by Jenny Allen
“You are the strangest dictionary I have ever seen.” Cohen couldn’t keep the surprise off his face.
“I’m no dictionary. It’s used a lot back home in Cajun country.”
Lilith felt a little tickle of excitement as she connected the dots. “Is it used for rituals?”
Chance nodded with a mouthful of McMuffin. “For death rituals, mostly speaking with the dead.”
Lilith’s face lit up as part of her puzzle clicked together. At least she had part of a theory, even if it seemed unlikely and outlandish. The evidence seemed to suggest that the killer used voodoo rituals to keep the dead men from speaking. The crushed throats, the removed mandibles, it made an odd kind of sense. Ensure that the dead men tell no tales. It also made for the most bizarre assassin she could ever imagine.
Chapter 16
Once the revelations were over and there were no more facts to distract them, the rest of breakfast was beyond awkward. Chance would glance up at Lilith with a wounded look mingled with concern. Lilith would pretend not to notice and focus way too intensely on her hash brown as she picked it apart. It was absurd. She knew Chance could feel all the volatile emotions pinging around her brain but she couldn’t bring herself to explain it to him. Cohen simply watched each of them with an obnoxiously amused look on his face for a while.
“I can’t take this anymore. The anticipation is just killing me.” Cohen’s words immediately caught Lilith’s attention, sending a stab of panic through her. He had echoed Peisinoe’s words in the dream almost exactly and left her suddenly short of breath.
Cohen crumpled up a wrapper and turned his attention to Chance. Lilith started to protest, but maybe Cohen explaining would be easier. Oh who the hell was she kidding? Cohen would take way too much enjoyment in it. Before Lilith could interrupt, Cohen just barreled ahead.
“Stop looking like a dog that’s been kicked. You didn’t do anything wrong. She just had a really vivid nightmare that Peisinoe seduced you into strangling her. That’s why she stopped breathing. That’s why she had a panic attack trying to get away from you. There. The band-aid has been ripped off.” Cohen returned to his coffee and casually stirred in a packet of sugar.
Chance swung his gaze over to Lilith as it all sunk in. “Jesus, Cher. That’s what’s she threatened you with, isn’t it? At the airport? Mon petit Cherie, I would never hurt you and I’d never let that bitch…”
“Stop right there.” Cohen glanced up from his coffee with a firm look and held up a hand. “I may not like you much, Chance, but you are a man of your word. Do not make promises that you have no prayer of keeping. If Peisinoe was here and she wanted you to crush Lilith’s throat and smile while you did it, nothing you could do would stop it. It’s not something you can beat through pure willpower. If she wants control, she has it. Period.”
“Cohen.” Lilith’s voice was quiet but just loud enough to catch his attention. “I appreciate the honesty but maybe you could try not to beat him over the head with it?”
Cohen blinked in genuine surprise and then chuckled at his coffee. He slapped the lid back on his cup and pushed away from the table. “I’m going to pick up a new rental car. If you want to sugar coat shit and tell each other a bunch of fake promises and hollow truths to pretend everything is hunky dory then be my guest. I suggest you pack up your stuff while you’re doing it.”
Cohen nodded to them both in some old fashioned acknowledgement and slipped out of the door leaving nothing but an awkward silence behind him. As much as Lilith hated to admit it, Cohen was right. Sugar coating things wouldn’t help. Only one thing would and that was time.
“Chance, don’t apologize and please don’t make promises. Cohen is right. You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s my problem, my stupid brain torturing me. I just need some time to get rid of the after effects. It still feels more like a memory than a dream.”
He nodded and picked at his breakfast sandwich. She didn’t blame him for being at a loss. If the roles were reversed, she wouldn’t know what the hell to say or do either.
“We still need to talk about how we’re gonna get leverage over Farren and his flunkies. Even if we find that book in New York, we need more. We need that box from Goditha.” He perched on the bed rubbing at his jaw, deep in thought.
Lilith nodded hesitantly. “The trick is getting to it without anyone knowing. I don’t even want Luminita to know. I realize Cohen trusts her implicitly, but even if she is exactly what she appears to be, it’s dangerous information.”
