“Thanks,” said Livvy, looking at the enormous gun resting in one of the coffee cup holders.
The woman hooked a quick left and headed toward the freeway onramp.
“Where are we going?” asked Livvy.
“To see Jack,” said the woman, checking her rear view mirror and then the side mirrors.
“Jack?” said Livvy, alarmed. She wondered if she could jump out of the car without getting hurt.
“Well, not Jack exactly,” said the woman as she gunned the engine and merged onto the freeway. “He has a visitor who is asking for you.”
CHAPTER SEVENTY
“WHO IS IT?” she heard Jack say from the other side of the front door.
“Me,” said the Nahual. “I brought Livvy.”
Livvy heard something scraping on the tile inside the door, then the locks clicked, and then the door opened.
“Thank the gods,” said Jack, his voice pitched high. “I was just about to leave.”
As soon as they were inside, he slammed the door shut, drug the dining room chair back over and shoved it under the doorknob.
Livvy saw his hands shaking and realized that he hadn’t even acknowledged her. Below them, there was a thump. His face contorted.
“I’ll wait here,” he said, shrilly.
“Is she still in the garage?”
There was another thump.
“Yes, yes, she’s still in the garage. Just…make her go away.”
“Make who go away?” Livvy finally asked.
“Indra!” he yelled.
There was a thump from downstairs. Livvy realized it was the door that led to the garage on the lowest level of the condo.
The Nahual started in that direction, but Jack grabbed her arm.
“Not that way,” he yelled. “She’ll come inside.”
“Well, how–”
“Go around the outside,” he said, pointing at the front door. “Go to the end of the units and take the stairs down. You’ll see the garage. It’s open.”
“Open?” said the Nahual, surprised and also irritated.
“How could I close it?” said Jack, his voice cracking. “I’d have to open the door to the garage! All the beepers are in the cars!”
“All right, all right,” said the Nahual.
“Livvy, you know the way,” said Jack quickly.
He poised himself near the chair, ready to take it away so they could leave.
“Just open the door,” said the Nahual.
Livvy had never seen Jack move so fast. In moments, they were outside on the walkway.
“It’s that way,” said Livvy, pointing down the sidewalk. Then she crossed her arms and didn’t take another step. The Nahual looked back at her and stopped.
“I want to know what’s going on,” said Livvy.
“Indra is back,” said the Nahual.
“Yeah, I gathered that.”
Livvy waited.
Anger flashed across the Nahual’s face and then was gone. Although far from hysterical, she was in a hurry.
“She appeared this morning, knocking on the front door.”
“So, she’s not dead?”
“Oh, no,” said the Nahual. “You will see. She is very dead. That spark, once it is gone, it is gone.”
“What’s she doing here?”
“She came to find you,” said the Nahual, pointing her finger.
“Me?”
“Yes, she wants to see you.”
“Why come here?” Livvy gestured to the building. “I don’t live here anymore. She was living here with Jack, not me.”
“This is the last place she saw you,” said the Nahual. “I doubt that she knows where you live.”
Livvy imagined how her neighbors would have taken a visit from the dead. The thought made her shudder.
“It is Indra. That I know,” said the Nahual, glancing up and down the sidewalk. “But why her spirit will not depart, I cannot fathom. Indra, like any shaman, should know better.”
The Nahual watched someone on the street who was passing the sidewalk.
“I know why she doesn’t depart,” said Livvy.
The Nahual’s head whipped around.
“Because she can’t. And the reason she can’t depart is because there’s someone in the Middleworld who has pretty much stopped all spirit traffic. And that someone is Tiamat.”
The Nahual seemed about to say something but didn’t. Instead, she closed her mouth. Jack appeared at the patio sliding door and pounded on it.
“Will you guys get down there!” he yelled.
The Nahual ignored him and looked back at Livvy.
“Indra cannot be the only one,” she said.
Livvy arched her eyebrows. The Nahual was right. Soon, there’d be funerals and body viewings everywhere that were going to go very wrong.
Jack pounded on the glass again.
“Come,” said the Nahual.
The small garage was crowded, barely big enough to hold the two black BMWs. Boxes were piled up on the sides, and tools were hung along pegboards on the walls. The rear bumpers of the cars were in the sun but the front of the garage, at the door to the stairs, was dark. Even from where they stood, though, there was an unmistakable stench.
There was a thump from the door at the front of the garage as a car passed behind them in the alley.
“Indra,” called the Nahual. “Livvy is here.”
Even though Livvy knew that Indra had asked for her, it gave her chills to hear the Nahual say it that way. They both stood in the alley, neither of them wanting to go in.
In the darkness at the front of the garage, there was a scraping sound. Then one of the cars was jostled and the alarm went off. It was loud, especially in the confines of the garage.
Slowly, as if emerging from a cave, Indra came forth. She slid along the car, leaning on it, but heading for Livvy. Her arms hung at her sides, as though all her energy were focused on moving her legs.
“Livvy,” said the mouth, but the car alarm drowned out any sound.
The alarm stopped and the locks on the car doors chirped open. Livvy glanced upward. Jack must have used the remote control on his keys.
