The Vengeance

Book 1: Vampires of Dumas

by Emma Newman

Genres: Fantasy action & adventure; Vampires; Gothic; LGBT & Pride

Synopsis

Morgane grew up at sea, daughter of the fierce pirate captain of the Vengeance, raised to follow in her footsteps as scourge of the Four Chains Trading Company. But when Anna-Marie is mortally wounded in battle, she confesses to Morgane that she is not her mother.

The captain of the enemy ship reveals he was paid to kill Anna-Marie and bring Morgane home to France and her real family. Desperate to learn the truth about her lineage, Morgane spares him, leaving the Vengeance and everything she knows behind.

Her quest reveals a world of decadence and darkness, in which monsters vie for control of royal courts and destinies of nations. She discovers the bloody secrets of the Four Chains Trading Company, and the truth about her real mother's death, nearly twenty years before...

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Release date: May 6, 2025

Publisher: Rebellion Publishing Ltd.

Print pages: 336

Sample

Chapter One

If she had known that it was the last hour of her mother’s life, Morgane would have done things differently. But that was the thing about a life at sea such as they had; there was no way to tell where death would come from. They all expected it at every moment, so usual a threat that it became oddly comfortable, sinking into the background like a storm front on the horizon that never quite arrived. It was going to hit at some point. They all knew it. It was going to toss everything around and potentially wreck it all, but until that day, Morgane somehow hadn’t ever believed it would come for the captain of The Vengeance, the Scourge of the Sea.

Morgane had watched her mother pacing the deck since leaving their latest victim, a French trading ship, stricken in the water some miles back. She was finding fault with repairs, snapping at anyone who had the misfortune of needing to speak with her. Morgane was glad to be out of the way, sat as she was straddled across the bowsprit right at the front of their brigantine, her back to the sea as she sanded down the repair she’d worked on long enough to make her back ache. They were all tired and short-tempered, only a day from Port Royal and ready to spend the gold from their labours, but she knew the captain was bothered by something else. Something to do with the ship they’d just ransacked.

There had been nothing remarkable about it, just another Four Chains Company trade ship that had surrendered to The Vengeance, as they all did in the end. The captain of the captured vessel, trembling like a palm leaf in a brisk wind, had readily accepted her mother’s terms without any need for further violence. The haul was so good that they were now low in the water and as slow as a man who’d just feasted to the point of discomfort. There was gold aplenty to divide between them, and bundles of goods ready to be sold on for more. No one had died, and the only injury had been to Bull’s left cheek, hit by a splinter. Jacques, the quartermaster and best with needle and thread,

 had already sewn it up.

So, what then could explain the foul temper? Her mother was usually high spirited after each victory. One more notch in the beam across her bed, a further insult to the one who’d wronged her all those years ago. She’d watched her mother run a fingertip across those notches every night before they slept, her mother in the captain’s bed, herself in the hammock strung up in the corner of her cabin, as it had always been. Those few silent moments of satisfaction before climbing into bed and stretching out, hands tucked behind her head, a smile playing across her lips.

Sometimes they took a Spanish ship, just for the gold, but they didn’t earn a notch in that beam, nor did any lovers. Only the taking of a Four Chains Company ship would merit one, and there were dozens of those marks in the wood. They kept a tally of her career of piracy rather than privateering, something that the captain considered a matter of personal pride. There was no letter of marque to protect her, and no bending of the knee to any king, French or not, as Anna-Marie had been known to boast when in her cups. All the crew benefitted from all the spoils, not just a portion left over after payment to the king as the privateers had.

Even if there were a king in Europe willing to sanction Anna-Marie’s hatred of the Four Chains Company, Morgane was convinced that her mother would not accept any permission to do as she did. It was too personal, too important a matter to involve anyone else, and she was too proud to hide behind a piece of paper giving her permission to enact her vengeance.

