Descent Into Madness (32 page)

THIRTY-TWO

R
emember the plague?” I asked Sister Veronica. “Remember how it robbed us of our childhood, stole our families?”

I had returned to the State Street apartment after turning Colin, and after phoning Wesley to come fetch the newly formed, immortal poet. Now I stood on the balcony peering over the street as traffic slowly filtered into the city. The morning commute snaked past as the sun peeked over the horizon. A sliver of its golden warmth winked behind the steel and glass monstrosity across the street.

              Weakly I spoke to Veronica, and to the universe, and to anyone who could answer, “Why did we survive?”

              “Each life has a purpose,” she replied, her voice steady behind the traffic’s vibrations.

              The dawn light’s glow warmed her pale complexion, and her pupils were now orbs of rare ebony within their white settings. My hand crept toward her cheek, reaching eagerly to stroke her milky, glistening skin. She veered away, turning her face so the corner of the habit grazed my hand. The fabric – the rough, aged cotton – felt solid as it brushed against me.

              “We were chosen, Bree. We had a calling, a reason to live beyond that wretched pestilence.” Her wary eyes gazed into mine as she faced me once again, then they fell to the horizon.

              “Then why am I here? Answer me that!” I demanded. “Find the scripture that says be obedient, be pure, sacrifice and you will be rewarded with an eternal curse! Show it to me, Veronica!”

              Veronica’s lips pursed as she slid the balcony door closed. The glass made a subtle, nearly inaudible thud as it met the wall, and then she locked it. The curtain ruffled, billowing against the spotless glass before settling and obscuring my view of the study.

              “I died twice the night Wesley took me, Veronica,” I feebly whispered as I watched the sunlight play on the windows around me. There was warmth in the air, hanging like a palpable cloud. This was warmth I no longer remembered, or had forced myself to forget. I inhaled the dawn – my eager mouth open to the crisp morning – and found the air a bittersweet reminder of my sacrifice. The air soured against my lips and turned rancid as it stung my tongue. 

              “After he turned me I looked back at the convent,” I continued, watching the sunrise. “We were miles away on that hill in the abandoned castle overlooking the creek.” She smiled in remembrance. “I could see the candles flickering, Veronica. All that distance away… what, five miles? – I could see them and I heard the sisters crying and praying. Some were weeping – openly weeping, Veronica. I had never heard them do that before – crying out to God with raw agony bleeding in their voices. The lights, the sounds, it was as if they were happening next to me. Then I realized you were not at mass.”

              Veronica’s eyes softened and her head bowed as my skin warmed.

              “I worried you had been blamed for my escape,” I admitted. “But when Wesley told me you were confined to your bed with grief, I died yet again.”

              “Those were dark days,” she whispered.

              “My life only grew darker, I am afraid,” I whispered, glaring at the sun as it threatened to breach the building shielding me. “That day stained my life deep ebony, my friend, and there is no lightening it.”

              “All the light you will ever need is with you now, Bree,” she said, her hand coming to rest itself on my shoulder. It was a comforting notion, giving what was about to happen.

              “Stop,” I quivered, “it is too late for hope, for comfort.”

              “It is never too late for hope,” she said. “You have had the answer all this time.” She reached into my pocket and pulled out the amulet. Reaching for my hand, she unclenched my fingers and placed the cold, jeweled circled antique in my palm. “The answer is within, Bree; just use it.”

              Bringing the amulet to eye level, it gave its age in the growing daylight. The jewels glistened, but the portrait – my portrait – showed a slight fading. Tiny cracks ran along the portraits surface. Years of fondling had worn the varnish and rust grew at its clasp.

              “He left that to you for a reason,” she said with a new urgency. “And you cannot let it fall into the wrong hands.”              

              “They are taken care of.” My eyes glanced to the shut door, and then shifted to the growing daylight. My flesh grew with an uncomfortable heat.

              “Don’t be too certain,” she spat.

              She urged, “An obsessed man can be tenacious.”

              “I do not have a choice then, do I?” I asked, resigning to my fate. Why had I not questioned Aksel more? Why had I not forced him to tell me everything about this amulet?