After a few more minutes of jaw rubbing, Chance ran his fingers through his chestnut hair. He had a plan, but judging by his body language, he definitely didn’t like it.
“Agreed. So here’s what I suggest.” Chance leaned forward on the bed, resting his elbows on his knees. He hesitated, his jaw clenching tight, brow furrowed in a determined scowl. Lilith instantly had the feeling that she wasn’t going to like his plan either.
“I’ll have Timothy meet up with us in New York. I’ll take his car, which shouldn’t be tracked, and haul ass down to Knoxville. Timothy can stay with you and Cohen to help out and fill the third spot. He’s roughly my height and a brunette so anyone with only a basic description could easily mistake him for me.”
“Chance, wait. You can’t go down there yourself.” What she really wanted to say was 'Don’t leave me alone with Cohen and Timothy', but it sounded far too selfish. “Besides, what am I supposed to tell Cohen? You went on a road trip so please don’t tell Luminita? No. I don’t like it. How are you gonna even pay for gas?”
Chance started to scoot closer, hesitated and settled for just leaning back on the bed. “Lily, you know I can take care of myself. Plus, if no one knows where I’m going then I’ll be safer than the rest of you. We need that cipher and those missing pages. It’s our only chance to avoid an execution. I’ll take Tim’s credit card to pay for things. Assuming we all live, I’ll pay him back. As for Cohen, I have no idea how to handle that. He’s smart. I’m pretty sure he’ll figure out where I’m going.”
Lilith hated to admit, but Chance was right. Her gut rebelled, but she couldn’t think of one valid reason why his plan wouldn’t work. “I still don’t like it, but I don’t see any other way. Timothy doesn’t have authorization to get in the lab and I wouldn’t trust Cohen with that info in a million years. Even if he could get in, he’d just use the cipher to save his own skin. I need to be in New York to work with my new partner, and figure out who our mystery burglars were working for.”
“That just leaves me.” Chance nodded and flashed a confident smile which faltered a bit around the edges. “Besides, you need…space to shake off this nightmare.”
“Not half the damn country, Chance.” Lilith frowned in frustration. She pushed herself out of the chair and started across the room with every intent of concurring her fear. It was just a stupid nightmare. She could beat it. The anxiety welled in her chest the closer she got to him, freezing her muscles and tightening her chest. She wanted to scream in exasperation.
Lilith stopped in front of the dresser and pulled open a drawer. Sure. That’s exactly what she was planning to do. She glanced behind her. Chance didn’t buy it either. “We should get packed up. It won’t take Cohen long to get a new car.”
“Sure.” His voice was somewhat shaky as he carefully slid across the bed and headed for the bathroom.
Lilith threw her stuff on the bed angrily. It wasn’t really directed anywhere in particular except her atrocious packing job and her damaged psyche. It seemed like whatever Ashcroft and Farren hadn’t taken away, her own mind was determined to get rid of.
* * *
The road trip for New Haven to New York was about as comfortable as trying to sunbathe on top a porcupine. Lilith curled up in the back seat, reading and re-reading the lab results, trying desperately to ignore the complicated silence that filled the stuffy rental car. Finally, they pulled up to a random hotel in downtown NYC around two in the afternoon.
Cohen went int
o the lobby alone to reserve the rooms while Chance dialed Timothy’s number. Lilith stepped out of the car, popped the trunk and rifled through her forensic case. She hated listening to one side of a conversation, but more than anything, she just needed a few minutes to herself.
Her fingers brushed over every piece of equipment, every package of swabs and bundle of evidence bags. This was familiar, calming, the one constant in her life. No matter who came and went in her life, she would always have the job. Usually it was a completely useless, pointless job, but it was hers.
A sudden dart of panic prickled in her chest as she realized that Gregor’s death could mean more than just losing her father. Who was going to run his businesses? Hell, she didn’t even know what they were much less how to run them. How involved was he with the various labs? Duncan was gone too so who was left? What about Gregor’s plans to take their race public? Could she actually handle that? Suddenly, it felt like she had a giant trying to ride piggyback on her shoulders.
