This place had a good feel but was entirely different from the watering holes Anne had gotten used to, especially back at Nassau when Eleanor ruled the place with an iron fucking fist and the high-earners basically ran the place… along with her captain, Charles Vane. It was because he’d been screwing the Guthrie girl and she had a soft spot for him but Vane and Eleanor always seemed to be circling around one another, waiting on each other to show a fatal weakness to the other, constantly getting in each other’s way, on each other’s nerves and eventually, straight into bed again. Anne never quite understood Eleanor and frankly didn’t like her much but respected one thing: she was a teenage girl running the hub of all pirate trade in the modern world.
She was pretty, in that English-rose kind of way and she didn’t mind when men acted like pigs. In fact, she usually did them one better. She made them laugh. That’s why Eleanor was whom she turned to when she found herself in need of aid to save Max from the horrors she was being subjected to on the beach. Men destroyed beautiful things, the fucking lot of them, she thought, looking down at the bar and curling her lip slightly. If there was a God and God was perfect, Anne thought she’d be a woman. The open blue of the sea and the glimmer from jumping dolphins’ backs could never have been conjured by the mind of a man. There was no God, though and so human nature went. No one would be punished after this life, nor anyone rewarded. It was a catch while catch can situation.
Then, suddenly, a man walked out of the backroom, smirked at her and pulled out a bottle of whiskey. She looked at him with some apprehension and suspicion, wondering if this man was the Azrael she was looking for. Her eyes dropped to the whiskey. The label couldn’t be read, it had been rubbed off by oils of the skin over time and she wondered just how old it was and if it was used for special occasions. She’d have to ask.
When he said it was good to see her, she stopped looking at him from below the rim of her hat and raised her chin so she could get a better look at him and him, her. This internet was strange. They’d already spoken so she felt somewhat of a sense of familiarity but she’d never seen him before in her life. Was this how people connected now? Did people become friends on the internet? Even lovers? Pictures could be sent, apparently but she didn’t have a clue how. In any case, she’d never seen a camera before and couldn’t work it in the first place, so the point was moot.
She nodded back and responded, her accent, hard Cockney, her voice husky, “So. You’re… Azrael. Man who owns this place.” It seemed her face was fixed in a permanent scowl, but she had no qualms. Looking around her and gesturing with her finger, she half-said, half-questioned, “So this place’s all yours?” Anne looked back at him, imploringly. There was a careless, laid-back way about her. She sat on the stool with a wide stance and had horrible posture, her shoulder hunched over as she took a moment to look him over.
The jacket was cool. She wouldn’t mind one of those. Now, the necklace looked a little out-of-place, it was so bright, clean, so unlike the rest of him… shaggy, scruffy, leather-clad. It shined brightly and she idly wondered what stone it was and how much it cost. His hair looked like most men on board, wind-blown, tousled, a mess. Of course, she wasn’t judging. She smelled like rum, her hair was tangled with a little gold clasp here and there, gathering a lock and it was clear she didn’t shower every day but she wasn’t filthy. Just not pristine.
As he asked his question, she watched the whiskey pour into one of the strangest-looking glasses she’d seen. Glass wasn’t popular on Nassau. It broke easily in the hands of drunkards and could be used as a weapon. There were enough of those in the pub as it was, didn’t need any extras.