City of the Snakes tct-3

by Darren Shan

  City of the Snakes

  ( The City Trilogy - 3 )

  Darren Shan

  DARREN SHAN

  City of the Snakes

  For:

  Liam, Biddy & Bas — Snakes, Troops, Kluxers — all

  OBE (Order of the Bloody Entrails) to:

  Darren O’Shaughnessy and D B Shan — gone but not forgotten

  Edited by:

  Sarah Hodgson — running solo, like Capac, now

  The City could not have been built without all of the architects and tradespeople of the Christopher Little crew

  part I. pretender to the throne

  1: a toast

  The Cardinal is dead — long live The Cardinal!”

  Cathal Sampedro and the three other men in my office applaud soundly as Gico Carl makes the toast. They’re all grinning inanely — they love me to death. I smile obligingly and tip my crystal glass to Gico’s. I’m not a champagne man by nature, but when the occasion calls for it…

  “Ten years, Capac,” Gico beams, licking his lips nervously. I pretend not to notice the giveaway gesture. “Seems like only yesterday.”

  This is boring. I know they’re here to kill me. I wish they’d stop wasting my time with small talk and just get on with it.

  “Remember the night…,” Cathal begins and I tune out. Cathal has the gift of making the most fascinating anecdote sound incredibly dull. His stories are best ignored if possible, and since I’m The Cardinal, lord of the city, I can ignore anyone I damn well please.

  The Cardinal is dead — long live The Cardinal. It’s been said to me many times over the last decade, occasionally by those who mean it, more often by fools like these who think they can replace me.

  Ten years. A long time by most standards, but Gico — once-loyal Gico Carl, the man I chose to succeed Frank Weld as head of the Troops — is right. It does seem like yesterday. I can recall every detail of Ferdinand Dorak’s twisted expression as he stepped up to the edge of the roof of Party Central. Half excited, half fearful, thoroughly demented. “Here’s to a long life, Capac Raimi,” he cheered. Then, with one final “Farewell!” he leaped and the reins of power passed to me. I’ve been fighting to cling to them ever since.

  I’ve had a lot of people killed since I took over, but nowhere near enough. Running a corrupt cesspit like this city is damn near impossible. No ordinary man could do it. You’d need several lifetimes to stamp your authority on these streets and make them your own. Fortunately I have those lifetimes, and more besides. I’ll wear down the dissidents eventually, even if I have to die trying… repeatedly.

  Cathal and Gico are rambling, quaffing champagne, working up the courage to kill me. They were fine servants of the original Cardinal. When I stepped in, they swore allegiance to me and for several years remained true to their oath. But their loyalties have swayed. Like so many, they’ve come to believe I’m not up to the task of leadership. They see the trouble I’m in, the strain the city’s under, the threat of rival gangs, and they think the time has come to push me aside and install a new supremo.

  Slipping away from the knot of assassins, I gravitate toward the balcony, brooding on how it’s all gone wrong. For the first few years I ruled smoothly. I faced opposition, and assassination attempts were frequent, but that was to be expected. Things settled down as The Cardinal had predicted in the plans he’d left behind for me. It seemed that I was over the worst and I commenced planning for the next phase, expansion out of the city. That’s when it all started to fall apart.

  I study the dozens of puppets hanging from the walls. Dorak’s macabre Ayuamarcans. He could create people. He had the power to reach beyond the grave, bring the dead back to life, and give them new personalities. A group of blind Incan priests—villacs—constructed puppets and aided Dorak in his resurrection quests. It sounds insane, but the Ayuamarcans were real. I know because I’m one of them.

  I step out of the office. The balcony’s a new addition. I’ve kept this place in much the same state as Dorak left it — sparsely decorated, a long desk, a plush leather chair for myself, simple plastic chairs for the guests — but I replaced the bulletproof glass. When The Cardinal created me, he made me immortal. I can be killed but I always bounce back. As a man with no fear of death, I don’t need to cut myself off from the world as my predecessor did. I like to step out here and gaze down upon my city. Normally it calms me, but not tonight.

