“I’m sure he’s right,” Liv said, her voice a raspy whisper. “He always is.” He heard her swallow. “But this has to stop.”
“Mmm hmm,” Mamacita intoned, eyeing the two of them, hands on plump hips. “All right,” she said. “Then let’s put a stop to this nonsense right now.”
“Good,” Liv said. “The sooner, the better.”
SK gritted his teeth but stood silently. There was no point in waiting for the potion to wear off. They all knew that. It was a shaman’s doing. It could only be counteracted.
“It has to come from your hand,” Mamacita said. “You’re the one who–”
“Right,” Liv said, cutting her off. “I…know.” She stepped in front of the table and looked into the mortar. SK kept his distance behind her. “This is it?” Liv asked.
“That’s everything,” Mamacita said, nodding.
Liv picked up the pestle and started mashing the contents. SK couldn’t even see them from his angle, but it didn’t seem to be much. After only a minute, Liv was stirring with the pestle and then pushing the mixture to the bottom.
“That’ll do just fine,” said Mamacita. She picked up an eyedropper from the table that SK hadn’t seen.
“You don’t have to boil it?” Liv asked.
“Oh heavens, no,” Mamacita said, taking some liquid in the dropper. “What made you think such a thing?”
“B…Brad,” Liv said, tripping over his name, “made tea.”
“Oh, you could do it in tea,” Mamacita said holding up the dropper, “but that would ruin some of the essential compounds. No,” Mamacita continued, shaking her head, “contact with the skin is much better. More direct. A higher concentration.”
Liv’s hand went to her chest. Though SK couldn’t see, he knew what she was holding.
“The pendant,” she whispered. She started to look down at it but stopped. “Never mind. Let’s just do this.”
Mamacita’s gaze met his. The dose had been a huge one. It didn’t take a shaman to see it. Though Liv was careful to look at the floor, she turned toward him.
“It has to be,” she said quietly.
Reluctantly, he nodded to Mamacita.
“Hold out your wrist,” she said. Liv did as she was told. “The inner wrist,” Mamacita said. “It goes right on the veins.” Liv flipped her hand over. “It’s absorbed right through the skin,” Mamacita said, touching the glass tip of the eyedropper to Liv’s inner wrist. A small drop of red liquid appeared. “Then it travels to the heart,” Mamacita said, spreading the mixture with a gradually growing spiral motion. They all stared at the translucent, red curve and watched it disappear.
“Livvy,” Mamacita said. “Honey, you might want to–”
Liv gasped. Her hand flew to her chest as she bowed her head. A high whine escaped her, and she gasped again. Mamacita darted forward to support her, and Liv clutched Mamacita’s arm. All SK could do was stand there, useless.
“My chest,” Liv hissed. “The pain.”
He couldn’t see her face, but the horrified look on Mamacita’s was enough.
“Your heart,” Mamacita said. “That’s the pain. The two potions at war.”
“Oh gods,” Liv whined, her voice impossibly high. “It feels like it’s…” She moaned and SK could see her white knuckles against Mamacita’s arm.
“Like it’s being torn in two,” Mamacita said, as much to SK as Liv. “I know.”
“I want this off me,” Liv said, and SK could see that she was holding the pendant, the chain taut.
“Then take it off,” Mamacita urged her. “Go ahead, honey. Do it.”
But as Liv tried to lift it, she cried out and lurched forward. She bumped the table and the pestle tipped, but Mamacita managed to keep them both upright.
The chain of the pendant was tight under Liv’s chin. Her eyes were squeezed shut. She was holding her breath. Suddenly, she let the pendant go. “I can’t,” she breathed as her shoulders drooped, and she leaned on Mamacita. “I can’t,” she whispered.
SK’s heart sank. It hadn’t worked. But to his shock, Liv held out her wrist.
“Again,” she gasped.
Mamacita’s eyes went wide as she stared up into Liv’s face. “Oh, honey,” she said. “No. I don’t think–”
“Do it,” Liv said, louder now. “Do it or I will.” Mamacita glanced at SK. “Don’t look at him!” Liv yelled, and Mamacita blinked. Liv stood up straight, let go of Mamacita, and thrust her wrist out. “Do it,” Liv said, her voice more controlled. “Please.”
