Wish Hunter (The Savannah River Series Book 1)

by Hero Bowen

  Miles shrugged. “I can feel her, but the path’s fuzzier than usual right now. It’s hard to explain. Like, it’s not GPS precise. It’s more of a feeling, like Hot and Cold. You know, that kids’ game, if you used to play that.”

  “Does that mean you’re feeling warm right now?”

  “Yeah. The warmth ain’t as strong, but maybe that just means she’s still running.” He paused and took out his wishing jar. “Now, part of this bargain is you teaching me how to use this thing, remember? We’ve got time.”

  “Now? Here?” Nadia nodded toward the driver’s seat.

  “Don’t worry about it. He’ll just think we’re talking about a new album or something. Hit me with lesson one.”

  She folded her arms across her chest. “Well, once you open the wish trap, you have to coax someone into sharing what’s called a heart secret. Something they wouldn’t tell anyone else. It has to be emotional enough to release the wish. The Wishing Tree decides what kind of secret is big enough to do that.”

  “Sounds . . . vague.” He squinted down at the jar.

  “Welcome to the business,” Nadia said. “Stealing wishes is all about knowing what to ask and how to ask it. If you’re too direct, people clam up. You have to ease them in and build rapport until they feel comfortable enough to let things slip.”

  “Ah, now the marriage counseling makes sense.” He smirked. “But seems like that might violate some sort of professional code of ethics. Should I report you to some medical board?”

  “I don’t do it just to steal wishes,” she said, straightening in her seat. “I genuinely like helping people. My reconciliation rates are high because I care.”

  “Okay, so how do you know if a secret is strong enough?” Miles asked. “You can’t just guess, or you’d get it wrong half the time and end up wishless.”

  Nadia gestured toward the jar. “The wood stays cold if it’s too weak, and it warms up if it’s strong enough. It’s not a subtle heat either.”

  “How close do you have to be to steal a wish in the first place?” He seemed eager, as if she were unpicking the threads of the universe for him.

  “You have to be quite close, which is why that thief called me out to the church. She was nearby with her wish trap. You can also get someone to put a piece of paper, with the heart secret written on it, into your wishing jar or into your hand. But it has to be verbal or handwritten, if you’re thinking you can get some old flame to text you a secret. That doesn’t work.” She smiled thinly. “The Wishing Tree hasn’t moved into the digital age.”

  Miles scratched his chin. “What if you were listening outside a confessional box?”

  “That’s blasphemy, and you’d get run out of town,” she retorted.

  “How about if you hung around one of those trees that people tie their wishes and secrets to? If you took one, would that work?” He looked hopeful. “Or could you ask a kid? Kids are always spilling secrets.”

  Nadia raised an eyebrow. “And you were calling me underhanded before.”

  “Yeah, I guess that’d be a bit shady.” He dropped his chin to his chest. “But what if the kid had saved someone’s life, so they had a wish to spare? Some kids would have something like a heart secret, but you might get one who’s just had a happy life so far. Would the gauge for what’s ‘big enough’ of a secret go down for them? Or what if you walked past someone who was telling someone else a secret over the phone?”

  Nadia sighed. “Look, this isn’t math or chemistry. You don’t add two parts of this and one part of that and get the same outcome every time. There are some rules that can’t be broken, and some that can be bent near ninety degrees. It’s hard to quantify. And you’re not going to learn everything in five minutes that I’ve spent a lifetime studying. So, I’ll keep it simple. The only thing you can rely on is the heat of the wish trap.”

  “But hold up—what if you had already spent my wish, not just absorbed it? Could I have gotten it back?”

  “I see you’re already planning ahead for when I betray you,” Nadia said dryly.

  He gave her a look. “Gotta keep my options open. So people can do that, then?”

  “Hope stealers can, yeah.” She figured she might as well go all in at this point. “They specialize in guessing people’s wish wording, though it’s harder to steal a used wish, in my opinion. You need the exact wording and a piece of wishery paper, which is tough to find these days. You write down the wording, burn the paper, and the wish goes into a wish trap. Still counts as one of your three if you absorb it, though.”

