DEAD IN THE WATER

Some aspects of this city were spectacular. A river cruise at sunset. The Field Museum on a rainy day. Wrigley Field pretty much anytime. There was even thirty-course molecular gastronomy, if you were into that (no, thanks), or red hots, if they were your bag (yes, please!).

Other parts were less fabulous. Winters in Chicago had al the charm of a late sleeper at seven a.m. Politics were a combustible mess. And then there was perhaps the greatest irony of al : Despite the public transportation, despite the traffic, despite the construction, despite the fiasco that was on-street parking, most of us had cars.

Even residential parking required a permit, and don't get me started on "dibs."

Because parking was usual y a disaster, I'd been prepared to text Jonah and advise him it would take me an hour to meet him at Navy Pier - twenty minutes to get there and forty minutes to find a parking spot and make the hike.

Fortunately, although Chicago was a busy city at pretty much any time of day, it was a little less busy in the hours vampires roamed. Business in the Loop was winding down as I searched for a parking space, so I found an on-street spot and jogged back to t Mohe pier entrance, a hand on my sword to keep it from bouncing at my side.

I'd avoided Lake Shore Drive, thinking it would be swamped with gawkers. Consequently, I didn't get a look at the water until I neared Navy Pier. My first look might have been delayed, but that didn't dampen the shock. Sure, the lake at night had always been dark. Sometimes it was so dark it seemed the lakefront was the edge of the world, Chicago the final outpost before oblivion. But you might spy the break of a white wave or a glint of moonlight on the water, and you knew the sun would rise and the lake would appear again.

But this dark was something altogether different. There was no movement, no life, no reflection. There were no breaking waves, and the moon reflected off the slick, black surface like it was a lacquered void in the earth.

And it didn't just look strange - it felt wrong.

Vampires weren't magical creatures per se. We were the result of a genetic mutation that made us a little more powerful than humans, but with profound weaknesses - including aspen stakes and sunlight. But we could sense magic around us, usual y a mild, peppery, caffeinated buzz in the air.

Tonight there wasn't just an absence of magic - the lake actual y felt like a magical vacuum, sucking what magic there might have been into its maw. I could feel the magic being leached past me, like a freezing winter wind wicking away moisture. The sensation was uncomfortable, an irritating breeze beneath my skin, and it was al the weirder since the air was perfectly stil .

"Who could turn Lake Michigan into some kind of magic sink?" I quietly wondered.

"That would appear to be the principal question."

I jumped at the words, then glanced behind me. Jonah wore jeans, boots and a long-sleeved gray T-shirt with MIDNIGHT HIGH SCHOOL across the front. The school was fake, a cover used by RG members to signal their membership in case things went awry.

It probably didn't bode wel that he was wearing one now.

"You can feel it, too?" I asked.

"I can now. I couldn't at the House. I don't like it," he added, scanning the lake. "But let's walk the pier. I want to get closer to the water."

I nodded and fol owed him, only just realizing that throngs of people were moving toward the lake. I guess everyone wanted a glimpse. Unfortunately, lines of bundled-up Chicagoans moving en masse through the dark looked uncomfortably zombie-esque. I shivered involuntarily, and fol owed Jonah.

He was right about the pier. The ten-foot gate was locked.

After waiting to avoid a couple of passing guards, he vaulted over the fence with minimal effort. He glanced back at me, then motioned me over with a hand.

I'd mounted a fence before, but wasn't thril ed to try again in front of this particular audience. My nerves ramped up, I blew out a breath, backed up a few feet, and jumped. I made it a few feet up, and scrambled to reach the top. But just as I swung my legs over the side, I got caught in a tangle of fence posts and jacket pockets. Arms and legs twisted, I hit the ground butt-first, bruising both my derriere and my ego.

"So much for fal ing graceful y," Jonah snickered, offering me a hand. I growled out a few choice comments, but took his hand and let him pul me up.

I stood up and dusted off my bottom. "I can scale a fen Cn s but ce. I've done it before."

"Then what's the problem?"

