Rising to darkness Read online

  The female audience had exceeded the men in proportion and, notably, high-class women increasingly attended my matches. My vanity was greatly aroused. I never felt handsome nor did I even care about it. Now, however, hearing all those cries of admiration and squeals were fulfilling and I could not deny it.

  I did not fight every night; I could have never hold that kind of pace. After a couple of months, my rhythm was about two times a week. Kristen did not argue with me anymore when she saw me going out. She had given up. The first time I came home seriously wounded after a match, with a broken nose and several cracked ribs that gave me excruciating pangs every time I took a breath, she freaked out: "What happened to you?! Did they attack you? Oh my God, oh God, oh God ...” I hushed her. I had a headache, I just wanted to lie down in darkness and silence, but I had to give her some explanation or she would have driven me crazy. "It's nothing, no one attacked me ... Or rather, yes, but no one I didn't expect."

  It was no great justification, I admit it.

  "What do you mean? What are you talking about, for God's sake?"

  I told her about my weird hobby and, as I spoke, the look on her face grew more and more confused and scared.

  "But... why? What is the point of being beaten up like that? What if you meet a proper animal, someday, who kills you? What about Ambrosine and me? You promised to take care of us, don’t you remember?"

  My head was about to explode. Why couldn't she shut up?

  "I'm doing it! Are you missing something? I overwhelm you with gifts. I work all day. Why is it that I can't do something I like in the evenings?"

  "You like it? How can you like such a barbaric thing? Slaughtering other men and being slaughtered! What's the good in that?"

  She didn’t understand and she never would, and I soon got tired of explaining it. It was not easy, I know, but I felt invincible in that ring, admired and most importantly, as I mentioned, I felt alive. When I delivered the decisive blow to my opponent, I felt like God. Even now, when I hunt my victims and feed from them, I feel that way. I decide how long their punishment would last, if it would be more or less painful, or if I would treat them as a person worthy of respect or merely as a snack. I have power over their fear, I know how to use it to my advantage. I’m the last thing they will ever see on this earth. I am death. This is power.

  When Ambrosine discovered what I was doing in my spare time - thanks to my wife - she was shocked, saddened, and asked me the same questions about the reasons that had pushed me to do so. She couldn't understand also, but instead of making me feel guilty, she asked me to be careful. This was the difference between the two of them: Kristen was selfish like me while Ambrosine cared only about what was good for me.

  Meanwhile, as months passed, no one dared to bet against me anymore and the bookies were desperate. Out of thirty-five fights, I won them all, twenty-seven by knockout and eight for abandonment. They tried to procure stronger and stronger challengers, and the audience size got so large that many people were unable to enter. The happiest person was the tavern owner who never earned so much in his life.

  Meanwhile, a strange group had begun to attend the arena for approximately a few weeks, five men and a woman. Hard not to spot them in the crowd. First, they were taller than the average. They all dressed similarly, all in black, even the woman who wore dresses that seemed to have come from another century: long and flowing, made of velvet or silk with wide sleeves starting from the elbow down and with no trace of a bodice or corset that modify the body shape, which was so much in vogue during that time. Although they differed in hair color and facial features, the six resembled each other in the same way as siblings do. They were very pale, moved with extreme elegance, and wore small glasses with dark lenses, oval or slightly elongated, a real oddity for that time. They always seemed to know when I would fight and took their seats in the front rows each time. People didn't seem to like their proximity. A few minutes after their arrival, the space around them would empty and, with the experience I have now, I am telling you that this wasn't a conscious reaction. The woman sat down first and the men always took their seats in the same manner: two on her left, two on her right, and one behind her.

  I know it sounds crazy, but I would immediately perceive their presence even if I was in the middle of a fight. My heart sped up every time because the sight of the woman, so elegant, so dignified, so different from the crowd howling around us, was something that I could not tear myself away from, if not with a huge effort. For the first time, I was considering the idea of betraying my wife or, rather, I fancied it. She was beautiful but seemed unattainable: I might as well have tried it with the Queen. Yet it was clear that her presence in such a squalid place was because of me.

