I nodded quickly when he said that.

"Very well," he said. "I cannot say what he will do with these - he might consider them a hoax, or not understand what you want of him - but I'll do as you request." He started to close the door, then paused. "In this time, of course, I do not know you, and now that you have removed yourself from your original timeline, I never shall. But I sense we were friends." He put out a hand and we shook. Mr Tall only very rarely shook hands. "Good luck to you, friend," he whispered. "Good luck to us all." Then he quickly broke contact and closed the door, leaving me to retire, find a nice quiet spot where I could be alone - and die.

I now know why Evanna commented on Mr Tiny not being a reader. He has nothing to do with books. He doesn't pay attention to novels or other works of fiction. If, many years from now, an adult Darren Shan comes along and publishes a series of books about vampires, Mr Tiny won't know about it. His attention will be focused elsewhere. The books will come out and be read, and even though vampires aren't avid readers, word will surely trickle back to them.

As the War of the Scars comes to a wary pause and leaders on both sides try to forge a new era of peace, my diaries will - with the luck of the vampires - hit book shops around the world.

Vampires and vampaneze will be able to read my story (or have it read to them if they're illiterate).

They'll discover more about Mr Tiny than they ever imagined. They'll see precisely how much of a meddler he really is, and learn of his plans for a desolate future world. Armed with that knowledge, and united by the birth of Evanna's children, I'm certain they'll band together and do all they can to stop him.

Mr Tall will send my diaries to the grown Darren Shan. I don't imagine he'll add any notes or instructions of his own - he dare not meddle with the past in that way. It's possible the adult me will dismiss the diaries, write them off as a bizarre con job, and do nothing with them. But knowing me the way I do (now that sounds weird!), I think, once he's read them, he'll take them at face value. I like to believe I always had an open mind.

If the adult me reads the diaries all the way to the end, and believes they're real, he'll know what to do. Rewrite them, fiddle with the names so as not to draw unwelcome attention to the real people involved, rework the facts into a story, cut out the duller entries, fictionalize it a bit, create an action-packed adventure. And then, when he's done all that - sell it! Find an agent and publisher. Pretend it's a work of fantasy. Get it published. Promote it hard. Sell it to as many countries as he can, to spread the word and increase the chances of the story capturing the attention of vampires and vampaneze.

Am I being realistic? There's a big difference between a diary and a novel. Will the human Darren Shan have the ability to draw readers in and spin a tale which keeps them hooked? Will he be able to write a series of novels strong enough to attract the attention of the children of the night? I don't know. I was pretty good at writing stories when I was younger, but there's no way of knowing what I'll be like when I grow up. Maybe I won't read any more. Maybe I won't want to or be able to write.

But I've got to hope for the best. Freed from his dark destiny, I've got to hope the young me keeps on reading and writing. If the luck of the vampires is really with me (with us) maybe that Darren will become a writer even before Mr Tall sends the package to him. That would be perfect, if he was already an author. He could put the story of my life out as just another of his imaginative works, then get on with writing his own stuff, and n.o.body - except those actually involved in the War of the Scars - would ever know the difference.

Maybe I'm just dreaming. But it could happen. I'm proof that stranger things have taken place.

So I say: Go for it, Darren! Follow your dreams. Take your ideas and run with them. Work hard.

Learn to write well. I'll be waiting for you up ahead if you do, with the weirdest, twistiest story you've ever heard. Words have the power to alter the future and change the world. I think, together, we can find the right words. I can even, now that I think about it, suggest a first line for the book, to start you out on the long and winding road, perhaps something along the lines of, "I've always been fascinated by spiders..."

CHAPTER TWENTY

I'm on the roof of the old cinema, lying on my back, studying the beautiful sky. Dawn is close.

Thin clouds drift slowly across the lightening horizon. I can feel myself coming undone. It won't be much longer now.

I'm not one hundred per cent sure how Mr Tiny's resurrection process works, but I think I understand enough of it to know what's going on. Harkat was created from the remains of Kurda Smahlt. Mr Tiny took Kurda's corpse and used it to create a Little Person. He then returned Harkat to the past. Harkat and Kurda shouldn't have been able to exist simultaneously. A soul can't normally share two bodies at the same time. One should have given way for the other. As the original, Kurda had the automatic right to life, so Harkat's body should have started to unravel, as it did when Kurda was fished out of the Lake of Souls all those years later.

But it didn't. Harkat survived for several years in the same time zone as Kurda. That makes me a.s.sume that Mr Tiny has the power to protect his Little People, at least for a while, even if he sends them back to a time when their original forms are still alive.

But he didn't bother to protect me when he sent me back. So one of the bodies has to go - this one. But I'm not moaning. I'm OK with my brief spell as a Little Person. In fact, the shortness of this life is the whole point! It's how Evanna has freed me.

