Diego continued to stare at the extinguished candles. Last night's confusion had been replaced by yet more frustration and despair. He closed his eyes and remembered the comfortable bed he had left earlier. Victoria's warm body had been pressed against his side. She had smiled when he rubbed her belly, greeting their child.

She wanted a son. Alejandro also wanted it to be a boy. However, Diego wanted a girl, a beautiful girl with her mother's smile. And her daring. He wanted to spoil her while Victoria fused at him. His little girl would not have to work her hands down to the bone like her mother. Ever.

He heard her enter his cave. This time. "One of them has murdered a man."

"I heard."

"It doesn't surprise you." He gathered the remains of last night's experiment and walked over to where he discarded his chemicals.

"Diego, I told you the first time I met you that I was trying to save the world."

He turned to stare at her. "You were using hyperbole."

"No, I wasn't," she said, walking further into the candlelight.

Denial was his first instinct. "Then why did we spend last night talking about vampires instead of fighting them?"

She laughed. "Because to fight what you do not understand is to lose. You came close to losing the two different battles you've had with vampires. In fact, you would have died the night I fought you if I hadn't made the last-second decision not to kill you."

He ran a hand through his hair. "So Tasia is gathering an army in Los Angeles? Is that why they are suddenly staying in caves around here?"

"Yes," she admitted. "Humans have been protected from us for a long time."

He sat the tray of test tubes down. "What's protected us?"

"Two things. One is that vampires are naturally solitary creatures to a certain extent. A pair that travels together is odd. A group is practically unheard of. We have a habit of being our own worst enemy, if that makes sense to you."

He studied her for a moment and then nodded. "I think it does. What is the second?"

"The ancients."

"The ancients?"

"There is a group of older vampires. Some members of this group are well known to all of us. Others are only known to the ancients themselves. Their roles are quiet. No one knows how old they are, but we all know that they are powerful. Rumor has it that they know more about the experiments that created vampires all those years ago."

She laughed. "Some even say that the ancients are themselves the scientists that discovered how to create us."

"You don't believe it?"

"Everything in life is relative. It's hard for you, a man who only has a few decades to live, to believe that my kind can live centuries. And it's difficult for my kind to believe that there are those that can live for 10,000 years."

Ten thousand years. The tools that had been discovered. The civilizations that had risen and fallen. Diego thought of it all. He had turned down the chance to possibly see 10,000 years of human history. Yet he felt nothing but relief. Civilizations rising and falling he could read about; he wanted to enjoy watching his son or daughter grow.

"The ancients have protected us? Why?"

She shrugged and leaned against a rock wall. Tornado snorted and backed away from her. "I don't know."

"You don't know?"

"I do not ever try to comprehend the mind of an ancient. I tried once and failed miserably."

The pain in her voice told him that her efforts had been personal. Whatever ancient she had tried to understand had been important to her. Her eyes met his and then she shook her head. "Yes, he was important."

He flinched. "Do vampires read minds?"

"No, but your thoughts were written plainly on your face." She rubbed her neck, stroked it gently. "An ancient changed me. He took me away from the men who used my mother and tried to use me. He allowed me to become an adult before he changed me. He showed me that men could be gentle, caring, and then he showed me that even a gentle, caring man can hurt you."

He knew to speak these words cost her. "Why are telling me this?"

She squatted down beside him. "Because I know what I have to ask of you."

"Ask of me?"

"Diego, a prophecy was written years ago. Even as far as prophecies go, it is vague and confusing."

He lifted an eyebrow. "A vague and confusing prophecy?"

She leaned forward, as if sharing a secret. "I know, it describes all prophecies. But this one is worse. And it was ripped into pieces centuries ago. Most of what is known about it is actually rumor. Very little fact."

Staring at her, he wanted to argue that prophecies were fantasy. But then so were vampires. "What makes the prophecy so special?"

"It's rumored that the Ancients-the true Ancients-of Atlantis wrote it before their civilization fell," she admitted. "My kind are fascinated by it because it speaks of vampires ruling the world."

