THE VAMPIRE’S ASSISTANT

THE SAGA OF DARREN SHAN

BOOK 2

THE VAMPIRE’S ASSISTANT

THE SAGA OF DARREN SHAN

BOOK 2

Madam Octa’s on the Web… and so is Darren Shan!

For all things freaky, check out the official

Darren Shan website at www.darrenshan.com

For:

Granny and Grandad – tough old fogeys

OBEs (Order of the Bloody Entrails) to:

Caroline ‘tracker’ Paul

Paul ‘the pillager’ Litherland

Heads off to:

Biddy ‘Jekyll’ and Liam ‘Hyde’

Gillie ‘grave robber’ Russell

The hideously creepy HarperCollins gang

and

Emma and Chris (from ‘Ghouls Are Us’)

Contents

Introduction

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Other Books in the Series The Saga of Darren Shan

Copyright

About the Publisher

INTRODUCTION

MY NAME’S Darren Shan. I’m a half-vampire.

I wasn’t born that way. I used to be ordinary. I lived at home with my parents and younger sister, Annie. I enjoyed school and had lots of friends.

I liked reading horror stories and watching scary movies. When a freak show came to town, my best mate, Steve Leopard, got tickets and we went. It was great, really spooky and weird. A super night out.

But the weirdest part came after the show. Steve recognized one of the characters from the show … he’d seen a drawing of him in an old book and knew he was — a vampire. He stuck around after the show and asked the vampire to turn him into one, too! Mr Crepsley – the vampire – would have, but he found out Steve’s blood was evil, and that was the end of that.

Or it would have been the end, except I stuck around, too, to see what Steve was up to.

I wanted nothing to do with vampires, but I’d always loved spiders – I used to keep them as pets – and Mr Crepsley had a poisonous performing spider, Madam Octa, which could do all sorts of great tricks. I stole her and left a note for the vampire, saying I’d tell people about him if he came after me.

To cut a long story short, Madam Octa bit Steve and he ended up in hospital. He would have died, so I went to Mr Crepsley and asked him to save Steve. He agreed, but in return I had to become a half-vampire and travel with him as his assistant!

I ran away after he’d turned me into a half-vampire (by pumping part of his own horrible blood into me) and saved Steve, but then I realized I was hungry for blood, and was afraid I’d do something terrible (like bite my sister) if I stayed at home.

So Mr Crepsley helped me fake my death. I was buried alive and then, in the dead of night, with no one around, he dug me up and we set off together. My days as a human were over. My nights as a vampire’s assistant had begun.

CHAPTER ONE

IT WAS a dry, warm night, and Stanley Collins had decided to walk home after the Scouts’ meeting. It wasn’t a long walk – less than two kilometres – and though the night was dark, he knew every step of the way as surely as he knew how to tie a reef knot.

Stanley was a Scout Master. He loved the Scouts. He’d been one when he was a boy, and kept in contact when he grew up. He’d turned his three sons into first-rate Scouts and, now that they’d grown up and left home, he was helping the local kids.

Stanley walked quickly to keep warm. He was only wearing shorts and a T-shirt, and even though it was a nice night, his arms and legs were soon covered in goosebumps. He didn’t mind. His wife would have a lovely cup of hot chocolate and currant buns waiting for him when he got home. He’d enjoy them all the more after a good, brisk walk.

Trees grew along both sides of the road home, making it very dark and dangerous for anyone who wasn’t used to it. But Stanley had no fears. On the contrary, he loved the night. He enjoyed listening to the sound of his feet crunching through the long grass and briars.

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.

He smiled. When his sons were young, he’d pretend there were monsters lying in wait up in the trees as they walked home. He’d make scary noises and shake the leaves of low-hanging branches when the boys weren’t looking. Sometimes they’d burst into screams and run for home at top speed, and Stanley would follow after them, laughing.

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.

If he was having trouble getting to sleep at night, he would imagine the sounds of his feet as they made their way home, and that always helped him drift off into a happy dream.

It was the nicest sound in the world, as far as Stanley was concerned, better than all the music of Mozart and Beethoven.

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.

Snap.

Stanley stopped and frowned. That had sounded like a stick breaking, but how could it have been? He would have felt it if he’d stepped on a twig. And there were no cows or sheep in the nearby fields.

He stood still for about half a minute, listening curiously. When there were no more sounds, he shook his head and smiled. It had been his imagination playing tricks. He’d tell the wife about it when he got home and they’d have a good laugh.

He started walking again.

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.

There. Back to the familiar sounds. There was nobody else about. He would have heard more than a single branch snapping if there was. Nobody could creep up on Stanley J. Collins. He was a trained Scout Master. His ears were as sharp as a fox’s.

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. Cru—

Snap.

He stopped again, the fingers of fear tightening around his beating heart.

That hadn’t been his imagination. He’d heard it, clear as a bell. A twig snapping, somewhere overhead. And before it snapped: had there been the slightest rustling sound, as if something was moving?

Stanley gazed up at the trees but it was too dark to see. There could have been a monster the size of a car up there and he wouldn’t have been able to spot it. Ten monsters. A hundred! A thou—

Oh, that was silly. There were no monsters in the trees. Monsters didn’t exist. Monsters weren’t real. It was a squirrel or an owl, something ordinary like that.

Stanley raised a foot and began to bring it down.

Snap.

His foot hung in the air and his heart pounded quickly. That was no squirrel! The sound was too sharp. Something big was up there. Something that shouldn’t be up there. Something that had never been there before. Something that—

Snap!

The sound was closer this time, lower down, and all of a sudden Stanley could stand it no longer. He ran.

