Demons of Desire (8 page)

This Kristin sounded more my type. Maybe I’d get lucky and Bev would get run over by a bus or something. We headed for the car, and I stumbled, nearly falling into the grass.

“Here.” Jordan was extending a granola bar and a soda toward me. “You okay? We can grab some barbeque before we head out of town if you need to eat.”

It would help, but I needed a different kind of food. “Thanks.” I took the granola bar and munched on it. “Now, if you could just masturbate a few times, I’ll be good as new.”

I laughed at Jordan’s horrified expression. “Just kidding,” I told her.

But I wasn’t. Irix was right. I was starving. If I didn’t get laid tonight, I was going to be in serious trouble come tomorrow.

7

I
guess this is as good as spot as any,” Jordan said, parking her car on the side of the road. We’d crossed the Mississippi and jumped off the highway south of the city to travel down a long, flat country road. Eclectic wasn’t quite the right word to describe the landscape. Expensive new homes were flanked by neat ramblers and not–so–neat trailers. Signs for fishing charters, swamp tours, and crawfish boil dotted the roadway. The only consistency was in the land itself — flat as an ironed bedsheet with stretches of trees and rushes broken by canals, inlets, and small lakes.

We’d driven as far south as the road went, to a narrow strip of sand that would have looked like any other inland beach if not for the lacy network of grassy marshes right behind it. Huge shallow lakes were divided by narrow strips and patches of green that became thinner and sparser as we journeyed further south from the city. It reminded me of southern Maryland, where the Potomac River joined Chesapeake Bay. Wide bodies of water lapped against the shore. Half–submerged grasses waved in the breeze. Egrets screamed as they flew across the horizon. People stood at the edge of the docks, casting their lines into the water and hoping to take home redfish or pompano.

“Pretty,” I commented as Jordan and I got out of the car and walked along the short pier. It was pretty, and I couldn’t see anything wrong with the area — at least by my eyes. Rushes and grasses thrived, and the water appeared to be reasonably clean of pollution.

Jordan got right to the point. “Remember when I said that the levees kept the river from flooding and spreading soil nutrients to the areas along the shore? Well, this is where all the nutrients go — out to sea. It’s causing algae blooms at the delta basin, which creates a dead zone for fish and other plant and wildlife species.”

I grimaced. “So I’m assuming you want me to increase depleted oxygen levels, and kill the algae blooms in a way that won’t result in the release of neurotoxins or biotoxins?”

“Exactly!” Jordan clasped her hands, spinning toward me. “You can do that?”

“Uh, no.” I’d never killed a plant before, and wasn’t sure how to do it without further damaging the water chemistry. Then there was the tricky fact that the bloom was far enough away that it was out of sight. I’d need to take a boat down the inlet to the gulf to be close enough to do anything at all to the algae. I couldn’t work my magic on it from this distance, especially when I didn’t even have a good solid idea of where it was. This Bev woman disliked me enough already; she’d truly hate me if I killed off a few miles of marsh grass instead of the algae bloom.

“Hmmm.” Jordan chewed her lower lip.

I had a bad feeling that everything she was going to suggest today would be a “no”. I appreciated her enthusiastic optimism, but I just wasn’t all that skilled when it came to my elf side.

“It’s probably just as well. I’m not sure if Bev would allow it.”

Why the fuck would Bev not want me to kill a lethal algae bloom? If she was that worried about my skill, or lack of, then why didn’t she just tell Jordan “no”?

“Do you need more grasses? I could try that.” I ran a hand over the tops of the blades coming up to the height of the pier. Surely Bev wouldn’t doubt my ability to grow some grass after my azalea display.

“No, that won’t work. The bank drops off here to a depth that won’t support the plants, and I wouldn’t want to mess up the outline of the bay.” She shook her head, dark red spirals of hair bouncing around her face. “Bev
really
would throw a fit if we mess with the water flow.”

“What is that woman’s problem?” I got the feeling from Jordan that it wasn’t just me on Bev’s bad list.

Jordan shifted from foot to foot, staring out into the tranquil bay. “There’s a reason our coven is so large. Bon Nuit claims the southwest section outside the city as ours — for rituals and to draw energy. Over the last few decades, the energy streams have shifted, and we have the lion’s share.”

