by Debra Dunbar
She certainly wouldn’t have met any elves. None of them had been across the gates from Hel in over two–million years. There was a demon right beside me, though.
“How much would I need to do before you could ‘see’ it?” Irix asked uneasily, obviously thinking about the proximity of an angel.
Jordan shrugged, looking apologetic. “Normally enough to power a charm or ward. I don’t know how subtle demon magic is, though.”
Subtle was not a word I’d normally associate with demons. Irix must have been thinking the same because he grinned devilishly, and looked around at the sky, his gaze settling on a set of high–tension electrical wires humming about twenty feet to the west of us. I felt the pull, the rush of power through the air, and the transformers sparked, one catching fire. With a completely unnecessary dramatic gesture, Irix flung his hand toward the ground and split a three–foot boulder in half.
“Damn it, would you be more careful,” I scolded.
“Another lesson, elf–girl. Always hide in plain sight. Work your succubus magic in the presence of normal human sexual activity and cloak lightning under the shroud of natural storms or the power grid.”
“Impressive display.” Jordan was all admiration. I was too, but I refused to let Irix know, so I crossed my arms over my chest and muttered “show–off” just loud enough to be sure he heard. He ignored me and watched smugly as Jordan walked over to examine the splintered rock.
“Red and gold, with a swirl of deep brown. Lovely,” Jordan commented. Great. As if Irix’s ego needed any more stroking. “Makes me think of hot pudding for some bizarre reason — the kind my grandmother used to cook on the stove. I could never wait for it to cool and just ate it straight out of the pan. Almost burned my mouth a few times.”
“Yes, but is it like the energy at the trees and the dam?” I interrupted. Sheesh, was she going to go on all afternoon about the wonders of Irix’s energy signature? I was on a bit of a tight schedule here.
“No, completely different. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before. What else can you do? Besides split rocks in half and make people want to have sex, I mean.”
“Lots of things,” Irix smiled at her, and Jordan practically glowed. “I can change into one–hundred–and–five human and twenty animal forms — not at the same time, of course. I can create electricity up to the level of lightning.”
Yeah, yeah, so could I. The electricity I mean, not changing forms.
“So. Back to the original topic. It doesn’t match Irix’s energy, so hopefully that rules out the Pestilence demon. I’m only a half–breed, but it can’t be elf energy you’re seeing. There are no elves here, and I can’t imagine their human magic users would leave an elf energy signature.”
Irix waved a hand, as though I was disrupting an important conversation with silly questions. “Actually, their humans do have an energy signature similar to elves. Elven–schooled mages and sorcerers escape sometimes and bribe their way across the gates. It was a lot more common a–few–hundred years ago, when magic was a valuable commodity. Although they had to be careful not to get burned for witchcraft. Now, magic isn’t much use outside of children’s birthday parties.”
That got my attention. “An escaped mage without many career opportunities might be eager to take an offer from an occult group that needed his skills.”
“Or she. Lots of mages and sorcerers are female. It’s about fifty–fifty, although the men have a tendency to run off more than the women do.”
Holy shit, I was learning more about my heritage in one casual afternoon with Irix than a month of sex–demon lessons.
“So we need to track down these Crimson Moon asshats and splatter them across the pavement.” Oops, my demon half was getting a bit excited. Maybe we’d just turn them over to law enforcement and save the splattering for another time.
“No,” Jordan interjected. “We need to fix the dam and the wetlands. And we need to check the levees. If this is their plan, they probably have some kind of weakening spell on them too — triggered by weather, perhaps. It’s hurricane season. It’s just a matter of time, and all this is going to come crashing down. We can’t go through another Katrina. We haven’t fully recovered from that storm. One more like that, and the city is done for.”
“There’s no bringing those trees back from the dead,” I argued. “And judging from last night, these people will undo everything the second we act. It’s a waste of our time and resources to run around fixing things that will be broken again by daylight.”
Jordan bit her lip, considering my words. “If we’re going to barge in and accuse Crimson Moon, we need to have proof. Motive isn’t proof. They’ll say it could have been anyone.”
