Vampirates 6: Immortal War (20 page)

“Come on!” he urged the others. “He played his part. Fight on! Clear this corridor!”

At his words, the pirates took to their mission with fresh vigor. But they no longer had the advantage of numbers. Vampirates from belowdecks were surging toward them, pushing them back along the corridor.

Cheng Li enjoyed the pleasing sound of her
katanas
slicing through Johnny’s blackout blinds and watched as the morning light burst into the cabin.

“No!” Johnny cried once more.

As Cheng Li turned around to witness his imminent destruction, she saw with horror that both her escorts lay on the floor, motionless, blood pooling around them. How on earth had he done that? Evidently, he had a rare gift for killing. But these would be his last kills. He was already trembling as he faced the light, as if he were experiencing a terrible chill—when in fact the complete reverse was true.

“No,” he cried once more, his voice obviously weaker now.

The light seemed to have rooted him to the spot. His eyes were closed, but his face nonetheless expressed the terrible pain he was experiencing. Cheng Li could smell burning. It was not an unfamiliar smell to her these days,
but she would never become used to it. Stepping closer, she watched with horrid fascination as the skin on Johnny’s handsome face began to char and blister. She reached out, tentatively, to his bare shoulder and found that his flesh crumbled to ash in her fingertips.

This, she thought, was all part of the mystery—how creatures so strong in darkness could crumble to nothingness when faced with the light. She almost felt sorry for him. Then she reminded herself that he had been instrumental in murdering Molucco and was one of Sidorio and Lola’s most trusted operatives. The blood of countless pirates lay on Johnny’s hands. Cheng Li’s eyes fell to her own two fallen comrades. The Cowboy had certainly wasted no pity on them. Turning her gaze back to the desiccating Vampirate, she pushed aside any instinct of pity. She slipped her
katanas
back into their sheaths. Folding her arms, she watched Johnny cry out with pain as the light burned deeper into his core.

As the Vampirates claimed another of the pirates and paused to feast on her blood, Connor saw a flash of fear in Moonshine’s eyes.

“Fight on!” Connor cried. “This is your ship we’re fighting for!”

The words were enough to jolt Moonshine back into action. Just then, a greater jolt sent the ship rolling in the
ocean. The battle zone was thrown into immediate confusion as the floor rose up by sixty degrees on the starboard side. The confusion intensified as pirates and Vampirates were thrown across the narrow corridor. As they landed and came to their senses, the floor shifted again, but in the other direction. At last, the ship slumped back to where it had started, but the various combatants were now scattered and squaring up to different adversaries. Nevertheless, the Vampirates resumed the fight.

Connor and the pirates knew that the jolt signaled good news. It meant that
The Tiger
had drawn up alongside them and it wouldn’t be long before reinforcements arrived.

The force of
The Tiger
ramming into
The Diablo
threw Cheng Li and Johnny across the cabin and—
slam
—into each other. Face-to-face, they were both momentarily disoriented. Johnny’s scorched hands locked around Cheng Li’s narrow waist.

She tried to push him away, feeling suffocated by the toxic smell of burning. “Let me go!”

Johnny smiled grimly at her. “If I’m going down in flames, sugar, you’re surely coming with me!”

Although pieces of his charred skin were now floating around the cabin like ticker tape, still his inner strength remained. Cheng Li was unable to break free of his grip.
Now, he reached behind her and extricated the
katanas
from her back. “You won’t be needing these where you’re heading!” he declared as Cheng Li’s trusted weaponry clattered onto the cabin floor.

Cheng Li felt naked and vulnerable without her
katanas
, but there was nothing she could do. It was as if, close to the edge of destruction, Johnny was possessed with a final surge of strength. She found herself being pushed toward the glass of the vast porthole that, until recently, had been covered with blackout blinds. “No!” she cried out, drawing on all her own strength to defy Johnny. But his strength was far superior despite his injuries, and he succeeded in propelling them both with such force into the cabin window that the glass shattered around them and they fell through the broken porthole. Locked in a deadly embrace, Johnny and Cheng Li tumbled through the morning air and down into the water. He was burning and she was bleeding, and yet the ice-cold water offered neither of them any kind of release.

