Bram Stoker's HANNIBAL

Chapter 29: Death is the Goal of My Weary Soul

Will has been studying reincarnation.

It began with the requisite religions: Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, the Gnostic texts. We discussed karma, what we might have done in our previous lives to earn our current situations. I entertained his theories, though I certainly do not share them. If the forces of Karma existed, Will should not be here. 400 years of murder as an inhuman monster should not have earned me Iliya's return. The concept is simply another way to reinforce prosocial behavior that benefits society at large. A magical means of exerting control over the uneducated masses. Spiritual blackmail, like the concepts of Heaven and Hell.

Yet, the concept that a person's soul could be reborn again in another body – I have living proof here, right in front of me. And his sudden interest in the subject makes me think Will is beginning to suspect – to entertain the idea that he lived a past life. With me.

I know he read some of Iliya's letters, saw the portrait. I had to take those memories from him. Yet there were things that came to him before that night in my old chambers. Even as Will battled the resurgence of his Ripper and the shadows of his victims, he was given happy dreams and visions of an alternate world where he and I were in love. That alternate world was the past. He remembers being Iliya, to some extent.

He knew Mischa's name. He knew how to open the secret latch on our door.

I want to take him back to the chamber I once shared with my husband. Show him the box and our bed and the portrait and make him remember. Let Iliya and Will collide, coalesce, my love fully returned to me at last, reforged for this modern world. But giving in to this temptation risks dire consequences. Will's mesmerism continues to erode. And as the lines between memory, hallucination, past life, and reality continue to blur, his health suffers.

Last night he tried to sleepwalk again. Luckily we were in bed together and I simply held him until he settled once more, sweating and muttering before finally drifting off again. Once he'd returned to natural sleep, I let my tears overtake me. I am at an impasse. It seems the truth is unavoidable, but the shock to his already delicate body may bring him to death's door again. And then I will have to make him a vampire. But it is not time.

Once I have ridden my despair for a while, I make a plan. I resolve to reveal the truth to him in increments.

First, let him know that he is my beloved, returned to me from the great beyond. That bond must hold us together when the rest of the truth comes out. Once he is wholly certain that he loves me, and that I have loved him for 400 years, the rest will be of little consequence.

I feed his interest in past lives and reincarnation. I bring him books from the occult library I keep in the catacombs beneath the chapel, my secret shelves full of books of witchcraft, ghosts, alchemy, demonology. I have several recently published spiritualist monographs on the subject, and he devours them. Saturating himself in this literature sets the stage perfectly for me. I only need to wait for the right moment.

It never seems to come. I'm neck-deep in preparations for the relocation to London – things set in motion before Will showed signs of a relapse. Abigail is a constant presence. Will's headaches carve out large portions of the day, and when he is feeling well, he's focused on his research. The only time I seem to have his full attention is when I do things like toss his book aside and open up his trousers right there in the library to slide his cock into my mouth.

All right, then, the perfect time will never come and I should simply broach the subject or tie him to a chair until he listens to me.

I hesitate because I am afraid. I loathe this weakness. But if I reveal everything to him about his previous life and he doesn't love me...?