“Emperor Augustus? Are you ready? The ceremony begins in an hour.”

  “I told you not to call me that.”

  “Why? Everybody else calls you that.”

  “I didn’t ask them to.”

  Anita tapped her foot impatiently, sending a faint echo through the huge, barren office, waiting for me to get up from my desk and get my ass to the dressing room. I didn’t blame her. There were a lot of people outside waiting for me.

  “I can’t believe it’s already been ten years,” I said.

  “I can’t believe it’s only been ten years,” she replied. “Now get up. I know you’re not doing anything.”

  She was right. I never did shit in my office. It was just where I went when I was feeling extra irritable — which was often. When there was a war to be fought and people to slaughter, I felt good, happy, full. But there hasn’t been a war in a long time and there was a hole inside of me. I was always hungry. The only thing I fought now was the worms inside of my head.

  “I need to eat first,” I told Anita. Her old, weary face looked like thousand-year-old tree bark, and the creases dug deeper into her skin every time I said those words.

  “Seriously? Right now?” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “Fine. Go to the dining room.”

  It was easier for the both of us if we talked in this sort of code. She left the office and disappeared into the hall. Once she was out of sight, I headed for the dining room. The worms wriggled faster.

  I made my way through a long, cavernous hallway with a red carpet under my feet and walls lined with paintings of men who would have despised me. I liked looking each one in the eyes as I passed them.

  “Oi! Gus! Been waitin’ for you to come out of your damn office.” Clodagh yelled from behind and fast-walked over to me. “Got some news you might want to hear.”

  Thank fuck there was still someone who called me Gus.

  “Right now?” I asked. “I’m on my way to the dining room.”

  “Yeah. Right now. It’s about your best friend.” She grinned. “It’s been reported that Mickey’s been having some bad dreams lately. He’s saying some crazy shit — crazier than usual. And he’s brokered a deal with the Soviets for some sort of construction project. No idea what it is. Still workin’ that bit out.”

  “He’s dreaming? How does he dream when he doesn’t fuckin’ sleep?” I asked.

  “I had the same question. Apparently, he just… falls asleep for a few minutes, and when he comes to, he starts rambling about a child that wants him dead. A child that lives here in America, he says. They say he sounds scared when he talks about him.”

  “That’s pretty fucking weird,” I said, “but Mickey’s nutcase at the best of times. That still doesn’t tell me how he’s dreaming though. I haven’t fallen asleep in over a decade, even when I’ve tried.”

  “I think someone’s making him dream,” Clodagh said. “And I can only think of one person who might be able to pull some shit like that — aside from me.”

  It took me a second to register what she was saying.

  “You think Mother Dora’s still alive?” I asked.

  “Now I do.”

  “Well, shit. Find her, and keep me updated on Mickey. If he steps foot on my side of the country, I’m gonna hand him his ass.”

  “Already working on it. Got scouts scouring the whole damn globe for any crazy old women who might look like they can do magic. Let me know if you start feeling sleepy, alright?”

  “Yeah. See ya.”

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  She gave me a mocking salute and went through the doors to the dressing rooms. I damn near ran to the dining room — I was fucking starving.

  The dining room was down a set of old stairs, deep underground. It used to be some sort of meeting room, but I cleared everything out of it a few days after moving in. Now there was just a gray tiled floor and wood paneled walls splattered with old blood. I waited for my meal to be delivered.

  The door at the top of the stairs opened and shut quickly. The sound of footsteps felt loud in the empty, dampened room. Five strong, graying men came to meet me.

  “Emperor Augustus? We were commanded to meet you down here ASAP,” one of them said. He stood tall, proud that the Emperor had asked for him personally. “Is there an emergency?” The rest stood behind him, trying their best to fight the urge to look at all of the blood on the walls.

  “Yeah, it’s a matter of national security,” I said. “I want you all to try to kill me.”

  They looked at each other.

  “Open that door over there,” I nodded in the direction of a door to the right of me, “and choose your weapons.”

  “Is this—are you serious?” the man asked.

  “Just fucking do it.”

  They scrambled to the door and went into the next room. A minute later, they all came out armed with swords, spears, and shields.

