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

by Darren Shan

  “You should watch this,” Evra said.

  “Watch what?” I asked, irritated. I walked around behind him and saw it was a news program. “The news?” I laughed. “Turn it off, Evra, and I’ll tell you about —”

  “Darren!” Evra snapped in a very unusual tone. He looked up at me, and his face was a mask of worry. “You should watch this,” he said again, slowly this time, and I realized he wasn’t kidding.

  Sitting down, I studied the TV screen. There was a picture of the outside of a building on it, then the camera dissolved to an interior shot and scanned around the walls. A caption told viewers that the photographs were from stock footage, which meant they’d been filmed sometime in the past. A reporter was babbling on about the building.

  “What’s the big deal?” I asked.

  “This is where they found the bodies,” Evra said softly.

  “What bodies?”

  “Watch,” he said.

  The camera came to rest in a dark room that looked the same as all the others, held on the scene for a few seconds, then dissolved back to a view of the building’s exterior. The caption told us that these new pictures had been shot earlier that day. As I watched, several policemen and doctors came out of the building, pushing stretchers, each of which held a motionless object covered by a body bag.

  “Are those what I think they are?” I asked quietly.

  “Corpses,” Evra confirmed. “Six so far. The police are still searching the building.”

  “What does it have to do with us?” I asked uneasily.

  “Listen.” He turned up the sound.

  A reporter was talking into the camera now, live, explaining how the police found the bodies — a couple of teenagers had stumbled over them while they were exploring the deserted building as a dare — and when, and how the search was progressing. The reporter looked pretty stunned.

  An anchorman in the studio asked the reporter a question about the bodies, to which she shook her head.

  “No,” she said, “the police aren’t giving out names, and won’t until the relatives of the deceased have been notified.”

  “Have you learned any more about the nature of their deaths?” the anchorman asked.

  “No,” the reporter replied. “The police have blocked the flow of information. We only have the early reports to go on. The six people — we don’t know if they’re men or women — appear to be victims of a serial killer or some sort of sacrificial cult. We don’t know about the last two bodies brought up, but the first four all shared the same bizarre wounds and conditions.”

  “Could you explain once again what those conditions were?” the anchorman asked.

  The reported nodded. “The victims — at least the first four — have slit throats, which seem to be the means by which they were killed. In addition, the bodies appear — and I must stress that this is an early, un-verified report — to have been drained of all their blood.”

  “Possibly sucked out or pumped dry?” the anchorman suggested.

  The reporter shrugged. “As of the moment, nobody can answer that, except the police.” She paused. “And, of course, the murderer.”

  Evra switched the sound off but left the picture on.

  “See?” he said softly.

  “Oh, no,” I gasped. I thought of Mr. Crepsley, who’d been out alone every night since we arrived, prowling the city for reasons he wouldn’t reveal. I thought of the six bodies and the reporter’s and anchorman’s comments: “. . . drained of all their blood.” “Possibly sucked out or pumped dry.”

  “Mr. Crepsley,” I said. And for a long time I gazed in silence at the screen, not able to say anything more.

  Chapter Ten

  I PACED FURIOUSLY AROUND the hotel room, hands clenched into fists, swearing angrily, Evra watching mutely.

  “I’m going to kill him,” I finally muttered. “I’ll wait for day, pull back the curtains, drive a stake through his heart, chop his head off, and set him on fire.”

  “You don’t believe in taking chances, do you?” Evra tried to joke. “I suppose you’ll scoop his brains out, too, and stuff the space inside his head with garlic.”

  “How can you make jokes at a time like this?” I howled.

  Evra hesitated. “It might not have been him.”

  “Come off it!” I barked. “Who else could it have been?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “The blood was sucked out of them!” I shouted.

  “That’s what the reporters think,” Evra said. “They weren’t certain.”

  “Maybe we should wait,” I huffed. “Wait for him to kill another five or six, huh?”