  “I get what you’re saying.” Miles rubbed his chin. “Then they can have whatever power the other person had—and equally as strong.”

  “More often, people just let the wish disappear, especially if it’s the wish of someone they have a grudge against,” Nadia said.

  “Now that’s just wasteful. And petty as hell.”

  She shrugged. “Not when you’ve been on the receiving end of some crappy wish-given ability and want revenge without outright murdering them. It’s a common punishment in the wishing world.”

  “Then let’s hope—” Miles suddenly perked up. “Ooh, I’m getting that good feeling! Jack, go back around the block!”

  The driver nodded. “You got it.”

  It was the third time they’d gone around, but Nadia wasn’t going to argue with Miles’s feelers—although she suspected his senses were still dulled from the wishing bark–infused wine he’d drunk, courtesy of her mother.

  “Agh, it’s gone again,” Miles grumbled as they did another circuit. “Can you go around once more, Jack?”

  Jack cast a withering look back through the rearview mirror. “Sure. Whatever you want.”

  “It keeps slipping.” Miles tapped his temple, as if it might help to center his feelers. “What’s wrong with me? It’s never like this.”

  Nadia contemplated mentioning the wishing bark, but Jack cut in before she could.

  “He did this when I first got the job,” he said. “We were in LA, and he wanted to find Lionel Richie’s house. I said he could just get one of those StarMaps, or whatever they’re called, but he was dead set on just looking for it. I thought he was nuts, but he’s paying my bills, y’know, so you do what you gotta do.”

  Nadia smiled. “Lionel Richie, huh?”

  “What?” Miles shot her a wounded look. “He’s a legend. A musician can like a lot of music, Nads. Just because they play rock doesn’t mean that’s all they’ve got on the turntables.”

  “Anyway,” Jack continued, “I’m driving around and around Beverly Hills, thinking I’m going to get pulled over for curb-crawling or something, and Miles goes, ‘Got it! Turn that way!’ So I do, and it’s the same damn street we’ve been driving up and down for the last half hour. But then he starts sniffing, like he’s going to smell the wealth of Lionel Richie, and I’m already thinking about handing in my notice.”

  Nadia laughed. “And then what happened?”

  “He sticks his head out the window and starts pointing wildly, so I pull up to this place and press the intercom. He takes over, saying he’s this up-and-coming musician who wants to have a mentoring session or something.” Jack looked back at Miles. “Should I tell her the rest?”

  Miles shook his head, his expression unamused. “No, go around the block again.”

  “Seriously?” Jack’s brow wrinkled.

  “Do I look like I’m joking?” Miles turned to Nadia as the driver did his bidding. “Basically, I got laughed off the street. Security asked if I knew how many people tried that line every day. I gave them my name and everything, but they said they’d never heard of me. If ever you need humbling, go to the house of someone super famous and try to get past their security.”

  After going around the same block three more times, Jack’s irritated sighs grew more and more frequent.

  “Can’t you just tell me where you want me to go?” Jack grumbled over the sound of the radio. “You must have some idea. I don’t think
you’re going to find a celebrity down this street.”

  Miles rubbed his head and whispered to Nadia, “I don’t understand. I could feel my wish—it was right there—and then it vanished. It keeps happening.”

  “If your wish is at the Wishmaster’s headquarters, I might have an idea why,” Nadia replied. Although they’d both been speaking quietly, she hoped the low music would further mask their conversation from Jack. “It’s notoriously hard to find, and even harder to remember. I’ve been there once, but if you put a gun to my head and asked me for the directions, I wouldn’t be able to tell you. There’s some kind of wishing afoot there. Like my . . . family’s house, but on a bigger scale.”

  Calling the Kaminski Mansion her house hadn’t felt right since she’d moved out for college, but now that she’d been literally thrown onto the street, it didn’t feel like it belonged to her anymore at all.

  “And your finding skills might also be on the fritz because of the wine my mom gave you,” she added hesitantly. “You shouldn’t take drinks from wishing folk. Nine times out of ten, it’s infused with Alexander’s Tea—a concoction that dulls wished-for abilities, albeit temporarily.”

