Forever Young The Beginning (64 page)

“
A friend of ours has been
locked up for no real reason in Spain. We’re leaving tomorrow
because of that.”

“
Can you help
him?”

“
I’m getting an idea.” He
fastened his icy gaze on the two of them, allowing his eyes to glow
briefly and said “The one responsible for this had best enjoy
himself while he can.”

Celeste shivered inwardly. Even though
she loved Ian and knew the depth of his love toward her, she still
was struck at times like this. His eyes took on an icy coldness
when he was focused on something unpleasant, and it was unnerving
even to her.

“
Can the matter be settled
in court?”

“
Yes, but it could take
months or even a year or two. What I have in mind will only take
one night.”

Departing from Paris, Ian and Alandra
had stopped at a nondescript shop and bought a black pair of
trousers and a black long sleeved shirt. They made another stop to
buy a small quantity of black cloth and some heavy black lace of
the type used for funeral veils at the same shop where he had
bought it before.

Ian did a bit of sewing during the
afternoon while they were traveling. In ten days they were at the
Gulf of Lion on the Mediterranean, and took a packet ship from
Port-Bou to Barcelona.

Six days later a sealed package
arrived via a Banque de Lafayette courier. In it Henri had included
everything that his people could find on Enrique Chavez, chief
prosecutor for the Spanish crown. Included were the locations of
his two homes and the location of his brother. He sent a return
message to inform Henri that he had arrived and was going to handle
the matter quietly.

That very evening as he packed his
rucksack he said “I have to go to Madrid, and you can’t come with
me.”

“
I know. You can get there a
lot faster on foot. Go, Ian. Roberto is a fine man and has seen
enough grief. Just come back to me as soon as this is
over.”

They walked arm in arm to their
veranda and Ian pulled her to him gently saying “Chavez will know
the meaning of fear when I’m through with him. He’s about to find
out that not everyone is afraid of him.” Kissing her then he held
her close for a minute. “Good bye, love.” She watched him pick up
his ruck sack and an extra-long empty bag and trot off towards the
darkened hills as night fell.

Soon he was at the home of Ernesto
Chavez, brother of Enrique, the chief prosecutor, and in minutes he
was inside. Gliding to a large room he slipped over to a large
portrait above the fireplace and at vampire speed cut it from its
frame, leaving the frame hanging in its place. He rolled it up and
stuffed it in the long bag he had brought and departed
noiselessly.

The next day he stopped in Guadalajara
and visited a ranch owned by Chavez. It was an hour before dark so
he just waited awhile, idly observing the place from a forested
hilltop nearby. He counted four dogs, likely Alsatians or Great
Pyrenees breed he thought. At dusk he slipped into the area and
soon the dogs came to investigate. He caught them one at a time and
slipped their collars off, not harming them. They squirmed and
snapped at him to no avail as he held them easily while taking each
one’s collar. Then he bounded away to sit awhile until the noise
died down. In an hour he approached again and tossed a bloodied
rabbit’s body near for them to fight over.

Rocketing to a place beside the house
he leaped to land silently atop the roof and was quickly inside at
this point gliding noiselessly through the house. Finding a large
portrait hanging on a wall over a large fireplace, he quickly
produced a knife and cut the thing from its frame, leaving the
empty frame hanging, as he had done in the home of Ernesto Chavez.
As before he rolled it up and stuffed it in the long bag and soon
was rocketing through the darkness toward Madrid.

He arrived there around ten o’clock
that night and went directly to the palace. Soon he had found a
place to leap astride the privacy wall surrounding the site of the
palace of the King himself. It was a formal stone six-story affair
with numerous large windows everywhere and several on each of its
four sides had balconies. From the wall he bounded down and up
nearly as one movement to become a shadowy spider crawling along
the walls of the palace, seeking entry.

