Diego was so happy with the sudden developments, which brought him so much closer and so much sooner to his expected wedding to Victoria, that he completely forgot to talk to Felipe about Mya the evening of his engagement.
The younger man was in a similar mood, and was only waiting for the appropriate moment to ask his father for his blessing to propose matrimony to the woman he loved. In fact, after being told about Diego and Victoria's approaching nuptials, the youngest De la Vega was now daydreaming about a double wedding. He was convinced that his father would agree once he saw how important it was to his happiness. And, after what had happened between them, the lady of his heart would gladly have him.
The tall caballero rode into town early the following day, eager to have a private and long-overdue conversation with his fiancée, since the previous evening had not been conductive to one.
He found her in her kitchen, preparing breakfast. The door was wide open to let the morning cool air in, and the first thing he noticed was that she was singing. He smiled before knocking on the door to announce his presence. She startled, turning towards him, then smiled and hurried into his arms to give him a kiss.
"Good morning, my love!" He greeted after their lips parted. "Are you making breakfast?"
"Good morning, my little fox!" She whispered.
"I'm not that little…" He remarked with a wicked grin. "What are you cooking?"
"Huevos rancheros for my distinguished guests." She answered. The way he uttered the words made him think she had no regard for either of them.
"Upset with both, I see. Strange that they already know each other…" He pointed out as he entered the kitchen.
"They do? As in, they had met before coming to Los Angeles?" Victoria asked while returning to her worktable.
"Yes." Diego said pensively. "They have private jokes, and it seemed to me that Mya was flirting with Senor Duncan. What do you make of him? I didn't exactly have the time to ask you much about what happened yesterday…"
"Nothing happened." She hastily replied. "He annoyed me since he first entered the tavern, I put extra chilies in his food as revenge, then he apologized and asked me to keep him company during lunch and… I did. But I had no idea we would let alcohol go to our brains. I am not exactly proud of that. We just talked, though. I mostly talked about you, and he told me all these amazing stories about his travels. I think he has seen more places than even you, Diego. And then we heard a knocking on the door, so he said we should hide so that we wouldn't be disturbed. And, as a fool, I followed him to his room."
"I see…"
"No, you don't! True… he did try to kiss me, but I wouldn't let him. I think I injured him when I pushed him away, and we somehow ended up sleeping peacefully, me on the bed and him on the floor." She ended the story, rather nervous at Diego's reaction.
Diego nodded.
"You do believe me, don't you?" She asked, looking worriedly towards him.
"Of course, I believe you!" He assured her with a smile. "I know you wouldn't lie about something like this, and it's not like I've been forthcoming either."
"No, you haven't! But… I thought about it, and I know you have had your reasons." She acknowledged, yet his words made her suspicious. "However… I was also wondering what happened between you and Senora del Rioblanco." Victoria looked at him intently.
"I'm not sure I should tell you!" He replied seriously.
"Oh, you're going to tell me, alright! I don't want any more secrets between us, Diego!"
"Fine. I'll tell you. But not here. We might easily be overheard. Can you step outside for ten minutes?"
"I guess so… My boarders haven't wakened up yet, and the bread still needs twenty minutes to bake. I believe I can afford a small break. But you will leave nothing out!" She decided.
"Full disclosure." He agreed.
Victoria took the hand Diego offered her, and followed him outside, a little distance away from the back of the tavern.
"I guess I should start by explaining that it was all my fault, but I did't do it on purpose." Diego told her. "Since she came and announced she was after Zorro, I have been trying to change her mind. It was the main reason why I spent so much time with her here."
"Yes. Like you didn't enjoy it at all!" Victoria stated a little infuriated.
"I did. I have to admit I have never met anyone with such an extensive knowledge of history, medicine and customs as Mya. But that was the only reason. I was never interested in her as a woman. You are the only one for me, Victoria, I need you to be certain of that! I wake up every day thinking about you and, at night, I go to sleep imagining our future together."
"Fine words, Senor!" She replied. "You certainly know how to flatter a woman. But I seem to notice you have yet to tell me anything about what happened on your ride yesterday!"
Diego took a deep breath of air. "When I agreed to take her to the Indian village, I did so because I thought she had discovered the truth about me. I was expecting her to challenge me. Instead, after riding for about two hours, when we took a break she tried… she offered herself to me."
