Black Heart Page 18

  “You taking the rap for my misdemeanors, when I appear to have slipped under the radar, so to speak.”

  Sidorio shrugged. “Mortals and their piffling concerns are of no interest to me.”

  “Quite so, quite so.” Lady Lockwood smiled. “Here’s my philosophy. If you’re under a hundred and fifty, what could you possibly have to say for yourself? I’m afraid there’s far too much emphasis on youth over experience these days.”

  Sidorio grinned. “I like you,” he said. “I like the way you speak.”

  “How sweet you are,” said Lady Lockwood. “I’m so glad that you came over tonight. Do let’s try to see a bit more of each other, in spite of our hectic schedules.” She lifted her goblet to her lips and took a sip. Her dark eyes glittered in the candlelight.

  Sidorio glanced at the bathtub, full to the brim with its glutinous contents. “I should go,” he said. “Your bath is getting cold.”

  “Oh, forget the bath!” cried Lady Lockwood. “I haven’t had so much fun in decades. Besides, blood retains its temperature for hours. Now, tell me all about yourself. I’m desperate to know every last detail.”

  Sidorio smiled. “Well, I’m from Roman times,” he began. “You’ve heard of Caesar? Julius Caesar?”

  “You bet, darling. You bet I have.” She beamed. “And I suppose you’ve heard of Cleopatra?”

  He nodded.

  “Well, then,” Lady Lockwood said, smiling once more, “I have a feeling we’re going to get along notoriously well.”

  24

  THE COMMODORE’S CHALLENGE

  “Captain, what exactly is that thing Commodore Black gave you?” Jacoby asked Cheng Li. “Some kind of puzzle?”

  Marching briskly toward the Rotunda, flanked by the youngest members of her crew, Cheng Li shook her head. “It’s a key,” she said, “to a secret cache. The door is somewhere in the floor of the Rotunda. Beneath the octopus mosaic, would be my guess.”

  “It doesn’t look like any kind of key I’ve ever seen,” said Jacoby. “And I’ve never heard anything about a secret door.”

  “Of course you haven’t,” Cheng Li said. “If you knew about it, it wouldn’t be a secret, would it?”

  “Why didn’t Commodore Black give us full instructions?” Connor asked.

  “Either he doesn’t know where the door is himself,” said Cheng Li, “or he’s testing us.”

  “You mean,” said Jasmine, “that if we can work out how to use the key, then he’ll be confident we’re ready for the next part of the task?”

  Connor shook his head. “This doesn’t seem like the time for games, when we have three unsolved murders to contend with.”

  But Cheng Li nodded at Jasmine. “Sometimes,” she said, “the Federation works in mysterious ways.”

  “May I take a look at the key, Captain?” Jasmine asked.

  Cheng Li nodded and tossed the mosaic octagon up in the air. Jasmine deftly caught it. As she walked along, she began twisting it, rearranging the alignment of its faces. “Have you ever heard of a Rubik’s cube?” she said.

  Jacoby looked blankly at her. “You’re the puzzle princess.” He turned to Connor and Cheng Li. “Jasmine loves brainteasers,” he said, grinning. “It’s the secret at the heart of our relationship!”

  Jasmine’s hands were furiously spinning the moving parts of the octagon. “It’s made up of interlocking pieces,” she explained. “It’s made to be moved.”

  “But if it’s a key, Min,” Jacoby protested, “shouldn’t you have left it the way you found it? The way it was when Commodore Black gave it to Captain Li?”

  Without missing a beat, Jasmine executed a neat sequence of twists. “There!” she said, passing the key back to Cheng Li. “Good as new!”

  Cheng Li, Connor, Jacoby, and Jasmine made their way to the Rotunda—in so many ways, the heart of the Pirate Academy. Each of them had powerful memories of this room. Cheng Li, Jacoby, and Jasmine had gathered here many times during their years as students, listening to the captains’ lessons, hearing stirring tales of their pirate forebears. Connor had only been to the room a handful of times, each time as a guest. For him, the dominant feature was the tangle of swords hanging in glass cases from the central dome. As he followed the others inside, his eyes were once more drawn, as if magnetically, toward the swords in their cases.

