“No, Min!” she yelled.
Kam dove again at Tiamat, who was ready for him this time. As he neared her unmoving head, she whipped her tail through the air and flicked him away. Kam was hurled into the distance as Tiamat turned her attention back in Livvy’s direction.
“Kam!” Min screamed, and Tiamat turned her eye toward her.
A faint circle of light appeared on Min’s legs.
Livvy looked up to the sky, stretched up her hand and tilted her head back.
“Lightning,” she whispered.
She felt the arc pass over her. In moments, there was a crackling explosion and the smell of ozone. The concussion of the blast knocked her backwards. When she opened her eyes, she saw that Tiamat had backed away and raised up on her hind legs, shrieking and buffeted by the wind.
In her panic, Livvy had missed Tiamat entirely and nearly brought the lightning down on herself. But where was Min? As her eyes darted around in a frantic search, a horrible thought filled her mind. Had the lightning landed on Min?
No! There she was, next to the crater that the lightning had created, but she wasn’t moving. Oh gods, no, please no! Livvy rushed to her and turned her over. Although her face and chest were red, she was alive. Her dazed eyes looked up at Livvy. There was no time for relief, though. Livvy grabbed her arms and started hauling backwards.
Tiamat looked at the crater and then up to the clouds, as if watching for another strike. It was just enough time for Livvy to make one last push. She pumped her leaden legs, afraid to stop even when she hit the fountain with her back. Although her hands and arms screamed in agony, Livvy clutched Min to her chest and shoved with her legs. With a final heave, her back scraped up and over the lip of the fountain. As Tiamat screeched, Livvy and Min tipped over the edge into the water.
The blackness swirled around them but surfacing in the black lake of the Middleworld was taking too long. Still holding Min, Livvy struggled in the dark water not able to tell which way was up or down. She felt Min being pulled away, tried to tighten her grip. Her arm felt like it might be pulled from the socket and her fingers seemed about to break and finally, she couldn’t hold on any longer. The darkness had closed in.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
IN THE REAL world, Livvy’s body spasmed. SK clenched his phone so hard the plastic cracked.
“Come on, Liv,” he muttered. “Come on.”
“Clear,” said Joel, as his partner raised his hands.
Again, her body jerked upward.
“I’ve got a steady pulse,” said Joel as Livvy sucked in a huge breath of air.
“Thank the gods,” said SK, closing his eyes and exhaling.
He had called 911 the minute he realized that something was going wrong on the other side. Livvy seemed to alternately hold her breath and then breathe heavily. Min was doing the same. By the time the paramedics showed up Livvy had just stopped breathing, although Min seemed to be doing better. Then, Livvy’s pulse had started to get thready.
“Livvy,” said Joel. “Livvy, can you hear me?”
She opened her eyes with great effort.
“Yes,” she managed to croak, her lips parched.
A fireman came through the open front door, rolling a gurney.
“Right over here,” said Joel’s partner.
Although Min had seemed all right when they checked her vitals, she was unconscious, as though she were deeply sedated. A couple of firemen had already transported her downstairs.
As SK watched, the emergency crew moved Livvy to the new gurney, which was now collapsed to ground level.
“On three,” said Joel’s partner. “One, two, three.”
SK came up on the tips of his toes, subconsciously helping them as they lifted her over and set her down.
“Is she gonna be all right?” he asked, once they’d finished.
“I think she’s going to be fine,” said Joel as he packed up.
“SK?” Livvy squeaked, as the gurney was raised with a metal ratcheting sound.
He quickly moved to her side and looked into her eyes.
“Hey, you” he said.
“Min?” she asked, trying to raise her head.
“Min is all right, but unconscious.”
“What happened?” asked Livvy, laying her head back with a thump, not having enough strength to keep it up.
Joel placed a blanket over her and started securing the straps.
“Your friend here called 911,” he said. “I think you went into ventricular fibrillation right after we arrived.”
“No, I mean…”
But there was no time for her to finish the question. They were on their way out.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
BY THE TIME they reached the emergency room Livvy was wide-awake, but wished she wasn’t. Not only was her head throbbing, she was getting more worried by the minute.
“Where did they take Min?” she asked SK.
“Upstairs but I don’t know where.”
“Is she all right?”
“I don’t think so,” he said honestly.
He looked awful, tired and, Livvy realized, scared.
“All right, let’s go,” she said, sitting up.
Her head felt like it could split.
“Oh,” she said, holding a hand to her temple.
“Could you just sit back for a minute?” yelled SK. “You nearly died an hour ago.”
Livvy sat back, staring at him.
“I don’t know what I would have done if the paramedics hadn’t shown up when they did,” he said, his voice shaking. “What in the hell happened over there?”
Livvy took in a long breath and slowly exhaled. “It was strange,” she began.
Then she recounted the interaction with Min, the encounter with Tiamat, and the struggle to get back to the real world. SK listened and nodded stiffly.
“You were breathing heavy, both of you,” he said. “And then you started twitching. That’s when I started to get nervous.”
