City of the Snakes (43 page)

The tunnel is narrower than the others, only just wide enough for the bed, with a low ceiling. The cave-in isn’t impassable—the Incas could wriggle through if not for their oversized queen—but it’s a tricky one to clear. All the priests and priestesses are working on it, but as they scoop rocks and pebbles away, fresh stony trickles cascade from the sides and overhead. If they’re not careful, the roof will collapse. It’s a delicate operation, requiring finesse and time, which they don’t have anymore.

“Having fun?” I bellow, and two dozen alarmed faces shoot around. The
Coya
is closest to me and she hisses with fear, making a sign with her huge, fleshy hands, as if that could ward me off. Her priests and handmaidens race from the rocks and line up in front of her. I grin at them. “Heard you were throwing a party. Thought I’d drop in.”

“Where are the others?” snarls the English-speaking
villac
from earlier.

“Gone.”

“Dead?” he asks, surprised.

“No, you fucking moron. They’ve returned to the city.”

He frowns. “You have come alone?”

“Shut up, you asshole,” I sigh, stepping forward for a better view of the
Coya.
“It’s the queen bee I’m interested in, not her drones.”

The priest starts to launch a retort but the
Coya
silences him with a bark. Drawing herself upright on the bed, she glares at me, then studies the vest I’m wearing over my robes. “You have come to destroy me,” she sneers in the ancient tongue that is as natural to me as my own.

“Sure as shit,” I laugh in her language.

“This is foolish. We are your parents, Blood of Dreams, your destiny. We have amazing plans for you. We can keep you intrigued through the long, interminable millennia. Alone, you would have only humans for amusement, and they will cease to amuse you far more quickly than you imagine.”

“I’ve already lost interest in them,” I sigh. “But you don’t interest me either. I don’t care about your plans. I have my own. The mistake you made in letting The Cardinal create me was thinking I’d feel a bond with your kind. You mean nothing to me, you fat, ugly, Incan cunt.” I’ve never relished anything as much as the delivery of that insult. If I survive, I’ll play that moment over and over, possibly until the very end of time.

The
Coya
snarls savagely at me, then shouts at her underlings. “Get him!” A ridiculous choice of final words, but there’s no time for her to reconsider and add a fitting coda. The
villacs
and
mamaconas
rush me. I have no more than four or five seconds.

Closing the fingers of my left hand, I press the slim button at the heart of my palm. A brief pause, then I press the button on my right. There’s no click and no poised moment of heightened tension. The vest explodes instantly, a ferocious blast, obliterating me and the nearest of the Incas, knocking the rest off their feet, bringing the roof down on a screeching, hateful
Coya
and her clan.

The end.

D
ing-dong, the bitch is dead
.

It’s been almost two weeks since the Troops, Kluxers and Snakes joined forces to rid this city of its Incan rulers, and although it’s early days, the signs for a favorable future are positive. Raimi and Davern are cooperating cautiously, and Sard and I have been representing the Snakes, making sure we’re not frozen out of the negotiations. The days of a divided, isolated east are over. From now on the gangs here operate under a single, unified banner. We had to crack some heads to begin with, and that will continue for a while, but in time people will see the benefits of doing it our way. They’ll flock to the cause and the new era of peace and prosperity it heralds.

Or so goes the plan.

The city never looked sweeter than it did when I broke clear of the tunnels with Ama and my father. It was evening, the sun was setting, and for the first time in a decade the ruby-red sky didn’t remind me of the color of blood. We’d heard and felt the explosion on our way up, and knew that Raimi had succeeded.

“So!” Paucar Wami boomed after a few minutes, as we lay on a bank of burned grass and gazed at the sky in solemn silence. “We have overcome the
villacs
and their queen, united the warring factions of the city, and laid
the foundations for a long and lasting peace. Not a bad day’s work, hmm, Al m’boy?”

“It could have been worse,” I deadpanned, then shared a laugh with him, Ama looking on, smiling wistfully (probably thinking about Raimi).

