Rose of Jericho (Lilith Adams Series Book 2) (35 page)

“
Lily
.” Chance’s voice went quiet, steady but with an edge of importance. Something was wrong. She knew it immediately from the tone of that single word. It was his business voice.

“
I’ve gotta cut this short,
Cherie
. I’ve got company.
” Lilith could hear someone talking loudly in the background, barking orders. “
I love you.
” Chance’s voice was strained like he was running or jumping and then the distant sound of gunfire crackled over the speaker and Lilith jumped nervously, the phone clattering to the floor. She scrambled quickly, snatching the handset back up. A dull beep signaled the end of the message and her heart dropped as her world went spinning.

“No!!” She screamed the word as her fingers white-knuckled the telephone. A thousand different scenarios ran through her head at a million miles an hour. Did Farren send his men? Was it this Sievers character or Helton or whatever the hell the German called himself? Was it someone else that wanted the book? Was Chance still alive? Was he being held by these people or did he get away?

Lilith slammed the heavy receiver into its cradle and immediately picked it back up. She barely managed to punch in the number Chance had called from. Her fingers were shaking with fear and anger. Straight to voicemail. She clicked the button on the receiver and dialed again. Straight to voicemail. The fifth time it went to voicemail, she slammed the receiver into the cradle so hard that it rattled the wall. Not Chance. She couldn’t lose him now.

Lilith wiped furiously at her cheeks as she fought to wrap her brain around that voicemail. She had to do something… but what could she do? He was in Tennessee and she had no idea if he was even alive. He’d called four hours ago. Whatever the outcome, it had already happened. There was nothing she could do now. Lilith smashed her palm against the wall in utter frustration. She was sick to death of feeling powerless, helpless. There had to be something, anything she could do.

A hand touched Lilith’s shoulder and she nearly jumped right out of her skin. “Lily,
Bonita
, what is it?” Gloria’s voice was so soothing that Lilith just collapsed against her shoulder, emotionally and mentally exhausted.

“I don’t know what to do anymore.”

“Tell me,
Bonita
.” Gloria pulled back enough to fix Lilith with a firm yet sympathetic look. After a deep sigh, Lilith told her all about the message from Chance, keeping her eyes glued to the phone. She couldn’t handle seeing any judgment in Gloria’s face about her obvious relationship with Chance. It would just be too much right now.

“Call the station. They’ll have the number to the lab. I’m sure the guard knows something.”

“Yeah!” Lilith smiled bright and just as quickly her face fell into a mask of frustration. “No. I can’t call the station, not without raising suspicion. If you knew the full story…”

“Surely there is someone you can call to get the number.” Gloria didn’t bring up Chance or the fact that she still didn’t know what was going on. She was just tackling the problem in front of her and Lilith was eternally grateful. It was exactly what she needed to keep her focus and not just fall apart at the seams.

Call. Finally, a thought clicked into place like a cog connecting with the rest of the machine. Lilith flashed a hopeful smile and kissed Gloria on the cheek enthusiastically. “You’re brilliant!”

Lilith dialed her voicemail again, skipped to the first saved message, and memorized the number. Then she hung up and called it, mumbling a prayer under her breath. This had to work. Please, let it work.

“Hello?”

“Nicci?” Relief flooded through her body. One tragedy averted. “Are you okay?”

“Lilith?! Damn, girl. I thought you were worm food. Yeah. I mean, well, physically I’m okay. I got away and called an anonymous tip into the station. I thought maybe a police presence would scare ‘em off. Are you all right?”

“I’ll live.” Lilith sucked in a deep breath before barreling onward. “I need a favor. I know, in light of recent events, you have every right to tell me to go to hell, but I really, really need your help.”

The line was silent for a moment, a gut-twisting, guilt-inducing moment, where Lilith felt like the most selfish person on the planet.

“This shit is serious, Lilith. It is a real threat, and not just to you. This affects all of us and it needs to be handled. It’s my job. Stop asking for favors and just tell me how I can help.”

Lilith released a painful breath that she didn’t even realize she was holding. “I can never thank you enough, Nicci.”

“There’ll be time for that later. So what do you need?”

“I got in touch with Cohen. Helton is in New York and Cohen is trying to track him down. I’m waiting for his call, but in the meantime, I need you to get me the number for Goditha Labs in Knoxville.”

