Victoria lay on a bed in the corner, wearing a white silk negligee and robe and looking just as still and lifeless as she had in the library. She wasn't wearing the choker and cuffs, and I could see the puncture wounds and splotchy purple bruises from where Dekes had bitten her over and over again.

"That son of a bitch," Owen growled. "She can't be more than twenty, twenty-one. She's still a kid."

His violet eyes grew dark and stormy, and I knew he was thinking about his sister, Eva, who was around the same age.

Owen handed me his silverstone staff, then carefully scooped Victoria up off the bed, taking as much care with her as he would have if it had been Eva lying there. Vanessa watched him the whole time, but she could see the concern and anger in his face just as I could. She sighed, and the Fire burning in her hand flickered and went out. Owen nodded at her and stepped out of the room, carrying Victoria's still deadweight. I started to go after him, but Vanessa grabbed my arm. I could feel the heat of her fingers through my sleeve.

"You're really here to kill Randall?" she asked, her voice catching on the last two words.

Although she tried to hide it, one emotion flickered in her eyes now, overpowering all the others - hope. A small, tremulous hope that I really would be able to kill Dekes and end this nightmare that she and her sister had been trapped in for so long. In that moment, I knew I would have tried to save them even if the vamp hadn't attacked me. Hope. It was the one thing that kept suckering me in time after time, the one thing that always seemed to make everything I went through worthwhile in the end.

"You'd better believe it, sweetheart," I said. "I'm the Spider. If you haven't heard of me, well, you should know one thing - I never, ever go back on my word."

Vanessa nodded. That was good enough for her. She followed me out of the room, and I grabbed the cell phone out of my vest again.

"Vanessa and Victoria are secure," I said. "Let's meet up and get them out of here before I go after Dekes."

"Roger that," Finn said a few seconds later. "Let's regroup on the front lawn."

"See you there."

I put the phone away, and we moved down the hallway. Donovan and Callie were in the lead, followed by Owen carrying Victoria, then Vanessa, then me. More shouts and screams filled the house now, along with growing clouds of black, billowing smoke. I could feel the heat of Vanessa's Fire magic still burning in the hallway behind me, gaining strength with every painting, carving, and piece of furniture it gobbled up. If Dekes didn't send some of his men to contain it, the flames could very well engulf the whole mansion and incinerate all the vamp's precious collections. What a shame that would be.

We came to another crossway. Donovan and Callie looked right, then left, before they both hurried across the open space to the hallway on the other side. Owen hefted Victoria in his arms and made it to the other side as well, along with Vanessa.

I'd just started to join them when three giants appeared at the end of the left hallway. They saw me standing there. For a moment they froze before all rushing at me at once.

Now I had a choice to make.

I could hurry and join the others, and we could try to outrun the giants and meet up with Finn, Bria, and Sophia. But I wasn't sure exactly where they were right now, and the giants knew the mansion far better than we did. Even with me acting as the rear guard, it would still put the others at risk, especially Callie and Victoria. All it took was one blow, one bullet, to end a person's life. No matter how hard I fought, the giants could always get lucky, and then someone would die.

I'd promised Bria I'd save Callie, and I'd promised Vanessa I'd get her and Victoria out of here. They'd all already suffered enough at the fangs of Randall Dekes, and I wasn't going to let the giants in front of me get their hands on the women - not now, when they were so close to being free of the vamp forever.

But even more than that, I'd made a promise to myself that Dekes would pay for what he'd done to me, and I wasn't leaving until the vamp was good and bloody and dead. I needed to kill him for my own peace of mind. If I didn't, I knew the tiny seed of fear and doubt Dekes had planted in me would grow and grow until it crippled me, until I wouldn't be able to think of anything else but my failure to kill him and take back the confidence he'd stolen, right along with my magic.

So that left option number two, which was me standing and fighting - alone - while the others escaped.

"Gin!" Donovan shouted. "Come on! We have to go. Now!"

