Goddess for Hire (5 page)

THIS TIME
I didn't chant.

I began the process of visualizing and immediately the liquid warmth spread through my body. The spot above my eyebrows began to tingle, but the sensation was almost pleasant.

“You are radiant. The goddess has awoken,” Ram murmured. “Open your eyes and gaze at those around you.”

I turned and slowly skimmed the room. At first I thought my vision had blurred. There were fuzzy halos of light surrounding everyone. Then it occurred to me what I was actually seeing.

Wow, people really did have auras!

I couldn't believe that the frizzy-haired lady at the metaphysical mall, who kept trying to force her crystals on me, was right.

I focused closely on the unusual light.

The kids who had giggled at Ram's belching, along with other taco-loving tots, had colored auras, and each provoked a different emotion in me. Green auras emit
ted a sense of peace, red triggered energy and excitement. A few adults had color, too, some brighter than others. The rest had auras tinged with gray, from them, I felt nothing.

Slowly the realization dawned on me. Those with colored auras still had life in them. The brighter the color, the more life I could feel. It made sense that all the kids still had color, at that age life pulsed with possibilities.

But the gray auras far outnumbered the rest.

No wonder self-help books were such hot sellers. Maybe I could write one titled, “Turn your gray aura blue” or something like that?

My Malevolent Meter was quiet though.

Taco Bell was free of evil.

I turned to Ram. A brilliant bright yellow surrounded him. He oozed sunshine and happiness. The man was a walking Hallmark card! I almost had to reach for my sunglasses.

But what did my aura look like? I opened my purse, this time a striped Fendi with sharp silver buckles, and pulled out a compact.

Wait.

What exactly would I see?

I couldn't help it, a small sliver of fear embedded itself in my brain. If I looked in the mirror, would I see Kali's face instead of mine?

Straightaway, the warmth inside me began to dissipate.

Ram watched me intently. “Something is wrong.”

“Nothing's wrong. I didn't feel any malevolence though. Too bad, huh?”

“Something happened when you reached for your purse.”

“I remembered I left my favorite lip gloss at home.”

Ram was stubborn as a schnauzer and opened his mouth to argue.

I picked up our tray and stood up. “Let's go. I'm starting to smell like refried beans.”

Outside, the temperature had dropped considerably, and I shivered in my T-shirt. Hurrying to the car, I unlocked the doors and jumped in. “So did I do the exercise wrong? I feel like those monkeys—see no evil, hear no evil.”

Ram climbed into his seat and struggled with the seat belt. “Now that you have awoken the Goddess Within, there is no way you cannot recognize evil. It is your dharma, the reason you were born.”

I took his seat belt, locked it into place, and started the car. “Did anyone ask me about that? I would've preferred my dharma to be a little more like Julia Roberts's.”

“It was your choice. It always is,” Ram said simply.

I roared out of the parking lot and cut in front of two cars. I noticed Ram clutching the sides of the seat. Maybe he wasn't used to the way Americans drove on the right.

I took my eyes off the road and turned to Ram. His whole body tensed. “About this evil-stopping business…am I supposed to stare malevolence down with my nifty third eye? Offer up a free aura reading?”

Ram's voice was unusually high-pitched. “Does not a red light indicate you must stop?”

“What?” I turned back to the road and slammed on the brakes. We screeched to a halt. I stretched and yawned. Ram looked positively green. Maybe I shouldn't have let him eat all that fast food, it obviously didn't agree with him.

In moments we were back in front of Sanjay's apartment building. Ram practically clawed at the door handle and leaped out. He was trembling for some reason, but managed a smile. “Find the courage to trust your talents.”

“You mean the talent I just found out last night I have?” I gripped the steering wheel. “There's so much evil in the world. Do I hop on a plane and take out the nearest dictator or start with the crime around here? I mean, the murder rate in LA alone could keep me busy for decades.”

“You will know what to do when the time comes,” Ram said. “Until then, just be.”

“How wonderfully cryptic. Did I mention Yoda is my least favorite character of all time?”

Ram waved cheerily. “Good night. We will talk tomorrow.”

