"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?"