The Legend of Zorro

by Scott Ciencin

  “I’m sure you were cute as puppies,” Zorro mused, stealing back to the shadows to find another way into the hacienda before the sounds of the watchdogs brought unwanted company.

  Elena strolled into the dining room, Ferroq a dozen paces behind her. A tray bearing a selection of sinful desserts was perched at the far end of the long dark wood table, Armand’s gaze stealing toward them as he fingered a tiny fork. Marie was bent low behind Armand, whispering something in his ear. Annoyance flared upon his handsome face as he took in her message. Marie withdrew, wringing her hands.

  Rising, Armand held out his arms to Elena. “I’m sorry, something’s come up,” Armand told her, exasperated.

  Elena’s eyes gleamed with patience and understanding. “Take your time.”

  Armand stalked out of the room, signaling Ferroq to follow him. Casting a final sneer at Elena, the bald man spun on his heels and strode after his master.

  Elena drifted to the end of the table, making a show of examining the dessert tray, while Marie muttered something snippy about the imminent demise of Elena’s svelte form if she indulged in such treats.

  “From the lips to the hips,” Marie said as she bustled away.

  “Like your husband?” Elena asked casually. “Or are you not that fortunate?”

  Her spine suddenly ramrod straight, Marie chirped with fury and catapulted out of the room. Elena smiled. The exchange had been calculated, of course, not merely to put Marie in her place, but also to make Marie angry enough to forswear her duty to periodically check up on Elena while the men were away.

  Confident that she was on her own, Elena stole through the door and checked the hall. Keeping an even closer watch than before, Elena navigated the château’s reaches and came once more to the chapel. Withdrawing a hairpin, she expertly manipulated the lock and soon heard the telltale click as her efforts paid off. The door creaked open and Elena darted through it, diving full on into darkness.

  Her eyes adjusted quickly as she stole along a narrow hallway into a chamber that may well have once been a sanctified chapel, but no longer served that purpose. Perhaps thirty or forty pews had resided here before Armand moved in and renovated. Now they were gone, the bare floor lighter and less scuffed where they had formerly been bolted to the ground. The ceiling was low, the air thick, unmoving. A candlelit altar stood directly ahead, but it was the huge hanging tapestry covering the rear wall that immediately arrested her attention and drew her near. The insignia she had glimpsed on Armand’s ring cried out from the tapestry: an angry serpent coiled around the globe.

  She peered down at the altar now, surprised to find a glass jar perched there. Elena lifted the jar high, allowing the candlelight to pierce its murky depths, and within she spotted a severed human tongue wagging lazily at her. Tiny silk filaments sewn to the sharply cut base made it look as if the tongue were naturally thrusting out from a vile little throne fashioned from velvet.

  Shuddering with revulsion, Elena carefully set the jar back down and darted back from it. No, this was not some simple jar. The item within it clearly held significance for those who worshipped here.

  It was a religious reliquary.

  My God, Armand, thought Elena, what madness is this? What have you involved yourself in?

  The darkness—and the crushing cool air of the desecrated chapel—closed in on her.

  Zorro quickly climbed a rose trellis beside the parlor window and lightly scampered onto the roof. The hounds had settled down, no one bothering to see why they’d been barking. He squinted in the pale moonlight, quickly spotting a chimney. Shaking his head as if he knew that he was out of his mind, but wasn’t about to let that slow him any, Zorro climbed into the chimney and carefully shimmied down its length. Light reached up from below, the source a lantern somewhere in the room beyond the chimney, the fireplace beneath his heels thankfully unlit. As he came within a few feet of the piled up kindling, he withdrew a small mirror, lowered it and angled it into the periphery of the open fireplace façade. Satisfied that this room was unoccupied, he slipped the rest of the way down the chimney and out of the fireplace in a single sleek bound.

  The room appeared to be a study. Zorro spotted a roll front desk and rifled through it quickly and expertly, leaving no trace that he had been here. He also found no trace of anything that would suggest what Armand was truly planning. He looked behind paintings, along bookshelves, and even checked the floor for signs of a crawlspace or other niches where evidence might be hidden.

