We pass Vidalus — a shantytown for immigrant Eastern Europeans — on the outskirts of the city. I check my watch — two p.m. It will be another forty minutes before we hit Central Station. Might as well lie back and make the most of the break. It’ll be all systems go once I’m back in the thick of things.

Closing my eyes, I drown out the sounds, smells and sights of the city and think about immortality. Ferdinand Dorak had the power to bring dead people back to life, instilling them with talents and drives of his making. The villacs were the source of his power. Over the centuries, since coming to this city, they’d placed their fate in the hands of men they called Watanas, who could summon shades of the dead and create leaders to cement their control of the city. The Cardinal was the last of the Watanas, charged with the task of creating a leader who could meet the demands of the twenty-first century and all the millennia beyond. Me.

When The Cardinal created an Ayuamarcan, he was given a doll, a replica of the creation, with a heartbeat of its own. When the Ayuamarcan had served its purpose, The Cardinal wiped that person out of existence by piercing the doll’s heart. A green fog then enveloped the city, eradicating memories of the Ayuamarcan from the minds of all.

I was created differently. To guard his empire indefinitely, he required an heir who could withstand the march of time. So he made me immortal. I’ll live forever, aging slightly (he said I’d stop when I hit my early forties, though I revert every time I’m killed). I’m more resilient than most — minor wounds heal quickly — and though death knocks me back, it can’t keep me down for more than a handful of days at a time.

It’s a strange existence, but The Cardinal designed me to cope with the staggering implications. I don’t like the hand fate has dealt me, and I dread the loneliness the centuries will bring, as old acquaintances die and new generations come to regard me as an unapproachable god, but I’ll get by. I’ll have to. You can’t mope around angst ridden if you’re doomed to last as long as the sands of time itself.