Silk Over Razor Blades (17 page)

‘What are you talking about?
Calm down. Come sit down, I’ll get you some tea, né? We can talk
about this properly.’

‘No, you left!’ Lenina heard
the words, but they didn’t feel like her own any more. They came
from her mouth but the agony behind them took its roots elsewhere.
Somewhere deep in the past.

Nick wiped his face with both
hands. ‘Damn it, I knew we should have gone to the hospital. You
need counselling. This is some kind of psychotic break.’

‘I’m not crazy,’ she shrieked,
shaking a fist in Nick’s direction.

A loud crack stopped them
both.

Slowly, fearing what she might
see, Lenina turned towards the source of the sound.

Above the fireplace, a large
mirror in a heavy oak frame boasted huge, jagged cracks. Her
startled reflection peered back at her, reflected dozens of times
in the trembling fragments.

‘What happened?’ Nick’s voice
filled the hush.

‘I don’t know. I didn’t touch
it. I didn’t mean to.’

‘No, your neck. The bite marks
are gone.’

Lenina touched the smooth skin
at the side of her throat. ‘Vampires heal. He calls himself
God-Touched, but it’s the same thing.’

Maybe the soft whisper of her
voice made all the difference. Perhaps the look in her eyes. Maybe
Nick saw the healed flesh about her throat and realised that
rational explanations were thin on the ground. Whatever it was,
when he next looked up, Lenina saw the bright gleam of fear shining
in his eyes.

‘You’re not kidding are
you?’

She shook her head.

Nick’s back hit the bookcase.
His look of surprise suggested he hadn’t meant to move. ‘And you
killed a woman?’

‘On the way home.’

He laughed, but not like he was
happy. ‘On the way home? Like picking up a pint of milk?’

‘I don’t know how else to say
it. I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t want it. I don’t know how it
works. Jason just attacked me.’

Nick twitched, his fingers
flexing on the spines of books he couldn’t see.

‘The man on the park. The
homeless man— he isn’t homeless. His name is Jason. I saw his
thoughts— I could read them like those books. I just knew. He wants
to kill me.’

‘Babe, slow down—’

‘You need to help me.’ She
moved towards him.

Before she could advance more
than a step he gasped and shimmied away, rocking the bookcase with
his frantic motions. ‘Stop. Don’t come any closer.’

The words were a knife in her
heart.

‘Nick?’

‘Stay where you are.’ He moved
again, sideways now, towards the fireplace and the broken mirror.
His gaze never left her face.

Tears stung Lenina’s eyes. This
latest betrayal tore her soul free and slapped it in a blender. The
look in his eyes ground her up like mince. ‘Don’t do this. I need
you.’

‘You murdered someone!’

‘I didn’t mean to. I wasn’t
thinking straight. It wasn’t me.’

‘I need to get out of
here.’

Nick stepped forward, but in
that moment Lenina’s body shook with a jolt of hungry, angry
energy. Bright and vibrant colours crawled across her vision,
bringing out exquisite detail in everything from the carpet to the
shimmering highlights in Nick’s hair. The grain on the wood in the
bookcase. The sharp edges in the mirror. She could hear the rustle
of his oversuit against the jeans he wore beneath and the hiss of
his breath as it fled his lips. His heartbeat, thud-thudding within
his chest.

With a bound like a cat she
dived across the small space between them and shoved both hands
into his chest. He reeled back, his spine cracking against the
fireplace, head crashing into the mirror. Deadly shards of broken
glass showered down around him, their tinkling loud in the sudden
still.

Rebounding from the impact,
Nick fell to his knees, gasping as his hands struck the carpet and
met the bite of broken glass. The sweet scent of his blood spiked
the air along with something else. Spicy. Meaty. Like the exotic
offerings of a distant land.

Lenina opened her mouth. Her
fangs were there again, sliding forward from the recesses in her
gums. She flicked her tongue over them, enjoying the smooth
hardness and the wicked tips.

Bleeding, panting, Nick
struggled to his feet. When his gaze met hers face all colour
drained from his face and neck.

‘You smell like food,’ she told
him.

Thrusting her head forward,
Lenina buried her nose in the fabric of his shirt and inhaled.
Remnants of leather. Sweat. Cotton in need of a wash. With a grunt
of impatience, she grabbed the fabric and ripped it, exposing his
bare chest and the soft curls of pale hair between his pectorals.
Another sniff. There it was . . .

‘You smell like fear.’

Lenina linked emotions to the
strange new smells and understood them with a deep part of her
mind. The part related to cavemen and survival in the barren wilds
surrounded by vicious beasts.

That part of her mind took the
smell and translated it into a message that made her mouth
water.

Nick tensed. The simple reflex
gave away his intent as well as if he had shouted it. As he turned
to flee, Lenina grabbed him by the shoulders and spun him around. A
sweep of her foot hooked his legs from beneath him. He went over
with a cry; she followed him down and sat on his hips.

He slapped at her stomach and
chest. ‘Let go!’

It took no effort at all to
grasp his wrists and pin them down near his ears. She pushed
upwards, stretching his struggling body against the floor. Soon she
lay flush against him and felt the pound of his heart against her
chest. He strained, muscles bunching in his arms and shoulders.
When nothing happened, his struggles intensified.

Each frantic, pointless effort
made Lenina’s mouth water. Her skin tingled. Every motion of his
body against hers seemed charged with energy and her
hyper-sensitive skin turned it into something more.

She shivered and leaned closer
to enjoy more of the delicious smell.

Beneath her, Nick began to
shake. His chest heaved up and down. Sweat beaded on his upper lip.
‘Let go. Please— my wrists.’

She heard another voice make a
similar plea. This one female. Shrill. Frantic. She spoke with the
ugly, fast-paced tongue used by the rich Greeks, nothing like the
soft, lilting sounds of old Egypt.

As Saar’s thoughts once more
intruded on her own, Lenina shook her head. But she couldn’t clear
them. She felt him swelling within her, pushing on her senses,
shoving aside everything she knew and understood to be part of
herself.

Bones cracked in Nick’s wrists.
She felt joints pop out of place and closed her eyes as his
agonised screams filled the room. The sound pierced her brain like
a knife. Make it stop.

Lenina gripped Nick’s face in
both hands and wrenched his head to one side to expose his throat.
There, beating the flesh like a moth against a light bulb, his
pulse. Beautiful. Teasing. Inviting.

Nick screamed again.

She barely heard it.

Lowering her head, Lenina put
her fangs to the side of his throat and used the sharp points to
slice his flesh.

The flow of blood was
immediate, a hot gush against the back of her throat. She swallowed
and opened her mouth wide, desperate to catch every drop.

Shrieking, Nick drummed his
heels against the floor. He scrabbled at her neck. Fighting with
both hands. His fingernails clawed her skin as he fought to prise
open some space between her mouth and his flesh.

Lenina felt nothing but
pleasure. Tasted nothing but sweetness. She moaned.

Fire raced in a liquid line
down her throat, scorching a course to her stomach where it
settled, grew, then spiralled into thin threads of pleasure that
fed her entire body.

The smell of fear spiked again
and took on a fresh edge that brought to mind the word
terror
before all rational thought died and vanished.

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.