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

The Generals with Debbie and Alice left them eventually, to resume the fight against the vampaneze — all hands were needed in the War of the Scars. A couple kept in touch, meeting up with them every month or two, monitoring their progress. But most of the time the ladies of the shadows — as the vampirites referred to them — travelled alone, choosing places where the vampaneze were active, recruiting fervently.

They'd come to my home town a fortnight ago. There'd been many reports of vampaneze here, and a band of vampirites had already formed to combat them. Debbie and Alice came to raise morale, and also to spread awareness among the street folk. That task accomplished, they'd planned to move on soon. Then I'd turned up, beaten and bleeding, and their plans changed.

I rubbed my right shoulder as I shuffled to the secret room. Alice had removed the arrowhead and stitched me up. The wound had healed cleanly, but it still stung like crazy, and I was a long way off full recovery.

Alice and Harkat moved the furniture which helped mask the entrance to the hidden room at the rear of the house. Then Alice pressed a secret panel and a section of wall slid back to reveal a cramped cell. There was a very dim light set in one of the walls.

"They searched the house thoroughly last time," Alice reminded me, checking that the jug beside the mattress on the floor was filled with water. "You could be in for another long stay."

"I'll be fine," I said, lying down.

"Hold on!" I heard Debbie shout, as Alice was about to close the section of wall on me. She came hurrying to the entrance, carrying a small bag. "I've been waiting until you were strong enough to give this to you. It will help pass the time."

"What is it?" I asked, taking the bag.

"You'll see," Debbie replied, blowing me a kiss and stepping back as the cell was closed off. I waited a minute for my eyes to adjust to the dim light, then reached inside the bag and pulled out several notepads bound together by an elastic band. I broke into a smile — my diary! I'd forgotten it entirely. Now that I cast my thoughts back, I recalled handing the notepads to Alice before leaving with Harkat two years earlier.

I slipped the elastic band off the pads, thumbed through the copy on top, then paused, upended the diary, and went back eighteen years to before I sneaked out to the Cirque Du Freak and met Mr Crepsley. Within minutes I was adrift in the past, and the hours flew by as I focused on my scrawled writing, aware of nothing else.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

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Once I got the all clear, I returned to my bedroom and spent the next couple of days bringing my diary up to date. I'd soon filled out the most recent notepad, so Debbie brought me fresh writing material. I wrote all about my adventures with Harkat in the barren wasteland which seemed to be the world of the future. I described my fears, that the world might face destruction regardless of who won the War of the Scars, and that I might be in some way linked to the fall of mankind. I told about discovering Harkat's true identity and returning home. A quick rundown of our recent travels with the Cirque Du Freak. Then the latest cruel chapter, in which Tommy died and I learnt that Steve had a son.

I hadn't thought much about Tommy since that night. I knew the police were scouring the city in search of his killers, and that R.V. and Morgan James had killed eight others and wounded many more in the stadium. But I didn't know what the general public made of the murders, or if I'd been identified as a suspect — maybe Steve was setting me up to take the blame for this.

I asked Debbie to bring me all the local papers from the last few days. There were poor pictures of R.V. (full-vampaneze couldn't be photographed, but R.V.'s molecular system must not have changed yet) and Morgan James, but none of me. There was a brief mention of the incident outside the ground, when I'd been attacked, but the police didn't seem to place much importance on it or link it with the stadium murders.

"Were you close to him?" Debbie asked, tapping a photo of a smiling Tommy Jones. She was sitting on the end of my bed, watching me while I read the papers. She'd been spending a lot of time with me during my recovery, nursing me, chatting with me, telling me about her life.

"We were good friends when we were kids," I sighed.

"Do you think he knew about Steve or the vampaneze?" Debbie asked.

"No. He was an innocent victim. I'm sure of it."

"But didn't he say he had something important to tell you?"

I shook my head. "He said there were things we had to discuss about Steve, but he wasn't specific. I don't think it had anything to do with this."

"It scares me," Debbie said, taking the paper from me and folding it over.

"You're scared because they killed Tommy?" I frowned.