He ran a hand over his face.
“I checked your pulse,” he said, looking at her wrist. “It was erratic. Min’s pulse was slowing. That’s when I called 911. Then I pulled off the goggles.”
Livvy had never heard what she looked like when she was on the other side. Twitching? She remembered trying to rise through the water and being separated from Min. Had that been when he’d pulled off the goggles?
“By the time the paramedics got there your pulse was thready, almost non-existent.” His focus had turned inward with the memory. “They had to shock you to get your heart beating right.”
“What happened to Min?” she asked quietly.
“I don’t know. She never stopped breathing and her pulse was never erratic, but she…she wouldn’t wake up.” He paused and then slowly shook his head. “Gods, I could use a cigarette,” he muttered. “I knew it was the wrong thing to do, and I did it anyway. I said it myself, the rules are there for a reason.”
Mamacita’s words came back to Livvy then. Even the Multiverse has its rules, she’d said. Shamans who violate those rules take a risk.
She sat up slowly and, as SK was about to complain, she gently held up a hand.
“I can’t sit here and not know what’s going on with Min.”
“I wish you’d just wait for the doctor,” he said, coming over to help her as she swung her legs over.
“Shamans make the worst patients,” she said, steadying herself with a hand on his shoulder.
• • • • •
“You’re the friends who came in with her?” asked the nurse as she tucked the sheets out of the way of the catheter tubing.
“Yeah,” Livvy said, looking at Min. It had taken her and SK nearly thirty minutes to track her down. What they found when they arrived wasn’t good.
“Is she in a coma?” asked Livvy.
The nurse paused and looked at her.
“Are either of you family members?” she asked. “No,” said Livvy, knowing there was no point
in lying.
When the nurse looked away, Livvy realized she already knew the answer to the question. In her hospital gown, without a respirator, Min looked like she was sleeping, like she might wake up at any moment. Livvy watched her face intently, hoping in spite of herself that she’d do just that. She gently took Min’s hand in her own, feeling its warmth. But as Livvy remembered the dark water and Min’s hand slipping away, the attack by Tiamat, and how strange everything had seemed recently, she sensed that it would take more than the usual trip to the Multiverse to rescue her friend. Even so, Min was on the other side somewhere in need of help and Livvy wasn’t going to let her down–again.
“How is she?” said a voice from behind her.
Startled, she looked up. Joel had come into the room. She hadn’t heard him. SK had taken a seat and the nurse had left.
“Not too good,” she said, looking back down at Min.
Joel came over and stood next to her. “And how are you?”
“Fine,” she said, still staring at Min.
“Well, I kind of doubt that. Then again, I couldn’t believe you had left the ER.”
Livvy couldn’t take her eyes off Min’s face.
“Well, the reason I came up here was to see if I could give you a ride home.”
Livvy sighed and, as she exhaled, she felt a tiredness that seemed to run down into the soles of her feet.
“There’s nothing you can do here, Liv,” said SK. “You should go home. We all should.”
She heard the fatigue in his voice and saw it in the droop of his face. It had been a long day. It seemed like a lifetime ago that they had been in Watts but it had only been that morning.
“Yeah,” she said finally. “We should go.”
“I can give your little friend here a ride too.”
“Her little friend is named SK,” said SK, hopping down from the chair. “And he’s got his own ride.” He looked at Livvy. “You want me to take you home?”
Livvy felt the tension in the room. Oh please. This is the last thing I need.
In fact, what she really wanted to do was to close out this awful day with SK, talk to him about everything that had happened, try to understand. As she looked at him, though, she realized that he was nearly dead on his feet despite being mad at the moment.
“You need to go home, SK,” she said, doing her best to smile at him. “Joel can take me home. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
SK threw a quick glare at Joel, then he turned a softer look on Livvy. “All right, I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
He gave Min a last look and then was out the door. Livvy also found herself staring at Min again, until Joel took her arm.
“If you don’t get home and lay down, you’ll fall down. Let’s go.”
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
JOEL INSISTED ON walking her up to the apartment. It was dark outside and, although there was usually no parking on the street, he pulled his truck into the red zone and parked.
“But aren’t you …” Livvy started.
He pulled out a placard and placed it on the dash. It had an official city logo on a red background. Then he ran around the outside of the truck to open her door and help her out.
As they climbed the stairs, he supported her with an arm around the waist. It felt nice. When he put the key into the deadbolt, he stopped and looked back at her.
“I’ve already told myself that it’s been a helluva day for you, so I’ve vowed that I’m going to say goodnight right here.”
She looked at him quizzically as he unlocked and opened the door a crack. The dim overhead light of the hallway gave his face a chiseled look and made it hard for her to read his eyes. He placed the keys in her hand but didn’t notice the tiny spark that jumped to them from the palm of her hand as he let them go.
“I just wanted to make sure you were all right and got home safely.”
He gently took her by the shoulders and looked down at her.
“If you need anything, or start to feel strange, or just anything, call me.”
