“Okay,” SK said, letting her hands go and holding up his. “Stop. Just stop for a second.” He shook his head, put his hands on his hips, and stared down at the space on the floor between their feet. “Gods,” he muttered.
It was a lot to take in. Livvy knew that.
“Is that it?” he asked, still staring at the ground, but his voice was tight and controlled.
She reached out to take his hand, but he shook off her grasp. He fixed her with a glare. She blinked at him, stunned.
“Are…are you angry?” she asked.
“Nah,” he said. “Why would I be angry?”
If humor was sometimes a stretch for her, sarcasm was something she had never understood.
“Wait,” she said. “Are you being serious? Are you angry?”
“Gods, Liv,” he said. “You’ve known for how long? And you’re just now telling me?”
“Well, it–”
“What?”
Of all the reactions Livvy had imagined, this had not been one of them. She’d just described her own death, confided something no one else knew. She didn’t even know if it was supposed to be some sort of lightning shaman secret. And he was angry? She sat back on the couch.
“Oh no you don’t,” he said. He snatched her hand with a bright, painful spark and pulled her forward. Her back never hit the cushion. “You don’t just tell me something like that and expect me not to get upset.” He shook his head. “You have to know me better than that.” He paused, glanced down at their hands, and shook his head. “It’ll never happen,” he declared. “I won’t let it.”
She scowled and cocked her head at him. “Do you think my mother let it happen?”
“Look,” he said. “It’s years away. Maybe Min’s daughter won’t even be a shaman. We don’t know for sure.”
“I think I do,” she said hotly. “It was just what my mother–”
“Dammit, Liv!” he yelled. “I won’t have it. I just won’t.”
“What do you want me to say?” she yelled back.
The look on his face was as shocked as she felt. For several moments they could only stare at each other in shocked silence. But then his eyes drifted down to her lips and, before she could react, he kissed her–hard. His hand flew to the nape of her neck, and her fingers wound into his hair. He tilted his head one way, then the other, and she could hardly keep up. It was crazy. It was reckless–and exactly what she needed. But as the hot press of his lips demanded more, the eerie silence fell on them. Like a sudden deafness, all sound vanished. The desperate yearning he had unlocked only spiraled higher. In another moment, the rapid reversal of energy would create an explosion. She could already feel the drain, but she didn’t care.
Let it shatter every window in the building.
But apparently SK did care because he shoved her back. Their mouths came apart with a small, smacking sound. The light in the room dimmed. Her skin prickled under the energy that surrounded them and then it vanished. Sound returned. Her vision returned, and she realized her chest was heaving. SK’s hands were at her shoulders, propping her up.
“I shouldn’t have done that,” he breathed.
She shook her head “You shouldn’t,” she said between gulping breaths, “have stopped.”
“Unfortunately,” he said, “that doesn’t end well.”
“It turns out nothing does,” she said, before she realized what she was saying.
Though his eyebrows quickly furrowed, he made no reply. The pessimism wasn’t like her and she instantly regretted it. As SK released her, he briefly caressed the side of her face. A sad smile flitted across his lips and disappeared. “I think I’d better go,” he said.
• • • • •
SK closed the door to his condo. But rather than turn on the lights and step into the living room, he simply put his back to the door and slid down. He sat hard on the tile.
“Liv,” he said into the darkness.
It was a death sentence.
He’d been angry and that had been wrong but…
“Gods dammit,” he muttered and banged the back of his head on the door. It wasn’t fair. He banged his head again and closed his eyes. It’d taken every bit of willpower he’d possessed not to come unglued in front of her, to hold it in. He’d only screamed when he got to the car. He’d beat the steering wheel until his fists hurt.
Gods. How has she lived with it? But he already knew. Until today, she’d been able to deny it would ever happen.
Another scream was building in his chest, but he clenched his jaw. That wasn’t going to help. He got to his feet. There had to be something they could do. He wouldn’t see her die. He just wouldn’t. Or maybe they could leave. When Min’s daughter got old enough to have a vision quest, he and Liv would move.
If that would do any good. He slowly squatted down. Maybe the lightning will follow her. Maybe it won’t matter where she’s living.
“Dammit,” he said and stood again.
Don’t defeat yourself before you’ve even started. He glanced at his bookshelves. When Liv had first told him that lightning was her spirit helper, he’d read everything he could get his hands on. But so much of what being the lightning shaman really entailed had come as a surprise–like the impossibility of their relationship. He’d never read that anywhere.
No. The answer isn’t going to come from books.
He took out his cell phone.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE SMALL AMETHYST heart gleamed on the kitchen table. Sitting in the nook, her head resting heavily in her hand, Livvy slowly turned the stone in place. She’d carried it since Tah-Itzá, when it’d fallen out of SK’s pocket. He’d lain on that pallet in the Sun Pyramid, close to death, and it’d been the worst day of her life. She’d been sitting and staring at it since SK had left, every word of their conversation repeating in her head.
On the kitchen counter behind Livvy, the phone rang and she jumped. A different voice intruded as Min’s cheery tones piped into the kitchen.
“Hi, you’ve reached the voicemail of Olivia Lawson, the Lightning Shaman. We’re not here to take your call right now.”