"Vampires ruling the world." He shuddered as he remembered his nightmare. Mendoza, Victoria, his friends all treated as cattle for a vampire master.

"It won't be pretty place if it happens."

"Why me? Why come to me? Why did you believe you needed to kill me? Why ask for my help?" His voice trembled. From passion. From frustration. From fear.

Standing, she walked over to where Zorro's clothes hung. She lifted the mask. "Part of the prophecy that is known is the part that talks of a Dark One, a destroyer. What he destroys no one knows, although vampires being vampires, many assumed he would help destroy the human race. It was an assumption I was warned against, but I kept it even as I arrived in Los Angeles and prepared for the war."

Diego felt ill. "War?"

"War. She will try to kill the Ancients. The known ones first, of course. She will need an army, and she will need a permanent base. Los Angeles fits her requirements. Aldrick-the Ancient who transformed me-told me that many of the known Ancients are in the New World and have been since your birth."

Z Z Z

The horror on his face hurt her. Amazing how she had gone from hating him to be protective of him. He was strong, but the burden he carried was large, and she was only adding to it.

"My birth?" The strength of his voice impressed her.

"Your birth. They felt when you were born. One found you as a baby and followed you here."

Revulsion crossed his features. "You have been watching me since I was born?"

"Not me," she said. "I thought you were a legend, and an unimportant one at that."

"How do-" Diego blinked and hid his face from her. He began to fiddle with the glass test tubes. He opened one and Esperanza had to clutch at the table to keep from falling. The scent burned through her nose, and her stomach twirled and twisted.

Diego's face swayed in front of her. He walked closer and the scent become more repulsive. "Esperanza, are you all right?"

Gasping, she pointed at his hand. He looked down, confused. He started to ask her a question, but obviously saw something on her face that stopped him. He plugged the cork back into the test tube. And the scent slowly started to leave the cave.

Diego sat it down on the table and helped her to a chair. "Are you all right?"

"What-" she croaked, "is that?"

"It's a simple solution of-" Diego looked at her. "It's harmless."

"To you," she said. "But it wasn't to me. My stomach hates its supper."

"It made you nauseous?

"Yes," she realized. "Nauseous. That is the term for it. I haven't felt it since I was turned."

She picked up the tube and stared at it. "A simple solution? You can make more?" He nodded. "We'll need more. To help us win the war."

Z Z Z

The sight of his son startled Alejandro. The book in his hand almost fell to the ground before he clutched it tightly in his fingers. He walked forward, watching the quiet man sitting by the fire. It blazed; Alejandro studied the shadows the fire cast into the room. Large, dark shadows that reminded Alejandro of other shadows he thought were disappearing from his home.

Shaking his head, he thought he sounded like his son. The middle of the night could turn any man into a poet. "Diego." He stepped farther into the room when his son showed no response. "Diego?"

"Father," Diego said, turning his attention to the older man for only a minute. He stared at the fire so hard that Alejandro had to look at it. What secrets did the flames hold for Diego? What answers did he think he could get in them?

"You've stoked the fire."

Diego nodded, paying no attention as Alejandro moved a chair next to his and sat down in it. "I couldn't sleep. Why are you awake?"

An excellent question. "I couldn't sleep either. But I'm old man with an old man's thoughts." And fears. "Sleeping through the night is more of a struggle for me these days. You, however, have a warm bed with a beautiful wife."

A small smile touched Diego's lips for a moment. "Yes, I do."

"You both seem much happier these days."

Diego said nothing for a moment. Alejandro waited to see if his son would lie to him and deny past problems. Victoria was right; the de la Vegas kept too many secrets from each other. "We are. Although, I think that we will have to fight some days to keep from falling back into old patterns."

Alejandro relaxed. He sat a chair down next to his son. "Old patterns?"

"Victoria never said a word to me when people insulted her. She never has." Diego's words were clipped, and his fists sat tightly on his legs.

He understood the rage. "No, she always kept her head high. No matter what people said."

Diego finally stopped his study of the flames. He looked at his father and frowned. "You knew?"

"Of course I knew. Just as I knew that she didn't want me to know." It had hurt. All those years ago. Until he understood. Pride was important to a de la Vega, and Victoria's pride had kept her pain hidden away from those who loved her.

