Vampirates 4: Black Heart (49 page)

"How do you know all this?" Sidorio asked.

A good and pertinent question, thought Connor. But his head was pounding with other questions and it looked like Sidorio's was, too. Can this really be true? Am I the spawn of this monster? What does that make me? Where do I go from here? Thought after unthinkable thought tore through his head like bullets.

"That hardly matters now," Cheng Li said. "What's important is that you know that your son is alive and well." She pulled Connor toward her before continuing. "And that he's coming with me."

Sidorio shook his head, looking intently at Connor. "He's my son." It was almost as if he had realized it for the first time. "He stays with me," he said defiantly.

Things had come full circle. Once more, Sidorio's arms reached out for Connor, this time not to smother him but to embrace him.

"No!" Cheng Li said very calmly. "I told you before, Connor comes with me."

Sidorio shook his head. "You don't get to decide this, pirate," he said.

"Oh, but I do," said Cheng Li. "Have you forgotten, Vampirate, the other lie they told you? That there was only one baby, when in fact there were two? Twins. A boy and a girl."

"Twins," Sidorio said. It was almost a question. "A girl." His eyes fixed on Connor's face, and he suddenly had a brief vision of a girl on a mountainside -- a girl who looked very much like this boy standing in front of him. "A girl." He felt a searing pain in his head, as though long-forgotten memories were forcing themselves to the surface, back at last into his consciousness. He remembered it all.

"Yes," Cheng Li continued. "A girl. And I'm sure you'd like to be reunited with her, too, wouldn't you? Yes, of course you would." She paused briefly to draw breath. "So this is how it's going to work. Connor is coming back with me now. We're going to find his sister. And when the time is right, we'll arrange for you to see them both." She smiled at him. "You'd like that, wouldn't you?" she asked. "A chance to meet both your children properly?"

Sidorio nodded slowly.

"All right then," Cheng Li said. "Well, Connor and I are going to go now. But we'll be back in touch soon."

"How will you know where to find me?" Sidorio asked.

"I managed to crash your wedding, didn't I?" said Cheng Li. "I'm sure I can keep up with you."

Sidorio had one more question for her. "How can I trust you?"

Cheng Li grinned, feeling immensely powerful. "You can't," she said. "But you don't have a choice. If you don't let Connor come with me now, I'll see to it that you never meet your daughter."

It was checkmate. Sidorio relinquished his hold on Connor and stepped back to allow them free passage.

"Here," said Cheng Li, reaching down. "Don't lose your head!" She lifted up Lady Lola's head and presented it to Sidorio. Numbly, he took it into his hands, staring down at his wife's beautiful features.

Lady Lola Elizabeth Mercy Lockwood Sidorio had, in every sense of the phrase, been cut off in her prime. He stared down at the black heart tattoo, willing her to open her eyes. Just one more time. If only he could see her beautiful eyes just one more time. He thought of their first meeting, on another beach not unlike this. He thought of the time he had trespassed onto the Vagabond and found her preparing for her blood bath. He thought of the times they had gone hunting together. And all the little things -- like when she'd helped him pick out new clothes and shown him how to swirl blood in a glass and that moment when she had agreed to become his wife. She had become his wife, but more than that, she had become his world. And now she was gone. Suddenly, Sidorio felt unbearably lonely. He let out a deep, keening roar.

Connor allowed Cheng Li to lead him out into the water. His head was spinning as they started swimming out to the launch. His body felt like a dead weight, but his survival instinct had kicked in. It was the only thing enabling him to stay afloat.

"How much of that was true?" he asked Cheng Li.

"Every last word," she said. "Well, except that I'm not in any hurry to reunite him with Grace."

"You actually believe that monster is my father?" Connor said.

"Yes," Cheng Li said. "I'm afraid so, Connor, but chin up! Maybe you'll prove to be a shining example of nurture over nature."

"But he's a Vampirate," Connor said. "So what does that make me?"

"You're this half-vampire thingy," Cheng Li said, midstroke. "A dhampir, that's it! A dhampir!" She powered through another stroke. "Grace, too, obviously."

"How come you know this?"

"It was all in a letter," Cheng Li said.

"A letter?"

"From your mother. I'll give it to you later. In private."

She had a letter? From his mother? How on earth ... There were so many questions Connor had to ask, but they were nearing the boat, where the others awaited them, and he had to think and talk fast.

"Does anyone else know about this?" Connor asked.

"No," Cheng Li said. "And that's just the way it's going to stay. Better all around."

"So what next?" Connor asked sadly. "Do you want to me to leave the crew?"

"Are you out of your mind, Tempest?" Cheng Li said. "According to the letter, you have extraordinary powers. You were a prodigy before. You just became my secret weapon. You're not going anywhere. You signed my articles for life, and now it turns out you're immortal. You do the math!"

It was so much to take in. "I don't know what to say," Connor said. "I don't even know what to think."

"You don't need to say or think anything," Cheng Li said. "Just get back in the launch and return to the ship with me. It'll take time, but we'll figure this out. For now, you're a hero. Enjoy the ride!"

48THE DHAMPIRS

My darling Grace,

You told me that you were compiling a collection of Vampirates' crossing stories. Well, my dear daughter, this, I suppose, is your very own crossing story. And your brother's, too ...

Connor stared at his mother's handwriting. It was very tempting to simply destroy the letter without reading it, but he knew that he couldn't do that. Destroying it wouldn't change anything; it would just leave him ignorant of the facts. Better to know the facts and then move on, whatever that meant now. Once more, he focused on his mother's handwriting.

