There weren’t any sparks in the outlets and he knew that, for soul fragmentation, the wait might be longer. He settled in and made himself as comfortable as possible, but he couldn’t help but look at the network box and then the door.
• • • • •
The inside of the old building was like a giant cave. It was like every boxing ring and gym Livvy had ever seen in a movie: punching bags, free weights, and rubber mats scattered about, plus jump ropes and boxing gloves hung on the walls. The far edges of the room were dimly lit and nearly black. The only light, suspended from a single kinked electrical cord, projected a glaring circle on the boxing ring. The white and empty canvas seemed to glow in the brightness.
“I’m not going to fight,” said the first Juan as Livvy dragged both Juans forward.
“Maybe we don’t have to,” said the second Juan.
Two stools sat in opposite corners of the ring, but they were empty. The third Juan was nowhere to be seen.
“Come on,” pleaded the second Juan. “Let’s go.”
“Not until we’ve got all of you,” Livvy replied, still gripping both of them.
At the edge of the ring, the overhead light spilled onto the clock and bell they had heard from outside. Livvy surveyed the room again but they seemed to be alone.
“Juan,” she called. “Show yourself. I know you’re here.”
She waited as the two Juans next to her turned their heads in every direction.
“Juan,” Livvy called. “I know you’re here and I’m not leaving without you.”
“We will see about that,” said a deep voice from the dimness.
Livvy and the two Juans turned toward the sound as a large man emerged from behind one of the boxing bags. He dragged the third Juan by the arm, who was dressed exactly like the first two and wore a frantic look on his face, like a trapped animal.
The large man was dressed like a boxer: shiny black shorts and hightop leather shoes. He was bare chested and bronze skinned, with a thick torso, and sinewy muscles that seemed sculpted under the harsh light. His long, black hair was held in a ponytail with a large jade ring. In his earlobes he wore spools of dark green jade. Livvy watched as he strode forward toward the ring. On his chest he wore a gold pectoral glyph strung between multi-colored beads. He pulled the third Juan up a small wooden stairway and thrust him through the ropes into the ring. Then he ducked through himself, a hand to the amulet to keep it from being caught.
Juan was indeed suffering from soul fragmentation, but Carmen had been right too–Juan was under attack from a hex, one created by this Maya ancestor spirit. Some shaman had contacted him for help, help of the bad kind. With this ancestor preventing a reunion, there was no way Juan would recover. Livvy could see where this was going.
“Stay here,” she said to the first two Juans, releasing them.
“No problem,” they said, crouching near the opposite corner.
Livvy climbed the three steps nearest her and entered the ring.
The Maya shoved the third Juan forward.
“Fight!” he commanded.
The third Juan stood there, frozen, staring at Livvy and the two other Juans.
“I said fight!” the Maya screamed.
The third Juan jumped forward, the canvas floor reverberating like a drum, as he raised his hands in fists.
Livvy stepped toward the center of the ring, never losing eye contact with the third Juan. “No, Juan,” she said quietly. “You don’t have to fight.”
“Fight!” bellowed the Maya.
“I have to fight,” screamed the third Juan, his eyes wild with terror. “I have to!”
“No,” said Livvy, shaking her head as she took another step toward him. “No, you don’t. In fact, you can’t. This isn’t between you and me.”
“It’s not?” he asked, confused.
“No,” she said coming closer. “It was between you and your other selves,” she motioned her head behind her.
The third Juan looked at the first two.
“She’s right, you know,” said the second Juan.
Livvy came to a stop in the center of the ring, directly in front of the third Juan. Slowly, she reached out her hand and put it on top of his front fist. “You can’t fight me,” she said. “You’d never win.”
She easily pressed his fist downward although he struggled mightily to keep it up. He stared at his fist as though it wasn’t his to control. She tightened her grip on it, making him wince as he bent his knees to move lower. But rather than force him to the canvas, she moved him to the side and then back behind her.
“Fight, you coward!” bellowed the Maya as he crouched low.
The ropes vibrated in sympathy.
“Wait with the other Juans,” said Livvy, not turning to look as she released him.
She heard and felt his steps retreat on the canvas.
“He will fight,” said the Maya as he took a step forward. “He will have no choice when you are dead.”
Livvy tensed and matched his stance. Inside the building, calling down lightning would not be a great option. The lightning would come because it had to, but it would have to pass through the roof to do so. The roof would probably catch fire and debris would rain down on them. The Maya began to circle left. Livvy did the same. Instead of lightning, she would have to trust her innate shamanic power and her ever-growing speed. The two together ought to be enough.
He lunged at her, aiming to wrap her up in a bear hug but, as she suspected, she was much too fast for him, as though he were moving in slow motion. She danced away as though he were moving in slow motion.
“Coward,” he growled. “Fight.”
He bared his teeth and Livvy saw they had been inlaid with jade and filed to points.
“I will kill you!” he yelled. “And then the gods will feast on your heart!”
