Peter wet his lips.
"The question, Peter, is whether you want to cooperate or not."
"No," Ethan said. "The question is why." The words were softly spoken.
Peter's gaze flicked nervously from me to Ethan. "Liege."
"No," Ethan said, taking a step forward. "You have lost the right to call me, to call anyone, Liege. Peter Spencer, you have violated the Canon and the covenants of Cadogan House."
No longer just "Peter." Now "Peter Spencer." Peter had regained a last name. Not good.
"You can't do this," Peter said, a nervous laughter in his voice.
Ethan moved forward another step. I gripped the handle of my katana in my right hand.
"You have violated your responsibilities to your Master, your brethren, and your House, and you have broken your oaths as a Novitiate vampire."
"I acted in the best interest of vampires," Peter said, regrip ping his katana. "I acted when you wouldn't."
Ethan, I warned, pulling my own sword.
"You are, hereby - " Ethan reached out his hand toward Peter's neck. No, not his neck.
His medal. Ethan reached for the symbol of Peter's soon-to-be-former membership in Cadogan House. His link to the rest of the Cadogan vampires.
"All right, stop!" Peter said, taking a step backward and out of Ethan's reach. "Stop." He looked around, then back at Ethan. "You don't get it, Sullivan. You don't understand what we need, what she can give us. We are vampires!" His voice rose, carried across the empty parking lot, across the Lake, then dropped again.
"They mock us. They are mortal, and weak, but they mock us. They would take away our rights. But we can't allow that."
"Who mocks us?" I asked. "Humans?"
Peter looked at me, frustration in his features. "Shifters. The pretenders."
And there was the vampire version of Nick's animosity, I thought. Born of some historic feud, and just as archaic.
"Ethan," Peter said, "Keene is bringing the shifters to Chicago. They are practically on their way. You can't let Cadogan House fall. Not to shifters, not to humans. You can't let us become some kind of amusement park vampire spectacle. On the cover of magazines?" He spat out a curse. "We are better than that. We are immortals. We can control the night again, but we have to act."
How much of this paranoia, I silently asked Ethan, is Peter, and how much is Celina's manipulation?
I've no idea, he replied.
"The Houses need to be awakened," Peter said. "We let shifters escape the first time.
During the Clearings, we let them avoid their responsibilities as supernaturals. They are our enemies, Ethan, and we have to remember that."
"We're at peace," Ethan said. "With humans, with shifters."
"We're in denial," Peter challenged. "And it's time for us to prepare."
"That's why the messages were sent? That's why the Breckenridges were targeted? To trigger a war between vampires and shifters?"
"They were targeted because they are weak." Peter's eyes glowed silver. "They were targeted to remind Keene who we are. What we are capable of. To remind him that Chicago is our city. Our town, and we won't let it go. Especially not to shifters. To pretenders."
As if he'd spoken his war cry, he attacked, katana raised. I muttered a curse and, as Ethan spun away, raised my own sword in attack. I executed a half turn, spinning as I sliced the katana upward. Peter, unfortunately, was older and a more experienced fighter. He moved, then brought the katana horizontally across my knees. I jumped, and for the first time as a vampire, took air, bounding in a flip that brought me down on Peter's other side.
Someone might have warned me I could do that, I mentally told Ethan, then sliced my katana down. Peter met my sword with his, the force vibrating the steel and my arm.
Unfortunately, that vibration also woke the vampire, like a hand on a shoulder waking someone from sleep. I huffed out a breath and pushed her back down, unwilling to lose control of this fight. I'd already seen how bad that could go, having stopped the bokken only millimeters from Catcher's head.
Peter and I clanged swords again and again and again as we sliced the katanas from side to side, me moving backward down the ramp as he pushed forward. The ribbed concrete was slick with water and algae, and I struggled to keep my footing as we moved. And worse - my head began to pound from the combined effort of fighting off his attacks, making my own advances, and trying to keep the vampire at bay.
"Celina will win," Peter said.
And there's my motivation, I thought. With a burst of energy that would have thrilled both Catcher and Aerobics Barbie - but which made the vampire that much more curious - I inched my way up the ramp, forcing Peter up and back with each slice and thrust of my sword. He turned to gain distance and I ran forward, katana in the air. I sliced down, but he turned on me, his own katana slicing upward.
"Celina is our future," he spit out again, then turned from me as the inertia forced us through the spins and away from each other. I pushed the sword beneath my right arm, but he rolled away from the thrust. I dropped my left hand away from the sword and spun around, raising the katana and bringing it around as I turned to face him again. I didn't land the strike, but Peter stumbled backward into Ethan, who caught him on the top of the head with the butt of his katana's handle.
"Celina is old news," Ethan said, voice flat, as Peter crumpled to the ground. As I lowered my sword, chest heaving from the exertion of the fight, Ethan crouched down and reached out his hand again.
"You are hereby excommunicated," he said, then ripped the medal from Peter's neck.
Ethan stood again, pressed the medal to his lips, then tossed it into the Lake. Without comment, he pulled the cell phone from his pocket, punched in numbers, and raised it to his ear.
"Tell the Brecks," he said. "The threat has been contained."
Chapter Twenty-two
GIVE PEACE A CHANCE
They debriefed via headset on the ride back to Cadogan House, but I stayed quiet, the pressure in my head forcing my silence. I rested my forehead against the cool glass of the passenger-side window and listened as they discussed the fight, the e-mail, events in Peter's history that might have triggered his defection to Celina's side. The loss of a loved one. A fight with a shifter. Celina's innate power.
The downpour of rain started just as Ethan pulled the Mercedes into the basement.
Malik met us at the basement door.
"They're here," he said. "In the office. Breckenridges and Masters."