The Vampire's Photograph (7 page)

“Just like all the others.” She pointed to the string of hanging photos. “Every time I try to print it, you just come out all blurry.”

Oliver studied the photos. Among a number of shots of other places around town that Oliver knew to be vampire hangouts were five copies of the photo that should have been of him. In every one, the area exactly where Oliver should have appeared was a wispy gray blur.

“I've tried printing it really dark,” Emalie explained, “Overexposing it, changing the filter, the amounts of the chemicals…nothing works. There's something wrong with the negative.” She tossed her tongs back into the sink with a splash. “So, I guess you'll get your wish.”

“Not to mention we'll get to stay alive,” Dean added, optimistically.

Oliver stared at the photos. “It's weird,” he said quietly.

“What?” Emalie asked.

“Vampires don't really use cameras,” he said, thinking aloud. “It's usually drawings or paintings. I don't think I've ever had my picture taken before. I remember one time, my dad pulling me out of the way of a human camera.”

“Why?” Dean asked.

“I don't know.” Oliver had been too young to think to ask.

“So maybe cameras don't work with vampires. Like mirrors,” Emalie offered.

“Maybe.” But then Oliver thought about what he'd just said. He knew of people, like Mr. VanWick, or Ken Tempest, who'd been in movies or on television.
They
showed up on film. Unless video was different—then again, he'd never looked for vampire photographs. He didn't know for sure that it didn't work. But why would his parents tell him cameras were dangerous? Was it that they were dangerous only for
him
?

“Maybe,” Oliver found himself saying, “you need some ingredient you don't have.”

“Like what?” Emalie asked. Her eyes narrowed with interest.

Oliver hesitated. He hadn't really thought through what he was saying, but when he met Emalie's gaze, he found that he wanted to continue. “I don't know, there might be a special chemical—an enchanted solution or something.”

“Enchanted?” Emalie looked even more curious. “What are you talking about?”

“Well,” Oliver said. “I mean, vampires have access to science from the other worlds. I bet Dead Désirée would have something.”

“Okay, wait,” Dean said. He was squinting like his head was about to burst. “‘Worlds,' with an ‘s.' Like more than one?”

“Yeah.” Oliver tried to think of how to make sense of this for a human brain. “This”—he flicked his hand to indicate the world they were currently in—“is a middle world. There are higher and lower ones, too.”

“Like how many?” asked Dean.

“Well, lots. I mean, there are infinite worlds. They're all different. This one, and the other middle worlds, are the only places where things are so—solid. In most of the others, demons don't take physical form. I mean, in some worlds, a vampire can't even be killed.”

“So then why don't vampires go live there?” Emalie asked.

“Because,” Oliver continued, “we can't leave this world. We're sort of stuck here.”

Emalie was staring at him. Then she shook her head. “Wow. Okay. So who's Dead Désirée?”

“She's an apothecary downtown, in the Underground.”

“The Underground?” Dean asked.

“Yeah. It's like, the center of town, for the vampires. It's where all of our stores and restaurants are.”

“Like a mall,” said Dean, “for the undead.”

“Pretty much.”

“We should go,” Emalie said.

“What? No,” Oliver replied immediately. “No way—if a human ever got caught down there—” Not to mention the consequences for himself if he was ever caught bringing humans into the Underground.

“How about this weekend?” Emalie asked seriously.

“Emalie!” Dean protested.

“Oh, come on, cousin!” She wasn't exactly smiling, but she looked the happiest Oliver had seen her.

“Look, no,” Oliver said firmly, shaking his head. “That's not happening.” Still, amazingly, he found himself considering it. What was his problem? Emalie had him totally out of sorts.

“Come
on
,” Emalie urged. “It's the only way you're going to see that photo.”

“Why does anyone really need to see this photo?” Dean whined.

“No,” Oliver said as seriously as he knew how. The fact that the photo couldn't be developed should have been the best news he could have heard. So why would he want to
help
in getting it to work? Except—he did.

“We could totally…” Emalie started.

Suddenly, a voice shouted from upstairs, “Margie! Margie! You said we were going to eat soon!”

