Descent Into Madness (11 page)

              He loosened his grip on the bed curtain as he took rest on the edge of the bed.

              “And, while your frighten me, and I realize my guards are within an ear shot, awaiting my command – you surprise me. You intrigue me.”

              "I did not scale your tower wall, Viktor,” I commented.

              “Excuse me?” came his reply, as if he half heard me.

              “I flew.”

              “You flew?” he asked, glaring now, directly at me. “From the ground to my balcony, you flew? Like a bird?”               “Yes, Viktor,” I replied, watching the glaze of bewilderment creep across his face.  

              "Then you
are
a sorceress," he remarked; his words tinged with sadness and awe. And laced heavily with a brewing undercurrent of terror.

              "No," I assured him. “I am no such thing. No such thing exist, I can assure you that.”

              "Then, before I call my guards," he demanded, "What are you?"

              But, before he could blink; before he could close his eyes; before he could turn around, I was in front of him.

              Before he could protest; before he could cry; before he could fight, I had a hold of him. Before he could grasp onto something; before he could dig his heels into the rug; before he could claw at me in retaliation, I had him in mid-air. Before he could blink... before he could breathe... before he could say a prayer... his blood was in me.

TEN

H
is body lay upon the bed; my lips, stained with his blood, had more life in them than his body. He lay motionless, gently cushioned by a pillow, as I untied the bed curtains and watched as they fell softly around the bed, concealing my sins.

              Not once did I take my eyes from the slumped hulk of man as I inched to the fireplace, reclaiming my spot on the worn chair. Heavily, my body sunk into the dust trap, and I licked the remnants of his sweet blood from my lower lip. There had been just one drop, one small and insignificant drop from when I withdrew, that escaped my wanting mouth.

              I sat watching him sleep, watching his body walk a thin tightrope between life and death. I had brought him to the brink, just a few more sips and his precious heart would have stopped.

              That wondrous chorus of throbbing heart that had first attracted me now struggled to sing under the strain of its weakened blood supply; and slowly faded to a gentle tapping beneath his clammy skin. It was this slowing that made me stop. His luscious nectar still clung to my lips, though, and now all I could do was stare at him lying helpless. He had come close to death that night, and I had come close to taking him there.

              I had come dangerously close to breaking my promise.

              His flesh glistened in the candlelight. This was not the first time I had brought a body close to its end. It would surely not be my last time, either. 

              I sat for hours in that chair next to the fire, with his blood swimming in my body, warming me, as he slept. I was fixed to that spot, and my eyes to his face, watching for any manifestations of movement, but none came. His forehead, bathed in a moist covering of dew, and lips were pale, but I could still hear his heart beating. Even if it was but a faint whisper, it was something to embrace.

              Morning threatened its approach, forcing me to leave his side. I caressed his ashen lips and left the room the same way I had come.

              For two weeks, I wandered the streets of Tver, carefully avoiding the castle. News of the Prince's strange illness spread, but with the passing days, he rebounded and gained his strength.

              I knew it best to avoid the prince, avoid the castle grounds. I made plans to leave the city, but when time came, I was unable to leave. As he regained strength, his heartbeat sang to me, beckoning me through the dingy alleyways, and past crowded taverns. It begged me to be near, to love it. To care for it.

              The busy streets, I used for concealment. I hid in the loud noises, the constant onslaught of a hundred thoughts channeling into my mind as I resigned, allowing them to wash over me in a tidal wave of reality.

              These noises did nothing to drown out that unceasing vibration, though. It haunted me, terrorized me. His blood, lying stagnant in my preternatural veins, drew me to him as a flame attracts the moth.

              It was at the wedding of his sixteen-year-old sister Natalia where I would return to him. The prince, himself, was pushing a scandalous thirty-five years of age and unmarried. It was on the eve of his betrothal – at the age of nineteen – when his fiancé perished in a carriage accident while traveling to him. After that, Viktor refused marriage contracts from local and foreign courts.

              Unless Viktor married and bore a son, the principality’s future fell on Natalia’s shoulders. And it was a burden he eagerly relinquished that night as he surveyed the crowd.

              Russian dignitaries swarmed Natalia’s wedding feast. Viktor sat to the right of his mother, a proud woman who was long in her years. In three months, she would die of pneumonia. Her gray hair pulled back, a crown of pearls and ruby jewels adorning the silver circlet resting atop her head. The candlelight kissed jewels accentuated the woman’s piercing cobalt eyes. Their brilliance had not dulled through the years of childbirth and worry. Her wrinkled hands had seen seventy winters and two children buried in the frozen Russian soil, yet they persevered to hold a delicate wine goblet that evening.

              Her daughter, Viktor’s younger sister, was a delicate chalice of femininity reflecting in her mother's eyes. Natalia’s lengthy, silk charcoal locks hung freely in the back, while tiny strands of crystal beads interlaced with two thin braids extending from her temples, kissing each other in a tight bundle at the back of her head. They were bound— eternally, it seemed— with a diamond clasp.

              Viktor’s father had died five years before during a hunt, but he would have been proud of his daughter's beauty in that moment as her dress shimmered, and her hair sparkled in the candlelight.

              As I scanned the room watching, the drama unfolded before me: humanity rejoicing the bonding of two, not out of love though, but necessity. And, I sensed a slight shimmer to the air that was not reflecting from Natalia's hair.

              Again, almost as soon the shimmer cleared, it began again. The room wavered before me. Someone, or something, projected this mirage into my mind, making its vaporous glow rapidly disappear. Then it came again: a subtle glittering suspending itself in mid-air, gingerly dissipating the more I concentrated on it. I followed this allusion with my eyes trying to find its source, but was unable to; that is when I caught the lingering of a familiar musty scent, so subtle that I almost overlooked it.

