Dreams of Destiny Pt. 12

“How dared you hold a news conference without talking to me first” Pietro reproached Juan without preamble. I told you to come out here alone and without media attention. You did exactly the opposite of what I asked.”

“You didn’t ask,” Juan responded hotly. “You told me to ‘get my ass out here’. And I reminded you that I am now the head of the Rodriguez family. I did what I thought was best for the family under the circumstances.”

“No you didn’t. The press conference was self-serving and disrespectful to your father’s memory..”

“How so?” Juan said dangerously.

“It brought more attention to family disarray and dishonor.”

“It did no such thing, It cleared the air concerning my actions. You said the media was out to crucify Destiny and me. I couldn’t let things fester. Destiny and my actions were innocent. The media had a right to know that. They also had a right to know that there is still someone out there trying to bring down the presidency. Did you think of that as you watched the press conference?”

Pietro hadn’t thought about it. But he was unwilling to concede the point. He was still furious at being upstaged. “How could you tell the press about your affair with the woman who brought all of this about, and on the night after your father’s suicide. Your becoming engaged to her is like a slap in your father’s face.”

Destiny was seething. She had expected better of this man who was Juan’s mentor and closest friend. It was as Juan said. Esteban dirtied everything and everyone he cam into contact with.

Juan saw the look on Destiny’s face. He realized he’d better get control of the situation quickly. Pietro was grieving and had had too much to drink. He was under Esteban’s influence, and was clearly not himself. But still, Juan had a few things to say.

“Destiny didn’t bring this about and you know it. As for family dishonor, my father’s inconstancy and indiscretions are behind all this. His actions came home to roost, that’s all. I don’t know what drove him to suicide in the end but none of this would have happened if he had been a faithful husband and a good father. I do not dishonor him. He dishonored himself.”

Alessandro looked like he wanted to applaud. He stood next to Trisha who was sitting with her arms around her belly, as if to protect her child from the family affray. Pietro looked stricken. Destiny wanted to cheer Juan’s speech.

Things would probably have settled down after Juan’s speech but Esteban chose that moment to make his appearance. He thrived on malice and planned to make the best of the rift he had so carefully nurtured between Juan and his uncle. He was a consummate actor, having got his start pretending to be the poor little motherless bastard, displaced from his rightful spot as first son by his brutish brother from Ireland 40 years ago.

No one but Juan knew Esteban’s true feelings about his parents. His mother had been a selfish asp who had hidden the secret of his parentage from her lover, Manuel. His true father had been an itinerant treasure hunter who had found a sunken ship off the island’s coast. His father had been wealthy enough to raise the find but had quickly gambled away his small fortune. Esteban’s mother had juggled both men easily and settled comfortably on Manuel when she realized she was pregnant. She left the treasure hunter without a backward glance. He would not have been a good provider. The fact had Manuel had a pregnant wife had been a challenge, rather than a deterrent to Esteban’s mother.

Esteban’s mother had let the secret of Esteban’s parentage slip when Esteban was five years old. He no longer remembered what he had done to infuriate his mother but she had spewed forth poisonous venom that day. When she realized what she had done she told Esteban she would cut him up into little pieces if he ever told Manuel the truth about his paternity. Esteban still had nightmares about it.

Esteban had been devastated. He idolized Manuel. A couple of months later his mother became pregnant. Manuel would have a real child with his mother. Esteban knew he would be displaced.

He was an angry and troubled young boy. His mother was selfish and hot tempered. She struck him often. He had never even tried to hit her back. But one day, when his mother was five and a half months pregnant something snapped inside Esteban’s head. He was at the top of the steps leading to the root cellar in the villa. His mother was behind him. He was complaining because she wouldn’t let him go riding that afternoon with Manuel. She reached out to slap his face and he shoved her, hard. She fell backwards down the steps. She hit her head and was unconscious when Esteban ran sobbing down to help her. Everything would have been all right if she had been at least decent to him when she came to but she yelled and smacked him across the face. He kicked her hard in the stomach. not once but three times. She sank down on the floor in pain and he ran upstairs too frightened to say or do anything for a while. His mother didn’t come upstairs so he went out to play.

