NOTE BY THE ACCOUNT HOLDER: THIS STORY IS NOT MINE!

WRITTEN BY KARLA GREGORY

Chapter Eighteen

Later that night, around eight o'clock, Zorro entered the house of Monastario by the use of a second story window that had been left open. To his satisfaction, all but a few house guards had been sent away. There was no guard in sight outside the house. He went down to the first floor and observed where the guards were placed. While he was there he heard voices in Monastario's office. It was one of the guards announcing that Señor Escobar had arrived. Zorro just had time to fling himself into a deep shadow behind a cloak cabinet in the hallway as Monastario swept past him on the way to the salon. He peered around the doorway into the room.

Monastario greeted Escobar warmly. Escobar explained that he had come with all haste as soon as he had gotten Monastario's note. "What news do you have of Zorro?" he asked.

Zorro smiled his grim little smile as Monastario proclaimed, "Zorro is dead! I have seen his remains. He is to be buried in the beggar's graveyard tomorrow!"

"Zorro is dead?" said Escobar in disbelief. "This is wonderful news. And you are very sure of this?" He looked questioningly at Monastario. At a glare from the capitán, Escobar nodded his head in acceptance. "Tell me all about it then. I want to enjoy the delicious details!" So Monastario gave him all the story that Padre Ramon had told him and spoke of his own examination of the remains.

"This requires a drink to celebrate, my dear Monastario. Imagine! Zorro is dead. These are words of comfort to me. I have not slept well for the many days since his escape." As Escobar rattled on, Zorro decided to continue to search through the house and make doubly sure of the guard postings and where the best hiding places were located.

Later, after Escobar had gone, he placed himself where he could watch Monastario as he entered his office. The capitán poured himself some wine and sat gazing into the fireplace a long time. Zorro, watching from the shadows, was lost in thought himself, remembering what the capitán had done to Diego. He rubbed his chest absently. Another two days and Monastario would answer for his crimes, and not just for those committed in California. He would answer to Zorro for the injustice Diego had suffered here in this place. He had to shake himself back to awareness as Monastario left the office to retire for the night. He slipped out of the house and was himself in bed asleep by two o'clock.

The next night, just before midnight, Zorro came again to Monastario's house, this time entering through a ground floor window that he had unlocked the night before. This time he had a bag containing three large, metal cups with him. Setting the bag down carefully in a dark corner close to the door that led to his former cell, Zorro again made the rounds of the house to note that the house guards were where he had marked them before. Going back to the door, he picked up the bag and using the key he had acquired before, opened the door and went down to the cell where he had been imprisoned. Opening the door to the cell, he stepped in. As his eyes were adjusted to the dark, he had no difficulty in seeing by the moonlight that came in the small window. Nothing had been changed. Apparently, neither Monastario nor any of his guards had ever come in here again after Diego had escaped.

Suppressing a shudder, Zorro walked over to the small window. He took out the metal cups, which were loosely tied together with a string. Placing them at the base of the wall, he drew his sword and used it to lift the end of the string up to the window. Making sure it would stay, he left the cell and went back up the stairs closing and locking the doors as he went. Quickly, he gained the outside of the house and went to where the cell window was. He made fast the end of the string to the window bars. Then he just stood there in the darkness gripping the hilt of his sword tightly, looking at the cell and remembering.

Padre Ramon had fallen asleep in the chair that he liked to use for reading. He awoke with a start and looking at the stub of a candle on the table next to him, he judged it to be around two o'clock in the morning. A small motion caught his eye and he saw Zorro standing just inside the small circle of light cast by the candle. The eyes behind the mask caught the light and Padre Ramon felt as if they could see right through him, they were so intense. They seemed to be lit with a fire from within.

"Tomorrow night will be the night of judgement, Padre," said Zorro in a voice both low and deadly. "Justice is coming to Capitán Enrique Monastario."

The padre felt the finality of that statement. He looked at Zorro and saw him not as Diego de la Vega, but as the harbinger of final reckoning. In his own heart, he knew that Monastario needed to be brought to justice for his crimes against the people and that there was truly no one else who could or would do this but Zorro. But he also knew that this Zorro was not the Zorro of California. This Zorro was capable of using revenge as his motive for killing Monastario. For Diego's soul and for the padre's own peace of mind, he had to make Zorro see that.

So he leaned forward and said earnestly, "Be certain, Señor Zorro, that in your heart it is truly justice that you seek. The people of California suffered much under the hand of Monastario, but they suffered nothing like Diego de la Vega did when he was brought here to Spain." Zorro's eyes hardened further and their fire seemed to grow brighter. "The Diego de la Vega that I knew three years ago had a fine sense of justice for one so young. He went home to his father and found that through his unique abilities and wit he would be able to bring justice to a land where it was sorely lacking. Rarely, however, did those injustices touch Diego directly, and so he was able to be objective and fair when his justice was dispensed through you. But here on these shores, Diego de la Vega has had injustice exacted upon his own person. This has, I believe, changed who he is . . . who you are, Señor Zorro. Diego knows that by his hand Monastario must die. You Señor Zorro, mean to see that he does die, no matter what the cost is to Diego's soul"

Zorro said as though puzzled, "You speak as if Diego is not here. I am here, padre"

"No, my son. It is Zorro who has come here tonight. You have separated yourself from Diego. The person closest to you in the entire world has been horribly abused. Your inability to protect Diego then, and your desire to see Monastario dead now, has set you free. When you don the mask of Zorro, Diego is set aside; hidden from view. Only Zorro looks out of your eyes as we speak now. And even when Diego is not costumed as you are, there are more and more times when you, Zorro the Avenger, look out of his eyes. Diego is not aware of this, but I can see it. That is why I speak to you now. Are you El Zorro, whose heart cannot be touched; whose heart has been frozen by the chill winds of revenge, or are you Diego de la Vega, a man of honor who is only doing what he must to relieve this world of a sadistic, evil man?"

For many long minutes, Zorro's eyes locked with the padre's eyes. The silence was almost palpable. Zorro looked away into the distance in the general direction of Monastario's house. He was as unmoving as a statue. Then suddenly, Zorro took a long, shuddering breath as though he had just awakened from a deep sleep and, as he turned back to look into the padre's eyes, Diego de la Vega raised his hands and removed the mask from his face.