A/N: Hey guys, so I recently got the first six books of the Saga of Darren Shan and I've read the first four books and (after being appalled at how wrong the movie was) I began writing to try and get this story back on track to match it. Things will still be left out or altered but I'm going to try and match it as best I can.

Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Darren Shan or his characters and plotlines.

Chapter Six-The sheep murder fail

It's sickening. It really is. Animal blood. It is nothing compared to the sweet delicacy that is human blood. I can't drink any though. If I even have a single drop I won't be able to stop and I'll drain an innocent person dry. Why does fate have to be so cruel? Does thou not have something more important to do than be thou heartless bitch?

"She'll be under your authority," Mr. Tiny's voice sings in my ear that night as I try and sleep. "You shall be the Vampaneze Lord. A prince if you will, and she'll be your Princess."

Steve scoffs at this and folds his arms. "I think there's better people to be my Princess than her." Mr. Tiny quirks and eyebrow and smirks.

"I'm Des Tiny, I know everyone's destiny. And their feelings and emotions, and you may not know it now but your heart lies closer to home than you think."

"Sure, whatever."

The word 'Princess' echos around in my head as I toss and turn, finally giving up and leaving the tent for some air. I take slow, steady breaths to calm myself and fan my face with my hands. What did he mean? I'm no-one's Princess, Queen, Acomplince, Aqauntiance or otherwise. Especially not Steve Leonard's.

'I'm a Des Tiny, I know everyone's destiny.'

The words make me shiver and I rub my arms, wishing I'd brought my jacket out with me. God, I'm so thirsty. Drinking Animal blood is like trying to survive on water and salt. How can Darren do this so easily? Is it because he's never drank a human before? He derserves a medal of honour for this. He must have his self control perfected down to a 'T'.

"You look terrible."

I spin round on my heel and am alarmed to see a silohuette sitting ontop of Darren and Evra's tent. I jump backwards and hold my hand infront of me as if about to do a karate chop, ready to do some damage with my nails if needed. The shapeless silohuette moves off the tent and jumps onto a smaller one close by. The light coming from a nearby lantern lights up their face.

It's Steve.

"Steve!" I exclaim. "What are you doing here?"

"Nice welcome," Steve scoffs. "Hello to you too."

"Your one to talk," I mutter. "'You look terrible'? Cheery hello that one is."

"I'm just stating facts," Steve answers. "You. Look. A. Mess."

"And you still look like you've been poked repeatedly with an elecotric pole," I retort. It pisses me off that he actually looks better than he did when I last saw him. I bet he's been drinking loads between the time I ran off from him and now. What makes things worse is that this fact makes me jealous.

"Haven't been drinking then huh?" he teases.

"No," I reply. "Because it's wrong." Steve chuckles and I scowl at him.

"Once a Vampanze, always a Vampaneze Scarlet," he says. "You can't just 'fix' yourself and go vegan."

"Shut up," I snap. "I can change."

"You think you can change but you really can't."

"Darren's helping me."

Steve's grin widens which makes his face look even more malicious than before. "Darren?" he laughs. "Poor sod won't know what hit him when he first drinks."

"He's not going to drink," I scoff.

"He will. Eventually."

"I don't think he will," I answer. "He's stronger than the both of us put together." Steve quirks an eyebrow and I scowl back at him. "What do you want?"

"You can't just run away like that Scarlet," Steve answers, suddenly serious. "Mr. Tiny knows your not wild or feral so if you don't come back then they're going to come and bring you back by force."

"What?"

"I'm your warning," Steve states. "Come back or we'll bring you back. More Vampaneze will come and get you."

"Under whose authority," I scoff.

Steve straightens up, looking down on me with a serious look in his eyes before he answers me.

"Mine."

And with that, he flits away, leaving me standing by the tent, wondering what he means. Then it sets in. Panic bubbles to the surface and my heart jumps into my throat. They're coming to get me. They're coming to get me. THEY'RE COMING TO GET ME!

Under whose authority?

Mine.

I end up screaming my head off before passing out.

~xXx~

My eyes open and my vision blurrs before everything comes crashing back down on me and I shriek in horror. It's morning and I'm lying inside the tent but I'm soon up on my feet and freaking out. Where do I go? Do I leave the Cirque? Do I tell Darren?

