Lucan shrugged. "What has Faryl's scent to do with anything?"

"It could prove my theory about the changelings," Alex told him. "If they go through this physical change because of their blood choices, it must mean the pathogen is adapting them to its new diet."

"Perhaps." Lucan didn't care about the changelings. After tonight, someone else would have to hunt them down and kill them.

"Faryl's scent didn't change. It disappeared. He doesn't smell like anything."

"Anything that would appeal to a human nose," she corrected him. "You said it yourself: You are what you eat. Or you adapt to hunt what you eat. Think about it." She shifted, making the chains around her rattle. "The Kyn are uniformly strong, fast, and very good-looking. You don't age and your wounds heal incredibly fast. You have l'attrait to lure humans to you. That all has to come from the pathogen, because you didn't have those things as humans. The pathogen also needs human blood as nourishment, so it makes sense that it would cause the specific mutations that it does."

"So Kyn change into monsters when they feed on animal blood for what reason?" he asked. "To scare their prey to death?"

"Camouflage, Lucan. The pathogen can't shrink you, but it can make you attractive to what you live on. If it's human beings, it gives you a pretty face, a pretty smell, and other perks. If it's snakes, it makes you a snake that is beautiful to other snakes."

Lucan led her out of the elevator. "I fail to see your point."

"Once a changeling begins feeding on animals, they never go back to using humans again, do they?"

He shook his head. "The blood makes them sick."

She smiled. "I knew it." She frowned as Lucan picked her up and carried her into the backstage area, where Burke and Alisa were waiting. "What are you doing?"

"I'm carrying out my insidious plot." He set her down in front of the cross and began removing the chains around her. "I don't want to do this to you, Alexandra, but it has to look real. It shouldn't take long."

Alex looked from him to the eight-foot-high cross to Alisa, who had uncoiled her whip and was making some practice lashes.

"You can't be serious."

Chapter 24.

Previous TopSam saw Lucan's guards out in force around the entire block surrounding Infusion, but Chris's disguise was so convincing that she might have been invisible.

Dozens of goths waited patiently to get into Infusion. Chris claimed those who followed the lifestyle disdained conformity, but Sam noticed a number of the girls dressed in dark variations on an early Madonna-like theme: sexy tattered clothes, dozens of bracelets and necklaces, pouty makeup, and black-dyed hair spiked in similar styles.

"They're posers," Chris told her, following the direction of her gaze. "They want people to look at them and think they're goth."

Sam looked at her young neighbor. "While you... ?"

Chris grinned. "Don't care what people think. I'm art."

The band had already begun playing by the time they reached the entry, where the bouncer was interested only in collecting the steep cover charge. Sam was about to pay it when Adam Suarez came out of nowhere and told the bouncer to let them through.

"You know that guy?" Chris asked Adam in a loud voice as they walked into the crowded club.

"He's a friend." Adam glanced at Sam and bent over to say to her, "You look different."

Without his sunglasses, so did he. His eyes weren't the usual dark brown most Hispanics possessed, but pitch-black with flecks of yellow so bright he looked as if someone had sprinkled them with glitter. The citrus cologne he wore was a little overpowering, too.

"Thanks." The music was too loud for conversation, so Sam left it at that and started looking for Lucan. She didn't see him or Alex, but there were plenty of other Kyn present. She recognized some of them from Lucan's memories.

"There's nowhere to sit," Chris complained. She brightened when she saw three girls waving frantically at her. "There are some of my friends-do you need me to hang with you guys?"

Sam shook her head. "Just remember what I told you. If it gets bad-"

"I know; get out." Chris winked and started elbowing her way over to her friends.

"Why do you go by Adam?" Sam asked Suarez as they circled the edge of the crowd.

"It's my name."

"No, it's not, Rafael." Over the jumping, gyrating bodies in the crowd, she saw Lucan's men gathering toward the front of the stage.

He stopped and stared at her, genuinely shocked. "How do you know who I am?"

"I didn't until you took off the shades." She had to shout the rest to be heard over the band's screaming finish. "You never wear them around him, seneschal."

"You cannot stop this," he told her. "I have been trying for weeks. Lucan means to kill Cyprien."

"Cyprien is only bait." She didn't want to think of all the duels Lucan had lost to Alex's lover, or the distinct possibility that he would die before he could carry out his final job as the Darkyn's cop. "If we can get Alex away from Lucan, we might be able to delay things long enough for me to tell Cyprien the real story. I think he may be the only one who can stop Lucan without killing him.""Alexandra is already backstage, being prepared for the finale." Rafael turned, looking. "Cyprien is at the front of the crowd, there." He pointed.

"I'll go to him. You get Alex." Someone bumped into her from behind as the stage curtains closed. "Hurry up, Rafael."

