Broken (Otherworld 6)

BY THE TIME WE WOKE UP THE NEXT MORNING, JEREMY had already scoured the papers for any mention of last night's events. He'd found nothing. On the radio, a local station reported that hydro crews were still working to recover power lost last night in a Cabbagetown neighborhood, but before the newscast even ended, they announced that the problem had been fixed. That was it--one blown transformer, already repaired. Not a single mention of a whiskered man in a bowler hat.

"So we're leaving?" I sai

d as Jeremy folded a shirt and put it into his bag. "We may have unleashed Jack the Ripper, and we're just going home?"

He didn't answer, so I moved to the foot of the bed where I could see his face. "You do think that's what we did, don't you? Unleashed Jack the Ripper?"

"Because we dropped a dead mosquito onto a letter possibly written by the man over a hundred years ago?"

I thumped onto the bed. "My hormones are acting up again, aren't they?"

I could imagine what Clay would have said about my wild logical leap, but luckily he was still in our room, showering and shaving.

Jeremy only gave me his crooked smile as he took his pants from the chair, then said, "Considering some of the things we've seen, it's not as crazy as it sounds. Something did happen last night, something...unusual."

I remembered his reaction, the odd look on his face when he'd seen the smoke, how he'd glanced up at the transformer and pushed Clay and me out of the way before it blew. I longed to ask him about it, but as with everything else in Jeremy's life, if he didn't volunteer, I rarely dared to ask.

"That guy didn't come from a community theater production," I said.

"I know."

"So what do you think happened?"

"I don't know."

He moved to the bathroom to clear his toiletries.

"You want me to shut up and go away?" I said.

"Of course not."

"Then you just want me to stop talking about it."

"No."

I gave a low growl of frustration.

"Can I see the letter?"

"It's packed."

He said this without hesitation, inflection, facial expression or anything else to suggest he didn't want me seeing that letter. But when you live with someone for as long as I've lived with Jeremy, you just know.

I moved to the bathroom door. "What's wrong with the letter?"

"Nothing. I just need to repair the damage before we hand it over. And I'm not eager to hand it over until I've done what I should have done before--researched it."

"We did research it. I pulled up everything I could find on the history of--" I looked at him. "You mean supernatural history, don't you? Whether the letter has any kind of supernatural background. It was owned by a sorcerer. Maybe there's an invisible spell written on it. Or the paper could be magical. Maybe it's--"

"Made from the skin of a thousand killers?" drawled a voice behind me. "Pasted together with the tears of their victims? Dried in the fires of hell? It does say it's 'from hell.' Could be a clue."

I glared, and Clay grinned, grabbed me, pulled me against him and kissed the side of my neck.

"I was just--" I began.

"Theorizing. And I was helping."

"All 'theorizing' aside," Jeremy said. "While I'm not convinced that whatever happened last night has anything to do with that letter--"