Author's Notes: Well, the mystery of the house continues. I hope that you enjoy it. Any comments or questions are welcome (and actually highly desired).

Chapter 2

Haunted by ill angels only

Diego moved through the house, not entirely sure what he was looking for. All the rooms had the same air of neglect as the front, and every window was barred. Why? More importantly, how could this house even be here? He knew the area no matter how much he pretended ignorance when he wasn't wearing a mask. There should be nothing but nature here. Or at least a windmill within sight. He had not been lost when they entered that inexplicable fog. Why had he pressed forward rather than gone back out of the fog? They needed shelter; that was true, but he should have gone back and around rather than try to go through.

However, there was no point in dwelling on what couldn't be changed. He needed to find a way out and determine if there was a threat in this seemingly abandoned house.

There is nothing to see.

Diego froze. He had the vague impression of a whisper but no words. Had someone spoken? He looked around. There was no one there. He could hear the wind whistling through a nearby window and looked outside. The fog was still thick, swirling around in odd patterns that made no sense. None of this made any sense. Yet, somehow it had to.

He was a man of science, and houses and fog did not just appear out of nowhere. Yet, here they were, and much to his chagrin, here he was.

Pushing open the next door to the inevitable scattering of more dust, he found a small library. There were more large dangling cobwebs stretching from the ceiling to the bookcases and a greater feeling of cold. He moved inside and across to one of the shelves. He expected a musty scent of decay and mold, yet all he smelled was dust and old books. He put the candle down carefully on a small side table and carefully took one of the books off the shelf.

Dusting off the outside edges, he gently opened the book, almost expecting to see crumbling or mildewed pages, but the pages were nearly pristine with only a patina of age. He glanced at the title page; his eyes widened slightly. This was a copy of Liber juratus Honorii, a famous medieval grimoire that dealt with magic of all kinds including summoning of demons. An odd find, or perhaps not so odd, he thought as he considered the dark and enigmatic place. It was next to another magical tome, Lemegeton Clavicula Salomonis which dealt more specifically in demonology. He opened the cover to see a book plate with a family crest and the name Amador. Amador. He knew that name. There was a story behind it. Some story his mother told him when he was a lad. Now what was it?

He wracked his thoughts. He knew it was a tragedy. Of lost love, wasn't it? Something about a man losing the woman he loved to another and then she died, and him hating love and something about his niece and her love and a disaster that struck their home, but nothing more than that.

He hadn't paid much attention at the time. It hadn't been particularly exciting or scary to him, and he didn't care about love or romance then. He knew his mother had been trying to make some other point but he was too young to really understand it. And there hadn't been any really mention of the supernatural with it, had there? He really couldn't remember anything else. And that story did not necessarily have anything to do with this family. He wasn't even sure where the story was supposed to have taken place.

He pulled yet another book off the shelf, far more prosaic though not completely unrelated to the other books he'd seen, Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus. Odd. Well, not the book but the lack of organization. As he put it back a piece of paper fluttered to the floor in front of him.

Picking it up, he saw awkwardly scrawled words and read,"Make the correct choice before midnight, or you will lose everything, little Fox. Don't let your disguise be your undoing." He stared at the words. When was this written? And to whom? It could hardly have been him. That had to be a coincidence; nonetheless, he pulled out his watch to check the time. It was still hours until midnight.

He was looking back over the shelves, wondering where the paper had come from, when he thought he heard his name being called. It was faint and lingering and did not entirely sound like Victoria. Slipping the paper into his trousers pocket, he turned, and then something hit him from behind knocking him down to the floor.

~Z~Z~Z~

Victoria stared at the flat wall. Pounding had done nothing, and trying to pry the door open at the crack had done nothing but broken her already short nails. She picked the candle back up and tried looking for any kind of lever or crack that might hide the release, but she found nothing.

Then she heard the moan again and remembered why she had gone through the opening in the first place. Taking a deep breath she started carefully down the spiraling stairs, taking each step slowly and deliberately until she reached a cave like room, dark and empty.

Look. Look behind you.

Victoria turned around the corner of the stairs and saw a wide open door beyond which was only blackness. Carefully, moving to the door, she saw it was held open by a heavy stone block.

See, it's safe to enter.

Victoria still hesitated a moment, doubting her course of action, even as she heard another moan.

"Who's there?" she called. Now at the door she could see a stone entry way that curved to the left before opening into... something. There was not enough light to tell.

