Looking for me?” Lazarus asked from the shadows.

Jax smiled to herself. Her tactic had worked: Feign vulnerability and the bad guy will reveal himself. Slowly she turned around and came face-to-face with evil incarnate.

“I applaud your tenacity, Miss Cassidy,” he said. “But I must chide you on your stupidity.”

Jax cocked a brow.

“Only an idiot would walk the streets of Oakland late at night and dare me to show myself.”

“Ah.” Jax smiled and slowly moved her hand across her chest. “Why don’t you come closer. I double dare you.”

The bastard actually snorted. “Bullets cannot hurt me.”

Well, fuck, she thought. If that was true, she was in for a world of hurt. If it was true. “Let’s find out, shall we?”

He was as fast as Marcus. Maybe faster. Before she was halfway to her pistol, he grabbed her hands and hoisted her a foot above the sidewalk. He threw her hard against the building wall behind her. She hit with a sickening thud. Pain flashed through her nervous system. It took her several moments to gain her wits and realize nothing vital was broken.

She looked up into his demonic stare. She slid her right hand into her pants pocket and gripped the stake there.

He smiled, showing long yellow fangs. “Now, Miss Cassidy, we’ ll see what you’ re really made of.” He squatted down to face her. In a quick, underhanded jab, she stabbed him in the chest with the stake. Lazarus hissed in shock. His eyes widened.

“Did you really think I was so naïve?” She grabbed the other stake and shoved it through his throat. Blood gurgled as he tried to breathe.

She kicked him away from her with her boot. As he tumbled backward, he yanked the stake from his throat, then the one from his chest. As he stood, he threw them to the ground. The blood flow immediately dried up.

“Did you really think I was so weak?” he sneered.

He backhanded her so hard that her body spun like a top out of control and she crashed into the wall again. This time her head hit first with a terrible thunk. Then her world went black.

Jax moaned as another violent wave of electricity ripped through her body. She screamed and the voltage amped up. Her body jerked as she hung, helpless, like the catch of the day. She dangled, a foot off the floor, from chains attached to large meat hooks in what smelled like an abandoned meat-packaging plant. Her torturer moved the cloth-covered shock paddles from her belly, then ran a sharp-tipped finger across the rise of her breast. Jax kicked at him. He laughed and moved away from her. He set the paddles on a table with a few other undesirable items, including a meat hook and cleaver.

Jax stared at her feet, her limp, sweaty hair hanging in her face, trying not to whimper at the thought of that cleaver cutting through her skin. Tamping down on the overwhelming need to retch, she slowly lifted her chin and stared at the bastard in front of her. He made no effort to hide what he was. A vampire. Heartless.

If she’d met him on the street, she might have given him a second look. He was southern California handsome, a surfer with shaggy blonde hair. His red-rimmed brown eyes ruined the look.

“Who are you?” Jax hoarsely asked. He grinned. His fangs glowed under the harsh light.

“I’m Gideon.”

“Where’s Lazarus?”

Deep, blood-curling screams echoed into the room from somewhere down the corridor. Jax’s skin chilled even more, and her heart pounded so hard that she almost passed out. Gideon smiled. “He’s a little busy at the moment, but he asked me to soften you up for him.”

Another round of harsh screams rent the air. They were followed by a familiar voice cursing Lazarus for the bastard he was.

“Shane,” she whispered. Despite their predicament, hope washed over her.

He was still alive!

“A friend of yours?” Gideon asked, laughing. “Your relief is premature.”

She narrowed her eyes at his arrogance, then closed them to shut him out. To gather her wits.

Jesus, help me, she prayed. Help me think. Process.

She opened her eyes, urging herself on. Look, Jax. See where you are. Find what you can use to gain the advantage.

The room they were in wasn’t large. The bloodstained cinder-block wall to her back was as close as the ones at her sides. Maybe six feet deep. In front of her, about fifteen feet away, was a large gray metal door. She looked up at a concrete ceiling with thick steel rafters supporting large hooks; she hung from the middle of the three.

“Kill chamber,” she muttered.

