Descent Into Madness (33 page)

              “Mother,” she whispered, closing the door behind her.

              Aleksandra walked to the settee, knelt beside the Matriarch and, reaching up, carefully stroked her mother’s hair. A sea of artificial neon drowned Bree in its obnoxious yellow glare; it swam on her skin, dripped fluorescent gold from her hair and tinged her ruby lips a rusty brown. 

              “He will move you,” Aleksandra whispered as she smoothed Bree’s locks, “and soon.” She let her fingertips glide over Bree’s warm skin. Her fingertips gently inched their way toward Bree’s lips, cracked and refusing to part. Bree’s body retained a smidgen of the sun’s warmth from when the Matriarch had stepped into the day light last October.             

              Tears pooled in Aleksandra’s eyes and she laid her head upon Bree’s chest. The eerie warmth comforted her. “Mother,” she whispered, “I need you.”

THIRTY-FIVE

June 20, 2013

Evening

I
t’s been ready for weeks now,” Colin whispered in Aleksandra’s ear. “He will move her and you cannot stop him.”

              “He cannot take her,” Aleksandra wept. She held tightly to Bree’s hands and stroked the matriarch’s fingers. Tiny cracks ate at Bree’s nail beds; their crystalline surfaces were sun scarred, marred – each a murky white with muted grey ribbons across their tips, wave like and wispy.

              “This can be her tomb,” Aleksandra begged. She lowered Bree’s hands, gently placing them to rest in the matriarch’s lap. They creased the satin throw Aleksandra had delicately placed across her mother’s lap, trapping in the unnatural warmth.

              “We can keep her. This is where she belongs,” she argued. “Ask yourself, would you want it any other way?” She turned, facing him, ruby droplets christening her cheeks.

              “It is not for me to answer, Aleksandra. This gift is far too new for me to comprehend how Bree must have felt, what turmoil she must have experienced to do this to herself,” he replied.

              Colin inched into the room, sitting down next to her. “Wipe your tears,” he whispered, handing her a handkerchief. “We will figure out this mystery. The amulet, Aksel, Francisco, how they are all connected, but we must let her sleep now; let her rest.” Colin reached forward and brought the cloth to Aleksandra’s tears, dobbing them as they formed anew.

              “We owe it to her, out of respect. Bree would not want to be a museum piece. And somewhere, in here,” his finger gravitated to Aleksandra’s forehead, resting between her eyes, “you know I am right, Aleksandra.”

              “But mother does not feel gone, Colin,” she whispered, returning her gaze to Bree. The matriarch lay rigid and motionless. 

              “She is,” he urged. “She is and the sooner you accept that, the better off you will be – we will all be.”

              Colin stood and left, a muffled scratching echoing from his corduroy pants as his legs rubbed against each other. She heard the familiar sound ebb as he walked down the hall and into the Study. The door creaked as he opened it, and softly clicked, catching on a raised edge of carpet as it closed behind him.  

              “Mother,” Aleksandra wept, “I have sat here for weeks waiting on answers – waiting for signs – and you give none. You are lifeless and silent, and it terrifies me. Do you not see Wesley is going to take you from me? And I can no longer stop him!”

              She clasped Bree’s hand, caressing the palm, and slid her fingers over the matriarch’s skin. Her thumb ran over the smooth, muted, beige flesh; as the sun’s deep burn faded, a tinge of olive tint lingered. Her icy fingertips rubbed Bree’s fingernails, their warmth still a troublesome puzzle.

              Aleksandra laid the hand down – fingers first, followed by the palm – returning it to Bree’s lap. That was when she saw it. It was a spec, a smidgeon, really. An insignificant thing to miss, yet she had. In the countless times she had caressed those hands and cleansed that skin, she had not seen this; nor had the others.

              Aleksandra took the fingers to her lips, inhaling the spec’s aura. Her tentative lips parted, quivering as she slid the bronzed finger past them. She licked the speck and sucked the fingernail, tasting the unnatural warmth singeing her tongue. The taste was unmistakable.

              Blood.

              Wesley had the drapes drawn. He stood on the balcony, his back to the room, the summer breeze billowing against the fabric. Firelight fluttered, dancing off the Study’s slate gray walls. Chicago twilight flooded the room in fluorescent brilliance. From the neighboring high-rises to the passing traffic below, the city was complacent and oblivious.

              “Did you see it?” Aleksandra shouted, walking in. “Tell me, Wesley, did you see it?” The window glass rattled, the thick panes creaking as they settled.

              Colin stood from the settee. “Aleksandra,” he began, trying desperately to intervene, to assist. Aleksandra’s hand rose into the air, steadily, her icy glare boring into him.              

              Colin took three steps forward toward Aleksandra, hands outstretched to calm her, before hearing Judith gasp. He had no time to look down; Aleksandra lured him into the air, dangling him there suspended in mid-air like a cat playing with its prey, before thrusting him backward. She smashed his chest into the granite fireplace, stunning the room and crumbling the finely crafted Italian architecture – granite now littering the carpet.

              “Wesley!” Judith shouted as she clamored to her father. “Stop her!” 

              Wesley steadied his steps, creeping toward his mate. Her eyes were afire and fixated, yet hauntingly vacant. He had felt hope in the warm, early summer air. A dense aroma of change clung to the coming humidity. He had tasted it in the breeze wafting off Lake Michigan. Yet a nightmarish hurricane of turmoil and agony preceded all hope now.

