Читать онлайн «Killers of the Dawn»

Автор Даррен Шэн

Darren Shan

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

TO BE CONTINUED

Darren Shan

KILLERS OF THE DAWN

PROLOGUE

It was an age of deceit. Everyone was suspicious of everyone else and with good reason! You never knew when a trusted ally would turn, bare his fangs and rip you to pieces.

The vampires and vampaneze were at war the War of the Scars and the result hinged upon finding and killing the Lord of the Vampaneze. If the vampires did that, victory would be theirs. Otherwise, the night would belong to their purple-skinned blood-cousins, who would drive the vampires to extinction.

Three vampires were sent by Mr Desmond Tiny to hunt the Vampaneze Lord Vancha March, Larten Crepsley and me, Darren Shan. I'm a half-vampire.

Mr Tiny told us that other vampires couldn't assist us in our hunt, but non-vampires could. Thus, the only one to accompany us was a Little Person called Harkat Mulds, though a witch known as Lady Evanna also travelled with us for a short time during our quest.

After unwittingly letting the Vampaneze Lord slip through our fingers in the first of four predicted encounters, we travelled to the city of Mr Crepsley's birth. We didn't expect to find the Lord of the Vampaneze there we came to track down and stop a gang of vampaneze who were murdering humans.

We attracted two more companions in the city my ex-girlfriend, Debbie Hemlock, and Steve Leopard. Steve used to be my best friend. He said he'd become a vampaneze-hunter, and swore he'd help us put an end to the killer vampaneze. Mr Crepsley was suspicious of Steve he believed Steve had evil blood but I persuaded him to grant my old friend the benefit of the doubt.

Our target was an insane, hook-handed vampaneze. It turned out he was another of my ex-associates R. V.

, which originally stood for Reggie Veggie, though he now claimed it was short for Righteous Vampaneze. He was once an eco-warrior, until his hands had been bitten off by the Wolf Man at the Cirque Du Freak. He blamed me for the accident, and had teamed up with the vampaneze in order to exact revenge.

We could have killed R. V. , but we knew he was in league with other vampaneze, and we chose instead to trick him into leading us to them. What we didn't know was that we were actually the flies in the trap, not the spiders. Deep beneath the streets of the city, dozens of vampaneze were waiting for us. Among them stood the Lord of the Vampaneze and his protector, Gannen Harst Vancha March's estranged brother.

In an underground cavern, Steve Leopard revealed his true colours. He was a half-vampaneze and had plotted with R. V. and the Vampaneze Lord to lure us to our doom. But Steve underestimated us, and I overcame him and would have killed him except R. V. captured Debbie and threatened to murder her in retaliation.