It took precious minutes to press through the crowd and make her way to where Cyprien and another grim-looking Kyn stood before the stage. Sam was out of breath and the band was carrying their instruments offstage by the time she reached him.

"Michael." The scent of roses wafted over her as he turned to look down at her. "My name is Samantha Brown. I'm a homicide detective. I need to talk to you."

Gardenia blended with roses as a dark-haired man came to stand beside Cyprien. His golden eyes flicked over Sam before he looked up at the stage. "Do we wait for him?" he asked Michael, who nodded.

The other Kyn with the scarred face came to stand beside her. "Come away now, mademoiselle." He reached to take her arm.

"I saw Alex yesterday," she said quickly, shrugging off the big man's hand. "She was okay. She asked me to find you and warn you about what Lucan has planned."

Cyprien didn't look at her. "Phillipe, take her out of here."

"It's not what you think. Lucan doesn't want to kill you. This was all a show to lure him here." That got his attention. "He's going after the high lord. He plans to kill Richard."

Cyprien's dark brows drew together. "Richard?"

That was all he had time to say. Music blasted through the speakers overhead as all the lights inside the club went dim, and the curtains onstage silently parted.

Sam's heart nearly stopped as she saw Lucan step out into a spotlight. He was dressed as he had been the first time she'd come here, in a plain white shirt and black trousers. He moved to the heavy rock music, dancing like a rock star, spreading his hand over the bulge at his crotch. Voices shrieked their approval as he slipped his hand down the front of his trousers and pulled out what looked like his penis.

It might be as long and hard, but Sam had intimate knowledge of Lucan's cock, and she knew it wasn't black. So she was the only female watching who didn't scream as he kept pulling, taking the handle of the whip and then the long braided lash out of his pants.

She saw Rafael standing in the shadows behind Lucan, but he disappeared a moment later. The spotlight widened, gradually shining on the purple-haired prostitute Harry had recognized. The crowd fell silent as the eight-foot-tall cross that stood directly behind Lucan was also revealed.

A woman in a white gown had been tied backward to the cross, her bare back facing the crowd.

"Alexandra," Sam heard Cyprien say in a terrible voice before the crowd in the club began cheering and screaming again.

Lucan tossed the whip to the prostitute, who shook it out and strode forward, making a practiced arc with her arm before lashing out. Alex stiffened, and Sam saw a diagonal slash of reddened skin appear across her back.

The prostitute turned and pouted at the wild shrieks of the crowd. "One," she shouted before turning back toward Alex. Yet as she raised her arm, the scar-faced Kyn beside Michael stepped forward, his face intent, and she froze.

Alex shouted something.Sam saw that the weal on Alex's back was bleeding, but then the blood stopped trickling and the lash wound slowly began to shrink.

A hundred voices demanded more by chanting, "Two! Two! Two!"

The prostitute dropped the whip and, like a windup toy, marched off the stage. Lucan watched her and went to pick up the whip. He flicked it out to its full length as he walked toward the cross.

"Mercy," Alex was shouting. "Michael, mercy."

Sam shut her eyes as a blinding golden light filled the club, and everyone around her began shrieking and groping. The light vanished as suddenly as it had appeared, and she saw Lucan's seneschal fighting with someone who picked him up and literally threw him across the room.

"Let them see," someone bellowed.

The crowd began to run for the exits, still screaming.

Lucan had turned to keep an eye on Cyprien, but he didn't see what happened to Rafael. As the club emptied, the music abruptly shut off. "Welcome to the show, seigneur. You've chased off my assistant. Perhaps you would like to join us?" He moved up to Alex, putting his mouth to her back and licking some of the blood from her skin.

"Knock it off," Alex snarled. "Michael, can you hear me? Find mercy. He's going to-" The rest of what she was trying to say was muffled by Lucan's hand.

Cyprien made a low, brutal sound in his throat, but the golden-eyed man beside him put out his hand as if to keep him from jumping up on the stage.

"Wait," he murmured as he drew a sword from under his long coat. "Something is not right with this."

Sam saw that Cyprien and the scar-faced man were already holding swords, as was every other man left in the club.

Someone began clapping, and the Kyn parted as a cloaked figure walked toward the stage. "Beautifully done, Lucan. I never appreciated your sense of the dramatic until this night." He stopped in front of the stage, a few feet away from Michael. "Don't stop now. I find myself absolutely riveted."

Sam saw the instant of relief in Lucan's eyes as he looked down at Richard, and drew the whip back as if to use it on Alex again. At the last moment he pivoted, changing the direction of the lash, which wrapped itself around Richard's neck. He jerked the whip, yanking the masked Kyn to the edge of the stage as he drew off his glove with his teeth. "It is time, my lord. As you commanded."

"How is it time?" Richard choked out.

