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 anyBreathalyzer 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.