Broken (Otherworld 6)

"Nope. The outlaw was smallpox free...but when he was tossed into the portal, it was in a region known for periodic outbreaks. It's like he took some of his environment with him."

That was all Jaime knew, but she promised to canvas her contacts.

When we'd signed off, I started lifting a hand to wave Clay back to the car, but Jeremy laid his fingers on my arm.

"When you tell him what Jaime said, leave out the part about the smallpox," he said.

"You think that's a concern? I've been immunized, and it sounds like something specific to the period, not to portals in general."

"I agree. However..."

His gaze slid to Clay, who was leaning against a tree, a pedestrian taking a shade break from the late-day heat, but his eyes were continually scanning the street, body tense, as if a horde of zombies might descend at any moment.

"No sense giving him one more thing to worry about," I said.

"Exactly."

When I went to put my cell phone away, I noticed I had a message. It was Robert, returning our earlier call. Robert Vasic was a former council delegate who now served as the go-to guy for esoteric research. Jeremy called him back, told him what had happened and he promised to start hunting through his library.

"We can't track this woman until after dark," I said when we were all back in the SUV. "The best source of information on the letter itself would be the original source...or as close to it as we can get. Patrick Shanahan's grandfather commissioned the theft of that letter, and I'm sure Shanahan knows why. We should pay him a visit." I glanced at Clay. "A friendly visit."

"Sure," Clay said. "We'll show up on his doorstep and say, 'Excuse me, we're the ones who stole your letter last night, and it's giving us some trouble. Can we ask you a few questions about it?' "

"Let me think about it," Jeremy murmured. "Just start driving over there."

Routine

LESS THAN AN HOUR LATER, WE WERE BACK WHERE IT ALL started, at Patrick Shanahan's house. His street looked different in daylight. You could see the houses through the trees, and they looked dead. Empty driveways, drawn blinds, blackened windows, a lawn-care crew the only sign of life. If you lived in an upscale neighborhood like this, you worked--both spouses, all day, every day.

A "wrong number" call to Shanahan's house on the way had confirmed that the sorcerer was home, either working from there or taking the day off to inventory his collection, making sure nothing besides the letter had been stolen.

At just past 4 p.m., Jeremy and Clay were striding up Shanahan's driveway. I got to eavesdrop at a window. As Clay said, I did have another option. I could wait in the car and let them fill me in later. So, eavesdropping it was.

As I waited around the corner, I heard Jeremy ring the bell. A moment later, the door opened.

"Are you Patrick Shanahan?" Jeremy asked.

"Yes..."

"Owner of a historical document once residing in the London Metropolitan Police files?"

"Do you have it?"

"You don't?" Jeremy glanced over his shoulder at Clay and they exchanged a tight-lipped look, then Jeremy turned back to Shanahan. "Mr. Shanahan, are you aware of certain occurrences in Toronto in the last twenty-four hours? Occurrences our employer believes are related to the document previously in your possession?"

In the silence that followed, I knew Shanahan was taking a second, longer look at the two men on his doorsteps, seeing them not as associates of whomever stole his letter, hoping to "sell" it back, but as supernatural agents, most likely dispatched from a sorcerer Cabal. While one could argue that the Cabals needed policing more than anyone outside their infrastructure, they often played the role of law enforcement in the supernatural world, if only to protect their own interests.

Shanahan let them inside.

As they moved through the house, I could catch only Shanahan's boom of a voice as he complained about the heat, the humidity, the smog--the kind of chatter that fills space and says nothing.

He didn't ask how Jeremy knew he'd owned the From Hell letter. As Xavier had said, it was common knowledge among a certain subset of supernatural society, and Cabals had plenty of access to that subset. Nor did he ask which Cabal his visitors were with, or even confirm that they were from one. When dealing with Cabals, curiosity could sound dangerously close to challenge.

They stopped in the living room. As they sat, I moved ar

ound to that window. It was closed, of course, as they all were to keep the air-conditioning inside, but with werewolf hearing I could make out enough to follow the conversation.

Jeremy explained the events taking place in downtown Toronto. Shanahan expressed surprise, which seemed genuine enough--blown transformers and missing senior citizens weren't the sort of news tidbits a man like Shanahan would follow, not while the stock exchange was still open.