Something had soured of late, though. The past few months had been as successful and as lucrative as ever, but her mother’s mood had become volatile. She’d taken to brooding alone rather than drinking with the rest of them in Taverners, their favourite hostelry in Port Royal. Nothing Morgane could say or do seemed to shift those black moods that settled on her mother, just like the one setting in before her eyes. She watched her mother say something briefly to Jacques and then go below, just as the wind snatched Morgane’s headscarf clean off.

“Shit and blood!” She failed to grab the scrap of fabric before it was out of reach. The sun was beating down on her scalp and she hated the way the wind was now tugging her bright blond hair free from its braid to whip her cheeks.

She finished the sanding and then scooted along the bowsprit and back onto the forecastle deck, heading for the hatch on the main deck to go below and towards

the back of the ship to the cabin she shared with her mother. Over on the quarterdeck, Jacques beckoned her to join him, but she wanted another scarf, indicating that she’d only be a moment before disappearing below.

Descending into the bowels of the ship, she listened to its creaks and moans. Even if she hadn’t been above all day, she’d still be able to tell how the sea lay and what the wind was doing, just from what the ship said and how she moved.

She unhooked the lantern from the top of the staircase and then headed down the steps, needing its light after being out in the blazing sunshine.

“HONK!”

She gasped and almost dropped the lantern as a flurry of white feathers barrelled up the stairs towards her. The goose tugged at the pockets of her jacket, hoping she had a treat tucked away for him as she sometimes did when she wanted to go belowdecks without the entire ship knowing about it.

“Quiet, you noisy bastard!” she yelled at him, but he carried on honking as if his private home were being invaded – even though he usually slept up on the deck or in the bosun’s hammock if it was raining. “Quiet, King Charles, or I’ll chop off your head!”

His full name was King Charles the Second, out of the proper disrespect for the English king, but as long as his rank and name were spoken, he always settled. She’d never hurt a single feather on his body – she loved the stupid bird – but strangely enough, that specific threat always got him to be quiet. He settled on the top step and stared at her until she scratched the top of his head.

He nuzzled her hand with his bill and then she continued through the space filled with empty hammocks, past cannon, canvas and piles of rope, then through the open doorway partitioning off the upper storage area, the lantern light picking out the edges of the crates, bales and barrels that held the spoils of recent weeks. She picked her way through

the narrow corridor left between them all to the captain’s cabin door and pulled out the key she wore around her neck, only to see that it was already open, just a crack.

The hinges on the door to the cabin were well-oiled as they were both light sleepers and it meant fewer fights if either of them came in after the other had retired for the night. Morgane opened the door as slowly and silently as possible, revealing the sparsely furnished cabin. Her mother’s bed was built into a nook with its own heavy burgundy velvet curtains to give her privacy. The leaded glass of the rear window allowed sunshine to cast a gridded square over the faded rug in the centre of the room. The captain’s desk and chair were to the left, her hammock in the corner next to it, swinging gently back and forth, her personal chest beneath it containing her worldly goods.

Morgane froze in the doorway when she saw her mother kneeling in front of one of the chests they’d looted from the captured vessel earlier.

She watched silently as Anna-Marie picked the lock, opened the chest, and lifted out two letters that lay on top of what looked like a pile of linens. After reading the names written on them, she stuffed one down her shirt and broke the other’s seal to unfold it and read the contents.

Whatever the letter said made Anna-Marie crumple forwards for a moment, before crushing the letter in her fist and slamming the chest shut. Swearing beneath her breath she stuffed that letter down her shirt, too, and then twisted round, suddenly aware of Morgane’s presence.

“You spying on me?” she shouted.

“I just need another scarf, the wind took mine.” She stepped inside, refusing to let her mother’s baleful glare stop her from entering their cabin. “What was that letter about?”

“It’s no business of yours!” Anna-Marie snapped, smoothing down her shirt as she stood.

“How could it be any business of yours, either?” Morgane asked. She wasn’t trying to push back, it just made no sense to her. They’d pulled the chest off a

random ship they’d raided, one of dozens of Four Chains trading vessels they’d looted over the years. Whatever the letter had said, it couldn’t be personal.

