Shan, Darren - Cirque Du Freak 02 - The Vampire's Assistant

Mr. Crepsley summoned me to his van a little after sunset. I wasn't going to go, but decided it was best not to annoy him too much. He was my guardian, after all, and could probably have me booted out of the Cirque Du Freak.

"What do you want?" I snapped when I arrived.

"Stand over here, where I can see you better," the vampire said.

He tilted my head backward with his bony fingers and rolled up my eyelids to check the whites of my eyes. He told me to open my mouth and peered down my throat. Then he checked my pulse and reflexes.

"How do you feel?" he asked.

"Tired," I said.

"Weak?" he asked. "Sick?"

"A bit."

He grunted. "Have you been drinking much blood lately?" he asked.

"As much as I'm supposed to," I said.

"But no human blood?"

"No," I said softly.

"Okay," he said. "Get ready. We are going out."

"Hunting?" I asked.

He shook his head. "To see a friend."

I got up on his back outside the van, and he began running.

When we were far enough away from the camp, he flitted and the world blurred around us.

I didn't really pay attention to where we were going. I was more concerned with my suit. I'd forgotten to get new clothes, and now, the more I examined it, the worse the suit seemed.

There were dozens of small holes and rips, and the color was a lot grayer than it was supposed to be, because of the dirt and dust. Strands of thread and fibers had come loose, and every time I shook an arm or a leg I looked like I was shedding hairs.

I'd never been very worried about clothes, but I didn't want to look like abum . Tomorrow I'd definitely find something new to wear.

After a while we approached a city and Mr. Crepsley slowed down. He stopped outside the back of a tall building. I wanted to ask where we were, but he put a finger to his lips and made the sign for silence.

The back door was locked but Mr. Crepsley laid a hand over it and clicked the fingers of his other hand. It opened instantly. He led the way through a long, dark corridor, then up a set of stairs and into a brightly lit hallway.

After a few minutes, we came to a white desk. Mr. Crepsley looked around to make sure we were alone, then rang the bell that hung from one of the walls.

A figure appeared behind the glass wall on the other side of the desk. The door in the glass wall opened and a brown-haired man in a white uniform and green mask stepped through. He looked like a doctor.

"How may I — ," he began, then stopped. "Larten Crepsley! What are you doing here, you old devil?"

The man pulled down his mask, and I saw he was grinning.

"Hello, Jimmy," Mr. Crepsley said. The two shook hands and smiled at each other. "Long time no see."

"Not as long as I thought it would be," the man called Jimmy said. "I heard you'd been killed. An old enemy finally rammed a stake through your rotten heart, or so the story went."

"You should not believe everything you hear," Mr. Crepsley said. He put a hand on my shoulder and nudged me forward. "Jimmy, this is Darren Shan, a traveling companion of mine. Darren, this is Jimmy Ovo, an old friend and the world's finest pathologist."

"Hello," I said.

"Pleased to meet you," Jimmy said, shaking my hand. "You aren't a … I mean, do you belong tothe club ?"

"He is a vampire," Mr. Crepsley said.

"Only half of me," I snapped. "I'm not a full vampire."

"Please," Jimmy winced. "Don't use that word. I know what you guys are, and I'm fine with it, but that 'V' word never fails to freak me out." He shivered playfully. "I think it's because of all the horror movies I watched when I was a kid. I know you're not like those movie monsters, but it's hard to get the image out of my mind."

"What's a pathologist do?" I asked.

"I cut corpses open to see how they died," Jimmy explained. "I don't do it with a lot of bodies — just the ones who died in suspicious circumstances."

"This is a city morgue," Mr. Crepsley said. "They store bodies that arrive dead at the hospital or die while they're there."

"Is that where you keep them?" I asked Jimmy, pointing at the room behind the glass wall.

"Yup," he said cheerfully. He swung up a section of the desk and invited us through.

I was nervous. I expected to see dozens of tables piled high with sliced-open bodies. But it wasn't like that. There was one dead body, covered from head to toe with a long sheet, but that was the only one I could see. Otherwise it was a huge, well-lit room, with big filing cabinets built in the walls and lots of medical equipment scattered around the place.

"How is business?" Mr. Crepsley asked as we sat on three chairs near the corpse on the table. Jimmy and Mr. Crepsley didn't pay attention to the dead person, and since I didn't want to look out of place, neither did I.

"Slow enough," Jimmy answered. "The weather's been good, and there haven't been many car accidents. No strange diseases, no food epidemics, no collapsing buildings. By the way," he added, "I had an old friend of yours in here a few years back."

"Oh?" Mr. Crepsley responded politely. "Who was that?"