Descent Into Madness (6 page)

              "What are you?" he asked, for a moment his words rendering me speechless. I entered the room slowly, lighting the candles on the dresser and the chandelier with a blink, simultaneously. He vaulted from the chair, gasping as the wicks quivered with fiery life. In that moment, the tides had turned - there was no return to blissful ignorance.               "It will terrify you to find out what I am, Aksel." I sat down in the chair next to him.

              He edged closer, his torso bending toward me, but I cautioned him – my hand poised in the air, stiff and unyielding. The odor of his blood was intoxicating. I had not fed that evening and his blood was too tempting. Its scent permeated the surrounding air with a fragrant perfume, reminiscent of Chardonnay and bitter chocolate. My craving for his blood – to devour him – made my fangs peek. 

              "Bree, I have the ancient gods on my side, not yours.” He reached for me, but I thrust my hand in the air again. “Nothing can frighten me, especially the rumors.”  

              "You must not believe them.”

              “And why not?” he asked, attempting to edge closer. As his feet stepped nearer, I inched further away. “If you are truly favored by the gods, then why not believe it?”

              “Aksel, you know not of what you speak,” I spat.               “Your old gods, they have nothing to do with this.”               

              “The couple you rent this room from, they say you have the strength of ten men. The men in the tavern,” he pointed, he extended his slender finger toward the window, “say your beauty is of the gods.”

              "Aksel," I began, but he stopped me.

              "Then yesterday, I went to the tavern for a meal and the lady who lives above the tavern," he said, his voice dimming with disbelief, "She said she saw you coming to your apartment here. Bree, at first none believed her. But then her tale captured every ear around the hearth.”

              “Stop,” I begged. 

              “She said you flew through the air, your golden locks catching the wind. You were the vision of Verdandi herself, she said. Then you landed on this balcony.” He gestured to the balcony as a breeze caught the linen curtains. A storm was sweeping in and droplets began falling on the balcony’s floor.

              “I did not believe her – none of us did – and we told her so. Now I have seen it for myself, though. And the trick with the candles!"

              Tears assaulted my eyes, but I resisted them. They were blood tears, crimson droplets that would have terrified him.

              “Stop, Aksel. Leave this place, leave me,” I urged.

              “I do not think you’re Verdandi come to the realm of man,” he said. “The men below, many of them, have long abandoned our gods. They believed her story a fanciful tale.”

              “Aksel, I offer you mercy,” I told him. “Do not make me regret doing so.”

              I left the chair and moved to the window, turning my back on him. A symphony of rain fell over Bergen as the city dimmed; candles everywhere extinguished, people retired to their beds, and even the yowling alley cats gave their voices a rest. The city was soon to be fast asleep, but inside my apartment, I was already mourning a relationship. This could only end one way, I thought. And it would leave me heartbroken.

              “Odin has returned to his people,” he said as he kneeled. “And I am ashamed that I did not recognize his maiden when she first appeared on my shore.”

              “Stand fool,” I whispered. “Æsir’s cupbearers died with their religion.” I walked to him and, as he stood, took his hand. I placed it on my chest. “Valkyries may be Odin’s maiden’s Aksel, but they have a heartbeat.” The air grew quiet and stale, not even the rain could be heard.

              He dropped his hand. His body tensed, his carotid artery pulsed and swelled and my bloodlust quickened. “Gjengangar!”

              This term was popular among the hunters of Trondheim, where I had first heard it while feeding in a tavern. A mythical werewolf-vampire hybrid, the gjengangar stalked the forests of Norway.              

              He darted for the opposite side of the room, and cowered into a corner.

              I eased toward him, my steps cautious, as if approaching a startled doe. "Aksel, I am not a Gjengangar,” I whispered, reaching him. My hand rested near his temple, and my fingers slinked slowly down his cheek.

            
 
“Do not worry, my love, I would never dream of harming you. You are why I wake to greet the moon, why I hunt to maintain my strength. It is all for another night spent with you; so I can hold you, look into your eyes." I leant in, close enough to caress his cheek, but he pulled away from me.

              He pointed to my teeth, his finger touching one on the elongated canines. His lips quivered. "Gronnskjegg,” he whispered in a raspy, shaken voice.  The Gronnskjegg were vampire-like creatures of Norwegian folklore. The name means "ghoul."