  Why am I struggling? Why the unrest on the streets? Why the renewed assassinations? Those days should be behind me. I haven’t weakened. I’ve stayed true to my course, as my nature dictates. I’ve pushed ahead with The Cardinal’s plans, improvising when I have to, using my initiative. I’ve been generous to my supporters, wrathful to those who oppose me, fair with all. I should be respected and obeyed as Ferdinand Dorak was. But I’m not.

  The villacs shoulder much of the blame. The blind priests helped create me, with the intention of using me, but I’m The Cardinal’s son, not theirs, and they resent that. They’d have me concentrate on making the city great, ignore the outside world completely. But I can’t. I must have the world in all its glory. Nothing less will suffice.

  The priests have become dangerous adversaries. Their power rivals my own, maybe even eclipses it. They’re undermining my authority, setting people and gangs against me. It was an uneasy relationship from the start, but recently it’s deteriorated entirely. They used to send emissaries to consult with and advise me, but I haven’t had word from them for eighteen months. There was no defining argument. They simply lost patience and have been doing all in their power to rock the boat ever since.

  “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?”

  “They’ve nothing to do with it,” he grunts.

  “You’re acting alone?” I sneer. “Then you’re dumber than I thought. With the support of the priests, you could have held on for six months, maybe a year. Alone, you wouldn’t last a month.”

  “We’ll see,” Gic
o snarls, then nods sharply at Cathal. Ducking low, Cathal propels himself into the small of my back, knocking me over the ledge. Gico grabs my feet as I spin over the rails and shoves hard, to hasten my descent. The faces of both men are contorted with gleeful terror.

  It’s a fifteen-floor drop. Plenty of time to admire the scenery. I sail to earth relaxed, knowing it can’t hold me. I smile against the rush of air. “They’ll have to do better than this,” I chuckle, then hit the ground and die in a shattering explosion of bones and shredded flesh.

  On a train, approaching a gray, sprawling, menacing city. For a few minutes I don’t know who or where I am. Then my memories return. I’m Capac Raimi, The Cardinal, recently deceased, freshly resurrected, on my way home. Coming back from the dead threw me for a loop the first few times, but like most things in life, a man can get used to it.

  A conductor passes up the aisle, asking for tickets. I fish mine out and hand it to him with a polite smile. I’ve never worked out how I re-form and wind up on this train, fully dressed, with a ticket from Sonas to the city in my pocket. It bothered me to begin with, but I’ve given up worrying about it. One of those mysteries of the universe I’ve learned to accept without query.

  It’s been close to four years since my last execution. I’d aged slightly, gained a few pounds, developed a spray of gray hairs, picked up wrinkles around the eyes. But now I’m the way I was when I came to this city eleven years ago, bright, fresh, youthful. “Hi, handsome,” I mutter to my reflection in the window as we enter a tunnel.

  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.

  Jerry’s waiting for me at the station, decked out in his uniform. I’ve told him he doesn’t need to wear it, but Jerry Falstaff’s a stubborn man, slow to change. “Good to have you back, boss,” he says, helping me off the train, taking my bag (it changes with the reincarnations, keeping up with the latest fashions — a nice touch).

  “How long have I been gone?” I ask, stretching, waiting for the crowd to disperse.

  “You were killed at 23:14, Tuesday,” Jerry says matter-of-factly. “It’s now 15:03, Friday.”

  “How’s Gico bearing up?”

  “Great.” Jerry grins. “A natural leader.”

  We follow the last few stragglers out of the station, to the waiting limo. Thomas holds the door open for me. Dry, faithful Thomas. He’s been my driver almost as long as I can remember. Nothing shakes Thomas (though the bomb that took the two smallest fingers of his left hand seven years ago came close).

  “Party Central, Mr. Raimi?” he asks as I get in.

  “Party Central,” I concur, and discuss affairs of state with Jerry during the ride.

  Jerry’s one of the few who know the secret of my immortality. The city’s awash with rumors, but to most people that’s all they are, fairy tales circulated by a power-hungry despot to psych out his opponents. Only those closest to me know about The Cardinal’s legacy. I was on the point of letting Gico Carl in on the big secret, but I sensed something weak in him. It didn’t surprise me when he turned.

  Jerry’s a soldier, a long-serving Troop who came to my attention when he took a bullet intended for me eight years ago. Once he’d recuperated, I had Frank Weld — still head of the Troops in those days — assign him to the fifteenth floor of Party Central, where our relationship developed. He was shaken when I first displayed my Lazarus trick, but now he takes my comebacks in his stride.

