The loss had hit the warriors pretty hard, and not just for the fact that Reichen had been an instrumental partner in the Order's current efforts to take out Dragos. He was a good man, an honorable male who should have lived to see the peace that his efforts with the Order were helping to ensure. Tegan's tone was as grave as his expression. "Gideon got a report out of Hamburg today. Seems another Darkhaven over there went up in flames last night. Complete annihilation." "Good lord," Gabrielle whispered, clutching Lucan's hand a bit tighter. "Were there any survivors?" "Just one," Tegan said. "An Enforcement Agent doing security detail there who managed to escape and report the attack. He died a few hours later." "You said `attack'?" Lucan frowned, not liking the sound of that at all. "What exactly do we know about this?" "Not much right now.
Gideon's still gathering intel, but the Agency is keeping a lot of it close to their chest. The Darkhaven that went down last night belonged to one of their directors. Second-generation civilian named Wilhelm Roth. Apparently, the director and his Breedmate were both out of town at the time, lucky for them." Lucan didn't know Roth, but then he and the rest of the Order weren't exactly on friendly terms with most of the Enforcement Agency, either here in the States or abroad. The Order tended to think the Agency was a lot of pompous blowhards more interested in their own personal gain than public safety, and the Agency tended to think the Order was a gang of dangerous vigilantes with no regard for the law. Partly true, Lucan had to acknowledge. Neither he nor any of his brethren had any use for the kind of circle-jerk politics and head-in-the-sand policies that were the Agency's notion of the law. As a result, they generally disregarded them in favor of actually taking action and getting shit done. If that didn't sit well with folks like Wilhelm Roth and the rest of the Enforcement Agency, they were more than welcome to kiss the Order's ass and step out of the way. "Let's see what Gideon's got," Lucan said, already heading with Gabrielle toward the tech lab down the corridor.
Tegan fell in at an easy gait beside them, and Lucan couldn't help thinking back to a time not that long ago when he and his fellow warrior--both of them Gen Ones with many centuries of life between them--had spent more time at each other's throats than walking side by side as equals. Now, as the two of them strode into the tech lab with Gabrielle, the other warriors gathered in what served as the Order's conference room all looked up from what they were doing, as if the air had somehow gotten thicker with the arrival of the two eldest, most powerful members of the group.
The three most recent additions to the Order's ranks--Kade, Brock, and Chase--were dressed in basic black patrol gear, from their lug-soled Docs and dark denim, to their black shirts, leather jackets, and arsenal of semiautomatics and blades that rode at their hips. The trio of unmated males had taken on a lot of the grunt assignments, a night of hunting trouble on Boston's back alleys topped off by hunting of a different sort at some of the city's after-hours clubs. As for the other, mated warriors, they did their share of heavy lifting for the Order, as well, but looking at them now--Rio seated beside his Breedmate, Dylan, and Dante, unable to keep from stroking the six-month swell of his Breedmate Tess's pregnant belly while he casually shot the shit with Chase and the others--it was clear that things were changing here at the compound. Evolving, Lucan thought, as Gabrielle let go of his hand to walk over and sit on the floor beside little Mira and Savannah, who was mated to the resident genius, Gideon.
Lucan's heart went a bit tight as he watched his Breedmate smile and fall into an easy chatter with the child and Savannah, who'd been passing a squeaky rubber ball between them, playing a game of keep-away with an ugly little terrier mutt that belonged to Dante and Tess. The whole scene was unnerving as hell. Somehow, in the past year and a half, the compound had begun to feel less like a military stronghold and more like a home. That gave Lucan more than a little concern. Homes could be made vulnerable, especially in times of war. He thought about the two Darkhavens in Germany that had been standing strong one day and were rubble the next. It was hard to shake the coldness that settled in his gut when he considered how easily lives--and loved ones--could cease to exist. "I can see by the look on your face that Tegan brought you up to speed on some of the news out of Hamburg," Gideon said, spinning away from his fleet of computer workstations and regarding Lucan soberly over the rims of his pale blue glasses. "Do you want to hear the really f**ked up part of all this?"
"Why not," Lucan drawled. "I've been doing a little remote digging in the Agency records in Germany. Turns out they're having some problems keeping their guys alive over there." At Lucan's questioning look, Gideon went on. "Over the past several weeks, nine Enforcement Agents between the Berlin and Hamburg offices have been murdered." Tegan joined the conversation now, coming over to look at the data on Gideon's monitors. "You talking assassinations?" Lucan had been thinking the same thing, instantly wondering if the others like Hunter, trained Gen One killers who'd recently been ordered by Dragos to track down and assassinate the eldest members of the vampire race, had somehow now turned their sights on inpiduals within the Enforcement Agency. "It's not like any of the stuff we've been seeing among the civilian populations," Gideon said. "Those killings are careful--shit, they're practically works of art they're so efficient." He swung back around and typed something that brought up a morgue image of a bruised, bloodied Breed male who was missing part of his skull. "These Agency killings are brutal, very personal. One entire field unit was taken out man by man, and there've been some high-ranking agents--I'm talking director-level folks--who've been cut down, as well. Someone over there is trying to make a very loud statement. If you ask me, it reeks of payback."