Lilith snapped her case closed, overwhelmed with a hundred questions that she didn’t even know how to find the answers to. As the trunk closed, she shook her throbbing head. No. She couldn’t think about all this. She needed to focus with laser precision on the case at hand. It wouldn’t matter who took over Gregor’s various roles if they all died.
The sound of the car door opening and closing thankfully snapped her out of her thoughts. Chance stood stiffly right by his door, keeping his distance. Part of her was grateful but the other half was melancholy about the whole thing. Just looking him in the eye made her chest tight.
“So Timothy is still freaking out but I haven’t filled him in on anything yet. I just told him I needed his car with a full tank of gas and his credit card. After promising to tell him what the hell is going on, he finally agreed to meet up with us. He’ll be at the Brooklyn Diner on 43rd at 6 o’clock. He didn’t sound exactly thrilled with letting go of his precious Honda Accord or his card, but he knows it has to be important for me to ask.”
Lilith’s nose wrinkled instinctually. “The Brooklyn Diner? Why? That’s right in the middle of tourist town.”
Chance leaned his back against the car and shrugged his shoulders. “The man has a sweet tooth. Loves that Noodle Kugel crap.”
Lilith laughed softly as her eyes drifted to the lobby doors. When she looked back, Chance casually slid his hand towards hers and that dart of panic stabbed through her. The thought of his warm hand tightening around her neck stole her breath and she instinctually backed up. Her eyes met his and she saw the sudden sadness in his hazel eyes. She wanted to say something, anything to take that look away, but all words in the world wouldn’t make a bit of difference if she jumped away every time he tried to touch her.
“Hey! Got the rooms.” Cohen’s voice shattered the awkward moment as he casually jogged toward them. Lilith wiped at her face as if trying to remove the nightmare from her head. She tugged on a hollow smile and walked toward Cohen, leaving Chance behind her. The guilt was starting to hurt worse than the nightmare, and she already had more guilt weighing on her shoulders than an entire catholic parish.
“Before you start bitching, they don’t have ground floor rooms.” Cohen flashed a smug smile at Chance that was actually meant to be friendly. Odd. “Guess you’ll have to deal with the 14th floor.” Cohen smiled and waited for the smartass comeback, but none came. Chance was lost in his own thoughts and just grunted in frustration at the demon. Cohen frowned, perplexed by not getting a rise out of him. His cool blue eyes swung to Lilith and he lightly shook his head.
Cohen slapped a keycard into Lilith’s hand and gave her a very significant look. “You can’t let Peisinoe in your head like this. She’s under guard in Alabama. I need your head in the game, Lilith. What I don’t need is a pair vampires that are more useless than the sparkling emo vamps in Hollywood. Do what it takes to snap out of it.”
Lilith simply nodded and took the key before heading back to the trunk of the car. He was absolutely, one hundred percent right. She was letting the siren’s threat control her. Of course that was precisely what Peisinoe wanted, but it sure as hell didn’t mean Lilith had to give it to her.
She grabbed her luggage and her forensic case before heading into the hotel lobby. She could hear whispered words behind her, but she ignored them. There was no magic wand she could wave to erase the memories, whether they were real or not. She just had to block it all out for now and concentrate. They had the addresses for the two guys in the morgue. They needed information and she had work to do.
* * *
Thirty minutes later, Cohen, Chance and Lilith parked their rental car on a busy street in Queens. The dilapidated neighborhood looked like it was straight out of Coming to America. There was a cluster of gang members huddled together on one of the stoops, a homeless guy in a threadbare coat pushing a shopping cart full of random junk, even a few eager working girls getting an early start to the evening. Street parking only meant they had to park five blocks away. Joy of joys.
Cohen straightened his tie and smoothed down his suit as he eyed the rough street. He actually looked nervous. Sure, there was graffiti on the brickwork, trash littering the sidewalks and gutters, and tons of rotten wood and cracked paint. Still, it was a far cry from the ghettos of Philadelphia. At least 80 percent of these buildings had functional roofs that weren’t collapsing.
