Kelley Armstrong - Broken

When he was gone, Clay looked at me.

“Comments on his paper?” he said.

“You said it was very good. Damn good, and he shows a lot of promise. So I wrote it down-without the damn.”

“I gave him an A. That’s not enough?”

“Comments help.”

“Comments won’t get him into grad school.”

“Hard-ass.”

Zoe had followed our volleys with a half-open mouth. When we stopped, she said, “ Doctor ? Please tell me he was kidding.”

“He was kidding,” Clay said. “Now, you called us here-”

“You’re a professor? In…what?”

“Phys ed. You called us here-”

She sighed and waved for us to sit. Clay and I grabbed drinks from Nick’s tray. There were two left.

Zoe laughed. “Didn’t want to be rude, I see.”

“I wasn’t sure,” Nick said. “Do you…drink?”

She took a bottle. “If it’s cold, I will. It gets terribly uncomfortable in the summer when you can’t sweat…and when your food only comes warm.”

Clay made a noise in his throat.

“Oh, stop growling. I’m getting to business.” She paused. “Weren’t we supposed to be doing this over lunch?”

“We just ate,” Clay said. “Besides, you don’t.”

She waggled a finger at him. “Don’t be racist. Vampires are civilized beasts, just like you-” She looked over at Nick and me. “Like you two. As such, we enjoy social customs such as shared meals…even if we can’t actually share them.”

“This is a cafeteria.” Clay pointed at her water bottle. “Consider that lunch.”

“Come on,” I said. “We’ll start walking, see if we find someplace to eat.”

We headed out to University Avenue.

“Theodore Shanahan did commission the theft himself, directly through me,” Zoe said as we walked along the shaded sidewalk. “And it was for that particular letter. He was very specific. No substitutions allowed.”

She took a sip of her water before continuing. “I remember that because I always ask. If I arrive on the site and realize that the piece they want isn’t accessible-has been removed, etcetera-I want to know whether the buyer will accept a second piece from the same collection, at a discount, of course.”

“Shanahan said no.”

“Emphatically no. It was the From Hell letter or none at all. That stipulation almost made me turn down the job. Traveling to England was hardly an overnight jaunt in those days. Imagine getting all that way only to discover they’d pulled the letter from the file. When I raised that concern, Shanahan promised that if that happened, he would cover all my travel expenses and pay me for my time.”

“So he really wanted that letter. What-”

“El-Darling?” Clay cut in, nudging me.

When I glanced over, he flared his nostrils. Sniff. I did, and caught the faint scent of rot on a crosswind, coming from the southwest-behind us and to our right, probably across the road.

“Knew they’d take the bait sooner or later,” I said. “Zoe? One of my zombie stalkers has caught up with me, so we need to cut this conversation short. Can I call you later?”

“Is that a subtle ‘get lost’?”

“If you glance to your right, you’ll probably see someone seriously overdressed for the weather.”

“Oh, I’m sure you were telling the truth about the stalker. I meant the part about telling me to take off.”

“Natural antipathy or not, this one wants me. But if he does go after you, we’ll get him.”

“That’s very sweet, but antipathy works both ways.” She flashed her teeth. “Been a long time since I met a zombie.”

“Forget it,” Clay said. “If we need more from you, we’ll call.”

“Oh-ho, so that’s how it works, professor? I give, you take?”

“No, you give us information, we give you a zombie-free city.” Clay jerked his chin at Nick and me. “Come on.”

I offered an apologetic shrug and half-smile to Zoe, but like Clay, I had no desire to let a stranger join our hunt. Even Nick’s murmured “sorry” was halfhearted.

“How long has it been since you actually lived in Toronto?” Zoe called as we started to walk away.

I turned and frowned.

“A few years, I’ll bet,” Zoe continued. “And this-” she waved a hand across the scene before us, construction zones everywhere, “-probably doesn’t look very familiar. But it is to me. This is where I make my living, and I know every back alley, every shortcut, every hiding place.”

“We’ll manage,” Clay said, fingers closing around my arm.

“With your superhuman sense of smell? Works great in the forest, I’m sure. Or in a quiet neighborhood. But here? Take a good sniff, professor. Smog, exhaust, roofing tar. It would help to have someone who doesn’t need scent to track.”

I looked at Clay, but his gaze had moved on, scanning the street. He was considering Zoe’s words but, even more, looking for the zombie, knowing that every moment we stood here arguing was a moment in which our pursuer could decide this wasn’t a good time or place to attack.

“Do what you want,” he said finally. “Just stay out of our way.”

The problem now was where to lead the zombie so we could kill him. We were downtown in the middle of a workday. I suggested returning to the university campus.

“Too open.” Clay squinted up the street. “The museum would be good. An enclosed building, probably not too busy with this cholera thing. There’d be lots of quiet places for you to lure him into.”

“But then you have the problem of admission,” I said. “I doubt he carries much walking-around money.”

“If that’s the only problem, you’re in luck today,” Zoe said. “All the cultural centers are offering free admission for the rest of the week. A tourism bonus in light of the water problems. I was going to visit the art gallery this afternoon, to check out a few business opportunities.”

“The museum it is,” Clay said.

We headed for the Royal Ontario Museum, just a block up University. As we walked, I called Antonio and told him we had one of the zombies in our sights. He and Jeremy would hightail it to Cabbagetown to await delivery.

I hung up as we reached the front steps, then I realized Clay was no longer beside me, but a dozen feet back, glowering at a construction board.

He waved at the board. “What the hell are they doing to the museum?”

“A total overhaul,” I said. “Creating a revitalized cultural and architectural landmark for Toronto.”

“Overhaul? From that picture, it’ll look like it was hit by a goddamn glacier.”

“I know,” Zoe said. “Isn’t it gorgeous? Did you see the front? They’re going to have the dinosaurs right there, so you can see them from the street. Wonderful. Although, if they’re going to put artifacts in the window, I’d personally prefer something more portable.”

Clay shook his head and strode up the museum steps.

Once inside, we split up. Past experience told us our zombie friends wouldn’t come out while I was surrounded by bodyguards, though Clay would stay with me for as long as possible.

We’d barely made it to the second-floor landing when my phone vibrated. I checked the display. Nick.

“She’s coming,” he said when I answered.

“She?”

“Think so. Zoe says it’s a she. Hard to tell under all that clothing.”

“Be on the lookout for her partner then,” I said. “They’ve played this game with us before.”

“Tag-team stalking.”

“Exactly.”

When I hung up, Clay said, “Rose?”

I nodded.

“Shit.” He glanced at the exit, frown deepening to a scowl.

“You’d prefer a knife-wielding thug to an aging hooker?”