Hunters of the Dusk (6 page)

“Humans always chatter like monkeys,” Mr. Crepsley said. “It is their way.”

I used to object when he said things like that, but not any more. When I became Mr. Crepsley’s assistant, I’d clung to the hope of returning to my old life. I’d dreamed of regaining my humanity and going home to my family and friends. No longer. My years in Vampire Mountain had rid me of my human desires. I was a creature of the night now — and content to be so.

The itching was getting worse. Before leaving town, I found a pharmacy and bought several anti-itching powders and lotions, which I rubbed into my flesh. The powders and lotions brought no relief. Nothing stopped the itching, and I scratched myself irritably as we journeyed to the cave of Lady Evanna.

Mr. Crepsley wouldn’t say much about the woman we were going to meet, where she lived, whether she was a vampire or human, and why we were going to see her.

“You should tell me these things,” I grumbled one morning as we made camp. “What if something happens to you? How would Harkat and me find her?”

Mr. Crepsley stroked the long scar running down the left side of his face — after all our years together, I still didn’t know how he got it — and nodded thoughtfully. “You are right. I will draw a map before nightfall.”

“And tell us who she is?”

He hesitated. “That is harder to explain. It might be best coming from her own lips. Evanna tells different people different things. She might not object to you knowing the truth — but then again, she might.”

“Is she an inventor?” I pressed. Mr. Crepsley owned a collection of pots and pans that folded up into tiny bundles, making them easier to carry. He’d told me that Evanna had made them.

“She sometimes invents,” he said. “She is a woman of many talents. Much of her time is spent breeding frogs.”

I blinked. “Excuse me?” I said.

“It is her hobby. Some people breed horses, dogs, or cats. Evanna breeds frogs.”

“How can she breed frogs?” I said with a snort. “You will find out.” Then he leaned forward and tapped my knee. “Whatever you say, do not call her a witch.”

“Why would I call her a witch?” I asked. “Because she is one — sort of.”

“We’re going to meet a
witch?
” Harkat snapped worriedly.

“That troubles you?” Mr. Crepsley asked.

“Sometimes in my dreams . . . there’s a witch. I’ve never seen her face — not clearly — and I’m not sure . . . if she’s good or bad. There are times when I run to her for help, and times . . . when I run away, afraid.”

“You haven’t mentioned that before,” I said. Harkat’s smile was shaky. “With all the dragons, stakes, and shadow men . . . what’s one little witch?”

The mention of dragons reminded me of something he’d said when we met Mr. Tiny. He’d called him “the dragon master.” I asked Harkat about this but he couldn’t remember saying it. “Although,” he mused, “I sometimes see Mr. Tiny in my dreams, riding the . . . backs of dragons. Once he tore the brain out of one and . . . tossed it at me. I reached to catch it but . . . woke before I could.”

We thought about that image a long time. Vampires place a lot of importance on dreams. Many believe that dreams act as links to the past or future, and that much can be learned from them. But Harkat’s dreams didn’t seem to have any relation to reality, and in the end Mr. Crepsley and me dismissed them, rolled over, and slept. Harkat didn’t — he stayed awake, green eyes glowing faintly, putting off sleep as long as he could, avoiding the dragons, stakes, witches, and other dangers of his nightmares.

CHAPTER NINE

O
NE DUSK
I
AWOKE
with a feeling of absolute comfort. As I stared up at a red, darkening sky, I tried to think why I felt so good. Then I realized — the itching had stopped. I lay still a few minutes, afraid it would return if I moved, but when I finally got to my feet, there wasn’t the slightest prickling sensation. Grinning, I headed for a small pond we’d camped by, to wet my throat.

I lowered my face into the cool, clear water of the pond and drank deeply. As I was rising, I noticed an unfamiliar face in the reflecting surface of the water — a long-haired, bearded man. It was directly in front of me, which meant he must be standing right behind me — but I hadn’t heard anyone approach.

Swiveling swiftly, my hand shot to the sword that I’d brought from Vampire Mountain. I had it halfway out of its scabbard before stopping, confused.

There was no one there.

I looked around for the shabby, bearded man, but he was nowhere to be seen. There were no nearby trees or rocks he could have ducked behind, and not even a vampire could have moved quickly enough to disappear so swiftly.

