03 City of the Snakes

by Darren Shan

  I shake my head. “I won’t dance to their tune. They want me to lead the Snakes—I won’t. They want me to work with Capac Raimi—I won’t. They want me to make this city theirs—I won’t.”

  “Very well.” Wami stands. “I have passed on their message and you have given your reply. I think they expected no different.” He strides to the window—when it comes to entering and leaving a room, I guess it’s a case of like father, like son—then stops. “Out of curiosity, where have you been?”

  “On the streets, doing what I can to help.”

  He frowns. “Why?”

  “I grew up here. I know these people. I care.”

  “Caring is dangerous. The villacs might use it against you.”

  “They can’t. There’s a limit to my sympathies. I’ll help where I can, but if the priests threaten my neighbors and make it a condition that I do as they say or they’ll go to war on those I know…” I shrug.

  “Calculated care,” Wami muses. “A curious concept. Do you intend returning to the streets tonight?”

  “After I’ve rested and eaten.”

  “Would you care for a partner?”

  “You want to help me restore peace and order?” I ask suspiciously.

  “Fuck that,” he laughs. “These people’s plight is of no interest to me. But it has been a long time since I had the run of the city. The villacs did not tell me to hurry back, only to return once I had finished with you.”

  He playfully kneels and puts his hand on his heart. “Let me run beside you, Al m’boy. I swear I will follow your lead and only kill those you deem fit. I will be your right-hand man. Together we can do more than you could by yourself.”

  “That’s true,” I murmur. “But could I trust you?”

  “I give my word that I will be obedient, and my word is as strong now as it was ten years ago.”

  “But two Paucar Wamis would be confusing.”

  “Slap on your paint and wig and be Al Jeery.”

  “I won’t—can’t—kill as myself. You’d have to don the disguise.”

  “Very well. Your will is mine, O great and noble Caesar.”

  “And cut the wisecracks,” I snap, returning to the kitchen.

  “That may prove more troublesome,” he chuckles. “But for you, Al m’boy, I will try. Now, where do you keep the weapons?”

  We prowl the night like a pair of panthers, gliding silently above and around the chaos on the streets, observing, monitoring, interceding when I judge fit. I’d forgotten how swift and ethereal my father can be. His feet barely seem to touch the rooftops and pavements. Sometimes, as we’re moving, I close my eyes and it’s impossible to know he’s there.

  His fingers twitch occasionally as we study the fighting, and I know he’d love to be in the thick of it, cutting loose, making up for the years he’s missed. My father was created for one purpose only, to kill. Holding himself in check at a time like this, when the opportunities for murder are countless, must be torture. But he remains true to his word, acting only when I say, restraining himself when we strike.

  We pull rioters off three cops who’ve been detached from their unit, and guide them to safety. We spy a leering man leading two children down an alley. His intentions are sickly clear. We stop him before he assaults them and crucify him to a door, using nails from a nearby crate.

  The night air’s hot and smoky. Sweat has drenched the back of my T-shirt but not my father’s. He’s as cool as ever, breathing in the thick, toxic air as if it were blowing fresh off a mountain.

  We’ve been on patrol for almost two hours and still haven’t killed. I sense Wami’s growing impatience. I’d like to feed him a victim, to ensure he doesn’t snap and go off on a slaughter spree, but I’m not going to single out anyone for execution unless they truly deserve it.

  Finally, half an hour later, we spot a gang of five youths torturing an old man. An old lady, presumably his wife, lies on the street beside him, raped and butchered, her naked body a bloody, shredded mess.

  “Now?” Wami asks politely, testing one of the knives he took from my kitchen.

  “Now,” I agree darkly.

  “Let me go first,” he says, moving to the edge of the roof, pocketing the pair of sunglasses I gave him to camouflage his green eyes. “You pick off any runners.”

  There’s a pipe down the wall that I expect him to use, but he merely steps off the edge and drops three stories, landing like a cat, ready for combat. I’m tempted to leap like him—anything he can do—but I don’t want to end up in the hospital with a broken leg, so I take the pipe.