  Sighing with frustration, he caught sight of himself in a silver gilt mirror hanging across the room. Soot circled around his nose and cheeks. Drawing near, spitting on his hand and cleaning himself off, he noticed that the mirror hung slightly askew. In fact, it was hinged outward, like a small door. Drawing closer, Zorro lightly pressed on the mirror’s cool edge, smiling as it sprang open at his touch.

  Behind the mirror lay a map of America. The trajectory of the country’s rail lines had been traced over in red ink, along with a new path of train track rocketing from California’s central line directly to Armand’s property.

  “He’s building a track to the vineyard,” whispered Zorro.

  Footsteps rang from the hall, accompanied by a burst of angry muttering in a low throaty voice that Zorro knew all too well. Gliding the mirror back into place, Zorro raced across the room and scrambled up the chimney just as the door swung open. Using his mirror, Zorro saw Armand burst into the room with McGivens, the faithful Ferroq trailing behind them.

  Good, thought Zorro. Now I won’t have to go looking for you.

  Within the study, Armand glared at the gunman. “I presume you have the deed, since you’ve deemed it necessary to interrupt my dinner.”

  McGivens drew Cortez’s deed from his frock coat and slapped it on the table. “Right here. But we had a fly in the ointment—or should I say, a fox…Zorro.”

  In the dim reaches of his hiding place, his mask weighing heavily upon him, though it was little more than a strip of silk, Alejandro shuddered and squeezed his eyes shut. He prayed for courage and strength, fighting the overwhelming desire to burst in on these men and mete out justice here and now. A good man was dead because of them, and God only knew how many others would follow if they were not stopped.

  But…

  This is not about the wants and desires of Alejandro de la Vega. He first donned the mask of Zorro to gain vengeance for his slain brother. Now he is the keeper of the legend, a symbol of justice. Will he let his selfish desires get in the way of the greater good?

  Don Diego’s words from long ago.

  Alejandro nodded in the near darkness. He was following a trail of clues. Until he knew the full nature of the conspiracy before him and how many others were involved, he dared not act—unless he was given no other choice.

  In the small room, Armand fixed his visitor with a frigid stare. He shrugged. “I’ve heard the name among the locals,” admitted Armand.

  McGivens nodded gravely. “He’s a peasant masquerading as a folk hero.”

  “Men like that usually find their way to the guillotine.” Armand’s face flushed with happiness at the delightful thought.

  McGivens ground his wooden teeth. “It’d be my pleasure.”

  “Your vendetta can wait,” commanded Armand. “I’ve been informed one of my shipping vessels is arriving tomorrow. It’ll anchor off Maderas Cove. The cargo must be brought here safely.”

  Armand snatched a pack of matches from his desk and struck one, the small flame lighting the recesses of his dark hollow eyes. “I want no mistakes.”

  Zorro tensed as the lit match flickered into the fireplace, the kindling beneath him igniting with a furious roar and a great surging plume of flames.

  Elena desperately wanted to flee from Armand’s private “chapel” the moment she glimpsed the horrible thing resting upon its altar, but a sense that there was more to be discovered here nagged at her. She felt the walls for hidden niches or panels that might lead to clandestine
passageways, stopping suddenly as a strange clicking echoed behind her. Were those footsteps? Was she about to be discovered? Elena searched for a hiding place, but only the altar afforded some small protection from prying eyes.

  Quelling her fear, she focused on the sound. It was rhythmic, relentless, machinelike. Not footsteps at all. What was that sound?

  Listening for a moment longer, Elena pinpointed the source of the odd sound. She pulled aside the lower edge of the wall hanging, revealing a small machine similar to one she had seen before, at the post office: a telegraph receiver.

  A message was being spit out. Elena bent low and read the text. “ ‘Received word of successful explosive test. Stop. Will arrive tomorrow for final meeting. Stop. Orbis Unum.’ ” Elena looked up gravely. “ ‘Stop.’ ”

  Alejandro had not been seeing things the other night after all when he spoke of a white hot burst leaving a crater ringed by fire in the woods—and all his worst fears about Armand had proved reasonable beyond measure.

