The Vampire's Photograph (9 page)

Oliver nodded respectfully, not knowing what the old-timer was talking about.

“The wind wants to take me,” the man went on, “But I tell it,
No, Illisius is coming, and I don't mean to rot to dust before we're finally freed from this prison!
That's what I tell that cursed wind.” The man's teeth clicked eagerly.

“That's great,” Oliver said, and turned back to the magazines—

But the man grabbed Oliver's shirt collar with his bone hands and spun him around. “Don't take your destiny lightly, Oliver. You are the one who can open the Gate.” He pulled Oliver even closer, with ten times the strength Oliver would have thought possible. His skinless face stretched into a grin. “You are he who will journey to N—”

A hand firmly pushed the old-timer away. “Excuse me, sir,” said Sebastian sternly. “Have to get my boy in for his checkup. Come along, Oliver.” Dad was smiling, yet he quickly pulled Oliver up out of his chair.

The man was scowling at the interruption, but then he broke into a wide smile. “Yes, yes,” he cooed. “Off to the doctor for the vessel! Careful with my merchandise! I'm not to dust before the ascension!”

Sebastian moved Oliver quickly across the room. “Never mind him,” Sebastian said, before Oliver could even form a question as to what the old man was talking about.

The smiling receptionist held open a dark wooden door. She led them down a short hallway to an elevator. Brass doors slid open, revealing a cylindrical copper elevator car.

“The doctor will see you in exam room three,” the receptionist said, her smile unbreakable.

The doors slid closed. Three was the top floor. The elevator began to rise.

“Old ones are like that,” Sebastian started saying. “He's almost at the end. It could be another century, or maybe only decades. It's a confusing time for them. What was he saying to you, anyway?”

Oliver shrugged. “I couldn't really understand him,” he said, yet another lie coming so easily. Oliver supposed the old one was off his rocker but, still, what was that all about? What had he meant by a destiny?

The elevator slowed, and the doors slid open, revealing a wide, circular room. Floodlights stood on metal stands, beaming white light into the center of the room. The effect made the dark iron walls seem almost invisible. In the center of the room was a standing contraption. It was folded open like a clamshell, each side made of silver mesh shaped like a body. Oliver stiffened when he saw it. Even though he'd been in the force resonance imager before, the sight of it always made him squeamish.

“Ahh, Ollie, welcome,” a friendly voice echoed from the darkness, and Dr. Vincent emerged from the shadows behind the lights. He was a young doctor, maybe two hundred fifty years old, with broad shoulders, a chiseled face, and slicked blond hair. Oliver had heard his parents say on more than one occasion that they were lucky to have such a young, bright physician around. Dr. Vincent had worked for years in research in the asylum colony of lower Morosia, a highly respected facility, if controversial for its methods.

Dr. Vincent buttoned his white coat and stuck out his hand as Sebastian and Oliver reached the center of the room. Oliver put out his hand, and the doctor shook it vigorously.

“Hi,” Oliver said.

“Good to see you, sir,” Dr. Vincent said to him, smiling, then turning to Sebastian. “Seb, nice to see you, too.”

Sebastian handed him the manila folder. “Just the usual checkup today, Doctor?”

“Annual physical, same as always,” Dr. Vincent said cheerily. “So? Oliver, ready?”

Oliver stepped up to the open, body-shaped FRI shell and turned around, backing into half. As his back met the cold metal, he shivered, feeling a ripple of worry, but he reminded himself that he was hopeful:
Maybe this is all I need
, Oliver thought, wondering if that could be possible.

“Here we go,” Dr. Vincent said. He strapped Oliver's arms in place at his sides, and then his ankles. Then he stepped back and closed the front half of the shell. As soon as the latch clicked, there was a sound like ruffling fabric, and the entire mesh shell shrunk and tightened to fit exactly around Oliver. The silver threads pressed cool against his face. No movement was possible except for his eyes, and his view was blurred by the mesh. Oliver vaguely saw Sebastian taking a step back. Oddly, he didn't look like he enjoyed watching this.

