by Jenny Allen
Cohen blinked and it looked like he wanted to crawl under the chair. Lilith admired the fact that he sat perfectly still under Gregor’s angry glare. “No, Sir. I have not.” Gregor was about to turn around in smug satisfaction, when Cohen continued. “I have seen the result of it though. People cheer in the movies for people like you, the wronged vindicating the evil things done to them. What people fail to realize is that the suffering never ends. Killing all those people, it didn’t bring back your family. It only turned you into the monster that robbed you of them. Now you will never be free. You are forever haunted.”
Gregor spun on his heel, his cool grey eyes cold as ice, and wrapped his fingers around Cohen’s throat. The chair rocked back with Gregor’s momentum and he snarled inches from the Detective’s face. “It’s easy to spout philosophy when it’s not your daughter, your sons, your wife!” He spat the last word, but Cohen remained completely calm, keeping his body still. “I purged the world of wickedness.”
Lilith’s voice surprised even herself. “But you didn’t, did you? You created something much worse.” All she could think of was the bizarre blood sample that Duncan hid in his tin. Deep down she knew she was right, even if it seemed scientifically impossible.
Gregor released Cohen slowly and the anger melted as he turned toward his daughter. Surprise mixed with regret and pride, creating an odd expression as he crossed the room and knelt in front of her, tears stinging his eyes. His hand grasped hers as he looked up at her, searching her face. He completely ignored Chance’s hold on her other hand. This wasn’t about Chance. It was about him and his daughter.
“I didn’t know, Lily. You have to believe me. I didn’t know.” His desperate plea broke her heart to pieces and tears flowed down her cheeks. “For centuries I’ve carried this, a hollow shell of a man, until I met your mother. My heart felt alive for the first time since Margareet’s death the moment I saw her.” He swallowed the lump in his throat and pressed a kiss to the back of her hand. “And then you were born, and it was like the world sprang to beautiful life again. I didn’t think it was possible for me. I thought my life would be an eternity assisting my own kind, trying to atone for my sins. Please, Lily, believe me. I’m not a monster, I was blinded with rage and heartache, but that’s not who I am. Having Rosaline and you, it felt like the mysterious god humans pray to all the time forgave me and brought me a new life.”
Lilith held his gaze, pouring every bit of sympathy she could muster into her face. “You will always be my dad and I will always love you. Right now, I need to know what happened to Ashcroft, what you know. We will have time for everything else later.” She had to keep herself together. As conflicted as she was about this new image of her father, they still had a very big problem.
Gregor nodded, swallowing his tears and looking down at her hands in his. “I tortured him. It was inhumane what I did. I hurt him in every way I could think of, visited every sort of pain upon him. Eventually, his pulse grew deathly weak. I didn’t want it to stop. If he died, then I no longer had a purpose. I needed him to suffer.” She could hear the shear pain and guilt in his voice, but all her mind kept screaming was ‘My dad, my father, did to Ashcroft what he had done to Miriah.’ It was just too much for her to process and without thinking, she pulled her hand away.
He didn’t move from the floor, just hunched down as if a huge weight was pushing down on his shoulders, crushing him. Perhaps, in a metaphorical way, it truly was. “Duncan fought with me, trying to get me to see reason. I almost killed him, my own brother. I was blinded by my rage, my need for more, for a purpose. For years my entire existence was hunting this man and his family and I didn’t know anything else at that point. It was all I could see. I…I tried to turn Ashcroft, to make his torment last forever.”
Lilith’s stomach lurched violently and she leapt over Chance, running for the bathroom. She couldn’t hear anymore! She had to get out of there. She spent a good five minutes dry heaving over the toilet, since there was nothing in her stomach to throw up. Her skin was hot and clammy and she struggled to just breathe as tears poured down her cheeks. Her whole world had just turned upside down and inside out. There were things she still needed to know, but she didn’t want the answers anymore. She couldn’t deal with her father as a sadistic monster. Not when he’d been so loving and kind her whole life. How could that even be possible?
