The Vampire's Assistant and Other Tales from the Cirque Du Freak

by Darren Shan

  Steve watched the show in total silence. He almost clapped a few times but caught himself before his hands could meet and produce a noise. Instead of clapping, he gave me the thumbs-up sign and mouthed the words “great,” “super,” “awesome,” and so on.

  When the time came for Steve to take part in the act, I gave him the nod that we had agreed upon. He gulped, took a deep breath, then nodded back. He rose to his feet and stepped forward, keeping to the side so I wouldn’t lose sight of Madam Octa. Then he sank to his knees and waited.

  I played a new tune and sent a new set of orders. Madam Octa sat still, listening. When she knew what I wanted, she started creeping toward Steve. I saw him shivering and licking his lips. I was going to cancel the act and send the spider back to her cage, but then he stopped shaking and became calmer, so I continued.

  He gave a small shudder when she started crawling up the leg of his pants, but that was a natural response. I still got the shakes sometimes when I felt her hairy legs brushing against my skin.

  I made Madam Octa crawl up the back of his neck and tickle his ears with her legs. He giggled softly and the last traces of his fear vanished. I felt more confident now that he was calmer, so I moved the spider around to the front of his face, where she built small cobwebs over his eyes and slid down his nose and bounced off his lips.

  Steve was enjoying it and so was I. There were lots of new things I was able to do now that I had a partner.

  She was on his right shoulder, preparing to slide down his arm, when the door opened and Annie walked in.

  Normally Annie never enters my room before knocking. She’s a great kid, not like other brats her age, and almost always knocks politely and waits for a reply. But that evening, by sheer bad luck, she happened to barge in.

  “Hey, Darren, where’s my—,” she started to say, then stopped. She saw Steve and the monstrous spider on his shoulder, its fangs glinting as though getting ready to bite, and she did the natural thing.

  She screamed.

  The sound alarmed me. My head turned, the flute slid from my lips, and my concentration snapped. My link to Madam Octa disintegrated. She shook her head, took a couple of quick steps closer to Steve’s throat, then bared her fangs and appeared to grin.

  Steve roared with fear and surged to his feet. He swiped at the spider, but she ducked and his hand missed. Before he could try again, Madam Octa lowered her head, quick as a snake, and sank her poison-tipped fangs deep into his neck!

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  STEVE STIFFENED AS SOON as the spider bit him. His yells stopped dead in his throat, his lips turned blue, his eyes snapped wide open. For what seemed an eternity (though it couldn’t have been more than three or four seconds), he tottered on his feet. Then he crumpled to the floor like a scarecrow.

  The fall saved him. As with the goat at the Cirque Du Freak show, Madam Octa’s first bite knocked Steve out, but didn’t kill him right away. I saw her moving along his neck before he fell, searching for the right spot, preparing for the second, killer bite.

  The fall disturbed her. She slipped from Steve’s neck and it took her a few seconds to climb back up.

  Those seconds were all I needed.

  I was in a state of shock, but the sight of her emerging over his shoulder like some terrible arachnid sunrise spurred me back to life. I stooped for the flute, jammed it almost through the back of my throat, and blew the loudest note of my entire life.

  “STOP!” I screamed inside my head, and Madam Octa leaped about two feet into the air.

  “Back inside the cage!” I commanded, and she hopped down from Steve’s body and sped across the floor. As soon as she passed the bars of the door, I lunged forward and slammed it shut.

  With Madam Octa taken care of, my attention turned to Steve. Annie was still screaming but I couldn’t worry about her until I’d seen to my poisoned friend.

  “Steve?” I asked, crawling close to his ear, praying for an answer. “Are you okay? Steve?” There was no reply. He was breathing, so I knew he was alive, but that was all. There was nothing else he could do. He couldn’t talk or move his arms. He wasn’t even able to blink.

  I became aware of Annie standing behind me. She’d stopped screaming but I could feel her shaking.