  When he had first visited, one sword above all others had captured his attention—the Toledo blade belonging to Commodore Kuo. Now that sword was conspicuously missing, and Commodore Kuo, so long the dominant presence at Pirate Academy, was dead. Whatever Connor’s personal feelings toward Commodore Kuo, his murder was a profound shock, and the manner of the murder an even greater one. A seismic shift was occurring within the pirate universe, and Connor seemed to be caught at its epicenter.

  “All right,” Cheng Li said. “Let’s take a fresh look at this mosaic floor.”

  Connor hadn’t properly noticed the mosaic before, due to his preoccupation with the swords. But now, as he walked over to join Cheng Li, he saw it. It was directly under the center of the dome and the starburst of swords above. The edge of the mosaic was a wide circle of blue tiles. Every tile seemed to be of a different hue, perhaps reflecting the changeable colors of the ocean. Within this sphere was an intricate depiction of a large octopus. Its lapis eyes seemed almost to be gazing at Connor. A vision of Molucco Wrathe flashed into his mind. He pushed it away, turning from the octopus’s hypnotic eyes to the eight powerful tentacles, which stretched out greedily to the edges of the circle.

  Cheng Li turned the octagonal key over in her hands. “It’s a puzzle, indeed,” she said. “It looks as if it might be a missing piece of the mosaic.”

  “But there aren’t any pieces missing!” Jacoby exclaimed.

  “Yes,” Cheng Li nodded. “I had noticed.”

  Connor crouched down on the floor to get a closer look. He ran his fingers over the mosaic tiles. The others were right. There were no missing pieces. It was a mystery. He began to stand up. Jacoby pushed past him, and Connor momentarily lost his footing. When he reached out to the floor to steady himself, something strange happened. The mosaic moved. Just a fraction, but enough for Connor to know he hadn’t imagined it.

  “Sorry, dude,” said Jacoby.

  Connor shook his head. “No problem,” he replied. Now that he was steady on his feet once more, he reached out his hands and pressed down on one side of the mosaic. “Look!” he said, excited. “The mosaic turns over. Here, give me a hand, guys!” The mosaic was too large for Connor to turn alone, but with the others’ help, it completed a full one-hundred-and-eighty-degree rotation, revealing a second face.

  “This can’t be right,” Jacoby said. “Look, there’s no design on this side. Just a mishmash of different—”

  “It is right!” Jasmine interrupted him. “Look, there’s a gap! That must be for the key.” She looked up to Cheng Li. “Captain, do you want to insert it?”

  Cheng Li smiled and extended the octagon to Jasmine. “You do the honors, Lieutenant Peacock,” she said.

  The others watched with bated breath as Jasmine inserted the octagon into the gap. It fitted into place with a satisfying snap. As it did so, the hundreds of tiles that made up the mosaic began flipping over.

  “Way to go, Jasmine!” cried Jacoby.

  They all watched as the tiles finally settled. Now they were looking at the same image of the octopus they had glimpsed from above. The key was located at the center of the octopus’s right eye.

  “What now?” asked Connor.

  Jacoby shrugged. “I have to admit, I’m a little underwhelmed.” He turned to Cheng Li, who was staring intently at the mosaic, searching for a further clue.

  “I don’t think the key is correctly configured,” Jasmine said, reaching across and extracting the octagon. She took it in her hands once more and began twisting its faces. “That’s better! See how the squares of color work better now? The shades of blue go in a perfect sequence from light to dark.”<
br />
  “Beautiful, Min,” declared Jacoby. “But will it work?”

  “Let’s see, shall we?” Jasmine reinserted the key into the gap, giving the octopus back its eye.

  Suddenly, the mosaic tiles began turning again. Once more, the four pirates watched.

  “Do you think it’s just going back to what it was before?” Jacoby asked.

  “No,” said Connor, shaking his head. “It’s still the same octopus!”

  “Not quite,” said Cheng Li. “Look at the tentacles. Before, they were extending out to the edges of the mosaic, like a star. Now they’re in pairs, crossing over each other.”

  “You’re right!” Jasmine said excitedly. “And can you hear that whirring? I think it’s starting to move!”

  They all watched and listened. Sure enough, the entire mosaic began slowly sinking beneath the floor of the Rotunda.