  Evra sighed. “I don’t know what we should do,” he said. “But I think we should have proof before we go after him. Chopping a person’s head off is kind of final. If we find out later we were mistaken, there’s no going back. We can’t glue his head back on and say, ‘Sorry, all a big mistake, no hard feelings.’”

  He was right. Killing Mr. Crepsley without proof would be wrong. But it had to be him! Those nights out, acting so strangely, not telling us what he was doing — it all added up.

  “There’s something else,” Evra said. I glanced down at him. “Let’s say Mr. Crepsley is the killer.”

  “I have no problem accepting that.” I grunted.

  “Why would he do it?” Evra asked. “It’s not his style. I’ve known him longer than you have, and I’ve never seen or heard of him doing anything like this. He’s not a killer.”

  “He probably killed when he was a Vampire General,” I said. I had told Evra about my conversation with Gavner Purl.

  “Yes,” Evra agreed. “He killed evil vampires, who deserved to be killed. What I’m saying is, if he did kill these six people, maybe they had to be killed, too. Maybe they were vampires.”

  I shook my head. “He gave up being a Vampire General years ago.”

  “Gavner Purl could have persuaded him to join again,” Evra said. “We don’t know anything about the Vampire Generals or how they work. Maybe that’s why Mr. Crepsley came here.”

  It sounded halfway reasonable, but I didn’t believe it.

  “Six evil vampires on the loose in one city?” I asked. “What are the odds against that?”

  “Who knows?” Evra said. “Do you know how an evil vampire behaves? I don’t. maybe they form gangs.”

  “And Mr. Crepsley wiped them out by himself?” I said. “Vampires are tough to kill. He’d have no problem killing six humans, but six vampires? No way.”

  “Who says he was alone?” Evra asked. “Maybe Gavner Purl was with him. Maybe there’s a bunch of Vampire Generals in town.”

  “Your argument’s getting weaker by the second,” I commented.

  “Possibly,” Evra said, “but that doesn’t mean I’m wrong. We don’t know, Darren. You can’t kill Mr. Crepsley on a hunch. We have to wait. Think about it and you’ll see I’m right.”

  I calmed down and thought it over. “Okay,” I sighed. “He’s innocent until proven guilty. But what should we do? Sit back and pretend nothing’s happened? Report him to the police? Ask him straight to his face?”

  “If we were at the Cirque Du Freak,” Evra mused, “we could tell Mr. Tall and leave it in his hands.”

  “But we’re not at the Cirque,” I reminded him.

  “No,” he said. “We’re on our own.” His narrow eyes narrowed even further as he mulled it over. “How about this? We track him every night when he leaves, see where he goes and what he gets up to. If we find out he’s the killer, and that these are ordinary humans, then we kill him.”

  “You’d do that?” I asked.

  Evra nodded. “I’ve never killed before,” he said quietly, “and I hate the thought of it. But if Mr. Crepsley is murdering without good cause, I’ll help you kill him. I’d rather leave it to someone else, but since there isn’t anybody . . .”

  His face was serious, and I knew I could rely on him.

  “But we have to be sure,” Evra w
arned me. “If there’s even a glimmer of doubt, we can’t do it.”

  “Agreed,” I said.

  “And it has to be a joint decision,” Evra added.

  “You have to promise you won’t kill him without my approval.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’m serious,” he told me. “If I think Mr. Crepsley is innocent, and you go after him, I’ll do everything I can to stop you. Even if it means . . .” He left the threat unfinished.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “This isn’t something I’m looking forward to. I’ve grown used to Mr. Crepsley. The last thing I want to do is kill him.”

  I was telling the truth. I’d love it if my suspicions turned out to be wrong. But I had an awful feeling they wouldn’t.

  “I hope we’re mistaken about this,” Evra said. “Saying we’ll kill him is easy, but doing it would be a lot harder. He’s not the kind to just lie there and do nothing while being attacked.”

