by Jenny Allen
She burst out of the cornfield, into a clearing. She slowed down long enough to weigh her options. There was a small house just ahead, but there were no cars parked outside, no guarantee anyone would even be home. A little closer to her sat an old barn that was probably painted red about fifty years ago, judging by the faded, peeling paint. She couldn’t see any other buildings, no main roads, no people. The barn was her best bet. She could try and hide long enough to call for help or at least grab something that might make a decent weapon. She veered full speed towards the barn with every inch of her body crying out in pain.
Lilith skidded to a halt at the hay-covered floor of the barn. She looked around desperately, pawing through anything she could find. Finally, she uncovered a pair of rusty hedge clippers and snatched them up. The sound of leaves rustling in the cornfield still echoed in her pounding head. He was still out there. She scrambled behind the tall bales of hay, just barely squeezing her skinny body between them and the wall. When she was far enough in, she dug her phone out of her pocket, which was thankfully not broken, and hit redial.
He picked up on the second ring. “Cohen.”
She kept her ragged voice to a whisper. “It’s Lilith Adams. I need help. Use a GPS tracker on my phone, whatever you need to do, but get someone here now, please!”
Spencer was shouting again and he sounded a lot closer. Her heart was tripping in her throat, making it hard to breathe. Cohen’s voice almost startled her. “What’s happening? You need to tell me.”
“I can’t right now. Get here or you’ll be putting me on a slab next to Miriah.” She hung up and shoved the phone back into her pocket.
“Come out, come out wherever you are!!” Spencer’s shrill voice rose and fell in sharply melodic tones that just terrified her.
She closed her eyes and concentrated on keeping her breathing even, not panicking. It was too late for her to try to run now, he was too close. She gripped the shears tight in her hand and prayed that he’d give up, prayed that he wouldn’t smell the blood. It was just wishful thinking.
Her head was still throbbing with a violent pain that was churning her stomach. Her face felt burning hot with sharp aches that probably meant hairline fractures. A sharp pain in her right side flared with every little breath. Every single muscle screamed in protest. Adrenaline was the only thing keeping her conscious. She couldn’t run anymore. In fact, she needed a hospital, but right now she had to keep it together, she could fall apart later.
Every silent second that passed felt like an eternity. Her hands started to tremble from the effort of clenching the rusty shears. Then his voice boomed so close that she almost jumped, terror making her heart race a million miles an hour.
“I know you’re in here. I can smell the blood.” Spencer’s voice was a vicious sneer of tones. He had to be just outside the barn. Her heart sank. There was no way he wouldn’t find her. All she could hope for was that Spencer wouldn’t be able to really grab her back here, wedged behind the huge bales of hay. She still had the sheers too. At least she could fight back, hopefully, if her body didn’t just give out. On top of all the injuries, she knew she was losing blood. The blood she’d gulped down at the lab was probably the only reason she was still alive at this point. Still, if she lost too much, she’d either die or attack the first human she came across out of shear animalistic desperation.
Footsteps crunched across the hay, getting closer, then farther. He must have walked all the way across the barn. Lilith squeezed her eyes shut, focusing everything she had on the sound of his footsteps. Her nerves were rattled so she eased her grip on her weapon, hoping she’d have enough time to snatch it up if she had to. The footsteps were coming closer again, terribly close, and then they stopped.
“You saw Miriah’s body. You know what’s going to happen to your father, Chance, you, maybe even those detectives. They begged to die, both of them. Of course, leaving Miriah in her office wasn’t part of the plan…He has his reasons though. Soon, you and your precious loved ones will be fuel for my fire.” He was standing just in front of the hay bales, judging by his voice.
Blood pounded in her ears, filling the deafening silence. What was he waiting for? This close, he had to smell her. Maybe he was just trying to push her buttons. If he could piss her off maybe she’d just come to him. Yeah, well, she wasn’t that damn stupid. She was more terrified than pissed off anyway. She just kept thinking about her nightmare, seeing her father burn, the lifeless look of Chance’s eyes. Her skin broke out in a cold sweat and she almost dropped the shears.
