City of the Snakes (31 page)

“No!” I shout. “He killed Nicola Hornyak. One of his servants butchered Ellen. He brought me to my knees, took away everything I valued. I hate him. I let him live to punish him. I…” My throat tightens. My shoulders shake and my eyes fill with tears. “What have I done? What have I become? Ten years hunting a broken old man who raped and murdered his own sister while trying to save her. Ten years of killing, madness, hate…”

“But it’s over,” she murmurs. “You can rest, get out, start clean. It’s taken ten years, but you’re free, Al. You’re
free!”

I stare at her, then bawl like a child, a scream that’s been building inside me for a decade, a howl of rage, despair and loss. Clutching Ama to me like a life buoy, I bury my head in her lap and roar into the folds of her dress. Within seconds it’s dark with tears and crumpled from where my teeth close and open, but Ama doesn’t push me away. Instead she hugs me and whispers, telling me it’s OK to yell and cry. And I do, losing myself in grief, cutting out the world and its hurt, giving myself over to the waves and rhythm of release, until, in the early hours of the morning, my head still in her lap, her arms wrapped tight around me, I can cry no more, and fall into a dark, dreamless, demonless sleep.

When I wake, the nightmare’s over. For ten years I’ve lived it, each day a new installment of terror, fear, hatred. That dreadful driving force is gone. There’s pain, regret, longing—I wish I could have those wasted years back—but no thirst for vengeance. As I lie facedown in the gray gloom of the morning, I mutter into the pillow, “I am Paucar Wami,” but the words are meaningless. That part of me died during the night and evaporated in the light of the dawn. I need never again stalk the streets or kill as my father. I don’t know if I can be the person I was before the madness, but I’m no longer a monster.

I stretch and groan, muscles aching, joints stiff, head on fire. I sit up and the sheets fall away. Ama enters. “I thought you were going to sleep all day,” she says, setting down a cup of tea and coming over to examine my scar. She’s taken off her dress and only wears a long shirt over her underwear. “How do you feel?”

“Shaken. Sore. Small and weak. But alive.” I grin at her and she must see the realization of freedom in my eyes, because she returns the smile and kisses my forehead, just beneath my scar and above my eyebrows.

“Glad you didn’t die in the crash?” she asks softly.

“Yes.” I take her hands and kiss them. “Thank you.”

“For what—being here?”

“And listening. And understanding. And helping
me
to understand.”

“Don’t get sappy on me, Al,” she chuckles.

“Without you, I might never have known that I was free.”

“You would,” she replies. “It just might have taken you a bit longer to figure it out. So, what do you want to do on your first day of freedom?”

“So many things,” I sigh. “Put right the wrongs of the last decade. Bring back to life the people I killed. Say sorry to those I terrorized. Get rid of these horrible fucking snakes.” I stroke my tattoos, then my scalp. “Grow my hair back.”

Ama laughs. “You can’t do all that in a day.” Her smile fades. “Some of it you’ll never be able to do.”

I nod soberly, thinking of the dead.

“But let’s not waste time worrying about that,” she snorts. “What’s it to be—a walk in the park? A swim? Maybe you’d like to stand naked in the center of Swiss Square and roar your delight?”

“I think not.” Scratching my thigh, it suddenly strikes me that I’m naked. Ama must have undressed me. My hands start to pull up the covers, then stop. “Know what I really want?”

“What?”

“To make love.” Her face darkens. “I know you love Raimi. I won’t embarrass you by pleading. But for ten years there’s been no love in my life. I need to hold and make love to a woman, and I need to do it now. If I have to, I’ll go hire a hooker. But I’d prefer it to be you. If you won’t, I understand.”

Ama looks away. “My heart is Capac’s. I don’t want it to be, but it is.”

“I know. And I won’t try and win it, though I wish I could. All I’m asking is that you share this morning with me. If you can bring yourself to lie down with me, just once… if you don’t think I’m too grotesque… if you can forget all the awful things I’ve done…”

She looks at me, eyes soft. “It’s been a long time for me too. And though my heart beats for Capac, I hate him. I want to… but…” Her jaw firms. “What the hell. Let’s do it. But on the understanding that it’s only sex, nothing more.”

