“Nothing to worry about, dear boy. It’s just sometimes the mere mention of Mistress Li gives me a little turn. Curious, eh?”
Connor nodded, smiling and making a mental note to refer to Cheng Li as seldom as possible. Seeing the booty that surrounded them, he found an easy way to change the subject.
“Did you get all this stuff in pirate raids?”
“Abso-blooming-lutely, my boy,” Captain Wrathe said proudly. “Most of this is a fresh haul from an attack last week, just a day or two before we made your acquaintance.”
“All this is from just one raid?” Connor asked, incredulous.
“Why, yes, but this was an especially successful one. We attacked on land. Got word that the governor’s mansion was empty and thought we’d make a little house visit.”
Connor was surprised. “I thought pirates only attacked other ships.”
Captain Wrathe beamed. “The only rule is that there are no rules. It’s all about surprise. Do the unexpected. A famous pirate captain of the olden days once said that a pirate’s life was a short but merry one. Well, my life has been very merry, though not so short, I’m pleased to say. And I’ll drink a cup of rum to that!”
Molucco Wrathe swigged from his tankard. Connor smiled. There was something irresistibly engaging about the captain of The Diablo. Piracy seemed to seep from his every pore.
“A short life but a merry one, you hear me, Mister Tempest? There are too many killjoys in the pirate world today, my boy. Persons like Mistress Li, who learned it all from a book — though her father, now, he was a fine pirate. Vicious, though! Hehe, vicious. But, where was I? Yes, there are too many persons who’d learn piracy from a book. They tie themselves up with rules and regulations and petty bureaucracies. But piracy isn’t like that. It’s about instinct and chance and throwing yourself into danger for the sake of your brother. And we’re all brothers here. There’s an honor to that, d’ya see, my boy? A pirate’s honor. And if you bring home the booty, well, why have a frown on your face? Them’s only things,” he said, sweeping his arm about the cabin. “Pretty paintings, statues, gilded elephants, whatever. They’re just things. Last week they were the governor’s. And now they’re mine. End of story.”
“A diamond for your thoughts,” Captain Wrathe continued, smiling as he held up a jewel from an open casket. He bit down on it. “Oh, that’s rather a good one. I think I might keep it, after all.”
“I just want you to know, Captain, how grateful I am . . . for everything.” Connor meant it with all his heart.
“Think nothing of it, Mister Tempest. We’re all family here. Help yourself to a date. They’re Scrimshaw’s favorite. We have to take a detour around the Cape to buy them by the barrel, but whatever it takes to keep the little fellow happy . . .” He smiled and nuzzled Scrimshaw again. As much as Connor liked Captain Wrathe, he was finding it a little hard to warm to his beloved reptile.
Connor reached forward and took one of the dates. He could swear that Scrimshaw was fixing him with a look of annoyance. He ate the date somewhat guiltily.
“What do you think of these vases, Mister Tempest? Aren’t they beautiful?”
“They’re very big,” Connor said.
“They were a gift — a peace offering, if you will — from the governor.”
“The governor you stole from?”
“Why, yes, dear boy. He sent them over this morning. It’s his way of showing there’s no hard feelings.”
“Isn’t that a little strange?”
As Connor finished speaking, he heard a loud chime. He looked up, trying to place the sound. His first thought was that it must be the ship’s bell. Was it a call to arms? Captain Wrathe looked equally puzzled. Clearly, he hadn’t been expecting the chime. There it was again. Louder.
The chiming continued, regular but growing still louder. And now that it had been repeated, both of them knew that it was not quite the sound a ringing bell makes. Nor was it the chiming of a clock. The sound seemed to be coming from in front of them. But it couldn’t be. All that faced them was the pair of tall Chinese vases.
Connor stared at the detailed painting on the vases. A matching scene of a pagoda by a winding river and a tall willow tree and — Suddenly, before his eyes, the vases cracked. The scenes of the pagoda disappeared and the china crumbled away. Out of each vase flew a figure, dressed head to toe in black, each brandishing a weapon.
