03 City of the Snakes

by Darren Shan

  Raimi nods thoughtfully, then cocks an eyebrow at Davern. “I thought you wanted to run me out of town and take over the show.”

  “I did,” Davern smiles, “but that was then, this is now. Our dark-skinned friend has shown me the light. I’ll settle for a third of the city—if it’s the right third.”

  Raimi laughs hollowly. “There’s a lot of negotiating to be done. But we can do that another time. There are a few loose strings I want to see to first.”

  “Leave that to us,” I tell him. “You’re in no fit shape to go chasing after—”

  “I’ll slit the throat of any man who tries to stop me,” he vows.

  “We won’t go slow on your account,” I warn him.

  “I’ll keep up, even if it kills me.” He grins. “Which it probably will.”

  Nodding, I ask Davern to fetch arms for us. “There are more of the bastards?” he asks.

  “A couple dozen or so. They’re ours. Don’t follow. Finish your job here, scour the tunnels above in case you missed any priests, then return to the surface with your men and wait for The Cardinal to contact you.” I face Sard. “I’m placing you in temporary control of the Snakes. If I don’t make it back, the promotion’s permanent. Work with Davern and Raimi. Make sure they cut us a good deal. Use your power to build and improve.”

  “Why this talk of not coming back?” Sard frowns. “You’re the Sapa Inca—you always come back.”

  “Maybe not this time. Be prepared if I don’t, and deal with it. That’s an order, soldier.”

  His heels click together and he salutes. “Yes, sir!”

  Sard and Eugene Davern stare suspiciously at each other, but don’t draw guns. It’s a start, not of a beautiful friendship, but hopefully a working relationship.

  I face Capac Raimi, my father and Ama. All have armed themselves and Raimi has borrowed a dead villac’s robes. They’re ready for action.

  “Let’s go finish this,” I snap, and we set off in pursuit of the fleeing Coya and her consorts.

  There are several tunnels leading out of the cavern, but only one is large enough to accommodate the Coya’s bed. There are no lights, but we take torches from the floor. The tunnel runs straight for three hundred feet, then divides in two, each passage the same height and width. We pause at the junction, searching for signs of our quarry, but they’ve left none.

  “We will split into pairs,” Wami decides. “Ama and her beau can take—”

  “No,” Raimi interrupts, stepping forward. His left leg drags, but he’s kept the pace so far, running on sheer determination and hatred. “They went left.”

  “You are certain?” my father asks.

  Raimi nods. “I’ve spent my time here chained to that foul bitch. I could sniff her out from the other side of the city. Left.”

  Wami looks to me for confirmation and I shrug. “I’m happy to go with his call.”

  “Very well.” The killer sets off down the tunnel. I hurry after him, Ama and Raimi not far behind.

  We come to a number of subsequent junctions, and each time Raimi chooses the way. If he’s wrong about this we’ve lost them, probably forever.

  We scramble over several small cave-ins as we progress, the first time we’ve encountered structural flaws. I mention them to my father and ask what he thinks. Raimi answers before he can. “The other tunnels and caves are kept up, but they haven’t bothered with these. They’ve grown arrogant and lazy. This path was laid many decades ago in case they needed to retreat, but they came to believe they were invulnerable, especially with Dorak and me affording them so much leeway.” He shakes his head, disgusted. “If I’d known they would be this easy to defeat, I’d have come after them years ago.”

  “You wouldn’t have found them,” I tell him. “They’d have slipped away into the shadows and struck back at you when you weren’t expecting it. We’ve only rumbled them now because they were so close to victory that they couldn’t see the ruin on the flip side of the coin.”

  Finally, as we turn into one of the narrower tunnels—there are marks on a wall where the edges of the bed scratched it, proof we’re on the right track—we hear the sound of voices and digging up ahead. “They must have hit a more serious cave-in,” my father grins, drawing a knife and testing its blade. “They are ours.”

  “Wait,” Raimi says, tugging at the assassin’s robes. “I want to do this alone.”

  “You are in no fit state to take them on,” Wami snorts.

  “I wasn’t planning on a duel,” Raimi smiles, his face twisted with pain and exhaustion—but also triumph. “Lend me your vest.”

