Chapter 1

Most of the time I spent hoping for something different, something exciting, or as I put it, something better in life. It wasn't as if my life was at all bad, but I just found it dull. As much as Iwent along with my general day to day living, I clung to the desperate notion that one day something would change my life.

As far as I was concerned, I was doing my exams just to pass the time until a friend got bitten by a poisonous spider and I had to drop everything and become a vampire's assistant. I was the sort of person who, when out with friends, would point out every ginger guy they saw in the hope it was Mr Crepsley, or if I heard a noise late at night, would whisper "Larten?" y'know, just in case.

Of course I told my friends all of this, and we would joke about it all the time, them being fans of Cirque du Freak too and all, but I don't think they actually believed any of it. It was just a story to them, and I think if I had ever told them how strongly I believed it was true, they would have thought I was crazy.

Yet there was always this little voice at the back of my head saying "But the thing is Lynsey, you are crazy. When you are 40 years old and working in lidl, just think back to how you wasted half your life dreaming about imaginary ginger vampires and lame freak shows, and I bet you won't be impressed."

And because of that voice, when I did see a ginger guy, I would think "you're not going to see Mr Crepsley out in broad daylight now are you? And he doesn't even have the scar!", and when I heard a noise, I would find the source of it, and I would know it wasn't Larten at all, but the pipes, or a floorboard.

Except one day, I came across something that couldn't be rationally explained, and that voice in my head telling me there was no such thing as vampires and vampaneze was silenced forever.

We were in a café when we saw him. We don't normally go to cafés. That's my thing. Normally my friends want to go somewhere like McDonalds or Greggs, one of those big chain high street take away places, but I prefer a little home run café where the waitress is the owner and she lets you off if you're short of 5p because you're a regular. And just this once, my friend Marina decided to humour me, perhaps because I was feeling less cheapskatey than usual and decided to pay for lunch, so we sat down in Bradley's Diner for a cuppa and a bite to eat.

Marina got up to order, and she yelled over at me from by the counter "Oi Lynsey! What d'you want pet?" "Ive no idea!" I shouted back. "Tell me what there is!" All the various people inside the diner were starting to give us disapproving looks, so sighing, I got up to go and read the menu board. As I reached into my bag to take my purse out and pay, I realised I had left it at the table. "Eee ive forgot my purse, one sec i'll just go and get..." I tailed off as I realised somebody was now sitting at our table.

More specifically, a guy with hardly natural orange hair, and with a red shirt. Marina nudged me, as I knew she would. "Hey Lyndsey, I DARE you to go ask that guy if he's called Larten." "But what if he reads Darren Shan? He's going to think I am mad!" Laughing, I shook my head at her and set off in the direction of table 11. That's just something about me, I will go and talk to strangers, also, I never back down from a dare.

As I approached the table, I coughed, to get his attention. "Erm pet, you do know that me and my friend are sitting here right?", and before he could answer, I blurted out "Is your name Larten by any chance?" As soon as the words had left my mouth I realised how lame it actually sounded, and I started to come up with excuses for why I had said that, such as I had mistaken him for a celebrity, or he looked like a friend of my brother (not that I had a brother, or a sister for that matter!), but I never got a chance to use them, for what he actually said was "Yes it is."

My breath caught in my throat. "Larten Crepsley?" I couldn't think of anything else to say to be honest. He nodded briskly. Marina hovered nearby, looking uncertain. I could tell the type of thoughts running through her mind, for they were running through mine too. Was he joking? Should I presume he's a vampire? What should I say next? Luckily neither of us got the chance to potentially make a fool of ourselves, for his next words and actions left us with no doubts whatsoever about him.

He held out his hand for me to shake (oh how formal!), my eyes glanced down at the ten scars on his fingertips, but I quickly looked back up again as he said "Tell me, Lynsey. What do you and your comrade know of vampires and vampaneze?" I told myself to stay calm, and whispered "Well you're here, so apparently, too much." "Do not act clever with me, Lynsey, but yes, you are correct, you do know too much. I do not know why you know my name, or how you recognised me, but let me tell you this: In two days, I will be posing as a teacher at Ashworth School." I nodded uncertainly, unsure of where he was going with this.

"And you two, you will be posing as students of the school." "But Crepsley, we ARE students of the school? I don't get it?" asked Marina. "Oh, would you like me to rephrase that statement?" a smug smile spread across Mr Crepsley's face. "You will be posing as human students of the school, and you will not be in that category for much longer."

I froze. This was the moment I had anticipated all my life, yet it didn't seem to be as appealing as I had always thought. I had frequently feared I would be like Steve, that I would beg
Mr Crepsley to blood me, then I would have bad blood and he would reject me. I never once thought that I would be at all scared to abandon my human life. "Why us?" Marina broke
the silence that had fallen. "Maybe I thought you have the potential to be great assistants to me. Or maybe, it is your destiny." And with that, he left the café, leaving us no choice but to follow.

I say no choice, some people would have fled and never looked back, but me and Marina, we knew that we had to do this. I suppose him leaving was a sort of test, seeing whether we had the courage to go ahead with what we knew was the inevitable. And we did. Have the courage I mean. Ten minutes later we had well and truly left half our humanity behind. Mr Crepsley had blooded us, and things would never be the same again.