by Darren Shan
"Don't ask stupid questions," he grunted.
Wami dropped me at the front door of Party Central. Reaching inside his jacket, he handed me a tiny transmitter. "Wear this. I want to hear what he says. I haven't gone to all this trouble only to be excluded from the final revelations."
"What makes you think there'll be any?"
"The blind men's messengers said that through you I would learn the truth."
I pinned the transmitter to my shirt, just beneath the collar. I didn't look upon Paucar Wami as an ally-he'd rip my heart out if it served his purpose, and not think twice about it-but he'd saved my life a few times now. I owed him.
"Enjoy your meeting." Wami grinned and peeled away.
Shocked faces greeted me in the lobby. I smiled at a startled receptionist and requested a meeting with The Cardinal. She buzzed up and stared with disbelief as I slipped off my shoes and handed them over. Moments later Ford Tasso appeared, face dark, eyes black, fists clenched. "You came back," he growled.
"I was homesick." I shrugged.
He smiled viciously. "You've got balls, kid. I like you, even though you killed Vincent and led me on a wild-goose chase. I think we could have been friends under different circumstances. I'll miss you."
"I'm not dead yet," I told him.
"Aren't you?" he said.
We boarded the elevator and ascended to the fifteenth. Everybody we passed in the corridor shot us darting, curious glances. They were stunned to see me. Ford left me at the door to The Cardinal's office. "See you later," he said.
"You think so?"
"Of course. I always clear up the bodies around here."
I entered.
The Cardinal's face was scarred and puffy, proof that our fight hadn't been a figment of my imagination, that my healing was real, that my year in the city hadn't been a dream. His fingers were steepled, eyes hooded, mouth a neutral line in an impassive face.
"Looking good, Mr. Raimi," he said.
"Feeling good, Mr. Dorak," I smiled. "No cuts, no bruises, no broken bones. I must be some kind of superman, the way I can heal, the way I can shrug off a broken neck as easily as a cracked fingernail. I'll have to splash out on some of those insurance premiums I've been hawking-I can suffer the injury, collect the money, heal up quick. I'll make a fortune."
"You may just do that, Mr. Raimi," he said, then added eagerly, "Tell me what you've learned."
"You can't keep a good man down. To get to the top, you have to dig to the bottom. Now means nothing without a then. Shit happens. I'm a killer."
"The three men at the house," he purred. "Nicely handled. How did you feel when you killed them?"
"Happy. It was a relief to get off the mark."
"And now?"
"I feel nothing," I said.
"Very good. There may be hope for you yet."
"Sure," I said sarcastically.
"I detect skepticism in your tone," he said, eyes twinkling.
"I detect ridicule in yours. You're goading me. We both know I've come here to die."
"Do we?"
"I turned against you, betrayed you, beat you up. I'm a dead man. I've accepted that. All I want to hear from you now is the truth. When you're finished, you can wash me from your hair forever. Only spare me the crap. I'm sick of it."
"Mr. Raimi," he sighed, and tapped the arms of his new chair, nowhere near as grand as his last. "So sure of yourself. So stubborn. So wrong. Sit." Warily I took a seat. I noticed he had my puppet on the desk between us. "I'm not going to kill you," he said. "This has all been a test. I wanted to see how you would react when you found your name crossed out, what you would do, where you would go when you had nowhere else to run, how long it would take you to come back. Cruel, hard, horrible tests.
"But you passed." He paused and waited for me to speak. I said nothing. When he saw I wasn't going to respond, he continued. "I know what you're thinking. You want to know what you've won. But isn't it obvious? This." He waved an arm at the office. "Party Central, the city, my empire. I told you I wanted a successor. I said you were in the running. That was a little white lie-you were the only candidate, the only man I'd hand this over to. If you passed the tests. Which youdid."
I massaged my eyelids with my fingertips. He was playing with me still. "I don't want this," I muttered. "I'm sick of the games. Tell me how you got me here and tampered with my brain. Tell me about the other Ayuamarcans, what happened to Adrian and Y Tse, what links us, why you've gone to all this trouble, how you fool people into forgetting us when we're gone. That's all I care about. Save your promises for the next guinea pig."
