Silk Over Razor Blades (31 page)
Read Silk Over Razor Blades Online
Authors: Ileandra Young
Tags: #vampire fiction, #female protagonist, #black author, #vampire adventure, #black british, #vampire attacks, #vampire attraction, #black female character, #black female lead character, #egyptian vampire
‘A bus driver. Ex-military.
Infantry soldier. Very nice.’
‘Leave him alone!’ Lenina
glared at Tristen and fantasised about hurting him. Imagined
plunging her hands into that wide, mocking grin, and tearing it
away from his face. Watching his blood fill the air like rain.
The room took on a magnificent
level of colour. The edges of the dining chairs and the sofa turned
hard and sharp, near-blinding in their brightness. She could smell
everything, from Thorne’s sweaty body to the dry mustiness of
desert sand. She heard low voices from the house next door and the
blare of a distant car alarm. Like a river bursting its banks,
something barely held in check finally spilled over the sides of
her control and ran free.
Saar.
Lenina snarled. Surging off the
ground, she dived at Tristen and delivered a sharp jab to his
stomach. When he doubled over, huffing with pain and surprise, she
swung her left fist into his chin, cracking his teeth together.
Saar bellowed in the cavern of her mind. He thrust out, using
Lenina’s body to pursue the man threatening his family. To destroy
him as he’d once destroyed Kazemde. His feelings tangled with hers,
but Lenina didn’t care. In that moment she was happy to use
anything, to let the ancient being wield her body like a puppet if
only it would help her escape.
When Tristen backed away,
Lenina followed, aiming a kick at his lowered head. Tristen caught
her ankle and twisted it. With a cry, she went down, turning into
the fall to ease the pressure in her foot. She landed on her back,
one leg bent beneath her, the other extended up.
He coughed. A small chip of
something hard and white flew from his mouth. ‘How did you do
that?’
Sweat beaded on her forehead.
She felt more of it gather on her skin beneath the over-sized
sweatshirt. ‘Leave my family out of this.’ Her fury ebbed when
Tristen twisted her foot, forcing her to flip on to her stomach or
suffer a broken ankle.
‘How? Lessons from Saar?’ Still
holding her foot, he crouched over her back. His free hand snagged
a handful of braids and dragged her head up, forcing her spine into
a painful curve. ‘You forget, he taught Mosi. Mosi taught me.’
Lenina laughed. Deep inside,
Saar laughed too. His amusement rolled out through her mouth and
gave her voice a deep, rumbling edge.
Tristen heard it and paled.
‘He’s really there. In your eyes.’
She smiled. Saar joined
her.
‘They avoided each other for
nearly a thousand years. You don’t think Saar learned a few more
tricks in that time?’
Understanding dawned in
Tristen’s face. He opened his mouth but Lenina didn’t wait. She
pressed her palms to the floor and pushed, easing the pressure on
her back. With the slack, she extended her leg, shoving the trapped
foot deeper into Tristen’s body. He reeled back and she rolled with
him, leading with her knee to ride his body across the floor.
Tristen wrenched his body from side to side. The white glow in his
eyes intensified and she felt him hammer her senses, trying to fill
her mind with lust. Like swatting a fly, Saar batted it away.
‘That won’t work,’ Lenina
muttered. ‘He doesn’t fancy you.’
Tristen eyes widened. ‘If you
let him control your body, he’ll take over completely.’
‘As if you care.’
‘I do, I—’
She pressed one hand against
his throat. When she spoke Saar’s voice came out. ‘No. You.
Don’t.’
He gagged, fighting to swallow
past the steady pressure on his Adam’s apple. ‘He doesn’t care
about you either. All he wants is power. You think he’ll look after
your family when Red Fang show up?’
‘My family are dead,’ she
snapped.
Tristen gasped. ‘They’re not!
That’s
him
talking.’
Lenina blinked. Shook her
head.
In the back of her mind Saar
growled and tightened her fingers on Tristen’s throat.
,
he seemed
to say.
‘No,’ she rolled her shoulders.
‘He’s right. Mum and Jordan . . . Dad . . . he’s coming here.’
The memory of her frantic phone
call with Ray stopped Saar dead.
He considered the images with
intense curiosity.
‘Yes.’ Ignoring Tristen’s
startled looks, Lenina fought to regain control of her body. ‘He’s
coming here.’
