The final chapter was set in New York and finished with the whole of Fifth Avenue turning into a river of blood. At least a thousand people were killed as the two vampire armies joined battle in the subway system. Mephisto himself was impaled on a metal spike, and Justin returned to England and took over the circus.
THE END.
Henry typed the words in bold and underlined them twice.
That evening he left the office at the same time as everyone else and bought himself a half bottle of champagne, which he sipped, on his own, in his room as the trains rumbled past outside. He had spent twenty dollars having the manuscript photocopied and bound, and he couldn’t stop himself from flicking through the pages, running his hands over the cover, reading his favorite paragraphs again and again. He had absolutely no doubt that Ring of Evil would be a huge international success. He went to bed that night working on the speech that he would make when he won the Carnegie Medal, which was only awarded to the very greatest writers. The book was everything he had hoped it would be . . . and more.
The next day he put the manuscript in an envelope and sent it to one of the most famous publishers in London. He had noticed their name on a number of bestsellers and guessed they must know a thing or two about children’s fiction. Three days later, he received a polite note, thanking him for the manuscript and assuring him that the publisher would contact him shortly. The next month was a nightmare. Henry was in a state of such nervous excitement that he couldn’t eat or sleep. When he showed potential customers around houses, all he could think of was blood and vampires, book signings and VIP travel around the world. The next month was just as bad. By the third month he was beginning to wonder just how long the famous publisher needed to read one hundred thousand words.
And then the letter came.
Dear Mr. Barker . . .
It was a bad start. They hadn’t even gotten his name right.
Thank you for sending us your novel, Ring of Evil. Although your work shows a great deal of imagination and energy, I regret to say that I do not think it is suitable for publication.
You say that this is a work for children, but I would be very concerned, personally, by the levels of violence and bloodshed. I think you would find that most teachers and librarians would not want this on their shelves. At the same time, the book is clearly not adult enough—particularly with a hero who is only twelve.
I’m afraid, therefore, that I am returning the manuscript. I hope you won’t be too discouraged and wish you luck elsewhere.
Yours sincerely,
Hilary Spurling
Senior Editor
Henry read the letter once. Then he read it again. He felt a rush of different emotions. The first was disbelief. Ring of Evil had been rejected! That was followed by dismay. All those hours of work, the weeks and the months—for nothing! Then came anger. Who was Hilary Spurling? What did she know? How could she be so shallow and arrogant, to dismiss his one-hundred-thousand-word manuscript with a letter that didn’t even reach a dozen lines? Muttering a curse, Henry reached for a second envelope. There were plenty of publishers in London. A few weeks from now, Hilary Spurling would be weeping bitter tears. And she would be a senior editor no longer, fired from her job for missing the biggest bestseller of the decade when it had been sitting right there in her hands.
In the next twelve months, Ring of Evil was rejected by another eight London publishers as well as three literary agents. By now, Henry had left the real estate agency. Everyone in the office knew that he’d been writing a novel and he couldn’t bear to tell them that he hadn’t managed to sell it. He got a job in a warehouse in Shoreditch, supplying chemicals to laboratories around London. There was no computer here for him to work on after hours. Nor did he want one. If his first book—his masterpiece—wasn’t going to be published, why should he even think about writing a second?
And that might have been the end of it. Henry could have ended his days bitter and defeated, unhappy, unmarried and alone. Perhaps he’d have been found in the corner of his local pub, propping up the bar with one whiskey too many, dreaming of what might have been. He could have worked at the warehouse until he retired and then, after a couple of years in a dreary old people’s home, quietly died.
But everything changed one day when he walked into a bookshop near Victoria station. He hadn’t even gone in there to buy a book. He had just needed somewhere to shelter from a sudden violent storm. But while he was inside, waiting for the rain to die down, his eye was caught by a pile of books on the front table. He picked one up. The book was called Cirque du Freak and it was written by someone named Darren Shan.
The back cover told him everything he needed to know. The hero was a boy named Darren Shan—it was strange that he had the same name as the author—who snuck away from home to visit a traveling freak show. Henry flicked through the pages. The book struck him as very short. Every chapter was topped with a picture of a skull. Before he had even left the shop, he had the general idea of the story. Darren Shan’s best friend got bitten by a spider, and in order to save him, Darren had to become a vampire and . . .
It was his story! There could be no doubt about it. Of course, not all the ideas were the same. But the circus, the freaks, the vampires, the child hero, even some of the names were too similar to be pure coincidence. For example, there was a character named Mr. Crepsley in Shan’s book—almost the same name as one of the clowns (Mr. Crispy) in Henry’s. Shan’s best friend was named Steve. In Ring of Evil a character named Steve was murdered in Chapter Twenty-seven. Henry looked at the cover. As he gazed at the name of the publisher, a black fury rose up within him. The same publisher had turned Ring of Evil down.
He bought the book and took it home and that night he spent several hours reading Cirque du Freak, underlining passages in red and circling words. As the sun rose, he was one hundred percent certain. The publisher had taken his manuscript and given it to another author. This author, Darren Shan, had copied the best bits and published the book as his own. He had stolen the result of eleven years’ work!
