She wasn't his, and he had better put all thoughts of her aside to maintain his focus on the thing that truly mattered to him now--upholding his promise to avenge the innocent souls whom Roth destroyed. If he couldn't do that, then he was no good to himself or anyone else. Reichen drove for a while without speaking, working hard to ignore the fact that only a small space of leather and plastic separated him from Claire. At least he hadn't gone pyro back at Roth's office. Claire's blood was likely to thank for that small blessing. He'd felt the fires leap to life inside him when he sensed her distress a few blocks away from the place, but somehow, by the time he'd returned to face the agents who were hurting her, he'd managed to keep the flames from erupting. Barely. For all his reassurances that he would keep her safe, he knew that his destructive power posed a very real danger to her. The more he used it, the more slippery his hold on it became. He didn't know how long it might be before the fire trapped within him burned out of his control completely.
He couldn't care less what happened to him, but if the heat should snap its tether while Claire was nearby... Reichen looked at her pretty profile in the milky light of the dashboard. Her head was tipped down as she tried to smooth a nasty snag in her sweater. She concentrated on the imperfection, worrying the loose thread between her graceful, pianist's fingers, her loose ebony hair stirring in the low draft of the heat blowing out of the vent. "What is he afraid of?" she murmured. She glanced over, frowning now. "What is it that Wilhelm feels he needs to protect from you?" Reichen shook his head. "I don't know, and frankly, I can't say that it matters to me now. I don't care why he did what he did. All that's left is the fact that he must pay." She pivoted in her seat, her dark eyes shining, stubbornly suspicious. "He's threatened by you, Andreas. Not because of anything that happened these past two nights, but before that. Why else would he take such a drastic step and order an attack on your Darkhaven?" "I suppose he didn't appreciate me digging around in his affairs. He felt he needed to send a strong message to me." Claire nodded grimly. "And just what did he think you might find? I can't believe it had anything to do with that missing girl from the club. Not to warrant the kind of retaliation you described." "So, you believe me now?" he asked. She gave him a frank, unflinching look. "I don't want to, but after talking with Wilhelm tonight... it's harder for me to doubt you than it is to trust anything he says. You scared him, Andre. He's still afraid of what you might know or what you could do to him. The question is, why?
What is he protecting... or whom?" A knot of coldness formed in Reichen's gut as Claire spoke. He'd never asked himself why Roth came after him. He'd assumed it was due to a mix of old animosity and new opportunity when Reichen had unwittingly sent Helene into Roth's crosshairs. The why of it really hadn't seemed important. Not when rage and grief had been the only things Reichen had known in the aftermath of the slaughter. He'd been blinded by his fury. By the need for vengeance. He'd never stopped to consider the simple truth that Claire had just laid out for him so plainly. Roth had something very significant to hide. Something that went much deeper than his whispered gangster alliances with the crooks and politicians who tended to gravitate toward the Enforcement Agency. He was protecting a monumental secret. Something worth spilling the lives of more than a dozen people without a moment's hesitation. Worth even more than that, Reichen was certain now. As he stared ahead at the dark ribbon of road, a name crept into his mind like a serpent: Dragos. Good Christ. Could the two of them be connected in some way? Had he gotten too close to uncovering some kind of alliance between Dragos and Roth? If he'd had cause to contact the Order in Boston before, now he couldn't reach them fast enough. Reichen leaned on the accelerator, his thoughts flying as black as the night landscape zooming past the windows of the SUV A few minutes out of the city, he spotted an Internet caf?. He turned off the road and headed for the place, praying like hell that his instincts were wrong about Roth and Dragos being in league together. If his instincts were right? Ah, f**k.
If they were right, then he had just nailed the lid shut on not only his coffin, but Claire's, as well. He brought her inside the caf?, to an empty workstation and table as far away from the rest of the patrons as he could find. Using some of the euros he'd lifted off the dead agents, Reichen bought Claire a bowl of soup and a sandwich, and purchased himself an hour's time on the computer. While she went to work on her meal, he opened an Internet browser on his rented workstation and brought up the secured emergency access site address that belonged to the Order. It was a generic-looking page, basic black, with an unlabeled prompt blinking on the screen as it waited for input. Reichen typed in an access code and password that Gideon back in Boston had given him some months ago, when he'd first begun his remote work for the Order. He hit the enter key and waited, uncertain if the unique ID he'd been assigned was still valid, as the prompt disappeared and he was left staring at the empty black screen. "What's it doing?" Claire asked, leaning close to him. Reichen shook his head, guessing that the warriors might have written him off as dead in the three months he'd been out of contact since the destruction of his Darkhaven. "This site links up to the Boston compound. It's fully encrypted and continuously monitored by the Order. Once I'm verified, we should get a response from Gideon." No sooner had he said it than the prompt reappeared, asking for method of contact. Reichen typed in one of the numbers from the Agency cell phones, advising that the line was stolen, most likely compromised, and far from secure. Gideon's response was instantaneous: Acknowledged, and not a problem. Calling on a scramble right now. The cell phone started ringing. Reichen answered, speaking his name and a string of security words at the computerized request that stated simply: Identify.