  “Is … is he … dead?” she asked in a tiny voice.

  “Of course not!” I snapped. “You can see him breathing, can’t you? Look at his belly and chest.”

  “But…why can’t he move?” she asked.

  “He’s paralyzed,” I told her. “The spider injected him with poison that stops his limbs. It’s like putting him to sleep, except his brain’s still active and he can see and hear everything.”

  I didn’t know if this was true. I hoped it was. If the poison had left the heart and lungs alone, it might also have skipped his brain. But if it had gotten into his skull…

  The thought was too terrible to consider.

  “Steve, I’m going to help you up,” I said. “I think if we move you around, the poison will wear off.”

  I stuck my arms around Steve’s waist and hauled him to his feet. He was heavy but I took no notice of the weight. I dragged him around the room, shaking his arms and legs, talking to him as I went, telling him he was going to be all right, there wasn’t enough poison in one bite to kill him, he would recover.

  After ten minutes of this, there was no change and I was too tired to carry him any longer. I dropped him on the bed, then carefully arranged his body so he would be comfortable. His eyelids were open. His eyes looked weird and were scaring me, so I closed them, but then he looked like a corpse, so I opened them again.

  “Will he be all right?” Annie asked.

  “Of course he will,” I said, trying to sound positive. “The poison will wear off after a while and he’ll be fine. It’s only a matter of time.”

  I don’t think she believed me but she said nothing, only sat on the edge of the bed and watched Steve’s face like a hawk. I began wondering why Mom hadn’t been up to investigate. I crept over to the open door and listened at the top of the stairs. I could hear the washing machine rumbling in the kitchen below. That explained it: our washing machine is old and clunky. You can’t hear anything over the noise it makes if you’re in the kitchen and it’s turned on.

  Annie was no longer on the bed when I returned. She was down on the floor, studying Madam Octa.

  “It’s the spider from the freak show, isn’t it?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I admitted.

  “The poisonous one?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did you get it?” she asked.

  “That’s not important,” I said, blushing.

  “How did she get loose?” Annie asked.

  “I let her out,” I said.

  “You what?!”

  “It wasn’t the first time,” I told her. “I’ve had her for almost two weeks. I’ve played with her lots of times. It’s perfectly safe as long as there are no noises. If you hadn’t come barging in when you did, she would have been —”

  “No you don’t,” she growled. “You aren’t laying the blame on me. Why didn’t you tell me about her? If I’d known, I wouldn’t have come busting in.”

  “I was going to,” I said. “I was waiting until I was sure it was safe. Then Steve came and…” I couldn’t continue.

  I stuck the cage back in the closet, where I wouldn’t have to look at Madam Octa. I joined Annie by the bed and studied Steve’s motionless form. We sat silently for almost an hour, just watching.

  “I don’t think he’s going to recover,” she finally said.

  “Give it more time,” I pleaded.

  “I don’t think time will help,” she insisted. “If he was going to recover, he should be moving a little by now.”

  “What do you know about it?” I asked roughly. “You’re a child. You know nothing!”

  “That’s right,” she agreed calmly. “But you don’t know any more about it than me, do you?” I shook my head
unhappily. “So stop pretending you do,” she said.

  She laid a hand on my arm and smiled bravely to show she wasn’t trying to make me feel bad. “We have to tell Mom,” she said. “We have to get her up here. She might know what to do.”

  “And if she doesn’t?” I asked.

  “Then we have to take him to a hospital,” Annie said.

  I knew she was right. I’d known it all along. I just didn’t want to admit it.

  “Let’s give it another fifteen minutes,” I said. “If he hasn’t moved by then, we call her.”

  “Fifteen minutes?” she asked uncertainly.

  “Not a minute more,” I promised.

  “Okay,” she agreed.

  We sat in silence again and watched our friend. I thought about Madam Octa and how I was going to explain this to Mom. To the doctors. To the police! Would they believe me when I told them Mr. Crepsley was a vampire? I doubted it. They’d think I was lying. They might throw me in jail. They might say, since the spider was mine, I was to blame. They might charge me with murder and lock me away!

