Descent Into Madness (29 page)

              “No,” he insisted, “you are here because blood was shed! You said so yourself. Blood was shed but not of my doing. I did not send people to murder you or anyone else.”

              “You cannot erase what has been done. You must make peace with your demons and ask for forgiveness.”

              “I charged my undersecretary with the task of retrieving the amulet. Mistakenly, I told him to pursue it at all costs. Francisco is too naïve for such a task, I see this now,” he explained, “I signed the document of transfer, allowing that amulet to leave the Vatican vault for the American museum. Everything that has happened since – the murder – that has not been of my doing. My mouth did not order those commands,” he said, tears staining the creases of his weary eyes.

              His footsteps pattered across the smooth Italian marble as he walked into the bedchamber and sat in a chair near the window. The sky overlooking Vatican City was crystalline that evening – cloudless and lit with the brilliance of a billion stars. Standing there, I realized the Vatican had remained as constant as the sky, both permanent forces orbiting each other, battling for attention in a world too busy to see the beauty each had to offer.                “Those murders, I am responsible for them,” he said, his eyes glistening. “One day, I pray I will be forgiven for my transgressions,” he finally said after we both had become lost in the starlit sky.

              “Father, can Francisco be working with someone?”              

              “Conspiring against the Holy See?” he gasped. “I think not!” His eyes shifted back and forth, moving in unison with his head. “At least, I pray it is not so. Someone forced him to commit this crime.” 

              “Those men were acting – slaying, father – on behalf of a higher authority.”

              “I was not that authority,” he said. “And I can assure you, blood was not shed under my command, or that of the Holy Father.”

              “No,” I said, “it was not your pope.” I turned. “It was your Francisco. I can see his face in your thoughts. The men who harmed my friend – that was the same face. His face…”    

              “You must destroy the amulet, then. That is the only way.”

              “Destroy the amulet?” My fingers rested against the smooth jewels in my pocket, the cold hardness. “Why?”

              “You cannot let Francisco get it back,” he urged. “If the papal legends are true, then it is more powerful than anyone can comprehend.”

              “Then it is not just a good luck charm,” I laughed, fingering the trinket.

              “It is a protective hex.” His voice flattened to a gruff whisper and I moved closer to him from a spot across the room.

              “At least, it was supposed to be. Legend says one evening an angel came to visit a pope, but that night he had a revealing dream. This angel was no angel after all, but a demon in angel’s clothing. So he summoned a maiden who dabbled in the occult, procured a protective hex; and then he sentenced the maiden to hanging. Her crime: witchcraft.”

              “If it is protective,” I asked, pulling the amulet from my pocket and examining the portrait painted in my image, “how can I hold it? Should it not burn me or turn me to stone, or something?”

              “That is the secret,” the archivist replied reclining back into the chair, “As they were looping the noose about her neck, the girl told the hangman that the amulet would never protect the pope, but only the one whom he wished to ward away. The paint was already drying as her lifeless body swung from the olive tree, and the spell was cast.”

              “That is an amusing story, but how am I to believe any of it?” I tossed the amulet from one hand to the next, the image smiling back at me.

              “It was but a legend here, as well. Then again, you and your kind were legends, too,” he noted. “Then the amulet was stolen and the records say the guards entrusted to its care were drained of blood. For me, this confirmed both.”

              “You believe in my kind, then?”

              “It’s been the archivist’s duty to know the Church’s enemies,” he asked. His hands no longer shook as they rested at his side.

              “We are not at war with you, pull back Francisco and we can be at peace, Father,” I urged him. “The amulet is safe in my hands.”

              “No!” He rose and came to my side, any fear of being near me now replaced by his urgent need to destroy the amulet. “It must be destroyed. You must do it, I cannot. It’s impossible.”

              “Why?” My hand upon his shoulder startled him and he shrank away. “Father, why do you fear it so?”

              “Previous archivist’s had been tasked with finding the source of the amulet’s power. One archivist was close, and even began alleging it’s not a cursed stone. But in 1878, his notes and the amulet were shoved away in a collection of journals and papers in the secret archives.”

              The man jogged toward a personal writing desk in the corner of the room and took a small gold key from a drawer. He went to the wall near the chapel entrance and removed a curtain, revealing a small safe. Inserting the key, he opened the safe door and took out a petite leather-bound notebook. “I’d only begun sorting through that section of memorabilia – for archivist eyes only – when I found this.”

              “Can you read Latin? It is all here! I could not believe the words when I first read them. They were all running experiments on the amulet. These former archivists were hiring men of science to study it!” he shook his head and handed me the notebook. “There are references to a weapon, but I do not understand it. Francisco does, his father was a magnificent German engineer – a brilliant man. If he is hiring mercenaries, and under the authority of my name,” the archivist paused, tears rushing his eyes, his voice choking behind the admission of betrayal, “then he cannot gain possession of this amulet.”

TWENTY-NINE

C
ertain clarity comes with soaring through an October sky. As the chilly autumn wind whipped through my hair, thoughts turned to a simpler time when I could feel the sun on my cheeks. When the world was limited and time finite, my future decided.

