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The bells tolled to ten in Campeche, but the loud ringing drowned in the storm hitting the shores of Yucatan. The streets were empty in that hideous night. The howl of the wind, the clattering of the rain and the blare of thunder had taken the city over.
Diego Castillano dismissed the servants for the day and walked down the hall to the bedrooms. He opened a door noiselessly and looked in. Despite the storm, Hernan was sound asleep, the fortunate deep sleep only children enjoy. He closed the door and went back to the main hall of the house. There he locked the front door, and the door to the kitchen and the servants’ quarters. At the library, he closed the door behind him and killed all the lights but one. Then he took two pistols from the mantelpiece.
He stood by the window opening to the garden. It was so dark that not even lightning allowed him to see the three thugs he’d hired that morning in the market. But he knew they were out there, trying to take some shelter from the storm. He didn’t trust them, just like he didn’t trust the pistols in his sash. But he counted on the thugs to be loud enough to give him a chance.
He lingered there, his eyes moving over the rustling shadows, and cursed yet again that unexpected string of late storms keeping him in town. He’d intended to be many thousand miles away from Campeche by then.
A sigh escaped his lips.
Twenty years.
That night it’d be twenty years from the 1640 riot in his hometown of Los Encinos, in Andalusia.
He could still feel it all over. The sweat running under his clothes and the hot barrel of the harquebus in his hands. The fear twisting his guts. The shouting, the shooting, the heat from the fire. The smell of gunpowder and blood. And amidst all that madness, the one thing that had remained carved in his memory: the child covered in blood, standing by the bodies of his father and brothers, shaking from head to toes, eyes wide open fixed on him.
A boy the same age as his son Hernan.
Manuel Velazquez. Who until that night had been his friend and protégée, the younger brother he’d never had.
Diego Castillano knew he would go. He wouldn’t let such a date pass by without paying him a visit. And he’d try to kill him. Again. Like he’d tried a dozen other times already over the last ten years.
Was it fate? Was it God’s will?
It didn’t matter what he did, it looked like he couldn’t leave that old tragedy behind. Couldn’t leave him behind.
After the riot, the painful memories had pushed Diego Castillano away from his home. And God had led him to Cadiz, where he’d gotten a job at one of the many shipyards. While working as a carpenter apprentice, he’d managed to learn to read and write, and that had allowed him to get a post as an accountant aid in the shipyard. That had been the beginning of a prosper career.
Diego Castillano was happy in Cadiz. Fortune smiled down on him. He had wedded Isabel and improved his position. Hernan was born.
But exactly ten years after the riot, he had stopped at the church to light a candle and pray for those who had died on that fateful night. Especially his friends Jines and Antonio Velazquez.
A young beggar had approached him when he’d walked out of the church, a dirty hand stretched out to him for a coin. Diego Castillano had paused to grab his purse and had caught a glimpse of steel under the beggar’s tattered rags. He’d managed to step back and cry for help, but not before a knife scratched his throat.
As he fell on the sidewalk, Diego Castillano had met the beggar’s burning dark eyes, glowering down at him full of hate. And he’d recognized Manuel Velazquez. Some passers-by had run to his help and that had saved him.
“I’ll kill you, traitor,” Manuel had whispered before running away.
Memories tormented him again, fed by the hate in the eyes of the one he’d loved like a brother. The child that had loved him too, who had admired him and trusted him. Haunted by the fear of coming across him again, Diego Castillano had accepted a promotion that would take him to a prominent position in New Spain, where the company wanted him to open a small shipyard to take care of their merchantmen across the ocean.
With his forehead against the cold glass of the window, standing in the shadowy library, Diego Castillano smiled, recalling Hernan’s joy when they’d boarded the ship to sail the big sea. He’d even taken his first steps onboard that ship.
Isabel wasn’t as happy as their son, but at least she’d been able to smile in the morning they’d set sail to the west. It wouldn’t be forever, her husband had promised. They’d come back to Cadiz when Hernan turned ten, to sign him on at the Military Academy just like she wanted.
The weather of the New World hadn’t suited Isabel’s health, but they’d enjoyed living in Campeche. Hernan was growing strong and smart, the shipyard was working fine and the community had welcomed them with affection.
Once more, for a few years, Diego Castillano had been happy.
Until a new corsair came to ravage the Caribbean, sowing fear and confusion on his wake. He had a French letter of marque and people called him the Ghost, because he would show up or vanish when everybody least expected it, and it was impossible to catch him. His ship Phantom soon became a nightmare for all the Spanish captains sailing the Caribbean.