Stanley was a large man, but fairly fit for his age. Still, it had been a long time since he’d run this fast, and after a hundred metres he was out of breath and had a stitch in his side.

He slowed to a halt and bent over, gasping for air.

Crunch.

His head shot up.

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.

There were footsteps coming towards him! Slow, heavy footsteps. He listened, terrified, as they came closer and closer. Had the monster leapt ahead of him through the trees? Had it climbed down? Was it coming to finish him off? Was …

Crunch. Crunch.

The footsteps stopped and Stanley was able to make out a figure. It was smaller than he’d expected, no bigger than a boy. He straightened up, gathered his courage about him like a cloak, and stepped forward for a better look.

It was a boy! A small, frightened-looking boy, dressed in a dirty suit.

Stanley smiled and shook his head. What a fool he’d been! The wife would have a field day when he told her about this.

“Are you OK, lad?” Stanley asked.

The boy didn’t answer.

Stanley didn’t recognize the youngster, but a lot of new families had moved into the area recently. He no longer knew every child in the neighbourhood.

“Can I help you?” he asked. “Are you lost?”

The boy shook his head slowly. There was something strange about him, something that made Stanley feel uneasy. It might have been the effect of the darkness and shadows, but the boy looked very pale, very thin, very … hungry.

“Are you all right?” Stanley asked, stepping closer. “Can I—”

SNAP!

The sound came from directly overhead, loud and menacing.

The boy leapt back quickly, out of the way.

Stanley just had time to glance up and spot a huge red shape which might have been a bat, slashing its way down through the branches of the trees.

And then the red monster was on him. Stanley opened his mouth to scream, but before he could, the monster’s hands – claws? – clamped over his mouth. There was a brief struggle, then Stanley was sliding to the floor, unconscious, unseeing, unknowing.

Above him, the two creatures of the night moved in for the feed.

CHAPTER TWO

“IMAGINE A man his age wearing a Scout’s uniform,” Mr Crepsley snorted as he turned our victim over.

“Were you ever in the Scouts?” I asked.

“They did not have them in my day,” he replied.

He patted the man’s meaty legs and grunted. “Plenty of blood in this one,” he said.

I watched as Mr Crepsley searched the leg for a vein, then cut it open – a small slice – using one of his fingernails. As soon as blood oozed out, he clamped his mouth around the cut and sucked. He didn’t believe in wasting any of the “precious red mercury”, as he sometimes called it.

I stood uncertainly by his side as he drank. This was the third time I’d taken part in an attack, but I still wasn’t used to the sight of the vampire sucking blood from a helpless human being.

It had been almost two months since my “death”, but I was having a tough time adjusting to the change. It was hard to believe my old way of life was finished, that I was a half-vampire and could never go back. I knew I had to eventually leave my human side behind. But it was easier said than done.

Mr Crepsley lifted his head and licked his lips.

“A good vintage,” he joked, shuffling back from the body. “Your turn,” he said.

I took a step forward, then stopped and shook my head.

“I can’t,” I said.

“Do not be stupid,” he growled. “You have shied away twice already. It is time you drank.”

“I can’t!” I cried.

“You have drunk animal blood,” he said.

“That’s different. This is a human.”

“So what?” Mr Crepsley snapped. “We are not. You have to start treating humans the same as animals, Darren. Vampires cannot live on animal blood alone. If you do not start drinking human blood, you will grow weak. If you continue to avoid it, you will die.”

“I know,” I said miserably. “You’ve explained it to me. And I know we don’t hurt those we drink from, not unless we drink too much. But …” I shrugged unhappily.

He sighed. “Very well. It is hard, especially when you are only a half-vampire and the hunger is not so great. I will let you abstain this time. But you must feed soon. For your own sake.”

He returned to the cut and cleaned away the blood – which had been leaking out while we were talking – from around the man’s leg. Then he worked up a mouthful of spit and slowly let it dribble over the cut. He rubbed it in with a finger, then sat back and watched.

The wound closed and healed. Within a minute there was nothing left apart from a small scar that the man probably wouldn’t notice when he awoke.

That’s how vampires protect themselves. Unlike in the movies, they don’t kill people when they drink, not unless they are starving, or get carried away and go too far. They drink in small doses, a bit here, a bit there. Sometimes they attack people out in the open, as we had just done. Other times, they creep into bedrooms late at night, or into hospital wards, or police cells.

The people they drink from hardly ever know they’ve been fed on by a vampire. When this man woke, he would remember only a falling red shape. He wouldn’t be able to explain why he’d passed out or what had happened to him while he was unconscious. If he found the scar, he’d be more likely to think it was the mark of aliens than a vampire.

Hah. Aliens! Not many people know that vampires started the UFO stories. It was the perfect cover. People all over the world were waking up to find strange scars on their body, and were blaming it on imaginary aliens.

Mr Crepsley had knocked the Scout Master out with his breath. Vampires can breathe out a special kind of gas, which makes people faint. When Mr Crepsley wanted to send someone to sleep, he breathed into a cupped fist, then held his hand over the person’s nose and mouth. Seconds later, they were out for the count, and wouldn’t wake for at least twenty or thirty minutes.

Mr Crepsley examined the scar and made sure it had healed correctly. He took good care of his victims. He seemed to be a nice man, from what I’d seen of him – apart from the fact that he was a vampire!

“Come,” he said, standing. “The night is young. We will go find a rabbit or a fox for you.”

“You don’t mind me not drinking from him?” I asked.

Mr Crepsley shook his head. “You will drink eventually,” he said. “When you are hungry enough.”

“No,” I said silently behind him, as he turned to walk away. “I won’t. Not from a human. I’ll never drink from a human. Never!”

