Beside me, Ethan muttered a curse.
"Question of the hour, Sullivan - why haven't you called the Houses together?"
I didn't have to see Ethan's expression to know how he'd react to the less-than-subtle challenge to his strategy. But he played along. "For what purpose?"
Catcher rolled his eyes and shifted back into the couch, looping his arms over the back of it. "Information, to start."
"Isn't that your job? Investigating?"
"My job is to ease tensions, and that's what I'm talking about - calming nerves." He tapped the newspaper. "Celina in a busty suit isn't enough to get past murder. People are nervous. The Mayor's nervous. Hell, even Scott's nervous. I went by Grey House earlier. Scott's up in arms. Pissed, and you know how much it takes to get him riled up. The boy's Teflon to politics, usually. But someone comes at his people, and he's ready to battle. Mark of a good leader," he allowed.
Ethan wiped his mouth with a napkin, then crumpled it and let it fall to the table. "I'm not in a position to take steps, preventive or otherwise. I don't have the political capital."
Catcher shook his head. "I'm not talking about your directing the show. I'm talking about getting the communities together - or at least the Houses. Everyone's talking, and we're hearing a lot of it. Questions are being asked, fingers being pointed. You need to step out there. You could gain some capital if you do." He shrugged, scratched at the arm that lay behind Mallory's shoulders. "I know it's not my decision, and you're probably using that handy little mental link to explain to our mutual vampire friend here" - he bobbed his head at me - "how I'm meddling into affairs that aren't my own. But you also know that I wouldn't come to you with this if I didn't think it was important."
The room was quiet, mentally and otherwise, Catcher having been a little overenthusiastic about Ethan's willingness to confide in me.
Then he nodded. "I know. I take it you don't have any information other than this?"
Catcher swallowed a drink of soda, shook his head. "As far as facts go, you know what I know. As far as feelings go. . . ." He trailed off, but held out his right hand, palm up, and slowly uncurled his fingers. There was a sudden pulse through the air, that sudden vibrating thickness that, I was beginning to learn, indicated magic. And in the space above Catcher's hand, the air seemed to wave, like rising heat.
Ethan shifted beside me. "What do you know?" His voice was low, earnest, cautious.
Catcher, head cocked, eyes on his palm, was quiet for a long, heavy moment. "War is coming, Ethan Sullivan, House of Cadogan. The temporary peace, born of human neglect, is at an end. She is strong. She will come, she will rise, and she will break the bonds that have held the Night together."
I swallowed, kept my gaze on Catcher. This was Mallory's boyfriend in full fourth-grade sorcerer mode, offering a creepily formal prophecy about the state of the Houses. But creepy as it was, I kept my eyes on Catcher, and ignored the urge to shift my head and look at Ethan, whose weighty stare I could feel.
"War will come. She will bring it. They will join her. Prepare to fight."
Catcher shuddered, curled his fingers back into a fist. The magic dissipated in a warm breeze, leaving the four of us blinking at each other.
A knock sounded at the door. "Liege? Everything okay? We felt magic."
"It's fine," Ethan called out. "We're fine." But when I looked over, his gaze was on me, penetrating in its intensity, and I knew - even without his voice in my head - what he was thinking: I was an unknown threat, and I might be the "she" in Catcher's prophecy. It was another mark against me, the possibility that I was the woman who would bring war to the vampires, risk the possibility of another Clearing.
I sighed and looked away. Things had become so complicated.
Catcher shook his head like a dog shaking off water, then ran a hand over his head. "That was vaguely nauseating, but at least I didn't do iambic pentameter this time."
"And no rhyming," Mallory put in, "which is an improvement."
I lifted a brow at that revelation, wondering how and when Mallory'd had a chance to see Catcher prophesizing. On the other hand, God only knew went on behind that bedroom door.
As if still recovering from the intensity of the experience, Catcher picked up a cup of soda, stripped off the plastic lid and straw, and drank deeply, his throat swallowing convulsively until he'd drained it. Magic looked to be tough work, and I was glad - even if being a vampire was still an emotional and physical ordeal - that I wasn't dealing with the weight of some kind of unseen universal power.
When he'd finished drinking, he sat back, then put a hand on Mallory's knee. He slid a glance to me, then looked at Ethan. "By the way, she's not the one."
"I know," he said, not even pausing to reflect. That drew a look from me, which he didn't meet. I opened my mouth to ask questions - How do you know? Why don't you think I'm the one? - but Catcher jumped in first.
"And speaking of prophesying, I hear Gabe's heading back, and sooner than we thought."
Ethan's head snapped up, so I could guess the import of that little revelation. "How reliable?"
"Reliable enough." Catcher looked at me. "You remember, this is the head of the North American Central - Jeff's pack." I nodded my understanding. "He's got people in Chicago, and he's got the convention coming up. He wants to assure himself that things are safe and secure before he brings in the pack. And I've heard Tonya's pregnant, so he'll want her and the kid safe."
"If things aren't safe," Ethan clipped out, "it's none of my doing."
Catcher's tone softened. "I realize that. But things are coming to a head. And if he wants assurances, he'll get them, or he'll skip Chicago altogether and order the pack to Aurora."
"Aurora?" I asked.
"Alaska," Catcher said. "Home base for the North American packs. They'll disappear into the wilderness and leave the vamps to fight it out alone. Again."
Ethan sat back, seemed to consider the threat, then slid me a glance. "Thoughts?"
I opened my mouth, closed it again. The master of strategy apparently wanted another bit of "canny analysis." I wasn't sure I could produce brilliant supernatural strategy off the top of my head. But I gave it a try, opting to stick with common sense, which seemed to be in notoriously short supply in the supernatural communities.
"There's little to be lost in getting people together, talking things out," I said. "Humans already know about us. If we can't work together, if we fight one another, it sets the stage for problems down the road. If worse comes to worst, and the tide turns, we'll want friends to turn to. We'll at least want honest conversation, open communication."