by Daniel Caet
“And who are you?” Liliath replied screaming as much as Becca.
“I am Lucifer's daughter and the world will kneel before me or burn in the fire of my wrath!” Becca shouted, rising from her seat with her eyes blank and the flames spread around her like the petals of a flower.
A second later, Becca returned to herself and was on the ground between Liliath's arms trembling as the flames had stopped around her as if time had frozen.
“Helel ... Helel is my father!” said Becca, almost unable to say a word for tears.
“Yes, honey, that's right.” And her fingers touched her forehead causing Becca to sink into a sweet and deep sleep like she hadn't had months ago.
Her eyes slowly opened. She had become so accustomed to being unconscious that she was already waiting for the sensation that would come later, a stabbing pain in her head that seemed to want to destroy her skull from within; but to her surprise not only there was no pain but she felt absolutely fine.
She looked around and realised that she was in the bed she had seen in the cabin upon entering. Next to the bed was a small wooden table and on it a kind of censer in which something with a sweet scent burned slowly.
“Are you feeling better?” asked Liliath removing the curtain that isolated the cubicle from the rest of the cabin.
“How long have I been unconscious?”
“A couple of days, nothing abnormal in your situation”
“If you mean normal by how often it happens to me, I agree. I don't think this is normal for anyone else.”
“This happens to you whenever your power overflows. It happened to you at school in Canada, when you were attacked in Scotland, again in Paris and here. It's all due to your lack of control. I already told you that it is normal. You have a very great power, Rebecca, possibly bigger than I am able to perceive right now. A power of that intensity that is not controlled consumes all your energy in an instant and your body is forced to disconnect to avoid burning your circuits, if you allow the comparison.”
“That kind of simile coming from a two-thousand-year-old woman who lives in isolation on a Romanian mountain with a bunch of gypsies is very strange,” Becca replied without a hint of humor but provoking Liliath's laughter.
“The truth is it is, but I thought that this way you would understand me well.”
“And what am I supposed to do to be able to control it?” Becca asked, sitting up in bed, “because I can't afford to live in a permanent state of fading.”
“As ridiculous as it may seem, the first thing you have to do is accept it. That power comes from who you are, accept who you are, and you can control it.”
“Well, that shouldn't be too complicated. I am the daughter of Lucifer, another one of your lies. I am not the last descendant of his bloodline, I am not Genevieve's daughter, I am not Rebecca Engels, I am the daughter of the devil. Fuck!” Becca felt her anger grow back inside her, but she forced herself to breathe and calm down.
“Is it so different? Why is it harder to be Helel's daughter than her last descendant?”
“It's a lie, one more. Do you really think that the kind of life I've had, has been normal? At this point in my life I have no idea who I am thanks to your constant lies.”
“I thought you just said you're Lucifer's daughter.” Becca stared at Liliath without responding and wanted to punch her, something that did not go unnoticed by the woman who responded with a smile. “I'm not trying to make you despair, Rebecca. What I'm trying to make you see is that no matter how many lies created to keep you safe have filled your life, you've always known who you were. You have always known that you were different, that you could do things that no one else could. The only thing that has changed is that now you know what the origin of that difference is, but the difference in itself has not changed. And, as far as I know, you have managed to handle that difference very successfully.”
“I cannot believe it!” exploded Becca. “You are trying to convince me that being different is great, a divine thing that everyone should envy. I repeat it again, you have no idea of the loneliness that I had to endure for being different.”
“I didn't say it was easy. The reality is that Helel's decisions have deeply affected this family, and we have all paid the consequences, including himself. I can't change that, as he can't do it either. But somehow we have sailed through that storm. Sometimes we have lost people along the way, right, people we loved; but never, ever, we have stopped being a family.”
“Well, this is a joke! In case you have not heard yet, my dear father has taken care of sending me some beautiful volumes telling me parts of his life, parts in which, by the way, the most beautiful thing that can be said about you is that you are a bitch in the non-zoological sense of the word. So do not tell me the tale that this family has always been united and has overcome the difficulties that others have created us because it is another lie. To begin with, this family would not have had to endure any kind of problem if you had closed your legs and had not dedicated yourself to shag a fucking demon behind your husband's back.”
The woman said nothing, just stared at her with an expression of infinite sadness.
“I understand that you know of me only the version that Helel had shared with you and that, to be completely honest, I don't think it's very different from reality. But have you not yet wondered how it is that you are here if Helel hates me so much?”
“I am afraid of asking, this family is a height of perversions and deviant behaviour.”
“There is much more to this family than you have known so far. Helel's books give you a partial view of our history, but I am sure that you have already realised that this family is not made of one story but of many. You have the option of believing that our lives were and are only what Helel has told you or give us the opportunity to expand your vision of this family. And if you finally give us that opportunity, I suspect it will help you understand why, after such a long time, Helel has made so many efforts to reach you.”
Becca hesitated for a moment, but finally realised that it was only fair that the woman could tell her part of the story and finally agreed.
“Thank you,” the woman said, smiling and began her story.
