Even when a shaman survived the transition and made it back, there were always the side effects: nausea, headaches, and lingering auras in sunlight. Recovery time was mandatory, both physical and mental. In essence, business was closed for at least a couple of days.
Livvy reached into her bag and removed her goggles along with a new pack of batteries. Except for a few strips of gray duct tape, the goggles were a shiny black plastic. Although at first glance they seemed like they might be large, wraparound sunglasses, the smooth bulging curve at the front of the goggles contained tiny projectors and mirrors that threw images back at the eyes of the wearer.
“Got your knife?” she asked SK, tossing him the battery pack.
If a shaman didn’t want to use drugs, there were other equally demanding routes: fasting, drumming, dancing, chanting and anything else that could lead to exhaustion. It was time consuming to get to the ecstatic state and few urban shamans had that luxury. Clients wanted their results in the next five minutes or they’d be on to a new shaman who did use drugs.
Livvy popped out the old batteries as SK sliced open the plastic on the new. He handed them back to her as she sat down on the mat next to the bed.
The big breakthrough for techno-shamans had been the God Helmet. It had started as an experiment to see if an electromagnetic field could induce the impression of the presence of God using a motorcycle helmet with big magnets built into it. A tiny electric current stimulated the magnets, which caused them to emit a magnetic field, and then the subject would report whether or not they could sense God. Although some people did indeed have a religious experience, possibly because some people always would, a large number of people reported feeling like somebody else was in the room with them.
Livvy stashed the old batteries in her bag, plugged in the new ones and snapped on the power button. The goggles emitted a small electric humming sound. The people at the doorway stood on their tiptoes to look over the bed and see what was happening.
Unrelated to the God Helmet, but shortly thereafter and equally important, the video gaming industry introduced 3-D goggles. The first shaman who had seen the potential of the two technologies being brought together had lived and worked in Silicon Valley.
Livvy took out a tiny pillow that was stuffed with wheat kernels and sage and placed it at the top of the mat. She started to lay back but stopped and looked over at SK.
“Back in a bit,” she said.
“I’ll be here,” he said, squatting down to sit cross-legged next to her.
While she was on the other side, Livvy would have no awareness of her physical body or surroundings. In traditional societies, the role of protecting the shaman as they journeyed in the spiritual world would have fallen to an assistant. Today, in L.A., it fell to SK.
Livvy felt the familiar mat beneath her and heard the crunch of the pillow as she settled in. As she raised the goggles up to her face, the video program was already playing. She closed her eyes and slipped them on. The soft rubber padding around the edge sat comfortably on her cheeks and temple and sealed out anything visual. Slowly, she lowered her hands to her sides and took in a deep breath, experiencing the cleansing smell of the sage. As she exhaled, she opened her eyes.
For tens of thousands of years, shamans the world over had shared a visual set of cues, a group of symbols that marked the entrance to the Multiverse. They had even recorded them on boulders, cliff faces, and the walls of deep caves. Despite the time and space that separated them, the images remained the same: spirals, checkerboards, dots, crisscrossing lines and sunbursts.
Inside the goggles, Livvy watched as the red and yellow symbols bobbed and swayed against the deep black background. They seemed to flow into one another in a random order. Outside the door to the bedroom she heard feet shuffling and conversations in the kitchen and living room. The baby was crying again.
Livvy unfocused her eyes and took another deep breath. As she watched, the spirals and sunbursts became more intense and the sound of the real world faded. Dots and crisscrossed lines morphed into one another. The cycling of the images became quicker. She moved toward them as they started to glow. Their edges became indistinct. As the cycling grew even faster, they started to become less opaque. As she approached, they grew larger and even more transparent, morphing into one another at a frenetic pace, blurring into a bright ball of orange. Beyond them, she saw a familiar landscape taking shape–the Middleworld. She stepped through.
“Is she there now?” asked Dolores, quietly.
SK watched Livvy’s even breathing and saw her pulse rate drop at the jugular vein.
“Yes, she’s there.”
“What do we do now?” asked the girl at the door.
“We wait.”
CHAPTER FOUR
IT WAS ALWAYS high noon in the Middleworld. The trees at the edge of the black lake cast their shadows directly down. As Livvy approached on the dirt path, it seemed unusually quiet. She stopped and listened. Not a cricket or bird sounded. There was no snapping of twigs in the forest to signal the approach of an animal spirit. She could clearly hear the wind as it rustled the branches and leaves–perhaps too clearly.
As she looked to the sky, she saw the clouds gathering. Her spirit helper was approaching. She resumed her walk to the lake, but was aware of the eerie silence. Her footsteps sounded too loud on the gravel beach. As the sky grew suddenly dark, a clap of thunder sounded in the distance, over the peaks of the mountains that ringed the lake. A bright flash, muffled within the clouds above her, briefly lit her white hair with an aura. Her spirit helper, lightning, had arrived.
She had seen the other spirit helpers in the Middleworld and Underworld, animals and insects of every variety, and they had seen her, but she had rarely communicated with them, which was not unusual. They weren’t there to guide or help her. They were simply watching.