  “We’ll worry about that later,” I said. “For the moment, let’s turn the sound back up. If we’re lucky, the police will solve the case and it’ll be nothing more than a crazy human who’s seen one too many Dracula movies.”

  I sat down beside Evra, and we spent the rest of night watching the news, rarely speaking, waiting for the vampire — the killer? — to return.

  Chapter Eleven

  SHADOWING MR. CREPSLEY WASN’T EASY. The first night we lost him after a couple of minutes: he shot up a fire escape and by the time we got to the top he was nowhere to be seen. We wandered around the city for a few hours, hoping to stumble upon him, but saw neither hide nor hair of him for the rest of the night.

  We learned from that experience. While Mr. Crepsley slept the next day, I went and bought a couple of cell phones. Evra and me tested them out before dusk, and they worked pretty well.

  That night, when Mr. Crepsley headed for the rooftops, Evra stuck to the ground. He couldn’t move as fast as me. By myself, I was able to keep track of the vampire and pass the information to Evra, who followed on the ground.

  Even alone, it was difficult to keep up. Mr. Crepsley could move a lot quicker than me. Fortunately, he had no idea I was after him, so he didn’t go as fast as he could, since he didn’t think he had any need to.

  I kept him in sight for three hours that night before losing him when he slipped down to street level and took a couple of turns that I missed. The next night I stuck with him until dawn. It varied after that: some nights I’d lose him within an hour; others I’d be on his tail until morning.

  He didn’t do much while I was following him. Sometimes he’d stop in one place for a long time above crowds of people and observe them silently (picking out his next victim?). Other times he roamed without stopping. His routes were unpredictable: he might go the same way two or three nights in a row, or try entirely new directions every night. It was impossible to anticipate his moves.

  Evra was exhausted at the end of each night — I kept forgetting he wasn’t as powerful as me — but he never complained. I said he could stay in for a few nights if he wanted, but he shook his head and insisted on coming with me.

  Maybe he thought I’d kill Mr. Crepsley if he wasn’t around.

  Maybe he was right.

  No fresh bodies had been discovered since news of the six in the building broke. It had been confirmed that all the bodies had been drained of their blood, and that they were ordinary humans: two men and four women. All were young — the oldest was twenty-seven — and from different parts of the city.

  Evra’s disappointment was evident when he heard the victims were normal people — it would have made life much easier if they’d been vampires.

  “Would doctors be able to tell the difference between a human and a vampire?” he asked.

  “Of course,” I replied.

  “How?”

  “Different kind of blood,” I said.

  “But they were drained of blood,” he reminded me.

  “Their cells wouldn’t be the same. Atoms act strangely in vampires — that’s why they can’t be photographed. And they’d have extra-tough nails and teeth. The doctors would know, Evra.”

  I was trying to keep an open mind. Mr. Crepsley hadn’t killed anyone while we’d been following him, which was a good sign. On the other hand, maybe he was waiting for the fuss to die down before striking again — at the moment, if somebody was late home from school or work, alarm bells rang immediately.

  Or perhaps he had killed. Maybe he knew we were following him and was only killing when he was certain he’d lost us. That was unlikely, but I didn’t rule it out completely. Mr. Crepsley could be crafty when he wanted. I wouldn’t have put anything past him.

  Although I was sleeping through most of the days — in order to stay awake at night — I made a point of waking a couple of hours before sunset to spend some time with Debbie. Usually I went over to her house and we sat upstairs in her bedroom and played music and talked — I was always trying to conserve energy for the night chase ahead — but sometimes we’d go for a walk or hit the stores.

  I was determined not to let Mr. Crepsley ruin my friendship with Debbie. I loved being with her. She was my first girlfriend. I knew we’d have to break up sooner rather than later — I hadn’t forgotten what I was — but I wouldn’t do anything to shorten our time together. I’d given up my nights to pursue Mr. Crepsley. I wasn’t going to give up my days, too.

  “How come you don’t come around after dark anymore?” she asked one Saturday as we came out of a matinee. I’d woken up earlier than usual so that I could spend the day with her.