"You butchered twenty of your own servants in Ireland," Lucan told him. "There was no reason for it."

A quartet of girls dressed in goth clothes rushed onto the stage, surrounding the cross.

"Cyprien, what are you waiting for?" someone shouted, pushing men aside as he came forward. He had Alisa under his arm, and threw her down at the foot of the stage. Her hands were curled around a blade, which she stabbed one more time into her own belly, and then went limp. "He touched your woman. He defiled her with those filthy hands. Kill them."

Sam saw Chris on the stage, trying to get Alex down, and looked over at the man shouting at Michael. He was dressed like an ordinary businessman and had a thin, pale face. The smell of stagnant water filled her head.Lucan also stared at the man shouting at Michael. "Leigh?" The whip fell out of his hand, and Richard staggered back from the stage, pulling the lash from around his neck. "It can't be. You're dead."

"They came for me in Rome, where you left me to rot," the man he had called Leigh snarled. "They didn't leave me alone, Lucan. They took my soul. They made me a demon like you."

"No." Lucan jumped down from the stage. "How could this happen to you? You were human. Frances told me they had buried you."

The scar-faced man pressed a dagger into Sam's hand, and looked at Alex and the girls trying to get her off the cross. She nodded and slowly edged toward the end of stage, ducking into the shadows to climb up and make her way to the cross.

"Oh, yes, they buried me. Buried me in the bowels of their hell, working their witchcraft on me, until I finally died." Leigh drew a rusted sword. "But I didn't stay dead. God rejected me, Lucan, because you polluted my life with your touch. He sent me back to cleanse the others so they would not share my damnation."

"Sam," Chris hissed as soon as she saw her step up behind Alex. "We can't get the ropes untied."

"Hang on." Sam began to saw her way through the ropes binding Alex to the wooden beams. The thick cords were bound with paper-thin strips of copper, but she was able to cut through them. "Are you okay?" she whispered to Alex.

"Better now." As soon as she was free, Alex jumped down and grabbed Sam's arm. "You need to get these girls out of the way."

She glanced over her shoulder at Lucan. "I can't leave him."

Chris eyed the sword-wielding Kyn. "Oh, we're so not staying. Sam, should I call the cops?"

She shook her head. "The police can't stop this. Only the guys here can." She gave Chris a kiss on the cheek. "Get your friends out of here, and thanks."

The lightning smile flashed. "Anytime, Officer."

"What are you talking about, Leigh?" Lucan was asking. "What cleansing? What others?"

"I've never let you settle anywhere. You're like a cancer, infecting everyone around you." Leigh glanced at Cyprien. "He came to your estate after you left for America. I made your servants tell me the truth. Your king planned to give it to him. I let them find absolution, and then I cleansed them all with fire. "You burned my estates in France? You killed my servants?"

"They killed themselves. I only gave them absolution," Leigh insisted. "They are in heaven now, with my beloved." He smiled at Lucan as two Kyn came on either side of him and took hold of his arms. "You thought you were being clever, waiting until Frances was an old woman before you poisoned her with your touch. I got to her in time, that very night. She thought I was an angel. She was the only one who didn't resist my cleansing. She was happy to hang herself after I told her what had been done to me."

"The Brethren tortured you," Richard rasped.

"Mercer." A bearded man stepped out of the crowd. "I don't know what they did to you, but I can help. I'm your friend. Let me."

That was what Alex had been shouting, Sam thought. Mercer, not mercy.

"My name is Leigh, not Mercer." Lucan's former tresora sneered at the dark, bearded man. "You don't know. You're still human. You even believed my faked suicide."The bearded man looked at Cyprien. "This isn't his fault. The Brethren have destroyed his mind. He's not responsible for what he's done."

"I can show you the Light, John," Leigh said. "I can make you feel the weight of your sins. That was the dark gift they gave me, you see. I don't have to kill anyone. Once I make you face the wrongs you've done, you will find absolution for yourself. Death is only a doorway to heaven."

Richard stepped up to Leigh. "The Brethren made you Kyn? How?"

The tresora's face took on a sly look. "You would only make more demons to serve you." A terrible scream rang out in the club. "I caught one of your beasts. I brought him with me to be part of the cleansing." While the guards were distracted, he broke free and ran toward Lucan.

The golden-eyed man moved so fast Sam barely saw him before he swung his sword at Leigh, decapitating him. She turned her head away from the gruesome sight, and spotted the outline of an oblong head moving in the shadows behind Lucan.

"Oh, God, Faryl, no," Alex called out.

"Wait," Sam shouted, running out in front of the snake-man before he could get to Lucan. "Don't hurt anyone."

"Stop, Faryl," Alex said, joining Sam. "I can help you. You came here for help, remember? There might be a way to reverse what's happened to you."