  Miles’s jaw dropped. “You people drugged me? Of course you did. There’s literally nothing you won’t do.”

  “Maybe you should try changing what you’re looking for,” Nadia suggested as a peace offering.

  “Now you’re going to tell me how to use my finding ability?” he huffed, but she could see a thought pass across his eyes. A few moments later, and now on their umpteenth circuit of the same block, Miles punched the air. “Yes, there it is! Jack, take a right!”

  Jack exhaled. “Finally.”

  Nadia had no idea where they were headed, and Miles didn’t seem to want to elaborate.

  A few minutes after that, Miles leaned forward through the gap in the front seats. His mouth twisted into a grimace as he muttered to himself, “Really? Here? Why here?”

  “Want me to park around back?” Jack asked.

  Miles sighed. “No, just get us close to the front. We’ll jump out.”

  “Front of what?” Nadia asked as she leaned over and looked out Miles’s window. “The Scrapyard?”

  She’d heard about the place—a dive bar and live music club that tried to stay under the tourist radar in order to retain its hole-in-the-wall status.

  “You back to slumming like the early days?” Jack asked with a chuckle.

  Miles shook his head. He mumbled the truth so that only Nadia would hear it. “Believe me, I hoped I’d never have to come back here, but that’s what I get for bumping into the likes of you. This is where the heat is.”

  The place was hidden away inside an innocuous-looking one-story building with a black metal S on the roof and a tiny plaque by the door that read The Scrapyard. Beneath a tangled canopy of lights, the local crowd milled about on the outside patio, where smokers and overheated partygoers went to cool off. This wasn’t Nadia’s kind of Saturday-night scene at all, even when Nick was alive, although he’d loved mosh pits.

  “Let me guess—this is where you warbled through your first open nights in front of an ambivalent crowd determined to talk over you?” Nadia teased.

  Miles clasped at his chest. “Too close to the bone, man.” He took a shaky breath. “I used to play here with my band when I first started out. I was just a kid then. I also broke up with my high school girlfriend in the parking lot, who also happened to be the lead singer of said band. So, yeah, I’ve got some history here.”

  With a decisive push, he opened the door and got out. Nadia scooted along to his side and clambered out behind him, but by the time her feet were firmly on the sidewalk, he was already at the bar’s entrance with his hood up and his sunglasses back on.

  “That really doesn’t make you look incognito,” she muttered, darting after him.

  After buying tickets from the woman at the door, they ventured deeper into the bar. A mesmerizing optical bombardment of blue and orange neon lights snaked across the ceiling and walls. Nadia squinted against the glare of jangling arcade games, and the olfactory hit of greasy food threatened to overwhelm her. “Seven Nation Army” bumped through the speakers at a surprisingly sedate volume, but she figured the decibels would skyrocket once the band got onto the raised stage at the back of the club.

  “You need to take those sunglasses off!” Nadia said over the background music.

  He pulled his Ray-Bans to the bridge of his nose and peered over the rims. “I don’t want to be noticed.”

  “Then look like a normal person!”

  Reluctantly, he took them off and folded them back into his hoodie pouch, alongside his wishing jar. “Do you want a drink?”

  “No, I want to know why we’re here.” She waved a hand around the bar. “What tingles are your Spidey senses giving off?”

  He pulled her around to a nook between the bar and the hallway that led to the bathrooms. “I was thinking of how to get the wish back, not just finding the wish itself,” he explained. “Even if we could find the headquarters, following the thief straight back to the Wishmaster would land us in shark-infested waters. Maybe literally. So, I focused on wanting to find a way for us to actually steal the wish. And now we’re here, so I’m following my nose.”

  “Is this your way of telling me you have no idea what we’re doing?” Nadia eyed him warily.

  He shook his head. “My finding skill is sort of like listening to a record and picking out the different strands—I might notice a harmony, or the twang of a bass guitar, or a bit of a flute, and it’s up to me to figure out what I’m hearing. It doesn’t give me specifics. I only have a sense of where to look, but not what I’ll find there or what to do with that information.”

