City of the Snakes (24 page)

“OK,” I mutter irritably, then raise my voice one last time. “But think on what I have said. Obedience is essential if you are to serve me, but a keen mind is just as important. My followers must be able to reason as well as obey.”

Turning my back on them, I trail after the priest, who hurries to an exit in the side of the cavern, where the darkness of the tunnels awaits. I don’t look back at the Snakes—Paucar Wami never looks back.

Once out of sight and earshot of the young soldiers, the
villac
relaxes.

“What does ‘Sapa Inca’ mean?” I ask.

“That is how we refer to Paucar Wami. It is the name we used long ago
for our war leaders.” His lips crease in a sneer. “Speaking as you did was foolish. I warned you not to cross us.”

“You told me to behave as Paucar Wami would,” I counter.

“The performance was admirable,” the priest agrees, then adds cuttingly, “to a point. But prompting them to question their long-term goals was inflammatory. As soldiers it is their place to jump when we tell them, not ponder.”

“That’s where you and I differ. I think they’ve a right to know what they’re getting into, what may come of it.”

“When the Snakes are yours,” the priest sniffs, “you may treat them as you wish. But until that time, I would ask that you respect—”

“What do you mean, when the Snakes are
mine?
” I cut in.

“The Snakes have been recruited to serve Paucar Wami,” the priest says. “He acts as a figurehead, a symbol they can unite behind. But surely you do not think we would place such power in the hands of a psychopathic killer.”

“Listen,” I begin sharply, “if you think
I’m
going to lead your army, you—”

The
villac
raises a small pipe to his lips, blows hard and sends a cloud of pink dust flying into my face. As I cough and splutter, motes fill my lungs and my head goes light. My legs give way and the walls dissolve. “Bastard!” I shout, but the word is a whisper. I try to hit the priest but my fist blurs and my fingers turn to steam. I have a sense of unbecoming, of floating… then no sense of anything at all.

When I come to, someone’s holding my hand, leading me through a narrow tunnel. The drug’s still in my blood and my head throbs. Stopping, I wrench my hand from my guide’s and fall to my knees. I beat the floor with my fists, gritting my teeth, and that helps clear my head. The
villacs
drugged me before, and that time it was a long-lasting trip. But this drug isn’t as strong, and though the world around me shimmers at the edges, I’m able to recognize reality and cling to it.

“Are you all right?” my guide asks, bending to help. A woman’s voice. I slap her hands away and force my eyes to focus.

“Who are you?” I gasp.

“A friend. I’m taking you to the surface. We’re going home.”

I’m too weak to fight. Allowing the woman to grasp my elbows, I let her haul me to my feet, then lean on her for support. As we start forward, I examine her face and recognize it. “Ama Situwa,” I murmur, wondering if I’m really able to tell the difference between fantasy and reality after all.

“Yes,” she replies.

“Are you real or a vision?”

She doesn’t answer immediately. We come to a set of stairs. She pauses at the first step, looks sideways at me and says softly, “I’m not sure.”

We smile shakily at each other. I squeeze her hand for comfort and she squeezes mine. Then we climb.

W
ednesday, just after midnight, my apartment. Ama’s in the kitchen, making sandwiches. I told her I could do it, but my legs are still weak and she insisted I sit and rest.

It was Monday when I encountered my father in the Manco Capac statue. When I came to, found the chef and asked the time, he told me it was afternoon. Which it was—but Tuesday, not Monday. I was out of commission an entire day.

Ama and I didn’t talk much during our climb. We emerged behind a garbage dump, where my motorcycle and Ama’s scooter were waiting. I asked Ama how they got there but she didn’t know. She wasn’t even sure how she knew the way up—she claimed to be navigating by instinct.

She slides in from the kitchen, tray of sandwiches in one hand, bag of cookies in the other. “These are stale,” she says, “but they’ll be OK if you dunk them.”

“There’s a twenty-four-hour store on the next block. I could—”

“Don’t bother. These will be fine.”

