City of the Snakes (41 page)

We study the dolls in silence. A doll of my father is there, and one of Ama. There are others I recognize—Conchita Kubekik and Inti Maimi.

“Leonora Shankar,” Wami murmurs, pointing to the doll of the once-famous restaurateur.

“And Adrian Arne,” Raimi adds, reaching for the doll of a young man, stopping before he touches it, slowly withdrawing his hand. He glances at the
Coya
but speaks to me. “Ask her if these have been stolen from Party Central.”

“No,” comes the answer. “What Dorak didn’t know was that there were two of each doll. There had to be, just as you need a sperm and an egg to make a baby. The blood he gave to his doll was combined with the blood our
Coya
gave to hers, and the pair were used to produce the Ayuamarcans.”

The
Coya
picks up a doll—Ama’s—and runs a cracked nail over the top of its head. Ama shivers violently, then steels herself and stares impassively at the queen of the underworld Incas.

“When Dorak destroyed a doll by piercing its heart,” the
Coya
continues, “he eliminated its body but not its spirit. For that to happen, the other doll’s heartbeat also needed to be stopped. Until it was, the spirit of the dream person remained at our disposal, to be recalled any time we wish.”

I frown. “But you said a male and female were needed. If Dorak was the last of the
Watanas
, how can you bring the Ayuamarcans back to life?”

“Restoring life is not the same as creating it,” the
Coya
says. “We cannot create new beings without the
Watana
, but we can restore the essence of those who have walked before. Thus we brought back Paucar Wami when we needed a figurehead to front the Snakes. And Ama Situwa when we needed to lure Capac Raimi to us.”

“Care to tell us how you pull that trick off?” Raimi asks sourly.

“Good magicians never reveal their secrets,” the priest chuckles without asking his queen. “And we are the very best magicians.”

“It makes sense,” Raimi mutters, “in its own crazy way. It explains why Dorak always had to wait a day or so for his Ayuamarcans to appear—the
Coya
had to weave her magic over the other doll. And it accounts for you being here”—this to Ama and Wami—“in your original forms. Your dolls never aged, and since they used those to restore you, you look the same the second or twentieth time around.”

“Couldn’t they have had one doll instead of two?” Ama asks. “I understand
that both the blood of the
Watana
and
Coya
were needed, but I don’t see the need for the duplicate dolls.”

“We could have used a single doll,” the priest says. “Indeed, we did with Capac Raimi, which is why you don’t see a doll of him on the trays. But by creating twins, we gave our
Watanas
a degree of control over their creations.”

“You let them think they were running the show,” Raimi says, “while all the time you were really pulling the strings.”

“Of course,” the
villac
smiles.

“There is another thing I have difficulty understanding,” Paucar Wami says. “Any time I disobeyed your orders, you took my body apart with magic. Did you do that by piercing the heart of my doll?”

“No. There are other ways to disassemble an Ayuamarcan. By removing a doll’s head, we render the human inert. Once the head has been reattached and the proper procedures followed, life can be restored. The heart of the doll continues beating until pierced. As long as it does, the Ayuamarcan may be recalled. Once pierced, that is the end, the spirit can never be summoned again.”

My father stares at his doll, eyes narrowing. I know what he’s thinking—if he gets ahold of it, the priests have no further claim on him. He’d be free to do as he pleased. Unfortunately for him, the
Coya
has also read his thoughts.

She picks up the doll and holds it close to her grotesque breasts, stroking its bare chest with a sharp nail.

“The removal of the doll’s head also explains how we keep our creations bound to this city,” the
villac
says smugly. “Dorak thought his Ayuamarcans could not survive beyond these boundaries, but with the exception of Capac Raimi, they
can
. The reason most never did is that we unpicked the flesh of their bodies every time they left. It was our way of keeping them in check.”

Ama stares at the priest. “You mean I can leave? My body won’t disintegrate?”

“Only Raimi is bound. We knew we could not kill him once Dorak was dead, so we took steps to ensure we could control him by tying him physically to the city. The rest of you were always free to wander if we’d let you.”

While Ama and Raimi mull that over—my father isn’t bothered, having been able to come and go anyway—the
villac
consults with his queen, then says, “You now know how you came to be and why.” He turns to Raimi. “You also have a further reason to pledge your cause to ours, so we expect no more trouble from you after this.”

“How’s that?” The Cardinal replies skeptically.

“Your woman.” The priest waves at Ama. “You sacrificed her once, when you thought it was necessary. But by uniting with us, you can keep her, and not just for this life. When she reaches the end of her mortal days, we can resurrect her. She will not last unto eternity—her doll will eventually crumble, and her essence with it—but we can promise you a millennium together, maybe longer.”

Raimi’s eye softens and he looks to Ama for her response, which comes more quickly than he anticipated. “If you have any feelings for me at all, you won’t do that.”

“You’d say no to a thousand years of life?” Raimi asks, surprised.

“Don’t subject me to the misery
you
endure, Capac. I don’t want to come back time and time again. One life’s enough. I don’t crave another.”

“How about you?” Raimi asks my father. “Would you accept their offer?”

“If I could accept it and be free, I would,” Wami answers thoughtfully. “But to be a slave for ten centuries…” He shakes his head. “I could never tire of killing, but I would know I was at their beck and call, and that would sour life for me.”

Raimi faces the
villac
and grins. “We all agree—go fuck yourselves.”

The
villac
’s face darkens. “It seems you have not yet learned your lesson, Blood of Dreams. We will have to tie you down again and…” He stops at the sound of commotion. Voices have been raised and the alarmed cries of
mamaconas
ring around the cavern. In the distance there are the dull thuds of gunfire. The priest strides to the sheet and swipes it aside. Through the parting I see naked priestesses gathered around a small group of shaken
villacs
.

