Shaman, Healer, Heretic (Olivia Lawson Techno-Shaman)
Page 31
What had been wrong with the object arrangement in the plaza? Everything was there now. As far as she knew, she wasn’t missing anything.
Suddenly, the clouds stopped streaming. Livvy skidded to a stop, her boots grating and skipping along the pavement. She had almost missed the client.
“Fletcher,” she said.
He sat at a small table on the sidewalk, outside what appeared to be a small café. He might have been waiting for a latte except that he was dressed in pajamas. Of course, the latte would never come no matter how he was dressed or how long he waited. The look of the downtown landscape was just that–a look, a means by which Livvy could navigate the underworld.
As Fletcher raised his gaze, he cocked his head at her.
“Olivia?” he replied, in a thin, dry voice.
Fletcher Mosely was eighty-one years old and in dire health despite a liver transplant. Although it wasn’t typical for an octogenarian to be the recipient of a replacement organ, Fletcher Mosely wasn’t your typical guy. He was a multi-billionaire. When he had learned of the recent motorcycle death of one of his employees, someone who had already agreed to be part of an organ donation program, he immediately contacted the family. The young man was brain dead but his liver was in excellent shape. Although there was nothing to be done for the boy, at least the family was never going to have to worry about money again. Fletcher’s story had raised outcries from other families whose members were waiting their turn for a liver transplant. It had mattered little to him. At this point, only one thing did–survival.
Unfortunately, the new liver wasn’t working as advertised. The operation had gone perfectly, as expected from the top-notch doctors he had hired. His body had accepted the organ with very few complications and was not rejecting it. And yet, the liver was not doing its job and nobody had been able to tell him why–except Livvy.
“Yes, Fletcher,” Livvy said, as she approached and stood next to him. “It’s me and we’re in the multiverse, the spiritual plane. We won’t be staying long because we’re gonna get you healed and get you out of here. How does that sound?”
He smiled much as he did in the real world, without mirth. Mostly, it was a look of satisfaction.
“Most excellent,” he said.
Livvy and SK had both thought Fletcher’s symptoms sounded like a case of bad energy, left over from the body of the donor. That energy needed to be extracted.
“All right,” said Livvy. “I need you to take off your pajama top.”
He smirked as he stood and undid the buttons.
“You’re sure just the top?” he said, eyeing her. “For a good looking girl like you, I’d be glad to–”
“Thanks,” said Livvy, trying to smile pleasantly. “Just the top will be fine.”
“Sure, honey, sure. Never hurts to ask.”
He tossed the pajama top to the chair and Livvy had her first view of the area around his liver. It was bad energy all right and in a big way. The skin there was completely purple, like the worst deep bruise that could be imagined. Apparently seeing something in her face, Fletcher decided to look too.
“Oh my god,” he said, the smug tone gone. “Oh my god.”
In the real world, the bad spiritual energy was undetectable, even to a shaman. This was Livvy’s first time seeing it and Fletcher’s too.
“Turn around for me,” she said.
Without a word, he raised his arms slightly and began to turn his tall but frail frame, shuffling in place. There, on his back, was a matching mark, just like the front but mirrored. The bad energy had gone clean through.
Fletcher craned his neck to see.
“Is it back there too?”
“Yes, it is.”
He turned to face her.
“You can fix it though, right?”
“Yes,” she said simply. “Let’s step out here.”
She took him by the hand and led him to the middle of the street. Already the wind was starting to pick up. The clouds above swirled as lightning arced back and forth, faint thunder tracing its course. He glanced up and then back to her and gripped her hand.
“Okay, Fletcher,” said Livvy, moving around to his side. “I’m going to need you to stand absolutely still. It’s very important.” He turned his head and stared at her. “No matter what you see or hear, you mustn’t move. Can you do that?”
He only nodded.
“I need you to let go of my hand now,” she said.
Instead of letting go, he grabbed harder. She felt the warm slickness of his grip as he squeezed.
