Vampire Blood Trilogy. Darren Shan

it thought, and had learned to obey my commands almost before I finished sending them. I’d learned that she could work from the shortest of instructions: I only had to use a few words to prompt her into action.

      Steve watched the show in total silence. He nearly clapped a few times but caught himself before his hands could meet and produce a noise. Instead of clapping, he gave me the thumbs-up sign and mouthed the words “Great”, “Super”, “Brilliant” and so on.

      When the time came for Steve to take part in the act, I gave him the nod that we had agreed upon. He gulped, took a deep breath, then nodded back. He rose to his feet and stepped forward, keeping to the side so I wouldn’t lose sight of Madam Octa. Then he sank to his knees and waited.

      I played a new tune and sent a new set of orders. Madam Octa sat still, listening. When she knew what I wanted, she started creeping towards Steve. I saw him shivering and licking his lips. I was going to cancel the act and send the spider back to her cage, but then he stopped shaking and became calmer, so I continued.

      He gave a small shudder when she started crawling up the leg of his trousers, but that was a natural response. I still got the shakes sometimes when I felt her hairy legs brushing against my skin.

      I made Madam Octa crawl up the back of his neck and tickle his ears with her legs. He giggled softly and the last traces of his fear vanished. I felt more confident now that he was calmer, and so moved the spider round to the front of his face, where she built small cobwebs over his eyes and slid down his nose and bounced off his lips.

      Steve was enjoying it and so was I. There were lots of new things I was able to do now that I had a partner.

      She was on his right shoulder, preparing to slide down his arm, when the door opened and Annie walked in.

      Normally Annie never enters my room before knocking. She’s a great kid, not like other brats her age, and nearly always knocks politely and waits for a reply. But that evening, by sheer bad luck, she happened to barge in.

      “Hey, Darren, where’s my—” she started to say, then stopped. She saw Steve and the monstrous spider on his shoulder, its fangs glinting as though getting ready to bite, and she did the natural thing.

      She screamed.

      The sound alarmed me. My head turned, the flute slid from my lips, and my concentration snapped. My link to Madam Octa disintegrated. She shook her head, took a couple of quick steps closer to Steve’s throat, then bared her fangs and appeared to grin.

      Steve roared with fear and surged to his feet. He swiped at the spider, but she ducked and his hand missed. Before he could try again, Madam Octa lowered her head, quick as a snake, and sank her poison-tipped fangs deep into his neck!

       CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

      STEVE STIFFENED as soon as the spider bit him. His yells stopped dead in his throat, his lips turned blue, his eyes snapped wide open. For what seemed an eternity (though it couldn’t have been more than three or four seconds), he tottered on his feet. Then he crumpled to the floor like a scarecrow.

      The fall saved him. As with the goat at the Cirque Du Freak show, Madam Octa’s first bite knocked Steve out, but didn’t kill him straight off. I saw her moving along his neck before he fell, searching for the right spot, preparing for the second, killer bite.

      The fall disturbed her. She slipped from Steve’s neck and it took her a few seconds to climb back up.

      Those seconds were all I needed.

      I was in a state of shock, but the sight of her emerging over his shoulder like some terrible arachnid sunrise spurred me into life. I stooped for the flute, jammed it almost through the back of my throat, and blew the loudest note of my entire life.

      “STOP!” I screamed inside my head, and Madam Octa leapt about half a metre into the air.

      “Back inside the cage!” I commanded, and she hopped down from Steve’s body and sped across the floor. As soon as she passed the bars of the door, I lunged forward and slammed it shut.

      With Madam Octa taken care of, my attention turned to Steve. Annie was still screaming but I couldn’t worry about her until I’d seen to my poisoned friend.

      “Steve?” I asked, crawling close to his ear, praying for an answer. “Are you OK? Steve?” There was no reply. He was breathing, so I knew he was alive, but that was all. There was nothing else he could do. He couldn’t talk or move his arms. He wasn’t even able to blink.

      I became aware of Annie standing behind me. She’d stopped screaming but I could feel her shaking.

      “Is … is he … dead?” she asked in a tiny voice.

      “Of course not!” I snapped. “You can see him breathing, can’t you? Look at his belly and chest.”

      “But … why can’t he move?” she asked.

      “He’s paralysed,” I told her. “The spider injected him with poison which stops his limbs working. It’s like putting him to sleep, except his brain’s still active and he can see and hear everything.”

      I didn’t know if this was true. I hoped it was. If the poison had left the heart and lungs alone, it might also have skipped his brain. But if it had got into his skull …

      The thought was too terrible to consider.

      “Steve, I’m going to help you up,” I said. “I think if we move you around, the poison will wear off.”