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It would kill him. But he would wait.

While he twitched in his shitkickers, he became aware of a smell, something…. He sniffed the air. There was propanearound, somewhere close. Probably feeding that generator around the back. And kerosene from a heater. But there was something else, some kind of smoky, burning…He looked at his hands, wondering if he was on fire and hadn’t noticed. No.

What the hell?

His bones went cold as he realized what it was. His boots were planted in the middle of a scorched patch of earth, one about the size of a body. Something had been incinerated right where he was standing—within the last twelve hours, by the scent of it.

Oh…God. Had they left her out for the sun?

Z eased down on his haunches, putting his free hand on the withered ground. He imagined Bella lying there when the sun came out, imagined her feeling ten thousand times more pain than he had as he’d just materialized.

The blackened spot got blurry.

He scrubbed his face and then stared at his palm. There was wetness on it. Tears?

He searched his chest for what he was feeling, but all that came to him was information about his body. His torso was swaying because his muscles were weak. He was light-headed and vaguely nauseous. But that was it. There were no emotions for him.

He rubbed his sternum and was about to do another sweep with his hands when a pair of shitkickers came into his line of sight.

He looked up into Phury’s face. The thing was a mask, all frozen and pasty.

“Was it her?” he croaked, kneeling down.

Z lurched backward, just barely managing to keep his gun out of the snow. He couldn’t be anywhere near someone right now, especially Phury.

In a messy scramble, he got to his feet. “Vishous here yet?”

“Right behind you, my brother,” V whispered.

“There’s…” He cleared his throat. Rubbed his face on his forearm. “There’s a security alarm. I think the place is clear, because two slayers just left, but I’m not sure.”

“I’m on the alarm.”

Z caught a number of scents all of a sudden and glanced behind him. The whole of the Brotherhood was there, even Wrath, who as king was not supposed to be in the field. They were all armed. They had all come to get her back.

The group lined up flat against the house as V used a pick on the door lock. His Glock went in first. When there was no reaction, he slipped inside and closed himself in. A moment later there was one long beep. He opened the door.

“Good to go.”

Z rushed forward, practically mowing down the male.

His eyes penetrated the dim corners of the single room. The place was a mess, with shit scattered all over the floor. Clothes…knives and handcuffs and…shampoo bottles? And what the fuck was that? God, a disemboweled first-aid kit, its gauze and tape bleeding out of the ruined lid. The thing looked like it had been stomped on until it had opened.

Heart pounding in his chest, sweat blooming all over him, he looked for Bella and saw only inanimate objects: A wall of shelving that held nightmarish instruments. A cot. A fireproof metal closet the size of a car. An autopsy table with four sets of steel chains hanging off its corners…and blood smudged on its smooth surface.

Random thoughts fired through Z’s brain. She was dead. That burned oval proved it. Except what if that had just been another captive? What if she’d been moved or something?

As his brothers hung back, like they knew better than to get in his way, Z went over to the fireproof closet, keeping his gun in hand. He wrenched the doors off, just grabbed onto the metal panels and bent them until the hinges broke. He tossed the heavy sections away, hearing them clatter and bang.

Guns. Ammunition. Plastic explosives.

The arsenal of their enemies.

He went into the bathroom. Nothing but a stall shower and a bucket with a toilet seat on it.

“She’s not here, my brother,” Phury said.

In a fit of rage Z launched himself at the autopsy table, picking it up with one hand and throwing it into a wall. In midflight, a length of chain came back at him, catching