Angeli Trilogy: Angeli Books 1-3 Page 8

  “You’re getting to be quite a marksman.”

  Jeffrey offered a curt nod.

  “You know it does hurt,” Anne rubbed between her eyes for effect. “Do it again and I will cleave you to the brisket.”

  Jeffrey shook his hands in the air in mock fear. “Oooooh, scary pirate talk,” he chided.

  Anne turned to hide a smile. Keeping her speech current with the style of the times was just another part of being a Sentinel, but she knew Jeffrey reveled in the pirate colloquialisms she let slip for his amusement. Just a few weeks ago, she’d overheard him call his cell phone “useless as tits on a boar hog.” The closest Jeffrey had ever been to a boar hog had been reading Lord of the Flies as a schoolboy.

  Anne couldn’t attribute all her verbal slips to amusing Jeffrey. Changes in language could be infuriating. For instance, she found it almost impossible to stop calling the refrigerator an “icebox.” She didn’t understand why someone would take a perfectly descriptive two-syllable word and replace it with one containing five.

  She studied Jeffrey’s profile as he drove, smiling lovingly at the crisp, pressed lines of his linen shirt. She adored her fastidious assistant and friend, but wished she hadn’t told him that a hard enough direct blow to the head could render her temporarily unconscious.

  She really wished she hadn’t gone on to explain that a gunshot to the head was a good example of a knockout blow, and then insisted that he shoot her to prove it. At the time, it had seemed like a good idea to indoctrinate him into his new service as Sentinel Assistant. She wanted him to know how to wake her up as quickly as possible should a situation occur.

  Following her demonstration, Jeffrey decided knocking out Anne by shooting her in the head with a concealed .22 was not only easier than arguing with her, but also hilarious.

  She’d really underestimated what a sick sense of humor he had.

  Anne didn’t think it petty to resent being shot in the head. She admitted that, on occasion, Jeffrey had good reason for temporarily shutting her down. But more than once he’d done it merely because he wanted to make a reservation on time. She’d wake up, dressed for the occasion, make-up applied, Jeffrey in the driver seat beside her, pulling into the parking spot at the event.

  Anne thought shooting a woman in the cranium in order to catch a seven-thirty seating of Phantom of the Opera was an abuse of power. Once he’d shot her so he could usher in friends for an impromptu surprise party for her, which on some level seemed counterintuitive.

  “We’re really going to have to talk about this,” Anne said. “This is the third time this year. There is something wrong with a person who gleefully shoots his beloved employer in the head. They have names for people like you.”

  “Resourceful?” suggested Jeffrey.

  “Hrmph,” Anne grunted. “I was thinking sick. Remind me to write you out of my will.”

  The two weaved their way through rural Southern New Jersey via Route 40. Old farmhouses and tiny towns dotted their path as they crept their way west, the Jaguar tucked behind a slow-moving produce truck.

  “So what is it this time?” Anne asked after taking nearly a half-hour to develop her nerve. “Since you don’t seem eager to share I guess I’ll just ask. Where are we going? Did you win Broadway tickets and you needed a date?”

  Jeffrey scoffed. “You’d hardly be my first choice.”

  Anne stuck her tongue out at him. “Then I should assume there was no point to your heinous attack and revenge myself accordingly?”

  “I wish it was something fun, but I’m afraid duty calls. We’re going to Annapolis, Maryland. The Historical Society there found a mass grave during an archeological dig and wants to know if the gifted and talented Ms. Anne Bonny would provide insight.”

  Anne groaned. Because Perfidia often buried the husks of the humans they drained in mass graves, it made sense for her to pose as a historical expert specializing in such graves. Not only did it assure Anne notification of such finds, but it also allowed her to offer plausible, if misleading, explanations for unusual collections of corpses to the scientific community. Occasionally, Anne investigated actual ancient gravesites with no connection to Perfidia, but after Con’s ominous warning, she suspected this grave had more to do with her full-time job as a Sentinel.

  “Michael is on the move,” said Anne. “I suspect the Historic Society was tipped to my expertise by the Angeli.”