SK could have screamed, could have torn something apart, could have grabbed Liv and dragged her out. But instead he stood stock still, frozen, and unable to look away.
Mamacita stared at the dropper in her hand, her mouth frozen open, breathing hard. As though she maneuvered a giant crane, she moved it over Liv’s wrist. But she hesitated. “Livvy–”
Liv grabbed Mamacita’s hand and forced it down. Together they rubbed an erratic circle on Liv’s skin, until Mamacita yanked her hand away and backed up.
Liv staggered sideways as a deep groan was ripped from her. She sank hard to the floor, clinging to the arm of the chair, as Mamacita reached her a fraction of a second too late. But Liv seemed not to have noticed. Instead, leaning against the large chair, she grabbed the pendant, wrapped one hand around the other and lifted. Breathing hard, she inched it higher.
SK held his breath. His hands balled into fists.
Liv raised the pendant, the chain digging into the skin of her jaw, then her cheek. Her arms shook. She gasped for air. Tears streamed from the corner of her eye. What began as a groan spiraled higher.
“Mamacita!” she wailed. “More! Now!”
“No!” SK screamed.
He surged forward between them. With all his might, he shoved Mamacita away. She toppled backward, her mouth gaping open. He spun to face Liv. Her face was a ghastly white. Even though her lungs labored hard, her lips were tinged with blue.
“No more,” he said, stepping back from her. He bumped the table with the mortar. Then he shoved it over. “No more,” he said again.
There was stunned silence in the room. Liv clung to the chair. Mamacita managed to sit up. SK stood next to the fallen mortar, its contents oozing into the carpet. Only the sounds of everyone’s heavy breathing intruded.
SK steeled himself for what had to happen next. It was the hardest thing he’d ever had to do in his life. But after what he’d just seen, he couldn’t flinch from it. “I can’t do this,” he said to Liv.
She blinked at the floor a few times, still trying to catch her breath. “What?” she gasped. She raised her gaze to him, her eyebrows furrowed, breathing through her mouth. “You what?”
“I can’t do this anymore,” he replied evenly. “I won’t.”
“SK, I’m not–”
“No, not you,” he said, talking over her. “Me.” If there was one thing left that he could give her, it was the truth. “You’re not the only one who wants to move on with their life.”
“SK, stop,” Liv said, hand over her heart. “Stop.”
“I wish I could,” SK said. “I’ve done everything humanly possible. I nearly died in Guatemala.”
That brought her up short. “But…” she whispered. “But I love you.” Her green eyes pleaded with him. “And you love me.”
“How exactly do you see that playing out? We’ll just hold hands forever?”
“I don’t know,” Liv breathed, struggling to get to her feet.
“Don’t you deserve better? Don’t I?”
Liv stood, though she was wobbly. “I don’t know!”
“Maybe we’ll work together in the future,” he said, trying to make this easier for them both. “I hope so,” he said truthfully. “It’s not that I don’t want to see you.”
She scowled incredulously. “You’re only saying that. I know you’re just saying that to–”
“No, Liv. By all the gods, no. We aren’t ever going to have a normal relationship, are we?”
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“I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head, but the tears had started.
“You do,” he said quietly. “Please be honest with me.”
“Honesty?” she asked, her voice trembling. “That’s what you want? Fine,” she said, staring into his eyes. “I love you.”
“I do know that,” he said, giving her a little smile. “I know it doesn’t seem like that right now. And I hope you’ll remember that I will always love you.” Then he took a step back. “Which is why I’m going.”
Mamacita gasped.
SK had forgotten she was even in the room. She gaped at him from the floor. Even Pete had been quiet.
Now that it was out there, the decision was simple. He held Liv’s eyes for a moment. All the words seemed to have been said. Now it was time to do the thing that he never thought he would.
He walked to the door, opened it, and stepped through.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
LIVVY’S KNEES BUCKLED as the bottom dropped out. She’d taken a step forward only to find she couldn’t support her own weight. But even as her knees met the carpet, she focused on the door and kept going. She needed to get to it. Chase him down. Because it was clear he wasn’t coming back.
“SK?” she whispered as her palms met the carpet. “SK?” she said louder and started crawling after him.
“Let him go, child,” Mamacita said quietly.
“Let him go,” Pete echoed.
Let him go?
