Olivia Lawson Techno-Shaman Books 1 -3

by Green, M. Terry

  Suddenly Nicole picked up the sketchpad and crayon from the coffee table and furiously started to draw spirals, one after another, overlapping and sometimes going off the edge of the paper.

  “Fine,” said Dominique, quietly. “You draw.”

  She turned away from Nicole, went to the kitchen and put her bag on the counter. Her hands clenched into fists, twisting the heavy canvas, and she bowed her head over it as she tightened her jaw.

  This has to end.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  “THERE MUST HAVE been at least ten of them, maybe more,” Min said as she helped Livvy drop onto the end of the couch.

  Livvy had been anxiously listening to Min recount the ordeal to SK. As she had promised, though, Min said nothing about Livvy’s mom.

  Livvy kept her eyes closed against the spinning room. The pain in her head was almost tolerable. The only problem with keeping them closed, though, was Claire–seeing her body in the bed, hearing her anguished scream in the Underworld.

  Min’s voice drifted in from down the hall. “It had clearly been planned,” she was saying.

  Livvy heard the sound of a pill bottle rattling. Soon, Min was back. “Livvy,” she said quietly. “Take these.”

  Livvy opened her eyes to see Min’s hand with three ibuprofen. SK was holding out a glass of water.

  “I can do that,” she whispered and did. Then she sniffed.

  “Put your head back,” SK said. “Your nose is still bleeding. I’m going to get some ice.”

  Livvy could hardly keep her eyes open and tried not to let her head thud against the back of the couch. It would only hurt.

  “And she said she had a water baby,” said Min.

  Livvy raised her eyebrows at that but couldn’t raise the heavy lids. There were those words again–water baby. Open your eyes, she thought. Pay attention.

  “What is that?” asked Min.

  There was silence, although Livvy could hear the ice cubes in a plastic bag in SK’s hands. “That’s me,” he said, quietly.

  Then there was another pause.

  “Liv,” he said. “Lift your head a little so I can put the ice behind your neck.”

  With great effort and his helping hand, she managed it and then felt the cool ice and eased back onto it.

  “You?” asked Min.

  “Not me specifically,” said SK. “A dwarf.”

  There was a long pause.

  “You’re sure that’s what she said?” came SK’s voice from far way.

  No, don’t go, thought Livvy. Please don’t go. Don’t let me fall asleep.

  “Yes,” said Min, also in the distance. “She said she was a water shaman and that she had a water baby.”

  SK was saying something Livvy couldn’t make out. In moments, all was blackness.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  DOMINIQUE DIDN’T BOTHER to block her caller ID.

  SK had left Min with Livvy so he could begin the search for Dominique. Instead, she had found him. He almost hadn’t believed it was her on the phone. She’d set up the meeting and gotten off.

  The small park where she’d said to meet had a sand lot with a slide and swings. A handful of kids were playing there while their mothers stood close by. A couple with a stroller ambled past.

  SK sat at a cement picnic table and, except to note that these other people were present, he took little notice of them. Instead, he looked at his phone again. Another minute and she’d be late. He wasn’t going to waste a second past that. He looked up. A tall woman with dark flowing hair, dressed all in black, was striding in his direction. He didn’t bother standing as she neared.

  “SK,” she said, swinging one leg easily over the opposite park bench, straddling it, on the other side of the table.

  “Dominique,” he said simply.

  “I’d say it’s a pleasure,” she said, “but I’m sure it’s not. Not after what happened earlier.”

  He got right to the point of why he’d agreed to meet her. “How are you finding Livvy in the Multiverse?”

  “I’m offering you one chance,” she said, completely ignoring his question.

  He scowled as she waited. “One chance at what?” he finally asked.

  “To surrender,” she said, tugging down the sleeves of her leather coat. She turned to look him in the eye. “To join me.”

  He snorted, but she slowly shook her head. “She will lose,” she said, her voice level, her eyes glinting in the bright afternoon light. “I will win. It is inevitable.”