Sunlight was now falling on Indra’s face. Livvy stared, transfixed with the horror of the image. The once beautiful Indra was barely recognizable. Her long hair was tangled and matted. Her exposed skin was a bluish gray color, and her nightgown was dirty and torn. Her face had the look of a sculpture that had almost managed to capture her–but didn’t. Livvy’s first impulse was to run, and the second was to wretch. Instead, she swallowed hard against the rising acid in her throat.
“Oh, Indra,” whispered the Nahual, shaking her head. It wasn’t a sight that anybody should see, let alone a relative.
“Indra,” said Livvy.
Indra’s whole body jerked at the sound of Livvy’s voice, and she would have fallen if not for the car.
“Livvy?” slurred Indra, her voice too deep.
“Yes, Indra,” said Livvy, hoping she’d stop. “What do you want?”
“Not me, you,” said Indra, looking at her but unable to keep her head from rocking as she sidled along.
“What?” said Livvy, looking at the Nahual, who shook her head. “What do you mean?”
Indra stopped, as though she were exhausted. “What do you want?” she asked.
Puzzled, Livvy had no idea what was going on. “I don’t want anything,” she said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Tiamat,” said Indra, her volume rising. “Tiamat,” she said again, not quite closing her mouth enough to make a clear ‘m’ sound.
“What about Tiamat?” Livvy’s mind raced. “Tiamat is in the Middleworld. No one can get by her. I know.”
“Yes,” said Indra, her tone one of immense sadness.
“We tried to defeat her,” said Livvy, glancing at the Nahual. “But it didn’t work.”
“Yes,” said Indra again.
“I don’t know what we’re go
ing to do,” said Livvy, forgetting that she was talking to a corpse. “It’s impossible.”
“Not impossible,” Indra hissed.
Livvy looked from the Nahual back to Indra. “If you know something that could help, I’d like to know.”
“Marduk,” said Indra, even less clearly.
She was starting to slump.
“Yes, Marduk,” said Livvy, taking a step forward despite the rotting flesh. “Yes, we wanted to find Marduk, but we can’t get past Tiamat. I think he’s in the Upperworld but I can’t get there.”
Indra was definitely slumping on the car now; her head leaned over at a strange angle but didn’t quite touch the roof.
“El túnel…es…el camino,” whispered Indra, her eyes staring past Livvy now.
“What tunnel?” Livvy asked. “What tunnel? Where?”
“Cristal,” hissed Indra, as her knees buckled.
She knelt down suddenly between the two cars, as though she were a puppet whose strings had been cut. She pitched forward, onto her face, which hit the ground with a sickening thud that made the Nahual and Livvy wince.
They both waited, but the body was just a body again, and Indra was gone.
“I don’t understand,” said Livvy, still staring at the corpse. “She came all the way back to tell me that, but it doesn’t make any sense.”
“El túnel cristal,” whispered the Nahual.
“What is the glass tunnel?” asked Livvy. “You’ve heard of it?”
“All Nahuals have heard of it,” she said, staring at Indra then turning to Livvy. “But it is never spoken of–never.”
Livvy waited.
“Indra would not have heard about it here. She must have seen it on the other side,” she said, puzzling it out as she spoke. “It has nearly passed out of knowledge, and few who have seen it are able to speak of it.”
“What is it?”
“It is the way to the Upperworld–the direct way.”
“The what?” said Livvy, blinking.
She looked back to Indra. How had Indra known it was the information she’d needed? She turned back to the Nahual. “Well, where is this glass tunnel?” she asked.
“In your head.”
“In my head?” Livvy sputtered. “I’ve never seen a glass tunnel.”
“Because you have never died.”
Livvy couldn’t find the words for the obvious question that hung in the air between them. She already knew she wouldn’t like the answer.
“You have to die to see the glass tunnel,” said the Nahual. “There is no other way.”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE
“I DON’T LIKE it,” SK had told her, but it had been a gross understatement.
Livvy had called him from the car with the address where she and the Nahual were headed. Apparently they had left Jack, who was in near hysterics, to call emergency help. Who knows what he was going to say to them when they realized they’d made a similar call a week ago but that the body was back—and decomposing. SK had rushed over to the house after Livvy had told him what they were planning.
“You can’t be serious,” he said, standing on the balcony with them.
The Nahual was gazing through the thick oak trees to the golden hills in the distance. The house was located at the end of a secluded hilltop community that made it seem as though they had left the state, even though they hadn’t left L.A.
“Tell me you are not serious,” he said.
“It’s not really dying,” said Livvy. “It’s just that your heart has to stop.”
“Will you listen to yourself? ‘Your heart has to stop.’ That’s insane!”
“Insane?” asked the Nahual, turning around. “Well, perhaps a little.”
“I’ve never heard of this glass tunnel,” said SK, turning to her. “You say the Nahual don’t even speak of it.”
“You probably have heard of it,” said the Nahual, taking a seat on the bench. “But people mostly call it a tunnel with a light at the end.”
“A tunnel with a light at the end,” repeated SK, thinking, knowing it sounded familiar. “Oh no, please, a near death experience?”
“Yes,” nodded the Nahual, calmly.
