by Debra Dunbar
“And this Jordan, she’s also very interested in plants and trees, you said?”
He sipped his coffee, heavily laced with cream and sugar, eyes on me the whole time. For a second I worried that this was part of his whole sex–demon appeal, but Irix had no reason to draw me in with false interest. I went on to tell him about Jordan and her coven, about the ritual last night, feeling a warm, tingling sense of pleasure at our easy conversation.
“Did you use the coven’s energy to repair the trees?” he asked. “You couldn’t have had enough of your own to do such a thing, but witch magic isn’t usually compatible with demon magic.”
I had wondered the same thing last night. “I had energy I siphoned off at a fetish club that I used. The coven’s energy felt odd — scratchy and uncomfortable, but I combined it with mine and used it anyway. I don’t think I would have had enough if I hadn’t been able to do that.”
Irix frowned down into his coffee cup, then looked up at me with a smile. “Ah, I’ll bet it’s the elf part of you that allowed you to use it. That’s why elves enslave humans in Hel. Their magical abilities are compatible, and, in some ways, the humans are actually more powerful.”
More powerful didn’t seem to help them. The elves ruled over their slaves with an iron fist. Still, it was good to know that I could partner with humans. It made me feel less an outsider in this world.
“So? Can I go see it?”
“See what?” I was momentarily confused, still thinking about the elves in Hel — my brethren that I’d never be able to know for fear they’d kill me on sight. Elves didn’t like anyone mixing in their gene pool, and in their eyes, I was an abomination.
“Your trees. The ones you worked your elven magic on. Show me. I want to see them.”
Seriously? He wanted to go look at a bunch of cypress trees in a bayou? Who was this man, and what had he done with Irix the demon?
“It’s a bit out of town. We can’t exactly walk there.”
“No problem.” Irix tossed some money onto the table and stood. “We’ll drive.”
I followed him down the street a block to a black Audi A4. He opened the passenger door and ushered me in with a flourish. It was a sweet ride, kept cool from the morning heat by some type of circulating air system that worked while the car was parked. Irix climbed in beside me, and, with a roar of the engine, we took off. We were leaving the downtown area behind when I realized that there wasn’t a key in the ignition.
“You stole this car,” I accused, turning in my seat to face him. “Some poor guy is going to come out of his house, or from breakfast, and find his car gone.”
Irix’s shrug was nonchalant, but his lips twitched. “Probably. I’ll have it back to him by tonight. Or maybe not. I like this car a lot. I may decide to keep it for the duration of my stay.”
So much for him being a kinder, gentler doppelganger of Irix the demon. “He’ll file a police report. We’ll be pulled over as soon as we return to the city, and they’ll haul you off to jail. Hell, they’ll probably haul me off to jail too.”
And I was just as bad, more worried about us going to jail then some poor guy having his awesome car stolen from in front of his house.
Irix shot me an amused look. This time the smile on his face was unmistakable. “Since when have the police ever hauled you into jail? Come to think of it, since when have they ever even given you a ticket? Tell you what; if we get pulled over, I’ll shut up and let you do all the talking, just to prove my point.”
He was right. I’d never had a speeding ticket, a parking ticket, even a jaywalking citation. His reassurances didn’t make me feel any better; if anything, they made me feel worse.
“Okay, but it’s wrong. You stole someone’s car!”
He nodded pragmatically. “Well, yes. It’s not like I had time to go out and buy one off the lot. Plus you would have probably had a fit over me using stolen credit cards and someone else’s identity to buy it. Jacking one is quicker, and I get the same lecture either way.”
“Wait.” I was suddenly suspicious. “Where did you get the cash for breakfast?”
“The ATM, where else?” His tone was cheerful, but I knew better.
“I’m pretty sure you don’t have a bank account, so you either stole someone’s card and PIN, or hot–wired the machine into giving you the money.”
“The latter. Don’t worry, I changed forms. The police are looking for a short, fat, blond man with a beard.”
“You changed forms. With an angel in the city.” I might not know much about demons, but I did know that changing physical forms took a lot of energy — energy an angel could easily sense and track if one were nearby.
“I did it up in Maryland. I may need to start using one of the credit cards I acquired though. Chasing around after a certain half–elf has really depleted my cash.”
There was no arguing ethics with a demon. Giving up for now, I sat back and navigated to the ritual site, keeping my eyes on the rearview mirror for any police cruisers.
“Here.” I pointed to a pull–off spot, and we got out and picked our way carefully through the scrub toward where the circle had been. The air was thick and heavy under a gray sky, with wind that promised rain. I paused to tie my hair up and let the breeze cool the sweat on the back of my neck while Irix strode ahead through the short, dense brush.
“Are you sure this is the right spot?”
“Yep. Why?” I trotted to catch up with him, suddenly realizing “why”.
Past the solid ground of the ritual site, across the stretch of half–submerged grass and algae–dotted water stood dead cypress as far as I could see. Dead. Not a leaf on the branches, they hunched over, stunted and twisted as if in pain.
“I … what the fuck happened? I healed them. They’re … dead. Not just the ones I healed, but all of them. They weren’t that way last night, even before we started.”