  The woman was calm and exuded a self-confidence that was almost tangible. Whether or not she was right didn’t matter. She believed it.

  No, more than that. She knew it.

  He thought of Livvy’s bloody clothes and Claire’s death and he realized there was a chance she might possibly be right.

  “There’s no need to compete,” he said. “There’s plenty of work in L.A.”

  “I don’t want plenty of work,” she said, dismissing the suggestion. “I want you.”

  He blinked and raised his eyebrows.

  “I want the top jobs, only the best,” she declared. “I want access to the rich and the famous. You can do that for me. We can do it together.”

  SK quickly shook his head. “No deal,” he said. “You don’t pick the intercessor. They pick you.”

  “Soon, you will have no one else to pick,” she said. “Not only will the lightning shaman be destroyed but anyone else who gets in the way. This is your one chance.”

  She was scary in her conviction. If belief in oneself carried any weight, she stood a chance of succeeding on that alone. Suddenly, SK was afraid for Liv.

  “There is a hierarchy to things, even in nature,” she said. “Non-shamans are right to fear shamans. We have a power they can hardly comprehend. Why shouldn’t we benefit from that power? Why shouldn’t we take our rightful place at the top? There is no reason why we shouldn’t. And I can be the one to do that. I can be the one to lead us all there.”

  Dominique waited, watching his face.

  “You live near here?” he asked, trying again to gain any information that he could use to stop her.

  In reply, she only stood up, swung her leg back over the bench. “I must say, I’m disappointed,” she said, putting her hands in the pockets of the duster. “Not surprised but disappointed nevertheless.”

  “You must have a big place to network all those shamans,” he tried again.

  “I want you to remember this day,” she said. “I would have treated you right.”

  “The only reason I’ll remember this day,” he said, standing up, “is to marvel at how little you understand. A partnership, an intercessor-shaman relationship, isn’t negotiated. It’s earned.”

  “Partnership,” she echoed. “Tell me, Water Baby, how is deceit part of partnership?”

  Now she’s going to try some mind games, thought SK, and she’s clearly not going to give up any information. He’d have to call in every debt and marker in the city, but he’d do it. He’d track her down and all the shamans that were helping her.

  He turned to go.

  “The lightning shaman has summoned her mother from the dead,” she said.

  He laughed. Was she really this desperate? He turned back to her.

  She removed one hand from the pocket of her duster and tossed something to him. It rotated in the air, glittering like a small star and throwing off rainbows. He caught it with both hands. It was a crystal pyramid.

  “Ask her what it’s for,” said Dominique.

  He studied her. Her face was deadpan, completely devoid of expression. Even the confidence was gone–utterly unreadable. Was this who she really was?

  “They have lots of uses,” he said. “You know that as well as I do.”

  “They can be used for a summoning,” she said, nodding at it.

  “You’re grasping,” he scoffed.

  As though she were enunciating a foreign language, Dominique said the words slowly, staring into his eyes.
“Elizabeth Lawson.”

  SK had never heard Livvy’s mother’s name so he wouldn’t have any idea if that was it, but it was too easy to verify. Why would Dominique lie about it? Even so, knowing her mother’s name proved nothing.

  “They bear a striking resemblance,” she said, her voice flat. “Especially when they talk together.”

  Unbidden, the meeting with Mamacita flashed into his mind, the books Livvy had been stockpiling but that he never saw, her resistance to having Min in the Multiverse. His eyes narrowed and his throat tightened.

  “You see it now,” Dominique said. She paused, watching him. “This wasn’t a waste after all.”

  There was a dull stabbing pain in the pit of his stomach. With an effort, he slowly turned away from her as a strange tunnel vision took over.

  “Your lightning shaman has summoned the dead, Water Baby. Summoned them right under your nose.”

  He took a step forward and then another, forcing himself to move. He was almost at the sidewalk when Dominique called out to him. “How’s that for partnership?”

