Shaman, Healer, Heretic (39 page)

Livvy looked to the sky and raised her hand. As she opened her mouth, she felt something strange at her feet and looked down. It was the snake, Carmen’s spirit helper. It was coiling itself around her right calf and moving up.

In the chaos, she’d lost track of Carmen. Quickly, she looked around. Carmen was standing right behind her.

“Carmen, what are you doing?” she yelled over Tiamat’s shrieks.

She heard the Nahual’s sound rising in the background as she readied for another attack. Wan-li and her tiger were still darting among Tiamat’s feet, distracting her.

In the distance, she saw Ursula and Alvina standing side by side–Ursula began her heat attack and Alvina her pressure attack, working together.

The snake was winding up higher on Livvy’s thigh.

“Carmen,” she yelled, turning back to her, but Carmen wasn’t doing anything–except smiling.

“Carmen, what are you doing?” Livvy yelled. She reached down to grab the snake, but it hissed and opened a gaping mouth toward her, tightening on her leg.

“Stop your snake, Carmen!” Livvy screamed at her. The pain in her leg was excruciating. She looked down and saw that it was moving up to her hips and had also looped around the other leg.

Livvy looked to the sky and raised her hand.

“We’re too close,” said Carmen, almost in her ear. “You can’t call down lightning. You’ll kill yourself.”

Livvy looked back at the battle scene. No one saw what was going on. Everyone was focused on Tiamat. She turned back to Carmen. “What are you doing?”

“Something I’ve wanted to do for a long time.”

Livvy looked down at the snake as it tightened around her waist. She tried to push it off with both hands but realized with growing terror that it was winning.

The ground shook as Tiamat lurched toward Alvina and Ursula, her scream deafening. Carmen stumbled and caught herself, but Livvy fell over, unable to move her legs. As she lay on the ground, the snake took the opportunity to coil higher and tighter. Livvy realized she couldn’t breathe.

Carmen loomed over her and gloated. “I was the one who killed Sunny,” she said over the din. “Me!” she said, pointing at her chest.

“But why?” Livvy managed to get out.

“I’m tired of living in a garage,” she yelled. “I’m tired of eating cheap food. I’m tired of working like a slave. And I’m tired of you!”

Livvy forced herself to look beyond Carmen’s angry face to the sky. Yes, Carmen and her snake were too close to strike safely, but it had to be done–even if they all died. Livvy thrust her hand skyward.

The snake immediately tightened, forcing a groan from her. Carmen kicked her arm with all her might, and then again before Livvy dropped it. Then Carmen stood on her hand, causing Livvy to cry out.

“Pretty little Livvy, the young lightning shaman,” Carmen screamed in her face. “Steal clients behind my back? Think you’re better than me? Where’s your power now?” She stood up straight and waved her arms at the surroundings. “Where’s your–”

Carmen lurched backward as Marduk’s spear thudded into her chest. Livvy watched in horror as its momentum carried her backward, impaling her on the ground.

Tiamat screeched in the distance and the snake went slack. Livvy shoved at it frantically, squirming on the ground to get away from it. It slowly slithered away from her and moved toward Carmen.

As she rolled to her knees, Livvy looked up to see Marduk thundering toward Carmen, the horses running at full gallop. As the chariot swept by, he grabbed the spear and jerked it upward, retrieving it.

As Livvy stood, though, she found herself bathed in a blinding white circle of light. The eye of Tiamat was on her. She felt the heat in her chest and was clutching at it. She stumbled, not sure which way to move and not able to see.

As her legs started to buckle beneath her, she felt herself being lifted up from behind. An arm encircled her chest, went under her arms, and yanked her off the ground. She landed on something solid and the light disappeared. She was in the chariot, riding with Marduk.
 

• • • • •

In the real world, SK moved toward Carmen. “She’s not breathing,” he said to Joel.

Joel rushed over and felt for a pulse at her neck. “No pulse,” he said, going for his cart. He retrieved the defibrillator, switched it on, and removed the paddles. He rolled up Carmen’s shirt and set them down. He shocked her and she convulsed.