“Fletcher, it’s going to be all right. I promise but you need to let go of my hand.”
Slowly, he released her hand, let his arms drop to his sides, and faced forward.
“Good,” she said. “Here we go. Remember not to move.”
She reached her left hand in front of him and settled it directly over the black spot. The skin there was cool and smooth. Slowly, she reached her other hand up to the sky.
“Lightning,” she said.
***
This part always made SK nervous. Although glad to have reached this point of the healing and despite having been through it hundreds of times, he knew it was still unpredictable, still dangerous. A dim blue luminescence started to form in the power sockets. He kept them in his peripheral vision. He had positioned himself at a point in the room where he was not directly between any of the outlets.
The glow brightened and a faint reflection of the strange light was caught in the highly polished silver of Livvy’s goggles.
Her breathing got quicker.
Any moment now.
He glanced at each of the sockets, now glowing bright blue. A small white tendril of electricity snaked out of one. He smelled the faint odor of ozone.
This is it.
***
A white-hot bolt of lightning zigzagged from the center of the whirling clouds above and exploded onto Livvy’s hand. Its energy raced down her body and into the ground with a buzzing and crackling that made her teeth vibrate. Violet sparks poured off her upraised hand like falling water, completely surrounding the two of them.
Fletcher did his best not to move, although he had flinched at the explosion. Now his eyes were squeezed closed against the bright light and sparks, his mouth clamped shut, and his hands rolled into fists, waiting.
Livvy kept her left hand on the black spot on the front of his torso and slowly lowered her right hand behind his back, still channeling the lightning strike, bringing it lower. Then, smoothly and without hurry, she placed her right hand on the black spot on his back.
Fletcher convulsed between her hands as the energy traveled through him. His hair started to lift as did hers, swirling in the surrounding static discharge field. Livvy looked down at her glowing hands, light blue sparks dancing around them like tiny, erratic fireflies. She watched the black spots beneath them begin to shrink.
“Just stay like that, Fletcher,” she yelled. “You’re doing fine.”
***
With a bright blue flash and a loud crack, the outlet with the tendril of electricity popped out of the wall and tumbled to the floor, blackened and smoking. Then another did the same.
SK heard a scream from somewhere beyond the closed bedroom door, in the hallway where the family was waiting, but he dared not take his eyes away from the wall.
Two writhing snakes of electricity had made their way out of the empty sockets and were inching toward one another. With a sudden start, SK stood. They were leaving scorch marks behind them and he could smell burning.
“Oh no,” he said as he glanced down at Livvy. “Control it, Liv–and hurry.”
***
Livvy pressed her hands together, squeezing Fletcher’s torso between them. He grimaced but kept his eyes shut and his body still. The wind swirled around them, carrying some of the tiny blue points of light from Livvy’s hands. Like a slowly turning dust devil, the breeze carried the sparks with it as it rustled their hair. Fletcher’s pajama bo
ttoms ballooned and the long tail of Livvy’s jacket began to rise. She pushed her hands together with one final effort and then released them.
In an instant, the lightning receded and the wind died. Their hair and clothing fell as though normal gravity had been restored. The two of them stood in complete silence.
Livvy slowly leaned to the right to see Fletcher’s back. It was clean. The purplish black spot that had marked the bad energy was completely gone. She gently took Fletcher by the shoulders and turned him to face her. The spot on the front was gone too. Only smooth clean skin was there. She looked at his face, which was still grimacing with his eyes shut tight.
“It’s okay, Fletcher. You can open your eyes.”
He opened one experimentally and peeked at her.
“We’re done,” she said smiling.
He raised his eyebrows and opened the other eye and looked down. He ran a shaky hand over the skin.
“You did it,” he murmured. He looked at her, grinning madly. “You did it!” he yelled and hugged her.
“Yeah,” she managed to get out.
“Of course she did it,” said a voice from the sidewalk. “She’s the lightning shaman.”
Livvy spun around nearly toppling Fletcher.
Was someone else here?
