Darion tore through the city as if his heels were on fire.
Gideon’s broadcast to all of the Order teams in the D.C. vicinity a moment ago still rang in Darion’s ears.
One of their own had signaled for assistance, and was currently unresponsive.
Not just any warrior. Lucan. Darion’s father.
Fuck.
He sped toward the site where Lucan’s comm unit signal had originated. Darion knew practically every square block of the city, including the affluent area where GNC member Oliver Keener’s estate was located. Wooded acreage surrounded the mansion, a luxury in a metropolis full of concrete and asphalt.
Darion moved swiftly, stealthily, across the grounds at the back of the house, his gun full of titanium rounds locked and loaded at his side. Up ahead, lights were on inside the two-story estate. No overt signs of trouble from within or without.
The quiet of the place bothered him.
If Lucan needed backup, where the hell was the fight?
There was no sign of his father anywhere. No sign of anyone at all.
Still, his instincts stayed on high alert as he crept farther onto the property.
As he neared the side of the big house, those instincts began to scream like sirens.
The unmistakable smell of blood and death reached his nostrils. Whoever was inside the mansion was human, and long dead.
Darion stepped onto the darkened driveway. An abandoned delivery van was parked halfway down, its back doors wide open. Directly behind it on the pavement, its hood smashed in from a collision with the van, was a black sedan with diplomat plates. The sedan had been rammed from behind as well, but whatever beast of a vehicle had plowed into its rear end was gone now.
As he drew closer to the sedan, he spotted single bullet holes in the side windows. Had it been an assassination attempt on Keener? Or something even worse?
Like the mansion behind him, the sedan reeked of blood and death, too.
And something else . . . .
A trace of bitter, noxious fumes immediately made Darion’s eyes water and burn, even from fifteen feet away. He brought his arm up in front of his nose to keep from inhaling any of the fumes as he approached.
Thick red fog coated the inside of the windshield and windows, making it impossible to see into the car.
Holy shit.
It could only be one thing: Red Dragon.
Understanding--and a marrow-deep dread--dawned on him as he took in the evidence of the poisonous narcotic that had been deployed into the vehicle.
Now that he was drawing up next to the diplomat’s car, he realized someone was alive inside. Not that Darion took much comfort in the fact.
Sounds of feeding and low, animalistic grunts made his skin prickle with sick anticipation as he reached for the driver’s side door handle with one hand, his other gripped around the pistol full of Rogue-killing titanium hollowpoints.
Darion yanked the door open. Red Dragon mist clouded into the night air, and he held his breath as he aimed the gun at the back of the big Rogue’s skull as it feasted on the shredded throat of Oliver Keener.
There was no saving the human. No saving the Rogue who had killed him, either. Death would be a mercy compared to an existence ruled by an insatiable hunger for blood.
Yet something held Darion’s finger on the trigger of his firearm.
His senses staggered as his brain acknowledged what his heart refused to admit he was actually seeing.
It wasn’t just any Rogue who’d attacked and slaughtered the GNC diplomat.
It was Lucan.
