“Madman…debatable,” I said. “But the zombie-controlling part seems a good guess. As for why he’s controlling them or why the portal was embedded in that letter or what he hopes to gain by getting it back, we’re still working on all that.”

“As motivations go, I always liked world domination myself. Or perhaps this is just metropolitan domination. Patrick never was the type to think big. Never struck me as zombie lord material either, but I can’t say I know him well. It’s a working relationship, and a sporadic one at that. Most of my jobs for the family were with his grandfather, and he wasn’t chummy with the hired help either.”

“Which means you won’t be able to give us much insight into Shanahan.”

“Next to none. But I know someone who can. A client. Randall Tolliver. He grew up with Patrick.”

Fake

IN A CITY LIKE TORONTO, WHICH, AS FAR AS I KNEW DIDN’T even have a Cabal satellite office, the supernatural community is small. I’d lived here, on and off, for ten years after I became a werewolf, and never knew it existed. Zoe said there were only a few sorcerer families, so the community was tight-many of them knowing each other from birth, as Patrick Shanahan and Randall Tolliver did.

Although Zoe claimed to know Tolliver much better than she did Shanahan, she’d say little about him-protecting another customer.

We had a heck of a time finding Tolliver. His office either didn’t have his exact schedule, or was reluctant to provide it, so we ended up canvassing a list of places he was expected to visit that afternoon. We stopped at a low-income housing complex, then an AIDS hospice, both times being told he’d come and gone.

Those places gave me a pretty good idea what Tolliver did for a living. An investment broker of another kind…the sort who buys bargain-basement housing, turns it into something barely livable and reaps the benefits of government assistance. Typical sorcerer.

“Let’s pop by his office,” Zoe said. “I’ll see if I can sweet-talk the receptionist into paging him for me.”

Clay swung a look my way that begged for something more active than trailing Zoe across town.

“How about we catch up with you after you find him?” I said. “We’ve got another stop we can make in the meantime.”

“ Erin?” Anita said as we walked into the bookshop.

The girl popped up from behind a display where she’d been unpacking books.

“Can you watch the store, dear? We’ll be in the back.”

Anita ushered us through the beaded curtain into the back office.

“We’ll have to step out back to speak freely if a customer comes, but that’s unlikely. We haven’t seen anyone since noon. Now they’re just phoning about charms and whatnot-afraid to even leave the house. Complete nonsense,of course, like wearing those hospital masks during the SARS outbreak.”

“You said you have more information for us?” Clay said.

I resisted the urge to glare at him. I suspect it didn’t matter how rude Clay was-Anita would get to the point at her own pace.

First, she had Clay haul out three folding chairs. Then she set up bottled water and cookies on a box of books, insisting I at least have the water to avoid dehydration.

She finally settled into the empty chair. “I managed to dredge up a Jack the Ripper story with a portal angle, though it doesn’t mention the From Hell letter.”

The story seemed to be an embellishment on the one about a half-demon making a deal with his father. In this version, the killer had been only partway through fulfilling his obligation to his demon father when he’d been caught by a band of sorcerers, who’d imprisoned him in a dimensional portal.

“The legend goes that the sorcerers then lost the portal device, and it’s out there somewhere, waiting to be accidentally triggered, whereupon the monster will, once again, be unleashed on the world, rendered insane by his long imprisonment, driven only by the need to fulfill his unholy obligation.” Anita grinned, eyes twinkling. “Rather sounds like a campfire story, doesn’t it? Something for our children to spook their supernatural friends with.”

“It does. I suppose there could be a nugget of truth buried in there…”

“Well, it’s not the part about sorcerers playing world saviors, I’m sure.” She shook her head. “Uncharitable of me, but I suspect they would have been negotiating to share the demon’s boon instead.”

We discussed the story for a few minutes, then Anita asked about our progress, and I brought her up to date. When I told her about Hull, her eyes widened.

“He came through the portal?”

“Well, he says so. But he isn’t a zombie, so I doubt-”

“Oh, but that doesn’t prove anything. Only those who were sacrificed come out as zombies. If they were alive when they went in, they’ll be alive when they come out.”

“Like in the story,” I said. “If Jack the Ripper was imprisoned in a dimensional portal-”

Clay snorted. “That guy is not Jack the Ripper.”

“And how do you know-?”

“It is just a story,” Anita said. “At most, as you said, it may contain distorted elements of truth, as most folklore does. But still, if this man came from Victorian London-”

“He claims,” Clay said.

“But if he did, I would love to speak to him. The historical wealth of information, combined with his circumstances…Why, it would be supernatural folklore in the making.”