“Your father is gonna beg for his life too, like the spineless coward he is. Guess it runs in the family. I hope you haven’t bled out back there. It would be a pity if you died too soon. I have plenty of things I want to do to you, starting with that smartass mouth of yours.”
There was a faint sound somewhere off in the distance, but she couldn’t hear it well enough to recognize it. Suddenly the footsteps sprinted across the floor, out the barn door and then she heard the rustling of leaves again. She just sat there dumbfounded. Spencer ran off into the cornfield? The distant sound was growing louder, getting closer but she still couldn’t place it.
What would actually scare Spencer away? Then she suddenly recognized the sound of tires crunching on gravel. That’s why he ran. He didn’t want to be seen. Down here, in the south, if someone found him beating the crap out of her, he was more likely to get shot than hauled off to jail. Saved by redneck justice. She almost laughed with tears of hysterical joy as she dropped the sheers and started to slide out of her hiding place. It couldn’t be Cohen, he may not be human, but there was no way he could get here that fast. It didn’t matter, any person that wasn’t Spencer, meant a chance of survival.
As soon as she wasn’t being supported by a wall and bales of hay, she fell painfully forward to her hands and knees. Her muscles didn’t want to work and every inch of her body screamed in pain. She choked back more bile as her head spun so fast that she almost collapsed right there on the floor of the barn. No. No! She had to get to the person in the approaching truck. Spencer may not be attacking her right now, but he wasn’t gone. He’d linger in the corn, waiting to see if the person took off again or just drove through. If she missed this chance, she was dead.
Lilith crawled up a hay bale, pulling herself up on her shaky legs and pushed forward again. She stumbled through the barn door and out onto the crude driveway. As soon as she touched that gravel, she felt safer. It was like stepping out of the dark into the warm, brilliant sunshine.
There was an old red pickup truck cruising up the long drive. Relief flooded through her so powerfully that she just sank to her knees in the gravel, not even feeling it bite uncomfortably at her skin. The truck screeched to a halt a few yards in front of her and finally she took in a gasping painful breath and closed her eyes with tears streaming down her cheeks.
The driver’s side door popped open and footsteps crunched across the rocks, running toward her. “Oh god, are you okay, Ma’am.” Strong hands were suddenly helping her up to her feet again. She blinked her eyes open and almost couldn’t focus on the weatherworn face in front of her. “I gotta get you to the hospital.” He was saying it more to himself than her. His voice was older, and his thick accent made it a little difficult to understand. When she tried to open her eyes again, she finally focused on his face. Years of being in the sun made him almost look like an entirely different race. Deep wrinkles and sundried skin covered his face, even though his eyes seemed to say he wasn’t all that old.
Her legs gave out and he hauled her up again. One strong arm slid behind her knees and suddenly he was carrying her to his truck. “Police station.” She just managed to croak out. Her throat was raw from all the bile and now that the adrenaline was leaving her system, she was reeling from all the pain. Her head spun like a merry-go-round on crack. Definitely a concussion, if not worse.
“I have to get you to the hospital. I’ll call the cops once we’re there. I promise.
” He stuffed her into the passenger side of his truck and carefully pulled the seatbelt across her. As soon as the belt touched the center of her chest, she yelped at the flare of pain. “I’ll just try and drive slow.” He left the seatbelt dangling and ran for the driver’s side.
Lilith managed, just barely to struggle through all the pain, nausea and dizziness. She blinked and focused as hard as she could. “Thank you, for helping me. I do need a hospital, but I need to get to the Police Station first.” She paused, drawing in a shaking breath. “Someone’s after me. I need Detective Cohen. Please, promise to take me to the station first?”