SK moved over to Livvy and checked the other shamans quickly. He stared down hard at Livvy, seeing her chest rise and fall, the pace of it quickening.

“Still no pulse,” said Joel. He tried the paddles again. “Still no good,” he said, tossing them aside. “Chest compressions,” he said and started CPR.

SK came over, taking out his phone.

“Call 911?” he asked.

“No,” said Joel, after doing the puffs. “No, I’ve got it.”

“But…”

“I’ve got it,” he said, compressing her chest. Then he did more puffs. “If you call, this whole thing will be over,” said Joel, breathing hard. “Besides, all they’re going to do is exactly what I’m doing.”

As SK watched, Joel tried over and over again, puffs and compressions, checking his watch.

“Come on,” Joel grunted as he looked at Carmen’s face during compressions. “Come on!”

“What can I do to help?” asked SK, almost pleading.

“Nothing,” said Joel quickly as he switched from compressions back to puffing.

SK looked at his phone. Maybe he should call 911 anyway.

He checked Livvy again and was about to make the call, when Joel stopped. He wiped sweat off his forehead while breathing hard. Carmen wasn’t moving.

“That’s it,” he exhaled. He shook his head and sat back on his heels. “She’s gone.”
 

• • • • •

Even before the doctor said it, they knew. Min’s mother sobbed uncontrollably, her husband clutching her around the shoulders. He cried as well.

The EEG was conclusive, a flat line.

“I’m afraid she’s brain dead,” said the doctor as he turned off the machine. “I’m very sorry.”

Hand over his mouth, eyes overflowing with tears, Min’s brother watched from across the bed. His mother bent low, clutching her daughter over the metal railing. The ventilator at the head of the bed sucked upward and then down, audible even over the crying, upward and then down. The nurse at the foot of the bed dabbed at her eyes with a tissue and sniffed.

“I know this is difficult,” said the doctor. “But it’s time to consider withdrawing life support.” He looked at Sam, having already learned that he was the interpreter. “I don’t suppose she had a medical directive.”

“No,” said Sam, wiping the tears from his eyes and cheeks. Of course she didn’t have a medical directive. She was too young–much too young. He looked down at his sister’s face.

“Then, it’ll be up to your parents,” said the doctor. “It would just be a matter of removing the ventilator.”

Suddenly, Sam remembered Livvy’s words. Don’t let them remove the breathing tube, she’d said. He looked at the ventilator and then at his sobbing parents, who were oblivious to the conversation. I’ll do my best, he had said to Livvy. He stared hard at Min’s face.

“Will you tell them?” asked the doctor as he turned to him and put a hand on his shoulder. “I know this is hard, but they need to know.”

He looked at his parents, his mouth suddenly sticky dry, and nodded.

“Just,” he started and paused. “Can you just give us a few minutes?”

“Of course.”

The doctor motioned to the nurse and they left the room.

A few minutes
, he thought, stepping next to the bed. He took in a long, shaky breath. A few minutes might be all that Min had left, because he didn’t need to ask his parents about the ventilator. He already knew what they would say.
 

• • • • •

“Nice friends you’ve got,” shouted Marduk over the rumbling of the chariot wheels and horse hooves.

“I can’t believe it,” yelled Livvy as she struggled to make sense of what had just happened. She watched Carmen’s body recede behind them, until Tiamat’s screech brought her head back around. She fought to stay upright, gripping the edges of the lurching chariot, even though Marduk only held the reins.

“Don’t look back,” he shouted. “Only forward.”

He wheeled the chariot to the left, putting distance between them and Tiamat. Livvy sloshed to the right and nearly tumbled out. As he spun the chariot back in the opposite direction, Livvy saw that Alvina, Ursula, Wan-li, and the Nahual had surrounded Tiamat. She was turning from one to another as they laid down their attacks.

Marduk slowed the chariot. “Time for a whirlwind. Letting you off here,” he said, giving her a nudge.

She jumped down to the ground as he spurred the horses back on. Looking up to the sky, she reached up her hand.

“Whirlwind,” she said.