The audience, I thought, but kept the thought to myself.

"Nerves, I guess."

Jonah nodded. "To truly utilize your skil s, you'l have to let go of your human preconceptions and trust your body."

Before I could make a snappy response, Jonah grabbed my hand and pul ed me around the corner of a building just before the guard walked by, his walkie-talkie buzzing with chatter about the lake.

When he'd passed, Jonah peeked around the corner.

"He's gone. Let's go."

We headed around the pier in the opposite direction. It was deserted, the ticket booths, restaurants, and snack vendors closed up for the night, the tour boats in dry dock for the winter. We skirted the edge of the buildings to keep a low profile and jogged the length of the pier - nearly a mile - to the end.

There was an open area at the end of the pier, so we checked for guards and then hustled past the stand of flags that dotted the concrete to the edge. I kneeled down and gazed into the water. Just as we'd seen earlier, the lake was pitch-black and absolutely stil . The water looked like a black sheet of ice, perfectly frozen and flat. It carried no scent, and it was completely silent. There was no sign of life, and no sound of it, either. No crashing waves. No seagul caws. The lake was eerily stil and eerily silent.

It was also eerily antimagical. The vacuum was stronger here, as was the sensation that magic was being pul ed toward the lake.

Chicagoans had always had a love-hate relationship with the lake. We flocked to it in the summertime, and bemoaned the freezing winds that rol ed off it in the winter.

But humans' reactions to this were going to be different by magnitude. Before, humans feared supernaturals because of who we were. Now, they were going to fear what we could do.

It wasn't the first time I wished Ethan was here, if only to brainstorm with. He'd already be deep in strategy territory, figuring out how to avoid the possibility humans would blame vampires for whatever was going on.

I glanced behind me and up at Jonah. "This is going to be bad."

"That's my thinking. And I am at a complete loss. Four graduate degrees," he added, with a mischievous grin, "and stil at a complete loss."

Predictably, I rol ed my eyes. "Wel , let's do what we can with what we have. Maybe we can find some clue as to the origin."

The first step in that task, I figured, was getting down there and getting a feel for the water. I glanced around and spied an access ladder that led down to lake, then searched the pier for something to prod it with. After al , there was no way I was dipping toe one into a magical black hole.

After a few seconds of fruitless searching, Jonah handed me what looked like a used-up sparkler stick.

"Tourists," he blandly suggested when I glanced at it curiously.

"Probably," I agreed. "But it'l work." I unbelted my katana and handed it to him, then climbed down the ladder. When I was close enough to the water, I dipped the sparkler into it.

The water was so opaque I'd half expected the stick to bounce off the top. Instead, it offered no resistance at al .

When I lifted the sparkler from the water, there were no ripple Cerestick s - the few errant, inky drops simply dropped back into the water with no effect.

"Are you seeing this?" I asked, looking up at the pier.

"Yes, although I stil have no idea what it is." He reached out a hand. "Come on up. You're making me nervous."

With a nod, I sacrificed the sparkler to the lake and climbed back up again. Jonah handed back my katana and I rebelted it, and we stood there for a moment silently regarding the water.

"So, to review," I said, "we have a lake and apparently a river that have turned black, absorb magic, and no longer obey the laws of physics. And that's only what we can see.

There could be more turmoil under the surface."

"The questions now are 'why' and 'how.' "

"Did you see the photo of the River nymph on the bridge?

It looked like she was casting some kind of spel ."

"I did," he said, "but this can't be the work of nymphs.

Even if they were fighting each other, they love the water.

They wouldn't do anything to destroy the lake or the river."

"Not on purpose," I suggested. "But as we know, there are ways for supernatural populations to be control ed."

After al , Tate had manufactured V, a drug that made vamps more aggressive and bloodthirsty than usual. He'd used it to control Celina. Maybe he hadn't been the only one in the city with supernatural control in mind.

"That's true," Jonah said. "But if you wanted to control a population, why the nymphs? They manage lake and river resources. That's not exactly big magic. And even if they were being targeted, why kil the lake? What's the point?"

