City of the Snakes (46 page)
Read City of the Snakes Online
Authors: Darren Shan
Tags: #General, #Fantasy, #Science Fiction, #Fiction, #Magic Realism (Literature), #Gangsters, #Noir Fiction, #Urban Life, #Cardinals
The train pulls out on schedule and I lean back in my seat, casting my weary gaze over the landmarks one final time. Hard to believe I spent so much of my life here, confined by gray buildings, beating blood-drenched streets, living so tensely, so brutally. What keeps people in cities when there are the wide open spaces of the world to explore? It must be madness or an addiction.
I find myself staring at my reflection when the train enters a tunnel. With my snakes painted over, my short crop of hair, and a hunger for new challenges in my eyes, I can almost pass for the man I was ten years ago, before my descent into the subterranean world of the Incas. I must keep the snakes covered. Perhaps one day I’ll pay a surgeon to remove them. Or maybe I’ll hang on to them, reminders of the darkness. It might be good in later years to wipe the paint away every now and then, study the coils of the insane past, and appreciate how fortunate I am to have come out of it alive, intact and in some way human.
Across the aisle, a young boy—four, maybe five—pulls away from his tired mother and makes a break for freedom. She lunges after him but misses. I catch him before he escapes and hand him back. “Thank you,” she smiles, then scolds him in a low, harsh voice. Out of the jumble of words, I hear her warn him, “If you don’t behave, Paucar Wami will come and eat you!”
I turn away to hide a wry smile. Paucar Wami won’t ever eat any little children again, but let him live on in legend if that’s how people want it. I like the idea of him surviving that way. He stepped, fully formed, out of a fantasy and it’s only fitting that he should now return to the land of shadowy myths.
Me? I’m through with legacies. I don’t want anybody telling stories about Al Jeery. I’ll happily pass into obscurity when my time comes, and leave nothing but the dust of my bones behind. Let Capac Raimi have his eternity, and Paucar Wami his notoriety. I’ll settle for whatever years I have left and a soothing, dark hole in the ground at the end.
The train clears the suburbs and picks up speed. I look for a sign to say we’re leaving the city but none materializes. Maybe kids have made off with
them, or perhaps nobody bothered to erect any since the city always seems to be expanding, devouring more ground with every passing year. One day it may cover the entire planet, but that’s not my problem. Let future generations deal with that one.
As we head into the glow of dusk, away from the shadows of the city, I lie back and close my eyes, basking in the warmth of the sun through the glass, listening to the whine and screech of the engine and the wheels. After a while I doze, not a sound sleep, but that state halfway between dreams and the real world. In that in-between realm, I’m sitting on the greenest bank of grass in all the world, fishing in a river of purest blue. Bill’s close by, fixing bait
(
not a worm, but a tiny snake
)
to a hook. He catches my eye, winks and casts off. Behind us, ghostly figures flit in and out of the scene—Ellen and Ama, Capac Raimi and Ferdinand Dorak, Nicola Hornyak, Rudi Ziegler, Sard, Ford Tasso. Frank Weld hits the party with Hyde Wornton, both bitching about the way they were killed. My father doesn’t appear. I’ll dream about him often in the years to come, but he has no place at a friendly gathering like this.
There’s a barbecue sizzling in the background. Someone tells Bill and me to get busy—there’s a lot of hungry people who need feeding. We look at each other, laugh, crack open beers and engage in the mother of all contests. Soon the bank around us is overflowing with fish, every shape and variety, but all pale-skinned and blind.
“That’s it!” Bill cries, abandoning his line to the river. “You win.” He stands, claps my back, then vanishes into the crowd behind me, to dance with his young, giggling sister and a smartly dressed, prim and proper lady who would have been Margaret Crowe in another universe. “Coming?” Bill calls faintly.
“Soon,” I murmur, both in the dream and on the train in the real world. Settling back, I slip further into the dream and welcome more familiar faces—Howard Kett, Dr. Sines, Ali. And, arriving like a lord, a playgirl on each arm, the ancient, smirking Fabio. As the party swings into high gear, I cast my line far out into the heart of the river and carry on fishing, savoring the cool breeze and the scent of fried fish, looking forward to a night of wild tales and fond reminiscences, spent in the company of lost, loved friends.
part one: pretender to the throne
4: conversations with the dead
Darren Shan was born in London but at an early age he moved to Limerick, Ireland, with his parents and younger brother. For more information, you can visit
www.darrenshan.com
. You can also follow him on Facebook and Twitter.
The City
Procession of the Dead
Hell’s Horizon
Young Adult Novels by Darren Shan
The Demonata
Lord Loss
Demon Thief
Slawter
Bec
Blood Beast
Demon Apocalypse
Death’s Shadow
Wolf Island
Dark Calling
Hell’s Heroes
Cirque Du Freak
A Living Nightmare
The Vampire’s Assistant
Tunnels of Blood
Vampire Mountain
Trials of Death
The Vampire Prince
Hunters of the Dusk
Allies of the Night
Killers of the Dawn
The Lake of Souls
Lord of the Shadows
Sons of Destiny
The Saga of Larten Crepsley
Birth of a Killer
Other novels
The Thin Executioner
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2011 by Darren Shan
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
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First eBook Edition: June 2011
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ISBN: 978-0-446-58546-0
