Vampirates 4: Black Heart (7 page)

"No," Grace agreed. "That's certainly true. He's always been so good to me, Darcy, so protective of me. And I can tell he cares for me."

"He definitely cares about you," Darcy said, her voice brimming with passion. "There's no doubt about that." She broke off, then continued in a softer tone. "But perhaps he doesn't care about you in quite the way you want him to."

Grace frowned. "You mean that he just wants to be my friend?"

"Something like that," Darcy said. "Grace, I don't have any definite answers for you on this one. But I think you must tread very carefully. You said it yourself. You haven't had a boyfriend before, and now you've set your sights on a --" She broke off midsentence. Grace's eyes met Darcy's.

"Say it," Grace said. "Vampirate. You were going to say that I've set my sights on a Vampirate." She frowned. "So it's one thing for me to be friends with you, but it's another thing altogether to have feelings for Lorcan?"

Tell her, the voice in Grace's head urged. Tell her that you could be a vampire, too. Wouldn't that change everything? But somehow Grace couldn't do it.

Darcy shook her head. "Grace," she said calmly, "you didn't let me finish. I was going to say that you've set your sights on a challenge." She hesitated. "Lorcan Furey is ... complicated. I think perhaps you should just work on getting to know him better for now. After all, there's a lot going on at the moment. What with the captain's healing and Sally's return --"

Grace leaped at Darcy's words. "What has Sally's return got to do with Lorcan?"

Darcy averted her gaze. It was only a momentary thing, but Grace knew her friend's little tics well enough to realize that she was hiding something from her. "Darcy, what has Sally's return got to do with Lorcan?"

Grace's mind flashed with the look Lorcan and Sally had exchanged when they had been reunited in the healing chamber. Then a second image -- Lorcan on board the ship, smiling and waving to her mother.

Darcy turned her gaze back to Grace. "I meant for all of you, for all of us. Sally's your mother, Grace. And it's important that you take the time to get to know her, while you can. I'm not trying to alarm you. As I said before, I'm your friend, and, as your friend, I'm saying that right now Sally should be your focus, not Lorcan."

Grace nodded. Darcy's words made sense to her. All the same, she couldn't help but feel that her good friend was keeping something back. She decided to play along for now.

"I'm going to go and find Mosh Zu," Grace said, feeling suddenly decisive, "and ask him how my mother is doing. Maybe he'll let me in to see her now." She turned to Darcy. "I could do with some moral support. Will you come with me?"

Darcy smiled back at her. "Of course I will." She stood up from the wall. Together they crossed the courtyard and made their way through the heavy doors into the Corridor of Lights, which marked the beginning of the internal compound.

They had moved through the Corridor of Lights and the Corridor of Discards and were walking along the Corridor of Ribbons when a voice called out ahead of them.

"Grace!"

"Connor." She glanced up as he hurried over to her.

"Where've you been?" he asked. "I've been looking everywhere for you!"

His words and the urgency of them ignited an immediate sense of fear in her. "What is it?" she asked. "Do you have news about our mother?"

Connor shook his head. It was then that she saw he was carrying his backpack. And it was full. He hardly needed to speak. She knew just what he was going to say.

"I'm leaving," he said. "I've been doing a lot of soul-searching over the past few hours, and I have to do this -- for all our sakes. I was looking for you to say good-bye."

8JOURNEYS

"You're leaving now?" Grace couldn't believe the body blow Connor had dealt her. Or rather she could absolutely believe it, and somehow this made it worse. She realized that it was no longer a surprise when her brother disappointed her, but rather the fulfillment of an expectation. She thought back ruefully to the night they had been shipwrecked. Once more she had the sense of a vast, raging ocean tearing them apart. It was as if the same process kept repeating itself over and over again.

While the storm raged within her, Connor looked back at her calmly. Nodding. Smiling. He was actually smiling!

Grace tried to hold it together. She felt a hand on her shoulder. "I'm going to leave you two to talk," Darcy said. "Grace, I'll be in my cabin if you need me." Darcy turned to Connor. "It was nice to see you again, Connor," she said, "albeit briefly." She turned to leave, then looked back over her shoulder. "Oh, and please don't worry about your sister. Her weird friends will look after her." With that, she turned again and strode off, her heels clicking angrily on the stone floor.

Connor stared after her openmouthed. He looked back at Grace. "You told her! You told her what I said? Are you out of your mind?"

"No, Connor, I'm not out of my mind. But maybe you are. You finally get to meet our mother, and she collapses and she's in critical condition and you just have a nap, then load up your old backpack and decide it's the perfect time to leave!"

Connor sighed. "I can't deal with this," he said.

"With what? With me?"

He nodded. "With you. Like this. Yes, that's part of it."

"Go on," she said. "What about the rest?"

"The things you say. The things you want me to believe. That Sally is our mother."

"She is our mother. It's a fact."

"She's a ghost, maybe ..."

"She's our mother, Connor," Grace said firmly. "You have to stop dwelling on the stuff you don't understand and just learn to accept it."

"No," he said, his face a mirror of her stubbornness. "You have to stop being so accepting of the unbelievable -- of the downright insane!"

"Stop being so close-minded," she said. Now she was the calm one.

"Close-minded?" He laughed humorlessly. "You think I'm close-minded? To what? To the idea that my mother is a ghost who hitchhiked around the oceans in the captain's stomach? Or to the idea that our dad was a Vampirate and that you, me, and Mom could make one happy vampire family?" Connor glared at Grace. "That's what you'd like me to believe, isn't it?"