Gideon looked up from the tools he was perusing. “Yes, a kill chamber. But unlike the swine who bled out here in relative peace, you’ re going to bleed out slow and painful. Unless, of course, you cooperate.” He picked up a thick orange hose from the floor and pulled back the lever behind the nozzle. “Please, don’ t,” he grinned.

A harsh spray of cold water doused her. Jax held her breath and steeled herself against the hard stream. When she turned her face away, he followed her with the hose. She gasped, gulping for air, getting a mouthful of water. She coughed and gagged as more water slammed down her throat. Her body jerked wildly as spasms coursed through her. She twisted away and, finally, he stopped, leaving her to suffer in stubborn silence.

Her chest burned from swallowing water. The pain was unlike anything she’d felt before. She knew she was going to die. Almost wished for it. And for some crazy reason, that made her think of Marcus.

Marcus.

But that was foolish. Lazarus was his creator. His mentor. He actually believed that what they were doing was for the good of the American people.

After what seemed like an hour, she was able to breathe in a half-normal fashion. “What do you want?” she croaked, barely able to see him through the hair plastered to her face. She turned her head to move it away but only managed to smear more of it in her eyes.

Laughing, he turned the hose back on her, the force of the spray pushing the hair from her face. “Is that better?”

Jax shook her head as another fit of coughs wracked her entire body. Her throat was so raw that she could taste her own blood.

“How did you meet Marcus Cross?” he demanded.

She opened her mouth, but it took several tries for her to speak coherently. When she did, she put as much disdain into the words as she could. “We bumped into each other one night.”

He looked up at her and smiled. It wasn’t a pleasant gesture.

“Did you trade blood with him?”

“You’ re getting a little personal, aren’t you?” Jax answered, knowing she was going to pay for it.

He picked up the cardiac panels. She steeled herself. Without a word, he pressed them to her belly and hit the switch. She screamed as the heat slashed through her organs. Her body jerked and jackknifed in agony. He stepped back. Her flailing body stilled. Jax closed her eyes and mentally tried to collect herself, but the electric impulses still ricocheting in her body would not allow her to concentrate.

Her strength waned.

She could not take much more. Her heart was beating so fast and so furiously that she thought it would explode. She felt the warm coppery blood well in her mouth. She had bitten her tongue.

He was getting off on torturing her, that was for sure, but he wanted to get off another way too. She’d rather die than endure that. She glanced at the table, where her Glock lay beside her crushed cell phone, the last of her wooden stakes, the cleaver and the meat hook. If she could find a way—

“You can either be respectful and answer my questions without the sarcasm, or I can—” He tapped the paddles to her belly and gave her a hot shot. Jax bit her lip to keep from screaming. “—keep turning up the heat. Your choice.”

Her choice would be to rip his head off and feed it to him, but she needed to change tactics here. Defiance wasn’t working. Maybe cooperation would. Jax nodded.

“I knew you’d see it my way. Now, tell me how you met Marcus Cross.”

Slowly, Jax opened her eyes. “I told you, we bumped into each other, at a club in Vegas.”

He considered her, looking mildly surprised, but then shrugged. “Then what happened?”

Jax bit back a hoarse laugh, unable to help herself. “What happens in Veg—”

He cursed and shoved her so hard that her back hit the cinder-block wall with a bone-crushing thud. “Do you have a death wish?” he hissed. “Who are you really? Who do you work for?”

Jax’s body twisted and came flying back toward him from the velocity of the hit. He grabbed her legs with one hand and grabbed the cleaver with the other. He pressed it to the crease of her right thigh and groin. “Tell me what I want to know or I start chopping off limbs.”

Jax nodded. “I’m an indepen—” She screamed when he slashed her with the cleaver. The burn was so excruciating that she nearly passed out from the pain.

She closed her eyes and tried valiantly to gather her wits, but the only thing that came to mind was Marcus. Only he could save her from this torture.

She opened her eyes and, through the haze of blood and tears, watched the man beneath her literally foam at the mouth with excitement.

