“Please,” the vampire rasped. “I only—” Lucas had no interest in what this one had to say. Heintz had sent him forward as a sacrifice, and he had fulfilled his purpose. Lucas granted him the mercy of snapping his neck before he incinerated his heart with a short burst of power.

“Nicholas?” he said sharply.

“Ready at your command, my lord.”

Lucas sent his power raging through the big house. It spread outward like a massive concussion of air, rushing up the stairs, sending furniture crashing into walls, slamming open doors and breaking windows. Screams sounded from deep inside the structure, some of them muffled, as if in a vault or safe room. Lucas laughed out loud and turned to his lieutenant.

“The command is given,” he said and strode forward, his eyes flashing gold fire with the furnace of his power, his fangs in full view and gleaming. “Alfonso!” His voice boomed out like the wrath of God, or the wrath of a vampire lord, which was eminently worse. God was rumored to have a sense of mercy, whereas Lucas had none, especially not for traitors.

His vampires moved in from all sides, and the battle began, the air filled with the enraged roars of the combatants and the terrified screams of the dying. There were no humans in the house. Heintz had been that smart, at least.

Lucas passed several fights in progress, but he ignored everything in his search for Heintz. The coward was hiding. Lucas laughed gleefully and picked up his speed, racing through the house until he stood in front of a daytime sleeping vault. Heintz was behind that door, along with . . . Lucas tilted his head as his mind reached out . . . two other vampires. And they both belonged to Lucas. What an ass. These vaults had been designed to withstand human assault, not that of a powerful vampire. If the traitor was going to try to hide here, he should at least have been clever enough to hide behind someone Lucas couldn’t easily control.

Almost bored with the simplicity of it, Lucas sent his mind out and touched each of the two vampires cowering inside the vault with Heintz, ordering them to open the door and present themselves to their master. He could have ordered Heintz to deliver himself, too, but it was much more pleasurable to drink in the sweet taste of the bastard’s terror when he realized what was happening.

The heavy vault door swung open to reveal the two vampires already dropping back to their knees, heads bowed. Even Heintz had assumed the penitent posture. As if that would save any of them from their treachery.

Lucas entered the vault, moving with the preternatural speed of his vampire nature, and ripped the heads off the two vampires flanking Heintz. Blood sprayed from their severed arteries, coating Heintz in the thick red stuff. He swayed, moaning with fear, hands clasped in front of him as if in prayer.

Lucas regarded him dispassionately. “The sniper talked, Alfonso. He didn’t even bother to put up a fight. Saved himself the agony of torture. Unlike you, he was smart enough to see the writing on the wall.”

“Please, Master,” Heintz whispered. “I had no choice—”

“Silence, worm. You had a choice. You simply made the wrong one. Bad enough that you betrayed me—” Sudden rage rose hot and heavy in Lucas’s heart, nearly choking him with fury. He shoved his closed fist into Heintz’s open mouth, shattering his fangs as he rammed the fist down the vampire’s throat and used it as a lever to lift him into the air.

“You conspired with my enemy and hired a human to assassinate my Sire,” he snarled, and saw Heintz’s already terrified eyes fill with horror. Very few vampires still alive knew that Raphael was Lucas’s Sire. Both of them wanted it that way. It was a weapon they wielded in secret, and Lucas only voiced it now, because he wanted Heintz to understand the full magnitude of his sin before he died. Painfully.

The vampire was trying to shake his head, making guttural sounds deep in his throat, no doubt of denial. But it was far too late for that.

Lucas shook Heintz off his fist, dropping him to the floor.

“I beg you—” The worm began whining almost immediately, and Lucas flicked his fingers, silencing him.

He gazed down at the sniveling vampire dispassionately, then stepped back and started breaking bones, beginning with the little ones, fingers and toes, the delicate bones in the hand. Heintz groaned softly at first, but by the time Lucas had started on the big bones—the tibia and fibula in the calf, the thick femur in the thigh—the vampire was grunting like a rutting pig, the only sounds of pain he was able to make. Bloody tears streamed down his face as he groveled on the ground, unable to even wipe the snot from his chin.

Lucas worked systematically, splitting the skin open when he ran out of bones, slicing the abdomen and watching the vampire’s gray entrails spill onto the blood-slicked floor, making certain to keep the spinal cord intact and the heart beating. He wanted Heintz to feel every last ounce of pain before he died.

He was crouched over the bloody form of ruptured flesh and shattered bone when Nicholas found him. Heintz was whimpering weakly, his heart still beating, his vampire blood keeping him alive despite the destruction of every other major organ.