Again he lunged at her but this time he anticipated her escape. As Livvy skipped to the side, his outstretched hand caught her jacket and there was a ripping sound.
That was close.
Livvy backpedaled. The ring wasn’t as big as it seemed and the Maya had a very long reach. Whatever she did, she could not allow him to lay a hand on her. That could be trouble. She ought to have the strength to overpower him, but she didn’t particularly want to find out. All she really needed to do was incapacitate him.
He began to run backwards, speedily shuffling his feet until his back met the ropes. He stretched them outward and paused, and then he caromed off to Livvy’s right. She moved left as he gained speed, bouncing off the ropes again, without pausing. Together their feet were drumming out a constant pounding. Livvy sped across the ring to see him pass in back of her. He rebounded yet again, gaining momentum.
She waited to see if he’d go left or right, but he came directly at her instead. Although she had thought to continue moving with her momentum, now she reversed direction. In that small fraction of a second, he reached behind his back and something flashed is his right hand, something dark and glittering.
The Juans all screamed together, “Look out!”
Livvy spun away at the last second. She continued left but felt something bite into the front of her right shoulder. The Maya was continuing to bounce off the ropes and, rather than look down at her shoulder, Livvy watched his hand. He was holding a large obsidian knife, hafted with a leather strip to a large bone handle. He switched hands and was running now.
Enough of this.
“Get down!” she yelled at the Juans and reached a hand toward the sky.
“Wind,” she yelled.
Every window shattered instantly and the front door blew off its hinges as a hurricane level wind surged into the building. In her peripheral vision, she saw one of the Juans trying to climb into the ring as the others tried to stop him. He was panicking.
“No,” she yelled to him.
She kept her left arm up as the wind continued to scream past. Juan would be blown along with it if he didn’t stay below the ring.
“Stay back,” she yelled, motioning with her other hand.
Without warning, she felt a thud in the front of her right shoulder and turned back in time to see the Maya flying past her, carried by the wind.
As she kept her left hand raised, Livvy staggered back and looked down. The bone handle protruded from her coat where the knife was buried to the hilt. A dark red stain began to spread.
• • • • •
In the real world, Livvy’s breathing was quicker and heavier. Beads of sweat had appeared on her forehead.
SK tensed.
He looked at Juan, who hadn’t stirred and, if anything, seemed more restful. He looked back at Livvy and then the wall sockets. They were completely dark.
Where’s the lightning? What’s going on?
• • • • •
“Wind,” Livvy said again, between clenched teeth.
The folding chairs around the ring flew through the air and crashed into the opposite wall. The Maya was pinned against the ropes across from her, his pectoral amulet gone. He shielded his face from flying debris and the pressure of the still growing gale. The ropes looked stretched to the breaking point.
Livvy struggled to stay upright against the wind at her back, her hair and clothes whipped forward. With her free hand she reached up and clasped the bone handle of the obsidian knife, now slick with her own blood. She gave it a quick jerk and screamed but pulled the blade clear. She held it in front of her and then tossed it away.
Instead of landing on the canvas, the knife instantly weathervaned in the air stream and shot forward. It flew through the air as though guided by a wire and struck the Maya in the center of his chest. To Livvy’s horror, it didn’t stop there. It burrowed in and disappeared entirely. No blood flowed from the wound. Livvy soon realized a stream of red was blowing out the Maya’s back and spraying onto the far wall. Suddenly, the knife impaled itself in the center of the red splatter along with a human heart.
She lowered her arm and the wind immediately died. Without its pressure, she stumbled backward and leaned heavily into the ropes. Everything the wind had pinned to the far wall fell to the floor in clangs and clatters.
The Maya, without the wind to prop him up, pitched forward and landed on his knees. He stared down at his chest and then up at Livvy as though he were going to ask a question. Instead, his mouth froze and he fell forward with a booming thud on the canvas.
There were several moments of silence and then the end-of-round bell dinged once.
Livvy looked down and saw the three Juans there, grinning up at her, one of them with his hand on the lever.
“Outside,” she breathed, holding her throbbing shoulder.
They waited for her at the bottom of the short steps and followed her outside to the street.
Livvy immediately checked the clouds above. They were still frozen. There were no more Juans to be found. Good, she thought, looking down at the spreading bloodstain on the front of her coat. It hadn’t been the best Multiverse journey.
“Are you going to be all right?” asked one of the Juans.
“That looks pretty serious,” said another.
In the real world, it’d be deadly, she thought. In the Multiverse, it just hurt. A lot.
“I’m going to be fine,” she reassured them. “But the sooner we can get this done the better.”
They all nodded in unison.
“Okay you three,” she said. “Stand together.”
They bunched together in front of her.
“Turn and face each other.”
They obeyed as the one in front did an about face and the other two angled toward the center.
From deep within the clouds that had begun to churn, thunder pealed. The trio looked up.
“I want you to stay absolutely still,” she said, causing them all to look back down at each other. “No matter what you see, feel, or hear, it’s very important that you not move. Have you got it?”
They nodded in unison, accidentally butting their heads.