He grinned, flashing his fangs. Stepping away and setting the cleaver down on the table, he looked back up at her and licked his lips. His tongue was long and thin, reminding her of a snake. “The colonel bade me soften you up.” He grabbed her foot and yanked her boot and sock off, flinging them to the wet floor. “I think you’ re sufficiently soft. Now, I want a taste.” He brought her foot to his lips and, before she could react, he sunk his teeth into her instep.

Jax screamed and jerked against the chains. If she didn’t get out of this now he would tear her apart piece by piece. Summoning what strength she had left, not really expecting it to make a difference, she twisted and kicked him in the head with the heel of her other boot. To her surprise, he cursed, releasing her and spurring her on.

She twisted again and tightened the chains, raising herself up higher. This time, she kicked him in the teeth.

He screeched, grabbing his face. Blood oozed through his fingers.

The adrenaline pumped hard through her. She suddenly remembered whose blood she had in her. Without hesitating, Jax did a gymnast’s move and swung her lower body up to where the chain hung over the large meat hook. She grabbed it, lifted the chain, and let gravity bring her down. As she came down, she threw the chain out, catching Gideon around the neck, and as she fell to the ground, he fell, too.

“No—” he gasped, making her grin.

“Oh, yeah,” she muttered. “It’s on now, you rabid bat.”

Like a constrictor, she twined her legs and the chain around him as she grabbed for one of the high-voltage paddles. She pressed it to his face and hit the switch. His body flinched as he screamed. Jax let go and jumped up. She grabbed her pistol from the table and leveled it directly at his heart. “Move another muscle and I’ ll kill you.”

He rallied, grinned a macabre grin, yanked the chains off his neck, and threw them at her. She ducked and pulled the trigger.

Stunned, Gideon stood motionless, then looked down. A bloodstain mushroomed dead center from his heart out. He looked up at her and Jax tried to smile, but it came out as a grimace. “Silver-tipped wooden bullet through the heart. Sayonara, Sunshine,” she hoarsely said.

Gideon dropped to his knees and began to smoke. The smell was disgusting. Jax coughed and put her hand over her nose and mouth, watching in horrified fascination as he turned into a piece of human toast.

She shoved the pistol in between the small of her back and pants, then slipped the stake into her right thigh pocket. Grabbing the cleaver, she shoved it down the front thigh pocket of her pants and hung the meat hook from one of her back pockets, then took her pistol out again. Holding it before her, she tried to keep her hands from shaking and moved as fast as her ravaged body would allow her to.

The screams from down the hall had subsided. Carefully, she pushed the metal door open and peeked out into the corridor. Clear. There was only one door to the right and across the corridor. The screams had to have come from there. She made her way to the door, then carefully opened it.

Jax caught her breath. Tears sprang to her eyes. She fought back the bile in her throat. “Oh, my God,” she whispered. “Shane.”

He hung naked and crucified from a metal cross. She closed the door behind her, shoved the gun down the small of her back again, and hurried to him.

“Shane,” she whispered as she came to stand before him. She nearly slipped and fell in the pooling blood at his feet. His head was tied back with constantine wire. Blood covered his face, but she could see a socket where his left eye had been.

Her stomach roiled. Thick meat hooks pierced through his shoulders and thighs, pinning him to the structure. His stomach had been savagely hacked; part of his intestines hung out. “Shane,” she croaked.

He moaned, barely audible, but he moaned. He was still alive!

For a crazy, hysterical moment, all she could think was that Lazarus was far better at his job than Gideon had been.

Finally, she retched.

The air in the room became too heavy, too thick for her to breathe. “It’s OK,” she forced herself to murmur. “I’m here now. You’ ll be OK, Shane.”

What could she do for him? Her cell was destroyed. She didn’t know where she was. . . . But wait . . .

The GPS chip! The one in her bra.

She hurried and took her shirt off. Yanking her bra off, she tied it around his right ankle. Eventually they would find him, and if God was on their side today, he’d still be alive.

“Please, God,” she prayed, marveling that she’d done it several times in the past few days. “Let Dante find us.”