“Help me go after him,” Livvy panted.
Livvy twisted in place to look back at Mamacita. She’d landed on her backside, her legs splayed out in front of her. The eyedropper was long gone. The table and everything on it had been scattered between the three chairs. Though she didn’t say anything, Mamacita shook her head.
A stabbing pain pierced Livvy so suddenly that it was all she could do just to sit. But she couldn’t let SK go. Her heart skipped a beat and she pressed her hand there, only to feel the pendant. Though she couldn’t let SK go, there was someone she did need to be rid of. But she needed help and Mamacita would give it.
“If it’s easier,” Livvy said, “you can drop the drawl.”
Mamacita’s eyebrows went up, but her large, dark eyes shifted side-to-side. “I can what, Livvy, honey?”
Mamacita straightened the reading glass chain around her neck, though she made no attempt to get up. As she moved, she shimmered red and blue. Livvy only tilted her head sideways and sighed. SK had said it. Now was the time for truth. Livvy had seen the truth about Mamacita the moment she and SK had returned.
“I know,” Livvy said simply. “I see.”
“She sees,” Pete squawked.
Mamacita gave him an exasperated look. “And I hear,” she told the bird.
With a limberness and strength that belied her girth, Mamacita rolled a little, got to one knee, and then stood. Livvy wasn’t surprised.
“Well, well, well,” Mamacita said, dusting herself off. “So my Livvy is all grown up.” She chuckled a little under her breath. “I had to wonder when you came to the shop. You didn’t want to hug me.”
“I wasn’t sure I could,” Livvy said.
Livvy had seen the red and blue shimmer immediately. She remembered how grabbing the Nahual ancestor spirit had felt like a slick pressure, as though they were being repelled.
Mamacita’s dark eyes held a twinkle, and her lips curved into a tiny smile.
If Livvy could have stood, she would have. She was barely finding the energy to stay upright, but she noticed that Mamacita’s drawl hadn’t disappeared.
“I can see those gears turning,” Mamacita said, taking a seat. “Let me see now. As to your first question,” she said nodding, “yes, I am an ancestor spirit.” She clasped her fingers over her protruding tummy. “And to your second question, well, let’s just say it’s not polite to ask a lady’s age.”
Livvy nodded and rubbed her chest trying to quiet her breathing.
“And a question of my own,” Mamacita said. “When did you start to see? You know, really see.”
“In Guatemala. In Tah-Itzá. With the Nahual.”
“Mmm hmm,” Mamacita hummed. “Oh yes. A powerful bunch.” She seemed to contemplate it for a few moments. “Oh,” she said. “The drawl? That’s my own. I’ve spent so much time in the southern part of your country that it grew on me. It’s just such a friendly way to put a person…at ease.”
Your country, Livvy thought. Rumors had swirled around Mamacita’s shop for years–for decades. It’d been here as long as anyone could remember. And though Mamacita looked middle-aged, she never really seemed to change.
“I assume SK doesn’t know,” Mamacita said.
Livvy shook her head, the ache in her chest bad enough without saying his name.
“Well, I appreciate that, child. I really do.” She leaned forward and squinted at Livvy. “Now, as to your current predicament. I think you know what needs to be done.”
Livvy nodded and she had no doubt Mamacita could accomplish it. Though Livvy had never seen Mamacita wear a pendant, it was the only thing that made sense. Mamacita wasn’t just an ancestor spirit. She was a shaman.
“How?” Livvy asked. “An ancestor spirit and a shaman. Both?”
Mamacita had been about to get up but paused and smiled at her. “What a strange question,” she said. “I would have thought that was obvious.”
If it was obvious, it had managed to escape Livvy. Her own power in the Multiverse had left her without the ability to have children. Her mother had given up shamanism so she could have kids. But Mamacita was an ancestor spirit and with being an ancestor came descendants. Mamacita must have seen the puzzlement in Livvy’s face.
“Now you’re talking ancient history, child. So long ago. Let’s just say you need to have your kids when you’re young enough. You know. Before your vision quest.”
Before? Most shamans received their calling early in life.
Mamacita laughed lightly. “Oh, you can hardly believe it of old Mamacita! But once I was young and…” There was a faraway look in her eyes. “Well,” Mamacita said, returning. “Let’s just say my name isn’t Mamacita for no reason.”
