Lenina returned to her waking mind lying flat on her back. A sticky residue, thick and sweet lingered around her mouth and jaw. Groaning, she sat up. Nick lay beside her. His glassy eyes pointed at the ceiling, features locked in an expression of terror and pain. Blood choked the wounds on his throat.
When she stood, the world swayed and she found a liquid quality to her legs that she usually associated with post-coital weakness. Gazing at Nick, she felt the first tremors of fear ripple through her body. Her bottom lip wobbled. She crammed her hands against her mouth. Fangs sliced the backs of her hands and left tiny ribbons of blood.
‘Nick?’
He didn’t move.
‘Nick?’ She bent and pressed her hand to his chest.
No rise, no fall. No soft gust of warm breath from his parted lips. Of course not. His fixed expression and pale flesh told a comprehensive story.
He was dead.
She said the words aloud, as if to test how they felt. ‘He’s dead.’ It tasted bitter on her tongue.
Movement outside the window caught her eye. She ducked down, a flash of speed, and crouched behind the sofa. A slither of a face peered through the gap in the curtains then shrank out of sight. Lenina crouched lower, pulling her limbs close together to make her body as small as possible. Every sound, sight and smell took on new strength, as if this latest infusion of blood had fired up her senses tenfold.
She heard the rustle of cloth outside the front door, then the familiar trill of the doorbell slicing the room’s silence. Soft knocking followed.
‘Hallo? I heard shouting. Is everyone okay?’
Lenina recognised the voice of her elderly neighbour, Mrs Ferdinand, and clamped down on a groan. Instead, she growled, hunkered down and waited.
‘Lenina? Nick? Is it your television again? Hello?’
Her fingertips began to prickle. She imagined grabbing the old woman, tearing at the grey, threadbare dressing gown she wore to expose her wrinkled throat. She licked her lips.
‘Is someone on the floor? Should I call the police?’
It would only take a moment . . . she was small. Frail. Compared to Nick, Mrs Ferdinand would be easy to subdue.
Just as Lenina made up her mind, she heard the retreating shuffle of slippered feet on the drive. She exhaled.
Dragging herself back towards Nick, Lenina gazed at his splayed feet and bloodied throat.
‘Dead.’ Though less bitter this time, hearing the word took her breath away. Like a punch to the gut.
Before she could dwell too much, colourful images filled her head, joined by smells, sounds and exquisite tastes. Nick’s life spilled through her mind, from his earliest memories in South Africa, to his last moments on the living room floor. She saw a tall, slim man with a curly moustache and military short hair. Without ever meeting him, she knew this was Nick’s father. In her mind’s eye, he morphed from smiling, fit and healthy, to bent, weak and grim as leukaemia stole his life. Nick watched the transformation with the confused innocence of a child and she joined him, feeling the ache in his heart on the day of the funeral.
Nick’s journey through school had alternated between shyly asking girls on dates and skulking in corners at parties. By the time he’d reached England and college, his thin, wiry frame had given way to broad shoulders and growing muscle as he took up running and basketball.
Then Lenina saw herself. Visiting Nick’s memory of their first meeting brought tears to her eyes. For the first time she understood his fear, followed quickly by elation as she responded to his joke in the registration queue on the first day of university. She saw his nerves, preparing for their date and the thread of terror through the whole meal they shared. His stomach turned flip-flops as he nibbled pepperoni pizza and the smell of hot cheese and grease repeatedly sent him to the bathroom. The game of mini-golf which followed saw him little better; hay fever gave him streaming eyes and a runny nose for all eighteen holes.
The fear gradually changed, first into respect, then love. She watched it happen over the years, culminating in his proposal, down on one knee in the middle of the High Street singing a line from a Whitney Houston track.
Lenina fell to her knees. She didn’t want to see the rest. Pouring over wedding brochures. Picking venues. Gleefully arguing over honeymoon destinations.
Then fear came back as he ran across the grass in Grick Park. Anger as he punched the scruffy ginger-haired man in his filthy grey hat. Frustration as she refused the hospital in favour of the GP.
