by Darren Shan
“Don’t!” I snarled. “Don’t blame me, you hypocritical son of a bitch. Ellen’s dead because of you. Not Wami, me or the blind fucking priests. You could have warned me, told me they were after me. You were my friend. I trusted you, loved you, took you into my confidence, and you did nothing but betray me. This is your fault. I don’t care what Wami did to you. Hurting me to get back at him is the act of a sick, unholy motherfucker.”
“Maybe you’re right.” He grinned through his tears. “But it wasn’t just Wami I was after. There were the priests and The Cardinal. They could have stopped him. All those years ago, they knew what he was up to. They could have shielded me. But they sat back and let him destroy me. I wanted to hurt those demons as well.
“The villacs would have destroyed your life anyway. I couldn’t have protected you from them. They’d have swatted me aside and spun their own devious webs. I could have used one of Wami’s other children — I’ve discovered several — but, by using you, I could hit the villacs and The Cardinal too.
“So I worked with them. I handed your head to them on a plate. And you know something? It would have been worth it.” He nodded madly. “Your life, Ellen’s, Nicola’s, my own. If you’d killed Wami, I could have gone to my grave happy. I’d have sacrificed this whole stinking city if I had to.”
I shook my head uncomprehendingly. “You were like a father to me. Didn’t it ever bother you, the way you manipulated me?”
“Why should it?” he replied weakly. “I was willing to sell my soul in return for a slice of revenge. A man who surrenders himself totally will hesitate at nothing. I’m not saying it was easy — my love for you was true — but if I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t do any different.”
He tapped his chest. “I’m empty here. Wami tore my heart out and devoured it. I’d have killed myself years ago, but hate kept me alive. I couldn’t die before I made him pay.”
We were going in circles. It was time to pin him down to facts.
“Tell me more about your plan,” I encouraged him, wiping tears from my cheeks. “You set me up with Nic, then used Jinks to pit me against Wami?”
“Yes.” A hint of pride invaded his tone. “I noticed Allegro’s resemblance to Wami when I busted him and had been keeping him in reserve. Nicola wasn’t part of the villac organization — she was one of Priscilla’s puppets — but she knew a bit about them and was a willing accessory.”
“OK,” I moved on. “Manipulating Nicholas, the Fursts, Kett… I follow most of that. What about Ellen and Priscilla? Did you plan to toss them together?”
“I already told you I didn’t. Priscilla didn’t know about Ellen until she ran into her in Cafran’s. The plan was for you to fall in love with Priscilla, then for her to be killed. You’d have found evidence linking her murder to Wami, and that should have been enough to prompt you into action.” He paused. “Priscilla wasn’t aware of that element of the plan. She thought you were being set up for a fall. The villacs told her you were to be sacrificed to the god of the sun.”
“What did you plan to do if I didn’t kill Wami?” I asked.
Bill frowned. “I hadn’t considered it. I was so sure…” He petered out. “After Ellen it would have been redundant to kill Priscilla. Since Ellen’s death failed to turn you against him, it was unlikely that Priscilla’s would. So I faked my kidnapping, hoping my disappearance might push you over the edge.”
“You didn’t arrange for Ama Situwa to see Priscilla and Ellen together?”
“No. That was either a stroke of misfortune or set up by the villacs. You found out the truth far swifter than I imagined. I was working on ways to convince you that Wami had kidnapped me. Now…” He sighed miserably.
I leaned back in the chair. A lot was clear, but there was much I still couldn’t get my head around. “What I don’t understand is why you assumed I’d be able to kill Wami. He’s an elite assassin. What made you think I stood a chance?”
“You’re his son,” Bill said.
I raised an eyebrow. “You thought paternal instinct would stay his hand?” Bill nodded. “That’s ridiculous!”
“I know Wami better than you do,” he disagreed. “He isn’t as emotionally lacking as he seems. I wouldn’t say he’s capable of love, but his children mean something to him and he’s never harmed any of them. If anyone was capable of getting close enough to him to strike, it was you or one of your siblings.”
