Wish Hunter (The Savannah River Series Book 1)

by Hero Bowen

  Nadia grunted as she managed to wrench free of Valhalla’s grip. The woman tussled with her across the bridge, and they slammed against one of the windows. Nadia clawed at Val’s chest, desperate to rip that locket off her.

  Val threw Nadia off, sending her slamming into the wall. They eyed each other for a moment, Nadia plotting her next attack.

  “What’d they feed you?” she said through labored breaths.

  “Jealous? Didn’t grow much in your sister’s shadow?”

  Val lunged for her, and Nadia kicked her hard in the knee. Her opponent stumbled forward, shrieking in pain. Nadia snatched the locket while the taller woman tried to regain her balance, then sprinted to the bridge door, unlocked it, and darted through.

  She almost collided with Mrs. Lea as Miles trailed behind the older woman, sputtering in exasperation. Mrs. Lea’s eyes caught Nadia’s for a moment, and Nadia recognized the look of crushing confusion, but she didn’t stop to wallow in the guilt of what she’d done.

  “I’m really sorry,” Nadia called, running past.

  Tying the locket’s chain into a knot at the back of her neck, she took the stairs to the lower deck two at a time. But when she was halfway down, she jolted to a stop—Miles wasn’t with her.

  She turned at the sound of muttered curses and Miles shouting, “Do you know who I am?”

  Nadia darted back up the steps to the top deck, and her eyes widened as she took in the scene. Things were spiraling out of control. The bouncer had Miles almost bent backward over the railing, twisting his right wrist at a grotesque angle. Miles dipped his left hand into his hoodie, and Nadia caught the briefest flash of the gun.

  The bouncer shook him, and the gun flew from Miles’s grip. It disappeared into the Savannah with a pathetic splash that was barely audible over the paddle wheel churning through the river.

  “Hey! Get off him!” Nadia yelled, racing toward Miles.

  At her words, the bouncer took his attention off Miles for a second, but that was all they needed. Miles smashed the bouncer in the jaw with a left hook, and the man staggered backward. Shaking his fingers, Miles ran toward her. Now it was time to get off the boat and hope that Jack was where he said he’d be.

  Nadia climbed the railing and was just about to leap when an iron grip closed around her left arm and snatched her back aboard. Before Nadia could even scream, Val had her in a headlock. The blonde woman’s massive hand closed around both of Nadia’s necklaces: the locket and the chain that bore her wedding rings.

  Reaching wildly as she lost her balance, Nadia grabbed Val’s shirt at the collar as she fell backward, slamming the taller woman hard against the railing. For a brief moment, it felt like they were both suspended in midair—until Val lost her balance and followed Nadia over the edge and into the murky water below.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Nadia’s stomach twisted as she fell, gravity seeming to stagnate. Just above her, Valhalla slammed into the riverboat hull on her way down. Then the cold, grayish water closed around Nadia. A dagger of pain jabbed the length of her spine, and the river engulfed her, swallowing her whole.

  Ignoring the shock from the chilly water and the panic in her brain, she clawed her way to the surface. She wasn’t about to drown in the Savannah River. Not now, not ever. She gasped and spluttered as she broke the surface, then treaded water and coughed out the dirty river muck.

  Nadia looked around frantically, and her heart leaped when she spotted the wooden locket floating only a few strokes from her.

  She swam toward the wish trap in a messy attempt at freestyle and grabbed for the pendant. She missed it once, then twice, her depth perception still foggy from the impact to her neck and head. Finally, third time lucky, her hand closed around it, and the warm viscosity of the wish undulated between the locket and her palm.

  Relief swept through her.

  A loud splash interrupted her momentary victory. Val had surfaced much too close for comfort. But the blonde enforcer seemed to have forgotten Nadia, instead struggling to make her way toward the shore; she must have hurt herself in the tumble over the side.

  Nadia remembered her promise, but she couldn’t risk losing the wish. Not again.

  With a quick, inward apology to Miles, she flicked open the locket and pressed her palm to its center, letting the strange tingle of the wish sink into her hand. Then she pressed the wish to her heart. The giddy, bubbly wish rush was back, in stark contrast to the cold and foamy Savannah.

