Lenina kicked a pine cone. It skidded across the pavement before balancing on the edge of the kerb. The slipstream from a passing car dragged it into the road where a second car crushed it. She felt much like the pine cone.
‘Isn’t this nice?’ Ramona clung to her arm like a limpet, chubby cheeks rosy in the cold. She wore a woolly hat crammed over her red curls, giving her the look of a fluffy, upside-down ice-cream cone.
‘It’s okay.’
‘Moody,’ she chided. ‘It’s good to be out of the house. Stop whining.’
‘I’m not whining; I’m tired. I have a headache.’
Squeezing her arm in what she probably thought was a comforting way, Ramona pointed to the coffee shop across the road. ‘Let’s get a latte.’
‘I don’t want a latte.’
‘I do.’
Narrowing her eyes against the watery sunlight, Lenina slouched through the doors and searched for a seat away from the windows.
She reached a seat near the back half a pace behind another woman who was balancing a cappuccino in one hand and a laptop in the other. With a defiant tilt of her head, the woman sat, opened her laptop and took a sip of coffee. Lenina closed her fingers over her palms. They felt itchy but she knew the urge to slap this woman was merely a reflection of her poor mood.
Another search revealed a table near the front, still littered with debris from the last user. It faced the window, but the outside awning offered shade. She raced towards it, weaving around tables, knocking her hips against chairs to slam her rear into the nearest seat just as a weary-looking man with a mullet and a stack of folders approached from the right.
He looked at her, then at the spare seat.
‘My friend is at the till,’ she said.
His eyes widened. ‘Guess I’ll go downstairs then.’
Lenina folded her arms and glared out the window.
The faceless masses streamed by in unending procession, most with their heads down against the wind. One woman, with a massive Alsatian on the end of a chain, fought to calm the creature outside a large department store. She tied the chain to a loop in the doors and slipped inside, leaving the dog to watch her through the glass.
A man with his face wrapped up to the eyes in a thick red scarf weaved through the crowds like a slalom skier with a pushchair out in front. The baby inside bawled and kicked, tiny hands waving from the depths of woolly blankets.
Two men in their middling twenties laughed and pushed each other as they crossed the road, sharing a cardboard box of fried chicken. One of them dodged to the side, steering clear of a shuffling form in grey approaching from the other direction.
The man in grey paused and turned to watch them, fingers twitching in his tattered gloves. He followed them for a step or two before the blast of a car horn pulled him up short. Shaking a fist, he hurried back on to the pavement and kept walking.
Lenina nerves fired with a rush of adrenalin. She stood, pressed her face to the window and watched the man continue on his way, scratching the back of his head with one grubby hand. A nest of ginger curls protruded from beneath his hat.
Lenina slumped back into her seat. She felt lightheaded and clutched the arms of the squishy green chair while trying to think. It couldn’t be the same man, could it? She leaned forward again and watched his progress. When he turned, exposing his face for the first time, she knew.
Ramona returned with two mugs and two slabs of chocolate cake on a tray. ‘I bought you one anyway. You need to counteract all that bloody running.’
Lenina gazed at her friend without really seeing. Her hands shook as she brought them to her mouth.
‘What? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’
Her stomach clenched. Lenina pushed herself off the chair, biting her lip.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘I need to go,’ she said.
‘What? No, I’ll eat the stupid cake. You don’t have to leave.’
She shook her head and stumbled from the coffee shop, scrunching her jacket into an untidy bunch over her chest. Once again assailed by the bright autumn sunlight, she angled left, away from the main road to the indoor market. Beneath the sloping roofs, surrounded by the call of fruit and vegetable vendors she felt safer. Calmer. The headache began to recede. Head down she threaded through the stalls, dodging prams, yapping dogs and young student types struggling to secure their five-a-day.
‘Strawberries, madam? Two punnets for a pound.’
Lenina shook her head, shying away from the sweet-smelling selection.
Her handbag buzzed. Even through the noise of the market she could hear the hip-hop jingle that was Ramona’s ring tone.
The thought of answering, of dealing with her friend’s incessant questions, made her stomach writhe. Tucking the bag beneath her arm she ploughed through to the other side. Here the goods changed from fruit and vegetables to mobile phone accessories, second-hand clothes and books with a fusty smell. She dodged past all of them and paused on the side of the road, one hand pressed to her forehead. Cold sweat slicked her palm.
The phone rang again.
Lenina snaked one hand into the bag to retrieve it, licking her lips as she worked on what to say. ‘Hi.’
‘What the hell? Is this about the wedding? The dress? There’s nothing wrong with it.’
Lenina sighed. ‘It’s not the dress.’