"How could you let people insult her?"

Alejandro's eyebrow lifted. "Let people insult her? I never let anyone insult her. No one dared to insult her to my face."

"Why did you not tell me?"

Another good question. Alejandro frowned as he admitted, "I don't know."

"You didn't expect me to do anything," Diego provided his own answer. "You thought I was too useless to defend a lady's honor."

The derision in those words hurt, but they lacked the power of truth. "No, I knew Victoria was important to you. I knew you would defend her honor." Why had he not shared Victoria's troubles with his son? Had he had suspicions even then about Diego's other life?

"How could you not-" Realization flamed in those eyes. "You did defend her honor."

"Not with fisticuffs or swords, no."

The looks of stunned disbelief on his son's face gave Alejandro much satisfaction. "You used social, political and economic power to defend her."

"I wasn't alone," he admitted. "Many people love her, Diego."

"Thank you."

"You have nothing to thank me for. She was my daughter in spirit long before you brought her into our family."

Diego smiled. "Do you remember when she punched that boy that made Lola cry? He was twice her size."

"And his nose was twice its size when she got done with him!" Father and son laughed together at old memories. After a few minutes of restful silence, Alejandro returned the conversation to its earlier point. "So, Victoria is learning how to trust you with the pains in her life."

"Yes, and I'm learning-"

"Learning?" Alejandro prompted after a few seconds of silence.

"How to stop hiding," he whispered. "I'm used to hiding from her."

The still closed book in his hand suddenly felt too heavy to hold. He rubbed his damp palm against his pant leg and tried to breathe past the heavy boar that pressed against his chest. Habit and feared demanded that he not ask questions. A greater fear and love demanded that he ask for the truth. "And from me."

For a moment, he thought Diego was going to make his usual denial. Instead, he closed his mouth and looked down at his hands for a few minutes. "And from you," he finally admitted.

The boar rushed off his chest, letting Alejandro breathe again. His blood roared in his ears, and he blinked back sudden the sudden moisture that had appeared in his eyes. "Are you planning to stop hiding?"

Diego's smile held a hint of self-mockery. "I'm planning to try. I have to stop hiding. It's destroying everything that I love." Diego's eyes shined with an unspoken apology. "Even you, I think."

Alejandro flinched. "I'm not-"

"Don't," his son whispered. "I've watched you age so much since Gilberto died. I tried to blame the new lines on your face on him. But I know that I'm mostly to blame."

Trying to find the words to deny the accusation, he stared at his son. Diego's shoulders slumped more as he spoke. "You are worried about me. About Zorro. You are worried about Victoria. About our marriage. And you've been worrying about the fact you are unsure of the truth."

Diego's eyes met his as he said, "I never meant to lie to you for so long. It wasn't supposed to be this long."

"I know," he said, pushing it past the lump in his throat. "I know."

Leaning forward, Alejandro stoked the fire. He needed time to gather his thoughts, and he suspected his son did too. "It's almost dawn, Diego. You should go back to bed."

"No, I can't sleep." The words were quick. Alejandro felt the invisible curtain that had separated them for so long fall back between them, and he resented it in a way he never had before. But it wasn't him who tore it down. Diego did. He watched as his son shook away old thoughts, old habits.

"How did you do it?"

Alejandro thought of his marriage and wondered what part Diego was wondering about. "Do what?"

"Fight a war."

The difficulty breathing returned. "Fight a war? Diego, you have been fighting a war, by yourself, since you returned home. I don't think you need any advice from me."

"I've never had to kill." Spoken so softly that Alejandro wondered if they had been spoken.

"Kill? No, you've never had to kill." Sometimes, people questioned that decision. Alejandro had heard the debates, and he knew Diego had, too. If Zorro had been willing to kill, would the battle between him and the two alcaldes have ended sooner?

Diego again stared at the flames as if they could give him answers. "How did you do it?"

Alejandro remembered those early years. His memories, but sometimes they felt as if they belonged to someone else. "Killing was easy, Diego."

