The Vampire's Photograph (16 page)

There was a moment of silence, and Oliver wondered if he shouldn't have asked. But then Emalie sighed and said, “Nobody knows. She's been gone for two years. She was a flight attendant. She left one morning like any other day. And that was it.” She glanced out the window. “My dad is still upset. He keeps trying to look for her, but he doesn't know how.”

“Sorry,” Oliver said.

Emalie kept gazing out at the sleet. Headlights slid across her face. When she continued, Oliver thought she might sound sad, but she didn't. “I see her sometimes, in my dreams. She's always somewhere ancient. I don't know why. I mean, she liked history and visiting old places. Maybe that's what makes me think of it. Whenever I dream about her, it's like I'm in her head, looking out through her eyes. Like I am her, or something. It's messed up.”

“Maybe you really are,” Oliver said, thinking about what Désirée had told him. She'd referred to Emalie as an Orani—a seer. The Orani were an ancient and secretive order of humans, known for their ability to “see” into a person's future. The Orani were also rumored to be able to read people's minds, even communicate with wraiths and spirits in the other worlds. Oliver remembered hearing that where most humans had only a tiny bit of intuition, the Orani could use intuition like a whole other sixth sense. They could sense one's attitudes, desires, and fears, and guess what they would do in the future, with startling accuracy.

These powers had actually caused the Orani lots of trouble in history. They had been regularly imprisoned and kept as slaves by kings and leaders, and sometimes burned at the stake by fearful villagers. Some governments had done awful experiments on them, such that the Orani kept their identity secret. Emalie didn't even seem to know that she was one, yet, but the fact that she joined Oliver in the portal vision made it likely that she really was. And it didn't sound strange at all for her to be sharing visions with her mother, since Orani sight was passed down the generations.

“Yeah, right,” said Emalie, rolling over. “She's probably dead, or happy. She never seemed happy when she was here. Either way, she's gone.”

Oliver couldn't think of anything else to say. If he found a way out of his current mess, he wanted to help Emalie learn more about her identity.

The sleet was changing back to rain. Water ran down the window in sheets. “Good night, Emalie,” Oliver whispered.

“Gnnd,” Emalie mumbled. Soon her sleeping breaths returned and, as Oliver would find to his surprise later on, he fell asleep as well.

Oliver awoke in the early afternoon to dull orange light. He was lying on his side, curled up on the floor, and Emalie had thrown her thick orange comforter over the rest of him. She'd also thought to hang a blanket over the bare window.

Oliver found the house empty. He also found that he was starving. He went to the kitchen. There was little that a vampire would like, but he did find a sugary cereal: Count Chocula. He frowned but poured a bowl and turned to sit, only the kitchen table was bathed in daylight. He went into the living room but found the same problem with the couch. He ended up eating in the bathroom.

After that, he felt better, but he was still thirsty, so he headed into the basement to find a rat, but had to settle for a mouse. Then he returned upstairs. He looked around for a while but didn't know what to do with himself. Returning to Emalie's room, he tried going back to sleep, but it didn't work. His thoughts were only getting more crazy as the afternoon went on. By now, Phlox and Sebastian would definitely be looking for him in the Underground. They might even have figured out what
he
knew about what
they
knew. Oliver wished more than anything that there was some way to just make this entire situation go away, but how? There didn't seem to be a solution.

At four in the afternoon, Oliver headed for school. It was the evening before Longest Night, and so darkness had already started to fall on the city. For the humans, this was the last day of school before their Christmas vacation. There was an excited speed to the way everyone was moving. It was cold, the wind whipping a light rain so that it felt like pinpricks. Oliver made most of the journey sitting atop a city bus.

Rodrigo hadn't even arrived yet. Oliver let himself in. The halls were quiet. The cheery holiday decorations had yet to be overrun by grotesqua. Oliver crept up to the main floor. He heard light talking and shuffling of papers in the main office. Then the faint sound of singing voices reached his ears. Oliver headed toward it.