Dr. Vincent turned to a console beside the imager. Its brass surface was inlaid with controls and gauges. He pulled a lever and a deep humming overwhelmed Oliver's senses. He felt himself beginning to rise. The imager moved steadily upward, stopping when his feet were equal with the doctor's shoulders.

“All right, Oliver,” Dr. Vincent said, dialing in settings on the console. “This will be the standard checkup. You'll feel some electric conduction as the imager identifies your force readings. As they start to appear in spectrum around you, you might get a little light-headed.”

Oliver was sure he would. The process always put him to sleep.

The machine began to vibrate. Oliver could feel the electric current running through his body, charging particles and heating up the forces. The doctor fiddled with more knobs. Sparks began to softly crackle along the mesh encasing Oliver. Light began to jump out from the imager, making arcs like solar flares that spiraled around him, flashing in colors across the spectrum.

Oliver could feel heat and his body humming lightly. The colors increased in brilliance. Dr. Vincent backed away and appraised the show of spiraling light. A computer screen lit up in the shadows behind him and began recording data.

Oliver had a basic idea of what was happening. Vampires were powered by forces. Some of those were life forces, supplied by blood, yet many were crossover forces, from other worlds. Those things that humans called mystical power, or enchantment, were really just the brief appearances, in this world, of forces from somewhere else. Because vampires were undead, they were just disconnected enough from the reality around them that they could feel those forces. Oliver only understood those basics. Vampire scientists and scholars spent centuries trying to understand the physics of the parallel worlds.

The mesh cage was a special receptor for forces and showed their presence and intensity in shades of color. Every vampire had a unique signature of forces. Dr. Vincent was reading Oliver's now.

And yes, the light show, and humming, and warmth of the electricity was making Oliver sleepy. His eyes began to flutter. The buzzing and light was all around him. It was peaceful. Oliver's eyes slid closed and he fell into a deep sleep.

Except the sleep didn't last like it usually did.

Oliver usually woke up when the machine had shut off, but this time his eyes snapped open early, overwhelmed by the familiar anxious feeling that always kept sleep away.

He found himself lying flat on his back. He was still in the FRI cage, but it had rotated, so that he was looking straight up at the ceiling. And the ceiling had opened. Brilliant, pale white light was flooding down. Oliver squinted and saw the full moon directly overhead and a ring of mirrors around the rim of the open rooftop. They were gathering the moonlight, focusing it down through the roof—and onto him.

Straining to look toward his feet, Oliver could see that his whole body was surrounded by a bone-white glow. No, it
was
his body that was glowing, like he was absorbing the moonlight. Just then, a humming that he hadn't noticed revved to a higher pitch. The mirrors brightened. The intensity of the light increased, and Oliver's glow increased as well. He felt a cool, tingly surge through his body.

What was going on? He never remembered this happening during a checkup before. But then again, the FRI had usually knocked him out. Had this
always
happened and he just never knew it? Then Oliver heard a voice from beside him.

“Almost finished,” Dr. Vincent said softly. “I'm giving him a longer dose than usual. The increased vessel strength should make his anxieties calm down.” Oliver peered out of the corner of his eye. Dr. Vincent and Sebastian were standing in the shadows by the computer console. Dr. Vincent was writing in the manila folder. “Now, you say,” he continued, “that there's been some insomnia, and you think, some form of human sympathizing syndrome.”

“I…I can't be sure,” Sebastian murmured, sounding worried, “I mean, he won't admit anything's wrong, but…Listen, you don't think we did—we've done—something
wrong
to him, do you?”

“No,” Dr. Vincent said with a professional's certainty. “Everything's been done according to the oracles, and according to the best scientific theory. Unless there's some leftover issue on account of his origin.”

“How could there be?” Sebastian asked in a hush.

“I don't think there is,” Dr. Vincent assured him.

But Sebastian continued, “I mean, we did everything right, didn't we? And even so, there's no way he should be able to remember any of that. He was a baby.”

“Of course not.” Dr. Vincent paused. “Though there was that odd reading in his initial workup. But that was so many years ago now, and it's never shown up again.”

Sebastian's tone grew dark. “You told us he would be fine.”