              His finger retreated, its parent hand quaking as it fell.

              "Yes," I resigned. "But I am no monster."

              "You are!" He pulled his knees to his chest. “You murder; you feed off living flesh. You are dammed – a monster!”

              "Aksel! I can do many things, but you should not fear me. You are not prey, my love. You never were my prey... and you never will be."

              "You spoke of mercy, please let me leave," he begged.

              "I feel just as you feel; I love just as deeply, just as passionately, if not more than you do," I said. “You must not fear me.”

              "But I do," he said to me. “Show mercy now, please. If you do love me, let me leave.” 

              I tried to reach out for him, but he hid his head between trembling knees and covered his neck. I walked out onto the balcony and peered into the night sky. The same constellations graced the ebony blanket as did the night I was turned. The irony— it now marked the anniversary of both my turning and the first time I revealed my true nature to a mortal.

              "Aksel," I told him, "I am going away now. It is best this way."

              "Will you ever return for me?"

              “You are safe,” I said, glancing back. “Your old gods must still be with you after all.” 

              I retreated, as a wounded soldier retreats from the battlefield, to lick their wounds and heal from the battle of their lives. In a brief moment, I had descended into the clouds and could sense his jumbled thoughts. He feared me, but my face haunted his heart. He was simply bewitched, and though, in time, this may overpower his fear for me, I would eventually kill him. I knew what I had to do to keep him safe - stay away.

              For six weeks I remained a hermit in my Lofoten cabin with only the puffins and sea lions my companions. This was after the time of the polar night and the region was drenched in a forgiving blanket of darkness during the day. I could ascend to a mountain peak and sit where the snow-capped rock met the wisps of clouds and admire the Aurora Borealis, and recall the nights I lingered on the beaches below with Aksel.

              My belongings from Bergen were to be shipped discretely, so I would not have to reenter the city. I thought I had planned carefully; concealed my traces well, but I had been wrong.

              Sometime after my belongings found me, I found him standing at my door; just standing there, as if I had been expecting him. His audacity bewildered and intrigued me. It had been six weeks since I had left him in Bergen startled by the revelation that I was a vampire, and now he stood before me tempting his fate.

              How had he found me? I had been cautious in extracting my belongings from Bergen. The parcels passed through several carriers along the way, and the names to whom they were addressed, even, changed three times. I had been meticulous in my instruction. I had not returned to Bergen, or even Trondheim, since that dreadful night. Yet he found me here on this isolated portion of the island - at what had become my self-imposed prison of a cabin under the majestic twilight canvas.

              My feet froze at the shoreline, where I had landed. When I saw him standing near the door it was all I could do not to rise back into the clouds, but I no longer had anywhere else to run. His being here could have been out of hatred, anger; his mind swam still, confused and hurt, drowning in a sea of pain. He stood there, though, apathetically, waiting for me to come to him. He knew what I was, what I could do to him. 

              "Aksel," I shouted, "Why are you here?"

              "I fear you,” he shouted, “and I know you are evil," he began walking toward me. "And I have tried forgetting you. It is no use."

              "I am a monster, Aksel. I am a monster who has bewitched you," I hollered. “I will kill you! Even I see that now."

              "I tried, Bree," he said, panting as he walked. "I tried so hard to convince myself that you were gone - gone forever, I told myself - but I just could not live with that. Even if you are a gronnskjegg, I could not lose you."

              "You would die to be with me?" I asked. "Die for me, Aksel? Could you
die
to live with me?”               Reaching me, I could see the pain - the agony, the longing, the misery – in his eyes. The conflict seized within him, and for a brief second I feared I would lose him again. Reaching out, I grabbed his hands. I clutched them so tightly he flinched.              

              "Could you, Aksel? Would you become a monster like me? Because that’s what it takes to be with me.” I asked him, fearing the answer either way. “Would you give up the morning, the golden sunlight, and the pleasure of its tender rays on your face? For eternity? All you will ever know is the darkness of night. The nighttime, Aksel; it
never
ends."              

              "A lifetime of sunshine could never compare to an eternity spent in midnight with you," he replied. A tear rolled down my cheek, the moonlight masking its ruby color. He lifted his finger to wipe it from my face.