  There were moments when I turned to look at her, trying to intercept her glance hidden behind the dark shades; she nodded at me or she smiled. This made my heart jump up in my throat and, if I thought about it too much, I risked losing my focus.

  During the evening that marked my destiny, I had the chance to meet a truly monumental opponent. The organizers didn't know who to employ just to make me lose at least one match and to give a little life to the betting which languished miserably.

  I confess I felt fear for the first time. This was not the usual man: big, stupid, and slow. He was a mountain of muscles, looking lethal and alert. His gaze didn't leave me even for a moment while we were in our corners trying to focus on the match. They looked like alligator eyes, steady, cold, and strangely colored in a shade of yellow. What if something serious happened to me that night? How would I be able to keep the promise I made to Roger? What would happen to my Ambrosine and to Kristen? I swore to myself that if I got out alive from that match, I would take a long pause and would devote more time and attention to my poor wife. We could buy a bigger house, maybe in one of those neighborhoods that I liked so much, and Ambrosine could come to live with us.

  I wasn't a religious man, I've never been, but in those few moments preceding the bell, I know that I had prayed.

  I took off my shirt. I was already drenched in sweat and my throat was completely dry.

  The women in the crowd cheered in admiration.

  I found myself giving my usual look at the strange spectator, but this time there was terror in my eyes and I knew it. She felt it and stood up, staring at me, motionless like a statue.

  The bell rang and I turned just in time to see my executioner dashing towards me with superhuman speed and fury. The first blow caught me right in the solar plexus. It reminded me of the horrible feeling of being suffocated while I bent forwards with my mouth wide open, craving for air, knowing that at any moment a second shot, even more devastating, would have reached me somewhere, having no strength to dodge it. The guy grabbed me by my hair and forced me to lift my head up. He stared at me for a moment, grinning, enjoying my painful gasps and the terror hovering in my eyes, and then hit me again in the same spot, but with his elbow this time. My legs buckled underneath me, and he held me by my hair like a nasty child mistreating her doll. For at least a minute, not a single breath could penetrate into my lungs, while disturbing black spots were starting to take over my vision. I clung to his arm; the pain was excruciating. I wanted to strike the three blows that denoted surrender, but first I had to lay down on the floor. However, my opponent prevented me from giving up. He continued to hold me by my hair and shake me, laughing at my feeble attempts to hit him; it seemed like he was waiting for me to revive a little just to start again. Appealing to some unknown strength, I managed to turn myself around. I held his arm, bent down, and made him fly over my head, sending him to the ground. A whole strand of my hair remained in his grasp, torn at the roots; blood started to drip on my face, blinding me.

  I remember I heard people screaming. Rarely did they see me bleed and never so much. I reached the ropes and clung there for a moment while a terrible pain from my chest radiated into my arms down to the wrists and my breath heavily drove to my lungs. I didn't dare take my eyes o
ff my opponent who, as expected, was standing and seemed angrier than before. I didn't even send the signal that would have set me free from that nightmare, even though I was sure to lose, and lose badly. Yet I could not give up being the best, the person people gathered together to admire. I didn't want to return to be Mr. Nobody. That asshole could not possibly take away from me in five minutes what I had earned in over six months of suffering!

  I felt the anger mounting inside me and accepted it with joy because it forced out the fear and pain. I squatted touching the ground with one hand, in a position very similar to the one I take now when I have to protect myself, entirely instinctive. Hair and blood covered most of my face and I shook my head violently, sending drops of blood everywhere. I was told later that those sprays caused mass hysteria among women in the front rows, eager to grab at least a drop of my lifeblood. I didn't notice anything. I was panting, my arms were almost numb, but the Dutchman was back and he was going to attack. I jumped up and assailed my foe with a header in the stomach, then I grappled him and dragged him to the ground, clutching his throat with both hands. The rest was chaos, a furor of pain and blood, mine and his. I had no idea what happened after that: I do not remember the strikes, who delivered them, nor how long it lasted. I just knew that all of a sudden, I was standing, the announcer lifting my arm towards the sky, and then something terribly painful happened to my back. Then I lost all consciousness and when I woke up, I was in the place where my destiny was to begin.