"Offered herself?"
"I don't really know how to say this… A caballero shouldn't. But I know I promised… Victoria, she… invited me to make love to her."
"She what?" The taverness instantly became red and Diego was wondering if it was her modesty or her anger to have caused the change of color on her face. Whatever the case, he was suddenly very nervous.
"I told her I wasn't interested, but she did this move and made me fall on my back, then opened my shirt. I think that's when she ripped some of the buttons… or that was a bit earlier… but I whistled and Esperanza reared and kicked her in the head. Which, in turn, caused her to lose consciousness. I'm not proud of that… I covered her…"
"Covered her What so you mean? Why did you have to cover her, it wasn't cold yesterday!"
"No.. But she was naked…"
Victoria's ears were actually fuming or, at least, that how they seemed to Diego. "I didn't even look… It'whay I covered her… and she undressed herself, I had nothing to do with that! Anyway… I tried to wake her up but, when she didn't, I decided to come get you and Doctor Hernandez to help me with her, you with the dressing her part and him with her wound."
"It was you who knocked?" Victoria asked as she calmed down a little.
"I think so. I knocked and you didn't answer, so I went for the doctor. He told me he knows my secret, by the way. He has known for years… since I fell down the Canyon Perdido."
"You what?" Her anger turned to worry, then back. "Never mind now! You are alive and that's all that matters. So that… that… I knew it! I knew she was going to try to seduce you, but I never imagined she would do such a thing! Wait! You just left her there, naked and all alone?"
"No. Felipe had followed us. He was worried about me and… apparently, more than a little taken with the senora. I had him guard her… which, retrospectively, might have been a colossal mistake."
"Why was it a mistake?"
Diego didn't answer.
"He's going to be my son as well, so just tell me!"
"I haven't talked to him yet but, as far as I was able to figure out, while I did resist her, he didn't."
"Dios! You mean…"
"I told her he'd propose, but she wouldn't hear about it. All she wants is to capture Zorro then be on her way, and my son doesn't fit into that plan."
"Well… Her plan doesn't fit into my wedding plan!" Victoria informed him. "I will have her leave my tavern, and I don't want to hear that you or your father… or Felipe, for that matter, decided to have her stay at the hacienda. That will teach her to mess with my men!"
"Your men?"
"Yes! You have always been my family. Now that we are to get married, even more so! And there is nothing I wouldn't do to protect the ones I love."
He smiled and kissed her on the forehead. "Am I forgiven then?"
"For yesterday? Yes. But not for having made me think that you didn't love me anymore!"
He nodded grinning at her, then became serious. "I don't think you should ask Mya to leave." He said. "Don't get me wrong. Right now, I want her gone at least as much as you do. But, while she is here, we can keep an eye on her."
She thought about it and finally agreed.
ZHZHZHZHZHZHZ
Duncan was preparing to leave the morning after his arrival, deciding he had caused enough trouble in the small colonial outpost. Two men, however, caused him to change that decision.
The first one was a deaf-mute who came to the tavern searching for the one he knew as Myrina but who was Mya or Senora Del Rioblanco for everyone else. Having had his share of encounters with pre-immortals, and knowing full well how the beautiful woman related to men, that was his first hint that, just perhaps, he could do some good if he remained a while longer.
He was, however, only convinced when Murad Osman arrived to the pueblo, within an hour after the young man and Myrina had left the tavern together.
Murad had no love for Duncan and the latter had none for the Ottoman. They had met in Hüdavendigar, a former capital of the Ottoman Empire just a few months before Duncan had first met Myrina, and he despised the man with all his heart. He was an Immortal, born about one hundred and thirty years before Duncan. Having first died while running away from a battle, and considering his skills with weapons were rather poor, Murad had lived his life looking for pre-immortals, then causing their death and beheading them in order to take their power before they were able to fight back.
"Long time, MacLeod!" The man greeted with a fake smile as he tied his stallion to the post in front of the tavern.
"Not long enough! What are you doing here, Murad?" Duncan inquired.
"I'm afraid that is my own business." The man answered. "And unless you intend to challenge me, I'd suggest you stay out of my way."
"No. I won't challenge you. Yet." He said as he watched him enter the tavern.
Murad, whom Victoria already knew as Mateo Luna, having spent a night in the pueblo a month earlier, requested a room, then found a corner table and asked for lunch to be brought to him.