              “What on Earth possessed Aksel to make this curse – this weapon? What was he thinking?”

              “Curse? Weapon?” Her voice softened. “He loved you. He stopped at nothing to protect you, Bree.”

              “He has done a swell job protecting me with this, has he not?” my voice boomed. “This amulet has caused more damage than protection.”

              “How so?” she asked.

              “Are you serious?” I stepped back and the balcony railing cut into my back. “Countless mortals are dead and I forced this curse on a dying man.”

              “Mortals die every day, every minute in fact.” She gestured to the street below, now congested with morning traffic. Honks and hollering – the orchestra of a busy, midweek city’s solemn requiem – gave her gestures audience.

              “Car accidents, heart attacks, by their own weak hands, mortals perish,” she continued, “And you did not force this curse on Colin. You heard his thoughts; it is what he wanted. Bree, human lives, they are insignificant. They are here today and gone tomorrow. And you know this. You understand this.”

              “Their lives are not insignificant, Veronica,” I groaned through stiffening lips.

              The sun was nearly over the buildings now, its heat seering my skin. Moving to the balcony’s edge and gripping the handle, I peered into the growing sunlight. It was a phoenix, rising into the sky aflame and anew, mesmerizing me as it climbed higher. The light seared my eyes, yet I could not turn from the orb’s glow or the orange aura surrounding it. The blueness of the sky, the muted whiteness of the clouds, it had been too long since I had seen such raw splendor.

              “I watch them hurry, scrambling to start their lives before the sun is even up,” I said, not peeling my eyes from the sky.

              “Such purpose, such drive and spirit. They are raw, Veronica, and passionate, and innocent creatures exploding with history and virility. And no matter what horrid circumstance life throws at them, they persevere. My kind? We cower in the shadow like rats hoping to not be discovered for the monsters we truly are! These people below, they rally and fight; they love and argue. I admire humanity, more so now that I have the blood than I ever did when I was human.”

              “Then you know what you must do.” Her lips pressed against my burning cheek and I winced.

              “It has to be done,” I said. I looked away from the sky and angled my head down State Street, taking in the city now bathed in a golden aura.

              “Destroy the amulet, my friend.”

THIRTY-THREE

October 22, 2012

I
n a darkened room – partitioned from the study where they seldom ventured – Aleksandra and Wesley left a motionless, hardened shell of a matriarch. Bewildered, they placed Bree’s body in the room, laying her on a relocated settee. Judith and Colin came, and the four were aghast at the site before them.

              “Her skin is rough. Feel it,” Aleksandra whispered. “Wesley, what happened to her?”

              Bree’s skin was granite beneath Aleksandra’s touch. The sun’s heat emanated from the matriarch’s cheeks, and it singed Aleksandra’s fingertips. She winced with every touch, bringing the sore tips to her mouth to lick the heat away.

              “She’s burning up!”

              “She was on the balcony,” Aleksandra continued. “Feel her!”

              Wesley flicked on the lamp and held his hand to Bree’s face, immediately withdrawing it. In the lamp’s light, the matriarchs delicate, honey drop curls were incandescent, roughened ringlets. Her tightly drawn lips were cracked and blood stained. Her once milky skin lay taut, spread tight against her bones, threatening to rip its new tan. As broken as his sister was, Wesley thought, studying her, something about Bree ringed with a vague and sickening familiarity. She appeared strangely human.             

              “She went into the sun,” Wesley said, his fingers smoothing Bree’s hair.

              “How could she have? Wesley, she would be a pile of ash.” Aleksandra crouched to the floor, resting on waiting knees beside her mother’s body. She clasped Bree’s hand and let the heat warm her skin. “We have both seen a body burn. That is an unspeakable horror – one I will never forget. But it does not do this.”

              “I have no other explanation,” he conceded.

              “What is she clutching?” Colin stepped from the shadows and pointed to Bree’s left hand.

              Gnarled into a tightened fist by the sun, Bree’s fingers snaked around an obscured object resting in her palm. Colin leaned over the matriarch’s body, delicately taking her hand in his. Her hand was delicate porcelain beneath his grasp as he tried prying her fingers loose. When that failed, though, he grew eager in his approach, forcefully grasping at the fingers. Judith pushed him aside when she heard a wee cracking.

