Grendel waved his tail. Whatever horrors happened in his canine life, Grendel always bounced back with easy enthusiasm whenever some food made an appearance. A treat, a blanket in a nice warm house, an occasional pat on the head, and Grendel would be as happy as he could be.
If only people were so easy.
“Could you take a vampire away from its navigator?” Andrea asked.
I paused, thinking about it. “I could.”
I could do a hell of a lot more than that. In the raw-power department, I blew even Ghastek off the scale. I could walk into the Casino right now and empty their stables, and all of the Masters of the Dead combined wouldn’t be able to wrest control of their undead away from me. I wouldn’t be able to do anything with my vampire horde except make it run around in 48 ILONA ANDREWS a herd, but it would be a very impressive herd. Nobody except Andrea and Julie knew I could even pilot the undead, and if I had any hope of hiding, I had to keep it that way.
Of course, after the death of my aunt, hiding was a moot point.
“If I did that, the vamp would be under my control. It wouldn’t be loose. I’d asked the journeymen and both of them said they couldn’t get a lock on the vamp’s mind. As if they had lost their ability to navigate. I have no idea how to make a vampire’s mind disappear.”
Andrea frowned. “Can Roland do it?”
“I don’t know.” Considering that my biological father had brought the vampires into being, nothing was out of the realm of possibility.
“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 subdivision, tucked away into the bend of a small wooded area hugging Sope Creek before it emptied into the Chattahoochee River. In its heyday, the subdivision 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 subdivision 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 subdivision. At first the homeowners’ association cut the new growth down, and then they burned it, but the woods kept advanci
ng, stretching to the sky practically overnight, until they swallowed the subdivision 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.
Finally the association gave up. Most of the owners fled. The remaining few spent small fortunes on wards, fences, and ammo. Now having an address in Sibley Forest meant you had money, you liked privacy, and you didn’t mind weird shit on your lawn. Sometimes literally.
We turned down Twig Street. Ahead the forest rose like a massive wall tinted with pale green. Here and there flowers bloomed. The buds in the rest of Atlanta were barely waking up.
“Are you seeing this?”
Andrea bared her teeth. “I’m seeing it. I hate this place. It smells wrong and strange shit jumps out of the bushes and tries to gnaw your legs off.”
The only thing I could smell was the troll blood staining our shoes. Folklore said two things about trolls: they turned to stone at dawn and they regenerated. The troll definitely hadn’t gotten the petrifying memo, but regeneration he performed with huge success. We’d ended up herding the beast back into the ruined bunker and then keeping him there until the PAD arrived. But now we were a grand richer.
The road passed an enormous oak. Huge, its bark scarred, the massive tree towered over the street, and the Jeep careened and swayed as it rolled over the waves in the pavement made by its roots. The branches facing us shivered with narrow green leaves, still sticky from being rolled up in their buds, while the branches facing the forest were sheathed with bright green and clusters of long yellow threads, the oak flowers, busily sending pollen into the air.
A wooden sign sat by the oak roots. Letters cut the sign, sliced into the wood in sharp strokes.
SIBLEY
LIONS & TIGERS & BEARS
OH MY.
We rolled on, down the road. Brush rose on both sides of what once was a curvy subdivision street. In the weak light of the overcast afternoon, the woods looked surprisingly ethereal, as if ready to float away. Tall trees touched with green moss vied for space. Small clumps of flowers bloomed in bright patches here and there: yellow dandelions, purple henbits, tiny white blossoms in a nest of green—they looked like hairy bitter cress, but I wasn’t sure. My knowledge of herbs mostly broke down into two categories: those I could use for medicinal or magic purposes and those I could eat in a pinch.
A wide island of forsythia bushes flowered on the left in a froth of vivid yellow, as if dipped into whipped sunshine. On the right, a nameless vine dripped from the branches, threatening to spill delicate lavender flowers. Downright idyllic. You half expected Pooh Bear to waddle out through the brush. Of course, knowing Sibley, Pooh would open a mouth full of deep-water teeth and try to take a chunk out of our tires.
Andrea flipped open Rene’s manila folder. “It says here the dead guard’s name is Laurent de Harven, thirty-two years old, hair brown, eyes gray, four-year stint in the Army, MSDU unit, six years as a cop down in sunny Orlando, Florida, and four years with the Red Guard. Promoted once, to the rank of Specialist. Expert swordsman, prefers tactical blades. Krav Maga, black belt, Dan five.” Andrea whistled. “Tough guy to kill.”
“What else have we got?”
“Let’s see, Guard in Charge: Shohan Henderson, Marines eight years, Guard eleven years, expert in a list of weapons a mile long. We can also look forward to meeting Debra Abrams, the shift supervisor; Mason Vaughn; and Rigoberto ‘Rig’ Devara.”
Andrea kept reading the notes. After fifteen minutes, it was clear that the four guards and their master sergeant could fend off an angry mob, would throw themselves into a bullet’s path in the blink of an eye, and had records so stellar, they had to lock their résumés in a drawer at night, so the golden light streaming from the pages wouldn’t keep them awake.
Directions said two rights, one left, then straight. The first two turns were easy enough; the left was a tight squeeze between two pines. Beyond the turn, tall bamboo hugged the road, forming a dense green tunnel. I steered the Jeep through it.