But she had to do her part too. Fearfully, she looked over her shoulder. Any second now, Lazarus would return. Then no one would be able to help them.

She needed to get Shane out of here.

She put her shirt back on and looked behind Shane, careful not to slip in the blood.

So much blood.

The cross was suspended by chains connected to a manual pulley. Jax grabbed the lever and unlocked the mechanism. Then, with every bit of strength she had left, she slowly turned the wheel and lowered Shane to the ground. He moaned as the hooks in his shoulders and thighs moved when their backs hit the floor.

“Geth ah—” he croaked.

“Shane,” she said, going down on her knees beside his head. “I’m going to get you out of here. But first I have to get all this shit out of you. It’s going to hurt.”

He turned his head slightly and opened his one good eye. “Geth ah—” he said again, and she realized he was telling her to get out. To save herself. She fought back tears and used the tail of her shirt to gently wipe the blood from his face. “I’m so sorry.”

He closed his eye, making a small sound before seeming to pass out.

Jax got busy. After several heart-stopping moments, she freed him of the hooks. Jax crossed herself and said a Hail Mary. She needed to get him out of there. Now. Bending over him, she prepared to haul him over her shoulder. Before she could, she heard him.

“You are a very enterprising woman, Jax Cassidy,” a deep, dark voice said from behind her.

Lazarus.

Rage reared its head, and with it came a surge of adrenaline.

Jax turned, leveled her Glock at him, and pulled the trigger. Lazarus’s body flinched. He looked down at the hole in his belly, then looked back at her. “You missed.”

She pulled the trigger again, but her target had disappeared.

“You cannot kill me,” he said from behind her.

Jax whirled around.

He inclined his head to her pistol. “Silver-tipped wooden bullets? I’ ll give credit where credit is due.” The colonel moved closer to her. “Too bad it won’t help you.”

The room seemed to sway beneath her. Her insides burned and she was suddenly cold. She raised the gun. Her hands shook. Not from nerves, but from shock. She was on the verge of total collapse.

Lazarus seemed to easily take the gun from her numb fingers.

The room spun. Her chest became heavy. She couldn’t breathe.

He grabbed her to his chest and shoved her head back. He ran a finger down her jugular. “I can see what Marcus finds so fascinating about you. You are truly extraordinary. But I’m afraid he will have to find some other form of entertainment. I cannot permit you to live as you are—or as one of us.”

Jax swallowed and summoned the strength to speak. “Why didn’t you just kill me on the street?”

“You, my lovely assassin, are my insurance policy.”

“For what?”

He smiled. It gave her the creeps. “Marcus has become quite independent these last few months. I have something very important for him to do, and since he refused my order to eliminate you, perhaps he will do my bidding if he thinks it will save you.”

Lazarus chuckled demonically. “He’s avoiding me, you know. But no more. He knows where to find me. He knows where to find you. Why do you think he isn’t here?” He laughed low. “Perhaps I overestimated his fondness for you?”

No, asshole, he’s tied up in a silver chain. But she wasn’t going to tell him that.

“He’s very territorial, you know. Maybe we should test that. I know what will bring him to me. To you.” He brushed her damp hair from her neck. “You have lovely skin,” he whispered.

Jax closed her eyes and went limp in his arms. Her right hand dangled next to the pocket with the stake in it. Trying to control her erratic heartbeat, she slipped her fingers into the pocket and clasped the blunt end of the stake, then gathered it in her fist.

His fangs hovered over her neck. Jax arched, offering herself to him. Just as his fangs pierced her skin, she brought her hand up and drove the stake into his back.

Lazarus screamed and dropped her.

Jax fell to the floor and scurried back toward Shane. She reached for her pistol, but her bloody hands could not grip it.

Lazarus twisted and hissed in terrible pain, but he didn’t go down. After what seemed like an eternity but was only a few seconds, he straightened, reached around, and yanked the stake from his back.

His eyes burned molten red. “You missed again.” He threw the stake to the floor.

Shit.

Lazarus reached down and yanked her up.

“Release her.”

Oh my God, Marcus.