  There’d be hell to pay later, but right now this felt good with a capital G. It was no wonder there were rush addicts in the wishing world, usually coming in pairs, who bounced a wish back and forth between each other without using it so they could feel that tingle over and over and over again. That had a tendency to turn nasty, though, when one of them finally decided they wanted to use the wish, but that wasn’t the road she was headed down. She was just glad to have it back.

  Now all Nadia had to do was wait for two things: Miles and their ride.

  The bruiser from the riverboat threw a life preserver overboard to Val, who clung to it for dear life. Nadia grinned as she swam away, still high on the wish.

  “When the Wishmaster finds out about this, you’re gonna pay, Clover Eyes,” Val shouted from behind her. “But it won’t stop there. Basha and Grace are going to pay too. You’re done.”

  The giddy rush disappeared, along with Nadia’s grin.

  I’m going to be sick. She inhaled and exhaled, trying to fend off the nausea. She needed Jack to get here pronto.

  Nadia watched as the bouncer lifted Val from the water—and then she spotted someone clambering up onto the railing overhead, a crossbody bag strapped over their chest. Quite an audience congregated behind the latest candidate for the Olympic diving medal.

  Miles pushed off from the railing and arced perfectly through the air. Streamlined as a swordfish, he sliced through the water with barely a splash.

  “Show-off,” she grumbled, though the spectators seemed impressed, with many a mouth hanging open.

  Miles spy-hopped right beside her. Treading water, he flashed her an anxious grin. “Just keep bobbing—we’ll be out of here soon.” He put his fingers to his mouth and whistled sharply in three loud bursts. Passengers gawked from the upper decks, snapping pictures and chattering excitedly with one another.

  “Keep facing me so they can’t get a shot of your face,” Nadia said. “I do not want to be in the tabloids as your soggy sidepiece.”

  “All the commenters will say it’s Photoshopped, even if they can get a picture. Believe me, I know how these things work,” he assured as the riverboat chugged away.

  Nadia’s teeth chattered, the shock of the cold and the threat finally getting to her. “How long is Jack going to be?”

  “You hear that sweet music?” Miles curved a hand around his ear, while Nadia’s eyebrow knitted together.

  “No. What am I supposed to be hearing?”

  Miles beamed. “That, Nads, is the bass note of the cavalry.”

  Sure enough, she heard the grumble of an engine approaching as a boat zipped out from behind a massive freighter churning down the river.

  “How the hell did he hear you whistle?” she asked, dumbfounded.

  Miles laughed. “I texted him before I jumped. The whistle was just for show.”

  The speedboat rocked in the riverboat’s wake, and Jack pulled the watercraft alongside them with a Bond-esque skid. From the helm, he looked down at them, grinning from ear to ear.

  “How’s that for a time trial? Just gotta hope the river cops didn’t see me,” Jack said proudly as he held out a hand and dragged them both aboard.

  Soaked through and shaking like a wet dog, Nadia huddled into one of the boat’s black leather seats. Miles, on the other hand, seemed totally unaffected by his plunge into the murky depths and had come out of the water looking like he was shooting for a six-page spread. He went in to give Jack a grateful hug, but the other man put his hand on Miles’s che
st.

  “Keep the river water to yourself, boss,” Jack said with a laugh. He growled in time with the engine, and they zipped away from Valhalla and the riverboat, although Nadia knew that escaping her trouble with the Wishmaster wouldn’t be so easy.

  “You okay?” Miles asked as he slid into the seat next to hers. “You hit the water pretty damn hard. Did you get the locket?”

  Nadia took a deep breath before answering. “No, it snapped off, but I managed to get to it in time. But . . . I also had to absorb the wish before she could steal the locket again. But it’s still yours, I promise,” she hastened to add, knowing it was the right thing to do. “I’m not going to use it—I just needed to make sure she didn’t get it.”

  “You bullshitting me?” Miles asked, arching a dubious eyebrow.

  She shook her head. “It’s yours, I swear, but we’ll have to wait to use your wishing jar.” She frowned, realizing exactly what that would entail. “And I’ll have to tell you a heart secret, which I’m not really looking forward to doing, to be honest. I’m usually the one coaxing out the secrets, not the one giving them up. Well, not intentionally.”

