City of the Snakes (21 page)

Circling the trainees, I come to a door in the opposite wall of the chamber. The handle turns smoothly. Sparing the sparrers one last, bewildered glance, I step through into a brightly lit corridor, let the door swing shut, and press on.

There are several doors in the walls of the corridor. I open each as I come to it. Storerooms, more corridors, all dark and empty. No signs of life. At the end I come to a set of swing doors. Pushing through, I enter a kitchen where a handful of men and one woman—dressed, shaven and tattooed the same as those in the sparring hall—work in silence over old-style stoves, baking bread. One of the men spots me and scowls. “You can’t come in here!”

I ignore him and wander forward, noting microwave ovens in the background, a curious mix of new and old utensils, three huge freezers running along one wall, two refrigerators along another. The man with the scowl moves to block me. “You can’t come in here,” he repeats, softly this time, anticipating a fight.

I take stock of the chef and realize he’s as dangerous as those in the cavern, if not more so. I have to be careful. “My name’s Al Jeery,” I mutter.

The chef relaxes. “We’ve been expecting you.”

“You know who I am?”

“You’re Al Jeery,” he laughs.

“Is that all you know—my name?”

He nods. “We were told you’d be joining us.”

“Who told you?”

He pulls a face, as if he thinks I know the answer and am testing him. “Probably the same person who brought you here.”

“And that’s…?”

“You know,” he chuckles and returns to his dough, which he kneads clumsily. I think he’s more of a warrior than a chef.

I watch the men and woman work for a while, then ask the chef for his name.

“Ray,” he says.

“Ray what?”

“We only use first names here.”

I change tack. “How many are you cooking for?”

“The eighteen of phalanx 5C.”

That could be the group I encountered earlier. “How many phalanxes are there?”

“I don’t know.”

“Which do you belong to?”

“4A.”

“How many in your group?”

“Eighteen, the same as the others.”

“How many of you are there in total?”

He smiles. “You already asked me a question like that. I still don’t know.”

“Who does?”

He shrugs. “The Cobras.”

“Cobras?”

“The captains of the triumvirates. There are three phalanxes per triumvirate.”

He’s mixing Greek and Roman terminology, but I let that pass, doing the math. Eighteen multiplied by three is fifty-four. If there are at least five triumvirates, that makes two hundred and seventy—not counting
Cobras
.

“Where did you come from?” I ask Ray. “How did you get here?”

He shakes his head. “We don’t ask questions like that.”

“Who controls the Cobras?”

A flicker of irritation crosses his face. “I don’t have time for this.”

“Who should I report to?”

“I don’t know.”

“Who were you told to send me to?”

“Nobody. We were just told you were coming and not to interfere with you.”

“Where can I find the Cobras?”

“They have their own quarters. I don’t know where. They come to us, not the other way around.”

“Is there some kind of central meeting place?”

Ray walks me to the swing doors and points out a door on the left. “Take the corridor through there. When you get to the third door on the right, turn off. That leads to the main hall, though I doubt you’ll find anyone there now.”

“What time is it?” I ask.

“Ten to four. Everyone will be in training or on assignment until six.”

The last time I checked my watch was in the Manco Capac statue and it was a few minutes shy of midday. Less time has passed than I thought. I thank Ray for his assistance. He grunts and returns to the kitchen. I start for the door, then stop, follow Ray and ask for a glass of water. I slide a knife from a counter without anyone seeing, then go looking for the main hall.

Ray’s directions were true. Within minutes I’m standing inside the entrance to an enormous cavern that I recognize. I was here ten years ago, summoned by the
villacs
. It’s much the same as I remember, walls adorned with symbols, many blood-red depictions of the sun, a huge gold sun medallion hanging from the ceiling over a round stone platform, like the one in the Manco Capac solarium, only larger, maybe 120 feet in diameter. Three thrones sit at the center of the platform. Around the circumference mummies are lashed to chairs, though there are gaps. The priests must have moved some of their dead ancestors up to the compartments in the solarium.

I approach the platform warily, scanning the shadows of the candlelit cavern for
villacs
and Snakes. I appear to be alone. Skirting the platform, keeping my knife low, I edge farther into the cavern, feeling isolated and exposed.

“You found your way here quicker than I expected,” someone says from the darkness above. I raise my knife and peer uselessly into the layers of blackness that mask the ceiling. “Put away the knife,” the speaker says and a rope drops. “You won’t need it.”

A man shimmies down the rope and lands catlike. He turns and smiles. He’s older than the others I’ve encountered, in his thirties. He’s bald, and sports light blue snakes on his cheeks, but he wears a leather jacket over his T-shirt.

“Are you a Cobra?” I ask, not lowering the knife.

He raises a thin eyebrow. “You learn quickly. Yes. I command the second triumvirate. You know about those?”

“I’ve gathered the basics. How many triumvirates are there?”

“Seven. We’re in the midst of forming an eighth.”

That bumps the number up to almost four hundred. No wonder Davern’s worried about the Snakes.

“Who commands and finances you?”

The Cobra smiles. “Ask no questions, told no lies. Come, Mr. Jeery, the master awaits.” He offers the rope to me.

“I’m not climbing up there until I know what’s going on,” I tell him.

He shrugs. “Then you’ll stay here and rot.”

“Who are you taking me to?”

“You’ll see when you get there.”

“Is it…?” I can’t bring myself to say the name.

The Cobra’s smile fades and he jerks the rope. Since I’ve got no real choice, I take it and start up, followed by the Cobra, to a balcony. Once there, I turn, stop the Cobra from mounting, and press my blade to his throat.

