Chapter 22 #2
“Hard to believe it’s June,” TB mused. “I lived in New Zealand for a number of years, yet I always forget how our seasons switch when we get below the equator.”
“That was the hardest thing for Midas and me to acclimate to when we came to the States. Snow at Christmas was surreal. We’d seen it in movies and on television.
But to experience it?” Nemo looked through his binoculars.
He barked out a laugh, then handed the device to Gem, who was now standing next to him. “Take a look, sugar cat.”
She held the glasses up to her eyes, then handed them back to Nemo, a huge grin spreading across her elfin face.
Nemo fake-whispered, “Maybe tonight we can sneak into town, climb their clock tower, and reenact a few highlights from our meeting in Riquewihr. Antique shopping, maybe?” He raised his eyebrows up and down several times.
She smacked him with her gloved hand. “Stop it.”
The words belied her interest based on the sparkle in her eyes, and Steel didn’t think the red tinge in her cheeks had much to do with the cold air surrounding them.
The team was heavily focused on the view into the downtown area, which was on the southeastern shore of Nahuel Huapi.
A glance over his shoulder showed that Daleyza was still checked out.
The situation between them was brutal, but the closer they’d gotten to their home country yesterday, the more withdrawn she’d become.
In fact, she’d gone completely nonverbal, which caused his guilt to fester so greatly that he was now on day three with no sleep.
Instead of being in their bed, where he could have been attempting to explain himself, he’d been out doing reconnaissance on her family home, looking for external changes in either structure or security.
Now he realized that his night away was the absolute worst thing he could have done.
He’d solidified the terrible thoughts running through her head.
They’d be so firmly entrenched, she’d never believe him when he told her the truth, only seeing it as his way of tricking her into cooperating with whatever they needed from her.
He deserved everything coming to him.
He caught a look from Gem, who obviously saw right through him. “Fix it,” she hissed. “This isn’t Mario Kart, where you can just start a new game when you lose.”
“She’s not wrong,” Nemo added, though his eyes were anywhere but on Steel. “Trust me. I know.”
The start of a headache appeared.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want to fix things. He wanted it with every fiber of his being.
But he was scared. The man who was never scared—who faced everything in front of him with a spine of steel and a face that gave away nothing. He was fucking terrified.
Terrified she still blamed him for their son’s death, despite saying she didn’t.
Terrified she hated him for protecting her the only way he knew how.
Terrified she had no love left in her for him.
Terrified she’d leave him.
Terrified she’d stay, then realize she should have left.
As terrified as he was, he realized that Gem was right. He had to fix this. He would spend the rest of his life fixing this. Even if she never took him back, he would never stop trying to fix it.
On silent feet, even in the crisp snow, he took a few steps toward Daleyza.
She showed no sign that she heard his approach.
“Leeza,” he called out. When she didn’t respond, didn’t even move with recognition that he’d spoken to her, he walked the rest of the way over to her. A touch to her shoulder didn’t even break her focus. “Leeza?”
Her attention didn’t waver, but she did answer him. “I never thought I’d see this place again. It still hurts, even after all this time.”
Refusing to think about the implications, he pulled her to him, one arm banding around her waist, the other resting against the side of her face as he pulled it to his chest. His lips found the crown of her head.
“Lo siento, belleza.” He willed his words into her, hoping with everything inside him that she understood the apology was for more than her current pain.
She didn’t touch him, except for where he held her to him. The fact that her arms didn’t lift to go around him caused tears to well in his eyes. He couldn’t let them out. She could never see them.
Instead of letting go, he murmured into her hair, “I think it will always hurt. I only wish I could promise that it would lessen. I would take the pain and carry it all for you, but I can’t.”
“I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself.”
Despite her words, she didn’t move to return his physical comfort, and her arms stayed at her side. However, she didn’t pull away from him, either, and he grabbed onto the slimmest of hopes that they’d find their way back to one another.
He had no idea how long they stood overlooking the lake, but God finally called them back to the group.
“We have a bit more of a hike. There’s a restaurant at the top of the mountain. It will help us solidify our cover as tourists. Hope nobody gets motion sickness.”
“Only when Medusa’s driving,” TB grumbled.
“Good thing she’s not here, then,” Nemo teased. “I doubt Confiteria Giratoria revolves fast enough for her. She’d probably try to find the controls and make it spin like a top.”
“How do you plan to get Scheherazade in there?” Demon asked.
Gem reached into her pack and pulled out a dog vest that read “Service Animal” and “Do Not Pet.”
TB snorted. “That dog has never met a person she didn’t demand pets from. It’ll never work.”
“When she’s in work mode, she does fine,” Nemo assured him. “If she gets twitchy, I’ll take her outside. Relax. We’ve done this with her before.”
A sharp whistle blew, and God ordered, “All right, people. Let’s move.”