  “Ah,” Wami purrs. “I see. But I would rather dispose of them the old-fashioned way if it’s all the same to you.”

  “It isn’t,” Raimi growls. “I don’t care about the priests and priestesses—you can have them if any escape—but the queen is mine. Don’t push me on this.”

  My father cocks an eyebrow. “Be careful whom you threaten, little man. You rule the roost up in Party Central, but down here you are nothing more than a mess of flesh and bones.”

  “Can’t we do this together?” I ask. “We’ve come this far as a team. Why not—”

  “You’ll all die if you challenge them,” Raimi says softly. “I sense death in the air. I’m as sure of this as I was of how to track the Coya.”

  “Nonsense,” Wami snorts. “Al is almost as good a fighter as his pappy. We will make short work of them, hmm, Al m’boy?”

  I don’t reply. Raimi’s right. Death lies waiting for me—if I go to meet it.

  “I’m not afraid of dying,” I mutter. “And I won’t regret it, not if I take that lot with me.”

  “I believe you,” Raimi smiles. “But you don’t have to. I can do this alone. You can live, Mr. Jeery, or you can sacrifice yourself. Choose.”

  “His choice is irrelevant,” Wami snarls. I will not step down under any—”

  “Your doll,” Ama interrupts, and he glances at her sharply. “If you attack them, the Coya will destroy your doll.”

  “Not if I cut her fucking head off first,” he barks.

  “Do you want to run such a risk?” Ama asks. “This world’s full of people for you to kill. Are these few worth risking everything for?”

  He stares at her, then chuckles grimly. “When you put it that way… Very well, Cardinal, the coup de grâce is yours. Enjoy.”

  “I will,” Raimi beams, then turns to Ama. “See you in a few days?” The hope in his eye is pathetic.

  “I guess,” she sniffs.

  He looks at me and winks. “It’s been fun knowing you, blood brother.”

  “Same here,” I grin.

  “Visit me when I return. We have important issues to settle.”

  “I’ll come,” I promise. I start to undo the straps of my vest, remember the dolls stashed there, and fake a groan. “Give him yours,” I tell my father. “I pulled a muscle earlier. My shoulder’s killing me.”

  Wami wriggles out of his vest, straps it over Raimi’s robes and shows him how to detonate the charges. The Cardinal waves to us, then hobbles down the tunnel after the Coya, leaving the rest of us to withdraw and strike for the lights of the world above.

  I’m in agony that no ordinary man could endure, but that’s nothing new. I’ve spent the last few months exploring all the stars, planets and moons in a universe of pain. The villacs put me through every kind of torture imaginable, while that she bitch looked on and laughed. And then they put me through it again. And again. What’s different now is that I’m a free agent. I could stop, sit, rest. Any small measure of relief would be a blessing. But if I pause, I won’t be able to rise. I’ll just lie there until I die.

  Dragging my left leg behind me, gritting the few teeth I have left, I march onward, enduring the pain, welcoming it—the worse I feel, the sweeter it’ll be when I send those bastards to hell. I gave my flashlight to Jeery, so I’m operating in darkness. That doesn’t worry me. I don’t need to be able to see to find that cow. I could ze
ro in on her if I were deaf, dumb and blind.

  I’m not sure what will happen to me when I kill the Coya. I was created to last through eternity, immune to death, but that power came from the queen and her priests. Perhaps, when they are no more, I’ll cease to exist as well. If so, so be it. I’ve spent ten years training myself to accept a life without end, but immortality hasn’t been easy to adapt to. Genuine death isn’t an altogether unwelcome prospect.

  I’d miss Ama though. Seeing her again almost made all the pain and humiliation worthwhile. I thought the woman the priests sent to lure me underground was an illusion. I’d dismissed her from my thoughts during my long days and nights of suffering. I hadn’t dared believe she could be real.

  Now that I know she is, I long to spend time with her, tell her what she meant to me, how much it pained me to sacrifice her. I want to explain that I had no choice, I was a puppet incapable of severing its strings. I want to touch her, even if it’s just one last time, hold her, kiss her, whisper words in her ear that I can whisper to no other because I can love none but her.