Anna-Marie snatched one of her own scarves off the hook by her bed and pressed it into Morgane’s chest as she pushed her back towards the door. “There! Get out!”

“Tell me what—”

A final shove and she was out of the door before she could finish. She listened to it being locked from the inside. She hammered on it with her fist. “If something is making you sore-headed enough to take it out on the crew, you should—”

“Bugger off, Morgane!”

She was about to unlock the door with her own key and have it out with her, when she heard a sharp whistle. It was so faint below deck that she fancied she’d imagined it for a moment, but then came the sound of heavy boots running overheard – Jacques heading towards the hatch down to this deck, to come and fetch the captain, she was certain – and she immediately tensed.

King Charles started honking and then Jacques appeared at the partition between the storage area she stood in and the cannons.

“She in the cabin?”

Morgane nodded.

“Ship sighted.”

Morgane shrugged. “We’re fully laden, we’ve no need to attack another ship before landfall.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Are you captain now, chère?”

“Is it Four Chains?”

He nodded.

“Blood and sand.” She banged on the door. “Captain! Ship sighted!”

The key turned in the lock and Anna-Marie looked past her to Jacques. As close as she was, Morgane could have sworn she’d been crying from the red blotches just beneath her eyes. But she never cried.

“Dill spotted a schooner,” he said. “South by sou-east, just come over the horizon.”

“One of theirs?”

He nodded. Dill, a woman so small in stature that she was often mistaken for a young boy when they were in port, had the sharpest eyes of all of them and was rarely wrong. The captain darted back into her cabin, heading for the extra pair of pistols hung beside her bed. Morgane followed her in. “You’re not thinking of going for her?”

“Why would you think otherwise?” Anna-Marie slung each baldric over her head so they crossed over her chest and then settled the extra pistols into place so they didn’t interfere with the pair she wore at her hips. The guns were the most elaborately decorated things she wore, not being one for fancy jackets and waistcoats, unlike some of the others in their industry. She wore plain black breeches, leather boots that went past her knees and a plain linen shirt, not unlike what Morgane preferred to wear. Practical to the last, both of them.

“Because we’re already low in the water and there’s no room for—”

“Surely you are not arguing for leaving them be?”

Morgane tied the scarf over her hair and tucked in the wayward blonde strands. “We’ve a fine haul and we’re ready for port. Why—”

“Enough, Morgane. I’m taking it.”

Morgane grabbed her pistols from where she’d left them in the folds of her hammock, cleaned and ready to load as she always kept them, and slung the baldric round her hips.

“It’ll take us off course,” she said as she buckled it and checked there was powder and shot in the pouches. “We’ll be at Port Royal by morning if we—”

Out of nowhere, Anna-Marie grabbed her shirt and smashed her against the wall. “I said, enough! It’s a Four Chains ship! There’s no debate to be had.”

“We’re too slow to attack a bloody schooner!” she yelled into her mother’s face. “Just think for a bloody minute!”

A pain exploded through her jaw and then, after, the realisation that the captain had

backhanded her. Her mother had never been loving, and had shoved her around all her life, but this was the first time she’d ever hit her so hard. She couldn’t quite believe it. “I am thinking!” Anna-Marie’s yelling snatched her out of the shock. “I’m thinking of what they took from me! I’ll sink every one of their damn ships and ruin them for what they did to me!”

“And it won’t change a bloody thing,” Morgane said through the blood welling in her mouth. “You’ll still be an angry bitch who hates the world.”

With a guttural sound, Anna-Marie threw her to the floor, stepped over her feet and pushed past Jacques to run to the hatch.

Morgane sat up, surprised to see Jacques standing over her, offering his hand. “Anyone else and you’d be dropped off this ship faster than a wet shit.”

She laughed and grabbed his hand to pull herself up. “Well, if I can’t use the fortune of my birth to speak my mind, what is it even worth?”

“Your gob will be the death of you, Morgane.”

“Nah, it’ll be being too bloody slow to duck.” She prodded her jaw gently.

“She’s not herself,” Jacques said quietly. “But now is not the time.” He patted the top of her head gently, as he’d always done since she was tiny. For such a tall, broad man, he was very gentle. At least he always was with her. She’d seen him smash heads against masts with enough force to cave in skulls like ripe melons. But not often. Only when he needed to. Where many of the crew revelled in any violence they could find – and groaned whenever a target vessel surrendered – Jacques never did. “You ready?”

Morgane looked into his dark brown eyes, seeing nothing but concern. She took in the scar across his right cheek, the battered tricorn hat worn over the tight black curls of his hair, the dark brown of his skin. She knew his face as well as her mother’s, and just like her, he’d been there on the ship for as long as she could remember. Where exactly in France he’d come from, what he’d left behind and why and how he fell in with Anna-Marie were mysteries to her, and everyone else in the crew. There were stories about how he’d saved the captain’s life when Morgane had been a babe in arms, and many drunken nights of trying to get him to confirm whether this was true. But Jacques, after declaring that he would never talk about such a thing while sober, would accept all the liquor given to him before staggering off to bed 

with his lips still sealed. She was nineteen years old, and she’d never seen or heard of him betraying a confidence. That was why he kept several of hers, too.

“You agree with me? That we should leave that ship be and carry on to Port Royal?”

After a few moments, and a quick glance at the doorway to check the captain really had gone up on deck, he nodded. “But we’ll follow her, chère, we always do, and we always profit from it.”

Morgane let her frustration out with a sigh and they left the cabin together, taking care to lock it behind her.

The Captain was up on the forecastle deck looking through her spy glass, The Vengeance altering course to intercept the schooner as Morgane and Jacques dashed to Anna-Marie’s side. To Morgane’s surprise, the gap between the two ships was already closing, even though a schooner should easily outrun them. They were fast, ironically often used by the trading companies in the hope of outrunning pirates, only to make their ships coveted all the more. If the schooner was at full sail, it would outrun them in this wind, especially given how laden The Vengeance was. But this one was limping along.

The glass was passed to Jacques and then to her. The schooner didn’t seem to be very low in the water, so it wasn’t as if they were burdened by an excess of cargo, and she couldn’t see any damage, but then again, she couldn’t see the sides of the ship at all. The masts were in place, so they were either uninterested in maximising the wind, or incapable of it. And since when were traders not interested in going as fast as they could?

“This doesn’t feel right,” she muttered, trying to fathom what it was that made her gut tight. “By the look of where she’s sitting in the water, there’s barely anything on her.”

“So they’ve sold their wares in the Americas and are full of gold instead. Even better.”

“But that’s not how

they work, you know that. They should be heavy with goods they’re taking back to France. Something isn’t right.”

“Perhaps they’ve already run into trouble,” Jacques suggested, “and someone else has had the spoils.”

“They may be thin on crew, or damaged,” her mother said. “We take them.”

“But what for?” Morgane asked. “If there’s nothing on board, what’s the point of diverting and risking crew? At best it will be a ship limping home with nothing left to steal, at worst it…” She glanced back at the ship. “It could be a trap.”

Her mother snorted at her. “You know nothing. We take them, we sink them if they’re empty.” She turned to Jacques. “Any repairs ongoing that’ll get in the way?”

Jacques shook his head. Morgane had finished the repairs to the bowsprit and if she hadn’t, the jib and flying jib sails at the very front of the ship wouldn’t have been able to unfurl.

“I want all speed,” the captain said. “Give the order.”

Jacques went to the edge of the forecastle overlooking the deck and gave a piercing whistle, making all the crew stop and look over. “Lay aloft and loose all sail!” Jacques bellowed and as if his words were a shot fired at a flock of birds, the crew scurried into action, climbing the rigging to release the last of the sails, loosening ropes and securing others, the energy of the ship changing in an instant.