Irix turned, his posture tense, as if he were wary of my reaction to anything he might say. “Maybe the result was only temporary. You really didn’t have much energy, and human magic doesn’t mix well with our own.”
I felt on the edge of tears. Temporary? How could that be? Nothing I’d ever done in the past had been temporary. The Live Oak in Audubon Park was still fine. Temporary was bad enough, but these trees were dead — I’d made them worse. I’d killed them. The idea made me want to puke up my French toast all over the grass.
Irix took one look at my face, and his expression hardened. Spinning on his heel, he walked past the edge of the circle and right into the swamp.
“Be careful. There’s snakes and alligators in the water.”
He paused, turning toward me with a raised eyebrow. “Seriously? Maybe you should be warning the snakes and alligators that there’s a demon in the water.”
He had a point.
“Come on. We’ll need to be close enough to touch the trees in order to determine what went wrong.”
I hesitated. “I’ll ruin my shoes.”
It was a horrible excuse, and I know it made me sound shallow and vain. In reality, I didn’t give a crap about my sneakers, I was just terrified to find out what happened, to confirm that it was all my fault. I didn’t want to wade through murky water and have my terrible failure right in front of my face.
Irix sighed and came back out of the water, his legs soaked from the knees down, and his shoes squishing out brown water as he walked. He was disappointed, and that was almost as painful as the fact that I’d murdered an entire bayou of cypress trees. I turned to head to the car and squeaked in surprise as he grabbed me from behind, turning me in midair and slinging me like a sack of potatoes across his shoulder. It wasn’t the first time he’d done this to me, and I didn’t like it any better this time.
“Damn it, Irix! Put me down!”
“But you’ll ruin your shoes.” He laughed, and I smacked his rear in retaliation. It wasn’t a smart move on my part. Irix smacks much harder than I do. My ass was still stinging by the time he dump
ed me knee–deep into the water next to one of the trees. So much for saving my footwear.
I took a deep breath and turned around to face the tree, or what was left of it. I felt nothing in the way of energy coming from it — just a decaying husk of wood, rotted to the core. The water was littered with brown and black needle–like leaves. I put shaking fingers out to touch the bark and was surprised when Irix put his hand over the top of mine. The warmth of his palm gave me the courage to face what the dead tree told me.
Pain, sharp and sudden, hit the inside of my skull as the cypress told its tale. There had been a moment of green, a few hours of strength, then everything went black as the life was pulled relentlessly out of the branches, trunk, and roots. It happened fast, tearing through the grove with the strength of a nuclear blast. I curled my fingers into a fist, tears tracking down my cheeks. I could feel the prickle of the Bon Nuit coven’s energy from the night before, the heavy sweetness of my own, then a transformation of both into something as bitter as bile.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered to the tree, to the entire bayou. How could something so well intentioned have gone so wrong?
Irix made an odd sound from behind me and took his hand from mine. I felt momentarily bereft, as if he, too, were condemning me, but instead of pulling away, he leaned forward, pressing his palm against the crumbling bark. A crimson glow surrounded the tree, shooting upward into the branches before collapsing back into Irix’s hand.
“Fuckers.” He muttered. I turned around in shock, knowing he didn’t mean me.
“This wasn’t an accident from your spell, Amber. Whoever did this wanted to kill these trees.”
* * *
18
Jordan frowned, unconcerned that she was knee–deep in murky water, being eaten alive by mosquitoes and other nasty insects. I’d called her immediately, swearing her to secrecy until we determined exactly who was sabotaging our efforts. While we awaited her arrival, Irix and I made a circuit of the bayou groves, checking as many trees as we could. They all told the same tale.
“It’s an odd sort of magic,” Jordan commented, squinting at the bark. “It looks like a cross between something you do and ours.”
My stomach twisted again, and I looked at Irix for confirmation. “You said it was someone that intentionally did this? Not our ritual gone wrong?”
“Yes.” Irix’s mouth was a grim line. “I’ve seen this kind of thing in Hel, when Elven kingdoms are fighting. It’s a blight spell.”
“So you think it’s a sorcerer or high–level mage?” My stepsister had told me slaves skilled in magic were afforded privileges in elven society, but were still expected to use their abilities in the service of their master and kingdom.
Irix nodded. “Although it could have been a demon. Pestilence demons have a hard time getting past the gate guardians, but, once here, they get to work killing off plants either through disease or insect infestations. This isn’t their usual scale, but with an angel around, he or she would be more discrete than usual.”
“A pestilence demon?” Jordan’s eyes were huge. “No offence, but if it’s a demon, I’m hoping the angel lops his head off before nightfall.”
Irix winced, and I rushed to change the topic to the other alternative. “Let’s assume it’s human. How strong would someone have to be to do something like this?”
Jordan shook her head. “Our entire coven combined doesn’t have this sort of power. I can’t imagine one mage or sorcerer being able to kill off hundreds of healthy trees — especially magically enhanced, healthy trees.”
Irix scooped up a handful of brown leaves from the water and let them slide from his fingers. “If a mage or sorcerer did this, they wouldn’t have enough juice to do this on their own. They had help.”
