The Vampire's Photograph by Kevin Emerson Page A

by, keeping a wary eye on Oliver, and put the food on a rusty washing machine along the wall.
    â€œWhat’s your name?” Emalie asked, bent over the sink.
    â€œI’m Oliver.”
    â€œOliver?” Dean mumbled. “That’s not a very demonlike name—” Oliver glanced at him. He didn’t even try to make a menacing face, but Dean immediately went pale. “Sorry,” he said quickly. “It’s a fine name.”
    â€œI’m not exactly a demon,” Oliver started. “I—” But then he stopped. He didn’t need to explain himself! He just needed to tell Emalie what he’d been meaning to all evening. “Look, Emalie, you’re in danger.”
    Emalie didn’t even seem surprised that he knew her name. “Why?” She started running water from the tap.
    â€œThe vampires know about your article.”
    â€œSee?” Dean said accusingly. “I told you!”
    This made Emalie stop. “How do they—how do you know about it?”
    â€œWell…” Oliver explained as briefly as he could: how he attended the very same school at night, how his classmates had seen her story, and how they’d reacted. He left out the torment he’d taken for the mere possibility that he knew her. “If this gets out to the rest of town—”
    â€œWhoa,” said Dean, “What do you mean ‘town’? H…how many vampires are there?”
    â€œIn this city,” asked Oliver, “or this world?”
    â€œW…world?” Dean sputtered.
    Oliver decided not to overwhelm Dean with the latest census, which had this world’s vampire population at almost a million. “There are about five thousand in Seattle.”
    â€œFive thousand ?” Dean gasped. “That’s—but, you’d need to kill people—to eat—there’d be hundreds of —”
    â€œNot really,” explained Oliver. “Vampires don’t usually kill people. They just feed for a while, then give the humans a potion that erases their memory. And there are salts that hide the bite wounds and make them heal almost overnight.” Then Oliver thought to add, “You might have already been bitten and not even know it.”
    Dean rubbed nervously at his neck. “H…how many humans have you bitten?” he asked.
    â€œI—” Oliver felt weird talking about all this. Then why am I? he wondered to himself. He wasn’t sure, really. But he didn’t feel like there was any harm in it. “None,” he said. “I mean, you don’t, until you’re older.” He glanced worriedly toward Emalie, wondering if any of this was going to go too far and freak her out, but she was still working over the sink, almost like Oliver was no more important than whatever was packed in all these boxes.
    â€œHow much older?” Dean continued.
    â€œIt depends,” Oliver said.
    â€œWell, how old are you?”
    Oliver wondered what to tell them. He looked thirteen in human years, and felt and acted thirteen as well, but the truth was, he was sixty-three years old. Vampires were thought to live forever, but what seemed like forever to a human was actually just very slow aging. A vampire ages about five times slower than a human. But wouldn’t they think it was creepy if Oliver told them he was almost five times older than they were? Then again, why should he care if they were freaked out? Still, Oliver decided on the easier number anyway. “Thirteen,” he said, then returned to the reason he was here. “Listen, if you publish that photo of me, the vampires will— Well, just don’t.”
    â€œI knew it!” Dean said stiffly. “We’re dead!”
    Emalie didn’t answer. Oliver was starting to wonder what was wrong with her. “I’m serious,” Oliver said.
    â€œIs that what you came here to do?” she asked, still not turning