Chicagoland Vampires - Friday Night Bites Part 30

"Or extortion. It's happened before. 'Give me what I want, and I'll ensure your kid's protected,' that kind of thing. Pack members who are already pretty far down in the ranks try to make themselves feel better. Part of where you stand is, well, you know, immutable. Every s.h.i.+fter has a primary form. The animal they change into. s.h.i.+fters are born that way. The form a s.h.i.+fter takes, that doesn't change. You're born to it, and that affects your rank in the pack. But part of it is muscle, strength. And that strength determines what you do with your rank-do you sit back, let the Pack make decisions? Or do you try to have a role, try to influence Gabriel? The thing about blackmail, about the bullying, is that Pack members don't report that kind of thing to him."

"Because that's the kind of act that makes them seem that much weaker-not being able to handle their own problems?"

Jeff nodded at Scott. "Exactly. Gabriel is sovereign of the N.A. Central, the Pack as a whole, as a unit.

He's not here to arbitrate family disputes or whatever. That's not his role."

Ethan held up a finger. "Unless they become Pack disputes." Jeff nodded. "Sure. If they become Pack disputes. But that doesn't happen very often. That's the nature of the Pack. We take care of our own.

You get enough Pack members riled up, we take care of it on our own."

Those words, spoken by a skinny twenty-one-year-old computer programmer, hovered uncomfortably in the air.

"Jeff," I asked, "do you know anything specific about a plan to harm Jamie, or any animosity toward the Brecks?"

"I didn't even know they were s.h.i.+fters until you told me. It's not like there's a list or radar or something.

Remember, we're still kind of . . . in the closet, I guess. And while we're lumped into packs, there are only four packs in the U.S., and that's really just geography. We're born, not made like you, so we operate on more of a, I guess you'd say, family level."

"Like the Mafia," Scott suggested.

"We're not that bad," Jeff said.

Ethan looked around. "If Jamie, indeed, has some sort of magical injury, that information could be used to his detriment by other individuals inside the Pack. What can we extrapolate from that?"

"If it's true," Jeff put in, although I think the question had been meant for vampires, "and someone discovered it, they'd have found a trigger for the Breckenridges. Something that could completely set them off."

"Something thathas set them off," Ethan darkly corrected.

"And if the owner of that information was a vampire," Luc said, fear in his expression, "that trigger could spark a war between us."

The room went silent.

Ethan sighed heavily, then looked around at the folks at the table. "As we've barely half an hour until dawn, if we have nothing else productive to contribute today, I'll contact RDI and ask that theysupplement our investigation during the day. In the meantime, please canva.s.s as best you can to determine if anyone has additional pertinent information. I suggest we meet here, an hour after sunset, to reconvene and share what we've learned. Any objections?"

"Best we can do on a short time frame," Scott said, pus.h.i.+ng back his chair. Noah did the same. Scott and Noah nodded at Ethan, then went for the door. Morgan's exit was slower. He pushed back his chair, rose and waited until Noah and Scott were out the door, probably headed for cover as the sun threatened to peek above the horizon. Morgan looked at me, fury in his eyes, then s.h.i.+fted his gaze to Ethan. Morgan walked toward him, stopped within inches of his body, and whispered something that flattened Ethan's expression.

Without glancing back at me, Morgan walked away and out the office door, slamming it shut behind him.

Ethan, still standing at the head of the table, closed his eyes. "Someday, if he prepares for it, he could be a leader of vampires. G.o.d forbid that day comes before he is prepared."

"I think that day is here," Malik muttered to me. I nodded my agreement, but rued my impact on Morgan's interaction with the rest of the Masters. He'd been flummoxed by me, and yet had tried to be protective when I broached the rave topic. I didn't really know what to think about that.

"Jeff," Ethan said, "thank you again for venturing into Cadogan House. We appreciate the information more than we can say."

Jeff shrugged. "No problem. I'm happy to help correct the facts." But then he lowered his head, leaned toward me, and whispered, "About the other thing."

I glanced back at him. "Not here?"

He shook his head, and I nodded my agreement.

"I'll walk him out," I said aloud, then pushed back my chair. Jeff did the same.

"You're dismissed," Ethan said, walking back to his desk and picking up the handset of his phone. "I'll see you both tomorrow."

It wasn't until we were outside the House, halfway between the front door and the wrought-iron fence, that Jeff stopped me with a hand on my arm. He glanced around, gaze darting to and fro. He looked like he was casing the House.

"Avoiding the paparazzi," he explained, "and, no offense, but the guards-I'm not a fan."

We both glanced over to where they stood, dark and severe, at the Cadogan gate. As if on cue, they simultaneously glanced over their shoulders and regarded us.