Her fingers flexed on Tristen’s
throat. Shades of red coloured the area about his jaw and nose. His
eyes watered and returned to their usual green colour.
Saar roared and Lenina yelped
at the sheer weight of his power. She felt him snatch control of
her fingers again and squeeze tighter. The muscles of Tristen’s
neck spasmed under her hand and she heard the frantic flutter of
his heart as it begged for oxygen.
‘Stop it.’ She fought to regain
use of her hands.
‘I can’t.’
‘No!’ She threw herself
backward, rolling off Tristen’s body and into the wall. ‘Enough
killing.’
Wheezing, touching the imprint
of fingers at the base of his throat, Tristen sat up. ‘I knew it.’
His voice trembled. ‘We’re all going to die.’
‘No, I can control him. It’s
going to be okay.’
‘It isn’t.’ Still coughing, he
thrust out one hand. His fingers flexed, aimed at the pile of sand
that had once made Jason’s body. The dagger, still lying amongst
the dirty clothes, leapt into the air and slapped into his
palm.
Lenina tensed. Time slowed to a
crawl. White noise filled her ears, blocking out everything but the
steady thud of her heart.
Feral fury etched deep furrows
on Tristen’s brow as he lunged, leading with the dagger. His arm
arched high, then curved down, a powerful stabbing motion directed
at her heart.
As when fighting Jason hours
before, Lenina moved with the smooth grace of one with far more
experience. She had an impression of incredible speed as she
scooped one hand beneath Tristan’s advance, closing her fingers on
his wrist. Her thumb found a pressure point beneath the heel of his
palm, pressing down until his fingers jerked and released the
dagger. Her other hand swooped in. Caught it.
Saar roared.
A flick of her fingers flipped
the dagger into a reverse grip. Opening Tristen’s stance with his
trapped hand, Lenina stabbed with the other, driving the blade into
his chest.
Time resumed its normal
speed.
Tristen stopped. ‘I’ll heal.’
His stare settled on hers, wide and fearful.
‘Not the heart,’ she whispered,
pulling the deadly blade free. Blood oozed free in slow pulses.
Tears blurred her vision. ‘I’m so, so sorry.’
Saar gave a satisfied purr.
Tristen slumped to the
carpet.
Twenty-Eight
Lenina sat on the floor gazing
at her hands. She felt sick and dizzy.
Saar expanded within her,
testing the limits of his captivity. His motions brought to mind a
cat stretching after a long nap. Or a daisy unfurling its petals to
meet the sun. Both analogies were too tame for what she felt: a
bulging sensation, like her body held another physical entity.
‘Stop. You’ve done enough.’
Though alone, she heard
laughter in the room around her. Saar’s voice filled her ears, a
soft caress laced with power and hunger. It soothed her, comforted
her, frightened her.
The ancient god-touched soldier
extended the hand of peace and friendship. Companionship.
Co-operation. But Lenina knew better. She heard his words and
forced herself to feel nothing. She knew his offers were nothing
more than veiled threats; the delicate brush of silk over a bed of
deadly razor blades.
‘Leave me alone. I need to
think.’
‘Shut up!’
A loud crash at the front door
made her look up. It was joined by another and the shuffle of
urgent footsteps, at least three sets. Lenina leapt to her feet,
cramming her hands into her mouth. She glanced at Tristen’s
bleeding body and then at Thorne’s feet, just visible on the other
side of the sofa.
Another crash. Shaking her
head, Lenina backed up. She met the wall and pressed her palms to
the textured wallpaper, as if to feel something real and solid
would steady her nerves.
Crash.
Splintering wood. She held her
breath.
Lenina ran. She reached the
hallway just as the front door flew inward, admitting three police
officers. They stopped when they saw her, their uniforms and hair
dotted with diamond droplets of rain.
‘Lenina Miller?’ The first of
the three officers was a thin, wiry Asian man with a dimpled chin
and a long, narrow nose.
She nodded, not daring to
move.
‘Can you speak? Are you
hurt?’
For the first time she realised
how she must look. ‘I—’
‘Where’s Tristen Blake?’
Her knees buckled. ‘Back there,
I— I’m so sorry.’