  By the time I hit the ground, two of the gang are down, clutching their throats, dying. Wami moves upon the third, blocks a knife as it’s thrust at his face, ducks, grabs the young man’s penis and testicles—he’s naked from the waist down, his lower body red from his rape of the old woman—and rips them off.

  As Wami drops the sexual organs and moves on to his fourth victim, the fifth man makes a break for freedom. He rushes past the spot where I’m standing in the shadows. I stretch out a hand, a sharp blade held rigid between my fingers, and press it to the side of his neck. His momentum forces the blade in deep and he hits the ground heavily, blood spraying from the opened artery, limbs thrashing.

  Leaving the dying boy, I check to make sure my father doesn’t need any further assistance—he’s put the fourth teen down, and has returned to the third, to feed him his severed manhood—then go to see if the old man’s alive. He is, but one of his eyes has been gouged out and there are ugly wounds to his chest and stomach.

  “Easy,” I whisper as he tries to struggle to his feet.

  “Elsa?” he wheezes, gazing at me imploringly.

  “Dead.” I hold him down, trying to judge the severity of his wounds.

  He goes limp in my arms. “They wanted money,” he sobs. “I gave it. But it… wasn’t enough. They dragged us out and…”

  “Save your breath. You’re going to live, but only if you—”

  “No,” he gasps. “Don’t want to. Not without… Elsa.”

  I hesitate, but only briefly. “Are you sure?” I ask. He locks gazes with me, sees the intent in my eyes, and smiles peacefully. I make it quick and painless, then lay him beside his wife and cover her body with scraps of clothes I find lying nearby.

  “A touching scene,” Wami murmurs. He’s standing directly behind me.

  “I thought you’d spend more time on your playthings,” I retort, wiping my hands clean on my pants.

  “I am rusty. I hit them too hard. But not to worry—the night is young and there are more to be killed. I will find my touch before we are through.” He steps over the dead pair and studies my face. “You killed impassively, Al m’boy. Very commendable.”

  “I did what I had to,” I answer simply.

  He clears his throat. “It may be an imprudent question, but can I ask how many you have dispatched since taking to the streets all those years ago?”

  “I gave up counting.”

  “A hundred? Two hundred? More?”

  “I don’t keep track. I kill when I have to but I take no pleasure from it.”

  Wami can’t hide a look of disappointment. “Not as advanced as I thought,” he mutters. “You live with death but do not love it. To truly be me, you should savor each murder. To kill mechanically is not enough. You must kill lovingly.”

  “If I did, I’d become you for real. Then I’d care about nothing but the killing, and the reason for putting myself through this would be lost.”

  “What is that reason?” Wami asks.

  I tug gently on the finger hanging from my neck. “You haven’t remembered any more about Bill Casey?”

  “The policeman,” my father sighs. “I thought about him in the quiet moments since the priests resurrected me, but my memories are no clearer now than before.”

  “When you recall who he is, you’ll know why I had to become you.” With that, I spin away and take to the rooftops again, leaving him to make of
the puzzle what he will.

  We monitor, intervene, break up and kill until the sun rises and Saturday dawns. We keep conversation to a minimum, conferring only when it’s time to take life. I sense Wami racking his thoughts for memories of Bill, but he asks no more about him. I’m not sure how many we execute between us—I allow the memory of one kill to blend with the next—but somewhere between fifteen and twenty. All guilty. All deserving of their fate.

  As the sun rises and the east quietens for the first time since the outbreak of violence, my father returns my sunglasses and wig, and says he’d better head back underground. “The villacs will not approve of my being out all night, but they will accept it. If I remain absent much longer, however, they might recall me by that most irritating of devices—extinction.”

  “They can kill you even when they aren’t near you?” I ask.

  “Yes.”

  “Ever worked out how they do it?”

