by Amy Vansant
The Angeli Trilogy
Amy Vansant
Copyright 2016 Amy Vansant.
All Rights Reserved.
Table of Contents
Book 1: Angeli: The Pirate, the Angel, and the Irishman
Book 2: Cherubim
Book 3: Verymor
About the Author
Angeli
The Pirate, the Angel
& the Irishman
Amy Vansant
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by any means, without the permission of the author.
ISBN-10: 0-9837191-4-4
ISBN-13: 978-0-9837191-4-4
Vansant Creations, LLC / Amy Vansant
Annapolis, MD
http://www.AmyVansant.com | http://www.TheAngeli.com
Editor: Carolyn Steele http://carolynsteele.ca/
Cover design by Steven Novak: http://www.NovakIllustration.com
DEDICATION
Dedicated to my husband, Michael Con Brunell (You'll see why that is funny in a bit) and Gordon, our son, who also happens to be a Labradoodle.
Chapter One
Sea Isle City, New Jersey. Present Day.
Anne Bonny sat at the outdoor café in Sea Isle City, New Jersey, staring dreamily at the mimosa tree arching above her table. The tree’s fuzzy pink flowers gave her the impression of a Dr. Seuss creation, as if Horton himself had decorated it for a summer holiday.
Anne could hear the rhythmic crashing of the surf, the soothing whoosh serving as a soundtrack to the peaceful setting. Around the restaurant’s wrought iron table tiny sparrows hopped across the backyard eating area, snatching up every spare crumb like little feathered vacuum cleaners. A block away, a seagull cackled its wild, agitated laugh.
With only a young couple in love cooing to each other nearby, Anne enjoyed her hard-earned tranquility. She’d decided to steal a few days away from her apartment in New York City to explore the New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland shores. She doodled on a folded map as she pondered her route: should she pause in Cape May? Or take the ferry to Delaware? The last bit of French toast gone from her plate; she wondered where she would stop for lunch.
The female half of the cooing couple stood, scraping her metal chair across the stone pavers. Anne watched the girl in the form-fitting tank dress twitch her way into the main building. Anne made brief eye contact with the young man still at the table, flashed him a polite “whoops, we made eye-contact” smile, and returned to her thoughts.
Anne reached for an overlooked crumb of bacon on her plate, just as the sparrows flew away in unison. Anne’s sharp gaze swept the area to find the cause of their unrest.
“Great little arse,” said a man’s voice in an Irish accent.
Anne sat bolt upright and trained her gaze on the male half of the couple with whom she shared the patio. The sandy-haired youth, still sitting where his girl had left him, met Anne’s curious gaze with a wicked grin. He stood and dragged his chair to Anne’s table with a teeth-rattling screech of metal on stone.
The boy released an overly dramatic sigh of satisfaction, plopped into the chair positioned beside Anne, and beckoned the waitress as she exited the café and stepped onto the back patio.
“Could I get four whiskeys here?” he asked, dangling his finger over the table and swirling it as if mixing a drink.
The waitress’ head cocked to the side. “Uh, sure, I guess…what kind?”
The boy’s gaze swiveled to Anne, his face beaming like a child’s on Christmas morning.
“Something Irish and as expensive as possible,” he said putting his right elbow on the table and resting his head in that hand, his attention never leaving Anne. “Straight. You can put it on her tab. Or mine. Doesn’t matter really.”
Anne looked at the waitress.
“His tab.”
The waitress offered them an awkward smile and left to fetch the whiskey.
“Ooh, Annie, I love that evil streak of yours. You’re going to stick the lad with my tab.”
Anne’s new table guest sat grinning, thin and pale as an untoasted wafer, but with the fiery eyes of a rebellious imp eager to be unleashed. She’d known the minute she heard the accent that a friend of hers, Con Carey, who had lost his own corporeal body some years ago, had appropriated the boy’s body. Like a horror movie ghost, Con had a habit of borrowing other people’s bodies in order to communicate. Unlike a ghost, the only thing horrifying about Con was his otherworldly ability to consume whiskey.