She saw him sitting at a desk, teeming with folders and loose sheets of paper. He picked up the phone beside his computer and dialled for the local doctor, seeking advice on counselling and stress-related mental illnesses. Then he came home, nerves bringing a cool sweat to his forehead as he pulled off his motorcycle helmet.
With a great heave, Lenina wrenched free of the memories. She didn’t want to see her angry face or feel Nick’s pain as she drained his life away. The images kept battering her mind, knocking like a ram at the door of her senses. She leaned against them and scrunched her eyes shut, digging her fingernails into her forearms.
It worked. Barely.
Back in the room and in her own head again, the last traces of Nick’s memories faded from her eyes: her own face, a snarling rictus of fury, covered in gleaming, red blood.
In that moment Lenina knew her life was over.
The one man who loved her, almost from the moment he’d first seen her, lay dead on the floor. His blood filled her stomach, spreading warmth through her limbs while his body grew cold.
‘I killed him.’
She pressed her hands to her mouth. The sob escaped anyway, a single burst of sound that filled the room and seemed to bounce back at her.
Footsteps outside the door stole her attention. Her head snapped up, gazing through the gap in the curtains. Had Mrs Ferdinand really called the police? Were they here?
Lenina rushed to the glass and squinted out. The moon hung low on the horizon, beginning its ascent through the blue-black sky behind the houses and trees. Nick’s bike stood on the drive beside her car and a vaguely man-shaped mass lurked near one of the flower pots.
The moment she noticed it, the back of her brain fired to life. A powerful rush of thoughts flowed through her mind and spilled over like a river in spate. Not like the memories of Nick or Pauline Lock, but more personal. Controlled. Selective. Immediate.
She knew without looking that Jason stood on the driveway. He stared at the house with poorly suppressed excitement, laced by a single thread of nerves. Lenina ran for the door, fingers fumbling with the chain and deadbolt. Before she could use either, the door burst off its hinges and slammed into her face.
She fell. A rush of cold air and rain whistled through to meet her. By the time she shoved aside the heavy hunk of wood and scrambled to her feet, Jason stood before her, damp hat hanging sideways off his tangled hair. The cool grey of his eyes assessed her, gaze sliding up, then down again with slow consideration.
‘I’m too late.’ He inhaled, deep and long. ‘You gave your first tribute.’ His voice trembled.
‘How did you find me?’
Jason tapped the side of his head. ‘I’ll always know where you are, love. I just gotta concentrate.’
‘You can’t be here.’ She backed up. ‘Leave me alone.’
He gave a wry smile and stepped through the doorway. ‘Can’t, love. I gotta do this.’
Lenina closed her eyes, as his thoughts intruded on hers. Worries of failure and torture spun through her mind. Long wooden stakes. Starvation. Burning.
The different methods of ritualistic torture made her pity him until she remembered that his success depended on her death.
She put her hands to her head, rifling through the tangle of panic until she found a gap in the back of her mind. It hung open, and through it marched Jason’s fear, like the charge of eager football fans breaching the pitch.
For the first time, Lenina knew what to do: she stuffed up the gap with a ment
al wrench of will, like slamming a door in Jason’s face. It blocked his mind from hers and immediately shut off the flow. Panic faded instantly. Though sweat continued to bead on her forehead and slide down the side of her face, this level of fear seemed manageable without the added weight of his on top.
The vampire flinched. ‘You can’t do that.’
She straightened her shoulders. ‘Get out of my house.’
He hesitated.
‘Don’t you need an invitation or something? You can’t come in here.’
‘Invitation? Who told you something stupid like that?’
‘Get out!’
Without the benefit of an open link between them Lenina could no longer tell what he planned to do. But when she saw him shift his weight and reach into the grubby folds of his jacket his objective became plain. He pulled out a long dagger with a gold handle and filthy blade the length of his forearm. The sight of it made Lenina’s lips curl back from her teeth. She glared at the weapon and felt a surge of hate so strong that her knees buckled. Before she could consider what it meant, Jason lunged.
Lenina threw her weight sideways and slammed into the wall beneath the coat hooks. Jason’s clumsy charge shot past her, taking him to the foot of the stairs where he spun around and repeated the motion.
His arm arched high, then down; a blinding flash of motion with the dagger at its tip.
