Descent Into Madness (23 page)

TWENTY-TWO

A
ksel once told me he would go wherever I went. He would never leave me. So where was he now? The television gave me endless mornings, its backdrop a burning, golden sun. The telephone gave me access to global communication, but I had no desire to talk. The computer, the internet, showed me a world now vastly connected, yet I still felt desperately alone. Without Aksel here, without my family whole, I was still lost.

              When I was in my darkest of days, he had promised to guide me through.

              Oddly, in a way, he had. He had forced me to take refuge in the Lofotens. He had forced me to sleep. The last image of him, though, still breaks my heart. Tears dripped from his downcast eyes onto Aleksandra’s fiery locks as he held her from me. He realized then, as he watched Wesley walk me to the door that he could not go there with me. His promise would be broken.

              As I cautiously discovered the changed world, I felt removed from it. I was but a museum exhibit walking amongst the living. Gone were the elegant gowns and customary manners. Gone were the candlelit nights, mellowed by the mirage of time passing slowly. Electric lights brightened a room with the light of midday. Buildings stretched to the clouds, lit with colored lights all night, bringing fire to a darkened sky.

              Madness consumed the world. People ran through the streets, eager to get to places they had no desire to be. Cars roared down dirty highways. Buses honked and jerked behind them. People were plugged in and logged on; tapping into the twenty-four hour culture stream, obsessed with celebrity babies, haute couture, the 2012 apocalypse, and living through other people’s lives. The whole of humanity had gone mad.

              This society bustled about under the illusion of control, as if they had a choice in anything. While I sat on my Chicago balcony overlooking the chaos of State Street, watching them scurry like rats in a rainstorm. They were oblivious as to just how little they did control in their puny lives.

              Sleep had concentrated the madness percolating beneath the layers of age and time that made up who I was. Waking in an age that encouraged madness was nothing short of dangerous, but they had not known this. Any peace my past had afforded me was gone now, and Aksel carried a piece of any remaining sanity wherever he had gone.

              “When did he leave?” I asked Aleksandra one night. We were watching the eleven o’clock news, a piece on Middle Eastern violence played to my deaf ears. War was war. It never ends.

              “Five years after,” Aleksandra remarked as she flipped the channels to a travel show. Vivid images of a Hawaiian beach, placid crystal blue seas and white sands stretched before us on the screen. All bathed in the youthful glow of sunlight.

              “Have you heard from him?”

              “Every ten years. He writes wanting to know if you’re awake,” she said, flipping the television off and tossing the remote onto the side table. The firelight and a small tabletop lamp now lit the room in a soft glow, and I felt more comfortable with this. “And no matter where we are,” she continued, “he finds us.”

              “Have you found him?”

              “No such luck.” She stood, walked to the corner desk, unlocked a drawer and pulled out a stack of letters. These were the most recent. She handed them to me. “Look through them yourself, if you wish. You know him better than we do.”

              “Why did you wake me up now?” I asked her. “After all this time?”

              “He has stopped writing,” she replied. “We always received a letter on June 9
th
, every ten years.”

              “Sigursdsblot,” I recalled, a smile spreading on my lips and then quickly fading. “But not this year?”

              “No. Nothing came.” She moved to the window, the cars whizzed into a blur of color outside. The heavy metro traffic weaved its way around the downtown construction zones.

              “He is still with us,” I told her. “He does not have the courage to end it himself.”

              “How do you know?”

              “I made him, Aleksandra. I know everything about him,” I remarked. “And I know where he is.”

              “Are you going to him?” Wesley asked, entering the room and sauntering over to a corner chair. He plopped down, put his feet up, and laid the Chicago Tribune in his lap.

              “Why should I?” Moving to the fire, I relit the dying embers. The quarry-stone fireplace encapsulated the vermilion aura, only the fire’s warmth escaping its embrace.               “Because you will,” he replied opening the paper to the business section and discarding the rest into a pile on the floor. “You cannot just leave people to themselves.”               “Maybe I will this time,” I told him, “Maybe I do not want him back after he helped shut me away.”

              “It was for your own good, mother,” said Aleksandra.              

              “Who were you to decide what was for my own good?” My voice boomed over the subtle roar of the traffic below. “You stood there; you let him take me away!” I glanced toward Wesley, his paper now in his lap, his eyes focused on me. “And Aksel stood there too, holding you back!”

              “You needed rest, Bree,” Wesley said as he moved the paper aside and stood, walking toward me. “You were losing yourself.”

              “I had already lost myself, Wesley!” I boasted. “That happened the day you turned me.” I moved away from his outstretched arm and walked to the window. Hundreds of years had progressed around me as I slept. Now I lived in this fast-paced world, ignorant to its ways and terrified, as I knew I did not belong here.