CHAPTER THREE

I AWOKE early in the afternoon, as usual. I’d gone to bed shortly before dawn, the same time as Mr Crepsley. But while he had to stay asleep until night fell again, I was free to rise and move about in the daylight world. It was one of the advantages of being only a half-vampire.

I fixed a late breakfast of marmalade on toast – even vampires have to eat normal food; blood alone won’t keep us going – and settled down in front of the hotel television. Mr Crepsley didn’t like hotels. He usually slept out in the open, in an old barn or a ruined building or a large crypt, but I was having none of that. I told him straight-up after a week of sleeping rough that I’d had enough of it. He grumbled a bit, but gave way in the end.

The last two months had passed very quickly, because I’d been so busy learning about being a vampire’s assistant. Mr Crepsley wasn’t a good teacher, and didn’t like repeating himself, so I had to pay attention and learn fast.

I was very strong now. I could lift enormous weights and crush marbles to pieces with my fingers. If I shook hands with a human I had to take care not to break the bones in their fingers. I could do chin-ups all night long, and could throw a metal ball further than any grown-up. (I measured my throw one day, then checked in a book and discovered I’d set a new world record! I was excited at first, but then realized I couldn’t tell anybody about it. Still, it was nice to know I was a world champion.)

My fingernails were really thick, and the only way I could shorten them was with my teeth: clippers and scissors were no good on my new, tough nails. They were a nuisance: I kept ripping my clothes when I was putting them on or taking them off, and digging holes in my pockets when I stuck my hands in.

We’d covered a lot of distance since that night in the cemetery. First we’d fled at top vampire speed, me on Mr Crepsley’s back, invisible to human eyes, gliding across the land like a couple of high-speed ghosts. That’s called flitting. But flitting is tiring work, so after a couple of nights we began taking trains and buses.

I don’t know where Mr Crepsley got the money for our travel and hotels and food. He had no wallet that I could see and no bank cards, but every time he had to pay for something, out came the cash.

I hadn’t grown fangs. I’d been expecting them to sprout, and had been checking my teeth in the mirror every night for three weeks before Mr Crepsley caught me.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Looking for fangs,” I told him.

He stared at me for a few seconds, then burst out laughing. “We do not grow fangs, you ass!” he roared.

“But … how do we bite people?” I asked, confused.

“We do not,” he told me, still laughing. “We cut them with our nails and suck the blood out. We only use our teeth in emergencies.”

“So I won’t grow fangs?”

“No. Your teeth will be harder than any human’s, and you will be able to bite through skin and bone if you wish, but it is messy. Only stupid vampires use their teeth. And stupid vampires tend not to last very long. They get hunted down and killed.”

I was a bit disappointed to hear that. It was one of the things I liked most about those old vampire movies: the vampires had looked so cool when they’d bared their fangs.

But, after some thought, I decided I was better off without the fangs. The fingernails making holes in my clothes were bad enough. I would have been in real trouble if my teeth had grown and I’d started cutting chunks out of my cheeks as well!

Most of the old vampire stories were untrue. We couldn’t change shape or fly. Crosses and holy water didn’t hurt us. All garlic did was give us bad breath. Our reflections could be seen in mirrors, and we cast shadows.

Some of the myths were true though. A vampire couldn’t be photographed or filmed with a video camera. There’s something odd about vampire atoms, which means all that comes out on film is a dark blur. I could still be photographed, but you wouldn’t get a clear photo of me, no matter how good the light.

Vampires were friendly with rats and bats. We couldn’t turn into them, as some books and films claimed, but they liked us – they knew from the smell of our blood that we were different to humans – and often cuddled up to us while we were sleeping or came around looking for scraps of food.

Dogs and cats, for some reason, hated us.

Sunlight would kill a vampire, but not quickly. A vampire could walk about during the day, if he wrapped up in lots of clothes. He’d tan quickly, and start to go red within a quarter of an hour. Four or five hours of sunlight would kill him.

A stake through the heart would kill us, of course, but so would a bullet or a knife or electricity. We could drown or be crushed to death or catch certain diseases. We were tougher to kill than normal people, but we weren’t indestructible.

There was more I had to learn. Loads more. Mr Crepsley said it would be years before I knew everything and was able to get along by myself. He said a half-vampire who didn’t know what he was doing would be dead within a couple of months, so I had to stick to him like glue, even if I didn’t want to.

When the toast and marmalade were finished, I sat and bit my nails for a few hours. There wasn’t anything good on TV, but I didn’t want to go outside, not without Mr Crepsley. We were in a small town, and people made me nervous. I kept expecting them to see through me, to know what I was and to come after me with stakes.

When night fell, Mr Crepsley emerged and rubbed his belly. “I am starving,” he said. “I know it is early, but let us head out now. I should have taken more of that silly Scout-man’s blood. I think I will track down another human.” He looked at me with one raised eyebrow. “Maybe you will join me this time.”

“Maybe,” I said, though I knew I wouldn’t. It was the one thing I’d sworn I would never do. I might have to drink the blood of animals to stay alive, but I would never feast on one of my own kind, no matter what Mr Crepsley said, or how much my belly rumbled. I was a half-vampire, yes, but I was also half-human, and the thought of attacking a living person filled me with horror and disgust.

CHAPTER FOUR

BLOOD …

MR Crepsley spent much of his time teaching me about blood. It’s vital to vampires. Without it we grow weak and old and die. Blood keeps us young. Vampires age at a tenth the human rate (for every ten years that pass vampires only age one), but without human blood, we age even quicker than humans, maybe twenty or thirty years in the space of a year or two. As a half-vampire, who aged at a fifth the human rate, I didn’t have to drink as much human blood as Mr Crepsley – but I would have to drink some to live.

