The Sunlight Slayings (4 page)

It only took a moment to realize that sleep wasn't returning anytime soon. He listened, and when he heard only silence, he reached to the side of his coffin and grasped a polished wooden handle. The bolts that kept his coffin lid locked slid open with a series of quiet clicks.

All coffins still locked from the inside, since vampires usually slept deeply, and the daylight hours had traditionally been the best time for humans to stake them. This rarely if ever happened anymore, but coffins were still sold based not just on comfort (features like soil humidity regulation, satin interior thread count) but also safety (triple-bolt locks, fire-resistant finishes, garlic-proof odor seals). Oliver and his family had midlevel Morlock Tempurpedic coffins, from the SlumberStill series. The next line up, the HomeMausoleum, even had video surveillance and wireless servant-summoning technology. Oliver's coffin was the last junior size, and it did still have a hidden unlock button, which Phlox sometimes used if Oliver overslept, something that is likely to happen if you often don't fall asleep until it's nearly time to get up.

Oliver's lid quietly yawned open. He sat up, brushing a last bit of warm sleeping soil off his legs, then hopped down to the stone floor. Phlox and Sebastian's coffin was silent beside his, Bane's as well beyond that. The crypt was barely lit by tiny crimson magmalight night-lights at the base of each wall.

Oliver turned and knelt. His coffin was at waist height. Beneath it were two rows of dresser drawers. He opened the bottom one and rummaged through his school uniform shirts until his hands closed on a small object. It was a jewelry box made of ivory, its edges lined with pewter. Sebastian had once given Phlox a necklace in it. Oliver flipped open the box. Inside was a jumbled little trio of objects. Oliver brushed them out into an orderly row: the teardrop earring, the green hair elastic, and the crumpled note. They still smelled faintly of Emalie.

He had to find a way to prove that he hadn't killed Dean.…
Unless I really did
, he thought worriedly. That dream had made it seem like he really had. And what could he do now, anyway? Weeks ago, he'd searched through Bane's drawers and found no trace of that turquoise orb that he'd had with him that night. What other evidence was there? It seemed to be just his word against everyone else's.

He climbed back into his coffin, and much later the endless Saturday was finally through. Oliver trudged upstairs for breakfast. Bane was still asleep and Sebastian was gone. Phlox was on the phone when he entered the kitchen.

“I see. Well,
I'll
say that's strange. No— Francyne, no. You should stay home. I can get down there. It's no problem.”

Oliver sat at the kitchen island and found a goblet waiting for him, along with a pill of crushed herbs. He scowled at the pill, but forced it down as usual.

“All right,” Phlox continued, “I'll let you know what I find out. Mm-bye.” She hung up.

“Hey, Mom.”

“Oh.” Phlox almost jumped. “Oliver, I didn't hear you come up.”

“Sorry.”

“No, that's all right.” Phlox glanced distractedly around the kitchen. “Listen, I have to go out for a bit. That was Francyne on the phone. I'll be back maybe around midnight.”

“Okay.” Oliver noted the worry in Phlox's voice. “What's going on?”

“Nothing, it's—it's nothing to worry about, just a quick meeting of Central Council.” She hurried about, filling her shoulder bag.

“Sounds serious,” said Oliver.

“Yeah, well, gotta run.” Phlox rushed toward the stairs. “Your father's at work all night, so …” She looked back at him, her brow furrowing with concern. “You don't have any plans to leave, do you?”

“Nah,” Oliver lied.

“Okay, that's good.” Surprisingly, she left it at that and disappeared down the stairs.

Oliver drained his goblet. He was glad that whatever was worrying Phlox wasn't him for once. Still, his mom wasn't the biggest fan of Central Council, the main body of vampire government in the city. She often said that she couldn't wait to end her term as eighth district liaison. So it was definitely strange to see her rushing out on a Saturday.

But it made Oliver's life easier, as he immediately left for Emalie's before Bane woke up.

He headed across town through a light rain. The city was dreary and dark. The holiday lights were long gone, and it had rained at least a little for something like thirty straight days. That kind of thing was always hard on the humans. They started acting strange, desperate, some even jumping off bridges. Oliver could hear them carousing now, an extra-crazed edge to their voices, as he passed a row of bars. Neon signs lit the raindrops and leafless trees.

