Broken

Contact

THE YOUNG PROSTITUTE HAD BEEN TENTATIVELY IDENTIFIED as “Kara,” last name still unknown. Her throat had been slashed, a deep left to right cut that seemed to have been done from behind, and she’d died quickly, a blessing considering what the killer had done next.

She’d been cut open from sternum to pubis. Rita had heard that several organs had been removed, though that wasn’t confirmed. The coroner was still working on the body, and not about to talk to reporters. What didn’t need to be confirmed were the facial mutilations, which had been seen by witnesses before the police arrived…including a few who had snapped pictures with their cell phones. According to Rita, Kara had sustained multiple deep cuts to her face, splitting her nose and severing part of her right ear.

I tried not to jump to conclusions.

“That’s exactly what you’re gonna read on the front page of the Sun, so don’t you dare scoop me,” Rita said.

I struggled to smile. “Wouldn’t know how.”

Jeremy caught my eye. Rita noticed, and her gaze traveled over him.

“Friend of yours?”

I nodded, but wasn’t about to introduce him to a human acquaintance if I could help it.

She kept looking at Jeremy, sizing him up. “Single?”

I was about to say something noncommittal when Jaime saw Rita looking, and shifted closer to Jeremy, her hand moving up behind him so she seemed to be resting her hand against the small of his back.

“Guess not,” Rita murmured.

Clay made a noise between a snort and a laugh. Rita’s photographer waved to her.

“Gotta run,” she said. “About that other lead, the missing man? I’ll follow up on that, and give you a call.”

When we got within ten feet of Jeremy and Jaime, I said, “Better wait here. They’re arguing about something.”

Jaime’s face was taut, her eyes flashing as she spoke. Jeremy leaned back with his arms crossed.

“Doesn’t seem like much of a fight,” Clay said.

I stared at him.

“Yeah,” he said. “For Jeremy, I guess that’s a fight.”

We tried not to eavesdrop, but that’s tough for werewolves.

“I can sense her,” Jaime was saying. “She hasn’t crossed over-”

“Which doesn’t mean you need to speak to her.”

“Doesn’t it? If I can get a firsthand account-”

“From a victim, firsthand accounts are often unreliable. That’s particularly true with the ghost of someone who’s just been murdered. You’ve told me that yourself. You’ve also told me how difficult it is to contact them, and how traumatic-”

Jaime crossed her arms as Jeremy uncrossed his. “I never said traumatic.”

People moved between us, and Jeremy stepped away to avoid being overheard. A few minutes later, Jaime wheeled on him and strode off. Jeremy hesitated, then walked over to us.

“That’s the problem dealing with nonwerewolves,” I said. “They lack that critical ‘you are Alpha, you are right’ gene.”

“Very inconvenient,” he said wryly.

He turned and watched Jaime pace along the far sidewalk and, for a second, I thought I saw something more than friendly concern flicker behind his eyes.

“You know, she’s right,” I said softly. “You can offer your opinion and advice, but it’s her choice.”

Jeremy nodded, but he didn’t make a move in her direction. I knew he was thinking the same thing I was-wondering whether Jaime thought it would help or she was just desperate to make the effort, to show us that she could be useful.

“If she’s going to do it anyway, at least we can be grateful,” I said.

Jeremy exhaled, brushed back his hair, then nodded.

“I’ll go tell her she’s allowed to do it,” he said.

As he turned to go, I touched his arm. “Jeremy?”

“Hmmm?”

“ ‘Allowed’ is probably not the best word choice. The whole ‘not a werewolf’ thing?”

A small smile, then he headed over to her. They spoke for a minute, then Jaime headed for the alley. When Jeremy started to follow, she hesitated, glancing back at him. He caught up and, without a word exchanged, they headed into the alley.

“She’s letting him help her set up?” Clay said.

“Looks like it.”

“Huh.”

About ten minutes later, Jaime popped her head out from the alley and motioned us over as Jeremy left, presumably to round up Antonio and Nick.

“We only get one shot at this, so the more brains we have, the better questions we can ask.” Jaime stopped halfway down the alley. “Her spirit’s still here, so what I need to do is coax her over-kind of like what I did at the portal site. Then I’ll be doing something a little different. I want you to hear her answers directly, so I’m going to channel her. That means she can speak through me, but can’t hear or see you guys, okay?”

“Got it.”