“I want answers and I want them now,” I snarl, but he laughs at the threat.

“Kill me if you must, Mr. Jeery, but you won’t scare answers out of me. Nobody fears death down here. We’re taught to accept it.”

I’m tempted to slice his throat for the hell of it, but that wouldn’t bring me the truth. Standing back, I let him climb and I fall into place behind him as he marches to the end of the platform, into another tunnel.

“How many tunnels are there?” I ask after we’ve wound our way through several more passages.

“That’s a question I couldn’t answer even if I had a mind to,” the Cobra says. “I’ve been down here six years and I’m still discovering new routes.”

“Six years is a long time to spend underground,” I note.

“Yes,” he agrees, just a touch of bitterness to his tone.

“Did the
villacs
build these tunnels?”

He considers the question, then nods.

“Do they still control them?”

Clicking his tongue, he shakes a finger at me. We advance down one dark tunnel after another, twisting and turning. Finally we come to a door and the Cobra stops. “We’ve arrived. I’ll leave you. Proceed as you wish.”

“Wait,” I stop him. “What’s your name?”

“Cobras don’t have names. Not as far as you’re concerned anyway.”

He leaves.

I stand in the gloom a few moments, then push open the door. I enter a short corridor, both sides lined with human skulls, a few with scraps of flesh still clinging to the bone. The tops have been sliced off all of them and candles set within. I’m not given to superstitious fears, but my spine tingles as I walk the short stretch to the door at the opposite end of the corridor.

Driving the fear from my mind, I focus on the door and open it. Stepping inside, I study my surroundings. I’m in a fair-sized room, a single bed in one corner, knives, chains and other weapons in another. The third corner’s bare. In the fourth rests a desk decorated with human bones—dozens of them are pinned to the legs and around the rim. At the desk sits a man with his back to me. He’s breathing lightly, busy with something. Stepping closer, I peer over his shoulder and see that he’s prising the eyes from the sockets of a dead child’s head.

“Have you ever killed a child?” he asks conversationally.

“No,” I sigh.

“They afford great sport.”

There’s no answer to a statement like that. Looking away, I wait for him to speak again, which he does presently. “You know who I am?”

“I know who you claim to be.”

I sense his smile. “Surely you do not doubt your own eyes and ears?”

“I know how easy it is to mimic a man. I’ve been doing it for ten years.”

“The appearance, yes, but not the voice,” he retorts. “I have eavesdropped on you many times. You never mastered my dulcet tones.” He swings around and faces me. This close, there’s no mistaking him. The face, the eyes, the snakes can all be copied, but that expression of sheer, gleeful, inhuman evil is unique. I’ve never come close to matching it and I don’t believe anybody else could either.

“Salutations, Al m’boy,” Paucar Wami says, then spreads his arms and grins his most charmingly twisted smile. “Don’t you have a hug for your dear ol’ pappy?”

Y
ou’re dead.” The words sound ridiculous said to him in the flesh. I’m sitting on the edge of the bed, across from my father, a man ten years deceased. He hasn’t moved from his seat at the desk.

“No,” he says thoughtfully, fingers toying with the child’s head as he speaks. “I have been, and shall die again soon I’m sure, but for the time being I live.” He chuckles. “You could say this is one of my better days.”

“Where have you been?” I ask.

“Most of the time… deceased. The rest down here, training my boys and girls to be good little killers.”

“You recruited the Snakes?”

“A few, but most were brought to me by the priests. I am the figurehead leader, the assassin who returns from beyond the grave. The priests slaughter me in front of the Snakes every so often, then resurrect me. It impresses my followers no end. I also make impassioned speeches and participate in training. And occasionally I accompany a phalanx on a raid to the upper world, where I glory in death’s wondrous embrace once again.”

“You killed Tasso’s and Davern’s men?”

“Some of them. The Snakes took care of the rest.”

So Davern was right. Paucar Wami
did
kill his men. It was just a different Paucar Wami from the one he assumed.

“I don’t understand this. You were an Ayuamarcan. You should have died with The Cardinal. Hell, you did! How have you come back?”

“I have not
come,”
he answers, eyes dark. “I have been
brought.”
He tosses the child’s head away, stands and stretches. He’s exactly as I remember. Hasn’t aged a day. He should be an old man, but time doesn’t weigh heavy on him. He looks younger than I do.

“Much up here”—he taps the side of his head—“is darkness. My memories are elusive. I know you are my son, my firstborn, but I cannot recall your mother or watching you grow. I have flashes of us ten years ago, working as a team, but I do not remember how our paths crossed or the common goal we pursued.”

“You don’t remember Bill Casey?” I ask quietly.

He frowns. “In dreams, sometimes, I think that name, but I do not know why. Who is he?”

“A police officer.”

“An adversary of mine? A man I killed or who tried to kill me?”

I shake my head wordlessly. I want to think he’s playing with me, but I see in his eyes that he’s not. He really doesn’t know.

“We’ll return to Bill,” I mutter, praying for calm. This is a surreal encounter and it would be easy to run mad in the face of it. I have to remain lucid and take it on its own terms. “Tell me about yourself… the last ten years… what happened.”

“That is a long story.”

“We have time.”

“Yes. More than you could imagine. At least I have.” He strokes his snakes the way I’ve so often stroked mine since having the tattoos. “Ten years ago I died. My last minutes are clear in my mind. You were with me at Party Central. I wanted to stop The Cardinal killing himself, because I knew that my life was bound with his. He created me. When he died, I would perish with him.

“I tried to stop him jumping but I was powerless. He leaped. A green mist enveloped me. I had a sense of the world fading, then nothing. I was dead.”