              "When you weep, I will be there to wipe away the tears, now and for eternity. Nothing else matters. You are all I want and need, and if I cannot have you, then I want nothing, not even this life. And you are free to take it, one way or another – my life is yours." He knelt down and caressed my quivering lips.

              “You will watch friends, loved ones, empires fade into history, and you will remain unchanged,” I whispered. “It is not easy.”

              “I will have you by my side, my love. Together, we can weather the storm.”

              “I have bewitched you, my love; your mind is not your own,” I said, turning my face from his.

              “If you have bewitched me, then I do not want to wake from the spell,” he said as he pulled at my chin. 

              "Then we will be together for eternity. I will not lie to you, Aksel, there is going to be pain – pains like you have never felt in your life," I explained to him. "It will be temporary. I can promise you that. But when it is over, you will never feel earthly pain again."

              He let me embrace him, his arms wrapping tightly around my waist. I slid my finger down his neck and pierced the tender flesh. His blood - the long-held object of my desire, finally touched my tongue and erupted in a fountain of pleasure. It seared my tongue and tickled my throat, warming my chest. Its cosmic magic snaked through my dormant veins and rushed into my dead heart.               I pulled away as his heartbeat dulled. His eyelids fluttered and his face paled – the life drained from his cheeks. I bit the tip of my tongue and covered his open mouth with my own. My lips twisted around his as I thrust my tongue deeper. He gasped for breath as my blood trickled down his throat. 

              “It hurts.” He pulled his mouth away as his head rolled back.

              “The pain will end soon,” I whispered. “I promise.”

              “Help me,” he said through half-closed eyes.

              I brought his head to mine and caressed his lips. They parted, allowing the blood to flow into his hungry mouth. Once his body began trembling, I took to the air and waited for the howling to cease.

              The transference process had weakened me and left me vulnerable. 

              Our life together was more interesting than his brief mortal death. It was tantamount to a path of thorns sprinkled with rose petals. When it was good, it was great. When it was bad, it was horrible. Eternity affects everyone differently, and it affected Aksel in a most peculiar way.

SEVEN

S
ixty-one years we lived together, co-existing in a turbulent love affair.

Months would pass in silence, his words slipping through cold lips only out of necessity. Then out of nowhere, he would blast through the doors, erupting with endless chatter or scathing demands and poisonous condemnations. We would argue over the most trivial of things— the way the servants spread rumors (which they never did), or how he wanted to feed alone and I wanted to feed together (a demand I had never made).              

              Not every one of those 22,265 days we co-habited was miserable, though.

              There were silver-lined clouds in our storm. Days filled with laughter that could turn into weeks and months, and, rarely, years. Sometimes he would become genteel, softening his hardened nature. The old Aksel – the Aksel I remembered, the human- would show in brief sparkling glimmers. When this happened, we were happy. We existed then in an ethereal bubble that floated high above reality, and not even the outside world with its growth, its prosperity, its ever-evolving nature, could permeate it.

              It is hard to say when I truly lost
my
Aksel. I know it all began in 1458 – a common year—starting on a quiet Sunday.

              For centuries, we had a peaceful relationship with the Norwegian anglers. We kept to ourselves and traveled in shadow. Yet slowly rumors surfaced from Europe of vampires – hideous, ashen-skinned creatures with fangs and blood dribbling from their mouths, robbing gentle virgins of life and stealing their eternal souls. Images of vile monsters stalking the night, feeding on tender babes, spread like the plague that had once wiped out whole villages.

              Other accounts claimed these creatures were stunning visions of femininity that prowled the streets luring unsuspecting fools with magical kisses, ending their lives with deadly embraces.

              How correct some of their assumptions had been, but when they began eyeing Aksel and I suspiciously, I feared for our safety.

              Desperately, I wanted to leave Norway; Aksel was vehemently against it. "I will never leave my people," he screamed and took to the sky. He was gone for a week and I thought this time he would stay away for good.

              He returned, though, carrying a charred scrap of door; what remained of our estate in Trondheim. It was fall, 1458. We packed our belongings and fled the land that constantly enveloped me in its magical allure. Survival left us no choice. Yet Aksel remained resentful, blaming me. And by turning him, I knew it
was
my fault.

