Bram Stoker's HANNIBAL

Chapter 32: Die Away in the Night

For the first week, I do not visit Will as he languishes in his sickbed. Chiyoh understands me entirely; she takes over the night vigils, though I assume she watches Will from a chair and does not hold him all night in a lover's embrace. Abigail tries to ask me why I keep my distance; I have no answer for her. I am incapable of using language to describe the feeling of that crucifix against my cheek, the helpless panic as I saw Will fully realize my nature and try to ward me off with a blessed string of beads that couldn't have been his. I've no idea where it came from, but he wielded it like a weapon against me. Now, its beads are scattered on the floor of the prisoner's cell, the charm fallen from Will's hand when he lost consciousness. How could he exploit my weakness like that? The pain of betrayal is dizzying.

Abigail finds me in the library as I pretend to read, staring at the page with the events in the catacombs playing on an endless chorus in my head. I am desperate for a coda that eludes me.

"He's been asking for you," she says, arms crossed, hip jutting out.

This erodes my pride entirely. And so I go to him.

He's asleep again, shaking with fever, though Abigail says she thinks he's improving, giving credit to Katerina's royal jelly concoction. If his condition is considered better now, I shudder to think how poorly he was before, when I was too hurt to see him.

I slide out of my footwear and jacket and sit next to him on the bed. The motion of the mattress rouses him and he opens his eyes, vision hazy and unfocused. But he smiles when he recognizes me, just for a moment, and gone, gone are the scars of betrayal and the pain of rejection. "My lord," he rasps through a languishing throat.

"Your Excellency," I respond automatically before tears come to my eyes. Iliya and I used to greet one another by our formal titles, always in jest.

He reaches for me and I draw him into my arms, resting him securely against my shoulder, tucking the blankets around us. He's deliciously warm again, but I fear it; his fever is prolonged and dangerous. "Can I get you anything?" I ask softly against the top of his head. "Have you had Katerina's medicine today?"

He nods under my chin. "Marissa gave it to me," he says.

Marissa. The chambermaid that had helped Reba save some of Iliya's things from my fiery purge. She's been dead for 400 years, but I do see the resemblance between her and Abigail. Marissa would have made a perfect victim for the Shrike.

He has Iliya's memories, but they are unsteady, past and present quilted together, the pieces beautifully stitched but different patterns and fabrics entirely.

Not entirely. I am a constant, as is Castle Lecter and my ancestral lands.

Will struggles up and looks down at me, smiling, tracing my cheekbone with the pads of his fingers, then my brow and lip. Then his soft gaze hardens and he moves away from me, trembling, severing our touch connection. "Why'd you cut his leg off?" Will asks me, eyes narrowing, voice suddenly gruff with disdain. "What, s-so h-he couldn't-couldn't run? I think the, ah, manacles were sufficient. He was chained to the wall."

"The leg was broken," I say, trying to control my expression. I move as little as possible so as not to frighten him. "I set the break but the wound turned septic. If you noticed, I performed a successful surgery and he was on the way to a full recovery."

Will smiles again, but it is disbelieving and cruel. "A full recovery," he says, and I know what he means. Really? Did you hear what you just said?

And then the hardness in his expression melts off. I think of the day I met Iliya, how the spring snow was melting. The day I met Will, a late spring snowstorm melted the next day by the hasty sun. Now he is all warmth, getting close again, playing with the chest hair he can reach where my shirt is open. Kissing me. I know he's confused and hallucinating and ill but I don't stop him. Instead I pull him into my lap to deepen our kisses, and stroke his hair and back until he folds down against me, muscles shaking from the exertion of being upright. Then I hold him.