I turned back toward the pond and looked into the water again. There he was! As clear and hairy as before, scowling up at me.

I gave a yelp and jumped back from the water’s edge. Was the bearded man
in
the pond? If so, how was he breathing?

Stepping forward, I locked gazes with the hairy man — he looked like a caveman — for the third time and smiled. He smiled back. “Hello,” I said. His lips moved when mine did, but silently. “My name’s Darren Shan.” Again his lips moved in time with mine. I was getting annoyed — was he making fun of me? — when the realization struck. It was
me!

I could see my eyes and the shape of my mouth now that I looked closely, and the small triangular scar just above my right eye, which had become as much a part of me as my nose or ears. It was my face, no doubt about that — but where had all the hair come from?

I felt around my chin and discovered a thick bushy beard. Running my right hand over my head — which should have been smooth — I was stunned to feel long, thick locks of hair. My thumb, which stuck out at an angle, caught in several of the strands, and I winced as I tugged it free, pulling some hair out with it.

What in Khledon Lurt’s name had happened to me? I checked further. Ripping off my T-shirt revealed a chest and stomach covered in hair. Huge balls of hair had also formed under my armpits and over my shoulders. I was hairy all over!

“Charna’s guts!”
I roared, then ran to wake my friends.

Mr. Crepsley and Harkat were breaking camp when I rushed up, panting and shouting. The vampire took one look at my hairy figure, whipped out a knife, and roared at me to stop. Harkat stepped up beside him, a grim expression on his face. As I halted, gasping for breath, I saw they didn’t recognize me. Raising my hands to show they were empty, I croaked, “Don’t . . . attack! It’s . . . me!”

Mr. Crepsley’s eyes widened.
“Darren?”

“It can’t be,” Harkat growled. “This is an impostor.”

“No!” I moaned. “I woke up, went to the pond to drink, and found . . . found . . .” I shook my hairy arms at them.

Mr. Crepsley stepped forward, sheathed his knife, and studied my face. Then he groaned. “The
purge!
” he muttered.

“The
what?
” I shouted.

“Sit down, Darren,” Mr. Crepsley said seriously. “We have a lot of talking to do. Harkat — go fill our canteens and fix a new fire.”

When Mr. Crepsley had gathered his thoughts, he explained to Harkat and me what was happening. “You know that half-vampires become full-vampires when more vampire blood is pumped into them. What we have never discussed — since I did not anticipate it so soon — is the other way in which one’s blood can turn.

“Basically, if one remains a half-vampire for an extremely long period of time — the average is forty years — one’s vampire cells eventually attack the human cells and convert them, resulting in full-vampirism. We call this the purge.”

“You mean I’ve become a full-vampire?” I asked quietly, both excited and frightened at the idea. Excited because it would mean extra strength, the ability to flit and communicate telepathically. Frightened because it would also mean a total retreat from daylight and the world of humanity.

“Not yet,” Mr. Crepsley said. “The hair is simply the first stage. We shall shave it off presently, and though it will grow back, it will stop after a month or so. You will undergo other changes during that time — you will grow, and experience headaches and sharp bursts of energy — but these too will cease. At the end of the changes, your vampiric blood may have replaced your human blood entirely, but it probably will not, and you will return to normal — for a few months or a couple of years. But sometime within the next few years, your blood
will
turn completely. You have entered the final stages of half-vampirism. There is no turning back.”

We spent most of the rest of the night discussing the purge. Mr. Crepsley said it was rare for a half-vampire to experience the purge after less than twenty years, but it was probably because I’d become a Vampire Prince — more vampiric blood had been added to my veins during the ceremony, and that must have sped up the process.

I remembered Seba studying me in the tunnels of Vampire Mountain, and told Mr. Crepsley about it. “He must have known about the purge,” I said. “Why didn’t he warn me?”

“It was not his place,” Mr. Crepsley said. “As your mentor, I am responsible for informing you. I am sure he would have told me about it, so that I could have sat down with you and explained it, but there was no time — Mr. Tiny arrived and we had to leave the Mountain.”

“You said Darren would grow during . . . the purge,” Harkat said. “How much?”