“What’s going on?” Raimi whispers as the priest hurries to his companions to determine the meaning of the interruption. The
Coya
is peering over our heads.

“A little surprise Al cooked up,” Ama grins, kissing The Cardinal’s bloody forehead. “Just sit back and enjoy the show. We’ll explain later.”

The English-speaking
villac
consults with his harried brothers, impatiently at first, then fearfully. He races to the door of the cavern and is almost knocked down by several priests as they surge through. He makes it to the entrance, stands there listening, then pushes ahead out of view. A minute later he returns at full speed, face warped with terror. He cuts through the
villacs
and
mamaconas
, ignoring their plaintive cries, and screams at the
Coya
before he’s even halfway to her bed-cum-throne.

The massive queen bolts upright and snaps something in reply. He falls over a shrieking priestess, rises, kicks her out of his way and answers. The
Coya
’s gaze settles on me and the hatred in her eyes would floor a lesser man. She points a finger at me, Ama and my father, then roars to the approaching
villac
. He grabs two of the priests closest to him and barks an order. The three draw daggers and move on me, while the
Coya
grasps the dolls of Paucar Wami and Ama Situwa and prepares to drive her nails through their hearts.

My father reads the queen’s intentions and hurls himself at her. He gets no farther than the base of the bed. As soon as his foot touches it, he’s propelled backward and he crashes through the red sheets, falling heavily on a circle of candles. The
Coya
roars maliciously and holds his doll above her head.

“Wait!” I bellow as the priests close in. Grabbing the hem of my robes, I hoist them over my chest, exposing my body to the bloated queen—along with the vest of explosives.

The
Coya
doesn’t know what the vest means—I imagine she understands little of the world above—but she knows I’m not flashing for the fun of it. She screeches a command to the priests, who stop within striking distance of me. I turn to the one who speaks English. “Come here,” I growl. “Feel what I’m wearing.”

He lowers his knife and stretches out a hand. He frowns when his fingers touch the material of the vest. Then his fingers explore further and his face collapses.

“Make any further moves on me or the others and I’ll blow you all to hell,” I tell him sweetly.

“You would perish too,” he moans.

I laugh. “I came here to die. If you think I’m bluffing, try me. Now, tell her to give me the dolls or I’ll bring this roof down on the whole lot of us.”

The
villac
gulps, then speaks to his queen. Her flabby jowls quiver indignantly and she starts to berate him. He snaps at her irately, and even though I don’t speak their language, I know what they’re saying. He tells her about the explosives and my demand of her, she questions my sincerity—would I truly take my own life?—and he puts her straight in no uncertain terms.

The
Coya
snarls at me, but then the sound of gunfire fills the cavern—the invaders must be almost to the doors—and she realizes she has no time for a duel. She hurls the dolls at me, then rattles off a list of orders to the
villac
. Reacting with admirable coolness, he summons several priests, along with a dozen or more
mamaconas,
and issues instructions. They obey without question, hurrying to the side of the cavern and returning with two long poles that they slide into grooves along the sides of the
Coya
’s bed. The Incas group around each of the four protruding handles, then lift at the
Coya
’s command. Facing the back of the cavern, they set off with surprising speed.

The English-speaking
villac
squares up to me, his white eyes tinted orange by the flickering lights of the candles. “This is not the end,” he snarls. “We’ve had to flee before and build anew. We shall do so again. This city is ours and we will reclaim it as surely as the sun will rise in the morning.”

I smile and hit him with a sly, stinging retort. “In your dreams.”

The priest’s upper lip curls, but he can think of no suitable comeback, so he races after his
Coya
and her retinue, quickly disappearing from sight.

“Shouldn’t we go after them?” Ama asks.

“There’s no rush.” Tucking the dolls of Ama and Paucar Wami between my vest and chest, I lower my robes and wink at her, nodding toward the remaining
villacs
and
mamaconas
as they face the barbarians spilling into the cavern. “Let’s enjoy the grand finale. I’ve been waiting a long time to see these blind bastards take a good beating. I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”

T
he Incas mount a surprisingly stout defense, the naked priestesses and blind priests hurling themselves at their assailants, brandishing fingernails and knives with lethal expertise. But they’re outnumbered and their opponents pack guns, so it’s no real contest. Within five or six minutes the last of the howling
mamaconas
is being put down like a rabid dog—the soldiers have orders to kill all they find—and a beaming Eugene Davern strides toward me through the mixed ranks of Troops, Kluxers and Snakes.

“You’re alive!” he laughs, throwing his arms around me. I’m sure he’ll wince when he recalls this later, but for the moment he’s been carried away by the swiftness and ease of the crushing victory.

“So it seems,” I grunt.

He stands back and studies my robes. “Don’t think much of your getup. We could have shot you in gear like that.”

“I didn’t have much choice. We had to bow to their whims to delay them.”

Behind Davern, Sard enters the cavern and hurries over. “Sapa Inca!” he shouts proudly, wiping blood—not his—from his face. “The hour is ours!”

“You did well, soldier.” Looking around, I see that the Snakes in the cavern are from various phalanxes, not just Sard’s. “Did you have any trouble convincing the others to unite against the
villacs
?”

“None,” he grins. “They knew I wouldn’t invent such an order by myself.”

“They did not question my motives?”

“You’re the Sapa Inca,” he replies simply. On the floor, my father groans and sits up, regaining consciousness. Sard’s eyes widen when he spots the second Paucar Wami and he takes a step backward. “Sapa Inca?” he asks uncertainly, right hand going to the knife on his belt.

“We needed to confuse the priests, so I had this man disguised to look like me.”

“A decoy?” Sard frowns.