  “I would not be scraping my knee to them if I had,” he growls. “You will know if I unearth the source of their power, because the streets will be lined with white-robed corpses.”

  “What do you think their next move will be now that I’ve rejected them again?”

  My father shrugs. “They have set one sector of the city on fire in a bid to bend you to their will. Perhaps they will burn the rest.”

  “It won’t make a difference.”

  “That is their affair, not mine.” He offers his hand. I consider refusing it, but he kept his word during the night and his assistance proved invaluable. “Our paths will cross again soon, Al m’boy,” he predicts as we shake hands.

  “I don’t doubt it.”

  “I hope we can run together again. This night has been a pleasure.”

  “We’ll see,” I mumble, releasing his hand and lowering my gaze. “You helped me, and I’m grateful, but you have to understand, I’m not like you. I only do this because…”

  Looking up, I stop. I’m alone. Wami has slipped away, unseen and unheard. Sighing, I sheathe my weapons, wipe my hands clean of the worst of the blood, and head for home, to shower and sleep, until it’s time to rise again and kill.

  6

  cry of the harpy

  I’m woken by my phone. Groaning, I answer to find Ama Situwa on the other end. “I tried calling you last night but your cell was switched off. I was worried sick. I would have come looking for you, but there are police blocks everywhere.”

  “I’m fine,” I sigh, rubbing my eyes and yawning.

  “Where were you?”

  “On the streets. Damage limitation.”

  “I think the Snakes started the riots.”

  “I know they did.”

  “I’m scared, Al. If they can provoke something like this…”

  I walk through to the kitchen and run the tap. I’m reaching for a glass when I recall the pollution and kill the flow. “Any news about the water?” I ask.

  “I heard a reporter say it should be safe to drink by early afternoon, though the mayor’s advised people not to take any chances.” A pause. “Are things as bad as the media make out?”

  “Yes.” Then, changing the subject, “How’s life with Cafran?”

  “Wonderful. We’re getting on famously. I’ve rediscovered my waitressing skills too. I did a full shift last night, though I kept ducking out to call you.”

  “Don’t bother about me. I can take care of myself.”

  “I can’t help it. Maybe I should come over and…”

  I talk Ama out of that idea and promise to keep in touch. When she finally lets me go, I return to bed and slip back asleep immediately.

  The riots continue through the weekend. Gangs claim streets by breaking up the roads and erecting crude barricades to keep out traffic. Booby traps and ambushes are set for police or soldiers unfortunate enough to be ordered in. Buildings are annexed, looted or gutted with fire. Fights flare hourly. The polluted water’s no longer working its antagonizing charms, but by this stage most people don’t need a chemical irritant to make their blood boil. Their homes have been destroyed, their friends and relatives injured or killed. They’re fired up for revenge. Some have the good sense to drop everything and get out, but most remain, hackles up, teeth bared, hell-bent on giving as good as they get.

  I’m kept busy assisting those who need it, guiding refugees who want to leave to safety, cracking down on looters, killing those intent on evil.

  I’ve tuned my TV sets to local news stations and leave them switched on when I’m home, keeping abreast of developments. As I eat a late Sunday dinner, Stuart Jordan, our crooked-as-they-come police commissioner, pops up, wearing the grim but stoic expression he’s been perfecting since the riots erupted. He promises a swift end to the violence and says he’s in the process of drafting more soldiers. If the rioters don’t play ball, he vows to level them, along with as much of the east as he needs to. A reporter asks if he’s worried about injuring the innocent. He growls, “In war, there are no innocents!” With luck the quote will return to haunt him in the next election.

  As the report continues I note the worst-hit areas, where I’d be best employed. To my amusement there’s a short piece about “the dreaded Paucar Wami,” warning people to be on the lookout. There are CCTV shots of me in action last night, killing two men who lobbed homemade bombs through the windows of a church full of people being treated for injuries. No mention of the church—the men are portrayed as upright citizens—just a number of pictures of me callously finishing them off.