Done laughing, Wami stood and scanned the towering buildings of the city, his green eyes thoughtful. “It is over,” he said softly. “I am truly free for the first time in my life. No Ferdinand Dorak or
villacs
to tell me what I must and must not do. I can be my own man, live for myself, do as I want.” His fingers flexed slowly, hungrily, by his sides.

I cleared my throat and stood beside him. “There’ll be no more killing here.” He didn’t give any sign that he’d heard. “Go elsewhere for your sick kicks. This city’s off-limits.”

“Says who?” he whispered, eyes still on the skyscrapers.

“The leader of the Snakes.”

“
I
lead the Snakes.”

“No. Paucar Wami does. In this city there can only be one Paucar Wami, and that’s
me
. We can fight about it if you want, but there seems little point. It doesn’t matter to you where you kill. Why pit yourself against me when you could be out there”—I gesture to the world beyond—“slaughtering freely?”

He considered that, then nodded calmly. “Very well. The city is yours. I will depart immediately and leave you to it.”

“I’d rather you didn’t.” He glanced at me, surprised. “The next few weeks could be difficult. I might have need of you. I want you to stay, hidden and inactive, ready to step in if I call.”

“Why should I?” he asked. “I am eager to be about my new life. I care not for the people of this city and their problems.”

“I’m asking, as your son—please hang around.”

“If I do not?”

I shrugged. “I can’t force you to stay. You’ll do it or you won’t.”

He thought about it, then nodded again. “I am grateful to you for including me in the rousting of the
villacs
—that was sport I shall not forget in a hurry—so I will stay for a fortnight, lie low and heed your call. But,” he warned, “if you
do
call, you must accept the nature of the beast which
you summon. I will not kill while in hiding, but if directed, I will consider those you sic me on fair game. I will show them no mercy.”

“Agreed.”

“I will be near the burned-out police station. Come if you need me. Otherwise I will contact you before I leave.” He paused, tugged at his robes and grimaced. “I hate these rags.” He pulled the robes off, stood naked before us—he winked lewdly at Ama, but she gazed back blankly, unimpressed—then turned and set off at a leisurely pace, whistling as if out on a casual stroll.

“I despise that monster,” Ama said as we watched him leave, “but there’s no denying the man has style.”

“Come on,” I chuckled, taking her arm. “The Snakes and their
friends
should be finished in the tunnels. Let’s go separate them before they turn on one another.”

I got virtually no sleep the next few days. There was a lot of work to be done in the east—fires to extinguish, roads to unblock—and the Snakes made sure all went smoothly, providing escorts for the police, medics and cleanup crews who were soon swamping the streets. We kept tabs on dissident gangs, knocked them into order if necessary, safeguarded the public by patrolling the neighborhoods, securing the peace.

I faced a constant stream of meetings with public officials, on top of the head-to-heads with Ford Tasso and Eugene Davern at Party Central. I involved Sard and the other Cobras as much as I could, getting them accustomed to the politics of self-control, but as the Sapa Inca my presence was expected. I had no intention of saddling myself with the job in the long run, but in the short term there was nothing for it but to bite down hard and go with the flow. No point rescuing people from the wolves only to leave them for the vultures.

Raimi returned on Friday, fresh and unscarred. Tasso stepped aside without a murmur and The Cardinal was soon locked in negotiations with Davern and Sard. When anyone asked where he’d been, he grinned and replied, “On vacation.”

It soon became clear that The Cardinal had changed, and everyone agreed it was for the better. Before his disappearance he’d been arrogant
and aloof, conferring only with the elite in Party Central, having nothing to do with the ordinary people, spurning media interviews. Now he was on the news all the time, pitching in to rebuild the east, sponsoring shelters to house the homeless, liaising between the Troops, Kluxers and Snakes. He also worked closely with the police, even going so far as to publicly run Stuart Jordan out of the city and allow an honest cop to replace him.