Mamacita was Mom in Spanish. Or literally–Livvy stared at her–little mother.
“Mmm hmm,” Mamacita intoned. She slapped a hand on her thigh. “Enough about the past. You have a future and a decision.”
• • • • •
Mamacita watched Livvy digest the information and nodded to herself. She had seen Livvy’s potential from the start. And now look at her. She shimmered, blue and red, as true a Lightning Shaman as Mamacita had ever seen.
“A decision?” Livvy asked.
“Whatever that boy did,” Mamacita said, irritated but also a tiny bit impressed, “he made something very strong.”
“I think I knew that.”
Livvy looked tired. Mamacita knew that if Livvy could have jumped up and tackled SK, she’d have done it. But she hadn’t moved from where she’d fallen.
“It’s your heart, child,” Mamacita said. “And I don’t mean figuratively. The potion’s gone deep. If your love for SK wasn’t as deep as it is, that boy would have already won.” Mamacita shook her head. “I’m no cardiologist, but that pain you feel is very real. It’ll be a close thing.”
Again, Livvy seemed to take the information in stride. They both knew she needed a Multiverse cure, and she couldn’t do it by herself. But for her part, Mamacita wasn’t sure she was up to it. It’d been a long time since she’d practiced.
“Mamacita can do it,” Pete squawked.
Leave it to her spirit helper to be the booster section.
“Hush now, Pete,” Mamacita said. “Livvy needs to make up her own mind. It’s very important.”
“Is he having a conversation?” Livvy asked, staring at him.
“Oh goodness, yes,” Mamacita said, standing up. “It’s not until you have a spirit helper who can actually talk that you appreciate the ones who can’t
.”
She left Livvy to give her a moment by herself. Quietly, Mamacita stepped over to a small side table and opened the drawer. Inside was an extra pair of reading glasses and a black leather pouch, drawn closed at the top. She took a deep breath. Carefully, she loosened the old, dry cord and pried the little sack open. She upended it over her palm. A rough, gold chain spilled out and then the black diamond pendant. The last time she’d seen it was when she’d opened the shop. She spread the loop of gold wide enough to fit around her head, draped it around her neck, and felt the familiar weight of it. Though Livvy had yet to give her answer, Mamacita knew what it would be.
• • • • •
“Mamacita?” Livvy said quietly.
“I’m a-comin’,” Mamacita said.
Livvy heard one of the chairs scraping and felt the edge of it push into her back. As she tried to sit up straighter, Mamacita appeared in front of her. In her hand, she held a small glass bowl, its narrowed mouth only a couple inches wide. Mamacita got down on the ground with her, kneeling only inches away.
“One thing,” Livvy said. Mamacita had begun to lift the glass toward Livvy but stopped. “The Stone of Alatyr,” Livvy said. “It’s at the Institute. I think Brad brought it from the Altai. That’s what happened to Little Odessa. That’s the source of their power.”
Mamacita only nodded. “Are you sure?” she said.
“I’ve seen it,” Livvy said.
Mamacita smiled a little and shook her head. “Not that, child,” Mamacita said. “Are you sure about this?” She held up the round glass.
“Oh,” Livvy said, blinking. “Of course, I’m sure.”
Mamacita settled back on her haunches. “Oh no,” she said. “It’s not that easy. Maybe you didn’t understand what I said.”
Livvy took Mamacita by her thick wrist. The connection was slick and electric. Mamacita shifted subtly from red to blue and back again.
“I understand,” Livvy said, looking her in the eye. “The love potion is strong. Breaking it could be lethal. Here’s the thing, though, Mamacita. I…” The chest pain flared and her voice caught for a second before she could continue. “…care for…Brad. I can’t help it. That’s part of what makes me who I am.” She took a deep breath and plunged on. “But I don’t just…love SK.” The pain stabbed behind her breastbone. “He’s not just the Water Baby. No matter what he says. No matter what he thinks.” Livvy squeezed Mamacita’s wrist, and it shook because Livvy did. “He’s my life,” Livvy said as she let Mamacita go. “That’s what I understand.”
Shaman, Lover, Warrior: An Urban Fantasy Thriller (Olivia Lawson Techno-Shaman Book 5) Page 19