As he walked, his thoughts returned to that strange dream. What kept bothering Oliver was the way that Emalie seemed to be controlling the action. If dreams were supposed to be your subconscious telling you something, then what did that mean? It didn't make sense.

He emerged from his thoughts as he reached Emalie's house. Nervousness surged through him. It had been very hard not to come here before now. The last five weeks, Oliver had thought about it every night, but had kept reminding himself:
She doesn't want to see me. She thinks I'm a monster
. Yet here he was.

A quiet, scraping sound broke the silence. Oliver turned to find Dean stepping out of the shadows. He was holding a chicken bone and grinding it down with his teeth. Bones, especially the marrow, were a normal part of a zombie's diet. Oliver remembered walking by an entire pod grinding like that in the Underground, and the sound had been deafening.

“Hey,” said Oliver.

Dean nodded. He glanced warily up at the little house. “Maybe she's already asleep.” He sounded almost hopeful.

Oliver led the way up the brick steps of the walkway through the overgrown yard. The front porch was dark. A light shone weakly from the living room. Oliver wondered how Emalie's dad was doing. The few times Oliver had ever seen him, he hadn't looked well. And he'd been talking to Margie, Emalie's mother, as if she were in the house.

The single upstairs window was also dark. Emalie's room. He could still picture himself lying on her floor, the night before Dean had died, when he had been on the run. There was so much that Oliver had found out in those days before Longest Night, yet it had almost seemed like a dream in the weeks since, when there had been nothing else to do except get back to existence as usual. But now, being here, he remembered the feeling: knowing that his parents, his vampire parents, had been lying to him about his whole life (
Aren't they still?
he reminded himself). He'd felt safe in Emalie's room that night. Normal. He'd actually slept well on her floor.

“Let's check the basement.” Dean was stepping past Oliver with surprising decisiveness.

Oliver followed him around the house to the small ground-level window. Red light spilled from it. They peered in carefully, but found Emalie's darkroom area empty. There were no photo supplies out, no trays of chemicals in the sink, nor photos hanging up. Oliver remembered now that Emalie's camera had gotten damaged in the Underground. There was only a stack of books on the floor. They looked old, their bindings frayed. A beat-up spiral notebook was lying open on top of the pile.

“Maybe she's in the kitchen,” Dean whispered, starting toward the back of the house.

Oliver lingered, looking in at the darkroom space, its walls still made of unpacked boxes. Almost as if on cue, his side ached. It had been on that concrete floor that the amulet had shattered and showed him his true parents. He remembered the portal vision now with a rush of sadness—remembered Emalie in it with him, sensed her scent there—

Wait, no, her scent wasn't in the vision. It was here now.

“Dean!” Dean was just reaching the corner of the house when Oliver grabbed him by the shoulders and lunged forward. They flew up over a van parked in the back alley. As they landed, Oliver pushed Dean to the ground.

“Ow! What the—”

“
Tssss
,” Oliver hissed quietly.

Just then, the basement door of Emalie's house squealed. Watching through the narrow space beneath the van, they saw Emalie emerge. She was wearing a black wool sweater and a black knit hat, and had a backpack slung over her shoulder. She crept away from the house and stole off down the alley.

“What's she doing?” Dean asked as they watched her go.

“Come on,” Oliver said and started off after her.

Chapter 4

The Sunlight Slaying

THEY HADN'T GONE TEN
feet when Emalie froze. Oliver grabbed Dean and pulled him to the side of a garage as Emalie slowly looked over her shoulder. She stared down the alley for a moment, then turned and kept moving.

“That was close,” said Dean. He started back out into the alley.

“Wait.” Oliver held him back. “Let's let her go for a while. I can keep track of her.”

They let a minute pass, then leaped to the roof of the garage and began to bound from one rooftop to the next. Dean could keep up, but he wasn't quite able to land as quietly on the sleeping houses as Oliver could, his feet thudding on each roof. “Sorry,” he offered before Oliver had said anything.

