I wasn’t the only one interested in the floor show. Catcher walked across the grass with my grandfather Cy g>
My grandfather was dressed in typically grandfatherly attire—cotton trousers and a button-up plaid shirt under a comfy-looking jacket with elastic at the sleeves and waist. His face scrunched in concern when he saw me, but I waved it off.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“I am now that the uncaped crusader has arrived.” I gestured at Jeff, who had crossed his arms over his chest and was staring down each of the nymphs in turn. They looked rumpled and chagrined—as if embarrassed both because he’d seen them fight and because they didn’t look their best. A few of them fluffed their hair and straightened their hems, apparently unaware that Jeff was thoroughly taken by Fallon, a female shifter with an attitude and the skills to back it up.
“How many times do I have to tell you not to get too close?”
I glanced over at Catcher, who was regarding me with a typical mix of amusement and irritation, and stuck my tongue out at him. “I tried to help. They were ganging up on one of the girls. I got hit in the head.”
“With a stiletto,” Jonah helpfully threw in. “She got hit in the head with a stiletto.”
I smiled tightly. “Oh, and this is Jonah,” I told my grandfather. “Captain of Grey House’s guards. Since we’re short-staffed, he volunteered for a ride-along. Jonah, my grandfather and the Ombudsman, Chuck Merit, and Catcher Bell.” They knew of each other, but I made the formal introductions just in case.
Jonah and Catcher shared one of those manly, “It’s nice to meet you, but I’m going to barely acknowledge your existence with a small nod because that’s the manly thing to do” gestures.
My grandfather, on the other hand, looked at me quizzically. “Merit, I know Jonah, obviously.”
“Obviously?” I asked, looking between the two.
My grandfather and Jonah exchanged a glance that suggested Jonah hadn’t been entirely forthright about his history—or I’d forgotten something substantial.
My chest fluttered a bit at the possibility that struck me, and I pointed at Jonah. “You’re the vampire source! My grandfather’s secret vampire employee.”
“I don’t recall being a secret vampire employee,” Jonah slowly said, “and I feel like I would have remembered that. Surely I’d have at least seen a tax form or something.” He looked at my grandfather. “Are you hiring?”
“Not currently,” he answered. “And while it’s an interesting guess, it’s a wrong one. Don’t you remember him?”
I frowned. “Remember him? From what?”
But before that mystery could be solved, events unfolded in nymph town.
“What, in God’s name,” Jeff forced out, “would make you think fighting in the middle of Navy Pier Park was a good idea? It’s a public place! The city is barely holding itself together right now, and you’re squabbling like children. Do you think this is going to help Cgoilace! The your cause?”
The nymphs looked appropriately shamed. I looked around, wondering what people were thinking. Jonah and I had heard the yelling from yards away, and given the state of the river, we weren’t the only people out and about.
Jeff stared them down like a general displeased with his troops. “All right,” he said. “Lay it out for me.”
“Alanna jinxed us,” proclaimed a nymph named Melaina, whom I’d met the last time the nymphs had been fighting. She pointed to the redhead. “Have you seen the picture of her? We’ve been jinxed!”
“So it was magic?” I asked aloud. “Did Alanna do some kind of charm?” While I wasn’t thrilled by the possibility that River nymphs were playing abracadabra with the city, at least it gave us an answer. I liked answers.
Alanna jumped forward, her green dress barely containing her assets as she moved. “I did no such thing!”
Jeff looked back at me. “Melaina means ‘jinxed’ metaphorically.”
Jonah leaned over. “Told you,” he whispered.
I held up a hand, then pointed at Alanna. “What were you doing to the river?”
Alanna closed her eyes, now streaming with tears. “I was embracing it. I could feel it changing, dying. It needed me.”
As if saddened by the reminder, the nymphs began to keen in low, sad voices, singing a dirge for the magic-sick water.
Their grief notwithstanding, they weren’t ready to forgive Alanna. “She made us look bad,” pouted a brunette nymph. “She made it look like we did bad magic. And now the city blames us for what happened.”
“Who took the picture?” I asked Alanna.
She shrugged. “I don’t know. There were human boys on the next bridge over.” She smiled a little. “They said I was pretty.”
And they have the photograph to prove it
, I thought.
“It hurts now,” cried a red-dressed pinup-type with a perfect red manicure.
“It hurts?” Jeff asked.
“We can feel the magic leaving us,” she said, rubbing her arms as if against a sudden chill. “Something is pulling away the magic, and it makes us feel . . . empty.”
Now that she mentioned it, the nymphs did look a little more tired than usual. It was dark in the park, but I could see the faint shadows of circles under their eyes and gauntness in their expressions.
“Can you do anything about this?” I asked Catcher. He shook his head.
“There’s magic at work here. It’s not the kind of thing I can control. I can work the universe,” he added at my confused expression. “This isn’t the universe. It’s magic—someone else’s magic—and that’s outside my wheelhouse.”
“Is it magic you recognize?” I asked, grasping at straws. “Is there any signature in it? Maybe a spell you’ve seen before or a familiar buzz? Anything?”
“It’s not familiar to me. I’ve seen the occasional borrowing spell. That’s basically just a way to ‘borrow’ someone else’s magic. But in that spell, the vacuum flows from the one who cast the spell. Here, the lake is the vacuum. And it’s not like the lake could cast its own spell.”
We both looked at the lake in silence.
“I can feel my strength diminishing as I stand here,” he quietly added. “I’d guess it’s down to eighty percent? But damned if I know what to do about it.”
“And if we don’t fix this?” I asked him.
The look he gave back didn’t offer much hope. “I suppose it’s possible,” he quietly said, “that the nymphs’ magic would dissipate completely and they’d lose their connection to the water altogether. I assume I’ll get stronger the farther I get, but they can only go so far from the water for so long.”
Catcher had spoken quietly, but the nymphs must have heard him. There was more crying, and their grief was telling: Whatever had happened to the water, these girls weren’t responsible.
“Is this the complete universe of nymphs?” I asked Catcher, who did a quick visual count, then nodded.
“They’re all here.”
“None of these girls spelled the lake,” I said. “Not with this kind of sadness. I really think we can rule out the nymphs’ involvement.”
“I agree. Unfortunately, that also makes this lead a dead end,” Jonah said.
“Maybe not,” I suggested, then stepped forward. “Ladies, it’s clear you wouldn’t hurt the river or the lake.”
The singing stopped, replaced by a soft, satisfied humming.
“But something is going on out there. Someone has turned the lake into a magic vacuum. Maybe to hurt the lake. Maybe to hurt the city. Maybe to hurt you. If the River nymphs weren’t involved
, do you know who might be?”
To a one, the nymphs stopped and looked at me, their eyes narrowed with malice.
“Lorelei,” said a blond nymph with serious self-assurance. “The siren.”