DARREN SHAN - Shan, Darren - Cirque Du Freak 11 - Lord of the Shadows

Vancha was dubious, but he slipped off his belts of throwing stars and tossed them aside. Debbie threw her pistols away and so, reluctantly, did Alice. Harkat only had an axe, which he laid down on the floor beside him. I kept my knife to Darius's throat.

Steve stepped out from behind the log. He was grinning. I felt a great temptation to throw my knife at him � I might just have been able to strike him from this distance � but I didn't. As a Vampire Prince, and one of the hunters of the Vampaneze Lord, I should have. But I couldn't risk missing and enraging Steve. He'd kill Shancus if I did.

"Out you come, boys," Steve said. Gannen Harst and R.V. emerged from behind their logs, R.V. shoving the bound Shancus ahead of him. Gannen Harst was typically grim-faced, but R.V. was smiling. At first I thought it was a mocking smile, but then I realized it was a smile of relief � he was delighted he hadn't been called upon to kill the snake-boy. R.V. was a twisted, bitter, crazy man, but I saw then that he wasn't entirely evil � not like Steve.

"I'll take the reptile," Steve said, reaching for Shancus. "You go get the plank and extend it across the pit."

R.V. handed Shancus to Steve and retreated to the rear of the stage. He started dragging a long plank forward. It was awkward for him � he couldn't get a decent grip, because of the hooks Mr Tall had torn off. Gannen went to help him, keeping one eye on us. The pair began feeding the plank across the pit, letting it rest on blunt-tipped stakes, which I could now see had been placed there specifically for this purpose.

Steve watched us like a hawk while R.V. and Gannen were busy with the plank. He was holding Shancus in front of him, stroking the snake-boy's long green hair. I didn't like the way he was looking at us � I felt as though we were being X-rayed � but I said nothing, willing R.V. and Gannen to hurry up with the plank.

Steve's eyes lingered on Evra a long moment � he was smiling hopefully, hands half-reaching out to his son � then settled on me. He stopped stroking Shancus's hair and gently placed a hand on either side of his head. "Remember the games we played when we were children?" he asked craftily.

"What games?" I frowned. I had a terrible feeling � a sense of total doom � but I could do nothing but follow his lead.

"'Dare' games," Steve said, and something in his voice made R.V. and Gannen pause and look around. Steve's face was expressionless, but his eyes were alive with insane glee. "One of us would say, 'I dare you to do this,' and stick his hand in a fire or jab a pin in his leg. The other would have to copy him. Remember?"

"No!" I moaned. I knew what was coming. I knew I couldn't stop it. I knew I'd been a fool and made a fool's mistake � I'd assumed Steve was even the slightest bit human.

"I dare you to do this, Darren," Steve whispered dreadfully. Before I could reply � before anything else could happen � he seized Shancus's head tightly and twisted it sharply to the left, then the right. Shancus's neck snapped. Steve dropped him. Shancus fell to the floor. Steve had killed him.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

�^

Steve's act of pure, pointlessevil caught everyone by gut-wrenching shock. For a long moment we just stared at him and the lifeless body by his feet. Even Steve looked stunned, as though he'd acted without thinking it through.

Then Evra went wild. "Bastard!" he screamed, hurling himself at the pit of stakes. If Harkat hadn't reacted and knocked him aside, Evra would have impaled himself on the stakes and died like his son.

"I can't believe�" Alice muttered, face whiter than usual. Then her features hardened and she ran for the pistol she'd discarded.

Debbie sank to her knees, weeping, unable to deal with such wickedness. As hardened as she'd become, nothing in her life had prepared her for this.

Harkat was struggling with Evra, pinning him down, protecting him from his rage. Evra was screaming hysterically and pounding Harkat's broad grey face with his scaly fists, but Harkat held firm.

Vancha was at the pit of stakes, lurching through them, clambering over the sharpened tips, driving towards the stage like a man possessed.

R.V. and Gannen Harst were staring at Steve, jaws slack.

Evanna was looking on silently. If the murder had shocked her, she was masking it incredibly well.

Darius was stiff with terror, holding his breath, eyes wide.

I was still behind Darius, my knife at his throat. I was the calmest of everyone there (except Evanna). Not because I was in any way unaffected by what had happened, but because I knew what I must do in retaliation. The fierce, hard, hating part within me had flared to life and taken over completely. I saw the world through differenteyes . It was a dreadful, wicked place, where only the dreadful and wicked could prosper. To defeat an evil monster like Steve, I had to sink to his depths myself. Mr Crepsley had warned me not to, but he was wrong. What did it matter if I followed Steve down the road of total evil? Stopping him � getting revenge for all the people he'd killed � was the only thing I cared about now.

While I was thinking all this through, Gannen snapped to his senses and saw that Vancha was closing on them. He hurried to his Lord, grabbed Steve by the right arm and spun him towards the exit, cursing foully. R.V. rose shakily and stumbled after them. He stopped, vomited, then reeled ahead.

Alice found her pistol, brought it up and fired. But there were too many logs between her and the vampaneze. She didn't even get close to them.

Steve stopped by the tunnel entrance at the rear of the stage. Gannen tried to push him downit , but he shook his protector's hands away and turned to glare triumphantly � daringly � at me.

"Go on!" Steve screamed. "Show me you can do it! I dare you! I double dare you!"

In that moment, as if our minds were somehow joined, I understood Steve entirely. Part of him was appalled by his brutality. He was hanging dangerously on the edge of outright madness. As the monster within me had grown this night, so had the human within Steve. He needed me to match his evil deeds. If I killed Darius, Steve could justify his cruelty and continue. But if I didn't respond to his evil with an equally evil act of my own, it would drive home the truth about how far he'd fallen. He might even snap beneath the weight of full realization and go mad. I had the power to destroy him � with mercy.

But I couldn't find mercy within myself. The fires of fury in my heart and head demanded I kill Darius. Right or wrong, I had to avenge Shancus's death. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life. Out of the corner of one eye I caught sight of Evanna. Her gaze was locked on me. There was no pity in her expression, merely the weariness of one who has seen all the evils of the world and must watch them repeat themselves over and over again.

"Dare accepted," I said, abandoning myself to my dark destiny, knowing in that moment that I was betraying all my moral beliefs. This was the start of the path to damnation. If I defeated Steve, Iwould become the Lord of the Shadows, and in the long, blood-red decades and centuries ahead, I'd be able to point back to this night and say, "That was where the monster was born."

I began to draw my knife across Darius's throat. This time Debbie didn't try to stop me � she sensed my damnation, and was powerless to save me. But then I paused. The throat was too impersonal a target. I wanted Steve to reallyfeel this.

Lowering the knife, I cut away Darius's shirt, revealing his bare, pale chest. I positioned the tip of the knife over his heart and gazed at Steve, no longer blinking against the searing lights, my eyes dark, my lips tight over my teeth.

Steve's expression steadied. The beast within him had seen its mirror image in me, and was satisfied. He drew back from the madness, becoming his cold, crafty, calculating self again. He smiled.