Shaman, Healer, Heretic (Olivia Lawson Techno-Shaman)

by Green, M. Terry

  “Livvy,” said the mouth, but the car alarm drowned out any sound.

  The alarm stopped and the locks on the car doors chirped open. Livvy glanced upward. Jack must have used the remote control on his keys.

  Sunlight was now falling on Indra’s face. Livvy stared, transfixed with the horror of the image. The once beautiful Indra was barely recognizable. Her long hair was tangled and matted. Her exposed skin was a bluish grey color and her nightgown was dirty and torn. Her face had the look of a sculpture that had almost managed to capture her–but not. Livvy’s first impulse was to run and the second was to wretch. Instead, she swallowed hard against the rising acid in her throat.

  “Oh, Indra,” whispered the Nahual, shaking her head. It wasn’t a sight that anybody should see, let alone a relative.

  “Indra,” said Livvy.

  Indra’s whole body jerked at the sound of Livvy’s voice and she would have fallen if not for the car.

  “Livvy?” slurred Indra, her voice too deep.

  “Yes, Indra,” said Livvy, hoping she’d stop. “What do you want?”

  “Not me, you,” said Indra, looking at her but unable to keep her head from rocking as she sidled along.

  “What?” said Livvy, looking at the Nahual, who shook her head. “What do you mean?”

  Indra stopped, as though she were exhausted.

  “What do you want?” asked Indra.

  Puzzled, Livvy had no idea what was going on.

  “I don’t want anything,” said Livvy. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Tiamat,” said Indra, her volume rising. “Tiamat,” she said again, not quite closing her mouth enough to make a clear ‘m’ sound.

  “What about Tiamat?” Livvy’s mind raced. “Tiamat is in the middleworld. No one can get by her. I know.”

  “Yes,” said Indra, her tone one of immense sadness.

  “We tried to defeat her,” said Livvy, glancing at the Nahual. “But it…didn’t work.”

  “Yes,” said Indra again.

  “I don’t know what we’re going to do,” said Livvy, forgetting that she was talking to a corpse. “It’s impossible.”

  “Not impossible,” Indra hissed.

  Livvy looked from the Nahual back to Indra.

  “If you know something that could help, I’d like to know.”

  “Marduk,” said Indra, even less clearly.

  She was starting to slump.

  “Yes, Marduk,” said Livvy, taking a step forward despite the rotting flesh. “Yes, we wanted to find Marduk but we can’t get past Tiamat. I think he’s in the upperworld but I can’t get there.”

  Indra was definitely slumping on the car now; her head leaned over at a strange angle but didn’t quite touch the roof.

  “El túnel…es…el camino,” whispered Indra, her eyes staring past Livvy now.

  “What tunnel?” Livvy asked. “What tunnel? Where?”

  “Cristal,” hissed Indra, as her knees buckled.

  She knelt down suddenly between the two cars, as though she were a puppet whose strings had been cut. She pitched forward, onto her face, which hit the ground with a sickening thud that made the Nahual and Livvy wince.

  They both waited, but the body was just a body again and Indra was gone.

  “I don’t understand,” said Livvy, still staring at the corpse. “She came all the way back to tell me that, but it doesn’t make any sense.”

  “El túnel cristal,” whispered the Nahual.

  “What is the glass tunnel?” asked Livvy. “You’ve heard of it?”

  “All Nahuals have heard of it,” she said, staring at Indra, then turning to Livvy. “But it is never spoken of–never.”

  Livvy waited.

  “Indra would not have heard about it here. She must have seen it, on the other side,” she said, puzzling it out as she spoke. “It has nearly passed out of knowledge, and few who have seen it are able to speak of it.”

  “What is it?”

  “It is the way to the upperworld–the direct way.”

  “The what?” said Livvy, blinking.

  She looked back to Indra. How had Indra known it was the information she’d needed? She turned back to the Nahual.

  “Well, where is this glass tunnel?” she asked.