“What about Valerie at Ziegler’s?” I asked. “She almost killed me. What would have become of your plans then?”
“They’d have evaporated.” He shrugged. “That’s life. There are no guarantees.”
“Who chopped off your finger?”
“I did it myself,” he said, caressing the bandaged stub. “Hurts like the Devil. It would have been simpler to send hair samples or toenail clippings, but I wanted to be dramatic.”
Bill reached behind his chair, produced a bottle of vodka and tossed it to me. I caught it in midair. “A toast to our success?”
“Later,” I said. “When we’re through.” I put it aside. “How many people have you killed over the years?”
“Do numbers matter?” he sighed. “We’ve both killed. Once you murder, your soul is damned. The ones that come after are inconsequential. The first is all that really counts.”
“Tell me what Wami did to you, Bill.” It seemed a good time to ask again, but he shook his head mutely.
“Have a drink,” he said instead. “We’ll get roaring drunk together and maybe I’ll tell you then.”
It sounded like a good idea. I’d be dead soon — why not enjoy one last tipple? The bottle had slipped down the side of the chair. I retrieved it and unscrewed the top. The fumes were intoxicating. I pressed the tip to my mouth.
I stopped and fixed the top back in place.
“Why do you keep pressing alcohol on me?”
Bill frowned. “What?”
“This isn’t the first time you’ve invited me to drown my sorrows. Why are you so anxious to get me back onto the bottle?”
Bill stared at me in silence, then at the vodka. He smiled, then laughed. “Jesus Christ! You know what I was up to?”
I shook my head. “Tell me.”
“I was trying to save you!” His face had lit up. “All those years of planning, manipulating people, working with the priests, secretly plotting against them, The Cardinal and Wami. I devoted my life to it. Yet there I was, closing on my goal, but at the same time unconsciously trying to screw myself over.”
“I don’t follow,” I said.
“If you fell off the wagon, you wouldn’t have been of any use to me. It would have been a waste sending a drunken sop against Paucar Wami. But part of me must have wanted to spare you the trap I’d set. If you hit the bottle again, I’d have had to turn to one of his other sons.”
“You were subconsciously offering me a helping hand?” I asked dubiously.
“Crazy, I know, but I guess I wasn’t as hell-bent on revenge as I believed. Not as big a bastard as I thought.” He winked at me as if it were a big joke. I couldn’t help smiling in response, though I saw nothing funny in it.
The sound of the front door opening wiped the smile from Bill’s face. He sat up and buried the detonator down between his thigh and the arm of this chair. “More company,” he noted. “How delightful.” He was trying to make light of it, but there was a strain to his voice.
Moments later the old priest with the mole, and the translator — clad in a rough brown cape — entered. They kept to Bill’s rear but he could see their reflections in the dark glass of the front window.
“Gentlemen,” he greeted them. “You’re late.”
“You were supposed to bring him to us,” the translator said harshly.
“Change of plan,” Bill said easily. “It’s a cold night. I have a weak chest. I decided to stay in. You don’t mind, do you?”
The young man grunted. “It makes no difference. As long as he is safe, we are content.”
<
br /> “Oh, he’s perfectly safe. Aren’t you, Al?”
“Perfectly,” I echoed quietly. Then, to Bill, “You were meant to take me to them?”
“Learning the truth about me was supposed to be the end of your hardships. They wanted to reel you in when Priscilla broke the news. I told them to leave you to me. I said I’d be able to calm you down.”
“They went along with that?”
He smiled. “I’m the Al Jeery expert. They bow to my knowledge of you.”
“Where do they want to take me?” I asked.
“Underground, I’d imagine.”
My eyes narrowed. “Do they know about…?” My gaze flicked to the concealed detonator. Bill’s spreading smile was answer enough.
I looked up at the two modern-day Incas and gloated inside as I realized I was a step ahead of them for once. They’d been pulling the strings from the start, but it seemed Bill was playing a game of his own, whose rules they weren’t privy to. Life was about to get very interesting.