"You don't believe me," he said. "How peculiar. But I will provide you with answers anyway. Are you comfortable, Mr. Raimi? This is a long, strange tale and I've never told it before. It might take a while. It's an outlandish story but you will believe it because you are part of the proof. But before I begin, tell me where you went when you left this city."
"You know where I went," I snarled. "I told you-no more fucking games."
"But this isn't a game," he said. "You are my heir now, believe it or not, and I will toy with you no longer. I don't have all the answers. There are things which I too wish to learn. So tell me, where did you go?"
"I went to Sonas," I snarled, "the town I lived in when I was Martin Robinson." I told him all about my trip. Dee, my supposed death, the graveyard, the body, the murder. I left nothing out. When I was finished, he sucked the ends of his fingers, one at a time, biting the nails gently, and considered my words.
"How do you account for it?" he asked.
"You snatched me from the morgue and replaced my body."
"Any other theories?"
"I'm a clone. A ghost. His twin. A zombie. This-you, my time in the city-is all a dream. Come on, quit teasing. Are you going to talk or not?"
"What if I told you I've never heard of Sonas or Martin Robinson?"
"I'd know you were as full of shit as ever."
"Nevertheless, I never knew Martin Robinson. You are not that man and never were. That was him in the coffin and everything his widow told you was true. Your theories are flawed. You're as far from the truth as you were before you left. You only came close to the truth when you suggested this might all be a dream."
"I'm not Martin Robinson?"
"No."
"Then who am I?"
"You're Capac Raimi."
"Before that," I hissed.
He shook his head. "There was no before. You're not human, Mr.Raimi. I created you." Then he leaned back and let me gawk at him for a while.
"It started when I was a boy of the streets." He had his chair turned toward the window and was half-facing away from me. He was determined to tell this his own way. I couldn't rush him, so I sat back, bit down on my impatience and listened.
"The city was different then. There was no central criminal force, only dozens of transient gangsters. Every neighborhood could boast its own independent, self-determining gang. They fought and murdered without reason. It was uncivilized chaos."
"I know some people who say otherwise," I told him, thinking of Nathanael Mead.
He waved that away. "Some people would look on the bright side if eagles ripped out their eyes and shat in the sockets. The city was a cesspit. Anyone saying different is a fool or a liar.
"You had to be vicious to survive," he continued. "People didn't respect youth or make allowances for it. Pimps peddled two-year-olds at street corners. Boys were indoctrinated in the ways of the underworld as soon as they could walk. The papers rarely reported it and the police never admitted it, but that's how bad it was.
"My mother was one of the lucky ones. She came from a good family, had a decent job, could have lived in happy denial like the upper classes always do. But she had an Achilles heel. Rather, an Achilles vein. One of those poor people who lose themselves entirely to the temptation of drugs. She lost her job, was disowned by her parents, moved into the east of the city, supported her habit by selling her body
. I never knew my father. She didn't either. A client, a pimp or just somebody who fucked her while she was lying in a gutter." I was glad his back was to me. I didn't want to see his face right then.
"I had to fend for myself from an early age. My mother rarely thought to feed me, change my clothes or wash me. She should have had an abortion. If she thought motherhood might prove the saving of her, she was wrong. She went on shooting up and selling her body while I crawled through mounds of garbage, scavenging, fighting cats and dogs for scraps of meat and potato peelings.
"When I was four I started stealing from her clients. I'd sneak into the room while they were busy fucking, scour their pants and coats, take what I could find. I was a sly child. I had to be. One night my mother caught me and beat me for going behind her back and not sharing. After that we worked together-she fucked them, I stole and we split the proceeds seventy-thirty. It was the closest I ever got to her.
"One night a customer realized what was going on. He kicked up a storm. He was a politician or a judge, someone with influence. He said he was going to put an end to our evil ways. So my mother pulled a syringe out from under the bed and stabbed him. He staggered away, gasping, shocked, over to where I was standing. He fell and looked at me pleadingly, fear in his eyes. I picked up his belt and strangled him."
