Procession of the Dead

Procession of the Dead is a novel by the Irish writer Darren Shan, published in 2010, and it was his first book for adults after a career writing for younger readers. It begins a series set in a city that is never named.

Capac Raimi's arrival is the first thing he can remember. He recalls every step he has taken since getting off the train and nothing at all before it, and the blank behind him does not seem to bother him as much as it should. What occupies him instead is his ambition, which is considerable and which the City appears willing to accommodate.

He is drawn into the circles through which the place is actually run. There is an assassin with snakes tattooed on his face who moves like smoke, there are blind priests from the Andes whom nobody else seems able to see, and there is the Cardinal, who is the City and whose knowledge of its streets is total. When Capac learns how much the Cardinal has had to do with his own life, the choice he faces is between the future he came for and what he would have to accept in order to have it.