Connor’s momentary relief at the arrival of
The Tiger
was short-lived. His vision was blurred. He was seeing double. His first thought was that he must have taken a blow when the two ships had braced against each other. But, as he experienced the most violent headache ever, he realized that he was seeing two places at once, like two pictures
overlapping each other—the first this crowded corridor, the second a large cabin on the corridor below.

“Which one?” asked a voice. It took him by surprise as he realized that the voice was his own.

Now, he saw Vampirates on the attack in both rooms.

“Choose, quickly!” the voice said again. His own voice.

“Down,” he answered numbly and, as he said the word, he found that he was already in the downstairs cabin, fending off an attack from two Vampirates. His headache had gone and his
zanshin
seemed stronger than ever, as he sent the first adversary flying and thrust his sword into the second. The Vampirate crumbled to dust before his eyes.

“Result!” said his own voice. Suddenly, he was back upstairs, in the thick of the corridor battle, dispatching another Vampirate adversary.

Just as suddenly, he was back downstairs, taking on a fresh opponent and calling for reinforcements. As he did so, he was up above, hearing his own voice. How on earth was this happening? He was in two places at once, fighting two battles simultaneously. It was disorienting at first. Both Connors felt queasy. Even to think of himself as “both” made him yet more nauseous. But from somewhere came an iron resolve. Each Connor focused on the battle at hand, and somehow the queasiness gave way to pure adrenaline.

In the upper corridor, Connor was thrilled to see Cate and Jasmine entering the fray, leading the rest of
The Tiger
’s attack squad. For a time, the battle intensified, but with their new numbers and greater fighting prowess, the pirates once more gained the advantage and claimed the second corridor for their own.

Connor considered racing downstairs but knew his other self was already there, claiming the upper hand in a fresh duel.

“Connor!” Moonshine cried, entering the downstairs room. “How did you get down here so quickly?”

He didn’t answer, too confused and not wanting to lose his concentration now.

With the fresh influx of pirates, the battle was soon contained within the main cabin, and it didn’t take long for the pirates to gain the upper hand here, too. The remaining Vampirates, and they were still numerous, had been pushed to the back end of the ship. Not all of them were armed, and even those that were now recognized the odds were against them.

Connor stood shoulder to shoulder with Cate and Jasmine. Wiping a stray hair from his forehead, he gave the command. “Take them!”

The pirates were poised. But Jasmine raised her hand. “They’re not all armed,” she said. “Shouldn’t we at least offer them clemency?”

Connor shrugged, then turned to Moonshine. “There’s no sign of Cheng Li, and since this is your ship, Captain Wrathe, you better make the call.”

Moonshine assessed the situation. Connor, Jasmine, Cate, Bo Yin, and the others waited on his word.

“Take them!” he cried, raising his own sword aloft.

At this command, the pirates moved in for a coordinated endgame.

But now one of the Vampirates pushed to the front and raised his arm, bearing a handkerchief that was just about recognizable as white, though somewhat bloodied.

“Cate! Mistress Cate!” he cried out. “We surrender.”

“Wait!” Cate called out. She stepped forward, curious to know who had addressed her.

“Who are you?” She beckoned the Vampirate forward.

“Don’t you remember me, Mistress Cate? I served under Captain Wrathe, and latterly your good self, for many a year.”

Cate stared at the Vampirate for a time then clicked her fingers. “Antonio?”

The man nodded, smiling suddenly and revealing two oversize canines. “That’s right, Antonio.” He stretched out his arms to either side. “And this here is Lukas, and over there Jack, who used to be called Toothless, and De Cloux.”

Cate surveyed the men. Connor did, too. He recognized each and every one of them, and others besides. They had been loyal crew to Molucco—to the very last it seemed.
The Diablo
had been taken when the ship was docked at Ma Kettle’s. The first assumption had been
that it was largely deserted at the time, but evidently that was not the full story. Johnny and his troops must have found plenty of Molucco’s original crew and “converted” them. For there was no doubt that these pirates were now Vampirates.

“Please, Mistress Cate,” Antonio said now. “We beg you for clemency. Not one of us was a willing recruit to the Vampirate force. We had no choice in the matter.”

Glancing at her comrades on either side, Cate nodded. “We accept your surrender,” she said. Her eyes turned to Moonshine. “
The Diablo
is once more under the command of a Wrathe. Captain, it’s your command now.”