I sip the coffee she brewed earlier and chew on the sandwiches. Ama nibbles at a cookie but doesn’t touch her drink. Her eyes are serious and dark.

“Do you remember the statue?” I ask delicately.

She nods. “The priests made me lure you there, then offer myself as a
sacrifice. I had no control over what I was doing. Sometimes when they bring me back, I’m a zombie and they can…” She trails off into silence and frowns. “Do you know what I’m talking about?”

“Yes. I met my… Paucar Wami down there.” No point telling her he’s my father if she doesn’t know. “He explained how the
villacs
bring him back from the dead and force him to do their bidding.”

“It sounds crazy said like that,” she smiles. “I was hysterical the first few times. Now I pretend I’m like anybody else, and when they tell me I have to die, I act like it’s no big deal, just falling asleep.”

“How many times…?” I wince. I’ve a splitting headache.

“You need rest,” Ama says. “We can talk about this in the morning.”

“I’d rather—”

“Morning,” she says firmly.

“Yes, nurse,” I grin, then get to my feet and hobble to bed, aided by Ama. I sit on the edge, breathing deeply, eyes shut against the pain.

“Who are the pair in the photo?” Ama asks, referring to the shot of Bill and a young Priscilla Perdue that hangs over my bed.

“Old friends,” I sigh without opening my eyes.

A pause as she takes in the rest of the room. “There’s a finger on your dressing table.”

“I know.”

Ama slips off my shoes and helps me out of my T-shirt. Her breath catches when she sees the scars on my chest and back—most from the explosion a decade ago—but she doesn’t ask about them. Her hands are on the buttons of my jeans when I stop her. “I’m not wearing shorts.”

“I doubt you’ve anything I haven’t seen before,” she says, but turns her back while I wriggle out of the jeans and slide beneath the covers.

“I don’t have a sleeping bag,” I tell her as she faces me again. “You’ll have to make do with the couch. Of course, if you’d rather, I could—”

“No. You need a good night’s sleep.” She starts to leave. Stops and looks at me. “Was I naked in the statue?”

“I think so,” I mutter.

She smiles. “Bashful, Mr. Jeery?”

“You were naked.”

“So I definitely don’t have anything
you
haven’t seen before.” Her smile
fades. “You’ve no idea how lonely it is. They keep me locked in a room when I’m alive. I dread the isolation. I don’t want to sleep alone tonight.” I raise an eyebrow. “I’m not talking about
that
! I just want someone to cuddle up to. It’s been a long time since I had anybody to cling to in the dark.”

“I understand,” I answer softly. “It’s been a long time for me too.” I throw back the covers.

She undresses quickly, turns off the light and gets into bed beside me. We lie facing each other but not touching for a few seconds. Then she drapes an arm around me. I lay one over her. And we fall asleep, foreheads pressed together, clinging, dreaming… one.

Ama’s gone when I awake, though the shape of her body is clear in the lines of the sheets. Lurching out of bed, ignoring the pain in my head, I rush through the rest of the apartment. Not here. I stand in the living room, panting, trying to figure out if she disappeared in a cloud of green fog, was abducted, or…

The front door opens and Ama walks in, dressed in the same shirt and beige pants as last night, carrying a brown paper bag from the twenty-four-hour shop on the next block. She stares at me, standing naked in the middle of the room, then laughs. “You shouldn’t have been so shy when undressing—you’ve nothing to be modest about.”

My hands dart to cover my nakedness, then I hop back into the bedroom and pull on a pair of jeans before trailing her into the kitchen.

“I got milk, fresh cookies, bread, sliced meat, and these.” She tosses a packet of aspirin to me.

“Thanks,” I mutter, popping a couple and letting them dissolve.

“Head any better?”

“Still hurts. Throat too, though not as much as it did.”

“The bruises are beauts. You’re lucky he didn’t kill you.”