  “It did appear that way. Particularly, when someone from Michael’s office called to stress how important it was to get you there.”

  Anne opened her mouth to protest, but found herself silenced by Jeffrey’s raised hand.

  “Now you know why I had to shoot you. Don’t even pretend it wouldn’t have turned into a day-long argument.”

  Anne sighed. Jeffrey was right. Given the chance, she would have delayed her arrival in Annapolis as long as possible. How she longed for the days when every call from the Angeli set her blood racing with excitement for hunt.

  “How did you know Michael was on the move?” asked Jeffrey. “He hasn’t called you in quite a while, I mean, as far as I know.”

  Anne took Jeffrey’s comment as a dig at her on-again, off-again relationship with Michael, but chose to take the high road and ignore it.

  “Con made an appearance,” she said. “So to speak. He borrowed the body of a kid sitting next to me at brunch.”

  “Ah. How lucky for you. Shall I call the nearest liquor store and have Sea Isle City restocked?”

  “Don’t be bitchy,” said Anne, laughing. “But yes, you probably should.”

  Jeffrey was an uptight, detail-oriented, British homosexual and Con was a hard-drinking, riotous Irish Neanderthal. To say they didn’t always appreciate each other’s charms was an understatement.

  “If it makes you feel any better you look gorgeous. I think the little bit of sun you had on the Jersey Shore gave you an almost human color,” said Jeffrey.

  “Glass houses, Brit boy. I might be fair, but you’re not exactly a Coppertone advertisement.”

  “Compared to the Irish, the English are practically leather-hued. But truly, your time away has you looking refreshed.”

  “Thanks, but flattery won’t save you. Vengeance will be mine.”

  Jeffrey attempted a confident smile, but Anne watched with pleasure as he nervously licked his lips.

  She still had it.

  * * *

  Once on the western side of the Delaware Memorial Bridge, Anne and Jeffrey drove in silence down MD 301. Flanked on either side by forests and farms, they traveled miles without seeing anything more interesting than a hand-painted sign boasting hunting guides or a lone yellow light marking a crossing. Turning left or right at any of those lights would transport them to some tiny Maryland farming town, but there was no time for bed and breakfasts or roadside fruit stands.

  The lonely road merged with other veins and traffic increased. Strip malls stretched for as far as the eye could see, funneling them straight over the nearly five-mile-long Chesapeake Bay Bridge. The deep blue water on either side of the bridge was dotted with boats both sail and power, traces of white foam trailing behind them as they traveled from dock to destination.

  Not long after arriving on the western shore, Jeffrey maneuvered the car onto the exit that would take them to downtown Annapolis. Much had changed in the hundred twenty years since Anne had last visited the capital of Maryland. Where there had been dirt roads surrounding a thriving city on the Chesapeake Bay, now paved and busy streets stretched in every direction. Main Street, centerpiece of the main tourist area by the bay, was a quaint brick-paved road in the heart of downtown, lined on either side by shops and restaurants. Though the wine bars and high-end shops were new, Anne spotted the brick-built historic Maryland Inn still standing at the end of Main Street.

  Anne decided to stay at the Inn during their visit to historic Annapolis. It would be an opportunity for her to see how much the old hotel had changed.

  Jeffrey found a spot
to park on Main Street and hopped out of the car, moving to the trunk to retrieve their bags. Jeffrey had an Internet business through which he sold t-shirts of his own creation, and as he bent to lift the luggage, Anne’s gaze fell on his custom tee. It featured a stylized photo of a woman, with “Pirates do it for the Booty” printed alongside the image. The woman resembled Anne dressed as a slutty parody of her former pirate self.

  In her mind’s eye, Anne flashed to a vision of Jeffrey begging her to dress like a pirate wench for a costume party the previous Halloween. She swallowed.

  Stepping towards Jeffrey, Anne pushed back his shoulder with one finger to better inspect the tee. Jeffrey flinched at Anne’s touch, and then held still while she studied the shirt.

  The tee didn’t boast a photo that resembled Anne. It was Anne. She looked at Jeffrey.

