Cirque du Freak: the vampire's assistant by Darren Shan

Author:Darren Shan
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Vampires, Fiction:Young Adult, Horror, Crepsley, Fiction, Larten (Fictitious character), Freak shows
ISBN: 9780316606103
Publisher: Hachette Digital, Inc.
Published: 2001-01-15T09:41:52+00:00

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The next few days went by lazily. Evra and me were kept busy with our chores and with feeding the Little People. I’d tried talking to a couple of the silent blue-hooded creatures, but none of them looked at me when I spoke.

It was impossible to tell them apart. One stood out because he — or she (or it) — was taller than the others, and one was shorter, and another limped on his left leg. But the rest looked exactly alike.

Sam was helping out more and more around the camp. We didn’t take him with us when we went hunting, but we let him pitch in with most of our other jobs. He was a hard worker, determined to impress us and earn himself a full-time position with the Cirque.

I didn’t see much of Mr. Crepsley. He knew I had to be up early to hunt for the Little People’s food, so he left me alone most of the time. I was happy that way; I didn’t want him bugging me about drinking human blood.

Then Cormac Limbs arrived early one morning, which caused great excitement.

“You’ve got to see this guy,” Evra said, dragging me behind him. “He’s the most amazing performer who ever lived.”

There was already a large crowd around Cormac when we arrived at Mr. Tall’s van (where he reported in to). People were slapping him on the back and asking what he’d been up to and where he’d been. He smiled at everybody, shook hands, and answered questions. He might have been a star, but he wasn’t big-headed.

“Evra Von!” he shouted when he saw the snake-boy. He reached over and gave Evra a hug. “How’s my favorite two-legged reptile?”

“Fine,” Evra said.

“Have you shed your skin lately?” Cormac asked. “Not recently,” Evra said.

“Remember,” Cormac said, “I want it when you do. It’s valuable. Human snakeskin is worth more than gold in some countries.”

“You can have as much of it as you like,” Evra assured him. Then he pushed me forward. “Cormac, this is Darren Shan, a friend of mine. He’s new at the Cirque and hasn’t seen you before.”

“Never seen Cormac Limbs?!” Cormac shouted, pretending to be upset. “How can this be? I thought everybody in the world had seen the magnificent Cormac Limbs in action.”

“I’ve never even heard of you,” I told him.

He clutched his chest as though suffering a heart attack.

“What do you do?” I asked.

Cormac looked around at the crowd. “Should I give a demonstration?”

“Yeah!” they shouted eagerly.

Cormac looked at Mr. Tall, standing at the back of the crowd. Mr. Tall sighed and nodded. “You may as well,” he said. “They won’t leave you alone until you do.”

“All right then,” Cormac said. “Stand back and give me room.”

The crowd moved back immediately. I started to move with them, but Cormac laid a hand on my shoulder and told me to stay.

“Now,” he said to the crowd, “I’ve been traveling for a long time and I’m too tired to go through my entire routine, so we’ll keep this short and sweet.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.