Emalie's face fell. “That's my dad,” she said to Oliver. “All right, forget it, then.” All the air seemed to escape from her. She reached to the wall, flicked on the regular light, and then turned off the red lamp. “Come on, Dean,” she said sullenly, brushing past him.

“Yup.” Dean nodded, then glanced warily at Oliver. “What about—”

“He can show himself out,” Emalie said.

“But—”

Emalie looked right past Dean, to Oliver. “It was nice to finally meet you, and thanks for the warning.” She half-smiled at him.

Oliver felt a rush of nerves. He tried to think of something to say.

“Désirée's,” Emalie added. “Think about it. We could go this weekend.”

“I—” Oliver began.

“Let's go!” Emalie's dad shouted. She sighed and disappeared among the boxes.

Dean awkwardly gathered the food, then gave Oliver a last wary look. He sighed and turned to go, but Oliver reached out and tapped his shoulder.

“Gah!” Dean gasped and dropped the bag once more.

“Sorry,” Oliver said flatly.

Dean took a deep breath. “What?”

“Who's Margie?”

Dean looked at him quizzically, then his eyes flashed toward the ceiling. “Oh, that's Emalie's mom.” Dean lowered his voice. “She's been gone for two years now.”

“Gone where?”

Dean shrugged. “Nobody knows.” He turned to go, then turned back. “So you're not going to kill us?”

“No.”

Dean nodded like he was trying to believe it, but he still had a queasy look on his face as he left. When he was gone, Oliver turned back to the pictures of his house and his blurry form in them. What did it mean? Something…He felt like it meant something, for sure.

Before he left, he stepped over to the sink. Emalie had left a green hair elastic on the ledge by the faucet. With barely a thought, Oliver slipped it in his pocket. Then he headed back into the night, toward school.

Chapter 6

Now…and Then

THAT SCHOOL NIGHT PASSED
with Oliver barely noticing. He frustrated Seth by tuning out during their conversations, and he annoyed Theo, Brent, and Maggots by not even reacting when they harassed him. He also incurred a brief, wrathful lecture from Mr. VanWick, because he was openly staring out the window during the night's history lesson. Gazing at the line of small houses across the street from the school, the twinkling Christmas lights and warm windows, going dark one by one as the school night passed, he couldn't stop thinking about Emalie and Dean, and the photo.

“This is important, Mr. Nocturne.” Mr. VanWick scowled, using the forces to slam Oliver's textbook against his desk for effect. The other boys snickered. “As a vampire, it is your duty to your society to be ready for the inevitable next time that human beings start killing one another. We must know the history that they keep themselves so ignorant of, so that we can act accordingly and enjoy the chaos.”

“Sorry,” Oliver muttered.

“Now then,” Mr. VanWick continued, “today we continue our studies of the Aztec empire, a glorious period of human sacrifice unlike any other.”

Normally, Oliver enjoyed history, but, no sooner had Mr. Van Wick continued orating than Oliver was lost in his own thoughts again.

At the end of the night, Oliver found himself hanging back as the rest of the kids quickly fled school. Once everyone was gone, he wandered the halls in the darkness. The neon demons were fading. The only light left was the slanting orange of streetlights through classroom doors.

He wasn't sure what he was looking for until he found Emalie in a photo outside a first-floor classroom. There she was, middle row to the right in her seventh-grade class, barely noticeable, wearing a sweatshirt, her hair in a bandanna, while all the other students were dressed up. Dean towered up from the back row.

He found them both again, in a chorus photo, farther down the hall. Emalie was singing in the picture, but her smile wasn't as bright as those of the girls around her. It looked forced. Oliver wondered if, like a vampire, music inherently made Emalie sad. Choral music was usually quite sad beneath its bright shiny surface, which made it a favorite of vampires.

Oliver ran over the conversation in Emalie's basement again, thinking about her request to go to the Underground, thinking about how he did want to see that photo. Distracted as he was, Oliver found himself eyeing a framed photo on the other side of the door. He now noticed that Emalie and Dean's chorus photo had the word
Now
above it, and above this other photo were the words
and Then
.

