’s a family like us who do not follow the rules. Every family has its own territory. These things are decided in advance. There’s good planning here, careful planning. No other family must set down in the territory claimed by another. For two families to be there, to operate there, would do much to bring more and possibly fatal attention to us. There are other rules. No daughter is ever to be chosen to be a victim. Once something like that occurs, there are power struggles. We end up destroying ourselves. The renegades don’t care.”

“There’s something wrong with them,” Mrs. Fennel said, her teeth clenched. “They have a ruthless bloodlust. One feeding a month is never enough.”

“I’ve called some of the elders to meet here today,” Daddy continued. “You will tell them how this boy pursued you. Describe it in whatever detail you can recall. They have to understand that this was a justifiable act of self-defense, and everyone must be warned. Normally, we don’t do to each other what he was out to do to you and I had to do to him.”

“And we like to keep track of their movements,” Mrs. Fennel said. “To warn the others.”

I glanced at Marla. She looked terribly confused. She hadn’t seen any of it and wasn’t sure exactly what Daddy meant by all of this, although she sensed we had all been in some terrible danger last night.

Was it my fault? Was Ava right? Had I endangered us all somehow? But how? What could Ava possibly point to that I had done? I had never told him anything specific about us. The truth was, I never had a conversation with him that was more than a few minutes long.

“I never saw anything in him that would lead me to believe he would… that he was… what he was, Daddy. There were no hints, nothing in what he said or how he looked at me, that would have revealed such a thing.”

“I would have seen it if he had approached me in school,” Ava said.

“You are a lot more advanced than she is, Ava,” Mrs. Fennel said.

“I’m not talking about now. I’m talking about when I was her age,” Ava said, taking a much sharper tone with Mrs. Fennel than I had ever seen her take.

“Well, we don’t know that to be true, since it never happened to you, now, do we?” Mrs. Fennel insisted.

I raised my eyebrows. I would never expect Mrs. Fennel to retreat, but it did surprise me that she was coming to my defense so strongly.

“None of that is the point now, Ava!” Daddy shouted. Ava wilted and lowered her head. “The point,” he continued in a much calmer tone, “is that we’ll have to be a lot more aware now, a lot more alert. They know by now that he failed last night. They’ll either move on or return for revenge.”

“You can never tell what renegades will do,” Mrs. Fennel added, nodding. “Usually, they are a cowardly bunch. Whenever they’re discovered where they shouldn’t be and they’re threatened, they retreat. That’s what makes what happened last night unusual. He had the courage to come right to our door, practically.”

“Window,” Ava muttered. “Her window.”

“I swear, I never told him where we live, Daddy.”

“He didn’t need you to tell him.”

“Maybe he followed us home one day,” Marla said. Even though she didn’t know all the grisly details, she was eager to make a contribution.

“Maybe,” Daddy agreed. She smiled, pleased that she might have made some significant input to the discussion.

“What do we do now, Daddy?” I asked. “I mean, what do we look for in the people we meet?”

“I’m afraid Ava’s right when it comes to that,” he said. Ava had that self-satisfied expression on her face. She looked redeemed. “It’s something that grows inside you, this instinct for survival, our special survival. I’m sure you’ll develop it soon, but in the meantime… well, I don’t want you to become paranoid, of course, but…”

“Trust no one,” Mrs. Fennel said. “Assume no one is innocent.”

“How did he know to target me, Daddy? I’m not that much different from the other girls at school.”

“Is she kidding? Are you kidding?” Ava asked me. Ava looked at Daddy as if she expected he would elaborate more on what she was saying.

“Let’s not go into this any further right now,” he said. Ava looked disappointed. “I am expecting our people in about an hour, so have your breakfast and relax. I don’t want to hear any bickering,” he warned, looking more at Ava. “We’re united, one, when it comes to this sort of thing.”

Mrs. Fennel rose. “Everything’s been put out for your breakfast,” she said.

The three of us got up to go to the dining room. Daddy lingered, turned, and went back to the window. If they were going to seek revenge, did he expect they would come this soon? Had what happened last night been what he was always worrying would happen? Was this the sort of thing he would pause to listen for? Were these so-called renegades always after one of us? Why was it my luck to have it happen to me? Why hadn’t it happened to Ava? Maybe then she wouldn’t be so damn arrogant, I thought.

None of us talked much at breakfast, even though Marla wanted to know more details. Daddy never came in. I returned to my room and waited until Mrs. Fennel came to get me.

“They’re here,” she said. “You know some of them, of course. Just do what your father said. Tell them what happened.”