He turned back to the village and paused. Long, black shadows spread among the homes, their walls awash in the darkening ruddy glow. He looked toward his own home, though he couldn’t see it from here. Emma’s aunt was no doubt tucking her into bed. Neither of them had managed to get her to eat supper–yet again. Her coughing fits today had been almost non-stop. The two-heart was ramping up–he could feel it. He scowled and surveyed the village, noting a couple houses in particular. Then he looked in the direction of the cultural center. He knew what needed to be done.
Marvin scanned the sky overhead. The brightest of the stars had already appeared and there were no clouds. It was going to be a chilly night. Soon he’d smoke with the Soyal Chief and the Crier Chief and in the morning, the announcement would be made. But he wouldn’t be there to hear it.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
THE BLUE CORN pancakes were amazing. Livvy was shocked. Normally pancakes only existed so they could swim in syrup. The waitress had looked dumbfounded when, with pancakes already floating in a pool of the sweet liquid, Livvy asked if they had any other types. It seemed obvious that if pancakes with syrup were good, then pancakes with two kinds of syrup were twice as good. Then it was Livvy’s turn to be surprised when the only other type of syrup was sugar free.
She’d woken up starving. Although she was still tired, stiff from not moving, and a bit dehydrated, she needed to eat.
Livvy shook her head as she took another bite. These pancakes might even be great without the syrup. And the color.
SK has to see this.
She reached for her phone–and then remembered. She didn’t have it. It had to be at Coco’s. That’d be the first place she went today because SK had to hear about the second vision quest. Even now she could hardly believe it–a second spirit helper.
Her fork paused in midair as she remembered the only other time she’d seen two–the Nahual, the shaman from Central America who she’d encountered in L.A. Livvy and the rest of her networked team had simply taken it as a given. The Nahual was a member of a group that most people believed was just a legend–a community of shamans who had escaped the onslaught of the Spanish conquistadors by hiding deep in the Peten jungle. Her arrival had been a shock. Her disappearance, less so. Now Livvy wondered if there was any way to find her.
Her eyes came back into focus on the brilliant blue edge of the sliced pancake stack. Yes, she had to get her phone from Coco, talk to SK.
And the tablet!
She set the fork down. It was so obvious now. Tawa had led her to the tablet because it had something to do with a lightning shaman and a dwarf. They were even holding hands. It had to be the reason she had come here. And yet, it wasn’t really hers. She looked at her lap and bit her lower lip. It belonged to the Hopi. Dale and Celestino were both right. It was theirs.
Then why had Tawa shown it to her? She frowned. Tawa always had an agenda. Whatever his reasons, Livvy could be sure it wasn’t strictly for her benefit.
I have the tablet now. What if this is a chance for SK and I to be together? What if I just took it?
She glanced around as though she might have said it out loud.
Several eyes and a few heads turned away. Used to the stares, she picked up her tea and took a sip. Except now she realized not everyone had turned away. The cashier at the front was actually pointing at her and an older man standing with her was now approaching.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
DALE AND LEON skirted the plaza where a handful of people had already gathered.
“I heard there was a smoke last night,” Dale said.
Leon had seemed a little down since they’d left Olivia’s room. In fact, he’d hardly said a word or eaten, neither of which was like him.
“You know what they say about smoke,” Leon said, looking at the ground. “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”
Dale frowned and looked at him.
Even Leon seemed a little surprised at what he’d said but then he shrugged.
Was he trying to imply something? It was so hard to tell with him. The clowning was non-stop but Dale knew it wasn’t an act. It was who he was.
They continued around the edge of the plaza, Leon still looking at the ground, but Dale surveyed the onlookers. There had obviously been a smoke assembly of the Soyal chiefs. It didn’t take a Sun-watcher to know that it was getting close to winter solstice. The Crier Chief would make his announcement this morning.
Dale quickened his pace. To most people it’d mean the Soyal festival was about to begin. But Dale knew that, to some people, it would mean a great deal more than that.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
BY THE TIME he reached her booth, Livvy recognized him–the kachina carver she’d met the first day. He glanced around the restaurant.
“I’m sorry to bother you but would you mind if I sit down?”
Marvin held his baseball cap with both hands in front of his stomach. Again, he stole a look around the restaurant and back toward the door.
“Of course,” Livvy said, as she pulled her water and syrup containers out of the way. “Please.”
He picked up her cane, moved it along the bench next to him, and scooted in. Whether it was from the vision quest or hiking after Tawa, Livvy didn’t know, but her hip had been aching since she’d got up. Coco had said it would sometimes be like this.
Marvin opened his mouth to speak but stopped when he saw her plate–swollen bits of blue pancake were floating in syrup. Livvy pushed it to the side. The waitress came over and put a glass of water in front of him.
“Marvin, can I get you something?” she said, picking up Livvy’s plate.
“No, Janey. Thanks,” he said quietly. “I won’t be staying.”
Janey checked the little metal pot for Livvy’s tea, then patted Marvin on the shoulder as she left.
The man was nervous, worried about something. So much so, it set Livvy on edge. She folded her hands around the warm mug on the table and waited.