“Well?” Lucas asked Nicholas, never taking his eyes off Heintz.

“The other twelve are dead and dusted, my lord,” Nicholas said, crouching next to him and eyeing the wreckage of Heintz curiously, like a bug splayed for study. “What about this one?”

A small smile tipped the side of Lucas’s mouth. “His heart is still beating,” he said. “I could take him with us, see how long it takes him to regenerate enough to crawl.”

Nicholas winced. “He’ll get blood all over the new Gulfstream.”

Lucas laughed. “Good point. Very well.” He dug through the gore until he found Heintz’s beating heart and ripped it from its moorings. The vampire gave a final squeal of pain, and then died as his heart burst into flame on Lucas’s palm. The bloody mess turned to ash in moments, leaving nothing but a dark stain as testament that Alfonso Heintz had ever lived.

Lucas stood, slapping his hands together and eyeing his clothes in dismay. The black fabric went a long way toward concealing the blood, but he knew it was there. It was wet and sticky and damned uncomfortable. And it would soon begin to stink. Plus there was the new jet’s interior to consider.

“It’s late,” he said, automatically sending his thoughts out, verifying the well-being of each of the vampire warriors he’d brought with him. “We’ll take the trucks back and overnight at the Minneapolis house.”

“What about the FBI visit? Even if we leave first thing at sunset tomorrow, it’ll be hours before we get there.”

Lucas shrugged. “She’s dealing with vampires. If she’s stupid enough to show up too early, she’ll just have to wait. God knows she’s made me wait long enough.” He spared the stain of Alfonso Heintz a final glance, then started for the front of the house. “Come on. I want this place burned to the ground before we leave.”

Chapter Two

Quantico, Virginia

“Hunter, come in.”

Kathryn stepped into SAC William Fielding’s office. It was as neat as the man, obsessively neat, in her view. And that was saying something, since Kathryn wasn’t exactly known for her messy work habits.

“Close the door,” Fielding directed.

Kathryn complied, her jaw tightening automatically as she considered what it meant that he wanted the door closed. Fielding was better known for leaving the door wide open, especially where female agents were concerned. He was convinced women were naturally predisposed to sleep their way to the top and had a morbid fear of sexual harassment lawsuits.

Fielding wasn’t a bad looking man, and she was sure he’d had his share of admirers over the years, but culturally, he was trapped in the fifties. And he made no secret of the fact that he believed the FBI had made a mistake in opening its ranks to the weaker sex.

Of course, since most FBI agents were male, if you eliminated the weaker sex from the Bureau, there would be hardly any agents left. Kathryn bit her cheek against the urge to laugh at the inside joke, which reflected the opinion of pretty much every female agent she knew.

“Have a seat, Special Agent.”

Kathryn sat. If this bastard tried to cancel her vacation leave, he’d have far worse than a sexual harassment suit on his hands. Mayhem seemed likely. The man wouldn’t have any hands left when she was done with him! Which was no more than exaggerated wishful thinking on her part. The truth was, if he cancelled her leave, she’d grit her teeth and take it, because the only alternative was going AWOL, which would probably cost her her job. And she didn’t want that. She’d worked hard to get where she was. It was the only career she’d ever truly desired, and she was the perfect cog in the giant Bureau machine. Always on time, always willing to work the extra hours, the weekends.

Maybe Eduardo was right. Maybe it was time she loosened up a little, broke free of her own rigid rules.

And that reminded her of why she’d requested vacation leave. Her brother was the free soul of the family, and look where it had gotten him. Disappeared, missing . . . and . . . “Oh God,” she pleaded silently, “please don’t let anything terrible have happened to Dan.”

Fielding cleared his throat, drawing Kathryn’s attention back to the here and now. “I hear things, Hunter,” he said.

There didn’t seem to be any response to that, so Kathryn waited.

“I know your brother is missing. How long’s it been now?”

“Nearly two weeks, sir,” she confirmed, keeping her expression carefully blank, while wondering where he’d heard about Dan’s disappearance. Kathryn had been careful not to talk about her brother’s situation, though she had made a few phone calls. From home, of course, so no one could accuse her of slacking off on the job. She’d called the Sheriff in the small town where Dan had been staying while shooting in BadlandsNational Park, and might even have used her position as an FBI agent to set up an interview or two. That was assuming she could finally get her boss to approve some vacation time. Which was why she was sitting in Fielding’s office right now.