“Good to see you, boys,” I said smugly, buoyed by the dark sword of Damocles dangling over their heads.
“It is good to see you also, Flesh of Dreams,” the translator replied stiffly.
“You know what happened with Priscilla?” I asked.
“We do.”
“And at Party Central? The Cardinal and—”
“We are fully aware,” he interrupted.
“What’s this about The Cardinal?” Bill asked.
“Tell you later,” I teased, then focused on the genial monsters. “Bill’s been telling me his side of things. Time for your story.”
The younger man looked for guidance to the blind villac, who shook his head. “This is not the place, Flesh of Dreams. Our brothers are preparing for your arrival. Come with us, assume your rightful position, and all will be revealed.”
“Where might that be?”
“On the inti watana. The underground platform,” he added when I looked blank. “It is the hitching post of the sun, the source of our power, our link to the gods. When the bloodlines merge and flow as one, we shall raise the giant stone from where it lies and the city will be ours.”
“That’s my ‘rightful position’?”
“It is the heart of the city,” he said earnestly, “where all blood mingles. The thrones you saw are thrones of power, thrones of blood. One is yours, Flesh of Dreams, by right of birth, right of will, right of blood.”
“Hear that, Bill? They’ve got a throne for me.”
“Very nice,” he chuckled. “Is there a crown as well?”
“Is there a crown?” I asked politely.
“This is not a joking matter,” the translator growled.
“Murder never is.”
“Forget the murder. That was necessary but is in the past. We need dwell on it no longer.”
“Oh, I think we should,” I disagreed. “In fact I insist on it. I’m going nowhere till you tell me what it was all about.”
The young man looked again to his mentor. The blind priest thought on it a moment, stroking the mole on his chin, then gave the shortest of nods.
“You had to come to us cleansed,” the translator said. “To grasp your future, you had to abandon your past. That meant severing all ties to your old life. It was harsh of us to strip you bare of all you cherished, but we had to push you to the point where you had nothing but us, no family, no friends, nothing to come between you and your destiny, your blood and ours.
“You must join with us, Flesh of Dreams, because only we remain. Without us you are a shell of a man doomed to lonely suffering and death. Those you loved have died or betrayed you. There is no returning to the life you once enjoyed. None but we of the sun will accept you. Embrace your fate and we’ll make a king of you, a leader of men. This city will be yours and your sons will rule when you are gone, theirs after them, and so on.”
“You had Bill destroy me so you could give me a leg up?” I asked incredulously. The translator nodded. “Why? Of all the people in the city, why pick on me?”
“Because you are the son of Dreams made Flesh. You are the union of the physical and mental, the product of—”
“—An Ayuamarcan and a human,” I finished, shaking my head with disgust. “You believe that shit of The Cardinal’s?”
“We empowered him. We provided the means for him to take control of this city. He was a nobody until we granted him the powers of a Watana. After that he had the ability to seize the fabric of dreams and mold it into flesh. With our help he created the Ayuamarcans, ghostly individuals capable of responding to the community’s needs and desires.
“That is why you were invited to Party Central,” he went on. “We knew this was the day of The Cardinal’s fall and wanted you there to hear the testimony from his own lips, to make it easier for you to understand and accept.”
“You’re saying he told the truth?”
“As much of it as he knew.”
“Capac Raimi is immortal?”
“Yes.”
“Who’s immortal?” Bill asked, perplexed, but I ignored him.
“In that case, what do you want me for? From what I gathered, The Cardinal’s left Raimi to run things, a successor who can rule the world alone.”
“No man can rule alone,” the translator said, “not even one as powerful and enduring as Capac Raimi. There must be three, a chakana of blood, as we explained before. Human, inhuman, and a mix of the twain.
“The inti watana has been fashioned with three thrones. One for Capac Raimi, whose blood is the blood of Dreams. One for a member of our ranks, a representative of the world of Flesh. And one for you, Al Jeery, son of Flesh and Dreams.