His mother was found dead in the cellar that evening. Everyone thought she had missed a step, fallen, hit her head and miscarried. No one ever knew what really happened. Manuel thought Esteban’s withdrawal and unhappiness was simply grief and loneliness. He decided the best thing to do would be to try to reconcile with his wife and bring her and Esteban’s brother Juan over from Ireland.

Esteban sized up the situation at the villa quickly upon his arrival. Pietro was close to intoxicated. Pietro and Juan had come close to exchanging blows. That was good. Pietro had taken an instant dislike to Destiny. That, also, was good. But Alessandro and Tricia were staunchly behind Juan and Destiny. Oh well, he thought. I can take care of Alessandro. And Tricia looks like she’s ready to collapse.

He strode into the living room ready for battle. “How dare you besmirch our father’s honor when he’s barely cold. Where the Hell have you been for the last three days and why have you brought this - woman - into our home? And what the devil did you think you were doing by calling a press conference to, of all things, announce your engagement to the woman who tried to slander the president?”

“Be careful what you say, Esteban,” Juan said coldly, trying hard not to rise to the bait. You manipulate words and people. We merely told the truth of how the slanderous documents came onto the island. At least the truth that is known so far. I know you’re behind the whole fucking thing. And I’m going to prove it. So you’d better just keep your mouth shut you many fathered bastard. And stay the fuck away from Destiny. If you even breathe wrong tonight I’m going to take you apart piece by piece. Do you understand?”

Pietro was aghast. “Juan, watch your mouth.”

“I will not. I do not have to put up with this in my house.”

“Your house?” Esteban spat. Do you think you can take control like a despot when you have never considered this your home. You abdicated it to us when you were eight years old. Its more Alessandro’s and Tricia’s house than it’ll ever be yours. It’s more my house than yours for that matter.”

“Don’t get me into this,” Alessandro said trying to calm the situation. “Tricia, why don’t you and Destiny go see how dinner is coming along.”

“Oh no, we’re staying,” Tricia said. You’ll need us if those two decide to break each other’s hard heads.

“Its my house now,” Juan said. “At least for the time being. “He looked at Alessandro and Tricia, knowing that they were concerned for their future. “If you want to stay, Esteban, you will be civil to me and my fiancee. Do you understand?”

“Who here will force me to leave, brother, at such a time as this? Pietro. Do you want me to go?”

“No, of course not.” Pietro glared at Juan. “You may have final say here, but this is my island and I will make it very uncomfortable for you if you try to push me aside.”

“Oh, Christos, Uncle! Its not you I would push aside”

At that, Esteban made a lunge for Juan. Juan stepped aside neatly and grabbed Esteban’s arm. Blows would have followed but Alessandro, who had known the fight was inevitable, jumped between the two men.

“Stop it. Jesus, stop acting like animals. This is no way to settle anything,” Tricia cried.

Juan stood down first. He clasped Alessandro’s shoulder in thanks. Esteban uncoiled. The moment passed.

Pietro walked over to the bar that had been set up earlier and poured himself a strong whisky. “Does anyone need a drink?”

“I do,” Alessandro said. The others demurred.

Pietro looked at the two men angrily. “I want there to be peace in this house this evening. If you cannot keep the peace then leave now.”

Esteban had regained his composure by this time. “For your sake and my father’s I will be civil” He looked mockingly at Juan. Juan nodded at Esteban as a prince would to a peasant. Destiny almost laughed out loud with relief. If he can be a prince I will be a duchess.

At this point dinner, finally, was finally ready to be served. The family gathered at the long table. No one wanted to sit at the head or the foot. That would borrow trouble. Destiny had the center chair on the side looking out to the courtyard. Alessandro was on her left and Juan was on her right. Esteban sat directly across from Destiny which she found unnerving. Pietro took the seat on Esteban’s right and Tricia sat on his left. She looked sick and miserable.

Esteban lounged like a large cat. He had decided to toy with Destiny during dinner. He ached with longing to be inside her again. He captured her in his gaze. She saw his lust and flushed with anger. Esteban laughed a little. When the servant presented the meat tray to Esteban he picked up his knife without breaking her gaze. He ran it across his left thumb, leaving a shallow slice. He dropped his gaze to her throat. Destiny knew then that Esteban wanted her blood.

Esteban brought his thumb up to his mouth and licked at the blood, while he gazed intently at her face. He narrowed his eyes and lowered his eyes from her face to her breasts and sucked again at the blood. Destiny remembered the bite marks on the breasts of the redhead in the amusement park and felt a stab of fear.

