Procession of the Dead (33 page)

If it was true, if he could pull this off, I’d be stuck here forever, running his empire. At the moment I could live with that—the thought of being in control, ruling the world, having that much time to play with and that much power thrilled me. But what if I tired of it in fifty years, a hundred, a thousand? I’d be stuck, unable to end things. Did I really want to be part of a never-ending cycle, nothing to look forward to other than an inescapable future?

“It’s a trap,” I muttered. “If I accept this and it works, I’m trapped forever. No way out.”

“As with everything in life,” he said drily, “there are drawbacks. That’s one of them. Another is loneliness. Look at me, Mr. Raimi. There is no room for happiness this high up. All I have is my empire. If you replace me, you’ll assume that lonely mantle. Only it will be worse, because you’ll have to live with it forever. Can you do that?”

“I don’t know,” I sighed. “I think I can but how can I say for sure?”

“You can’t,” he said. “You have to gamble and trust in your instinct.”

“But will it work?” I asked. “What happens to the Ayuamarcans when you die? Can any of us survive your passing?”

“I don’t think the others can. Maybe they’ll go on to live full, normal lives, dying of natural causes when their time is up. But I doubt it. I think they’ll vanish the instant my heart stops.”

“Then what makes you think I’m any different? Surely I’ll zip out of existence like the rest of them.”

“Maybe. But when I made you, I stressed that not even my death should halt you. I don’t know if I can thwart death in this way but I think your chances are good. Not great but better than average. Look at Conchita. Paucar Wami. How your body healed after our fight. I
am
able to pervert the laws of nature. If I can go that far, breaking so many natural rules, why not further? We won’t know for sure until the day arrives—and I’m not planning to shuffle off this mortal coil for quite a while yet—but the precedents allow us to be optimistic.”

I thought about it some more. I didn’t have to—I’d reached my decision halfway through his last speech, as suddenly as I’d decided to kill Dee—but it would be unwise to jump the gun when the stakes were so high. When I was certain that nothing would alter my mind, I spoke.

“I’ll run your empire for you, Mr. Dorak,” I said slowly and deliberately. “I’ll be your successor, the new Cardinal, and do everything in my power to carry your dream on, to one day rule all and become, as it were,
The Pope
.” His face lit up and he began to rise. “But there’s a price,” I added, and his smile faded. “I’m not prepared to wait. I’ve moved fast, pole-vaulted all between myself and the top. I’m not about to ease up now. If you want me to take over, you’ll have to relinquish control immediately. I won’t be second to anybody, not any longer.”

He frowned, then shrugged and tried to make little of it. “If thatis what you wish, I will grant it. But why ignore my knowledge, experience and wisdom when you can benefit from them and milk me for all I’m worth? You have so much to learn. Wouldn’t it be better to keep me around, if only as a—”

“You don’t understand,” I said. I rose and crossed to the edge of the building, no longer feeling the wind. I stood looking down at the city for a minute,
my
city, seeing it through new eyes, feeling it beat with my heart, sensing the links which existed between us. Sighing happily, I returned to my chair and sank into it. “I want everything. The power, the city, the dream, the future. And freedom.”

“But you are—”

“Please don’t interrupt when I’m speaking.” He stared at me with eyes the size of runny eggs. “I’ll be your heir, but on my terms. I’m not prepared to play your game any longer. I won’t wait for you to die and live every day worrying about your health, making plans for a future which may never come. I have to know for sure. If your experiment succeeds, I’ll take control today. If it fails, and I pass from this world when you die, that will also be today.

“I came to this office thinking it was the end. And it is. Perhaps for both of us, but definitely for one.” I steepled my fingers, lowered my head behind them and shot him a sly smile straight from his own repertoire. “The edge of the roof is that way, Mr. Dorak.”

He began to laugh. Stopped. Looked at my fingers, then at his own, which were spread limply on his knees. The baton of power had passed and his reign was over. Decades of hard work and planning undone in a matter of seconds. “You can’t be serious,” he croaked.