I shook my head, and my eyes met Owen's across the distance. Gray on violet, with so many emotions crackling in the air between us. Love. Desire. Concern. But most of all, understanding.

Owen knew why I'd really come back here and what I had to do if I was going to overcome my fear and the ultimate pain of what Dekes had done to me. He hadn't said anything, but he knew I wouldn't be able to live with myself otherwise. That I wouldn't be able to be me, to be the Spider. Owen didn't like it, but he understood - he always understood me.

"Be careful," I thought he said, although I couldn't hear the words over the yells of the giants running toward me.

"Always," I replied, although I doubted he could hear me either.

My lover nodded, turned, and headed down the hallway with Victoria. A second later, Donovan let out a curse and started after him, holding Callie's hand.

Only Vanessa remained behind, frowning at me. Some emotion flared in the Fire elemental's eyes, but I couldn't tell what it was. Not with the three guards pounding toward me, getting closer with every second.

"Get out of here! Don't wait for me!" I yelled, waving my hand at her in a go-go-go motion.

Her tight, worried face was the last thing I saw before I turned again to face the giants.

Chapter 23

Owen had given me his silverstone staff when he'd picked up Victoria, and I decided to put the weapon to good use. I tightened my grip on the staff and started twirling it in my hands, quickly getting a feel for the long weapon. Despite being made out of pure silverstone, it was surprisingly light.

The three giants rushed at me. Unlike their friends, they didn't bother going for the guns they wore under their suit jackets. No, they just wanted to get their hands on me and beat me to death, but I wasn't about to let that happen.

I stepped up to meet the first giant, slamming the staff into his chest, then pivoting and snapping it around and down, driving it into his left knee and making him lose his balance. He fell to the floor, and his two buddies stumbled over him before righting themselves and coming after me again.

Back and forth we fought. They charged at me again and again, pushing me farther and farther down the hallway with every step we took. I danced in between them, hitting first one, then another, then another with the staff. I opened up cuts and made bruises blossom on their heads, legs, and chests, but I just didn't have the upper body strength that Owen did, so my blows weren't quite as vicious as his. Still, I was grateful for the staff, as it kept the giants from immediately overwhelming me. I knew that if I let just one of the bastards put his hands on me I was dead, especially since I didn't have my Ice and Stone magic to fall back on - or at least not as much of it as I normally would have.

Finally, I managed to get one of the giants down on the floor again. I leaped forward and overturned a table, putting it between me and the other two men, then whipped around to the guy who was on the ground behind me. Before he could recover, I hopped up into a chair that was sitting along the wall and raised up my weapon. Using my weight and momentum, I drove the end of the staff into his head as hard as I could. I managed to hit the sweet spot at his right temple, and his face made a sick, squishing sound as that part of his skull caved in. The other two giants were still trying to get around the table, so I raised the staff and brought it down again in the same place. The left side of the giant's skull cracked against the stone floor, and blood started to gush out of the head wounds I'd inflicted. He wouldn't be getting up from those. Not quite dead, but close enough to it not to matter right now.

I stepped back, putting his body between me and the other men, and twirled the staff once more. One down, two to go.

I got a lucky break when the second giant slipped and fell in the blood of his fallen buddy, and I drove the staff into his skull a couple of times just like I had with the first man.

But the last bastard just wouldn't die. Again and again, he came at me. He was quick for a giant and had good instincts, which was why he managed to sidestep my blows time after time. I was so busy fighting him that it took me a few seconds to realize he'd managed to force me all the way down the hallway and back into the library.

I risked a quick glance over my shoulder to make sure no more giants were waiting inside to sneak up on me from behind. A blur of books filled my vision before I focused on the danger in front of me once more.

"There's nowhere left to run, bitch," the giant snarled, bobbing and weaving like a boxer.

"You're the one who should think about running," I snapped back. "Seeing as how badly I've fucked up your two friends already. They'll both bleed out in another minute, two tops. And so will you."