There was a light knock before the bathroom door pushed open. She glanced up just long enough to see Chance in the doorway and closed her eyes, trying to get her brain to work. She had to shut off the emotional, personal side. She had to see this as another case or they’d all die.
She felt a hand smooth over her hair and she drew in strength from the touch. Her eyes flashed open with a troubling thought. Every time she’d come into direct contact with Chance since the incident in the police office she’d felt his emotions, almost like she was drawing on his energy. It wasn’t just a metaphorical feeling. It was like touching an emotional battery.
“How are you feeling?” She frowned up at his tired face and already knew the answer.
“I think I’m supposed to be asking you that.” His charismatic smile was just a touch duller than it had been.
“I’m serious, Chance.”
This time he frowned and crouched down next to her. “I’m dead tired. Why?”
Lilith pushed to her feet, almost knocking him over. “I need to talk to Cohen.”
“Uh okay. You wanna tell me what is going on?”
She looked down at Chance, down into those warm hazel eyes that were impossibly deep, and sighed softly. “Something’s wrong. I need to talk to him in private. I do need a favor though.”
He hopped up, sliding his hands around her waist. She could feel the tension, the desire, in him, just under the surface and she knew that if she wanted to she could reach in and touch it, absorb it. Chance brushed his lips against hers, just a faint touch, but it felt like an electric fire burning down her spine. It was so intoxicating that she was almost lost in it. “Whatever you need.” His whispers tickled along her skin like butterfly wings.
She pushed back away from him, panting. Something was definitely, definitely wrong. Sure Chance made her feel fantastic before, weak-kneed, doe eyed. But this...this was something different. “I…I just can’t right now.” Fear had her heart tripping like a caged rabbit.
She might as well have slapped him in the face the way he looked. “Sorry, I didn’t mean…I know you’re upset about … well everything. It’s a lot to process, but…I thought I was helping.”
“Chance, please, don’t. Something is just wrong and I don’t want to hurt you. I need to talk to Cohen, find out what the hell he did to me.”
That caught his attention and he moved to take her hand. She stepped back as fast as she could, franticly avoiding his fingers as if one touch might kill her…or him. On top of everything else, she couldn’t deal with him touching her right now. She had to know what it was first.
“I need you to keep an eye on Gregor. He could probably use a break from…storytelling, while I talk to Cohen and maybe get a shower. I still have things I need to know from Dad, but I…I just can’t do it right now. I just can’t face him.” Tears burned her eyes as this new horrific image of her father kept repeating in her brain.
Chance just nodded and walked silently out of the bathroom into the main room. Lilith sank down the wall and pulled her knees up tight against her, wrapping her arms around them. What she wouldn’t give to just go back to New York, back to normal.
A few minutes later Detective Cohen peeked his head into the room. “Chance said you needed to see me?”
She looked up with a sharp glare. “Get your ass in here and shut the door.”
Looking completely confused, Cohen did just that and then perched on the vanity sink. “Look, I’m sorry about your dad. I wasn’t trying…”
“What the fuck did you do to me?”
He frowned and she could definitely see the defensive tr
aces in his face. “What are you talking about?”
“How is it that I can suddenly feel people’s emotions, tap into to it, draw on it? It definitely was NOT a skill I had before you fed me your blood, so again, what the fuck did you do to me?”
All the confusion vanished, replaced by…humor, awe? She sure as hell didn’t think it was funny. “Huh…it’s a fairly rare side effect. I never thought to mention it.”
“What the hell is it?”
“Well, you see, my kind feeds on energies, it’s what affords us our long lives. We have our different tastes, of course, but any strong emotion works best. When have you felt it?”
“Anytime Chance touches me, and just now when my Dad held my hand…” She shook her head and then stared at Cohen like she’d never seen him before. “How is that even possible? That’s superstitious crap, it doesn’t actually happen.”
“I beg to differ. It’s extremely possible. People’s energy affects others all the time. Like laughing because someone else is laughing, being sad because someone else is sad. It just affects us more and we use it to our advantage. Energy is energy; it’s never destroyed, just transformed.”
Lilith waved her hand and rubbed at the bridge of her nose with the other. “Stop. I don’t want a lesson on metaphysics right now. Is it…is it permanent?”
“Probably not.” Cohen shrugged and actually leaned back against the mirror. “Then again, it could be. I’ve never fed a vampire before.”
“Great. Yay for the test bunny.” Lilith leaned her forehead against her knees for a moment, thinking. She glanced up with another thought. “Is it dangerous?”
“For you? No, quite the opposite. If you have the ability to draw on others, it would be quite helpful for everything from healing to focusing. For the people you draw from, it can be. It’s just like a vampire feeding, if you take too much the victim dies.”
“Well how much is too much? Dammit…this is the last thing I need right now.”
“Oh I’m sorry. You’d rather I had let you die?” Cohen pushed himself off the countertop, anger pulling at every muscle. “I’ll keep that in mind next time. It’s not a figure of speech. You were seconds from dying. Chance was holding you, struggling to keep you from falling into a coma. There was rampant internal bleeding. Your brain was swelling at an insane rate. It was a matter of seconds until you were just as dead as Gregor’s family. I did what I had to do. It was the only way to keep you alive. I doubt Chance would give me such a hard time about your inconvenient side effects.”
“Cohen, I’m sorry, but hell. You could have warned me or something.”
“I didn’t exactly have time to read you the disclaimer. Besides, like I said before, it’s an extremely rare side effect. I have never actually seen it happen before. And for the record, warning you about it ahead of time wouldn’t have changed anything. You’d still be dealing with the side-effects or you’d be dead. Just be careful and you’ll be fine.” He stalked out of the bathroom without another word.
Great. She was three for three as far as hurting people’s feelings tonight. Maybe she should bitch at Alvarez to make it a perfect score. She was so damn upset that she hadn’t even thought to ask Cohen what the hell he was exactly. Some kind of advanced empath? Long lives. She wondered just how long they lived. Damn. A million questions for a whole other conversation.
She turned on the shower, running the water steaming hot, stripped out of her torn up bloody clothes and dived in. Everyone would just have to wait till she was done. She couldn’t take another minute with blood caked in her hair or her clothes sticking to her skin.
After the divine quiet of the shower she finally felt like a person again. The water washed away more than dirt and blood, it washed away all the crap in her head, leaving her thinking clearly for the first time since she’d left the lab. She wrapped herself in a fluffy hotel robe and took a deep breath, staring in the mirror. There were light bruises, but they were mere shadows. It would have taken her weeks to heal from the abuse she’d taken earlier, if she’d lived at all, which, from the sounds of it, was impossible. The bruise across her torso was the worst of them, still purples and yellows. Seatbelts may save your life but they sure hurt like hell. No more delays. She had to get out there and make sense out of things.
When she swung the bathroom door open, all the voices went completely silent. So much for just slipping into the conversation. Once she turned the corner, she saw Gregor half turned by the balcony doors and Chance sitting on the far bed, and they were both staring at her. There was no sign of Alvarez or Cohen.
“Where are the others?”
Chance was the one to speak up, his eyes falling to the bed. “They left to pick up our rental car and suitcases from Miriah’s apartment.”
“But Spencer is probably watching the place! He knows our stuff is there.”
“Exactly. Which is why we couldn’t go. He’s never met Alvarez and I’m sure he knows by now that Cohen is investigating his sister’s murder. It makes perfect sense and he has no reason to go after them. So, just relax.”
Lilith reluctantly nodded and slid onto a vacant bed, rubbing a towel through her hair. Neither of them seemed to be very talkative, so she decided to take this time to get down to business.
“Dad, the blood sample I found in Duncan’s little treasure trove of secrets; it was unlike anything anyone has ever seen before. I’m pretty sure it’s Ashcroft’s blood, the only known turned vampire. So how long have you known?”
Gregor regained his composure in her absence and he had that casual business attitude she was familiar with. “I thought he was dead. No one ever survived the change, so I rightfully thought that I’d killed him. Even Duncan thought that. Hell, we buried him. We didn’t even suspect anything until your mother’s death.”
