"Man, I hate winter," Brock muttered as the flurry of new-falling snow began to come down in earnest. A gust of icy wind buffeted the side of the vehicle, howling like a banshee across the empty lot.
Truth be told, a lot of his foul mood had to do with the way he'd screwed things up with Jenna. He couldn't help wondering how she was doing, what she was thinking. Whether she despised him, which was certainly her right. He was anxious for the night's mission to be over so he could head back to the compound and see for himself that Jenna was okay.
"Your man Rowan better not be dicking us around," he grumbled. "I don't sit in the damn cold freezing my ass off for just anybody--least of all a self-righteous Agency blowhard."
Chase slid him a meaningful look. "Whether you care to believe it or not, there are a few good inpiduals in the Enforcement Agency. Mathias Rowan is one of them. He's been my eyes and ears on the inside for months now. If we want a fighting chance at routing out Dragos's possible allies in the Agency, we need Rowan on our side."
Brock gave a grim nod and settled back to continue their wait. Chase was probably right about his old ally. Few in the Enforcement Agency would want to admit there were cracks in their foundation--cracks that had permitted a cancer like Dragos to operate inside the Agency in secret for decades. Dragos had hidden behind an assumed name, accumulating power and intel, recruiting an untold number of like-minded followers willing to kill for him--to die for him, if duty demanded it. Dragos had climbed as high as the director level in the Agency before the Order had unmasked him several months ago and driven him to ground.
Although Dragos was gone from the Agency, the Order was certain he hadn't severed all of his ties. There would be those who still agreed with his dangerous plans. Those who were still allied with him in silent conspiracy, hiding within layer upon layer of bureaucratic bullshit that prevented Brock and the other warriors from going in with guns blazing to flush them out.
One of Chase's main objectives in the months since Dragos turned tail and ran was to start peeling back those layers in the Agency. To get closer to Dragos, the Order would need to get close to his lieutenants without tripping any alarms. One careless move could drive Dragos even deeper into hiding.
The operation was covert in the extreme, made all the more delicate seeing how the Order's best hope of success lay in the hair-trigger, volatile hands of Sterling Chase and his trust in an old friend who was only as loyal as Chase promised him to be.
On the passenger-side dashboard, Chase's cell phone began to vibrate.
"That'll be Rowan," he said, grabbing the phone and answering the call.
"Yeah. We're waiting. Where are you?"
Brock stared out at the swirling snow through the windshield, listening to Chase's side of a conversation that didn't sound like good news.
"Ah, f**k--anyone dead?" Chase went quiet for a second, then hissed something nasty. At Brock's questioning look, he explained, "Got detoured by another call. Darkhaven kid let things get out of hand at a party. There was a fight, then a feeding on the street outside. One human is dead, another ran off on foot, bleeding bad."
"Jesus," Brock muttered.
The dead human and a feeding taking place on a public street was bad enough. The bigger trouble was the escaped witness. It wasn't hard to imagine the hysteria that a savaged human could cause, running around screaming the word "vampire." To say nothing of what that same bleeding human could incite among Brock's own kind.
The scent of fresh, spilling red cells would be a beacon to every Breed in a two-mile radius. And God forbid there were any Rogues left in the city.
One whiff of an open wound would be enough to send the blood-addicted dregs of the Breed population into a feeding frenzy.
Chase's jaw was taut as he went back to Mathias Rowan on the cell.
"Tell me your guys have the runner contained." From the harsh grate of the curse that followed, Brock was guessing the answer to that was no.
"Goddamn it, Mathias. You know as well as I do that we've got to get that human off the street. If it takes the entire Boston pision to track him down, then you do it. Who's down there with you from the Agency?"
Brock watched and listened as the conversation continued, observing a side of Sterling Chase he hardly recognized. The former Agent was cool and commanding, logical and precise. The unpredictable hothead that Brock had grown accustomed to as a member of the Order seemed to take a backseat to the crisp, capable leader sitting beside him in the Rover now.
He'd heard that Chase had been a golden boy with the Agency before he'd joined the Order, though you couldn't have proved that by Brock in the year that he'd been working alongside him. Now he felt a kindling new respect for the former Agent, as well as a gnawing curiosity about the other, darker side of him, which never seemed far from the surface.
"Where are you at, Mathias?" Chase motioned to Brock to put the vehicle in gear as he spoke to his Agency contact. "Tell you what, you let me worry about whether the Order needs to get involved in this. I'm not asking permission, and you and I never had this conversation, got it? Save it for when I get there. We're already heading your way."
Brock turned the Rover onto the street and followed Chase's directions as he cut off Mathias Rowan's audible protests, then stuffed the cell phone back into his coat pocket. They sped deeper into the city, toward the industrial wharfs, where a lot of the younger crowd--humans and Breed alike--met for late-night raves and private, after-hours parties.
It wasn't hard to find the scene of the killing. Two unmarked black sedans were parked at a dockside warehouse. Several Breed males in dark coats and suits stood around a large object lying unmoving in the filthy snow of the lot adjacent to the building.