After several minutes, he seemed to
melt through a darkened window on the third level. He glided
through the hallways and avoided guards at all times. If he wanted
to investigate a room, he would quickly exit the area through a
window and crawl along the outer walls to that place and just enter
there. He eventually found the bedroom of the king himself and
glided into it from a window in an adjacent sitting room, a part of
the personal quarters of the King. It was unoccupied. He found a
portrait there of a lady that he quickly stole leaving its picture
frame behind. In only a half hour he had silently stolen yet
another larger one from the Throne Room itself and had also tucked
it into the long bag.

In less than two minutes he was clear
of the palace and rocketing toward the neighborhood where Enrique
Chavez lived. It was yet an hour until midnight when he seemed to
melt through a third floor window of the large sumptuous stone home
of Enrique Chavez. He ignored the third floor being as it was
likely servant’s quarters. Gliding stealthily down the steps to the
second floor and through the silent hallways he silently tried each
door, hoping that a guard dog wasn’t sleeping in the
house

He found a room where a young woman
slept. Ian thought that she might be a daughter or niece. He
silently took a tortoise shell hairbrush and a finely crafted
mirror from the room and glided back to the deserted hallway to try
another door. There were four more bedrooms. Two were empty.
Entering the third one he found a middle aged lady asleep there and
took her to be Chavez’s wife. He stole her hairbrush and mirror as
well. Silently he glided out and down the hallway to finally arrive
at the last bedroom. It was a very large room with a desk and chair
at one end and the usual bedroom items elsewhere. Stealthily he
entered and glided to the large bed. A middle aged man slept there.
Like lightning striking Ian gagged him and threw him over his
shoulder and leaped to the farthest wall of the room. Producing
some sturdy cords he bound him with his hands over his head to a
large wrought iron candelabra mounted in the wall. He lighted it
and it gave off enough light for the terrified man to see the
hooded black-clad apparition who had done this to him.

Speaking only in a whisper Ian said
“Good evening, Enrique.”

The man’s eyes were wide with fear.
Sweat had beaded his brow and he trembled a bit.

“
You’re in trouble this
night. We’ve learned that you have jailed Roberto Rodriguez and his
wife Alicia.” Opening the long bag Ian drew out the stolen items
holding up the hair brushes and mirrors first.

“
Do you recognize
these?”

The terrified man nodded
rapidly.

Ian took the four dog collars out and
dangled them in front of the man whose eyes widened in recognition.
He nodded without being asked about them. He then took a portrait
that he had stolen from the man’s brother’s home in Barcelona. He
unrolled it and held it up for the man to see. “Do you recognize
this?” he whispered. The man nodded, sweat now dripping from his
face and running down his neck. Ian laid the item aside, and took
the portrait from the throne room and unrolled it. He had to step
back to display it because it was a life size portrait of the King.
The effect was electrifying. The man began to tremble violently and
the sweat poured from his face.

“
Here’s another one I took
this very night also. It’s from the King’s chambers.” he whispered.
Here he unrolled the smaller portrait of a woman.

Ian rolled up the King’s portrait and
the one taken from the king’s bedroom and stuffed them back into
his long bag. He set that aside with his rucksack and bounded in a
flash to the far side of the room where there stood two large
ornate candelabras. Each was the height of a man and made of thick
wrought iron. Ian picked up one effortlessly and as he carried it
toward the man, he twirled it in one hand like it was only a
broomstick instead of a three hundred pound piece of iron. He
stopped in front of the man and raising it easily to shoulder
height with one hand, he twirled it and suddenly grabbed it with
his other hand as well. Shifting his grip until his hands were
about four feet apart he then silently began to bend it. It creaked
as Ian bent it until it was in the shape of a horse shoe, and then
he sat it on the floor in front of the man who by now was shaking
violently.

Whispering again, Ian said “Here’s
what’s going to happen now, senor. You’re going to that desk over
there and you’re going to write out a complete exoneration for
Roberto and Alicia Rodriguez. This will include an official apology
and a personal one as well. You’re going to write in that pardon
that you’re paying them triple the damages done to their properties
and that will be determined solely by the figure that Senor
Rodriguez submits to your office. You’re going to write a duplicate
of that exoneration as well.” Ian paused for effect as the man
nodded his understanding.