“I don't know what was the last thing Helel told you, but ...”
“Rome,” Becca interrupted.
“I see. Very well, then let me explain what happened after Rome.”
Re-encounter
I left Rome knowing that I had managed to outwit, not only the damn archangels, but Helel himself. Beside me were Drusila and Marcela, the two daughters of my husband that I had adopted as my own and Asur, the son I had had years before with Miguel himself in one of my movements to try to approach the new power that the archangels represented. A miscalculation that I would end up paying dearly.
Helel had cut off the snake's head, taking care of Miguel, which would undoubtedly plunge the archangels into a period of confusion that would give me enough time to escape from them and hide all of us from their eyes forever. For his part, I knew that Helel would find out sooner or later who had stolen his sword and would come after us, but possessing that object was my leverage that Helel would never harm me or those I loved.
Thus, convinced that I had covered my tracks in the best possible way, we lost ourselves in a world that was about to change radically and very conveniently for me. Rome fell as all the empires that try to ascend beyond the sun fall like Icarus and, with its fall, many other kingdoms and empires found their opportunity to shine, which increased the amount of circles of power in which to immerse ourselves. The years passed followed by the centuries and, I must admit that, at least for a while, I came to forget Helel, the archangels and all my previous life. My little Drusila and Marcela grew old and exhausted their human lives, lives that although could not qualify as happy because of the shadow of what they had to live, I managed to guarantee as safe; nobody else dared to raise a hand against them. Finally we were only Asur and me. Asur had been posing as my broth
er for many years to prevent the young face of a mother who should be of a certain age from generating unwanted suspicions and thus, as brothers, we toured the European continent from court to court. I know that at least there were a couple of occasions in which Helel was about to find us, but, perhaps by luck or perhaps by diligence, we knew how to keep moving and avoid an unfortunate encounter.
The wheels of the world turned again and, suddenly, news of the kingdom of Spain arrived. A tiny and insignificant little man had managed to discover lands in the west, beyond the waters of the Atlantic Ocean, the East Indies. The Spanish crown did not waste time in claiming its possession turning its kingdom into the greatest world power of the moment. Soon the English, Portuguese and French would follow in their attempt to take a part of the beautiful cake that were the future americas. Too tempting to keep me away for a long time. Finally in 1660 I arrived in Toledo by the hand of my new husband, the Count of Villaescusa, a short, plump and pathetic man that I got rid of in weeks. As the dowager Countess of Villaescusa, I soon found a place in the court of King Philip IV. If something I had learned during my many years of life, it was to mingle with the noble circles and it did not cost me much effort to become the center of all the parties in court. The dowager countess, supposedly French, was the new friend that everyone wanted to have, the guest that everyone wanted to welcome at home and the confidant to whom all the wives of the court wanted to tell their gossip. Becca, there is no greater power than information and of this I made sure that I was an absolute holder. Obviously I also became the object of desire of all the frustrated and bored husbands of the court, eager for a novelty that added some exoticism to their lives, which allowed me, through the proper choice of bed companions, to increase even more my influence. Asur, meanwhile, now responding to the name of Alfonse de Ballard, had been a magnificent apprentice and had become a lover of Queen Mariana's main lady in waiting´s.
Our life seemed ideal until two events made our plans derail. On the one hand, King Philip died leaving his wife Mariana as regent due to the minority of the infant Charles who was barely four years old. On the other hand, my last acquisition as a lover, Juan José, a bastard of King Philip´s without much love for the queen and with a fervent desire for relevance that would eventually consume him. My new friend immediately made me the object of the queen's hatred. Hatred that was significantly increased when his confessor and new inquisitor, a certain Nithard of Austrian origin, involved me in an alleged plot to poison her. Evidently nothing could be demonstrated, but the fact that my name was tarnished in that scandal made my circle of influence in the court was reduced to virtually nothing, forcing me to make a drastic decision.
It was the year 1678 and Asur and I embarked in the port of Cádiz towards the East Indies, more specifically to Cuba, where my late husband owned tobacco plantations. The Indies were a truly new and different world. As much as the Spaniards had tried to replicate as far as possible their way of life and customs on the island, that paradise was still attached to Mother Earth and its rules in a much more intense way, a form that had long been lost in the old continent. For me it was, in a way, a return to my roots, to my father's plantations, to his cattle farms, to a life bond to that of all the nature that surrounded us and, for a couple of years, I was happy in a way that I had never thought could happen to me. There I was not a prominent member of the court, I did not live with kings and queens, I did not have to deal with the whims of governments, and yet I was happy. I think that was the moment when I began to realise that, without planning, without even wishing, I had changed.
It was not the same for Asur, who felt that life was a kind of condemnation and constantly regretted being separated from the old continent circles of power. His attitude partly made me proud and partly scared me. I knew that his way of thinking and feeling was simply a replica of what I had been for many years and that I had instilled in him, but, at the same time, his desire for power exceeded my own and I shuddered to think what he would not be able to do for that power. In addition, Asur had developed a talent for cruelty that left me speechless and had forced me on numerous occasions to intervene when he abused his power to punish one of the Indians who worked as slaves in the plantation.