No. I can't. It'll probably just freak him out. I'm going to just have to suck it up and be brave for once in my life. I ran away from the Vampaneze and I'll have to take the punishment. No matter how awful that may be.

"Morning Scarlet."

"Gah!" I exclaim, whipping round to the source of the voice. I immediately relax when I see that it's Darren, looking alarmed at my reaction.

"I caught you outside just before dawn, you could have burned to death," Darren says. "I dragged you in here quick before the light got you."

"Oops," I frown, casting a glance to the light that's pouring in through the tent entrance. "Uh . . . my bad."

"You could have been killed," Darren comments.

"Yes but I wasn't," I reply. "So what do you do round here?"

"Evra and I do some chores. Everyone has to pull their weight," Darren explains.

"I see," I answer.

Evra emerges from his hammock with a grin on his face. "You didn't think you'd get to stay around here without doing anything?" he smirks.

"No," I lie. "So what do I do?"

"You can help us," Darren says.

"Yeah, first thing we need to do is tend to my snake," Evra smiles.

"Your . . . what?" I frown. "HOLY SHIT THAT'S A REAL SNAKE!" I yell as the reptile slithers out from the darker parts of the tent and over to Evra.

"Well, yeah," Evra frowns. "You did see the show right?"

"I THOUGHT IT WAS FAKE!" I screech. Evra grins and picks the snake up, wrapping it round his neck before approaching me. "Keep away from me with that thing!"

"She won't hurt you," Darren says.

"I don't do things that slither," I reply. "They're too creepy. Just keep it away from me OK?"

"Can't gurantee she'll not want to snuggle with you in the middle of the night," Evra warns.

"OK, that's it, I'm outta here!" I declare. Evra and Darren laugh as I march off to the exit of the tent before stopping as my toes nearly touch the sunlight but not quite. They both walk ahead of me and stand in the daylight with cocky grins on their faces. The snake is no longer round Evra's neck but I can't help sneaking a glance behind me to make sure she isn't following.

I'm such a coward.

~xXx~

"Couldn't you just like . . . open up the lid and let him burn to death?" I ask as Darren dusts Mr. Crepsley's coffin.

"Well, yeah, but it'd be stupid," Darren replies.

"Why?" I ask, keeping myself shrouded from the light in the darkest part of the tent.

"Because I need him for guidance," Darren explains. "I don't know how to behave like a vampire properly. There's like rules and stuff. Didn't Mr. Tiny tell you that?"

"Well I was given a mentor," I frown. "But he wasn't much use. Just told us how to kill."

"Oh that's nice," Darren says sarcastically.

"I know right?" I laugh drily. "It was a bundle of laughs."

"Certainly sounds it," Evra says. He still thinks I'm a vampire, but a vampire that got on the wrong side of things but escaped. I don't think he'd like me very much if he knew I killed two people because I was thirsty.

As night falls a little blue hooded person-who Darren explains is one of Mr. Tiny's 'Little people'-approaches us and rubs his belly to say that's he's hungry. Apparently it's Evra and his job to find animals for them to eat. Dead, alive, newly born or road kill, it doesn't matter as long as they can eat it. Evra doesn't join us on the search because after cleaning Mr. Crepsley's coffin he discovered that his snake had caught a virus. So it was just Darren and me while he looked after her.

"Jeez, the roads are normally full of roadkill," Darren says as we trek up the pebbled road. We had tried catching some live animals but the damn creatures were too fast. I took a moment of frustation and blamed it on Darren for making me drink damn animal blood but soon came to my senses and apologized.

"Maybe there wasn't many people travelling tonight?" I suggest. "Or the wildlife has had a recent 'road safety' lesson?" Darren rubbed his face, a clear sign that he was tired, and sighed.

"Let's just get a sheep from the field over there," he says.

"Are you allowed to do that?" I ask.

"Farmers barely count their animals," Darren replies. "And we leave them money sometimes."

"Sounds good to me," I answer, jogging ahead and attempting a jump over the field fence, only to not jump high enough and catch my foot at the top. I swing forward and slam face first into the wood, moaning on contact. I hear Darren chuckle as he approaches. "Did I mention that this is your fault for making me a vegetarian?" I request.

"Once or twice," he replies, opening up the gate and going in the human way.

