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

by Darren Shan

  “What do we do first?” I asked.

  “What we’ll be doing first every morning,” Evra said. “Milking the poison from the fangs of my snake.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Is it dangerous?”

  “Only if she bites before we finish,” Evra said, then laughed at my expression and pushed me ahead of him to the tent.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Evra did the milking himself — to my great relief — then we brought the snake outside and laid her on the grass. We grabbed buckets of water and scrubbed her down with really soft sponges.

  After that, we had to feed the wolf-man. His cage was near the back of the campsite. He roared when he saw us coming. He looked as angry and dangerous as he had that night I went to see the Cirque with Steve. He shook the bars and lunged at us if we got too close — which we didn’t!

  “Why is he so vicious?” I asked, tossing him a large chunk of raw meat, which he grabbed in midair and bit into.

  “Because he’s a real wolf-man,” Evra said. “He’s not just somebody very hairy. He’s half human, half wolf.”

  “Isn’t it cruel to keep him chained up?” I asked, throwing him another slice of meat.

  “If we didn’t, he’d run free and kill people. The mix of human and wolf blood has driven him mad. He wouldn’t just kill when he was hungry; if he was free, he’d murder all the time.”

  “Isn’t there a cure?” I asked, feeling sorry for him. “There isn’t a cure because it isn’t a disease,” Evra explained. “This isn’t something he caught, it’s how he was born. This is what he is.”

  “How did it happen?” I asked.

  Evra looked at me seriously. “Do you really want to know?”

  I stared at the hairy monster in the cage, ripping up the meat as if it were cotton candy, then gulped and said, “No, I suppose I don’t.”

  We did a bunch of jobs after that. We peeled potatoes for the night’s dinner, helped repair a tire on one of the cars, spent an hour painting the roof of a van, and walked a dog. Evra said most days were like this, just wandering through the camp, seeing what needed doing, helping out here and there.

  In the evening we took a garbage bag full of cans and broken pieces of glass to the tent of Rhamus Twobellies, a huge man who could eat anything. I wanted to stay and watch him eat, but Evra hurried me out. Rhamus didn’t like people watching him eat when he wasn’t performing.

  We had a lot of time to ourselves, and during our quieter moments we told each other about our lives — where we’d come from and how we’d grown up.

  Evra had been born to ordinary parents. They were horrified when they saw him. They abandoned him at an orphanage, where he stayed until an evil circus owner bought him at the age of four.

  “Those were bad days,” he said quietly. “He used to beat me and treat me like a real snake. He kept me locked up in a glass case and let people pay to look at me and laugh.”

  He was with the circus for seven long, miserable years, touring small towns, being made to feel ugly and freakish and useless.

  Finally, Mr. Tall came to the rescue.

  “He showed up one night,” Evra said. “He appeared suddenly out of the darkness and stood by my cage for a long time, watching me. He didn’t say a word. Neither did I.

  “The circus owner came. He didn’t know who Mr. Tall was, but thought he might be a rich man, interested in buying me. He gave him his price and stood back, waiting for an answer.

  “Mr. Tall didn’t say anything for a few minutes.

  Then his left hand grabbed the circus owner by the neck. He squeezed once and that was the end of him. He fell to the floor, dead. Mr. Tall opened the door to my cage and said, ‘Let’s go, Evra.’ I think Mr. Tall’s able to read minds, which is how he knew my name.”

  Evra was quiet after that. He had a faraway look in his eyes.

  “Do you want to see something amazing?” he finally said, snapping out of his thoughtful mood.

  “Sure,” I said.

  He turned to face me, then stuck out his tongue and pushed it up over his lip and right up his nose!

  “Ewww! Gross!” I yelled delightedly.

  He pulled the tongue back and grinned. “I’ve got the longest tongue in the world,” he said. “If my nose were big enough, I could poke my tongue all the way to the top, down my throat, and back out my mouth again.”

  “You couldn’t!” I laughed.