  “In your head.”

  “In my head?” Livvy sputtered. “I’ve never seen a glass tunnel.”

  “Because you have never died.”

  Livvy couldn’t find the words for the obvious question that hung in the air between them. She already knew she wouldn’t like the answer.

  “You have to die to see the glass tunnel,” said the Nahual. “There is no other way.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE

  “I DON’T LIKE it,” SK had told her, but it had been a gross understatement.

  Livvy had called him from the car with the address where she and the Nahual were headed. Apparently they had left Jack, who was in near hysterics, to call emergency help. Who knows what he was going to say to them when they realized they’d made a similar call a week ago but that the body was back—and decomposing. SK had rushed over to the house after Livvy had told him what they were planning.

  “You can’t be serious,” he said, standing on the balcony with them.

  The Nahual was gazing through the thick oak trees to the golden hills in the distance. The house was located at the end of a secluded hilltop community that made it seem as though they had left the state, even though they hadn’t left L.A.

  “Tell me you are not serious,” he said.

  “It’s not really dying,” said Livvy. “It’s just that your heart has to stop.”

  “Will you listen to yourself? ‘Your heart has to stop.’ That’s insane!”

  “Insane?” asked the Nahual, turning around. “Well, perhaps a little.”

  “I’ve never heard of this glass tunnel,” said SK, turning to her. “You say the Nahual don’t even speak of it.”

  “You probably have heard of it,” said the Nahual, taking a seat on the bench. “But people mostly call it a tunnel with a light at the end.”

  “A tunnel with a light at the end,” repeated SK, thinking, knowing it sounded familiar. “Oh no, please, a near death experience?”

  “Yes,” nodded the Nahual, calmly.

  “That’s the direct passage to the upperworld?”

  “Yes.”

  He scoffed.

  “Well, if that’s the direct passage to the upperworld, why don’t we hear more about it from people who have near death experiences?”

  “You know that clients never remember the other side,” said Livvy. “Near death survivors wake up and sometimes remember the tunnel and the light, and a few relatives, but that’s all.”

  “And why isn’t it anywhere in the histories?” asked SK.

  “Because it is a secret,” said the Nahual, matter-of-factly. “Long ago the Nahual had found that path, but the risks…” She shrugged. “The risks are great. It is not for the curious, or the uninitiated, or the weak.”

  “It’s the only way, SK,” said Livvy, quietly. “Indra came a long way to give us that information.”

  “Are you sure it was Indra?”

  They both looked at him.

  “Liv,” he said. “Please don’t do this.”

  “Are you saying you won’t help us?”

  “Dammit, you know I’ll help you. I’ll help you, and help you, and help you. I’m asking you not to do this.”

  “If you have another way, I’m listening,” said Livvy.

  “Just leave it. Leave it alone and stop this nonsense. Go back to medical school. Work in a hospital. Teach kids. Drive a truck!” He stopped and took a breath. “I don’t know, maybe it’s just time to get out of this whole shaman thing.”

  He glanced at the Nahual, who was looking back at the hills but paying attention to every word.

  “Maybe the age of shamans is over,” he said.

  “And what about Min?” asked Livvy, qu
ietly. “And Indra? And the thousands, if not millions, of souls that must be wandering?”

  “Are they your responsibility?”

  “Min and Indra are,” she said.

  He could see there was going to be no moving her. She was calm–too calm. She had that placid and unshakable attitude of someone who had come to terms with their fate. He turned away, not able to look at her.

  “How did we come to this?” he said. “How did this happen?”

  “We may never know,” said the Nahual, turning back to them. “But the fact is, we are here now and there are few options.”

  “Great,” said SK. “So the two of you are just going to stop your hearts and jump right into the upperworld, find Marduk, and convince him to mosey on down to the middleworld and mix it up with Tiamat.”

  “Something like that,” said Livvy. “But I think it’s a solo trip. Just me.”

  “Just you.”

