Broken

Victoriana

JEREMY HAD WANTED TO HEAD STRAIGHT TO THE HOTEL, but I convinced him I wasn’t ready to turn in yet. Wrangling permission for a city run wasn’t something I could do on the fly.

So I claimed restlessness and dehydration, circumstances that would prevent me from getting the good night’s rest I needed. The cure? A warm milky drink and a long walk. Since we hoped to turn that walk into a city run, I asked if we could grab that drink at a popular late-night coffee bar close to downtown. Then we headed into the quiet residential Cabbagetown area for our walk.

I strolled down the narrow street, listening to Clay talk about some article on bear cults he’d read last week. Jeremy and I nodded at appropriate junctures and sipped our coffees. Mine was a latte, of course-for the milk. Whole milk. Seems odd, specifically requesting whole milk, but Jeremy insisted. He also insisted on plenty of ice cream and cheese and other whole-fat dairy products. He said it was for the milk content, but I suspected he was trying to fatten me up for motherhood.

Besides my stomach, the only thing that had plumped up were my breasts. Yes, for the first time in my life, I actually had breasts-the kind that could be seen even under a baggy shirt. Not that it mattered. My belly stuck out farther.

As the midnight hour passed, the heat lifted and a cool night breeze found its way through the armor of skyscrapers into the narrow residential streets. I liked Cabbagetown. I’m not much of a city dweller anymore, but this is the kind of place I’d choose, a quiet old neighborhood just a few minutes’ walk from the bustle of downtown.

The narrow street was lined with small, two-story, multihued houses, the tiny front yards jealously guarded by fences of every description, from stone to wrought-iron to white-picket. The era was Victorian, and every architectural detail I associated with the period was evident in a single sweep-gingerbread, gables, wraparound porches, balconies, cupolas, spires, stained glass.

Though we could hear the roar of Yonge Street a few blocks over, there was a hush here, as if the trees arching over the road were an insulating blanket, letting the residents sleep amid the chaos of the city core. We walked down the middle of the road, our footsteps echoing softly, our voices barely above a whisper.

To our right was a line of parked cars. The houses predated driveways and didn’t have enough room between to add them. Most of the cars were midpriced imports, with few minivans or SUVs. This was a neighborhood for seniors and couples, not families.

Jeremy drained the last of his coffee and looked around, but of course there was no place to toss the cup.

“Here,” I said, and opened my bag.

I’m not a fan of purses, and certainly not big ones, but tonight I was carrying a small knapsack-style bag for the From Hell letter. Jeremy had decided this was the safest way to transport it. We hadn’t wanted to leave it in the hotel or the Explorer, so I’d brought it along.

Jeremy took a tissue from his pocket and wiped out the inside of the cup before crushing it and tucking it into my knapsack. The letter was still in its plastic bag, but I guess he wasn’t taking any chances with stray coffee droplets. I started to zip up the knapsack, then stopped and took out the letter.

“Are we going to…? I mean, can I take a look? Before we drop it off?”

Jeremy hesitated.

“I’ll be careful,” I said. “I’ve got these.” I tugged the latex gloves from my pocket.

He still hesitated, but I could tell he was as curious as I was, so after a moment he nodded.

We moved to the side of the road, under a streetlamp. I set down my latte on the curb, then put on the gloves, opened the bag, reached in and took out the letter. I expected it to be brittle, but it was oddly supple, almost clothlike, as if it had softened with time.

I unrolled it. The paper was brownish, the color uneven. I doubted a drop or two of Jeremy’s coffee would have made much difference. It was already spotted with ink and other substances. I remembered reading that the letter had come packed in a cardboard box that included part of a kidney preserved in wine. I really hoped the reddish splotches were wine.

The writing was a near-indecipherable scrawl, with a quarter of the words mangled. If I hadn’t known what it was supposed to say, I wouldn’t have made out half of it.

“Looks deliberately misspelled,” I said.

“That’s the general consensus with the other Ripper letters as well,” Jeremy said. “The spelling is erratic, with some words spelled correctly once, then misspelled-”

Clay slapped my upper arm. I spun so fast I almost tripped.

“Mosquito,” he said.

I glared at him.

“They have West Nile here, don’t they?” he said.

“Just like at home,” I said through my teeth.

“But at home you’ve been wearing that special stuff Jeremy got for you. You didn’t bring it, did you?”

