City of the Snakes (8 page)

The Harpy draws back, bits of the rapist’s lips and tongue dangling from her teeth. She gurgles triumphantly, then joins the other two in their feast, tearing warm flesh from the corpse with her hands and teeth, swallowing it raw.

I avert my gaze and nod politely at the primly dressed, middle-aged woman who has followed the Harpies into the cul-de-sac. “Mrs. Abbots,” I greet her.

“Mr. Wami,” she responds with a wan smile. She observes the Harpies at feed, then turns to me with a worried frown. “She was alive when they started?”

“Yes.”

“Was she a bad person?” Her face contorts in anticipation of the answer. She does her best to keep the Harpies away from the innocent, but sometimes they feed on the corpses of the good as well as the bad.

“She was a child-raping murderess,” I sniff, and the worry deserts her.

“I’ll let them feed in peace then.”

Jennifer Abbots walks to the mouth of the cul-de-sac and waits for her
charges to finish eating. After a last glance at the rapist and the Harpies—one of the cannibalistic ladies has dug through to the intestines and is reeling them out like a sailor drawing in his nets—I join her.

I first ran into the Harpies four, maybe five years ago. I’d just killed a guy who’d been selling spiked heroin when a quartet of crazed, near-naked women descended on him, ripped off his clothes and carved him up with their claws and teeth. I was repulsed and drew my gun to fire on them. I’d seen a lot of dark deeds during my time, but nothing as foul as this looked.

Jennifer stopped me. She threw herself at my arm and knocked my gun away, yelling, “No!” As I scrabbled for the gun, she fell to her knees, clasped her hands together and wept. “Please, I beg you, no. They don’t mean any harm. They can’t help themselves. They only feed on the dead.”

That struck a chord. It was ridiculous, but put across with such earnestness—as if feeding on a person was fine as long as they were dead—that I stopped and studied the woman, crying and dirty from the dust of the street, pleading with me to spare the feasting cannibals. I saw the rosary beads hanging from her neck, the gray in her hair, the anguish in her face. And I lowered my gun and let her talk.

The four women stripping the flesh from the bones of the dead dealer had been inmates in an asylum for the deranged. Privately run, very down-market, the sort of institution you read about in tabloid exposés, staffed by unqualified nurses, patients fed on watered-down porridge and stale bread, bedclothes washed once a month, orderlies having their wicked way with the unfortunate women. As if the situation weren’t grim enough, the staff had a run-in with the manager and walked out
en masse
. Whether because he expected them to return, or just didn’t have the funds to hire replacements, he took over the running of the asylum himself. The relatives of the inmates didn’t find that out until later. Few visited regularly, being either unwilling to face their incarcerated kin or unable, as in the case of Jennifer, who had to work three jobs to pay for the upkeep of her house and cancer-stricken husband.

For a couple of weeks the manager struggled by, buying food and drink from nearby supermarkets, using Laundromats to wash the sheets a few at a time. Perhaps he could have carried on indefinitely, but the strain must
have gotten to him, because he died of a heart attack while preparing dinner one night. He was only discovered three weeks later, when a local councillor running for reelection wandered in with the intention of obtaining positive press shots of himself with some of the less privileged members of the community.

Nobody knows how long the crazed inmates tolerated the hunger pangs. Some held out to the end—there were nine to begin with, and three died of starvation. The other half dozen, having raided and emptied the cupboards, fridges and freezers, turned in the end to the only remaining food source—the manager and their dead companions.

“How’s life?” I ask Jennifer as we stand guard and wait for the Harpies to finish eating.

“So-so,” she answers. It’s been several months since we last ran into one another and she looks healthier than she did. “Rose died just before New Year’s, poor dear.” Rose was the mother of one of the Harpies. She’d been helping Jennifer care for the three remaining members of the cannibalistic clan.

“You’re looking after this lot by yourself?”