"Easy?" The horror in that voice hurt. Alejandro wanted to hide this thought from his son, but he knew if Diego was daring to ask, he needed to hear the truth.

"Easy. The living with it was harder. Your mother couldn't understand, no matter how hard she tried, why I wasn't excited to see you when I returned home. I was always withdrawn when I returned from a campaign, but she expected your birth to have changed it. I couldn't-It wasn't easy to leave the battlefields behind."

He studied his son, noticed how Diego's breathing was labored. He pushed down the fear that wanted to overwhelm him. "The choice you made not to kill was the harder one, I believe. You didn't let fear control you or control your actions. Anger never pushed you to cross a line you made for yourself. And even if the battle could have been ended sooner with the flick of your blade, you restrained yourself, and I admire your courage."

It felt good to speak these words finally. To say what was on his mind instead of worrying and wondering if his fears and hopes were true.

"I let fear rule me the other night. I had never felt that kind of fear before. I struck a man, stabbed him in the heart."

With shaking hands, Alejandro set down his book. He wouldn't be reading it tonight. "You killed a man?" A horrible burden he never wanted his son to know. He had been fortunate. The first man he killed had been from a distance. A musket ball that might have missed its target but probably didn't. And even though the first man he killed with his blade had been done in the midst of a heated and fierce battle, he could remember the face. The feel of the blood as it splattered on him.

"No," Diego whispered. "I didn't kill him."

Alejandro blinked. "You stabbed him in the heart?"

Diego's voice lacked any emotion. "It didn't kill him. He kept fighting."

Old habits would be broken tonight, because Alejandro could not spend another night worrying about what was happening with his son. "Diego, what's happening?"

His son took in a shaky breath. "Everyone is talking about it."

"The dead cattle. Javier."

Diego's chest rose and fell too quickly. "Yes."

"You know the cause?"

A sudden unidentifiable sound escaped Diego. It chilled Alejandro's blood. "Everyone is talking about it."

"What?" He needed get Diego to bed. Obviously that brilliant mind was too tired to work clearly.

"Vampires."

The ticking of the clock was the only sound in the room. Alejandro struggled between laughter and shock. Should he awaken Victoria and get her help in leading Diego to his bed? "Vampires," he said lightly. "Everyone-"

"No, Father. I'm not joking. I wish I were. I don't want to believe." The words trembled themselves out of Diego's mouth. His chest shook from his rapid breathing. "I've seen them. Seen them feed. They're animals. I want to think of them as animals. I can kill dangerous animals."

Alejandro wondered if the late night had diminished his mind, too. He should be telling his son to relax, to forget about his fears. He should be telling-no, yelling-that there was no such things as vampires. And, yet, the simple belief and despair in Diego's voice kept that certainty hidden away from Alejandro. A certainty he held no more than a minute ago. "Vampires?"

"Vampires."

The reason Victoria suddenly wore his wife's rosary made sense. He studied the flames, suddenly understanding their appeal to Diego. "They're animals."

"But they look human."

Father and son stared at the fire until the sun rose high in the sky.

Z Z Z

"Diego's asleep?" Alejandro knew he should be out working in his fields, but he lacked the energy. Camila had already clucked over him like the mother hen she could be. Victoria had managed to get both to eat some breakfast before forcing her husband to get some rest.

He could feel her eyes on him, studying him. Without looking, he knew her fists were pressed against her side, and her foot was tapping. However, he had always been her elder and a man she respected. That respect was keeping him safe from being sent to his bed.

The fire was dying. He should order more wood. And blankets. But he wouldn't, because he knew that people depended on him to be strong. If he acted ill, the hacienda would be filled with fear and rumors. A summer day could not be spent under blankets, no matter how deep the chill in his bones.

"You should be asleep, too, Father." Her respect apparently was not as great as he thought.

"I can't."

"Father-"

"Are you proud of him?"

"Always." No hesitation.

"Are you terrified for him?"

She lumbered over to sit in the chair her husband had abandoned earlier. Reaching over, she squeezed his hand. "Always."