“Classy neighborhood, huh?” Lilith grabbed her kit and started down the sidewalk fearlessly. Just two weeks ago she would have waited for the cover of night and snuck inside while jumping at every sound. Now she had bigger things to worry about than a bunch of thugs. She’d met the boogeymen that go bump in the night face to face. Hell, her nightmares were scarier than this street. Plus she had a big, strong bodyguard behind her and a demon next to her. It randomly occurred to her that she had no idea how old Cohen really was. With their regenerative gifts, he could be as old as her father or even older.
As they crossed the street, the thugs stopped talking and eyeballed them. Lilith could feel the prickle of hostility. It was like a pack of dogs eyeing another pack on their turf. Most of the looks passed over Cohen pretty quickly. Apparently he didn’t look like much of a threat with his moderately tall, thin frame and weak chin.
Their eyes lingered on Lilith with something other than territorial hostility. Their faces said it all, biting their lips, eyes narrowed, twitches of a sickening smile pulling at their lips. It was enough to make her skin crawl. She set her jaw and strode forward with confidence. She couldn’t let her nerves show. That would be like wearing a flashing sign that said “Please sexually assault me!”.
When their eyes finally landed on Chance and his 6’3” leanly muscled frame, a few of them stood up. The bravado reached a fevered high, and then their brains kicked in. None of them were huge and Chance was pretty intimidating even if you didn’t know how well trained he was. They settled back in and were content to just eye him all the way down the street.
The trio was crossing a side street when Chance broke the silence. “Huh? Guess they have all kinds here in Queens.”
Lilith turned and followed Chance’s eyes to a petite woman in dark skirts, and a large black shawl wrapped around her shoulders. She was shuffling down the alley, heading away from them, giving them a profile view. The woman’s long hair, twisted into dreads, swung back and forth as she moved, revealing glimpses of necklaces and fetishes dangling and swaying.
“Not exactly the typical club girl style this neighborhood is known for, but not that weird.” Lilith shrugged and stepped up onto the sidewalk.
“Could just be her style I guess. Maybe she has a shop where she tells people their fortune or creates voodoo dolls for women angry at their baby daddies.”
Lilith chuckled and shook her head. “That’s a little stereotypical isn’t it?”
Chance quirked an eyebrow and stepped up next to her, still keeping his distance. “All stereotypes start with a truth, Cher. Things are what they are. Do I thi
nk all people in Queens are like that? No, but a lot of them are. I know from experience. Just like I know the lady with the shopping cart loitering in front of the door is going to ask us for change.”
Cohen was a few feet ahead of them now. Lilith stopped and watched him walk up to the door. Before he could even double check the address, the woman in layers of ratty clothes sidled up to him. She spoke too softly for Lilith and Chance to hear, but the pleading look on her face and the unfriendly look on Cohen’s said that Chance was exactly right.
Chance flashed a grin that warmed her heart. It wasn’t enough to abolish the nightmare in her head, but it helped. “Told ya. I know the streets. I’ve spent a long time watching them for…” He paused and the smile on his face faltered. “Well,” Chance cleared his throat, glanced down at Lilith quickly, and flashed a hollow smile. “guess we better get to work.”
“Chance…” Her voice was soft as she started to reach for his arm. He turned to face her and her hand just fell back to her side, her words a useless lump in her throat. Behind his false bravado, his hazel eyes were so wounded that it just struck her like a brick to the chest.
“Let’s just get this done, Lily. We will figure everything else out later.” He started to move past her, a frown fixed onto his handsome face.
She wanted to stop him, grab his arm, kiss him, make it all better, but she couldn’t. It wasn’t just about the damn banshee chick. With Gregor dead, both of their lives would be changed forever, assuming they even survived all this. Lilith just stood there on the stoop, staring at the door that Cohen and Chance had disappeared through.
“It’s not the end of the world, dearie.” The raspy voice jolted Lilith right out of her thoughts. She instinctually took a step back and found herself face to face with the homeless woman who’d asked Cohen for change. This close, the smell of her unwashed body was almost palpable. Her teeth were yellowing and her skin was a mass of wrinkles from both age and the sun. Still, she had the definite rosacea that didn’t come from the sun, but from the bottle. Yep, most stereotypes started with a common truth.