at my name, just below Herf’s, and traced the neat line through it with my left index finger. The ink was still fresh.
“Well,” I said softly, smiling grimly in the gloom, “isn’t that a bitch.”
coya raimi
I was striding down the stairs, one hand clutching the file, the other clenched into a fist. My face was a pale, furious mask. Ama was rushing to keep up, tugging at my shirt, trying to slow me down.
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
“Go home, Ama,” I replied brusquely.
“What are you going to do?” she repeated, quickening her pace.
“Go home!” I snapped.
“No!” She swung in front of me, blocking my path. “Not until you tell me where you’re going.”
I clutched her arms and gazed into her eyes. They were fiery, uncertain, full of fear, love and pity. I wished we’d met another time, when I could have loved her. But we hadn’t. We were here, now, and dead men can’t afford love.
“It’s over,” I said. “You were a test—I failed. You were a trap—I’m caught. Go home.”
“You’re blaming me for this?” she said incredulously.
“I don’t blame you for anything. You were just one of his pawns. He set things up so you’d draw me to the point where I had to make a choice, and I made the wrong one. My mistake. All mine. Now go.”
She shook her head angrily. “Ever think that maybe you’re the bait?”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“You think everything The Cardinal does revolves around you. Maybe you’re not so important. Maybe I’m the one he’s after, the one he wants to trap. Maybe you’re the pawn.”
I thought about it. “Perhaps. Your name appeared before mine on the file. But I’ve heard The Cardinal wax lyrical on the subject of women. I think it’s safe to assume you’re not that important to him. No woman is.”
“What are you going to do?” she asked again.
I ran my fingers along the spine of the file. Her eyes grew round as she realized I meant to confront him. “Run!” she gasped. “Run away with me. It’s the only way. We can call that driver friend of yours and—”
“No,” I said. “Where would we go? Where couldn’t he find us? And what sort of a life would it be, living in fear and doubt? Remember telling me you couldn’t bear the present, not knowing about your past?”
“But we have each other now,” she said. “We can build a future together.”
“But we’d still obsess about the past.”
“He’ll kill you.” She switched tack. “If you go down there, you’re dead.”
“Probably. But if that line through my name means what we know it does, I’m dead anyway. This way I go down fighting. I don’t have to wait for Paucar Wami to sneak up behind me in the dark.”
“But you can run,” she hissed. “You don’t have to fight. There’s a chance.”
“There was never a chance,” I said sadly. “Not when we came here and openly defied The Cardinal. We came to find the truth. We made our choice. Now we’ve got to die with it. At least I do. Your name’s untarnished. He doesn’t want your head yet. Go home. Forget about me, The Cardinal, all this. Try and live a normal life. You might still be able to.”
“I’m coming with you,” she said. “I’ve come this far, I might as well—”
“No.” My voice was as firm as my resolve. “This is my last stand. I’m going there tonight to face the end. I’ll kill him or he’ll kill me, and that’ll be that. This is my battle, Ama. You might face your own later, but not tonight. Not here, now, with me.”
“What will you say to him?” she asked.
“I don’t know. I might not get a chance to say anything. If I do, I’ll probably ask what this is about, what the list is, who we are, who we were. Maybe he’ll tell me before I die.”
“I’ll ask one final time,” she said, pulling away and glaring at me. She was shaking and there were tears in her eyes. “Come with me. Leave The Cardinal, your job, this city. Make a life with me somewhere else.”
“There is nowhere else,” I said slowly. I touched her one last time, her face, her nose, her lips. “He’s everywhere, Ama.” I tapped my head. “He’s in here. I can’t run from him any more than I could run from myself.”
“Then fuck you, Capac,” she sobbed, and fled, never looking back. I almost ran after her. My heart