Disclaimer: You DARE to accuse me of owning Cirque du Freak (or any other works of Darren Shan)? I'll send Balthazar after you! XD

Info: This takes place several years after the whole story so if you haven't read all of it, read at your own risk! Steve is 18 and Darren is 17. They are both in their last year of high school.

Warning: Steve and Malachi have SEX in this chapter! AND Tom's reappearance! Oh yeah, warnings of incest and non-con/rape for the next chapter.

Now let the story continue!

A vulture with unusual platinum-golden feather soared across the cloudless, night sky and over the arid land. Tall, craggy mountains quickly filled up the horizon. The vulture headed right toward them, increasing its speed in earnest. The raptor's purplish eyes zeroed in on a small hole set high into the top of one of those mountains. The hole was only slightly bigger than a full grown vulture's wingspan. With a loud cry, the vulture soared through the opening with inches all around to spare. The lacuna opened onto a lighted passageway, leading to a door that was set into the surrounding rock. The door was wooden and had no other distinguishing characteristics, not even a doorknob or a keyhole. The door was completely bare. Landing on the floor right in front of the door, the platinum blonde vulture cawed twice and, then, stopped before cawing once more. A clinking sound could be heard as the wooden door slung inward, revealing a room-like cavern full of cushions, blankets, and mattresses. A mirror directly opposite the vulture reflected its frightening countenance as it sent out a final cry. A sharp crack and a loud pop resounded off the walls as smoke enveloped the place where the bird stood. After the misty smoke had cleared, a naked teen-aged girl stood in the vulture's place. Her long platinum hair reached down to just below her petite waist and supple hips. Her bare bosom was firm and perky.

"Bartemus?" the girl called out as she scoured the room with her enchanting purple eyes. Her naked body was a silhouette against the bright light from the passageway. The fires of the torches shuddered at the sudden breeze that was born from the door sliding inward. After a while of calling out "Bartemus?" over and over again, a disgruntled noise rose up from somewhere among a particularly large pile of blankets.

"Bell-Belladonna?" came a groggy reply as a muscled figure slowly stood up into a sitting position on a pillow. The walked over to the figure. Her swift stride impeded slightly by the mas of pillows, mattresses, and other comfortable things scattered throughout the spacious room.

"Come on. Stand up," Belladonna pulled up on Barty's left arm until he was firmly, after some slipping and sliding, standing on his own two feet.

"Belladonna, what's the problem? Weren't you supposed to keep an eye on that human? Smeves or something?" The boy absentmindedly scratched the chin-length platinum-blonde hair hanging behind his ears as he looked at Belladonna. He, too, was stark naked, his tight backside reflected in the mirror that was now behind him.

"Yeah, that's why I flew here." Belladonna responded irritably. "I need to talk to Balthazar. Where is he?" She said, resolutely deciding to ignore Bartemus's pout at her earlier annoyance. It took several minutes until Bartemus finally stopped sulking and answered her question.

"Bal went for a stroll in the Pit. He's probably playing with one of his 'toys' now so he won't be back for at least several hours," Bartemus said in an envious tone. "He left me all alone here without even a good-bye hug." Bartemus's face resumed its pout while his voice grew to a whine.

"Bartemus, don't be such a crybaby. It's past time that you stopped hugging him anyway. You're not childen anymore," Belladonna scolded, her tone sharp with disapproval. Bartemus's pout only deepened and his deep purple eyes seemed about to cry. Crybaby.Belladonna thought, but she said, "Bartemus, I was only kidding. If you want, you can hug me instead. Okay?" After another minute of sulking, Bartemus slowly lifted his head and lowered it. He nodded once more before walking forward to embrace Belladonna. His arms reached around her back and squeezed lightly. She squeezed back and with her right hand and gently caressed his scalp with her left. After a couple more minutes of this embrace, they separated: Belladonna looking resigned to watching after her crybaby of a brother forever and Bartemus looking like the cat who caught the canary. Bartemus's face, full of childish glee, made Belladonna smile in spite of how immature Bartemus was acting.