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s do this.”
She raised her right arm to the sky, checked the Juans one last time, and looked upward. “Lightning,” she said.
The blazing bolt of electricity burst from the middle of the swirling mass above and landed directly on her hand. As usual, the energy of it flooded through her, down her body and into the ground. She began to reach up her other hand toward the trio and moved forward. As though she were engaged in a stately minuet, she raised her one arm and simultaneously lowered the other, curving them both into wide semi-circles.
The lighting arced in a circular loop from one hand to the other, encompassing the Juans. The light from it lit their faces, and the static discharge blew around them like a dust devil.
Slowly and deliberately, Livvy inched closer to them and drew the circle of light tighter. The Juans shuffled their feet forward, pressing against each other. Almost close enough to hug them, Livvy drew them into an ever smaller circle. The ring of lightning was building to an incandescent white that made them shut their eyes.
Then, they started to blend.
Bathed in the brilliant glow of the surrounding energy, the arms at their sides started to blur, melding into single thick arms between them.
Livvy tightened the circle.
The arms disappeared, absorbed into their ribs as the bodies compressed. Their legs began to combine as the arms had done. A thick single torso emerged in the center. Finally, the three heads met in the middle, faces pointed inward.
Livvy drew her arms in tighter around the misshapen figure and felt the resistance of the energy. With steadily increasing pressure, she made the brightening circle smaller, pulled the body closer, and was almost able to grasp her hands together. Finally, the three heads collapsed into one with a popping sound. She wrapped Juan up in a crushing hug and felt his body squirm in its last fit of transformation. Then he became still.
The lightning ended with a final burst and vanished. She was looking at just the one Juan. Livvy carefully let him go and backed away.
He blinked several times and looked down at his body. “Is it…me?” he asked.
Livvy smiled. “Yes, it’s you, Juan. How do you feel?”
“Good,” he said. Then he nodded and grinned. “Yes, real good.” He inhaled deeply. “Like my old self.”
Livvy smiled at him. “Good. Then, it’s time to go.”
“So soon?” came a woman’s voice from behind her.
Livvy turned around, fairly certain of who would be there. What she saw when she turned around, though, made her move Juan behind her. There were more shamans this time.
“Dominique,” Livvy said, not letting go of Juan.
Dominique seemed surprised. “I’m flattered that the Lightning Shaman would know my name.”
Several spirit helpers had already arrived for the assembled group: a Galapagos turtle stood in their midst, a vulture perched nearby on one of the buildings, and a lynx curled around the legs of one of the women. She didn’t recognize any of the new ones. The two from the previous time weren’t with her.
A hawk of some kind swooped down to land on the gloved forearm of one of the shamans. As before, Dominique stood in the back, no spirit helper apparent.
Livvy quickly ran over her options. The one with wind wasn’t here so she could try that. She could also call down lightning and get it over with. Or she could just get her client out of here and be done. With blood trickling down her arm and knowing Min was standing by, time was running out.
She opted for being done.
Without a word, still gripping Juan, she spun them both around and ran. The shamans, the street, and the old section of downtown rapidly disappeared behind her. Livvy had no idea what they had planned but she wasn’t waiting to find out. The skyscrapers blurred to the left and right and in only moments she was at the fountain.
Unfortunately, now that she was here, she could see what they had planned. The two shamans who had
been with Dominique the first time were waiting.
• • • • •
SK paced from Livvy to the door and then back again. The electricity had already surged, the rivulets of blue energy had snaked their way out of the sockets, and SK had watched to make sure neither Juan nor Livvy would be electrocuted.
Then it had stopped.
Livvy’s breathing had returned to normal and that should have been the end of it.
But it wasn’t.
The incense had gone out and the candles were getting low.
He crouched down next to the network box. He glanced at the wall sockets.
“What’s going on, Liv?” he said, watching her.
He waited, as though for an answer.
Enough of that.
He stood up and went to the door, quietly turning the knob. Min got up from the couch where she’d been sitting with Rita.
“Bring your goggles,” he whispered.
• • • • •
“Your squad is not enough,” said the heavy one who could produce quakes. She and the spiky redhead stood between Livvy and the fountain.
The quake shaman jutted her chin out behind Livvy and to the left. At first, Livvy thought she might think Juan was a shaman, but when she glanced behind her, she saw her mom.
Although she had wanted to scream the word “mom,” she managed to stop herself in time. No wonder she hadn’t seen her earlier. She was partially transparent now.
Oh Mom!
She was trying to say something to Livvy and pointing at the other shamans.
Livvy held out a hand to her in an emphatic stop gesture and, thankfully, her mom stopped.
The hawk and the vulture soared over them and perched nearby. The other shamans wouldn’t be far behind. The ones here already knew they couldn’t stop her but they were blocking her only means of leaving the Underworld. They didn’t have to stop her, just delay her. She turned quickly to her mother and took Juan by the waist.
Olivia Lawson Techno-Shaman Books 1 -3 Page 40
