Darren Shan - City of the Snakes

“No,” he says shakily.

“I do.” Standing, I unroll the plastic gloves and pocket them. “ Ama Situwa ,” I sigh, not loud enough for Archer to hear, then make a quick exit, to retire for the night and consider what the hell this means.

Ama Situwa. Ayuamarcan. Lost to the world ten years ago. Returns

( how? )

and gets killed in the Skylight

( why? )

in room 812. Not much of a biography. No hints of who she was or how she lived. Was there a specific reason she was chosen to die instead of anyone else I know? And is the corpse really Ama Situwa? I still don’t buy into this resurrection business, though it’s getting harder to discredit. She could be someone who merely looked like the woman I remember. An elaborate red herring.

Sines will be able to help on that front. He’ll take fingerprints, dental impressions and DNA samples. Check them against the records. I’m sure there are no files on Ama Situwa — the villacs did a thorough job of removing all traces of the Ayuamarcans — but if this is another woman, we might strike it lucky.

I doze off while sitting next to my tiny living room window, contemplating the various twists and possibilities. I dream of room 812 in the Skylight and the three women who’ve been murdered there, Nicola Hornyak, Ellen Fraser and

( until proven otherwise )

Ama Situwa. In my dreams I’m present at the executions, which blend together into one nightmarish scene of perpetual murder. I stand by the foot of the bed as Nicola’s tied down. I hear Ellen scream. She calls my name and I reach to help, but I’m powerless. A large woman — Valerie Thomas, one of the villacs’ tools — pushes me away and laughs. A blind priest wraps his arms around me and holds me as Priscilla Perdue carves a symbol into Ama Situwa’s back, her knife impossibly large, the blood impossibly red. As it pools on the floor, faces form — Capac Raimi’s, Leonora Shankar’s, mine. No, not mine… my father’s. The real Paucar Wami smiles at me and murmurs, “Reasons for a refund, hmm, Al m’boy?”

As I’m trying to think of a reply, Wami’s face explodes in a geyser of blood that splatters the walls and ceiling. The blood covers me. It’s hot. I scream. And suddenly I’m lying on the bed and a villac is carving the flesh of my back to pieces. Incredible pain. He’s chanting. I’m screaming. Nicola, Ellen and Ama Situwa stand in a semicircle in front of me, naked, making love, laughing at my misfortune. The carving lasts an eternity.

“Flesh of Dreams,” the priest sings, and the women echo him. I cover my ears with my hands (not thinking to attack my tormentors with them), but the sounds penetrate the bloodstained flesh and bones. High-pitched, shrill, driving me to the verge of madness. I open my mouth to shriek. Blood gushes. And still the ringing of the women’s voices… ringing…

My eyes snap open but the noise follows me out of my dream. Heart racing, I look for blind priests, then realize it’s only my phone. Letting out a shaky breath, I wipe the last images of the nightmare from my thoughts and dig my cell out of a pocket. “Hello?” I answer, checking my watch. 04:19.

“Jeery? It’s Dr. Sines.”

I sit up. “What’s wrong?”

“Your corpse — the woman in the Skylight.”

“What about her?”

“She vanished.”

For a moment I think I’m still dreaming, but that impression is short-lived. “Where are you?” I ask.

“The Fridge.”

“I’ll be right over.”

As I slip on my shoes, I think I hear someone whisper, “Flesh of Dreams.” But it’s only a residue of the nightmare.

“How the fuck could she disappear?” I roar, punching the door of Sines’s office and kicking a spare chair out of my way. I’ve been here ten minutes and my rage has increased with every passing second. The doctor sits at his desk, impassive, waiting for my fury to pass. If he’s afraid of me, he masks it well.

“Tell me again what happened,” I snarl, leaning on the desk, putting my face close to his, watching for the slightest trace of a lie.

“I’ve told you three times already,” he says, meeting my gaze without blinking.

“So tell me a fourth!”

“You think it will help?”

“Start talking or I’ll help you through the fucking window.”

Sines sneers. “Quit chewing the scenery. It doesn’t become you.”

“You think this is a joke?” I yell. “You think this is a fucking—”

“Sit down. Stop shouting. Take deep breaths. Hold your hands out until they stop shaking. Then I’ll tell you again — for the last time,” he adds pointedly.

I want to rip out his eyes, but that wouldn’t do any good, so I pick up the chair, sit and breathe. Eventually my teeth stop chattering and the veil of rage lifts. “I’m sorry I shouted.”

Sines nods. “Better.” He launches into his story, keeping it brief. “I oversaw the initial examination of the corpse in the Skylight, as you requested. Made sure the area was dusted for prints and that nothing was disturbed.”

“Did you dust the body?”

“Yes, but only to check for obvious, clumsy traces of her killer. There weren’t any. I was saving the in-depth study for when I got back to the Fridge. Once I’d done all I could in the Skylight, I had her transferred to a gurney, then downstairs to the hearse.”

“Why a hearse?” I interrupt. “Why not an ambulance?”

He withers me with a smile. “Ambulances are for hospitals, where they treat the living. This is a morgue. We don’t have much use for resuscitative—”

“OK,” I snap. “I only asked.”

“As I was saying,” he continues, running an arrogant hand through his hair, “we transferred the body to the hearse. I was with it the entire time. We collapsed the legs of the gurney, slid it inside, strapped it down, locked the doors. The driver and I got in and set off. We made good time. Opened the doors when we got here, slid the gurney out, and the body wasn’t there.” He coughs. “I can’t explain how, but it vanished in transit.”

“Just like that?” I snort.

He glares at me. “I know how it sounds, but there’s no way it could have fallen out or been abducted. We were with it the whole way. You can check the hearse, but I assure you there are no false panels or gaping holes in the floor.”

“Bodies don’t vanish into thin air,” I remark icily.

“I agree,” he sighs, “but as Sherlock Holmes was fond of saying, when all other probabilities have been eliminated, what remains, however improbable, is the real shit.”

“I don’t think he put it quite that way,” I smile.

“You could be right.” Sines stands and heads for the door. “Let’s go give the hearse the once-over. You won’t believe me until you’ve seen it for yourself. Who knows, you might find something I overlooked. To be honest,” he mutters with uncharacteristic humility, “I rather hope you do.”

The hearse is inviolate. No secret panels in the sides, a solid floor, reliable lock. I suggest someone might have forced the lock while the hearse was stopped at traffic lights. “Impossible,” Sines says. “Traffic’s nonexistent at four in the morning and we were in a hurry to get back, so we broke a few rules of the road and didn’t stop for any lights.”

“Somebody on the roof? They could have worked on the lock while you were driving, slid out the body and…” I stop, realizing how weak that sounds.

Sines shrugs. “I thought of that too. It makes more sense than the suggestion that the body simply vanished, but it fails to account for the alarm.” Sines closes the doors at the back of the hearse, locks them, then takes out a different key and tries to insert it into the lock. A siren blares, which the doctor quickly silences by hitting a button on the hearse’s key fob.