by Daniel Caet
The girl arrived at our plantation in a cargo of slaves like any other and was treated like all slaves were, with whips and screams, beaten until she broke, until she no longer wanted to challenge the new power that rose above her because she had no more desire to live. But she was not like the others. Not a single scream, not a groan came out of her lips with the crackling of the whip. That was the moment when I realised that she was different. And I was not the only one. My son Asur also realised the strength of her spirit and, attracted by the curiosity that this creature caused, he instructed the foremen to assign her to the service of the house without realising that he had just become the fly the spider was going to play with. I was blind and stupid not wanting to give importance to something that I thought would be another game for Asur. Like a lion circling around its prey looking for the right time to kill, the girl approached my son who by then was already inevitably attracted to her. I should have understood that this attraction did not respond only to lust, but to something much stronger that he had undoubtedly inherited from his own mother, the attraction for power. The girl emanated power through all her pores, a dark power, a great and intense energy, a power that Asur, as I had done in the past, wished to possess. It was not long before the girl got into my son's bed and began to absorb his will until she became more a lady of the house than the lady herself, giving orders to all the employees of the plantation.
Several times I tried to talk to Asur, to make him understand that there was something about her that I didn't like, something that told me that we should get rid of that threat as soon as possible. He never listened to me and came to blame me for dragging him to that lost corner of the world where there was nothing for him. The darkness of that being had filled his heart and brain and soon spread throughout the plantation. Soon the deaths followed. At the beginning they were slaves' deaths to which no one ever paid any attention, slaves died every day in the plantations either because of work, the new diseases to which they were exposed or simply because their master had a bad day. Only I could see that something was not normal. The bodies of the slaves appeared mutilated, with organs torn from their bodies and covered in strange symbols painted with their own blood. And not only in our plantation. The deaths happened in all the plantations of the island. The settlers began to talk about the work of the devil, witchcraft and curses, but as long as the deaths affected only the slaves no one was willing to do anything. But soon the deaths began to spread to the foremen, to the owners of some minor plantations, to ordinary people of Port Royal. Fear became a daily companion of the inhabitants of the island. And after all this, a rumour ran from mouth to mouth among the slaves. The queen of darkness had returned to raze the world. You didn't have to be very smart to know which queen they were talking about. That's when all of them started calling her Mama Obeah, a cruel and bloodthirsty mother. Anyone who dared to challenge her newly acquired authority ended up with his bones in a hole. I could not allow that situation to continue. If my son was not willing to do what was necessary to get rid of that monster, it would be I who did it. Her presence and activities were squandering the safe and quiet life I had managed to build for both of us and I was not going to allow it anymore.
One night I went to the rooms Asur had given her in the house with the intention of ending the problem, but she was not there. The doors of the room balcony were open and from there I could see the slave barracks. Beyond them, a dim light as if it were a bonfire illuminated the night and distant songs were heard. I left the house and headed for that light without knowing what I was going to find. When I got there, my eyes didn't want to recognise what I had in front of me. A group of slaves from the plantation formed a circle with faces that indicated they were more frightened than excited about what they were looking at. In the center of the circle was Asur, completely naked and tied to a pole. His chest was covered with symbols that I recognised immediately as those found in the bodies of dead slaves. At his feet was a girl about two years old, also naked and completely inert. Her throat had been wide open and her blood had been the ink used to draw those symbols in Asur’s body. This Mama Obeah was in front of him, with a kind of rattle made of bones and bird feathers singing a song in a language I did not know. Her torso was also naked and her breasts challenged whoever looked at them, betraying her excitement for what was happening.
“What is this? Release my son immediately!” I shouted. In an instant two slaves came straight to me with the intention of attacking me, but I simply raised my hand and the two fell dead to the ground immediately. Then two other men made the threat of approaching me too.
“Stop!” the girl shouted.
“Mother, get out of here! You do not understand! This is not what it seems!”
“And what is it then?”
“A ritual to increase Asur's power,” she said, calling him by his real name and not Alfonse.
“Increase his power at the expense of one of yours?” I said looking at the body of the little girl at her feet.
“We all must make sacrifices, her mother has understood, why not you?” she said with a light kick to the girl's body with disdain to make her way to me. “You have done much worse, Liliath.” Hearing her use my name caught me by surprise and made an intense rage grow in me as I understood what it meant. “Yes, Asur has told me your whole story. There are no secrets between us.”
“How could you be such a jerk?” I told my son, “don't you realise the power you have given her?”
“No, mother, it is you who does not realise that she is the only way out of our problem, the only one that can give me the power I need to conquer this world as it is my destiny. I am the son of a god and I will not allow myself to become one more among this human garbage!”
“You've lost your mind! What power do you think she can give you? She is nothing more than a fraudster sorceress.” Suddenly all the men, women and children around us collapsed to the ground without any life.
