HORROR THRILLERS-A Box Set of Horror Novels (6 page)

They, at least in
the beginning, the new people in these new worlds, loved him.

Everyone always
loved him.

CHAPTER 8

THE TIME OF
WAITING

It had been months
and the Spaniards hadn’t made a move toward leaving the island.
The great ships stood fast with lowered masts, rocking gently in the
bay.

Angelique was dirty,
her hair knotted with tangles her finger brushing could not undo, and
she was mad as hell.

She had sneaked down
the mountain a few times during those months, watching the
interaction of the intruders and the natives. From hiding, even at a
distance, she could see things were not going well. The people were
sullen, hunchbacked with barely suppressed fury. The invaders wore
cloth breeches and carried weapons, some of which Angelique had never
seen before. She could not imagine what they did, these strange
pieces made of both wood and iron, half as tall as the men who
carried them. Later, on another foray down from the mountain, she
discovered how the weapons were used and it astounded her. A fire
came out the end of the long barrel, a small, acrid smoke wafted from
it, and the man it had been pointed at fell dead instantly, a great
hole in his chest, running blood. These people owned such a
tremendous advantage with these weapons that she imagined they could
have easily disseminated Caesar's troops in an afternoon.
Astonishing!

The invaders were
often bearded and they were all light skinned in stark contrast to
the dark natives. It was day and night passing by one another, a
strange parade of peoples. Glancing down at her arms she realized
her own skin color was closer to that of the invaders than to the
people. It’s just possible she might pass as one of them, if
circumstances dictated. “I am one of you!” she could
cry. “I was left here with these primitives when I was a baby.
My skin is white like yours and only a little darker because of the
sun, my lords.”

But that wouldn’t
work, she knew, even if she convinced them of her skin color. The
people would betray her and tell them she was their queen, their
small, beloved queen, and then the strangers would kill her. Or take
her captive, which would be worse. Yes, she could thwart the stupid
natives when they tried to do away with her, but if standing right
before one of these white men, holding the long weapon that spewed
fire, she would be hard put to escape their clutches. Especially if
one of them decided to dispatch her on the spot. She could move fast,
sometimes faster than the human eye could detect, but she did not
want to bet her life she could move fast enough to evade the
death-dealing weapon.

She simply had to
wait for them to get ready to leave.

She watched quietly,
trying to find out what she could of the invaders. They looked cruel
to her the way they swatted aside natives who might be in their path.
Natives were knocked straight to the ground without the abuser
taking any notice at all. The invaders were cruel in the way they
yelled and scowled ferociously at the people, the way they grabbed
things from the ones they had made servants, who were only trying to
appease them.

She had seen
invasions before, armies tramping into Rome, into Alexandria, and
they were all the same. There was never remorse or compassion shown
the subjugated. In the end most of the people who had been dominated
ended up either dead or enslaved. Her long ago Egyptian queen,
Cleopatra, had finally taken her own life rather than submit to
domination. She knew too well what to expect of this present
invasion. It is why she had had to flee. Why she remained hidden.

She both reviled and
loved the invaders. Reviled, because they were destroying what had
been her kingdom for two centuries. Loved, because they were her one
chance to leave the island for the wider world. In the end she cared
little for either group, invader or native. She cared for herself
above all, something that most humans did not have the wherewithal to
do.

Later in her spy
missions to see what was happening, she discovered the invaders were
building a modern city close to the sea. This excited her for she
had not seen a proper building in hundreds of years. They mixed sand
and clay and crushed shells from the sea, fashioning bricks that were
fired in clay ovens. Already they had made a church, something she
recognized. This kind of edifice made her draw back her lips from
her teeth. She despised places of worship. The God who had thrown
her into darkness wasn’t a being she would ever worship again.

The church had
windows, with shutters that could be closed against high wind or
rain. A great wooden door opened into what clearly was an
antechamber leading into the church proper.

They used the
natives as a work force, whipping them whenever they refused or did
not work hard enough. She saw a man, dressed better than the others,
who walked with his back so straight he seemed to be made of some
substance other than mere flesh. He was their commander. She
memorized his face, but knew she didn’t have to. He would
always be dressed like a king and the ramrod way of comporting
himself would always belong only to him. In his walk he said I am
your commander. I am in charge here.

On another spy
visit, months later, she found the city almost complete and knew the
commander ruled it. She witnessed brutal beatings and rapings of her
people and horrible murders that were carried out without
provocation.

Then as she watched
one native being cut to ribbons by a long shiny sword of one of the
soldiers, she saw a man wearing a long gown of rough, brown cloth
come into the street and scream at the soldier. She did not know
this language, but she understood from the scene, the soldier hanging
his head low and not meeting the other man’s eyes, that the man
in the gown controlled some sort of power to stop the violence in its
tracks. At their feet lay the murdered native, one arm sliced
completely from his body, other mortal wounds spurting gouts of blood
from his still body into the dust of the pathway.

The soldier skulked
off, chastened. The gowned man stood over the dead man in the dirt
and made gestures over his chest and mumbled what Angelique knew must
be prayers. Then he was their religious man, like her island’s
own witch doctors had been before she outlawed them. This religious
man obviously enjoyed much more authority than any witch doctor. He
had cowed the soldier, berating him for the violent murder of the
innocent.