              “I almost had it!” he growled.

              “You almost snapped her finger off!” Judith said. She then ran a finger over Bree’s left hand feeling for damage, and sighed with relief when she found none.

              “What do we do with her?” Colin asked. “I mean, is she alive? Is she dead?”

              “We care for her,” Aleksandra blurted.

              “Aleksandra, feel your mother’s skin. It is scorching. She went into the sun. I cannot explain why she did not burn, why there is not a pile of ash greeting us on the balcony. I am certain Bree will not be waking from this coma. She is no longer with us, and you must let her go.” Wesley placed a cautious hand on Aleksandra’s shoulder.               “How should we do it?” Judith asked, her voice dripping with sugary kindness. “Do you want me to phone around?”

              “I’ll have a mausoleum constructed,” Wesley said, gazing at Alexandra stroking her mother’s arm. “That will give Aleksandra time to say her good-byes.”

              They left, turning the lights off as they went. The matriarch slept in the darkness, in the cold, quiet of night.

THIRTY-FOUR

S
ix full moons had danced across the sky since Bree stepped into the sun; their silvery brilliance illuminated the heavens, bathing the world below in mysticism. Chicago – the city and its people – whizzed and whirled in constant rhythm – a teaming, unstoppable life force unaware of her sacrifice. Winter came and ice clung to the tree branches as the city froze. Lake Michigan slumbered, its frigid waters lapping at the shoreline – eager for warmth. Everything slept.

              Then dawn broke. 

April 13, 2013

Daybreak

              Salmon droplets grew on Aleksandra’s skin as she thrashed about the bed, staining the satin sheets with her blood-sweat. An endless unlit tunnel stretched in front of her. The air swirled, twisting her hair and stinging her cheeks as the earth quivered beneath her stocking feet.

              Something lured her forward into the abysmal tunnel, urging her into the ghastly darkness. She stretched her arms forward, desperately reaching for the walls but recoiled as something slithered near her feet – just as her fingertips reached the slimy brick. The slithering heaviness pressed against her toes, leaving Aleksandra shivering in the moist darkness, unable to see the source. 

              Aleksandra fell forward onto the moving earth as she vainly attempted to grasp for solid brick. The ground skittered beneath her palms. The wind ceased. All was quiet but the subtle sound of shifting dirt. Aleksandra took the wobbly soil into her palms, smoothing it between her fingers. The
odoriferous particles
slid against her fingertips with the smoothness of Italian silk. She felt them eagerly slip from her hand and return to the waiting ground.

              In the stillness, as nothing moved – save for Aleksandra’s fingers and the few particles slipping from them, she felt a warm presence pass near and a lightness press upon her shoulder. She winced as the lightness, or perhaps a pain – it had been too sudden to be sure – lifted. Aleksandra grabbed at the spot, removing her hand from the stinging shoulder. A single drop of crimson rested against her milky fingertip.

              Standing, she whispered into the void, “Is someone there?”

              The only reply was a shallow whirr from the far end of the vast blackness.

              “Hello?” Aleksandra urged, “Is someone down there?” Her voice echoed in a muted reply.

              Aleksandra stood and took a shaky step forward as a heavy, blanketing mist grew to encapsulate her. A bony hand reached through the carpet of gray, and Aleksandra panicked. Her scream was raw and animalistic, a scratchy, deafening howl that reverberated off the bricks. The hand thrashed and turned as its disembodied master listened for screams. Then the hand clutched Aleksandra’s leg and held it fast, forcing her down. The ebony void shimmered and wavered as the arm pulled Aleksandra down into the thickening fog. That noise – a hum, a whirr, a blurring, mind-numbing whisper – swelled, edging its way toward her.

              Aleksandra fought and thrashed, digging into the hand and howling into the darkness.

April 13, 2013

Nightfall

              “Aleksandra!” Wesley safely screamed from his side of the massive king bed. He grabbed the overstuffed body pillow lying between them, now mangled and soaked with Aleksandra’s blood-sweat, and tossed it on the floor.