  He stared at her. “I don’t have the jar.”

  “What?”

  “That bouncer has it. I took it out to get my phone, and he wrestled the damn thing out of my hands before I knew which way was up. I thought you saw.” He pinched the lingering river water out of his nose. “I was lucky to get away with the candles.”

  The guilt in Nadia’s chest swelled. “I guess I missed that.”

  “No sweat,” he said, though his clenched jaw suggested otherwise. “We can drive to my dad’s place in Atlanta after this. I think he still has my mom’s jar. And I’ll let you have it afterward, like I promised, if you keep your end of the deal.”

  “That works.” Nadia leaned back into the seat as the boat pushed forward, slicing through the water. “It’s just one thing after another . . .”

  “So, this secret—are you going to tell me you wear mismatched socks? Too late. I already know. I saw those on the floor this morning, so that ain’t going to cut it.” He chuckled, evidently pleased that he was still going to get his wish back and get Nadia to cough up a secret.

  She glared at him. “You leave that up to me.” She glanced back up the river, where Val and the riverboat had disappeared. “We don’t have long until the Wishmaster brings a major crapstorm down on us.”

  “Another one?” Miles frowned. “Is the giant off to tell tales?”

  Nadia nodded. “Valhalla is probably on the phone right now. We’re in uncharted territory,” she admitted. “I don’t know what comes next, but it’s not going to be good.”

  Once Miles got his wish back, she’d have fulfilled her part of the bargain, and then she’d ask him to use his finding powers to help her uncover the best way to ensure that Grace and Basha stayed protected. And with a new wish trap in hand, she could try to find two more wishes before Kaleena caught up with her—one to fix this mess and another to resurrect Nick.

  Reflexively, she reached for the reassuring solidity of the rings she wore around her neck, only to realize with a horrifying jolt that they weren’t there. She patted around her neck and chest, trying to make them reappear. But there was no mistake.

  They were gone.

  “My rings!” she cried out, her heart leaping into a panicked rhythm. “We have to go back! I’ve got to find them!” She grabbed Miles’s shoulders, tears spiking at her eyes.

  He took hold of her arms. “What’s wrong? What are you talking about?”

  “My rings, Miles!” she choked out, feeling as though the entire world were melting like wax around her.

  Those rings were her gravity. Mrs. Lea had said she didn’t want the constant reminder of what she’d lost with her wedding ring, but Nadia did. She needed that reminder so she could remember why she was doing all of this.

  “What rings? You don’t wear rings,” he replied calmly, grabbing her hands to keep her from flailing.

  She wanted to rake at her throat, but she couldn’t get her hands out of his grip. “My rings—I wear them around my neck.” Her breaths came in a burst of hyperventilation, somewhere between a hiccup and a gasp. “My husband . . . my ring and his. They’re not there. The chain must’ve snapped when I fell.”

  “Okay, take some nice, deep breaths. You don’t need to worry. I’ll find them for you later,” he said soothingly. “They’re not gone, they’re not lost, they’re just waiting for you, okay? I’ll get them back, but you said it yourself: we’ve got the Wishmaster on us, so we can’t stick around here for too long.”

  “Thank you,” Nadia stammered. “You’ll go back for them? You really will?”

  He let go of her hands. “I will. I know what it’s like to lose something that belonged to somebody who’s not here anymore. I’ll get them for you—I promise.”

  Miles’s reassuring smile turned into a frown as he eyed the riverbank.

  “Jack?” he shouted above the engine noise and the wind. “Where you going, man? Are you taking us all the way back to my house? You know that’s way slower, right?”

  Puzzled, Nadia followed Miles’s line of sight—they’d passed the jetty closest to the Hyatt parking lot. Had he missed the drop-off point? Did he see some river cops, maybe, and decide to just keep going?

  “Making a quick detour, then I’ll loop back,” Jack yelled. Despite the volume, he said it a little too casually for Nadia’s liking. She might not have been able to get out of the water looking like a million bucks, but she knew how to read people. Her stomach twisted.

  Something was up.