Duncan hesitated for a few minutes in front of the tavern, telling himself that, whatever the man had come to do, it was not his problem, then obeyed his conscious and asked for his room back and for Victoria's recommendation in finding a job.
The taverness stared at him for a few moments, gave him back the key to the small room in the back, then advised him to ask Don Alejandro whether he needed a new vaquero.
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For Felipe, the following week passed in kind of a daze.
Diego had talked to him about Mya the morning after he had had his conversation with Victoria, and did his best to be as considerate and careful not to harm his son's feelings. The younger man listened to him, then stormed out, mounted his stallion and headed for the tavern.
Willing to respect the promise she had made Diego, Mya asked him to accompany her on a ride outside the pueblo. She wanted to have some time alone with him so that she could explain why they couldn't be together. Instead, however, they ended up making love in a small, abandoned cottage on the De la Vega land. She broke up with him afterwards and Felipe returned to the hacienda where he remained, broken-hearted and crying for the rest of the day, refusing to let anyone in.
The new Immortal in town, however, complicated things. With him around and Duncan's insight into his behavior, Mya decided not to stay away from her young lover, after all. The next time she saw him in town, two days later, together with Diego and Don Alejandro, she smiled at him and told him she had changed her mind and would be honored if he decided to court her. It was all the invitation Felipe needed, and neither one of the men who had brought him up stood any chance to oppose it.
So, as Felipe and Diego started drifting apart, the young don and Mya started growing closer. Their romance advanced quickly and, within days, both of them seemed to have forgotten anything else and only wish for more time together. Mya even surprised herself once imagining a future by the young man's side, then shook off those thoughts and did her best to remember why she was there in the first place.
Murad made no attempt against Felipe. He smiled knowingly as he saw the couple having dinner one day, but showed no interest in him, or Mya for that matter. His behavior, however, did not make her feel any better.
A week into his courtship, Felipe confessed to her that he was able to hear, a secret which surprised Mya almost as much as the incidence with which she started surprising herself considering a future with the young don. That daydream, however, would, on occasion, turn to a nightmare as her worries about Murad's presence in Los Angeles sometimes overcame her.
Thus, a week and a half into their romance, she decided to ignore several rules her world was founded upon and start teaching him how to survive in it even before he would be forced to do so. She begun by insisting for the young man to allow her to teach him how to fight, and was surprised when he proved himself far more able to handle a sword than she had previously thought. Yet she soon realized that his talent was for fencing, not for the sort of sword fighting he might one day need to master.
That was how, for the following two weeks, each night she and Felipe met, made love, then practiced sword fighting. A few days into their training, she also started telling him her life story, presenting it as a 'legend' she had heard when she was living in the Middle East. She thus instructed him, in her own way, about immortality and all he needed to know in order to survive, should he ever become like her.
ZHZHZHZHZHZHZ
The Alcalde's first reaction at being informed that his former schoolmate, Diego de la Vega, was to suddenly wed the taverness who had spent almost a decade pinning for the masked fiend the people of the pueblo called a hero had been to laugh his heart out. The private who had told him could hardly understand his superior officer's outburst but, then, nobody understood the man, really.
After the initial surprise passed, De Soto poured himself a glass of wine and started thinking about the events of the day. A couple glasses later, he started putting together pieces in a whole new way and his initial amusement changed into a strange feeling that there was something he had been missing.
That feeling only grew within him with every passing day as he noticed the true affection shared by the couple. He had not expected to find that the Senorita was, indeed, in love with the caballero. Yet the more he observed them, the more convinced he was that it was to be, indeed, a marriage based on love and not self-interest on the part of Victoria Escalante, as he had initially though.
ZHZHZHZHZHZHZ
Diego started suspecting his son and Mya were doing more than just courting when Victoria mentioned, casually, that the woman had the strange behavior of going out during the night. Felipe had started locking himself in the room at evening, but, as he grew suspicious, Diego checked it through the window and realized his son was thus covering his nightly rides. It was just a few days before his wedding when, with Felipe avoiding him, the caballero decided to find out if his suspicions were true. He thus donned the mask and headed for the pueblo, determined to follow Mya, whom as he already knew, usually left the tavern at 11:15.