  But I’m afraid. What if she rejects me? What if she hates me for what I did to her? I’d rather die the one true death than have her spurn me. She fussed over me in the cavern of the Coya, but that might have been a sympathetic reaction. Perhaps it will be for the best if my spirit’s set free by the destruction of the Incas.

  I’m close now, a turn or two away. Their voices are loud and clear, as are the sounds of their fingers and knives on the rubble they’re frantically trying to burrow through. The flickering lights of torches make the tunnel seem warm and homey. The priestesses can’t navigate as capably in the dark as the villacs, even though they’ve spent their lives out of sight of the moon they worship.

  I was supposed to bring them to that moon. If I’d accepted the priests as masters, and worked with Jeery and the other sons of Paucar Wami, they’d have risen from the depths. With the Manco Capac statue dominating the city, the Coya would have established herself as queen, the mamaconas would have been the most sought-after women, and the villacs would have been the most powerful of men. They’d have ruled supreme. That dream kept them going in the miserable gloom. It was all they had to live for. A nobler man might feel pity for them—they were born to their lot, they didn’t ask for it—but I’m a savage son of a bitch and I feel nothing but hateful glee at the thought of wrecking their carefully laid plans.

  I’m almost upon them. A brief pause to draw breath and flex my fingers, careful not to touch the buttons nestled in my palms. Then I plaster a smile in place, force a weak whistle, and stumble around the final turn, into view.

  The tunnel is narrower than the others, only just wide enough for the bed, with a low ceiling. The cave-in isn’t impassable—the Incas could wriggle through if not for their oversized queen—but it’s a tricky one to clear. All the priests and priestesses are working on it, but as they scoop rocks and pebbles away, fresh stony trickles cascade from the sides and overhead. If they’re not careful, the roof will collapse. It’s a delicate operation, requiring finesse and time, which they don’t have anymore.

  “Having fun?” I bellow, and two dozen alarmed faces shoot around. The Coya is closest to me and she hisses with fear, making a sign with her huge, fleshy hands, as if that could ward me off. Her priests and handmaidens race from the rocks and line up in front of her. I grin at them. “Heard you were throwing a party. Thought I’d drop in.”

  “Where are the others?” snarls the English-speaking villac from earlier.

  “Gone.”

  “Dead?” he asks, surprised.

  “No, you fucking moron. They’ve returned to the city.”

  He frowns. “You have come alone?”

  “Shut up, you asshole,” I sigh, stepping forward for a better view of the Coya. “It’s the queen bee I’m interested in, not her drones.”

  The priest starts to launch a retort but the Coya silences him with a bark. Drawing herself upright on the bed, she glares at me, then studies the vest I’m wearing over my robes. “You have come to destroy me,” she sneers in the ancient tongue that is as natural to me as my own.

  “Sure as shit,” I laugh in her language.

  “This is foolish. We are your parents, Blood of Dreams, your destiny. We have amazing plans for you. We can keep you intrigued through the long, interminable millennia. Alone, you would have only humans for amusement, and they will cease to amuse you far more quickly than you imagine.”

  “I’ve already lost interest in them,” I sigh. “But you don’t interest me either. I don’t care about your plans. I have my own. The mistake you made in letting The Cardinal create me was thinking I’d feel a bond with your kind. You mean nothing to me, you fat, ugly, Incan cunt.” I’ve never relished anything as much as the delivery of that insult. If I survive, I’ll play that moment over and over, possibly until the very end of time.

  The Coya snarls savagely at me, then shouts at her underlings. “Get him!” A ridiculous choice of final words, but there’s no time for her to reconsider and add a fitting coda. The villacs and mamaconas rush me. I have no more than four or five seconds.

  Closing the fingers of my left hand, I press the slim button at the heart of my palm. A brief pause, then I press the button on my right. There’s no click and no poised moment of heightened tension. The vest explodes instantly, a ferocious blast, obliterating me and the nearest of the Incas, knocking the rest off their feet, bringing the roof down on a screeching, hateful Coya and her clan.