  “What are we waiting for?” cried Jacoby, jumping onto the platform and pulling Jasmine on alongside him. “Min, you’re a genius!”

  “Good work, Lieutenant Peacock,” said Cheng Li with a smile as she and Connor joined the others on the moving platform.

  As the platform lowered, dust rose around them. It didn’t appear that anyone had made this journey for a long while.

  Within moments, the pirates’ heads were level with the floor itself. The four found themselves surrounded by eight iron bars, which made them feel as if they were in a cage but nonetheless ensured a smooth and steady descent.

  At last, the mosaic platform came to a standstill. “It seems we have arrived,” Cheng Li said, slipping between the bars and stepping out into the darkness to explore.

  It took a few moments for their eyes to adjust to the dark as each of them stepped off the platform. Jacoby was the last to jump off. As he did so, the makeshift elevator whirred into fresh motion and began to rise again.

  “Hey,” Jacoby said. “The platform’s moving.”

  “Of course,” said Jasmine. “It has to, so that if someone comes into the Rotunda, they won’t notice anything different.”

  “Understood,” said Jacoby. “But how do we get out of here? And even before we come to that, how do we see anything down here?”

  His question was quickly answered as they became bathed in a watery blue light. Looking up, Connor saw that the underside of the platform also featured the octopus design. Now the octopus’s eyes emitted a watery blue light. As the circle rose up and fitted back flush with the floor above, the light illuminated the subterranean world. They found themselves in the middle of a corridor with a number of identical closed doors on either side.

  “The cache must be inside one of these.” Connor tried the door nearest to him. It was locked. He tried the next one along. Locked again. “They’re all locked,” he said. “How are we supposed to find this cache?”

  “The doors are numbered,” Jasmine mused thoughtfully.

  “And?” said Jacoby. “How does that help us?”

  “I’ll bet I know,” said Jasmine, striding ahead. She stood before her chosen door and turned the handle. It opened readily. “Just as I thought,” she said, turning to the others with a broad smile. “The octagon key was a clue. It’s in number eight.”

  25

  THE SECRET CACHE

  “What’s it like in there?” Connor asked, catching up with Jasmine as she hovered on the threshold of room 8.

  “I can’t see anything much,” she said. “It’s dark and decidedly musty inside.”

  “Spooky!” exclaimed Jacoby.

  “Don’t worry,” Jasmine said with a grin. “I’ll hold your hand if you’re scared.”

  “In that case, I’m really, really scared!” Jacoby said, reaching out his hand.

  “Wait up!” cried Cheng Li, striding over to join them at the door. She folded her arms, her face severe. “I must remind the three of you that we are here on very serious business.” Her dark eyes bore into those of her crew. “We are here to solve a murder. The murder of our headmaster, a leader of the Pirate Federation and—and a good friend. This is not a jolly little adventure. You’re not schoolkids anymore, you’re professional pirates on my crew. I took a big gamble placing you three in such senior roles. Don’t make me regret it.”

  “Sorry, boss,” said Jacoby. “I guess we just got a bit caught up in the adrenaline rush of cracking the code and all that.”

  “He’s right,” Jasmine said. “We do understand the gravity of the mission. Varsha was one of my best friends.” There were tears in Jasmine’s eyes as she continued. “I can’t even bear to think about what she and Zak and Commodore Kuo went through.”

  Cheng Li turned to Connor. He could tell she was waiting for him to say his piece. He took a breath and then began. “There was no great love lost between me and Commodore Kuo. I’d be a hypocrite if I pretended there was. But no one deserves to die like that.”

  Cheng Li surveyed her crew members once more. “All right,” she said, “I’m glad we had this conversation. Now let’s proceed in a more appropriate manner.”

  The others stepped aside to give her room, and she pushed back the door to the secret archive. As Jasmine had observed, it was dark inside, but the blue light from the corridor stretched far enough to illuminate a table on which sat four hurricane lamps, candles, and a box of matches.

  “Come on!” Cheng Li exclaimed. “Let’s get some light in here.” She lit the lamps, with Connor’s assistance. They passed one each to Jasmine and Jacoby and stepped back as the lamplight revealed the room to them. It was long and narrow, with shelves on either side, lined with rows of identical boxes. At the end of the avenue of shelves were a pair of desks and a few chairs. Behind the desk were bookshelves crammed tightly with volumes. Tacked onto the wall above them were several maps, punctured by colored pins.