I pulled away from the curb. So according to Ram, and he had a pretty good track record with the truth, my soul had volunteered to save the world from the forces of evil.

That made sense. I was quite the impulsive shopper. I'm sure my soul figured this particular dharma deal sounded pretty cool and glamorous. I bit my lip. Life wasn't a 50-percent-off sale. But if it were, I was having the most critical case of buyer's remorse ever.

MY GAS-GUZZLER
of a tank was nearly empty, and I pulled into a Chevron station near the entrance to the 405 freeway. Thankfully the gas station was deserted, and I didn't have to listen to any male comments like, “What's a little girl like you doin' in a big car like that?”

I had my comeback though. “What's a small brain like yours doin' in a big head like that?”

The response was invariably the same and delivered with a sneer. “Bitch.”

I swiped my credit card, slipped in the nozzle, then leaned back against my car to wait. I could have a mini-nap in the time it took for my H2 to fill up. Deeming it unwise, however, to nap at a gas station late at night, with my purse sitting on the front seat, I instead thought back to the events of the day.

Why wasn't I more Bellevue about all this? Shouldn't I be on the shrink's sofa, drooling into my neck? I had no way of knowing since there was hardly a support group
for people like me. Harry Potter had a whole school of his peers. All I had was Ram.

Maybe my reaction was normal? A lifetime spent playing video games and watching movies made the unreal acceptable.

Hey! What if my life were a video game! A potential fortune lay with Nintendo. I didn't think of myself as greedy, but if I was supposed to save the world, shouldn't I at least be able to turn lead into gold or something? I mean, it was just—

Ugh!

An invisible blow landed on my stomach with enough force to knock me out. But no one was there, and I was still standing.

Ugh!

There it went again. Uneasiness crawled up my back. The weight pressed against my chest and stomach. I could barely breathe.

I knew what was happening. It couldn't be anything else.

I turned around.

Behind me two men were walking into the convenience store.

The malevolence radiated off them.

Ram was right. I would
know
evil.

The weight continued to press against me.

Dharma-fulfilling time.

Shit! Shit! Shit!

THIS WAS NEW TERRITORY
for me, and I thought about calling 911. But what would I tell the operator? “Umm, I just felt a really big pang in my chest…which sorta indicates evil's around, and I'm a pretty reliable source being that I'm a goddess so…”

I decided to follow them in.

The clerk behind the counter saw me enter, but the two goons didn't. They were too busy grabbing beers from the cooler. I moved past the magazines and dropped down in a crouching position behind one of the aisles, my face pressed against a packet of beef jerky.

From that vantage point I could see the front, but no one could see me. I peered around the corner and the clerk, a middle-aged man with olive skin and an Errol Flynn mustache, stared right at me with a puzzled expression. Quickly, I ducked back behind the jerky. Okay, so I wasn't as unobtrusive as I thought.

I waited a few moments, but the clerk didn't come down the aisle after me. Apparently a woman who
wanted to get up close and personal with dried-up meat was no big deal. This was the night shift at a convenience store after all. There was probably someone masturbating in the bathroom right now.

I peeked around the corner again. The two men were at the counter. I got a good look at them from behind and summed up their appearance: saggy-assed.

One guy was white with a shaved head, his thick neck partially covered by the curling edge of a tattoo. A scorpion was my guess, but I wasn't about to ask him to remove his shirt so I could see the design. The other guy was dark, Hispanic-looking, his hair pulled back in a braid. He had tattoos, too, mostly of evil-eyed eagles.

Two tattooed thugs. How clichéd could you get?

The Latino lawbreaker shoved the carton of beer across the counter, and said in a low, intimidating growl, “Empty the cash register. Fast.” His eyes narrowed as the clerk grabbed a plastic bag and began unloading. “I know where the button is,
hombre
. Don't even think of pushing it and calling the cops.”

I sat back against the shelf. I should have called the Goddess Within outside, then entered the store. I should have taken my chance with the 911 operator. I should have bought Microsoft stock back in 1986.

I could cry over my regrets on my deathbed. Time to summon the goddess.

Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath, and—

“Well, look at this!” A rough hand closed down on the
soft part of my upper arm. My eyes flew open. Dragged to my feet, I found myself face-to-face with the white, hairless hooligan.

