It was too hot for a party, definitely too hot to wear clothes that would all too soon be sticky with sweat, but that was not a consideration in the limited social life of the pueblo. Someone had proposed dancing, and was greeted with withering looks from all around. Somehow, Hidalgo was still managing to look crisp in his uniform, though Captain Grisham had a trickle of sweat running down each temple. At least, after dark, the heat relented a little. But it was July, and the scorching heat of the day was merciless. The thick adobe walls helped a bit, but once they were warm they retained the heat, even after dark.

Tessa felt stifled in the yellow silk of her dress, a fashionable dress that was the envy of most of the women of this remote backwater. But now, she could only envy the peasant women the lightness and easy fit of their clothes.

"May I offer you some of the punch?" Don Hidalgo asked Tessa. "It's warmish, and the wine in it is terribly young, but it is reasonably refreshing." He mopped his brow with a lace-edged handkerchief. "The thing I miss most in this place is ice. The man who thinks of a way of shipping ice on a fast ship from the wilds of the north will make himself a fortune."

"Perhaps you will be that man, Don Hidalgo," she said, smiling. "Thank you, I would like that very much," she said, and watched him go in search of the punch bowl.

"Watch out, he will turn into a cortinoto you," Vera said, gliding up next to her. "Good for niceities, fans and lockets and satin slippers."

"Is that what he gives you?" Tessa tried to ask lightly, wondering what the woman meant by her comments.

Vera Hidalgo had an odd look in her eyes. "Many men give me many things, Señorita Alvarado. And some things they cannot give." She turned and walked away.

Don Hidalgo had barely started back with the punch when Vera suddenly shrieked and started backward from the sideboard near the stairs, pointing at something, something small that moved and showed sharp white teeth. "What is that?" she demanded.

Marta, closest to the stairs, took a step back. "A bat, señora," she said, sounding stricken by the sight. "A bat that bears evil to this place!"

"Oh, don't be silly," Captain Grisham said, reaching toward it impatiently, as if to pluck it off the wall. "It's just a damned rodent--"

"No," Dr. Helm said abruptly, springing out to block the captain's arm before he could get any closer. "Don't touch it!"

The bat suddenly turned its face toward them and hissed, showing a mouthful of teeth. Marta took another step back and covered her face. Tessa, suddenly at her side, took her arm.

"Get back, all of you!" the doctor ordered. "There is something wrong. Back..." He gestured them away. Most needed no order to back off. There was a walking stick near the door. He picked it up and extended it gingerly toward the animal. The bat latched onto it, attempting to bite the wood. "A bat is normally a fairly timid animal," he said, watching this unexpected behavior. "They do not come amid people, especially at parties. They fly outside at night, eating insects. And above all, they do not bite like that. Something is very, very wrong." He reached out to Señora Hidalgo. "Please, your shawl." Wordlessly, she handed it to him.

Prodding with the stick in one hand and the shawl in the other, he caught the bat as if in a net. Looping the cloth around the stick, he held it out. "Captain Grisham, could you take this creature out and get rid of it. And be careful not to get bitten or touch it in any way."

"All this for a bat..." the captain said with a slight sneer.

"Just do it!" the doctor barked, suddenly sounding angry.

"All right, sir, right away," Grisham said with ironic deference, taking the netted creature and heading out the door.

A few minutes later, he was back. "Sorry about the blood on your shawl. I trust it will wash out...."

He started to hand it back, but Helm snatched the bloodied fabric from his hands. "Burn it!" But he was giving orders to himself, now, for he walked to the fire and tossed it in.

"My shawl!" Vera said, making an involuntary motion toward it.

Dr. Helm turned to face the room. "Rabies, my friends. The surest thing when you see an animal like a bat behaving that way. Let us only hope that it's only a single bat. If there is an outbreak of rabies, God help us all."

"Dios help us, indeed," Marta said quietly, crossing herself. "This bat, it is a bad omen."

"Oh come," Montoya scoffed, "don't tell me you're a doctor and a diseased bat worries you?"

Helm frowned sternly. "That's just it. I've seen a man die of rabies. Believe me, it's not a death even you would find easy to see, Señor Montoya."

The party tried to recover, but between the doctor's words and the heat, a pall fell over everyone, and soon people were making early farewells, to retire to their adobes and fan themselves in private.

"Ay, it's your amigo again," one of the guardsmen commented, seeing the large black dog slinking around the corners of the stable where they stood currying the horses. "Isn't that the one you've been feeding, Ramon?"