“It’s the price,” I said. “I flourish or die. You can either accept that and jump or unmake me and start anew with another Inti Maimi or Capac Raimi. Choose.”

“What about Ama?” he whined. “Conchita. Leonora. They’ll die too. Come, Mr. Raimi—Capac. You need me. You need all of us. If I jump, taking my creations with me, all you’ll be left with is Ford Tasso and the other ordinary people. I can make soldiers for you, politicians, men who can work to advance your cause while I’m alive. I can be of use even if you don’t want me around. I’m the goose that lays the golden eggs. Why sacrifice me so cheaply? You’d kill Ama and Conchita just for peace of mind? Please reconsider, I beg you.”

I closed my eyes and pictured Ama, Conchita and Leonora. The three women in my life—lover, sister, mother. I thought of all the times Leonora had helped me, her priceless words of advice, her tips on how to handle The Cardinal, her kindness and generosity. But ultimately she was The Cardinal’s woman, not mine.

Dear Conchita. I’d brought her out of her madness. She was starting a new life and deserved time to live a bit, laugh a little. It wouldn’t be fair to take that away, to whip the rug out from under her just as she was learning to walk. But Conchita was finished. As soon as sheleft the city, an invisible timer would start its grim countdown. One week and the world would do her in, regardless of the decision I made tonight.

And Ama, the love of my life. Without her I’d never have come so far so quickly. I’d acted faster than The Cardinal planned, just as I was moving too swiftly for him now, and it was largely because of her. She was all I wanted in a woman, the one person who could truly mean anything to me. Demanding The Cardinal’s death—and thus Ama’s—was stupid, destructive and cruel. Only a monster would do it.

“Come here, Mr. Tasso,” The Cardinal called loudly, out of the blue.

I glanced up, confused. From the other side of the steel structure, Ford Tasso emerged with a bound and gagged Ama Situwa in tow. I leaped to my feet but sat again at a gesture from The Cardinal. He was smiling now. “Remove the gag, Mr. Tasso.”

Ford freed the strip of cloth from her mouth and Ama immediately roared at me. “Capac! What the fuck are you doing here? Why did you come back?”

“How did she get here?” I asked quietly.

“Of her own free will, I assure you,” The Cardinal said. “Miss Situwa has always been a strong-minded lady. She came after your phone call this morning. I’m not sure why. What were you after, Miss Situwa?”

“Fuck you,” she snarled.

The Cardinal chuckled. “I told Mr. Tasso to fetch her when we went to see our friends downstairs. She was to be my gift to you, a sign of my goodwill. Untie her, Mr. Tasso.” While Ford loosened the knots, The Cardinal said, “She is yours if you wish, Mr. Raimi. Let me live my life. Learn by my side. Walk before you run. And you can have her. You don’t need to face this on your own.”

“How much does she know?” I asked softly.

“Nothing. They could not hear us talking from where they were.”

“Capac?” Ama started toward us, then paused when she saw my eyes. “What’s wrong? You look… What happened? What has he done to you?”

I stared at her frightened face and considered her loving innocence. I studied The Cardinal and thought of the warped way he’d treated me. Finally I looked inside myself and found something even fouler than Ferdinand Dorak.

“Ama,” I whispered painfully. “I’m sorry. If I… You could remake her!” I shouted suddenly, springing on the idea. “Erase her, then bring her back, only this time make her like me—eternal.”

“Capac? What’s going on?” Ama was bewildered.

The Cardinal shook his head. “It would be too dangerous. One man might make it through eternity, alone, focused, outliving and thus defeating his enemies. But if I gave you an eternal partner and she turned against you? No. I will not risk my empire that way. Besides, it couldn’t be done. I could create another, but not the same, not Ama.” He stood and clasped my shoulders as the blind priests had. “You’re torturing yourself needlessly. There’s no reason for me to die now, for Ama or Conchita to suffer. Time is on your side, Mr. Raimi. Don’t waste it.”

I hung my head, looked within and saw what I had to do. My cheeks were wet. Raising my fingers, I discovered I was crying. Ama was still hovering, not sure what she’d wandered into, knowing I was different but not knowing how. She could be mine. We could have many wondrous days and nights together. We could explore and learn more of each other. So much to discover. So many possibilities.

