Black Heart

by Justin Somper

  He shrugged, and smiled at her tenderly. “Well, if you will keep getting shipwrecked and having fainting fits in churchyards, somebody’s gotta look after you,” he said.

  “Well, I’m glad it’s you,” she said, reaching out her hand for his. His touch was cool, as always. But that was right. He was a vampire, after all.

  “So,” said Lorcan, “you and my new donor seem to be fast friends. What have the two of you been talking about?”

  Grace was silent.

  “Or is it secret?” Lorcan asked.

  “No.” Grace shook her head. “No, we were just talking about what I’ve been going through. And how I’m feeling now. Oh, Lorcan, it’s been so strange. I have this jumble of symptoms. One minute I’m really hot, then I’m really nauseous, and then I guess I’m really tired, because I seem to be sleeping so much.”

  “I know,” he said. “But it’s okay, Grace. It will pass.”

  Grace nodded. “That’s what Oskar said, too. He thinks it’s just the stress I’ve been under, working its way out of my body. Some kind of flu, I guess.” She stopped speaking, noticing that Lorcan was looking at her very intently. “Lorcan,” she said. “What’s wrong?”

  He continued to stare at her, then gripped her hand more tightly. “Grace,” he said. “My dear, sweet Grace. I have something to tell you.”

  “Lorcan, what is it? You’re scaring me. Please, tell me what it is.”

  He nodded. “It’s time. It’s way past time. I’ve been trying to protect you for so long, we all have, but you have to know.”

  Grace stared at him in wonder. What on earth was he talking about?

  33

  A DANGEROUS TRIO

  Cheng Li was staring at her father’s portrait when she heard the knock at her cabin door. She turned and composed herself before calling out, “Enter!”

  The door opened, and Jacoby, Jasmine, and Connor trooped inside.

  Cheng Li raised an eyebrow. “Is it done?” she asked.

  Jacoby nodded. “It’s done. The experiments concluded earlier today. We’re ready to share our findings with you.”

  “Excellent,” said Cheng Li. “Everyone grab a chair.” She led them over to the round table by the window and they all sat down. Her three crew members had brought notebooks with them, which they opened, ready to discuss their findings and to take the captain’s next orders.

  “So,” said Cheng Li, “three nights ago, I brought you three lab rats. Talk me through your experiments, and tell me what you’ve found.”

  Jacoby nodded. “Sure thing, Captain! Well, first we strung the cages with garlands of wild roses and garlic bulbs—”

  “How decorative,” Cheng Li cut in.

  Jacoby grinned at the captain. “And you’ll remember that both plants have apotropaic properties—that is, they help to protect against vampires. Or so we had been told. We wanted to test it out.”

  “And?” inquired Cheng Li.

  Jacoby nodded. “I’d say it’s an affirmative. Certainly, we didn’t see any early attempts at escape. Of course, it’s hard to confirm one way or the other, but I’d say that the garlands had some repellent effect, wouldn’t you, Min?”

  Jasmine nodded. Cheng Li scribbled a note, then urged her deputy to continue.

  “Next,” said Jacoby brightly, “we tested out the effects of sunlight. We wanted to see just what degree of harm this would do to them. We know anecdotally, of course, that a vampire who Connor has met was temporarily blinded by the sun.”

  “How did these three fare?” Cheng Li enquired.

  “They were definitely panicked by the idea,” said Jacoby. “When we removed the covers from the cages that first night and told them we’d see them in the morning, all three were in a heightened state of agitation.” He paused. “Of course, we didn’t entirely take our leave, but observed them from a distance. As the sun rose, there were further signs of distress.”

  “They began to scream,” Jasmine interjected. Her face showed her own distress. “It was horrible, really horrible.”

  “But,” said Jacoby, “the sunlight appeared to be another apotropaic. It weakened them, but it didn’t seem to inflict significant harm. Overall, I’d say it had more of a sedative effect.”

  “Interesting,” said Cheng Li, making another note. She glanced at Connor. “Perhaps different Vampirates react to the sun in different ways?”

  Connor nodded. “It’s possible,” he said. “Besides, from what little Grace has told me, I don’t think Lorcan Furey’s blindness was caused by exposure to daylight alone. There appear to have been other underlying causes.”