              He grabbed her at the shoulders and shook her. “Wake up! Aleksandra! Wake up!”

              Dizzied and unfocused, the room blurred into a muted orange nightmare as Wesley flicked on his bedside lamp. Aleksandra clutched at the new white and tangerine striped comforter, her sweat marring the new Italian satin.

              “What is the matter, my love?” he asked, bending his head to kiss her neck.

              Her voice quaked. “It was just a nightmare,” she sighed, “nothing to worry about.”

              Aleksandra felt Wesley’s moist lips on the nape of her neck, followed by the sharp point of his index finger against her shoulder.

              “You’re bleeding,” he whispered.

              She reached up and felt the scratch – recent, fresh.

              “That must have been a wild nightmare, my poor amore.” He held her tighter.

              She broke from his embrace and pulled the soiled covers away. Aleksandra stood, her legs quivering. She eyed the bedroom floor for signs of quivering and slithering, for shaking and movement, for foul smelling dirt.

              “Are you sure you are alright, Aleksandra?” Wesley called from the bed. He was gathering the bed sheets, the coverings, the pillowcases, all drenched in blood-sweat.

              “Do you think she is still in there, Wesley, locked inside?” Aleksandra asked, her voice a nearly inaudible whisper.

              “It does not matter what I think or what I believe, Aleksandra,” he replied walking to her side, placing his hand about her waist. “There is no surviving the sun.”

              Aleksandra’s head dipped, her chin skimming her chest. Her luminescent hazel eyes closed as a tear dropped, collecting on her white sock. There was a brown smudge peeking from her toe lines.

              She looked up. “I must go to her.”

              “Aleksandra,” he said, grabbing her shoulders, pulling her to him, “don’t hold on to her. Let her go. She would not want us like this, mourning her, tending to her like an idol, keeping her like a household fixture to view when the mood strikes. If you want a pet, my love, get a house cat.”

              Aleksandra glanced at the smudge, remembering the coldness, the hardness of the earth. She turned her palms over and eyed the silt-lined roadmap the quivering ground left in her palms. Aleksandra closed her eyes and deeply inhaled the fragrant remnants, and she brought her hands to her face. With a vague and eerie recollection, she felt the rush of wind sweeping through her hair and the vibrating hum cascading through the tunnel. The black, endless tunnel…

              Her arms slid to her waist as she opened her eyes and pulled away from Wesley. Aleksandra turned and left the room, leaving him calling after her.

              Firelight graced the study as she entered. Wesley soon followed, dropping himself at the desk. Electronic light christened the room as the laptop booted. Aleksandra approached the balcony but could not grasp the doors handle. The firefly stars danced brightly in the summer sky, playing brightly against the Chicago skyline as Aleksandra peered out the expansive glass window. Her hand slipped from the handle, moving to the glass.

              Aleksandra pressed her body against the cool glass wondering how it had felt to stand in the sun’s blaze. The moon – high in its orbit – paled against the sun’s golden brilliance. Its grey coldness was but a weak shadow to the creator’s favorite child. How had the seering sun felt against her mother’s skin? Why had she done this?

              “Don’t question what we will never know,” a man’s voice spoke behind her.

              Aleksandra turned as Judith and Colin entered. Wesley stood.             

              “She chose to taste the sun without me, Aleksandra,” he continued, sitting down on the green velvet couch near the stone fireplace, “and we shall never know why.”

              “If only she had talked with me,” Aleksandra whispered, returning her gaze to the starlit summer night.

              “About what?” Wesley asked. “You chose this life, Bree did not. It has always been a treacherous journey for her, and now this business with Aksel. Eventually, Aleksandra, the load becomes too heavy to bear.”

              “It’s the amulet, Wesley,” Judith chimed in. She stood at the fireplace, her hands hovering over the rising amber flames. Crackling sparks eagerly shot toward her fingers, but faded before they reached her silver-polished nails. “Francisco chased us all over Chicago, nearly killed my father, surely she felt responsible.”

              “Bree was a fighter,” Colin stated. “She would not have done what she did unless there was no other option.”

              Aleksandra turned from the window. “How do you know my mother so well as to make a statement like that?” she spat. “You barely knew her!”