The guardsman patted the stray. He had been feeding the dog for months, ever since it had wandered into town. For the first time, the dog growled at him. "Easy, amigo," he said, frowning at the animal. "It is hot and you're grumpy, I'm sure, but I've got some nice bones I've been saving." He stopped, for the dog was looking at him oddly, as if it didn't even recognize him. Again it growled, a low rumble in its throat. "Easy, boy..." He started to pat it and the dog lunged at him, teeth fastening onto his wrist in a savage grip. He danced away, swearing, and two of his fellow guardsmen suddenly were there. One of them picked up a large stick of wood that was leaning against the wall, but before he could strike the dog, it let loose and ran away.

Ramon looked down at his wrist where teeth marks were showing red, but trickling surprisingly little blood. "What has gotten into that dog?" he complained, to no one in particular. "I know it's hot, but he's never behaved like that before."

His fellows shook their heads. "That dog is loco. He's been snapping at things that aren't there, the past few days. The heat has addled his brains," one of them offered. "Here, let me see that bite. We should bandage it up before the flies decide to come feed at it." His friend fetched bandages, and they bound Ramon's wrist with them.

"Fah! It's too hot!" he complained, knotting off the bandage. "Come, let's have some vinegar water." He winked at Ramon. "For you, I think no one would regret a little aguaente. I have some put by under the stairs. Come with me. Medicine, you know." Ramon chuckled and went to follow his friend. Just the thought of aguaente was making him feel better.

No one saw the black cur for days after that. The pueblo dozed in the heat of summer, its inhabitants hiding inside the thick adobe walls, sheltering from the oppressive heat. Tessa had undressed down to her embroidered chemise and calico petticoat, and sat languidly fanning herself. "It's too hot to even think," she murmured to Marta. "This heat has to break eventually. There isn't even a breeze off the sea."

"It is the Santa Ana, the Breath of the Saints," Marta replied, looking up from her mending. "The winds are off the desert and are good for filling the sails of departing ships, but not much else."

"Saints can just as easily blow off the sea. Perhaps the diosa de la mar you have mentioned."

Marta smiled knowingly. "She is a saint of the Caribbean, perhaps no saint that ever the Church knew."

"No matter whose saint, I will light a candle for her if she only sends a good sea breeze..."

"AAAARRRAUUUHHH!" The bellow of pain and fear, suddenly punctuated by frantic barking, then added to by another horrifying bellow, echoed through the streets, now added to by terrified screaming. "Salvatore's ox!" Tessa exclaimed and bolted for the door. Marta was already out it.

It was a horrible sight. The penned ox was already dripping with blood, and a black dog was harrying at it. A gouge in the animal's neck streamed blood, and it had already collapsed to its knees at the fury of the assault on its legs. The dog seemed a blur, attacking here, attacking there, intent on ripping the poor animal apart. Blood flew in crimson showers as the dog continued its savage attack.

"Madre de Dios!" Marta said, staggering back, with her hand to her heart. Swiftly, she crossed herself. At that instant, the dog stopped its attack and slowly turned its head to look directly at them. A rumbling growl rolled like thunder in its throat. Its eyes were dilated wide, maddened with bloodlust, and foam and blood and spittle dripped from its jaws. "The black dog of Hell!" she said, barely above a whisper. Somewhere, a woman was screaming, and the wounded ox continued to bellow and moan.

The world suddenly shifted into slow motion. The dog's eyes locked on hers, and he turned to face Tessa squarely. She watched the muscles tense and bunch, even as his eyes never left hers. The growling never stopped. She saw a thin stream of blood and saliva drip from one of the stray's canine teeth, watched it in horrified fascination as the dog took a step toward her, and another, and suddenly he was running, and all Tessa could see was the eyes fixed on hers, the jaws with the gleaming teeth and spatters of blood, and a blur of black running toward her, faster, faster.... "My lady!" she heard from somewhere far, far away, eclipsed by the sound of surf in her ears, a strange singing like the surge of the tide. Vaguely, she felt someone seize her shoulders as the dog began to bound, his eyes now lower, fixed on her throat...

And from somewhere infinitely far away, she heard the sound of a shot, a sharp crack that startled her, cut through the singing in her ears. Incredulously, she watched the dog suddenly tumble, rolling awkwardly in the air, legs flailing. It hit the ground with a thud of flesh, and rolled once more with its own momentum. It fell into a final awkward heap six feet in front of her, the bulging eyes still glaring, but empty now, staring up at the sky to which its soul had fled. The air seemed suddenly thick and hard to breathe, and her breath came in a huge and ragged gulp as she slowly turned her head, to see Captain Grisham with a pistol in his hand, arm still extended from the shot that had felled the dog of Hell.