  “The Nahual is going to have be here to monitor me.”

  “Have you ever been to the upperworld?” he asked the Nahual.

  “No,” she admitted.

  “Why don’t you go?” he said to her.

  “Because Livvy does not know how to stop someone’s heart and start it again.”

  “Oh, and you do.”

  The Nahual nodded.

  “Livvy, at least call the other shamans, tell them the Nahual is helping,” he said, gesturing to her. “Maybe they’ll help.”

  “After what happened to Sunny?” asked the Nahual.

  “Why should Liv take all the risk?” he yelled at her. He turned to Livvy. “At least try–or let me call. Before you do anything, let me call.”

  “Okay, you call,” said Livvy, nodding, but her face said he was wasting his time.

  The rest of the morning was spent doing just that–wasting time. At first they didn’t believe that a Nahual had materialized. Then, they had their own problems to handle. Then, they didn’t want to die. Not even Wan-li wanted to risk it.

  Carmen cried when SK asked her for help. She didn’t want to see Livvy die. In the end, he couldn’t make out what she was saying she was crying so much.

  Alvina had simply told him not to let Livvy do it. If he was her friend, he’d find a way to stop her.

  Only Ursula had seemed to consider it seriously. In the end, though, she had turned him down as well.

  He wracked his brain trying to come up with more names, but these were the ones he had contacted in the first place precisely because he had known they were accomplished and could be approached. These were the only ones that made sense.

  The Nahual sipped a tall juice drink and watched him as he put away his phone.

  “What about any of your Nahual people?” he asked.

  “It has not spread that far yet,” she said. “They would not have sufficient…motivation.”

  “What do you mean ‘spread that far yet’? You think it started here?”

  “Oh yes, there is little doubt of that. That is why I am here.”

  “Oh, so you don’t live here?” he asked, looking around the place.

  It had a rustic styling to it in keeping with the canyon and surroundings, but it was sprawling and modern, with a gorgeous view.

  “No, this is just one of the houses that we maintain in various parts of the globe,” she said, as though the amount of money that statement implied was trivial.

  Even so, SK believed it–an unbroken line of shamans that went back centuries, the accumulation of knowledge and wealth, their hyper desire for secrecy after the Spanish conquistadors. And here, right in front of him, stood one of their members, improbably dressed in the ethnic clothing of the Peten, sipping what appeared to be guava juice. How many were they, he wondered? Were they all like this one? She had the calm poise and ease that he had come to associate with shamans of great power. Her recommendation that Livvy simply stop her heart had been almost casual.

  Livvy had gone into the house at some point and he and the Nahual were alone on the back deck. He had tried to talk Livvy out of it and he had tried to get shaman help, but he hadn’t succeeded at either. If he couldn’t stop it, then he had to do whatever he could do to help it, to make sure that Livvy didn’t die.

  “What does this process entail?” he asked, as he took out his cigarettes.

  “The goggles are useless for this,” she said, not without some satisfaction. “Drugs are too dangerous since Livvy has never used them. I would not be able to determine what to give her or how much. Here, I think our best route is going to be drowning.”

  “Best route…drowning,” he whispered. He had taken a cigarette from the pack, but his hand stopped as he visualized Livvy drowning.

  “Many drowning victims are rescued, resuscitated, and suffer no lasting effects.”

  “And you know how to rescue a drowning victim?”

  “Of course. I have done it many times. More importantly, though, I know how to drown someone.”

  “Great.”

  Remembering the cigarette, he brought it up to his mouth.

  “She will smell that,” said the Nahual.

  SK paused and glanced at the house. With a small groan of protest, he put the cigarette back in the pack and the pack back into his pocket.

  “Unless you can get another shaman,” said the Nahual, “or you have a doctor who makes house calls, we can get started any time.”

  SK’s thoughts ran back over the other shamans, yet again, but he knew there would be no help there. Then, he thought of the paramedic.

  “What was that look for?” asked the Nahual.