Ama pulls her shirt off, then slips off her underwear and stands before me naked, unsmiling. “I don’t know if I can enjoy this,” she warns.

“If you can’t, we’ll stop,” I promise, then peel back the sheets and invite her into bed. After a moment’s hesitation she joins me, and I toss the sheets over us, covering us, hiding us, bringing us together in the gloom.

Our lovemaking is slow and gentle. We’re clumsy to begin with, but that makes us laugh, taking the tension out of the act, and soon we’re moving as one, lips and bodies locked. It lasts a long time, filled with many stops and starts, and by the end we’re sweating and panting, despite the leisurely pace of the joining.

Lying on my back, holding her, I kiss her gently. “Was it OK?”

“Best lay I’ve had in ten years,” she smirks.

“You know what I mean. Did you enjoy it?”

She nods thoughtfully. “I feel guilty, but glad at the same time.”

“Has it freed you? Can you forget Raimi and make a new life for yourself?”

She nips my nose and grins. “You weren’t
that
good! I realize I’m not tied as tightly to Capac as I thought, but I’m his by destiny, and even though it’s a manufactured destiny, it’s not a bond I can break. He’ll always be here”—she taps her heart—“whether I want him to be or not.”

“It isn’t fair,” I mutter sourly.

“Life wasn’t designed to be fair, Al. You know that better than most.”

Ama rises and stretches. She’s beautiful naked. I wish I could win her over. I think of reaching for her, loving her again, loving her continuously until I grind away her feelings for Raimi. But I don’t have the right to make demands of her, so I let my hand stay where it is, resting on my chest.

“How are the ribs?” Ama asks, slipping on her shirt.

“Tender. Head’s worse. Think you could get some painkillers for me?”

“Sure. Any particular brand?”

“I’m easy.”

“Tell me something I don’t know!”

I shower while she’s gone, water as hot as it gets. My knees and elbows have scabbed over. There’ll be scars when the scabs clear, on my forehead as well. More to add to the collection.

I swallow a handful of pills when Ama returns, washing them down with water. Then she makes me lie on the bed and massages my back. She’s not very skilled at it, but she’s dogged. After an hour I’m feeling much more limber than I was.

“What’s next on the agenda?” Ama asks, rolling off.

“Sleep,” I groan, eyes shut, relaxed.

“I mean tomorrow. Next week. Next year. You’ve been given your life back. What do you plan to do with it?”

My smile turns to a frown and my eyes flutter open. I tilt my head so her face comes into view. “What do you think I should do?”

“Get out,” she says immediately. “Catch the first bus, train or plane and take off. It doesn’t matter where. Just get away, where nobody knows you, where none of the shit of this city can touch you. Worry about the future later. First you need to escape, from the
villacs,
your father, the riots, everything.”

“You make it sound easy.”

“It is,” she hisses, digging her nails into the flesh of my bicep. “You’re human, Al. I’m not. I don’t have a choice. I was made to love Capac and stay by him. I can’t leave. But the priests have no hold over you. Get out and don’t look back.”

I’m tempted. My mind runs with the idea. Pack a bag, use the credit card Tasso supplied me with to buy tickets and withdraw piles of cash, run until I can’t be found, leave this city, its gangsters and Incan priests to go screw themselves.

I limp to the window and gaze at the shaded stretch of street beneath. A few kids are circling posts set in the concrete on newly acquired bikes, shouting, laughing, unaffected by the riots and the threat hanging over them all. I mean nothing to Ford Tasso or Eugene Davern—useful at the moment, but thoroughly dispensable. And although the
villacs
have a vested interest in me, my disappearance wouldn’t throw them too much either.
They’d wash their hands of me and turn to another of their fall guys. But the kids, their parents, my half brothers and sisters in the Snakes…

Who’ll look out for them if I quit? I don’t owe them anything—I didn’t start the riots, or recruit the Snakes—but I feel responsible. I don’t control their destinies, but I can maybe influence them for the better. If I stay.

