Rose of Jericho (Lilith Adams Series Book 2) (16 page)

“I’m sorry. You were saying something?” Lilith blinked and flashed a cheeky smile which brought a deep chuckle from Chance that tickled over her cheek. “Right, Cohen.” Lilith wrinkled her nose with a lopsided frown and reluctantly pulled herself away from Chance and his enigmatic lips. “Okay, okay. Make your phone calls.” Her heavy sigh and slumped shoulders just made Chance laugh even harder.

“Ah,
Cherie
.” He reached for her but she danced just out of range.

“Nope. You call Timothy. I’ll go get us some dinner.” A sly cat grin slid across her lips as she slipped out of the hotel room. It still amazed her how Chance could magically distract her from all the dark things in her life.

Lilith lifted her eyes to the parking lot and spotted her ride. Cohen was leaning gracefully against the hood of his rental car, his arms folded over his chest, sandy blonde hair glinting in the setting sunlight. For a moment, he seemed like the friendly southern cop she’d first met. Unfortunately, she knew he was anything but that nice, charming cop.

Lilith walked right past Cohen with a frown. “Chinese take-out.” She abruptly got into the car without waiting for him to move or even respond. She could see the awkward tension in Cohen’s back as he pushed himself off the car and stalked to his door. Oh yeah. This was gonna be a ton of fun.

After a car ride filled with hostile, awkward silence, they finally made it to a small Chinese place in a non-descript strip mall. It looked like a million other Chinese take-out places with the cheap wallpapered tables and 80’s metal chairs covered in salmon pink and teal vinyl. Lilith looked over a paper menu while they waited in the surprisingly long line. Of course she already knew what she was ordering, but it kept her busy and if it encouraged Cohen not to talk to her, bonus.

Lilith suddenly became painfully aware that Cohen had inched closer and was now hovering right over her shoulder. With an exasperated look, she glanced back just enough to acknowledge he was there. “They have more menus on the counter, or you could just have this one if you don’t know what the hell you want.”

“ Look, I just wanted to say…” Cohen’s voice was a whisper that dripped with nervousness and sincerity. Of course, with Cohen you couldn’t trust anything. “I’m sorry about everything that’s happened. When I helped you in Tennessee I figured you’d just help me find the cipher. I didn’t know any of this would happen. I’m sorry you got dragged into this.”

Lilith turned on her heel to face Cohen with a less than happy look on her face. Cohen took a surprised step backward and seemed genuinely confused by her anger. “You really want to talk about this now? In public?”

The corner of his lip lifted on his almost handsome face and he ran his fingers through his sandy blonde hair. “Approaching a volatile topic with you in public is a matter of personal safety. I figure you’re less likely to slug me in the face and more likely to listen to what I have to say.”

Lilith tilted her head slightly and narrowed her eyes. “Andrew, you always have a motive and that’s what I don’t trust. I don’t want an apology from you. I honestly don’t believe you would give one just because you feel bad. You only apologize if it gets you something. So can the heart to heart for now and just pick your dinner. We’re up next.”

Cohen’s face looked genuinely hurt and troubled, like she’d actually verbally wounded him. Lilith was really getting tired of his constant acting. It was infuriating and absolutely exhausting, mostly because she didn’t see why the hell he bothered.

Thankfully, Cohen kept his trap shut except to order some pepper chicken and fried rice. Of course all that changed when they got out to the car. “I know you don’t trust me. I get that, but I don’t have any motives for apologizing. If you don’t want to accept it, then fine. Have it your way.”

Cohen slid into the car and slammed his door. Well if the ride over was awkward, the ride back was going to be a million times worse. What the hell was with all these guys and their fragile little egos? It was worse than dealing with a couple anorexic beauty queens.

Hesitantly, Lilith got in the car and silently buckled her seatbelt. This wasn’t just hostile and awkward, it felt like knives. Lilith was starting to feel like a damn emotional babysitter. Why couldn’t they all just do their damn jobs?