At first Livvy had to smile, but she abruptly stopped as her stomach sank.
I have to tell Min.
As badly as telling SK had gone, it was going to be worse with Min. Livvy closed her eyes.
Oh gods.
“So please leave your name and number,” Min said, “and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can. Catch you on the flip side!”
There was a long beep and then there was another voice.
“Livvy?” she said. “If you’re there, please pick up.” There was a pause as the woman waited. She sounded vaguely familiar. “Livvy, it’s Margaret Belcourt, Brad’s mom. I’ve left several messages.” The pile of notes was stacked neatly on the table. “We’re at our wits end. It’s Brad. He–”
It sounded like she was crying. Livvy turned around and picked up the receiver. “Margaret?” she said. “It’s Livvy.”
“Livvy? Oh thank goodness! Roger! It’s Livvy!”
Livvy heard another phone pick up. “Livvy,” Roger said, a little out of breath. “Are you back?”
“I am,” Livvy said. “Just this morning and…” She picked up the pile of messages. “I’m sorry I’ve been out of touch.”
“Just thank goodness you’re back,” Margaret said.
“We were thinking of hiring a detective,” Roger said.
A detective?
“You said something about Brad,” Livvy said. “What’s wrong?”
“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Margaret said.
“We can’t get near him,” Roger said.
Can’t get near him?
“I don’t understand,” Livvy said, picturing the three of them at their house in the valley.
“Oh, of course,” Margaret said. “Of course you don’t.”
“Brad moved out,” Roger said, “when he came back from Siberia last April. He’s livin
g downtown with his mentor.”
“The man is using him,” Margaret blurted out. “He’s twisted Brad around his little finger. I’m sure of it. He won’t even return our calls any more.”
“What man?” Livvy said, getting a bad feeling. “What mentor?”
“Valentin Vankeev,” Margaret said, hatred dripping from every syllable.
“He came with Brad from Siberia,” Roger said. “He’s a shaman.”
“Valentin Vankeev,” Livvy said, trying to put the facts together. “He’s a shaman from Siberia?”
“No,” Roger said. “Well, yes.”
Livvy shook her head, confused.
“Yes, Vankeev is a techno-shaman,” Margaret said.
“But I wasn’t talking about him,” Roger said. “I was talking about Brad. Brad’s a shaman.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
MORNING SUNLIGHT STREAMED in through the passenger window. Though Livvy had been relieved when SK had answered the phone this morning, and grateful when he’d sounded like the old SK, she couldn’t help but feel reassured at the way he was dressed. Whether they were both trying to look professional or if it was some subconscious way to regroup, she didn’t care. It felt good.
He was dressed in a black suit, royal blue shirt, and solid matching tie. She was wearing the long, silver jacket, white leggings, and knee-high boots. It was like the old days, except for Min. Neither of them had mentioned her. Nor had there been any talk of lightning shamans, past, present, or future.
But as downtown approached, déjà vu took over. Margaret had given Livvy Brad’s address, but neither she nor SK needed it. This was her old neighborhood and the address was her old building. But even blocks away, it was clear the area had changed. For one, it had a new name.
“Little Odessa,” SK read as they came up Wilshire Boulevard.
“Oh, wow,” Livvy muttered as they slowed behind a line of cars. Despite what Mayet had told SK, the sight of it came as a shock.
“Guess the police don’t cruise here much,” SK said.
There was a working girl on every corner. In their shiny, ultra-short skirts, clear high-heeled shoes, and tiny purses, there could be no doubt. There were also drug deals happening out of the trunks of several vehicles.
“The neighborhood isn’t what it used to be,” SK muttered.
It had never been great, but poor hadn’t meant crime-infested.
“Even for L.A., it seems to have changed awfully fast,” Livvy said.
It’d only been a couple of years since she’d been here, but Livvy didn’t recognize the place. The Spanish signs on the storefronts had been replaced with the Cyrillic alphabet of Russian. As they rounded the last corner onto her old street, SK pulled over to the curb and parked. Further down, parallel parking had been replaced by diagonal, metered parking. The block was nearly full. He turned off the engine, and they both leaned forward to look up through the windshield.
“The Russian-American Institute of the Healing Arts,” Livvy read from the flashing neon sign that topped the roof. Gaudy would have been too kind a word. As they got out and SK locked the doors, they both had to stare.
Next to the sign stood an enormous, round badge, easily fifty feet tall. It was as though an Olympic gold medal had been enlarged and propped up for display. In the center, carved in high relief, were the profile faces of a young couple, smiling beatifically into the distance. The blocky lettering that circumscribed them was more Cyrillic, which Livvy didn’t read.
“Welcome home,” SK said.
“I don’t believe this,” Livvy said.
She and SK walked past a low brick wall topped with a high wrought iron fence that was tipped with fleur-de-lis. It seemed to surround the entire block. Apparently, the Russian-American Institute of the Healing Arts not only owned her old building but also the ones to either side.
A wave of vertigo stopped Livvy in her tracks. The world tilted and then spun, as though she were doing pirouettes. Blazing yellow filaments swirled around her.
