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CHAPTER ONE

One month earlier…

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

I used to be human, until I stole a vampire’s spider. After that, my life changed for ever. Mr Crepsley – the vampire – forced me to become his assistant, and I joined a circus full of weird performers, called the Cirque Du Freak.

Adapting was hard. Drinking blood was harder, and for a long time I wouldn’t do it. Eventually I did, to save the memories of a dying friend (vampires can store a person’s memories if they drain all their blood). I didn’t enjoy it – the following few weeks were horrible, and I was plagued by nightmares – but after that first blood-red drink there could be no going back. I accepted my role as a vampire’s assistant and learnt to make the best of it.

Over the course of the next year Mr Crepsley taught me how to hunt and drink without being caught; how to take just enough blood to survive; how to hide my vampire identity when mixing with others. And in time I put my human fears behind me and became a true creature of the night.

A couple of girls stood watching Cormac Limbs with serious expressions. He was stretching his arms and legs, rolling his neck around, loosening his muscles. Then, winking at the girls, he put the middle three fingers of his right hand between his teeth and bit them off.

The girls screamed and fled. Cormac chuckled and wriggled the new fingers which were growing out of his hand.

I laughed. You got used to stuff like that when you worked in the Cirque Du Freak. The travelling show was full of remarkable people, freaks of nature with wonderful and sometimes frightening powers.

Apart from Cormac Limbs, the performers included Rhamus Twobellies, capable of eating a full-grown elephant or a tank; Gertha Teeth, who could bite through steel; the Wolf Man, half-man half-wolf, who’d killed my friend Sam Grest; Truska, a beautiful and mysterious woman, who could grow a beard at will; and Mr Tall, who could move as fast as lightning and seemed to be able to read people’s minds. Mr Tall owned and managed the Cirque Du Freak.

We were performing in a small town, camped behind an old mill, inside which the show was staged every night. It was a run-down tip, but I was used to such venues. We could have played the grandest theatres in the world and slept in luxurious hotel rooms – the Cirque made a load of money – but it was safer to keep a low profile and stick to places where the police and other officials rarely wandered.

I hadn’t changed much since leaving home with Mr Crepsley nearly a year and a half before. Because I was a half-vampire I aged at only a fifth the rate of humans, which meant that though eighteen months had passed, my body was only three or four months older.

Although I wasn’t very different on the outside, inside I was an entirely new person. I was stronger than any boy my age, able to run faster, leap further, and dig my extra-strong nails into brick walls. My hearing, eyesight and sense of smell had improved vastly.

Since I wasn’t a full-vampire, there was lots of stuff I couldn’t do yet. For instance, Mr Crepsley could run at a super-quick speed, which he called flitting. He could breathe out a gas which knocked people unconscious. And he could communicate telepathically with vampires and a few others, such as Mr Tall.

I wouldn’t be able to do those things until I became a full-vampire. I didn’t lose any sleep over it, because being a half-vampire had its bonuses: I didn’t have to drink much human blood and – better yet – I could move about during the day.

It was day when I was exploring a rubbish tip with Evra, the snake-boy, looking for food for the Little People – weird small creatures who wore blue hooded cloaks and never spoke. Nobody – except maybe Mr Tall – knew who or what they were, where they came from, or why they travelled with the Cirque. Their master was a disturbing man called Mr Tiny (he liked to eat children!), but we didn’t see much of him at the Cirque.

“Found a dead dog,” Evra shouted, holding it above his head. “It smells a bit. Do you think they’ll mind?”

I sniffed the air – Evra was a long way off, but I could smell the dog from here as well as a human could up close – and shook my head. “It’ll be fine,” I said. The Little People ate just about anything we brought.

I had a fox and a few rats in my bag. I felt bad about killing the rats – rats are friendly with vampires and usually come up to us like tame pets if we call them – but work is work. We’ve all got to do things we don’t like in life.

There were lots of Little People with the Cirque – twenty of them – and one was hunting with Evra and me. He’d been with the Cirque since soon after me and Mr Crepsley joined. I could tell him apart from the others because he had a limp in his left leg. Evra and me had taken to calling him Lefty.

“Hey, Lefty!” I shouted. “How’s it going?” The small figure in the blue hooded cloak didn’t answer – he never did – but patted his stomach, which was the sign we needed more food.

“Lefty says to keep going,” I told Evra.

“I figured as much,” he sighed.

As I prowled for another rat, I spotted a small silver cross in the rubbish. I picked it up and brushed off the dirt. Studying the cross, I smiled. To think I used to believe vampires were terrified of crosses! Most of that stuff in old films and books is hokum. Crosses, holy water, garlic: none of those matter to vampires. We can cross running water. We don’t have to be invited into a house before entering. We cast shadows and reflections (though a full-vampire can’t be photographed: something to do with bouncing atoms). We can’t change shape or fly.

A stake through the heart will kill a vampire. But so will a well-placed bullet, or fire, or a falling heavy object. We’re harder to kill than humans but we aren’t immortal. Far from it.

I placed the cross on the ground and stood back. Focusing my will, I tried making it jump into my left hand. I stared hard for all of a minute, then clicked the fingers of my right hand.