She was right. But how to prove it was them?
“Let’s check the levees,” Irix chimed in. “Then we’ll think about what we can do to prove it’s them. Maybe do another ritual and have a stakeout to see who comes to reverse it?”
Once again I was shocked. This didn’t seem like the sort of activity that would interest a demon, let alone a sex demon. Maybe Irix was more than the playboy he’d always seemed.
“Come on, girls.” He waved us onward. “Let’s hop in the stolen Audi and head out. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover, and a certain someone still needs to get laid before midnight.”
“Stolen?” Jordan squeaked as we headed to the car.
***
Levees weren’t like dams, and visiting them took considerably more time than I’d expected. They ran the huge length of the Mississippi River, canals, and major lakes all around the city. We made a quick decision and headed toward the levees lining the river.
At some points they were nearly twenty feet high. I’d assumed they’d be large concrete barriers, but, instead, they were tall grassy knolls with a blacktopped path or cement barriers on the wide, flat crown. The land side was steep, terraced with berms and banquettes as we climbed to the top. Once there, the view took my breath away. The Mississippi stretched a mile across, deceptively sluggish as it churned like a brown ribbon to the sea. In between us and the mighty river stood a naturalized flood plain with stands of willow, oak, and cypress. A heron took flight from a small marsh, and I watched him glide down to the riverside.
“Wow.” It was all I could manage to say. Behind me was the churn of the city, in front the serenity of nature.
“There’s an entire other set of levees on the Lake Pontchartrain side of the city,” Jordan said. It had taken her a while to get over her outrage at our stolen conveyance, and I was glad to know she was still speaking to me.
I’d seen Lake Pontchartrain, coming in from the airport, and had been astounded by its size. The only bigger lakes I’d seen had been the Great Lakes along the border with Canada.
“This is going to take us more than one day,” I commented, feeling overwhelmed at the sheer distance we’d need to cover. The task was too much, even if we just concentrated on the river side of the city.
“There’s a streetcar track along the levee once we get into the French Quarter,” Irix suggested. “Can you scan for energy from that distance? Or we could get some bikes and scan from the levee–top until the trail ends.”
I got the feeling he didn’t mean to “rent” the bicycles and glanced around guiltily at the nearby houses and shops. Irix jacking a car was bad enough. I didn’t think I could stomach stealing someone’s bike.
Jordan didn’t seem to catch the nuance of Irix’s comment. She pursed her lips, squinting toward the river.
We’d already looked at the section near Canal Street, eyeballing the stone sea–wall barrier from the winding promenade in front of the aquarium. The streetcar line was a good three–hundred feet from the river’s edge. Smart, given the propensity for flooding, but far enough that detecting miniscule spells would be impossible. Jordan confirmed my suspicions with a shake of her head.
“It’s the distance plus the speed of the streetcar. They don’t go all that fast, but even ten miles per
hour at that distance — I’d be lucky to catch anything. I don’t think I could manage it while navigating a bike, either.”
“We can’t walk the whole thing.” I voiced what everyone else was surely thinking. The river was like a snake, twisting and turning back on itself as it wound its way toward the gulf. Checking every section of the levee system would take weeks.
“We need to think of where the highest stress points are, and check those areas,” Irix said. “Whoever is doing this probably doesn’t have the resources to weaken the entire system, so they’ll target the areas most likely to be hit hard during a storm.”
Both Irix and Jordan turned to me expectantly. “What?” I felt like I was under a microscope.
“Elf.” Irix announced, as if that clarified everything.
“Half elf,” I replied. Not that I knew what the fuck he was getting at, but it was best to clarify these things.
“Water. Elves have a connection with the elements second only to the angels. You should be able to sense where the surge points would be.”
Sheesh, what did they think I was? “Plants. I’m only half elf, and I only do plants. Besides, humans have some of the best data analysis I’ve ever seen. Why resort to magic when centuries of record keeping have done an accurate job of modeling these sorts of things?”