  “Probably not.” He giggled. “But it’s still pretty impressive.” He stuck his tongue out again and this time licked around his nostrils, one after the other. It was revolting but hilarious.

  “That’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen.” I laughed.

  “I bet you wish you could do it,” Evra said.

  “I wouldn’t, even if I could,” I lied. “Don’t you get snot all over your tongue?”

  “I don’t have any snot,” Evra said.

  “What? No snot?”

  “It’s true,” he said. “My nose is different from yours. There’s no snot or dirt or hairs. My nostrils are the cleanest part of my whole body.”

  “What does it taste like?” I asked.

  “Lick my snake’s belly and you’ll find out,” he replied. “It’s the same taste as that.”

  I laughed and said I wasn’t that interested!

  Later, when Mr. Crepsley asked me what I’d done all day, I told him: “I made a friend.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  We’d been with the cirque two days and nights. I spent my days helping Evra and my nights with Mr. Crepsley, learning about vampires. I was going to bed earlier than I had been, though I rarely hit the sack before one or two in the morning.

  Evra and I were tight friends. He was older than me, but he was shy — probably because of his abusive childhood — so we made a good team.

  As the third day rolled by, I was gazing around the small groups of vans and cars and tents, feeling like I’d been part of the scene for years.

  I was starting to suffer from the effects of going for too long without drinking human blood. I wasn’t as strong as I had been, and couldn’t move as quickly as I could before. My eyesight had dulled, and so had my hearing and sense of smell. I was a lot stronger and quicker than I’d been as a human, but I could feel my powers slipping a little more every day.

  I didn’t care. I’d rather lose some strength than drink from a human.

  I was relaxing with Evra on the edge of the campsite that afternoon when we spotted a figure in the bushes.

  “Who’s that?” I asked.

  “A kid from a nearby village,” Evra said. “I’ve seen him hanging around before.”

  I watched the boy in the bushes. He was trying hard not to be seen, but to someone with my powers — fading though they were — he was as obvious as an elephant. I was curious to know what he was doing, so I turned to Evra and said, “Let’s have fun.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “Lean in and I’ll tell you.”

  I whispered my plan in his ear. He grinned and nodded, then stood and pretended to yawn.

  “I’m leaving, Darren,” he said. “See you later.” “See you, Evra,” I replied loudly. I waited until he was gone, then stood and walked back to the camp myself.

  When I was out of sight of the boy in the bushes, I went back, using the vans and tents to hide my movements. I walked about a hundred yards to the left, then crept forward until I could see the boy and sneaked toward him.

  I stopped ten yards away. I was a little behind him, so he couldn’t see me. His eyes were still glued to the camp. I looked over his head and saw Evra, who was even closer than I was. He made an “okay” sign with his thumb and index finger.

  I crouched down low and moaned.

  “Ohhhh,” I groaned. “Wwwooohhhh.”

  The boy stiffened and looked over his shoulder nervously. He couldn’t see me.

  “Who’s there?” he asked.

  “Wraaarghhhh,” Evra grunted on the other side of him.
r />   The boy’s head spun around in the other direction. “Who’s there?” he shouted.

  “Ohh-ohh-ohh,” I snorted, like a gorilla.

  “I’m not afraid,” the boy said, edging backward. “You’re just somebody playing a mean trick.”

  “Eee-ee-ee-ee-ee,” Evra screeched.

  I shook a branch, Evra rattled a bush, then I tossed a stone into the area just ahead of the boy. His head was spinning around like a puppet’s, darting all over the place. He didn’t know whether it would be safer to run or stay.

  “Look, I don’t know who you are,” he began, “but I’m —”

  Evra snuck up behind him and now, as the boy spoke, stuck out his extra-long tongue and ran it over the boy’s neck, making a hissing snake noise.

  That was enough for the boy. He screamed and ran for his life.

  Evra and me ran after him, laughing our heads off, making all these noises. The boy fled through thorn bushes as though they weren’t there, screaming for help.

  We got tired after a few minutes and would have let him get away, but then he tripped and went sprawling into a patch of really high grass.