"Miss Alvarado, are you all right?" he asked, with genuine concern. She tried to reply, but no words came. The air was thicker and harder to breathe than ever. He dropped his arm and strode to her, folded her into an embrace, and she found herself trembling violently in his arms.

The Queen of Swords is not afraid of the dog of Hell, she heard her own voice whisper in her brain, but neither Tessa Alvarado nor the Queen were listening. She heard someone sobbing dry, ragged sobs, and realized it was coming from her own mouth, her own body wracked by the force of them. In any other circumstances she would have pulled away, but it was warm and almost safe within the circle of the captain's arms, and she was deathly, deathly afraid.

"Will you be all right?" she heard, an infinity later. Doctor Helm was standing at her left shoulder.

Recovering, she pushed away from the captain and tried to paint on a face of bravado. The effect was not convincing. "I---shall be fine," she said, as if trying to convince herself. "You have no need to give me a sedative, doctor." She tried to sound flippant. Again, it was not convincing.

"I don't blame you," he said. "Rabies is a horrible disease, and a death I would not wish on my worst enemy. This poor beast..." he prodded the dog's corpse with his boot, "was once man's best friend, but now look at him. Consumed by madness and ravening for blood. Think of what it would do to a man. Or a woman."

"I am sure, as a doctor, you have many cures for the bite of a mad dog?" Marta asked, her eyes sparking oddly.

He shook his head. "Sadly, no. Those things are all quackery. You drink awful potions, sit around in cold water, fast for days or weeks, and I've never seen anything to convince me any of them offer a cure. Either the dog wasn't rabid, and you've poisoned yourself or abused your body for nothing, or it was rabid and all of this was for naught. There is no cure, though some have managed to save themselves by cutting out the flesh around a fresh wound or burning it with hot irons. It is a drastic measure, and one that I hope I never have to take."

"Guards, get this animal out of here!" Grisham ordered, prodding at the dog with the toe of his boot.

Heavy looks were exchanged between the two guardsmen who came to hoist the dead dog onto a sack and haul it away for burial. "Isn't that the dog Ramon was feeding?" one of them asked uneasily. The man shrugged. "Quien sabe?" he said. "Who knows?"

A small crescent of moon, only a few days from new, was setting in the west. At the guardhouse, Dark lay heavy over the pueblo, with so little moonlight. The candles inside did little to relieve the thick shadows that huddled in the corners, beyond their small light.

"What was that?" Ramon went to the window and peered out anxiously.

His fellow guardsmen were playing cards. "Ramon, you're jumpy as a cat with worms. What's gotten into you?"

"Doesn't it worry you, that she is out there? A woman who would kill us all, if she could?"

"You mean the Queen of Swords? No one has seen her for weeks, Ramon."

"Just so. She spies on us, knows our every move, so that she can kill us in our sleep. Life here was safer before she came. No life is good in this godforsaken place, but at least it was safe. Montoya protected us. Now he protects no one. I tell you, the Queen is out there, plotting our deaths." He peered into the darkness, as if his glare could make the spectre of the Queen of Swords manifest on the Plaza.

"Fah, what is that awful smell!" he whirled and struck the cup one of his fellows was holding, knocking it to the floor. The pottery vessel shattered and spilled its contents on the floor.

"It's only broth," the guardsman protested. "What's gotten into you?" He knelt to pick up the fragments of the cup.

"It smells of the dead!" Ramon said, cleared his mouth and spat on the floor. He started pacing restlessly.

"Dead steer, maybe," one of the men joked. "Hey, Jose, how long did you leave that carcass out there before you stewed it?" The rest of the men laughed.

Ramon kept pacing. "What's wrong?" one of his fellows asked him. "Fah, I feel her out there, watching," he said. "The Queen, she is watching. Always watching. She will kill us all in the end and dance on our graves." He cleared his mouth and spat on the floor again One of his fellows laid a hand on his shoulder, and he spun around, eyes glaring. "Do not touch me, or you will lose a hand!" he threatened. The man stepped back, baffled by this sudden outburst. Ramon kept pacing.

He paced through the night, and there were whispers in the guardhouse. "The Queen, perhaps she is a witch, and she has put a hex upon him? He acts like the devil is on his back." Many of them fingered their crosses and gave prayers to be delivered from the evil that had come among them.