  “Can I ask just how much mileage you plan to get out of that evening?” Spending an entire night dressed as a pirate wench might have resulted in more than one shirt design.

  “It’s one of our most popular lines. It’s the, uh...”

  Anne closed her eyes and sighed. “Go ahead.”

  “It’s the Wench Line.”

  “Of course it is.” Anne patted Jeffrey on the shoulder, her eyes still locked on his. She glared with what she hoped would be the right amount of menace and walked into the hotel.

  Jeffrey handled the details of checking in while Anne roamed the lobby. She stayed far away from her assistant so no one would notice the resemblance between herself and the wench on his t-shirt.

  The hotel lobby featured photos from the time Anne had last visited Annapolis, so she searched for someone she recognized. No one seemed familiar. Apparently, during her time in Annapolis, she hadn’t been hanging with the popular crowd.

  Once in a rare while, Anne stumbled on a photo of herself from years past. The final scene of the movie The Shining, where the lead character’s image appears in photos from the haunted hotel’s history, reminded Anne of those unsettling moments. That scene of the film had affected her more than its hallways filled with blood or creepy dead twins. To see oneself in another time, appearance unchanged from how you appeared in the mirror that morning, was like developing a photo of yourself, only to find you’d been unknowingly surrounded by ghosts.

  Jeffrey and Anne headed to their suite, and Jeffrey went about the business of unpacking the travel cases he’d prepared for them. Anne selected a bottle of water from the mini-bar and opened it. Barely a minute later came a soft knock on the door, and Anne answered.

  A brown-haired girl, seven or eight years old, stared up at Anne with large hazel eyes. Anne looked left and right for the parents of the child, but found the hallway empty. She experienced the little wave of panic she always felt when confronted with a child. She never knew what to do with them.

  She offered a small, nervous laugh.

  “Kind of small for a bellhop, aren’t you?”

  The child grinned. Anne noticed a glint in the girl’s eyes that betrayed a mischievous nature beyond her tender years. Nervous, she took a swig from her water.

  “Do you have any whiskey in there?” asked the girl.

  “Con!” Anne half yelped and half coughed as her water went down the wrong pipe. She sputtered and wiped her chin, eyes never leaving the little girl.

  “Let me in, I have an update,” said Con’s unmistakable accent from the mouth of the girl.

  The tot leaned against the door jamb, putting her hand on her cocked hip in a gesture Anne had seen the Irishman perform a thousand times before.

  Anne swallowed hard, still fighting the urge to cough.

  “Someone is going to be looking for her,” she sputtered. “They’ve got to be sick with panic. The last time I couldn’t find Gordon at the dog park for two minutes, I nearly killed myself.”

  “Jaysus, Anne,” said Con at the mention of Anne’s dog. “The girl isn’t a Labradoodle.”

  “Take. Her. Back.”

  Con rolled his eyes. “Oh come on, Anne, she was handy. I won’t drink. She probably couldn’t handle more than a shot, anyway. Right? What’s the point of that? Maybe two? Tops?”

  “Blast it, Con. Go pick someone else.”

  “Let me in?”

  Anne vehemently shook her head. “Absolutely not.”

  She closed the door and turned her back on it, waiting to see if Con made a scene in the hallway. The last thing she needed was wild-eyed parents demanding to know why she was having a screaming argument with their seven-year-old daughter.

  The hallway offered nothing but silence.

  Anne stood, back pressed hard against the door, as if she was keeping a hoard of zombies at bay. Jeffrey came around the corner and spotted her in this unusual position, stared at her for a moment, and then grabbed what he needed and returned to his room. After nearly a decade with Anne, it took more than that to ruffle him.

  The hotel phone rang. Thinking Con had found a phone Anne lunged for the receiver.

  “What?” she snapped.

  “Whoa,” a man chuckled on the other side of the line. “Tough trip?”

  The voice on the phone was smooth and masculine and Anne recognized it immediately.

  “Michael.”

  “You don’t sound happy to hear from me.”

  Anne sighed. “Sorry. How are you?”