They angled across the neighborhood, leaping over yards and streets. Oliver tried to track Emalie on the wind, but her scent seemed more faint than usual, so they had to stay close, keeping her in sight, but not too close, such that she'd hear Dean's landings.

Emalie reached a thickly wooded park and disappeared beneath the trees. Oliver and Dean hopped down to the sidewalk and followed cautiously after her. The park yawned down a gentle hill. Large old pines shrouded the sparse grass beneath. Here and there, lampposts cast cones of white light on the twisting cement walkways.

“There,” Oliver whispered. He pointed down to their right. Emalie was in a very dark gathering of trees, kneeling in the grass, her bag in front of her. “Can you tell what she's up to?”

“Nah,” Dean replied, squinting. “It's kinda dark for photos, though, isn't it?”

“We should get closer,” Oliver suggested.

“Closer?” said Dean. “She might see us!”

Oliver felt a twinge of his old annoyance with Dean. He was still nervous, even as a zombie. “Not too close,” Oliver said, and was just about to start forward when a sound made him stop.

“What was that?” whispered Dean.

It had sounded like laughter, coming from the other direction. “This way,” said Oliver. They crept away through the trees and spied a small sandy playground. There were three figures there. They looked young. “Vampires. Stay here,” Oliver said sternly. “And, Dean, I mean it.”

“Fine with me,” Dean agreed, sounding not at all hurt to be left behind.

Oliver walked down through the shadows, glancing to his right as he did so. He couldn't see Emalie from here, and the wind was blowing uphill, but if it shifted at all it might carry her scent to these vampires.

Now he heard one of them talking:

“And he was so scared. It was like he'd never seen a Norwegian Mongreloid before!” Oliver recognized the voice as it went on. “What a freak.”

One of the others chuckled.

Oliver dropped down onto the sand, shoving his hands into his sweatshirt pockets as he walked closer. The vampires looked up.

“Is that Oliver Nocturne?”

“Theo,” Oliver said simply.

Oliver's classmate, Theo Moore, was lounging across the top bars of a jungle gym. His friends Brent and Maggots were sitting on the spring-powered seesaw, rocking up and down a little, but they stopped the moment they saw Oliver.

“What are
you
doing out?” Theo asked. He spoke with that same sarcastic tone that he'd used to pick on Oliver in the past, except these days he sounded just a bit less certain. Everyone at school looked at Oliver differently since he'd allegedly killed Dean. Oliver didn't enjoy it. He felt like a curiosity: like a leopard at the zoo—everyone watching him through glass and wondering what he might do next. It was kind of nice not to be made fun of, but Oliver felt like it was only a matter of time before he screwed it up. So lately he'd been saying as little as possible. That way, maybe everyone would think he was mysterious, when really, he didn't know what to say.

“I'm just out,” Oliver said, and an awkward silence passed over the three. The wind shifted downhill, and Oliver caught a faint scent of Dean. He noticed Maggots cocking his head strangely as well, but then the breeze died away. “What are you doing here?” Oliver asked.

“We're looking for humans,” Theo said, still with some attitude, but also with that ever-so-slight edge of defensiveness. “Not to
make friends
with, either,” he added.

“What's that supposed to mean?” Oliver shot back.

Theo looked hard at Oliver for a moment. In the past, Theo would definitely have said something mean right here, but he just shook his head. “Nothing. What are
you
doing here?”

“Same thing.”

“Huh.” Theo shrugged. He sat up, and when he spoke again, his tone had lost some of its edge. “Not a lot of action with this rain, though.”

“Nah,” Oliver agreed.

“Boo,” Maggots said disappointedly. Brent just eyed Oliver.

The wind picked up again, rustling the wet pine trees. It had shifted slightly, probably not enough, but Oliver glanced in the direction where Emalie had been—

And saw a figure lurking in the shadows. Was that her? The figure looked about her height, but now disappeared behind a tree. Oliver peered into the dark.… Suddenly the figure darted back out. Something flashed orange from him or her, like the burst of a match being lit, only larger and brighter—

Oliver heard a sizzling sound and felt a wave of warm energy pass over him. It came and went in an instant.