There was a long pause. "When we were dumping the body, I cut a piece of skin from his leg and kept it, much as Indians kept scalps. I lost it after a few months but I've always remembered the feel of it as it dried, the taste when I put it in my mouth and nibbled.
"Anyway, this went on for some time. We killed a couple more-each time it seemed like an accident, but I think we let it happen because we enjoyed the buzz. My mother introduced me to drugs, tried to hook me, so she could take more of my money. But I was no fool. I saw drugs for what they were and avoided them.
"One night we killed a hooker's man. Bad mistake. She paid a call with some of her friends. They cut my mother to shreds before my eyes. It was slow and bloody. I watched it all. They let me go with a minor thrashing-I was a child and they thought my mother had killed alone. From that day on I lived by myself. Life was hard, I took many beatings, I was raped a few times-but I survived. I kept going and refused to give in. I was a few months short of my sixth birthday."
I'd seen a lot in my time and heard even more, but never anything to match this. Nothing that came close. I listened with awe and horror.
"I was a violent, backward child," he went on flatly. "My mother never taught me how to speak. I spent most of my early years avoiding people, slithering around the alleys at night like a mute, lonesome rat. I could understand what others said but I couldn't respond, except to grunt and shake my head. I was an animal. I didn't wash, I wore rags, I had no friends, I fought anybody I could.
"Fighting was my only release, the only time I felt good. I was a fierce fighter, even though I was only seven or eight. I had strength enough to beat grown men. I developed quickly, toyed with clubs, ropes, knives, guns. A man came to me one day, a shopkeeper I'd often stolen from, and offered me money to leave him alone. I learned about protection that day and never looked back.
"I discovered the glories of women when I was eleven. The streets where I lived were throbbing with prostitutes and junkies. I only had to reach out and grab. I liked sex-it was almost as pleasant as fighting. I fucked a lot after that, every time I got a hard-on. I didn't understand the concept of waiting.
"One day a couple of prostitutes asked me to be their pimp. I was tough, as I said, but backward. They thought they could manipulate me. They were wrong. I demanded nearly all their money, beat them if they misbehaved, fucked them more often than their clients. But there was nothing they could do about it. I was like a boulder on top of a slope-once pushed, I couldn't be stopped.
"My biggest problem was money. It clung to me and I couldn't get rid of it. By the time I was fourteen, I had more than I knew what to do with. I had no interest in cash but I knew that others would kill me for it if I just sat on what I had. I hid wads under stones around the city. Many would be stolen, or I'd forget where I left them. I didn't care. It was only money. I could get more whenever I wanted. I knew nothing of banks and business. I'd learned to speak-just about-but I still couldn't read or write.
"Because it was expected, I invested in guns, drugs and whores. I opened brothels, established drug factories, traded weapons. Everything I touched turned to gold. Success hounded my every move. I took over gangs, killed their leaders, won men's allegiance even though I didn't care for it. I was growing into a force, attracting attention, lawless and otherwise, but I was still a wild beast. My temper was getting out of hand. I fought nonstop, attacking every possible target with a fury born of frustration and self-hatred. I was spinning into an abyss of my own making. An early grave beckoned. I'd fostered powerful enemies and taken no steps to appease them, to hold the gangsters at bay, to win over the money men. Everything was poised to crash down around me.
"And then I created Leonora."
He was back to the mystery at last, and I was glad. I could have listened to his story all day and night any other time, but now I was growing impatient. I couldn't see how it tied in with the Ayuamarcans or my not being human.
"I needed a mentor," he said. "I recognized that, even though I knew little else. I believed I could do something if I had the right teacher. I had to learn to express myself clearly, read, plan, act meaningfully. I was amassing a fortune and I needed to know what to do with it. Men were stepping forward, offering their advice and services, but I couldn't tell the pearls from the parasites.
