Faulting Fate

Prologue

2 Peter 2:4: "God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them into chains of darkness to be held for judgment."

 

 

Hacienda Grande de la Pievo, Laguna de Bai, Islas Felipinas. 1652.

 

 

She was a child. Always appearing as a child. No one would know better.

Her charming smiles were always enough to disarm any man, even one with the toughest heart. Her laughter alone could melt a hardened general who in a battlefield could stare calmly at the blood bath around him. Her eyes were said to be the loveliest one could ever land his sight on. Black. Darker than midnight. Deeper than the unexplored trenches of the ocean. Promising, taunting, haunting and captivating.

Looking at them was a sin.

Her pretty black hair flowed behind her as she skipped innocently towards the river. Her plain brown dress billowed around her, the soft silk caressing her flawless skin. It made her stand out more. None of the natives could even compare to her grace, not to mention her outlandish beauty.

She was the most stunning creature to have ever walked the lands, and no one would dare deny it. Those who dared were now dead. Even those who were naïve enough to approach her were gone. Without a trace.

Everyone who dared approach her had died mysterious deaths.

Hearing the news circulate the town, the governador-heneral wasn’t even fazed. Don Rafael was familiar with the killings and the missing reports in the area, so much that he did not care to give them his time unless he could reap some benefits from them. There were always men who needed to be silenced, a competition that had to be eliminated or simply an unlucky person who managed to earn the ire of the cocky Spaniards from the elite class. However, the wealthy men in the plaza had gotten too smart in covering their tracks.

Maybe it was time to raise again the taxes. That would teach them a lesson.

However, eighteen deaths in a day had never happened before. Here, in this god-forsaken place at least, it never did. Six men, six women and six infants to be exact. These unnatural deaths could only mean one thing. It was not something a mere man could pull off.

Don Rafael could still remember those times. His heart never failed to leap off his chest as he was reminded time and again of his immoral duty, of the Contract that he covetously signed. The first time this occurred was ninety years ago, and he had been too drunk and careless to see the signs. He had been so, so foolish.

He had learned to watch out for the warnings at the price of his head.

He folded his hands under his chin and looked ahead blankly, his gold-rimmed monocles hanging from his right breast pocket. His uniform was impeccably clean and straightened, cut out from the smoothest cloth of the richest royal blue color. He was dressed like the high official he was, and with the documents on his mahogany table, he looked so stiff and civil and cold. However, if one would look closely, his gaze had wandered far from the printed forms of the mundane issues of the land he was currently occupying.

Wrinkles were starting to form on his hands. Gingerly, he inspected them, his dark eyes raking up to his arms. They were starting to sag. Abruptly, he stood up and marched towards the gigantic mirror on the far side of the adjoining room. His private quarters was richly furnished with marble and dark wood and ebony and velvet. It was a mansion – no, a palace – befitting one as mighty as him. It did not escape his attention that his lavish home was completely out of place among the tiny, pathetic wood and grass cottages in this town. It did not matter. He was rich, and the indios in this underdeveloped land were making him richer.