  The end.

  epilogue

  life goes on

  1

  into the light

  Ding-dong, the bitch is dead.

  It’s been almost two weeks since the Troops, Kluxers and Snakes joined forces to rid this city of its Incan rulers, and although it’s early days, the signs for a favorable future are positive. Raimi and Davern are cooperating cautiously, and Sard and I have been representing the Snakes, making sure we’re not frozen out of the negotiations. The days of a divided, isolated east are over. From now on the gangs here operate under a single, unified banner. We had to crack some heads to begin with, and that will continue for a while, but in time people will see the benefits of doing it our way. They’ll flock to the cause and the new era of peace and prosperity it heralds.

  Or so goes the plan.

  The city never looked sweeter than it did when I broke clear of the tunnels with Ama and my father. It was evening, the sun was setting, and for the first time in a decade the ruby-red sky didn’t remind me of the color of blood. We’d heard and felt the explosion on our way up, and knew that Raimi had succeeded.

  “So!” Paucar Wami boomed after a few minutes, as we lay on a bank of burned grass and gazed at the sky in solemn silence. “We have overcome the villacs and their queen, united the warring factions of the city, and laid the foundations for a long and lasting peace. Not a bad day’s work, hmm, Al m’boy?”

  “It could have been worse,” I deadpanned, then shared a laugh with him, Ama looking on, smiling wistfully (probably thinking about Raimi).

  Done laughing, Wami stood and scanned the towering buildings of the city, his green eyes thoughtful. “It is over,” he said softly. “I am truly free for the first time in my life. No Ferdinand Dorak or villacs to tell me what I must and must not do. I can be my own man, live for myself, do as I want.” His fingers flexed slowly, hungrily, by his sides.

  I cleared my throat and stood beside him. “There’ll be no more killing here.” He didn’t give any sign that he’d heard. “Go elsewhere for your sick kicks. This city’s off-limits.”

  “Says who?” he whispered, eyes still on the skyscrapers.

  “The leader of the Snakes.”

  “I lead the Snakes.”

  “No. Paucar Wami does. In this city there can only be one Paucar Wami, and that’s me. We can fight about it if you want, but there seems little point. It doesn’t matter to you where you kill. Why pit yourself against me when you could be
out there”—I gesture to the world beyond—“slaughtering freely?”

  He considered that, then nodded calmly. “Very well. The city is yours. I will depart immediately and leave you to it.”

  “I’d rather you didn’t.” He glanced at me, surprised. “The next few weeks could be difficult. I might have need of you. I want you to stay, hidden and inactive, ready to step in if I call.”

  “Why should I?” he asked. “I am eager to be about my new life. I care not for the people of this city and their problems.”

  “I’m asking, as your son—please hang around.”

  “If I do not?”

  I shrugged. “I can’t force you to stay. You’ll do it or you won’t.”

  He thought about it, then nodded again. “I am grateful to you for including me in the rousting of the villacs—that was sport I shall not forget in a hurry—so I will stay for a fortnight, lie low and heed your call. But,” he warned, “if you do call, you must accept the nature of the beast which you summon. I will not kill while in hiding, but if directed, I will consider those you sic me on fair game. I will show them no mercy.”

  “Agreed.”

  “I will be near the burned-out police station. Come if you need me. Otherwise I will contact you before I leave.” He paused, tugged at his robes and grimaced. “I hate these rags.” He pulled the robes off, stood naked before us—he winked lewdly at Ama, but she gazed back blankly, unimpressed—then turned and set off at a leisurely pace, whistling as if out on a casual stroll.

  “I despise that monster,” Ama said as we watched him leave, “but there’s no denying the man has style.”

  “Come on,” I chuckled, taking her arm. “The Snakes and their friends should be finished in the tunnels. Let’s go separate them before they turn on one another.”

  I got virtually no sleep the next few days. There was a lot of work to be done in the east—fires to extinguish, roads to unblock—and the Snakes made sure all went smoothly, providing escorts for the police, medics and cleanup crews who were soon swamping the streets. We kept tabs on dissident gangs, knocked them into order if necessary, safeguarded the public by patrolling the neighborhoods, securing the peace.