And to make things worse, Shan was getting brilliant reviews. The next day Henry called in to say he would be late for work. He scuttled off to an Internet café down the road and Googled everything he could about Cirque du Freak. The critics were unanimous. Here was a well-crafted and completely original story that would attract even the most unwilling readers. There were another fourteen volumes planned and publishers were snapping them up all around the world. A major Hollywood film was on the way. Overnight, Darren Shan had become a star.
Henry went straight back to his room, sat down and composed a letter, writing with a pen that kept leaking ink, in jagged handwriting that lay on the page like dead spiders.
Dear Mr. Shan, he began.
I have just read your book “Cirque du Freak” and have noticed many similarities to a book of mine, “Ring of Evil.” My book is set in a circus, just like yours. My book has vampires in it, just like yours. My book also has a boy hero who is only two years younger than yours. I could also point to several phrases in your book which also appear in mine. For example, on page 33, you say “It was Friday evening, the end of the school week . . .” Almost exactly the same words—though in a different order—appear on page 297 of my manuscript! Again, on page 124, you describe your teeth as “clattering.” That description is obviously taken from page 311 of my book, which describes window shutters in exactly the same way.
I could give you a hundred more examples.
I would like to know who it was at your publisher who showed you my manuscript and whose idea it was to steal it and make it your own. We will discuss how much money you should pay me later.
Yours sincerely,
Henry Parker
It took three weeks for Henry to receive a reply, and when it came, it wasn’t from Darren Shan at all. It was from someone called Fenella Jones who worked at the publishing house. It read:Dear Mr. Parker,
Thank you for your letter. I
can assure you that Cirque du Freak is a completely original piece of work. Mr. Shan wrote it without any discussion with us and we are very proud to have published it.
I am sorry if you feel that there are similarities to your own book.
With best wishes,
Fenella Jones
Editorial Assistant
And that was it. No apology. No explanation. No promise of money. Just a few lines dismissing him as if he would simply crawl away and forget the whole thing.
Over the next six months, Henry wrote nine more letters, and when The Vampire’s Assistant, the second book in the series, was published and was even more successful than the first, he wrote eleven more. He got no reply to any of them. It seemed that Darren Shan and his publishers had decided to pretend he didn’t exist.
As The Saga of Darren Shan grew and became ever more popular, Henry bought all the books and went through them, not once but several times, making notes in a pile of notebooks that he kept by his bed. Of course, it was easy enough to convince himself that certain words and phrases had been copied from him, and even when the saga went off in a completely different direction from his own Ring of Evil, he was able to convince himself that Shan had changed his plans because he was afraid of being sued. Or maybe he was stealing his ideas now from somebody else.
At the same time, Henry began to collect as much information as he could about Darren Shan. He learned that the writer was surprisingly young and lived in Ireland. He cut out pictures of him from newspapers. Shan was short and stocky with a face that was as round as a pumpkin and closely cut hair. Henry thought he looked more like a soccer player than a professional author. It seemed he had once worked as a teacher. He visited Shan’s website and began to follow his progress through Britain and around the world. It soon became clear that there wasn’t a country on the planet where the books weren’t doing well. And all the time he could feel a jealousy, like a cancer, creeping through him. Cirque du Freak was his book. It was his idea. He should have been the one enjoying the fame, the wealth, the jet-setting life.
Henry would never be able to remember the exact moment that he decided to murder Darren Shan. It wasn’t an idea that simply arrived, a sudden inspiration. It was more like a growing awareness that murder was the only answer. He wanted to punish the successful writer. But more than that, he needed to get rid of him, to stop him from existing. As far as he could see, it was the only way to allow his own life to continue. Without Shan, there would be no more Cirque du Freak. And then, just possibly, there might be room for Ring of Evil. But the truth was, Henry no longer cared if his own novel was published or not. He had fallen into a quicksand of hatred and despair. He wanted to lash out one last time before he was sucked under completely.
But how to do it?
Shan made occasional appearances in London, where he would sign books for long lines of his devoted readers. It would be easy enough to join the line with some sharp implement concealed beneath his jacket. That would be appropriate. There was plenty of blood in Shan’s books already. Henry would add a few pints more.
But despite everything, he didn’t want to go to prison. It wouldn’t be fair. After all, he was the victim here and he would only be giving Shan what he deserved. And he certainly didn’t want to spend the rest of his life surrounded by common criminals. Henry thought about it and decided. He was an artist. He would use his talents to commit the perfect murder. And one day, maybe, he would write about it. Yes. He would have to change a few names and places, but killing Darren Shan might actually make a good subject for a book.
It wasn’t going to be easy. Henry had to kill someone he had never met before and probably never would meet. He had to do it from a distance. Almost at once an idea began to take shape in his mind.
Like many successful authors, Shan received fan letters and mentioned on his website that he tried to reply to as many as possible. Henry had already written to him once and had received a reply from some editorial assistant. But suppose he were to write again, pretending to be a twelve-year-old boy? Shan would have to write back. And that would be it. It would be easy. Nobody would ever be able to pin anything on him.