That was even more disturbing than the idea of a pestilence demon. Not just one mage, but a group of them? Or a mage and a coven?
“Who could be helping him or her?” I asked, wondering about the seventy coven members who’d declined to join us last night. As much as Bev disliked me, I didn’t think she or anyone in Bon Nuit would risk their precious magical energy source just to frame me.
“Crimson Moon,” Jordan chimed in softly. “If there was one group in New Orleans big enough to help do this sort of thing, it would be them.”
“Why?” That was the big million–dollar question. Jordan had said that Crimson Moon had philosophical differences with the Wiccan groups and coveted their powerful energy sources, but why in the world would they have escalated dislike to the point where they felt the need to destroy an entire grove of trees?
“They want the ley lines.”
So it all came down to territory.
“We lay claim to the spots south of the city, while Crimson Moon taps the Mississippi River and areas to the west. Those are the two most powerful spots in terms of magical energy. But the city has grown, and flooding has been a problem. All the dams and levees that we’ve put in place to protect communities are blocking the power — particularly the river. The ley lines are shifting, and that puts Crimson Moon in a weakening position.”
“But how can killing a bayou forest possibly help them?”
Jordan looked up at the dark gray sky. “All it takes is one good hurricane, unhindered by natural barriers. The levees have failed before; they can fail again. If all the barriers fall like a stack of dominos, the ley lines will re–focus, and the river will once again be a mighty power.”
“And how does Bon Nuit feel about that?” What I really meant was ‘How does Bev feel about this’.
“Most of us are concerned mainly with preserving a balance between nature and human needs, but I won’t lie — there are many that like the idea of our coven holding the most powerful energy spots in the state. It doesn’t matter the motivation, the entire coven would fight this.”
They would — either out of adherence to their creed, or desire to maintain their position as the strongest magical group in the area. I looked at Irix, who was lost in thought as he stared up at the sky. “What do you think?” I asked him.
He shrugged. “We demons get a bad rap, but some of the most destructive acts are caused by the humans themselves.”
I thought about the dam, and Darci’s claim of sabotage. It was difficult to wrap my head around someone who would deliberately kill both an entire freshwater ecosystem and a bayou forest. If they were so power–driven to do that, who knows what else they had done? I glanced over at the stolen Audi, then back to Irix.
“Are you up for a visit to a dam and an excursion to the less touristy parts of the city?”
It didn’t sound like something that would be particularly exciting to a demon, but Irix’s eyes twinkled, flecks of silver among the gold. “Sure. I’ve got nothing to do today except wait for a certain half–elf to not have sex and wind up in my bed tonight.”
The reminder sent a flare of heat and anxiety through me. Later. Right now I had a mystery to solve, and a few hundred cypress trees to avenge.
“Are you free?” I asked Jordan. “You’re the only one who can confirm the energy signatures, and besides, we need a tour guide.”
“I’m all yours.” Jordan waded purposefully through the water toward our cars, while Irix winked at me behind her back.
“Threesome?” he grinned, teasing. Although I don’t think he was truly teasing. I swatted at him, and he easily dodged the blow. “Okay, okay. I’ll just watch then.”
Demons. They really had a one–track mind. “Focus, Irix. Focus.”
“Oh I am. Very focused, indeed.”
And he was. Right down the front of my shirt. It was going to be a long day. And, hopefully, a very long night.
* * *
19
We couldn’t get close enough to the dam to do any sort of inspection to the damaged area — physical or magical. Irix and I could have pheromoned our way in, but with an angel prowling around, it wouldn’t be wise for either of us to be making that much of a statement. Inspiring sexu
al activity in a dance club wouldn’t be out of the ordinary, but at a work site in the middle of the day, an orgy would cause more notice than either of us was willing to risk. So we were relying on Jordan and her special skills, which we hoped would work through binoculars. Irix had procured the field glasses from somewhere, or more likely someone. I didn’t want to inquire too closely.
“Darci said they were blaming it on concrete quality, but she suspected sabotage. Jordan found magical energy when we examined the effected marshes. I’m wondering if this is connected to what happened to the trees. A weakened dam would breach in a storm and severely compromise the downstream areas.”
Irix nodded. “It sounds like this Crimson Moon group has the motivation, and if they are the ones who killed those trees, they certainly have the power to do something like this, but don’t blind yourself to other causes. Demons love to do this sort of thing. It could be one of us, having a bit of fun, or even a mistake with one of the human contracting companies.”
He was right, but I trusted that Darci knew her stuff. And I trusted that Jordan could sense any magical traces, even through a set of binoculars.
“Got it!” Jordan squealed. “Right there, at the base. I was starting to think maybe the spell was on the reservoir water, but it’s on the dam.”
Magic. But whose?
“It’s the same as the cypress grove — a mix of human and something that looks like yours.”
“Mine, as in demon?” I frowned. That would blow the whole Crimson Moon theory out of the water. I shuddered at the thought of a powerful demon running amok in the city, the only thing hampering its destruction the presence of a nearby angel.
Jordan lowered the binoculars and gave me a puzzled look. “I don’t know. Your energy looks the same when you’re doing demon things or elf things. I haven’t met any other elves or demons to tell the difference.”