  “Well, we just might know someone who’d make a house call–for Livvy, that is.”

  “Ah, I see,” she said. “Well, that is up to you. I am not opposed and will be disposing of the house anyway.”

  “Disposing of the house?” he said, not understanding the turn in conversation.

  “You have seen it, she has seen it,” said the Nahual, nodding in the direction of the house. “It would only be a matter of time before others knew about it.”

  He absorbed that information without a word. There was a reason no one believed these people existed. They were careful. Livvy exited the screen door with a tall glass of what looked like thick, pink lemonade.

  “You found the guava,” said the Nahual. “That is a good one.”

  “Make your call,” she said to SK. “I will turn off the heat in the jacuzzi.”

  Livvy watched her as she went back into the house.

  “Jacuzzi?”

  “Yeah, apparently she wants you to drown, not boil.”

  It took Livvy a moment, but then she understood.

  “Oh,” she said quietly and looked down at her drink.

  SK kicked himself for having said that. For all her calm talk, he could see that she was afraid.

  “I’m wondering if your friend, Joel, would make a house call?”

  “Joel?”

  “Well, the Nahual is sure she’ll be able to revive you, says it’s no big deal at all, says lots of people get resuscitated and are fine…”

  “But?”

  “Well, I thought it might not hurt to have some backup on this, maybe someone trained in just that kind of thing.”

  She thought about it and nodded. Various emotions played across her face, impossible to read.

  “That’s a good idea,” she finally said. “I’ll give him a call.”

  She set her drink down on the railing and went back inside to make the call. With any luck, thought SK, he won’t be able to make it today. Then, she’d have time to think this thing through and decide not to do it. Unfortunately, Joel was available right away.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

  “I THOUGHT YOU weren’t going to use drugs,” said SK.

  Livvy watched as the Nahual removed a hypodermic needle from a medicine bottle.

  “I would hardly call it a drug,” she said, and showed the bottle to Joel. “Just helps you to sleep.”

  He took the bott
le from her.

  “A mild sedative,” he said, looking at Livvy. “Nothing more.”

  “Believe me,” said the Nahual. “Even the experienced ones will sometimes panic at the bottom.”

  Livvy looked down to the bottom of the jacuzzi. The water was crystal clear and the jacuzzi incredibly clean. Her heart started to race as she looked at the needle.

  “It’s probably best,” said Joel, but Livvy looked over to SK.

  Unlike the Nahual and Joel, who seemed to be taking things in stride, SK was worried and he looked it. She gave him a questioning look across the jacuzzi. Without words, she knew what he was thinking–how could he stop this, how to help her, about maybe never seeing her again. He slowly nodded.

  She offered her arm and felt the small prick. She’d never even asked what it was.

  “You can leave your clothes on, but take off the shoes,” said the Nahual. “Same for you,” she said to Joel.

  She slipped out of her own shoes as well.

  “We’re getting in now?” Livvy asked.

  “Yes,” said the Nahual, stepping in. “It will be easier than trying to move you around later.”

  Livvy pictured herself unconscious under the water and hesitated. Nobody seemed to notice except for SK. Both the Nahual and Joel were still making their way into the water. Joel had emptied his pockets and taken off his watch, placing them next to his emergency box and heart paddles. The Nahual was taking stock of the jacuzzi, looking at the space that she’d have to work with. SK had squatted against the far wall of the small room and had seen her hesitate. Embarrassed, she smiled at him and, despite what it cost him, he smiled back.

  She waded into the water. It was still warm.

  “Have a seat,” said the Nahual. “Joel, you sit on that side and I will sit on this side.”

  She pulled over a small inflatable pillow behind Livvy.

  “Lean back and close your eyes.”

  Livvy did that. Whether it was the warm water or the sedative already having an effect, she felt as if she wouldn’t have been able to keep her eyes open anyway. She heard the water lapping and felt it seeping through her clothes. Everyone was so quiet. In fact, there wasn’t any sound at all.