  Cheng Li nodded, turning back to Jacoby. “There’s no chance they were faking this sedative effect to trick you?”

  Her deputy shook his head. “No,” he said. “Trust me, Captain, there was no fakery.”

  “After a time,” Jasmine said, “we had to cover the cages in order to minimize their distress and prepare for further experimentation.”

  At this, Jacoby produced an object from his pocket and set it on Cheng Li’s desk. “A wooden stake,” he said. “We tested this on Vampirate One. You may remember him? Adult male. The largest of the trio. When I went into the cage, he was like a deadweight. I turned him around. He seemed to have been weakened by the sunlight, but even so, he put up a fight.”

  Cheng Li raised an eyebrow.

  “He appeared to be in the full throes of blood hunger,” Jacoby continued. “When I looked into his eyes, it was as if I was staring into a deep well, with a fire burning at the very bottom of the pit. Then things got really nasty.”

  “Nasty? How?”

  “Vampirate One attacked me,” Jacoby said, frowning at the memory. “He easily overpowered me and tore my shirt.”

  “He was trying to expose Jacoby’s thorax,” said Jasmine. “This seems to be the vampire’s preferred place for puncturing the skin to open up a blood channel.”

  Jacoby grimaced. “If it hadn’t been for these two, Captain, I’d have been Vampirate brunch. Connor came into the cage and tried to pull Vampirate One off me, but the fiend proved too strong for him, too. He was scratching my chest as if he was deciding where to puncture it. I don’t mind telling you, it was the single scariest moment of my life!”

  Connor nodded. “The Vampirate was bearing down on Jacoby, his teeth extended. I made a fresh attempt to pull him off, but he threw me across the cage.”

  “So, how did you repel and subdue Vampirate One?” Cheng Li asked.

  “Enter the Peacock,” Jacoby said with a smile, turning to Jasmine, who took up the story.

  “The night before, Jacoby had been telling me about the rumored powers of aconite,” said Jasmine. “It’s a flowering plant, also known as monkshood or wolfsbane, that has been used for centuries as arrow poison by hunters in Ladakh and Japan, and even in human wars in China.” Cheng Li scribbled away furiously as Jasmine continued. “In humans and animals, the poison works quickly, causing numbness to the mouth and burning in the abdomen. This is generally followed by severe vomiting. Then the pulse and respiration steadily fail, leading to death by asphyxia. Aconite was listed as another apotropaic, and as I happened to be carrying a bag of petals I was taking to the lab, I decided to test it out right then and there.”

  “She was fearless!” Jacoby said, his eyes wide. “She ran into the cage and dropped the petals onto Vampirate One’s head. The effect was instantaneous. He had me pinned to the floor, but as the aconite took hold, it was as if he was instantly paralyzed. His hold loosened and he cried out in pain.”

  “Which led me to conclude,” said Jasmine, “that aconite is not simply an apotropaic, like roses or garlic. It didn’t just hold Vampirate One at bay. It seemed to act more deeply and inflict actual harm.” As she finished speaking, she placed an innocent-looking sprig of white flowers on Cheng Li’s desk, beside the wooden stake.

  Cheng Li glanced from the flowers to the stake. “So,” she said, “the flower works but the stake doesn’t? Is that what
I’m hearing from you?”

  Jacoby shook his head. “The stake works, all right,” he said. “We just had to subdue the Vampirates before we brought it into play. We left them for another night and then exposed them to several bouts of light throughout the following day. This appeared, as before, to sedate them—the more light we exposed them to, the more pronounced the effects of the sedation. Then we returned at sunset to test out the stake on Vampirate Two, the second male, but of a decidedly smaller build.”

  “Did he put up much of a fight?” Cheng Li inquired.

  Jacoby shook his head. “I pretty much bowled straight into the cage and inserted the stake through his thorax. He opened his mouth but made no cry. It was kind of weird.”

  Jasmine nodded. “There was a high-pitched noise, but it didn’t come from his mouth. It was as if it was on a different frequency—rather like the sound glass makes when it shatters. And then he literally disintegrated before our eyes.”