"One night in bed I thought of what I needed-a woman who could mother me, who'd love and care for me more than life itself, who'd never grow impatient, who would be wise and knowing. She'd know how to deal with money, where to invest it, which men to listen to, who to trust. With her help I'd formulate ideas, plans, dreams. She would nurture and direct me.
"As I lay on the verge of sleep, thinking of such a woman, I saw faces, then naked people. They floated through my mind like ghosts. Hundreds, maybe thousands. I searched for a friendly face, panning from one to the other. Finally I settled on a handsome woman, kind and wise in appearance. I thought this was the type of woman I'd choose if I could. She seemed right.
"As I studied her, I idly wondered what she might be called. Something exotic, surely. Leonora, I decided. Leonora… Shankar. I don't know where the name came from. It just popped into my head. A fitting name for what would have been a fitting mentor. If she'd existed.
"I fell asleep thinking of her, all the things she'd teach me, what I could do with the help of such a woman. The next day, walking at random, I found a shop." He paused and his fingers drummed the window. "Or I was led to it more probably. It was nothing to look at, tucked away in a dirty side street. There was no name or sign hanging outside. The window was full of puppets. They were pretty. I moved closer and pressed my nose against the glass like a street urchin. Then, with a shock, I recognized the face I'd been dreaming of the night before. My brain churned. As I tried to make sense of it, a man emerged from the shop and bade me enter. I was wary, but then I saw another man inside, taking down the puppet I'd been staring at. My curiosity got the better of me and I went in.
"The man who'd welcomed me shut the door, put up theclosed sign and led me to the rear of the shop. In a dark room with strange symbols scrawled on every wall, two more men waited. Both were blind, dressed in robes, and spoke in a foreign language. They performed a ceremony I couldn't understand and involved me in it. I went along with them because, once again, it seemed right -it was as if I was still dreaming.
"The blind men linked hands with me and chanted. They drew blood from their fingers and mine, mixed it and daubed the face of the puppet. Then they handed me the puppet and led me back to the street. I took it home, clutched to my chest, bewildered and dazed. Ifelt fear whenever I studied the puppet. I wanted to throw it away. But I couldn't. It fascinated and held me. S
o I kept it by my side and went to sleep with it that night.
"The next morning, when I awoke, Leonora was at the door. She smiled, told me to go to the bathroom and freshen up, not to come back until I was spotless. Strict from the start, Mr. Raimi. Exactly what I needed."
He stopped. I began to shout, to demand he quit the nonsense games and deliver the truth. But my protestations died in my throat as he faced me. His expression was… I can't explain. Maybe he was like an Egyptian who'd chased Moses and gotten caught between the walls of the Red Sea, torn between marvel and terror as the water fell upon him.
"Leonora was marvelous," he said. "All that my dream had predicted and more. She took me to a hotel, locked me in for six months and educated me. She taught me how to read, write, think and speak. We shot through books like wildfire. She'd pick out the main points, drum them into me, then discard them. She introduced me to the great thinkers and planners, the wondrous architects of the mind. We devoured books on economics, the military, politics, science, history. I didn't learn everything. There's only so much you can cram into six months, no matter how fast you work. But everything I now know stems from that time in the hotel. My life since has been a pursuit of ideas I was first introduced to then.
"With Leonora's patronage, I wasn't long slicing through the fabric of the city's underbelly. Soon I was lord of my patch. I expanded swiftly, surely, cruelly. I bought the best men in every field, bribed, bullied or blackmailed them. Leonora told me we didn't need to know everything about our business, but we needed people who did, who we could control, who'd do the hard graft and leave us free to dream and plan.
"Within two years I was a major force, buying up every policeman, killing competitors, bargaining with those more powerful than me. It was difficult at the time to see a day like this, when I could sit here and lord it over all. But I had my dreams and Leonora and, in time, my other Ayuamarcans. Within a decade I was king of the city. Five years later I was The Cardinal, feared by all, central to all, lord of all I surveyed."
"But what about me? " I demanded impatiently. "Conchita, Adrian, Y Tse and the Ayuamarca list? Where do we fit in? How?"