Lenina saw the descent of the blade in slow motion, the rust-encrusted point aimed for her chest. It seemed she had plenty of time to twist aside and save herself from certain death, but she knew no human would stand a chance against such speed. She ducked down the wall, side-stepping across the narrow hallway to straighten on the other side. Her own speed blurred the walls and dangling coats into a streak of browns and blacks. Jason’s arm swiped over her head.
Fast. Inhumanly fast.
He was faster.
Before she reached the opposite wall, Jason adjusted his aim, cutting back with his wrist cocked to deliver a devastating backslash.
The tip of the dagger caught Lenina’s left cheek, a hair’s breadth from her eye. A last-second jerk of the head saved her vision, but the sharp weapon sheared through flesh and scraped bone. Blood gushed down her face, staining the air with its scent and colour.
The world returned to normal speed. Lenina clutched her cheek.
The wound burned, as if the blade had delivered a deadly dose of poison.
Jason whirled to face her, once again blocking the way out with his grubby, foul-smelling bulk. ‘I’d ask how you did that but it doesn’t matter. You need to die.’
‘Wait!’ She raised her hands palm up. ‘You don’t have to kill me. You don’t have to do anything.’
His lower lip trembled. ‘You’re a mistake. I gotta fix it.’
Lenina struggled to respond in a way that would secure her life. ‘Everyone makes mistakes. Even vampires.’
He moaned softly, pressing his fists to the sides of his head. ‘She’ll kill me.’
‘She won’t. Whoever it is, she doesn’t have to know. It’s just you and me.’ The whole time she spoke Lenina kept the dagger in her peripheral vision. The point turned towards the ground. She kept talking. ‘This is our secret. Just walk out that door. No one else needs to know.’
‘You don’t know what she’s capable of. She’ll kill me but it’ll take weeks to die. Months. She learned torture with Saar in—’ Jason stopped talking, glancing over his shoulder with a wild look in his eyes. The source of his distraction remained a mystery, but when he returned his gaze to hers, Lenina knew the damage was done.
She ran into the living room, aiming for the kitchen. On the way she saw Nick, still lying on the carpet, his wound darkening in the oxygen-rich air.
Jason followed. His heavy footfalls thudded across the carpet. The hot gust of breath hit her neck before she got near the door. Spinning round, Lenina meet his charge with an upthrust hand, her fingers pressed together to make a fleshy blade. His momentum drove the side of her hand into his throat, a crushing force against his windpipe.
He dropped the dagger. Doubled over. Clutched his neck with both hands.
Without thinking, Lenina followed the jab with a powerful thrust of her knee into Jason’s stomach. She heard air rush out of him and swung her fist around to club the back of his head.
Jason fell on to his face, his fingers twitching. ‘How?’ he wheezed.
Lenina had no answer but she knew that the fight had escalated well beyond her own sheltered, middle-class skill set.
Dabbing her fingers to the left side of her face, she traced the line of the wound. The burning sensation faded, but in its place came an intense bristling, like a tide of itching powder from her face down through the rest of her skin. The shrill wail of approaching police sirens soon broke the still of the room and she knew then what had coaxed Jason to move.
He stood, retrieved the dagger and tucked it back into his coat. She watched him, hands loose by her sides, ready to match any move he made.
The pink tip of his tongue flicked out to catch a spot of blood on the side of his mouth. ‘I’ll be back,’ he whispered. ‘I can’t let you live.’ Without waiting for an answer, he ran past her, a blur of speed that took him back through the hallway and out the pulverised front door.
Seconds later the rumble of several car engines arrived on the drive. Loud shouts broke out followed by a crunching sound. A man screamed. Something heavy hit the floor. Then a set of pounding footsteps took off into the night.
Lenina reached the door in time to see a uniformed police officer on the floor clutching his bleeding nose. Jason, a small smudge in the distance, crossed the road, rounded the corner and vanished from sight.
A second officer rounded the stationary police car and crouched beside his companion. After satisfying himself about his condition, he looked towards her. ‘Are you okay, Miss?’
She knew what she had to do. Sinking to the floor, Lenina put her face in her hands and conjured a fit of hysterical sobs. ‘He attacked me,’ she cried. ‘He killed Nick.’
Chapter Seventeen