              I went into the kitchen with its vivid track lighting, its stainless steel accessories, and throngs of metal gadgets and things that whirred, purred, and came alive with the addition of electricity. The tangerine walls were too bright. The checkered floor with its shiny black and white tiles swam as I walked onto it, my feet causing an absurd rubbing noise in my new flip-flops. My toes were naked to the world, and the lighting and toxic color palette highlighted my feet’s brilliant whiteness, the blue Twilight Kiss nail polish only adding to insult.

              This era of man hid nothing from the world. And there was a garishness to its honesty and open-book ways.               Aleksandra followed me. “Why do we need all this stuff?” I asked her. I picked up a blender, pressed the buttons until the motor whirred to life, the sharp blades crushing the delicate air around it. “We have no need of these things!”

              “It is part of the illusion,” she replied. “We had mortal fixtures before, mother.”

              “Yes, but this is excessive.”

              “Our status requires us to keep up appearances, more so than in the past,” she said, unplugging the blender. The motor stopped. The room was quiet again.

              “You had Parisian rugs in Russia and fine China. And no expense was spared in England, why should our habits change now?” she continued.

              “I do not like this time,” I told her.

              “You will get used to it.”

              “What if I do not?”

              She walked out of the kitchen and I followed.               “You will,” she replied.

              Eventually, that is what I did. I became accustomed to the whizzing around me, but never got comfortable with it. Instead, the whizzing and the buzzing grew constant in my head until it pulsated and quaked my insides, and I felt the little peace sleep had afforded me was slowly eroding away.

              Winter came to Chicago, and as the snow piled on State Street, I pondered Aksel’s absence. The making of our kind, that process of transferring blood and memories, creates a constant link between the maker and their kin. The blood made his thoughts mute to me, and I could not feel him nearby, but I could sense him in the universe.

              On an early December evening, just shy of Christmas, I sailed through the city, the snow clinging to windows, collecting on the rooftops. Children skated merrily on Navy Pier, their parents frantically finishing their holiday shopping. As I touched down near the closed-up vendor booths, now covered in a rich dusting of powdery whiteness, a few of the children glanced my way. Their attention quickly returned to the icy rink and to catching snowflakes on their outstretched tongues.

              The fountains leapt through the foliage, while lights cascaded onto the palm trees, their leaves glistening beneath the glass ceiling, as I walked through the Crystal Garden doors. A gust of heated air greeted me. The shops boasted holiday specials that hungry out-of-town shopping groups eagerly consumed. Shoppers pushed and shoved their ways through the busy corridors, in and out of crowded shops, and rested their weary feet in mediocre restaurants, placing too much trust in overworked waiters.

              Something had lured me to the pier that night, to the bustling tourist epicenter. I thought it had been Aksel. I thought, for some bizarre reason, he was near. That he had returned to me, to face the wrath I was sure to release. But, I did not find him amongst the crowd, and near dawn, I abandoned my search. What lured me to that pier remained a mystery.

              Sailboats returned in throngs once winter thawed into a temperate Chicago spring. Joggers trekked along the shore in droves, sweating in unison, their panting a celebration of renewal. Children walked hand-in-hand with their mothers or sprawled out on fleece blankets for picnic lunches in front of Buckingham Fountain.

              But that was under the brilliance of day, and we saw this as a movie played out on the ten o’clock news. The mirage of a gorgeous spring day in downtown Chicago busted by the realism of a mugging on Michigan Avenue, and a reminder that with warmer weather comes an increase in crime.

              When the sun retreats under the horizon and the buildings sway in the moonlight, Chicago comes alive. And after a long, brutally cold Midwestern winter, the restless were about to shake loose the cobwebs from their dusty bones. As much as Wesley and Aleksandra had looked for Aksel, only I knew how to find him. Now he, too, was coming out to play.

TWENTY-THREE

B
y nightfall, the blistering July swelter had turned to a muted stifle that stuck to your skin as you walked the streets. The dew clung to your hair, moistening the strands, plastering them to your face. Tourists walked along the lakeshore, stopping to snap pictures of the sparkling skyline; the heat doing little to deter the constant pattering of boisterous foot traffic in downtown Chicago. Their camera flashes blended with the city streetlights, mingled with headlights, and danced with starlight, as all weaved a glinted tapestry on the glass windows.

              The subtle wind rolling off Lake Michigan did little to offer the city a reprieve from the summer’s venomous torment. Crowds continued growing on Navy Pier, the inebriated – or slightly so – passengers awaiting voyages on the few skyline boat tours running that evening. The shops showed no signs of slowing in their patronage. It would be a profitable night, the July heat keeping the tourists until closing time forced families and young people alike to retreat – the latter seeking refuge in noisy nightclubs, while the first only dreamt of those wild, carefree days. 