"Hey. Since Blathazar's not going to be here for quite a while, I'm going for a fly. Come with me?" Belladonna asked, thinking only about how to keep that smile on Bartemus's face. He gave a curt nod. Suddenly, the spacious, cavern was filled with white smoke and the crack and pop of transformation. Standing in the places of the previously blonde vampires were the forms of two nearly identicalfair feathered vultures. The only noticeable difference was that one was a female and that she was slightly smaller. The smaller one flew off first, quickly followed by the larger vulture. The door stayed open behind them as they left through the same hole that the smaller one had entered from earlier. Two distinct caws were heard by a small group of vampires who were traveling under the moonlight's gaze toward the same mountain that Belladonna and Bartemus had just left.

Watching the sleeping face of the blonde demon, Malachi von Krauss's pale face was made an even lighter shade of white by the moolight that spilled in through the window. Steve, I lo... Malachi thought as he reached out to touch the blonde's face when blue eyes opened. Malachi quickly pulled back his outstretched limb.

"What are you doing?" Steve's voice was unconcerned and nonchalant. He sat up, brushing a curl of yellow hair out of his face. "Is it time? Can you finally Raise me?" Steve's bare chest momentarily distracted Malachi from the question as his eyes followed Steve's treasure trail(1)down to where a pale cover pooled around the blonde's waist. Steve caught him watching and pushed the blankets off of him to fall to the wooden floor. His exposed crotch was devoured by the red-haired vampire's eyes. Steve smirked when he noticed that Malachi's cock was already rock hard, peeking out of a comfortable-looking pair of black boxers.

"So are you ready to Raise me? I've been waiting here for a week so far and I'm still human," Steve said with a slight whine. "Well?" Steve's voice was seductive and cloying. His hand almost accidentally brushed against Malachi's naked thigh, barely three inches away from the vampire's peeking out phallus. The redhead shuddered at the sensation. His cock ached, begging to be touched. Steve reached out and gripped Malachi's cock with his left hand, his right hand attending to his own erection. "So if we fuck again, will you feel up to Raising me?" Steve said, the fingers on his left hand absentmindedly playing with the full bush of scarlet hair that surrounded Malachi's penis. The horny vampire barely listened to what Steve was saying and, instead, focused on Steve's right hand, which was steadily running up and down it's owner's throbbing length. Malachi's own member was being dutifully stroked by Steve's left hand, each pump sending sparks of pleasure up his spine.

"Yeah. Sure," Malachi's voice was hoarse with want and need as he covered Steve's lips with his own. Not breaking the kiss, Steve moved his hands away from their respective dicks to pull Malachi's boxers down in one fluid movement. Pulling away from Steve's moist lips, The redhead eagerly stepped out of his underwear and kicked them away before bending over Steve on the bed. They resumed their earlier kiss, deepening it and grinding their bodies with a harsh fervor. For a while, Malachi thrust his hips downward against Steve's trapped form at the same time that Steve gyrated his own hips upward. They both gave out small, strangled noises of pleasure as they connected over and over again. Their meaty cocks were slick with pre-cum and their bodies were doused with sweat. When Steve felt himself about to come, he put a restraining hand against Malachi's shoulder.

"Wait." Panting and pulling back, Malachi wondered why Steve didn't want to continue. "I want you to fuck me, not just grind against me." The demand in Steve's voice alone was almost enough to make Malachi cum, but he was able to stave off his orgams with thoughts of Darren.

"Okay, turn around," Malachi said, his voice more tentative than commanding. Steve gave him a stern look. "Please?"

"Of course," Steve breathed huskily before plopping his naked torso on the bed and exposing his ass to Malachi's searching fingers that groped and .dug softly into the blonde's butt.