“Okay,” she said, looking up into his face.
He pulled her close and gave her a gentle hug. As she rested her head on his chest, she closed her eyes and instinctively hugged him back. Eventually, he pulled away and reached into his back pocket.
“Here’s my number,” he said.
She looked down at the business card, taking it but not focusing.
“Please…call for anything.”
She looked into his eyes, which were staring into hers.
“I will,” she said quietly.
He nodded, then hesitated and then nodded again, backing up a pace. She watched him head toward the stairs, giving him a little wave before he disappeared, but as soon as she opened the door to the apartment, she wished he hadn’t gone.
CHAPTER FIFTY
AS SHE CLOSED the door behind her, she groaned. Her altar had been destroyed, beaten or chopped into small pieces; the paraphernalia scattered everywhere. She recognized some of the fragments but many were tiny. The wall where the couch had been was spray-painted with the same blood red paint as the pentagram.
“Get behind me, Satan,” it read in huge letters, with long red drips that pooled in the carpet.
The furniture had been knocked over and everything from the refrigerator had been dumped on the kitchen floor. Syrup had been squirted everywhere. She moved toward the bedroom, her steps faltering on the debris. There was more spray painting.
“Vengeance is mine.”
Her clothes had been thrown everywhere, covering the bed and floor. She turned at the doorway and looked back at the front room.
Was it the same people who had painted the pentagram? How had they gotten in here? Or was it the thugs from the alley?
Her eyes were drawn to the one icon that was still hanging on the wall–a pulsing glow-in-the-dark walk clock with the Virgin Mary of Guadalupe that she’d picked up at a garage sale. It was the one thing that the perpetrators apparently couldn’t stand to desecrate.
“Catholics,” she muttered.
She picked up a small statue of Kali that was missing its head. Buddhist mala beads were scattered everywhere. Incense sticks were broken and ground into the carpet.
She stood in the center, numb, and looked at the devastation, turning in a slow circle in the middle of the room. As she looked at the door, she realized that when she’d left, it had been with the emergency medical crew. SK had grabbed her bag with keys and phone, but the door must have been left open.
Where was Nacho? Had he been here when the vandals had done this? She hadn’t seen him in the bedroom.
“Nacho?” she called, but there was no answer.
The couch had been dumped on its front, and the cushions had slid out. As she gingerly picked her way around the debris, she lifted the cushions, afraid of what she would find. All that was there were the goggles. She tossed the cushions aside and picked up both pairs, still attached by wires. They looked like they were intact. She set them back down and looked around the room. There was so sign of Nacho. Hopefully he’d gotten out when the paramedics had been here.
She checked the locks on the front door and headed toward the bedroom. She started to shove the clothes off the bed and realized that some of them were wet.
She backed away with disgust. Someone had peed on the clothes and the bed. Scooping out the contents of her medicine cabinet from the bathroom sink with her clean hand, she turned on the water and found the soap.
No sleeping in the bed tonight. Probably not ever.
She went over to the couch and checked the cushions. They seemed all right. With an effort, she pushed the couch back over and set the cushions on it, picturing Min lying there before they’d gone to the Middleworld. In fact, Min’s pillow was on the floor. Livvy picked it up and slowly brought it to her face. She inhaled and the sandalwood scent of Min filled her nose. As she exhaled, she realized finally that she was utterly spent. As she collapsed on the couch, Livvy hugged the little pil
low to her chest. The last image before her eyes closed was the goggles on the floor. It would wait until tomorrow, but she knew what had to be done.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
SK PUSHED OPEN the hospital room door with an effort. He hadn’t been surprised that Livvy was up when he called earlier, but the fact that she was already at the hospital was a surprise–and not a good one. He had hoped she would wait for him. The scene that greeted him when he entered was exactly what he’d feared.
Min’s family was at the bedside along with Livvy. Apparently her parents didn’t speak much English since the brother was doing the translating. Emotions were running high.
Min’s mother pointed at Livvy and yelled something.
“My mother wants to know who’s going to pay for this,” said the boy, who looked to be in his late teens.
Livvy stood at the foot of the bed, looking at Min. She had obviously been crying. In fact, everybody in the room looked like they’d been crying.
“I don’t know,” Livvy sniffled.
The father said something angry to Livvy.
“It’s your fault. You should pay,” translated the boy.
“Hey!” said SK, realizing that Livvy must have been trying to explain what had happened.
The room fell silent.
“It’s not her fault,” he said to the parents.
The mother replied loudly, with an incredulous tone.
“Who are you?” said the boy.
“A friend of Min,” he said. “And of Livvy.”
The boy translated.
The mother made a face like she’d smelled something foul then uttered something guttural. The father burst forth with a loud string of words that the boy was starting to translate when a nurse came in the room.
“What’s going on in here?” she said, surveying the room.
Everyone fell silent.
“What are you doing screaming in here? This girl is very ill.”
Olivia Lawson Techno-Shaman Books 1 -3 Page 19