She didn’t have to say anything else. Bev might care about the environment, but her primary interest would always be in maintaining control of the energy sources that gave them, and her, power.

“And you still stay with her?” It was a shitty thing to say, and I wished I could take it back the moment it came out of my mouth. Jordan’s eyes jerked to mine. She looked like I’d stabbed her in the chest.

“I know, I just… . We get things done. Good things. The other covens, heck even the other paths, are losing members to Bon Nuit. There aren’t many other alternatives if I want to make a difference.”

“I’m sorry. I’m not judging,” I patted her on the shoulder.

“Well,
I
am. I hate that we turn a blind eye to things we could do outside our territory.” She gestured toward the wide mouth of the bay. “I hate that we suffer a massive algae bloom to exist, that we don’t address the nutrient issues in the river because it might jeopardize our near monopoly on power.”

I held my breath, unsure what to say. Back home, my Wiccan friends had always seemed to be free of such politics and selfish motives. Perhaps these undercurrents ran there too — I’d just never taken the time to see them.

Jordan sighed and shrugged, turning back toward the car. “Let’s head back, closer toward the city, and see if there isn’t something you can do in the bayous.”

We were silent as we drove. The large stretches of water began to narrow, grassy marshes becoming crowded with an explosion of green, broken here and there by the gray skeletons of dead trees.

I frowned at the silhouettes. “What happened to them?”

Jordan glanced out the side window before returning her eyes to the road. “Rising sea levels are turning the brackish wetlands into saline ones. These trees just can’t exist in a saltwater marsh. There’s nothing that can be done for them now. In a few years, this area will look like the marshes toward the south. It’s the freshwater bayous that worry me. Trees there are dying, and I can’t find a natural cause for it. If they die, New Orleans is more vulnerable to hurricane damage.”

“Three miles of wetland can reduce the height of a storm surge by a foot,” I added, remembering the fact from one of my textbooks.

The woman beside me nodded. “The cypresses especially provide a natural storm barrier. They’re our last line of defense before the levees.”

We pulled off the main road onto one of crushed gravel. Dwarf palmettos stretched their palm fronds toward us. Behind them, prickly bushes vined around the plants and low–lying tree limbs.

“Dew berries,” Jordan commented, noticing my interest in the thorn–covered vines. “They’re in the blackberry family. Too bad you’re here so late in the summer. In April or May you’d see flowers in bloom, and be able to pick some of the berries to eat.”

A strange longing coursed through me. I’d pegged this to be a rare visit. As much as I’d love to visit Darci more often, my scant finances wouldn’t allow it — especially after graduation when my massive student load debt became due. Maybe I could find a career here. The prospect was exciting — rooming with Darci once again, surrounded by the diverse plant life that fueled my elven soul. Heck, if I could withstand a week in the heat of August, I could manage the rest of the year.

“This is as good a spot as any,” Jordan announced, pulling the car off the side of the road. I’d need to scoot over and out her side, since my door would open into knee–high vegetation.

I scrambled out, thankful that I’d worn shorts and sensible shoes today, and not a miniskirt and heels. I followed Jordan down a narrow path of wood decking, raised a few inches off the ground. Green closed in around me, and the sound of crickets and tree frogs drowned out the noise of our footsteps. It was rather claustrophobic, the press of life around us, reminding me that the steady, persistent power of flora and fauna was far more everlasting than any magic I held. Surrounded by nature, hubris melted away.

“There.” Jordan pointed ahead where the wall of green gave way to an algae–speckled swamp.

It was picture–perfect — the bayou of my textbooks. The wooden decking widened to a five–foot by five–foot square; a few feet of black ground separated the raised surface from the still water. Trees rose majestically from the swamp, ornamented with silvery Spanish moss that draped the sprawling limbs. I started at the sound of a splash and watched a long–legged egret take flight, its feet trailing a line in the still water as it flew by.