“Clayton’s right,” Jeremy said softly. “I know the risk is minimal, but if you’ve forgotten the repellent, you really should be wearing long sleeves after dark. If you contract the virus, it can be passed on-”

“To my baby, I know. But considering what else I’m already passing on to my baby, West Nile virus seems the least of my concerns.” I shook my head, then leaned toward Clay. “Smack me again, and I smack you back. Maybe you can smack harder, but I dare to smack harder.”

A small smile. “You sure about that?”

“You wanna test me?”

“Uh-uh,” Jeremy said. “No smacking challenges. At least, not while you’re holding that letter. Here, better put it away. Looks like it’s already creased.”

I looked down. When Clay swatted the mosquito on my arm, my hand had automatically clenched on the letter.

“Shit!” I quickly straightened it. “There. No harm-”

The mosquito was still on the paper, now a squashed dark splotch. It must have bounced onto the paper before I’d clenched it.

Jeremy shook his head. “No matter. It’s dirty enough. I’ll take a closer look before we drop it off. Now roll it up. Quickly.”

“Before I drop it in the gutter and trample it,” I muttered. “I can’t believe I did that.”

“Wasn’t your fault,” Clay said.

“That’s right. It wasn’t.” I turned a mock scowl on him. “Bug killer.”

“Yeah, but I only killed it. You squashed it.”

“You didn’t squash it when you killed it?”

Jeremy sighed.

I looked at him. “And you thought we were ready for kids?”

“No, I just thought one more wouldn’t make much difference. Now, if I could have the bag please?”

I put it into my knapsack and handed it to him. He looked down at the knapsack-lime green with a daisy on the front.

“Hey, I didn’t pick it out,” I said. “You bought it; you can carry it.”

He took the knapsack with a slow shake of his head. “Let’s get this back to a hotel, examine it for damage and send it off to Xavier.”

Clay and I looked at each other, seeing our opportunity for a city run vanishing.

“Uh, Jer,” Clay said. “Elena and I were wondering…”

He stopped, eyes narrowing as he stared at something over my shoulder. I followed his gaze to a curtain of smoke rising from the road. It looked like sewer steam…only there wasn’t a sewer grate or manhole cover in sight. I walked over and looked down to see a hairline crack in the asphalt. Clay grabbed my arm and yanked me away.

“Don’t give me that look,” he said as I caught my balance. “You don’t know what that is.”

“An underground volcano ready to bury us all under a mountain of spewing lava?”

The smoke wafted up, a thin, slow moving line that dispersed before it hit waist level. Jeremy crouched for a closer look.

“Probably some kind of trapped steam,” he said.

Clay rocked on the balls of his feet, fighting to keep from yanking Jeremy out of the way too.

“I don’t think it’s West-Nile-carrying steam,” I said.

When Clay didn’t move, I laid my fingers on his arm. He nodded, but I could feel the tension strumming from him as he watched Jeremy.

“Jer?” I said. “We should probably get going.”

“Mm-hmm.”

He waved his fingertips through the smoke. Clay let out a strangled sound.

I tapped Jeremy’s shoulder. “We really should go. Before one of the residents notices the smoke. And us.”

“Yes, right.”

He pushed to his feet. Yet he didn’t move, just stared at the smoke, a frown-crease between his brows. Then his head jerked up, body going rigid. I followed his gaze and saw nothing, just the trees, leaves rustling-

“Clay!” Jeremy shouted.

Hands grabbed my arms and I flew backward, stumbling, then lifted, feet flying off the pavement, fingers tight around my upper arms, half shoving me out of the way, half carrying me. My back hit the low wall of a fence. A flash illuminated the night sky as a transformer overhead exploded in a shower of sparks. All went dark as my rescuer’s body shielded me from the falling cascade.

“Clay!” The voice came from above me, and as my brain cleared, I realized it was Jeremy, not Clay, who’d been shielding me, that he’d thrown me clear of a transformer…before it blew.

“Clay!”

“Over here,” came a voice beside us. “Where’s Elena?”

“She’s here.” Jeremy looked at me. “Are you all right?”

“Still seeing sparks,” I said.

I blinked and realized I was still seeing sparks because there were still sparks, on the ground, coming from a power line that had fallen from the exploding transformer…and landed right about where we’d been standing.

The line sputtered, then went dark…as did everything around it. I waited for my night vision to kick in, but the moon had disappeared behind cloud cover and I could only make out shapes.

“Whatever that was, I didn’t do it,” Clay said as he got to his feet.