              “Did you see it?” she continued, walking to him. “Did you see it and not tell me?”

              “See what, my love?”

              “How could we have been so blind!” she lamented. “You saw it, Wesley! And how could you keep it from me?” She blasted, turning to Judith. “Of all people,” she whispered, her head whipping back to face Wesley, “how could you?”

              “Aleksandra,” Wesley whispered, reaching out, grabbing her shoulders.

              Aleksandra’s arms encircled him. She gripped at his shirt fabric, grasping fists of the cotton with one hand, and securing a belt loop between her middle finger and thumb with the other.

              “Don’t be coy,” she snarled, hoisting him high.

              Wesley desperately fought against her – his grip on her shoulders tightening, his fingers digging into her icy flesh. His feet dug into her shins, crawled eagerly up her thighs, slammed into her groin and ferociously punched into her stomach. His fingers clawed at her throat and pounded against her breast. She carried him backward, still, toward the window, driving his body into the glass.

              Her hand slithered up his chest, snaking its way to his throat. She fastened her grip, pressing him against the window – the glass splintering behind him. “Did you see it?” She hissed.

              “Have you seen the void?” Wesley cried. “Where did your dreams take you? Oh, my love, don’t let Bree’s madness eat you. Put me down; don’t give in to it.”

              “Fight it,” cried Judith.

              “Why?” Aleksandra hissed. “The void…I must fight for her. She needs me.” The glass moaned as she pressed Wesley firmly against it. “Did you see it? Did you see it and hide it from me? My
love
?”

              “Did we see what, Aleksandra?” Colin cautiously creaked from the rubble. He stood, brushing debris and ash from his corduroys.

              “The blood.”

              “What blood?” Judith whispered.

              “Aleksandra,” Colin questioned as he approached, stealthily, as if he were a cat hunting a mouse, “where would we have seen blood?”

              “On mother,” she said her fiery glare softening. “Mother has blood on her.”

              “Why does Bree have blood on her,” Colin asked.               “Aleksandra, where did the blood come from?” 

              Aleksandra did not answer, her gaze fixed on the approaching poet. Colin was near to her now. Closely he inched, his feet gliding their way to her.

              “She is still with us,” Aleksandra whispered, in a trance.

              “No!” Wesley’s voice shook the glass once more. “Aleksandra, listen, she is not. Let her go!” 

              “She needs me,” her voice was a nearly inaudible whisper. “You’ll never understand.” 

              Colin grabbed Aleksandra’s shoulders. He tried loosening her grip; tried prying her off Wesley, but her hold was unyielding.

              Her left hand released Wesley’s belt loop, snaked up, and clutched Colin’s sweater.

              Colin resisted, and he thrashed and squirmed before she flung him aside. He landed against the glass, sliding to the carpet. Judith, watching, sat down, folded her hands, hiding them in her lap, and bowed her head, wishing to become invisible.

              “Aleksandra,” Wesley whispered, “I’m moving her to the mausoleum tomorrow night. I must find a way to save you.”

              Aleksandra met his glare. A cloud of dreadful unease fell as her piercing-slit eyes stared into his. Then her eyes widened slightly – enough to make each of them cower.

              “Save
me
?” Her timber swelled. She closed her eyes as Wesley’s body rose toward the ceiling, barely scraping the white plaster. He reached up, stabilizing himself, trying to press against it and propel himself down. But he was adrift and helpless.

              “Put me down,” he whispered, his body now floating toward the open balcony, past the billowing curtains and into the welcoming Chicago breeze. Aleksandra followed it. Toe-to-toe she walked, her eyes steadily affixed on the prize before her, her hand not dropping as he hovered perilously over the rail.

              “You need saved,” she whispered.

              Wesley howled, “Stop!” He thrashed and wailed and plead, and still he hovered while she stared him down with intense frigidity. His cries slowed the State Street traffic and hushed the incessant Chicago drone, and horrified all in the room.

              “Aleksandra,” Judith shouted from inside, “stop this! Please, stop!” The young one urged.

              “You will not move her,” Aleksandra shouted. “Do you hear me?” Her eyes darted between the three – Wesley hovering over the balcony, Judith standing in the room’s center and Colin slumped against the glass, knees drawn and head cradled in his hands.

              “The first one to even touch her will feel sun fire, and you will not be saved from its hellish kiss,” she hissed, lowering Wesley’s body and resting him on the balcony’s platform. “My word is promise, be sure of that,” she spoke, turning to each of the three. “You will be ash, even if I have to burn with you.”

              “Tell me,” Aleksandra demanded, landing on the balcony, thrusting the palatial curtains aside, “are you ready for this war?” A night had passed since she left Chicago yet it could have been days.

              He turned from the opulent altar, its aged patina and jewel encrusted edges glistened in the darkness of nightfall and candlelight. His jaws slackened as she approached and clutched his pallium, pulling the fabric back. The archivist slipped toward Aleksandra, his feet shaking as he ended in her embrace.

              “I ask for no war,” he replied.

              She pressed his body into the altar, disturbing the linen neatly laid upon it. “Yet you start one.”

              “You are mistaken,” he whispered, bravely, his eyes unblinking, staring into hers. “We are trying to end it.”

              “Your words are hollow, old man.” Aleksandra released him and he grabbed the altar’s edge, steadying himself and calming his quickening breath.