Destiny looked like a moth in a spider web, Juan thought angrily. He couldn’t do a damn thing about it. What, after all, could he say Esteban was doing wrong. He couldn’t tell the family that two, or was it three days ago Esteban had raped Destiny. Esteban was on the island when the rape occurred.

Maybe Esteban was staring rudely, but Alessandro, Tricia and Pietro are also very interested in Destiny right now. After all she was the stranger who had captured Juan’s heart.

Destiny hadn’t realized dinner would be so difficult.Maybe I shouldn’t have come she thought miserably.

But something told her that it was only her strength that was keeping Juan from breaking Pietro’s command and killing Esteban then and there.

Alessandro, too was deeply troubled by the undercurrents at the table. Being more down to earth than the others he actually wished Juan and Esteban would take it outside and have the brawl. He wanted to eat his dinner in peace. He wanted to get to know Destiny, he wanted to grieve for his father and help his uncle to bed. He took a large sip of the wine Esteban had poured for him. He realized with surprise that he was feeling the effects of his earlier drink, and now the wine. Only he and Pietro had taken wine with dinner.

Tricia was the first to finish the meal. She excused herself, saying she was tired and under the weather. The men stood as she left the table.

Esteban ate heartily. Alessandro decided to drink more than his share of the wine so his uncle would drink less. He didn’t know that Esteban had added a little chloral hydrate to the wine, wanting to put Alessandro and Pietro out for the night. Esteban laughed indulgently when Pietro fell off his chair into a dead sleep on the floor. A short time later Alessandro put his head in his arms and fell asleep half on his dinner plate.

“Well, isn’t this cozy, it’s just the three of us now,” Esteban said. “What game shall we play?”

“I didn’t come here to play games, Esteban. Destiny and I are tired and are going to bed. Aren’t we Destiny?”

Destiny smiled sweetly, “Yes, my love.”

“”Lock up when you leave,” Juan said to Esteban brusquely.

“I’m not leaving until this is finished,” Esteban said.

“Yes you are,” said Juan with steel in his voice. I acquiesced to Pietro’s wish for piece over dinner. You broke that piece by doctoring Alessandro and Pietro’s drink. How do you think our uncle will feel about that in the morning?”

“Tomorrow morning is going to be a very different day,” Esteban said. It may not matter so much what he thinks tomorrow.”

“You made a big mistake putting Alessandro and Pietro to sleep,” Juan said. You aren’t welcome here now.” Get out.”

“No.” Esteban reached into his sleeve and set fly a long hunting knife.

Destiny saw the knife before Juan did. She screamed and shoved Juan as hard as she could. She was just tall and heavy enough that the shove was effective. The knife wised past the tops of their heads as they fell on the floor and rolled.

“You treacherous son of a bitch,” Juan swore as he regained his feet. He jumped at Esteban but Esteban was fast. He lunged for Destiny and took her down through a rent in space on the floor. They slid through what felt like silt and sand and mud.

Juan was left grasping at air. “Phaeton,” he cried out at the top of his lungs.

Destiny was unable to break Esteban’s iron grasp and he hauled her through the passage way to his lair. He threw her in and locked the door. He left her alone without speaking a word.

Destiny waited. She was unable to sleep. She was in a waking nightmare from which there was no escape. She had seen parts of this dream before and was filled with a dull dread that ached like a rotten tooth. She thought she knew what Esteban had planned.

Esteban came for her at 11:30. He made no pretense that he was human now. His flesh burned hotly, and his skin was a shining reddish gold.

He was strong. He stripped her easily and tied her hands behind her back. “Will you bend to my will?” he asked.

Destiny spat in his face and tried to kick him. He batted her down with a sweep of his arm..

“So be it.” he said.

He pulled her up by her pony tail and brought her before the table of demons. Destiny held her head like an empress. The demons looked upon her with scorn.

“Is this to be your queen,” one of the female demons asked Esteban.

“Yes, if you allow it,” he replied.

“She will not bend?”

“No.”

“You may do as you wish. Where is her lover?” the she-demon asked.

“I have sealed him out. I want him to know what it is like to lose her to me before I kill him.”

“Go then. “Time is short..”