When he arrived in Los Angeles, though, that decision crumbled as soon as he saw smoke coming from the church. Making his way towards the chapel built to serve the pueblo, he realized that the flames had not been noticed by others since the alarm had not been given.
Heading towards the back of the imposing adobe building, he jumped off of Tornado, took off his sash and tied it around the bottom half of his face, then made his way through the dense smoke to the small room occupied by the padre.
He found the good friar unconscious, lying on the floor, and dragged him outside as fast as he could. Once there, he realized the man was not breathing, so he pressed his chest in a rhythmic motion, just as Doctor Hernandez had once taught him, stopping from time to time to breathe air into his lungs. A couple of minutes later the padre started coughing, and, with a sigh of relief Zorro handed him his water flask.
"The other friars!" Padre Benitez muttered as soon as he managed to regain his voice. "Are they safe?"
"What other friars?" Zorro asked him. As far as he knew, nobody else inhabited the building.
"Padres Antonio, Francisco and Santiago. They were all inside when the fire started!"
"Ring the bell, I will need help!" Zorro asked, then left the good padre and hurried inside, chiding himself for not having even considered checking the other rooms.
The doors to the other chambers were locked. Thick smoke was coming from under them and flames were already surging menacingly towards the wooden ceiling. Zorro pushed a few times at the first door and managed to break it just as Padre Benitez reached the bell and gave the alarm. The door broke and fell over the body of the man who had occupied that chamber. It was already a burning mass of flesh and bones, and the black-clad man realized that there was nothing he could do for him at that point. Quickly surpassing his initial shock at the gruesome discovery, he forced the next door open. It cracked and gave in, falling to the side and revealing two men, both of them lying on the floor. The fire had not completely overtaken the room, but the thick smoke made breathing impossible.
Zorro checked the pulse of the two padres. One was already dead, but the other one's heart was still beating. Padre Francisco was a big man, though, and he found it hard to carry him out. His first attempt to lift him failed and the friar tumbled to the floor taking his rescuer with him, the fall causing him to regain his consciousness.
"The chronicles!" The man murmured when the masked man tried to lift him again, indicating through the smoke towards a barely-visible bed. "Under the mattress!"
"We need to leave!" Zorro answered and tried to lift him again. The man resisted, lunging for the mattress and falling next to it, coughing.
Realizing the monk felt that whatever was hidden in his room was more important than even his life, Zorro hurriedly lifted the mattress to find a small notebook.
"Antonio's as well!" The man murmured.
Almost unable to breath anymore and in a hurry, as the flames were now burning down the room's ceiling, making the entire chamber feel like an oven, Zorro did the same with the other mattress and recovered a similar notebook, both of which, in order for him to be able to help the man, he placed at his back, secured in his belt. When that was done, he used his diminishing forces to again lift the friar. Right at that moment, a wooden beam collapsed in front of the entrance, blocking their exit. Realizing they would not be able to pass through, the black-clad man looked around for another way out but found none. They were trapped and would soon die, either burned or from the smoke.
Right as that thought penetrated him mind, the burning wooden beam was lifted and he was grateful to see his father's new vaquero risking some serious burns as he lifted it with his bare hands and moved it away, creating enough room for the two of them to carry the monk outside.
By the time they exited, the plaza was buzzing with people, lancers and simple citizens hurrying to find buckets to use in order to extinguish the fire.
"I'll go find the doctor!" Duncan told him as they placed the man on the ground and hurried away.
"He's a good one… Duncan…" The monk uttered, surprising Zorro.
With his last forces, the friar took the pendant he was keeping hidden under his robe and gave it to the man who had rescued him.
"Benitez says… you are a man of honor. People wearing pendants such as this will come to inquire about us," he told him, as he placed his most precious possession into Zorro's gloved hand. "Give them the chronicles!"
The man took a deep, laborious breath. "Promise!" he asked, just as the last spark of life left him.
"I promise." Zorro replied sorrowfully, knowing full well he could no longer be heard.
"Zorro!" A lancer shouted, attracting De Soto's attention and pointing towards the masked man who took that as his sign to leave.
Taking the pendant with him, he whistled for Tornado, and steered him towards the hacienda.
The Alcalde hesitated but decided that saving the church was more important than a fruitless pursuit of his masked foe.
Mya exited the tavern just in time to see Zorro leave the pueblo.