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Chapter Six
At midweek in the height of the summer tourist season, Boston's parks and avenues were clotted with humanity. Commuter trains sped people in from the suburbs, to workplaces and museums, and to the countless historic sites located around the city. Camera-toting gawkers clambered onto excursion buses and horse-drawn carriages to putter around town, while others lined up to board over-priced, overcrowded charter tours that would haul them by the hundreds out to the Cape.
Not far from the daytime bustle, secreted some three-hundred feet beneath a heavily secured mansion outside the city, Lucan Thorne leaned over a flat-panel monitor in the Breed warriors' compound and muttered a ripe curse. Vampire identification records scrolled up the screen's display with machine-gun speed as a computer program searched a massive international database for matches against the photos Gabrielle Maxwell had taken.
"Anything yet?" he asked, slanting an impatient look at Gideon, the machine's operator.
"Zip, so far. But my search is still clocking. IID's got a few million records to scan." Gideon's sharp blue eyes flashed over the rims of sleek silver shades. "I'll get a lock on your suckheads, don't worry."
"I never do," Lucan replied, and meant it. Gideon had an IQ that was off the charts, compounded by a streak of tenacity that ran a mile wide. The vampire was as much relentless bloodhound as he was flat-out genius, and Lucan was damned glad to have him on his side. "If you can't flush them out, Gideon, no one can."
Beneath his crown of cropped, spiky blond hair, the Breed's computer guru bared a cocky, confident grin. "That's why I get the big bucks."
"Yeah, something like that," Lucan said, drawing away from the screen's nonstop roll of information.
None of the Breed warriors who had signed on to protect the race from the scourge of the Rogues did so for any kind of payback. They never had, not from the first forming of their alliance in what was mankind's medieval era to now. Each warrior had his reasons for choosing this dangerous way of life, and some of them were, admittedly, more noble than others. Like Gideon, who had worked the field independently until seeking out Lucan after his twin brothers - little more than children - were killed by Rogues outside the London Darkhaven. That was three centuries ago, give or take a few decades.
Even then, Gideon's skill with a sword had been rivaled only by his rapier-sharp mind. He had slain many Rogues in his time, but much later, devotion and a private pledge to his Breedmate, Savannah, had made him give up combat in exchange for wielding the weapon of technology in service to the Breed.
Each of the six warriors who currently fought beside Lucan had their personal talents. They had their own personal demons as well, though none of them were the touchy-feely types looking to have Dr. Phil crawl up their ass with a flashlight. Some things were better left to the dark, and probably the only one of them who felt that more than Lucan himself was the Breed warrior called Dante.
Lucan acknowledged the young vampire as he strode into the tech lab from one of the compound's numerous chambers. Dante, wrapped in his standard basic black attire, was wearing biker's leathers and a fitted tank that showcased both his inked tattoos and his more elaborate Breed markings. His thick biceps were banded with intricate scrollwork, which, to human eyes would seem oddly abstract, a series of interlocking symbols and geometric designs rendered in deep henna hues. Vampire eyes would see the symbols for what they truly were: dermaglyphs, naturally occurring marks inherited from the Breeds' forebears, whose hairless skin had been covered in the changeable, camouflaging pigments.
Glyphs typically were a source of pride for the Breed, unique indications of lineage and social rank. Gen Ones like Lucan bore the marks in greater numbers and deeper saturation. His own dermaglyphs covered his torso, front and back, stretched down onto his thighs and along his upper arms, with still more running up the back of his neck and onto his scalp. Like living tattoos, the glyphs changed hues according to a vampire's emotional state.
Dante's were currently deep russet-bronze, indicating satiation from a recent feeding. No doubt, once he and Lucan had parted company after hunting Rogues the night before, Dante had gone on to find the bed - and the ripe, juicy vein - of a willing female Host topside.
"How goes it?" he asked, dropping into a chair and putting one large booted foot up on the desk in front of him. "Figured you'd have those bastards bagged and tagged for us already, Gid."
Dante's voice held the trace accent of his eighteenth-century Italian ancestry, but tonight the cultured tone bore a rough edge that said the vampire was restless and itching for action. As if to make the point, he drew one of his ever-present signature curved blades from the sheath at his hip and began idly toying with the polished claw of steel.
Malebranche, he called the arced blades, a reference to demons inhabiting one of the nine levels of hell, though sometimes Dante wryly adopted the word as a surname for himself when he was out among humankind. That was about all the poetry the vampire had in his soul; everything else inside of him was unapologetic, cold, dark menace.
Lucan admired that about him, and had to admit watching Dante in combat with those ruthless blades was a thing of beauty, enough to put any artist to shame.
"Nice work last night," Lucan said, well aware that praise from him was rare, even when it was deserved. "You saved my ass out there."
He wasn't talking about the confrontation with the Rogues, but what had happened afterward. Lucan had gone too long without feeding, starvation being something almost as dangerous to their kind as the addictive overindulgence that plagued the Rogues. Dante's look said he understood the meaning, but he let the fact slide with his usual cool nonchalance.
"Shit," he replied, drawing the word out around a deep chuckle. "After all the times you've had my back? Forget it, man. Just returning the favor."
The lab's glass entry doors slid open with a smooth hiss as two more of Lucan's brethren strode in. They were quite a pair. Nikolai, tall and athletic, with sandy hair, strikingly angular features, and piercing ice-blue eyes a shade colder than the winter of his Siberian homeland. The youngest of the group by far, Niko had come of age during the height of the humans' so-called Cold War. A gearhead right out of the cradle, he was a high-octane thrill-seeker and the Breed's first line of defense when it came to things like guns, gadgets, and everything in between.
Conlan, by contrast, was soft-spoken and serious, a consummate tactician. He was as graceful as a big cat next to Niko's brash swagger, a wall of bulky muscle, his copper hair shorn beneath the black triangle of silk that wrapped his skull. The vampire was late generation Breed - a youth by Lucan's standards - his human mother the daughter of a Scottish chieftain. The warrior carried himself with a bearing that was nothing short of regal.
Hell, even his beloved Breedmate, Danika, affectionately referred to the highlander as My Lord a lot of the time, and the five-eleven female was hardly the subservient type.
"Rio's on the way," Nikolai announced, his mouth widening into a sly grin that put twin dimples in his lean cheeks. He gave Lucan a nod of his head. "Eva said to tell you we can have her man only after she's done with him."
"If there's anything left," Dante drawled, holding out his hand to greet the others with a smooth grazing of palms, then a knock of briefly connected knuckles.
Lucan met Niko and Conlan with like respect, but he settled in with mild annoyance at Rio's delay. He didn't begrudge any vampire his chosen Breedmate, but Lucan personally saw no point in strapping himself down with the demands and responsibilities of a blood-bonded female. It was expected of the general population of the Breed to take a woman to mate and bear the next generation, but for the warrior class - those select few males who willingly shunned the sanctuary of the Darkhavens in favor of a life of combat - Lucan saw the process of blood-bonding as sentimental at best.
At its worst, it was an invitation to disaster if a warrior was tempted to put feelings for his mate above his duty to the Breed.
"Where's Tegan?" he asked, his thoughts leading naturally to the last of their number at the compound.
"Not yet returned," Conlan answered.