But—
no
. If I had a future, it was cold. That was the one thing I knew for certain. The man The Cardinal had designed—the man I’d become—had no place for warmth or love, not any longer.

“Why did you come tonight?” I asked Ama.

“You sounded strange on the phone,” she said. “I wanted to find out what was going on. I thought The Cardinal might know where you’d gone.”

“You wanted to track me down?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I love you, stupid,” she said, smiling foolishly.

“Even after I told you what I did?”

Her face hardened stubbornly. “I’m sure you had no choice. I have faith in you, Capac. Whatever you did, I’m certain it had to be done.”

I looked away from Ama and locked eyes with The Cardinal. “She’ll accept me no matter what I do, won’t she?” I asked, and he nodded in reply. “Regardless of how low I sink, she’ll stick by my side and love me. She’d kill for me if I asked her or if she felt it was necessary.”

“She’s your woman,” The Cardinal said.

I shook my head slowly. “No. I’m many things but not a slave master. Not yet. I don’t want her.” The words almost tore me apart but I forced them out. “I love her. I need her. But I don’t want her seeing what I’ve become. I don’t want her by my side, watching me change. I don’t want her aligning her soul with mine. If I’m to be damned, I’ll be damned alone.

“I want you out of here,” I told him.
“Now.”

The Cardinal nodded grimly. “We’re so alike, Mr. Raimi. I would have made that decision also, were I in your shoes. You’ll suffer for it, more than you know. I’ve had but a few decades and already I’m tired, worn, on the verge of madness. I’m not sure you’ll be able to deal with an eternity of cruelty. I wish you well, though.”

He walked to the edge and paused, staring down on his city for the final time. As he hovered on the brink, the door to the roof burst open and a dark figure raced toward us. It was Paucar Wami. “Stop!” he roared, training his gun on The Cardinal. For the first time the killer looked scared, uncertain. In learning of his inhumanity, he had finally realized what it was to be human. He wasn’t the master he’d believed, only a puppet, one about to have its strings severed. “One more step and I shoot.”

Ford Tasso cursed and drew his own gun.

“Mr. Tasso!” The Cardinal barked. “Put it away.” Ford hesitated. “Do as I ask, old friend,” The Cardinal said gently, and Ford reluctantly obeyed. “Wami knows?” The Cardinal asked me.

“He planted a bug on me before I came up,” I explained.

The Cardinal started to laugh and Wami’s eyes narrowed hatefully. “If you try to jump,” he growled, “I’ll—”

“What?” The Cardinal jeered. “Kill me?” He raised a mocking eyebrow. Wami glared at The Cardinal, then lowered his gun. He was shaking with anger or fear, maybe both. “You are powerless here,” The Cardinal said. “I created you to take life, not to save it.”

“If you jump, and I survive, I will take a few lives yet,” Wami snarled, setting his sights on me now.

“Ominous words, Mr. Raimi,” The Cardinal chuckled. “I would not like to be in your shoes if my predictions about the other Ayuamarcans prove invalid.” His smile faded. “If I
am
wrong about them,” he said quietly, “will you care for my Conchita? Keep her in the city if you can, tell her I loved her, honestly, as much as I could. Despite everything, I loved her to the end.”

“You know I will.”

The Cardinal nodded glumly. Then his fingers twitched and his jaw jutted forward proudly. “In that case, there’s only one more thing to do. Goodbye, Mr. Tasso.” Ford was staring at him, head cocked sideways, a peculiar expression on his face. “Farewell, Mr. Wami.” Wami spat at him in disgust. “
Au revoir,
Miss Situwa.” Ama ignored him and moved toward me, reaching out, mouth opening to say my name one more time. “Here’s to a long life, Mr. Raimi,” he shouted, drowning out anything she might have said. “Farewell!”