"They're a little creepy," I agreed, then looked at Jeff. "What did you learn?"

"Okay," he said, both hands moving as he began to explain, "it took a few tries, but I managed to trace the e-mail address. The IP address was a non-starter, unfortunately. Way too many roundabouts, and even if I found an origin address, that's only going to give me a location, right? It's not going to tell me who sent the e-mail."

I blinked at him for a second. "I seriously have no clue what you just said."

He stopped talking and looked at me, then waved his hands before starting up again. "Doesn't matter.

The e-mail address is the key. The e-mail to Nick was sent from a generic address. The kind you can set up for free on the Web. I managed to drill down into it, get the original setup data, but the info was fake.

The name on the account was Vlad."

I rolled my eyes. "Points us in the right direction, I guess, but it's not very creative."

"Exactly what I thought, so I tried something else. Every time you set up one of these generic accounts, you have to enter another e-mail address. A place the company can send your pa.s.sword if you forget it or something like that."

"I a.s.sume the other e-mail address was fake, too?"

Jeff smiled. "Now you're getting it. I drilled down into six accounts-"

I interrupted him with a hand. "Wait. When you say 'drilled down,' you mean 'hacked,' right?"

Jeff had the grace to blush. It was charming, in its highly illegal way. "I'm totally white hat," he said, "not that you know what that means, but I am. It's all public service, when you think about it. And I'm a public servant, anyway."

I glanced up as he rationalized, suddenly realizing that the sky was beginning to pinken at the edges. "Weneed to hurry this up if at all possible, J, before I become considerably crispier. What did you find?"

His smile faded. Jeff looked around again, then pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket. His expression dour, he handed it over.

"This is the chain I discovered," he said. "All the e-mails I could find, leading back to the origin e-mail at the bottom."

I unfolded the paper. I recognized nothing until I got to the very last name on the list. An e-mail address I'd seen before, the name giving it all away. I muttered a curse at the sight. "This is so not what I wanted to see."

"Yeah," he said. "I figure we're even on those favors now."

I stood on the portico for a moment after Jeff left, staring at the closed front door. Symbols were posted above the threshold, indications of the House's alliances. Unfortunately, given the results of Jeff's search, we were probably going to need those.

Even with only minutes left until dawn, I decided this wasn't something I could sit on. I headed for the bas.e.m.e.nt stairs and the Ops Room. I'd guessed wrong about the would-be perpetrator; Kelley was cleared by Jeff's e-mail search. I couldn't say the same for the guard that actually sent it. Regardless, that guard fell under Luc's supervision, so I opted to start with him. Besides, no way was I taking this to Ethan without backup.

I pushed open the door and scanned the room, my heart thudding in my chest as I prepared to hand over the evidence of a colleague's betrayal. Even this close to dawn, the room buzzed with activity as vampires prepared to cede control over House security completely to RDI.

Lindsey and Kelley sat at their computer stations. Luc stood behind Lindsey's chair, his gaze on her monitor as she worked, but glanced back as I closed the door behind me.

"Sentinel," he said, straightening. "I didn't expect to see you back. What's up?"

"Where's Peter?"

Luc lifted his eyebrows. "Probably back in his room. He had the early s.h.i.+ft. Why?"

I held out the e-mail. "Because he sent the threat."

The room went silent, Lindsey and Kelley turning, eyes wide, to face me.

"That's quite an accusation, Sentinel."

I glanced over at Lindsey. "Do you have a copy of the e-mail from Peter that had the paparazzi information on it?"

"Um, sure," she said. She looked confused, but opened a folder beside her computer station and pulled the printout from it, then spun in her chair and extended it to me. I grabbed it, then laid both pieces of paper flat on the conference table. Luc walked over, arms crossed defiantly over his chest.

I pointed to the first doc.u.ment. "This is the e-mail from Peter about the paparazzi."

Luc looked the e-mail over, a frown pulling his features. "Sure," he said. "He sent it to me from his Cadogan e-mail address. I printed it out."

"I know. I gave the e-mail with the threat against Jamie to Jeff Christopher. He traced it back through multiple addresses, all bogus. But at the end of the chain was this one." I pressed my finger onto the list Jeff had given me a few minutes ago and pointed at the final e-mail on the list-Peter's Cadogan e-mail address.

Silence for a moment, then unmitigated swearing.

"Son of ab.i.t.c.h ." Luc looked up, jaw tight, nostrils flaring as he realized the betrayal. "He's been playing us. The whole time, playing us."

Luc put his palms flat on the table, head bowed. Then, without warning, he pulled back and punched a fist into the tabletop with acrack that split the air like thunder-and notched a fist-sized divot in the wood.