“I can’t leave,” I tell Ama, sensing the outline of a new destiny forming around me. “I’ve unfinished business to attend to.”

“Such as?” she snaps.

Answers click into place swiftly as I reel them out. “The
villacs
. The Snakes. The riots. The Kluxers. My father.”

Definitely my father, if only for what he did to Bill. I always knew he was a monster, but terrorizing a kid into raping and killing his sister goes beyond the bounds even of monstrosity. He could do it all again if the priests free him.

“That’s a lot of business,” Ama says skeptically. “Think you can handle it all?”

“I don’t know,” I answer honestly. “I can confront my father—though I don’t care for my chances—and I think I can put an end to the riots by playing ball with the priests. After that… we’ll see.”

“It’s not your place to cure this city of all its ills,” Ama says.

“Of course it isn’t. But if I can stop the riots, free my relatives and the local kids from the Snakes, settle matters with my father, spit in the blind eyes of the
villacs…
That wouldn’t be a bad legacy. And I need to leave a legacy other than one of terror and bloodshed. I couldn’t live with myself the way things stand. I’d always be looking back.”

Ama gazes at me silently for long, probing seconds, then sighs. “You’re crazy, but I see you’re set on this.” She licks her lips. “What about Capac? Your bargain with Tasso’s off, now that you found Bill. Will you leave Capac to the priests?”

I could. Tasso no longer has a hold over me. I’m free to tell him what he can do with his deal. But Raimi’s important to the
villacs,
and they’re the key to the Snakes and the riots. If I quit, I’d risk isolating myself. I’m focal as long as the priests need me. Outside the loop of their creation, I’m as powerless as any other pawn in the city.

“I’d happily leave him to rot,” I grunt, “but I need to restore Raimi to his throne to put an end to the unrest. I also want the
villacs
to think I’m still playing by their rules. The search for The Cardinal continues.”

“Then I’m sticking with you,” Ama says, and she doesn’t leave room for me to argue. “Where do you start and what can I do to help?”

“First,” I yawn, “I catch more sleep. When I feel ready, I want you to lead me to the
villacs
. I have a proposal to put to them.”

“What is it?” Ama asks.

“I don’t know,” I grin. “But hopefully I’ll have thought of one by the time I wake.”

Wednesday, late, the tunnels. My back’s killing me but I couldn’t put this off until tomorrow. Stuart Jordan launched his counterattack earlier, taking everyone by surprise for once. He hit the headquarters of the Lobes, one of the larger gangs in the east. Eliminated them swiftly and efficiently. Spreading wide his mixed force of cops and soldiers, he moved on the next four gang strongholds and looked likely to make a clean sweep, when his men were attacked by ghostlike, deadly warriors in dark T-shirts and jeans, with shaven heads and serpents tattooed on their cheeks. The Snakes made short work of Jordan’s men—reports put the death toll between fifty and seventy—and forced him to sound a full retreat.

Relief at seeing Jordan’s forces repelled was short-lived. The Snakes, having routed the enemy, attacked the gangs that Jordan had targeted, scattering those they didn’t kill. The Snakes disappeared back underground, but the gang members are still active, scouring the streets, clashing with each other, hungry for a fight.

Once I became aware of what was happening, I had to intervene, regardless of my condition. Ama helped bandage my ribs. She also disguised the scar on my forehead (I don’t want to appear vulnerable). Then she came with me to the underworld entrance, and led me down into the darkness.

I try keeping track of our direction, for fear something should happen to Ama, but it’s impossible in the twisting tunnels. If we were going slowly, and I were carefully marking my path, it would be different, but we need to move swiftly. The longer we take, the more lives will be lost.

We encounter nobody until we enter a short tunnel, lit by a torch at the
far end, and come face-to-face with a blind priest. He stretches his arms wide and chants.

“Is this who we’re looking for?” I ask as we approach.

“No,” Ama says. “I don’t think he speaks English. He’s only here to greet us.”

“In that case…” I stick out my right arm and poleax him. I could break his neck, but settle for dumping him on his ass and leaving him to splutter in the dust.