Jeremy approached. I looked behind him and saw that Antonio and Nick had taken up position at the end of the alley. Two couples sneaking into the dark depths of an alley wasn’t that unusual in this neighborhood, although hearing them talking might be a little odd. But with an active crime scene right across the road, we weren’t likely to attract much attention.

“I was just telling them how this’ll work,” she said to Jeremy. “I’m not going to introduce you guys-no need to make this more complicated. As far as she’ll know, it’s just me and her.”

“This…” I began, then faltered.

Jaime nodded for me to go on.

“Is she going to remember this?” I asked. “Any of it? If she’s seen the crime scene, seen what happened to her…”

“Wiped clean when she crosses over. Postdeath amnesia, which is why we need to get to her now. She’ll forget what happened, and this conversation.”

“So you’re like a…psychic? Like those people on TV?”

A small laugh. “Exactly like that.”

“Have you ever been on TV?”

Jaime hesitated, but at a nod from Jeremy, she told the young woman who she was, and the woman knew her TV spiritualists well enough to be impressed and, maybe, for a few minutes, to forget what had happened to her.

“Okay,” she said finally, taking a deep breath, like a child steeling herself to do her best. I wondered how old she was…then realized I probably didn’t want to know.

Jeremy started the interview, keeping it slow, easing her into it by asking what she’d done earlier that evening, who she’d spoken to, the sort of police-type questions that wouldn’t help us, but were more humane than jumping straight to “so, how’d you die?”

We did get to that question, although, of course, Jeremy didn’t word it quite that way.

“It was a guy,” Kara said, then gave a squeaky giggle. “Guess I don’t need to say that, huh?”

“He approached you on the street?” Jeremy asked.

Jaime relayed the question.

“Yeah, only I was kinda off near the alley. I had to, uh, go, you know, and the bit-old bat in the store on the corner won’t let us use her bathroom unless we buy something. I was coming out of the alley, and this guy stopped me, wanted a blow.”

“Did you get a look at him?” Jeremy said.

“Uh, kinda…but not really. It’s dark right there. I know he was a guy. Dark hair. Kinda skinny. Looked okay. That’s all I really noticed-that he wasn’t, you know, gross.” She paused, then hurried on. “If he’d wanted me to get into a car or something, I’d have made him get out into the light. I’m pretty careful, but it was only a blow, and he didn’t want to go anywhere, just the alley, so I figured it was safe…”

Her voice trailed off. Jeremy stopped the questioning for a few minutes, giving Jaime time to talk to Kara, make sure she was ready to continue. When she was, Jeremy skipped the “what happened next” part, which I’m sure would have fulfilled anyone’s definition of “traumatic,” and instead asked whether the man had said anything or done anything that might help us find him.

“Uh-uh. It happened pretty fast, I guess. He took me in there and I thought everything was okay. I heard someone else, down the alley, in the dark. A woman. I thought it was another girl, with a guy, but then she seemed to be talking to my guy. I was gonna tell him it’d cost him extra for that-doing it in front of his girlfriend or whatever. Then I smelled something. Something awful.”

Through Jaime, I asked her to describe the smell, if she could.

“It was like when this cat died at a place I was staying at and everyone thought it ran away and we were gone for a week and came back and-” She made a gagging noise. “It was real rude. Never smelled anything like that before…until tonight. Then I saw a shape move at the end of the alley and then-” She shook her head. “That’s it. He must have…done it then.”

Jaime let her go after that, with an herbal mixture she hoped would send her to the other side. We could have pressed for more, but we already had our answer. Rose had been there, and probably the bowler-hatted man was in the shadows with her. According to Jeremy and Clay, Patrick Shanahan could never be mistaken for “kinda thin,” meaning someone else had been with the zombies. Their true master, the one they’d been killed to serve.

“He’s out,” I said.

Jeremy paused, as if struggling to find another explanation. Then he gave a slow nod.

“I hope you don’t mean-” Clay looked at us. “Ah, shit.”

We decided to try tracking the zombies from the crime scene, hoping “Jack” was still with them. Even if he wasn’t, this might be our chance to try the “kill a zombie and follow him to the controller” ploy.

Great plan…except that this block had been so heavily trodden in the past few hours that even when I looped around to the other end of the alley, Rose’s stink was almost covered.

“We have to Change,” Clay murmured as he, Nick and I walked the crime scene perimeter.

“I know.”

“Jeremy isn’t going to like that,” Nick said.

“I know.” I glanced back to where the others were waiting with Hull. “Let me talk to him.”