The blood of animals – dogs, cows, sheep – keeps vampires ticking over, but there are some animals they – we – can’t drink from: cats, for instance. If a vampire drinks a cat’s blood, he might as well pour poison down his throat. We also can’t drink from monkeys, frogs, most fish and snakes.

Mr Crepsley hadn’t told me the names of all the dangerous animals. There were loads, and it would take time to learn which were safe and which weren’t. His advice was to always ask before I tried something new.

Vampires had to feed on humans once a month or so. Most feasted once a week. That way, they didn’t have to take much blood. If you only fed once a month, you had to drink a lot of blood in one go.

Mr Crepsley said it was dangerous to go too long without drinking. He said the thirst could make you drink more than you meant to, and you were likely to end up killing the person you drank from.

“A vampire who sups frequently can control himself,” he said. “One who drinks only when he must will end up sucking wildly. The hunger inside us must be fed to be controlled.”

Fresh blood was best. If you drank from a living human, the blood was full of goodness and you didn’t need to take very much. But blood began to go sour when a person died. If you drank from a dead body, you had to drink a lot more.

“The general rule is, never drink from a person who has been dead more than a day,” Mr Crepsley explained.

“How will I know how long a person’s been dead?” I asked.

“The taste of the blood,” he said. “You will learn to tell good blood from bad. Bad blood is like sour milk, only worse.”

“Is drinking bad blood dangerous?” I asked.

“Yes. It will sicken you, maybe turn you mad or even kill you.”

Brrrr!

We could bottle fresh blood and keep it for as long as we liked, for use in emergencies. Mr Crepsley had several bottles of blood stored in his cloak. He sometimes had one with a meal, as if it was a small bottle of wine.

“Could you survive on bottled blood alone?” I asked one night.

“For a while,” he said. “But not in the long run.”

“How do you bottle it?” I asked curiously, examining one of the glass bottles. It was like a test-tube, only the glass was slightly darker and thicker.

“It is tricky,” he said. “I will show you how it is done, the next time I am filling up.”

Blood …

It was what I needed most, but also what I feared most. If I drank a human’s blood, there was no going back. I’d be a vampire for life. If I avoided it, I might become a human again. Perhaps the vampire blood in my veins would wear out. Maybe I wouldn’t die. Maybe only the vampire in me would die, and then I could return home to my family and friends.

It wasn’t much of a hope – Mr Crepsley had said it was impossible to become human again, and I believed him – but it was the only dream I had to cling to.

CHAPTER FIVE

DAYS AND nights passed, and we moved on. We wandered from towns to villages to cities. I wasn’t getting on very well with Mr Crepsley. Nice as he was, I couldn’t forget that he was the one who’d pumped vampire blood into my veins and made it impossible for me to stay with my family.

I hated him. Sometimes, during the day, I’d think about driving a stake through his heart while he was sleeping, and hitting off on my own. I might have, too, except I knew I couldn’t survive without him. For the moment I needed Larten Crepsley. But when the day came that I could look after myself …

I was in charge of Madam Octa. I had to find food for her and exercise her and clean out her cage. I didn’t want to – I hated the spider almost as much as I hated the vampire – but Mr Crepsley said I was the one who’d stolen her, so I could look after her.

I practised a few tricks with her every now and then, but my heart wasn’t in it. She didn’t interest me any more and as the weeks passed I played with her less and less.

The one good thing about being on the road was being able to visit loads of places I hadn’t been before, seeing all sorts of sights. I loved travelling. But, since we travelled at night, I didn’t get to see much of our surroundings!

One day, while Mr Crepsley was sleeping, I got tired of being indoors. I left a note on the TV, in case I wasn’t back when he woke, then set off. I had very little money, and no idea where I would go, but that didn’t matter. Just getting out of the hotel and spending some time by myself was wonderful.

It was a large town but fairly quiet. I checked out a few toy stores and played some free computer games in them. I’d never been very good on computers before, but with my new reflexes and skills, I was able to do pretty much anything I wanted.

I raced through levels of speed games, knocked out every opponent in martial arts tournaments, and zapped all the aliens from the skies in sci-fi adventures.

After that I toured the town. There were plenty of fountains and statues and parks and museums, all of which I examined with interest. But going around the museums reminded me of Mum – she loved taking me to museums – and that upset me: I always felt lonely and miserable when I thought of Mum, Dad or Annie.

I spotted a group of boys my age playing hockey on a tarmac quad. There were eight players on each side. Most had plastic sticks, though a few had wooden ones. They were using an old white tennis ball as a puck.

I stopped to watch and, after a few minutes, one of the boys came to size me up.

“Where are you from?” he asked.

“Out of town,” I said. “I’m staying at a hotel with my father.” I hated calling Mr Crepsley that but it was the safest thing to say.

“He’s from out of town,” the boy called back to his mates, who had stopped playing.

“Is he part of the Addams Family?” one of them shouted back, and they all laughed.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, offended.

“Have you looked at yourself in a mirror lately?” the boy said.

I glanced down at my dusty suit and knew why they were laughing: I looked like something out of Oliver Twist.

“I lost the bag with my normal clothes,” I lied. “These are all I have. I’m getting new stuff soon.”

“You’d want to,” the boy smiled, then asked if I could play hockey. When I said I could, he invited me to play with them.

“You can be on my team,” he said, handing me a spare stick. “We’re six-two down. My name’s Michael.”

“Darren,” I said in reply, testing the stick.

I rolled up the legs of my trousers and checked my laces were tied properly. While I was doing that, the opposition scored another goal. Michael cursed loudly and dragged the ball back to the centre.

