Broken

Decision

WHEN WE WOKE UP THE NEXT MORNING, IT WASN’T MORNING at all, but early afternoon. That’s what happens after two nights of staying up until nearly dawn. While I was stretching and yawning, struggling to wake up, Clay pulled on clothes, went downstairs and got breakfast. Jeremy wasn’t in his room, but had left a note, so Clay wouldn’t worry. Yes, fifty-seven years old and he still couldn’t walk out the door without letting someone know where he was. Such is the life of a Pack Alpha.

We ate and talked while we got ready to leave. Showers and shaves could wait until Stonehaven.

“It’ll be nice to get back to my own bed,” I said, stretching out the kinks in my back. “Speaking of which, I want to start on the nursery. Should we use my bedroom? I hardly ever sleep in it.”

Clay shook his head and crammed half a croissant in his mouth, talking as he chewed. “Keep it. That’s your space. You need it.”

Five years ago, those words would have never left his mouth. Hell, he would have suggested turning my room into a nursery the moment we decided to try for a baby.

I tore off part of my blueberry muffin and handed it to him as I started dressing. “We’ll use the guest room then. It’s at the other end of the hall, but-”

“Jeremy suggested Malcolm’s room. It makes sense-right next to mine, closer to yours than the guest room…”

I sniff-tested yesterday’s shirt, then pulled it on. “Is Jeremy okay with that? Using his father’s room?”

“I think he wants us to.” He finger-combed his curls and gave the job a cursory mirror check. “Room’s been closed for twenty years. Time to make use of it. Open it up, clear out Malcolm’s shit, air out the…” He shrugged.

“Air out the ghosts?”

A light rap at the door. Clay opened it.

“Good morning, I see you’re-” Jeremy snatched the coffee from my hand. “That water hasn’t been boiled, has it?”

“Boiled?”

“There’s a problem with the drinking water. Likely the municipal supply.” He held out a newspaper. “Remember those nurses last night? Talking about an influx of stomach complaints?”

I glanced down at the headline. My gut went cold. “Contaminated city water? That can’t be. After Walkerton, Toronto ’s water supply is locked down tight.”

I’d done a series of articles on Walkerton, an Ontario town with a mismanaged water supply a few years ago. Seven people had died, and there’d been ongoing health problems. Since then, water safety had been a hot-button issue in the province.

“When they investigate, they’ll find it’s bottled water,” I said. “ Lot more Torontonians drink that anyway.”

“Perhaps,” Jeremy said. “But in the meantime-”

“We avoid all drinking water, tap or bottled. Got it. No big deal. We’re leaving this morning anyway.”

“Soon, but not just yet,” Jeremy said. “That woman who disappeared in Cabbagetown is still missing.”

“So?” Clay said. “Maybe she was disoriented after she came back, and wandered off. Or maybe she never went through the portal at all.”

“True, but a second resident has gone missing, in the same area. A man in his thirties, apparently out for a jog, which rules out dementia-induced wandering.”

“He disappeared this morning? After we supposedly closed the portal?”

“Still, it-” Clay began.

“Doesn’t mean he fell into the portal,” Jeremy cut in. “Or that it isn’t closed. True. But unless we coincidentally have a serial killer preying on residents in the same area where we opened that portal, I’d say it’s safer to assume we missed one.”

“A zombie, you mean,” I said.

He nodded. “I know you both want to go home, and now that we know Elena is a target, that might be wise. I can stay behind and scout today, and have Antonio here by nightfall to help me with the hunt.”

Clay flung his half-eaten apple onto the tray. It bounced off. We watched it roll across the floor.

“You stay,” I said to Clay. “If we call Nick now, he can probably make it to Stonehaven before I do.”

Clay scooped up the apple and put it back on the tray, his jaw set.

“Or I can stay,” I began.

“No.”

“I don’t see why not. Maybe I have some mark because my blood opened the portal, but does that really make me a target? What would they want with me? Probably just to tell them where to find the letter, right?”

Jeremy nodded. “That’s Robert’s theory. I called him this morning. He believes the zombies need the letter back-or think they do-and because your blood opened the portal, presumably you’d have the letter. As for this ‘mark,’ he’s surprised they were able to track you all the way to New York State with it, but obviously they did.”

“What about ditching the letter?” Clay said. “Send it back to Xavier. Make it his problem.”

“Make the portal Xavier’s problem?” I said. “I’m sure he’ll rush right over to fix it.”

Jeremy shook his head. “We caused the problem, we’ll fix it. Even if the letter’s gone, Elena would know where to find it, so they’d still come after her. And we don’t want to get rid of something we may need to close this thing.”

“Back to the question,” I said. “Do I stay or do I go?”

Jeremy looked from Clay to me, then murmured, “I’ll step outside.”

“I don’t want to fight about this,” I said when Jeremy was gone. “All I care about is getting the damage undone, which means closing that portal. I don’t care who does it.”

“If you’re in danger, I’m staying with you, here or at Stonehaven. My gut reaction? Stonehaven-even if we did miss a zombie and it can follow you that far, which I doubt.” He took a deep breath and shook his head. “But that means leaving Jeremy behind, with some zombie who may have been following us and knows he’s connected to the letter.”

He went quiet for a moment, then said, voice soft, “I’m trying not to freak out, Elena. When that guy came after you in the truck stop, you know what I wanted to do?”

“Drag me back to Stonehaven?”

“Yeah.” A small, humorless laugh. “Big surprise, huh?”

