Nick’s use of her full name felt like a punch to the face.
Further tears blurred Lenina’s vision as he walked away, damp boots squeaking on the tiled floor. She might have laughed if not for the ache in her heart. Instead she gasped and clutched her chest, remembering the slow crawl of fear as Mosi turned his back on her, leaving her alone to hear his terrible final words play over and over in her head.
No— not Mosi.
Lenina clutched the table, sinking her fingernails into the wood until small splinters came away in her hands. Nick left her. Not Mosi.
But it felt the same, as if her heart was filled with hot lead, firing agonising darts of heat through her limbs until every moment was pain. Like the loss of an integral part of herself. Knowing that Saar and Mosi had never reconciled their differences only made it worse. How could two people so much in love hurt each other that badly?
She stood, ready to throw herself at Nick’s feet and beg forgiveness. She would lie if forced to, deny the truth of her discoveries and play the happy bride once again. If only he would hold her. Look at her with love and desire the way he once did.
As she planned what to say, she gazed at the window, watching rivulets of rain form wriggling tracks down the glass. Sighing, she likened the sight to a similar one in the window of a homoeopath’s office in Lusaka. The woman inside had gestured her in, pointing to large trays of minerals including quartz, haematite, halite and bloodstone, while praising their healing properties. Gerald hadn’t known what to do and opted to linger outside, watching the locals rush through the drizzle.
The smile fell from Lenina’s face as the memory faded away. She had no idea who Gerald was.
Lenina had never set foot outside Europe, let alone travelled as far afield as Zambia, of which Lusaka was the capital. She shivered as a sensation like the slide of cold jelly slithered down her back. Shaking hands clutched the tabletop once more. Gerald Lock . . . Pauline Lock’s husband. Lenina saw him in her mind’s eye, a tall, barrel-like man with a bristling black beard and arms like a gorilla. She heard the deep, earthy rumble of his voice, softened by emotion as he asked her to marry him.
‘No,’ she whispered. ‘Not me.’
Jerking her head to the side, Lenina clawed free of the foreign memory. But more followed. Gerald waving from far out to sea, bobbing on the waves with a blue and white surfboard. Stroking her round stomach, kissing the stretch marks around her belly button. Then Lenina saw a screaming, red-faced child. Felt the delicate weight of those tiny limbs as the doctors laid it against her sweaty chest. A similar scene, though this time, as the doctor wrapped the baby and handed it over, a young boy with hair the colour of field mice stood on tiptoe beside the bed.
‘My little sister,’ he said.
Shrieking, Lenina ground her fists against her eyes, knocking her head against the table over and over. It dazed her, but didn’t stop the images; a constant, full-colour film reel of Pauline Lock’s most vivid memories.
At last she saw her own face, barely recognisable with features twisted by anger. She saw the long fangs in her mouth, glinting in the watery moonlight beneath the empty black pits of her eyes. The last thing she recognised was the night sky and the pinprick silver of stars, lined on one side by damp grass.
When she returned to her own mind, Lenina lay on the floor, knees pulled up to her chest. Her cheeks were damp. She shoved her fingers into her mouth and pressed down to muffle the rising scream.
It didn’t work.
Shrill shrieks fled her lips, the agonised call of a beast trapped and dying, alone and afraid. Her limbs ached. Weariness pinned her to the floor. Lenina curled into a tighter ball when she heard Nick dash back into the kitchen. She imagined Pauline Lock’s body still lying in the park, close to the broken remains of her feisty dog. For the first time, the full weight of the truth sank in. She shuddered.
How many times would she have to repeat that experience? How often? Would she take on every set of memories?
Saar certainly seemed to have done so.
Nick grabbed her and heaved her upright, pressing her body against his. She clung to him, gasping for breath, sucking in the familiar scent of leather, sweat and newsprint. The smells of home.
‘What’s wrong?’ he demanded as he stroked her hair.
‘You left me. You walked away.’
‘Only to go upstairs. I’m sorry. I needed to think.’
‘You didn’t even look back.’ Lenina shook her head. A crawling ache began to consume her skull, from the back of her neck to her forehead. A full, bursting sensation, as though her head held too many thoughts. She bit her lip hard enough to make it bleed. It didn’t help.
‘You abandoned me when I needed you, just like before. You don’t love me.’
‘I think you’re overreacting a little bit, babe.’
‘No!’ She jerked free of his arms.
A low buzzing filled her ears. Soft at first, then louder, as though thousands of tiny bees had nested within her skull.
Again she shook her head but that only made it worse.
Escaping into the living room failed to improve things. Though she saw the familiar room and the furniture it contained, over it Lenina saw smooth mud-brick walls, wooden chairs and tables inlaid with gilt beneath diaphanous hangings of linen dangling from high vaulted ceilings.
She gnawed her thumbnail. ‘You left me because you were too stubborn to see the truth. Kiya was right, you were too soft hearted to see what needed to be done and that I had to be the one to do it.’ Now she was talking, the words seemed to have no end and she let them flow, flinging them like spears, designed to hurt and maim.
Nick followed with his hands held out before him, speaking softly as he might to a skittish horse. ‘Who’s Kiya? Speak sense, babe. You’re scaring me.’ He held out his hands but Lenina twisted away.
‘You knew what would happen but you left anyway. Then you led those Roman heathens into our city and let them raze it to the ground. They killed our queen.’
‘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 t
witched, 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.
Chapter Sixteen