“Look, we may need each other right now, but I have no idea why you keep trying to mend fences. We don’t need to like each other. We just need to trust each other to some extent. Now how the hell am I supposed to trust you, Cohen? You’re always a different person. Hell, even your eyes change color constantly. How the hell do you do that anyway?”

Cohen had the good grace to actually look surprised. “I’m not my family, Lilith. Yes, I’ve done some acting here and there, but all of it has been to benefit the greater good. I’m not as completely selfish as you think.”

Lilith leaned back into her seat, crossing her arms over her chest. “We’ve already gone over this, Cohen. I don’t want to argue about your murky motives.  I just want you to answer my question. You want me to trust you? Fine. This is where it starts.”

Cohen’s jaw set in a firm line, his hands tightly gripping the steering wheel. “You’re asking me to tell you more secrets that can get you killed, you realize that? Every bit of info I tell you about my kind is one more reason for Farren to kill you.”

“Don’t take the moral high ground now, Cohen. You know as well as I do that Farren already plans to kill us as soon as he has what he wants.”

“Point taken. You already know more than you should anyway, so what the hell.” He drew in a deep breath and beneath his irritation was something else. It took Lilith a minute to identify it because she never would have associated it with Cohen. Embarrassment. “Some of us are born with special gifts. The
chanteur d'âme
, or “siren” as you like to call her, is an extreme example. Most talents are more subtle and in cases such as mine, pretty useless.”

“So some of your kind can control a person’s mind with their voice and your super power is changing your eye color at will?” Lilith struggled to muffle an amused chuckle. She understood the embarrassment now. It sounded pretty ridiculous. “What’s Farren’s super-secret power?”

Cohen stared straight ahead and Lilith could feel the resentment and hatred pouring off of him. “The ability to continue living without a damn soul.” He took a breath and with his tone, Lilith couldn’t tell if he was serious or just being sarcastic. “Farren doesn’t share. I have no idea honestly.”

“It’s not at will, by the way.” Cohen continued once he had a handle on his deep loathing. “It just happens. My eye color changes to match the desire of the person I’m talking to. It’s more of an instinctual reaction than a conscious manipulation. My hair does the same thing to a certain extent. It’s just not as extreme. It’s an impulse that theoretically makes it easier for me to feed by showing people what they most want to see.”

Lilith looked him over skeptically. “So you have no control over it?”

“None whatsoever. It’s more of an annoyance to me than an advantage.”

“I get how it may not be especially useful, but how could it be an annoyance?”

“Well, first there are the questions.” He looked pointedly at Lilith. “Then there is the fact that people don’t always want to admit what they really want.”

“What do you mean? It’s just an eye color.”

Cohen glanced over at her with a hard look. “Is it? And what did you see before Luminita arrived that freaked you out so much? It was Gregor’s eye color wasn’t it?”

Lilith swallowed down fresh anger. Just hearing Cohen say his name made her blood boil, but he wasn’t wrong.

“I’m not trying to poke at wounds, Lilith. Honestly, I would never have deliberately chosen to show you that. It’s cruel. But right in that moment, his eyes were what you wanted most to see. There are plenty of things you can still be angry at me for, but not that. I know how it feels to lose people you’re close to.”

There was nothing but genuine sorrow in his voice and for once, Lilith couldn’t bring herself to question his sincerity. There were a million unsaid things hanging in the air that truly made Lilith realize that she knew nothing about Cohen and his real life. The moment stretched out in an odd silence while she tried to figure out just what to say. “I get it, Andrew. We need to work together to get out of this mess, assuming there is a way out. None of this is easy…but for now, I accept…”

The night exploded in screeching metal and shattering glass as the whole car lurched violently sideways, tires squealing. The car was filled with screams, her screams, as Lilith’s stomach twisted in fear. Her head slammed against the window frame and everything went black.