And then he was gone. None knew where, but he was gone. In the pueblo where Montoya ruled over his minions, no one wished to inquire into the matter too closely.

The Queen of Swords looked down at the scuff marks on the trail. They were not made by any animal. No, these looked like they were made by a booted foot, wearing the footgear such as soldiers wore. Montoya had complained that one of his men had deserted, and she was determined to find out why. In this place, soldiers generally did not desert. They disappeared, sometimes, but they did not desert. There was simply no place for them to go. There was something wrong, but she could not put her finger on it.

However, she was tracking a missing man and would not rest until she had gotten to the bottom of his disappearance. Leaving her horse at the top of the ridge, where the trail wound down, she followed the signs of passage. Following the trail, she came down the side of an arroyo where the stream had nibbled away at the side of the bank in the winter. It appeared there might be a small water hole there, for there were also fresh deer tracks and the marks of what appeared to be boots, scuffing down the hillside. But then she saw more and more oddnesses as she followed the trail. Besides the scuff marks, then a bit of rag, and also some very oddly disturbed areas crossing the trail.... There were some scrubby bushes here, which might conceal something more than just more brush. Kneeling, she followed a badly-concealed bit of twine and followed it to where it disappeared into a bush. Carefully, she tossed a rock onto the area where the trail looked most disturbed. Suddenly, a very large rock, suspended from a rope, swung out where a person's head might be, the whole thing part of a trap made of bent sticks. Someone was clever, very clever.

"So, the Queen comes to kill me," a hoarse voice croaked, close by. The words were followed by a cackling laugh that disturbed her by its maddened tone.

"Why would I want to kill you, Ramon?" she asked the brush.

"I am a soldier." The laughter subsided into a dry, hacking cough, almost a bark. "And you are a witch." A man in dirty rags stepped out of the brush down the trail. He noisily cleared his throat and spat on the trail. He was holding a pistol in one hand. She decided she wasn't going to chance whether or not it was loaded.

His eyes were bloodshot, and his mouth was crusted around. "You have come," he croaked, and was wracked by the hacking cough again. "I will kill you. You know my name."

"Why shouldn't I know your name?" she asked reasonably. "Everyone knows your name. They speak of you. They miss you."

"You hex with names." His voice was so dry and cracking he could barely speak. He stared at her with a light of madness glowering in his eyes. "You sent the black dog of the Devil. You are a demon."

Her eyes fixed on the raggy bandage still around his wrist, and a horrible thought struck her. "Did it bite you, this dog?" she asked, her heart sinking within her.

"It is your dog, fiend!" He advanced up the trail, and she backed up slowly. The man's free hand clenched and unclenched, and he now pressed it to his stomach, as if stuck by a pain. She continued to back up the trail. She tried to speak slowly, soothingly, but the man was not listening. The harsh, barking cough racked him again, and he spat again and again.

"Madre de Dios," she murmured lowly, realizing he was crazed with the madness. His eyes were fixed on her, and he did not blink. She wondered if he ever did, if the madness had robbed him even of that. "Ramon, the dog was mad. It bit you. You're mad. It gave you its disease."

He laughed again, that chilling laugh. "You would distract me. But I am going to send you to Hell! When you are there, you can talk to your dog!"

He lunged up the path at her, but she was at the top of the trail and dodged away. He aimed the pistol, took the shot, and the report went echoing through the arroyo, so loud in the stillness of the hot summer day. The heat on the dry grass at the embankment was rising in little ripples, and the horizon where the hill rolled away was false, a glimmer like water from reflected sky. It was like a bad dream, this day, a nightmare. But she had dodged correctly, and the shot had gone wild.

He reversed the pistol in his hand, now holding it like a club. Laughing wildly, he rushed at her, and she suddenly found herself grappling with him, her hands locked on his as he tried to rake her face with dirty nails. She tightened her grip on the other hand, holding away the discharged pistol with which he was trying to club her. Her wrist was too close to his face, and she saw his jaws snap. He was going to try to bite her wrist, even as the dog had bitten him!

"There she is!" came a voice from far off. Ramon's head snapped around so swiftly she wondered that she couldn't hear a cracking from the vertebrae of his neck. It was enough. She broke free, staggered backward, drawing her sword. Out of the shimmering crest of the hilltop emerged the forms of five soldiers on horseback, the captain and four guardsmen. For the first time, the Queen of Swords was glad to see her sworn enemies.

