He rolled his chair across the polished pine-plank floor, stopping in front of another busy computer. "See this here?" He pointed to the schematic displayed on the monitor. Lucan strode over to have a look. "This is just one of a dozen analyses I've been running on the genetic popsicles in that laboratory ice box. We're talking about countless specimens, Lucan, harvested from the Ancient, his lab-bred offspring, and upward of twenty Breedmates. Hell, I even found some human samples in that tank. Dragos has been collecting DNA, blood cells, stem cells, embryos - everything a lab full of Minion geneticists could possibly need to keep them busy for a generation."
"Jesus Christ," Lucan muttered.
"And those are just the viable specimens," Gideon added. "The second cryo container had more of the same, but damage to the tank had broken the seals and destroyed all its contents." "What's going on over there?" Lucan asked, gesturing to still another computer with a monitor full of scrolling data. A program was running on it in split-screen mode, the bottom half ripping through line after line of rapid-fire code, the top displaying a string of thirteen-character fields. Only three of the fields were filled in with a static number: 5, 0, and 5.
"That," Gideon said, "is a little deencryption routine I wrote the other night. I hacked through some of the lab data without any problems, but one of the files has an extra password lock on it. My usual bag of tricks didn't make a dent in the encryption, so I'm coming at it from another angle."
"And it's working?" Lucan asked, watching the dizzying code fill the monitor and keep on going.
"It's working," Gideon said. "But going a lot slower than I'd hoped. The program's been running for roughly twenty-four hours and that's all it's returned. At this rate, we're looking at another four or five days to crack the whole sequence. Assuming the program's results are accurate."
Lucan grunted. "And we have no way of knowing what's in the file even if we crack the encryption."
"Right," Gideon replied. "But since Dragos took the extra step to lock it down with multiple safeties, I'm guessing whatever's inside is intel we're gonna want."
"Agreed, but another four or five days could be too late to make use of whatever we find in there. Tell me you have something more than this."
Gideon nodded. "I've been hacking into the GPS transmissions that Hunter sent us while he was down in New Orleans. Since that intel led us to Corinne's son, maybe we can get a bead on Dragos's other Hunter cells across the country. We locate those cells, we can start taking them out one by one. Disassemble Dragos's homegrown army from the ground up.">But the Hunter had failed to bring Dragos his prize.
One more failure on top of a day filled with setbacks and annoyances.
He'd abide no more.
His patience had reached its end and there would be no more delaying his birthright.
Dragos launched himself out of the chair on a violent curse, taking the priceless antique up in his hands as he rose to his feet. In a fit of rage, he flung the thing at the massive stone fireplace that filled one whole side of the room. The chair smashed to pieces as it hit the towering wall of immovable granite rock and mortar.
Six centuries of history reduced to splinters at his whim.
The totality of that loss - the irrevocable destruction - filled him with a satisfaction as real and visceral as the most explosive orgasm. Dragos savored the rush of power through his veins. He drank it in, let it feed him like life-giving, free-flowing blood.
He was seething, drunk on his own magnificence as he burst through the door of his private chambers and barked to one of his Minion servants.
"Summon my lieutenants," he snarled. "I want every last one of them dialed in to the secure video line within the hour. Have them ready and awaiting my command."
ROWAN SUCKED HIS BREATH IN through his teeth as Chase mopped the last of the blood from the back of his contused, split scalp. "Jesus, that knot hurts like a bitch. Your heavy hands aren't helping the situation either. You make a damned awful nurse."
Chase grunted. "Bedside manners were never my strong suit."
"No shit. You about finished back there?"
"Done." Chase had already dressed his own wounds from the battle at the clinic, he and Rowan having turned the latter's Darkhaven kitchen into a makeshift field medic station while Tavia had been shown to an upstairs guest room to clean up and rest. The mansion was quiet but for the occasional murmur of conversation as Rowan's civilian kin - a handful of younger brothers and nephews, a few of them with Breedmates of their own - went about their business elsewhere in the Darkhaven.
Chase tossed the mess from Rowan's injuries and eyed the wincing Enforcement Agent with a sidelong glance. "When's the last time you took a hit on duty, anyway?"
Rowan shrugged. "You mean, since I was promoted to director of the region? Hard to get hit when you're sitting behind a desk or pushing paperwork most of the time."
"Thought you knew what the job entailed when you campaigned for it."
"I only campaigned for it because you refused to," Rowan said. "You know the director's spot had your name on it. Hell, it was tradition that it should go to you. There'd been a Chase in that office for as long as the Agency's had a presence in Boston."
More than two hundred years, in fact.
First Chase's father, then Quentin, Chase's brother. It had been six years since Quent had been killed on the job. Everyone in the family and the Agency alike had assumed Chase would step in as director. Instead, after the shock of what had happened to Quent and the grief of his death had faded, Chase had thrown himself into fieldwork, taking the street patrols and other shit jobs that usually went to the new recruits and discipline cases. Work intended to get their hands dirty, make their balls sweat a little in action before any of them started jockeying for council attention or political favors within the Agency.
To those looking in from the outside, Chase's decision to avoid the director's office had been one of honor, of courage. A mourning brother, sole surviving son of one of the most respected names in Breed society, turning away from title and privilege to continue his family's legacy of selfless service in the trenches.
The truth of it had little to do with any of those things. Chase couldn't bear the thought of attempting to fill Quentin's or his father's shoes. His success never would have measured up to the impossible standards they'd set, and his failure by comparison would have been more than he could bear. The shame of just how deeply he understood this fact had dogged Chase even to today.