The old man never took his eyes off the road, but his head dipped just a tiny bit. “All right. Since someone’s after you an’ all. But then right to the hospital afterw’rd.” He nodded firmly, emphasizing his point. With that settled, she relaxed against the seat and felt everything just give out. Her eyes fluttered closed and the comforting vibration of the truck cruising down the gravel country roads pulled her under. The rest was just darkness.
Chapter 14
A cacophony of muted voices and phones ringing echoed in her aching head. As she started to wake up, her entire body flared to life in blinding, mind-numbing pain. Her head throbbed mercilessly and her face felt cold. It was ten times worse than waking up in Duncan’s basement. A groan escaped her lips as her eyes tried to flutter open. The lids felt impossibly heavy and the bright florescent light blinded her. She heard motion somewhere to her right. The sound sent her heart racing. Her eyes flew open and she tried to move away from it, her body screaming in protest.
“It’s okay, Lilith. You’re safe.” The voice was soft as silk, soothing, but it wasn’t Chance. Finally her eyes focused for an instant on Detective Cohen’s almost handsome face as it loomed in front of hers and then everything went blurry again. “You shouldn’t move. You’re pretty banged up.” His steady hands reached out, repositioning an ice pack on her face as she begrudgingly started to relax into the soft leather of a sofa. There was a look in his eyes, something dark and haunted that made her think that ‘banged up’ was the politically correct version of the truth.
“Where am I?” Her voice sounded rough and husky, her throat burning from the bile. Still, it was nothing compared to the intense pain throbbing in her head. She fought down wave after wave of nausea and struggled to stay conscious.
“You’re at the police station. I was flying down country roads, following the GPS signal on your phone, when a red pickup truck waved me over.” She glanced up at his soft brown eyes and saw genuine worry and concern in them. It actually kind of surprised her. Between their odd conversation and Coffee’s comments, she didn’t exactly expect compassion from him. “I think you frightened that old man half to death.” His smile was so warm that it almost made her forget his abnormally small chin.
“I guess he wasn’t expecting a half dead woman to come stumbling out of his barn.” She tried to smile but it ended in a wince of pain. The stiff muscles of her face throbbed painfully and she remembered all the abuse it’d taken. First hitting the steering wheel, then Spencer’s teeth shattering punch, a slap so hard it’d probably left a massive bruise, not to mention the vicious head butt to Spencer’s nose.
Her tentative fingers moved along her cheeks, feeling the swollen, tender flesh. She groaned and let her shaky hand fall back to the couch. “Great.” She mumbled, mostly to herself. “Now I really look like a domestic abuse victim.”
Cohen bit off a snort of laughter and handed her another icepack for her face. “How’s your head?”
“It feels like I went fifty rounds with Mike Tyson.” The cold ice pack felt like heaven on her burning skin.
She heard him shift next to her, probably sitting on the ground next to the couch. When she opened her eyes again, his face hovered near hers, not enough to invade her space, but definitely close enough so he couldn’t be ignored. His mouth was drawn in serious lines, jaw clenched tight, definitely angry.
“What happened? I got a call about a security truck crashed in a ditch. That yours?”
She nodded her head, which was a huge mistake. Pain flared through her so sharp that her vision swirled and she had to struggle to stay conscious. She fought the sudden urge to throw up and leaned back. “Uh, yeah. I borrowed it.” After a deep breath, which burnt like fire thanks to the most likely broken ribs, she opened her eyes again. “Chance has the keys to the rental car.”
“You didn’t just run off the road. So what happened?” His eyes were all business and fire. No way was he going to let this go. He knew at least something about the family. Richard seemed to think he knew about their race. There was no certain way to tell if he was an enemy or an ally, but right now she needed help. She had no choice.
“It was… Spencer, Duncan’s son.” Something passed over his face, but she couldn’t figure out what he was thinking. “If you want the whole story, you have to tell me who you are. I know you aren’t just some human detective. I know you’ve been investigating Duncan. Tell me why, because right now I need an ally and I’m guessing that you need information that doesn’t apply to your…police business.”