  “What about Mr. Sampedro?” Jerry asks as we draw close to Party Central, the fortress I inherited from the previous Cardinal. “He’s been led astray by Gico, but we could still use him.”

  I consider Cathal Sampedro’s fate, then shake my head. “He’s blown it.”

  Jerry nods obediently and draws a pistol from his holster.

  “It was Alice’s birthday yesterday, wasn’t it?” I ask.

  Jerry looks surprised. “I didn’t think you’d remember.”

  “Death’s a small matter,” I quip. “Birthdays are important. Do anything nice with her?”

  He shrugs. “We meant to go away for a couple of days, but your getting iced put paid to that. I took her out for a meal. She wasn’t overly impressed, but she knows how it goes.”

  We stop at the rear of Party Central and Thomas gets out to open my door. Frank Weld materializes out of the shadows, flanked by ten of the toughest-looking sons of bitches I’ve ever seen.

  “Capac,” he greets me, grinning edgily. He’s never come to terms with my indestructibility. My returning freaks the shit out of him, but he puts up with me because he senses — in a way Gico Carl and Cathal Sampedro can’t — that I’m the future. Frank, like Ford Tasso before him, is a man propelled by instinct to identify and follow the strongest master.

  Frank quit as head of the Troops three years ago. He moved up in the organization, becoming overseer of my international interests. Although eternity is mine to play with, I’m limited physically to the boundaries of this city. If I spend more than three or four days away, my body unravels and I find myself back on the train. I can handle most of my global business from Party Central, and by arranging short trips abroad for face-to-face meetings, but it helps to have a strong lieutenant active in the field.

  “Sorry to pull you away from your regular duties.”

  Frank sniffs. “Diplomacy’s boring. I’m looking forward to running with the Troops again.”

  “As long as you realize it’s a temporary measure. As soon as I find a fit replacement, you’re out of here.”

  “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear you wanted to get rid of me,” Frank laughs, then draws his gun, checks with his men — all armed with rifles — and leads us through the backyard, past a posse of Troops who look away and wait for this latest power game to reach its inevitable conclusion.

  Gico’s guards don’t intervene when they spot us. The men we draft into the Troops are smart enough to know which way the wind blows. Besides, most were blooded by Frank, so even if they were prepared to take a shot at me, they wouldn’t dare raise a hand against their old taskmaster.
>
  In the past you had to check in your shoes at reception. The floors of Party Central are lined with some of the finest carpets you’ll find this side of Arabia. Dorak was obsessive about them. I don’t share his love, so we march to the room marked BASE in our shoes and boots, sparing not a thought for the priceless floor covering.

  Mags is on duty. She’s another of Dorak’s finds. Best secretary bar none. I’d be lost without her. She looks up and smiles as we enter. I’ve never explained the truth about myself to Mags, but she’s seen enough to guess. “Glad to have you back, sir,” she greets me. “I’ve got lots of forms that need signing when you’re through with Mr. Carl and his associates.”

  “Why didn’t you get Gico to sign them while he was acting CEO?”

  “I had a feeling he wouldn’t be acting for long,” she replies. Then she asks cheekily, “Shall I check to see if he’s receiving visitors?”

  “I’m sure he’ll make time for us.”

  Breezing in without knocking, I find Gico, Cathal and two of their allies examining a map on the table that dominates the room. Four burly Troops are positioned by the windows. They raise their weapons when they see me, then lower them when Frank snaps his fingers.

  “Good afternoon, gentlemen.” I smile lazily as their jaws drop. “Hope I’m not interrupting anything important.”

  “You… you…,” Cathal gasps, taking a few involuntary steps away from me as if I’m some supernatural monster. Which I suppose I am.

  “You four — beat it!” Frank barks at the Troops by the window. They stare at him uncertainly, then at the ten men behind him, then nod obediently and make themselves scarce.

  “You just can’t find good help these days,” I tut, locating my chair and slumping into it.

  “We killed you,” Gico moans, face ashen. One of the men to his left is crying. The other’s shaking his head numbly. Cathal has backed up to the window. If it were open he’d probably back all the way off the balcony and save us the price of a bullet.