The very next day, Henry stole a pair of rubber gloves from work—the sort used to protect workers’ hands from dangerous chemicals. He would need them to make sure he didn’t leave any fingerprints. He bought a cheap pen and some writing paper—choosing a common brand. Then he sat down and composed his letter.
Dear Mr. Shan, he began. He was careful to disguise his writing. He used large, looping letters to make it look as if the letter had been written by a young boy.
I am a huge fan of your work. I think you are a great writer. I have read all your books but my favorite was Vampire Mountain, which I thought was briliant.
He misspelled brilliant on purpose. He was meant to be a schoolboy.
I would be very grateful if you could send me an autograph. I know you are busy so I am enclosing a stamped, addressed envelope. Right now I am in a hospital and the doctors are very worried about me. So your autograph means a lot to me. Please send it soon.
Yours sincerely,
Steve Lyons
The fake name was based on the character Steve Leopard that he had read in Shan’s book. He was particularly pleased with the lie about being in a hospital. It made it doubly certain that he would get a response. But the most briliant—or brilliant—part came next. With his work in the Shoreditch warehouse, Henry regularly came into contact with poisons and dangerous chemicals. It wasn’t all that difficult to steal a small vial of liquid that was colorless, odorless and totally lethal. He mixed this with glue, then, using a paintbrush, applied it to the inside flap of an envelope that he addressed to Steve Lyons at a false address in Brighton.
The trap was simple. Shan would read the letter asking for his autograph. He would sign his name on a card and slip it into the stamped, addressed envelope. And when he licked it, he would seal his fate. Henry reckoned he would be dead before he reached the nearest mailbox, and with a bit of luck the police wouldn’t even be able to work out how the poison had been administered.
Finally, just to be on the safe side, Henry took a train to Brighton and mailed the deadly letter from there. With no fingerprints, a false name and no giveaway postmark on the stamp, he was confident that nobody would ever trace the letter back to him.
He sat back and waited. The next few days passed with a sense of continual excitement . . . almost, in fact, like reading a good book. Every evening he hurried home to his single room to catch the six o’clock news on his television, the picture flickering each time a train went past. He couldn’t wait to hear it . . . “And after the break, the children’s author who took a tumble. Darren Shan’s painful end . . .”
But in fact it was the newspapers that gave him the story he most wanted to hear. It was as he was leaving the warehouse, on his way to Shoreditch station, that he saw the words in bold type, hanging on the side of the kiosk.
CHILDREN’S AUTHOR MURDERED
Just three words—but it was the most brilliant sentence Henry had ever read. He fumbled in his pocket for cash and bought the paper, and there it was, on the front page.
POLICE SUSPECT “POISON PEN LETTER”
Darren Shan, the moderately popular children’s author, died shortly after being admitted to a hospital this morning. Shan, 38, had been answering his fan mail when he was suddenly taken ill. His assistant, Fenella Jones, called an ambulance, but despite their best efforts, paramedics were unable to revive him.
Shan, whose Cirque du Freak series topped bestseller lists all over the world, was in the middle of a second series known as The Demonata, and fans have already begun a candlelit vigil outside his Limerick home. At first it was believed that he had succumbed to an attack of food poisoning, but police are now examining mail that he received in the morning post. Detective Superintendent John Dervish said, “It is possible that Mr. Shan was the victim of a fan—or a madman pretending to be a fan. A
t the moment we are looking at every possibility.”
The story went on over the page and there was a picture of Shan signing books, surrounded by children. Henry read the article with a mixture of emotions. Of course, he was delighted that his plan had succeeded. But at the same time he was a little nervous that the police had arrived so quickly at the murder method . . . the poison pen letter, as the newspaper had put it. In a way, he was glad—he wanted the world to know that the writer had been punished, not just struck down by a piece of bad chicken or fish. But if they had found out this much, this quickly, might their investigation lead them to him? No. Neither the paper nor the envelope could be traced to him. The letter had been postmarked in Brighton, miles away. He had been careful to avoid leaving fingerprints. And even the poison that he had used was fairly common. There were plenty of people who could have gotten hold of it.
Henry watched the six o’clock news with a sense of growing confidence. He watched the news again at ten o’clock and eleven o’clock, and each time the report was the same. The death of the young writer was a tragedy. The police were looking into it. But so far they had no clues, nothing to report.
Henry went to bed that night fairly certain that he had gotten away with it. It didn’t even occur to him that he had taken a human life, that he would have left behind a grieving family . . . not to mention several thousand fans. As far as he was concerned, what he had done had been well executed. Nothing more, nothing less. It was as if the murder was a story that he had plotted, one with a happy ending.
It was by now the end of November and the weather had recently turned cold. There was only one radiator in Henry’s room, and although it was turned on full, it never seemed to give out much heat. The window frame was cracked and there were some nights when the wood rattled and cold breezes danced around the room. This was just such a night. More than that, a mist seemed to have risen around Victoria. There was a full moon but it seemed pale and yellow, unable to penetrate through the clouds.