  Looking about quickly to be sure no one was coming, Elena removed a compact mirror from her pocket. Opening it, she slid back the makeup tray to reveal a palette of black graphite powder underneath. Producing a handkerchief, she tapped some of the carbon powder onto its silk surface, carefully placed the teletype ribbon on top of the fabric, and etched the message onto the handkerchief’s surface.

  Zorro climbed slightly higher within the chimney, the cloying smoke billowing from the crackling flames thickening about him, the walls flaring hot as a furnace. Red-faced, he struggled to keep himself from coughing as he spotted a grate that opened beneath his frantic urging and pressed himself near it, drawing clean fresh air from the room beyond. Through the grate’s heavy slats, he peered into the study to see Armand pacing angrily, McGivens and Ferroq observing him closely.

  “Now that we have the ranch, will the track be completed on time?” asked Armand, exchanging glances with Ferroq.

  “It’ll take my boys two days to cover the quarter mile,” McGivens assured him.

  Armand glowered at the scarred man. “I’ll hold you to that, Mr. McGivens. Or you get nothing.”

  McGivens flinched, his gaze narrowing as he advanced on Armand with a low, menacing growl. “Get this straight, you backwards-ass frog: you hedge on my payment, you won’t even see me coming.”

  Moving with blinding speed, Armand seized the scruff of McGivens’s hair and slammed his face down hard on the table. The count’s free hand jammed into his own coat and whipped free clutching a dagger bearing the insignia of a serpent coiling around the globe on its hilt. Light gleamed along its hungry edge.

  Armand’s soulless smile was terrifying as he bent low and stared into his victim’s eyes. “This dagger, Mr. McGivens—Jake—has been in my family for generations.” Armand forced McGivens’s tongue from his mouth and traced the blade along its trembling pink ridge. “If you ever speak to me like that again, I’ll cut out your tongue and feed it to my dogs,” promised Armand. “Understood?”

  Armand released McGivens. The wide-eyed gunman recoiled, clamping his hand to his mouth, stunned by the force of Armand’s grip.

  “Your men have two days, Mr. McGivens,” pledged Armand, “then the future begins.” Armand turned to Ferroq and passed along the deed. “Put this in the safe, would you, Ferroq?”

  Nodding, Ferroq left the room.

  A safe, eh? thought Zorro. Now that I would like to see. Besides, it’s getting a bit too hot in here for one with my delicate constitution.

  Grinning, Zorro climbed high to freedom.

  Within the strange chapel, Elena finished etching the message. Footsteps rang out from the corridor and she whirled, drawing a breath and holding it until the hurried footfalls passed by. Realizing that her luck could not hold out much longer, Elena pocketed the compact and handkerchief, then quickly pulled the hanging back over the telegraph. She went to the door, listened until she was certain the hallway was clear, and stole away from the chapel.

  She had barely edged along a dozen yards before the echoing sound of heavy footfalls returned. The reflection of a dark-suited figure took shape in a mirror facing the nearest adjacent corridor.

  Ferroq.

  Elena drew open the closest window and scrambled onto the ledge outside, the cool night winds bracing her. Clutching a rose trellis writhing up beside the window, she held on and remained stock-still as she heard Ferroq halt curiously before the open window.

  Don’t look out, she urged. Damn you, damn every bit of you, don’t look out!

  The window moaned as it slid shut.

  Elena exhaled a sigh of relief—and tensed again quickly, realizing she would have to find another way back inside.

  She traced the ledge, heading in what she hoped was the direction from which she had come. The amount of time she had spent away from the dining room had been considerable, and she had no idea what excuse she would give for her absence if she were caught out.

  A balcony soon beckoned, just as Elena thought she heard the scrambling of a rat high above. Her lips curled in disgust at the image of such vermin leaping out and tangling in her hair, a nightmare she’d had many times as a child. Cursing inwardly, Elena vaulted to the balcony—just as a figure wrapped in a billowing black cape whipped down from the roof and landed beside her.

  A pair of startled eyes peered at her from behind the mask of Zorro and Elena shook her head, almost laughing with her mixture of relief and vexation. She’d found her rat—and he looked a great deal like her ex-husband.

