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.