Blood Lily (Lilith Adams Vampire Series Book 1) (36 page)

“Give it some time. All I ask is that you don’t jump on him too bad right now. He’s had several lifetimes to beat himself up more than you ever could. Just remember that you actually have a father, one that loves you. A lot of people aren’t that lucky.”

“Were you close to your parents before
they…?” She couldn’t bring herself to finish the question, but the look on his face surprised her. There was only a tiny trace of sadness that was overwhelmed by all the telltale signs of fear, anger, resentment and guilt. She knew the answer before he even opened his mouth.

“No, we weren’t…close.” There was an awkward moment of silence that seemed to stretch on endlessly as he stared defiantly out of his window. Lilith fought back and forth with herself on whether to ask or just keep her mouth shut. She was still waging the internal war when Chance took the decision out of her hands.

“I don’t see any movement. We should get inside. Don’t take an easy stroll. Get to the door fast, and get us in fast.” Chance pulled the gun from his side holster, double checked everything including the safety and finally looked over at her. He was all business now. The moment of sharing was over. It almost felt like an iron door slammed in her face, but there were bigger problems, like staying alive.

As soon as they jumped out of the car, her heart started beating like a huge base drum. She could feel the adrenaline
pumping through her veins. Everything felt like it was in hyper drive, or maybe it just felt like she was high? Her vision seemed sharper than ever, even for a vampire. Every breath she drew in seemed jam packed with a million smells that somehow all made sense. It had to be Cohen. It had to be his blood. When they were finished here she was seriously gonna sit Cohen down and have a nice long chat.

Chance reached the door and pressed his back against the wall to the right. He nodded across from him at the panel and turned his attention to the parking lot, careful eyes scanning back and forth. Lilith put her back against the wall and jammed her thumb against the call button.

She waited for the crackle of the speaker and the booming voice of Richard Coffee, but neither happened. There was only silence. She jammed the buzzer again as the growing seed of fear started to blossom in her chest. Silence once again. She looked up at Chance with desperation and panic just as he turned his head toward her, catching her eyes. The unspoken conversation was unmistakable. Something was seriously wrong.

A
s Chance returned his attention to the parking lot, a tiny sliver of light caught her eye. It was then she realized that the heavy metal door wasn’t clicked closed all the way. Suddenly, the blood was pounding in her ears like thunder. Richard would never leave the door open.

“Chance.”
It was a breathy whisper that barely made a sound, but he looked back at her instantly. She pointed to the door and he immediately motioned her behind him. Now was not the time to argue the equality of the sexes, so she moved behind him without any hesitation.

He crept toward the door, gun at the ready, and gripped the handle with his free hand. Lilith watched every muscle in his back tense beneath the thin t
-shirt and the fear and anger rolling off of him were almost palpable. For a moment he just stayed like that, frozen. Slowly he glanced back at her, his eyes searching her face. There was an internal war raging behind them, but whatever it was, he wasn’t voicing it. She could feel the raw emotions hovering over his skin like the wavering air over hot concrete, but it wasn’t enough to tell her precisely what he was thinking. Scared and angry could mean a million different things.

The seemingly endless moment of eye to eye soul searching finally ended and Chance eased the door open, slipping gracefully inside with barely a sound. Lilith didn’t waste any time following him. She clicked off the safety
on her 9mm, grabbed the door handle and silently slipped into the overly bright hallway.

There were no immediately ominous signs. There were no lights flickering, no blood stains covering the walls
, no ceiling tiles hanging down. Everything looked normal, all the way down to the security station, which sat empty. That one thing, Coffee’s chair sitting vacant, was scarier than all the flickering lights and blood smears in the world.

Chance stayed glued to the wall, gliding
along it with his gun aimed at the end of the hall. All her training kicked in suddenly, and she flattened herself against the opposite wall. She kept the gun at her side, loose and ready. If she held hers up with all the focus and tension that Chance had right now, she’d be a shaking mess by the time she reached the security station. Chance was trained to aim his gun for long periods of time, she wasn’t. Movies never comment on just how much strength and muscle memory it takes to hold up a gun aimed for longer than a minute or two.

When they reached the end of the hall, Chance motioned her to stay put. He whipped around the left corner, eyes scanning the long hallway, and then slid behind the security desk. He
watched the right hall for a few moments, studying it and then turned his attention to the huge row of monitors.

The nerves were starting to get to her. She wasn’t used to these constant surges of adrenaline. Her job was cold, hard, logic. Crime scenes were cleared before she went in. She simply examined the dead body, the surrounding area and left. A lot of people want to make it some glamorous job worthy of Hollywood,
but the truth is it’s soothingly meticulous and a little boring. She never chased down suspects, and rarely had to interview them anymore. That’s what Alvarez was for and sometimes members of Gregor’s security team if they were hunting down a rogue vamp.

Lilith switched the gun to her left hand and rubbed the sweat off her right palm, keeping her eyes glued on Chance while he scoured the monitors. Behind the desk seemed safer somehow and she was tired of waiting. She wanted to see what was going on. Slowly she peeked around the corner and then glanced down the other end of the hall.
Nothing but silence. The doors off the halls all seemed to be closed. There were no signs of disturbance. Where the hell was everyone? Where the hell was Coffee?

With her heart pounding in her throat, she ran around the desk and nearly bumped into Chance as she tried to duck down behind the counter. He merely glanced down at her with an irritated look that, for just an instant, melted into amusement. She probably looked really fierce cowered into a cubby with her gun gripped in both hands. Bad guys beware.

“Anything on the monitors?” She tried to crane her neck to peek up at them, but Chance’s arm gripping the counter top blocked her view of most of the monitors. This was just ridiculous. She’d fought off Spencer with everything she had and now she was hiding under a counter.

“Easy, Kojak.
The monitors are cycling. Apparently, they have more cameras than they have screens. There are a small group of scientists sitting in what looks like a break room. Wait…” Chance leaned in closer, peering at the center screen. “There’s someone in there with them. Plain Clothes. I can’t get a good look at him from this angle.”

“What about the other labs?”

“They all seem empty. Wait. There are a couple people in one of the labs. Do you think you’d be able to tell which is which?”

Lilith crawled out onto her knees
silently cursing herself for her moment of cowardice and peered at the monitor. It looked like any other lab she’d seen. The only difference between the Blood Analysis lab and Cold Storage was the huge walk in freezer. There was no telling. But, as the camera panned, she caught the faint image of a 2 on the wall. It had to be lab 2, Blood Analysis. After all, that was what Ashcroft would want, his blood sample. The less the enemy knew the better, but she already knew enough from it to know it wasn’t anywhere near normal. Maybe there was a secret in that blood. A riddle they hadn’t figured out yet.

“I think
its Lab 2, Blood Analysis. It would make sense. One of those men isn’t in a lab coat, so I’m guessing it’s either Ashcroft or Spencer. More likely it’s Ashcroft. I don’t think this is the kind of errand that he’d send his minion on. No sign of Coffee?”

“None that I’ve seen and they seem to have cameras everywhere. Even in the hall closet.”

Something sparked in her brain with sudden clarity. “The cold storage.”

“There’s a camera in that lab, Lily. I just told you…”

“Not the lab. The actual freezer. It’s a walk in, he’d fit in there and they probably don’t have a camera in it. It’s not exactly ideal conditions and with a camera in the lab itself they probably figured the aggravation wasn’t worth it.”

“Why would they care if he was seen or not?
Do you think they were expecting us? If they were, why let us stand here chit chatting instead of springing on us?”

“I don’t think it has to do with the camera. Maybe they knocked him out. God help me, I have no idea how they could do that, but that freezer has a solid metal door with a locking clasp that could actually hold him if he woke up pissed off. You’re right. If this was a trap, they’d have sprung it by now.”
It wasn’t until the words left her mouth completely and were ringing in the silence that the weight of their meaning really sank in. Richard Coffee, the linebacker over seven feet tall, a mountain of intelligent, skilled muscle, was out of the game. He’d been taken out by Spencer, who looked like he’d have trouble bench pressing an empty bar, and some vampire that was over 600 years old. There wasn’t a single universe should could think of in which that would even begin to make sense.

Chance must have noticed the tremors running down her arms, or maybe it was the far off look of growing doom, but somehow, he was right there in front of her, his hands rubbing up her arms. It took her a moment to focus on those warm hazel eyes, barely flecked with green, but when she did, everything else fell away. She was completely under his spell, and that thought scared her even more than the dynamic duo that managed to take out Coffee.

“Lily, you have to pull it together. Odds are against us, true, but we need to move fast while we still have some element of surprise. There’s no way they missed hearing that buzzer, but obviously they didn’t feel it was important enough to investigate.” His eyes searched hers, coaxing all the courage left in her from its hiding places. “We’re going to sneak down that hall, slip into that room and try and catch this monster by surprise. The way I see it, he’s the real threat. We can deal with Spencer later. Okay?”

“He shouldn’t be a threat at all.” Her voice was whisper soft, a barely audible collection of tones that somehow seemed gravely important. “He’s almost as old as Gregor. He shouldn’t be as fast or strong as us. There is no way that Spencer could take out Coffee. How are we supposed to…
?”

“Lily! No more second guessing. We have a real shot here. Let’
s take it.” There was a notable pause, as if he meant to continue with a plan of action, but just stopped.

Her eyes narrowed suspiciously, and oddly enough, that helped her regain her grip on the fear and doom weighing her down. “What? What are you not saying?”

Chance rubbed a nervous hand through his hair, his jaw clenching tighter. She definitely wasn’t going to like what he was going to say. “The labs. The cold storage lab is connected to Blood Analysis by an interior door right?”

The suspicious look gave way to one of genuine confusion. “Yeah…”

“I think I have a plan.” His eyes stared down at her arms, or more specifically, his hands where they rested on her arms. “It’s not ideal but it’s the best I’ve got.”

“I cannot believe I am doing this.” Lilith checked and double checked her gun, wasting precious minutes while she waited for her hands to stop shaking. She stared at the door to Blood Analysis, glanced down the empty hall and finally took in a deep breath. “I swear, if I die, I’m gonna haunt his ass.”

Lilith shoved through the door like a woman on a mission. “Dr. Nichols!!! We have to get you out of here. I don’t think the lab is safe.” Acting wasn’t difficult, especially when it was all the truth. She skidded to a halt when Nichols turned around, and at his side, the very face from her nightmare. There was a precious second of recognition that she desperately h
oped he wouldn’t notice. “Sorry. I didn’t realize you had company, but we really need to go.”

She forced herself to continue walking forward, even though her entire body screamed for her to run.
Ashcroft stood an inch or two taller than her, with a smooth, pale complexion marred by hundreds of crisscrossing scars. His dark eyes burned like bottomless pits of fire sunken deep within his skull. Those vicious scenes from her nightmares kept flashing through her mind. Gregor burning, Ashcroft’s talons sinking through her shoulders, Chance’s blood pouring from his slit throat. A wave of nausea hit her as the man’s thin lips curled into a gruesome smile.

“Well, well, well.” The deep voice trickled through the air like poisoned honey. One taloned hand fastened tight around Dr. Nichol’s arm,
who just stood there, white as a sheet, petrified. “The delicate little Lily lives.”

She should run scre
aming out of the room, and seconds ago she might have, but something in his voice, something about that smug look on his face just brought the fighter out in her. About damn time. “You planning on writing poetry? I’m not really sure that fits the current trends. You should try adding some references to guns and hoes or something.”