  Cheng Li peered at one of the maps. “Fascinating,” she murmured.

  Connor appeared at her side. “These maps,” he said, “they chart sightings of the Vampirate ship, don’t they?”

  Cheng Li nodded. “Who’d ever have imagined it?”

  Connor smiled to himself. Certainly not Cheng Li, he thought. He again remembered telling her about his sighting of the Nocturne when they first met. Her answer, in no uncertain terms, had been that it was impossible for such a ship of vampire pirates to exist. In spite of his confusion, he had known she was wrong. Now it seemed as if others within the pirate world had known the truth all along.

  “Look at this,” Jasmine said, joining them and placing one of the boring-looking archive boxes on the desk and lifting the lid. “It’s full of notes, some handwritten, others typed, by those who’ve witnessed the Vampirates and their ship.”

  Cheng Li dipped her hand into the box and lifted out a sheet of paper. Her eyes ranged across the page. “To think this archive was here all along,” she said, “right beneath the floor of the Rotunda.” She shook her head in disbelief, then set down the sheet and picked up another.

  “The word archive sounds so dry and boring,” Jacoby said, opening up what looked like an oversize gym locker. “But there’s nothing boring about this!”

  “What have you found?” Cheng Li called over.

  “Just a few of my favorite things!” Jacoby yelled back. “Come and take a look.” The others turned as Jacoby wielded a pair of evil-looking swords at them.

  “Swords!” said Connor. “What are they doing down here?”

  “Jacoby!” The tone of Cheng Li’s voice gave Jacoby a clear note of warning.

  “Sorry,” said Jacoby. He dropped the swords and reached inside the locker again. “Man, this is like the cupboard of death!” He produced a couple of bottles labeled DANGER: TOXIC, and waved them at the others.

  “Please be careful!” said Cheng Li.

  Connor at last managed to get a look inside the locker himself. “It’s like some crazy science lab in there,” he said. “Test tubes and vials and all kinds of strange equipment!”

  “Of course,” Cheng Li said coolly. “They were e
xperimenting.”

  “Experimenting?” the others asked in unison.

  Cheng Li nodded. “Isn’t it obvious?”

  Jasmine’s voice was low. “They were working out how to kill a vampire.”

  Cheng Li nodded. “Exactly, Jasmine. Thank goodness one of you has your brain switched on today. But they didn’t finish their work. And now the baton has been passed to us.”

  “It has?” Jacoby exclaimed.

  Cheng Li nodded. “It’s our mission,” she said. “The Tiger will be no ordinary rank-and-file ship of the Pirate Federation. We’ve been given a unique project. Our ship will blaze a trail as the first ship of the Federation designated for Vampirate assassins.”

  “Vampirate assassins?” Jacoby repeated, his eyes wide. “We’re going to assassinate Vampirates?”

  Cheng Li nodded patiently. “Yes. Starting with the one who killed Commodore Kuo.”

  “Isn’t that going to be kind of dangerous?” said Jasmine. “How do we go into battle with Vampirates?”

  “Just as we would go into battle with any other kind of enemy,” answered Cheng Li, cool as ice. “We prepare. We leave nothing to chance. We read every last sheet of notes in this room. We absorb every last crumb of information gathered by the Federation over the years. We get up to speed on every one of their experiments, and then we continue them ourselves. We need to know how to kill a Vampirate. But before we get to that, we need to think about how we attack them.”

  Jacoby’s eyes widened. “And this is an official Federation mission? How cool is that?! Oh, I’m sorry, boss.”

  “You don’t have to apologize, “ said Cheng Li. “It’s all right to bring enthusiasm to a mission.” She added, with some satisfaction, “My ship was singled out for the job.”

  “What’s the time frame for this?” Jasmine inquired.

  “Good question, Lieutenant Peacock,” said Cheng Li. “This mission has priority alpha status. In other words, the Federation wants it accomplished yesterday. But”—she stressed the word—“we must be fully prepared. And we will be.” Her eyes were bright as she continued. “Let’s not lose any time. Jasmine, you take charge of the archive boxes. Read through everything that’s there and pull it together into a report for me.”