“What the blazes?” cried Captain Wrathe, as the two intruders dived toward him — one armed with a cutlass, the other with a dagger.
16
UNDER ATTACK
“Who the devil are you? What do you want?” Captain Wrathe asked. If he was scared — and he had every reason to be — he was putting on a good show. But Connor guessed that the captain had stared death in the face many times before.
The two masked men said nothing but drew nearer, hovering before the captain and Connor like large flies.
Then, the one holding the dagger turned to his companion. The cutlass bearer nodded and moved his feet slightly. Now he had both Connor and Captain Wrathe trapped within the sweep of his sword. Connor’s heart pounded. If his mop fight with Bart had been Lesson One in combat, here was Lesson Two. And there was a very real possibility that he wouldn’t live to see Lesson Three.
The accomplice approached Connor, swiftly running the face of his dagger along either side of Connor’s hips. He was checking, Connor realized, for a concealed weapon. Finding none, he moved over to the captain. Captain Wrathe’s twin silver scabbards were impossible to miss. The captain had his hand on one, poised to draw it, but he was too slow. In a precise, vicious movement, the dagger bearer cut the scabbards from the captain’s belt. They clattered to the floor, narrowly missing Scrimshaw, who slipped forward under the table.
Next, the dagger bearer unwound a band of black cloth from his waist. He threw the cloth at Connor and jerked his head toward the captain. It was clear that he wanted Connor to bind Captain Wrathe with the folds of material.
Connor looked to Captain Wrathe, thinking he’d know what to do. He must have a plan, with all his experience.
But Captain Wrathe simply said, “Best do their bidding, boy. It doesn’t pay to argue with metal like that.” He held his hands behind his back in readiness.
Did Captain Wrathe have a plan? Was there something Connor could do, like keeping the knots loose? But Molucco Wrathe gave him no clues and the attacker was watching over him too closely not to bind the knots securely. Sadly, he wrapped the length of cloth about the captain’s wrists. After he had completed the task, the man held the tip of the dagger toward him and, obediently, Connor stepped backward as the aggressor inspected the bindings. He appeared to be satisfied.
Turning, he ran the dagger’s tip across the pile of cushions in front of Connor and the captain. A mist of feathers rose into the air as the blade cut through the skin of the cushion covers.
As the feathers rose, Connor sneezed and slightly lost his footing. He steadied himself but felt something digging into his lower back. It was the handle of the warming pan the captain had used to take a swipe at the sitar player earlier. Connor let the handle push into the hollow of his spine, wondering if there was some way he could grab the pan.
The attacker scooped up Molucco Wrathe’s fallen scabbards from the floor. He pushed one into his own belt loop and removed the cutlass from the other, throwing it to his companion. His accomplice caught it expertly. Now he menaced them with a cutlass in each hand.
The feathers had fallen down over the cushions and table and lay there like drifts of snow. The man with the dagger moved off into the depths of the cabin. Connor realized that his splicing of the cushions might not have been a random act of vandalism. He appeared to be hunting for something.
Though Connor was not bound like Captain Wrathe, he was still powerless to move with the cutlass bearer hovering in readiness before him. He remembered Bart’s advice. Always watch your opponent’s eyes. The sword can lie, but the eyes don�
��t. He looked from the tips of the ferocious blades into his opponent’s eyes. They were deep brown, he noticed. Connor looked beyond the color and he saw, to his surprise, a flash of fear.
Careful not to show any obvious response, Connor dropped his gaze. Could it be that his attacker, though possessed of not one but two deadly sharp blades, was scared? Was he scared of what might happen? Too scared to use them? The pan handle was digging into Connor’s back and a plan was beginning to form. It all depended upon seizing his moment.
Meanwhile, the other adversary was causing chaos within the cabin. Connor could hear the treasures he’d glimpsed on the way in crashing to the floor — paintings torn, chairs roughly broken. He could only imagine the extent of the damage being done.
During all this commotion, neither he, Captain Wrathe, nor their attacker with the cutlasses moved. It was as if they were held in a delicate bubble of stillness and silence.