“You want to help touch-off?” he asked me.

“Sure.”

“Come on, then,” he said, tapped the ball to me and moved ahead, waiting for me to pass back.

It had been a long time since I’d played hockey – at school, in PE, we’d usually have to choose between hockey and football, and I never passed up a chance for a game of footie – but with the stick in my hands and the ball at my feet, it seemed like only yesterday.

I knocked the ball from left to right a few times, making sure I hadn’t forgotten how to control it, then looked up and focused on the goal.

There were seven players between me and the goalkeeper. None of them rushed to tackle me. I guess they felt there was no need, being five goals up.

I set off. A big kid – the other team’s captain – tried blocking me, but I slipped around him easily. I was past another two before they could react, then dribbled round a fourth. The fifth player slid in with his stick at knee level, but I jumped over him with ease, dummied the sixth and shot before the seventh and final defender could get in the way.

Even though I hit the ball quite softly, it went much harder than the goalie was expecting and flew into the top right-hand corner of the goal. It bounced off the wall and I caught it in the air.

I turned, smiling, and looked back at my team-mates. They were still in their own half, staring at me in shock. I carried the ball back to the halfway line and set it down without saying a word. Then I turned to Michael and said, “Seven-three.”

He blinked slowly, then smiled. “Oh yes!” he chortled softly, then winked at his team-mates. “I think we’re going to enjoy this!”

I had a great time for a while, controlling the course of play, rushing back to defend, picking players out with pin-point passes. I scored a couple of goals and set up four more. We were leading nine-seven, and coasting. The other team hated it, and had made us give them two of our best players, but it made no difference. I could have given them everybody except our goalkeeper and still knocked the stuffing out of them.

Then things got nasty. The captain of the other team – Danny – had been trying to foul me for ages, but I was too quick for him and danced around his raised stick and stuck-out legs. But then he began to punch my ribs and stand on my toes and slam his elbows into my arms. None of it hurt me, but it annoyed me. I hate sore losers.

The crunch came when Danny pinched me in a very painful place! Even vampires have their limits. I gave a roar and crouched down, wincing from the pain.

Danny laughed and sped away with the ball.

I rose after a few seconds, mad as hell. Danny was halfway down the pitch. I set off after him. I brushed the players between us aside – it didn’t matter if they were on his team or mine – then slid in behind him and swiped at his legs with my stick. It would have been a dangerous tackle if it had come from a human. Coming from a half-vampire …

There was a sharp snapping sound. Danny screamed and went down. Play stopped immediately. Everybody in the quad knew the difference between a yell of pain and a scream of real agony.

I got to my feet, already sorry for what I’d done, wishing I could take it back. I looked at my stick, hoping to find it broken in two, hoping that had been what made the snapping noise. But it wasn’t.

I’d broken both of Danny’s shin-bones.

His lower legs were bent awkwardly and the skin around the shins was torn. I could see the white of bone in amongst the red.

Michael bent to examine Danny’s legs. When he rose, there was a horrified look in his eyes.

“You’ve cracked his legs wide open!” he gasped.

“I didn’t mean to,” I cried. “He squeezed my …” I pointed to the spot beneath my waist.

“You broke his legs!” Michael shouted, then backed away from me. Those around him backed away as well.

They were afraid of me.

Sighing, I dropped my stick and left, knowing I’d make matters worse if I stayed and waited for grown-ups to arrive. None of the boys tried to stop me. They were too scared. They were terrified of me … Darren Shan … a monster.

CHAPTER SIX

IT WAS dark when I got back. Mr Crepsley was up. I told him we should skip town straight away, but didn’t tell him why. He took one look at my face, nodded and started gathering our belongings.

We said little that night. I was thinking how rotten it was to be a half-vampire. Mr Crepsley sensed there was something wrong with me, but didn’t bother me with questions. It wasn’t the first time I’d been sulky. He was getting used to my mood-swings.

We found an abandoned church to sleep in. Mr Crepsley lay out on a long pew, while I made a bed for myself on a pile of moss and weeds on the floor.

I woke early and spent the day exploring the church and the small cemetery outside. The headstones were old and many were cracked or covered with weeds. I spent several hours cleaning a patch of them, pulling weeds away and washing the stones with water I fetched from a nearby stream. It kept my mind off the hockey game.

A family of rabbits lived in a nearby burrow. As the day went by, they crept closer, to see what I was up to. They were curious little fellows, especially the young ones. At one point, I pretended to be asleep and a couple edged closer and closer, until they were only half a metre away.

When they were as close as they were likely to get, I leapt up and shouted “Boo!” and they went running away like wildfire. One fell head over heels and rolled away down the mouth of its burrow.

That cheered me up greatly.

I found a shop in the afternoon and bought some meat and veg. I set a fire when I returned to the church, then fetched the pots and pans bag from beneath Mr Crepsley’s pew. I searched among the contents until I found what I was looking for. It was a small tin-shaped pot. I carefully laid it upside-down on the floor, then pressed the metal bulge on the top.

The tin mushroomed out in size, as folded-in panels opened up. Within five seconds it had become a full-sized pot, which I filled with water and stuck on the fire.

All the pots and pans in the bag were like this. Mr Crepsley got them from a woman called Evanna, long ago. They weighed the same as ordinary cookware, but because they could fold up small, they were easier to carry around.

I made a stew, as Mr Crepsley had taught me. He believed everybody should know how to cook.

I took leftover bits of the carrots and cabbage outside and dropped them by the rabbit burrow.

Mr Crepsley was surprised to find dinner – well, it was breakfast from his point of view – waiting for him when he awoke. He sniffed the fumes from the bubbling pot and licked his lips.