And with that final shout—Wami roared too, darting forward to drag him back, but too late, too late—The Cardinal stepped over the ledge and dropped through the night to his untimely death, hollering like a monstrous baby all the way down.

capac raimi

A
nd that’s where the story of Capac Raimi ends. A simple tale really—once upon a time a boy came to a city, met a monster, killed him and became a monster himself. I don’t like the man I’ve become but I don’t hate myself either. Truth be told, I’m moving beyond emotions—hatred, love, fear and desire are relics of an obsolete past, symptoms of a personality I’m in the continual process of shedding.

I survived Ferdinand Dorak’s death. While they were scraping him off the curb, I led a shaken Ford Tasso to my office and advised him of my abrupt promotion. He accepted the change with barely a murmur. Ford needed a master, he couldn’t function without one. He’d been loyal to Dorak because he was the most powerful man in the city. Now that there was a new Cardinal, he was pragmatic enough to accept it and blow with the wind of change.

Ama and Wami froze as The Cardinal hit the pavement. As swiftly and simply as that. One second they were closing in on me—for very different reasons—the next they were statues. Then their bodies drew in upon themselves as if they were shrinking. The lines of their faces grew tauter by the second. Their carcasses contracted, arms, legs and necks merging with their torsos, losing shape, becoming dense, ragged forms.

And then they exploded. Silently, their bodies came apart in showers of cold, green sparks, and formed seconds later into two clouds of familiar green fog which quickly spread and covered the whole of the roof, so thick and cloying it caused Ford Tasso to fall to his knees and almost choke.

Moments later—guided, I’m sure, by the unseen
villacs
—the fog flowed from the roof, down the sides of the building to the ground and through the streets, until the entire city was in its grasp. It hung over the city like a death shroud for ten days, eradicating all memories of the final batch of Ayuamarcans, bringing travel and commerce to a virtual standstill. A fitting period of mourning for the deposed Ferdinand Dorak.

I tried the large chair in the office. It wasn’t as grand as his old one but it felt good all the same. I asked Ford if he recalled Ama Situwa. As tendrils of green fog swirled in his nasal passages, he said he didn’t. I asked if he knew anybody called Leonora Shankar. “She have anything to do with the restaurant?” he replied.

Over the coming weeks I wiped the files on Ama, Conchita, Leonora and the rest of the Ayuamarcans. It paid to be tidy.

Nobody from the outside world took much notice of the changes. As The Cardinal had said, no one was bothered. There have been a few puzzled visitors and inquiries in the years since, but they’ve been easily dealt with.

Ford’s been a huge help. He directed me to Dorak’s secret files, outlining his plans for world domination, the steps I’d have to take, the speed I should move at, the difficulties I would have to overcome. It’ll be a long time before those plans are put to the test but I have faith in them. The Cardinal was a genius in his own crazy way, a dreamer like no other I’ve ever heard of.

I wonder occasionally if he was speaking the truth when he told me I’d forged my own way to the top. It seems unlikely, the more I consider it, that he’d leave so much to chance and circumstance. Logic suggests I was steered, that he knew I’d demand his death, that he always intended it to end this way. But then I think back to our earlier meetings, the way he looked when he spoke of his games with the stock market, and I’m not so sure logic can be applied in his case.

Ford’s talking of retiring soon. I’ll miss the grizzly bear when he goes. I’ve thought about making him vanish when he steps down—he’ll know more than any outsider should—but I’ll probably let him see out his days in dignified retirement. He’s earned it.

The
villacs
…

We’ve had run-ins. They’ve kept a low profile but whenever we’ve met to talk business, I haven’t liked what I’ve heard. They have plans of their own. They want me to stick to the city and forget the rest of the world. They’re only interested in the city’s well-being. They might cause problems one day. I’ll have to keep a close eye on them. If they think they can manipulate me the way they used Dorak, I’ll have to prove them wrong. They might live to regret the day they put such power in my hands.

For a long time I kept thinking the world would wake up to my existence, that reality would realize I shouldn’t be here and remove me with a swift flick of its fingers. But it hasn’t happened yet and, having survived this long, I now doubt it will. I think we got away with it.