  Cheng Li was rapt with attention.

  “That’s right,” Jacoby nodded. “One moment he was there, the next he cracked like a mirror. His human form disappeared. There were shards all over the cage. And then the shards broke up further into this strange kind of metallic-looking dust.” Jacoby glanced at his comrades. “That’s when we made our first mistake,” he said.

  “Mistake? What mistake?” asked Cheng Li.

  “Well, to be honest, Captain, I was kind of in shock at what I had done. We thought I’d been successful in destroying him—”

  “You thought you had? It sounds pretty definitive.”

  Jacoby nodded. “That’s what we all thought. So we decided to leave our experiments there for the night, and we went off to dinner.”

  “It was only later,” said Jasmine, “that Kavan, the guard on duty in the crow’s nest, told us what he’d seen.”

  “Which was?” pressed the captain.

  “He said that it was like a dust storm on the deck,” answered Jasmine.

  “A dust storm?”

  “That’s what he thought it was at first. He could see the metallic dust moving within the cage. Then it swirled out of the cage, as if the wind had blown it. And it continued to move. Only now, it took shape—the outline of a human form. Kavan said that as he looked down, the glittering dust became flesh again. Vampirate Two had reconstituted himself.”

  “Amazing,” Cheng Li said. “But that was hardly your mistake. You couldn’t have known.”

  “That wasn’t the mistake, Captain,” said Jacoby. “The mistake was what happened next. Like I say, we had all gone off to dinner. Kavan was up in the crow’s nest. When he saw what was happening, he climbed down to try to catch Vampirate Two, but he wasn’t fast enough. The captive escaped from the ship.”

  “Escaped?” Cheng Li exclaimed. “Where to?” Her features grew dark. “And why is this the first time I’m hearing about this?”

  Jacoby was red-faced. “The others did try to persuade me to tell you before, but I felt that you’d delegated responsibility for this task to me. I didn’t want to let you down, Captain. I was confident we could recapture him.”

  “Oh, Jacoby!” Cheng Li said, exasperated. “But you didn’t, did you?”

  Jacoby shook his head. “I’m really sorry, Captain.”

  Cheng Li nodded. “It’s unfortunate, but understandable in the circumstances. So he got away. He’s only one Vampirate. We still have the other two, right?”

  Jacoby nodded, greatly relieved that the captain had taken this so well. Clearly, he should have listened to the others and told her sooner. It would have saved him a couple of long, sleepless nights.

  Cheng Li was writing, but as she did so, she glanced up. “Although he escaped, you proved that the stake is a very powerful weapon, especially when used in conjunction with other techniques.” She took the stake in her hand. “What wood is it made from?”

  “Hawthorn,” said Jasmine. “Our research suggests that hawthorn is especially toxic to Vampirates.”

  “Excellent work,” said Cheng Li. “This is all starting to come together. So how did you proceed?”

  “We decided to further investigate the powers of aconite,” answered Jacoby. “As Min described before, this substance appears to be highly toxic to Vampirates. The petals alone have a numbing, paralyzing effect. They cause marked swelling around the eye and lip areas, and there seems to be an even deeper effect internally. So we prepared a reduction of aconite, and that night, we administered it in the form of a drink to Vampirate Three, the sole female of the trio.”

  Cheng Li glanced up, waiting for Jacoby to continue.

  “We destroyed her,” he confirmed.

  “With this aconite reduction alone?” Cheng Li said.

  Jacoby nodded. “We call it the aconite cap,” he said with a smirk.

  Cheng Li saw Connor wince at Jacoby’s joke. She had noticed how silent and withdrawn Connor had become as this interview had gone on. She knew that he had assisted Jacoby and Jasmine with their experiments, but as she had predicted, he had clearly found it hard to achieve the same level of objectivity the other two had brought to the task. Well, this was not a complete surprise, but she needed to have another word with him later. For now, she was eager to hear the final part of their findings.

  “At this point, we only had one remaining Vampirate,” Jacoby said, “Vampirate One, the one who had attacked me. We covered his cage and managed to weaken him with more of the aconite petals, but we were unable to trick him into taking any of the poison orally.” He paused. “So we had to resort to other means.”

