SK was standing in the exact same position he’d been in when she’d started, as though he hadn’t moved a muscle. He was keeping his distance. She didn’t blame him.
“You must despise me,” she said lowly, all emotion gone now, replaced by a welcome numbness.
“Never,” he whispered. “Not ever.”
Then, as though in slow motion she watched him move toward her, his face intent. As surely as if he’d said it, she knew they would kiss.
She slid off the front of the chair and onto her knees just as he was reaching out to her. Unlike their first kiss, there was no hesitation. She wrapped her arms around him and felt his hands on both sides of her face as their lips met.
His mouth was soft but insistent. She felt the gentle pressure of his lips and the stubble on his chin. As he moved closer, she ran her fingers into his short hair and felt his hand behind her neck. Her kiss only became more urgent the more that he responded.
A profound silence abruptly settled on the room and, for a moment, Livvy thought she heard the buzz of electricity. Without warning, a thunderclap boomed around them, inside the room. The windows to their left shattered and small glass shards rained down. She only had a moment to see SK’s look of shock before darkness descended on her.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
“LIV,” SHE HEARD someone say. “Liv, can you hear me?”
Couldn’t she just sleep? She was so tired.
“Liv, can you hear me?”
It was SK. She smiled at the thought. Why is he waking me up? Slowly, she opened her eyes and found she was looking at the ceiling.
“Thank the gods,” he said.
She rolled her head toward the sound of his voice. He was kneeling beside her with a small cloth in his hand staring into her face. He tilted his head sideways.
“Can you hear me?” he asked.
Her lips seemed stuck together and she realized they were dry. “Mmm hmm,” she mumbled.
“Good,” he said.
He dabbed at the bridge of her nose with the small cloth. She felt a stinging sensation there.
She put a hand out to try and sit up.
“Careful,” SK said, standing up. “There’s broken glass everywhere.”
Broken glass?
She looked at the floor around her. It was covered with small, greenish, irregular, pieces of glass that looked like miniature ice cubes.
“I thought when it broke up like this, it was supposed to prevent cuts,” he said, dabbing at her nose again.
She looked at his face and there was a fine cut on his cheek. He set the cloth down.
“Here,” he said, taking one of her hands in both of his.
As he pulled, she did her best to help and was soon sitting up, staring out into the fog through sliding glass door frames where only jagged edges of glass remained.
“Stay right there,” he said, as he crunched his way to the kitchen.
In moments he was back with a glass of water. She drank all of it.
“What happened?” she asked, finally able to speak.
“You don’t remember?”
He had been about to set the glass down on the floor in a little clear spot but stopped and looked at her.
She tried to recall something, anything, and looked around. SK was wearing jeans and a gray sweatshirt. She had a vision of him standing in the doorway. That’s right. She’d come here to tell him about… Her pulse quickened and she nearly panicked. She saw the chair where she’d sat, recalled the look on his face, and then remembered him coming toward her. She calmed down a little.
“We kissed?” she asked with a little smile.
“We did,” he said, also smiling, and took her hand. “And then?”
And then, Livvy thought. And then what? She didn’t remember anything but the sliding door was broken and there was glass everywhere.
“An earthquake?” she ventured.
“Not exactly,” he said.
Puzzled, she looked outside. “An explosion?”
“I don’t think so,” he said.
She turned to him and his expression had become serious. “Then what?” she asked.
“I think it was you.”
“Me? What do you mean me?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. We kissed and then there was a deathly stillness.”
He paused, watching her, waiting, but her mind was still a blank.
“There was a thunder clap,” he continued, “here in the room with us that was completely deafening. My ears are still ringing.” He moved his jaw, trying to pop his ears.
“Then,” he said, looking at her face. “Your eyes…”
Livvy waited but he was staring at her eyes.
“Yes, my eyes. My eyes what?”
“They glowed a bright white, for just a fraction of a second and then you collapsed.”
“What?”
She blinked–tried to imagine it, tried to sense anything different–but couldn’t.
What in the Multiverse could possibly have happened?
He took her hand in both of his and she stared into his intent face.
“I know,” he said. “I know how it sounds but that’s what I saw.”
She stared at him, looking into his eyes, still trying to understand when she noticed the cut on his cheek again. Gently, she touched his face just below it. “Are you okay?” she asked.
“I have never felt better,” he said, grinning.
Despite the vague but growing feeling of apprehension that was starting to creep into her consciousness, she couldn’t help but smile in return. He was positively beaming.
“Can you stand?” he asked.
“Yeah, I think so.”
“All right, let’s take it slow and be careful of the glass.”
Using SK for balance, Livvy slowly got to her feet. Her legs burned with the effort, as though she’d run a marathon. She realized they were also shaking.
“If you can make it to the car,” SK said, holding on to her. “I think we should just go.”
“Go?” she said, looking down at him. “Go where?”
“To get some answers.”
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
TAMARA HAD KNOCKED on the door to headquarters so quietly that nobody answered. She knocked again, harder this time. Finally, she heard the knob being unlocked. She braced herself for whatever words of derision Dominique would greet her with but it wasn’t Dominique. It was Pip.