Jeremy shushed him and motioned for him to stay still. Again, I followed Jeremy’s gaze. Again, I saw nothing. Then, twenty or so feet away, a shadow moved. I squinted, and could make out a dim figure crouched in the middle of the street.

I tried to move forward, but Jeremy’s hand clamped around my arm. I caught a whiff of something-the smell was downwind, but strong enough to carry. It was the stench of an unwashed body, mingled with the faint “off” smell of sickness. My brain jumped to the closest approximation it knew-a homeless person.

When I looked back at Jeremy, his eyes were trained on the shape, squinting, that same furrow between his brows. Something in his expression sent a chill through me. Without even looking my way, he patted my hand. Then he motioned for me to stay put, shifted into a stooped hunch and started forward.

I glanced at Clay. He was already moving toward Jeremy, but Jeremy shook his head. When Clay hesitated, Jeremy lifted his hand and firmly waved him down. A soft growl rippled through the air, cut short as Clay swallowed his protest.

Jeremy didn’t head straight for the figure, but circled to the left, trying to get downwind. I watched him, my gaze flicking between his dark shape and the other. It looked like a man, with an oddly shaped head, crouched on the road. His head moved, and I realized he was wearing a hat-a black bowler.

The man grunted. Then he pushed to his feet. A sharp grating sound, then the flare of a lit match. The light illuminated the bottom half of a man’s swarthy face. Thick lips, dark whiskers, a missing front tooth. The match sputtered out. Another strike of a match, then a snap as it broke and a tap-tap as the broken end hit and rebounded off the asphalt. Another grunt. Then the sound of hands rustling over fabric. Searching his pockets for more matches.

“Bloody ’ell,” he muttered in a thick English accent.

I could make out the pale moon of his face as he looked around.

“Huh,” he grunted.

A screen door slapped shut and a beam of light ping-ponged around us. I ducked. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the man in the street freeze.

“You there!” someone shouted.

The man wheeled and ran.

“Jeremy?” Clay hissed.

“Go,” Jeremy said.

I pushed to my feet and dashed after Clay. Jeremy called after me, as loudly as he dared. I knew I hadn’t been included in his command, but if I didn’t hear him expressly tell me to stop, then I didn’t have to obey. That was the rule. Or my interpretation of it.

When I caught up, Clay just glanced over at me and nodded, then turned his attention back to his prey. The man was heading north, moving at a slow jog. He veered out to cross the road…and ran smack into the side of a parked minivan.

The man stumbled and swore, the oath ringing down the empty street. A quick look around, to see whether he’d been heard. Clay and I stopped, frozen in place. We were both dressed in jeans and dark shirts, and the man’s gaze passed right over us.

He turned back to the minivan and put both hands out, palms first. He touched the side of the van and jerked back with a grunt, as if expecting to touch a wall of brick or wood, not steel. He looked up and down the street, his body tense, eager to be off, and yet…

He reached out and pressed his fingertips to the minivan door. His hands moved across the panel, hit the handle and stopped. His fingers traced the outline of the door handle, and he bent for a closer look but only grunted, making no move to open it. Then he straightened. His hands resumed their exploration of the door. When they reached the window, he looked closer, peering through it. Then he backpedaled, sending up another too-loud oath.

Breath tickled the top of my head and I wheeled to see Jeremy behind me.

“What should we do?” I whispered.

He hesitated, eyes on the figure, about twenty feet from us.

“Clay? Take him. Carefully, and before he reaches the main road. Elena?” He paused, then said, “Help Clay. Make sure you stay back-”

The screech of tires cut him short as a car ripped around the corner. Headlights flooded the darkened street. The man let out a wail of absolute terror and threw himself to the ground-in the middle of the road. At the last moment, the car veered around him. Someone shouted from the open passenger window.

“Go,” Jeremy hissed. “Now. Quickly.”

Clay bolted for the man, with me jogging behind. The man was still on the road, his face pressed against the asphalt. We made it halfway to him, then a second carful of teens careened around the corner. This time, the man didn’t cower in the street and wait to be mowed down. He leapt to his feet and raced for the side of the road.

From there he had two directions to choose from. One would’ve brought him straight into our arms.

He hit the sidewalk and ran in the other direction, heading north again.

Still jogging, I glanced over my shoulder at Jeremy. He hesitated, gaze meeting mine, and I was sure he was going to call me back. After a moment, he motioned for us to keep going, in silent pursuit, and head the man off someplace safe.