“My mother’s death?” Lilith frowned, pausing with a towel wrapped around her hair, her hands clutching the terry cloth fabric. “But that was thugs in the park, why would you think…?”
“Distant family members dropped off over the years. Most of them seemed natural, unremarkable, and it never raised any suspicions. When your mother died…it was too similar. Not only were the cuts the same, but she was posed the same as Margareet the last time I saw her. I still didn’t dream it was even possible, but the thought nagged at the back of my head…and Duncan’s. That is when Duncan started researching the family tree. Spencer went off to Amsterdam the next year to study, Miriah was a newlywed, Duncan had reasons to be afraid, and so did I.”
His cool grey eyes rested heavily on her. It made sense. Similarities would definitely awaken old fears. “But if it was Ashcroft, why not just go after you or Duncan?”
“Because that’s not what he does. When we killed his son centuries ago, he didn’t try to kill us. He tried to make us suffer the way he suffered.”
“But they locked you in the tavern. They tried to burn you alive. How is that not going after you?”
“That wasn’t Ashcroft, it was his wife. When Duncan and I finally got to her…” He paused, wringing his hands. He wasn’t anxious to dive back into the role of monster. “She made it quite clear that she was solely responsible for burning down the tavern. Ashcroft wanted us to suffer. She just wanted us to die. Once Ashcroft and his men left for the moors, she took the remaining guards and rendezvoused with her spies in the city.”
Lilith shook off the semantics and tried to get back to the heart of the matter. “So after mom’s death, what did Duncan find?”
“Nothing at first. He found a litany of relatives that died over the years. Most of them were car accidents or muggings, nothing that really stood out except the fact that they were family.”
“So you thought that maybe he’d been picking people off, staying under the radar until he was ready to be seen?”
Gregor nodded. “That was his theory. I didn’t see the connection, or maybe I just didn’t want to. All the other deaths just seemed so…normal. Duncan kept digging, but he didn’t find anything u
ntil a couple years ago, when a young reporter on his payroll showed up with a weird blood sample. He claimed that he got it from a small town doctor who treated a patient involved in a car accident. He’d found the man unconscious and everywhere the sun touched his skin; he’d break out in horrible sores. The doctor thought it was some extreme case of Actinic Prurigo and he wanted to have the blood tested. He took it to the reporter who’d worked with him before on some strange cases, so he could send it to his special lab. Duncan sent Miriah to me, delivering the news that he thought Ashcroft might be alive. The blood sample was bizarre and he couldn’t study it for long in the lab without someone finding out, so he hid it.”
“So if Ashcroft knew someone took his blood, why wait until now to act?”
“I don’t think he knew. It must have been taken when he was unconscious.”
“Wait…Spencer said something about Duncan going into extreme research mode a couple years ago, when a reporter was killed.”
“Yes that sounds about right.”
“Well if Orrick didn’t know about the blood sample, why kill the reporter?”
Gregor frowned and paced in front of the balcony. “You’re right, he had to know then. So why wait?” He rubbed at his chin, deep in thought. “Unless he didn’t know at first. Perhaps he was tipped off. Still, why wait until years after killing the reporter to go after the sample?”
“Or why now? Wait… You and Duncan have discussed going public a lot right, for the past year or so?” Gregor nodded. Chance looked like he’d swallowed a lemon. “Besides the other elders, who else knew about it?”
Gregor frowned for a moment, his eyes glanced to Chance and he hesitated. It was like he’d just then remembered that he was even in the room. Gregor trusted Chance, but this was big. It was too late now. Lilith had already blurted it out. “Well you, Miriah, Malachi and Spencer.”
“That’s why.” She felt the absolute certainty of it. “Even with the blood sample, you and Duncan may know who you’re up against, but you still have rules, you still have to keep things secret. If you went public in a positive way, you’d have too much power, you’d be untouchable. If his end game is to destroy the family and you were in the limelight, there would be no way he could touch you. He’d only succeed in making you martyrs. Christ, that’s why he put Miriah’s body where he did. He figures if you are planning to go public, either push you to stay to the shadows or make you public in a way that no one would ever care if you were butchered to pieces. Hell they’d probably consider him a hero.”