by Jenny Allen
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.”
Lilith and Cohen broke into semi-hysterical laughter as four police cars and an ambulance pulled up to the scene. There was no more time for mental breakdowns. They had parts to play for the local cops, although their victim story really wasn’t much of a stretch. They weren’t gonna have to hide much and that made the story more believable. It was time to take a cue from Cohen and pull on her acting face.
A uniformed officer escorted Lilith over to the back of an ambulance. He looked familiar but it took Lilith’s jumbled brain a few minutes to realize he’d been at the morgue earlier with Detective Blaire.
The EMT worked to clean up her head wound while the officer finally opened his notepad. Lilith stuck to the literal facts emphasizing that she had no idea who these men were or why they would attack them. She went over the shooting sequence with him a few times before he was satisfied. The entire time she held the burner cell in her hand, praying for it to ring. Why wasn’t Chance calling her back? She tried to stay calm and focused on answering all of the officer’s questions, but her chest felt tighter with every passing moment.
The EMT patched up her head wound and wrapped up her right wrist but Lilith stopped him when he tried to put her arm in a sling. It still hurt like hell, but it would heal. He did, however, make her sign a form that she was refusing treatment. By the time she escaped the EMT’s disapproving glare, Detective Blaire showed up. He pushed his wire-rimmed glasses up his nose and looked around the scene which was a buzz of activity.
There were forensic photographers, lab techs, hundreds of yellow number tags, flatbed tow trucks waiting on the wrecks, and cops throwing up yellow tape to restrain the decent size crowd hovering around the perimeter. Apparently, they were the neighborhood’s chaotic entertainment for the night.
Blair and the two officers that took their statements all compared notes while Lilith carefully watched their facial expressions. They definitely weren’t considering her or Cohen bad guys. The only angry judgment that flickered across their faces appeared when they looked at the SUV or the bodies of the mysterious henchmen.
Lilith walked slowly towards the three cops as she dialed the hotel again. The desk clerk put her through to their room, but the phone just rang and rang with no answer. Dammit. Where the hell was Chance? Lilith swallowed the bubble of panic that threatened to send her into a tailspin.
Cohen was right. There were dozens of mundane reasons why Chance might not answer the phone. Still, she couldn’t help but think the worse. What if there was another team that went after Chance? What if he was already dead or worse? What if he was being tortured while they waited for her and Cohen to return? Her chest felt impossibly tight. She needed to get there. Now. She didn’t have time for this.
The detective saw her approaching and walked forward to meet her. The deep wrinkles around his eyes seemed even deeper than they had earlier. A Hollywood style, professional assassination attempt on consulting police officials would definitely do that.
“Ms. Adams. I’m glad you and Detective Cohen are all right.” His voice was softer and more pleasant than it had been this morning even if it was still a bit nasally. Maybe she’d been too hasty to dismiss him earlier as a woman-hater.
“Thank you, Detective.” Cohen flashed a smile as he walked up behind Lilith. “We were lucky that they weren’t better organized. I only wish we knew more.”
Blaire pushed at his glasses and nodded toward Cohen. “We’ll figure out who was behind this.” His voice was confident but the twitches around his mouth and the pinching around his eyes betrayed the truth.
Lilith knew he’d ever learn the truth but she flashed the Detective a confident smile. “I ‘m sure you will. I wondered if I could ask you a favor. Mr. Deveraux stayed at the hotel while we were picking up dinner. He hasn’t answered his phone and I’m worried that whoever was behind this might have sent someone to deal with him...”
“Yes, could you have a uniform officer drive Ms. Adams to the hotel? I will stay behind and help in any way I can.” Cohen took over for her. Maybe he sensed her struggling to control her rising panic
. For once she was actually thankful for his assistance.
“Of course, of course.” Blaire called over the officer that had taken Lilith’s statement. “Tramble, give Ms. Adams here a lift to her hotel. She may need some backup there.”
“Thank you, Detective Blaire.” Before she took off, Lilith glanced back at Cohen for a moment. He merely nodded and flashed a reassuring smile.
Moments later Officer Tramble and Lilith were speeding toward the Clarion hotel complete with sirens and lights. The closer they got, the more anxious Lilith became. When they were a block away from the hotel, Officer Tramble killed the sirens and the lights. If there was an intruder, they definitely didn’t want to panic him. They pulled up right in front of her room and the Officer handed her his backup weapon.
“Just in case you need it. I’ll back you up.” He nodded and quietly exited the car while Lilith did the same. There was a flickering light shining through the sheer hotel curtains. Fire.
Panic stole Lilith’s breath and she rushed up to the door. Images of the hotel fire in Knoxville flickered through her mind. Dammit. No! She wasn’t going to lose another person in her life. The officer put his back to the wall beside the door and nodded to her.
Lilith steadied herself, making sure the gun’s safety was off. Her right arm blazed painfully as her fingers tightened around the grip, but she ignored the sharp throbbing. She took a deep breath and kicked in the door. The two of them rushed into the room, guns drawn, scanning every inch. Lilith’s mouth dropped as her gun fell to her side. Of all the things she had imagined, this definitely wasn’t one of them.
Chapter 13
Chance jumped to his feet, lighter in hand, with guilty surprise slapped across his chiseled face. Sheer harmless panic. Every single flat surface in the room was covered with tea light candles. It was like a scene from some overly dramatic romance movie that usually gave Lilith the dry heaves. She could feel her face turning red in complete embarrassment as she became painfully aware of the police officer behind her. With her jaw set tight, she turned to Officer Tramble and slapped the gun into his hand.