“I need your help,” he said finally. “I need a shaman.”
Livvy blinked and sat up straight, taking her hands off the table and into her lap. “I couldn’t,” she whispered.
“I can pay,” he said quickly. “Whatever it is, I can pay.”
“No, no,” she said, her voice too loud. “I mean,” she said, more quietly, “it’s not about money.”
It was about being on someone else’s turf, in an Underworld she didn’t understand. It was about shamans she seemed to be pissing off without even trying. It was Tawa and the tablets and–Livvy now realized–it was about being in over your head. She hadn’t even realized how serious Celestino’s attack had been until it was almost too late.
“Please,” he whispered. “You’re the only one that can help.”
Livvy ignored the issue of how he knew she was a shaman since everyone here seemed to know everything. “But why me?” she asked, also whispering. “I’ve already met other shamans here.”
He laid both hands flat on the table. They were dark and leathery. This was a man who had worked with his hands his entire life and probably not just carving kachinas.
“I can’t trust the ones here,” he insisted, the words escaping in a near hiss. “Someone is making her sick.”
Livvy shook her head but leaned forward. “I don’t understand,” she said. “Who’s making who–”
He checked the room and leaned forward, their faces close now. “The two-heart,” he whispered. “They’re making Emma sick.”
“Emma?” Livvy said, in a normal voice.
Marvin waved his hand for her to keep it down.
Emma was that adorable little girl, his granddaughter. Then she remembered her deep cough.
“How does Emma have two hearts?” Livvy said, trying to puzzle it out.
Was he talking about a valve or something artificial? That wouldn’t be something a shaman could help with. A congenital defect? Livvy had left medical school not that long ago but strides were being made consta
ntly. Surely there was something that could be done.
“Not so loud!” he whispered, almost panicked.
Livvy didn’t say anything. None of this was making any sense.
He reached for the glass of water but nearly knocked it over in the process, catching it at the last second. He took a couple of gulps and set it down. Livvy watched as he mentally reset.
“Start from the beginning,” she said, quietly. “Pretend I have no idea what you’re talking about. In fact, don’t pretend.”
She gave him an encouraging smile. He did his best to smile back but it wasn’t in him. He took a deep breath.
“Emma started getting sick a few months ago,” he said quietly. “It was on and off.”
He stared at his glass of water, both hands on it.
“Doctors can’t find anything wrong with her,” he said, not bothering to hide his anger. “Tests and tests and more tests. She’s not a pin cushion!”
Livvy sighed. Modern medicine wasn’t a miracle. More often than was commonly known, people still died from diseases that were baffling. Some of those cases fell into the realm of shamanism, trouble in the spiritual realm, but not all.
“Anyway,” he said, then glanced around. “That’s when I started to think it’d be a sorcerer.”
A dark shaman. Someone who used their Multiverse ability to make someone sick instead of heal them. Sometimes they were motivated by revenge, sometimes by money. It happened. In fact, Livvy had learned the hard way that dark shamans could affect their work quite well.
But Emma wouldn’t have enemies and her grandfather appeared willing to do anything to make her better.
“A sorcerer,” said Livvy, matching his quiet tone. “Working against Emma? But she’s so young.”
Marvin nodded and drew his lips into a tight line. “Exactly,” he whispered. “That’s why I think it’s a two-heart.”
He searched her face, waiting for a reaction of some sort. Livvy sensed that ‘two-heart’ was the important part but was completely at a loss.
“Okay, Marvin, you’re going to have to tell me exactly what that is.”
He frowned a bit and glanced around the restaurant again.
“But I thought you were a shaman. That’s what everybody said.”
“Well, I don’t know who everybody is and how they know but I am a techno-shaman. Even so, I’ve never heard of this two-heart thing.”
He mulled that over.
“Hmm. Well, even here there’s not many people who believe in it anymore, let alone experienced it.”
“Experienced what, exactly?”
Marvin leaned forward again. “A two-heart is a sorcerer,” he whispered. “A sorcerer here is trying to take Emma’s heart for his own.”
“What? But why? Why hurt Emma?”
“It’s not about Emma. It’s the two-heart. Once he has her heart, he adds it to his own, he lives longer–four years longer. He steals her entire life just so he can live another four years.”
By all the gods, thought Livvy, is that possible? But the despair in Marvin’s voice made it sound like it had already happened.
“It’s been hard,” he said. “I don’t know who the father is and my daughter’s in Afghanistan.” Livvy cocked her head a little. “In the army,” he continued. “It’s up to me to keep Emma safe. That’s why I can’t trust the shamans here.”
“Because only they would know how to take her heart,” Livvy concluded.
“No,” said Marvin, as though she’d missed the point of the whole discussion. “Not just ‘cause of that. The shaman has to be a relative, someone related by blood. Only the heart of a person in their own family gives the sorcerer extra life.”
“But,” Livvy stammered. “But that’s horrific.”
“Yeah,” Marvin said, grimacing. “You got that right.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
LEON THUMPED THE door again. He and Dale waited but there was no answer.
“Maybe she’s still sleeping,” Leon said.