They both looked at me with blank expressions.
“I’ve got data on shifts in the Mississippi River delta over the last two–hundred years and changes in the wetlands,” Jordan said. “But not storm surge points. I guess I can research it, but it would probably be quicker to use magic.”
Oh, for crying out loud. I sighed and took out my cell phone, dialing my brother, Wyatt. He was in San Diego at some kind of internet security conference, which was ironic given that he made a shit ton of money hacking into websites.
“Hey, baby sis.” Wyatt’s voice was warm over the phone, and I felt a twinge of homesickness. I missed him. I missed my step sister, Nyalla. I missed my mom, who was not really my mom. What a fucked up life I had.
“Hey, bro. Can you do something for me? I need potential breach points in the levee system that protects New Orleans from the Mississippi River. I’m thinking if you check past breaches, and factor in improvements, especially those post Katrina, you’ll find the weak spots.”
“Sure. I’ll bet the Army Corps of Engineers already has that, but I’ll pull from some other sources and cross check. When do you need it?”
I winced. “Yesterday?”
Wyatt laughed, and I felt like we were kids again, riding bikes along our gravel driveway, challenging each other to jump homemade ramps and betting on who could clear the most distance. He was five years older than me, but I’d pushed myself to the limit to keep up with Wyatt and his buddies, just to prove I could. And I had kept up, so proud that I could run as fast and climb as high as the big boys. That was when I’d thought I was a human, like my brother — before I realized that I was nothing more than a beautiful freak.
“Give me an hour, okay? Having fun with Darci?”
“Yeah,” I said, reluctant to tell him what was really going on. “How’s Nyalla doing, solo at Sam’s house?”
“Good.” I got the feeling he was also holding back on something. That stung a bit, but I understood. My stepsister had been through a lot. She was entitled to her secrets.
Wyatt promised to text me the results, and I ended the call, turning to face Irix and Jordan.
“Lunch. I’ll have the info in an hour, and I’m starving. What’s near here?”
“There’s a bistro down on the corner.” Jordan pointed at a tiny yellow building with not so much as a sign marking its designation. “They make an amazing roast duck sandwich with pepper jelly. Their muffalettas are good too.”
“Or Mrs. B’s,” Irix added. Jordan made an “ooo” sound, her head nodding. “Buttermilk fried chicken and sweet–potato pecan pie.”
“Oh yeah.” Jordan practically danced. “Mrs. B’s gets my vote.”
I wondered how Irix knew so much about the city in the short time he’d been here. At two–thousand–years old, he’d probably hung out in New Orleans before, but I doubted Mrs. B’s had been around for more than fifty years, max. I was too hungry to waste time grilling Irix about his past travels, so I waved them onward.
“Buttermilk fried chicken it is. I’m in your capable hands — both of you.”
Irix grinned, draping an arm across my shoulder. “You’ll never go wrong in my capable hands, elf–girl.”
Mrs. B’s was only a few blocks away. Its brick façade was painted dark mustard and accented with forest–green shutters. The black wrought–iron handrails were less ornate than ones I’d seen in the French Quarter — more in keeping with the sedate air of the building. Mustard paint aside, the place had a severity about it, like an authoritarian aunt who had no problem swatting naughty children with a wooden spoon.
Inside, the place bustled with speedy efficiency. The waitress ushered us to a plain pine table with ladder–back chairs and smoothed her tightly coiffed hair, trying not to stare at Irix as we looked over the menu.
“I’ve got it, my treat,” Irix announced, ordering enough food for a small army. His treat. Right. More like Bank of America’s treat.
I forgot the larceny that was procuring my lunch as soon as the food arrived. The signature buttermilk fried chicken smelled heavenly of sage. Beside the platter was another filled with crawfish cakes, a bowl of red beans, and a tray with six broiled oysters — bacon and golden breadcrumbs sprinkled on top.
“Not much on vegetables, are you,” I commented, snatching a chicken leg off the platter.
