"Yes, my lord." She began to dress as quietly as she had come for him.

Richard fastened his trousers and drank the rest of his wine as he watched her neat, economical movements. He could not play voyeur with her until they returned to Ireland, nor could he hunt in unfamiliar territory, so he would work. "Contact Jaus in Chicago. I would have news of what is happening there with the good brothers."

"Yes, my lord." His tresora went to the phone and dialed a number.

Richard looked at the wineglass in his hand. Another man would see it as a thing of fragile beauty, to be admired for its form even when empty. The high lord of the Darkyn saw a vessel, pleasing to the eye but essentially useless until it was filled. Rather like a woman.

Éliane brought him the telephone. As he spoke to Valentin Jaus, Richard did not see his tresora slip from the room. He never knew how she closed the door to lean back against it, or saw the thin, trembling hand that she pressed over her eyes, or the tears that rolled down her cheeks as she wept in silence.

Sam had no doubt in her mind that Lucan could successfully keep her out of the nightclub—and his life—for the rest of hers. That wasn't going to stop her from investigating Harry's murder, or having her say. If what had happened between them was so meaningless, he could tell her that. Personally.

She wouldn't throw a fit the way Keri had. She could be civilized and reasonable. All Lucan had to do was say, "No, thanks," to her face, and they could go back to being cop and suspect.

Lucan owed her that much.

"Getting to you won't be easy," Sam muttered to herself as she switched on her laptop, "but I will. I might be only human, with no superpowers, and I need a gun to kill someone, but I'm still a cop—and you're not."

Sam logged into the department's database system from home using her remote-access password, and pulled up the blueprints for Lucan's property. Under the new terrorist laws, the department had scanned all of the blueprints for every building in the city, and kept them updated. Sam had done rotations through SWAT and burglary, so she knew how to locate entry points that weren't readily apparent to civilians.

According to the diagram, Lucan's building had two fire escapes, but they weren't accessible from ground level until they were lowered from an upper floor. However, there was a chiller room with an outer door at the back of the club that connected to the emergency stairwell through two walk-through passages.

That was her way in.

She dressed in her darkest clothes, using her gun belt instead of her shoulder holster to give her more unrestricted movement. After she slipped a jimmy and her set of lock picks into her back pocket, she grabbed her keys and headed downstairs.

As she drove to the beach, Sam went over in her head every moment she had spent with Lucan. She knew she was doing the typical woman thing—trying to figure out what she'd done wrong—but it also helped her get a handle on her own feelings.

Granted, they hadn't had that much time together, but what they'd shared had been explosive. Lucan had come on to her in his office that first night, and again when she'd returned for a second visit. She felt sure the attraction between them had been real on both sides. Lucan might be the type to jump into bed with any woman, but when she'd given him the green light, he'd been more concerned with protecting her. A man who wanted only to screw a woman didn't worry about her personal safety.

Now this stunning, absolute rejection.

It just didn't make sense. Something else had been added to the mix. Something she wasn't involved in.

What had Burke said? The situation has become too dangerous for human involvement.

That had to be it—but what situation, and what had made it so dangerous?

Sam parked down the street from Infusion. There was the usual crowd waiting to get in, and a couple of Lucan's guards posted at five-yard intervals all around the front of the building, but the alley road behind the block appeared to be empty. She walked down one block and approached the building on foot from the alley side.

The locks on the outer door to the equipment room yielded to the jimmy—for all Lucan's security, no one had bothered installing dead bolts—and Sam slipped inside. One of the big chillers that cooled the building cycled on as she passed it, the motor whining a little as it came up to speed, but no one appeared to order her out of the building. She followed the walkthroughs to the stairwell access door, which had been left unlocked. There Sam paused, listening, but all she could hear was the air-conditioning equipment running.

It didn't reassure her. This is too easy.

She took out her weapon as she climbed the dimly lit stairs. It took a few minutes to walk all the way up to the penthouse level, but once there she opened the access door an inch and put her ear to the gap. She heard only silence, and saw an empty hall through the small square window in the door, so she stepped inside.

The lingering scent of jasmine followed her around the suite, but a quick search revealed that it, too, was empty. She could hear the sound of music from the nightclub six floors below, and when she checked the elevator she saw it was also down on the first level. She'd have to wait here for him to come to her.