“SK?” she said, gripping his jacket at the shoulder.
He held her around the waist as she leaned on him. She’d left the cane in the car.
“Liv, what’s wrong?”
Though she wanted to close her eyes against the spinning world, she kept them open.
“This is what I saw on the plane,” she said. “It’s like some sort of grid or web.”
“Where is it?”
“All around us. Bright yellow lines.”
She struggled to stay upright, but lurched forward.
“Hold on,” SK said, steering them toward the fence.
The world swerved left, and Livvy tried to stop it by turning right. Luckily, that was the same direction SK was headed. Together, they stumbled to the fence as a wave of nausea swept over her. No sooner had they reached it though, than the bright lines winked out and the vertigo vanished.
“It’s gone,” she breathed. And not a moment too soon.
“Okay,” SK said. “Good. But let’s just wait here a second.” He maneuvered her closer to the low wall. “Sit.”
She did as she was told, her back against the fence, still clinging to SK. One breath after another, she waited for the dizziness to return. People came and went from the many parked cars, and though no one approached them, Livvy realized they were drawing looks. More than that, no one else seemed to have a problem with balance. Back the way they’d come, the sidewalk and the street looked normal.
“It was like the airplane,” she said, “but brighter. More intense.”
“A grid of yellow lines,” he said. He looked up to the sky and all around them. “From the Multiverse?”
Livvy nodded. “I’m sure of it. It just had that…look.”
But why here?
As though they’d both had the same thought, she and SK looked up at the flashing sign.
With SK’s help, Livvy managed to stand. She took a tentative first step and then another. Everything seemed normal. As they drew closer to the arched gateway, they joined a growing stream of visitors. The Institute was a busy place. They made their way onto the wide walkway that led up the front steps to a central, revolving door. Livvy had her first glimpse of the logo over the top of it. Another gold emblem, this one was a double-headed eagle. On its chest was a metallic, red cross with a blazing, neon lightning bolt through the middle of it.
“Wow,” Livvy muttered as they passed beneath it.
If the exterior was strange, the interior had changed completely. The cramped and dark apartment lobby with its wall of half-broken mailboxes had given way to something bright and expansive. To the left was a reading area with throw rugs, comfy-looking leather couches, and racks of books. At the back was a receptionist in front of the double elevators. To the right was the gift shop. Even through the display windows crammed full of crystals, candles, and small statues, Livvy could see the store extended to the far end of the building. It was enormous, and yet it was packed. No wonder Mamacita couldn’t compete.
As amazing as it was, Livvy found her eyes drawn back to the walls behind the reading area and the receptionist. Enormous murals covered them–luminous paintings of a fantasy landscape. Snow-capped peaks ringed a deeply blue lake and in the sky above hovered a vibrant, multi-colored sun. The paintings that Ursula was selling flashed into Livvy’s mind. They had the same look and feel.
As they crossed the lobby, Livvy was aware that stares were following them. Hushed whispers filled the room and people were pointing from inside the shop. By the time she and SK reached the receptionist, the lobby had become quiet. The pretty, young woman smiled pleasantly at them.
“I’m here to see Brad Belcourt,” Livvy said in a voice that seemed too loud. “Could you tell him it’s Olivia Lawson?”
• • • • •
“That’s her,” Sidirov said, standing behind the guard. He’d recognized her immediately. It wasn’t hard. “Hmph,” he grumbled as he crossed his thick arms over his even thicker belly. The recept
ionist would need some training.
As he watched them enter the elevator, Sidirov felt his blood boil. There was a saying in the old country: Seat the pig at the table and they’ll put their legs on it too.
He and the guard waited and watched the bank of monitors. It spanned the entire wall. There wasn’t a corridor, stall, or massage table that wasn’t covered. There was someone at the VIP entrance, but the private game rooms were empty.
“There they are,” said the guard.
They were getting off at the third floor. Though Sidirov had suspected, now he knew.
“The old place,” he grumbled.
His nostrils flared, his teeth ground on each other, and he broke out in a steamy sweat. The putrid smell of burned human flesh had never left him. Even now, he couldn’t eat bacon. Tenants had quickly moved away. The fire, the weird people, the police attention–it had nearly driven his apartment building into the ground.
He glared at the Lightning Shaman and her intercessor as they walked down the corridor.
By the time the white-haired wench had become famous, she’d long since moved away. The building had nearly been empty. That’s when he’d renamed it: the Russian-American Institute of the Healing Arts. He’d been careful to keep the word shaman out of it, in case she was the suing type. But the visitors had started immediately. They’d come looking for where the Lightning Shaman had lived. For a long time he’d simply cordoned off her old unit and sold tickets. Most of the shaman seekers were young shamans themselves, a few who’d come from Siberia, and all of whom needed work. He’d been able to get work for them, in exchange for a fee, of course. The next steps had been easy.
He watched the witch and the dwarf stop in front of her old place. He didn’t need to see any more.
“Let me know when they leave.”
• • • • •
“Livvy!” Brad exclaimed. It was like a dream come true.
Shaman, Lover, Warrior: An Urban Fantasy Thriller (Olivia Lawson Techno-Shaman Book 5) Page 5