An ornate mirrored screen crashed to the floor, showering shards of glass across the deck. Once more, Connor feared for Scrimshaw’s safety, but he had other concerns now. The vandal was once more visible to Connor and the others. Stepping over the sea of glass, the man approached the marble statue of the goddess. His dark eyes twinkling, the attacker raised his dagger to the statue’s throat. Was this a warning? Connor could see in this man’s eyes no fear, no hesitation. He watched as the man made the action of slitting the statue’s throat. Connor winced.
As the blade touched the marble, a strange thing happened. A streak of red appeared beneath the blade. Connor flinched as, wide-eyed, the brute ran his knife back along the statue’s neck. What was going on? What secrets did the statue hide?
The man with the dagger lost no time in finding out. He jammed the dagger into the cut and somehow managed to slice off the statue’s head. As it fell to the ground and smashed, a fountain of red spurted from the beheaded statue and showered over his feet. It had been filled with rubies.
This was clearly what the man had been looking for. He unclipped a black bag from his waist and, slipping his dagger back under his waistband, began scooping the jewels into the bag.
His cutlass-bearing comrade looked over his shoulder to get a better view. As he did so, very slowly and carefully, Connor brought his hand behind him and, his eyes still on the cutlass bearer, reached out for the pan handle.
Out of the corner of his eye, Connor saw Scrimshaw slip out from under the table and glide off in the direction of the attackers. What was the snake up to?
He knew the minute that Scrimshaw coiled himself about the cutlass bearer’s legs. He saw it in the man’s eyes, and Connor lost no time in seizing the moment. His fingers found the handle of the warming pan the captain had used before. He grasped it tightly.
The attacker, with the snake coiling around his ankle, cried out, his words muffled under his mask. At the cry, his companion turned. His hands were brimming over with rubies, their red glow reflected in his dark eyes.
Connor swung the pan around and, letting out a warrior’s roar, spun it through the air and down onto the man’s head. The metal base made heavy contact and the man fell, dazed, onto a pile of rubies. He was out cold.
Meanwhile, his cohort was trying to flick Scrimshaw off his leg with the tip of a cutlass.
“No,” the captain cried. “Leave Scrimshaw alone!”
Connor lifted the dagger from the fallen attacker’s waistband and seized back Captain Wrathe’s stolen scabbard. There was no time to draw it, so he tucked it under his own belt.
The man with the cutlasses was frantically trying to shake Scrimshaw off his leg. His eyes bulged with terror and his attention was scattered. It was easy for Connor to swing the dagger and knock the first cutlass out of his hand.
But this seemed to awaken the man. And, as scared as he might be at having a snake slowly but surely crush his lower leg, he turned to face Connor with the remaining cutlass. Connor could not waste time removing Captain Wrathe’s sword from its scabbard. But he had the dagger.
He looked into the would-be-assassin’s eyes and could tell that, in spite of the man’s pose, his opponent was still flushed with fear. Connor hesitated, not wanting to endanger Scrimshaw. If the attacker fell, he might crush the snake. It was strange having to fight alongside a reptile, but Connor decided that he had to carry on with the attack. Scrimshaw had bravely offered himself up to save the captain, and now it was up to Connor to finish the job.
He raised the dagger and moved it through the air in front of him, getting a feel for its weight and the speed at which he could turn it.
The attacker struck out with his remaining cutlass. Fearlessly Connor parried. Metal clashed against metal and, although the cutlass was bigger, Connor’s grip on his dagger was stronger. The cutlass trembled in his opponent’s hand. Quickly withdrawing the dagger, Connor swung it back against the blade. The sword slipped out of the man’s hand. Connor jumped forward and seized it triumphantly. Now he had the cutlass in his right hand and the dagger in his left.
His opponent reached down toward the first fallen cutlass. But as he stooped low to retrieve the weapon, he didn’t notice a diminutive musician move up behind him. Soon a sitar string bound him around the waist and arms. He was trapped.