  Hands were caressing me. Hands lifted my immobile limbs. However, whose hands?

  Rising to the surface was long and harrowing. A part of me wanted to escape the suffering, the other struggled to keep myself buried inside me. Still, there was peace, there was silence, no more crying, confusion, or all that pain. Enough, I don’t want to suffer anymore, if this is what it means to be alive, I'd rather be dead, oh, please, let me go...

  "Not yet, Dutchman. It's not yet time. Come on, open your eyes, look at me."

  Why did Kristen call me Dutchman? No one called me that, just the people attending the Hammerfall. How did I get home? Was I really at home?

  "Dutchman, you must listen to me, you must wake up. Can you hear me?

  I heard it, it was a female voice, a nice voice, but it wanted to drag me towards pain and I didn't want to go there. I'd have found out something horrible out there, I knew it. Couldn't they leave me alone? I would have preferred to draw back into my black hole which would have made everything much easier.

  The voice gave up, at least for a while, and I withdrew back to my inner core where there were no monsters breaking apart my back.

  Eventually I woke up.

  I found myself staring at the elaborate floral pattern of a sumptuous baldachin. I was using only one eye, however, because the left one was incapable of opening. I brought my hands to my face and felt that it was mainly wrapped in bandages.

  Where was I?

  How long had I been here?

  Who took me here?

  The bed curtains were closed and I couldn't see the rest of the room, shrouded in shadows and silence.

  I propped myself up on my elbows, noticing that even my hands were bandaged, but soon I had to lay down again: that movement was enough to exhaust me. My head was spinning, I felt like the bones beneath the bandages were competing to separate from my skin and ribs ... but it would be better not to talk about it. The only part of my body that didn't hurt was my legs. In fact, it was as if they did not exist.

  With a bit of apprehension that soon turned to dismay and then to terror, I realized that from the lower part of my body I did not detect any kind of sensation. I tried to move my toes, but nothing happened. I tried to bend one knee, but also that movement resulted in nothing. Panic swept over me and I started to scream. From the waist down, my body was completely numb, dead.

  I was still screaming when the curtains of the bed opened and the strange company of pale people who had watched many of my matches appeared before me, along with the woman. They seemed as shocked as I was and stared at me trying to understand the reason for my screams. The woman rushed to the bed and took me in her arms, hugging me; even within the mists of the panic tearing my mind, I sensed how cold her embrace was.

  "My legs! My legs! Why can't I feel my legs?" I screamed, trying in every way to compel them to make the slightest movement. The more I tried, the less I obtained results and panic intensified. A cripple! I had become a useless cripple. My life was over due to my absurd notion of fun.

  Oh, God, God, please, anything but that!

  I do not know how long I went on screaming like a lunatic, but, at some point, one of the men brought a glass containing a greenish liquid and strong hands forcibly opened my mouth, obliging me to drink it. The woman helped me lie down and stayed with me, holding me with her icy arm, whispering sweet words in my ear until sleep won me over and took me away.

  When I woke up again and remembered my condition, I did not scream. I no longer had any strength for it. I sank into the darkest depression and decided that I didn't want to live that way, not even for a day. The woman came back and was happy to find me awake and much calmer. She sat down next to me and smiled. There wasn't much light in the room and the curtains of my bed were partially closed so I couldn't clearly see the features of her face. I didn't care. Not at that point.

  "How do you feel?" she asked me kindly.

  I didn't answer. I just turned my head away. She waited.

  "Where am I?" I asked after a little while. I was hoarse, almost voiceless, and my throat hurt.