Jeremy agreed with surprisingly little resistance. I think, by that point, he was as frustrated as the rest of us. If we were spotted, what was the worst that could happen? Giant wolves in Toronto? Hell, why not-they already had zombies, killer rats, dimensional portals and, now, Jack the Ripper.

“Circle wide around-” he began.

“Where are they going?” a voice to our left asked. Hull.

“They’re going to scout the perimeter,” Jeremy said. “In case the killer stayed nearby.”

“Is that-” Hull hesitated, clearly uncomfortable. “Is it safe? It would appear, as you’ve said, that she”-a nod my way-“is this madman’s target…”

“No, we believed she was the zombie’s primary target-and only because she must have seemed the easiest of us to capture. Yet they seem to have abandoned that plan.”

“Probably because they have a more important goal now,” I said. “Fulfilling Jack’s contract.”

“Fulfilling…?” Hull’s brows knitted.

Jeremy surreptitiously motioned for Clay, Nick and me to slip off, while he dealt with Hull.

As we turned to go, I caught a glimpse of a familiar silver braid through the crowd.

“Jer?” I whispered, directing his gaze to Anita.

“What the hell’s she doing here?” Clay said.

“Who?” Hull raised onto his tiptoes, trying to see over the crowd. “Is it the zombie woman? Dear God, I hope they aren’t-”

“They aren’t.” I turned to Jeremy. “Her bookstore’s barely a block away, and her apartment’s over it. She probably heard the commotion and came down. One look at this and she’ll know-”

Anita turned, surveying the crowd. Her eyes met mine.

“Shit,” Clay muttered. “Still time to get away?”

“Better to cut her off at the pass,” Jeremy murmured. “Matthew, come with me, please. Elena-”

“Got it.”

While Jeremy hustled Hull out of the way, Clay and I headed toward Anita. A mob of newcomers, jostling to get close to the crime, cut between us and her. When one knocked hard against my stomach, Clay shouldered him back with a glare.

“Hey-” the young man said, letting out a stream of alcohol fumes strong enough to knock any Breathalyzer well over the limit.

“Hey, yourself,” Clay growled. “Watch who you’re mowing down.”

He gestured at my stomach. The young man scowled down at it.

“Yeah? Well, if you’re really worried about your baby, pal, you’d get your wife out of the city. Haven’t you heard the bulletins? Pregnant women are advised to leave the city-”

“Thanks,” I said, taking Clay’s arm and propelling him forward. “We didn’t hear that.”

By the time we made it through the crowd, Anita was nowhere to be seen. Nick and Antonio met us on the other side, having seen the confrontation and hurried to help. We gave them a description of Anita and set out, weaving through the crowd. I was circling a police cruiser when I almost bumped into another familiar body-Jeremy.

“We lost her,” I said.

“And I lost Hull,” he murmured.

“Oh, shit.”

Panicked searching ensued, and Jeremy was about to take Antonio and head over to Anita’s bookstore when Hull came flying along the sidewalk, face white.

“Oh, thank God,” he said, panting as he drew up beside us. “They’re here. The zombies. I smelled that awful stench, and I turned to tell Mr. Danvers, but he was gone and-”

“Where are they?” Jeremy asked.

Hull gestured wildly, taking in half the surrounding block.

“Did you see them?”

“No, I only smelled them. But they were close. I think they were coming for me. I ran into a crowd and that seemed to scare them off.”

Hull led us to where he’d smelled the zombies. They had indeed been there-both of them-along a side road. Jeremy and Jaime took Hull aside then, luring him with the promise of a drink to calm his nerves. Before they left, though, Jeremy changed his mind about our search-we’d do it as humans.

We found the zombie trails easily enough. As for Jack, it was impossible to lift a decent suspect trail. I had no idea what he smelled like, and at least a dozen other trails in that alley were recent enough to be his. So I did my best to commit all of them to memory. When I found more of the zombies’ trails, I could match up my memories with any human scents following theirs.

Yet after three streets, it became obvious this wasn’t as easy as it sounded. No single human trail intertwined with that of the zombies for more than half a block. We could only guess that the stench was too much for Jack, and he’d taken another route. That left us following the zombies, and we did that for an hour, but kept losing the trail as it crossed roads.

When we checked in with Jeremy, he decided that was enough. What he’d hoped for was a scent signature for the killer, and if we weren’t going to get that, we’d be better off getting some sleep.