Spots of color lit her cheeks and she glanced toward the back room as if remembering her granddaughter listening in.

“He was…not accommodating.” She paced to the shelf and back again. “It is so frustrating. I don’t know what race you young people are, and I won’t ask, but I hope you don’t have any such prejudices to deal with. They can make life quite intolerable at times. Sorcerers and witches-” A sharp shake of her head. “A ridiculous feud rooted in events so far back in time-” Another, sharper shake. “I’m sorry. You didn’t come to hear me rage about that. But, yes, I don’t doubt that the From Hell letter has a supernatural legend behind it, and that Patrick Shanahan knows all about it.”

“If he does, we’ll get the story from him, and we’ll give it to you.”

She smiled and nodded. “Thank you, dear.” She turned slowly to face me. “I don’t suppose-I shouldn’t ask but…well, at my age, I’ve learned to pursue opportunities when they present themselves to me. Is there any chance I could examine that letter? Presuming you still have it…”

“We do,” Jeremy said. “And when this is over, we’d be happy to show it to you. In the meantime, may we contact you if we have questions?”

“Absolutely. And perhaps, now that I know the letter’s supernatural link-a portal and dimensional zombies-I might be able to dig up some more stories for you.”

The first restaurant we passed had a note on the door, saying that the shop was closed due to E. coli in the city’s water supply.

“E. coli?” I said. “So they know what it is? Or is that just a guess? Maybe I should call my newspaper contacts and-”

“And do what? Find out the situation is worse than we thought, giving you one more thing to worry about? Won’t get the portal closed any faster.”

“Clay’s right,” Jeremy said. “We need to keep the blinders on and move forward, however tempting it may be to stop and look around.”

We picked up sandwiches and took them to a downtown park, where we could be assured of privacy. With the exception of the occasional late-working office employee cutting through to the subway station, privacy is what we had…until a change in the wind brought a now-familiar stink.

“Son of a bitch,” Clay muttered under his breath.

“Guess Rose was right,” I said. “They can find me. Saves us the bother of looking for this one.” I inhaled deeper and nearly gagged. “I can barely pick up a scent under that stench. I think it’s male…”

“You’d be right,” Clay said.

He nudged my leg to the left. On the pretext of taking another napkin from the bag, I glanced over and saw a figure almost hidden behind a metal sculpture.

“Shall we try to find a convenient alley?” Jeremy murmured behind his sandwich.

“I know something better.” I wiped imaginary sweat from my forehead, made a face and raised my voice above normal. “God, I have to get out of this heat. Can we eat someplace else? With air-conditioning…and tables?”

Clay nodded and we gathered up our stuff. I led them to the street corner and across to a looming business tower. We went inside. I smiled at the security guard and waved to a “down” escalator a hundred feet away. He nodded and returned to his reading.

Seeing where I was taking them, Clay stopped. “Is that-?”

“The gateway to hell. Sorry.” I took his arm and continued walking, then glanced over at Jeremy. “It’s part of PATH, Toronto ’s underground walkway system. Clay had a bad experience with it last winter.”

“Traumatic,” Clay muttered. “Still recovering.”

“Clay had an early morning department meeting, and I needed to buy him a new shirt,” I told Jeremy. “He’d ripped another one.”

“I ripped-?”

“So I told him to meet me at the Second Cup near the store. Only, he didn’t come in that entrance.”

“Probably because it was cold enough out there to freeze-”

“It was cold,” I continued as we stepped onto the escalator. “So he takes the nearest entrance, not knowing the tunnels stretch for over six miles. The first Second Cup he sees, he thinks, ‘This must be it’ and sits down. When I don’t show, he realizes there might be another one down here.”

“Or twenty,” Clay muttered.

“Be glad I didn’t say Starbucks. Upshot is, if you don’t know your way, it all starts to look the same. Of course, the logical solution is to stop and ask for directions.”

Clay snorted.

“So what happened next was entirely his own fault.”

“Dare I ask?” Jeremy said as we stepped off the escalator.

“Lunch hour. For thousands of office workers. With sub-subzero temperatures outside.”

“One minute I was just wandering around, the place practically empty, and then-” Clay shuddered.

“Traumatic, I know,” I said, patting him on the back. “But-” I swept a hand around “-much different now.”

We stood at the end of a hall stretching a few hundred feet, flanked with coffee shops, bookstores, drugstores and everything else an office worker might need between nine and five. But it was summertime, when no one cared to work later than necessary. The stores had been closed for hours. The walkways were left open only as a convenience for pedestrians.

“Not bad,” Clay said as he looked around.

“If our zombie pal wants to make his move, he’ll have plenty of opportunities. We just need to watch out for security guards and cameras. There’s an even quieter place a block over. We’ll head that way.”

Before we’d passed three storefronts, hesitant footsteps sounded behind us. Bait taken.

We made sure to turn lots of corners and avoid long straightaways, letting our pursuer stay close but hidden, watching us from behind the last corner until we turned the next. As we walked, I counted the number of attack opportunities we’d given him. When I reached five, I paused at a storefront and pointed to a display of baby sundresses.

“What’s he waiting for?” I whispered.

“Same thing his bowler-hatted friend waited for,” Jeremy said. “The doe to separate from the herd.”

He was right. Unlike Hollywood ’s brain-dead, brain-munching zombies, these guys weren’t stupid.

Before I could even open my mouth, Clay said, “No.”

“I-”

“Remember your promise? At my side. At all times.”

“I’m not suggesting I lure him away and finish him off myself. Just the luring away part.”

“Elena’s right,” Jeremy said. “We’ll be close behind. It’s safe enough.”

“Good,” I said. “Then it’s time for me to use the bathroom.” I raised my voice. “There’s a food court just around the corner. You two can sit and eat while I find a washroom.”

When we reached the food court, I put my sandwich bag on a table, then looked around.

“Oh, the bathroom’s over there,” I said loudly. “We walked right past it. I’ll be back in a minute.”

I took one last hit of chocolate milk, giving the zombie time to get out of sight.

The bathrooms were down a service hall. As I walked, I tracked the distant pad of footsteps behind me, ready to turn if they got too close before Clay arrived.

I reached the end, only to realize the hall dog-legged. At least this would give Clay a chance to attack the zombie out of sight of anyone passing in the main thoroughfare.

As I rounded the corner, I looked around for security cameras. None. Good. The footsteps behind me sped up…and Clay’s joined them. I smiled. Easy as-

A shadow leapt from a recessed doorway. I wheeled, but too slow, and a body hit my shoulder, knocking me into the far wall. I kicked. As my foot went up, I mentally slapped myself. Again, the sudden move threw me off balance. As I stumbled, the figure rushed me, hands out, going for my throat. I swung and caught my attacker in the jaw. He flew back with a shriek…a very unmasculine shriek.