“It wasn’t luck. He knew what he was doing.” I cough. “We didn’t have a chance to swap histories. I’m not sure how much you know about me or—”

“You’re Al Jeery. Paucar Wami is your father. You pretend to be him.”

“The
villacs
told you?”

“No. It’s something I know. There are lots of things I know but can’t explain. I think the priests program me before they revive me.” She finishes unpacking and turns. “Sorry if I startled you by not being here. I was going to wake you but you looked dead to the world.”

“Leave a note next time.”

“Yes, boss.” She walks to the bathroom and flicks on the light. “I was going to take a shower earlier but there wasn’t any hot water.”

I check the time. “The hot-water tank is shared by all the tenants,” I explain. “Most people use it before work, so it’s normally empty by half past eight. It should be OK now but you won’t get long out of it, five or six minutes.”

“That’ll do. Want to use it too?”

I sniff my armpits. “Yeah.”

“Want to share?”

“Don’t tempt me,” I grimace.

I step into the shower as soon as she’s out, turn the heat up high and scrub myself clean of the stench of the tunnels. The water runs cold after a minute. I shiver but don’t get out. After a long soak I turn it off, towel myself dry and fetch a fresh pair of jeans and a T-shirt. Once clad, I catch up with Ama, who’s back in the kitchen, preparing breakfast.

“Can I ask you something?” I inquire, standing in the doorway.

“Shoot.”

“How did you know you could trust me?”

Ama butters a slice of bread. “You only kill guilty people. You’re not evil like your father. That’s one of the things I
know
. I also know you won’t take a lover, afraid that the
villacs
would use that person to hurt you, so I knew you wouldn’t make a pass at me in bed.”

“And you didn’t feel like making a pass at me?” I scowl.

She laughs. “Don’t take it personally. I don’t have a choice. I was created to love someone else.”

“Capac Raimi?” I guess.

“Yes.” She grabs another slice of bread. “We’ve a lot to talk about. It’s going to take a while. Let’s have some breakfast first.”

We eat on the couch. A simple meal—cereal, sandwiches, milk. Ama discusses her relationship with The Cardinal as we eat.

“My memories of Capac are vague. A conversation we had on the docks, raiding Party Central, meeting in a restaurant where I worked.”

“Cafran’s,” I interject.

She frowns. “I don’t remember.”

“You don’t recall the owner, Cafran Reed?”

She thinks a moment. “No.”

I file the information away. I can tell her about him later. Right now I want to find out about her life underground with the Incas.

“I know Capac’s an Ayuamarcan and what that means. I also know he was different, that he didn’t die when the rest of us did.”

“Do you recall him sacrificing you for his career?” I ask.

“Yes.” Her face goes bleak. “When I came back originally—two or three years ago—I hated him. Now I know better. He was only doing what he was made to. He had no choice. The Cardinal created him to be cold and focused.”

“You still love him?” I keep my voice neutral.

“I can’t
not
love him. I see that love for what it is—manufactured, unreal—but I can’t deny it.”

“Do you know where he is?”

“Party Central, I imagine. But,” she adds softly, “I have a recurring dream of meeting him in a cold, dead place and leading him down stairs into darkness.”

“The Fridge?” She stares at me blankly and I let it drop. “Tell me about coming back to life. Any idea how they do it?”

“No. When I first returned, I was terrified. I recalled my previous life and that I’d died, but I had no recollection of the years between. That hasn’t changed. Death is nothingness, no sense of time or space.”

“Where do you come back?”

“A small room, dark and red. There are many women, one in particular…” Her face creases as she tries squeezing out more memories. “Sorry. That’s as much as I remember. I’m always woozy when I return. Someone leads me to my room—close to the cave of the
inti watana—
and I rest there.”

The room and the women interest me. All the
villacs
I’ve met are men. But they must have partners to procreate. I never thought about it before, but now that I do, it makes sense that they’d mate with Incan women. They
wouldn’t want to taint their precious bloodlines by breeding with ordinary females.