Nothing happened.

I tried again but still couldn’t do it. I’d been trying for months, with no success. Mr Crepsley made it look simple – one click of his fingers and an object would be in his hand, even if it was several metres away – but I hadn’t been able to copy him.

I was getting on quite well with Mr Crepsley. He wasn’t a bad old sort. We weren’t friends, but I’d accepted him as a teacher and no longer hated him as I had when he first turned me into a half-vampire.

I pocketed the cross, and proceeded with the hunt. After a while I found a half-starved cat in the remains of an old microwave oven. It was after rats as well.

The cat hissed at me and raised its hackles. I pretended to turn my back on it, then spun quickly, grabbed it by the neck and twisted. It gave a strangled little cry and then went limp. I stuck it in the bag and went to see how Evra was doing.

I didn’t enjoy killing animals, but hunting was part of my nature. Anyway, I had no sympathy for cats. The blood of cats is poisonous to vampires. Drinking from one wouldn’t have killed me but it would have made me sick. And cats are hunters too. The way I saw it, the less cats there were, the more rats there’d be.

That night, back in camp, I tried moving the cross with my mind again. I’d completed my jobs for the day, and the show wouldn’t be starting for another few hours, so I’d plenty of time to kill.

It was a cold, late-November night. There hadn’t been any snow yet, but it was threatening. I was dressed in my colourful pirate costume: a light green shirt, dark purple trousers, a gold and blue jacket, a red satin cloth round my belly, a brown hat with a feather in it, and soft shoes with toes that curled in on themselves.

I strolled away from the vans and tents and found a secluded spot around the side of the old mill. I stuck the cross on a piece of wood in front of me, took a deep breath, concentrated on the cross and willed it into the palm of my outstretched hand.

No good.

I shuffled closer, so my hand was only centimetres away from the cross.

“I command you to move,” I said, clicking my fingers. “I order you to move.” Click. “Move.” Click. “Move!”

I shouted this last word louder than intended and stamped my foot in anger.

“What are you doing?” a familiar voice asked behind me.

Looking up, I saw Mr Crepsley emerging out of the shadows.

“Nothing,” I said, trying to hide the cross.

“What is that?” he asked. His eyes missed nothing.

“Just a cross I found while hunting,” I said, holding it out.

“What were you doing with it?” Mr Crepsley asked suspiciously.

“Trying to make it move,” I said, deciding it was time to ask the vampire about his magic secrets. “How do you do it?”

A smile spread across his face, causing the long scar that ran down the left side to crinkle. “So that is what has been bothering you,” he chuckled. He stretched out a hand and clicked his fingers, causing me to blink. Next thing I knew, the cross was in his hand.

“How’s it done?” I asked. “Can only full-vampires do it?”

“I will demonstrate again. Watch closely this time.”

Replacing the cross on the piece of wood, he stood back and clicked his fingers. Once again it disappeared and turned up in his hand. “Did you see?”

“See what?” I was confused.

“One final time,” he said. “Try not to blink.”

I focused on the small silver piece. I heard his fingers clicking and – keeping my eyes wide open – thought I spotted the slightest blur darting between me and the cross.

When I turned to look at him he was tossing the cross from hand to hand and smiling. “Rumbled me yet?” he asked.

I frowned. “I thought I saw… It looked like…” My face lit up. “You didn’t move the cross!” I yelled excitedly. “You moved!”

He beamed. “Not as dull as you appear,” he complimented me in his usual sarcastic manner.

“Do it again,” I said. This time I didn’t look at the cross: I watched the vampire. I wasn’t able to track his movements – he was too fast – but I caught brief snaps of him as he darted forward, snatched up the cross and leapt back.

“So you’re not able to move things with your mind?” I asked.

“Of course not,” he laughed.

“Then why the click of the fingers?”

“To distract the eye,” he explained.

“Then it’s a trick,” I said. “It’s got nothing to do with being a vampire.”

He shrugged. “I could not move so fast if I were human, but yes, it is a trick. I dabbled with illusions before I became a vampire and I like to keep my hand in.”

“Could I learn to do it?” I asked.

“Maybe,” he said. “You cannot move as fast as I can, but you could get away with it if the object was close to hand. You would have to practise hard – but if you wish, I can teach you.”

“I always wanted to be a magician,” I said. “But… hold on…” I remembered a couple of occasions when Mr Crepsley had opened locks with a click of his fingers. “What about locks?” I asked.

“Those are different. You understand what static energy is?” My face was a blank. “Have you ever brushed a comb through your hair and held it up to a thin sheet of paper?”

“Yeah!” I said. “The paper sticks to it.”

“That is static energy,” he explained. “When a vampire flits, a very strong static charge builds up. I have learned to harness that charge. Thus I am able to force open any lock you care to mention.”

I thought about that. “And the click of your fingers?” I asked.

“Old habits die hard,” he smiled.

“But old vampires die easy!” a voice growled behind us, and before I knew what was happening, someone had reached around the two of us and pressed a pair of razor-sharp knives to the soft flesh of our throats!