“Goditha? Yeah, sure. Give me a second.” Lilith pictured Nicci’s long ponytail swishing from side to side as she stalked purposely down the hall to her office. Several clicks on a keyboard echoed through the phone before her New York-Italian accent returned. “You got a pen and paper?”

Lilith motioned to Gloria, who handed her a flowery notepad and a pen. Lilith awkwardly scribbled down the number while juggling the huge receiver on her shoulder.

“So… uh… isn’t Goditha the lab that Dev…your security guy went to?” Nicci didn’t get far into her attempt at Chance’s last name before just giving up.

“Deveraux, it’s a French Cajun thing. And yeah, that’s where he went.” Lilith’s voice sounded heavy even to her. There was no way that Nicci could have missed it.

“I’m assuming things didn’t go well?”

“Honestly, I don’t know. Chance left me a voicemail that ended with gunfire. I need to call Goditha and find out what the hell happened. If he’s hurt or worse…” Even if sudden tears hadn’t clenched Lilith’s throat closed, she wouldn’t have known how to finish that sentence.

“Do you want me to call for you?” It was a tremendously sweet offer. Obviously, Nicci could tell that Lilith was worried about more than the leverage of a few scraps of paper.

“No. I’ll handle it. I need to know.”

“Okay. Where are you? You’ll need everyone you can get if Cohen gets a location and I have weapons.” There was an anxious, almost excited tone to her voice. Lilith got the feeling that Nicci didn’t take defeat well and looked at running away as even worse. She sounded like she was eager to settle the score.

Lilith glanced at Gloria, weighing her options. “I’m at a friend’s place.” Gloria nodded softly, giving her permission. Lilith took a deep breath to stifle her mistrusting nature before giving Nicci the address. Lilith thanked her again and hung up.

For a moment she just stood there, trembling, crippled by the possibilities swirling in her head. She forced the phone off the receiver and tried to dial the number to the lab, but her fingers were shaking so bad that she could barely hit the buttons. Suddenly, the line went dead. Lilith followed the cord to see Gloria’s finger pressed against the button.

“I need… to make this call.” Lilith barely squeaked the words out around the growing lump of dread wedged into her throat.

“Take a moment. You’re shaking all over.” Gloria slowly and gently pulled the phone out of Lilith’s shaking hand and placed it back on the cradle. She was right. If she called the lab in a raving panic the guard probably wouldn’t take her seriously. “Give me the number. I will dial for you.” Lilith nodded somberly and handed Gloria the little piece of flowery paper while she took several deep breaths. There was a very real possibility that she wasn’t going to like what she was about to hear.

Craig Fontaine, the new security guard, was extremely helpful, or at least tried to be. Lilith struggled not to think about the last time she’d seen his predecessor, security officer Richard Coffee. Despite her best efforts, the image of the enormous mountain of a man pinning Ashcroft to the furnace sprang into her mind. She tried to shove away the sight of his skin melting and Ashcroft’s claws trying to dig through the man leaving his entrails dangling to the floor.

She’d seen too much death in the past couple weeks. An odd thing for a forensics examiner to think, but it was still true. There was a stark difference between studying a dead body and watching someone die in complete agony, powerless to help them. Lilith shook off the gloomy skeletons in her head and focused on the rookie’s report.

Fontaine gave her a rundown of the morning’s excitement. It sounded similar to Cohen and Lilith’s car accident in New Haven. SWAT style henchmen, all in black, with semi-automatic rifles minus the bone-jarring car accident. The important part was that Chance had gotten away in the Honda.

Unfortunately, only two of the four men were dead, one shot by Chance and the other by Fontaine himself, decent work for a rookie. The other two hopped into a black SUV and tore off after Chance. That was all he knew. He had a license plate number on the SUV, but she knew it wouldn’t help. Lilith thanked Craig, hung up and sank into one of the kitchen chairs, completely lost in the puzzling events.

It definitely sounded like Farren’s M.O. but how could he have known Chance was going there? He sure as hell didn’t seem to know anything until Cohen blurted it out at Haverty’s apartment and that was at least half an hour
after
Chance’s call. Hell, he’d even seemed surprised to see Timothy in Chance’s place.