Asur was a Nephilim as Miguel's son and that, together with my immortality, had given him a particularly long life, but that was not his only advantage. My son possessed the ability to invade the minds of those around him, not to control them, but to fill them with images according to his will, making people see what he wanted, feel what he wanted and, if he so desired, suffer pain as they had never known. Unfortunately, those incidents soon caught the attention of the Jesuit community on the island. The rumours of witchcraft spread like wildfire and those fires were further inflamed when the monks received a letter from Nithard himself alerting them about the charges of witchcraft and attempted poisoning that had stained my stay in court. I had to make titanic efforts to control Asur and avoid ending, as he intended, with all the monks of the island and convince him that the smartest thing was to let time pass without attracting attention, letting the news turn on its own in little more than a gossip, until people get bored of talking about it and end up forgetting. But once again, fate had different plans.
Within two weeks an epidemic of fever attacked the island and ended up with a large part of the Indians, both slaves and free people. It was not long before several voices rose among Spanish settlers to blame us for having launched some form of curse on the island. The environment became too violent and unsafe, and I ended up considering only two options before us. We could wipe out the island and kill all our detractors as was Asur's wish or we could flee again. Since the first option would only take us to the second, our fate was evident.
I met Lord Andrew Stanley, although at that time he was not yet Lord, in the port of the city of Santiago. In an attempt to replace the workforce lost during the fever epidemic, and unable to wait for the next shipment of slaves brought on Spanish ships, the landowners of the island were forced to buy slaves from English traffickers paying for them a king’s ransom. Fortunately, that misfortune brought an opportunity for me. In a few months I had become Lord Stanley’s wife, a poor cornish fisherman who had embarked for the East Indies with the idea of making some money and had ended up being one of the largest slave suppliers in the new world. With his newly acquired fortune Stanley had bought the title and a huge plantation on the island of Jamaica, near the new capital, Kingston.
Jamaica had been a Spanish colony until 1655 when the English had managed to claim it as their own. Evidently all the Spaniards had left the island and from that moment the English had had serious difficulties in making that piece of land economically prosperous. Tobacco and coffee crops were poor compared to those in other colonies and the effort to grow them did not compensate financially. Finally, plantation owners found the solution by growing sugarcane. The demand for the new white gold in Europe was immense and the benefits considerable. Plantations grew and grew and with them grew the demand for the new currency in the entire Caribbean, human labour. Not that slavery was something new, of course, but it was about to take on a new dimension. The Spaniards had taken charge of bringing the population of native Indians, the Arawaks, almost to extinction with forced labour and the diseases brought from the old continent, so they began to import the first African slaves to cultivate their plantations. The English simply multiplied the number of slaves brought from Africa by hundreds. Slaves were the key for plantations to generate money and, for that reason, they were the most valuable good one could have. Consequently, anyone who was involved in the slave trade was likely to make a great fortune.
Obviously, Asur and I took care that Lord Stanley did not have much time to enjoy his new luck and in 1680 I arrived in Jamaica to take possession of my new plantation as Lady Stanley, a widow, although for the members of the incipient well-off class in the island I was always ‘the Spaniard’.
I didn't know it at the time, but, although I consider
ed myself the owner of my destiny, it was actually him who was taking me to where he felt I should be.
If the Spaniards had tried to replicate their customs in Cuba, but with a certain degree of flexibility, for the English that flexibility did not exist and any hint of local culture was eliminated. The new English society of the island lived cloistered in its social circles without looking around or showing any desire to recognise what they saw when they looked. For them, their life must be a replica of what could be found in court circles in London and there was no possibility that any external element could affect it. None, except me. The attraction that my figure generated with the associated exoticism of being a Spanish noblewoman on whom weighed suspicion of witchcraft had made me once again an essential element of all the society parties that took place on the island. To this also contributed the fact that it was common knowledge that I maintained relations with the other element of the island's life on which English society tried to turn its back, Port Royal.
The English had conquered Jamaica as a consolation prize given the impossibility of taking control of ‘La Española’, a much larger and richer island. Consequently, they had found that, although the conquest was simple, they did not have the means to defend it, so the British government had reached an agreement with the buccaneers and pirates in the area, allowing them to use Port Royal as a base in exchange of attacking the Spanish and Dutch ships. Thus, many pirates and buccaneers received the so-called letter of marque and, in effect, became employees of the British government, privateers. In principle it was an advantageous agreement for both parties, the privateers kept the profits from the attack on the enemy ships and the island benefited from that form of protection without investing huge amounts of money to mobilise soldiers to the island. The relationship was successful for a while, to the point that some of those privateers received land on the island and the most famous of them, Henry Morgan, became governor. But his success was precisely the cause of his downfall. A privateer who sits on the ground ceases to be a pirate and attack ships and, on the other hand, the stretched British society just arrived on the island was not prepared to accept among them willingly what they really considered as intruders.
