Suddenly, she realized what SK must have seen. Her face flashed hot as embarrassment quickly segued to fury. She scrambled to her feet and turned on Dale, as lightning flashed above them.
“You had no right to do that!” she yelled.
Dale didn’t even look at the sky as a thunderclap erupted on top of them. Instead, he stared at Livvy and then at SK. She felt SK take her hand.
“And what about Leon?” she demanded. “How do you think he feels?”
Dale had been looking down at her hand holding SK’s but he looked up at the mention of Leon.
“I already know,” he said, his voice sounding distant. “I’m an empath, remember.”
Lightning arced around the sky as the clouds opened up in a sudden downpour. The few remaining people in the plaza quickly scattered. Livvy realized SK was squeezing her hand. She tried to calm down and took a breath.
“Let’s get out of the rain,” SK said.
Giant drops pelted them, though Dale seemed not to notice.
She turned to SK. “First,” she said, “we need to get to my car.”
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
“I DON’T BELIEVE this,” Livvy said, stunned.
She stared at the empty glove box and its few contents on the floor mat.
“You left it in the car?” Dale asked.
“Well it’s not like I could carry it with me,” Livvy replied hotly. “What with being abducted.” She glared at him. “And I assume the hotel staff have keys for the rooms.”
She looked back to the car. SK had been looking under the seats but stood up and shook his head again. He’d also gone through the trunk.
“There’s nothing here,” he said. “It’s clean.”
“So much for the anti-theft system,” Livvy muttered. “How did they even get it open?”
There was no sign of a forced entry at any of the doors and the car had been locked when they’d arrived. Plus, the Porsche Panamera had an ultrasonic interior surveillance system that would detect movement.
The three of them stood around the car and stared at it.
“All right,” SK said. “I think maybe it’s time someone brought me up to speed.” He looked at Dale who shrugged and took a deep breath.
“It’s the prophecy of the Fifth World,” he began.
Livvy only half-listened as she scanned the parking lot again, as though the thief might just be leaving. Ten minutes ago everything seemed to be going right for once. She wasn’t about to let that slip away. The rain had passed quickly but there were puddles everywhere and all the cars were wet. There was no dry parking spot to indicate a car had recently left.
Dale was explaining the end of the Fourth World and the beginning of the Fifth. Several things had to happen. The Pahaana had to return with the missing tablet fragment. The Blue Star Kachina had to dance during Soyal in front of uninitiated children. The Blue Star itself had to appear.
“And all the tablets have to be together, reunited, as they were at the beginning of the Fourth World.”
“And when the Fifth World begins,” SK said, “you say the Fourth World ends. And by ‘ends’ you mean?”
“Everything is destroyed,” said Dale. “The entire world. Only the mesas will be left.”
Livvy stared at him, as did SK.
“Are you serious?” SK asked.
“Oh yes,” Dale said.
“But why would anybody want to do that?” Livvy asked.
Dale sneered. “You’d have to ask Celestino about that,” he said.
SK looked at Livvy and then back to Dale. “We’re asking you,” SK said.
Dale shook his head and looked off into the distance.
“Purification,” he said, mimicking Celestino. Then he looked back at them, his face grim. “The world isn’t worthy to survive–only those who aren’t killing the planet and each other, only those who are still performing the ceremonies. Not even all the Hopi will survive.” Dale paused. “At least that’s what he’s hoping when it comes to me.”
“Why you in particular?” Livvy asked.
“Because I don’t take the prophecy literally. The Fifth World isn’t about destroying all this,” he said, gesturing out beyond the mesas. “It’s about changing what is here,” he said, placing a hand over his heart. “And here.” He pointed at his head. “Otherwise, we’ll be talking about a Sixth World and then a Seventh. The real change has to come from inside. If we have a destiny to fulfill, it’s bringing about that transformation, not destroying everybody else.” He paused. “At least that’s what I believe.”
“So you’re not sure,” SK said.
Dale’s reaction to the tablet’s disappearance had said that much.
“Nobody’s sure,” Dale said. “Ask three different people and you’ll get four versions of the prophecy.”
“But Celestino isn’t alone in his version,” SK said.
That had been clear in the plaza.
“Hardly,” Dale said. “But neither am I. No surprise there.” He paused until he realized that both Livvy and SK were waiting for him to explain.
“Look,” he said. “This is an old division, a deep one. We can either adapt to the reality of the new world or do whatever it takes to keep it outside.”
“Including destroy it,” concluded SK.
“Including destroy it,” Dale agreed.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
LEON SNIFFED, THEN checked left and right to see if anybody had heard. It was only a reflex, though. He was alone. High up on the roof of his clan’s ancestral home, he sat by himself, arms around knees, huddled against the low wall at the edge of the roof.
I always knew this was coming.
The two years of their relationship had always been as much anxiety as happiness for Leon. He knew it couldn’t last. It’s not like he was the greatest catch–not compared to Dale. ‘Too good to be true’ was always how it had felt. People who used that phrase like it was a good thing, hadn’t lived it. He shook his head. Then the lightning shaman had appeared.
He shut his eyes at the thought of them kissing.