Again there was a clap of thunder.
“All right, already,” she said, looking at the reflections of the clouds in the inky water. “I’m going, I’m going.”
The entire sky was now filled with dark clouds. She walked to the edge of the water and took a step in, watching her foot disappear. The lake was particularly cold today.
“Great,” she muttered, shivering.
Rather than prolong the agony, she took another step and then another. Her shins splashed and sent small waves out in front of her. Soon she was waist deep, not bothering to keep her hands raised. In another few seconds only her head was above water and, as the ground beneath her feet dropped off, she submerged.
Whirling eddies spun around her, creating a funnel into the darkness below. It sucked her downward but then expelled her onto dry land. She braced for the impact, landed with a thud, and rolled to absorb the energy until she hit the curb.
“Wow,” she gasped, finally sitting up.
She looked back at the fountain in time to see the inverted spout of the funnel collapsing. That had to be the roughest landing she’d ever had, but there was no time to worry about it.
She stood and moved next to the nearest building. Unlike the Middleworld, the Underworld was buzzing. Spirits of all types were moving around the main plaza, crossing back and forth, heading off into the streets that radiated from the fountain like spokes. Some of them seemed to be in a rush, running by her on the sidewalk.
Livvy looked up to the sky and watched the drift of the clouds. Their direction would be her direction: the way she would go to find Anita. They drifted off somewhere behind her. She checked right and left before she stepped out and headed left along the sidewalk to the nearest street. As she turned the corner and followed the clouds, she passed people and animals and insects that looked as genuine as anything in the real world but which she knew were spirits, their only existence here, in the Multiverse.
A deer strode by in the street to her right, stepping over a turtle. A panther passed her on the left, trotting, its powerful shoulders rolling back and forth as it loped along. A man in a turban and loincloth
passed her going in the opposite direction on the sidewalk. She had never run across her own ancestors here, but she had probably seen someone from every country or culture at this point. For their part, they never seemed to take much notice of her, nor did any of the spirit helpers around her. It wasn’t that they didn’t see each other the way that shamans never saw one another in the Multiverse, the ancestors and spirits simply weren’t interested.
At the next corner, she checked the clouds again. They had changed direction, so she made a left to follow them and entered a less busy street.
“Where are you, Anita?” she said to herself.
An eagle screeched overhead. Livvy glanced upward just in time to see it diving at her. Too stunned to move at first, she doubled over at the last instant and felt one of its talons grab the back of her jacket. A furious flapping of wings sent her hair flying in every direction. As she raised her arms to cover her head, she ducked down and spun around, trying to dislodge it. The eagle tugged and shrieked, but as her adrenaline kicked in so did the speed of her whirling. Finally, the pull on her jacket released and she heard and felt the beating wings recede. Still crouching low, arms covering her head, she chanced a look upward.
The eagle was gone. Livvy emerged from her crouch and searched the sky, turning in a complete circle, but there was no sign of it. She glanced at the buildings on either side; most of them were squat brick offices three stories high. It hadn’t perched on any of them.
Slowly, she lowered her arms and brushed the hair back out of her face. What in the Multiverse had that been about? She had never been attacked–if that’s what had happened–by a spirit helper.
As she glanced up and down the street again, she noticed it was now empty. Back at the last corner she could still see traffic crossing but there was nobody on her street. She edged closer to the building and checked the sky again–still no eagle. Maybe it had scattered the other spirits that had been on the street, scared them off with its bizarre behavior.
She pushed away from the building.
“Get in, get done, and get out,” she said, reminding herself of the motto. Don’t linger. You delay, you stay.
The clouds had slowed but were still leading down the empty street. She continued in that direction but, wary of being too exposed on the sidewalk, she stayed close to the buildings and picked up the pace. She checked in both directions before crossing at the next corner, more out of habit than worried about spirit traffic. The spirit traffic was gone. Same as the Middleworld had been, this part of the Underworld was unnaturally quiet.
The clouds stopped moving. Like a movie that had been stopped mid-frame, they hung frozen in the air. She stopped and looked at the building in front of her. There were sliding casement windows on every level, probably an old office building. None of the windows looked any different than any of the others. All of them were shut.
“Of course,” she muttered.
Sometimes there was an obvious clue, especially in a soul loss case: red curtains blowing in an open window, dark footprints on the sidewalk, music playing from a certain direction. The soul wanted to be found and could even wander around the plaza asking for help. But not in this case.
Livvy went up the steps to the front door of the building and was surprised to find that it was locked. Doors were almost never locked in the Underworld. She tugged at it with both hands, but it wouldn’t budge. Again, that was unusual. Her strength as a shaman often translated directly into strength in the Multiverse. The fact that she couldn’t open the door meant it was locked tight, possibly by another shaman. She stood back from it and kicked. It didn’t open but there was a cracking sound. She kicked it again. The cracking sound grew louder. She kicked and kicked and kicked, putting all her weight behind her foot, kicking so hard that her foot started to hurt. She switched feet. The door was starting to move. She kicked it again and it opened about a quarter of an inch, something still holding it closed. With one final push, she backed up and ran at the door, raising her foot at the last second. There was a loud snap as the door flew open. Pieces of wood from the doorframe splintered in every direction.