At the end of the hall he reached a set of double doors. He peered inside. The lights were off except for spotlights. They were aimed at two sets of risers on the floor in front of the stage. The chorus stood there, their teacher in front. Behind them, the curtain was pulled closed across the stage and decorated with the cut-out snowflakes from the art room. Behind the conductor, empty chairs were arranged in neat rows. The kids were in the middle of a bouncy song about winter.

Oliver slid inside. He spectralized and scaled the wall. He reached the high ceiling, crossed it, and stopped at the metal scaffolding that hung down and held a basketball hoop. He slid down one of these poles and sat on top of the backboard.

Emalie was in the second row. She wore a hooded brown sweater, and surprisingly, had her hair down. Dean was in the back. Everyone else was staring at the teacher as they sang, but Emalie looked around now and then. Oliver wondered if she was looking for him.

As with the human children's art, this chorus wasn't very skilled by vampire standards. Still, listening to these middle-school voices was nice, despite their flaws. Oliver enjoyed how their singing echoed around the giant box of a room. He also enjoyed the hollow silences between songs, when the resonance of the last song still lingered, and the anticipation for the next song was building. They sang for another half hour, during which time Oliver relaxed and barely thought about his troubles. Finally, the last piece ended and the students began to gather their things.

“Remember,” their teacher was saying, “everyone must be here by six tomorrow night to warm up before the show. Don't forget to—” Her voice was cut off by a loud banging, from a door down in the hallway beside the stage. The teacher huffed and headed toward the hall. “I've asked you before, students,” she grumbled, “to please tell your parents to wait outside until I excuse you.”

She disappeared into the hall, and Oliver looked back to Emalie. She was looking right at him and waved quickly. The other students were beginning to head out the double doors into the hall.

Oliver heard the back door opening and the teacher saying, “I'm sorry, but the school is closed and we're in the middle of—” but then her voice cut off. There was a loud thud. A couple of students heard it and turned.

“All right, everyone!” A high-pitched voice called. It sounded like a girl—no, like a boy pretending to be a girl—

Bane and his friends stormed into the gym. Oliver froze. Some of the students looked up. They had no reason to suspect what was really happening.

Bane was carrying a long staff with a blue crystal on top. Oliver had never seen it before. Bane leaned it against his shoulder and clapped his hands together, continuing in his fake teacher's voice, “Places, please! Let's get these songs into shape!”

The humans recognized that Bane and his friends were bullies, and they scowled and hurried their steps toward the door. Oliver saw Dean grab Emalie's arm to leave, but she was staring hard at Bane.

“Chop-chop!” Bane yelled in the girl's voice. And then he shoved the nearest human, a boy, and sent him flying across the room.

Now the kids started to run for the door.

“Randall!” Bane barked in his normal voice.

Randall sprinted past him and leaped into the air, flying across the room and landing just in front of the double doors. He turned and crossed his arms.

Someone screamed.

“Nobody leaves!” Bane shouted. “Not until we straighten a few things out.”

Oliver slipped back up the pole to the ceiling. He counted: There were twelve kids left in the gym. They all backed away from Bane and Ty at one end, and Randall at the other, until they formed a tight group in front of the risers. Ty and Bane separated, making a triangle around the group.

“Kids,” Bane said, lowering his voice and flashing a devilish grin that revealed the points of his teeth. “There's no need to worry. This won't take long, and it may not even hurt that bad.” As he said this, he waved the staff in the kids' directions. The humans were silent except for whimpers. Bane turned his head. “Hey, little brother!” he shouted into the dark recesses of the gym.

Oliver pressed against the ceiling, but he already knew it was no use.

“Come on, little lamb, you
know
I know you're here.”

Oliver tried to think of what to do, but his thoughts felt frozen.

“Look,” Bane called. “Big brother is here to help, so if you don't come down, here's what I'm going to do: I'm going to kill each of these kids, one at a time, until you do—starting with this one!”

Bane lunged and grabbed a shorter girl from the edge of the group. She screamed as he pulled her near, dropping her music folder, its sheets spilling across the floor.

“All right!” Oliver vaulted off the ceiling, landing beside Bane. He glared at his so-called brother with all the hate he could muster.

