“What would you have done?” I murmur to the ghost of Ferdinand Dorak. “Should I cut a deal? Make contact, grovel, surrender to their whims?”

Inside my head I hear him chuckle, and the clouds on the horizon seem to lift into an elongated sneer. I grimace. “Dumb suggestion. You’d hunt them down and exterminate them like rats, and if you lost everything, so be it.” That’s how he was. Failure didn’t worry him, and the threat of it never held him back. It doesn’t worry me either, but I’m faced with different dilemmas. The Cardinal had only one life span to consider, but I’ll go on forever. I’ll stand triumphant in the end, if only by outliving everybody else, and that makes me cautious. I can afford to cede ground to my enemies, knowing I’ve got all the time in the world to regain it.

Were I human, I’d come down hard on the villacs and force a conclusive confrontation. All or nothing. But I’m superhuman. I can wait. If I forced the issue, there’d be bloodshed. The city would burn. I’ll avoid such dramatics if possible. Take my time. Endure the defections and betrayals. Reassert control gradually, imperiously, completely.

Gico Carl steps up beside me. Cathal lurks close behind, his features twisted with regret. This wasn’t his idea. Gico talked him into it. Gico can be very persuasive. It’s one of the reasons I elevated him so high, placing him in charge of the Troops. Too bad he lacks faith in me. He’ll rue his betrayal soon enough, but that’s little comfort. I’ll have to ferret out a replacement for him. It’s a headache I could have done without.

“Capac,” Gico sighs, draping an arm across my shoulders. “You’re a good lad, but it wasn’t meant to be. ‘Too much, too soon,’ as they say.”

“You’re a fool, Gico,” I smile as the other men step onto the balcony in a show of force. “You think handing control over to the villacs is the answer?”