  “How much does he know?” Nadia asked Miles, only loud enough for him to hear. “We got away too easy, Miles. It’s not a detour. Something’s wrong!”

  He gave her a bewildered look. “How hard did you hit the water? Jack’s my guy—he wouldn’t stab me in the back. And he doesn’t know anything about wishing stuff.”

  “Listen to me, Miles!” Nadia hissed. “Something’s not right here. We’re on a river—what possible detour could he be taking? It’s not like he’s dropping by a boat-thru for a burger and a damn milkshake.”

  Doubt flickered across Miles’s face, his gaze turning toward his driver. “Hey, Jack, no detours. That ain’t what I pay you for. Drop us as close to the parking lot as you can get, give me the keys to the Mercedes, and we’ll be good.”

  “It won’t take long,” Jack called over his shoulder. “Trust me. Have I ever let you down before?”

  Nadia flashed Miles a “see?!” look.

  “Nah,” he said to Jack, sounding tense. “Take us straight to the dock by the Hyatt.”

  “Sorry, Miles. Gotta do this thing first.”

  “And I’m telling you I want to go straight to the dock. I paid for this boat, and you’re going to drive it wherever I say. That’s kinda your job, Jack,” Miles snapped, fear glinting in his half-narrowed eyes. “If you don’t, then step away from the wheel and I’ll drive my damn self there.”

  Jack shook his head. “That’s not how this is gonna go.”

  Miles stood from his seat as if to make a move, but Jack turned halfway toward them, left hand on the wheel—and a small pistol in his right.

  Miles froze.

  “I need the two of you to sit down and shut up,” Jack spat. “I know that’ll be hard for you, Miles, since you’re a big fan of the sound of your own voice, but if you don’t, I’ll shut you up.”

  Nadia’s stomach lurched. Jack was probably already looking forward to his briefcase of cash . . . or a promised wish. She thought about what she’d seen at The Scrapyard: Jack, all sweaty and distracted, coming out of the alley and crushing a cigarette under his shoe. Who had gotten to him? Val or another of Kaleena’s lackeys? It could’ve been anyone. Who knew what wishes they were up against? For every Val able to duplicate a voice, there was a Miles who knew how to find things or any other number of variations. No matter how it had happened, in the end, someone had t
urned Miles’s friend into a traitor.

  Miles sat down in his seat, eyes full of rage, while Jack kept the gun casually pointed in their direction, alternating between keeping an eye on them and the river ahead. When Jack looked forward for a second, Miles gave Nadia an expectant look as he unclipped the strap of his crossbody bag, unzipped the top, and let the whole thing fall to the floor next to her seat.

  “I thought we were friends,” Miles shouted when Jack turned around.

  Jack snickered as he gave Miles a bitter smile. “You never thought of me as a friend. I’m your driver, nothing else. You just said it yourself five seconds ago. You had this coming, Miles, but you were too full of yourself to see it.”

  Miles nudged the bag with his foot, and Nadia’s heart skipped a beat when one of the scented candles rolled out of it. She looked back up at him, her eyes wide.

  “What about all the bonuses and tickets I’ve gotten you over the years?” Miles said, nodding discreetly to Nadia even while he kept Jack’s attention. “All the girls you’ve met? All the places we’ve been? Don’t forget who paid for everything you own, you son of a bitch.”

  Jack snorted. “There’s always more rich people, Miles. And after this, I’m gonna be one of ’em.”

  Nadia reached down, grabbing the candle and a lighter from the bag. She straightened up before Jack had the chance to look her way.

  This wasn’t how she’d envisioned spending her first wish, and it would mean that Miles would truly lose his third wish for good, at least in its unspent form. But they didn’t have many other options. She needed some way to get them out of this—and quickly.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “You know what, I don’t think this has anything to do with me,” Miles told Jack. “Do you got some kind of inferiority complex? Is that what this is? Didn’t get enough attention as a kid, and now you’re projecting that onto me?”

  Nadia cringed at Miles’s clumsy attempt at psychoanalysis. Didn’t he know those sorts of questions would just put Jack on the defensive? But she appreciated that Miles was trying to buy her more time by getting Jack riled up. She brought her knees up so she could ready the candles and lighter without being seen, her heart rampaging in her chest.