When Kurda was facing death for the second time, Mr Tiny told him that his spirit wouldn't return to the Lake - it would depart this realm. By dying now, my soul - like Kurda's - will fly immediately to Paradise. I suppose it's a bit like not pa.s.sing "Go" on a Monopoly board and going straight to jail, except in this case "Go" is the Lake of Souls and "jail" is the afterlife.

I feel exceptionally light, as though I weigh almost nothing. The sensation is increasing by the moment. My body's fading away, dissolving. But not like in the green pool of liquid in Mr Tiny's cave. This is a gentle, painless dissolve, as though some great force is unst.i.tching me, using a pair of magical knitting needles to pick my flesh and bones apart, strand by strand, knot by knot.

What will Paradise be like? I can't answer that one. I can't even hazard a guess. I imagine it's a timeless place, where the dead souls of every age mingle as one, renewing old friendships and making new acquaintances. s.p.a.ce doesn't exist, not even bodies, just thoughts and imagination.

But I have no proof of that. It's just what I picture it to be.

I summon what little energy I have left and raise a hand. I can see through the grey flesh now, through the muscles and bones, to the twinkle of the stars beyond. I smile and the corners of my lips continue stretching, off my face, becoming a limitless, endless smile.

My robes sag as the body beneath loses the ability to support them. Atoms rise from me like steam, thin tendrils at first, then a steady stream of shafts which are all the colours of the rainbow, my soul departing from every area of my body at once. The tendrils wrap around one another and shoot upwards, bound for the stars and realms beyond.

There's almost nothing left of me now. The robes collapse in on themselves completely. The Previous Toplast traces of my spirit hover above the robes and the roof. I think of my family, Debbie, Mr Crepsley, Steve, Mr Tiny, all those I've known, loved, feared and hated. My last thought, oddly, is of Madam Octa - I wonder if they have spiders in Paradise?

And now it's over. I'm finished with this world. My final few atoms rise at a speed faster than light, leaving the roof, the theatre, the town, the world, far, far behind. I'm heading for a new universe, new adventures, a new way of being. Farewell world! Goodbye Darren Shan! So long old friends and allies! This is it! The stars draw me towards them. Explosions of s.p.a.ce and time.

Breaking through the barriers of the old reality. Coming apart, coming together, moving on. A breath on the lips of the universe. All things, all worlds, all lives. Everything at once and never. Mr Crepsley waiting. Laughter in the great beyond. I'm going... I'm... going... I'm... gone.

THE END.

THE SAGA OF DARREN SHAN.

MAY 8TH 1997 - MAY 19TH 2004.

COMING SOON.

Darren Shan's blood-curdling new novel

LORD LOSS.

For a sneak preview, please read on...

RAT GUTS.

? Double history on a Wednesday afternoon - total nightmare! A few minutes ago, I would have said that I couldn't imagine anything worse. But when there's a knock at the door, and it opens, and I spot my Mum outside, I realise - life can always get worse.

When a parent turns up at school, unexpected, it means one of two things. Either somebody close to you has been seriously injured or died, or you're in trouble.

My immediate reaction - please don't let anybody be dead! I think of Dad, Gret, uncles, aunts, cousins. It could be any of them. Alive and kicking this morning. Now stiff and cold, tongue sticking out, a slab of dead meat just waiting to be cremated or buried. I remember Gran's funeral. The open coffin. Her shining flesh, having to kiss her forehead, the pain, the tears. Please don't let anyone be dead! Please! Please! Please! Ple- Then I see Mum's face, white with rage, and I know she's here to punish, not comfort.

I groan, roll my eyes and mutter under my breath, "Bring on the corpses!"

? The head's office. Me, Mum and Mr Donnellan. Mum's ranting and raving about cigarettes.

I've been seen smoking behind the bike shed (the oldest cliche in the book!). She wants to know if the head's aware of this, of what the pupils in his school are getting up to.

I feel a bit sorry for Mr Donnellan. He has to sit there, looking like a schoolboy himself, shuffling his feet and saying he didn't know this was going on and he'll launch an investigation and put a quick end to it. Liar! Of course he knew. Every school has a smoking area. That's life.

Teachers don't approve, but they turn a blind eye most of the time. Certain kids smoke - fact.

Safer to have them smoking at school than sneaking off the grounds during breaks and at lunch.

Mum knows that too. She must! She was young once, like she's always reminding me. Kids were no different in Mum's time. If she stopped for a minute and thought back, she'd see what a b.l.o.o.d.y embarra.s.sment she's being. I wouldn't mind her having a go at me at home, but you don't march into school and start laying down the law in the headmaster's office. She's out of order - big time.

But it's not like I can tell her, is it? I can't pipe up with, "Oi! Mother! You're disgracing us both, so shut yer trap!"

I smirk at the thought, and of course that's when Mum pauses for the briefest of moments and catches me. "What are you grinning at?" she roars, and then she's off again - I'm smoking myself into an early grave, the school's responsible, what sort of a freak show is Mr Donnellan running, la-di-la-di-la-di-b.l.o.o.d.y-la!

