CHAPTER 25 - THE BREAKING
Things were finally going right again! Ramon chose to celebrate his escape, to bask in the moment, in the luxury of Las Naranjas. "Prepare my rooms," he commanded as he swept past Goldie on his way to the dining room.
"The rooms in this establishment are always prepared," she snapped.
Ramon had just seated himself at his favorite table, when he caught sight of his niece on the lawn, just outside the dining room window. She ran past, a cloud of dark hair framing her face, thickly fringed eyes dancing with happiness. Small breasts pushed against her blouse and her skirt swirled about long, shapely legs as she moved. Beautiful! he thought.
And his loins burned for her.
How old could she be by now? Twelve? Fourteen?
Niece or not, he was determined to have her. But he would have to proceed with care in order to avoid his sister’s wrath. He sat there considering how to go about it. He must accomplish this himself or Joseph might want to share his prize. And the answer came to him.
René! René and his zombie powders.
Rosalinda’s parents would believe her to have died of natural causes. They would bury her and no one would suspect him.
But Ramon had no wish to couple with another zombie. There had to be a way to drug the girl into submission without rendering her undesirable. He wondered if using less powder would bring about the desired effect, but in order to learn this, he would have to make another trip to Haiti.
Once the girl was under his control, Ramon thought he might also drug Luis and keep him hidden for the next sacrifice. He supposed that Maria, overcome with grief at losing both children, would no longer pose a threat.
His sister’s family was very loving. Very close. Nothing could be done, of course, until he broke that family. He could easily attend to this detail before visiting René and, again, no one would be the wiser.
Ramon congratulated himself on this brilliant plan. He would order a bottle of the hotel’s best wine and their most expensive entrée. Ah! Life was good!
Ramon had no way of knowing that none of the hotel staff wanted to wait on his table. They feared him. And with good reason. Much to Ramon’s disgust, it was Joseph who, at last, limped over and took his order. Ramon sighed. Perhaps this was just as well. It would give him a chance to instruct Joseph on how Maria’s family would be broken.
After dinner, Ramon returned to the hut to perform the breaking ceremony. He ended by wrapping a powdered mixture of chicken, dog, and goat excrement with black pepper into a little bundle. The bundle was carefully transported back to the hotel and given to Joseph with explicit instructions.
"You must go to Maria’s home by darkest night," Ramon told him, "so none will see. Once there, you will sprinkle the contents of this bundle along the ground in front of the entrance. Then bury the remains in front of that spot."
"I shall come back directly, sir, to tell you of my success."
"That will not be necessary, Joseph, for I will not be here. I expect you to accomplish this and, so, will consider it done."
Ramon did not say where he was going and Joseph, having fallen from Ramon’s grace, knew better than to ask. The Haitian accepted the bundle and limped stiffly away.
Ramon had not added that success was dependent upon both Maria and Jose, at some point, passing over the buried bundle. Although Joseph carried out his role as instructed, for the next few days, for no particular reason, the soon-to-be-cursed couple chose to use the back door.
Then, as luck would have it, Jose mislaid his amulet. This was the first time he'd not kept it close since Julia had given it to him. He came and went each day, passing within a few feet from the cursed patch of earth with nothing to protect him.
Nothing changed for three days.
Then Jose, still unable to locate the amulet, emerged from his home by the front door. Maria quickly followed to kiss him goodbye, but Jose drew back coldly. Maria could not understand what had changed between them. This man was her husband, the father of her children. He had faced Julia’s wrath to keep her and taken a steady job at Las Naranjas to support his family. He had been affectionate and caring all these years.
And those years had been good to them. Jacob had arranged for improvements to be made to the little shack, now three times its original size, with real windows and doors, electricity, indoor plumbing, and a landscaped patio. All of Jose's overtime pay went to cover these expenses and Jacob had given them some of the hotel's cast-off furniture to brighten their home.
Yes, it had been a good marriage. They had each other and their daughter, and Luis had been safe in New York, but there was no excuse for the way Jose was acting. Maria decided she didn’t like his new behavior and flounced angrily inside to clear away the breakfast dishes.
"I will not speak to that man until he changes!" she vowed.
In less than a minute, they were no longer kissing or caring. And now, if Maria kept her vow, they had stopped speaking. They had no way of knowing Ramon had broken their family and every time one of them stepped across the entrance threshold, the breaking grew stronger. By the end of the week, even though they continued to live under the same roof, Maria and Jose had become strangers.
In the meanwhile, Ramon had arrived at René’s hut. He strode boldly inside, which caused an angry uproar from René’s men. Leroi and Thomas started for him, hands like claws, and, for the briefest moment, Ramon feared they might use their potions on him
Ramon resorted to his most powerful defense. Removing his glasses to reveal his eyes, he stared them down. The others gasped and fell back.
"What do you want, little man?" demanded René. "Each time we tell you not to come back."
Ramon smiled. "I want to learn your methods. I wish to apply your zombie powder to two others. But not enough to destroy the brain. Not enough to make those staring eyes!"
"Our method is done with great magic," snarled René. "We do not share it!"
"I would pay well to learn this magic," Ramon insisted.
"Understand this! It is a secret!" Leroi whispered hoarsely. "A secret not to be told!"
Thomas didn’t speak and Ramon could see that working closely with zombie powders had taken the man’s health.
"Let me explain," Ramon said. "I simply wish to make two young people appear to be dead. To be buried. Then I will take them from the grave. I don’t want their souls. I just want them to obey me more easily. And I don’t want their families to hunt me."
René protested, but in the end acquiesced. He could do nothing else. When Ramon left with fresh powder and instructions, the Haitians-who-did-evil turned to one another. They had never cared to deal with Ramon and now they hated him more than ever. They wanted revenge. And they didn’t want him to come back.
"I hope he drugs himself!" snarled Leroi.
"He goes much too far!" whispered René. "Now he must pay for his boldness."
René began to prepare for the ceremony that would separate them from Ramon forever, but Leroi intervened.
"He is very powerful."
"Have you forgotten? I am very powerful, too!"
"But something is protecting him. We need to destroy him, not anger him," Leroi cautioned.
"Yes, I know," René agreed. "We will not attack Ramon with force, but in smaller ways. He will begin to make mistakes in his ceremonies. Little by little his magic will deteriorate."
"Until he makes an important mistake!" crowed Leroi.
"A mistake that proves fatal," promised René. "He will undo himself."