The Detective sat back on his heels, a smile playing across his thin lips. Somehow it completely transformed him. It was an expression that belonged to that odd gracefulness of his more than the sweet, good little detective. “You’ve been doing your homework.” The heavy southern accent was gone, leaving the twinge of something vaguely European.
There was a long pause as he considered her carefully. She was starting to think he wasn’t going to say anything at all when he finally continued. “My family sent me up here a few months ago. They’ve been searching for a key to some old book for centuries. Apparently it contains a little too much information about my family for their comfort. So they’ve been tracking down the author and anything they can find on it. They narrowed it down to Duncan. That’s why I’m here. I was planning on approaching him, civilly, to discuss the matter once I was certain he was the one I was looking for. Now he’s gone missing.”
Lilith studied his face carefully as he talked. There were flashes of mild resentment, maybe for being sent on this mission, even an air of rebellion. Somehow she didn’t think he felt this book was as important as his family did. Still, everything he said seemed true by his facial expressions. Of course, she apparently wasn’t as good at reading people’s faces as she thought these days. Spencer sure had her fooled.
“I’m not here to hurt you or your family, Lilith. I can be your ally. It’s important for me to find Duncan alive.”
“So you are a vampire then?” The smile that crossed his face when she asked her question sent chills down her spine. She knew the answer before he even opened his mouth.
“No. I’m not a vampire and I’m not human. There are more things out there than you realize, Lilith. What I am is not important. I can help you and your family, and in return, you can help me find what I’m looking for.”
She didn’t have any choice. It may come back to bite her in the ass, assuming she had an ass to bite after all this, but she was out of options. Painfully, she pushed up on the couch just enough to not be flat on her back. Even that small movement was more painful than chewing on a mouthful of glass. “Then get Chance out of holding, bring him here and I’ll tell you what I know.” She pressed the ice pack against the opposite side of her face, hissing a breath as it touched the bruised skin.
Without any hesitation, Cohen pulled himself up and stalked purposefully through the door. She noticed the odd kind of grace to his walk but couldn’t quite figure out what it reminded her of.
Lilith glanced down at her clothes and groaned. Her dark green button up shirt was torn, frayed, not to mention completely caked with mud and blood. Her jeans hadn’t faired any better, neither had her feet for that matter. The tops were caked with dirt and splotches of blood. They ached and burned. She was pretty damn sure she didn’t want to see what the bottoms looked like. When her fingers tried to dig
through her auburn curls, they were instantly tangled in a bloody, frizzy, snarling mess. She dug a hair band out of her pocket, wincing the entire time, and just threw it into a hasty bun. Then she pushed the ice pack back against her face with a sigh. This was definitely not her best day ever.
The noise and intense throbbing in her head was growing louder and more painful with every second. Something was wrong. Very wrong. She closed her eyes, leaning into the ice packs, taking shallow breaths and trying desperately to make it all stop.
A few minutes later the door swung open. Lilith tried to turn but her muscles screeched and she just held the icepack to the worst of the pain. Chance loomed into view and the look on his face said it all. He was white as a sheet, tears stinging his eyes red, and his jaw clenched painfully tight.
“You look great too.” She croaked and moved the ice pack to the left side of her face so she could see him better.
Chance sank to the floor next to her in a boneless heap. “Oh God, Lily.” The pained tone in his voice made her want to cry. His hand caressed over hers, just about the only part of her body that wasn’t in immense pain. “I should have been there.”
“Why? So you could almost get killed too? It’s not your fault, Chance.” Her voice wavered as the tears she’d been fighting welled in her eyes and tightened her already sore throat.
His eyes hardened as the door closed. With his jaw clenched and tension pulling his body tight he looked up at whoever was at the door. She assumed it was Cohen. “. You’re right.” Chance’s voice sounded hollow and wooden. It made alarm bells ring in her ears. Of course that could have just been the severe concussion. “It’s his fault.” Chance surged to his feet, his hands balling into fists at his sides.