  “Oh, the usual. I see Jeffrey got you there safely, if not a little cranky.”

  “You could say that.” Anne rubbed her forehead and scowled towards the room where Jeffrey was unpacking.

  “He told you about the burial site?”

  “Yes.”

  “I was thinking I could swing by and pick you up tomorrow. We could talk on the way there. I can meet you right in front of the hotel on the Main Street side around nine?”

  “You’re in town?”

  “I will be. Catching a plane later today.”

  “Really...” Anne pictured Michael standing in an airport, surrounded by people who had no idea who or what he was. “Rather pedestrian of you to take a plane, isn’t it?”

  “In the strictest sense of the word, no,” mused Michael. “But it keeps me grounded, so to speak.”

  “Mm hmm,” Anne grunted. She knew Michael well enough to know that at this point he was enjoying his own word play more than their actual conversation. The only way to stop him from amusing himself was to hang up.

  “I’ll see you at nine.”

  “See you then.”

  Anne put down the receiver and stared at it for several minutes, breathing deeply, steeling herself for what lay ahead. Any time she spoke to Michael it meant she was already hip-deep in trouble. She needed a few moments of peace before the drama ensued.

  Anne wished she could say that a sniping English poof and a disembodied Irishman were her only hang-ups, but there was the third man in her current Triumvirate of Dysfunctional Relationships: the Arch Angel Michael.

  Life had been much simpler as a pirate.

  Chapter Nine

  Michael paced his modern West Coast office in downtown San Francisco. Passing a cherry bookshelf, he noticed one of the tomes, Antique Boxes, Tea Caddies & Society 1700-1800, rested upside-down. He recalled the office building’s cleaning lady peering with interest at his silver Victorian pillbox with collapsible beaker. No doubt, she had been perusing his books in his absence.

  He felt uneasy. Not only had someone been touching his things and replacing them incorrectly, but also one of the Guardian Angels, Ariel, had not checked in for over two weeks despite repeated attempts to reach her. While that sort of behavior in someone like his brother and fellow Arch Angel, Leo, would be no cause for alarm, Ariel was not an Arch. As a Guardian, Ariel received her orders and performed them as given. Guardians didn’t refuse to come when called by an Arch. They came when were called. Period.

  Michael could feel Ariel’s presence; he knew she was out there, somewhere. But when Michael had summoned her he hadn’t felt an answer, the ping of energy that told him,
based on its intensity and frequency, that she was on her way, or would be as soon as possible.

  As an Arch, Michael received occasional bursts of clairvoyance pertaining to his immediate circle of influence. He’d served as everything from a Roman senator to a United States Presidential advisor, always one step ahead, gently guiding the course of human existence.

  In 1916 Berlin, he’d stepped in front of a horse-drawn carriage, forcing horse and driver to pause long enough that one block away, a distracted thirty-year-old Albert Einstein crossed the street unscathed. Michael hadn’t known why he’d done it at the time. He’d been compelled.

  That was the problem with Angeli clairvoyance; even the Angeli themselves didn’t know where it came from or why. They could only do as compelled. In the case of Einstein, it was only later that Michael discovered he’d saved the life of a man critically important to the humans’ development as a species.

  Clairvoyant moments such as these were what distinguished Michael as an Arch. Archs received impulses and ideas that helped shape the path of the human race. They didn’t know if these impulses came from inside themselves or externally…like some otherworldly directive. They only knew the path was right. Some impulses Archs acted on themselves, as with Einstein. Others fell to Guardian Angels. If an Angel didn’t answer an Arch’s call; there was no telling what effect that missed opportunity might have on the world.

  Two days after Michael had first summoned Ariel, a photo had appeared, wrapped in a simple manila envelope bearing no stamp or mark other than Michael’s name scrawled across the front in pen. He found it waiting for him in his office.

  Envelopes did not appear on Michael’s desk unless requested.

  Standing beside his desk, Michael’s suspicious gaze swept the office. People leaving envelopes, moving books; he couldn’t help but wonder what else this parade of office marauders had pawed.

  He made a fist and cracked his index knuckle beneath his thumb.