Wild Knight (Midnight Empire: The Tower #1)(46)

“What are you thinking—mermaids?” Ione asked as we hurried along the Strand.

“Bigger. Stevie wouldn’t request backup for mermaids.” She was a witch who specialized in water magic. She could handle a mermaid with an attitude problem.

“I can’t believe Minka.” Ione’s face hardened. “If anything happens to Stevie…”

“Nothing will happen to her.” I made sure to sound more certain than I felt. Knights died on the job every day and we both knew it, especially knights like us whose resources were limited.

A pulse of magic tugged me toward the river. I rounded the corner and glimpsed Stevie’s silhouette in the center of the bridge. Her feet were planted hip-width apart and she held her sword at the ready as she faced the water. Whatever she was anticipating, she wasn’t willing to be caught off guard.

Ione opened her mouth to call Stevie’s name and I clamped a hand over it. We couldn’t risk distracting her at a crucial moment.

Ione bit my finger. “You still smell like dragon.”

I removed my hand and put a finger to my lips. “Something’s coming and she wants to be ready.”

“She also wants our help or she wouldn’t have called.”

“She’s a water witch. If anyone can handle an angry river, it’s Stevie.”

Ione declined to heed my advice. She charged ahead and I groaned in exasperation. What was she thinking? I was the one who went running into the fray against the advice of others. Ione was usually more thoughtful.

Black waves chopped across the surface but there was no wind. Stevie was right. Something was coming.

I started toward her. Stevie’s feet were cemented on the bridge and Ione was halfway to her when the water rose up and twisted itself into a funnel. It had to be ten feet in circumference. And it was heading straight for the bridge.

I broke into a run.

The funnel spun across the bridge and captured Stevie in its spout.

“No!”

The funnel swept over the bridge and continued to the other side of the river. There was no sign of Stevie, not in the funnel or in the river.

Ione leaned over the railing and scanned the water. The funnel spun along the surface of the river like a whirling dervish with the waves bobbing up and down around it like supplicants.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Ione said. Her fingers looked like they itched to reach for her bow, but she seemed to recognize the futility of that particular weapon.

Water witch or not, if we didn’t get Stevie out of there soon, she would drown.

The waterspout continued to spin across the river in a haphazard fashion. There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to the movement.

I inhaled sharply when I saw two hands break through the wall of water. Stevie dove headfirst into the river. The funnel splashed over the side and soaked the pavement before flattening again.

What the hell?

Stevie swam to the north side and crawled to safety. Ione and I bolted from the bridge.

This wasn’t a natural event. Even without the telltale sign of magical energy humming in the air, water didn’t rise up and form a spout under the current conditions. Unfortunately in an area as large and varied as this, it was impossible to tell where the magic was emanating from.

“No damage. No obvious target. What was the point of that?” Ione asked.

I shook my head. “No idea.”

Stevie came into view and I relaxed slightly. She jogged toward us, wearing a bright smile. “Nice day for a swim, right?”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

“Why were you on the bridge in the first place?” Ione asked.

She cut a glance at the calm river. “I’d finished with a client at Charing Cross and was about to leave when I felt a pulse of magic. It was…odd. Then another one, this one stronger. I started walking around to see if I could identify the source. Finally I realized it was coming from the water.”

“Is that why you walked across the bridge?” I asked.

She nodded. “I wanted a better view.”

And yet all the magic did was create a waterspout.

“Maybe there was a creature underwater that lured you there like a siren,” Ione said. “Do you think the client was setting you up?”

Stevie shook her head. “Total coincidence. His job involved muting a family of banshees that lived next door to him. I got the distinct impression that he liked the idea of silencing women and got off on the idea of another woman doing the silencing.”

“Minka said he was willing to pay double because it was urgent.” Now we knew why.

Stevie shrugged. “He hasn’t slept in days because they won’t stop wailing, or so he claimed.” She cast a glance at the river. “I think the river magic was more of a wrong place, wrong time situation.”

I thought of Kami and the dragon. “There seems to be a lot of that going around.”

Stevie shook droplets of water from her dark hair. “Anybody hungry? All that excitement worked up my appetite.”

I was never one to turn down food—unless it was being offered by royal vampires.

“There’s a place on the Strand that makes an excellent tofu burger,” Ione said.

Stevie shrugged. “Whatever. At this point I’ll eat the menu.”

I gestured to her outfit. “Might want to take care of your wet clothes first. They don’t tend to like it when you leave a puddle under your chair.”