Shaman, Healer, Heretic (4 page)

At the next corner, she checked the clouds again. They had changed direction, so she made a left to follow them and entered a less busy street.

“Where are you, Anita?” she said to herself.

An eagle screeched overhead. Livvy glanced upward just in time to see it diving at her. Too stunned to move at first, she doubled over at the last instant and felt one of its talons grab the back of her jacket. A furious flapping of wings sent her hair flying in every direction. As she raised her arms to cover her head, she ducked down and spun around, trying to dislodge it. The eagle tugged and shrieked, but as her adrenaline kicked in so did the speed of her whirling. Finally, the pull on her jacket released and she heard and felt the beating wings recede. Still crouching low, arms covering her head, she chanced a look upward.

The eagle was gone. Livvy emerged from her crouch and searched the sky, turning in a complete circle, but there was no sign of it. She glanced at the buildings on either side; most of them were squat brick offices three stories high. It hadn’t perched on any of them.

Slowly, she lowered her arms and brushed the hair back out of her face.
What in the Multiverse had that been about?
She had never been attacked–if that’s what had happened–by a spirit helper.

As she glanced up and down the street again, she noticed it was now empty. Back at the last corner she could still see traffic crossing but there was nobody on her street. She edged closer to the building and checked the sky again–still no eagle. Maybe it had scattered the other spirits that had been on the street, scared them off with its bizarre behavior.

She pushed away from the building.

“Get in, get done, and get out,” she said, reminding herself of the motto. Don’t linger. You delay, you stay.

The clouds had slowed but were still leading down the empty street. She continued in that direction but, wary of being too exposed on the sidewalk, she stayed close to the buildings and picked up the pace. She checked in both directions before crossing at the next corner, more out of habit than worried about spirit traffic. The spirit traffic was gone. Same as the Middleworld had been, this part of the Underworld was unnaturally quiet.

The clouds stopped moving. Like a movie that had been stopped mid-frame, they hung frozen in the air. She stopped and looked at the building in front of her. There were sliding casement windows on every level, probably an old office building. None of the windows looked any different than any of the others. All of them were shut.

“Of course,” she muttered.

Sometimes there was an obvious clue, especially in a soul loss case: red curtains blowing in an open window, dark footprints on the sidewalk, music playing from a certain direction. The soul wanted to be found and could even wander around the plaza asking for help. But not in this case.

Livvy went up the steps to the front door of the building and was surprised to find that it was locked. Doors were almost never locked in the Underworld. She tugged at it with both hands, but it wouldn’t budge. Again, that was unusual. Her strength as a shaman often translated directly into strength in the Multiverse. The fact that she couldn’t open the door meant it was locked tight, possibly by another shaman. She stood back from it and kicked. It didn’t open but there was a cracking sound. She kicked it again. The cracking sound grew louder. She kicked and kicked and kicked, putting all her weight behind her foot, kicking so hard that her foot started to hurt. She switched feet. The door was starting to move. She kicked it again and it opened about a quarter of an inch, something still holding it closed. With one final push, she backed up and ran at the door, raising her foot at the last second. There was a loud snap as the door flew open. Pieces of wood from the doorframe splintered in every direction.

The door ricocheted off the wall, still on its hinges, and bounced back. She caught it with both hands as she entered, then pushed it away. Once inside the doorway, she stopped to get her bearings and catch her breath.

The deserted lobby had a reception counter opposite the front door and an elevator to the left of the counter. A small couch, coffee table, and low chairs were grouped to the right. A door that led to a stairwell with an exit sign above it was on the other side of the elevator. Between the elevator and stairs was a building directory.

She shoved the door against the wall and jammed pieces of the doorframe debris under it with her foot to keep it from closing. The light that fell on the floor through the broken door was the only light in the room. She crossed over to the directory.

The white plastic lettering tucked into the ridged black felt showed that it was a financial building, with accountants, auditors and advisers of various types. At the bottom of the list, there were red letters.

“Anita,” she said, as she placed her fingers on the glass over the name. Room 349.

Suddenly, the elevator dinged loudly. Livvy jumped back. There was nothing inherently wrong about elevators working in the Underworld, but one that started without any reason in a locked building that appeared to be deserted…well, that was disturbing. Something was wrong.

As the doors slowly opened, she tensed and moved off to the side, peering back around to see what might be inside, but it was empty. She looked into every corner of it, up and down, right and left, but there was nothing there–only the open doors, waiting.

“Yeah right,” she said. “I don’t think so.”

Again, the feeling that this was taking too long nagged at her. She crossed quickly over to the stairwell and pushed the door open. Only green emergency lights for the exit signs on the second and third floors illuminated the dark space. She let the door close behind her and bounded up the steps, two at a time. In moments, she had exited the stairwell on the third floor.

As she jogged past the room numbers down to 349, she called, “Anita? Anita, are you here?”

She stopped in front of 349 and tried the knob. It was locked. She knocked.

“Anita, are you in there? Dolores sent me.”

She pounded on the door with her fist.

“Anita, if you can hear me, make a sound,” she yelled. “I’m here to help you. Your sister sent me.”

There was a muffled scraping from inside the room.

“Anita, can you unlock the door?”

There was only silence.

“Anita!”

Still no answer.

Livvy backed up against the opposite wall in the hallway, took a short running launch, and gave the door a wicked kick, right next to the doorknob. It immediately popped open, but the front room was empty, except for a thick layer of dust on the wood floor.

“Anita?” called Livvy, swiveling her head to scan the room. “Anita, make a sound. Dolores sent me to help you!”