              From across the room, near a curtain leading onto a balcony, my eyes spied him leaning against the wall. At first, I thought I was mistaken; but when he smiled, I knew it was he.

              He nodded toward the curtain and then slipped behind it and out of my view. Unsure whether Viktor had noticed me, I remained close to the wall, concealed in the wedding crowd. Approaching the balcony, I drew the curtain back, and could no longer conceal the rush of feelings breaking through my calm. I ran to him, grabbing him about the shoulders, pulling him close.

              "I was beginning to wonder if I would ever see you again," I whispered.

              "And I you," he replied. "I have missed you."

              "I have missed you," I told him, leaning away and releasing him. "I could have used you around when I have managed to make a mess of things. You always came in handy for that."

              "Oh, I held you back; you needed to find your own way."

              "That I have, Wesley," I replied. "That I have. But how did you ever find me?"

              "It is a long story; too private for this balcony," he explained. "I have been looking for you for a long time. It was in a nearby town, not a week ago, that I heard about Prince Vladislous' illness."

              "You knew it was me?" I asked.

              "The symptoms sounded familiar. My maker made the same mistake with me before returning the next night and delivering me over," he continued. "So... I went to this Prince. As he slept, or so I thought - he was in a feverish stupor. I ascended and crept in from the balcony. As the moonlight flooded the room, he sat up in the bed and called out for you. I stood there watching him, not believing his words. Then I watched as he recovered. I knew that it was only a matter of time before you would return for him."

              "I almost did not," I confessed. "I almost could not."

              "What are you doing with him, this mortal?"             

              "I honestly do not know, Wesley," I admitted, more to myself than to him. "I drank from him, nearly to the point of death, when I had promised myself I would not. Yet, his blood has invaded my body, my mind; like a plague, it has consumed me and now he is an obsession."

              "Does he know what you are?" he asked.

              "I am not sure how much he remembers," I answered. "I have stayed away since that night.”

              "Perhaps, you are afraid to see him," he noted. "I think you are afraid he will not fear you; that he will love you, that he may even want to be turned." Wesley grabbed at my turned-up face, but I moved away.

              "Living as long as we have has its disadvantages, Wesley," I explained. "You get tired -tired of being alone, tired of watching time race by in this toxic rainbow of color that if you touch it, just briefly, it may just burn you.”

              “It is so vivid, that... But, you also get tired of losing the ones you love, seeing them waste away and slip into shadow – to where you will never be able to reach them. Everything around you – buildings, people – they erode, turn to dust, while you, you remain a constant force, indestructible, like the Heavens. And, you say that I may be afraid to love someone? Cannot you see why? This is no existence to bring anyone else into."

              “What Hell are you existing in, dear sister?” he implored. “What have you seen, done, since we parted for you to feel this way? You still cannot see the beauty in eternity, Bree," he replied.

              "What beauty lies there in death, Wesley?" I asked as I left him, moved the curtain, and re-entered the ballroom.

              The wedding party was still seated and feasting, and their guests were still partaking in the festivities as I casually tried to escape along one of the sidewalls. There was little room to maneuver given my cumbersome bustle and the elaborate table arrangements to accommodate the plentitude of wedding guests in attendance. Wesley followed closely behind, and, catching up with my quickened steps as I neared the main doorway, he clutched my hand.

              "Even death is beautiful, Bree," he replied. "When you embrace your nature, you can see the magnificence in both life and death. You should give yourself a chance to feel something other than the bitter cold of loneliness."

              "I have become accustomed to this feeling, to being alone. There is no need to embrace anything or anyone. I am surviving just as I am," I told him as I pulled away, slipping through the crowded doorway.

              He continued to follow me through the Great Hall and down the steps, and still out into the courtyard where only the horse-drawn carriages and the stars were witness to our conversation.

              "Eternity, Bree, you shoul
dn
ot spend it denying yourself the comforts of love, or the solace of knowing who you really are. You are bound to go mad."

              He came toward me as only a brother would, gently and securely, and embraced me. He sensed my pain, my turmoil. He had been there for me since I twisted my ankle running through our neighbor's field - I had been but a wee child then- to when they took our father’s plague stricken body from the house. His advice never came without love and sincerity.

              "Give him a chance to share this with you," he urged.

              "Wesley, I shared eternity once before, and I lost the man I loved in the process," I explained, "I could never do that again."

              Wesley paused and held me closer. "And what will become of him then, of this prince of yours?" he asked.

              "I will leave him, leave Russia. It is best that he forgets me."

              "Do I not get a choice, then?" A familiar voice snuck through the darkness behind me. I turned to face Viktor, eye-to-eye. "I see you have taken another lover; my wooing was for naught."

              "This man is not my lover."

              "My Lady, I am not blind." He locked his eyes upon my own, yet I sensed he was fully aware of Wesley's movements. His pursed lips and tense arms, affixed to his side as a toy soldier paused in mid march, conveyed the man’s inner turmoil.

              "Perhaps my illness, or your sorcery, has weakened my eyesight, but from my dining table I saw you emerge from the balcony and he pursue you. It took me some time, yet I did manage to worm my way through the crowd only to find the two of you in an embrace!"

              "Viktor," I tried to explain.

              "And after the night we had, my mistress, even if you are a heathen." He shook his head and began walking away. I started to yell after him – to ask him to stop – but I could not. I needed to ask him what he remembered about that evening, but when my lips parted, I found my voice mute. Then Wesley glanced at his feet, whispering, "He remembers…everything."