"Stay where you are!" came the call, as if Captain Grisham really believed that he could command the Queen of Swords.

Ramon lunged at her, swinging the pistol to crack her skull, and she knocked it up and away with the blade of her sword, dancing backward. Suddenly, she knew how the bear felt in bear baiting. "You tell him that, mis amigos!" she said, not taking her eyes from this more immediate peril. She and Ramon faced each other, circling. "Stay away from him! He's mad!" she called to the soldiers. "The mad dog bit him! Look at him!"

She felt more than saw them come to a halt behind the rabid soldier, never taking her eyes from this man who was sick, dying, yet still stalked her as a cobra might stalk its prey. Did he really fear her so much?

"Ramon!" one of the soldiers called, and the man's head turned toward him, eyes staring, as his lips drew back in something between a sneer and a snarl, exposing his teeth. "Dios!" said the man, hastily crossing himself.

"What are you waiting for?" Grisham said impatiently. "Take her!"

"No, mine!" Ramon laughed again. There was drool dribbling down his chin, and he lunged toward Grisham. Involuntarily, the officer pulled on his reins, and the horse beneath him stepped back. Ramon hurled the pistol at him, and the reality of what he was seeing seemed to finally hit the captain as he stared at the man in disbelief.

Then with that horrible barking sound that was half cough and half laugh, Ramon turned and lunged at the masked swordswoman again, running toward her. More in instinct than anything else, she raised her sword defensively. It was as if he didn't see, or didn't comprehend, reaching for her as if he would rend her with his bare hands. And the point pierced him just below the breastbone. The momentum carried him onward, and the blade briefly protruded from his back, then he took one step to stagger backward, and she convulsively pulled the blade back and away. He sank to his knees, eyes staring, arms falling, even as the slackness opened his lower jaw, as death pulled him downward like gravity. Like when the dog had rushed her, it was all in slow motion, but she felt clearer of head this time, without the singing of blood in her ears. She watched him fall, die, and realized this was a death that was merciful.

"Stay away from my sword, mis amigos," Tessa said with a strange smile, gesturing with the bloody blade. "The blood on this sword is the blood of a madman, a man who has been bitten by a mad dog. Would you bring his doom upon your own heads? If the bite of a mad dog transfers the madness, what of the blood of one of his victims?"

The men looked nervously at the fallen body in the dust. Already the flies were buzzing about it, barely able to wait for death in the heat of the day.

She whistled shrilly, and from the concealment of the arroyo, her horse appeared in response to her call, easily bounding up the side of the wash.

"I have done you a favor, gentlemen," she said, nodding at the man. "If he had not attacked me, he would have surely attacked you, and you might not have dispatched him before he had bitten you and infected more and more with the dog's disease. And now," she saluted them with the sword, "I bid you good day."

As her horse approached, she ran to it and vaulted easily up to the saddle. She held her own sword gingerly, as if it were a poisonous snake that might unexpectedly bite.

"Stop her!" the captain called. Not a single man moved. They all stood staring at the dead man in the dust, the spittle on his lips, and the way his eyes were rolled back until the whites showed more than anything else.

The Queen rode as if the devil was behind her, breathing his own hot breath on her back. She looked back once, to see if anyone was following. No one was. Finally, she came to a bluff overlooking a small, rocky beach where a path led down to the tide pools. Shaking, she slid from the saddle, then gingerly lifted the bloody sword that she had slung across it behind her.

Leaving the horse to crop grass atop the bluff, she picked her way down the path and across the rocky rubble of the beach. Breathing out in a long shuddering sigh, she hurled the bloody sword into the tide pool in front of her, then plopped down on a rock beside it. Briefly she covered her face with her hands, shuddering.

Raising her head again, she stood and looked down into the pool where the water rippled as a small wave splashed over the rocky barrier that separated the pool from the sea. Beneath the water's surface the sword rested serenely, the partially dried blood beginning to float into the purifying sea water. Some of the blood of the dog's victim trailed outward in a long tendril. Slowly, she backed away, staring down into the pool of salt water. "I will pray for your soul, Ramon," she said, watching the small streamers of blood. A crab scuttled along the rocky bottom, intrigued by the scent of food in the water, but finding nothing but steel.

She backed away, staring at the sword in the pool. Her eyes stung, and she told herself it was the salt spray of the waves. But the lace of her mask knew that the Queen of Swords wept. A wave struck the rocks and showered the pool with foam and the swordswoman with spray. The Diosa de la Mer wept as well.