A scratching sound came from behind a door to her left. Livvy flew over to it and yanked it open. It was a small closet but it was empty.

No, not empty. Something moved on the floor. Livvy strained her eyes and stood aside so the light from the window could help. A small crab cowered in the corner.

“Anita?”

The eyes wriggled and it waved its small claws.

“Oh no,” Livvy whispered.

Not just soul loss, this was soul transformation. No wonder SK had called her and no wonder the other shaman hadn’t been successful.

“All right. First, let’s get you out of here.”

Livvy reached down and scooped up the tiny crab.
 

• • • • •

In the real world, Anita’s chest rose suddenly, as she inhaled. But nothing else moved, including her eyelids.

“Did you see that?” exclaimed Dolores. “Did you see it?”

“She took a deep breath,” said the teenager at the door.

There was a commotion in the hallway.

“Is that a good sign?” Dolores asked SK.

SK looked over at Livvy’s motionless body. Sweat was starting to break out on her forehead and small wisps of white hair were clinging to it.

He looked at Anita and saw that her breathing had subsided again but was a fraction less shallow.

“Yes, it’s a good sign,” he ventured.

His eyes darted around the baseboard of the room as he took stock of all the electrical outlets, at least the ones he could see. A single lamp was plugged in, though not on. That was lucky, he thought.

He returned his gaze to Livvy, who was still lying quietly, her breathing slow and steady. Even in the dim light, her white hair nearly glowed, reflecting light onto the gentle curves of her face and neck.

“Anita took a breath,” gushed the teenager, as she turned and clutched the hand of the woman behind her. “It looks good.”

“Will it be over soon?” asked Dolores.

One way or another
, thought SK.

“It’s hard to tell,” he said, but he watched closely as Livvy’s jugular jumped to life.

Come on
,
Liv
, he thought.
You can do this.

• • • • •

In the Underworld, Livvy had already exited onto the street, holding the little crab to her chest in both hands. But as she turned toward the corner of the block, something sharp and heavy hit the top of her head, knocking it forward. She felt the great whoosh of flapping wings and the scrape of talon on skull as she ducked and flailed with one arm. The eagle screeched in anger as it launched to the sky, having missed its opportunity to take out her eyes. Even as she felt the blood oozing into her hair, it came back for a second attack. Again, she ducked down and it missed, but she fumbled and dropped the little crab. As Livvy grabbed empty air, Anita landed on the pavement and skittered into the gutter, heading directly into a drain hole.

The eagle screeched again as it saw its prize. It had never cared about Livvy. Anita was the goal. The eagle swooped down and landed on the ground next to the crab. As the eagle stepped forward and opened its beak, Livvy dove at them, arms stretched out in front. Despite landing hard, she closed her hand around Anita just before she tipped into the drain, and just before the bird’s beak bit down on her fingers. Pain radiated up her arm and a scream erupted from her throat, but there was no way she was going to let go.

Lying on her side, she thrust her other arm to the sky, stretching out her fingers.

“Wind,” she ground out through clenched teeth.

Without hesitation, the eagle released her hand and cocked its head to look at the sky. As Livvy stood, she clutched both hands over the crab again. An enormous wind came down the street, blowing anything that wasn’t rooted to the ground along with it. As Livvy ran in the direction of the plaza, the wind at her back, papers and leaves flew past her and the eagle tumbled along the ground in the distance in front of her, unable to spread its wings or take flight.

She sprinted around the corner, the wind changing direction to follow her, and saw the plaza and fountain ahead. The crowd of spirits around her struggled against the wind as they watched her flash by. She ignored them, focusing on the fountain, not daring to look back. She heard the eagle scream behind her as she dove head first into the fountain, cradling the crab under her arm as though she were diving for a touchdown. The water began to whirl one moment and in the next she had broken the surface of the black lake.

Livvy felt the little crab wriggling between her hands as her feet found the bottom.

“I’ve got you. Hold on,” she said and headed for shore.

Tired, breathing hard, and moving lethargically out of the water, Livvy dropped to her knees on the wet gravel and released the crab.

As she watched, it scampered away from the lake, then turned and came back and retreated again, almost doing circles.

“Yeah, I know, you’re anxious to get back,” Livvy breathed and stood up. “But you’re not going back like that.”

She walked a short distance away from the lake and stopped. This was the moment she knew had been coming ever since she’d seen that Anita had been transformed into a crab. It had been the work of a shaman, no doubt. As she felt the gash on the top of her head, she knew that shaman’s spirit helper was an eagle. It had been a powerful practitioner to have created such a radical transformation of Anita’s spirit and then hidden her in a locked and abandoned building in the Underworld.

But a transformation was no match for Livvy’s gift, as both she and SK knew. He was the only one to whom she had told her secret. And she knew that he must have meant for her to use her power now, despite knowing what he knew. She shivered but it wasn’t from the cold of the lake. Only once had she called down lightning without controlling it tightly. She had never let that happen again.

She looked down at Anita, who had stopped running in circles. An image of her children, the two little girls crying, flashed into Livvy’s mind. She imagined their smiles and happy tears, reunited with their mother. It had only been Anita’s enormous will to live–probably for those kids–that had kept her holding on in the Underworld.

Livvy looked up to the sky. The dark clouds were already swirling above her.

“Anita,” she said squatting down. “I’ve got to transform your soul.”

The crab danced but didn’t move away. The breeze was starting to pick up.

“I need you to stay absolutely still. It’s really important. Terribly important.”