              “Aleksandra,” Wesley whispered, coming to her side, reaching for her shoulder. She shrugged him off. 

              “Do not ever pretend to know her.” She glared at Colin, her face but three inches from his. He could smell the musty scent of sleep still lying heavily on her tongue.

              “But I do know her,” he responded, an eerie, unearthly calmness in his words. “Her blood is in my body. She lives on in me. She lives on in you, too, Aleksandra.”

              “You are supposed to be dead, Colin. I am sorry, but we left you with mother. We left you to die.” Aleksandra explained. She turned and sauntered to the fireplace, her eyes glossing over with red-tinged droplets. She ran her finger along the cool granite mantel, tracing the veins as if the lines traced into the recesses of time and could return Bree to her. A solitary ruby droplet fell down her cheek and her fingers stopped it at the chin, wiping it away.

              Colin rubbed his eyes, and then smoothed his palms over his mouth before letting his hands fall into his lap. He clasped them tightly. His eyes remained closed. “What do you mean,” he whispered.

              “Bree was there to kill you before a natural, painful death took you,” Judith admitted. She sat beside her father but could not bring herself to hold his hand, or place his arm about his shoulder. She remained distanced, the blood building a chasm between them. “I cried, fought them, tired to resist. They forced me to leave, though, in the end.”

              “No,” he replied.

              “I am sorry, Colin, but it is true. That is how it happened,” Wesley admitted. “What Bree did after that, why she turned you, we do not know. And we will never know now. Those answers, unfortunately, we will never be able to provide you.”

              “No,” he insisted, “there were two when I turned.”

              “Two what?” Judith asked.

              “Two women,” he explained, his voice quickening, “speaking in the room before Bree turned me. There was someone with her. I am sure of it.”

              “Dad, no one was with her,” Judith insisted. “We had all left.” She paused. “Perhaps it was a nurse.” 

              “No,” he urged as he stood, “the woman in black.”

              “You were in between worlds, Colin,” Wesley said, his voice steady, even.

              “You’ll see and hear many strange things when your body is dying and your soul teeters in between worlds,” Aleksandra tried to reassure him. “I had nightmares for months after I was turned, and it’s not surprising you had them while dying.”

              “No!” he boomed. “I know what I heard, Aleksandra. She had come to me before, on the road, in the ambulance. She told me I would not die – that I would never die,” he said, his voice softening. “I believed her. She frightened me, but I believed her.”

              Judith’s eyes shifted to the flickering firelight as he spoke of the horrific accident. That chilly October night that had changed the course of all of their histories. She recalled watching from the roadside as the red and blue ambulance lights blurred in the hazy rain. She and Bree could not even follow, could not be at his side. Francisco’s

men stalked them from the shadows, inching closer as the wetness fell.

              “My body was failing,” he continued, his voice luring her to the present, “but then there was her voice again. In my mind, I could see her. The woman in black.”               “Father,” Judith whispered, “stop. There is no woman in black.”

              “No,” Wesley said coming near, perching himself on an ottoman diagonal to the sofa. The crinkled Corinthian leather creaked as he sat down, and he grasped onto the worn edges and leaned in. “Tell me.”

              “She was always surrounded in black and faceless, but her voice was delicate,” Colin began. “The pain had become intolerable. My heart, my lungs – I could feel them failing, but my mind never stopped feeling every tiny prick, every ache. I could handle no more. In the ambulance, this woman bathed in black hovered near, telling me to hold fast, that I would never die. Every tube, every procedure – I remember it. The doctors said I was not aware – even Aleksandra agreed, but the woman in black let me see,” he recalled.

              “Judith, my daughter, I could not watch you weep at my bedside. Eventually, the pain and heartache she forced upon me became too much. I lay that night in October -- the night Bree came – wanting more than anything to be pain free… forever.”

              Aleksandra slipped from the room as Colin spoke of the Woman in Black in blurred detailed. Her bare feet pressed into the Berber carpet running to Bree’s secret chamber; its oatmeal blend matching her pale skin. She slid the door open and turned on the light. Bree laid motionless, solid, tan.