No. He couldn’t have known. If he had, Farren would have lorded that over Cohen right away. Maybe he just had a team doing surveillance on the place. It was possible. He knew Goditha was connected to the Ashcroft case and he seemed to have an endless supply of anonymous henchmen to throw at people. Seriously, where did he find them? Did they have a union? A placement service for mercenaries?

Lilith padded hopelessly across the kitchen and sank heavily into the chair. All she could do was pray that Chance lost the guys following him and was high-tailing it back to New York City right now. Of course he could just as easily be dead on the side of a Tennessee country road or injured and stranded but still alive. She had no way of really knowing and that ate at her insides like a slow-acting acid.

Gloria slid into the chair across from Lilith and softly squeezed her hand. “I think it’s time to have that talk.” Lilith slowly looked up into Gloria’s sympathetic face. She was right. She needed to tell Gloria everything. Just being in the house put Gloria and the girls in danger. She had a right to know what she’d gotten herself into.

Besides, Lilith still needed Gloria’s help. Her wounds were weeping blood again and she needed to her arm needed a splint. Hopefully, the break would heal enough for her to ditch the sling by the time Cohen needed her. Until then she might as well lay all the chips on the table while Gloria finished patching her up. She couldn’t really do anything until she heard from Cohen anyway. All she had now was time. Lilith took a deep breath and began her story right at the beginning.

Chapter 28

“H
osita
puta
!” Gloria’s warm eyes were wide with disbelief both from Lilith’s incredible story and the shock that cusswords just left her mouth. Lilith didn’t know proper Spanish but she could tell that whatever Gloria just said was definitely not for polite dinner conversation.

Gloria’s hands hovered over the makeshift sling, fingers trembling on the last knot. Her eyes stared at the strips of Monster High sheets she’d used to splint and secure the broken arm. Lilith knew she wasn’t sitting there contemplating her choice of fabrics. It was a lot to take in. Still, if Lilith somehow managed to live through all this craziness, she’d owe Sofia a new set of sheets.

“My god, Lily.” Gloria shook her head as she still fought to process everything she’d just heard.

Lilith hadn’t held back. She’d told her absolutely every detail, including Chance, the nightmares, Cohen’s family, everything. At first it had been difficult to say the words, but eventually it all gushed out as the dam broke. It felt liberating, like cutting the cords on a corset that was squeezing the life out of her.

“I never would have thought creatures like that were possible.” Gloria cracked a rare smile and rolled her eyes as a thought occurred to her. “I know it is somewhat ironic to hear a vampire say such things.”

That was exactly why they were best friends. On the surface, it appeared like Gloria and Lilith were from two entirely different worlds. Gloria was a middle class mom of three daughters and even though she didn’t look her true age she was somewhere in the 300’s.

On the other hand, Lilith was a 27 year old Forensics examiner for the Major Crimes Unit in NYC who should stereotypically be filling her spare time with yoga classes, chai lattes and bad dates. Of course, she preferred the relaxation of Tai Chi to the stressful contortions of yoga, guzzled Diet Coke instead of lattes, and though she had more than her share of bad dates, hopefully Chance meant an end to that, assuming they both lived through this.

What Gloria and Lilith shared was something deeper, a common, ironic view of the world. It was their intellectual debates and hilarious conversations that kept Lilith coming back even if she had to endure the gluten-free cookies and Gloria’s miserably failed attempts at playing match maker, which was the primary cause for her history of bad dates.

“So how do you think this woman is controlling dead bodies?”

That was definitely the million dollar question. Lilith stared into her coffee mug, dredging up every detail of that alley and trying to make sense of them. The whole scene replayed in her mind. The creepy tribal chant echoing off the walls, the way the corpses responded to her changes in pitch or words, the way they stood like vacant husks when she stopped singing.

I think she has a similar ability to the siren. It seemed like she was singing to the dead...” Then something else caught in her mind. The moment when she’d fed her blood to a badly damaged body.

Lilith’s eye flashed up to Gloria as the epiphany struck. “There’s something else. In the alley, there was one zombie that struggled to follow her commands, so she cut her palm and fed him blood. After that he could walk straighter and follow the pack. He even looked better, well, for a dead guy anyway.”

“Do you think it’s the blood that controls them?” Gloria lifted an eyebrow in curiosity. It was more prompting Lilith to form her own answers than actively participating in the theory, but that’s all Lilith needed.