Chapter 12

S
econds
later, Lilith struggled to open her eyes to the sound of a blaring horn. Her head throbbed like a raging bull was kicking against the inside of her skull. Her slender fingers reached up shakily, the tips feeling along the right side of her head until she winced. She stared blankly at the blood covering her fingers as her mind tried to figure out what the hell just happened.

Painfully, Lilith slowly turned her head to the other side of car. Cohen was slumped over the steering wheel, blood trickling from his swollen nose. That explained the blaring horn. She was suddenly aware of a stabbing pain in her right arm. She looked down in confusion to see the entire passenger side door crumpled in against her. That’s when she saw the black SUV that had T-boned them in the intersection. Of course it was a black SUV. What else would bad guys drive? There was no way this was a simple accident. What was next? Swat style henchmen pouring out of the vehicle with semi-automatic assault rifles?

Lilith blinked, trying to clear her blurry vision as the doors of the SUV swung open, all four doors. She could have sworn it was a concussion-induced hallucination when four men, dressed all in black complete with ski masks, stumbled out of the car carrying semi-auto assault rifles. It couldn’t be real. Nothing like this happened outside of cheesy Hollywood movies. She shook her head, trying to get the images out of her head, which was a huge mistake. Her head lit up with dizzying pain leaving her gasping. She had to fight just to stay conscious.

When she opened her eyes again, the four men were starting their approach to Cohen’s side of the car. She noticed one of them limping. At least one hadn’t escaped the car accident unscathed. Lilith’s heart thudded violently in her chest. This was real. In a panic, Lilith realized her gun was still tucked in her forensics kit which was conveniently sitting on the table in her hotel room. From now on she wasn’t going to go to a damn vending machine without a weapon. Time to grow up and start packing.

Lilith threw off her seatbelt and shook Cohen violently shoving him against the door. “Wake up! Shit!” Her eyes flickered to the men outside the car. They were taking their time circling the car. One of them was standing still, a phone to his ear. They were waiting for orders. Maybe they were counting on all three of them being in the car. She had no intention of waiting to find out what they wanted.

Lilith slapped and shoved Cohen but he wasn’t coming around. She needed to do something now. She had to handle this herself. Time was running out. Lilith grabbed Cohen by his jacket and pulled him closer, ignoring the sharp, bone-deep pain in her arm. She frantically dug into his clothes until she fished out his pistol. With a simple shove, Cohen slumped back against the driver’s side door.

Thankfully the windshield was a mass of spider web crackled glass. The henchmen wouldn’t be able to see her clearly as they circled around the car. The huge SUV prevented them from getting to the passenger window so it actually provided her some cover.

Lilith slowly crept over to lean on top of Cohen’s unconscious body. She peeked cautiously out the window with her heart beating like a caged rabbit as her head and right arm throbbed in mind-numbing stabs of pain. The odds weren’t in her favor. Four men that were better armed and she could barely lift her right arm. Hopefully she’d be able to squeeze the trigger. Of course shooting one of them might escalate things, but it was a risk she had to take.

Lilith propped her right wrist up on Cohen’s shoulder, using it to steady the gun in her shaky hand. She took in a deep breath as two of the men came into view of the window. She firmly focused on the two henchmen, waiting for them to get a little closer together. The closer they got, the less time it would take to re-aim after firing the first shot.

“I don’t think now is the best time to make out? Why exactly are you on top of me?” Cohen’s groggy voice startled her into almost firing the gun.  She squeezed her eyes shut and cursed, trying to calm her crazy heartbeat.

“Shit. You scared the hell out of me.” Lilith’s head was pounding like an epic thunderstorm inside her skull. She glared at Cohen’s face just inches from hers. His eyes were hazel with flecks of green. The color of Chance’s eyes. Well that was no big surprise after Cohen’s rental car confession. “Four heavily armed men are circling the car right now. All in black with ski masks. You might want to get your backup gun out. I borrowed the piece in your shoulder holster.”

Cohen nodded slightly and smoothly slid the pistol out of his ankle holster. “Since I can’t move can you tell me where they are?”