“Tamara,” she said and opened the door.
Relief flooded over Tamara. It was strange to think of how she had never noticed the stress and fear that came with being here until she had made the decision to leave and not come back.
She stepped in and stopped. Pip nearly ran into her back.
“What’s wrong with you?” asked Pip, pushing her out of the way.
Tamara took it as a good sign.
As soon as Dominique left, Pip liked to act like she was in charge. Tamara glanced around. It was true. Dominique wasn’t here.
“Where is Dominique?” she asked.
Pip headed toward her work area and hooked a thumb toward the windows. “You know,” she said over her shoulder.
Dominique was across the alley. At various points during the day she would disappear and they would see her head in that direction.
“Said she’d be right back,” said Pip as she sat down at the soldering station with a mess of wires, goggles, and a growing number of network boxes.
I will not have much time. Only minutes.
Most of the shamans were gone now, getting high at home until Dominique ordered them back. Since Livvy had survived, Tamara knew there would be another attack. The next one would be massive by the looks of what Pip was doing. Four more network boxes were being added and the wires that had been duct taped to the cement floor between the mats had been pulled up. The mats were being rearranged, moved closer together.
To make room for even more mats, Tamara thought. By all the gods, it was going to be a
slaughter. There were–Tamara quickly counted mats, though they were in disarray–twice as many shamans as before. Dominique would leave nothing to chance. She meant to crush Livvy the next time they met.
Pip had returned to soldering and a couple of shamans were ripping up duct tape. A handful of other women were lying on their mats, oblivious to the noise around them, still riding high from the drugs of the victory celebration.
Tamara looked at the desk.
In the corner, under the windows, she knew what would be on the floor behind it–Dominique’s bag. She only took it with her at the end of the day. Unfortunately, no one was allowed in that part of the room. Despite the fact that there was no wall or partition, everybody treated it as Dominique’s office. Tamara had already thought of that.
As she approached Pip’s place near the front, she searched the floor. “I lost my keys. Have you seen them?”
Pip looked up briefly but didn’t remove the magnifying goggles. Her eyes appeared enormous and bug-like. “No,” she said. “I haven’t seen any keys but, in this mess…”
“Yes,” agreed Tamara.
She passed Pip, heading in the direction of Dominique’s desk.
“They must be somewhere,” she said, as though to herself but loud enough for Pip to hear.
Tamara gingerly picked up a coiled bundle of wire, made a show of checking underneath, and slowly made her way closer to the desk. The bag was behind it. Maybe nothing useful would be in it but it was the one place she could think to look.
Still searching the floor and swinging her gaze from right to left, she came within an arm’s length of the front of the desk.
“Hey,” Pip said.
Tamara stopped and turned around, trying to keep her face calm.
“You know she doesn’t like people over there,” Pip said, the magnifiers flipped up onto the top of her head.
Be calm, thought Tamara. Her heart thudded in her chest. Only Pip. Be calm.
“Then do not tell her,” said Tamara. “I have no money for new keys.”
Pip harrumphed at that. None of them had any money. She flipped her magnifiers back down.
Tamara glanced at the other shamans. Those that weren’t drugged were still busy at the far end of the room, ripping up duct tape and wires.
“Dammit!” Pip exclaimed, along with a popping sound. She waved her hand over the electronics to clear a few wisps of smoke.
Tamara whirled around. In a few short steps, she was behind the desk and crouching down. She flipped open the flap of the military messenger bag and looked inside.
It was a mess. Somehow Tamara had expected it to be as organized and squared away as the rest of Dominique’s world but it looked like her bag was the same as anybody else’s. She reached in and quickly swept her hand back and forth. Her fingers ran across something with a familiar shape. She grabbed it and yanked it out–a small hairbrush with plenty of hair in it. Perfect! As she jammed it into the large outer pocket of her robe, something else caught her eye: two bright orange plastic bottles–prescription drugs. She brought one out and saw the name on it was not Dominique’s.
“Nicole Durand,” murmured Tamara. Who is that?
She picked up the other. It was identical except that it was empty.
Diazepam.
There was no time to think about it. She pocketed the empty bottle and shoved the other back inside the bag.
There was Dominique’s wallet, a Velcro enclosure type. Tamara peered quickly over the top of the desk. Pip was still doing damage control and none of the other shamans were looking her way.
Tamara slowly and quietly ripped open the wallet–ID, credit cards, some cash, a packet of drugs–she paused at the packet of drugs. No, thought Tamara. You got to get clean. They said they would help you get clean.
She jammed the packet back down with the cash and flipped through the photos: a younger Dominique in fatigues with some men in uniform, holding a big rifle at an angle in front of her; an older couple in farm worker clothes in a yellowed color snapshot, probably her parents; and a family shot with Dominique and another young woman who looked almost identical. Tamara bent down for a closer look. Were they twins? And the last photo–a woman who could have been Dominique but there was a strange expression on her face and her hair was cut short. Nicole?
Tamara took the photo out of the plastic sleeve.
