Immortal War

Moonshine, the flicker of a smile playing on her lips. “Good work, Captain Wrathe.”

Moonshine flushed at this, surprised and grateful for the response he was getting.

Connor looked at him in disbelief. What had happened to the Moonshine he had known to date? This didn’t seem like the same person. But then, he knew that he was not the same person either, since he’d first set out from Crescent Moon Bay. The world of piracy had forced him to grow up. War had forced him and Moonshine to become men.

Grace was getting ready to leave when she felt a hand on her shoulder. She knew exactly who it was before she turned around.

“Lorcan!” Smiling, she saw that she was right.

“I’m afraid this is only a brief hello,” Lorcan said, his dazzling blue eyes meeting hers. “I have to head into the bunker for the strategy meeting, but I wanted to catch you before you headed back to Sanctuary.”

Grace sighed. “We’ve barely had a chance to say two words to each other, have we?”

Lorcan shook his head sadly. “I know. I think I’ve been introduced to every last pirate in the building when all I really wanted was five minutes alone with my sweetheart. It feels like all we ever get to say these days is hello and good-bye, but…”

“… these are the times we live in.” Grace completed the sentence, well acquainted with the refrain.

Lorcan opened his arms and drew Grace into a hug.

Feeling the familiar lean but comforting terrain of Lorcan’s chest and shoulders, Grace held him close, grateful to have even this brief moment of solace. She closed her eyes for a moment, willing time to stand still, but knew it was futile. Opening her eyes again, she found that Obsidian Darke was staring over in her direction. He nodded at her and she returned the gesture—one born more out of respect than warmth.

“I know what’s really going on,” Grace said fiercely, as Lorcan reluctantly released her. “It’s Obsidian’s will that we should be kept apart—you on The Nocturne, me up at Sanctuary. He doesn’t want anything or anyone to distract you from your mission—or me from mine.”

Lorcan rested a hand on one of her shoulders and brought his other to lift her chin. “Now, now, Grace, you’re being just a little bit paranoid.”

“No,” she said. “Ever since he returned, he’s been utterly single-minded about it.”

“Maybe he has to be.” Lorcan frowned. “These are strange times,” he said, “with new allegiances.” His frown melted away. “But I’ll make you a promise,” he said. “We’ll find some time, somehow, for a proper catch-up, just the two of us.”

Grace hugged him once more. “Yes,” she said, feeling more rational. “I’d love that. You know I would.”

CASUALTIES

The all-too-familiar bell woke Grace instantly. It seemed barely a moment since she had fallen asleep and, in truth, it hadn’t been more than a handful of hours since she had returned from Pirate Academy. She opened her eyes and pulled herself upright on her bed. The bell meant that the first of the dawn ambulances were already making their way up from the harbor. She glanced over to the other bed just as Darcy Flotsam blinked open her wide brown eyes.

“Bells!” Darcy exclaimed, sitting up and shaking her sleek dark hair into place. “Sometimes I feel that my whole life is framed by bells!”

Smiling, Grace got up from the bed and walked into their small adjoining bathroom and scanned her reflection in the mirror. She looked a mess! She splashed some water on her face and ran a comb through her hair before pulling it back into the utilitarian ponytail she had adopted of late. There was no time for vanity under the current circumstances.

Coming back out of the bathroom, she lifted her blue healer’s uniform from the chair and dressed quickly. As she fastened the last button, she turned and saw that Darcy’s appearance was flawless—as always. Grace shook her head in admiration. “I don’t know how you do it! One minute, you’re dead to the world. Next, you look fresh and ready to go.”

Darcy gave a wry smile. “I’ve had plenty of practice,” she said, opening the small closet the girls shared and reaching inside. She held out a pale gray cardigan to Grace. “Would you like to borrow this? You know how brutal the wind can be out there.”

“But what will you wear?” Grace said, without thinking. Realizing her mistake, she shook her head. Darcy, of course, would not be joining her out in the light, but waiting inside the compound to receive the freshly wounded. Though Darcy could withstand daylight while in the wooden form of The Nocturne’s figurehead, she was unable to do so in mortal shape, like any other Nocturnal or, indeed, Vampirate.

Grace took hold of the butter-soft cardigan gratefully and draped it over her shoulders. Darcy nodded, with evident satisfaction. “We can’t have our lead healer catching a chill.”

“I’m not the lead healer,” Grace said, following her roommate out into the corridor. She was not unaware of the feverish talk around the compound of her considerable—and growing—powers; the rumors that her abilities were now only surpassed by Mosh Zu’s and that, any night now, she might gain the edge. To Grace, this talk seemed silly at best. She was just doing her job and following Mosh Zu’s expert training. Every single member of staff at Sanctuary played his or her part in the healing process: from the tag teams of pirates and Nocturnals who went out in the ambulance boats to rescue the wounded; to those who brought them up the hillside in a convoy of ambulances; to Darcy and the other nurses and the healers like Mosh Zu and herself.

As Grace stepped out into the crisp early morning air, she saw that many of her colleagues were already waiting at the open gates. She felt a sense of pride and belonging as she joined the group. Sanctuary had always been a place of healing, and it had only been natural to extend this with the advent of war and transform the compound into a field hospital for the Nocturnal and pirate alliance.

The mountain air was as chilly as Darcy had predicted and, as Grace watched the first ambulance make its final approach, she hugged her arms to her chest to generate further warmth. Two of her nursing team, Evrim and Noijon, strode over to join her.

As she waited for the ambulance, Grace could sense the buildup of adrenaline that seemed to always flow through her at these times, no matter how tired she felt. She knew that, in part, she was fortifying herself for the arrival of fresh horrors. Over the past four months, Grace had been faced with the grisliest of sights—severed limbs, exposed arteries, and blood. So much blood. This from the pirates they brought here—the ones too badly injured to be taken to the other field hospital, set up in the infirmary at Pirate Academy. But if the pirates were in really bad shape, the sight of the wounded Nocturnals was somehow even more terrifying.

“Here they come, people! Get ready for a busy night!” Mosh Zu’s trusted assistant, Dani, strode out to meet the ambulance, clipboard in hand.

The back doors of the ambulance opened and two pirates jumped out, exchanging the briefest of pleasantries with Dani before turning to business. They began lifting a black body bag from the back of the vehicle. The wounded Nocturnals had to be completely covered in order to protect them from even the briefest of exposure to the light.

Reading the tag on the bag, Dani called out to the gaggle of nurses and healers, “Patient severity Silver. Team three, please.”

At her words, a healer and two nurses came forward with a stretcher on a trolley. The ambulance crew set the body down upon it and the medics lost no time in trundling it inside.