  “I’m afraid of the dark,” I whimpered.

  “Seriously,” she said, pinching my arm.

  “My dad doesn’t like me going out at night,” I lied. “He feels a little guilty, not being around during the day. He likes Evra and me to sit with him at night and tell him what we’ve been up to.”

  “I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if you went out now and then,” Debbie protested. “He let you out the night of our first date, didn’t he?”

  I shook my head. “I snuck out,” I said. “He went crazy when he found out. Wouldn’t speak to me for a week. That’s why I haven’t introduced you to him — he’s still fuming.”

  “He sounds like a mean old man,” Debbie said.

  “He is.” I sighed. “But what can I do? He’s my dad. I have to stick by him.”

  I felt bad lying to her, but I could hardly tell her the truth. I smiled to myself when I imagined breaking the news: “That guy I say is my father? He’s not. He’s a vampire. Oh, and I think he’s the one who killed those six people.”

  “What are you smiling at?” Debbie asked.

  “Nothing,” I said quickly, wiping the smile from my face.

  It was a strange double life — normal boy by day, deadly vampire-tracker by night — but I was enjoying it. If it had been a year or so earlier, I would have been confused; I would have tossed and turned in my sleep, worrying about what the next night would bring; my eating habits might have been affected and I would have become depressed; I probably would have chosen to focus on one thing at a time, and stopped meeting Debbie.

  Not now. My experiences with Mr. Crepsley and the Cirque Du Freak had changed me. I was able to handle two different roles. In fact, I liked the variation: tracking the vampire at night made me feel big and important — Darren Shan, protector of the sleeping city! — and seeing Debbie in the afternoons let me feel like a normal human boy. I had the best of both worlds.

  That stopped when Mr. Crepsley zoomed in on the next victim — the fat man.

  Chapter Twelve

  I DIDN’T REALIZE AT FIRST that Mr. Crepsley was following someone. He was hovering above a busy shopping street, where he’d been for almost an hour, studying the shoppers. Then, without warning, he climbed to the top of the building he’d been clinging to and started across the roof.

  I called Evra. He never called me, for fear the vampire would hear my phone. “He’s on the m
ove again,” I said quietly.

  “About time,” Evra grumbled. “I hate it when he stops. You don’t know how cold it gets, standing still down here.”

  “Go get something to eat,” I told him. “He’s moving pretty slowly. I think you can take five or ten minutes off.”

  “Are you sure?” Evra asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’ll call you if anything happens.”

  “Okay,” Evra said. “I’d love a hot dog and a cup of hot chocolate. You want me to pick something up for you?”

  “No thanks,” I said. “I’ll keep in touch. See you soon.” I hit the off switch and started after the vampire.

  I didn’t like eating stuff like hot dogs, burgers, or French fries while tracking Mr. Crepsley: his nose could easily detect such strong scents. I ate dry slices of bread — which produced almost no smell — to keep my hunger down. I had ordinary tap water in a bottle to drink.

  After a couple of minutes I got curious. The other nights, he’d either stayed in one spot or wandered around without direction. He was moving with purpose this time.

  I decided to get closer. It was dangerous, especially since he wasn’t rushing — he was more likely to spot me — but I had to see what he was up to.

  Closing the gap by a third — as near to him as I dared get — I saw that he was sticking his head out over the edge of the roof, keeping a watch on the street below.

  Looking down at the well-lit street, I couldn’t spot who he was after. It was only when he paused above a lamp that I noticed the fat man at the base, adjusting his shoelaces.

  That was it! Mr. Crepsley was after the fat man! I knew by the way the vampire stared, waiting for him to tie his shoelaces and move on. When the fat man finally stood up and started walking again, sure enough, Mr. Crepsley followed.

  Taking a few steps back, I called Evra.

  “What’s up?” he asked. I could hear him munching on his hot dog. There were voices in the background.

  “Action,” I said simply.