I definitely preferred the view from the back.

His eyes were the color of thick phlegm, his face a blotchy red. He also happened to have the wispiest goatee I'd ever seen. My grandmother had more hairs on her chin when she went a day without plucking.

I struggled to free my arm. “Let go of me!”

Instead of obliging, he tightened his already bruising grip and pulled me to the front of the store. “Check out this bitch.” He raked his eyes over my body from head to toe. “What do I do with her?”

The braided brute's eyes never left the clerk. “Make sure she don't call the cops.”

Mr. Waste of Anatomy—seriously, where were organ thieves when you needed them—grabbed my other arm and pulled both roughly behind my back. If only I'd worn my new steel-heeled stilettos, I could've stepped back and sliced off his toe.

Oh right, the goddess thing.

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and—

BOOM!

A massive gunshot ricocheted through the store. My eyes flew open to see the Hispanic heavy glaring at the clerk, smoking gun pointed at the ceiling. “Faster!”

The gunshot momentarily surprised the Big Nasty breathing down my neck, and he loosened his grip. Quickly, I kicked back and caught him squarely in the
knee. Cursing, he let go of one of my arms, and I hefted my bag and swung it at his face.

One of the sharp silver buckles caught him in the eye. He howled.

I pulled away and ran, trying to summon the goddess, but it was slightly difficult to visualize anything under the circumstances. All I could think about was getting away and calling the police.

I was almost to the door when my pursuer tackled me and we went flying into a rack of Twinkies and Ding Dongs. The baked goods were stale and did nothing to cushion my fall.

He whipped me around so we were again face-to-face. His hot fetid breath nearly made me black out. Talk about a serious Altoid moment.

I had just the one self-defense move, and it only worked when the person I wanted to flip was polite enough to stand across from me.

There was only one thing to do.

Fight like a girl.

I screamed like a maniac and went for his eyes, lashing out with my sharp, manicured nails.

Shaved head's thug-in-crime turned, brandishing his gun at me. “What the fuck's going on?”

I didn't know if I was impervious to bullets, and I didn't want to find out.

The thick-necked troglodyte rose to his feet, pulling me up painfully by my roots. My follicles screamed for José Eber.

I cried out, but not loud enough to miss the grate of metal against metal.

The convenience store clerk stood there, legs spread, a rifle in each hand. “Let her go, or I'll blow both your bastard brains to Karachi.”

Both men froze, gaping.

Wordlessly I was released, my ass making contact with a heap of Hostess cakes.

“In the corner, bastards,” the clerk ordered. The legally challenged losers moved and stood, glaring.

I stared up at my hero. “Thanks.”

The clerk nodded, putting one rifle on the counter and keeping the other trained on the robbers. “I've pushed the button to activate the alarm. The bastard cops will be here in thirty minutes.”

“Thirty minutes?” I gasped.

He shrugged. “This happens three or four times a week.”

I scrambled to my feet. The clerk surveyed me. “Are you Indian?”

“Yeah.” I looked closely at his name tag. It read:
ALI
. “Are you?”

“Pakistani.”

“My mom was born in Pakistan, before India was split up.”

“Do you know where?”

“Lahore.”

“I was born there, too.”

The bald bandit curled his lip. “Damn immigrants.”

Ali leveled his rifle. “Shut up, bastard. If not for immigrants like me, you bastards would have no one to rob.”

The dark-skinned robber nudged his friend. “Hey, asshole, my family's from Mexico.”

“They are?”

Well my work there was done.

I removed a piece of Twinkie from my hair. “Do you want me to stick around, Ali? Talk to the cops?”

“No.” He waved me away. “I know how to handle their bastard questions.”

“Thanks again.” I headed for the door, giving the two men in the corner a well-deserved finger.

“Is that your Hummer outside?” Ali said.

“Yeah,” I said proudly.

“You owe me forty dollars.”

Oh, right, the gas. I smiled sheepishly and whipped out my wallet.

The white thug snorted. “What's a little girl like you doin' in a big car like that?”

I opened my mouth.

Forget it.