              The golden pre-dawn horizon chased me toward Chicago as the city’s bustling skyline welcomed me. October on the lakefront in my State Street high-rise, overlooking the ants scurrying below, living their glorious little lives – that all seemed like eons ago. Clarity. That is what my trip to Rome had given me. 

              The State Street apartment was dark when I arrived. Judith waited in the study, sitting in silence near the fireplace, her back to the wall. The curtains were drawn, the fireplace unlit and the lamps off. To the outside world, it appeared no one was home. And if Francisco was sending reinforcements, this was the message I intended to send. 

              “Is it safe to go to the hospital now?” she asked as I entered the study. Her hand moved to the light switch but I cut her off, moving to her side swiftly, catching her hand, slamming it against the wall before releasing it.

              “You bled them dry, Bree!” her shrill voice pierced the blustering Chicago traffic. “I watched from this window.” She moved to the window and swept aside the shade. Crime scene investigators had swarmed the area last night, their yellow tape marking a perimeter around the car and its bloodless inhabitants, she explained. “I watched knowing they would not find anything. I watched hoping they would not find anything.”

              “Even if they did,” I remarked, coming up behind her, “the one behind this will bury it.” I told her where I had been while she slept – the information I had uncovered.

              “What can we do now?” she asked, her voice trailing off, the exasperation evident in each syllable.

              “I have to find Aksel,” I replied. Removing the amulet from my pocket, I held it against the moonlight before she released the shade, once again bathing the room in blackness. “It all centers on this amulet.” I pocketed the jewel, fingering its coldness. “He knows more than he is willing to say.”

              “What do you need me to do?” Judith sauntered to the desk and sat down, fumbling through the drawers. “Maybe he will confide in me, Bree. If I tell him what happened, what happened to dad, maybe Aksel will end this nightmare for us all.”

              “No, Judith.” I headed for the front entrance. She followed as we neared the apartment’s front door. “He is my problem and it is my face on the amulet. It seems destiny, although I do not seek it, that it is my war to fight. I will question him. Go be with your father now; he needs you, my dear.”

              “Bree,” she shuffled over, placing her arm around my shoulder, pulling me tightly to her, “promise me one thing, please?” My eyes met hers as a tear slipped into the corner of her eye where a bit of dust still lingered from last night’s flight. “Promise me you will end this.”

              It took twenty minutes to reach my Lofoten cabin. A steady rain fell, bringing an October chill off the water. My hair and clothes clung to me as I landed near the shore and walked toward the familiar door, cloaked in billowing overgrowth. The door, rusting at the seams, creaked open. I searched the rooms but they were untouched from the last time I had been there.

              The candles circling the bedchamber caught aflame as I sat on the edge of the bed, the covers still rolled back as if I had just awoken. “Aksel!” My voice echoed off the stone chamber, carrying itself up the barren staircase as candle flames flickered in its path.

             
Rising from the stone steps, the brisk air, rushing through the open door, greedily greeted me. My mind churned as the rain pelted my face. I fumbled with the locks, the rusted hinges threatening to disintegrate with each movement. As my eyes once more beheld the Lofoten cabin, the billowing overgrowth now completely covering the door, my feet lifted off the sandy shore.

             
Norway’s villages and bustling cities, greatly changed since I last flew over them, blurred beneath me. The rain eased slightly but the wind showed no signs of relenting as I neared Trondheim. The city’s buildings were alive with activity; its glass towers hovered above me as I landed.

              I landed on that cobblestone street, now paved with asphalt. The inn was still there, standing across from the tavern, which held the same name it had back when I first found him. There were no lights on, the room was vacant, and he was not in there. I walked toward the shore, as I had on so many nights when I lived in Norway. The wind still bustled, knotting my hair.

              The tide came in quickly, my boots sinking into the sand as I walked. His silhouette graced the shoreline. He sat in a beached boat, a fire smoldering nearby. His hands rubbed the woodcarvings. He was remembering that life – a simpler time, and innocent time.

              “Do you wish now,” I whispered, walking up behind him, “with all you know, everything you have been through, that you would have stayed in your cabin? Do you wish that you had not come out that night and spoken to me on this shore?”

              “No.” His head hung, his hands grabbed at his hair.

              “Then why are we here?” The bench next to him was narrow, but he did not move over. He barely noticed I was there. “Why did you come here?”

              “I came home,” he whispered raising his face, blood tears staining his cheeks. “Bree, I came home to die.”

              In the moonlight, I saw them now, the carvings. They were of his making. He had been coming here for a while now, coming to work on this boat. In the Viking tradition, they chronicled his life, to help him achieve death.

              “You don’t get to enter the void yet, Aksel,” I demanded. “That ending is for cowards.”

              “It is the only way to get them to stop, Bree,” he said. He faced me and took my hands. “This is not how I saw us ending… or me ending, really.” 

              “Just tell them to stop.” I removed the amulet from my pocket, tossing it at him. It clinked in the darkness as it struck the boat’s side. “Give them back their cursed amulet!”