Of course Dale had fallen for her. He’d dreamt of her, knew she would arrive, had described her in such detail that even Leon felt like he knew her.
He thumped his forehead on his knees.
Knowing this would happen doesn’t make it any easier.
He drew in a long shuddering breath and stopped hugging his knees so tight. His arms ached and he realized he was tired, very tired, but he didn’t want to go home. He couldn’t. Maybe tomorrow or the next day he’d go get his stuff. For now, he’d go to his mother’s house, the only real home he’d ever known–a place where he knew he was always welcome. He’d have to listen to ‘I told you so’ because she had warned him against Dale but, then again, everybody had.
He wondered what Dale was feeling right then.
Is he even thinking about me?
Probably not. It’s not like he was ‘the Lightning Shaman’ or anything really great. He was just a Hopi clown. It’d take more than a clown to stop the Fifth World. What would he do, trip the Blue Star Kachina for a laugh?
Leon raised his head.
Maybe he didn’t travel to the Underworld or save babies but he was part of the ceremonies. He’d never dream of tripping a kachina but … what if he did?
He unfolded his legs and sat up taller.
Like trip him up in a big way.
The dawn of the Fifth World needed the Blue Star Kachina to dance first. What if that kachina–the mask, the clothes, and everything–were to disappear? Then the prophecy would be prevented. The masks were inherited, sometimes kept at the dancer’s house, sometimes at the kiva. It must have been decades since anyone had seen the Blue Star Kachina. Even so–he turned to look out over the village–there were only a few places where those things might be. And who better to find it than someone who had access to the kivas and the costumes. Someone like himself.
Leon got to his feet.
He’d show Dale.
It wasn’t just shamans who could do cool stuff.
CHAPTER FIFTY
“HE NEEDS ALL the tablets,” said SK. “Did I hear that right?”
He was asking Dale but Livvy could see that Dale hadn’t heard.
They had decided to regroup in Livvy’s hotel room, though it had taken several minutes to clean up the disarray. At some point Dale had picked up the plastic ice bucket and then stood there, staring at it. Now he set it down on the small table near the window and moved the curtain aside as if he were waiting for someone.
Livvy thought she knew who.
“He’ll be back,” she said quietly.
Dale dropped the curtain and looked at her.
“He’s upset now,” she said. “But he’ll be back.”
“I wish I could believe that,” he said. “But, after what happened–” He grimaced and glanced at SK.
“I’m not saying you deserve him,” Livvy said. “But, honestly, Leon doesn’t seem like the kind of person who could stay mad forever–even if he tried.”
Dale thought about it for a second and then nodded. He looked around the room and seemed to just now realize the cleanup was done.
“The tablet,” he said.
“The tablets,” corrected SK. “You said Celestino needs all the tablets to bring about the Fifth World, along with several other things that need to happen.”
“Right,” said Dale, frowning a little.
SK came around the corner of the bed to face them both as Livvy sat down on the end.
“Then let’s go through the list,” SK said. “Let’s try to control what we can instead of chasing after what we can’t.” He looked at Livvy and then Dale. “Maybe we don’t need the tablets.”
“I do,” Livvy said, looking at SK. “We do.” She reached out to him and he took her hand, though he looked puzzled. She explained how she’d gotten the tablet and what had been inscribed on it.
“Tawa?” Dale said. “Here in the real world?”
“It’s not as strange as it sounds,” SK said. He turned to her and studied her face. “A lightning shaman and a dwarf?”
“I’m sure of it, SK.”
Dale sat down in the chair next to the table, shaking his head. “It’s not that easy,” he said. “And I’m not trying to spoil it for you but these tablets have been debated for generations. You see lightning and a dwarf and someone else will see, I don’t know, a staircase and a child.”
Livvy looked at him. “Then why me?” she asked. “Why me, of all people, to find that tablet?” She looked to both of them for an answer.
Dale apparently had none.
“Because I was meant to find it,” she said. “Not keep it or know anything about this prophecy. But there’s something in that tablet, some meaning in those symbols, that I think has to do with us.”
She glanced at SK.
“Some meaning,” Dale repeated. “If you don’t know what it means and I’m not even sure it’s lightning, who’s going to tell you what it means?”
“Well I was just about to go ask him when Celestino showed up.”
“Tawa,” SK said.
“Tawa,” she said, nodding.
Dale crossed his arms over his chest and stared at the floor. “Well,” he said, slowly. “If anybody could tell us about the tablets, you’d think it’d be a kachina.” He shrugged and looked up at Livvy. “And you’d think if there was a kachina who knew about them, it’d be Tawa.”
He looked at SK and continued, “I may not take the prophecy literally but whoever has the tablets is going to hold power. I don’t want that to be Celestino. Besides,” he said with a smirk, “I’d like to see the look on his face when he finds out we’ve taken it back.”
There was quiet for a moment.
“SK?” Livvy asked.
He took in a breath. Livvy knew they’d thrown a lot at him in a short period of time.