“Our three streams, united in one powerful chakana of blood, will ensure the longevity and majesty of our city. Inti — the god of the sun — will look upon our trinity and bless us. As long as the sun burns brightly, our city will prosper. Though all else crumbles, we will endure.”
“You’re loco,” I said softly.
The translator smiled and pointed to the window behind me. Looking over my shoulder, I noticed clouds of green fog rolling by the panes of glass.
“That’s supposed to convince me?” I scoffed, as if the fog and their power to summon it didn’t perturb me.
“We do not expect you to believe at the beginning,” the translator said. “In time you will learn to accept the truth. Under the folds of this earth you’ll see wonders that will convince you. For now believe only this — however little faith you place in our spiritual power, our earthly power is undeniably real. We control this city. The Cardinal was our puppet. Capac Raimi will bow to our will. Nothing happens here which we do not control. Is this not true, Bill Casey?”
“True as mutton,” Bill said. They were still to his rear and he hadn’t turned to look at them. His eyes were trained on mine.
“We offer a third of all we rule,” the translator said. “If you join with us, this city’s joys are yours. You can have money and women. Politicians will obey you. Businessmen will pay homage. You need not believe in our gods, but believe this — we can fill your remaining time with every imaginable luxury and pleasure.”
“And all you ask in return is my soul,” I said quietly.
“No. We ask only that you accept us as allies, let your blood flow with ours, and be part of our chakana. Later, you may nominate one of your line to replace you, and free yourself of all responsibility if you so desire.”
“A tempting offer,” I mused aloud. And it was.
“A man could do a lot of good with that kind of clout,” Bill remarked. “Build hospitals. House the homeless.” He winked at me. “Rehabilitate the addicted.”
“That’s true,” I nodded thoughtfully.
“Of course they do say power corrupts.”
“You think it might turn my head?”
He shrugged. “I’ve never heard of a tyrant ruling with a kind hand. You need a heart of stone to run a city. I can’t see you operating on a par with The
Cardinal. You’re too human.”
“Would you take it?” I asked.
“Not for anything,” he answered bluntly. “I’ve only ruined a handful of lives, yet the guilt is unbearable. I’d be lost within a week if I controlled the destinies of millions.”
“Of course it doesn’t matter what I decide, does it? With things poised the way they are”—I nodded at his clenched hand—“it’s purely academic.”
“No,” he said. “If you choose to go with them, I won’t stop you.”
“You mean that?”
“I was never in this to destroy you. It was always and only Wami. I like the idea of hitting the heavens with you. It would be nice, in spite of all I’ve done, if you made up your mind to die with me, as my friend. But if you want to go with them, I won’t stand in your way.”
“Maybe we could both stick around. I could give Wami to you.”
He smiled sadly. “You wouldn’t. He’s a monster but you won’t bring him down. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s true what they say, and blood is thicker than water.”
“It looks to me like Wami’s going to come out of this considerably better off,” I noted. “An enemy dead, his son in control of the city. He’ll laugh at you, Bill.”
Bill’s face twitched. “He won’t be laughing long,” he muttered, then chuckled. “Death can’t keep a good man down. Maybe I’ll get even with him yet.”
I faced the translator. “What if I reject you?”
“We will turn to one of Paucar Wami’s other sons if we must,” he sighed. “We hope to avoid such complications. You are the firstborn, and have been blessed by Inti — your healing powers are a sign that he has a high regard for you. But alternative measures exist should we have need of them. We cannot force you.”
“Isn’t that what you’ve been doing these last few months? Forcing my hand?”
“No. We have been cleansing you of your past, leading you to a point where you had to choose. But your cooperation must be volunteered, not commandeered. That is not to say we’ll accept a refusal — we’ll keep after you, harry you, destroy those who come close to you, interfere in your affairs, deprive you of happiness. But we won’t — can’t — openly force you to pledge yourself to our cause.”