"I'm about to stretch you so..." Malachi waited for an answer, but after a minute of no response, he decided to push a finger in. Steve hissed a little as Malachi's finger dove into him, and when a second digit was almost immediately inserted after the initial one, Steve growled for the redheaded horndog to control his libido and go slower. "Sor-sorry!" The vampire mumbled nervously before scissoring his fingers in Steve's hole. He moved so slowly that even a whole three minutes later he still had only two roaming members in the blonde's hole. A deep growl was Malachi's only warning as a foot kicked him in the gut, but being a vampire, the pain was minimal.

"Just damn it! Forget the preparation and just fuck me already! Damn!" Steve threw Malachi down on top of the bed and hovered above Malachi's crotch, his feet planted on either side of the vampire's hips. Steve gritted his teeth as he forced himself down on the redheaded vampire's red-knobbed phallus. Malachi's face was twisted into a grimace of pleasure as Steve's moist warmth enshrouded, first, his head and, then the full shaft of his penis. Malachi felt a pool of fire grow in the bottom of his gut as the blond slid himself up and off the reddened cock.

"Steve, I-I'm, anhh!" Malachi came as Steve was on his upward slide, the sperm spilling out of his hole as he slid up. Steve was so surprised as Malachi's sudden climax that he fell right off of the dick's head and banged his head against the headboard of the bed.

"Ouch! You idiot!" Steve roared, rubbing his head as he sat up. "Why you come so fast? I thought vampires were supposed to have stamina!" Steve's rage was only fueled by the telltale signs of the start of blueballs(2). Malachi flinched at Steve's shouting and couldn't stop the feeling of humiliation that he was drowning in.

"I'm sorry! Let me take care of it." Malachi dwindled in the blonde's fiery glare, but after a couple seconds, Steve laid back down on the bed and parted his legs. Without saying a word, Malachi moved in-between those legs and started licking the tip of Steve's dick. Steve tried to keep his anger at the ready, but as Malachi's adept tongue started travelling up and down his shaft, he couldn't even remember why he was upset anymore. Malachi's long, slow licks made Steve moan and shift under him. The vampire continued to tease Steve's hard cock by lightly brushing his sharp, vampiric tooth against the reddish knob, careful to nip but not bite.

"Aaahhhh! Stop fooling around. Just suck me already. euh!" Steve groaned, delectable sparks of white light dotting behind his eyes but not enough for him to come. Following the blonde's orders, Malachi stopped with his playing and embraced Steve's wanton dick with his wet mouth. Sucking in and out his cheeks, Malachi bobbed to and fro on Steve's phallus like he was getting paid. Steve was able to restrain himself with only a few moans and tensed struggling, but once Malachi started with the humming he couldn't contain his moans anymore. The redheaded cocksucker's humming sent vibrations directly to Steve's cock , causing him to cry out in pleasure. "Auugh!" The blonde's hands gripped Malachi's fiery mane, pulling the redhead further on his cock to the point that he was now being deepthroated. Malachi was able to swallow all of Steve's cock without gagging once. His dutiful throat tightened around Steve's shaft as the vampire simultaneously hummed and probed Steve's ass. Being a vampire, Malachi had no gaga reflex and didn't need to come up for air. He was a nonstop cocksucking machine!

Once Malachi's finger breached Steve's hole and rubbed against the blonde's prostrate, a line had been crossed. Steve came hard into Malachi's mouth with a loud groan. Steve forced all of his meat into the sucker's throat and held Malachi there by his hair while he came, spewing lond, streams of salty cum right down Malachi's esophagus.

"Augh! Agh! Engh!" Steve groaned as he released the last of his seed into Malachi's trapped mouth. After several minutes of deep breathing, Steve was able to think rationally again and slowly let go of Malachi's hair. The redhead kept his mouth shut as he lifted his head and licked the sperm that was still coating Steve's now flaccid length. Steve let out a pathetic mewl of ecstasy as the red haired vampire's tongue cleaned off his all-too-sensitive penis. "O-okay, okay. That's-that's e-enough," Steve managed to huff out. He pulled Malachi up by his hair and pulled him on top of him. "So wi-will you Ra-Raise me n-now?" Steve panted, barely able to huff the words out. Malachi smiled. Steve always kept the endgame in mind.