She might be able to
sneak into the city and gain this person’s trust and goodwill,
get him to take her under his protection. The glimmer of a plan
formed in her mind like a tiny sun lighting up a dark landscape.

She watched longer,
while the religious man called for other soldiers to take the body
and, presumably, bury it. She watched his face closely, saw the
revulsion there as the bloody body was lifted and the separated arm
gathered from where it lay like a torn talisman of death. All this
made her happy. Surely he was a man who could be used. Manipulated.
He thought a man’s life important, when it wasn’t. He
thought violent death horrible, when it was the normal state of the
world. She could use his weak-minded beliefs against him.

She crept deeper
into the jungle for the trek back to her mountain. She missed
comfort, companionship. She missed fire, because she could not have
one in her cave, too much chance of being found out. She missed
bathing in the sea. It had to be said, she missed the people.
Without them she was forced to live like an animal and that
displeased her immensely. Pleasure, comfort, power, these were what
she was used to and for which she lived. Time passed, the island
changed from day to day thanks to the invaders, and she remained the
same, but alone. Too alone.

It was at the end of
a year into the occupation that she finally found a way to get to the
religious man. She spent long months just watching, taking note.
The first time she’d seen him, screaming at the murderous
soldier, might have been an aberration of his normal behavior. She
watched him for many months longer, to be sure she was right in her
evaluation of the man. After a few more incidents, she was very
sure, but then getting to him when he was alone proved to be
difficult. He lived in a small addition added onto the church. He
was a busy man, consulted all day until sunset by people who came and
went from his door. At night there was a guard stationed near his
dwelling and this guard was a good one for he never fell asleep on
duty, never seemed less than on absolute alert for suspicious
intruders.

It was proper,
Angelique knew, to protect your religious leaders. Especially from a
wild people you were trying to convert, which is what she saw
happening. One day a week the religious leader had soldiers round up
as many natives as they could muster and march them to his great
church building, through the large double wooden doors, and into
waiting pews hewn from the largest hardwood trees on the island. The
religious man read from an open book and spoke with vigor about
whatever religion he was espousing.

She would get to
him, ask for his protection, but she had to find him alone.

In the deep summer
following the first year of occupation, Angelique accidentally found
her chance. She had come down from her mountain hide out and stood in
a new hidden area in order to see the progress of the abruptly built
town the invaders were creating. It was a new spot where she hid,
closer to the encampment, and she thought she was covered by vine,
leaf, and thick shadow and could not be seen, but a voice behind her
spoke in the foreigner’s language, and she turned around,
panicked she’d been discovered. She feared turning into the
business end of the deadly, fiery weapon. She might have known
someone was coming had she not been so concentrated on the little
town of strange buildings facing the sea.

It was the religious
man. He stood before her in his cassock, smiling down at her. He
spoke again, but she shook her head to show she did not understand.
He reached out to touch her shoulder, but she jerked away
impulsively. He stooped and quietly observed her with kind, patient
eyes. She knew this was her time. She brought tears to bear and let
them roll down her smooth cheeks. She wept and saw what that did to
the religious man. Distress entered his eyes and again he reached
out on impulse. This time she let him touch her. He had her little
bare shoulder and pulled her from her hiding place into the open. He
brought a soft white cloth from a pocket in his gown and wiped her
face. She had not felt such fine linen cloth in two centuries. She
nearly swooned from the feel of it. He made gestures meaning he
wished for her to come with him.

It is what she
wanted. It is what she had hoped for but had never found a way past
the night guard to the religious man inside the church. She had
studied their language from the distance and thought she knew a few
words. She used the word which meant “thank you”,
looking up at the kindly gentleman. He was pleased, yes, he was very
pleased with her. He smiled and led her from the edge of the jungle
into the open spaces of the invaders’ town, his hand firmly,
protectively, on her small shoulder.

She was taken under
the religious man’s wing and given a soft blanket to sleep on
in the corner of his room. He thought her an orphan. He had no idea
what the islanders were babbling about when they pointed at her and
tried to communicate with their former queen. It was lucky, she
knew, that the invaders took little interest in learning the dialect
of the people they ruled. They expected the population to learn
their language, which in time she knew they would, out of pure
necessity.

Meanwhile she made
great efforts to learn the invaders’ tongue. She pointed to
things and cocked her head and waited for the religious man to give
her the word for it in his language. Bowl. Pitcher. Candle. Book.
Having an advanced intelligence and the experience of having lived
for two hundred years, never mind the thousands of years she had
lived in human bodies before, she caught on quickly. By the week’s
end she was communicating with him in a rough, simple exchange.

“
I am a
priest,” he told her. “I have been sent here from my
country, Spain, obligated to Her Highness to teach the people about
the one and true God.”

She agreed with
whatever he said, never letting on that she thought him a fool and a
fraud.

“
When will
your captain be leaving?” she asked innocently.

“
I do not
know. In a month, a year, I do not know.” He spread his hands
out to indicate he was empty of this knowledge.

“
But he must
have pressing business with your queen. He must tell her about this
place, is that not so?”

“
Oh, this
place,” he replied, scoffing at the idea. “This place
does not seem to have gold or treasure. I am afraid your island is
pretty worthless to my queen—except for the souls to be saved,
of course, which are by no means worthless.” He smiled,
showing small uneven teeth, and to Angelique he might as well have
been a baboon picking fleas off his belly.