The Vampire's Photograph Read Online Free PDF Page A

thought it was a dump, but Oliver liked it. There were nicer private academies a vampire could go to. Oliver probably had the grades, and Phlox and Sebastian had made it clear that they would support Oliver if he wanted to apply to one, but Oliver never had. It was bad enough feeling like he didn’t fit in here, where the pressure was low. He couldn’t imagine being under the scrutiny at an academy, not to mention being around those ultra-motivated kids.
    He reached the back door, beside the blacktop basketball courts and knocked. The door swung open, and there was Rodrigo, the night janitor. “Mr. Nocturne,” he said in his soft voice, “Welcome, sir.” Oliver nodded, wondering once again how the humans never noticed the points of Rodrigo’s teeth, or that he wasn’t breathing hard when he scrubbed the bathrooms—that he, in fact, wasn’t breathing at all. Those who starred in human movies or worked for human news stations had to work a bit harder to keep their identities secret, but a vampire could work just about any night job in the city and be pretty sure that no human would notice what they really were.
    Oliver headed up the wide stairs. The halls glowed in wild, shimmering neon. The painted murals and bulletin boards on the walls of the human school had been obscured by spectacular three-dimensional vampire graffiti art, called grotesqua. It was done in luminescent spray paint, a variety invisible during daylight, that Rodrigo activated each evening. There were demon faces, creatures from history and lore, and battle scenes that moved with neon figures fighting in silent motion. In some places, the glowing art resembled ancient hieroglyphics and runes. This was done by the older students, those who had begun to learn Skrit, the ancient pictorial language of the vampyr .
    Oliver reached his classroom. The overhead lights were off, but a candle was lit on each desk, along with two on the empty lectern at the front. About half of his class of twenty had already arrived. A few boys were up on the walls, spray-painting glowing graffiti of their own with tiny silver cans. The girls were standing around the human children’s fish tank, as their ringleader, Suzyn, carefully chose one of the tropical fish to eat. Oliver headed for his desk over by the windows.
    As he passed under the back wall, he heard one of the boys above, Theo Moore, chanting ominously,
    â€œHere comes the human, leaving school too late…”
    Another boy, Brent, joined in, “Go tell his mother, he’s already been ate!”
    Theo lunged, landing on Oliver and slamming him to the floor.
    â€œOw, knock it off!” Oliver shouted, shoving Theo off him and jumping to his feet.
    â€œSorry.” Theo frowned as he leaped back up onto the wall. “Guess the little lamb doesn’t like to play the vampire games.”
    â€œShut up,” Oliver said, but too softly for the boys to hear. Theo had already turned his attention to the next student entering, and he and his friends resumed their chant.
    Oliver reached the far row of desks by the tall windows and slumped into his seat. “Hey, Seth,” he said to the boy beside him.
    Seth was short and round-faced, with curly blond hair. He was laying a set of role-playing cards out in front of him. “Hey,” he said absently, then laid a card, and frowned. “Osiris’s army of light is totally kicking my butt.”
    â€œToo bad,” Oliver said. He and Seth were considered friends, in so much as they sat next to each other and rarely hung out with Theo and his group. Seth’s mother, Francyne, was on a few community councils with Phlox, and Oliver and Seth often ended up at the same adult events. Though they were good at hanging out and being bored together, Oliver felt like he and Seth were stuck with each other more than anything else, and Oliver never really knew what to say to him. Then again, he never knew what to