This letter is for Connor, too, my dear son. And this is why I'm giving the full story here, though you and I have talked through much of this already. I didn't get the chance to tell Connor in person. I wish I had done so, but he had another journey to make. Please, Grace, give your brother this letter when the time is right, and help him to deal with its aftermath.

Help me? I don't need any help, Connor thought. He felt a flash of anger toward Sally and Grace. Who were they to talk about him in this way? But he tried to still the anger and concentrate on the words in front of him. Soon, his mother's preamble gave way to the bones of her story, and it became easier to read.

My story began when I joined the Nocturne as a donor. I thought this marked the end of my life, but I was wrong. In many ways, it was only the beginning.

Connor read through the pages of his mother's letter, through the story of how she had joined the ship and served as Sidorio's donor. The idea of it made him sick to the pit of his stomach. Still, he kept on turning the pages, finding himself surprisingly touched by the tale of how his mother and father -- his true father, Dexter -- had met and fallen in love. Then Sally's story turned darker.

Now I need to tell you some things that I was not able to tell you in person, my dear children. These will be difficult for you to read, as they are for me to write, but please try to understand them. And whatever you think, do not doubt for a moment the depth of my love for you, or your father's love for you both.

And so he read on, uncovering the truth of how he, Connor Tempest, had been brought into the world. It had always been a mystery. His dad -- the man he still thought of as his dad, and always would -- hadn't talked of their mother. He had always said it was too painful to think of her and not have her there beside him. Connor had always thought it must have been a brief marriage, ending in tragedy. In spite of his natural curiosity, he had cared for his father too much to push for answers. Now, here were those answers. And the truth was that it was indeed a brief union, never a marriage. It had ended in tragedy, but it had also begun there.

He and Grace had not been conceived out of love but through a voodoo spell. What did that make them? Something out of a fairy tale? Or a horror story?

And so you see that you are both dhampirs, which is to say that you have both mortal and vampire qualities. In time, your true nature will begin to show itself. I hope when it does you will be strong and that you will offer each other the support you each need and deserve. Dhampirs are very special beings, blessed with immortality and other gifts bestowed upon vampires but without the vampires' weaknesses. I suspect that you, Connor, will see this initially as a curse. If that is the case, then I can only apologize from the bottom of my heart. I hope very much that, in time, you might come to see it as a blessing.

A blessing? How could she even use that word? He had come into the world through a violent spell, and his biological father was a psychopath. Well, Connor thought ruefully, at least now I know who I have to thank for my anger issues.

He folded up the letter once more and returned it to the envelope. He felt numb.

He was sitting alone on the hillside looking down at the academy's harbor, where festivities were under way. Music was playing and fireworks erupted into the night sky. There were celebrations as Commodore Black praised the bravery of Captain Li and her dynamic crew for their attack on Lady Lockwood, singling him, Connor Tempest, out as having a glorious future. If only he knew, Connor thought. Perhaps he did. But no, he reflected. Cheng Li had said that she'd keep his secret. That he was her secret weapon. Would she honor her promise? As he watched her, he thought that this was a small worry in the greater scheme of things.

Captain Li was surrounded by Jacoby, Bo Yin, and the rest of her young crew. Farther along the jetty, Ahab Black stood deep in conversation with Barbarro Wrathe, René Grammont, and Pavel Platonov. The other academy teachers, the captains who had survived the race, were ranged along the foreshore. Connor's eyes passed across the animated features of Lizabeth Quivers and Shivaji Singh. Then he saw Moonshine and Trofie Wrathe together, as always. Her golden hand had been returned, and she was restored to her old self, Queen of the Pirates. Bart and Cate were also down at the harborside, arm in arm. They were sharing a joke with Molucco Wrathe, and Scrimshaw, his pet snake, was curled about the captain's neck. And was that Ma Kettle at Molucco's side, taking a rare night off from her duties at the tavern? Molucco's loud and distinctive laughter echoed up the hillside. It seemed somehow to mock him.

Connor felt cut off from all of them. He had thought he belonged to their world, that he might find something approximating a home among this ragtag collection of pirates and adventurers. But he had been wrong. It had all been an illusion, now shattered with no chance of repair. He didn't belong anywhere. He was a mutant, a monster, an outcast.

"Hey, lonely guy, I've been looking for you." He hadn't heard Jasmine approach, but now he turned as she sat down beside him in the long grass. He gazed at her, wishing he could return her smile. But he couldn't. He felt as though an invisible wall had been erected between them. More than anything, he wanted to reach out to her, but what was the point? There could be no kind of future for them now.

"You know what, Connor?" said Jasmine, wrinkling her nose. "I'm not really much into victory parades and that kind of stuff. And fireworks just give me a headache." She rested her head on her knees and smiled up at him. "It was grueling, what we went through back there," she continued. "And now that it's over, well, I just want to get back to normal, whatever normal is, you know?"

He nodded automatically. The word normal jarred him. It didn't feel like a category he could place himself in any longer.

"You look tired," she said. "And battle weary. I'm not surprised. You were at the heart of the attack."

"Yes," he said, looking at her and thinking how she looked more beautiful and inaccessible than ever. She belonged to a different world than his. They could never be together.

Then Jasmine Peacock did the simplest and most extraordinary thing. She leaned back in the long grass, patted her lap, and drew Connor's head down to rest in it. And he did so, grateful for the warmth of her human touch. She lifted her hand and began stroking his hair.