“Tam!”
Tamara quickly looked up and saw Pip motioning toward the front door. Someone was unlocking it from the outside. The only person who had keys was Dominique.
In a flash, Tamara put the photo in her other pocket, pulled out her keys, and closed the flap on the bag. Pip was frantically waving her away from the desk. They would both be in trouble if Dominique saw her there.
Tamara jumped up and ran toward Pip. They both froze as the door opened. Pip swung the magnifier lenses down and got back to work while Tamara simply stood there watching her.
Dominique entered and closed the door. She surveyed the room and took stock of the progress that had been made. Apparently satisfied, she crossed in Tamara's direction, toward the desk.
“Come back for more drugs?” Dominique said as she passed behind Tamara.
“No,” she said. “I lost my keys.”
Pip looked up with the big bug eyes created by the lenses.
Tamara held the keys dangling by the ring for her to see. “Found them,” she said.
She mouthed “thanks” to Pip who only looked back down at her work.
Tamara pocketed the keys, felt the other items there, and headed to the door.
“Where are you going?” Dominique said.
Tamara stopped at the door and turned around. “Home,” she said.
Keep it simple, she thought. Say no more than is necessary.
Dominique waited, which made Tamara wait. And that, it turned out, was the whole point.
“Be ready to come back,” said Dominique with a tone of dismissal. She sat down at her desk.
“Yes, Dominique,” said Tamara and then she was out.
As she hurried down the stairs that led to the sidewalk, she put both hands in her pockets to make sure her treasures did not spill out.
Nicole Durand, thought Tamara as she got to the sidewalk. Despite the sweat and light rain that were now trickling off her forehead, Tamara smiled. Dominique had a sister.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
AS THEY STOOD in front of Alvina’s home, Livvy watched her move the smoldering sage bundle around the edges of the front door, purifying it. The fragrant smell brought back memories of the first time she and SK had come to Palm Springs to see her.
They had come seeking her help against the ancient Sumerian god, Tiamat. Alvina’s renown as one of the most adept, knowledgeable and powerful shamans in the area had spread far beyond the Cahuilla reservation where she lived and worked. True to that reputation, she had been instrumental in the victory over Tiamat.
Alvina placed the bundle in the huge ashtray next to the door. Livvy watched her and waited, comforted by the familiarity of the ritual. Alvina looked as though she hadn’t aged a day although, to be fair, she already looked fairly aged. Her short straight hair was completely white, combed directly back from her forehead, and tucked behind her ears. Her deeply tanned skin was full of wrinkles, both fine and deep. She was wiry to the point of sinewy, and the skin of her arms had developed that leathery look a lifetime in the desert could create. Although she wore a brightly colored, floral print cotton dress, the beautiful vest she wore over the top of it shimmered in earth tones of tan, gray, and brown.
She held both of her hands in front of her and SK gave her the cigars and scotch. She smiled a brilliantly white smile at both of them and winked at Livvy.
“Welcome, my young friends. Please, come in.” Alvina shifted her new acquisitions over to one arm and hugged Livvy with the other. “Livvy. It’s so good to see you.”
Livvy hugged her back, feeling the taut muscles in Alvina’s shoulders and back.
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“My how you’ve changed,” Alvina whispered.
Have I? thought Livvy, drawing back.
Alvina’s radiant smile had dimmed and there was something about her eyes now that seemed–what was it–maybe a little sad.
“SK,” she said turning to him. She placed a hand lightly on his arm. “As always, it’s good to see you.”
“And you, Alvina,” he said, doing the same.
Alvina stood back and took in the two of them. “I take it this isn’t business and you have some questions,” she said, motioning them to the front room. She closed the door behind them.
Livvy promptly sat down on the couch, grateful she hadn’t had to walk far. Whatever had happened at SK’s condo, she still wasn’t feeling right.
“Tell me everything,” Alvina said as she took a seat in one of the chairs.
Alvina’s home had a comfortable, lived-in look that reminded Livvy of her grandmother’s house. There were framed family photos everywhere. Finely crocheted doilies separated the faintly purple glass bowls from the tabletops. The sheets that had apparently covered the furniture were neatly folded and resting on one of the chairs. Like most shamans, Alvina probably kept her altar in the bedroom. The only clue to her profession was the large wooden bowl of sage bundles on the bottom shelf of the end table.
SK sat on the couch next to Livvy and took her hand. Alvina looked at their hands briefly and then at SK.
He told her everything–about Claire’s death, about Dominique, the other shamans, and also the summoning. Alvina had listened, perfectly silent, but turned a disapproving look on Livvy when SK had talked about her mother in the Multiverse. Livvy recoiled inwardly and looked at the floor. Then SK described their kiss and what had happened.
Livvy squeezed his hand during that part. In all of this, it was the one bright spot. She had shared her dreadful secret with him and he had not turned away. In fact, it felt like they were really together now. His voice was even and level, and there was no regret in it.
“I don’t understand what’s happening,” he finished. “We hope you do.”
Olivia Lawson Techno-Shaman Books 1 -3 Page 50