“Are you sure you know where you’re going?” Andrea frowned.
“Would you like me to pull over and ask that bamboo for directions?”
“I don’t know, do you think it will answer?”
We peered at the bamboo.
“I think it looks suspicious,” Andrea said.
“Maybe there is a heffalump hiding in it.”
Andrea stared at me.
“You know, heffalump? From Pooh Bear?”
“Where do you even get this shit?”
The bamboo ended abruptly, spitting us into a gravel driveway leading up to a large modified A-frame. Wrapped in a railed porch with the roof extending all the way over the porch steps, the house looked like it had grown from the forest: stone foundation, dark cedar walls, brown roof. Shrubs hugged the porch steps. No unnatural colors, no ornaments or carvings.
“Look at all that window space. Built pre-Shift,” Andrea murmured.
I nodded. I could see eight windows from where we sat; most were as tall as me and none had bars. Modern houses looked like bunkers. Any window larger than a bread box was barred.
I drove midway up the driveway and stopped with the engine idling. Good guards didn’t prance around the perimeter making themselves into easy targets. They hid.
“A sniper in the attic,” Andrea said.
It took me a second, and then I saw a dark shape, obscured by the gloom under the gable—a black outline of a rifle barrel stretching from the attic window.
I stepped out of the Jeep and leaned on the bumper. Andrea joined me.
“Pine, nine o’clock,” I said.
Andrea glanced to where a man in a camo suit did his best to blend with the foliage. “Bushes at two.” She inhaled deeply. “Also, someone is behind the Jeep.”
“That makes three. The fourth is coming up at us from the left,” I said.
“Should we go meet him?” Andrea arched an eyebrow.
“I think that’s poison ivy over there. I vote we sit here and wait until they ask us for the code.”
The bushes on the left parted and an older black man stepped out. His graying hair was cropped into a severe high-and-tight. Henderson, looking exactly like the picture in the file Andrea had shown me. Judging by the hard lines of his face and the flat look in his eyes, he’d left the Marines, but the Corps hadn’t quite left him. The Red Guard shield patch on Henderson’s shoulder had two red stripes—he’d been promoted twice as a sergeant, which made him Master Sergeant. Rene oversaw this job, but she probably oversaw others, too. Henderson quarterbacked only one job at a time, and while he had it, he owned it. His guys had screwed up and lost the body they were guarding. He looked like somebody had pissed in his sandbox, and he was none too pleased that we’d come to dig in the mess.
I nodded at him. “Afternoon, Master Sergeant.”
“Names?”
“Daniels and Nash,” Andrea said.
The master sergeant checked a small piece of paper. “Code?”
“Thirty-seven twenty-eight,” I said.
“Name is Henderson. Don’t let the ‘master sergeant’ muddle your thinking. I work for my living. You’re clear to proceed. Park at the top of the driveway.”
We got back into the Jeep and I pulled up to the house. Henderson trotted behind us and up to the doors.
I stepped out of the vehicle. “Where is de Harven’s body?”
“In the workshop.”
We followed Henderson behind the house.
The workshop occupied a wooden shed large enough to contain a small apartment. The garage-sized wooden gate stood ajar.
Henderson halted. “In there.”
I stepped inside.
Counters ran along the wall, filled with tools and
metal junk. Plastic bins filled with screws rose in towers next to boxes of lug nuts, bolts, and assorted metal trash that would’ve been more at home in a metal jungle lining the bottom of the Honeycomb Gap. On the left counter, delicate glass tools of unknown purpose vied for space with a jeweler’s loupe and tiny pliers. On the right, metalworking tools were spread out: angle grinders of assorted sizes for cutting metal, shears, hammers, saws, a large lathe with a metal cylinder still fixed on it. A delicate pattern of glyphs decorated the left end of the cylinder—someone, probably Kamen, had begun to apply the complex metallic lattice but hadn’t finished.
A nude male body hung from the rafters in the middle of the shop, suspended by a thick chain, likely attached to a hook that bit into the corpse’s back. His head drooped to the side. Long dark hair spilled from his scalp down onto his chest, framing a face frozen by death into a contorted mask. Light gray eyes bulged from their sockets. The man’s mouth gaped open, the bloodless lips baring his teeth. Panic and surprise rolled into one. Hello, Laurent.
I dropped my backpack and pulled a Polaroid camera from it. Magic had a way of screwing up digital cameras. Sometimes it wiped the memory cards clean, sometimes you would get noise, and occasionally the pictures came out perfect. I wasn’t willing to play Russian roulette with my evidence. The Polaroid was hideously expensive, but the pictures were instant.
Andrea raised her eyebrows. “Look at you, all high-speed.”
“Yeah, you’d think I was a detective or something.”
Andrea held her hand out. “You’ll jinx it.”
I put the camera into her hand and crouched, trying to get a look at the floor under the body.
“No drip?” Andrea asked.
“Nope. You smell anything? Decomp, blood . . .”
She wrinkled her nose. “Cayenne pepper. The place reeks of it. It drowns out everything else.”
Odd.
I dropped to all fours and bent lower. A faint line of rusty powder crossed the floorboards. I leaned over, trying to get a better look. The line ran into the counter on the right and touched the wall on the left. A telltale spatter stain marked the wall boards.
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