The black-and-white picture showed a school chorus from long ago. The students were dressed much more formally: the boys with their hair slicked back, the girls with bows. And there, in the middle row…

Was a vampire. She would have been hard for a human to spot, but it was obvious to Oliver, despite the cheery bows in her hair and the smile on her face. A vampire in a human school chorus? Oliver remembered something from history class, about how vampires early in the last century had tried to live among the humans. They had called themselves Conformists. They had gone to great lengths, even using special creams to withstand sunlight, but in the end, it hadn't worked out. The Conformists were considered a shameful chapter in vampire history.

But wait—Oliver was looking at a vampire
in
a photograph. If this girl could appear clearly in a photo, then why hadn't he? Had the Conformists done something special? Or was the truth what Oliver was starting to suspect, that vampires
could
appear in photos, and it was only Oliver who couldn't?

Oliver stared blankly at the photo, his head lost in confusing thoughts. What was wrong with him that he couldn't be photographed? After a while, he swam out of his head and realized that his gaze had drifted away from the vampire girl. Now he was staring at the face of the young music teacher standing to the side of the class. She looked happy, her hair up in the curls of the time, a wide smile on her face—

Suddenly, there was a flash in Oliver's mind—a vision that seemed clearer and stronger than any dream. It was this woman's face, smiling, looking down toward him tenderly. Behind her there were strange, tiny lights, and formations, maybe buildings, it was hard to tell, because he was overwhelmed by her bright human eyes.

Oliver shook his head, and the image blinked out, leaving his vision bleached in white spots, like he'd been staring at a streetlight for too long. He looked down and found himself trembling—but why? Who was that woman? It had almost seemed like a memory.

Maybe he'd seen her when he was little. It was always amazing how your brain could remember the strangest little details from so long ago. Yet, why would he remember this face out of the thousands he'd seen? And for that matter, why did Oliver feel his anxiety creeping over him now? His insides were getting tight. He wanted to study the picture more carefully—

Just then, two hands grabbed him by the shoulders and hurled him down the hall.

“Wha—” Oliver sailed through the air, slamming to the tile floor and sliding into a trio of trash cans.

“I'm waiting out there for
ten
minutes.” Oliver looked up to see Bane marching toward him, his green eyes blazing in bright lime.

Oh, no
, Oliver thought. He'd completely forgotten that Bane had been waiting for him to walk home. Now he reached Oliver and yanked him to his feet by his backpack.

“Ow!” Oliver shouted.

“Come on, little lamb,” Bane sneered, dragging him stumbling down the steps toward the back door.

“That hurts!” Oliver protested, thinking, too late,
No! Don't say anything!

But he had, and now Bane whirled to face him. “That hurts?
That?
” His nostrils flared and his eyes sparked. “Well, try this!” He grabbed Oliver's shoulder and hurled him through the air. Oliver hit the back door, slamming it open, and tumbled out onto the now-deserted playground.

He slowly got to his feet, gathering his bag and rubbing his sore head. But then Bane was grabbing him again. “Oh, come on, already,” Bane muttered, and pushed Oliver toward the side of the school.

“Knock it off.” Oliver muttered, getting his feet under him and stalking off toward the street.

“Oooh,” Bane chided. “Watch out.”

Oliver kept walking, and Bane fell into step beside him. Oliver glared up at him, but saw that the light had faded from Bane's eyes. Now, he actually threw an arm around Oliver's shoulders. “You gotta toughen up, bro,” he said reasonably. Then he continued, “Something's going on with you. Older brother can tell.”

Oliver's anger immediately cooled to freezing worry. “Um—”

“Not sleeping all day,” Bane went on. “Lying to get to school early…”

They left the schoolyard and proceeded through the silent streets of sleeping houses. Oliver was shocked by Bane's change of attitude. Why was he suddenly acting like he cared? “You're a vampire, for Hade's sake,” Bane went on, and even patted Oliver's shoulder. “When I saw you in there just now, you looked like you were about to cry or something.”