“I could get used to this,” he smiled, then yawned, stretched and ran a hand through the short crop of orange hair on his head. Then he scratched the long scar running down the left side of his face. It was a familiar routine of his.

I’d often wanted to ask how he got his scar, but I never had. One night, when I was feeling brave, I would.

There were no tables, so we ate off our laps. I got two of the folded-up plates out of the bag, popped them open and fetched the knives and forks. I served up the food and we tucked in.

Towards the end, Mr Crepsley wiped around his mouth with a silk napkin and coughed awkwardly.

“It is very nice,” he complimented me.

“Thank you,” I replied.

“I … um … that is …” He sighed. “I never was very good at being subtle,” he said, “so I will come right out and say it: what went wrong yesterday? Why were you so upset?”

I stared at my almost empty plate, not sure if I wanted to answer or not. Then, all of a sudden, I blurted out the whole story. I hardly took a breath between the start and finish.

Mr Crepsley listened carefully. When I was done, he thought about it for a minute or two before speaking.

“It is something you must get used to,” he said. “It is a fact of life that we are stronger than humans, faster and tougher. If you play with them, they will be hurt.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt him,” I said. “It was an accident.”

Mr Crepsley shrugged. “Listen, Darren, there is no way you can stop this happening again, not if you mix with humans. No matter how hard you try to be normal, you are not. There will always be accidents waiting to happen.”

“What you’re saying is, I can’t have friends any more, right?” I nodded sadly. “I’d figured that out by myself. That’s why I was so sad. I’d been getting used to the idea of never being able to go back home to see my old friends, but it was only yesterday that I realized I’d never be able to make new ones either. I’m stuck with you. I can’t have any other friends, can I?”

He rubbed his scar and pursed his lips. “That is not true,” he said. “You can have friends. You just have to be careful. You—”

“That’s not good enough!” I cried. “You said it yourself; there will always be an accident waiting to happen. Even shaking hands is dangerous. I could cut their wrists open with my nails!”

I shook my head slowly. “No,” I said firmly. “I won’t put people’s lives in danger. I’m too dangerous to have friends any more. Besides, it’s not like I can make a true friend.”

“Why not?” he asked.

“True friends don’t keep secrets from one another. I could never tell a human that I was a vampire. I’d always have to lie and pretend to be someone I’m not. I’d always be afraid he’d find out what I was and hate me.”

“It is a problem every vampire shares,” Mr Crepsley said.

“But every vampire isn’t a child!” I shouted. “What age were you when you were changed? Were you a man?” He nodded. “Friends aren’t that important to adults. My dad told me that grown-ups get used to not having loads of friends. They’ve work and hobbies and other stuff to keep them busy. But my friends were the most important thing in my life, apart from my family. Well, you took my family away when you pumped your stinking blood into me. Now you’ve ruined the chances of my ever having a proper friend again.

“Thanks a lot,” I said angrily. “Thanks for making a monster out of me and wrecking my life.”

I was close to tears, but didn’t want to cry, not in front of him. So I stabbed at the last piece of meat on my plate with my fork and rammed it into my mouth, where I chewed upon it fiercely.

Mr Crepsley was quiet after my outburst. I couldn’t tell if he was angry or sorry. For a while, I thought I’d said too much. What if he turned around and said, “If that is the way you feel, I will leave you”? What would I do then?

I was thinking of apologizing when he spoke in a soft voice and surprised me.

“I am sorry,” he said. “I should not have blooded you. It was a poor call. You were too young. It has been so long since I was a boy, I had forgotten what it was like. I never thought of your friends and how much you would miss them. It was wrong of me to blood you. Terribly wrong. I …”

He trailed off into silence. He looked so miserable, I almost felt sorry for him. Then I remembered what he’d done to me and I hated him again. Then I saw wet drops at the corners of his eyes, which might have been tears, and felt sorry for him once more.

I was very confused.

“Well, there’s no use moaning about it,” I finally said. “We can’t go back. What’s done is done, right?”

“Yes,” he sighed. “If I could, I would take back my terrible gift. But that is not possible. Vampirism is for ever. Once somebody has been changed, there is no changing back.

“Still,” he said, mulling it over, “it is not as bad as you think. Perhaps …” His eyes narrowed thoughtfully.

“Perhaps what?” I asked.

“We can find friends for you,” he said. “You do not have to be stuck with me all the time.”

“I don’t understand.” I frowned. “Didn’t we just agree it wasn’t safe for me to be around humans?”

“I am not talking about humans,” he said, starting to smile. “I am talking about people with special powers. People like us. People you can tell your secrets to …”

He leant across and took my hands in his.

“Darren,” he said, “what do you think about going back and becoming a member of the Cirque Du Freak?”

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE MORE we discussed the idea, the more I liked it. Mr Crepsley said the Cirque performers would know what I was and would accept me as one of their own. The line-up of the show often changed, and there was nearly always someone who would be around my own age. I’d be able to hang out with them.

“What if I don’t like it there?” I asked.

“Then we leave,” he said. “I enjoyed travelling with the Cirque, but I am not crazy about it. If you like it, we stay. If you do not, we hit the road again.”

“They won’t mind me tagging along?” I asked.

“You will have to pull your weight,” he replied. “Mr Tall insists on everybody doing something. You will have to help set up chairs and lights, sell souvenirs, clean up afterwards, or do the cooking. You will be kept busy, but they will not over-work you. We will have plenty of time for our lessons.”

We decided to give it a go. At least it would mean a proper bed every night. My back was stiff from sleeping on floors.

Mr Crepsley had to find out where the show was before we could set off. I asked him how he was going to do that. He told me he was able to home in on Mr Tall’s thoughts.