  I can’t complain. With surveillance cameras in place all over the city, I should have been highlighted long before now, and would have been if not for the fact that I have allies in high places—Ford Tasso and the villacs. I’m surprised this piece made it through. The editor must be new to the game. I’m sure someone will explain the rules to him before he has time to run a repeat.

  Stepping clear of the furniture, I warm up. My body’s taken a lot of punishment these last sixty-odd hours and I’m feeling the strain—I’d give my back teeth for a full massage. Then I return to the fiery cauldron of the streets, hugging the walls and roofs, slipping by and through the baying crowds, looking for trouble and moving to quell it, resting only when I have to, thinking and operating as a machine.

  Most of the rioters have retired by three in the morning. Ambulances and fire brigades move in to mop up and are allowed to operate unopposed. Stuart Jordan had the uncommonly good sense not to send his armed squads in. There must be new advisers on his staff. I continue my rounds for a couple of hours, enjoying the relative serenity, before circling back to my apartment. My legs drag as I climb the fire escape. Bed will be a blessing after this.

  A note has been pushed through my letter box. No name or address. Frowning, I slit it open and look for a name at the bottom—Eugene Davern. My eyes slide back to the top and I read quickly. He wishes me well and offers his sympathies for any friends or relatives I may have lost in the fighting. He says these riots are good for nobody, and if there’s any way he can help, I’m to let him know and he’ll do what he can. “The prejudices of the past need no longer apply,” he writes with fake sincerity. “It’s time for our people to come together and forge a new, lasting, peaceful union. I extend the hand of friendship—accept it, and let’s put an end to this madness.”

  I crumple the letter into a ball and toss it in the bin. Davern must have guessed that the Snakes started the riots, and figures they’ll come out of this as the dominant force in the east. The letter’s an invitation to join forces with him against the Troops.

  I consider letting Ford Tasso know about Davern’s overtures. He’s sitting back smugly because he doesn’t think there’s any chance of the Kluxers and Snakes forming an alliance. He might be more willing to help if he knew Davern wanted to strike a deal with his traditional enemies. Alternatively, it might send him off in a panic after the Kluxers, leading to riots elsewhere. That would divert Stuart Jordan’s forces, making it easier for the Snakes to take con
trol.

  All this intrigue is giving me a headache. I’m not cut out for it. All I want is to smoke out Bill Casey and get even with him. Why the hell can’t the clowns of this demented political circus look elsewhere for a ringmaster?

  Night again. I shave my skull and face before heading out. I haven’t had a chance the last few days, so bristles fall thickly into the basin. I slip into a fresh pair of jeans and a clean T-shirt. The local laundromat was firebombed in the riots, so I do my laundry in the small sink in the kitchen. I wring out the socks and T-shirts and hang them on a rack inside the living room to dry.

  After a simple meal I grab a few knives, reload my .45 and let myself out. I’m not expecting much trouble—word has leaked that Stuart Jordan’s planning a Tuesday raid, so most of the rioters are holding themselves in check for the big showdown—but the first few hours turn out to be some of my most testing. Lone agents—burglars, muggers, rapists—have taken advantage of the lull and scuttle around like malevolent spiders, hitting the weak while the strong aren’t looking. I have my hands full keeping track of them.

  I take a break about one in the morning, grab some sandwiches and a Coke from a busted vending machine, and sit on the shell of a burned-out car. The street lights are out—much of the east is in darkness—and I have as clear a view of the night sky as I’ll ever get in this city. I’m admiring the stars when a woman shrieks. As I come alert, there’s another cry, softer this time, and I relax, recognizing the call of a feasting Harpy. Finishing off the last sandwich, I go looking for the cannibalistic ladies.

  I find the three old women in a side door of a shopping precinct, feasting on the remains of a cop who must have been dumped there during the weekend. Jennifer Abbots stands nearby, keeping watch, patiently waiting for them to finish. “Good evening, Mrs. Abbots,” I call as I approach, not wishing to startle her.