“There is no telling,” Mr. Crepsley said. “Potentially, he could mature to adulthood in the space of a few months — but that is unlikely. He shall age a few years, but probably no more.”

“You mean I’ll finally hit my teens?” I asked.

“I would imagine so.”

I thought about that for a while, then grinned. “Cool!”

But the purge was far from cool — it was a curse! Shaving off all the hair was bad enough — Mr. Crepsley used a long, sharp blade, which scraped my skin raw — but the changes my body was undergoing were much worse. Bones were lengthening and fusing. My nails and teeth grew — I had to bite my nails and grind my teeth together while I walked at night to keep them in shape — and my feet and hands got longer. Within weeks I was two inches taller, aching all over from growing pains.

My senses were in confusion. Slight sounds were magnified — the snapping of a twig was like a house collapsing. The dullest of smells set my nose tingling. My sense of taste left me completely. Everything tasted like cardboard. I began to understand what life must be like for Harkat and made a resolution never to tease him about his lack of taste buds again.

Even dim lights were blinding to my ultra-sensitive eyes. The moon was like a fierce spotlight in the sky, and if I opened my eyes during the day, I might as well have been sticking two hot pins into them — the inside of my head would flare with a metallic pain.

“Is this what sunlight is like for full-vampires?” I asked Mr. Crepsley one day, as I shivered beneath a thick blanket, eyes shut tight against the painful rays of the sun.

“Yes,” he said. “That is why we avoid even short periods of exposure to daylight. The pain of sunburn is not especially great — not for the first ten or fifteen minutes — but the glare of the sun is instantly unbearable.”

I suffered immense headaches during the purge, a result of my out-of-control senses. There were times when I thought my head was going to explode, and I’d weep helplessly from the pain.

Mr. Crepsley helped me fight the dizzying effects. He bound light strips of cloth across my eyes — I could still see pretty well — and stuffed balls of grass into my ears and up my nostrils. That was uncomfortable, and I felt ridiculous — Harkat’s howls of laughter didn’t help — but the headaches lessened.

Another side effect was a fierce surge of energy. I felt as if I were operating on batteries. I had to run ahead of Mr. Crepsley and Harkat at night, then double back to meet them, just to tire myself out. I exercised like crazy every time we stopped — push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups — and usually woke long before Mr. Crepsley, unable to sleep more than a couple of hours at a time. I climbed trees and cliffs, and swam across rivers and lakes, all in an effort to use up my unnatural store of energy. I’d have wrestled an elephant if I’d found one!

Finally, after six weeks, the turmoil ceased. I stopped growing. I didn’t have to shave any more (though the hair on my head remained — I was no longer bald!). I removed the cloth and grass balls, and my taste returned, although patchily to begin with.

I was about three inches taller than I’d been when the purge hit me, and noticeably broader. The skin on my face had hardened, giving me a slightly older appearance — I looked like a fifteen- or sixteen-year-old now.

Most importantly — I was still a half-vampire. The purge hadn’t eliminated my human blood cells. The downside was that I’d have to undergo the discomfort of the purge again in the future. On the plus side I could continue to enjoy sunlight for the time being, before having to abandon it forever in favor of the night.

Although I was eager to become a full-vampire, I’d miss the daytime world. Once my blood turned, there was no going back. I accepted that, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous. This way, I had months — perhaps a year or two — to prepare myself for the change.

I’d outgrown my clothes and shoes, so I had to buy some at a small human outpost (we were leaving civilization behind again). In an army surplus shop, I chose clothing similar to my old stuff, adding a couple of purple shirts to my blue ones, and a dark green pair of pants. As I was paying for the clothes, a tall, lean man entered. He was wearing a brown shirt, black pants, and a baseball cap. “I need supplies,” he muttered at the man serving behind the counter, tossing a list at him.

“You’ll need a license for the guns,” the shopkeeper said, running an eye over the scrap of paper.

“I’ve got one.” The man was reaching into a shirt pocket when he caught sight of my hands and stiffened. I was holding my new clothes across my chest, and the scars on my fingertips — where I’d been blooded by Mr. Crepsley — were clear.

The man relaxed instantly and turned away — but I was sure he’d recognized the scars and knew what I was. Hurrying from the shop, I found Mr. Crepsley and Harkat on the edge of town and told them what had happened.