              “Pick it up,” he said, his words flat against the sea air. “Put it away,” he spat.

              “Now you have me regretting ever stepping forth on Norwegian soil, Aksel. Why must you be so infuriating?” My foot kicked, sending sand into the flames so the wood crackled and sparks shot out into the atmosphere. I watched as they sailed away and I longed to ride along with them, ride away from Aksel and his amulet.               “Why must you always return to me, return to me and bring into my life such… heartache?”

              Tiny fiery tongues licked the obsidian sky as I watched Aksel rise and walk from the boat. He picked up the amulet, dusted it against his pant leg and stared into the painted face. His thumb rubbed gently against the portrait.

              “I painted this with my eyes closed,” he remarked.

              “You painted it?” I began to walk toward him, but his eyes warned me to stay back. “The legend of the witch really is a farce.”

              “The legend never named the painter, actually, and so those who have told the story, through time… the pope’s, the archivist’s, they have all assumed it a witch,” he said, his eyes not once leaving the amulet, “But I painted it, once I found out what the amulet did, and who it was intended for.”

              “What about the angel and the girl? The legend?”

              He turned, his eyes glossed in a veil of red. “Legends, cleverly weaved legends. In an ignorant time, it is easy to weave such lies, Bree. You know this. After all, you taught me well.”

              Going to his side, I took the amulet from his fingers; his vacant, colorless glare reflected back at me as I did. The jewel was cold, from both his touch and the icy Norwegian air. The waves roared, crashing against nearby rocks and the fire swelled despite the wind’s surge.

              Growing closer to the fire, I stared into the face on the amulet and it stared back at me. Time stopped as the embers near my feet crackled. I considered tossing it into the fire, but knew he would throw himself into the flame to rescue it.

              “Aksel, the archivist thinks this amulet is a weapon,” I said, facing him. “But the legend… is it all a lie and innocent people are dying over a Vatican artifact? Aksel, Peter had to give up his entire life in Chicago and Colin,” I choked back a torrent of tears, “Colin’s on life support after the men who seek this mowed us down on the Dan Ryan the other night!” I held the amulet up to the firelight so we could both see the portrait clearly.

              “Whatever legend is behind this, whatever magic the archivist’s secretary believes exists inside it, he is not just after us now, Aksel! Tell me; what will happen if he gets this amulet and finds out it is useless? What then?”

              As I spoke, my words frantically spilling forth, Aksel snatched the amulet. When I finished, he fingered the amulet, glanced at it once more and then placed it in my coat pocket. “Trust me, please,” he said.

              “Why should I trust you?” I demanded. “Nothing since I have awoken has made sense!” I removed the amulet, clasping it and brought it to my face. “This, Aksel, this doesn’t make sense! How many people must die for this amulet? How many more people have to die for this legend you have created?”

              “Bree,” he whispered, his voice shaky, “I promise, one day you will understand.” He walked to the water’s edge turning away from me. “One day, you will understand why I have awoken you now, why I have interrupted your slumber. One day, my precious, you will thank me.”

              I pressed on, “I want answers now, Aksel, not in the future!” Stepping closer, I waited for him to turn but he refused to face me. “I will throw this amulet into the ocean then!” I screamed.

              “Why are you so stubborn?” he hollered, swiveling into view. “Why can you not just trust me?” he asked, walking toward the bench.

              “Why can you not trust me, Aksel?” I bartered in return. “Trust me with this amulet’s secret.”

              “It’s complicated,” he said. 

              “I don’t like the sound of this,” I replied. I sat next to him and he placed his hand in mine.

              “You must protect it, Bree,” he begged.

              “Do I have a choice?” I asked, already knowing the answer. “But,” I began as I glanced toward the boat, “you don’t have to destroy yourself because of it.”

              “I do,” he said. “It is the only way to protect you.”

              “I do not understand, Aksel.”

              “I don’t ask you to understand,” he said.

              “Why is it this way with us? Always!” Taking his face into my hands, I stroked his firm cheekbones and traced the angle of his jaw with my index finger. “What have you done, my old love?”

              His hand reached into my hair, his fingers gently stroking the strands. “I remember the first time I saw you by these shores. You were breathtaking, and then one night you slipped into the water and disappeared into the rocks.” His voice trailed as his eyes lingered toward the same rocks. Not too far from the shore where his cabin once stood was now a fresh fish mart, of course now closed for the night.

              “Day after day, night after night, your face bewitched me, Bree. Your eyes, your hair, your flawless beauty… the moonlight bathed you in incandescence. ”

              “I was finding my way in those days.” The fire crackled as the memories surfaced. “I had just left Wesley. I had never been on my own, and did not know how to be on my own.”

              “You did not stay on your own long,” he remarked.

              “I should not have made you so quickly,” I admitted. “I had no idea what I was doing!”

              “We were newlyweds,” he laughed. “Neither of us were prepared for what was to come, so we floundered along, learning as we traveled.”

              “And making mistakes along the way,” I noted, squeezing his hand. My voice quaked, “Was the amulet a mistake, an experiment or enchantment gone wrong, Aksel?”