Assassination attempts come frequently. In the months after The Cardinal’s death, I was eliminated by ambitious competitors no less than six times. They shot me, knifed me, even blew me up. The attempts are growing less frequent—I’ve killed lots of the pretenders to the throne, and the others respect me now—but there’s still one or two every few months.

I always bounce back, no matter what they do. Even if they kill me, burn my body and scatter the ashes over the seas, I turn up a day or two later at the familiar train station, ticket stub in hand. My mind’s sometimes a touch cloudy when I return but it clears after a while.

The rain shower is always there to greet me, narrow, straight and strange. It’s become a tourist attraction—people flock from all over to see it. I’ve asked the
villacs
about it but they’re keeping tight-lipped.

People have started saying I’m a god, the second Christ, the Devil, an alien. I let the rumors grow. Fear does them good and enhances my reputation. It’s part of the plan. Gangster, businessman, politician, God. A natural progression, yes?

I suppose it’ll be a good life. I’ll have countries at my feet, more money, power and influence than any man in history. If we ever head for the stars, my people will be there, ready to put the squeeze on whatever kind of life-forms we find. No matter where mankind ends up, Capac Raimi will tag along in spirit, the infallible, foul Pope of the underworld, the gangster god who can’t be shaken free. My voice will be heard everywhere and it will be obeyed.

It’s not all fun and games. I have nightmares. Faces of the dead, berating me for my ruthlessness. Dee, Conchita, Ama—so often Ama. I still feel guilty for abandoning her so cheaply. I wish I could have saved her, that I could bring her back. In my dreams she haunts me, her eyes filled with pity, never hating me. Only wanting to be with me, to save me from myself.

I even have nightmares in which I’m accused and tormented by a younger Capac Raimi, the one who watched silly movies and knew how to laugh and love, whose dreams never ended like this. I wake screaming some nights, a cold sweat covering every inch of my body, feeling like a man who’s woken up to discover he’s been buried alive.

On nights like those I wish I’d done things differently, stayed in Sonas with Dee to face the music, stayed true to Ama and spared her, given The Cardinal the time he requested. I wish I’d run away with Conchita and shared her brief week of happiness. I wish I’d never been created or that I could change my nature. But the nights always pass and such thoughts never last long in the clearheaded world of the dawn.

I’m becoming the man I was born to be. Every day brings me closer to the cold, heartless, emotionless machine of The Cardinal’s warped vision. One day I’ll wake up, look in a mirror and see nothing human at all. On that day I’ll know I’ve made it. Top of the world.

I’m finished with this tale. The past is an interesting place but I’ve had enough of it. The call of the present can’t be ignored. There are things to do. People to kill. Countries to buy and sell. I might not be able to leave this city for more than a few days at a time—I
die
if I do and end up back at the station—but that won’t restrict me. I can see forever from the top of Party Central.

Reflecting on the past has made me maudlin. I think I’ll crack open a can of beer and call in some whores. I have a meeting with a rebellious pair of ganglords this afternoon. They’ve formed a coalition and are plotting to overthrow me. I think they’ll kill me at the meeting. I’ll probably let them—it’ll be good for a laugh. Pay them a visit when I return and watch their faces drop.

What will the future be like? That’s the towering question. I feel great right now, running this brute of a city. In theory it should be even better when I have the planet under my thumb, god of all I survey. But I’m not so sure. What if I get bored? When I’ve done everything and conquered all, what will be left? How does a man who lives forever get any kicks out of a world that can’t surprise him any longer? Maybe I’ll wipe everything out and start over. Even now I have missiles of mass destruction at my disposal. Maybe I’ll raze the lot when the world starts to bore me and build civilization up from scratch. New cities, new races, new religions, new histories. I could do it over and over, build and destroy, build and destroy, an endless cycle. Kill billions, raise a new crop, then slaughter them all again. God and Devil, giver and taker, tormentor of all and eternal.

Can I really be so ruthless, so tyrannical, so cold? Take this world to the very end of suffering and beyond? Yes. Yes, I think I can, if I have to. If I get bored… if eternity weighs heavy upon me… if there’s nothing else to amuse me… I’ll do all that and more. Much more. Anything to pass the time.