              Aksel believed his love for me was stronger than his love for his country. At least he tried, so diligently, to convince himself of this. However, I feared his love – faced with the insurmountable pressures of immortality - would be fleeting. His love, as true as his intentions had been, did fade.  And when it did, what remained were two estranged beings and a gaping maw of guilt that became my cilice. 

              For twelve years, we traveled together; as we traversed Europe, his mind began its subtle decline. I absorbed myself in the culture - the art, the architecture, and literature of Paris, of Madrid, of Berlin, of Moscow. I relished in the nightlife, in the festivals, and the balls. At times life seemed bearable for Aksel; then he would slip into a fit of hysterics or sulk into a room surrounded by darkness, and sit this way the entire night. Leaving him alone was the only thing one could do. He became irrational and sentimental, and spoke of nothing but the "old country," as if his lamenting would erase time. His sanity was slipping with the years, and I was powerless to help him.

              Aksel spoke often of returning to his mother country – as if it would be a simple feat for me. 

              "And do you think you would find tolerance there, Aksel?" I would ask him each time. "Acceptance?"

              He never answered me.

              "Wesley forced me from the convent; you chose this." I explained to him as gently as if I were speaking to a child.              

              "The loss you feel for those you knew and loved, for your home land, it will never go away. You must now accept change, Aksel. Change will happen at a rapid pace now that you are immortal. You have to witness this for yourself! Time is nothing anymore. A century is but a decade and a year is but a moment. Life, my love, is nothing but a flash. Can you not see this?”

              “The ones you loved when you were human, they have all passed this world. The ones you know now will be gone in the blink of an eye. It goes by that quickly with us, and we must treasure every second of it. Hold yourself not to one place, not to one moment, but be open to the change. It is going to happen, with or without you."               However, he would not heed my advice, and resentment swelled within him. It ate at him like a cancer. He became a mirror for pain and despair, reflecting blackness; and I had no cure for his ills. 

              It was winter, 1470, and we were now in Buda, traveling along the Carpathian Mountains. Buda was the capitol of Hungary until the Ottoman Empire captured it in 1541; it later merged with the town’
sỚ
buda and Pest to form Budapest in 1873.

              Everything stunk of paprika in Budapest; it lingered on its peoples clothing, in their hair, and even in their blood cells, which we greedily drank. We slept in caves, abandoned mines, and fed off fattened villagers. I still left my prey dazed but alive, but occasionally Aksel would drain his, knowing too well that this would cause unwanted attention from a superstition people.

              Buda, Hungary…

              There was a cabin in which a couple resided on the outskirts of a tiny village, and we found ourselves there one night, about to feed. We had watched them prepare their meal, and observed the violent aroma of paprika and garlic wafting from the cabin.

              Our senses, more acute than before the transformation, revolted against these pungent aromas. They stung at our membranes, burned our eyes. Merely odorous nuisances, they did not work as apotropaics deterring our entrance.

              Yet as I approached the house, I turned my head to see Aksel still in the bushes a few yards back, carefully concealed in the shadows. He turned and walked a few feet before vanishing into the dreary night. I let him feed alone that evening, a night that became one night after another until they all blurred into one.

              On that particular evening, a night where the mist was a warm glove clinging to your skin and only worsened by the stifling lack of wind, I had fed from the fattening couple in their sweltering cabin. Drenched in sweat and smelling of burnt pig, I wandered into the village expecting to find Aksel along the roadside, sulking on the outskirts of town. Having not found him, I entered the only tavern this miniscule village kept and decided to wait for him there. In a village this size, I had surmised, it could not take him long to find me.

              A broad stone fireplace graced the farthest corner, warming the tavern with its raging golden flames. A long bench, wooden and worn with knots and cracks sat in front of it, and I removed the hood of my fur-lined, emerald-green cloak before sitting down between two burly, stinking men.

              Both reeked of sweat, and the second one, the nastier of the two, with filth; his hands, saturated with fresh dirt, his fingernails splintered and jagged, and his hair –wild, and flaring at the temples in winged patches of blackish-grey tufts, tipped in debris.

              Both men were past their prime, wilting examples of the men, they once were. Their thoughts revealed that they had been hunters, prosperous before the gout ate at the first ones toe and before the wild cat attacked the second. They were now legends with a fading story, the kind that dies slowly over time.

              Silently, I fed from these men and left them slumped together - peacefully asleep on the bench.