“That’s the direct passage to the Upperworld?”
“Yes.”
He scoffed. “Well, if that’s the direct passage to the Upperworld, why don’t we hear more about it from people who have near death experiences?”
“You know that clients never remember the other side,” said Livvy. “Near death survivors wake up and sometimes remember the tunnel and the light, and a few relatives, but that’s all.”
“And why isn’t it anywhere in the histories?” asked SK.
“Because it is a secret,” said the Nahual, matter-of-factly. “Long ago the Nahual had found that path, but the risks…” She shrugged. “The risks are great. It is not for the curious, or the uninitiated, or the weak.”
“It’s the only way, SK,” said Livvy, quietly. “Indra came a long way to give us that information.”
“Are you sure it was Indra?”
They both looked at him.
“Liv,” he said. “Please don’t do this.”
“Are you saying you won’t help us?”
“Dammit, you know I’ll help you. I’ll help you, and help you, and help you. I’m asking you not to do this.”
“If you have another way, I’m listening,” said Livvy.
“Just leave it. Leave it alone and stop this nonsense. Go back to medical school. Work in a hospital. Teach kids. Drive a truck!” He stopped and took a breath. “I don’t know, maybe it’s just time to get out of this whole shaman thing.”
He glanced at the Nahual, who was looking back at the hills but paying attention to every word.
“Maybe the age of shamans is over,” he said.
“And what about Min?” asked Livvy, quietly. “And Indra? And the thousands, if not millions, of souls that must be wandering?”
“Are they your responsibility?”
“Min and Indra are,” she said.
He could see there was going to be no moving her. She was calm–too calm. She had that placid and unshakable attitude of someone who had come to terms with her fate. He turned away, unable to look at her.
“How did we come to this?” he said. “How did this happen?”
“We may never know,” said the Nahual, turning back to them. “But the fact is, we are here now and there are few options.”
“Great,” said SK. “So the two of you are just going to stop your hearts and jump right into the Upperworld, find Marduk, and convince him to mosey on down to the Middleworld and mix it up with Tiamat.”
“Something like that,” said Livvy. “But I think it’s a solo trip. Just me.”
“Just you.”
“The Nahual is going to have be here to monitor me.”
“Have you ever been to the Upperworld?” he asked the Nahual.
“No,” she admitted.
“Why don’t you go?” he said to her.
“Because Livvy does not know how to stop someone’s heart and start it again.”
“Oh, and you do.”
The Nahual nodded.
“Liv, at least call the other shamans, tell them the Nahual is helping,” he said, gesturing to her. “Maybe they’ll help.”
“After what happened to Sunny?” asked the Nahual.
“Why should Liv take all the risk?” he yelled at her. He turned to Livvy. “At least try–or let me call. Before you do anything, let me call.”
“Okay, you call,” said Livvy, nodding, but her face said he was wasting his time.
The rest of the morning was spent doing just that–wasting time. At first they didn’t believe that a Nahual had materialized. Then, they had their own problems to handle. Then, they didn’t want to die. Not even Wan-li wanted to risk it.
Carmen cried when SK asked her for help. She didn’t want to see Livvy die. In the end, he couldn’t make out what she was saying she was
crying so much.
Alvina had simply told him not to let Livvy do it. If he was her friend, he’d find a way to stop her.
Only Ursula had seemed to consider it seriously. In the end, though, she had turned him down as well.
He wracked his brain trying to come up with more names, but these were the ones he had contacted in the first place precisely because he had known they were accomplished and could be approached. These were the only ones that made sense.
The Nahual sipped a tall juice drink and watched him as he put away his phone.
“What about any of your Nahual people?” he asked.
“It has not spread that far yet,” she said. “They would not have sufficient…motivation.”
“What do you mean ‘spread that far yet’? You think it started here?”
“Oh yes, there is little doubt of that. That is why I am here.”
“Oh, so you don’t live here?” he asked, looking around the place.
It had a rustic styling to it in keeping with the canyon and surroundings, but it was sprawling and modern, with a gorgeous view.
“No, this is just one of the houses that we maintain in various parts of the globe,” she said, as though the amount of money that statement implied was trivial.
Even so, SK believed it–an unbroken line of shamans that went back centuries, the accumulation of knowledge and wealth, and their hyper desire for secrecy after the Spanish conquistadors. And here, right in front of him, stood one of their members, improbably dressed in the ethnic clothing of the Peten, sipping what appeared to be guava juice. How many Nahual were there? Were they all like this one? She had the calm poise and ease that he had come to associate with shamans of great power. Her recommendation that Livvy simply stop her heart had been almost casual.
Livvy had gone into the house at some point and he and the Nahual were alone on the back deck. He had tried to talk Livvy out of it and he had tried to get shaman help, but he hadn’t succeeded at either. If he couldn’t stop it, then he had to do whatever he could do to help it, to make sure that Livvy didn’t die.
“What does this process entail?” he asked, as he took out his cigarettes.
“The goggles are useless for this,” she said, not without some satisfaction. “Drugs are too dangerous since Livvy has never used them. I would not be able to determine what to give her or how much. Here, I think our best route is going to be drowning.”
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