Prologue
My name is Darren Shan. I used to be a normal, human boy. That changed after I went to a freak show with my best friend Steven. One of the performers, Mr. Crepsley turned out to be a vampire. Steven asked him to turn him into a vampire, but Mr. Crepsley refused because Steven had bad blood. Later I stole Mr. Crepsley 's performing and deadly poisonous spider. The spider bit my friend Steven and in order to save him, I had to become a half-vampire and Mr. Crepsley 's assistant. Steven thought Mr. Crepsley and I had planned this all and swore to hunt me and Mr. Crepsley down to kill us.
I had a lot of difficulties adjusting to my life as a half-vampire. I missed my family, my friends, having nobody else but Mr. Crepsley, whom I hated for what he'd done to me. To make up for that a little bit, he decided we'd join the Cirque Du Freak, the freak show I went to see with Steven. I had great times there. Helping Mr. Crepsley perform with Madam Octa, the performing spider, doing chores with my best friend Evra Von, a snake boy. Eventually I got used to my non-human life.
But then Mr. Crepsley and I had to go to Vampire Mountain, to go to the Council, which was held every 12 years. Two little people joined us on the journey. Little People were servants from Mr. Tiny, a weird guy, who was said to have a lot of power and whose name formed Destiny if you shortened his first name. One of the little people died on the way to Vampire Mountain. The other, Harkat Mulds told us he had a message for the vampire princes.
The message said that a vampaneze lord would rise. The vampaneze used to be normal vampires but they tore themselves away from them because of different ideas. Vampaneze always kill when they drink blood, something vampires think is barbarous. Vampaneze have purple skins, hair and nails because of the huge amounts of blood they drink. If this vampaneze lord would rise, there'd be a war between vampaneze and vampires, which the vampires would lose. They'd be wiped out forever. There was only one chance left, namely three vampires would have three chances to kill the vampaneze lord. If they succeeded, vampires would survive. Mr. Crepsley and I turned out to be two of those vampires, so we went on our way where the vampire prince Vancha March joined us on our hunt for the vampaneze lord. By the way, at that time, I was a Vampire Prince myself already too. When I first got to vampire mountain, I had to prove that I was a worthy vampire by fulfilling five trials. I didn't succeed in the fourth one, so I had to be killed. But instead I ran away and discovered the presence of vampaneze in Vampire Mountain. I went back to warn the vampires about this. The vampaneze were defeated and everyone agreed that I had to be saved because I warned them about the vampaneze. But the rules were clear: if you failed a trial, you had to be killed. The only way to save me, was to make me a Vampire Prince.
Later on, it turned out that Steven, my former best friend, was the Vampaneze Lord. a huge fight broke loose in which Steven and I killed each other.
I know I was killed, because I saw a glimpse of paradise, the place where vampires go when they die and if they lived well. I saw my old friends, who'd died, but then I was torn away from that place and returned to earth. Apparently, my time hadn't come yet.
I returned to Vampire Mountain, to take place on my throne again, where, years later, I still am. However, whether I'll still be here for long, I don't know. For I decided to finish that, which I failed to do years ago: the Trials of Initiation. I'll prove that I'm a worthy prince and if I fail again, I won't run away this time!