  “The ever-nuanced ways of the wishing world,” Nadia grumbled. Maybe the wishing bark had really fritzed Miles’s finding skills, or maybe she just needed to trust in the process.

  Miles scanned the room. His eyes flitted from side to side until they zeroed in on a dark-haired man laughing with a nervous-looking older woman at a table in front of a Ms. Pac-Man game. The woman appeared even more out of place than Miles had when he’d worn his sunglasses, with her floral blouse buttoned up to the neck and a vintage Chanel jacket that she’d yet to remove despite the close heat of the bar. The man turned slightly, giving Nadia a glimpse of the wishbone flower tattoo on his neck.

  “Shit,” Nadia muttered. “The guy over there is another one of the Wishmaster’s. Goes by Croak.”

  Miles’s eyes widened. “I hope that’s not because he makes people croak?”

  “He’s an intermediary, like Black Hat,” she replied. “He’ll recognize me in a heartbeat, so we need to be careful.”

  He tilted his head toward the older woman. “What about her?”

  “Probably looking to buy a wish. Does she seem like a Saturday-night regular to you?”

  He pursed his lips. “Does everyone in the wishery business get to pick their own code names, or are they handed out?”

  “We pick them.”

  His mouth cracked into a smile. “Mine would be something like ‘the Axe,’ maybe.”

  Nadia rolled her eyes. “Listen, if we screw this up, the Wishmaster might have somebody hit you with a literal axe and keep your hands as a trophy. So let’s just focus, okay?”

  Miles held up a hand. “Gotcha. No code names. Total seriousness from now on.”

  The outside crowd filtered back in as a skittish, wide-eyed techie flitted around the stage like a trapped squirrel, tapping on the mics and checking the drums. A second later, the overhead music was turned down, leaving only the sound of shoes on the wooden floors and the murmured conversations bouncing around the bar.

  Using the crowd to their advantage, Nadia and Miles weaved through the throng of eager bodies and snuck along the wall of arcade games to take a seat behind the two conspirators. On the way, Nadia swiped a bar-branded hat off the wall and jammed it onto her head, trying to tuck her hair und
er the edges. She’d just about finished when she slid onto the chair, with her back to Croak.

  Miles looked like he was going to put his shades back on, but Nadia swatted his hand.

  “What did I just say?” she hissed. “The hood is enough.”

  “Lenny Kravitz does it.” But he folded them away again.

  Nadia settled back against the chair. Despite the chatter around them, she managed to pick out Croak’s voice and snatch the gist of what he was saying to the woman. Nadia assumed the Wishmaster had chosen this location—somewhere public, and somewhere way out of the client’s comfort zone—to make her hurry through the meeting and agree to anything the intermediary offered.

  “Once you’ve made the transaction, you meet one of our people at the drop-off point, and everyone goes home happy,” Croak said.

  The buyer sounded like she was rattling her jewelry with anxiety. “Are you sure this is all legitimate? I mean, can it really be real, this wishing business? You’re not trying to con me in a very elaborate way, are you?”

  Most first-timers shared the same concerns, and for good reason. It wasn’t an easy pill to swallow, finding out that there was something akin to magic in this world after believing that fairy tales and strange happenings were the stuff of conspiracy theorists and daydreams.

  “I get why you’d be worried, but I showed you it’s all legit,” Croak replied. “Seeing is believing, right? You’ll get what you’re paying for. Simple as that.”

  The woman made a nervous sound halfway between a laugh and a throat clearing. “It’s just so difficult to wrap my head around. A wish coming true . . . Isn’t that what everybody wants?”

  “That’s why you’re one of the lucky ones,” Croak said. “Once the money clears, yours will be ready. My colleague Valhalla will be the one at the drop tomorrow morning. You can’t miss her. You’d see her head above any crowd, and she’ll be steering the whole operation.”

  Miles leaned forward. “I got that feeling again. Major heat. Valhalla has got to be our thief.”