"Maybe the goal was knocking the city off-kilter," I suggested. "Some of the city's water comes from the lake, so maybe they wanted to futz about the water supply?"

"To dehydrate us to death?"

"Or incite riots."

We were quiet for a moment.

"So we have two theories," he said. "This has something to do with the nymphs, which would explain the picture, or this has something to do with the lake. Unfortunately, neither one of those theories real y tel s us anything."

"Actual y, it gives us at least a place to start." I pul ed out my cel phone. I'd met nymphs before, and I knew two people who had a way with them. My grandfather and Jeff Christopher, my grandfather's employee. The boy had a touch.

Handily, Jeff answered the cal . "Talk to me, Merit."

"We're at the lake. Have you seen it yet?"

"Yeah. We're at DuSable Harbor. We wanted to see it for ourselves. And now that we're here . . ." He paused. "Crazy, isn't it?"

"Very much so. Any thoughts on how it happened?"

"We've been talking it through, but this is completely unprecedented. Even Catcher's shocked, and Catcher's not shocked by a lot." I could hear the thread of concern in his voice, like a child who has, for the first time, seen his parents at a loss. I didn't envy the feeling.

"Jeff, there's an image floating around the Internet of a nymph standing over the river, and it looks like she's casting a spel or something. Is it possible they'd be involved - or that someo Cor dn't enne would want us to think they're involved?"

"Nymphs don't cast spel s, so whatever she was doing, that wasn't it."

"So maybe she was framed?"

"Or a tourist caught the wrong shot at the wrong time."

"That's a possibility," I al owed. "But either way, it would probably pay to talk to the nymphs and get their perspective. We're over at Navy Pier. Can we meet you somewhere?"

There was a pause, probably while he discussed logistics with Catcher or my grandfather.

"We'l meet you in front of the pier," he said. "Ten minutes."

That was just long enough for Jonah and me to walk back the length of the pier . . . and hopeful y not get cal ed out by a security guard.

"We'l be there," I promised him, and we set out for land again.

We walked quietly back to the rendezvous point. There was no sight of the guards, who'd probably abandoned their routes to stare at the lake. Trouble emerged only after Jonah had leapt the gate. I was a few feet behind him, preparing myself mental y to make the hop again. Much to my surprise, I performed the vault much more graceful y and was on my way down again when the screaming began.

The noise was just enough to jar my concentration. I lost my form midair, and hit the ground in an ungainly stumble. It took a few steps, but I final y ended up on my feet and began scanning the grounds for the source of the screams.

Easier said than done. The noise echoed weirdly off the buildings on the pier and Lake Pointe Tower, the clover-shaped tower that sat between Navy Pier and the rest of Streetervil e.

Jonah homed in on the drama first, pointing toward a patch of green space in front of the pier. A tangle of people  - maybe a dozen - were yel ing and screaming into the otherwise quiet night air. From the tingle in the air - a tingle that was being sucked back into the vacuum behind us - it was clear the scuffle was magical.

We jogged over, and I nearly ran into Jonah when he stopped short, eyes wide on the scene in front of him. He barely managed to stutter out a response. "I've seen pictures, but never in person. They are -  Wow. There's so many of them. And they're so - with the dresses and the hair - "

Jonah was right. There were so many of them, and the dresses and hair definitely made them noticeable. They were petite and curvy, al with long hair, al with short dresses. Each dress was a different color, corresponding to the chunk of the Chicago River for which they were responsible.

A single nymph - the redhead from the picture Kel ey had shown me - was surrounded by ten or twelve others. They were currently only yel ing obscenities, but they looked more than eager to start rumbling.

I'd seen River nymphs fight before, and I didn't want any part of it. They used nails and pul ed hair. I preferred a crescent kick to the head any day.

"Those are the River nymphs," I told Jonah, then nudged him forward. "Come on."

