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Darren Shan: Procession of the dead

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Darren Shan Procession of the dead

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He was a good home man too. He loved his wife, Melissa, with a passion. He fell in love with her ears first. "She had small ears, Capac," he told me. "Tiny, thin, delicate. They broke my heart, just looking at them."

He wooed her vigorously and, though she wanted nothing to do with his world of violence, he won her. Their wedding made the society pages of all the papers. He spent a fortune to give her the kind of reception she hadn't asked for but which he believed she deserved. The Cardinal himself provided the cake as a present, hiring the city's best baker to design the iced marvel. The band played flawlessly and there wasn't a single clumsy dancer to be found. The women were beautiful in their designer dresses, the men handsome in their tailored suits. It was a day that made you realize what living was all about.

Their love lasted four wonderful years. Theo still went about his dirty business, burning down houses, breaking limbs, selling drugs, killing when he had to. But he was one of the happiest gangsters the city had ever seen. If you had to be bullied and beaten, there was no finer man than Theo Boratto for the job.

The only thing missing was a child. And that was when it all went to hell.

They didn't worry about it in the early days. They were certain a child would come in time. Melissa had faith in God and Theo had faith in the fertile Boratto testicles. But as the months became years, their faith wavered and questions were asked.

Doctors said they were fine and advised them to keep trying, not to worry, a baby would come along eventually. But years turned, the world changed, and the nursery stayed empty. They tried faith healers, ancient charms and different sexual positions, read every kind of book on the market and watched the videos, prayed and made promises to God. Finally, when they'd almost given up hope, a sturdy seed broke through and made itself a home.

They threw a wild party when the test came back positive. They moved into a bigger house and bought everything the stores of the city had to offer. Happiness had returned.

It was a brief visit.

There were complications with the delivery. A trembling doctor presented Theo with his options-they could save the woman or the child. No maybes, no mights, no false hopes. One would live and one would die. It was up to Theo to choose.

He nodded slowly, eyes red, heart dead. He had one question-was it a boy or a girl? The doctor told him it was male. "Save the baby," Theo said, the last words he would utter for many months.

His wife was buried before his child was christened, and Theo's soul went with her. He was a broken man afterward, prone to fits of depression. The child might have been his savior, the light to bring him through the darkness, but fate robbed him even of that. The baby was a weak, scrawny thing. It came into this world on the shoulders of death, and death hovered ominously over the child. The doctors kept the dark gatherer at bay for a fragile seven months, but then he was returned to his beautiful, cute-eared mother, having spent more of his short life within her womb than without.

Theo let things slide. Money seeped out of his hands and into those of greedy, enterprising others. His house was repossessed, his cars, jewelry, clothes. The last deliberate act he committed in those days of descent was to give the child's toys away to charity before someone ran off with them. There was that much left in him that gave a damn. That much and no more.

Starvation and harsh winters forced him back into work. He did enough to eat and pay for a moldy single room in the cheapest motel he could find. Nothing which required thought. He gutted fish in factories by the docks until the stench got him evicted from his most humble abode. He sold fruit and vegetables in a cheap street market, sometimes flowers. After five or six years, he returned to a life of crime, going along as an extra on thefts and break-ins. It was a long way from dining with The Cardinal and walking the hallowed halls of Party Central. But Theo didn't care. It kept him fed and warm. That was enough.

Then, inevitably, a theft went wrong. He was apprehended, tried, sent down for eighteen months. Prison remade him. He took to thinking during his long days of incarceration. He saw where his life was stuck, what he had become, and made up his mind to change. He knew he'd never overcome his grief entirely. He doubted if he could ever be truly happy, or rise as high as he'd been before. But there was middle ground. He didn't have to be this low. If he wasn't going to do the simple thing and kill himself, he might as well do the decent thing and carve out a life worth the effort of living.

He made contacts, talked his way into deals and scams, made sure he had something to go to when he left, jobs which would lead to others and start the ball rolling again. It took years to pull himself back up. The big guns didn't trust him-he'd cracked once, they figured, and might again. He was a risk. But he kept at it, moved from one job to another, proved his worth, clawed his way up the ladder until he was in a position to put forward ideas and initiate his own deals. He employed a few thugs, bought a couple of suits, invested in guns and was back in business.

He built it up over the next few years, expanding his territory, crushing weaker opponents, advancing slowly but surely. When he felt secure, he decided to bring in an heir, someone to carry on when he was gone. In the absence of a son he chose one of his many nephews. He spent a few months sizing them up, then settled for one with a touch of the wicked in his features, with what might prove to be steel in his blood, with a will to succeed at any cost. The nephew he chose was Capac Raimi. Me.

Theo wanted to be angry with me for arriving late, and he was scowling as the cab pulled away, stranding me at the foot of the house. But he was too excited to remain hostile, and by the time I was halfway up the steps he was grinning like a kid at a birthday party.

He threw his arms around my body and clutched me tightly. For a small, skinny guy he had a lot of strength. When he released me I was astonished to see him weeping. That was one thing I hadn't expected from a hardened, twice-come gangster like Theo Boratto. He wiped the tears away with a trembling hand and sobbed, "My boy, my boy." Then, sniffling and smiling weakly, he led me into the house, shutting the door gently behind us.

In the sitting room, with the lights up full and a real log fire spitting tongues of flame up the chimney, I got my first good look at him. It had been years since our last encounter. I could hardly remember what he looked like. It was as if we were meeting for the first time.

There wasn't much to him. He was no more than five foot six, slim, very haggard. There was a part in his hair that Moses would have been proud of, a long stretch of skull with a few brownish spots. The hair at the sides was gray and smartly cut. He blinked a lot, eyes of an owl, and it was nearly impossible at times to see the globes behind the shutters. He was clean-shaven, with the shining skin of a man who shaved at least twice a day. His suit was conservative. Light leather shoes, a red handkerchief ornamentally placed in the upper left pocket. The perfect picture of a stereotype gangster. All he was missing was the slit-skirt moll with a sneer and a drooping cigarette.

"What do you think of the city?" he asked when we were comfortable.

"Couldn't see much of it," I admitted. "It was raining."

"It's huge," he said. "Growing all the time, like a cancer." He paused, maybe thinking of death and Melissa. "I'm glad to see you, Capac. I've been alone so long. I always hoped I'd have a son to take over, but things didn't… You know the story.

"Things have been bleak ever since," he continued. "I don't mean the business-that's grown nicely. I'm talking about family. Family's what really matters. I've been alone since Melissa. My brothers never followed me into the business. They went to college, got proper jobs, real lives. We were never close. My sisters… they write me now and again." He shook his head sadly. "I'm a lonely old man. Nobody to live with, nobody to live for." He leaned forward, patted my knee and smiled. "Until now.

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