  I checked my watch. Three minutes to go. No change in Steve.

  “Annie, I need to ask a favor,” I said.

  She looked at me suspiciously. “What?”

  “I don’t want you to mention Madam Octa,” I said.

  “Are you crazy?” she shouted. “How else are you going to explain what happened?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “I’ll tell them I was out of the room. The bite marks are tiny. They look like small bee stings and are going down all the time. The doctors might not even notice them.”

  “We can’t do that,” Annie said. “They might need to examine the spider. They might —”

  “Annie, if Steve dies, I’ll be blamed,” I said softly. “There are parts to this I can’t tell you, that I can’t tell anybody. All I can say is, if the worst happens, I’ll be left holding the bag. Do you know what they do to murderers?”

  “You’re too young to be tried for murder,” she said, but sounded uncertain.

  “No, I’m not,” I told her. “I’m too young to go to a real prison but they have special places for children. They’d hold me in one of those until I turned eighteen and then…Please, Annie.” I started to cry. “I don’t want to go to jail.”

  She started crying, too. We held on to each other and sobbed like a couple of babies. “I don’t want them to take you away,” she wept. “I don’t want to lose you.”

  “Then do you promise not to tell?” I asked. “Will you go back to your bedroom and pretend you saw and heard none of this?”

  She nodded sadly. “But not if I think the truth can save him,” she added. “If the doctors say they can’t save him unless they find what bit him, I’m telling. Okay?”

  “Okay,” I agreed.

  She got to her feet and headed for the door. She stopped in the middle of the room, turned, came back, and kissed me on the forehead. “I love you, Darren,” she said, “but you were a fool to bring that spider into this house, and if Steve dies, I think you are the one who should be blamed.”

  Then she ran from the room, sobbing.

  I waited a few minutes, holding Steve’s hand, begging him to recover, to show some sign of life. When my prayers weren’t answered, I got to my feet, opened the window (to explain how the mystery attacker got in), took a deep breath, and then ran downstairs, screaming for my mother.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  THE AMBULANCE ATTENDANTS ASKED MY mother if Steve was diabetic or epileptic. She wasn’t sure but didn’t think so. They also asked about allergies and everything, but she explained that she wasn’t his mother and didn’t know.

  I thought they’d take us with them in the ambulance, but they said there wasn’t room. They got Steve’s phone number and the name of his mom, but she wasn’t home. One of the attendants asked my mother if she’d follow them to the hospital, to fill out as many of the forms as she could, so they could make a start. She agreed and bundled me and Annie into the car. Dad still wasn’t home, so she called him on his cell phone to explain where we’d be. He said he’d come right over.

  That was a miserable ride. I sat in the back, trying not to meet Annie’s eye, knowing I should tell the truth, but too afraid to. What made it even worse was, I knew if I was the one lying in a coma, Steve would own up immediately.

  “What happened in there?” Mom asked over her shoulder. She was driving as fast as she could without breaking the speed limit, so she wasn’t able to look back at me. I was glad: I don’t think I could have lied straight to her face.

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “We were chatting. Then I had to go to the bathroom. When I got back…”

  “You didn’t see anything?” she asked.

  “No,” I lied, feeling my ears reddening with shame.

  “I can’t understand it,” she muttered. “He felt so stiff and his skin was turning blue. I thought he was dead.”

  “I think he was bitten,” Annie said. I almost gave her a dig in the ribs, but at the last second remembered I was depending on her to keep my secret.

  “Bitten?” Mom asked.

  “There were a couple of marks on his neck,” Annie said.

  “I saw them,” Mom said. “But I don’t think that’s it, dear.”

  “Why not?” Annie asked. “If a snake or a… spider got in and bit him…” She glanced over at me and blushed a little, recalling her promise.