              I watched a crowd board a small yacht, waiting to go onto the lake. On board, a man waiting, ring in pocket, ready to ask the dainty blonde-haired woman next to him to be his bride. It would be a surprise.

              I had to smile at the thought of a surprise – something so simple. Those things no longer exist for me.

              There are no surprises left in my world. There are only certainties. I will wake to greet a new nightfall. I will feed from the living. I will kill again. No surprises.

              The pier was not where I was supposed to be that night, though.

              “This came for you.” Aleksandra tossed me a gold envelope. It was eight o’clock and I had awoken, still in my ruby dressing gown, now walking down the hall from my room. The envelope reminded me of delicate Parisian sheets beneath my fingertips, the sender having spared no cost. Turning it over, my fingers ran along the embossed letters. “Fancy,” she remarked.

              “It is from the curator at the Field,” I noted. Her eyebrows arched as her slender arms stretched toward the ceiling. I followed her into the living room as the automatic lights flicked on. Wesley walked past us, pressing a button for the drapes to part.

              State Street unfolded before me, the colored lights, the movement of people, of life circulating below. I shut out the thoughts and watched them move before me as ants, miniscule and pathetic. I could crush them. As I sat in my tower, I owned them.

              “How is Peter?” Wesley asked as he lit the fire. He sat at the corner desk, opened the laptop and began fiddling with some financial documents. Aleksandra moved to his side, pointed to the screen, made a few remarks out of my earshot, and then walked to the bookcase where she stood for some time before removing a copy of
Psychology
.

              “Not sure. I haven’t seen him in a few months. He took his wife to Ireland for their silver anniversary,” she replied.

              I continued watching the ants below. I could smell their sweat through the distance, through the thick panes of glass. Weakness married the despair in their veins, their blood a thick river of rapids calling for me to tame it with my kiss. Peter Templeton and his wife Barbara were big ants. She was from old money, and he was from an old scholarly family, from England. Together, they could own half of Chicago and probably did in various investment deals. 

              As I watched the ants below, my fingers sliced through the gilded envelope. Inside was but a single sheet of ivory cardstock, its crimson lettering embossed into a bold, raised print.

              “The Field Museum will be hosting an exclusive Vatican exhibit,” I noted, flatly, as I slid the invitation back into its envelope.

              “Are you going?” Wesley asked.

              “There will be a private screening of a special by-invitation-only portion and I am to be the curator’s special guest,” I replied.

              “Is that a yes?” Aleksandra asked.

              My shoulders hunched, I turned and left the room. Something did not feel right.

              That had been three weeks ago. The invitation has sat since collecting dust on my nightstand next to a bottle of Imperial Majesty perfume. Every night, the torn envelope stared at me. My fingers traced its satiny edges. My eyes read over the embossed lettering. Each night I searched the invitation in hopes of discovering why it made me feel uneasy. Why did the thought of going to this gala prickle my skin and trouble my mind?

             
Being a museum patron, I attended most nightly events. My money ran as free as the expensive French champagne that the benevolent Chicago elite lapped up into their greedy mouths. Only a few, like me, would ever send in a check, and even mark it for an anonymous donation. Most of the people at these galas wanted accolades.

             
As they exited limos, their cheesy, falsified whitened grins flashed greedily toward the wanton cameras. As they ascended the marbled steps, they reached for only the hands of prominent people. They spent their night rubbing noses and hobnobbing with congressmen and senators and television stars and anyone who could
make things happen
; and they were all too eager to drop in their donation amounts. “Yes, we did have that situation with our plant in China – had to lay off three hundred workers, but these are priceless Italian relics! We could not see donating anything less than our usual two million.”

              “You can always wear your Prada,” Aleksandra said, entering my room. I had been fingering the invitation, examining it. “Why are you hesitating?”

              “Something feels off about this,” I told her. I placed the envelope back onto the nightstand and sat down on the edge of the bed. The cobalt velvet bedspread yielded to my weight as I traced wavy lines in the fabric.

              Aleksandra moved to the corner cedar wardrobe where I kept my elegant gowns, opened the heavy doors, and began thumbing through the massive collection. Many of the dresses were now antiques, and she took special care not to disturb the oldest gowns near the back.

              “You should have these preserved,” she remarked, as her fingers slid over antique lace, “or put them in a museum.”

              “Look around,” I laughed, “this place is a museum.”

              Remnants of ages past – a painting commissioned from Titian, a bust from Michelangelo, various vases and trinkets and tapestries from castles, and royal seals in glass cases – on display. To the world, this was a display of wealth, but to us, it was a scrapbook. It was our photo album, our history.