Checking to see that the stone really was heavy enough to keep the door open, Victoria warily passed through into the next room and stopped. It was a bedroom. Or rather full living quarters. And not something simple as she'd expect to find in an underground room. The bed was canopied with opulent drapes. There was an ornate dressing table at the wall opposite with a large gilt-edged mirror. Beyond that she could see some book shelves and a sofa and chairs and a scattering of tables and pictures on the wall. But she still saw no one. And now heard no one. She felt an odd sense of relief that no one was injured there, but at the same time, the silence was heavy, suffocating.

Suddenly there was a flash off the mirror. From her candle? No, that couldn't be it, could it? She moved reluctantly in that direction almost as if being pushed. Perhaps it was just her curiosity.

There was something odd about the mirror, distortions that didn't make sense to her. She reached towards the surface. It was cold metal not glass. The room behind her looked off, but then mirrors often had that effect in the dark. Just then she heard a creaking sound coming from the door area.

"Diego!" she called, only to hear a heavy bang, and her candle suddenly went out.

She froze where she stood, in darkness blacker than night, a darkness so intense that she could feel it. She closed her eyes to calm herself. It was better than facing the dark.

Why? It's so much better not to see.

Victoria shivered and took several deep breaths. Stay calm. Maybe Diego had his matches in his coat pocket. She couldn't remember what he'd done with them. Carefully putting the candle on an empty spot on the dressing table in front of her, she searched his pockets. Unfortunately while she found a coin bag and some string, there was no matchbox.

You're still in front of the table, she thought. Maybe there's something there to light a candle. She tried to remember what she'd seen before the light went out, but she hadn't paid attention.

You never need to pay attention.

She just knew that there had been objects there, and she didn't really want to try to go back the way she'd come without a light.

Feeling carefully in front of her, her hands ran over a hairbrush and a comb coated with dust like everything else in this hellish place. Her hand hit a small box. She picked it up and ran her fingers around the top before lifting the lid on its hinge. Carefully reaching inside, she touched a fine powder, probably face powder. So not what she was looking for. She snapped the lid closed and then jerked her face back as it was hit with a small cloud of powder. Dropping the box, she wiped at her face, grateful that her eyes had been closed. She reached back down to the table, brushing away more dust as her fingers searched. She found another slightly larger box and opened it, only to hear a strange metallic melody that ground out in a faint, jerking manner for a few seconds before coming to a stop. She didn't recognize the tune, but it had a melancholy quality to it. But that could simply be because of the manner of its playing. The box was otherwise empty.

Victoria wanted to yell from frustration, but her limbs were feeling heavy. The tinkling of the box seemed to be coming from farther away and slowing down. She felt as if she was running down with the music. Drugged. She had been drugged. She sank down to the floor. Was it the powder?

She lay still on the floor.

~Z~Z~Z~

Diego picked himself up off the floor, feeling dizzy, brushing dust from his face and shirt. What had fallen on him? He had not seen anything. At least he hadn't been holding the candle at the time.

"It's about time you woke up." The voice was hauntingly familiar.

Diego turned to see Luis Ramone, the very dead Luis Ramone, sitting in a chair next to the desk, feet propped up on the top, wearing the very same suit he had on the day he had fallen to his death. No, that was impossible. He shook his head to clear it. Ramone had had a twin. What was his name? Ah, yes...

"Vincente Ramone, I presume," he said, staring at the man so casually relaxing where he should not be.

"Am I, Don Diego?" Ramone (for that he was whatever his first name might be) asked with a grin. "Are you so sure?" He slid his legs off the desk and sat up in the chair.

"Well, Luis Ramone died, and you're here, so I think the answer is obvious," Diego replied with asperity.

"Beware the obvious answer," the man smirked, pushing back on the glove on his right hand to reveal a scar. "Care to guess again? I have all night, though you might not."

Diego heard the threat in that but chose to ignore it, while trying to casually check if there was anyone else in the vicinity and prayed that Victoria was safe and undiscovered. "The easy one," he finally said, "is that you made sure to have the matching scar in case you ever impersonated your brother again."

The man shrugged. "Truly, you are as clever as a fox at coming up with 'believable' justifications. It's a wonder that no one ever notices that."

Diego froze at the word "fox." Did he mean what it seemed he meant? "What are you doing here?"