“We’re in the middle of something,” SK began. “You know that,” he said, looking at her. “And,” he continued cautiously, “it doesn’t feel like a coincidence.” He slowly shook his head. “But a stone tablet with a lightning shaman and a dwarf?” he said to her. “The end of the world as we know it?” he said to Dale. “I don’t see how we can turn away.” He looked back at her. “I’d like to know what that tablet means.”
Livvy squeezed his hand.
“But,” he continued. “I want you to think twice about this, Liv.” He looked into her eyes. “You know I’ll support you, but it’s not up to me. It’s going to be you in the Multiverse and you with Tawa. It’s going to be you that Celestino will blame.”
Dale began to protest but SK held up a hand.
“He’s already singled you out. We can help Dale without getting that tablet.” He paused. “But it has to be your call.”
Livvy looked at her arm and remembered the poison quill. The decision to accept the tablet from Tawa had nearly cost her life. Then she looked at SK’s hand holding hers.
“I’ve made the call,” she said.
SK nodded and looked at Dale.
“So, we find Celestino,” SK said. “We find the tablet.”
Dale shook his head. “I don’t even know where he meets with his supporters. They’ve kept it a well-guarded secret.”
“He’s keeping a secret like that up here?” asked Livvy.
“That’s just it,” Dale said. “He’s not on the mesas. Otherwise we would know.”
“Then how do we find him?” Livvy asked.
“Not us,” Dale said. “You.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
“WHAT DO YOU mean you don’t have it?” screamed Celestino.
Victor’s pock-scarred face grimaced and scowled but he didn’t cringe. In fact, he was as livid as Celestino.
“It wasn’t there!” he screamed back.
In the confines of the closed kiva, their voices were amplified.
Celestino didn’t care.
“It was there! You just didn’t find it!”
“I took that room apart!” Victor yelled. “Every single, last, stinking, square inch of it. There is nothing left there to search!”
“She’s a sorceress,” said one of the other shamans. “She’s hidden it.”
“You saw the lightning, didn’t you?” said another. “Can she kill us with that?”
“How can the Pahaana be here but not all the tablets?”
The cacophony quickly crescendoed.
“Calm down!” Celestino yelled.
“She has a white mountain lion as a spirit helper,” Victor said.
“She what?” said the man next to him.
Celestino stared at Victor.
How would he know that?
“Shut up,” yelled Franklin as he stood to his full height. “I said shut up!”
One by one the conversations and arguments fell silent. Eventually, all eyes were on him, including Celestino’s. His white hair and skin shone in the firelight. The red in his eyes was amplified by it. He was a mesmerizing, if also slightly horrific, sight.
“Believe me when I tell you I am the Pahaana,” he said into the silence. “Believe that I am the one who was prophesied.” He slowly strode to the ladder and those near it backed away. “Believe that I have returned the missing fragment of the tablet–this you have already seen.” He nodded at Celestino. “Believe Celestino when he says he saw her with it in the Multiverse.” He put his hand over his heart. “I do.”
“Then where is it?” Victor demanded.
“She has it,” Franklin replied, as though he had solved a simple math problem.
“But it wasn’t in her room,” said Victor.
“Then it wasn’t in her room,” said Franklin, as if he were talking to a child. “Search elsewhere.”
“How do we know where to search?” scoffed someone else. “Do you? Do you have the power to know where it is hidden?”
“You don’t need power to know where it’s hidden,” chided Franklin. “You don’t even need a shaman. If you
could search as shamans, wouldn’t someone have found it long before this?”
Heads around the circle nodded.
Although Celestino found his distaste for the Pahaana growing, he had to admit that he had a way with people, with groups.
“Then how do we–”
“Ask her,” said Franklin, wheeling on the questioner and fixing him with a glare. “Why don’t you ask her.”
The room was suddenly silent, as though each of them had stopped moving or breathing.
“If she doesn’t have it on her person,” said Franklin, “then she’s hidden it.”
He looked around the room.
“If she’s hidden it, then find out where–from her.”
“And what if she won’t tell us?” said a shaman behind him. “What if she uses lightning?”
Franklin spun on the man. “Then you make her tell you,” Franklin answered, grinning.
There was a shuffling of feet and some of the shamans looked away.
Franklin’s upper lip curled. “You weaklings,” he sneered. “Look at you. How many of you are there? Against one shaman. One woman. You’re pathetic.”
Again he was met with silence.
Celestino knew this wasn’t resonating with these men. Fundamentally, they were shamans, healers. They were believers in the prophecy not thugs–in fact, far from it. Violence and conflict were not the Hopi way. It was something the Pahaana apparently didn’t understand. The whole thing was rapidly spiraling out of control.
Franklin shook his head, his straight, wispy hair dancing to and fro.
“Fine,” he said, turning to the bench where his hat and sunglasses rested. “You’re not ready for the Pahaana. And you’re sure as hell not ready for the Fifth World.”
“Hold on,” said Celestino.
Victor stepped forward. “I’ll ask her,” he said.
Celestino stared at him, as did the other shamans. Of all the shamans, Victor had never impressed him as devout. But at that moment, Victor’s face wasn’t one of rapt devotion or even quiet confidence. It was anger.
Olivia Lawson Techno-Shaman Books 1 -3 Page 70