The Vampire's Assistant tsods-2 Page 2

  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 said, but they liked us — they knew from the smell of our blood that we were different from 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 around during the day, if he wrapped up in lots of clothes. He'd tan really fast and start to go red within fifteen minutes. 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. A lot more. Mr. Crepsley said it would be years before I knew everything and was able to function 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 I finished my bagel, 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 came, 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 eyebrow raised. "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 growled. I was 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 a lot 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 within 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 going, 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, or snakes.

  Mr. Crepsley hadn't told me the names of all the dangerous animals. There were a whole lot, and it would take time to learn them all. His advice was to always ask before I tried something new.

  Vampires have to feed on humans about once a month. Most feast once a week. That way, they don't have to suck much blood. If you only feed once a month, you have to drink a lot of blood at one time.

  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 then you were probably going to end up killing the person you drank from.

  "A vampire who feasts 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 the best. If you drink from a living human, the blood is full of goodness and you don't need to take very much. But blood begins to go sour when a person dies. If you drink from a dead body, you have 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 crazy 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 a few bottles of blood stored in his cloak. He sometimes had one with a meal, as if it were 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, examining one of the glass bottles. It was like a test tube, only the glass was 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. Maybe 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 go home to my family and friends.

  It wasn't much of a hope — Mr. Crepsley had said it was impossible to become human again — but it was the only dream I had to hold on to.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Days and nights passed, and we moved on. We wandered from towns to villages to cities. I wasn't getting along 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 running away. 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 had to look after her.

  I practiced a few tricks with her every now and then, but my heart wasn't in it. She didn't interest me anymore, and as the weeks went by I played with her less and less.

  The one good thing about being on the road was being able to visit a whole bunch of places I hadn't been before and see a lot of cool sights. I loved traveling. But, since we traveled at night, I didn't get to see many of our surroundings — bummer!

  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 up, then left. I only had a little money and had 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 pretty quiet. I checked out a few arcades and played some video games in them. I'd never been very good at video games before, but with my new reflexes and skills I was able to do pretty much anything I wanted.

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

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

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

  I stopped to watch, and after a few minutes one of the guys came over to me.

  "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 the other guys, 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 Beetlejuice.

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

  "You should." The boy smiled, then asked if I played hockey. When I said yes, he invited me to play with them.

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

  "Hey. I'm Darren," I replied, testing the stick.

  I rolled up the cuffs of my pants and made sure my shoelaces were double-tied. While I was doing that, the other team scored another goal. Michael swore loudly and dragged the ball back to the center.

  "You ready to go?" he asked me.

  "Sure."

  "Come on, then," he said. He 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 gym, we'd usually had to choose between hockey and soccer, and I never passed up a chance for a game of soccer — but with the stick in my hands and the ball at my feet, it seemed like only yesterday since I'd played hockey.

  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 goalie. None of them rushed to stop me. I guess they felt they didn't need to since they were five goals ahead.

  I started running. 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 around a fourth. The fifth player slid in with his stick at knee level, but I jumped over him with ease, faked the sixth, and shot before the seventh and final defender could get in the way.

  Even though I hit the ball pretty softly, it went a lot 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 teammates. They were still back near the other goal, staring at me in shock. I carried the ball back to the center line and set it down without saying a word. Then I turned to Michael and said, "Seven-three."

  He blinked slowly, then smiled. "Oh, yeah!" he cheered softly, then high-fived his teammates. "I think we're going to enjoy this!"

  I had a great time for a while, dominating play, rushing back to defend, picking players out with pinpoint passes. I scored a couple of goals and set up four more. We were leading 9–7 and coasting. The other team hated it. They made us give them two of our best players, but it made no difference. I could have given them everybody except our goalie and still kicked their butts.

  Then things got nasty. The captain of the other team — Danny — had been trying to foul me for a while, but I was too quick for him and easily dodged 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 last straw came when Danny pinched me in a very painful place! Even vampires have their limits. I yelled out and bent over, wincing from the pain.

  Danny laughed and took off with the ball.

  I got up after a few seconds, mad as hell. Danny was halfway down the rink. I sprinted after him. I knocked the players between us aside — it didn't matter if they were on his team or mine — then caught up 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 game knew the difference between a yell of pain and a scream of real agony.

  I scrambled 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 shinbones.

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

  Michael bent over to examine Danny's legs. When he got up, 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. Everyone around him backed away as well.

  They were afraid of me.

  Breathing hard, 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 guys 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 awake. I told him we should leave town right away, but didn't tell him why. He took one look at my face, nodded, and started gathering our stuff.

  "We didn't say much that night. I was thinking how much it stunk to be a half-vampire. Mr. Crepsley could tell there was something wrong with me, but didn't bother me with questions. It wasn't the first time I'd been grouchy. 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 a lot of them were cracked or covered with weeds. I spent a few hours cleaning some, pulling weeds away and washing the stones with water I got 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 guys, especially the young ones. At one point, I pretended to be asleep and a couple edged closer and closer, until they were only a few feet away.

  When they were as close as they would probably come, I leaped up and shouted, "Boo!" and they went running away like wildfire. One fell head over heels and rolled away down the mouth of the burrow.

  That totally cheered me up.

  I found a grocery store in the afternoon and bought some meat and vegetables. I made a fire when I got back to the church, then grabbed the pots and pans bag from underneath Mr. Crepsley's pew. I looked through the contents until I found what I was looking for. It was a small pot. I carefully laid it upside down on the floor, then pressed the metal bulge on the top.

  The pot 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 a long time ago. They weighed the same as ordinary cook-ware, but because they could fold up small, they were easier to carry around.

  I made a stew like Mr. Crepsley had taught me. He thought everybody should know how to cook.

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

  Mr. Crepsley was surprised to find dinner — which 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, th
en 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 always 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 grabbed knives and forks. I served the food and we ate.

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

  "The stew 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 the 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 from happening again, not if you interact 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 anymore, right?" I nodded sadly. "I'd figured that out by myself. That's why I was so sad. I was getting used to the idea of never being able to go back home to see my old friends, but it was just 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 —"