The Vampire’s Assistant

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. Perhaps 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 return home to my family and friends.

It wasn’t much of a hope – Mr Crepsley had said it was impossible to become human again, and I believed him – but it was the only dream I had to cling to.

CHAPTER FIVE

DAYS AND nights passed, and we moved on. We wandered from towns to villages to cities. I wasn’t getting on 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 hitting off on my own. 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 could look after her.

I practised a few tricks with her every now and then, but my heart wasn’t in it. She didn’t interest me any more and as the weeks passed I played with her less and less.

The one good thing about being on the road was being able to visit loads of places I hadn’t been before, seeing all sorts of sights. I loved travelling. But, since we travelled at night, I didn’t get to see much of our surroundings!

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, then set off. I had very little money, and 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 fairly quiet. I checked out a few toy stores and played some free computer games in them. I’d never been very good on computers before, but with my new reflexes and skills, I was able to do pretty much anything I wanted.

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

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

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

I stopped to watch and, after a few minutes, one of the boys came to size me up.

“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 his mates, 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 Oliver Twist.

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

“You’d want to,” the boy smiled, then asked if I could play hockey. When I said I could, he invited me to play with them.

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

“Darren,” I said in reply, testing the stick.

I rolled up the legs of my trousers and checked my laces were tied properly. While I was doing that, the opposition scored another goal. Michael cursed loudly and dragged the ball back to the centre.

“You want to help touch-off?” he asked me.

“Sure.”

“Come on, then,” he said, 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 PE, we’d usually have to choose between hockey and football, and I never passed up a chance for a game of footie – but with the stick in my hands and the ball at my feet, it seemed like only yesterday.

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 goalkeeper. None of them rushed to tackle me. I guess they felt there was no need, being five goals up.

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

Even though I hit the ball quite softly, it went much 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 team-mates. They were still in their own half, staring at me in shock. I carried the ball back to the halfway line and set it down without saying a word. Then I turned to Michael and said, “Seven-three.”

He blinked slowly, then smiled. “Oh yes!” he chortled softly, then winked at his team-mates. “I think we’re going to enjoy this!”

I had a great time for a while, controlling the course of play, rushing back to defend, picking players out with pin-point passes. I scored a couple of goals and set up four more. We were leading nine-seven, and coasting. The other team hated it, and had made us give them two of our best players, but it made no difference. I could have given them everybody except our goalkeeper and still knocked the stuffing out of them.

Then things got nasty. The captain of the other team – Danny – had been trying to foul me for ages, but I was too quick for him and danced around 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 crunch came when Danny pinched me in a very painful place! Even vampires have their limits. I gave a roar and crouched down, wincing from the pain.

Danny laughed and sped away with the ball.

I rose after a few seconds, mad as hell. Danny was halfway down the pitch. I set off after him. I brushed the players between us aside – it didn’t matter if they were on his team or mine – then slid in 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 quad knew the difference between a yell of pain and a scream of real agony.

I got 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 shin-bones.

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

Michael bent to examine Danny’s legs. When he rose, 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. Those around him backed away as well.

They were afraid of me.