Cirque Du Freak, the Vampires Assistant by Darren Shan (Little Brown and Company, 2000)

Mrs. Moen I’d like you to meet Darren Shan. Darren is a 14 year old half-vampire who lives and travels with the Cirque Du Freak under the supervision of his Master Larten Crepsley.  The Cirque is a circus of people with unique talents such as regrowing new limbs and eating metal or glass without harming them selves.  The Cirque travels to secluded and rundown places performing for people brave enough to risk their lives to be entertained.  In this book Darren meets Evra, a snake boy traveling with the Cirque, and become best friends with each other and do almost everything together. Later on in the book he meets Sam who is just a normal human looking to join the Cirque. Sam helps Darren and Evra out with their chores and they both get into some trouble with the Wolf man and they end up fighting for their lives. Sam ends up being killed by the Wolf man and Darren is able to keep Sam’s spirit alive by drinking all of Sam’s blood.