“You mean he’s telepathic?” I asked, remembering what Steve had called people who could talk to each other using only their brains.

“Sort of,” Mr Crepsley said. “We cannot speak to each other with our thoughts but I can pick up his … aura, you could call it. Once I locate that, tracking him down will be no problem.”

“Could I locate his aura?” I wanted to know.

“No,” Mr Crepsley said. “Most vampires – along with a few gifted humans – can, but half-vampires cannot.”

He sat down in the middle of the church and closed his eyes. He was quiet for about a minute. Then his eyelids opened and he stood.

“Got him,” he said.

“So soon?” I asked. “I thought it would take longer.”

“I have searched for his aura many times,” Mr Crepsley explained. “I know what to look for. Finding him is as easy as finding a needle in a haystack.”

“That’s supposed to be hard, isn’t it?”

“Not for a vampire,” he grunted.

While we were packing to leave, I found myself gazing around the church. Something had been bothering me, but I wasn’t sure whether I should mention it to Mr Crepsley or not.

“Go on,” he said, startling me. “Ask whatever it is that is on your mind.”

“How did you know I wanted to ask something?” I gawped.

He laughed. “It does not take a vampire to know when a child is curious. You have been bursting with a question for ages. What is it?”

I took a deep breath. “Do you believe in God?” I asked.

Mr Crepsley looked at me oddly, then nodded slowly. “I believe in the gods of the vampires.”

I frowned. “Are there vampire gods?”

“Of course,” he said. “Every race has gods: Egyptian gods, Indian gods, Chinese gods. Vampires are no different.”

“What about heaven?” I asked.

“We believe in Paradise. It lies beyond the stars. When we die, if we have lived good lives, our spirits float free of the earth, to traverse the stars and galaxies, and come at last to a wonderful world at the other side of the universe – Paradise.”

“And if they don’t live good lives?”

“They stay here,” he said. “They remain bound to earth as ghosts, doomed to wander the face of this planet for ever.”

I thought about that. “What’s a good life for a vampire?” I asked. “How do they make it to Paradise?”

“Live cleanly,” he said. “Do not kill unless necessary. Do not hurt people. Do not spoil the world.”

“Drinking blood isn’t evil?” I asked.

“Not unless you kill the person you drink from,” Mr Crepsley said. “And even then, sometimes, it can be a good thing.”

“Killing someone can be good?” I gasped.

Mr Crepsley nodded seriously. “People have souls, Darren. When they die, those souls go to heaven or Paradise. But it is possible to keep a part of them here. When we drink small amounts of blood, we do not take any of a person’s essence. But if we drink lots, we keep part of them alive within us.”

“How?” I asked, frowning.

“By draining a person’s blood, we absorb some of that person’s memories and feelings,” he said. “They become part of us and we can see the world the way they saw it, and remember things which might otherwise have been forgotten.”

“Like what?”

He thought a moment. “One of my dearest friends is called Paris Skyle,” he said. “He is very old. Many centuries ago, he was friends with William Shakespeare.”

“The William Shakespeare – the guy who wrote the plays?”

Mr Crepsley nodded. “Plays and poems. But not all of Shakespeare’s poetry was recorded; some of his most famous verses were lost. When Shakespeare was dying, Paris drank from him – Shakespeare asked him to – and was able to tap into those lost poems and have them written down. The world would have been a poorer place without them.”

“But …” I stopped. “Do you only do that with people who ask, and who are dying?”

“Yes,” he said. “It would be evil to kill a healthy person. But to drink from friends who are close to death, and keep their memories and experiences alive …” He smiled. “That is very good indeed.

“Come,” he said then. “Brood about it on the way. We must be off.”

I hopped on Mr Crepsley’s back when we were ready to leave, and off we flitted. He still hadn’t explained how he could move so fast. It wasn’t that he ran quickly; it was more like the world slipped by as he ran. He said all full vampires could flit.

It was nice, watching the countryside drift away behind us. We ran up hills and across vast plains, faster than the wind. There was complete silence while we were flitting and nobody ever noticed us. It was as if we were surrounded by a magic bubble.

While we flitted I thought about what Mr Crepsley had said, about keeping people’s memories alive by drinking from them. I wasn’t sure how that would work, and made up my mind to ask him more about it at a later date.

Flitting was hard work; the vampire was sweating and I could see him starting to struggle. To help, I took out a bottle of human blood, uncorked it and held it to his lips so he could drink.

He nodded his silent thanks, wiped the sweat from his brow, and continued.

Finally, as the sky was beginning to lighten, he slowed to a halt. I hopped down off his back and looked around. We were in the middle of a country road, fields and trees all around us, not a house to be seen.

“Where’s the Cirque Du Freak?” I asked.

“A few kilometres further ahead,” he said, pointing. He was kneeling down, panting for breath.

“Did you run out of steam?” I asked, unable to keep the giggles out of my voice.

“No,” he glared. “I could have made it, but did not want to arrive looking flushed.”

“You’d better not rest too long,” I warned him. “Morning’s on its way.”

“I know precisely what time it is!” he snapped. “I know more about mornings and dawns than any living human. We have plenty of time on our side. A whole forty-three minutes yet.”

“If you say so.”

“I do.” He stood, annoyed, and began to walk. I waited until he was a bit in front, then ran ahead of him.

“Hurry up, old man,” I jeered. “You’re getting left behind.”

“Keep it up,” he growled. “See what it gets you. A clip around the ear and a boot up the pants.”

He started trotting after a couple of minutes, and the two of us jogged along, side by side. I was in good spirits, happier than I’d been for months. It was nice having something to look forward to.