She tried to jerk around to see him, but Lazarus shook her like a rag doll. Her head rattled. Her vision blurred. Then she could not see. She went limp, her strength draining.

The pain was lessening now.

“Do not interfere here,” Lazarus warned.

“She belongs to me,” Marcus said.

“Do not defy me!” Lazarus mandated.

“Our laws permit me to claim a mate. I choose her.”

“An eye for an eye, Marcus. You will pay for destroying my chosen one!”

Jax tried to comprehend their words. Her body was on the verge of total collapse.

Lazarus’s body shuddered, as if he had been hit. His grip loosened. The warmth called to her. She let herself go to it.

She felt herself falling.

Angry words reverberated around her.

Strong arms caught her.

Warmth.

Marcus.

“Put the girl down,” Lazarus commanded.

Marcus shook his head. “Not a chance.”

Lazarus moved slowly around the bloody body of Jax’s partner. Marcus detected the barest hint of a heartbeat. The man would bleed out in the next few minutes. “I’m not interested in her, Marcus. She’s nothing but a means to an end.” He held out his hands palms up in a show of trust. “You are my end.”

Marcus considered the fatally wounded figure draped across his arms. She was losing body heat. Her organs had begun to shut down to sustain what life was left in her. He felt as if his world was crumbling around him with each shallow breath she took. The pain of his emotions tore him up inside. There was nothing undead about him. For the first time since he could remember, there was an aching inside him, a yearning for something other than himself. This broken creature had struck a nerve, and it numbed him to Lazarus’s will.

“Our time is growing short, Marcus. Put her down,” Lazarus commanded, his voice darkening to thunder.

Raising his eyes, Marcus returned his master’s gaze. “There is no measure of bargaining here. No hold you possess any longer.”

“I gave you life! Have you forgotten? I could have left you for the sand fleas and the vultures, but I breathed life into your dying body!”

“And now I return the favor by exacting no vengeance for the liberties you’ ve taken today.”

“You return the favor?” Lazarus demanded, incredulous. “Who the hell are you? You’ re no one without me!”

Not breaking with Lazarus’s eyes, Marcus slowly moved toward the door as the conversation accelerated. If he could keep Lazarus engaged and enraged, there was a chance.

“You’ ve been like a son and I your father!” Lazarus raged.

“No, Lazarus. More like the chattel to do your bidding! Am I to repay the deed for a lifetime?”

Lazarus shook his head and moved toward him. “One more request, Marcus. One more simple request and I will set you free!”

He would never be free so long as Lazarus lived. Inching closer to the hallway, Marcus could feel the slight breeze of the corridor wafting into the room. Jax’s heartbeat had slowed to halting. Shane was closer to his end than Jax but not by much. If he could save them both, he would, but there was only so much he could do. First things first, and nothing, not even Lazarus, was going to interfere with his getting Jax out of there.

“And Jax?” Marcus asked in false sincerity.

“She stays here with me. I won’t harm her further. I give you my word, Marcus.” Lazarus stretched out his hands again in a gesture of friendship, but Marcus read through his façade. “I was only using her to reach you.”

“What of him?” Marcus nodded toward the heap of bloody flesh that was Shane’s dying body.

Lazarus stopped and turned to consider the figure upon the floor. “His time is over, Marcus. He’s beyond even my powers now.”

With Lazarus’s attention turned even for a brief second, Marcus seized the opportunity and made his break out of the room and down the corridor so fast that his body was only a dark blur. He cleared the exit into the sultry night air. He felt a sudden rush of air go past him. Lazarus.

Everything slowed to a grinding halt. Marcus saw the master vampire settling to stand just ahead of him. Gathering Jax tighter to his chest, Marcus cut right and accelerated toward the dilapidated packaging plant at the edge of the parking lot, but Lazarus was there again. Marcus could not fight his maker with Jax in his arms. If he set her down, she would be dead before he returned to claim her. Marcus bit down hard on his lower lip until his blood flowed down his chin. He pressed his lips to Jax’s and with his tongue gave her as much of his life-saving blood as he could in the few short seconds he had.