“Then we’ll wake her up.”
A heavy thud came from inside the room and they looked at each other. They both knocked on the door.
“Olivia!” called Dale. “It’s Dale and Leon.”
There was the sound of thrashing inside and then something hit the door. Even as they jumped back, the door flew open as someone in jeans and a grey hoodie came running out.
Dale took the brunt of the blow in his chest with a giant “oof” as he tumbled backwards. Someone wearing a black handkerchief tied over their face ran by as Leon made an off-balance grab for him. Dale heard fabric rip as he sailed backward and landed on the concrete.
“Dale!” Leon cried.
Dale hurried to get up and found Leon pulling him to his feet.
“Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine,” he yelled. “But don’t let that guy get away!”
Leon started to take off.
“But wait, what about Olivia?” Dale yelled.
Leon stopped, confused, as Dale hurried through the open door.
“Olivia!”
It was a mess. Stuff was strewn everywhere, but Olivia wasn’t there. Although he could see into it, Dale checked the bathroom just to make sure. Then he wheeled around and surveyed the room again. Leon was at the door, gazing at the disaster.
The contents of Olivia’s suitcase had been dumped on the floor, the bed torn apart and bedding thrown everywhere. The drawers in both nightstands were pulled out and the chair had been turned over. They’d been looking for something.
Dale looked at Leon.
“The tablet,” they said in unison.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
EMMA’S AUNT HAD been babysitting while Marvin was away but quickly made her excuses and disappeared into the kitchen.
“Don’t mind her,” said Marvin. “We’re all a bit on edge.”
Livvy didn’t mind. In fact, if anything, it felt familiar. Before her notoriety as the lightning shaman had made her a media darling in L.A., this was typical of how she had worked–for people who both feared and needed her power. At least the woman hadn’t warded her off with the evil eye. Though it might have been better if she did, Livvy thought. She couldn’t shake the feeling that this was unknown territory, in the real world and the Multiverse. But this wasn’t about her, it was about Emma–and a sorcerer in her own family trying to take her life. How could she possibly say no?
“This way,” said Marvin, as he led Livvy down the hall. “She can’t keep anything in her stomach and now she doesn’t want to eat.”
They reached the end and Marvin paused at the open door on the left.
“It gets harder and harder to wake her up,” he whispered.
Emma was sleeping? How anybody could sleep through the backfiring of Marvin’s clunker, Livvy didn’t know. If she had known how bad it was going to be, she would have insisted on her car, but the small detonations hadn’t started right away. Even now her ears were ringing slightly.
Marvin walked softly and Livvy followed suit as they entered the room. Jo Jo lay curled up on the floor in the corner but picked up his head to watch them.
This was definitely the room of a little girl. Almost everything was pink. The closet door was open and little outfits hung neatly from the hangers. Her dresser was white with gold painted trim. Her shoes were lined up in the bottom of the closet, most of them pink. And there was the jacket Livvy had seen her wearing the other day, draped over the back of a miniature chair that was parked precisely in front of a small desk where large wooden letters spelled ‘Emma’. All her kachina dolls and play dolls were lined up on a shelf, but rather than be impressed by how neat and organized everything was, Livvy felt a sudden pang of dread. This little girl hadn’t been playing with any of these things.
As Marvin stood aside, Livvy gazed at Emma, marveling again at the immaculate bangs and the cherubic look of her cheeks. Her eyes remained closed as Livvy discharged a spark on the princess quilt, carefully lif
ted it from her chest, and bent down to listen. Her heart beat strongly and her breathing was even. For all the world, she seemed as though she were only asleep.
Gently, she put the back of her hand to Emma’s forehead. She wasn’t running a temperature. Slowly, Livvy brought her hand close to Emma’s face.
“What are you doing?” asked Marvin lowly, tension in his voice.
Livvy held up her other hand to him to keep him quiet. Then, with the lightest touch, she ran the tip of her index finger along Emma’s eyelashes.
Her eyes moved ever so slightly, and there was a tiny and brief squint.
Livvy stood up and turned to Marvin.
“When someone is unconscious,” Livvy whispered, “there’s generally not a reaction to touching the eyelashes. I wanted to make sure she was just asleep without actually waking her up.”
Marvin nodded and then tucked the comforter back up around Emma’s shoulders.
“Okay,” said Livvy, taking off her messenger bag. “Now’s a good time.”
As Marvin watched, she went from wall to wall in the bedroom, looking at the electrical outlets. If Emma were too close to them, or between them, she might become a conduit. Livvy unplugged the lamps and a clock. Then she unrolled her yoga mat on the floor next to Emma’s bed. Livvy didn’t know how shamans in the world of the Hopi worked or if Marvin had ever seen a techno-shaman.
“I’m going to look like I’m asleep,” Livvy said, putting her small sage and wheat pillow down and taking a seat. “But I’ll be in the Multiverse, I mean the Underworld.”
She took the goggles from the bag and turned them on. “I’ll be using these to make the transition and it’s not going to take long.”
Olivia Lawson Techno-Shaman Books 1 -3 Page 67