“Hello, Con. Did you ask that poor boy if you could borrow his body?”
“Hello, my love. Absolutely not. They almost always say no.”
Anne noted how Con’s eyes glowed as she acknowledged him and recalled how thrilled he’d been the first time he’d found a way to use another person’s body. He’d pumped his fists and run around the room screaming with joy until he crashed over a sofa, having lost control of his borrowed legs.
“How are you? Did you miss me?” he asked.
Before she could answer, Con leapt to his feet and did jumping jacks. Wrapped in the young man’s bony frame, he boxed an invisible opponent for a few moments, and then clapped himself on either shoulder, pleased with his performance.
“Featherweight,” he said, flopping back into his chair.
“Featherbrain,” drawled Anne. She paused as the waitress returned to set four whiskeys on the table. Unsure how to dole out the whiskeys, she lumped them in the middle of the table.
Con took the first shot and swallowed it before the waitress had released the last glass from her grasp.
“Slow down,” said Anne. “She could have lost a finger.”
“Uhhhhmmmm…” Con groaned, ignoring Anne in his ecstasy.
Anne watched with amusement as Con licked his lips, tilted back his head and closed his eyes. As a disembodied spirit, Con’s lack of lips and a throat made it difficult to enjoy the finer things in life.
Anne snatched the second whiskey from the table, shot it back, and slapped the empty glass into Con’s hand.
Con jerked his paw from the empty shot glass as if it burned his fingertips. His jaw clenched as he clamped his fingers around the next full shot. He trained his eyes on Anne’s, daring her to touch it.
He raised the third shot to his mouth. With lightning-fast reflexes, Anne snatched the glass from Con’s fingers and put the glass against her lips, threatening to drink it.
“Harpy!” Con roared, slamming his fist to the table. The glasses jumped and clattered on the wrought iron.
Anne paused, allowing the drama to grow, and then handed back the glass with a bow of her head. Visibly relieved, Con downed the shot without delay.
“Surely, you know better than to break my heart like that,” said Con, wiping his mouth. “You might have spilled it.”
Anne grinned, incapable of staying annoyed with Con for long. She was happy to see him again, even if he inhabited the body of yet another innocent passerby. He hadn’t made one of his appearances in months.
She wasn’t sure what to do when the girl returned from the ladies’ room expecting to find her boyfriend waiting for her and not chatting up a busty strawberry blonde at the next table. She hadn’t been in a catfight in ages.
“I wish you would better time these visits,” she said. “His girlfriend will be back here any second.”
“I’ll be quick.”
Anne nodded and took small solace in the fact that Con chose a boy to borrow. During a past impromptu visit, Con had possessed the body of a young woman and given Anne a sloppy kiss in front of the girl’s grandmother. Anne felt lucky the waitress wasn’t sitting in her lap.
Anne nodded to the empty whiskey glasses. “You know wh
at they say; drinky, drinky, little dinky,” she held up her pinky and waggled it for effect.
Con stopped in mock horror, the last shot nearly to his lips. He put the glass down, pulled out the waistband of his plaid shorts and looked inside. With a shrug, he snapped them shut.
“Sorry, Luv, but it looks as though I might as well drink.”
Anne sighed. “So why are you here, Con?”
“I’ve come to give you a warning. Your pal is on the move.”
“My pal?”
“Michael.”
Con turned his head to feign spitting on the floor in disgust as he said Michael’s name.
“There’s trouble. I haven’t been able to gather all the details yet, but something is afoot.”
“Is that where you’ve been the last few months? Spying on Michael?”
Con raised one of the empty shot glasses, smelled it, and thrust his tongue inside to reach the last drops.
“I said: have you been spying on Michael?” repeated Anne, taking the glass out of his hand and putting it back on the table. Con pouted.
