Dedication
For:
Luca, Daniel and Jemima – children of the damned!
OBE (Order of the Bloody Entrails) to:
Paul Kenny, 40 years a scoundrel!!
Damnably edited by General Nick Lake!!!
The palace of Shan is admirably maintained by
Christopher Little and his “pretty things”!!!!
Contents
Title Page
Part One
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Part Two
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Part Three
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Part Four
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Part Five
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Other Books in the Series The Saga of Darren Shan
About the Publisher
CHAPTER ONE
A huffing Larten Crepsley mounted a treacherous, icy ridge and stared across a frozen sea of jagged peaks. He had visited most parts of the world in his decades as a vampire, but this was the harshest wilderness he’d ever experienced. A plateau of ice peppered with rocky outcrops. Whipping snow that could blind a man in minutes. Temperatures so low that each breath stung his throat and lungs. It was a hostile, alien, unforgiving landscape.
Larten threw back his head and howled with mad delight. He was loving this! There was no better place for a vampire to perish than in an area where no human would dare tread. This would make for a brutal, lonely death and he deserved nothing better. A fitting end for a savage killer.
The baby he was carrying moaned softly and shivered beneath the covering of the vampire’s shirt. Larten was holding him clasped in one arm, sheltered from the wind and snow as much as possible. He felt a stab of guilt at the baby’s cry and paused to puff a breath of warm air down the neck of his shirt. The boy gurgled happily, then shivered again.
Larten wished he’d left the baby behind. Taking him was an act of madness. He had done it to save the child from a cannibal, but he saw now how crazy he’d been. The boy had stood a chance on the ship, but was doomed for sure out here in this chilling realm of death.
“At least you will find Paradise,” Larten whispered, rubbing the baby’s back to keep him warm. “And my soul will not be there to trouble you.”
Every vampire dreamt of going to Paradise when he died. It was the reward at the end of the road to which every night-walker aspired. But Larten was sure he would never know that eternal peace. He had lost his mind on the ship and slaughtered the crew and passengers, including the baby’s parents. True, they had hung an innocent girl – poor, loyal Malora – but they’d thought she was a monster. (“Like me,” Larten croaked.) Their punishment far outweighed their crime.
A cruel wind cut through Larten and he staggered down the other side of the ridge. He had lost track of time in this barren land of ice. It felt like he had been wandering for days, but he suspected it was more like twelve hours. A vampire could survive a long time in conditions like these, but a human baby? Larten guessed the boy was close to the limits of his fragile form.
He considered backtracking, to return the baby to the ship, but he’d lost his way many hours earlier. Everything looked the same once you got away from the coast. He wouldn’t be able to find the rowboat again. Even if he did, the ship would have sailed on, and Larten had no idea in which direction the towns lay.
Towns! It was hard to believe anyone could live here, but there were areas along the coast where life was supported. If Larten knew how to find them, he would have taken the baby to the nearest homestead and left him to the mercy of the people within. But the towns could be anywhere. It was impossible to judge.
“You will have to die with me,” he mumbled, teeth chattering, orange hair caked with frost, eyes slit against the wind and snow. “But we will find a good place to perish. I can do that much right at least.”
Larten’s only concern now was to find a cave that could serve as the baby’s tomb. Larten didn’t care if he himself died in the open, to be buried in snow or torn apart by scavengers. But he wanted something better for the boy, a sheltered, quiet place where his remains wouldn’t be disturbed.
The wind roared around them and the temperature dropped. Larten hadn’t thought it could get any colder, but he was wrong. Even his vampire blood seemed poised to turn to ice in his veins. His exposed flesh was numb. His lips were drawn back from his teeth in a grimace. The scar on the left side of his face was blue from the chill. Only his chest was marginally warm, where the baby nestled beneath his shirt.
Larten slipped and almost collapsed on top of the boy, but managed to twist and fall on his side. He gasped from the shock of the cold impact. Part of him wanted to lie there and let nature take its course. If he had been alone, he might have stopped. It would have been easier than rising and pushing on. But there was the baby to consider, so he prepared himself to get up.
As he struggled to his feet, he caught sight of something pounding towards him. It was massive, white like the snow, almost invisible. If not for its dark eyes he would have missed it until it was upon him. He had seen polar bears before, but even if he hadn’t, he would have known this beast instantly. In the wastelands of the north, what else could it be?
Larten tore his shirt open, dropped the startled baby and leapt forward. The bear was female, not as large as some he’d seen, but still taller than Larten when erect. She looked scraggly and starved. An elderly sow, well past her prime. She had been tracking Larten for an hour. A more cunning creature would have waited even longer, until her prey was too weak to defend himself. But when she saw the man slip, her mouth watered and she could hold back no longer.
Larten threw himself at the bear as she reared up on two legs and bellowed at him. He was in worse shape than the sow, but he had a child to protect and that gave him a slight, desperate edge. He didn’t care what happened to him, but he wasn’t going to let this ferocious carnivore feast on the hot, steaming innards of the baby.
As the bear wrapped her limbs round Larten, he dug for her eyes with his thumbs. All vampires had hard, sharp nails, but Larten’s were longer and more jagged than usual, since he hadn’t