  "You're in my house. When the accident occurred, no one knew where to take you. Someone suggested the hospital, but we all know how awful that place is and that people only go there to die. My brothers and I decided to bring you here, then. Do you remember me? "

  I nodded, but I did not turn. No need for her to see the tears running down my cheeks. I had already made enough of a spectacle of myself.

  "You do remember what happened, don't you?"

  Wan kan ik niet bewegen mijn benen?

  My native tongue again and the absolute naturalness in using it. The woman hushed, puzzled.

  "I'm afraid I don't know your language, Dutchman, I'm sorry. I don't even know your real name... I'm Shibeen, I'm Irish. Did you ask me something?"

  "I asked why I can’t move my legs. Do you know why?"

  "Don't you remember the last part of the match? When people were hailing you as champion and then that brute attacked you from behind?"

  I shook my head. The only thing I could remember was the horrible intensity of pain in my back, but I didn't feel like talking.

  I just felt like dying.

  "Somehow, he managed to stand up and found a sort of bar. No one had seen it, not even my brothers or me, for you can be sure that we would have stopped him. He treacherously drove it into your back. I’m afraid you have a broken spine, I'm sorry. It's a miracle you're still alive. "

  It wasn't a miracle. It was a curse.

  “Steun mij, gelieve... Ik wil om te sterven...” (Help me, please… I want to die)

  "I don't understand you, dear, I'm sorry..."

  "Nothing. I was speaking to myself. Sorry, I'd rather be alone."

  "Of course. If you need anything, just call."

  She bent down and kissed my forehead.

  "Don't do that again," I said, "I hate to arouse pity."

  For the first time her voice got harsh. "How do you know what you arouse in me, sir?" she said and left the room in a proud pace.

  After a few days spent in an almost absolute silence, notwithstanding the efforts of the woman to be kind, it was time to take the bandages off from my face. She was in charge of the operation, assisted by one of the men in black who, I discovered, were really her brothers, all with unpronounceable Gaelic names. The fact that I did not speak did not mean that I was deaf.

  She completed the task with care and delicacy and when my face was finally clear of the bandages again, I saw h
er smile brightly. She was beautiful when she was serious, but when she smiled, she was breathtaking.

  It was truly shameful she hid her eyes behind those dark glasses as her brothers did.

  "Very good, Dutchman, really good. There are some marks, but they will soon disappear, I assure you. That beast, tearing off your beautiful hair... he deserved to die just for that."

  She stroked my head and I pulled away as usual. I was beginning to think there was something rather devious with her kindness, some kind of hidden agenda she wasn’t ready to share with me just yet. Every time I told her I wanted to go back home where I had someone who would take care of me, she quickly changed the subject or found some excuses like the dangers of moving someone in my condition. She was also very vague about the length of time I had spent there; surely, it was more than twenty days, but she never told me exactly.

  Almost healed, apart from my legs, I was consumed with anxiety for Kristen and Ambrosine; I, undoubtedly, had made them despairingly distraught. They had to believe that I was dead, my body discarded somewhere to rot. As far as I was concerned, I would have preferred that it was so, but, for them, I had to reason with Shibeen once and for all.

  I waited for her to come in: I usually saw her only in the evenings. During the daytime, a multitude of servants was ready to satisfy my every need, but I never saw her nor her brothers. At present, you and I both know why, but at that time, the "culture of the Vampire," as I call it, was not so prevalent. It was a character confined within the pages of scary tales; nothing more than a legend, it was believed.

  I obliged myself to be kind; I had always treated her with indifference and, honestly, she didn't deserve it. She was the only one who was disposed to help me when everyone else had preferred to have dumped me into the Thames like a dying animal. Maybe her intentions were not so terrible after all; perhaps she had simply fallen in love with me and wanted to keep me there for just a while like a nice new toy. That was precisely, however, what I was eager to explain to her: that I was not a toy, that I was grateful for their hospitality, but that I wanted to go home.