Many things were said about the Ghost, but nobody knew even his name. They said he was bold and strong, that he fought like a demon of war and the devil blew in his sails. They said nobody that had faced up to him had lived to tell the tale, but he would never harm those who surrendered to him. They said he was always clad in black and the sketches portrayed him as a handsome young man with dark hair and dark eyes. Men feared him and women whispered about him behind their fans.
Diego Castillano didn’t care about sailors’ superstitious stories and women’s gossip. But that Ghost was affecting business. Like the day somebody said the Phantom had been sighted lurking around Campeche. The works at the harbor halted shortly after noon and nobody lingered anywhere near the docks, fearing the dreadful pirate would attack.
That night, oblivious to the fear that kept the city paralyzed, Diego Castillano stayed working in his library after his family and the servants went to bed.
He was so focused on his work that he didn’t hear the garden door opening to let an intruder in. Until the intruder sneaked into the library, making Diego Castillano jolt up in his seat.
He stepped into the glow of the candles on the desk and Diego Castillano was so baffled he even forgot his fear for a moment. Because the man standing before him, hard to believe as it seemed, was no other than Manuel Velazquez.
And Manuel Velazquez smiled at him, the flames of the candles burning in his coal-black eyes. He greeted Diego Castillano with a smile, and he called him by his given name, like back when they were children.
Then understanding hit Diego Castillano like lightning.
Unpredictable, a handsome young man clad entirely in black.
“You! You are the Ghost!?”
“People pick such silly names,” Manuel replied, almost amused.
He rested the tip of his sword against Diego Castillano’s chest and ripped the fine linen shirt, scratching his skin only enough to draw blood.
Diego Castillano froze in his seat, unable to look away from him.
“I only wanted to make sure it was you,” Manuel said, calm and poised. “And let you know it’s me. I’ll kill you the next time we meet, and my family will finally rest in peace.”
He took two steps back and vanished in the shadows of the library, while Diego Castillano gasped and panted, the air like fire in his lungs.
Once again his life was turned upside down. He decided they’d go back to Spain on the next ship, but Isabel’s health wouldn’t allow it. The tropical fevers had weakened her, and her doctor said the long journey would most likely kill her.
So they were forced to stay in Campeche. Diego Castillano got used to carry a pistol and a misericorde dagger in his sash, and kept a loaded pistol in every room of the house, save Hernan’s. He purchased two panoplies of swords to hang in the main hall and learned the basics of fencing. He warned the garrison commander that he was under death threat and his house was added to the round of the night patrols.
But nothing worked.
At least twice a year, in the eve of the riot’s anniversary and at some random date, Manuel Velazquez, the Ghost, slipped past the harbor garrison and the street patrols, locks and bolts, blades and guns. Nothing could stop him. A sudden gust would make the flames flicker and he was there. With his clothes as black as his eyes, a crooked smirk on his face and his steel as thirty for blood as his heart.
It didn’t matter where Diego Castillano was. He tried to draw the danger away from his family, and scheduled as many business trips as he could. It was just the same, whether it was Campeche, Havana, Veracruz, Santo Domingo, San Juan. Wherever he was, Manuel would find him.
However, something happened every time and Manuel was forced to flee before finishing his task—him. An unaware waiter bringing a late tea that would cry awake the whole inn, a sleepless ostler storming in out of the blue, a patrol knocking on the door. Even a bullet, which Diego Castillano’s shaky hand aimed to his heart and ended up wounding his side.
Somehow, Diego Castillano always made it through. Only to face more fear and nightmares. Until his wife’s health crumbled and she wasn’t able to leave her bed anymore. Six months before Hernan turned ten, the fevers finally overcame Isabel.
Alone in the library, waiting for the one who wanted to kill him, Diego Castillano grimaced in grief.
His wife’s passing made him resume the preparations to go back to Spain in a hurry. Isabel’s family would take him and Hernan in, until he reopened their house in Cadiz and Hernan started at the Academy. Everything was set. Hernan counted the days. And so did Diego Castillano.
But that year, the storms season refused to let go of the Caribbean Sea, unleashing gales and squalls every other day and forcing everybody to delay their trips, because no captain would dare such heavy seas.
A loud thunder made Diego Castillano shiver like the glass of the window he stood by. And when the noise died away, he heard a shuffle that sent chills down his spine. Footsteps. Across the main hall and toward the bedrooms wing. Ignoring his drumming heart, he drew the pistols and headed out.
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