  “Alejandro!” she shrieked. “For God’s sake, why can’t you leave me alone?”

  He sprang toward her, his hands gently grasping her arms. “Elena, I was right! Armand’s not who you think he is!”

  Elena rolled her eyes and pulled away from him. The man was forever underestimating her. “You have no idea who I think he is!”

  “Well I think I know who you think he is!” snapped Alejandro.

  Elena flicked her finger against her husband’s thick skull. “No you don’t, because you don’t think. Now get out of here before someone sees you!”

  Quaking with rage, Alejandro seized her wrist. Shaking her sharply, he snarled, “Listen to me.”

  Elena drew back, Alejandro releasing her at once. Yet a rare and sudden darkness had come into Alejandro’s eyes, and that was even more startling than his hands upon her.

  “Guillermo Cortez is dead,” hissed Alejandro, “shot down like an animal. I couldn’t stop it.”

  Elena’s breath caught in her throat. “Blanca?” asked Elena, wringing her hands with worry. “The boy?”

  Alejandro assured her that they were all right. He had met with his fellow dons and arranged protection for both of them, armed rancheros and vaqueros quickly rallying to the cause. Elena drew a breath and nodded. Guillermo had been a good man, a kind man. His wife was now a widow, his son fatherless.

  Cortez’s fate was exactly the one Elena feared Alejandro would one day suffer. She could feel her ex-husband’s grief, his need for comfort, assurance…she shook her head. It was too much.

  “Armand needed his land to build a railroad!” roared the wild-eyed Alejandro. “He’s planning something!”

  Elena raised her chin, her interest piqued. “How do you know this?”

  “Oh no, no,” Alejandro chided. “I won’t tell you what I know ’til you tell me what you know. ’Cause if you wanna know what I know, I need to know why the hell you’re living in sin with an evil count!”

  Before Elena could say anything, a distant rustling caught her attention. Armand was returning. She shot her former husband a panicked look—Alejandro merely grinned, then burst into motion.

  “Elena?” called the count from the hallway.

  By the time he arrived, all there was for him to see was Elena standing alone on the balcony, her back to him.

  “There you are,” said Armand, his smile beaming, his arms open to embrace her.

  She turned, the smoking pipe gripped in her
smooth hand.

  “Forgive me, darling,” she said huskily, “I felt the sudden urge to step out for a puff.” She inhaled—and felt a dragon’s fiery breath sting her lungs. Her heart seared her chest and a battery of rusty nails slid down her throat. Eyes bulging, she loosed a hacking cough.

  Armand raced to her side, clutching her arm, his eyes transfixed with horror. “Elena, are you alright?”

  “Fine,” she assured him with a choking gasp as she forced a quick smile and slipped from his grasp.

  His breath quickening, he pressed close and studied her face. “Dear God, you’re turning green!”

  “Your presence…” she croaked, her free hand stealing into her pocket and clawing loose her handkerchief, “takes my breath away.”

  Elena whipped the handkerchief high, the flapping fabric causing Armand to retreat a few steps as she dabbed at her tearing eyes. As her blurred vision cleared, the message etched on the cloth came into focus. Luckily, it faced away from Armand. Tossing her long, lustrous hair to distract her paramour, Elena jammed the handkerchief back in her pocket and chanced another drag on the pipe. This time she was careful not to inhale.

  Armand smiled. “I have a little something for you.”

  His gloved hands darted to his coat and retrieved a rectangular mahogany box. His dark eyes revealing a surprising vulnerability, he gazed at her as his nimble fingers cracked open the box’s lid.

  Elena gasped. A stunning pearl necklace glittered and gleamed from within the box’s red velvet confines.

  “A customary Spanish offering…’’ Armand said, his voice thick with desire. “When a man asks a woman…for her hand in marriage.” He took a trembling breath, then squared his shoulders as he began to gracefully lower himself before her. “Let me do this properly, on one knee, so I can look up into your eyes—”

  “No, no!” cried Elena shrilly in mid-inhale. “Don’t look up!”