  CHAPTER FORTY

  IN MOMENTS, THE blackness of sleep turned into the harsh white landscape of the Underworld. The city was gone.

  “Livvy, there’s blood on your sleeve,” her mother said, concern in her voice.

  Livvy whirled to face her, anxious to see her mom but also afraid of what she might see. Like the last time, though–had that been a dream or the Multiverse, she couldn’t remember–her mother was looking fine.

  “Mom,” Livvy sighed in relief.

  “Livvy, you’re covered in blood,” her mom said, looking down. “Tell me this isn’t yours.”

  Livvy looked down and remembered she hadn’t changed. She, Min, and SK had arrived at her condo but she had collapsed on the couch, not even making it to the bedroom, let alone changing. This is what she’d been wearing when Claire had died.

  “Are you all right?” her mom asked.

  “I’m fine,” Livvy said, looking up. “It was a nosebleed.”

  Her mother frowned. “Nosebleed? That’s an awful lot of blood for a nosebleed.”

  “Yeah, it was a bad nosebleed,” Livvy said. She glanced around them. “Mom, what’s going on? Where’s the city?”

  Normally the Underworld only appeared in its true form when shamans were networked together. She wasn’t networked with anybody–was she?

  Her mother glanced around and then behind Livvy. “I don’t know but, more to the point, where’s the fountain?”

  Livvy spun around. In every direction the rolling landscape spread out, blank and empty. The fountain was gone.

  “Wait. How is that possible?” Livvy asked. “How could I have gotten here?”

  “You’re crossing over without the goggles,” her mother answered, as though it were obvious.

  Livvy continued to stare at the barrenness of the Underworld. At the horizon, she realized the sky was black and jerked her gaze up. It was pitch black above, no clouds, no stars, no light. The only light in the Underworld seemed to come from beneath their feet, the glow of the milky ground.

  Why was that so disquieting?

  “Apparently you don’t need the city either,” her mom continued. “That’s probably why it’s not here anymore.”

  “I’m not controlling this,” Livvy said. “I didn’t even mean to be here.”

  “You didn’t?” said her mother, surprised. “Then you should take a care, young lady.”

  Livvy turned to her, fear starting to rise. “Why?”

  Shamans dance on the edge as it is,” she said. “It’s all too easy to cross over and never make it completely back.”

  “Not make it back?” she said, anxiety beginning to overtake the fear.

  “You use the goggles to get to the Multiverse and you use the fountain and black lake to travel between the Middleworld and Underworld. If there’s no way back, there’s no way in. Not even another shaman could help you. You’d be here.” Her mother pondered it. “Kind of like me I guess.”

  “But if I’m here, what happens to…”

  Where was her body now? Was she still on the couch?

  “Your body?” her mom asked. She shook her head. “You become a vegetable. If you’re lucky, that is.”

  Livvy knew her face must have been asking the question she couldn’t make herself speak out loud.

  “If you’re unlucky,” her mother shrugged. “It’s a padded white room.”

  Livvy stared at her for several moments before she could find her voice. “Mom, I’m scared.”

  Her mother gave her a half-smile, half-frown, and reached out. “I know,” she said, pulling Livvy closer. “And you should be,” she whispered in her ear.

  Livvy stiffened but her mother held her tight.

  “So, wake up,” her mother said.

  “I can’t,” said Livvy, trying to push her away.

  “Yes, you can,” said her mother, gripping her harder. “Wake up, Livvy.”

  “No, Mom, I don’t know how,” she pleaded.

  “Wake up, Livvy!”

  • • • • •

  Without warning, Livvy felt a sharp stinging pain on the side of her face.

  “Wake up!” she heard Min yell.

  Livvy’s eyes flew open to see Min, her hand pulled back to slap her again. Min stopped herself just in time.

  Livvy grabbed at Min’s arms as though they were her mother’s. “Where am I?” she yelled.

  “In your condo,” Min said. “You’re in your condo.”