“
You’re going to take that
exoneration to the prison where Senor Rodriguez is now and you are
releasing him. He’ll be given a clean change of clothing and his
own personal horse saddled and ready to go. He’ll be given this
exoneration to keep, and money to travel comfortably. You’re
dispatching the crown courier with the copy of this same pardon to
Almeria where Senora Rodriguez is in jail, and she’ll also be
released. That will happen within four days from now at the latest.
You’ll never again so much as speak to either of them unless it is
to return a greeting. If you don’t agree to do this now, I will gut
you and tie you by your entrails to that chandelier overhead. Do
you understand all of this?”

The man nodded emphatically, bobbing
his head violently up and down. Ian released him but left the gag
in place. He led him to the desk and stood silently over him as he
wrote the two identical documents.

Ian whispered “Now seal one of them.”
The official seal of his ring was then applied to soft wax dropped
on one of the documents. “Now write the address of the jail in
Almeria where Senora Rodriguez is being held. Then fold and seal
that around the exoneration. That one is for the royal
courier.”

When he had finished, Ian raised the
man from his seat and placing his hand around the man’s throat he
picked him up as if he was nothing and carried him that way back to
the candelabra where he secured him again. The man gagged and
kicked to no avail.

Pulling down the man’s pajama bottoms
Ian took his knife and slipped it gently under the man’s genitals,
raising them up slightly with the edge of it and said “This is a
token between you and me. When you look upon what’s left of it
you’ll remember this night and vow never to do anything to cause my
return. Your cruelty and the injustices you’ve done in the name of
the king are at an end. The stink of you and your foul deeds has
filled my nostrils for the last time.” He then reached down to take
the man’s genitals in a gloved hand and the man twisted violently
and shook his head from side to side uttering muffled screams. Ian
stopped and then whispered “Very well, I’ll take another token of
our agreement.”

Pulling up Enrique’s pajamas, he took
the left hand of the man and neatly severed the last joint of his
little finger in a split second. The man made a muffled scream and
eventually it subsided into muffled sobs. He urinated all over
himself. Ian took a large candle and held it under the cut finger,
cauterizing it until it stopped bleeding. A searing frying noise
was soon drowned out by the muffled screams of the man. He
struggled in vain to pull his hand away from the flame but it
seemed that his hand was locked in a steel vise.

Ian whispered “I’ll be
watching to see that you honor our agreement beginning tonight with
the release of Senor Rodriguez within the hour. If I ever so much
as learn that even the lowest campesino in Spain has been maligned
by you I
will
return and finish what I started. The paintings that I took
from the palace this night will be kept in a safe place where my
friends can find them. They could one day be found somewhere on one
of your properties by agents of the crown. Wouldn’t that be
interesting? There’s no place that you can hide from us. Sometimes
a small band of us attends to things like this, but for a pimp like
you, typically only one of us is sent. God has smiled on you this
night. Don’t make me regret my generosity, senor.”

Ian then shouldered his long bag and
his rucksack. Cutting the man’s bonds as fast as lightning striking
he whirled and bounded to the center of the large bedroom and
leaped head first, diving through the window as if he was flying
out of it into the blackness of the night. Doing a somersault in
the air he landed running, bounding up and over the outer wall like
windblown smoke. Finding a large tree across the street he leaped
into it to watch and wait.

Within only seven or eight minutes,
the man emerged from his house with a servant who followed the
prosecutor to the carriage house where both of them harnessed the
horse to the prosecutor’s personal carriage. Soon Ian was following
the carriage through the dark streets of Madrid until they arrived
at the Royal Prison. There were shouted commands and soon men were
running around inside the courtyard of the prison as viewed by
sharp vampire’s eyes from the roof of a turret at one corner of the
fortress-like structure. It was a quarter of an hour later that a
man emerged with an escort of four guards and the chief
prosecutor.