The first officer grunted and
shouldered past her, into the room beyond. After him went the
second officer, removing her hat and shaking rain from her glasses
as she went. Only the third officer remained, a tall black man with
dreadlocks, caught back in a thick band. He entered slowly,
watching her as if she were a skittish horse.
‘It’s okay, Miss Miller. I’m PC
Shawn Jackson. We’re here to help.’
A loud curse came from the back
room.
Deep inside, Saar uttered
something like a battle cry and surged forward again, claiming
control of her legs. He used her body like a familiar tool, driving
Lenina back into the living room with her hands balled into fists.
She skidded to a stop in the doorway, sliding on a patch of sand.
Nausea roiled through her stomach and she pulled her toes out of
Jason’s remains.
The two officers stood near the
sofa, gazing at Brad Thorne’s battered body. The first of them
spoke into the radio clipped to his shoulder, reeling off the
address in a voice that now held an edge of panic.
Lenina’s gaze wandered across
the overturned chairs and slicks of blood. The pile of smelly
clothes by the door. The empty space beside the dining table.
Saar growled and the sound slid
through her lips.
Scuffling from somewhere behind
made Lenina spin around, guided by Saar’s reflexes. Her hand lashed
out, fingers pressed together, thumb tucked in, a chopping motion
at nose height. PC Jackson avoided injury by slipping on the same
patch of sand and landing on his backside at her feet. Lenina’s
hand struck the door frame, denting the soft wood.
The officer stood slowly,
grasping the base of his spine. He seemed not to notice his close
shave. Snatching control of her limbs, Lenina turned back to the
two officers standing over Thorne.
The female officer gave her a
sharp look, one hand drifting towards the speedcuffs clipped to her
belt. ‘Miss Miller, where’s Detective Tristen Blake?’
Looking again at the empty
patch of floor beside the dining table, Lenina shook her head and
told the absolute truth.
‘I don’t know.’
***
This time Lenina rejected the
offer of coffee. She wouldn’t have been able to drink it anyway,
not with her wrists cuffed to the arms of her chair.
On the other side of the table
stood a small rat-faced man in a garish pink shirt with the sleeves
rolled up. His jacket lay over the arm of another chair, on which
he leaned, thrusting his neck forward. Behind him, PC Jackson
slouched against the wall, gazing down at his shiny black shoes.
The small interview room deadened all exterior sound and the wall
clock picking out the seconds sounded flat in the still air.
Lenina twitched her arm,
frowning when the extravagant cuffing prevented her from even
flexing her wrist. Her nose itched.
‘Ms Miller, I want to help you
here. I really do, but you’re not making it easy.’
She stared at the plain-clothes
detective and felt the weight of Saar’s anger in her gaze. ‘What do
you want me to say?’
‘I want you to tell me why
there’s a dead policeman in another policeman’s house.’
‘I already told you.’
‘Yes, Tristen attacked Brad
when he tried to take you away. But why, Ms Miller? Why? Tristen
Blake was a good, experienced officer. He knew better than to take
a witness to his house. Why were you there?’
‘I didn’t want to go to my
friend’s house. I thought it would put her in danger.’
‘So you asked to go to his
house?’
She bristled. ‘
He
suggested it.’
‘Really? Not a hotel? Or one of
our safe houses? That would have made more sense.’
Lenina tossed her head and
wrenched on the cuffs pinning her to the chair. From the corner of
her eye, she saw the plastic cover on the right one crack down the
middle.
‘I can’t tell you what was in
his mind. Only what happened.’
The irony of it all almost made
her laugh. She would have if not for the intense stare from the
detective across the table, and the concentration it took to keep
Saar from snapping both sets of cuffs to fight his way free. The
old vampire prowled through her mind like a lion in a zoo, looking
out through the bars and wishing for freedom. Occasionally he
roared and rattled the bars, but Lenina held him at bay with a
steady mental image of an impenetrable steel cage with no doors or
bolts.
‘Fine.’ The man wrinkled his
nose in an incredibly rodent-like manner and sat down in the
opposite chair. He steepled his fingers on the table before him and
exhaled long and deep through his thin, moustachioed lips. ‘Let’s
start at the top.’
Saar roared and jerked forward,
snatching Lenina’s hand off the chair arm. The weakened plastic
broke away, revealing the metal bar within that was bent almost in
half. At the same moment, the door to the interview suite crashed
open and slammed into the adjoining wall.