  “Perfect. Now come give it your best shot.”

  None of them moved. They always thought it was some sort of trick at first.

  “Do it!” I shouted.

  One brave man — a little younger looking than the rest — charged at me with a spear and stuck it into my abdomen. I let out a weak sigh and the man stepped back, horrified about what he’d just done. I pulled the spear out and threw it on the ground. The hole in my stomach bubbled with black ooze before closing up into an unsightly mound of scar tissue. I wrapped a black tentacle around the man’s legs and slammed him against the wall. His arms tensed up and straightened out involuntarily and he let out an unconscious groan. I did it again and he went limp and silent.

  “Gonna need you guys to work together if you want a chance at getting out of here,” I said. I liked to give them hope before I slaughtered them. Men like these appreciate having a warrior’s death — probably. They were also more satiating when they put up a fight.

  The remaining four men saw their brutalized comrade and saw red. They came at me all at once, screaming at the tops of their lungs. I let them hit me a few times until my shirt was in tatters, and then I engulfed them in a bubble of slime. It started to burn their skin the second it made contact, and they disintegrated from the head down until they were piles of goo on the floor.

  I was still hungry; I was never full. But it was enough to keep the worms calm for now.

  The ceremony was about to begin. I looked out of the window of the oval-shaped meeting room on the second floor and saw thousands of people huddled together outside, waiting for me. Men with cameras were grouped around an unoccupied podium.

  “You’re on in one minute. Are you ready?” Gerald asked. He sat on an ornate couch across from me, dressed in a saintly white robe. I was in my finest gunmetal green jacket and jeans. My beard was finely trimmed and my hair was in a tight ponytail.

  “Shut up,” I replied. I didn’t have as much outright vitriol for the man these days, but he still annoyed the shit out of me sometimes. I couldn’t deny his value as a mouthpiece though. He was a great Press Secretary. The people loved him, and he did all of the public speaking for me when possible. I appreciated him for that, but the sound of his voice still grated on me.

  “Oh, leave the man alone,” Clodagh said. She was looking in a mirror, adjusting the metals on her gray coat. “You’re not usually this cranky after a meal.”

  “It’s not usually the tenth Founding Day,” I said.

  “Oh, it won’t be too bad. You don’t have to say much. They’re mostly excited just to see your face.”

  I grunted, not wanting to continue the conversation. We lined up in front of the door to the balcony — my press secretary to my left, my Secretary of Defense to my right. Two men in suits opened the doors and we stepped outside to a raucous applause. It still baffled me how they welcomed me so openly, like they had already forgotten what I’d done to get here. Clodagh and Gerald waved like pageant queens and I cleared my throat into the microphone. Thousands of people went silent at once.

  “Uhhh… hello everyone,” I said. “Good to see you all. Today is a momentous day, and… uhhh… thanks for comin’ out, I guess. And… fuck, I don’t want to do this. Speeches are fucking boring, right? I know what you assholes really want to see.”

  A nervous energy took over the crowd like they thought I was about to cull them all like cattle.

  “Calm down, calm down, god damn,” I said. “Give me some fuckin’ credit.” I told the camera men to get back, and I whipped up a gang of sludge men. They stood on each other’s shoulders to form a human pyramid and compressed into the shape of a grizzly bear. Then they split apart into a bunch of wild cats and playfully swiped at each other. The crowd went wild as the sludge men took different shapes and fought each other to the death.

  “Enjoy,” I said. “See ya later.”

  I left the masses to their circus act and went inside.

  “That was great!” Gerald said. “The end part, anyway. You really should let me help you with the speech next time.”

  “Hm,” I grunted. I laid down on the couch and propped my feet up on the arm rest. I thought that shit would calm down once the military was off my ass and I ruled over everything, but there was so much more shit to deal with. Aside from the usual civil unrest and international crises now I had a whole slew of new problems. Mother Dora was still out there, and she didn’t seem too pleased with the way things turned out. And Mickey was going to come back east, into my turf, to hunt down a fucking baby. I couldn’t let that slide.

  The worms were in a frenzy thinking about killing a marked man. It made my head throb. So many enemies — outside and within. It was all too much.

  I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep.