Chapter 10
Sergeant Romero could not believe how clumsy that tavern wench had been, dropping that tray and its contents all over him when he was in a hurry to finish his meal quickly. And right after that odd mishap with the glass of wine, as if that wasn't bad enough!
Sticky albóndigas soup covered his hair, but he didn't have much time to waste on personal hygiene. Three of his men were outside, waiting for him already. When he finished washing his head in the basin, after reaching a satisfactory enough de-gooeying, he swiftly put on a clean uniform.
He looked at his tired face in the mirror, and growled while adjusting the helmet over his wet hair. He hated that place, and he hated to be in charge of all that mess with Zorro. And above all, he hated the citizen's revolt that had ensued after executing the alcalde and his loyal sergeant, who were dead just because that crazy Emissary Risendo ordered so.
Still not sure if that Diego de la Vega had survived or not, and if he was indeed the masked bandit or not, he got to the garrison's patio to mount his horse, that had been waiting, saddled and ready to go, for the last half an hour.
"¡Vámonos!"
When another soldier opened the gate and the small group got out into the plaza, people were shouting, thrilled about a black stallion that just galloped away.
"Contreras, what's going on?" Romero asked to one of the soldiers already at the plaza.
"They say that black horse is Zorro's stallion!"
"Really?" Romero said, excited. "Lancers, follow that horse!"
The four Royal Guards spurred their mounts to a gallop, following Toronado. During the chase, Romero thought the way that horse carried itself as if he had a rider was pretty odd, when he couldn't see anybody on his back.
They tried to follow him closely, but that black fury was too fast for them, and when the horse veered off road into the countryside, they eventually lost him.
"Dammit! Where the hell did he go?" Romero cried when they got to a dead end. That dammed horse had disappeared, evaporated into thin air. "Screw that! Let's go to the hacienda!"
ZZZ
Without a saddle, phantom Diego had trouble to stay on Toronado's back as he galloped away at top speed to avoid the soldiers. However, he enjoyed the whole exuberant experience because he could feel no fear. What would be the worst that could happen if they caught up with him or if he fell? Not much, as he was already "dead".
But he didn't need to worry. Even without a bridle or any kind of guidance from his rider, that horse new exactly what to do, and Diego soon found himself safe, inside Zorro's cave. Or that was what he initially thought as Toronado advanced at a slow pace through the dark corridor at the back, until he heard Victoria's desperate plea.
"Please, don't tell your sergeant about this! Please!"
A Royal Guard was at the cave, checking Zorro's gear, paying special attention to his sword.
"Señorita, you know I can't do that. I wish I could."
"What difference does it make to you? He's going to die anyway, very likely!"
"What's that noise?" Pérez said, alert when he heard the sound of clunking hooves approaching.
When Toronado reached the cave, the soldier got on guard, using Zorro's sword to defend himself. Diego jumped off the horse, and using De Soto's technique of "using the strength within", he tried to slap the sword off that soldier's hands, but he couldn't.
Dammit, Ignacio! How the hell do you do this?
Toronado reared, trying to hit the soldier with his hooves, nearly impaling himself with the sword, but Pérez retreated towards the stairs, pushing Victoria along.
"Come on, let's go upstairs! Sergeant Romero will be here soon, and he'll be glad to know about this place."
As he dragged Victoria along, pulling from her elbow, she grabbed one of the chemical bottles from the shelf and hid it in her pocket.
"Attaboy, Toronado," Diego said to calm the enraged, snorting horse as he tried to follow them. "You did well, but you'll never fit through that tiny door!"
He followed them upstairs instead, walking through the fireplace, not bothering with the door. Diego hated people walking through him, but walking through walls and closed doors was another matter entirely, and a huge advantage.
"Victoria, what's going on?" Don Alejandro said when she entered the library through the secret door, followed by the soldier.
"Don Alejandro, there's no need to keep lying: I found Zorro's lair," Corporal Pérez said, still carrying Zorro's sword in one hand. "You are under arrest!"
"I didn't know anything about this, I swear! I only found out yesterday!" Don Alejandro said with his hands up, wary of the pointy, sharp end of the sword aiming at his chest.
"That's hard to believe, señor De la Vega, considering the entrance to that secret cave is at your own fireplace!"
Victoria struggled to get released from that soldier's firm grip. When he let go of her arm, she ran out of the room.
"Get back here!" Pérez cried, but Don Alejandro got on the way.
"Leave her alone. She didn't know anything about this either."
"If none of you knew, somebody else did then!" Pérez said, bringing Zorro's sword forward, nearly touching Don Alejandro's throat. "Tell me: who knew? Who has been helping your son?"
Don Alejandro was keen to carry on denying any knowledge, but when Felipe rushed into the library, alarmed by the commotion, he realized the youngster could be blamed. It was too obvious someone had to know about the secret entrance to the cave, and that someone had been taking care of Toronado. There was no way to deny it.
"Answer me!"
"All right. I knew, but she didn't," Don Alejandro said, giving up. "Nobody else did. Please, arrest me if you must, but leave everybody else out of this."
"No, Father! Don't do that! They'll hang you!" Diego cried. But of course, nobody could hear him. Angry, by pure instinct he pushed that soldier away from his father, and… it worked!
Pérez stumbled backwards, pushed by an invisible force. Don Alejandro took his chance to run away, followed by Felipe, but it was a pointless act because right then Sergeant Romero and his men arrived at the hacienda.
ZZZ
Victoria ran to Diego's room. At the corridor, she bumped onto Felipe, who had heard the shouting at the library.
"Help Don Alejandro!" she cried.
She got into Diego's bedroom and locked the door behind her. But phantom Diego followed her through the door shortly after, not bothering with a key.
She got to the sick man on the bed, crying, and reached for the bottle she had in her pocket.
"I'm sorry I have to do this, mi amor, but there is no other way. Even if you survive the shot, they will kill you later on, now for sure, as there is no way to deny you are Zorro anymore. And then they'll kill me too. And I don't want to be hanged. I prefer to die with you right now, together, so we can be reunited in the afterlife as soon as possible."
She opened the bottle of sodium cyanide and reached for Diego's mouth to poor some of the salts inside.
"No!" Diego cried. With a visceral reaction, he pawed at the bottle, and just as before, it worked: the cyanide bottle flew off Victoria's hand to hit the floor, shattering in pieces.
"No!" she cried as well, trying to collect some of the powdery salts from the floor, but it was all mixed with tiny splints of glass.
She cut her finger, and her first thoughtless instinct was to lick it off, but Diego stopped her hand in time. For a moment, she looked in amazement at her own hand, held down by an invisible force. Freaking out, she screamed, until she realized who could that be.
"Diego... is that you? Jesus, is that really you holding my hand?"
Diego let go of her. At least now he knew how to interact with the living, using what De Soto had called "the strength within", which was simply pure will. He knocked on the bedside table then, wishing someone had invented a knocking code of sorts to communicate with her. But at least Victoria was clever enough to devise a rudimentary system of communication for them.
"A knock… Is that a "yes"?" she said, wiping the blood off her finger with her skirt.
Another knock.
By then, she got so spooked she had trouble balancing her fear of the unknown and her will to communicate with Diego. Finally, her curiosity won.
"How do you say "no"?"
Diego knocked on the table twice. At last, communication!
"Oh, Diego, I can't believe that's really you! What should I do? Tell me!"
"YES or NO questions, please!" Diego said, knocking on the table several times in quick succession to gain her attention.
"What? I don't understand… Oh, yes, you want me to ask straight forward, simple questions only, right?"
Another knock.
"All right…" She thought for a brief moment for appropriate questions, but the most important one she wanted to ask was: "Do you love me?"
A strong, definite, hard knock.
"Why didn't you tell me you were Zorro then?"
Silence followed that question. It would have been too complicated for Diego to answer that question even with words, let alone with random knocks, and holding a pen to write would not have worked either, as he could only manage hitting objects.
"Oh, righty, only yes or no… Are you dead?"
Two knocks.
"Diego, that doesn't make sense! I'm scared, and I don't understand!"
Three knocks. But this time, someone was banging on the door, not on the bedside table.
"Guardia Real! Open the door!" Romero cried. When she didn't, he tried the handle, but the door was locked.
"I'm sorry, Diego, but I can't see another way!"
She dropped on her knees to collect some powder, but before she managed that, an invisible foot kicked the sodium cyanide powder mixed with shards of glass, spreading the dangerous chemical all over the floor.
"I can't do this!" Victoria cried, desperate. "Please, help me! Don't let them catch me!"
"Don't you understand? You could go to hell if you kill yourself!" Diego cried, in a futile attempt to make her understand how serious it was.
More furious knocking on the door followed.
"Señorita Escalante, open this door in the name of the King!"
Victoria burst into tears then, giving up, and sat back on the chair by Diego's side, taking his hand again.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I love you so much, and I can't save you!"
"Lancers, kick this door down at once!" Romero cried.
After a couple of wild hits, the soldiers stormed into that bedroom.
ZZZ
Sepúlveda got out of the guest's room, alarmed by all that shouting. He witnessed how the lancers arrested Victoria, and the only thing he could do, was to get on the way.
"Corporal, what are you doing here?" Romero asked when he spotted by the door.
"Why are you arresting her? She's done nothing!"
"I don't have to give you any reasons for my actions! Get out of the way, report to the garrison immediately, or you'll be charged with treason!"
"Corporal! I've talked to him!" Victoria cried as one of the lancers dragged her away. "He's here! Talk to him! Please!"
"Who are you talking about, woman?" Romero said, as the soldier hauled Victoria along towards the entrance, following them.
"Madre de Dios! Is he? I can't see him!" Sepúlveda said, looking all around him.
The soldiers left, and Sepúlveda entered Diego's bedroom, looking for him. Diego decided his best chance was to try to communicate with him, instead of following Victoria.
"Don Diego, I can't see you! Are you here?" Sepúlveda said on entering Diego's room.
The answer was a knock on the bedside table.
"Is that a yes?"
Another knock.
"I think I damaged something in my head when I fell, Don Diego, and now I can't see you. But maybe I can fix this if I hit my head again."
Sepúlveda approached the wall, made the sign of the cross on himself, and tentatively hit it with his head. He cried in pain, holding onto his forehead, but he still couldn't see Diego.
"This is not working… I should hit it harder!"
"Good Lord! Corporal, you can't be serious!" Diego said.
ZZZ
"Tell your men to prepare a cart," Romero said to Don Alejandro, who was held down by the entrance, already in handcuffs. "Your son will come with us."
"No! if you move him now, he'll die!"
"That would save us from another public execution then... You know he is as good as dead, because there is no way to deny he is Zorro now," Romero said, brandishing Zorro's sword. "Make us all a favour, and get the cart ready, or we'll drag him along to the pueblo with a rope!"
Don Alejandro nodded at Juan, who was also waiting at the entrance, devastated by the turn of events. Felipe was fretting, unsure what to do to help.
"We'll be all right, Felipe," Don Alejandro lied. "Go and help Juan with the horses."
ZZZ
"That must be the dumbest thing ever," Baron Samedi said, materializing by Diego's side.
"What are you doing here?" Diego said, surprised. When Death waved the pink notebook, he grimaced in dismay.
"It won't be long."
Sepúlveda got away from the door, to the other side of the room, as far as he could go. Before Diego could try any tricks to stop him, he ran across the room, but half way on, he tripped on the carpet and ended up hitting the bedside table badly, rendering himself unconscious.
"I can't believe this!" Diego cried, facepalming.
"Such an idiotic act while trying to help you… Pity," the Baron said, kneeling by the soldier to touch his bleeding head. Diego also leaned over him, hoping for the impossible.
Sepúlveda opened his eyes and smiled when he spotted Diego's face hoovering over him.
"That was a very silly thing to do, my man," Baron Samedi said. "Humans never cease to amaze me. You are like a never-ending, cosmic joke."
"But it worked! I can see you know, Don Diego!" Sepúlveda said, excited. "Now we can talk to señorita Victoria and you can tell her all you want to say; she'll listen now."
"No, we can't," Diego said, deeply moved by the soldier's eagerness.
"Why not?"
"Because you are dead, Corporal."
"What?"
Sepúlveda got up and looked back at his dead body, lying on the floor in an awkward position. His neck was broken.
"Jesus! Is that me? How did that happen?"
"An unfortunate miscalculation of your own strength, speed, and balance, I presume," the Baron said.
"Excuse me, who are you?"
"You know me as a cheerful maiden, La Catrina. Same role, different outfit."
"I like the other one more…"
"Tough! I enjoy this one more," the Baron said, puffing smoke on Sepúlveda's face, making him cough. Then, he offered him the bottle of rum. "Here, my friend, have a drink. To your untimely death!"
Sepúlveda got the rum bottle and avidly drank a few swigs.
"Thanks," Sepúveda said, returning the bottle. Then he looked at Diego. "What are we going to do now? I'm so sorry. I wanted to help you, and now… Jesus. How can I be dead? Shit!"
"If you ask nicely, I could send you back…" the Baron said mysteriously.
"Can you?" Diego and Sepúlveda asked at the same time.
"Of course! I do it all the time. As the Baron, I usually require the ritual sacrifice of a black rooster and some other bits and pieces, but I can make an exception for you. After all, I feel sorry for those feathered fuckers. But first, you should see something…"
The Baron grabbed Diego and Sepúlveda and the three of them disappeared just when the soldiers returned to take Diego. One of them crouched by Sepúlveda. He couldn't find a pulse.
"I don't know how, but he's dead. Broken neck."
"Poor bastard… All right, let's carry this one first, and we'll come back later to pick him up."
They grabbed Diego quite roughly from ankles and armpits, and carried him outside to the cart, walking over Sepúlveda's dead body.
"The things we have to do in the name of the King…" one of them complained.
"Disgusting," the other one concurred.
ZZZ
De Soto looked at Mendoza's dead body, on display in church in an open casket at the wake. Surrounded by candles, the flickering lights made his skin look quite bright, and he appeared to display a peaceful smile.
"I bet you are happy in heaven now, lucky bastard, stuffing your face with a never-ending supply of tamales…"
He looked at his own casket, a closed one, because after Romero blew his brains off, there wasn't much to see.
"It's so unfair!"
"For you, or for him?" Azrael said, leaning on one of the church's pillars, amused.
"For me. And look at all this people… What about me?"
He also resented the number of people paying respects to Mendoza, while nobody came close to his casket. But right then, as he sulked, he got three visitors.
"Sepúlveda! What the heck are you doing here?" he said when the trio materialized at the wake.
"An accident, mi alcalde," Sepúlveda said, embarrassed. "I'm as dead as you are now."
"Blimey! That's unfortunate."
"Why did you bring me here? I have to go back to the hacienda!" Diego cried.
"Don't fret, my man. Chillax pleeease…" the Baron said, puffing his cigar. "They'll be here soon, already on the way."
Sepúlveda looked at Mendoza's corpse. He made the sign of the cross on himself.
"If you bring me back to life, I won't be a zombi, would I?" Sepúlveda said.
"The last time you did that, you got in trouble upstairs," Azrael said, leaving the pillar to come closer, looking worried. "Please, don't do it, unless you want to end up like Grumpy."
"And what the fuck do you care, again?" the Baron said.
"You know I do care about you. Deeply."
"Well… it doesn't show!"
Azrael sighed, closing his eyes. When he opened them, he reached for the Baron's face, and stroke it briefly, and lightly. Tiny sparks jumped off his fingers on contact.
"You know I can't. Why do you insist on torturing me like this?"
"Because you drive me crazy, and if I can't have you, nothing makes fucking sense!"
"I'm the one going stir-crazy here…"
"What's going on?" De Soto whispered.
"Love," Diego whispered back, with a knowing smile.
"What?"
"Shhhhhhh!"
"The Dark Angel would bend the rules…" the Baron said bitterly. "Why can't you live a little, and removed that stick off your ass?"
"Because… Because…" Azrael hesitated in turmoil. "All right. I can't take this anymore. I give up… ¡A la mierda!"
He reached for the Baron's face again, but pulled back at the last moment, just before he touched him, hesitating again, until he turned his back on him entirely with his last reserve of willpower, clenching his fists.
"Sorry. I can't break His rules!"
Right then, another Archangel dropped down from heaven, entering the church through the ceiling. One in full, glorious, shiny armour, surrounded by a halo of flames.
"Behold the Metatron, Herald of the Almighty, and Voice of the One True Good!" that angel said, flapping his ginormous wings to land softly inside the church.
"Bummer!" the Baron said, surprised, and somehow afraid. "Him?"
ZZZZZ
A.N – yes, that's inspired on Alan Rickman's Metatron in "Dogma". I love that scene!