“No. She only gave blood to the one zombie.” Lilith rubbed her chin and sunk deeper in the kitchen chair, mulling over exactly what she knew about Cohen and the abilities of his species.

“Maybe she’d had him around longer and it was wearing off or something?” Gloria suggested as she took another sip of coffee.

It was a good theory that Lilith considered carefully until she remembered Haverty. “No. I don’t think so. She was able to animate Haverty, in another room, just after he was killed. He didn’t have any of her blood. Hell we never even saw her in the apartment. He just started moving and grabbing.” Lilith sifted deeper into her jumbled thoughts. She knew the answers, she just needed to piece them together.

“Assuming she is an anomaly of Cohen’s race, I already know they have minor mind altering abilities. Cohen demonstrated that in Tennessee by getting his partner to forgo calling in the FBI. Peisinoe is a more extreme case, being able to completely override someone’s perception of reality with her voice. It has its limitations though. She has to focus her ability and there are usually side effects to those that aren’t targeted.”

“Okay. I mean, it still sounds
loco
, but assuming that is true, controlling a living, breathing person is a lot different than bringing the dead back to life.”

Lilith frowned as the description prickled her skin. “She doesn’t bring them back to life, not really. There is no awareness, no thought, no person. It’s just an empty shell, like remote-controlled robots made out of dead flesh.”

Gloria shivered and cupped her hands tighter around the warm coffee mug. Lilith knew exactly what she was thinking and a chill crept over her spine as the thought occurred to her too. The image of Philippe’s body stumbling around, tearing people apart, ripping out hearts, following the command of some voodoo queen…

Gloria shook it off first, but then she didn’t have her mind repeatedly terrorized by nightmares of that very image. Or at least Lilith sincerely hoped she didn’t. “So why the blood and the weird plant?”

“The plant may not be important at all, could just be part of her ritual. Chance said that it was commonly used in voodoo rituals involving the dead. The blood though…normally I would say the same thing, but…” Then the final piece clicked into place and she could see the bigger picture.

“Shit.” Gloria looked up at Lilith’s exclamation with a mixture of excitement and judgment. “Cohen’s blood has some strong healing properties. It’s what saved my life and Chance’s. Ashcroft had an even faster, more potent, healing quality. Maybe the blood regenerates the tissue enough to accomplish basic functions. Simple balance, grabbing, tearing, biting. There wouldn’t be enough for any true higher brain functions, which is why reasoning and intellect are completely gone. They follow literal commands in the most basic and direct way possible.”

“I don’t know if that’s more comforting or terrifying.” Gloria leaned back in her chair, trying to picture it before shaking her head and realizing that she really didn’t want to. “So do you think Cohen knows what she is?”

“In my gut? No. I don’t think he knows anything about her. The shock on his face, the terror… Then again he isn’t always the most forthcoming person when it comes to sensitive information.”

“From what you said, it doesn’t seem like he’s ever lied about crucial information, has he? When it really counts and his neck is on the line?”

Lilith frowned as she thought back over the entire story. Gloria was right. The only thing that stuck out was his “act” to help out Ashcroft. Everything else might have been underhanded, malicious, sneaky, misleading, but when it came down to it… She couldn’t believe that Cohen would be working with his grandfather or this other council member, the German. It just didn’t fit what she knew, but then again, what did she really know? His own grandfather was fooled had been fooled by his helpless screw-up act…

“Tell me about your nightmares again? As much as you remember.” Gloria calmly sipped her coffee and watched Lilith with careful eyes, waiting for her inevitable objection.

“Why?” Lilith frowned in confusion. Of all the parts of her lengthy story, her nightmares definitely seemed the least significant. She’d expected questions about Cohen’s race, about Chance and their romance, about how she was handling Gregor’s death, not about her crappy sleeping habits. “They’re just nightmares. I don’t see how they are going to help.”

Gloria’s eyebrow twitched into an arch for a brief moment before she rose from her chair and refilled her coffee mug. “Humor me.”

Lilith sat back in her chair, her eyebrow arched skeptically as she stared down Gloria. They locked eyes, but when it became crystal clear that Gloria had no intention of dropping the subject, Lilith gave in and told her every detail etched in her traumatized brain.

