tiny computer screen. It had taken more than a hundred years to build the compound into what it had become. He couldn't deny that it put a cold ache in his chest to feel it being pulled down so neatly.
"The chapel has been sealed," Gideon said, after pressing the digital detonator another time. "All that remains is the tech lab."
Lucan heard the slight catch in the warrior's low voice. The tech lab was Gideon's pride, the nerve center of the Order's operation. It was where they'd assembled and strategized before every night's mission. It took no effort at all for Lucan to see his brethren's faces, a fine group of honorable, courageous Breed males, gathered around the lab's conference table, each one ready to give his life for the other. Some of them had. And some likely would in the time still to come. As the soft percussion of explosives continued to rumble belowground, Lucan felt a weight settle on his shoulder. He glanced beside him, to where Tegan stood, the warrior's big hand remaining a steady presence, his cool green eyes holding Lucan's gaze in an unexpected show of solidarity, as the last of the thunder faded into silence.
"That's it," Gideon announced. "That was the last one. It's over now."
For a long while, none of them spoke. There were no words. Nothing to be said in the dark shadow of the now-vacant mansion and its ruined compound below.
Finally, Lucan stepped forward. His fangs bit into the edges of his tongue as he took one last look at the place that had been his headquarters - his family's home - for so many years. Amber light filled his vision as his eyes transformed in his simmering fury.
He pivoted to face his two brethren, and when he at last found the words to speak, his voice was harsh and raw with determination. "We may be done here, but this night doesn't mark the end of anything. It's only the beginning. Dragos wants a war with the Order? Then, by God, he's damn well got it."
CHAPTER TWO
THE HOLDING CELL at the Suffolk County Sheriff's Department reeked of mildew and urine and the pungent stench of human sweat, anxiety, and disease. Sterling Chase's acute senses recoiled as he cast a hooded glance at the trio of lowlifes currently handcuffed and parked along with him in the holding tank inside the Boston jail. Across the six-by-eight windowless room, the meth- head seated on the bench opposite him bounced his boot heels nervously on the scuffed white linoleum floor. His arms were restrained behind him, thin shoulders hunched forward under the wrinkled folds of a lumberjack-plaid flannel shirt. The junkie's dark-ringed eyes were sunk deep into the hollowed sockets of his strung-out face, his gaze darting back and forth, wall to wall, ceiling to floor, and back again. Yet all the while he was careful to avoid looking directly at Chase, like a trapped and terrified rodent with the instinctive understanding that a dangerous predator was nearby.
On the other end of the long bench, a balding middle-age man sat as still as stone, sweating profusely, a pitifully sparse comb-over drooping onto his greasy forehead as he quietly murmured under his breath. He was praying in a barely audible whisper that Chase heard word for word, a plea to his God for absolution of his sins and bargaining for mercy with the fervor of a man facing the gallows. Not an hour earlier, this same man had been wailing about his innocence, swearing to the cops who'd arrested him that he had no idea how hundreds of pictures of him posed with naked children had ended up on his computer. Chase could hardly stand to breathe the same air as the pedophile, let alone look at him.
But it was the third man in the holding tank, the heavy-browed bruiser who'd arrived ten minutes ago, fresh off an arrest for domestic battery, that had Chase's molars clamped together as tight as a vise. Loose jeans sagged under the pregnant swell of a beer gut cloaked in a Patriots sweatshirt from a few Super Bowls past. The gray shirt was torn at the shoulder seam, its red- white-and-blue logo on the front stained with the smeared remnants of a pot roast and mashed potatoes meal. Judging from the knot riding the bridge of the guy's busted-up nose and the bleeding fingernail tracks skating down the left side of his face, it looked like his female victim hadn't gone