  We stood, trying to spot him in the grass, but there was no sign of him.

  “Where is he?” I asked.

  “I can’t see him,” Evra said.

  “Do you think he’s all right?”

  “I don’t know.” Evra looked worried. “He might have fallen down a big hole or something.”

  “Kid?” I shouted. “Are you okay?” No answer. “You don’t need to be afraid. We won’t hurt you. We were only kidding. We didn’t —”

  There was a rustling noise behind us, then I felt a hand on my back, shoving me forward into the grass. Evra fell with me. When we sat up, spluttering with shock, we heard somebody laughing behind us.

  We turned around slowly, and there was the kid, doubled over with laughter.

  “I got you! I got you!” he sang. “I saw you coming from the beginning. I was only pretending to be frightened. I ambushed you. Ha-ha!”

  He was making fun of us, and, though we felt pretty stupid, when we stood and looked at each other we burst out laughing. He’d led us into a patch of grass filled with sticky green seeds and we were covered in them from head to foot.

  “You look like a walking plant,” I joked. “You look like the Jolly Green Giant,” Evra replied.

  “Both of you look stupid,” the boy said. We stared at him, and his smile faded a little. “Well, you do,” he grumbled.

  “I suppose you think this is funny,” I snarled. He nodded silently. “Well, I’ve got news for you,” I said, stepping closer, putting on the meanest face I could. I paused menacingly, then burst into a smile. “It is!”

  He laughed happily, relieved that we could see the funny side of things, then stuck out his hands, one to each of us. “Hey,” he said as we shook. “My name’s Sam Grest. Nice to meetcha.”

  “Hey, Sam,” I said, and as I shook his hand I thought to myself, “Looks like this is friend number two. Cool.”

  And Sam did become my friend. But by the time the Cirque Du Freak moved on, I was wishing with all my heart that I’d never even heard his name.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Sam lived about a mile away, with his mom and dad, two younger brothers and a baby sister, three dogs, five cats, a turtle, and a tank full of tropical fish.

  “It’s like living in Noah’s ark,” he said. “I try to stay out of the house as much as possible. Mom and Dad don’t mind. They think children should be free to express their individuality. As long as I come home for bed at night, they’re happy. They don’t even care if I miss school every once in a while. They think school’s a despotic system of indoctrination, designed to crush the spirit and stamp out creativity.”

  Sam talked like that all the time. He was younger than me, but you wouldn’t have known it by listening to him speak.

  “So, you two guys are with the show?” he asked, rolling a piece of pickled onion around his mouth — he loved pickled onions and carried a small plastic jar of them with him. We’d returned to the spot at the edge of the clearing. Evra was lying in the grass, I was sitting on a low-hanging branch, and Sam was climbing the tree above me.

  “What sort of a show is it?” he asked, before we could answer his first question. “There are no signs on your vans. At first I thought you were tourists. Then, after observing for a while, I decided you must be performers of some kind.”

  “We’re masters of the macabre,” Evra said. “Agents of mutations. Lords of the surreal.” He was speaking like that to show he could match Sam’s big vocabulary. I wish I could have spouted a few smarty-pants sentences, but I’d never been good with words.

  “It’s a magic show?” Sam asked excitedly.

  “It’s a freak show,” I said.

  “A freak show?” His jaw dropped open and a piece of pickled onion fell out. I had to move quickly to dodge it. “Two-headed men and weirdos like that?”

  “Sort of,” I said, “but our performers are magical, wonderful artists, not just people who look different.”

  “Cool!” He glanced at Evra. “Of course, I could see from the start that you were dermatologically challenged” — he was talking about Evra’s skin (I looked the word up in a dictionary later) — “but I had no idea there might be other members like you among your company.”

  He looked over toward the camp, eyes bright with curiosity. “This is most fascinating.” He sighed. “What other bizarre examples of the human form do your numbers include?”

  “If you mean, ‘What other sort of performers are there?’ the answer is tons,” I told him. “We have a bearded lady, of course.”

  “A wolf-man,” Evra said.

  “A man with two bellies,” I added.

  We went through the entire list, Evra mentioning some I’d never seen. The lineup of the Cirque Du Freak often changed. Performers came and went, depending on where the show was playing.

  Sam was very impressed and, for the first time since we’d met, had nothing to say. He listened silently, eyes wide, sucking on one of his pickled onions, shaking his head once in a while as though he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

  “It’s so cool,” he said when we finished. “You must be the luckiest guys on the planet. Living with real circus freaks, traveling the world, privy to solemn and magnificent secrets. I’d do anything to trade places with you. . . .”

  I smiled to myself. I don’t think he would have liked to trade places with me, not if he knew the full story.

  “Hey!” he said. “Could you help me join? I’m a hard worker and I’m really smart. I’d be an asset. Could I join? As an assistant? Please?”

  Evra and me smiled at each other.

  “I don’t think so, Sam,” Evra said. “We don’t take on many guys our age. If you were older, or if your parents wanted to join, that would be different.”

  “But they wouldn’t mind,” Sam insisted. “They’d be delighted for me. They’re always saying travel broadens the mind. They’d love the idea of me going around the world, having adventures, seeing marvelous, mystical sights.”

  Evra shook his head. “Sorry. Maybe when you’re older.”

  Sam pouted and kicked some leaves off a nearby branch. They floated down over me and a few stuck in my hair.

  “It’s not fair,” he grumbled. “People always say ‘when you’re older.’ Where would the world be if Alexander the Great had waited until he was older? And how about Joan of Arc? If she’d waited until she was older, the English might have conquered and colonized France. Who decides when someone’s old enough to make decisions for himself? It should come down to the individual.”

  He ranted on for a while longer, complaining about adults and the “corrupt frigging system” and about the time being ripe for a young people’s revolution. It was like listening to a crazy politician on TV.

  “If a kid wants to open a candy factory, let him open one,” Sam stormed. “If he wants to be
come a football star, fine. If he wants to be an explorer and set off for strange, cannibal-populated islands, okay! We’re the slaves of the modern generation. We’re —”

  “Sam,” Evra interrupted. “Do you want to come see my snake?”

  Sam broke out into a smile. “Do I?” he yelled. “I thought you’d never ask. C’mon, let’s go.” Leaping down out of the tree, he ran for the campsite as fast as he could, speeches forgotten. We followed slowly, laughing, feeling a whole lot older and wiser than we were.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Sam thought the snake was the coolest thing he’d ever seen. He wasn’t at all scared and didn’t hesitate to wrap her around his neck like a scarf. He asked a bunch of questions: How long was she, what did she eat, how often did she shed her skin, where was she from, how fast could she move?

  Evra answered all of Sam’s questions. He was a snake expert. There wasn’t a thing he didn’t know about the serpent kingdom. He was even able to tell Sam roughly how many scales the snake had!

  We gave Sam a guided tour of the campsite after that. We took him to see the wolf-man (Sam was pretty quiet outside of the hairy wolf-man’s van, totally frightened by the snarling creature inside). We introduced him to Hans Hands. Then we ran into Rhamus Twobellies practicing his act. Evra asked if we could watch, and Rhamus let us. Sam’s eyes almost popped out of his head when he saw Rhamus chew a glass into tiny pieces, swallow it, piece it back together inside his belly, and bring it up his throat and out his mouth.

  I was going to grab Madam Octa and show Sam some of the tricks I could do with her, but I didn’t feel too great. The lack of human blood in my diet was getting to me; my stomach grumbled a lot, no matter how much food I ate, and I sometimes got sick or had to sit down suddenly. I didn’t want to faint or get sick with the tarantula out of her cage; I knew from experience how deadly she could be if you lost control of her for even a couple of seconds.

  Sam would have stayed forever, but it was getting dark and I knew Mr. Crepsley would be waking soon. Evra and me had jobs to do, so we told him it was time he went home.