“Could a fraudster do this?” she said, challenging me. “You have no idea what my power is, woman, and you have no idea how much you have helped me increase it.”
“Me? I have no idea what you mean slut!” At that moment I realised that there was something in her hand. The scene had distracted me and made me not pay attention to the object that she was brandishing and with which it was evident that she had cut the girl's throat. A beautiful, bright object even now that it was covered in blood. Your sword, Helel!
“How did you get that?” I asked although I already knew the answer.
“I gave it to her. Thanks to that sword her power is much greater than that of any other being in this world, even greater than yours.”
“You don't know what you've done! Now that the sword has been used there will be no way to keep it hidden from the archangels or Helel himself. They will feel its presence, they will find us and that will be our end.”
“Let them come so I can tear out their hearts and eat them!” shouted the girl with a deranged face.
“You don't know how much you'll regret what you've done, Asur, but I won't stay to see it, I won't be part of your destruction or mine!” I said making the move to leave. Suddenly, the girl's voice rose in the air in a repetitive chant in her strange language. I looked at her puzzled and the song stopped.
“No, you will not leave! You will never leave again!” she said smiling with absolute evil. “I just anchored your spirit to this earth so that you can never leave it. That will be your punishment for challenging me. You will live forever, but eternally locked up!”
I ran out of there thinking that those words were just bragging, although something inside me made me afraid for the first time in my life, a feeling that I was not used to and that I didn't like at all.
“I only needed a short walk to a nearby beach to verify that her anchor had actually worked,” I told Helel who was looking at me without saying anything. “The slave had achieved what no other being before, enslaving me.”
Helel was silent for a mome
nt that seemed like an eternity to me. Finally he got up and walked a few steps along the beach to stare at the sea.
“You will not say anything?” I yelled as I got up to go to him.
“I don't know what to say, really,” he said, laughing. “We both know that this punishment is more than deserved. I feel tempted to leave, to abandon you here, on this island, trapped for the rest of eternity until you rot of anguish and boredom and then continue to suffer for knowing that this punishment has no end. And yet it would seem a mild punishment, at least your cell has much more light and better views than the cave in which you locked me for centuries,” he snapped with an undisguised rage. “But I also know that would mean that I would not recover what I have come for. The only way to recover the sword from your witch will be to kill her and that will probably free you too. Of course, I always have the possibility to negotiate with her and that you stay as you are.”
“But you know you can't do it. The girl and Asur left my plantation weeks ago and you will need my help to find her. Help that I will only give you if you promise to end her so that I can be free.”
“And what prevents me from finding her by myself? It may take a little longer, but as soon as she uses the sword again I can locate it.”
“Yes, you and the entire angelic court, something that doesn't interest you at all and we both know that. You don't want to run the risk of them seizing your weapon. Besides, then it will be too late. Do you really think she only wants to get rid of a few settlers from an island lost in the Caribbean? She has much bigger plans. She wants to dominate the world, all the worlds. The rumour is that her intention is to carry out a great ritual, one that needs a massive sacrifice. What will happen if she does it, only she knows, but if she succeeds there will be no heaven or hell that can stop them. You, I, the archangels and even your own father will not even be a memory. The world how we know it will not exist anymore.”
Helel stared at me for a moment and I knew I had managed to get his attention. His eyes scrutinised me as if trying to find out if what I was telling him was true or not.
“Very well,” he said finally, “let's make a deal then. You will take me to her, but what happens then is my business. You will not interfere at all. In return I will make sure that this spell that has you tied is broken.”
“Okay, but I also have a condition. Whatever you do, my son should not suffer any harm,” I said, holding out my hand.
“Very good.” And he took my hand tightly giving me goosebumps for a moment because of his contact.
“You'll have to come with me to Port Royal.”
“Why? What is there?”
“Information, Helel. Asur and that monster have taken refuge in the mountains with the escaped slaves and the few that remains of the Arawak Indians. In recent years there have been attacks by some of these groups against plantations and settlers, but always on a small scale. Suddenly, when they disappeared, so did those attacks. I am convinced that both are related and we need someone to help us find out if that is the case.”
“Very well, see you tonight in Port Royal,” he said, walking towards the sea.
“But wait, I haven't told you where.”
“Don't worry, I'll find you.” And suddenly his body disappeared before reaching the edge of the water as if it had gone through an invisible door. I went back to my horse and rode back to my house thinking how ironic it was that the man I had betrayed so many times and who I had been hiding from was now my only option. Just a single piece of that thought stayed in my head all the way back. Helel was not a man.