The giant let out an angry roar and rushed toward me.

Swipe-swipe-swipe.

I managed to duck his first two blows, but the third one connected with my chest. It felt like someone had slammed a telephone pole into my stomach. The blow forced all the air from my lungs, cracked the cell phone in my vest pocket, and threw me five feet across the library. I hit a table and rolled across it, dropping to the other side, and the silverstone staff slid out of my hand and clattered across the floor. But instead of immediately getting up, I stayed down. Partly because I was trying to suck precious oxygen back into my lungs, and partly because I was tired of whacking at the giant with the staff. It was time to put him down for good. So I palmed my silverstone knife and waited.

The giant laughed, delighted that he'd finally managed to hit me. He didn't waste any time stepping around the table. He thought he had an advantage, and he was determined to finish me as quickly as he could. I let him have his little victory. It would be the last thing he'd ever smile about.

The giant bent down, dug his fingers into my shoulder, and flipped me over onto my back. "Not so tough now, are you, bitch - "

I lunged up and drove my knife into his chest. I hit an empty spot between one of his ribs, and my blade slashed through his heart like it was made of warm butter. The giant screamed with pain, but I was already yanking my knife out of his chest and slashing it across his throat. Blood poured out of the wounds, the coppery heat of it splattering onto my face, hands, and clothes, but I didn't care. Maybe it was gruesome of me, but the familiar sensation told me one thing - that I was still alive and my enemy wasn't.

The giant fell forward onto me, his eyes already going glassy, and I wiggled out from underneath his heavy weight. I got to my feet and stood there, still breathing hard, a bloody knife in one hand and the other hand resting on the back of the table that I'd rolled over.

Behind me, someone started clapping.

I whirled around and found Randall Dekes waiting for me.

The vampire stood in front of the fireplace, still clapping. He wore another pair of dapper gray pants topped by a matching shirt. Once again, that palm tree diamond nestled in the exact center of his silk tie. He must have been working in some other part of the mansion, perhaps his office, because he wasn't wearing a jacket, and he'd rolled his shirtsleeves up to his elbows. No dart guns up his sleeves tonight. Good.

He'd cleaned the blood off his face since the last time I'd seen him, but he hadn't bothered to hide the elemental power glowing in his eyes. All that stolen magic made the vamp's gaze burn with emerald green fire - a fire that I was looking forward to snuffing out forever.

I hadn't seen Dekes before when I'd done a quick scan of the room, and a second later, I realized why. A door along the back wall was standing open, one I hadn't noticed before because it was hidden in one of the bookcases. The vamp had slipped into the library from some other part of the house while I'd been fighting the giant. I would have preferred to backstab Dekes from the shadows, but I supposed this saved me the trouble of looking for him.

"What is that? Some sort of secret passageway?" I asked, finally getting my breath back. "Isn't that a little cliche?"

Instead of being pissed that I was still alive and mocking him, the vampire's face split into a sinister smile.

"Ah, Gin. What a delightful surprise this is," Dekes practically purred. "I'm so very happy you're still alive. More so than you can possibly imagine."

I raised an eyebrow. "I doubt you'll be thinking it's so fucking delightful when you're choking on all that stolen elemental blood running through your veins."

Dekes let out a mocking laugh. "Ah, if only you'd known how many people have said something like that to me over the years."

Instead of responding to him, I tightened my grip on my knife and took a step forward. I was about twenty feet away from the vampire, which meant I was too far away to cut him with my knife, and, with his fast reflexes, he'd be quick enough to duck out of the way if I threw the weapon at him. And of course, I didn't have enough Ice magic to freeze him where he stood. No, I had to keep Dekes talking while I whittled down the distance between us and got him within arm's reach.

"I'm sure lots of people have wished you dead over the years, given what a sick, sadistic bastard you are," I said. "It's just a shame no one's been able to make it happen - until now."

Dekes gave me a small, patronizing smile, as if I were a child whom he was indulging in a temper tantrum.