"Of coarse." Malachi put his mouth in the crook of the sweating blonde's neck and pierced the tender skin there, sucking in coppery, reddish fluid upon impact. Even though he was still drained -mentally and physically- Steve felt the pleasurable tingles that having one's blood sucked or sucking one's blood stimulated. While Malachi felt his dick twitch at the tingles that went up his own spine. After swallowing three mouthfuls of Steve's salty blood, Malachi released his mouth from the blonde's neck and, licking the wound with his tongue, healed the cut. "You need to drink this," the vampire said through blood-coated lips with a tongue drenched in the crimson liquid. He trailed one finger across his forearm, cutting his skin. He, then, proceeded to press his bleeding arm to Steve's mouth and felt his cock harden as Steve's mouth closed around the quickly healing cut and sucked out as much blood as he could in that short time. When the cut was fully healed, Steve stopped his sucking and looked expectantly at Malachi for what he knew had to happen next.

"Steve, I-I can't-" Mlaachi's voice choked in his throat. The blonde put a tired, but comforting hand on the redhead's cheek.

"You can and you will. Just keep thinking that when I awake, we're both be vampires and, after I turn Darren, we can be together forever, okay?" Steve's eyes were compassionate and his smile was heavenly. A dd his blue eyes and gilded hair and Steve looked like an angel come to Earth -an exceptionally manipulative one. But Malachi wasn't fooled. He knew very well that once Steve was a vampire and was able to survive on his own, he wouldn't need Malachi and, therefore, wouldn't want him to be with him. Malachi would be thrown away while that stupid brunet would be forced to stay with Steve for an eternity and (knowing Steve) beyond. The vampire sighed. He knew Steve was a manipulative twerp ever since they met in summer camp. He wasn't deluded enough to think that Steve actually cared about anyone else besides himself and Darren and even then, Malachi wasn't completely sure about the latter. With those thoughts racing through his head, Malachi spoke.

"St-Steve, please-please don't betray me." Steve smiled a deceptively good-natured, loving smile.

"I will never betray you as long as younever betray me." With those parting words, Malachi gently clasped Steve's neck and flicked his wrist, deftly breaking the bones there. Steve gasped in pain before his eyes clouded over with death. Although the redhead knew that Steve would come back alive, he could find only a little joy. He knew that Steve was coming back alive, but he wasn't sure if he would survive his reunion with Balthazar and return alive to see Steve as a vampire. Wiping the bloody tears out of his eyes, Malachi stood up. He already had his suitcases packed and he wanted to reach Vampire Mountain and, thus, Bal as soon as possible. The vampire knew that Bal absolutely despisedwaiting and that the faster Malachi reached him, the more the chance that he could go home quickly grew. Sighing, Malachi left the room, desperate to ensure that Steve still remained safe even when he himself wasn't there. He had to talk with Bolduric.

Darren was unconscious in a sterilized, white room with translucent curtains that let the bright sunlight come through the wall-to-ceiling windows. The door that opened upon the room was made of silver and doused in holy water with the images of crosses carved into it on all sides. Darren himself was lying on a white bed and connected by wires to a machine that automatically fed him tranquilizers to keep him from waking up. The cover over him was covered with silver crosses and the fluorescent lights overhead supplied a steady flow of UV rays that, although harmless to humans, would reduce any vampire to dust in less than three minutes. The only one who were in this room before was Steve and he was the one who set Darren up in such an anti-vampire room. He wanted to make sure that while he was undergoing his vampiric transformation, no one would mess with his Darren. Steve was also the only one who held the key to the room that without its aid, a human couldn't even reach Darren, resulting in Darren's safety from both vampires and humans. Darren himself still didn't know exactly what was happening or what Steve meant when he said: "I just hope you will understand why I have to do this". All he knew was that a gang of three thugs had kidnapped him and Steve and, then proceeded to take them to what looked like to be a regular corporation's building. The last thing he remembered was a sharp prick in his neck as a red-haired, red-eyed man walked toward him and, then, nothing. Darren was still in that "nothing" called unconsciousness as the time ticked by and, several floors down, a boy named Tom was screaming in anguish.