The darkness of the clouds massed together above her, spiraling in on itself. It wound tighter and tighter until the funnel started to descend. Slowly it stretched itself downward, directly over Tiamat. Its tip elongated, seeking out its target. Livvy could see the funnel distinctly now but so could Tiamat.

She hunkered down, drawing in her wings although the wind tried to lift them. The light of her eye winked in and out as she blinked against the debris in the wind. She had not yet seen Livvy. As Livvy shielded her face from the wind and the rising dust storm, she realized that the other shaman’s attacks had been rendered ineffective.

The vacuum that the funnel was creating had left little air for Alvina to create a pressure surge or for the Nahual to create a sound. Ursula’s heat balls were fizzling almost immediately in the growing gale. Only Wan-li and her tiger were able to do anything, unaffected by the howling wind.

Livvy kept her hand in the air. The tip of the funnel was almost on top of Tiamat. The light of the eye landed on the ground nearby as Tiamat sought out the source of the whirlwind.

“Come on, Marduk,” Livvy said, although she knew he couldn’t hear her.

She leaned into the wind to keep from being blown over. The circle of light moved closer to her, but she didn’t move. She kept her arm raised. The light blinked out briefly but then was back, almost on her this time.

Suddenly, Wan-li stepped into the light, and it began to blaze more brightly. She moved through it quickly, but the circle followed her. She shifted away from Livvy, drawing the deadly heat with her, the tiger moving alongside. But then, in a burst of light, she disappeared.

Livvy blinked and the tiger came to a sudden stop, swiveling its head from side to side. What had happened? Had Wan-li been burned? Had she gone into a coma?
 

• • • • •

In the real world, SK had been so focused on Livvy that he hadn’t realized what Joel was doing. It had sounded like he was putting his equipment and supplies back in place after trying to resuscitate Carmen. But, when SK looked up, Joel was inserting a needle into Wan-li’s neck.

“Hey,” yelled SK, moving toward him. “What are you doing?”

Joel hastily removed the needle and stood up. He pointed it at SK, squirted out a small stream of clear liquid, and smirked. Then his face twisted into a sneer of such hate that it bordered on a grimace of pain. “Come here, you little runt,” he growled.

• • • • •

With Wan-li and the tiger gone, Livvy stood alone. The wind had built up to a fury and was creating a dust storm at ground level that was picking up small pebbles. Above the brown cloud, she could see Tiamat’s head rising. The wind grabbed at her wings, trying to lift her up, but somehow she managed to resist it.

There was no way Livvy could see the other shamans. Had they also disappeared? What had happened to Wan-li?
 

• • • • •

SK managed to put space between himself and Joel, still trying to understand what he had seen. What had Joel been doing? He tried to see if Wan-li was all right, but Joel was stepping over her.

“Don’t even bother,” Joel said. “No need to worry about her anymore.” He held the needle forward like a knife. “No need to worry about any of them, especially your precious Livvy.”

SK turned to run as Joel leapt at him. He felt a hand on his shoulder.

“Not so fast, little man,” Joel sneered. “I’ve got something for you.”
 

• • • • •

There wasn’t time for Livvy to think about Wan-li and the others as the searing heat of the eye found her. She had no choice but to keep the wind up. It was whipping ferociously now. The light was hot and she closed her eyes, trying desperately to raise enough wind to dislodge Tiamat, but her chest was starting to ache. The heat inside rose quickly. The whirlwind couldn’t stop Tiamat. Livvy started to tremble and realized that she wasn’t going to make it. She knew that Marduk would be looking for his opportunity and wouldn’t see her through the thickening brown haze.
This is it
, she thought as the heat seemed about to consume her. Slowly, she closed her eyes and a series of faces flashed through her mind–Min, Indra, SK, her mother.

Suddenly, the light stopped and the heat in her chest released. She opened her eyes to slits. It was the kachina. The glow of the light of Tiamat’s eye was a halo around him. He was shielding her with the great round headdress, looking at her, waiting. She stretched her hand higher and then thrust up the second one. With both hands reaching toward the sky, she threw her head back, abandoned all other thoughts but one, and then screamed at the top of her lungs.