Ramone smiled at him again. "Oh, that's hardly an interesting question, is it? Well perhaps metaphysically it might be, but what's more interesting is why you, Don Diego de la Vega, rather than the infamous Zorro, are here with the lovely Señorita Escalante." He tilted his head at Diego and smirked. "Well, I can imagine why you would wish to be with her but not why the señorita would be with you. Did she insist on traveling with you, to act as your bodyguard or to see you didn't fail at yet another quest?"

So Ramone knew Victoria was with him, Diego thought. Had he been following them for the whole journey or had he spotted them in Santa Paula and followed them for some reason? Revenge for his brother? Considering how he had been planning to kill Luis himself during his brief time in Los Angeles, it hardly seemed likely. Diego decided to remain silent but something in his face must have told Ramone there was some truth in what he had said as the man laughed.

"Oh, yes, it would be one of those," Ramone said. "She'd hardly have chosen the poet of the pueblo as a companion otherwise. I'm surprised Zorro didn't do the work. After all, that miserable little pueblo seems to prefer to let Zorro do all its fighting for it."

"Not everything can be solved with swords," Diego replied. "Sometimes words are called for."

Ramone waved a hand. "True, so very true, Don Diego. And there are times when it's critical to find the right ones. The right lies to lubricate the wheels of life."

"I find truth to be the better choice, Señor," Diego said.

Ramone tilted his head again and looked at him calculatingly. "Do you? Do you really?" he said. "How... hypocritical of you. I would have thought youof all people would realize the wrong truths can have fatal consequences."

"Is that a threat?" Diego asked.

"Threat?" the other man repeated. "Oh, no, it's a warning to take heed of the power of words. Of truth and of lies. Now think carefully, señor, do you really believe that truth is always safer than a lie?"

No, he didn't. Unfortunately. His life was shrouded in lies. Lies of who he really was, of who Zorro was. There were truths as well, but only he and Felipe really knew the differences. Or did he really? Sometimes Diego felt so tangled up that he didn't even know which parts of him were the truth. In a world of lies, truth was precious and needed to be protected. Even as he concealed the truth of who he was from two of the most important people in his life, his father and his love.

"No answer, Don Diego?" Ramone said, interrupting his thoughts. "I'm not surprised. Imagine if Zorro's true identity were known to all. How many people would be in danger? How would his nearest and dearest react to having the truth hidden from them for so long? How would the Señorita react if she knew the man she loved had deceived her and would never live up to the legend she believes him to be? Now tell me the lies aren't preferable; that they don't protect... people." His look seemed to imply that he originally intended to end that statement another way.

But what mattered was that Diego couldn't deny that statement. Not entirely. This was the question that haunted him. That made his life so complicated.

"Don Diego, what are you willing to sacrifice?" Ramone asked.

Before Diego could answer, he felt a heaviness come over his whole body, pulling him down. He fought but it was more than he could bear, and he quickly found himself on the floor. He struggled to keep his eyes open but his vision was swirling and growing blurry.

Ramone stood over him. "What are you willing to sacrifice?" he asked again. His voice sounded so distant and different somehow. "How long can you continue to embrace your lies? How long? How…long…"

His voice trailed off until it sounded like little more than a faint breeze and Diego's vision finally stilled and went black.

~Z~Z~Z~

Victoria felt the cold stone beneath her and tried to clear her thoughts, when she heard someone speaking to her.

"Come, come, little one," a strange yet friendly voice crooned. "You're all right. Come on, sit up."

Victoria opened her eyes and saw a pair of friendly brown eyes in a wrinkled face above her. "Abuela?" she asked fuzzily.

"Not quite, child," the old woman said. "But you may call me that if you wish. Can you tell me your name?"

"Victoria... Escalante," she said as she tried to get control of her wayward limbs. Finally sitting up, Victoria took a closer look at the woman who knelt down beside her. She looked similar to her old abuela but was not the same with her pile of mostly black hair with streaks of white in it. She was wrapped in a large black shawl with red poppies on it. In the dim light it was hard to recognize the flowers.

"Come have a seat, little one," Abuela (as Victoria had no other name for her) said as she pulled herself off the floor, using the bed pole. "We'll both feel much better."

Bemused and woozy Victoria made her way over to a plush overstuffed chair, while the old woman eased herself down into a rocking chair near it. There was a gentle squeaking as it started rocking back and forth.

"Have you been down here all this time?" Victoria asked.

"You could say that," Abuela said with a smile. "I'm a bit wary of strangers this far out, especially when I'm alone." She looked at Victoria. "Though you are a better quality of stranger, my dear."