Scrimshaw uncoiled himself from the man’s ankle and wriggled back across the feather-covered floor toward his master.
“Good work, lads,” Captain Wrathe said, as Connor freed him.
Molucco Wrathe scooped up Scrimshaw with one hand and the fallen cutlass with the other. “That’s a fine bit of teamwork if ever I saw it. A very fine bit of teamwork, indeed!”
17
THE VAMPIRE
Grace’s heart was racing. She stood by the porthole, touching the curtain. Lorcan sat in the chair on the other side of the cabin. It was a fair compromise. He swore that he wouldn’t attack her, but how could she be sure, knowing what she now knew? As long as she held the curtain, she bought herself some fragile kind of safety. If he so much as moved toward her, she would expose the light again and force him to retreat once more.
It was weird thinking of him in this way. He looked about as far from being a monster as could be. He was her ally, the one who’d saved her life. Could he really intend her harm? Could he really be a . . . a . . . She couldn’t even bring herself to frame the word yet.
“How old are you?” she asked instead.
“I’m seventeen,” he said, “but I thought you knew that already.”
“What year were you born?”
“Ah.” He smiled, nodding but not answering.
“What year, Lorcan? I need to know.”
“1803.”
“So, in fact, you’re, you’re seven hundred and nine years old!”
“It doesn’t work like that, Grace. It’s hard to explain. I’m seventeen. That’s the age I was when I crossed. And that’s the age I’ll always be.”
“But you have been roaming this earth, these seas for over six centuries?”
“Time moves very differently on this side,” Lorcan said quietly, “though truth to tell, I’ve lost much sense of what it was like before.”
“You’ve forgotten your life?”
He shook his head.
“Far from it. I remember the facts of my life well enough. I remember my time in Dublin and all that happened to me. I remember how it ended. But it’s like a story someone told me over and over again. I know every last detail but I don’t remember how it felt to be alive.”
Grace looked at the boy before her, just four years older than her by one measure, and yet a world away by another. It was hard to take in.
“When you cross over,” he explained, “you lose the old rhythms. I can walk and talk like before. I can help to sail a fine ship, such as this. But I cannot feel the things you feel. It’s hard to describe, Grace. What I’d give to feel for a moment what you feel. Even your pain would be better than this numbness.”
Grace frowned. What did he know of her pain? If he’d care to change pla
ces with her, she was ready to consider it.
Her anger soon dissolved as she noticed a strange expression passing across his face. Just for a moment, he did not look like the Lorcan she knew. His eyes seemed as empty as the eyes of a statue, his nostrils flared, and as his mouth opened, she caught sight of an uncommon sharpness to one of his teeth. Grace shivered. He looked like the other one — Sidorio. Then it hit her. There were others like him on board. Many others.
Lorcan shook slightly and his features smoothed back into their regular shape. He looked up at her with those familiar eyes, as if nothing had happened. Where had he gone to in that strange moment? She dared not ask him.
“I shouldn’t be telling you these things,” Lorcan said.
“Will you be punished? What will the captain do?”
“The captain is a fair man,” Lorcan said. “I haven’t been on this crew very long, and I don’t know him that well. He isn’t someone you get to know well. But he treats us all fairly. He has a very special vision. Since I crossed, I’ve been to terrible places, places of darkness such as I hope you’ll never see. But I’m safe now. This ship is my harbor.”
“Am I safe?” The words slipped out before she had a chance to censor them.
“From me? Yes, Grace, you’re safe. I swore it before and I’ll swear it again, I’ll never do you harm.”
She wanted to believe him. She thought she could trust him. Still, she kept a tight hold on the curtain.
“But am I safe from the others?”
Lorcan did not look up, but reached into his pocket and produced a gold key on a long chain. He let it swing back and forth as if hypnotizing her.
“Why do you think you’ve been kept under lock and key in the cabin beside the captain’s?”
She had no answer. She watched the key swing back and forth, wondering what it would take to grab it and run. If she pulled back the curtain, he’d soon drop it. That would give her enough time . . .
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