I have my doubts about how long The Cardinal’s change of heart will last. He’s come through a terrible ordeal, and I think he’s overcompensating for the torment he endured. It’s probably only a matter of time before his old personality reasserts itself. But I keep my doubts to myself. Everyone thinks he’s a new man, and that gives them hope—if The Cardinal can change,
anyone
can. I don’t have the heart to piss on their parade.

It’s a beautiful June day, and all’s well.
So
well, I’ve decided to cut out before the job takes me over and I find myself stuck here, head of the Snakes for life, tied to this city until the day I die. The east’s at peace, the gangs have been brought under the thumb of the Snakes, there’s harmony between them, the Kluxers and the Troops. I’m not needed any longer. Time to pass control of the Snakes over to themselves and hope they don’t go wild with power.

As Al Jeery, I told Flo and Drake of my decision last night, and sat up late with them, drinking and reminiscing about Fabio and the past. Now, as Paucar Wami, I tell Sard and install him as leader of the Snakes. He asks me to reconsider but he doesn’t plead. I’ve spent a lot of time with Sard, and I think he’s come to realize I’m not the immortal Sapa Inca. He’s never mentioned the man he saw in the cavern, but I’m pretty sure he knows that the “double” was the real Paucar Wami. He acts as if I’m their leader, but I sense his relief when I say I’m leaving. He doesn’t want the others figuring it out and splintering.

“What will I tell them?” he asks. “How will I explain your departure?”

“Just say I’ve gone away. That will be explanation enough. The Sapa Inca does not have to account for his actions.”

After passing the baton of power to Sard, I drop by the abandoned police station where my father has been hanging out and find him perched on the rafters, paring his nails. “You can leave now,” I tell him.

He drops to the floor and faces me. “You no longer require my services?”

“Peace has been restored and life’s moving on. I have no need of you.”

“Once I go, you will never again be able to find me.”

I smile thinly. “I’ll never wish to.”

“Al m’boy,” he purrs. “If I did not know better, I could almost believe you were anxious to see the back of your dear ol’ pappy.”

“I don’t know what gave you that idea,” I laugh.

Wami grows thoughtful. “There was something I failed to consider when Raimi went after the
Coya
. By blowing her up, he should have blown up my doll too, thus destroying me. Yet here I am. What do you suppose happened to it?”

I shrug. “She probably dropped it while they were fleeing.”

“I thought about that. I returned to the tunnels and retraced their route. I did not find it.”

“Then it must be buried under the rubble, trapped in an air pocket. You always did have the luck of the devil.”

“The dark one favors his own,” Wami chuckles, then waves his worries away. “It has been fun, Al m’boy. I will miss you, and I mean that sincerely.”

“In a strange sort of way, I’ll miss you too,” I mutter, gazing at his shaved head, his cruel lips, the tattoos, his cynical green eyes, one final time. “If I begged you to stop killing,” I blurt out suddenly, “do you think you could?”

“Of course not,” he says. “Why make such an absurd request?”

“I don’t know,” I sigh. “Guess I’m getting soft in my old age.” I offer my hand. “Take care, you evil-hearted son of a bitch.”

“You too, O misdirected spawn of my loins,” he grins, clasping my hand. “You could have been a legend, Al m’boy.”

“It’s better to be human,” I reply.

“Perhaps,” he says, releasing me. “That, however, is something I could never aspire to. I was made to be vile.” Stepping back, the assassin salutes, turns, walks through the door and slips away, never to be seen in these parts again.

Ama’s face lights up when I walk into Cafran’s, my tattoos painted over, stubble coating my skull, the beginnings of a new head of hair, my first in a decade. I don’t know what it will look like—I imagine I’ll have more than my fair share of gray—but it’ll be interesting to find out.

“Howdy, stranger,” she greets me, standing on her toes to kiss my cheek. I haven’t seen much of her lately. I’ve been busy elsewhere.