His eyes turned to mine. Behind the anger, I saw frustration, fear and even an inkling of panic.

“Jeremy was right,” he said. “We needed to come back and make sure this was over. Only, it’s not over, is it? Now we’ve got these…zombies-” He yanked his hands from his pockets. “What the hell do I know about zombies? How can I-?” He bit off the sentence in a snarl.

“Protect me?”

“Yeah, I know, you can protect yourself. Any other time, I’d agree.”

“But right now I’m pregnant. Very pregnant. Big, awkward, slow…”

He met my gaze, his eyes wary but determined, as if he knew he was sliding onto dangerous ground, but refused to backpedal.

“And you’re right,” I said. “I’m off my game. I know it. I also know that any risk I take, I’m not just taking for myself, but for our child. Our child. If you think I’m safer hiding out with Antonio and Nick, then I’ll go.”

“But that’s not what you want, is it?”

“You know it isn’t. I want to stay with you, and watch your back. Yours and Jeremy’s, because, no matter which of us bears this ‘mark,’ I think we’re all targets. I want to finish this, and I want to go home knowing everything’s okay-that we’re all safe and okay.” I touched my fingertips to my belly. “All of us.”

He nodded and looked away, eyes unfocused. After a moment, his gaze swung back to mine. “I want you here, with me, more than I want you gone. But there’s one thing I’ll need you to do.”

“What’s that?”

“Stay with me. Right with me. At my side. At all times. No arguing about space and privacy. I need to be beside you, to be sure you’re safe.”

“That’s fine.” I managed a smile. “But I still get those bathroom privacy privileges, right?”

“Depends on whether there’s a window someone can crawl in through.”

“Fair enough.”

“And private bathrooms only.”

I laughed. “You’re going to follow me into public restrooms? That I have to see.”

“You just might. Now let’s go tell Jeremy. Then we’ll finish this and get home.”

Back to Cabbagetown. Four times around the perimeter, and twice down the portal street itself, and all I could find with that rotting scent were the two trails: the bowler-hatted man and Rose.

We knew there was a possibility that we hadn’t found a trail because there wasn’t one-that there was no missing zombie. We were basing our “portal closing theory” on a single two-hundred-year-old case. But, for now, it was all we had.

If we were missing something, we couldn’t rely on Robert to find it. Having lost Shanahan, our best source for information was the person who’d gotten us into this mess. So I made the call I’d been dreading.

I phoned from our hotel. Clay stood by.

“Elena!” Xavier said. “What the hell happened? Where’s my package?”

I told him. Silenced buzzed along the line, then, “Huh, well, that’s strange but, you know, these things happen. I’m sure it has nothing to do with the letter, so just go ahead and send-Or, better yet, since we are running behind schedule, send it-”

“Directly to the buyer?”

“Er, right. Just, you know, in case-”

“It is demonically possessed?”

“Hey, I’m being careful. Send the letter, go on home and relax.”

“After unleashing hell on Toronto?”

“From what I saw, Toronto could use a hell portal or two. Besides, you don’t live there anymore. What do you care?”

I told him why I cared.

“Er…that’s not good. And the…boyfriend. How’s he taking this?”

“The fact that his mate is marked and on a zombie hit list? Here, why don’t you ask him?”

I pulled the phone from my mouth. As Clay reached for it, Xavier’s voice rang down the line.

“No, that’s okay! Tell him I have no idea what’s going on, but anything I can do to help, just ask.”

“How about coming here and dispatching the zombies yourself?”

“Except that. But anything else, I’m your man. Oh, and don’t worry about the letter. You can keep it.”

“You’re too kind. Now start by telling us everything you know about it.”

It wasn’t much. The buyer was a human with no supernatural connections, and he’d wanted it for the very reason Xavier had given: DNA analysis and a book/movie deal. Plus, Xavier had been the one to approach him with the offer-through his black market contacts, Xavier had heard the man was in the market for Ripper letters, and paying well.

“I could set you up with the original thief, Zoe Takano,” Xavier said. “Maybe she knows more.”

“The thief who stole it eighty years ago? Where is she? Shady Acres Home for the Supernatural Aged? She must be at least a hundred-oh, wait. She’s a vampire, isn’t she? Any idea where we’d find her?”

“Right there. Toronto born and bred. That’s how the letter got there. The Shanahans are clients of hers. Have been for decades.”

The thief knew Patrick Shanahan? Then we definitely wanted to talk to her.

“Do you know her?”

“Zoe and I don’t move in the same circles. But I can tell you where you might find her. She’s been doing her business out of the same bar forever. Creature of habit. Vamps are like that.”

He promised to call back with an address and whatever details he could scrounge up.

Two minutes after I hung up, the phone rang again.

“Fast work, demon,” I said as I answered it. “Keep that up and you might find your way out of my bad books.”

Silence.

I glanced at the call display. I’d seen a semifamiliar long-distance number before answering…but now realized it wasn’t the one I thought it was.

“Uh, Robert,” I said. “Sorry about that. I was expecting-”

A soft chuckle. “Another demon?”

“Right, and one with a contact name and address, so I got a little overeager.”

“No doubt. Wrong demon, perhaps, but I’m calling for the same reason. With a contact name.”

“Oh?”

“I was making some calls myself asking about Jack the Ripper legends and supernatural connections, and someone suggested Anita Barrington. She’s a witch running a bookstore in Toronto, and quite an expert on such lore. I know her only by reputation, but I thought if this was a potential shortcut to bypass my rather slow research…”

“We’ll take it.”