“You said that you believe Ashcroft’s plan was to kill you all and burn the place down when he was done?” There was a clinical detachment on Gloria’s face that made Lilith wonder if she’d ever been a psychologist. After all, Gloria was at least 300 years old. It wasn’t outside the realm of possibility that she’d had a career before becoming a stay-at-home-mom.

“Um…yeah, but what does that have to do…”

Gloria held up her hand, stopping Lilith short. “In your first nightmare, you dreamed that Ashcroft set Gregor on fire and cut Chance’s throat.”

Lilith nodded and stared at her, completely confused. Where the hell was she going with this?

“And that was before you’d seen Ashcroft’s face, before you knew your father was involved, before you knew Ashcroft’s preferred method of removing obstacles was slashing throats…”

“Technically, I could have seen Ashcroft’s face. He attacked me that first night in Madisonville. I think…I think I did see his face right before he hit me.” Gloria looked thoroughly unconvinced. “What are you trying to say?” Lilith couldn’t keep her own judgmental skepticism out of her voice.

Gloria casually looked down at her coffee mug, running her finger along the rim. “Perhaps your dreams are doing more than terrorizing you.”

“What? Like prophetic dreams? That’s ridiculous. It’s just a coincidence.”

“Even all the dreams about corpses coming to life?”

“I also dreamed that I crawled naked through a dirt tunnel, the skies rained blood and Ashcroft was alive and kicking.” Lilith frowned at Gloria. “You’ve never been the kind of person to believe in dream dictionaries and daily horoscopes. Where is all this coming from?”

Gloria’s eyes were fixed on her coffee mug again as if it held all the secrets of life. “It just seems like an impossible coincidence. I’m not saying it’s magic, but maybe your intuition is trying to sharply prod you in the right direction.”

Gloria’s lip tilted slightly before her eyes met Lilith’s. There was more to it, but she obviously wasn’t going to share. “What could it hurt to pay attention to them, use your intuition instead of fearing it?” Before Lilith could call her bluff or even respond, Gloria barreled forward. “So what can we do now?”

For a moment she just stared at Gloria in disbelief. Her dreams were definitely not predicting the future. For one, there was no possibility of Peisinoe charming Chance into being her pet killer now that the siren was probably in pieces littered across Haverty’s apartment. It was just good old fashioned fear. Arguing with Gloria about it, however, would obviously be pointless so Lilith focused on the abrupt change of subject. What
was
she going to do now?

Lilith released a sigh that almost turned into a maniacal laugh. “I have no damn clue. I’m lost, Gloria. All I can do is wait for Cohen to find something.” The sense of helpless doom settled over her shoulders like a lead beam. Lilith turned her coffee cup, staring at the creamy concoction as it swirled around the edges of the cup. If Cohen came up empty...

The council would kill them all unless they had leverage. The cipher was worthless without the book and that was assuming Chance was still alive, still had the tin and that the cipher was actually in it. That was a whole lot of “If”s. Hell even if they did have leverage, even if everything worked out perfectly, the council would probably still kill them for knowing too much.

“I remember when you were a rookie, fresh out of college and Philippe was walking you through the procedures. You were always such a fast learner, obsessed with the details.” The change in subject was abrupt, but the sense of happy nostalgia in Gloria’s voice was infectious. It created this warm, familiar bubble around them, as if this was just another Sunday like the hundreds they’d spent around the kitchen table, sipping coffee. The council, Cohen and the zombie queen seemed a million miles away suddenly.

“Six months into the job, you had your first live case, the death of an immigrant vampire down at the docks. Do you remember that one?”

How could she not? In the nearly six years she’d been working Major Crimes, it was one of only three cases that actually involved vampiric activity. On top of that, it was the hardest to solve. Unknown vampire, killed from a high fall after being bound. There was very little forensic evidence. Some rope fibers in the torn skin of his wrists and ankles, trace from the dock on his clothes, salt water covering the body, but none in the lungs. The only anomaly was a square patch of skin missing from his shoulder.

She’d stared at that file for hours every single night. There were no violently territorial vamps in New York City, no usual suspects to pick through. She’d even looked through all the case files for similar human signature killers, nothing. It was at that moment that she really questioned what she was doing, if she was really cut out for the job.

“Philippe found you in the records room one night, pouring over thirty different files on your hundredth cup of coffee.”