I stepped tentatively onto what I thought was firm ground, only to sink past my ankle into thick, brownish–gray water. Yikes. With a backward leap, I returned to the wood decking, my shoes covered in mud

“Is this where you’re thinking of holding the ritual? Are we going to all be in hip waders?” The vision of Wiccans in robes, or even skyclad, with huge rubber boots intrigued me.

“There’s a drier spot up further, but this is the area I’d want you to target. See how the trees over there are stunted and yellowed? I’ve checked water samples, looked at everything, but can’t figure out why they’re dying. The loss of these groves will have a significant impact on both storm protection and bayou stability.”

And on Bev’s precious energy source, no doubt. I had a feeling this project would get the green light, but could I manage it? Moving around as best as I could on the small deck, I tried to get a good visual on the trees.

Baldcypress — taxodium distichum. The nearest was about ten feet from where we stood, ridged bark rising into a lacy canopy of brownish–black leaves. Most of trees in the grove were young — less than two feet in diameter. Nearly all the old growth had been harvested by loggers, the soft, durable wood coveted for its resistance to rot. Left on their own, the trees became massive — with a fifteen–foot diameter to their trunk. They could live thousands of years, their dead branches serving as nursery logs for seedlings to take root in the water of the bayou.

There was something definitely wrong with these trees, but from this distance I couldn’t tell what. I looked down at my discolored sneaker, weighing whether more than my footwear would suffer if I waded out for a closer look. But that wasn’t the only problem on my mind.

“I’ve never healed a plant without touching it. I’m not sure what I can do from this distance. Is there a way we can get closer? I’d hate to have your coven go to all this trouble only to have me fail to make any impact.”

Jordan frowned. “I don’t have any problem with mucking out there, but I’m not sure we could cast a circle in a foot of water. And that’s assuming the rest of the coven would even agree to conduct a ritual with the possibility of snakes and alligators swimming about.”

Snakes and alligators. Well, that put the kibosh on any ideas of sloshing out to see the trees. “Is there a Plan B? This is a possibility, but if you’ve got another location where I can actually get my hands on the plants, that might be a better choice.”

“The other two wouldn’t deal with plants; they’d be water or earth. A dam breach caused the release of a large volume of salt water into a group of freshwater wetlands further east a few days ago, and we’d need to restore the original water salinity.”

There were plenty of fresh, brackish and saltwater wetlands in Louisiana, but the balance between the three was crucial to the overall health of the area. You couldn’t just flip a switch and turn a freshwater marsh into a saltwater one — all the plant life would die, and it would take years for appropriate replacements to grow. In the meantime, the loss would only add to the erosion and flooding issues that were plaguing the lower part of the state.

“So that’s water. What’s the earth one?”

“All the man–made canals, levees, and dams do a great job of keeping the Mississippi River from flooding the city and surrounding areas, but no flooding means no fresh, nutrient–rich sediment is being spread across the land. If we can restore nutrients to the soil, we’ll help native plants thrive, and natural storm and flooding controls will be strengthened.” Jordan shot me a tense look. “Of course, I doubt Bev would approve that one.”

Probably not.

This was all very complicated. I had a new respect for Jordan’s passion for her career. There were so many variables at work, so many beneficial actions that caused harm in another direction that it was difficult to know what to do. Which would be the best course of action? I looked once more at the sickly trees in the distance. Trees I could do, water and soil … I wasn’t sure.

“I think I could do the water one — the marsh to the east.” Changing the chemical content of several bodies of water would be a challenge, but I’d done something similar with tree sap, and I might be able to use the water as a medium to reach the plants themselves.

The extent to which I could do anything, though, would depend on how much energy I could accumulate. One goth boy tonight might have to turn into two or three. My mouth scrunched downward at the thought of banging guys assembly–line style behind a bar. Not exactly dignified, but I wouldn’t be in this state if I hadn’t become a sexual ascetic over the last few months.

Jordan watched me, her brown eyes shrewd. “Let’s check it out before we get seventy plus people out here for a ritual.”

We drove east, the forested swamplands becoming increasingly broken by long strips of lawn with neat houses on blocks. As we veered south, the buildings rose, some twelve feet up on concrete stilts. Driving over yet another bridge, I noticed the green ahead fading into yellow and brown.