"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."
CHAPTER FOUR
CHICAGO GIVETH; CHICAGO TAKETH AWAY
So, it turns out each body of water had its own protector.
There were spring nymphs and fountain nymphs, ocean nymphs and waterfal nymphs. And sirens, not nymphs, control ed the Great Lakes.
In Chicago, the River nymphs had control of the river and its boundaries. Lorelei, the Lake Michigan siren, control ed the ebb and flow of the lake. She was the only inhabitant of an otherwise deserted, woody, three-square-mile island in the middle of the water.
Most important, the nymphs hated her. They treated us to a screechy, twenty-minute-long lecture on her faults, an antiperfor-mance evaluation. I reduced the list to her biggest faults:
1. Lorelei made a pact with the devil (who lived on the island with her);
2. Lorelei was a purveyor of black magic, including made-to-order hexes and jinxes;
3. Lorelei ate babies (human and otherwise); and 4. Lorelei was an al -around, black-wearing, Goth-leaning, antisocial freak (frankly, just the kind of girl a bunch of cute, pretty, busty nymphs would hate).
I had a pretty clear mental image of Lorelei - helped along by havin F"1eo .g read way too many fairy tales and horror novels as a teenager - as a hunchbacked crone draped in shabby black fabric, standing above the lake in a position not unlike Alanna's had been. Arms outstretched, craggy nose poised over cruel y twisted lips, offering up incantations to kil the lake for some reason we hadn't yet determined.
But planting that image in my brain seemed to soothe the pretty girls, who were now hugging and adjusting their slips and wiping their tears away in a giant nymphy hug-fest.
Frankly, it was hard to keep the boys' attention. A little throat-clearing did the trick.
"We could pay her a visit," Jonah suggested.
To be honest, that idea didn't thril me. Unfortunately, this problem was bigger than my discomfort. The nymphs were getting weaker, and God only knew how the other sups were faring.
"It's probably a good idea," my grandfather said, "if there's even a smal chance it would make a difference.
And I don't recal there being any means of communication out there, so it's not as if we could simply cal her." He looked at me, a question in his eyes.
I sighed. "Why me?"
"Because you're a girl," Catcher said.
It took me a moment to fathom a response. "Excuse me?"
"She's a siren," Catcher said. "Luring sailors to their deaths? Singing songs beautiful enough to make them weep? Trapping them in eternal ecstasy?"
Jonah's eyes went big as saucers, which made me rol mine. "And that makes my visiting her a bad idea because . . . ?"
"Because you wouldn't come back," Catcher dryly said.
"She'd be magical y bound to seduce you, to entrance you, and you'd be stuck in siren limbo for the rest of your immortal days."
"Again, I'm not real y feeling dissuaded."
"You'd feel dissuaded when you'd forgotten to eat or drink because you couldn't stand to be out of her presence.
Dying of starvation ain't a pretty way to go."
"Okay," Jonah said with a grimace. "That's a better argument."
"And that's why we're sending Boobs McGee."
I slowly swiveled my head to glare at Catcher. "Seriously. You're, what, twelve now?"
"The point is, men don't visit a siren on purpose. She'd have no choice but to seduce them, and that's not real y going to help us dril down into the magic problems."
"Then I guess that settles that," I agreed. "My boobs and I wil go. But I'm not crazy about the idea of getting in a boat in that water. Transportation ideas, anyone?"
"I'l take that one," my grandfather said. "I'l make some cal s and see if I can find a helicopter pilot wil ing to visit an isolated island over a lake tainted with magic. Of course, there'l be paperwork, so it wil be tomorrow before we can take any action."
"And in the meantime?" I asked, looking at the group.
"What do we do about the lake?"
The question set off the nymphs again. When Jeff knelt down to pat the closest nymph on the back, she turned, wrapped her arms around him, and began to sob with impressive dramatic flair.