Almost immediately, her heart rate stabilized, but it was still weak and much too slow. But— He looked up to see Lazarus coming straight at him. Marcus set Jax down on the asphalt and hurled his body straight at Lazarus. They crashed with a sickening thud in midair. He grabbed his maker by the shoulders and swung him in a high arch, then tossed him into the broken row of third-story windows on the plant. Marcus went crashing in after him. While the outside world was hurtling by, he and Lazarus appeared to be in a time warp of slow motion, movement matched by equal movement. Speed matched by equal speed.

The building was dark, dusty and full of broken pallets. None of it slowed Marcus down. Cutting back and forth in a fury of speed, Marcus rose to the fifth floor and met his maker, who stood atop a pile of stacked cardboard.

“Now what, Marcus?” Lazarus softly demanded. “We do battle?”

“That’s up to you. You could just let us go.”

“You, I might be able to trust not to divulge our secret, but not her. She has a separate agenda that I cannot allow.”

“Then we really have no other choice.” Marcus leapt and dove into Lazarus, hurtling him into the concrete wall behind him. The impact shook the glass from the windows. Shards rained down on Lazarus. But the old vampire kicked Marcus away, the velocity sending him nearly thirty feet away. He landed on a wooden pallet, shattering it. Marcus struggled to his feet, grabbing a two-by-four-foot piece of the pallet.

Lazarus hovered several yards in the air in front of him. “You’ ve gained strength through your growth, Marcus. Still, I will kill you if you leave me no option.” Lazarus stood above him, delaying his rise. Dropping onto his back, Marcus made a quick roll right and shot his legs into Lazarus, knocking him to the ground. Spinning away, Marcus leapt to his feet and darted deeper into the building. Lazarus was in hot pursuit.

“This can only end one way, Marcus!” Lazarus called from behind him.

Marcus flew through the air from behind and planted both feet into Lazarus’s back. Any mortal man would have been dead from the whiplash caused by the impact, but Lazarus was no mortal; his neck remained intact. Marcus stabbed Lazarus in the back with the two-by-four, impaling him to the floor. Lazarus screamed, not in pain but in fury. Marcus leapt up and moved into the depths of the building.

“I grow weary of your game!” Lazarus called. “The girl will be mine again and you will have to come to me on my terms!”

Marcus watched from his perch as Lazarus yanked the wood from his shoulder and stood, tossing it aside. Then he stood still and scanned the darkness. When he could not detect Marcus behind the stack of pallets, Lazarus turned and turned and turned, forcing the air to rise up around him. With it, the littered pieces of wood from the old pallets flew through the air like missiles. Marcus braced himself, then deflected each piece of wood launched at him, sending it directly back to its point of origin.

Like the true master he was, Lazarus blocked them with forearm blows. The faster they came, the faster he defended his position. Marcus leapt from his spot and down to the floor beneath Lazarus. He grabbed a bundle of copper piping and hurled it backward toward the colonel.

“Destroy me and you destroy yourself!” Lazarus screamed. Marcus leapt toward his maker and grinned. A short piece of pipe had impaled Lazarus’s left thigh. Marcus reached down, grabbed another piece of pipe, and shoved it into Lazarus’s gut. Blood spewed from the wound. Lazarus looked up in complete shock. Marcus ran it through.

“Leave us be!” Marcus yelled at Lazarus. “I have claimed her as my mate! It is my right, and I will defend it to the death if I must!”

Silence. Lazarus did not move. His eyed glared red. His skin had paled to white. He dropped to one knee. Reaching with his left arm, he grasped the pipe, slowly pulled it from his gut and flung it aside. Grasping with both hands the other pipe protruding from his thigh, Lazarus gave it a hard tug. As he pulled it clear, blood poured from the wound. Marcus had hit his femoral artery. Lazarus cursed and flung the pipe aside. He would survive, but it would take more than a few minutes to recover from the blood loss.

Marcus did not wait; he turned and jumped up through the broken windows to the asphalt parking lot and then to Jax.

She lay where he had left her. He gathered her into his arms and moved toward the dark streets for a car to hot-wire.