She shakes her head. “A very kind friend of mine, Mr. Clarke, has taken responsibility. He’s let them move in with him and he sees to their day-to-day needs. I’ve been able to relax for the first time in years, though I chip in with my share of the duties, which include chaperoning them when they go on the prowl.”

The councillor hushed up the scandal, terrified of being associated with a media nightmare. Bribing the photographer to keep his mouth shut, he contacted the relatives of the surviving inmates, told them what had happened and gave them the option of quietly coming to collect the survivors. Four responded, two didn’t. Jennifer and Rose, unwilling to leave any of the ladies to the discretion of the councillor—he promised to place them in a first-rate home, but they didn’t trust him—each took one of the “spare crazies” home along with her own relative.

With the survivors cleared, the councillor torched the nursing home, destroyed the evidence, put the mess behind him and focused on his campaign (in the end he lost by a thousand votes and hasn’t been heard of since).

Jennifer and Rose weren’t sure what to do with their charges. If they’d admitted them to another nursing facility, they would have had to explain where the women had been previously. The ladies were quieter than they’d been in the past, so Jennifer and Rose decided to tend to them by themselves until they could work something out.

The four weren’t difficult to care for. Apart from the occasional hysterical fit, they were model patients. Jennifer and Rose were both working women, but they arranged their shifts so that one was free while the other was busy. It wasn’t easy, but they managed, and everything ran smoothly until Rose fell asleep one afternoon while minding the four, and woke to find they’d vanished.

One frantic phone call later, Jennifer met Rose on the street and they went searching for the missing lunatics. They knew the women couldn’t get far—with no money, and dressed in simple gowns, they weren’t going to make much of a break for freedom—but the worry was that they’d attract attention, leading to all sorts of uncomfortable questions.

They searched the streets on foot, working in methodical circles. Nearly six hours later they found the quartet, crouched behind a garbage bin, sucking on the bones of a derelict who must have frozen or starved to death days before.

Jennifer and Rose were shocked, but since there was nothing they could do without calling the authorities and confessing, they opted to make the best of a bad lot, dumped the body in the bin and shepherded their stuffed, sated charges home.

Over the coming months, they realized the ladies’ taste for human flesh wasn’t going to go away. They’d get restless, stop eating, complain and act up. They grew violent if denied their cannibalistic pleasures. The only way to keep them quiet was to take them out, locate a fresh corpse and let them at it.

So that’s what Jennifer and Rose did.

The first of the Harpies finishes her meal, staggers away from the others, sits at Jennifer’s feet and burps. It’s Rettie, Jennifer’s sister. One of the Harpies died a couple of years ago. Jennifer never told me what of. I’ve a sneaking suspicion it might have been indigestion.

I don’t wholeheartedly approve of the Harpies, but they do no harm,
feeding only on the dead or those—like the rapist tonight—who are as close to it as makes no difference. It’s a dog-eat-dog world. Who am I to pass judgment on a few mad old women who’ve taken that credo literally?

I tried curing the ladies of their craving once. I used to be able to help people with mental difficulties. As a younger man, I could absorb their fear and hurt, and ease their pain. But I couldn’t work my charms on the Harpies. Didn’t even get to first base. I think I lost that gift around the same time I abandoned my humanity. Monsters can’t cure, only kill.

As the others reach their fill and desert the body of the rapist, Jennifer starts toward it with the intention of carting it away for disposal. I stop her with a gentle hand. “That’s OK. I’ll get rid of the remains.”

“Are you sure?” Jennifer asks.

“Yeah. Spare your back. You’re getting too old for this. You should hire someone younger to help.”

Jennifer laughs. “It’s not exactly a post you can advertise for.”

I grin. “Guess not.”

“Besides, I can’t complain. Mr. Clarke, God bless him, has relieved me of most of the stress. I have things easy compared with how they used to be. This would be a harsh, lonely life if we had no friends.”

“Yes,” I sigh, and stand aside as she leads Rettie and the other two Harpies away, to wherever they now call home. I muse on the dark wonders and variety of the world for a couple of minutes, then roll on a pair of gloves, bag scraps of the rapist’s clothes, flesh and bones—not forgetting the dildo—and grab hold of the bloody remains of the dead woman. She doesn’t weigh much now that she’s been stripped to the bone. I hoist her onto my shoulders and go looking for a decent-sized Dumpster or furnace.

Just another average night in the city.

I
sleep in late. Putting an end to the rapist pleased me, and I sleep the sleep of the

(
almost
)

just. I half wake a couple of times, but doze off again without opening my eyes, smiling in the gloominess of my stuffy room, enjoying the warmth and comfort of my bed.

It’s after midday when I rise and launch into the first set of the day’s exercises. Squats. I’m up to 236 when someone knocks on the door.

I come to a cautious halt. I’m not expecting visitors, and unexpected guests are rare around here. Religious missionaries don’t venture this far east—they gave up on us long ago—and nobody’s dumb enough to come collecting for charity. My neighbors aren’t in the habit of dropping in—they care as little about my affairs as I do about theirs—and the rent isn’t due for another two months.

Rising, I pad to the door and pause with my hand on the knob. I don’t have a chain or latch, so I address my visitor through the thin wood of the closed door. “Who is it?”

“Jerry Falstaff.”

Unlocking the door, I open it and gesture him in. It’s been three years—more—since he last looked me up. My curiosity’s instantly aroused.

Jerry walks straight to the only chair in the tiny living room and takes it. “The decor hasn’t improved,” he notes, casting an unimpressed eye around.

“I was never big on interior design.” I close the door and take up a position opposite him, standing to attention the way I used to when I was one of Jerry’s colleagues in the Troops. Jerry’s come a long way since then, further than either of us ever imagined. The new Cardinal took a shine to him. Jerry mixes with the high and mighty these days, though he doesn’t bear the look of an important man. He’s the same Jerry Falstaff I remember, slightly overweight, clothes a bit loose, a small grin never far from his lips. A bit grayer at the temples perhaps.

“Looking good, Al.”

“I keep in shape.”

“And then some.” Jerry coughs meaningfully and I take the hint.

“Can I get you something to drink?”

“Thought you’d never ask. Got any beer?”

I fetch a couple of cans from the fridge, one for each of us. Ten years ago I was dry, avoiding all forms of alcohol in the sure knowledge that one slip would be my downfall. These days I can indulge in a social drink (though I rarely do) and leave it at that. I have greater demons to wrestle with.

“Busy?” Jerry asks, sinking a third of the can and burping.

“Yes.”

“Things have been tense lately. I hear you’re keeping a lid on the situation in these parts.”

“I’ve done what I can.”

“Didn’t think community watch was your kind of business.”

“Riots are good for nobody. How are things going with the Kluxers?”

Jerry grimaces. “We’ve forced them back a bit. They’ve established a toehold, but we showed we weren’t ready to let them roll in and take over. It’s an uneasy truce but it should hold for a few weeks.”

“And then?”

“Who knows?” He smirks humorlessly. “Actually that’s what I’m here about.” He pauses, giving me a chance to ask questions, but I say nothing. I can’t imagine what he’s after. “We’ve been good to you, haven’t we?”

“
We?
”

“Me and Frank. Ford, before he retired. As a rule we’re opposed to vigilantes. We had every right to crack down on you, especially since you targeted so many of our valued associates.”

I nod slowly. “I can’t argue with that.”

“But we’ve kept out of your way and granted you the freedom of the city.”

“That’s true.”

Jerry sips from the can and speaks over the rim. “You know about Capac going AWOL?”

“I’ve heard rumors.”

“He went to the Fridge Saturday before last. Asked to be admitted to Dorak’s crypt. When the doctor who let him in returned, he wasn’t there. Vanished into thin air, or so it seemed. We found a passageway beneath Dorak’s coffin, a set of stairs leading down into a maze of tunnels. He must have gone down—or was taken. We tried to track him but it’s immense, full of traps and dead ends. He hasn’t been seen since.”