              She pulled the coral, sleeveless, mid-length Prada from the closet, held it toward me. Frustrated, she placed it back into the closet. “You are hard to dress, you know?”               “Just get my night clothes,” I told her. “I should not go.”

              “Because of a feeling?” She continued to rummage through the closet.

              “You are being ridiculous, mother. Peter will be offended; he invited you for a personal screening. Those do not happen all the time.” She finally selected two dresses and tossed them onto the bed. “Try these and pick one.”

              An hour later, I descended in a darkened area near Soldier Field and walked toward the lit museum. Limousines and town cars lined Museum Campus Drive. Headlights blended with spotlights and blurred with flashbulbs as the Chicago elite stepped from their vehicles and entered the venue.

              My vintage Gucci scoop-neck gown trailed behind me, the coral fabric enveloping me in wispy Italian lace. Tiered diamond studs hung from my earlobes. My lips were dressed in a dusky rose with my eyes a shadowy gray, lined in silver; a slight hue of Imperial Majesty, a smoky chestnut marrying the floral rose water, clung to my skin as morning dew clings to a blade of grass.

              The flashes were blinding as I walked past the car processional and ascended the marbled stairs. I shielded my face from the photographers, as Peter’s assistant, Jody, a verbally expressive graduate student, greeted me at the top and ushered me in.

              “Peter’s been waiting for you,” she said, handing me a program. A Byzantine era cross, gilded and jewel encrusted, stared back at me from the booklet -
God’s Treasured Jewels: A Special Vatican Collection
. A better title would have been –
A Garish Abuse of Power Through Time,
I thought.

              “Waiting for me?” I smiled as we passed the senators from Illinois and Michigan.

              “In his office,” Jody explained as we weaved through the main hall. She pressed down on the staff elevators and, sliding her key card, we entered. She pressed for the basement and we descended into the somber, sacred chambers where history slept waiting for its glorious reveal. A section of Grecian urns greeted our descent, the doors opening to their hidden lair. Racks upon racks of fragile pottery was being restored by the best in their field, working diligently for the masses to gawk and awe and never fully appreciate what it took to bring that treasure to them.

              “What rare find has he come across this time?”               Jody chuckled at my question. Peter had a penchant for discovering rare artifacts that both interested me and secured my pocket book. Most often, these items remained in the Field, endowed to the museum for future generations to enjoy. Then there was the treasure of a sentimental nature that I would have him seek.

              “Usually he tells me, but not this time,” she said as we turned toward the Egyptian restoration section. A shipment of Greco-Roman period Egyptian artifacts had recently arrived. Large shelves contained items still waiting for cataloging. “It is this Vatican collection, something about it. It’s not sitting with him, Bree. Honestly, between us, he is not himself.”

              Peter’s office was behind a drab, grey door. Jody’s cell beeped and she left to return to corralling Chicago’s elite.

              The knob turned easily in my hand, the door giving way to a dimly lit office. “Peter, if you wish to be mysterious, you should lay off the cologne. I can smell you down the hall.” The door shut softly behind me.

              “Hey, you gave me this stuff. If you did not like the smell of it, you should not have bought it.” He rose from behind the desk, stepping into the dim aura of the desk light. I moved to the wall and flicked the light switch and the room filled with a sickly neon glow.

              “I didn’t tell you to bathe in it,” I tossed him a smile. “Still, I guess it is an improvement over that musty wet-dog odor you had been sporting.”

              “Hush, the wife spent good money on that cologne in Germany,” he said, laughing. “Oh, it was awful, was it not? The guy who sold her that must have been a real looker!” He moved to the chair next to his desk and cleared a stack of books and papers from it. He removed a handkerchief from his back pocket, dusted the chair, and then offered me a seat.

              “What is so important about this collection?” I smoothed my dress as I sat.

              He opened the top drawer of his desk as he sat down and removed a small red box. It was no bigger than a ring box but aged, its hinges rusted and its velvet cover worn. Branded into the velvet was the papal seal, the triregnum, a crown with three levels, resting between two crossed keys. His thumb rubbed firmly across it.

              “This item was not cataloged when it arrived on loan from the Vatican,” he told me as he handed over the box. “We immediately reported it missing to our insurance

company and to the Vatican’s. I suggest you take it and make it disappear.”

              “Peter, neither of us trade in black market wares; that is not who we are.” I held the box out to him. He forced my fingers round the box and placed his hands around my own. “I am not selling it, Bree.”

              “Peter,” I whispered. There were people approaching from the hallway – Jody and Barbara. They were laughing; Barbara had had too much to drink and it was far too early in the evening for that.