Esteban took Destiny to the place she had seen in her nightmare. The alter was made of black marble. The room was filled with lost souls. She knew that she was out of time. She tried her best to empty her mind and will herself to die.

Esteban saw her spirit sputter and brought her back with a light slap across the cheek. “Not yet my love,” he said. “You can’t deny me the pleasure after all of this time.”

“Get on with it then,” Destiny growled through her teeth.

Esteban wanted to drive himself into her one last time but the kill, had to be clean. He looked over to his right at a black shadow of a man.

“Bring out the girl,” he said.

The man stepped through a vortex. He was back a split second later. Destiny gasped in surprise. There was her body, age 16, with horrible bruises around her neck. The body had no soul.

“Now you see,” Esteban said in triumph. We’ve come full circle, you and I.”

“No. Oh God please, no,” Destiny cried.

Esteban picked her up and placed her on the alter on her back. He straddled her to keep her from kicking him as he placed a noose around her neck. He secured it to the alter and then he tied her feet together. She was stretched out, her chest heaving, straining against the rope on her neck.

“I will give you back your youth tonight my love,” Esteban purred

Bells began to chime the hour. Midnight.

Esteban lifted the knife. it was long and cruel and made of white bone. He went to make the killing thrust, but his arm was grabbed from behind and twisted. Esteban had underestimated Juan’s strength. Somehow Juan had found a way through into Esteban’s realm.

Esteban managed to keep hold of the knife but he was lifted off his knees by Juan as they struggled. He got his feet under him and turned. Juan and Esteban were face to face in the mortal combat that had been brewing for 40 years. Juan wore white and blue and silver. Esteban was in black and green. The knife was between them. Both were in their prime and full strength. Juan almost had Esteban, but Esteban grabbed the blade in his hand. He tried to wrench it away but it cut him to the quick. He screamed in mortal anguish and fell, writhing in pain onto the floor..

The knife had been his mother’s and he had given it to the asp he made his wife. Unknown to him the asp had poisoned the blade with her own venom. It was a deadly and long enduring potion. Esteban never had a chance. As he died the alter became a kaleidoscope of light and fragmented dreams and visions. Esteban’s body melted into the form of a snake and slid down into the very lowest region of what some may call hell but is perhaps just another nightmare on the slowly turning wheel.

Destiny and Juan awoke blinking in the soft summer dawn light which was streaming through the blinds of Destiny’s bedroom window. Aristotle bounded on to the bed the second movement came from the bed sheets happy to have his new family home. Top Cat came out from under Juan’s arm with a curious mwroowl. It was Tuesday morning. The room was filled with the music of the universe and the smell of spring flowers.

“You see, Cara mia,” Juan said to the sleepy-eyed Destiny, “I told you I wouldn’t let him kill you.”

“Did you know all along?”

Me?” “No, not really. I trusted my instinct and something deeper. Faith. I knew John had found a solution. But I didn’t foresee Esteban going for his knife back at the villa like he did. Your fast action saved us both. I don’t know what would have happened if he had gotten me with the knife then.

“I did,” Destiny said. “It was horrible. I saw it all in a flash when I saw him draw the knife. What happened at the Villa after Esteban dragged me off?”

“I tried to follow you but all paths were sealed. I’m ashamed to say a bellowed my head off for Phaeton. He did say we should call on him if we needed strength. So that’s what I did. I’ve never been able to manipulate the dreams like you and Esteban. I didn’t know what else to do. Phaeton came through a vortex and I filled him in on that was happening. I told him of your dream about the black alter. Together we had the power to manipulate the fabric of Esteban’s realm enough to get me through just at the right time.

“At midnight when the bells tolled the wheel turned. You and I working together managed to deliver that demon to the hell he so badly deserved. Ah but what a twisted path it was.”

“You don’t know all of it yet. You didn’t see what Esteban had in store for me if you hadn’t made it through.”

“No.”

“He had an alter ego which was the image of the body he ravaged and left to hang when I was sixteen years old. He wanted to go back to the first night we consummated our relationship. That was when he first felt the thrill of sexual perversion and murder.”

“Christ. Juan felt sick for her. “It was worse than my worst nightmare.”

“Yes. Even I never went there in my dreams. The demon must have relived that night again and again, plotting and planning, and laying his trap. He fabricated the body and trained it but it wasn’t enough for him without my spirit.