“Now you know how Maya feels, huh?” I panted. We got to the highest point of the roof, at its far end, and I had to grab Tripp to keep him from scrambling right over it and falling ten feet onto more rubble.
“Not yet!” I snarled. “Get ready to drop!”
“What!?”
I whirled to find the otso just reaching the lower end of the slanted roof. I planted a kiss on the bomb for luck and slung it across the forty or fifty feet between us. The spirit bear roared in fury as the object came clattering down in front of it, and slammed one enormous paw down on top of it.
“Jump!” I snarled, pulling Tripp against my chest and pitching backward, over the edge. I flung out my right hand and my will as I did, snarling, “Hexus!”
Between my hex and the otso’s, bad things were going to happen.
There was a flicker of sparks and a fraction of a second later, the bomb went off.
As explosions go, I’ve been closer to worse—but I wasn’t falling toward broken ground while I did it. The sound of it was enormous. The slope of the roof offered us some shelter, much of the blast followed its contour, carrying a cloud of shrapnel made from shattered concrete and broken glass up and away from us while we enjoyed the relative safety of being in the shadow of the blast. Even so, I picked up a few dozen minor cuts and abrasions and wounds—and that wasbeforeI hit the ground.
The spell-armored surface of my duster, at least, kept me from being impaled on a sharp end of rebar, and it likely stopped a lot of flying glass and rock—but it didn’t keep me from dislocating four ribs or from minor tearing of muscles in my lower back as Tripp Gregory landed on top of me, and the two of us bounced down the slope of rubble on the other side.
I lifted an arm to shield my eyes and threw my other arm across Tripp’s as rubble from the blast began to rain down all over us.
“What!?” Tripp was screaming. I knew he was screaming because I could, just barely, hear him over the solid tone of sound my overloaded ears were producing. He’d been a little closer to the blast than me—blood was running from one of his ears, where the drum had burst. “What just happened?! What is happening!?!”
“Congratulations, Tripp,” I muttered wearily. “Now you’ve pissed off someoneelsereally dangerous.”
Chapter Fourteen
Tripp and I shambled away from the explosion. He was in some kind of shock, I think, because he just sort of staggered along dizzily wherever I directed him. The otso had left a hyper-obvious trail of destruction behind it, including a beginning point, and it wouldn’t take the authorities long to find it. We took a long way around and came in from the other direction, and I managed to bundle Tripp into the Munstermobile and pull out quietly as lights and sirens were converging on the site of the destruction.
A police cruiser pulled up next to my car, and the officer in it glanced aside at me, blinked, and then took a second, harder look.
I mean, smushed up car being driven by a guy covered in the dust of an explosion. And it was kind of an obvious car. I probably had this one coming.
I traded a quick glance with the young cop and recognized him with a pang of phantom pain in my chest. He’d been one of the people of Chicago to follow the banner of my will, during the battle. They’d fought like hell against the invaders, despite being a pick-up team of volunteers. Everyone who followed me that night had wound up wounded.
Most were dead.
Wordlessly, he opened the top part of his jacket, to reveal a little homemade craft-store pin with a bean glued to it, the award I’d given the survivors at the wake for the fallen—one of my Knights of the Bean.
He folded the jacket closed over the pin again, gave me a grave nod, and then he simply ignored me and cruised on by.
I got the Munstermobile out of the immediate area, driving slowly and calmly.
Right.
I eyed the shivering figure of Tripp Gregory. Bombs on a busy street. The little weasel had no sense of proportion or personal consequence. This entire business was getting out of hand.
It was time to call a meeting.
I swallowed. I was going to have to make a call I did not want to make.
Marcone and Gardshowed up at precisely eleven o’clock that evening, and within half a minute, Talvi Inverno and Ms. Lapland also arrived at a warehouse on the waterfront where I knew both Marcone and the White Council had done business—the kind that left them with evidence to be disposed of. The warehouse was an excellent place to create new bodies. I had chosen the site deliberately.
Tripp Gregory sat on the floor a few feet away from me, shivering and paying very little attention to what was happening around him. His eyes wouldn’t focus on anything, and he just kept muttering about the Heebie Jeebies. We were both still covered in dust and debris.
Marcone took in the scene with a long, silent look. Then he walked over to me, Ms. Gard at his right hand, and stood facing me from about ten feet away.
“Mister Inverno,” Marcone said. “Please join us.”
Talvi eyed me and then Tripp Gregory, and the demigod’s face turned into a frown. His bright green eyes smoldered for a moment, and he directed a slow glare on Ms. Lapland, who was still wearing the attractive number from the earlier meeting.
