City of the Snakes by Darren Shan Read Free Book Online

have Bill’s small left finger—the digit that hangs from my neck—and one day, if he’s out there, I’ll have the rest of him too.
    I think about Bill and Paucar Wami every day, every hour. Even when trailing prey, they’re foremost in my thoughts. Everything I am, I owe to them. Everything I do is in response to the hell of their creation.
    Wami was my father, a legendary serial killer, beloved of The Cardinal. A beast who tormented and murdered to pass the time. Somewhere along the line his path crossed with Bill Casey’s. I haven’t worked out what Wami did to Bill—I suppose he butchered someone close to him—but it drove Bill mad. He swore revenge and spent decades plotting a bizarre retribution. Befriending me as a child, he guided me through much of my life, keeping me close by his side, only to strip me of everything I valued when the time was right, slaughtering those close to me, pinning the blame on Wami in the crazy belief that I’d take up arms against my father and kill him.
    I confronted Bill once I’d unmasked him. When I asked why he didn’t kill Wami himself, he cited poetic justice. That didn’t make sense then, and it hasn’t grown any clearer with the passage of time. Unless Bill’s alive, and I can find him and squeeze the truth out of him, I doubt it ever will.
    My head comes to a stop. I take several deep breaths, then head for the kitchenette to prepare breakfast. A simple meal—dry cereal, toast, slices ofcold meat. Food doesn’t interest me. I eat to keep my body—my engine—ticking over. It’s fuel. Without it, I’d stop. And stopping’s something I can’t allow myself to do, not until Casey’s severed head rests on a spear before me.
    And if he really died in the blast he engineered—the blast that left my body scarred and burned—and didn’t plant a corpse in his place? Then I’ll carry on until I grow old and withered, and perish on the streets of blood that I have chosen to make my own. Either way, there can be no rest. Not for the wicked.
    I was an alcoholic once. In the nightmare months after Bill’s awful revelation, I almost gave myself over to the bottle. That would have been the easy way out. I often wish I’d taken it. But I hung tough, and gradually, when only the abyss loomed large in my life, the
plan
presented itself.
    My father wasn’t human. The original Cardinal, Ferdinand Dorak, said he’d created Paucar Wami out of thin air, assisted by blind Incan priests who’ve controlled this city for centuries. He said he’d created others too—Ayuamarcans. Whenever he destroyed one of his creations, a green fog crept over the city and gnawed away at people’s minds, eliminating all memories of the unreal person.
    I don’t know if The Cardinal was telling the truth or if he was a hundred percent bugshit, but there was
something
supernatural about Wami and the others. I’m the only one who remembers the Ayuamarcans. When The Cardinal died, those who were left faded out of existence and memory, except for Wami, whose legend lived on vaguely.
    The
plan
was to re-create the serial killer, and thus lure Bill out of hiding. Since Bill had devoted so much of his life to destroying the hated Paucar Wami, I figured he wouldn’t be able to stop. He’d pursue his crazed quest, even if he was no longer sure whom he was chasing. The trouble was, with Wami gone—banished to the realms of nothingness when The Cardinal died—there was no one for him to chase, no reason for him to come out of hiding.
    So I gave him one.
    Following the food with half a pint of milk, I edge into the tiny bathroom and relieve myself. While washing my hands, I study my reflection in the mirror. I’m dark skinned like my father, very similar in appearance.The main differences—Wami was bald, with green eyes, and sported tattoos of twisting, multicolored snakes, one down either cheek, their heads locking in the middle beneath his lower lip.
    I started with the hair. Scissors and a