Bane just smiled. “Hey, kid,” he said, and shoved the girl back into the terrified group. “You know you've got Mom and Dad worried sick.”

Oliver shook his head. “Yeah, right,” he muttered. “Just get out of here, Bane.”

“Ha, whatever. I knew we'd find you here. It was so
obvious
.” Bane turned toward the kids. “So…which ones are they?”

Oliver didn't risk even glancing at the humans. “They're not here—”

Bane rolled his eyes. “Of
course
, they're here. That's why you're here. So, come on, point out your
cow
friends. Don't make me guess.”

“Bane!” Oliver snapped. “Come on, you found me. Just take me home, and you can be the big hero.”

Bane looked at Oliver for a long moment. Oliver found, right then, that he had no idea what was going through Bane's mind. Finally, Bane sighed. “Nah. You need help, bro. That's why I'm here. If I take you home, it's going to be all with the
what's wrong with our baby?!
And I am
so
sick of that.” Bane threw an arm around Oliver's shoulder. “Nope, we're going to fix you, right here, right now.”

Oliver shoved Bane away. “I'm fine. Just leave me alone!”

“Believe me, I'd
love
to! But you're my best excuse for a brother,” Bane said, wrapping his arm around Oliver again, this time, with a grip that Oliver couldn't break. “That's why Bane's here to make it all better.” As he said this, Bane pointed at the humans with the staff he was carrying. Oliver could see now that it was made of basic wood, except for the top, where a bony hand of metal held a crystal sphere with turquoise light swirling inside it. Oliver didn't know what it might be, but it looked like something enchanted.

Bane twisted Oliver toward the crowd of terrified human faces, then spoke softly by Oliver's ear, but still loud enough for everyone in the room to hear, “Now, pick one.”

“What?”

“You heard me. Pick the lucky human who's going to be your first victim.”

The humans gasped and cried out.

“Everybody shut up, please,” Ty said gleefully.

“No! Bane.” Oliver struggled against his grip. “I'm not. I won't.”

“You are, little brother,” Bane snarled, “And you will. Sometimes you gotta grow up early, and that's what you're going to do right now. So pick one, or I'll pick
for
you.”

Oliver's eyes darted from one child to the next, trying with all his might
not
to linger on Emalie or Dean. What could he do? He was trying to think—

“Three seconds, little bro,” Bane announced, his grip on Oliver's shoulder tightening. “One…”

Oliver squirmed, but it was no use. He looked miserably across the terrified faces, and as he passed Emalie, he saw her mouth moving. Oliver watched her in the corner of his eye. What was she saying? It looked like,
Pick me
.

No. He couldn't. She probably felt responsible, like this was all her fault.

“Two…” Bane called dramatically.

Oliver looked desperately around. He couldn't do this, he—

“Three!” Bane announced. He flashed a triumphant look at Oliver, then turned and pointed right at Emalie. “I choose her!”

“No!” Oliver screamed.

“Um, yeah. Ty!”

Ty moved toward the group, grinning at Emalie.

“All right, fine!” shouted Oliver, trying to shake free. “I'll choose!”

Bane finally let him go. “Do it now, lamb,” he hissed.

Oliver glanced at the group. A plan was finally forming in his head. It was risky, and he would need someone to play along…. So Oliver leaped forward, shooting into the crowd and slamming into Dean. He grabbed Dean's shoulders, and the two hit the floor and slid toward the wall.

“Oliver, no! Don't!” Dean stammered as they came to a halt. “Please!”

“Relax!” Oliver hissed into his ear. “I'm not, I just—I had to do something. Now scream.” Dean didn't do anything. “Scream!” Oliver snapped, and moved his head closer to Dean's neck, trying to make it look like he was biting Dean.

“Ahhh—noo!” Dean screamed. Oliver kept his face by Dean's neck but glanced up toward the double doors. Randall was watching them with a wide smile on his face. Could Oliver could surprise him? He readied to jump. Dean was putting on a good show of screaming, though Oliver could tell that he really was terrified.