We search for a weak or sick sheep so that it won't be missed. It's actually quite a difficult feat to accomplish in the dark but we manage to find a little weakling at the back of the herd.

"OK, this shouldn't be too hard," I tell Darren. "Just snap her neck!"

"I know how to kill a sheep Scarlet," Darren replies.

"Then it do it," I huff, folding my arms. Darren rubs his hands together before taking both sides of the sheep's neck. He jerks her head to the side, but not strongly enough so she just bleats in pain and scrambles away. "You idiot! How could you have messed that up?!"

"I guess the lack of human blood is finally getting to me," Darren says gravely. I roll my eyes and run after the retreating animal. I launch at it and land on it's back. Rolling over so it's on my stomach and grab it's neck and twist. It bleats in protest again but the neck doesn't snap. I growl in agitation and twist again. Another cry of pain but no snap.

"Just die already!" I yell at the terrified animal. As I try and try to twist harder Darren appears above me and brings something down hard on the sheep's head. Blood splatters everywhere before the creature slumps against me, dead. "I readied her for you," I say.

"Of course you did," Darren answers sarcastically, grabbing the sheep and hauling it over his shoulder. I clambour to my feet and follow him back to the gate.

"I did!" I protest.

"Oh, and Scarlet, when we get to the fence you go through the gate like a proper person OK? No leaping over fences and giving yourself a concussion," Darren says.

"I'm not an idiot," I mumble.

"You'd think not."

As we approached the gate, a figure sat on the fence. Against the moonlight it looked like a shadow but as we neared I realized it was a big, hairy man. He looks like a fat big foot who stinks to high heaven. He doesn't look happy.

"R.V.?" Darren frowns.

"Your R.V.?" I ask. "Man, ever heard of soap? Or a razor?"

"R.V.'s an eco warrior," Darren explains. "For the NOP."

"What'cha got there Darren?" R.V. asks, eyeing the dead sheep.

"Nothing," Darren replies.

"Certainly looks like something," R.V. replies. Sensing that this guy was trouble and that Darren didn't want him to know we killed a sheep, I jump in with one of my 'kinda clever but not really' lies.

"This sheep just died of starvation," I say. "The farmer told us to dispose of it."

"Oh did he now?" R.V. asks.

"Uh-huh," I reply, rocking back and forth on my feet and clucking my tongue.

"Looks like someone pounded her head in with a rock," R.V. answers.

"You used a rock!?" I hiss at Darren.

"Well you couldn't snap it's neck either!" Darren hisses back.

"I was getting close!" I protest.

Darren snorts in amusement. "Yeah, right."

"That was not cool man," R.V. says. "That animal was a living creature and you just brutally murdered her! What did she ever do to you?!"

"Nothing, she's a sheep," I frown.

"A sick sheep!" Darren puts in.

"I'm going to report you to the police and the health inspectors will be down on you like a ton of bricks," R.V. says solemnly.

"R.V. listen," Darren says. "We don't have to be enemies. Come back to camp with me. Talk to Mr. Tall and the others. See how we live. Get to know and understand-"

"Save it man, I'm going to the police," R.V. interuppts.

Darren rolls his eyes and throws the sheep corspe at R.V. with impressive force, knocking the sasquash off the fence. "Wow, how'd you do that man?" R.V. splutters as Darren leaps over the fence and lands ontop of him.

"Never mind that," Darren snaps.

"Kids can't throw sheep!"

I clambour over the fence more carefully than before and pick the discarded sheep's corpse up from the ground. "You just saw him throw it," I mutter as I haul the animal over my shoulder. "Are you stupid or something?"

"Listen Reggie Veggie-" Darren growls.

"Hold up," I interuppt. "'Reggie Veggie'? Oh my lord is that your name!?" I howl with laughter and double over once a stitch grows. "Reggie Veggie!" I laugh. Darren continues to threaten R.V. to the point where I stop laughing and frown at the personality change. He looks different, Darren does, when he's angry. It's almost scary.

After threatening him throughly, Darren gets off the trumatized vegetarian, hooks his arm in the crook of my elbow and says, "So long, Reggie Veggie." We both walk off, too scared to look back the terrified mess of a man behind us.

A/N: How's that? I had to skip out the visit to Jimmy because I was passed it but I hope putting the sheep in with R.V. will get me back on track to be like the books. What do you think? Is it OK?

Please R&R! :D