“You can’t move? Spinal injury?” Lilith frowned down at him, her eyes instantly studying him for serious injuries. He’d managed to grab his gun just fine and he definitely wasn’t pinned down by anything. All the damage was on her side of the car. She somehow doubted her shoves and slaps had actually caused any real damage.

Cohen rolled his eyes and just grinned. “I can’t move because you’re on top of me. Not that I’m really complaining.” He flashed one of the southern charm smiles he’d used when she’d first met him in Tennessee.

Lilith chose to ignore his smartass comments and his grin since their lives were in imminent danger. She would have plenty of time to throw a right hook into his almost-handsome face later. Perhaps when her right arm wasn’t fractured. “I can see two of them from here. I don’t know where the other two went.”

Cohen’s tone changed to a calm, serious, business voice that oddly calmed her nerves. “Can you take down both of the men you can see?” Lilith nodded softly. “Good. Don’t worry about the other two. If we can’t see them then they can’t see us. Take the shot.”

After a steadying breath, Lilith squeezed the trigger, hitting the first man in the right side of his chest. A collapsed lung at least. It was enough to keep him down. She ignored the fire burning through her arm and quickly aimed at the second man who was raising his assault rifle. Before he could get off a shot, she squeezed the trigger again. The bullet hit him right in the throat and he went to his knees coughing up blood.

Bullets shattered through the back window and Lilith couldn’t help but scream in shock. She sunk down lower, burying her face in Cohen’s shoulder and covering her ears as bullets whizzed through the air above her head. She felt Cohen raise his arm and squeeze off a shot through the passenger window.

“Stay low and scoot back to your seat.” Cohen shouted the words over the loud noise of bullets tearing through glass and metal. It was like being in the middle of a deadly tornado of shrapnel.

Obediently, Lilith inched back until she was tucked into the floor space of the front passenger seat, curled up in a ball. Somewhere beyond the sound of assault rifles tearing their rental car apart, was the sound of sirens. As long as they didn’t get riddled with holes, they’d already won. They just had to hang on a little longer.

Cohen creaked the driver’s side door open and rolled onto the ground. Lilith watched as he shimmied underneath the car. It was a pretty smart and safe move. A few minutes later the blaze of bullets stopped. She heard a scream and heard the man fall to the ground. A single shot rang out and then there was nothing but silence.

Lilith breathed a sigh of relief and leaned back hard against the crumpled door, closing her eyes. It was all over. Apparently they didn’t need latex suits and the ninja badass skills to survive a movie style assassination attempt.

“Lilith!” Cohen screamed her name just seconds before a hand grabbed her by the hair. Lilith screamed as the hand tugged hard, pulling her up from the floor. Without another thought, Lilith raised the gun and shot blindly behind her. Blood splattered everywhere and the hand fell away. A thud against the SUV hood echoed through the night and then the only sound left was the wild beating of her own heart. Lilith slumped into the car seat, struggling to breathe. Her nerves couldn’t take much more of this crap.

Cohen suddenly appeared at the driver’s side door, panting. “Are you okay?!”

Lilith jumped and balled her hands into fists. “Enough jump scares. Yes, yes I’m fine. Didn’t think there was another one.”

Cohen leaned into the car and offered a hand to help Lilith out. She slapped at his hand with a scowl and crawled out of the car. Her right arm crumpled as soon as she put weight on it, pulling a muffled scream from her lips. She adjusted, using her left arm to pull herself across the car before finally stumbling out. Cohen automatically reached out to steady her and Lilith shoved him back.

“I’m fine. Can the white knight shit. It doesn’t fit your personality.” The words came out a little more venomous than she’d intended. He was a convenient target for her frustration. Apparently she’d become one big ball of constantly displaced anger.

Cohen’s entire face closed down as he looked off down the street. “Cops will be here any second. There’s no avoiding it.” His brow furrowed as if something just occurred to him. “Why do you think they took their sweet time? They had to know that someone would call the cops as soon as they slammed into us.”