  Livvy looked around, her eyes scanning every which way. Yes, it was the condo.

  “Livvy, you’re shaking,” said Min.

  “Is this the real world or the Multiverse?”

  “What?” said Min.

  “Is this the real world–”

  “It’s the real world, Livvy,” Min said. “It’s the real world. Can’t you tell?”

  Livvy took in a shaky breath.

  “I guess if you could tell, you wouldn’t have asked.”

  Livvy slowly let go of Min. She looked around the condo again. Yes, the real world. Thank the gods.

  Min sat down in one of the chairs. “You didn’t move all night or this morning,” she said. “Until you started screaming.”

  Min rubbed her eyes. Livvy realized that they were both wearing the same clothes they’d been wearing yesterday.

  “Min,” said Livvy, shifting stiffly on the couch to sit forward. “Were you here all night?”

  “Yeah,” she said nodding. “We didn’t think it’d be a good idea to leave you alone.”

  Livvy realized that SK was gone. Then she remembered what Min had seen. “Min, you didn’t tell SK–”

  “No,” she said quickly. “But remember what I said.”

  Livvy nodded. She did remember and she knew Min was right. She’d have to tell SK.

  “I’m going to get some tea and waffles on,” said Min, getting up. “You need to get showered and changed.”

  It sounded like business as usual but it couldn’t be.

  “Why?” asked Livvy.

  “Because Ursula’s on her way.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  TRY AS SHE might, Livvy couldn’t remember if she’d said anything to Matthew.

  With the headache and the nosebleed and the shock of Claire’s death, she wasn’t sure what had happened.

  While she’d been in the shower trying to rinse away the last bits of dried blood, Livvy couldn’t help but think of Claire. What Matthew must be going through right now. What he must think of her.

  When she came into the kitchen and sat down with Min, she brought out her phone. Min had already laid out their plates, tea, and the syrups.

  “I’m going to call Matthew,” Livvy said.

  Min quickly reached out a hand and put it on top of Livvy’s. A small spark popped.

  “I don’t think you should do that,” she said.

  “Why not?”

  “Well, he’s already called,” said
Min, sitting back and picking up her fork. “Well, not him exactly.” She looked at Livvy. “His lawyer.”

  “Oh,” Livvy whispered and looked at the phone.

  “Eat,” said Min. “It’s your favorite.”

  “What did the lawyer say?”

  Min picked up a syrup bottle and squirted some syrup on her waffles and then Livvy’s. “Something about a wrongful death,” Min said. She put down the first syrup bottle then picked up the second.

  “Oh gods,” said Livvy.

  Min squirted out liberal doses of syrup for them both. “SK is going to handle it,” Min said, putting down the second syrup.

  “Is that what it was,” asked Livvy, not able to look Min in the face. “A wrongful death?” She could hardly believe she was saying the words.

  “No,” said Min, picking up Livvy’s fork and holding it out to her.

  Livvy took the fork.

  “No, it wasn’t a wrongful death. It was murder,” said Min.

  Shocked, Livvy froze.

  “And it wasn’t your fault,” she said, pointing with her own fork. “It was Dominique’s. And those shameful shamans with her.” She paused, remembering. “We did everything we could. Hopefully, in time Matthew will understand that.”

  Min nodded to herself as though that’s exactly what would happen, but Livvy wasn’t so sure.

  “And what is up with all the black?” Min said, picking up a knife. “Someone needs to help that girl with her wardrobe. I mean, even if she’s all bad and scary–solid black? Seriously? And those boots.”

  She noticed that Livvy wasn’t eating. “Eat,” said Min again. “It’s not every day I do this.” She gazed down at her own plate with some disgust. A round waffle with two colors of syrup swam in the middle of it. “Seriously, Livvy, the things I do for you.” Then she smiled that playful little smile and, for a moment, Livvy felt a tiny bit of weight lift from her shoulders.

  “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Minnie Mouse.”