That night I went to Port Royal as I had done many other nights, but this time not with the intention of having fun, but to find a way to regain control of my life. I didn't know if Helel would keep his promise to meet me, if his commitment to help me would be just empty words, but I knew I had no choice but to go to the city and wait. One of my horse carts took me to the edge of Port Royal where I got off to complete the rest of the way walking as I always did when I was heading to the city. It was my way of going as unnoticed as possible, a discretion that I really didn't need, at least with ordinary people. The pirates, buccaneers, tavern owners and prostitutes of Port Royal knew perfectly who I was, but they religiously respected a kind of tacit agreement between us for which I did not get into their affairs and they did not get into mine. For the many settlers and landowners who went down to the city to wallow with the whores, seeing me in that place would have been something worthy of being commented and published and, although I didn't care, it irritated me that someone wanted to get into how I handled my affairs. The night wind brought the humidity of the sea and accentuated the overwhelming heat, but nevertheless I adjusted the hood of the black felt cape I was wearing. I knew where I should go. The red sparrow was a tavern located in the center of Port Royal conveniently located between two of the largest brothels in the place. Its owner, a tall woman with abundant curves that everyone called ironically the birdie, was a mixed race Cuban who had tricked an english doctor into marrying her and taking her with him to Jamaica. The doctor had died a short time later, and there were those who said of no natural causes, leaving her money that she had used to set up that tavern. She took pride on the fact that her house was not a brothel, although everyone knew that she was more than happy to let the women of the neighbouring premises enter the tavern and do their business there because that brought her customers. I knew exactly who could give me information about the location of Asur and the girl and that it was more than likely that the birdie knew where to find him.
I entered the tavern and a familiar smell of sweat and wine hit my nose. I went directly to one of the tables that was free by the fire where a pig was slowly roasting. I barely had time to sit down when a figure dressed in dark buccaneer clothes appeared beside me.
“You have taken a long time.”
“Some of us can't appear just like that, Helel.”
“Oh, I really haven't, I've been sitting here for a while, but I have ways to hide!” he replied and I didn't want to ask how he knew I would go to that tavern. “And who are we supposed to come to see?”
“One moment and you'll see.” An instant later the owner-lady of the tavern approached us in person.
“Lady Stanley, long time no see! I thought you didn't like us anymore, you have abandoned us,” said the woman, leaning over the table without taking her eyes off Helel. “I see you have a new friend. You will have to tell me how you do it, I do not find this kind of man among the sailor rabble.”
“Maybe you should stop searching among the blind, ma'am, because you have to be blind to not look at those boobs so well placed,” Helel replied unexpectedly with a mischief that left me amazed.
“Oh, my God, he knows how to compliment a lady! I am going to bring you a jug of our best wine to your health just because I like you. You will decide if you want me to bring you a cup or you will just drink it between these two,” she said, holding her tits with both hands.
“You are a box full of surprises, dear husband! Since when have you become so ... informal?” I asked as soon as the birdie left us alone.
“I have learned a lot about cheating, I remind you that it was you who gave me the first lesson.”
The birdie interrupted us with the promised jug and two cups made of clay that she left on the table, and then sat down on Helel's lap without saying a word. She removed his hat and started playing with his hair like a girl.
“And where did you come from so handsome?”
“I just arrived from Tortuga. We will spend a few days here replenishing our supplies. I'm going to have to find a place to sleep. But I had to meet a common friend of ours. Maybe these two tits know him,” he said as he buried his face between the birdie's breasts, making her laugh out loud.
“My tits are very sociable, if you give them more information about the man in question, maybe …”
“He is one-handed” I interrupted without giving him the opportunity to continue with his little
game.
“But, my lady,” replied the woman, laughing at the tickle that Helel was giving her under her skirt. “Do you know how many one-handed sailors pass through here? All these damn pirates have some fault. I have even met one who had no cock, imagine. But I'm sure that's not your problem,” she said, helping out Helel's crotch to his delight.
“It's one handed Langley.”
“One handed Langley? Well, you're in luck, that drunkard is in Port Royal and comes every night, I don't think it will take time for him to appear.”
“Perfect, then we have some time before we see my good friend, we will have to look for something to entertain ourselves, I suppose,” said Helel, reaching into the woman's skirt without worrying about who might be looking at him. With a movement he sat her on him and penetrated her right there in front of me and the entire clientele of the tavern. The woman groaned with pleasure and began to move rhythmically. The rest of the men and women in the room began to jell them loudly during the entire time that show lasted. When they finally finished, the birdie, visibly satisfied and breathless, withdrew with a kiss and a promise from Helel to give her more of the same later.
“A beautiful show, but absolutely unnecessary.”
“So you think? It seemed delicious to me,” he said without giving too much importance to my comment. “By the way, I do not know if you have noticed, but during my moment of solace with your friend the birdie, a man has entered the tavern who has sat at a table at the end of the premises. Is it possible that he is Langley?” My eyes went to the place Helel indicated and I could see that it was indeed Langley.