  Again, Cheng Li raised an eyebrow.

  “We staked him,” Jacoby said. “Well, it would be more accurate to say that we stabbed him.”

  Cheng Li was surprised. “You dispatched Vampirate One with a regular pirate sword?”

  Jacoby shook his head. “Not with a sword, no. With a candlestick. Hang on a moment.” He rummaged in his pack and produced the candlestick, setting it on the table alongside the hawthorn stake and the sprig of aconite.

  Cheng Li ran her finger over the candlestick, intrigued.

  “He crumbled, much like Vampirate Two did,” said Jacoby. “Only, this time we watched and waited, and he didn’t reconstitute himself.”

  “You’re absolutely sure about that?” said Cheng Li.

  “Yes,” said Jacoby, seeking the support of his two comrades. Both Jasmine and Connor nodded grimly.

  “And what is this candlestick made of?” Cheng Li asked.

  “Silver,” said Jasmine. “We came across some accounts during our research of how silver has been utilized to destroy werewolves.”

  Jacoby nodded. “And we thought, what’s bad for werewolves might just be equally bad for Vampirates.”

  Cheng Li made another note, then began flipping back through her pages. “So you’ve tried every substance on your list, from garlic to silver?”

  “Yes,” agreed Jasmine. “And we have identified three substances from our list that have tested positive as highly toxic to Vampirates.”

  “So what can we conclude?” asked Cheng Li. It was a rhetorical question. “We can conclude that though these substances wreak much damage in isolation, a combination of all three is likely to have the most destructive impact.”

  Cheng Li gestured toward the eclectic array of items set upon her desk. “Hawthorn, aconite, and silver.” She smiled. “A dangerous trio. Rather like the three of you!”

  Jacoby grinned. Jasmine looked serious. Connor grimaced and then glanced away.

  “So,” Cheng Li continued, “our weaponry should incorporate all three of these substances.”

  “If possible, Captain,” said Jasmine.

  “What are you thinking?” Jacoby asked.

  “Give me some time,” Cheng Li said, standing and looking out the window. “Thank you, all of you, for your very thorough work.”

  As day began to fade once more into evening, Connor was on the deck of the Tiger, practicing some sword moves in an i
solated spot. He was so engrossed that he did not hear the captain’s stealthlike approach. She was able to stand and watch him execute his moves for several moments before he stopped and turned, at last aware of her presence. Their eyes met.

  “Your swordplay gets better and better,” Cheng Li observed.

  “Thank you.” He was clearly awkward in her presence, and they both knew it.

  “Put down your sword, Connor,” Cheng Li said. “We need to have a little talk.”

  He slid the rapier back into its holster, set it on the floor, and walked over to the deck rail to join her.

  “You didn’t much enjoy the experiments we conducted on the Vampirates, did you?”

  “You know the answer to that,” he said. “It was hard. Really hard. Not so much for Jacoby and Jasmine, but for me… yes. I don’t know why.”

  Cheng Li smiled. “It’s obvious,” she said, “isn’t it? It’s because you have had direct, personal contact with some of the Vampirates. And you know how close your sister has grown to some of them.”

  “Yes,” Connor said. “Yes, that’s all true.” He stared off into the horizon.

  “I gave you an opportunity to remove yourself from this mission,” Cheng Li said. “Remember? That first night in the secret cache.”

  Connor nodded, then turned back to face the captain. “I don’t want to opt out of this mission,” he said. “I want to be a valued member of this crew. More than anything, I want that.” His eyes were wet with tears of frustration. “It’s just hard for me to go down this route when Grace…” He changed tack. “I did talk to her, as we agreed I would. I tried to persuade her to leave them.”

  “You talked to her?” Cheng Li was puzzled. “When? How?”

  He was stonily silent.

  “Connor, this is important. Talk to me.”

  He sighed. “Grace has the ability to astral travel. I know how far-fetched it sounds, but it’s happened twice now. She comes to see me, and we talk to each other. She isn’t a physical presence. If I try to reach out to her, my hand slides right through her, but it is really her. I’m not imagining it. You have to believe me.”