“Life is too short to eat something that can’t move of its own volition,” Irix teased. “If you must, you can graze on the lawn out back for dessert.”
“Hmmm, grass or sweet–potato pecan pie? Such a hard decision.”
All conversation was lost as our attention turned to the cornucopia of food. I saved room for a slice of pie and swapped my sweet tea for a hot cup of chicory coffee.
Jordan groaned, scooping up a stray pecan from her plate. “Back to business, now that we’re all fat and happy. How are we going to prove any of this is Crimson Moon? I know you suggested fix something and do a stakeout, but I’m not sure I can get Bev to agree to another ritual.”
Ugh, that woman hated me, and the feeling was mutual. “Can you go around her? Ten of your coven were willing to work with me last night, maybe they will agree to again.”
Jordan shook her head. “That would get me kicked out of the group. Having a few friends over for a personal working is one thing, assembling a group for a ritual affecting public property is another. I’d be flouting my priestess’ authority.”
“Then do it yourself,” Irix commented, sipping his sweet tea. He’d added sugar. I expected him to go into a diabetic coma at any moment.
“I don’t have enough power to do it on my own,” Jordan confessed. “Things like this require the energy of a group — the more the better.”
“I meant her,” he winked at me. “That half–breed elf–girl who hogged all the oysters.”
I didn’t hog all the oysters. And there is no way I could fix a levee or a dam solo.
“Plants. This half–breed elf–girl doesn’t fix dirt, and whatever else that barrier is made of. Point me at a tree, and I’ll give it a shot; for a levee or a dam repair, you’re going to need to call someone else. And as for the oysters, I seem to recall we each had two.”
“Elves must be lacking skills in the basic math department, because you ate four, leaving poor Jordan and me with only one a piece. And yes, you can do dirt. It’s part of the earth element. Broaden your horizons, elf–girl.”
“I did not eat four oysters,” I squealed, ignoring the part of our argument that addressed my magical abilities, or lack of. I was far more offended that I’d just been accused of being greedy.
“Umm, you did eat four.” Jordan grinned. “Shoveled them down like a
woman starved.”
Shit. I couldn’t control myself when it came to oysters. Those things are like crack. “Okay, okay. I have a thing for oysters. Just make sure you don’t have your fingers in the way or you might lose them.”
“I’m just hoping to put them to good use tonight.”
“My fingers or the oysters?” I couldn’t manage to curb my saucy mouth.
“Both.”
A faint curl of pheromones caressed me, and I felt myself lean closer to Irix. I wasn’t the only one affected. Jordan was forgetting to breathe, and our waitress was stalking over, not–so–subtly undoing a button on her blouse. Time to change the subject before we all wound up naked and on top of the incubus.
“Maybe I can fix another tree grove instead? Or the freshwater marsh we looked at yesterday?”
Jordan blinked, taking a deep breath as she dragged her eyes away from Irix. “There’s a problem with that. We could fix another grove, but who’s to say it’s one Crimson Moon wants dead? Same with the water. The spell was on the dam, but it looked pretty inaccessible. If we can find a spell on the levee somewhere, that would be our best chance to try and catch these guys.”
Damn. How was I supposed to pull this off? My flight left in three days. It’s not like I had a lot of opportunity to fail and learn. If I couldn’t manage this in the next forty–eight hours, I’d run out of time. I couldn’t afford to re–book my flight home, and if I missed it, I’d be stuck hitchhiking, or driving Irix’s stolen Audi.
“I’ll help you.”
I turned to Irix in surprise. He was a sex demon. Outside of energy transference, I had no idea how he was going to help me.
“Sex demons aren’t all that great at breaking spells or shuffling atoms around to create molecules, but I know how it’s done.” He motioned the waitress over for more tea. “I have no idea if elves do these things like we do. They were schooled by the angels, so there’s a good chance we have similarities. I’ll share what I know, and we’ll see if you can make it happen. There’s no reason you shouldn’t be able to do this sort of thing, elf–girl.”