Morgane looked back at her mother whose attention was singularly focused on her prey, her lips pressed tight together, all the upset caused by that letter seemingly forgotten. Then she was shoved aside by one of the crew sent fore to free a snagged rope to release the flying jib and then she was helping to heave it into place without a moment’s thought.

The wind caught the extra sails and the breeze against her face picked up, too, as their speed increased. Not a huge amount, given how laden they were, but enough to feel it and enough to see the gap between the ships closing. Behind them, the crew were stowing, reeling the last coils of rope hurriedly and making sure they were in place to reduce the chance of tripping people up should a swift boarding be called for. Others were hurtling below deck to prepare the cannons, ready to give the captain whatever she called for to achieve her prize. It was shit like this that made Morgane crave her own ship. But she wasn’t stupid enough to think she was ready to form a crew and lead them on her own, even if her mother let her keep a ship they captured. A fleet of two wouldn’t work, and she knew it, they both did, given how they argued about the Four Chains company. And this was a prime example of why it wouldn’t work. Anna-Marie was doing the wrong thing, she knew it, so did Jacques, but they fell into line because the captain of The Vengeance did what she wanted and at the end of the day, everyone profited from the vendetta. The crew didn’t really care that the Four Chains company had ruined Anna-Marie’s life (not that anyone knew the details anyway) and none of them really cared that they’d killed the captain’s sister, back when she lived in France. Not even Morgane really felt anything about that, even though it was her aunt that had been murdered. It was so long ago – before she was born – and so far away and she couldn’t really imagine what it would be like to have an aunt, or a father for that matter. All the crew really cared about was the fact that Anna-Marie was usually a damn fine captain, when she wasn’t out of sorts

and making stupid decisions like this one, and she made them all rich.

There would be no discussion of how wise this course of action was when they were in port, deep in their cups, drinking away the plunder. Jacques was too loyal to the captain to plot against her, and besides, Morgane knew that as much as she resented it, being the daughter of one of the most feared pirates on the sea gave her advantages she couldn’t yet achieve on her own. One day, though. One day she would break free, and she wouldn’t do stupid shit like this.

But was it really so unwise? Now she could see that the schooner was ailing in some way, where was the harm? Most of the ships surrendered at the sight of their true colours being raised, but not all of them. And if they didn’t, and it came to a fight, the captain’s aim was excellent and those six shots she took into the battle would be well spent before her sword was drawn. And Morgane knew how to fight well, too. It was one of the few skills Anna-Marie had been able to pass on to her daughter.

So she busied herself – there was always a lot to do when chasing down quarry. And then, even though it had felt as though she’d been waiting for the moment to come forever, she jumped when the signal was given to raise the Jolie Rouge. She looked up at the flag replacing the trading colours, a brilliant red silk with a black heart pierced by a golden dagger.

Not for the first time, Morgane wondered how their quarry must feel now they could see who it was. For surely that flag and The Vengeance were known amongst all of that company’s fleet? She wondered how scared they were.

Her mother signalled for a few warning shots to be fired towards the ship, just to make their intentions absolutely clear. No formal signal of surrender was given, but slowly, one by one, each of the ship’s main sails were loosened.

Morgane went to Jacques’ side. “That’s odd.”

He nodded, watching the disorderly slowing of their prey. “Suggests they don’t have a full crew,” he said.

The captain, who was looking through her glass again, gave a grunt of agreement. “I only see three on the rigging, and they’re moving slowly.”

It pained Morgane to see the schooner’s sail being left to flap in the wind instead of being hauled up and tied properly. Then a signal of surrender was raised, and her mother smiled with satisfaction.

The order was given to alter the course fractionally to enable The Vengeance to come to a stop alongside the vessel. And then the orders to haul down the jib and haul up the spanker made Morgane snap into action, all the nervous tension that had built up within her suddenly finding a place to go. She hauled in but didn’t climb the rigging to fasten the sails that were now being loosed and raised to slow their speed. Having done something useful, she returned to her mother’s side, as did Jacques.