  “A spider?” Mom shook her head. “No, dear, spiders don’t go around biting people and sending them into shock, not around here.”

  “So what was it?” Annie asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Mom replied. “Maybe he ate something that didn’t agree with him, or had a heart attack.”

  “Children don’t have heart attacks,” Annie retorted.

  “They do,” Mom said. “It’s rare, but it can happen. Still, the doctors will sort all that out. They know more about these things than we do.”

  I wasn’t used to hospitals, so I spent some time looking around while Mom was filling out the forms. It was the whitest place I’d ever seen: white walls, white floors, white uniforms. It wasn’t very busy but there was a buzz to the place, a sound of bed springs and coughing, machines humming, doctors speaking softly.

  We didn’t say much while sitting there. Mom said Steve had been admitted and was being examined but it might be a while before they discovered what was wrong. “They sounded optimistic,” she said.

  Annie was thirsty, so Mom sent me with her to get drinks from the machine around the corner. Annie glanced around while I was putting in the coins, to make sure nobody could overhear.

  “How long are you going to wait?” she asked.

  “Until I hear what they have to say,” I told her. “We’ll let them examine him. Hopefully they’ll know what sort of poison it is and be able to cure him by themselves.”

  “And if they can’t?” she asked.

  “Then I tell them,” I promised.

  “What if he dies before that?” she asked softly.

  “He won’t,” I said.

  “But what if—”

  “He won’t!” I snapped. “Don’t talk like that. Don’t even think like that. We have to hope for the best. We must believe he will pull through. Mom and Dad have always told us good thoughts help make sick people better, haven’t they? He needs us to believe in him.”

  “He needs the truth more,” she grumbled, but let the matter drop. We took the drinks back to the couch and drank in silence.

  Dad arrived not long after, still in his work clothes. He kissed Mom and Annie and squeezed my shoulder. His dirty hands left grease marks on my T-shirt, but that didn’t bother me.

  “Any news?” he asked.

  “None yet,” Mom said. “They’re examining him. It could be hours before we hear anything.”

  “What happened to him, Angela?” Dad asked.

  “We don’t know yet,” Mom said. “We’ll have to wait and see.”

/>   “I hate waiting,” Dad grumbled, but since he had no other choice, he had to, the same as the rest of us.

  Nothing else happened for a couple of hours, until Steve’s mom arrived. Her face was white like Steve’s, and her lips were pinched together. She made straight for me, grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me hard. “What have you done to him?” she screeched. “Have you hurt my boy? Have you killed my Steve?”

  “Hey! Stop that!” Dad gasped.

  Steve’s mom ignored him. “What have you done?” she screamed again, and shook me even harder. I tried to say “Nothing” but my teeth were clattering. “What have you done? What have you done?” she repeated, then suddenly stopped shaking me, let go, and collapsed to the floor, where she bawled like a baby.

  Mom got off the couch and crouched beside Mrs. Leonard. She stroked the back of her head and whispered soothing words to her, then helped her up and sat down with her. Mrs. Leonard was still crying, and was now moaning about what a bad mother she’d been and how much Steve hated her.

  “You two go and play somewhere else,” Mom said to Annie and me. We started away. “Darren,” Mom called me back. “Don’t pay attention to what she was saying. She doesn’t blame you. She’s just afraid.”

  I nodded miserably. What would Mom say if she knew Mrs. Leonard was right and I was to blame?

  Annie and me found a couple of video games to keep us busy. I didn’t think I’d be able to play but after a few minutes I forgot about Steve and the hospital and got caught up in the games. It was nice to slip away from the worries of the real world for a while, and if I hadn’t run out of quarters, I might have stayed there all night.

  When we returned to the waiting room, Mrs. Leonard had calmed down and was off with Mom, filling out forms. Annie and I sat and the waiting began all over again.

  Annie began yawning about ten o’clock and that set me off, too. Mom took one look at us and ordered us home. I started to argue but she cut me short.