"Luc," Lindsey said. She popped up from her chair and wrapped an arm around his waist, her other hand on his shoulder. "Luc," she repeated, her voice softer.

I bit back a small smile; I was beginning to think that Lindsey protested too much about our intrepid guard captain."I know," he said, then looked up at me, his eyes blazing. "He's not in this alone. Not to turn against the House after all these years. If he's in this, it's because someone else is pulling the strings."

I thought of the "she" who'd left a message for Nick. "I know," I told him. "I think you're probably right about that."

"Would it be too much for me to ask that in addition to having this evidence, you have a sly plan to nail this little a.s.shole?"

I smiled coyly. "Of course I have a sly plan. I am a Merit, after all."

Two minutes later we were on the first floor. Luc had Kelley deliver an update about the Breckenridge threat to Peter's room, confirming he was still in the House. We also alerted RDI, who were told to stop him in the event he tried to bolt.

Ethan's door was closed. Luc rapped knuckles against the door, but didn't wait for a response before opening it.

Ethan was behind his desk, flipping closed a laptop as if preparing for dawn himself. "Lucas?" he asked, brows furrowed at our entry.

I looked at Luc, who nodded, then made my request. "I need permission to kill two birds with one stone."

Ethan arched an eyebrow. "You need permission to kill fowl?"

"She's serious, Ethan." Luc's voice was quiet, severe, and it drew Ethan's eyes and put a look of surprise on his face. I was surprised, as well-I'm not sure I'd ever heard Luc refer to Ethan by his name.

They exchanged a look, then Ethan nodded and looked at me. "Sentinel?"

"It's Peter," I said. "He sent the threat to the Breckenridges."

I watched a bevy of emotions cross his face, from shock to denial to a fury that filled the air with an electric tingle, and narrowed his eyes into slits of gla.s.sy green . . . and then quicksilver.

"You have evidence of this, I a.s.sume?"

"He sent the e-mail," Luc said. "The message to Nick that threatened Jamie. It was routed through a lot of fake addresses, but originated in Peter's Cadogan address."

Ethan adjusted his jaw, and when he finally spoke, his voice was low, thick and dangerous. "He sent a threatening e-mail to a s.h.i.+fter from thisHouse ?"

He stood up, then pushed back his chair with enough force that it continued to roll after he'd walked away toward the conference table at the other end of the room. I snapped my gaze to Luc, who shook his head. A warning, I a.s.sumed, not to interfere.

Ethan paced to the bar along the wall with the slinking intensity of a panther, grabbed a gla.s.s from the bar, and with a turn and windup of his torso, propelled it across the room. The gla.s.s flew, then crashed into the wall on the other side of the conference table. Gla.s.s fractured, shattered, and splintered to the ground.

"Liege," Luc said, quiet but stern.

"In myHouse ," Ethan said, then turned back to us, hands on his hips. "In my G.o.dd.a.m.nHOUSE ."

Luc nodded.

"Two traitors in my House, Lucas. InPeter's House. How? How is this possible? Is there anything I haven't given them? Anything they've lacked?" His gaze snapped to mine. "Sentinel?"

I dropped my gaze to the floor, unable to bear the pain and fury and betrayal in his. "No, Liege."

"Liege," Ethan muttered, the word rendered a joke.

"Merit has a plan," Luc put in.

Ethan looked at me, eyebrows raised, a bit of appreciative surprise in his expression. "Sentinel?"

"Killing two birds," I reminded him. "It's too late now, the sun's nearly up, but I think I know how we can confront him without risking the rest of the vampires in the House. We'll lure him out."

"And how will we accomplish that?"

"We offer Celina as bait."His gaze went a little bit wicked, as if he fully condoned the manipulation. "Do what you have to do, Merit."

"That's permission?" I confirmed.

Ever so slowly, he raised his gaze to mine, then looked at me, this Master of vampires, emerald eyes glowing. "Nail him, Sentinel."

The plan set, and the sun glowing at the edge of the horizon, I returned to my room, and found my cell phone angry and blinking. Mallory had left four voice mails, each more consoling, slightly less angry, than the one before it. She seemed to have worked off some of her steam, but I couldn't say that mine had lessened. The vampire drama had focused my attention elsewhere, certainly, but it hadn't eliminated the dull current of anger. I just wasn't ready to talk to her.

And that wasn't the only thing waiting for me. I thought, at first, that the red paper on the floor of my room had slipped from the packet of mail I'd brought back from Mallory's house. But I knew there'd been no crimson envelope on the hardwood floor when I'd changed clothes a few hours ago.