"I'd like you to accept that it's a possibility," Grace said.

"It can't be a possibility!" Connor cried.

"Why not? Because it scares you too much?"

"No," Connor said. "Because it doesn't make sense. Think about it, Grace. If you're so sure Dad was a Vampirate, how can he be dead? Isn't that the whole point of the gig? Vampirates don't die!"

These words stung her more than any others, because she hadn't thought about this before. How could she have overlooked it? If Dexter Tempest had been a Vampirate, he'd be immortal, like the others. So how could he have died? Her head was spinning. Could Vampirates die? The captain had certainly come close. Maybe it was too soon to walk away from the idea.

And what if ... what if Dexter hadn't died? Maybe his death hadn't been exactly what it seemed. It was a crazy possibility, but she had to remain open to it. Maybe there was a secret that Sally was going to tell her when she recovered.

Or, Grace thought sadly, is Connor right? Am I tying myself up in these insane knots because I just won't accept the truth? That my father is dead. That he died too young of a heart attack. That I'm just a regular girl who happens to like hanging out with Vampirates.

When she looked back at Connor, she saw that the fury had drained from his face. She, too, felt different all of a sudden. The dark, poisonous rage was utterly gone. He was her brother again -- her dear brother. And all she felt was sadness that he was leaving her, though now she accepted that he had to go.

Grace sighed. "Isn't there anything I can say to make you stay? Just for tonight? What if I said that I need you here?"

He considered her words, then shook his head. "If I really thought you needed me to stay, I would. That would be the one and only reason. But you don't need me here, Grace. Time and again you've proved how strong you are. And you're not alone. I'm sorry about what I said before. You have good friends here -- Darcy, Lorcan, the captain."

"I haven't even seen the captain since the healing ceremony," protested Grace. "I don't know where he is!"

Connor dropped his bag onto the floor and placed his hands on Grace's shoulders, looking deep into her eyes. "I need you to know this, Gracie. I'm not in any way doing this to hurt you. I care about you more than I can put into words. When I'm away from you, not a day goes by when I don't think about you and worry about you and hope you're happy."

His words came as a shock. He had never opened up to her to this degree before. If she needed further evidence that he was changing, here it was. She felt tears rising as he continued.

"But I can't be here with you. I have to go back to the real world. The world I know. A world full of life and light and adventure and --"

"Danger," Grace cut in.

"Yes," he acknowledged. "Danger, too. But someone once told me that the only journeys worth taking in life are those that test us to the very core." His eyes shone brightly as he remembered the exact words. "'The journeys that strip the clothes from our back, mess with our minds, and shake our spirits.'"

Grace frowned. "That sounds like something Cheng Li would say. You're going to find her again and join her crew, aren't you?"

"If she'll have me," he said. "Reckon she could make good use of a pirate prodigy like me!"

"Is that what you are?" Grace asked, feeling sad and powerless.

"Try to be happy for me, Grace. I think I've found the journey I'm supposed to take in life."

She locked eyes with him, the deep green of her irises perfectly reflected in his. "All right," she said. "But I think I've found my journey, too. Try to be happy for me."

Once more they squared up to each other, then Connor broke the deadlock and swept her into his arms. "Of course I will," he said. "Of course I will. And we'll meet up again. Soon. Who knows where or when, but that makes it all the more exciting, don't you think?"

Hearing his words and seeing his face flushed with optimism, Grace was momentarily caught up in his energy.

"Best not to drag this out, eh?" he said. Then, touching her arm lightly, he heaved his backpack up over his shoulder.

"I'll walk you to the gate," Grace said.

He opened his mouth to say no, then changed his mind. Instead, he nodded and held out his hand. She took it. His touch felt reassuring. It reminded her of her dad's.

"Take care of yourself, Gracie!" Connor said as the iron gates swung open for him and he continued onto the path leading down the mountainside.

Grace stood bereft as the keepers pushed the gates back together. She couldn't deny the sadness she felt at seeing Connor go. She heard his voice in her head. We'll meet up again soon. Would they? And when they did, how would that reunion go? Wasn't there a danger that the gulf between them would only grow wider, harder to bridge, each time? Why did she torment herself so? Why couldn't she stop looking into the future and content herself with the here and now? Connor was happy in his life. He seemed to have found a sense of purpose. And he had been clear about his feelings for her. That should be enough. But it didn't comfort her in the way she felt it ought to. They were growing apart. Perhaps it had to happen, but it didn't make it any easier to bear.

The Corridor of Lights seemed dark and claustrophobic after the daylight and open space outside. It was strange entering the internal part of the compound once again without Connor. Suddenly, Grace felt more alone than ever and sick with worry about Sally. She decided she could wait no longer. She would have to go and find out for herself how her mother was. She set off determinedly toward Mosh Zu's quarters.

She was walking past the rec room when she heard footsteps approaching along the corridor. As she turned the corner, she jumped to find Lorcan striding toward her from the other direction.

"Lorcan!" she said, delighted to see him.

He smiled back, but the smile faded fast. "Grace, I've been looking all over for you! Where have you been?"

"I was outside with Darcy and Connor," she said. "They told me you were over at the donors' block."

"I was," he nodded. "But I came back as soon as I heard about Sally. That she had collapsed."