“Yes, I’ve been spying,” he said. “Among other things.”
Anne played it cool, as if Con’s news meant nothing to her, but her chest felt tight. She opened and closed her fist several times before Con placed his hand on hers to soothe her jitters. She smiled, realizing what a poor actress she was.
“You’ll be fine, you always are,” he said. “I just wanted you to prepare yourself.”
Without warning, Con leaned forward and put his hand on the back of Anne’s head, pulling her face to his. He ravished her with a kiss.
Anne thought how strange it was that the kiss felt like Con and not like the stranger whose lips actually pressed against her own. The smell of whiskey helped.
She gave into the kiss. As she did, Con left his host and Anne found herself lip-locked with a very confused young man.
“What are you doing?” came a screech from across the patio.
Anne’s eyes popped open wide, her lips still pressed against the young man’s. His girlfriend had returned, and now stood, mouth agape, pointing at Anne.
The boy pulled back from Anne’s kiss, holding his arms wide, as if declaring himself safe.
“Wha…?” The boy stood and put his fingers on the table to steady himself as the full effect of three whiskies and a recent possession took its toll on his hundred thirty-five pound frame.
He glanced at Anne and then back at his girlfriend, hoping someone or something could explain his disorientation. He looked back at Anne’s memorable cleavage and tried to squelch the grin creeping to his lips. He burped, putting his hand to his mouth in surprise when he tasted whiskey.
“I said what are you doing?” the girl’s tone still a glass-breaking wail.
Anne stood.
“He agreed to test our new line of lipsticks,” she said, gathering her things and beginning to move towards the restaurant’s back door. “In order to get you a free sampler kit from us, which I’ll go get from the car now.”
The girl glowered with anger and confusion, torn between free makeup and an implausible explanation for what she had witnessed. She took a step toward her equally confused boyfriend, tossing her locks with pique.
“Why do you smell like booze?”
“Whiskey flavored lipstick!” Anne called back, attempting to throw the boy a bone. “Irish Rose.”
Anne paid her tab at the register and left the café.
On the street, Anne considered Con’s message. Any time Con noticed Michael acting suspiciously, bad things followed.
Michael was an Angelus, member of a race of extraordinary creatures whose sole duty was to ensure the safety of the human race. Anne was a Sentinel. She worked for the Angeli as a sort of bounty hunter, helping to track and kill Perfidia: Angeli who preyed on humans instead of protecting them. Whenever Michael called her, she knew a battle lay ahead, and while she had once relished such challenges, her enthusiasm was waning. A Perfidian had nearly killed Con, a fellow Sentinel; now Anne felt death was her constant companion.
It didn’t help that Michael and Anne were involved in a complicated romance that added stress to every exchange between them.
Anne wished she could fly away from the whole mess, but today, disappearing would be especially difficult. As she scanned the street outside the café, she found her parking spot occupied by a new tenant. Her Jaguar was missing.
“Blast,” Anne swore, stomping from one end of the block to the other in search of her car. Peering between two beachside duplexes, she finally spotted it parked on the next block.
Anne scowled. She hadn’t parked a block away from the restaurant. Perhaps Con had moved the car as a joke before he visited her at the café? That would be like him. Or, she was going senile. She was slightly over three hundred years old. A long life was one of the benefits of working for the Angeli…assuming Sentinels could stay alive with Perfidia constantly trying to kill them.
Anne cut between the beach houses towards her vehicle, ducking and slipping through a small fence to enter a secluded backyard. Before she could stand upright, the figure of a man appeared in front of her.
Anne lacked even a moment to react.
The man raised a small pistol, and shot her directly between the eyes.
Chapter Two
Jamaica, 1720
“I can’t believe I just stole a ship,” said Anne, looking out over the Caribbean Sea.
“You’re a pirate now,” said Captain Rackham, wrapping his wiry arms around her waist.