‘What else could it be?’
She thought of all the other things she’d told Ramona that day and felt a pang in her chest.
Am I really that shallow?
‘I’m going home.’
‘No, no, wait for me. We’ll go together.’
She hung up without speaking, shoved the phone into her bag and marched through a narrow passage of shops. On the other side she saw the stranger again, gazing through the window of a vintage boutique. He leaned against the glass watching a cluster of men fiddling with bowties, bowler hats and walking canes.
She backed away, gaze pinned to his back. As she watched, the man stiffened, straightened and tilted his chin. He sniffed. She heard the sound as if he was standing right beside her. And the growl that followed.
Lenina turned and walked the other way, peering back over her shoulder. She reached the end of the row just as the stranger appeared at the start.
Cold fingers of fear crawled down her back.
Faster now. Back into the market. Past the books and clothes. Into the food section. Out the other side. Through a narrow passage between two banks, a favoured resting place of the city’s many homeless people. Empty today, the small recess in which they often sat filled instead with a small pile of vomit. The ginger stranger loomed into view on the other side, blocking the exit. His smile was crooked and yellow.
Lenina froze, staring into his eyes. Her knees buckled.
‘Why are you following me?’ he whispered.
‘I’m not, I—’
‘I’ve seen you before. Tell me.’ He stepped into the passage with her, using his bulk to edge her towards the gap in the right hand wall.
Lenina backed up until heels touched the brickwork and she brought her feet close together to avoid the puddle of vomit. ‘Please, I’m not following you.’
His hand touched her throat. The tips of his fingers brushed the bandage where he’d set his teeth the night before. His nostrils flared and his breath hit her face; a hot, stinking billow of old meat and cigarettes. ‘You wanna die?’
She looked into his eyes again. Fell into the smoky grey of his gaze and felt darkness creep in around her. ‘Not again— please— I can’t.’
The menace in the man’s eyes winked out like a snuffed candle. He frowned and peered close, searching her face, as if seeing clearly for the first time. When his gaze fell on the scratch on her cheek his hands jerked back. ‘You should be dead.’
Lenina sucked in a breath of air and tried not to move. ‘What?’
The man’s voice took on a tight, rasping quality. ‘You can’t be here. You’re dead. I saw you.’
/>
She waited.
The stranger backed off. Tendons on his neck stood out like ropes. He stared so intently that she imagined his gaze boring a hole through her skull.
It gave her time to look at his face, better light giving away more detail.
Thick grime caked his skin. Four pale scars marred his cheek in stark relief against his scrubby ginger beard and hair. Grey eyes, round and wide, showed white all the way around. His lower lip trembled.
He sniffed again, leaning forward as if to catch the air near her face. Whatever he smelled made him close his eyes and emit a low, keening moan. His face paled. ‘She’ll kill me— the Kiss— I didn’t mean to— you should be dead.’
The tremble in his voice made Lenina stand straight. She stared at this man’s face and the shaking of his hands and realised that he was scared.
No, terrified. Of her.
He shied away, pressing his back to the wall as though he meant to sink into it. ‘You only got a drop.’
‘A drop of what?’ she whispered.
‘Blood.’
Then she felt it. A niggling tug at the back of her mind. A tickle. A stroke. It was a feeling she had no name for, but she recognised it as clearly as the warmth of sunlight on her face. She knew it because the man in her dream had experienced the same thing on the field of battle and in private with his lovers. Shivering in that narrow passage, Lenina felt the grey-eyed stranger in her head and knew his thoughts. His fear.
‘Jason,’ she murmured. ‘Your name is Jason.’
The man shrieked and covered his face. He seemed to be whispering something, the same words over and over, but his fingers muffled them.
‘What did you do to me?’ she demanded. ‘You did this, didn’t you? You understand it. How can I know your name? Is that a vampire thing?’
The word slipped free of her mouth before she could catch it, but the change in Jason was dramatic. He stood straight, gazing at her with such horror in his eyes he might have witnessed the end of the world.
‘Vampire,’ she repeated. ‘But they’re not real. That can’t be right.’
Lips ringed with crimson. Bright white fangs. Bare throats littered with teeth marks. Lenina cringed beneath the onslaught of images and clutched at the wall. ‘Is that what you did? Did you give me the nightmares?’
His fear and confusion reached a tsunami-like peak then crashed down on her thoughts, drowning her emotions until she felt nothing but him.
In her mind’s eye, Lenina saw a child with olive-dark skin and flowing dark hair. She had brown eyes, but they darkened rapidly until the whites disappeared and became black. Fangs peeped from between her lips.
Lenina whimpered. ‘Who is that? What are you doing? Stop it!’
