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"Don't take this the wrong way, but why isn't he here?"
I glanced at Andrea. "Who, Roland?"
"Yes. It's been two months since someone killed his near-immortal sister. You'd think he'd send someone in to investigate by now."
"He's five thousand years old. To him two months is more like a couple of minutes." I grimaced. "Erra attacked the Guild, the Order, the Pack, the civilian businesses, the Temple, basically anything she ran across, which constitutes an act of terrorism of federal proportions. Right now nothing officially ties Erra to Roland. If he claimed responsibility for her behavior, the United States would feel compelled to do something about it. I have a feeling he doesn't want a full-blown conflict, not yet. He'll send someone down once the city cools off a bit, but when is anybody's guess. It might be tomorrow, although I doubt it, or it might be in a year. Hugh's absence bothers me more."
Hugh d'Ambray was my stepfather's successor and Roland's Warlord. Hugh had also developed an unhealthy interest in me after witnessing me break one of Roland's indestructible swords. "I can solve that mystery for you," Andrea said. "I asked some very careful questions while in Virginia. Hugh is in South America."
"Why?"
"Nobody knows. He was seen leaving Miami with some of his Order of Iron Dogs goons in early January. The ship was bound for Argentina."
What the hell did Hugh want in Argentina?
"Any luck on the blood armor?" Andrea asked.
"No." My father possessed the ability to mold his own blood. He fashioned it into impenetrable armor and devastating weapons. I'd been able to control my blood a couple of times, but every time I'd done so, I was near death. "I've been practicing."
"And?"
"And nothing. I can feel the magic. I know it's there. It wants to be used. But I can't reach it. It's like there is a wall between me and the blood. If I'm really pissed off, I can make it spike into needles, but they only last a second or two."
"That sucks."
Control over blood was Roland's greatest power. Either I mastered it, or I needed to start working on my own gravestone. Except I hadn't the foggiest idea of how to go about learning the power, and nobody could teach me. Roland could do it; my aunt had done it; I had to learn to do it. There was some sort of trick to it, some secret that I didn't know.
"Hugh will come back eventually," Andrea said.
"When he does, I'll deal with it," I told her.
Hugh d'Ambray, preceptor of the Order of Iron Dogs, trained by Voron, enhanced by my father's magic.
Killing him without blood armor and blood weapons of my own would be a bitch.
We turned onto Johnson Ferry Road. After the Chattahoochee River decided to swell into a deep-water magic monster paradise, the bridge at Johnson Ferry became the fastest way to the west bank. Except today: carts and vehicles clogged the road. Donkeys brayed, horses whipped themselves with their tails, and a variety of odd vehicles belched, sneezed, and rattled, polluting the air with noise and gasoline fumes.
"What the hell?"
"Maybe the bridge is out." Andrea released her seat belt and slipped out. "I'll check." She took off, breaking into an easy jog. I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel. If the bridge was out, we were screwed. The closest crossing was at the old Interstate 285, five miles away, and given that I-285 and most of the area directly surrounding it lay in ruins and required mountain-climbing equipment to conquer, it would take us at least half an hour 50 ILONA ANDREWS to get there. Add another hour to wait for the ferry to carry us across the river and the morning was down the drain.
The cars roared; the beasts of burden neighed and snorted. Nobody moved an inch. I shifted the car into park and turned off the engine. Gas was expensive.
The driver of the cart in front of me leaned to the left, and I saw Andrea sprinting along the shoulder. She dashed to the car and jerked the door open. "Get your sword!"
I didn't have to get my sword--it was on my back. I pulled the keys out of the ignition, jumped out, and slapped the door shut, aborting Grendel's desperate lunge for freedom. "What's going on?"
"The Bridge Troll is out! It's rampaging on the road!"
"What happened?" Three years ago the Bridge Troll had wandered out of Sibley and onto the Johnson Ferry Bridge in an attempt to prove that the Universe indeed possessed a sense of humor. It'd proved really hard to kill and the mages had lured it under the bridge and put it under a sleep spell. The troll required magic to wake up, so during the tech he hibernated on his own, and during the magic waves the spell kept him in dreamland. The city had built a concrete bunker around him and he'd been impersonating Sleeping Beauty for years now. Unless the wards around the bunker failed somehow, he should've stayed sleeping.
Andrea took off down the shoulder. "The sleeping spell collapsed. He woke up, lay around for a while, and then decided to bash the bunker down and hulk out on the bridge. Come on, we've got to save the public."
And get paid. I chased her. "Reward?"
"A grand if we take him down before he finishes off the truck he's working on."
A shiny green truck hood shot out from behind the cars like a missile and crashed into a cart ten feet to the left of us. A dull guttural roar followed.
I put some effort into it and we sprinted along the line of cars to the bridge.
Chapter 6
SIBLEY FOREST HAD STARTED OUT AS AN UPSCALE subpision, tucked away into the bend of a small wooded area hugging Sope Creek before it emptied into the Chattahoochee River. In its heyday, the subpision boasted around three hundred homes set among lush greenery and sporting price tags of half a million and up. It was a safe, pleasant, affluent neighborhood until the Shift, when the first magic wave kicked the world in the face.
As Downtown crumbled, Sibley Forest fell prey to the magic as well. It started with the river. About five years after the Shift, the Chattahoochee gained strength, eating at its banks and causing floods. Sope Creek quickly followed suit. The small tame forest bordering the subpision held out for another year or two, and then magic bloomed deep in the heart of Sibley and caused a riot.
Trees claimed the manicured lawns, growing at an alarming rate, taking bites out of the subpision. At first the homeowners' association cut the new growth down, and then they burned it, but the woods kept advancing, stretching to the sky practically overnight, until they swallowed the subpision and Sibley became a true forest.
The trees continued their assault, trying to fight their way north, to join forces with the Chattahoochee National Forest. Animals came from deep within the woods, padding on soft paws and flashing big teeth. Odd things crawled out from the darkness beneath the tree roots and prowled the night looking for meat.