Lilith leaned against the car, rubbing at her arm. The pain was still blinding, like red hot pins stabbing all the way down to her fingertips. “When they got out of the car, one of them was on the phone. They seemed to be in a holding pattern.” She couldn’t take her thought any further. Her head still felt like a jumbled mess even though the bleeding had finally stopped.

“The last guy, the one that crawled up on the hood of the SUV, he could have shot you in the head before you even knew he was there. Instead he tries to drag you out of the car. Why?” Cohen paced beside the wrecked rental, occasionally glancing up sideways at her.

“Maybe leverage to draw out Chance.”

“They had to know Chance wasn’t with us though. They must have followed us. There’s no other way they could have known where to strike.”

“The hotel. Chance!” A sudden sinking feeling crashed over her as panic tingled up her spine. She frantically reached into her pocket to fish out the burner cell and dialed the number for the hotel. “Room 105.” Lilith waited impatiently, each second feeling like an excruciating eternity and each ring felt like a stab to the heart. “There’s no answer.” Lilith shoved the phone back in her pocket and slammed her hands against the car. Not the smartest move. Sharp, searing pain raced up her arm, forcing a strangled scream from her lips.

“Hey, hey, hey! Calm down.” Cohen moved to grab her and then thought better of it. He was starting to learn that Lilith didn’t like him invading her personal space. Finally. “He could be in the bathroom or maybe he went to the vending machine. There’s no need to panic just yet. You need to pull it together. The cops are going to ask questions.”

Lilith huffed in pure frustration as the pain began to recede. “And what exactly are we going to tell them? Anonymous henchmen seem to be a job hazard lately? That we shouldn’t be arrested for murder because demons need us to find a magic book that my uncle wrote 600 years ago?”

Cohen glared at her as he wiped the blood from his nose. “Very cute and I wish you would stop calling us demons.
Puissance mangeur
officially.

“I am not calling you that.” Lilith growled the words. “You and your damn French crap.”

“Fine. Just stick to Incubus if you insist, but I’m not a damn demon. As for the cops, we don’t know anything. We have no idea why anyone would want to attack us. Perhaps it has to do with the robbery. They’re fellow cops, obviously there are witnesses who saw what happened. They won’t charge us, probably won’t even hold us.”

“I need to get back to the hotel. I can’t sit here and play twenty damn questions. If they got to Chance…”

“Lilith, I know you’re worried, but Chance is a tough guy. We took down four heavily armed guys after they slammed a damn SUV into the side of our car. I think ...”

Lilith recounted it all in her head. She’d taken down two, then Cohen shot through the passenger window, took down the one behind the car and Lilith shot the guy that tried to grab her through the window. “Wait. Didn’t you take down two?”

“Uh no. There was one trying to climb up on the roof of the SUV. I shot at him but he ducked. That was the one that tried to grab you.”

“So I took down three to your one?” Lilith couldn’t help but feel a temporary sense of smug satisfaction.

"Yeah, yeah. You’re a badass, Kate Beckinsale. The point is, I’m pretty sure Chance can handle whatever these guys throw at him. The cops will want your statement so you’ll have to play twenty questions. You have no choice. Maybe after that you can get one of the uniforms to drive you to the hotel. I’ll wrap up and pick up some more dinner since our Chinese take-out exploded in the car. I’ll meet you two back at the hotel after.”

Having a plan helped ease Lilith’s panic a little. She just had to make it through the EMT’s questions, tell the cops what happened and then she could get to the hotel. Cohen was right. Of the three of them, Chance was the most dangerous. Still her heart was doing flip flops.

Cohen looked over the rental car, its frame twisted around the front of the big black Escalade. “I should have opted for the rental insurance.”

It was such a random statement and so far down the priority list that she couldn’t help but laugh. “To hell with it. It’s on the council’s dime anyway. Next time you should upgrade to some sporty little number.  Actually, considering how many people want to kill us, maybe you should rent a damn Hummer or an armored truck.”