The door ricocheted off the wall, still on its hinges, and bounced back. She caught it with both hands as she entered, then pushed it away. Once inside the doorway, she stopped to get her bearings and catch her breath.
The deserted lobby had a reception counter opposite the front door and an elevator to the left of the counter. A small couch, coffee table, and low chairs were grouped to the right. A door that led to a stairwell with an exit sign above it was on the other side of the elevator. Between the elevator and stairs was a building directory.
She shoved the door against the wall and jammed pieces of the doorframe debris under it with her foot to keep it from closing. The light that fell on the floor through the broken door was the only light in the room. She crossed over to the directory.
The white plastic lettering tucked into the ridged black felt showed that it was a financial building, with accountants, auditors and advisers of various types. At the bottom of the list, there were red letters.
“Anita,” she said, as she placed her fingers on the glass over the name. Room 349.
Suddenly, the elevator dinged loudly. Livvy jumped back. There was nothing inherently wrong about elevators working in the Underworld, but one that started without any reason in a locked building that appeared to be deserted…well, that was disturbing. Something was wrong.
As the doors slowly opened, she tensed and moved off to the side, peering back around to see what might be inside, but it was empty. She looked into every corner of it, up and down, right and left, but there was nothing there–only the open doors, waiting.
“Yeah right,” she said. “I don’t think so.”
Again, the feeling that this was taking too long nagged at her. She crossed quickly over to the stairwell and pushed the door open. Only green emergency lights for the exit signs on the second and third floors illuminated the dark space. She let the door close behind her and bounded up the steps, two at a time. In moments, she had exited the stairwell on the third floor.
As she jogged past the room numbers down to 349, she called, “Anita? Anita, are you here?”
She stopped in front of 349 and tried the knob. It was locked. She knocked.
“Anita, are you in there? Dolores sent me.”
She pounded on the door with her fist.
“Anita, if you can hear me, make a sound,” she yelled. “I’m here to help you. Your sister sent me.”
There was a muffled scraping from inside the room.
“Anita, can you unlock the door?”
There was only silence.
“Anita!”
Still no answer.
Livvy backed up against the opposite wall in the hallway, took a short running launch, and gave the door a wicked kick, right next to the doorknob. It immediately popped open, but the front room was empty, except for a thick layer of dust on the wood floor.
“Anita?” called Livvy, swiveling her head to scan the room. “Anita, make a sound. Dolores sent me to help you!”
A scratching sound came from behind a door to her left. Livvy flew over to it and yanked it open. It was a small closet but it was empty.
No, not empty. Something moved on the floor. Livvy strained her eyes and stood aside so the light from the window could help. A small crab cowered in the corner.
“Anita?”
The eyes wriggled and it waved its small claws.
“Oh no,” Livvy whispered.
Not just soul loss, this was soul transformation. No wonder SK had called her and no wonder the other shaman hadn’t been successful.
“All right. First, let’s get you out of here.”
Livvy reached down and scooped up the tiny crab.
• • • • •
In the real world, Anita’s chest rose suddenly, as she inhaled. But nothing else moved, including her eyelids.
“Did you see that?” exclaimed Dolore
s. “Did you see it?”
“She took a deep breath,” said the teenager at the door.
There was a commotion in the hallway.
“Is that a good sign?” Dolores asked SK.
SK looked over at Livvy’s motionless body. Sweat was starting to break out on her forehead and small wisps of white hair were clinging to it.
He looked at Anita and saw that her breathing had subsided again but was a fraction less shallow.
“Yes, it’s a good sign,” he ventured.
His eyes darted around the baseboard of the room as he took stock of all the electrical outlets, at least the ones he could see. A single lamp was plugged in, though not on. That was lucky, he thought.
He returned his gaze to Livvy, who was still lying quietly, her breathing slow and steady. Even in the dim light, her white hair nearly glowed, reflecting light onto the gentle curves of her face and neck.
“Anita took a breath,” gushed the teenager, as she turned and clutched the hand of the woman behind her. “It looks good.”
“Will it be over soon?” asked Dolores.
One way or another, thought SK.
“It’s hard to tell,” he said, but he watched closely as Livvy’s jugular jumped to life.
Come on, Liv, he thought. You can do this.
• • • • •
In the Underworld, Livvy had already exited onto the street, holding the little crab to her chest in both hands. But as she turned toward the corner of the block, something sharp and heavy hit the top of her head, knocking it forward. She felt the great whoosh of flapping wings and the scrape of talon on skull as she ducked and flailed with one arm. The eagle screeched in anger as it launched to the sky, having missed its opportunity to take out her eyes. Even as she felt the blood oozing into her hair, it came back for a second attack. Again, she ducked down and it missed, but she fumbled and dropped the little crab. As Livvy grabbed empty air, Anita landed on the pavement and skittered into the gutter, heading directly into a drain hole.
Olivia Lawson Techno-Shaman Books 1 -3 Page 3