We reached the circle of nymphs within seconds, but they couldn't have cared less. They were too busy berating the redheaded nymph in the middle of their circle. And while they may have been cute and petite and al things womanly and manicured, they had vicious little potty mouths. Even Jonah cringed when a blond nymph made a rather unflattering comp Cattutter ouarison between the redhead's mother and a female dog.

"That is not ladylike," he muttered.

"Welcome to the world of the nymphs," I said, and stepped forward, just as I'd seen Jeff do once before.

"Ladies, maybe we could calm down a bit and cool off?"

Whether too fired up to notice the suggestion of detente or too unmoved to care, they ignored me. During an effort to punctuate her insult with a physical threat, a brunette's stiletto caught in the grass. She stumbled forward, but the rest of the nymphs thought the move was a threat. With dolphin-pitched squeals and the sounds of tearing fabric and stomping heels, the entire circle erupted into violence.

Unfortunately, I'd edged too close to them and got sucked into the tangle.

I covered my head with an arm and pushed my way into the middle of the circle, trying to reach the redhead and pul her out of the scrum. I squinted against flying nails and winced at the force of smal , pointy elbows. I'd stepped into their fight, so knocking them out wasn't a political y viable move. But neither was I going to lose an eye to a nymph catfight.

I'd just managed to get a hand on the redhead's dress when a stiletto caught me on the temple. I threw out a curse, dropping to my knees in the middle of the fight as pain sang through my head. I gingerly touched the spot and pul ed back fingertips coated in blood.

Unfortunately, I wasn't the only one bleeding. The nymphs were slicing one another with French-manicured nails and expensive heels, and each cut put nymph blood - astringent and cinna-mony and ful of magic - into the air. Like I had only the control of a stil -pink vampire, I felt my fangs descend, and guessed my eyes - normal y blue - had silvered from bloodlust.

I was debating whether to crawl out to safety or stand up again and make another attempt at separating the cloud of bodies when a shril whistle split the air.

Al fighting stopped. The nymphs dropped their holds on one another and turned toward the noise.

Jeff Christopher walked into the fracas like James Bond, al cool swagger and unfailing confidence, and he had the attention of every last one of them.

I wasn't sure if it was because he was a shifter, or because he was Jeff, but this was the second time I'd seen him play the nymphs like a Stradivarius, and it wasn't any less impressive the second time around. Jeff spent a lot of his time playing Catcher's young, skinny, geeky sidekick, but there was no mistaking the man he was becoming.

Jeff reached out a hand and helped pul me to my feet, wincing at what felt like a pretty good gash. "Are you okay?" he asked.

"I'l be fine," I confirmed, swiping the back of my hand at the trickle of blood. "They were ganging up on the redhead.

I stepped in to get her out, and that was the end of that. I'm tapping out. You're in."

"You go take care of yourself," he said, his voice an octave deeper than usual as he played macho peacemaker. "I'l take this one."

Perfectly content to let him do that, I moved out of the way and stood stil while Jonah pressed a cotton handkerchief to my forehead. But I kept my eyes trained on Jeff and the nymphs, as there was no way I was going to miss watching him work his mojo.

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 typical y 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 al 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 Fal on, a female shifter with an attitude and the skil s to back it up.

"How many times do I have to tel 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 helpful y 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 Bel ." 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 smal nod because that's the manly thing to do" gestures.

My grandfather, on the other hand, looked at me quizzical y. "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 recal 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 Cgoiplace your cause?"

The nymphs looked appropriately shamed. I looked around, wondering what people were thinking. Jonah and I had heard the yel ing 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. "Al 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 thril ed 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' metaphoricaly."

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 chil . "Something is pul ing 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 spel you've seen before or a familiar buzz? Anything?"

"It's not familiar to me. I've seen the occasional borrowing spel . That's basicaly just a way to 'borrow' someone else's magic. But in that spel , the vacuum flows from the one who cast the spel . Here, the lake is the vacuum. And it's not like the lake could cast its own spel ."

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'l 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 tel ing: 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 al here."

"None of these girls spel ed the lake," I said. "Not with this kind of sadness. I real y 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."