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.