              It was nearing dawn when I left the tavern. The sky was growing ashier as the sun threatened to erupt from its horizon-bed, and birds in their tree top slumbers were beginning to wake and make their morning calls to the god of sunshine. Knowing I had not long to get to our hiding spot in the cave not far from the village, I flew into the sky only to look down and see him in the distance.

            
 
He was not a few miles from where the tavern sat, sitting near a brook. He had pulled his cloak over his shoulders, the hood covering his head, but I knew it was Aksel. The amber hide of his leather cloak was creased and rippled from wear, and all I could see slither out from beneath the massive piece of fabric was a red leg and black shoe pointed at the edge of the brook.

              Even though my landing had been faint, I knew he would hear me. Still, he did not move to acknowledge my presence.

              “Your sullenness of late is troublesome, my love. Let us talk of this, please, and be done with it!”  

              "Perhaps," he replied remaining fixed on the flowing waters of the brook that flowed effortlessly in front of him.

              "We will talk tomorrow then, dawn is approaching. We will deal with your hurt, your pain, your anger, Aksel; and then we will never speak of this madness again."

              I left him and walked to the cave. He followed behind shortly after and took to his slumber without a single word spoken to me. The tears, the blood tears, which he had hastily wiped from his face before he returned, spoke louder than words ever could. I could not ignore his pain, his sadness, any longer. Nor could I do anything to relieve it.

              When I awoke the next evening, he remained asleep on the uneven earthen floor; a vision of a man I once knew who had walked along the beach on moonlit nights and captivated me with his wit. He had dug a ditch and concealed himself behind a pile of rubble. I had done somewhat the same, and was now dusty and filthy and needed the brook to cleanse me; to make me appear the unblemished phantom survival required me to be.

              I then soared into the clear night that was ablaze with the twinkling of a billion stars and sought refuge on a high tree branch. The admiration of the universe, its magnificent brilliance alive in that moment surrounding me - existing eternally with me - was all I had the energy to acknowledge. I wished not to fight with Aksel; to argue, to be in eternal discourse over pointless matters, always dancing around what really mattered but never grasping it, never pulling it to us and tackling it down.

              Buda was not the beginning of our parting, though. The moments awaiting me that night were long in the making. That night, the air clung to me – a wet blanket reminiscent of a time and place, not too far back in our history, when a chasm began to grow between us. The stale sky had shown the same dulled constellations that night, too. 

              The first time Aksel had left me, he had been away nearly a week before returning. That was shortly after we left Norway while in Paris.

              I had been standing on the Le Pont Saint-Michel overlooking the Seine, watching a wedding procession advance down the river beneath me. Their barges of merriment were aglow with bulbous torches and shimmering silks, emanating an erotic aura of rippling waves that trickled out from the inanimate objects and even from the people. Perfumed sachets adorned the pillows that the women clung to their bosoms as men, ripe with cheap wine, threatened their decency; and the women, who were drunk from spirits and intoxicated with lust, gave in to their lovers' desires. Barge after barge, the same one after the other, floated beneath me until the final barge passed before my eyes of the bride and his groom; a couplet swathed in a tent of silks and shimmering satins, lying atop a bed of virginal white. They appeared asleep, enveloped in each other’s arms, lost to where one began and the other ended.

              "A festive party," a voice behind me remarked.

              “I have been to this bridge before and watched processions like this one,” I remarked.

              “And wedding processions will continue for ages to come,” he replied. “They will sail under this arc, blissful and ignorant.”

              “Perhaps it is best to be ignorant,” I said. “The world’s evils cannot touch you if you do not know of them.”

              “Gaze upon their faces, Bree,” he remarked, pointing to their sleeping, drunken forms. “The women believe love and bravery will conquer all, while the men see only a rich purse. Absurdity.”

              I watched the lovers float past. Their candlelit faces were smug with merriment and wine. "Where have you been all week?" I spat while fixing my eyes on the barges below. 

              "Soul searching," he replied. He moved next to me putting his arms along the edge of the wooden railing, peering down into the water.

              "Did you find what you were looking for?"

              "I believe I have."

              "Are you going to…" but I could not finish the sentence. I could not ask him if he was going to leave. I was terrified of the answer. "I have already fed. Do you need to feed?"