Bloodlust was almost always a one-way ticket to madness ... and death. If not by edict of the Order, then by the disease itself, which made even the most careful Breed male reckless. All a Rogue knew was his thirst. He would kill indiscriminately, take any risk, in the attempt to quench it. He would even slaughter an entire village if the opportunity was there.
"Whoever did this needs to be put down fast," Brock added. "Son of a bitch needs to be put down hard."
Lucan nodded his agreement. "The sooner, the better. That's why I called you in, Kade. The situation up there could get out of hand pretty quick, not only if we've got a Rogue problem to contend with, but also because human law enforcement has gotten wind of the killings. Gideon tracked an Alaska State Police dispatch call out of a little interior town called Harmony. Fortunately, there's fewer than a hundred people living there, but it only takes one hysterical mouth screaming the word 'vampire' to turn this whole thing into an even bigger disaster."
"Shit," Kade muttered. "Do we know who shot the video?"
"Hard to say right now," Lucan said. "Gideon's looking into it. We do know for sure there's a trooper posted in the town--he's the one who alerted the Fairbanks dispatch to the killings. Obviously, time is critical here. We need to know who's responsible for the slayings, and we need to make sure no one up there gets anywhere close to the truth about what exactly took place out there in the bush." Kade listened, his veins still jangling with the brutality of what he had just seen on the monitor. In his peripheral vision was the final frame, paused on the screen, a blurred image of a young human's bloodspattered face, his open, unseeing brown eyes clouded from the cold, ice crystals clinging to his dark eyelashes. He was just a kid, for crissake. Probably barely out of his teens, if that. It wasn't the first time Kade had seen the aftermath of a bloody slaughter in the Alaskan bush. When he'd left home all those months ago, he'd sure as hell hoped he'd never see that kind of carnage again.
"We're spread thin here with our current operations, but we can't afford to let the situation up north go unchecked," Lucan said. "I need to send someone who knows the terrain and the people, and who has connections in the Breed population up there."
Kade held Lucan's stare, knowing he could hardly refuse the assignment, even if Alaska was the last place he wanted to be. When he'd left there last year to join the Order, he'd done so with the hope that he might never return.
He wanted to forget the place where he'd been born. The wild place that had called to him like a possessive, destructive lover every moment since he'd left.
"What do you say, my man?" Lucan asked as Kade's silence grew long. He didn't see where he had any choice. He owed it to Lucan and the Order to take care of this unexpected, unpleasant business. No matter where it led him.
Even if the search for a vampire with an uncontrollable itch to kill ended up leading Kade home to a ten-thousand-acre stretch of land in the Alaskan interior. Home, to his family's own backyard. Grim with the idea, he gave the Order's leader an accepting nod. "How soon do I leave?" Forty-five minutes later, Kade was wearing a track in the rug of his private quarters, his packed duffel sitting on the end of the bed. A satellite phone lay beside the black leather bag, and for the third time in the past ten minutes, Kade reached for the device and punched in the number he hadn't called since the night he left Alaska.
This time he let the call ring through.
It was a shock to hear his father's strong voice come on the line.
"Been a while," Kade said by way of greeting, to which his father only grunted. It was a lame effort at contact after a year of being out of touch by his own doing. Then again, it wasn't as if his father had ever accused him of being responsible or reliable, or anything else for that matter. The conversation was awkward, a strained attempt at hi-how-are-you as Kade worked up the nerve to ask how everything was going back home. His father talked about the hard winter, the only benefit of the season being the fact that it kept the sun in hiding for all but three hours at midday. Kade recalled the extended darkness of the north country. His pulse kicked eagerly at the thought of so much night, so many hours of freedom in which to run.
It was obvious that his father hadn't yet heard about the recent slayings. Kade didn't mention them, nor did he speak of the mission that was sending him north. Instead, Kade cleared his throat and asked the question that had been burning in his gut since the moment he heard there had been trouble in Alaska.
"How's Seth doing? Is everything all right with him?"
Kade's blood went a bit cold in the hesitant silence that preceded his father's reply. "He is well. Why do you ask?"
Kade heard the suspicion in his father's voice, the mild disapproval that always had a way of creeping into the elder male's voice whenever Kade dared to question matters concerning his brother. "Just wondering if he might be around, that's all."
"Your brother had Darkhaven business to attend to for me in the city" came the terse reply. "He left a few weeks ago."
"A few weeks," Kade echoed. "That's a long time for him to be away. Have you heard from him at all recently?"
"Not recently, no. Why?" On the other end of the line, his father seemed to go silent with impatience.
"What exactly is this about, Kade? A year without any contact from you, and now you want to interrogate me about your brother's comings and goings. What is it you want?"
"Forget it," Kade said, instantly regretting that he'd made the call in the first place. "Just forget I called. I gotta go."