A young raven-haired woman stood watching them. Her long silky hair matched her flowing black leather duster and black, mid-calf utility boots. She wore a gleaming pendant of onyx on a silver chain and she seemed at ease. This was another shaman.
Impossible!
“Yes,” replied Fletcher.
He had no clue that anything was wrong, his voice elated.
“Yes, she is!”
For her part, Livvy was speechless. She gaped at the woman, who simply stared back, her face not showing a hint of any emotion, good or bad, and yet somehow very threatening. Her stance was wide but her hands were in her jacket pockets, relaxed.
Livvy’s mind raced. The only other time she had ever seen another shaman in the multiverse was when she had broken centuries of rules to work with other shamans using networked goggles. As far as she knew, no one else had done it since. No one had so much as tried, not even her. The problem was that she knew she wasn’t networked. She was working solo. How could this possibly be happening?
“Did you see it?” asked Fletcher, as he started to approach her.
Livvy quickly grabbed his arm and jerked him back.
“I did indeed,” said the woman. “And I would really like to stay and chat with you about it,” she said, staring directly at Livvy. “But I think I’ll take my leave.”
With that, a bright flash of light took her place and she was gone.
Livvy blinked before checking left and right. The woman had not needed the fountain to leave the multiverse.
By all the gods, what was going on?
Fletcher looked down at Livvy’s hand on his arm and up to her face.
“Friend of yours?” he asked.
Livvy didn’t answer. She had never seen the woman before, never even heard of a shaman who looked like that–the jet-black hair, darkly glinting eyes, olive skin, and full lips. No, this was not a friend of hers and, like the woman had said, it was definitely time to leave.
Still gripping Fletcher by the arm, she started a brisk walk up the street, back toward the plaza and the fountain.
“Let’s go,” she said, tugging him along and glancing backward. “We’re getting out of here.”
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THE OLIVIA LAWSON TECHNO-SHAMAN SERIES
By M. Terry Green
SHAMAN, HEALER, HERETIC
BOOK ONE
Available from Amazon as Kindle and Paperback.
“From the first page this story just took off and I had to read to the end.”
“But the plot is just as good. There’s a wonderful sense of pacing in the pages and, as we come closer to the climactic point in the story, it starts to accelerate, keeping the reader breathless.”
“I read it all in one sitting, late into the night. It is really fantastic. I don’t know if she sent out queries but whoever didn’t snap this up was a fool.”
SHAMAN, FRIEND, ENEMY
BOOK TWO
Available from Amazon as Kindle and Paperback.
“A sure sign of a really good book is when you forget that you are reading. You get so wrapped up in what’s happening that there ceases to be words on a page and you’re just inside the story. That’s how I felt reading this book. …I really liked the first book in this series, but this one had something that one didn’t–romance.”
“The story is always the key to me. This one is fresh, believable, and free of the annoying suspensions-of-disbelief which all to often stick in the reader’s throat. If you love fantasy, sci-fi, the mystical and the occult, or just a well-spun yarn, this one’s for you!”
“This has quickly become a must read series for me and I plan on reading every single last one of the books Green writes in it, which is why I have no issues giving this book a very solid 5 out of 5 Stars.”
SHAMAN, SISTER, SORCERESS
BOOK THREE
Available in Fall 2012!
COPYRIGHT © 2010 M. Terry Green
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, in the real world or the multiverse, is coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written consent of the copyright owner.
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DEDICATION
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
TITLE
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty
-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-One
Chapter Sixty-Two
Chapter Sixty-Three
Chapter Sixty-Four
Chapter Sixty-Five
Chapter Sixty-Six
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Chapter Sixty-Nine
Chapter Seventy
Chapter Seventy-One
Chapter Seventy-Two
Chapter Seventy-Three
Chapter Seventy-Four
Chapter Seventy-Five
Chapter Seventy-Six
Chapter Seventy-Seven
Chapter Seventy-Eight
Chapter Seventy-Nine
About the Author
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