"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.