Z Z Z

Diego awoke knowing what needed to be done. He looked over to where his wife lay propped up by pillows, a book in her hand. Seeing the title, he smiled. He had recommended it to her before they married.

Carefully, he positioned himself to lie on her belly. He could hear the smile in her voice. "Good afternoon."

"Good afternoon," he replied, feeling his son or daughter issue his-or her-hello.

"You need to sleep, Diego."

"I need to kill them, Victoria. To finish this."

Her fingers paused before she resumed combing his hair. "Because they killed Javier."

"No," he admitted. Shame built in his throat. One death alone would not have forced him to face the terror. One death had made Esperanza's plan to carefully confront the groups of vampires as she trained him make sense. However, after talking to his father last night, after looking at the flames, and hearing his father talk about Diego's long war, his mind had cleared. He knew what he had to do.

No long war. He couldn't handle another. His son or daughter deserved a father who would be there for them. No more hiding. No more lying. No more being less than he was so he could be Zorro.

"I've got to finish this," he said, looking up and meeting her eyes. "Soon."

Her lip trembled, but she blinked away the tears. "What can I do to help?"

Pushing himself up, he leaned forward and kissed her. "I'm glad you asked."

Z Z Z

Esperanza could not hide her amazement. "What on-?"

"Our weapons," Diego said.

The cave was packed with glass bottles and torches prepared to be lit with ease. She could smell the oil they had been soaked in. "We're not fighting them tonight."

"Yes, we are," Diego said as he performed the final act needed to make him Zorro-putting on his mask.

"Diego, you are not prepared-"

"To wait. To continue fighting another decade-long war. It ends soon."

"More are arriving every day."

"Then the sooner we start openly fighting her and her troops, the sooner word gets around that it is not safe to come to Los Angeles."

A different Diego. Whatever fears and troubles had been plaguing him were only memories now. "Or it could be seen as a challenge by some."

A flash of hesitation, but only a flash. "We will handle them as they come."

The cautious nature she had been cultivating said to wait, to train, to prepare for a war that would take years to win. Aldrick would laugh. Say that her impulsive nature had saved her more often than she was willing to give it credit. Looking at this man, a man she could admire, she wondered if she could ask him to wait. To be patient. To give up another large part of his life to win a war he did not want or need.

"Okay."

He opened his mouth to argue, blinked, closed it, and opened it again. He lifted his hand and then said, "Okay?"

"If you are willing to throw caution to the wind, so am I." In fact, her blood sang at the idea. She only hoped she did not cause this man to shed his blood tonight. The thought horrified her.

A dark shadow flew across the cave. She caught it and looked at Zorro with a silent question. "Victoria made it for you. She said I could not fight alone, and if you were ill, I would be alone."

She looked down at the heavy mask. "What's in this?"

"Charcoal. Cotton. Some other filters. We will need to test it before we leave, but it should protect you from the odors."

She nodded and stared again in amazement at all the work sitting around her. Diego had looked too rested to be able to do it all by himself. "How did you get all of this-?"

"Victoria closed the tavern earlier and had all her employees make the solution, and Father had our ranch hands make the torches."

"Your father knows?"

"Yes."

That's why the shadows that had lurked in his eyes had fled. Secrets plagued him no more. Neither did doubts. "Victoria must have lost most of her glass wear to this battle."

Diego's smile was gentle, sweet. "She has, but she knows it's worth it."

"Everyone in the pueblo must be discussing how the entire de la Vega clan has gone loco."

The masked man blinked, frowned, and then smiled. "I'm not sure that particular theory is new."

Esperanza laughed. "Really? You de la Vegas are known to be crazy?"

He held up hand with his thumb and forefinger a tiny distance apart. "Just a little."

She smiled. "We should go attack the group staying with Modestus."

"We're going to see Tasia tonight."

She remembered how close Tasia had gotten to seducing her black knight. "I do not think that would be wise."

"We're going to go see Tasia," he repeated.

"Ah, an honor thing." He only stared at her. "You have to make a formal deceleration of war."

"Yes," he replied. "Are you ready?"

"No, but I don't think that really matters," was the only reply she could give as she followed him out of the cave.

Z Z Z