A thumping sound under her feet made her jump. She crouched down, listening, and heard it again. It wasn't mechanical; it sounded like someone kicking something. She went over to the air-conditioning duct and put her ear to the vent, and heard it again, this time accompanied by the sound of an angry, muffled voice.

Someone was one floor down. Someone who didn't want to be.

Sam went back to the stairwell and descended one floor. Here the access door had been locked, and took a little more finesse to open. She then walked down the hall, listening at each closed door for the thumps. The only odd thing was the locks on the doors, which looked as if they'd been made of spiky copper. A series of muffled yelps coming from behind the last door made Sam pull out her picks and go to work on the lock.

After ten minutes of messing with the tumblers, Sam got the lock open and walked inside. The room behind the door was a formal guest room, done in walnut wood, cream and hunter green. There was no one watching the big-screen plasma TV on the wall, so she wandered into the adjoining bedroom.

On top of a messed-up bed, someone had left a half-naked woman gagged and chained to the wall. For a second Sam thought she was dead, until her brown eyes opened and she gave a muffled shriek.

"Don't scream." She hurried over and untied the silk scarf covering her mouth. "I'm a cop. I'll get you out of here." Sam picked up one of her wrists to have a look at the manacle around it. "What's your name?"

"Alex Keller." The brunette turned her head to look at the window. "Were there a bunch of big guys with swords downstairs yelling at each other in French or Latin?"

"Can't say," Sam admitted. "I came in through the back." The locks on the manacles weren't like anything she'd ever seen. "How the hell do I get you out of these?"

"You don't," Alex told her. "They don't open without the electronic key. There's no time for that anyway. I need you to stop a war."

"I'm a cop, lady, not the U.N." Sam smelled lavender, felt a pleasant tug inside her chest, and stared down at Alex. "You're like Lucan is. You're a vampire."

"Don't hold it against me; it wasn't my idea. How much do you know about Lucan and the Kyn?"

Not enough, apparently. "Everything," Sam lied.

"Good." Alex pushed herself up as far as she could. "Lucan is trying to bait my lover, Michael Cyprien, into storming the castle here. You've got to get to Michael before he does and tell him I'm all right, or a lot of men are going to die."

"Maybe I should find Lucan and you two can talk this out," Sam suggested.

"I tried that, but the dumb blond asshole won't listen to me," Alex told her. "I guess it's easier to kill people. Assassin mentality."

"He's not an assassin." Sam took a step back from the bed. "He's a nightclub owner."

The other woman peered at her as if she'd lost her mind. "I thought you knew… Oh, shit." She strained against the copper manacles. "Why does it always have to be me? Am I a surgeon, or a fucking shrink?" She fixed her gaze on Sam. "Listen, these guys have a king named Richard. Lucan was Richard's hit man. Then he got tired of it or whatever and came here to America to start his own jardin. But he's really only interested in settling a score with Michael. Are you following me?"

Lucan was a hit man. Richard's hit man. Whoever Richard was. Something inside Sam was tearing itself apart. "How many people has Lucan killed?"

"That's not important now, sweetie. The point is to keep him from—"

"How many?" she shouted.

Alex's expression changed from urgent to sympathetic. "I don't know. No one talks about him, and they never let me get near him long enough to get his story. I can tell you what they've told me. When there was a problem with the Kyn or the Brethren, Richard sent Lucan to take care of it, and he did. Everyone he touches with those hands dies. He's the best."

The best. The best killer. The best assassin.

Sam felt muddled, as if someone had drugged her. "The Brethren?"

"They would be the fanatic humans who pose as priests and are trying to wipe us out," Alex said slowly, watching her. "More shit he didn't tell you, right? It's all tied up with religion and history and the Crusades and God knows what else." Alex sighed. "Jesus, even hearing myself say it, it sounds like bullshit."

Sam came back to the bed. "Lucan said you don't kill human beings. Was he lying to me?"

"The Kyn have gotten the whole blood-dependency thing down to an art, and he's right: We don't kill people," Alex assured her. "Unless they're insane, changing into an animal, or in cahoots with the Brethren."

Like that made it better. "Is he going to change into a snake?" Sam asked, thinking of the thing that they'd battled on the street.