Slowly they drew up alongside the ship. It was called Coup de Maître and with every inch that they approached, an unfamiliar fear took root deep in Morgane's

belly. The hairs on the back of her neck were standing on end, the ends of her fingers tingling with dreadful anticipation, as death’s thunderhead steadily grew.

The Maître was so painfully quiet, and its rigging was empty of crew, the flapping from the abandoned loose sails sounding like an eerie round of applause for an empty stage. She spotted a man slumped against the main mast, his white shirt stained brown-red around his midriff.

Jacques pointed at the chipped wood of the ship’s rail and pockmarks in the hull, left by pistol shots. “They’ve already been done over,” he said to her mother, who nodded.

“Something still feels wrong,” Morgane said, making her mother tut.

“You’ve just never come across one of these before,” she said. “If this were a trap, they’d have broadsided us by now.”

Morgane scanned the side of the Maître, looking for any sign of the gun ports opening, but all was still. She still couldn’t shake the feeling that they were missing something, though. “She’s very high in the water.”

“She’s empty,” Jacques said.

“No, too high even for that,” Morgane said, but her mother was already moving down to the middle of the ship, ready to shout across to the victims who’d survived.

Jacques scanned the waterline, gave her a worried glance and then hurried after the captain.

Her mother grabbed one of the many taut ropes and pulled herself up to rest one foot on the rail, elevating her above the rest of the crew – those not manning the guns on and below the deck – who were starting to gather in anticipation behind her.

“Does your captain still live?” she shouted over.

The normal practice was to have the victims send over their captain in a boat, who would then be interrogated by her mother and always behind closed doors. Whatever she did would never last very long and then she’d come

out and give the order to board and loot the vessel. Sometimes the captains were released after their ordeal, sometimes not. But the ones who survived never went back to their ships without serious injury.

A man who dragged himself up to peer over the opposing rail looked like he was halfway to death. “No! He is dead, and all our goods taken. There is nothing left. Please be merciful!”

“How many crew are left?”      

The man sagged. “Less than ten, mon capitan. And all injured.”

“They must have resisted,” her mother said to Jacques. “Well, there won’t be any fight left in them then. Let’s see if any among them could be useful, and whether anything was stashed too well for whoever picked them over before to find.”

Morgane was doubtful. “Surely all the useful ones will have been taken already.”

“If they had a cook as good as ours, they’d have left one over there,” her mother said. “Let’s hope they had a better carpenter’s mate than we do.” She twisted to point at several of the crew. “Hooks. Pull us alongside.” When she noticed Morgane still watching her, she added in a quieter voice, “I don’t care to waste time. This won’t take long, then we’ll be on our way.”

They moved aside to let several members of the crew throw ropes with hooks attached across the gap between the ships and, once they were anchored against the rail, haul the ships close enough together to put down a couple of planks to form a temporary bridge.

Morgane had heard occasional jokes in the Port Royal bars about how Captain Anna-Marie boarded ships she’d taken like a visiting dignitary, rather than the more common methods of using the rigging or leaping across to the many ropes hanging off the sides and pulling oneself up. Having seen a man smashed between two ships once, when he’d miscalculated a jump, Morgane didn’t mind one bit.

Even though it was

clearly an empty ship, and there would be slim pickings at best, the crew was still in good spirits. There was laughing and banter and several jokes made at the victim’s expense. Listening to them, Morgane felt silly for having so many doubts, but that unbearable sense of something being off was still cramping her guts.

The moment the planks were secured her mother picked out five of the crew who’d earned first dibs and strode across them, strutting almost, and Morgane could see the grain of truth that had grown all those jokes. She was about to join the group when Jacques put a hand on her shoulder and held her back.

“Let her have her moment,” Jacques said, confusing her, but she was happy to stay put.

She watched her mother speak to the man who’d answered her questions before and how he cowered beneath her boot when she placed it on his chest. The others who had accompanied her fanned out across the deck, checking the other victims, all of whom seemed to be either dead or so badly wounded that they were barely conscious. ...