A dark haired, dirty boy was chained up into a standing position. A ring of red-eyed demons stood around him. Their eyes hungrily taking in Tom's broken, naked body ad the bloodstained pieces of bodies that surrounded him: the reason for his screaming. A woman, a man, and a young girl no older than five lay in dismembered pieces in front of the boy. there was an adult arm there, and adult leg there, a kid's eye there: it was a messy spherical ring. The only sense of order in the whole bloody oval was where the heads of the three victims sat side by side against each other, their lightless (and sometimes missing) eyes gazing up at Tom's sobbing form in a dead stare. All of them had the same type of hair as Tom: dark and straight. Tom writhed around in a crazed passion. His mind had finally snapped after seeing his family -first his mom and then his father- have their limps ripped off one by one, their screams and cries crawling in his he saw his fiver-year-old sister be treated the same, he had no hope of coming back to sanity. He even tried to bite off his own tongue in his depression, but was stopped by having a vampire rip out his tongue itself and stitch up the wound with a rusty wire, effectively saving Tom's pitiful life. Now here Tom was: chained in a room full of vampires with the remnants of his family scattered around him in a gory circle.

In the midst of his crazed screaming and struggling, he noticed one figure who stood out from the rest. It wasn't the short, pudgy man's build or his white hair that separated him from the ravenous vampires, although they were part of it. The man didn't have blood-red eyes like the other creatures, but instead wore thick glasses that made his eyes large and searching, like a blinding searchlight. But that wasn't it either that made the strange man so different. He seemed to radiate untold power, and while the others radiated primal hunger mixed with lust, the man had a cold, calculating air with a hunger that was entirely different from the vampires, but still seemed bloodthirsty somehow. It was like this man wasn't there to food, but to watch and something else -something evil. However, Tom only realized that the man had a differentness about him and nothing else. He didn't sense the power or the heartless cunning that flowed from the man. It was all the naked, chained up boy could do to hold on to enough of the flimsy strands of his sanity to even notice the vampire. Either way, it wouldn't have mattered. In the next second, the vampires descended with the mystery vampire closing in with his cold, calculating eyes.

(1) Treasure trail: for those of you who don't know, a treasure trail is the line -or "trail"- of hair leading down from a male's bellybutton to his crotch -or "treasure". It's basically pubic hair so don't expect to find it on a baby.

(2) Blueballs: the condition of temporary fluid congestion in the testicles and prostate region caused by prolonged sexual arousal in the human male. It is often accompanied by a cramp-like ache of prostatic congestion and pain/tenderness or edema of the testes, and is misconceptionally believed to have the symptom of a blue tinged scrotum (from the notion that blue equals pain, as in a bruise or black eye, which can also appear blue). In normal words: When sexual stimulation of a guy's genitals doesn't result in ejaculation (not due to any "grossed-out-no-longer-hard" moments), the guy experiences pain/discomfort, including but not limited to aching balls and headaches. The pain can last for minutes to an hour. Plus, if the condition is severe enough, the skin of the guy's balls really can take on a bluish tinge, although technically

it's not the testicles themselves but the skin of the scrotum that turns blue.

Author's Note: Okay, now you all know Tom's fat and the fate of his family. Plus, Steve has begun his transformation as a vampire and the platinum-haired girl's character is fleshed out. Now, on to important news: in the next chapter, Steve WILL rape Darren! I know it's what everyone probably has been waiting before, but I wanted to set that stage fist before they had sex. But don't worry in the new series, they will have more sex.

P.S. CONTEST OVER:Also, can anyone guess who the short mystery man is who Tom saw right before he died? A fanfic of your choice(from one of the fandoms of the list of my favorite fandoms on my profile page) for the 1st one to figure it out (going by reviews and PMs).

P.S.S REMEMBER: NEXT CHAPTER WILL BE THE LAST ONE OF THIS SERIES AND THEN A NEW SERIES WILL BEGIN!