Anne had grown up in Charles Town, South Carolina, after her father, William Cormac, fled Ireland to escape the shame of his affair with Anne’s mother (his maidservant), Mary Brennan. While Anne had not in any way been born to be a pirate, there was no denying naughty ran in her blood.
Blessed with her mother’s milky complexion and copper tresses, Anne had suffered no shortage of attention from boys during her time in Charles Town. At seventeen, she met James Bonny, who hoped to win her father’s fortune by marrying into the family. James was a rascal, a sailor and a small-time pirate. Anne couldn’t decide if James was truly handsome, but he drove her father mad, and that was enough.
James’ visits always coincided with the disappearance of household items. When Anne’s father made it clear that Anne had to choose between her inattentive family and her thieving boyfriend, Anne gathered everything she could carry and eloped to Nassau, Bahamas.
Just a few months later, in the summer of 1718, English Governor Woodes Rogers came to Nassau and James Bonny ended his fledgling pirate career to become an informant for Woodes, ratting on the very scoundrels he once claimed to be. Snug in the pocket of the new Governor, Anne’s husband increasingly ignored her in favor of his glamorous new friends.
Anne found herself spending idle time at the local pub with the charming Captain John “Calico Jack” Rackham, a real pirate who called Nassau his homeport. Rackham had a kinder face, quicker wit and easier humor than James. More importantly, he promised to whisk Anne away from her life in Nassau.
When the opportunity arose, Rackham, Anne, a stolen sloop called The Revenge, and a makeshift crew of rascals escaped Nassau and sailed miles away before dawn the following day.
Anne Cormac Bonny had become a pirate.
The Revenge sat three days from a much-needed stop in Jamaica when Blue, the afternoon lookout man, spotted something off the port bow. It was a small boat with a figure inside, lost or cast adrift.
Three of the crew took a small rowboat to investigate, returning with only a woman wearing tattered brown robes.
Anne didn’t know what to make of the woman retrieved from the dinghy. Her features were foreign. Her brow was heavy; her eyes like those of an exotic Anne saw once in St. Croix. On boarding, the woman smiled at Anne, displaying fine white teeth. As quickly as her brilliant grin appeared, it was gone, and the woman resumed her solemn, almost regal demeanor as the men led her onto the ship.
Anne marveled as the usually rowdy crew gave the strange woman wide berth. They seemed afraid.
Anne offered the woman water and food, but for someone plucked from the sea, she was strangely uninterested in both. She refused to speak. Often, Anne caught the woman’s gaze on her.
“Why do you stare at me?” Anne asked, unnerved.
The woman smiled, and pointed to the sea.
Anne opened her mouth to ask why and was thrown to the deck as the ship lurched.
The Revenge was under attack.
Anne scrambled to her feet.
“Hide,” she hissed to the woman.
The woman smiled.
Shortly after the initial attack, Jonathan Barnet, a man charged with ridding the local waters of pirates by the Governor of Jamaica, boarded The Revenge with his men.
Anne had no idea what to do. There was no handbook for fledgling pirates, or if there was, Captain Jack had not shared it with her.
Anne looked at the strange captive woman, smiling and squatting on the deck beside her, and had an idea. The attacking ship was crewed by British soldiers. There was no reason for anyone to think that Anne herself wasn’t a captive. After all, she’d only been a pirate for a little over a day...
Anne grasped the woman’s arm and tried to pull her to her feet. She needed to take her to safety in the belly of the ship, where the two of them could pretend they'd been kidnapped by pirates. The woman felt as though she weighed as much as the ship itself. She would not move.
As Anne tugged on the woman, she felt a shadow fall across them both. Pulling her blade from her side, Anne whirled and thrust at her attacker. The man yelped and fell back.
Anne looked down and found her knife covered in blood. It dripped and oozed across her white-knuckled grip on the hilt.
Stunned by the sight of death on her weapon, Anne never sensed the second soldier approaching. His sword plunged deep into her lower abdomen.