Читать книгу The Vampire’s Assistant - Darren Shan - Страница 7

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.