“Look, Seb, he
is
fine. Everybody's wired differently. Kid's probably just scared about growing up. Who isn't?” Dr. Vincent went on, “The bottom line is, all my readings show that these treatments are working. A little anxiety is a small price to pay. Besides it shouldn't surprise you. Part of your reason for choosing Oliver over all the other profiles was his emotional capacity, and I'm confident these treatments will keep the anxiety in check.”

“But what if they don't?”

There was a pause, then Dr. Vincent said, “Well, there's always been a chance he could go insane. But insanity has certain advantages, and that's treatable, too.”

“Not if it destroys him,” Sebastian noted.

“True, but even if it does…we can always try again.”

Sebastian only sighed.

Oliver struggled to make sense of what he was hearing. What treatments? Weren't they just checkups? Why would they make him go insane? And what had happened to him when he was a baby?

Now he felt another surge of the focused moonlight energy. It felt like his body was humming from head to toe.

“All right, that's it,” Dr. Vincent said, and with the flick of a switch the mirrors went dark. Oliver's moon glow faded, and large gears started to grind. The ceiling slid closed. The cage began to rotate Oliver back to a standing position.

Oliver closed his eyes most of the way, yet watched, squinting, as Dr. Vincent scribbled final notes in the folder, and then handed it back to Sebastian, who already had his briefcase open.

“Tell your bosses not to worry,” Dr. Vincent added. “Though I'm hoping you haven't mentioned these little anxiety bouts to them.”

“No, I haven't,” Sebastian muttered.

“I think that's best. Half-Light is too jittery as it is, in my opinion. Things are fine.”

“Mmm,” Sebastian replied as he closed his briefcase and spun the locks. He didn't sound convinced.

The cage reached an upright position. Dr. Vincent approached, holding a clear syringe. The fluid inside was a swirling silver. Oliver shut his eyes fully and tried to look fast asleep, forcing himself not to wince as the needle stuck into his arm. He felt a surge of awakening spread through him. He waited another moment, then opened his eyes to find Sebastian and the doctor appraising him with relaxed smiles.

Dr. Vincent unstrapped Oliver and helped him down. “Welcome back, kiddo.”

As Oliver steadied his wobbly legs, Sebastian clapped him on the back. “You never can make it through the imager without a nap, can you?”

“Guess not,” Oliver said with a grin.

But inside he wasn't smiling. As they left Dr. Vincent's office, Oliver watched his dad treat him normally, the doctor treat him normally, the receptionist…And yet, he wasn't normal, was he? Oliver didn't understand most of what he'd heard, but he understood enough to know that whatever was wrong with him was much more than just some sleepless nights. It was something that everyone seemed to know about, except him.

Unlike in past years, Oliver felt no better after the visit. The rest of that night and through the sleepless day, Oliver's head spun. Who was in on it, whatever
it
was? His parents, Dr. Vincent, and it sounded like the Half-Light Consortium, too. What about Mr. VanWick? What about the other kids at school? Did their parents know? Bane?

And how could Oliver find out what they knew? Nobody would tell him if he asked, would they? Besides, that would just show them that Oliver knew something was going on. That didn't seem like a good idea. Which left…

Emalie and Dean. Were they really his only choice? But how could
they
help him figure out what was going on? Well, maybe there was a way, but it wasn't going to be easy.

Chapter 8

Into the Underground

THAT SATURDAY, A LONG
rain gave way to a deep foggy night, hiding each hill of the city from the other. The Space Needle was devoured to its waist. Gaps between houses became voids of the unknown. The cones of misty light beneath streetlights became islands of safety. In the downtown shopping center, the Christmas lights that covered every store entrance created a world of cheeriness that felt like a haven from the ominous dark. Here, revelers gathered to ride a merry-go-round, get fun family pictures, and go to a choral concert, the kind of somber music that few humans listened to unless it was the holidays.

The All-State choir performed beside a giant Christmas tree, which was almost as bright and cheery as the trendy coffee shop beside it. A crowd stood huddled together against the mist, listening as the pure young voices sang. They were finishing Handel's
Messiah
, singing stirring chords sad enough to move even the silent hearts of the stone gargoyles that watched from their perches high above. Between them, Oliver crouched on a thin ledge, watching silently.