Because Opus’s plan had a second act.
The man currently wailing for mercy in the Order’s holding tank and the rest of his comrades that night unleashed an even more horrific weapon on their innocent captives: Red Dragon.
The manufactured poison could turn even the most law-abiding Breed citizen into a lethal, bloodthirsty Rogue in mere seconds. And so it had. Dozens of them.
The scene inside the theater had been chaos, an out-of-control massacre, culminating with the Order being forced to put down the newly made Rogues or risk even more bloodshed.
To make the whole catastrophe worse, every hideous moment of it had been broadcast live around the world by the news crews Opus had summoned to the scene.
The fact that the strike on the civilians had come on the heels of another recent Opus attack that cost the Order one of their own, Elijah, made Lucan’s blood boil in his veins.
And now all of the Order’s patrol teams were busy combating a seemingly never-ending flood of new Rogues being made and turned loose on cities all over the world.
Lucan snarled just thinking about it. “If Hunter doesn’t kill the human piece of shit in the process of blood-reading him, I fucking might.”
Impatient for progress, he strode out of the tech lab. Gideon swiveled away from his computers and fell in behind him, walking briskly to keep up as Lucan headed for the room where Opus’s man continued to holler and beg for his life.
The holding cell, like the rest of the headquarters’ underground labyrinth, had been part of the historic mansion’s original construction when the Order acquired it as their D.C. base of operations more than twenty years ago. Security enhancements and technological improvements had been implemented in the time since, all of them designed and overseen by Gideon. The Order’s tech wizard was particularly proud of the cell’s state-of-the-art, multi-functioning bars that encircled the cage. They were engineered to hold any manner of enemy captive, from garden-variety Rogues to hostile Atlantean immortals, or something even more dangerous than either of those combined.
All of Gideon’s impressive engineering and technology was lost on the bony-assed human who’d been cooling his heels inside the eight-foot square prison cell since his capture.
His name was Elmer Gopnik, which made the Order’s nickname for him of Scarface sound like an upgrade.
At the moment, Gopnik’s sallow, pock-marked cheeks were streaked with sweat and tears, his unwashed hair matted against his head. The skinny arm hanging limply at his side sported twin puncture wounds still oozing a trickle of blood.
“Anything useful to report?” Lucan asked Hunter.
The former assassin wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, his golden eyes unreadable. “He knows nothing. All this human’s told you so far are lies.”
“As I suspected,” Lucan growled. Even though the news came as little surprise, his fury spiked and his fangs lengthened. “I should kill him for that alone.”
Hunter gave an emotionless nod of agreement. “He has no value to us.”
With three Breed warriors looking at him as though he were nothing more than an insect, Gopnik sucked in a panicked breath and made a futile struggle against his restraints. “Let me go . . . please. Fuck! Please don’t kill me. I’m beggin’ you!”
Lucan stepped closer to the thick titanium bars. “You’re begging me? You mean the way the Breed ambassador from Ireland begged you for mercy in that theater the other night--right before you and your comrades shot him full of UV light in front of his fucking family?”
Gopnik blanched. “I was only carrying out orders. I had no choice!”
“No choice?” Lucan practically spat the words. “You want us to play the video for you? Say yes, because if I have to see that goddamn massacre again, I will make you suffer a year for every second of torture that was inflicted on those innocent civilians.”
Gopnik shook his head so hard it was like he was having a seizure. He shrank back on a shudder, and the acrid puddle of urine under the interrogation chair he was strapped to started to spread out farther as he sputtered and cowered.
Lucan stared at him, feeling nothing, not even pity. Gopnik had carried out his mission during the theater attack with sick enjoyment and bravado. It would be a fitting end if Lucan severed the human’s head with his bare hands and stuck it on a pike outside the Order’s headquarters. Or, better yet, send it back to Opus Nostrum with the promise that the cabal’s inner circle would be next.
The only problem being the Order had yet to locate the members of that inner circle.
Gideon had been working on a possible solution, but the missing pieces were information and opportunity. Elmer Gopnik was a bust on the first item. As for the second, no matter how much Lucan might enjoy lethally venting his rage on one of Opus’s foot soldiers, he could think of several ways they might yet be able to use the human.
Tearing off his head was still Lucan’s top choice. If he had to look at Gopnik--or smell his stench--for another moment, Lucan might just give in to his murderous impulses.
Besides that, he had somewhere he needed to be.
“I’ll deal with this scum later,” he said. “If I don’t decide to let him rot down here.”
Indicating for Gideon and Hunter to follow him, he strode away from the barred cell.
“Wait!” Gopnik shouted after them. “I’m sorry for what I did. I’m telling you the truth now.”