"I'm sorry," Victoria said. "We got lost and were trying to find shelter from the rain. We didn't mean to intrude. This house looked abandoned."

"So it is, most of the time," Abuela said. "I'm only here on special occasions. This just happened to be one." She picked up some knitting needles from a basket hidden on the far side of the rocking chair. "But enough about me, tell me about yourself and the young man who lent you that coat."

"Diego?" Victoria asked, looking down at his jacket, in all the excitement she had forgotten she was still wearing it, incredible as that seemed. "He's a friend, and we were coming back from Santa Paula where he spoke with the King's Emissary on behalf of our pueblo."

"A good diplomat, is he?"

Is he? Victoria pondered. Well, yes, today he proved that. "He's good with words if not with swords."

"And you'd prefer him to be better with swords than words," Abuela said with a knowing smile.

Victoria was taken aback. How often had she thought that? Or rather that she wished Diego was more like Zorro. More heroic. More like the boy she remembered long, long ago. But that wasn't fair to him, was it? "No," she said slowly. "Well, I have sometimes, but no, Diego is who he is, and he's a good friend. He and his father are probably the best friends I have outside of... Zorro." She didn't really know why she hesitated. She loved Zorro and was proud to love him.

"Ah, the famous masked man," Abuela said. "Friend to the people, enemy to oppressors. Or a common... make that uncommon bandit, depending on who's telling the stories." She smiled. "So if this Diego is just a friend, is it Zorro who is your sweetheart? After all, I can't imagine a young woman lovely as you are to not have a sweetheart."

"Yes, Zorro is the one I love," Victoria said. A cold chill hit her just then. Why was that?

"I imagine it must be exhilarating... and frustrating," Abuela said. "Or perhaps it's not? Perhaps it's the best way to love."

"What do you mean?" Victoria asked.

"Well, to be the consort of a legend can be so much less taxing than being the wife of an ordinary man, who complains about his dinner or his taxes and snores at night. You get the excitement of seeing him ride and fight and the thrill of stolen kisses and avoid the tedium of day to day living. The dangers of domesticity." There was a shadow on Abuela's face that hid her expression then.

No, it's not like that," Victoria said. "I mean that's not what we want it to be. He has made a promise for our future, one I— we— look forward to."

"When once his mission is done?" Abuela said. "Oh, dear child, whenever is a man like Zorro's mission ever done? It's on until the faster, younger adversary or a lucky shot takes him out. He will never be finished. And perhaps that is best."

"He is a man of honor," Victoria insisted, though her voice sounded weak to her ears.

"I'm sure he is," Abuela said. "When it comes to public duty and service. But such men who live for adventure tend to resent being tied down domestically. They seldom make steady husbands: always running after the next injustice."

"Honor and courage are more important," Victoria said. "I would always have him stand up for what's right."

"But could he do it without the mask he wears?" Abuela asked. "Would he have the courage once he is free from it?"

"Of course, he would," Victoria insisted; her limbs were feeling heavy again.

"How can you be so sure?" Abuela asked. "Do you know who he is under the mask? Have you seen his courage without a mask?"

Victoria tried to answer, but she could not move, and the light was fading as her eyes closed.

The last thing she heard was: "Will he make the ultimate sacrifice for you that you have already shown you would make for him? Will… he…?"

~to be continued~

End Notes:

Like the matches, I know the music box is also a bit anachronistic (they existed but not particularly in the modern form about when it would have been made), but still it seemed appropriate in this very tropey place.

The books titles that appear are all real books, which were the product of brief research, so I went from the summaries, which may or may not accurately represent the contents. I was tempted to have Diego see a copy of the Necronomicon (which appeared in H.P. Lovecraft's works), but thought that would be too much.

Luis Ramone's wickeder twin brother Vincente appears in season 2's "White Sheep of the Family", after which he is never seen in the series again. Also, Luis died in "Devil's Fortress" in the penultimate story of season 2. And since I tend to play fast and loose with chronology when I write for Zorro, I will say that I am using broadcast order here so this story takes place near the end of season 3.

And that's all I have to say about this chapter, as I'm trying to be less spoilery than usual in my notes; however, spoilers for the series are obviously included.

But I really do appreciate all the positive feedback I've gotten so far. And I'd love to hear any more questions and comments, as there's still time for me to make some changes and revisions to the story as needed. Next chapter will be up on Monday.