Loki led the way, and the team paired off into their fake travel partners. Daleyza and Steel were at the end of the line, while God brought up the rear so he could confer with them.
“I know this is difficult, being back here, Senora Ortiz, and that the situation is unusual.” Even he had picked up on the tension. “We’re very grateful for your help.”
“You’re welcome.” She flushed beyond what the cold wind brought to her cheeks. “I’m sorry. I’m having difficulty calling you by your name.”
He smiled. “Understood. Some of the team call me Janus, but why don’t you call me Royal. That’s my birth name.”
“Royal. Your parents must have thought you’d be kingly.”
A laugh burst through from deep in his chest. “I never knew my parents. I was named by the man who raised me. He, most definitely, thought himself kingly.” He abruptly changed the subject. “If your brother was holding someone for Hector Colonel, where would he be kept?”
Without hesitation, she replied, “El oubliette.”
“An oubliette? Those were prisons in medieval France.”
“Remember,” Steel told him. “European influences abound here.”
“But you said the Spaniards and the Germans.”
“Yes, but the Spaniards go much further back in history.”
“Spain and France would have been enemies.”
Daleyza explained, “European nations were often at war with one another. Land was how you demonstrated your power.”
“Like the Romans. Of course.”
“Exactly,” she confirmed. “The further back you go in history, the more enemies Spain gathered. Particularly during the time of the Inquisitions. France, Spain, Italy—they often warred over territories. Borders changed. Alliances were made, in some cases to prevent war, in others to gain power and finances in order to wage it. The intermixing of cultures, particularly those that dominated the borderlands of nations, allowed for countries to witness the methods and traditions of opposing countries.”
“Allowing them to adopt what they felt was superior to their own ways. I understand.”
“Correct. The English were constantly in opposition to France, yet they copied everything about their enemy, from fashion to architecture to their prisons. Spain was the same. Cultures often take on customs from those they’ve conquered.”
“Even negative ones,” God surmised.
“Yes. Even the worst of a culture provides some form of comfort to the subjugated because it’s something that hasn’t changed. It allows assimilation to progress faster.”
God made the final connection. “Then, slowly, the oppressor adapts the culture to their own ways so incrementally, the weak barely recognize it’s happening.”
“Sí,” Steel added. “Things like the oubliettes, however, were some of the worst-feared punishments. Anyone who knew what they were would never want to be contained within one. They were a very effective deterrent and didn’t need to be adapted.”
“Be that as it may,” God said, “an oubliette isn’t standard for a European village home.”
“Daleyza’s family home isn’t typical. It is, quite literally, a mission built in the earliest days of the Spanish occupation. The oubliettes were basically the jail cells for those who broke civil and religious laws, which, at that time, were essentially the same thing.”
“To those of the mission, religion was the law. To those not in the religion, they were held accountable to the laws they didn’t follow.”
“Yes,” Daleyza said. “When my family decided to go into the drug trafficking business with the Colonels, they needed a place that would allow them to operate close to transportation channels, yet be outside of a major city. Bariloche is a tourist capital in our country. It was the perfect place to hide. Not only that, but it made trafficking product easier.”
“How?”
“The tourists themselves. They made it so simple because they often put themselves in dangerous situations, believing themselves to be safe when they were anything but. Americans were the worst. The cartel would kidnap tourists who separated themselves from the main tour groups. After incarcerating them in the oubliettes of the mission for a short period of time, they offered their prisoners freedom in exchange for becoming mules. The captives had no real means to identify who detained them because, while they were staying in the city, they weren’t taken from there.
Not only that, but they were rarely taken from the same places, or if they were, with gaps between kidnappings so that no pattern would form. ”
Steel took over. “Offered a chance at freedom after suffering the oubliettes, most were willing to take the chance at being caught with the drugs. It might not save them from imprisonment if they were caught at the border, but an American detainment facility was a far better option. A chance for due process and a sympathetic judge. Maybe someone would believe their outlandish tale. Even if they didn’t, they were still better off in an American prison. ”
“And if the mules were caught,” Daleyza continued, “the cartel was out nothing except the drugs. Sacrificing tourists is definitely more fiscally efficient than losing your own employees, who might feel they were owed protection if caught. When it didn’t come, they might turn on their employers.”
God nodded. “And you can’t give up information on someone if you don’t know who took you in the first place. Smart. So where are these oubliettes?” God asked.
“Below the church,” she supplied. “There’s an entrance behind the baptismal font. When opened, it leads to tombs underground, where missionaries of importance were buried. Beyond those tombs is the entrance to the oubliettes.”
“Is there any other way into the oubliettes?”
“No. There are only two ways out of the oubliettes. The first is to walk out the door, into the tombs, and up through the church.”
She stopped.
“And the second?” God asked.
Daleyza looked at Steel, then back at God. “Death.”