BAWRing!

? Her rant at school's nothing compared to the one I get at home. Screaming at the top of her lungs, blue b.l.o.o.d.y murder.

She's going to send me off to boarding school - no, military school! See how I like that, having to get up at dawn each morning and do a hundred press-ups before breakfast. How does that sound?

"Is breakfast a fry-up or some cereally, yoghurty c.r.a.p?" is my response, and I know the second it's out of my stupid mouth that it's the wrong thing to say. This isn't the time for the famed Grubbs Grady brand of cutting-edge humour.

Cue the enraged Mum fireworks. Who do I think I am? Do I know how much they spend on me? What if I get kicked out of school? Then the clincher, the one Mum doesn't pull too often, which I know means there'll be h.e.l.l to pay when she does: "Just wait till your father gets home!"

? Dad's not as freaked out as Mum, but he's not happy. He tells me how disappointed he is.

They've warned me so many times about the dangers of smoking, how it destroys people's lungs and gives them cancer.

"Smoking's dumb," he says. We're in the kitchen (I haven't been out of it since Mum dragged me home from school early, except to go to the toilet). "It's disgusting, antisocial and lethal. Why do it, Grubbs? I thought you had more sense."

I shrug wordlessly. What's there to say? They're being unfair. Of course smoking's dumb. Of course it gives you cancer. Of course I shouldn't be doing it. But my friends smoke. It's cool.

You get to hang out with cool people at lunch and talk about cool things. But only if you smoke.

You can't be in if you're out. And they know that. Yet here they stand, acting all Gestapo, asking me to account for my actions.

"How long has he been smoking? That's what I want to know!" Mum's started referring to me in the third person since Dad arrived. I'm beneath direct mention.

"Yes," Dad says. "How long, Grubbs?"

"I dunno."

"Weeks? Months? Longer?"

"A few months maybe. But only a couple a day."

"If he says a couple, he means at least five or six," Mum snorts.

"No, I don't!" I shout. "I mean a couple!"

"Don't raise your voice to me!" Mum roars back.

"Easy," Dad begins, but Mum goes on as if he isn't there.

"Do you think it's clever? Filling your lungs with rubbish, killing yourself? We didn't bring you up to watch you give yourself cancer! We don't need this, certainly not at this time, not when -"

"Enough!" Dad shouts, and we both jump. Dad almost never shouts. He usually gets very quiet when he's angry. Now his face is red and he's glaring - but at both of us, not just me.

Mum coughs, as if she's ashamed of herself. She sits, brushes her hair back off her face and looks at me with wounded eyes. I hate when she pulls a face like this. It's impossible to look at her straight or argue back.

"I want you to stop, Grubbs," Dad says, back in control now. "We're not going to punish you -" Mum starts to object, but Dad silences her with a curt wave of his hand "-but I want your word that you'll stop. I know it won't be easy. I know your friends will give you a hard time. But this is important. Some things matter more than looking cool. Will you promise, Grubbs?" He pauses. "Of course, that's if you're able to quit..." "Of course I'm able," I mutter. "I'm not addicted or anything."

"Then will you? For your sake - not ours?"

I shrug, trying to act like it's no big thing, like I was planning to stop anyway. "Sure, if you're going to make that much of a fuss about it," I yawn.

Dad smiles. Mum smiles. I smile.

Then Gret walks in the back door and she's smiling too - but it's an evil, big-sister-superior smile. "Have we sorted all our little problems out yet?" she asks, voice high and fake-innocent.

And I know instantly - Gret gra.s.sed me up to Mum! She found out that I was smoking and she told. The cow!

As she swishes past, beaming like an angel, I burn fiery holes in the back of her head with my eyes, and a single word echoes through my head like the sound of unG.o.dly thunder...

Revenge!

? I love rubbish dumps. You can find all sorts of disgusting stuff there. The perfect place to go browsing if you want to get even with your annoying traitor of a sister.

I climb over mounds of garbage and root through black bags and soggy cardboard boxes. I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to use, or in what fashion, so I wait for inspiration to strike. Then, in a small plastic bag, I find six dead rats, necks broken, just starting to rot. Excellent! Look out, Gret - here I come!

? Eating breakfast at the kitchen table. Radio turned down low. Listening to the noises upstairs. Trying not to giggle. Waiting for the outburst.

Gret's in her shower. She showers all the time, at least twice a day, before she goes to school and when she gets back. Sometimes she has one before going to bed too. I don't know why anybody would bother to keep themselves so clean. I reckon it's a form of madness.

Because she's so obsessed with showering, Mum and Dad gave her the en suite bedroom.

They figured I wouldn't mind. And I don't. In fact, it's perfect. I wouldn't have been able to pull my trick if Gret didn't have her own shower, with its very own towel rack.

The shower goes off. Splatters, then drips, then silence. I tense with excitement. I know Gret's routines inside out. She always pulls her towel down off its rack after she's showered, not before.