We passed a ragged bunch of campers on our way. They were starting to wake up and move around. A couple waved to us. They were funny looking people: long hair, strange clothes, weighed down with fancy earrings and bracelets.

There were banners and flags all over the camp. I tried reading them, but it was hard to focus while I was jogging, and I didn’t want to stop. From what I could gather, the campers had something to do with a protest against a new bypass.

The road was very curvy. After the fifth bend, we finally spotted the Cirque Du Freak, nestled in a clearing by the banks of a river. It was quiet – everyone was sleeping, I imagined – and, if we’d been in a car and not looking for the vans and tents, it would have been easy to miss.

It was an odd place for the circus to be. There was no hall or big tent for the freaks to perform in. I figured this must be a resting point between two towns.

Mr Crepsley weaved between the vans and cars with confidence. He knew exactly where he was going. I followed, less sure of myself, remembering the night I crept past the freaks and stole Madam Octa.

Mr Crepsley stopped at a long silver van and knocked on the door. It opened almost immediately and the towering figure of Mr Tall was revealed. His eyes looked darker than ever in the dim light. If I hadn’t known better, I would have sworn he had no eyeballs, only two black, empty spaces.

“Oh, it’s you,” he said, voice low, lips hardly moving. “I thought I felt you searching for me.” He craned over Mr Crepsley and looked down to where I was shaking. “I see you’ve brought the boy.”

“May we come in?” Mr Crepsley asked.

“Of course. What is it one is supposed to say to you vampires?” He smiled. “Enter of your own free will?”

“Something like that,” Mr Crepsley replied, and from the smile on his face, I knew it was an old joke between them.

We entered the van and sat. It was pretty bare inside, just a few shelves with posters and leaflets for the Cirque, the tall red hat and gloves I’d seen him wear before, a couple of knick-knacks and a foldaway bed.

“I didn’t expect you back so soon, Larten,” Mr Tall said. Even when he was sitting down he looked enormous.

“A swift return had not been on the agenda, Hibernius.” Hibernius? That was a strange name. Still, it suited him somehow. Hibernius Tall. It had an odd ring to it.

“Did you run into trouble?” Mr Tall asked.

“No,” Mr Crepsley said. “Darren was not happy. I decided he would be better off here, among those of his own kind.”

“I see.” Mr Tall studied me curiously. “You have come a long way since I saw you last, Darren Shan,” he said.

“I preferred it where I was,” I grumbled.

“Then why did you leave?” he asked.

I glared at him. “You know why,” I said coldly.

He nodded slowly.

“Is it OK if we stay?” Mr Crepsley asked.

“Of course,” Mr Tall replied immediately. “Delighted to have you back, actually. We’re a bit under-staffed at the moment. Alexander Ribs, Sive and Seersa, and Gertha Teeth are off on holidays or business. Cormac Limbs is on his way to join us, but is late getting here. Larten Crepsley and his amazing performing spider will be an invaluable addition to the line-up.”

“Thank you,” Mr Crepsley said.

“What about me?” I asked boldly.

Mr Tall smiled. “You are less valuable,” he said, “but welcome all the same.”

I snorted, but said nothing.

“Where shall we be playing?” Mr Crepsley asked next.

“Right here,” Mr Tall told him.

“Here?” I piped up in surprise.

“That puzzles you?” Mr Tall enquired.

“It’s in the middle of nowhere,” I said. “I thought you only played in towns and cities, where you’d get big audiences.”

“We always get a big audience,” Mr Tall said. “No matter where we play, people will come. Usually we stick to more populated areas, but this is a slow time of the year for us. As I’ve said, several of our best performers are absent, as are … certain other members of our company.”

A strange, secretive look passed between Mr Tall and Mr Crepsley, and I felt I was being left out of something.

“So we are resting for a while,” Mr Tall went on. “We shall not be putting on any shows for a few days. We’re relaxing.”

“We passed a road-camp on our way,” Mr Crepsley said. “Are they causing any problems?”

“The foot-soldiers of NOP?” Mr Tall laughed. “They’re too busy defending trees and rocks to interfere with us.”

“What’s NOP?” I asked.

“Nature’s Opposing Protectors,” Mr Tall explained. “They’re Eco Warriors. They run around the country, trying to stop new roads and bridges being built. They’ve been here a couple of months, but are due to move on soon.”

“Are they real warriors?” I asked. “Do they have guns and grenades and tanks?”

The two adults almost laughed their heads off.

“He can be quite silly sometimes,” Mr Crepsley said between fits of laughter, “but he is not as dumb as he seems.”

I felt my face reddening, but held my tongue. I knew from experience that it’s no use getting mad at grown-ups when they laugh at you; it only makes them laugh even harder.

“They call themselves warriors,” Mr Tall said, “but they’re not really. They chain themselves to trees and pour sand into the engines of JCBs and toss nails in the path of cars. That sort of thing.”

“Why—” I started, but Mr Crepsley interrupted.

“We do not have time for questions,” he said. “A few more minutes and the sun will be up.” He rose and shook Mr Tall’s hand. “Thank you for having us back, Hibernius.”

“My pleasure,” Mr Tall replied.

“I trust you took good care of my coffin?”

“Of course.”

Mr Crepsley smiled happily and rubbed his hands together. “That is what I miss most when I am away. It will be nice to bed down in it once more.”

“What about the boy?” Mr Tall asked. “Do you want us to knock together a coffin for him?”

“Don’t even think about it!” I shouted. “You won’t get me in one of those again!” I remembered what it felt like to be in a coffin, when I was buried alive, and shivered.

Mr Crepsley smiled. “Put Darren in with one of the other performers,” he said. “Somebody his own age, if possible.”

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