The man – Jason – shoved past her, dashed out of the alley and back into the market. He managed only three steps before crashing into Ramona. His charge knocked her flat and he fell with her, the pair of them tumbling over the pavement like scattered bowling pins.
Ramona shrieked and called out, ‘Rape!’
He scrambled upright and took off at a run.
Lenina stumbled back into the open.
‘Nina,’ her friend exclaimed. She stood and rushed forward to grab her shoulders. Her eyes were big and shiny, face pale beneath the liberal dusting of freckles. ‘Are you okay? Who’s that man? What happened?’
Several curious onlookers stopped to stare. Some even pulled out mobile phones to record it on video.
Closing her eyes, Lenina concentrated on the steady thud of Jason’s fear still filling her mind. It ebbed but only a little, seemingly a product of the growing distance between them rather than a lessening of the emotion itself.
When she opened her eyes she saw Jason vanish around a corner, along with all the answers.
She took a deep breath through her nose. It came out through her mouth slow and steady.
‘Nina, talk to me.’
But Lenina didn’t talk. She ran.
Gaze fixed on Jason’s back, she followed him through the market and out on to back streets.
Far ahead, he pounded along the pavement ducking and diving around others moving in the opposite direction, jacket flying behind him like a cloak. Such speed and agility made Lenina doubt her assumptions about his age. More startling was the fact that she was slowly gaining on him.
‘Wait!’ she bellowed. ‘We have to talk.’
He shook his head, holding his fists over his ears as he ran. Without looking, he darted into the road.
Car horns filled the air followed by the squeal of brakes.
Like a gazelle he dodged through the first lane, narrowly avoiding a horrible, crushing death.
In the next lane, a car screeched to a halt directly in front of him but he never paused, simply bounding over the bonnet like an Olympic hurdler.
By the time Lenina reached the road the traffic had stilled, drivers leaning from their windows to stare and curse. She weaved through them, gaze fixed on Jason’s back as he left the city centre and dashed past the cluster of buildings making De Montford University.
Across another set of lights. Past a pub. Over a bridge. He entered the grounds of a small park linked to the primary school on the near side of the road and used the path leading to the far end.
As Lenina entered the park, Jason was a small figure, shoving his way past dog walkers, couples with prams and kids on bikes.
She sped across the grass, hoping to cut him off as he rounded the bend. So intent on his retreating back, she didn’t notice the woman with the pram.
The woman shrieked.
Lenina stopped dead, her momentum toppling her into a poor imitation of a baseball slide. The impact jarred her spine and rattled her skull. She came to a painful stop after four feet, knocking her arm against a fence.
‘Are you okay?’ The voice seemed to come from a thousand miles away.
Groaning, she flopped on to her back and stared at the darkening sky.
The woman’s face appeared above her. ‘Are you crazy? You could hurt someone running like that. Is someone chasing you?’
‘No.’
‘Are you hurt?’
She winced. ‘No.’ Though true, with the rush of adrenalin spent, Lenina felt cold and shaky. She eased into a sitting position, cradling her jarred elbow.
‘Wait, go slow.’
‘I’m fine.’
The woman crouched beside her, one hand still on the pram. ‘I thought you were going to hit us.’
‘So did I.’
‘Do you need help?’
‘No.’ With slow movements, Lenina clambered to her feet and tested her balance. ‘I’m so sorry. What about you?’
‘We’re fine. You’ve got amazing reflexes.’ The woman gave a shaky smile.
‘Thanks.’ Limping past her, Lenina returned to the path and looked. There was no real need; she knew Jason was gone.
Sighing, she found a bench and sat, resting her forehead on her knees.
The shakes continued, full body trembling until her teeth chattered and her hands could no longer grip her knees. Cooling air swirled around, but her skin flushed hot, then cold, then hot again. Tears caught on her eyelashes and she scrunched both eyes shut.
Deep breaths. She had to calm down.
On the back of her closed eyelids she saw him again. Grey eyes. Yellowed teeth. Trembling lips.
The more she tried to avoid him, the more she saw, until she had an impression of Jason leaning against a wall in a narrow, litter-choked alley. He stared at his hands and she saw through his eyes. Watched his fingers shake until he curled them into fists.
His fear began to leak away, replaced instead by sure, steady resolve. Thin lips mouthed the words, I have to get rid of her.
Lenina jerked her eyes open and leapt off the bench.
She looked left and right, shivering as every curious look became a death-glare, each stranger morphed into a stalking spectre of bloody murder.
Though the images died,
the imprint of Jason’s thoughts remained.
He was coming back and he meant to kill her.
Chapter Twelve