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.
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: