Bram Stoker's HANNIBAL

Chapter 33: Die Away in the Gloom

Will rose to consciousness with the gentle grace of apple blossoms fluttering free of their branches and drifting lazily to the velvet grass below. The curtains at his window were half open, and through the diamond-shaped panes of glass he could see a sweet, blush-pink dawn.

Looking at the light didn't hurt. He was thirsty and his body was sore with disuse, but the weaves of blinding, nauseating pain seemed to have passed. Will sat up slowly and waited until the feelings of lightheadedness passed, then pushed the blankets aside. They were clammy and wet, as was his hair. His nightshirt was soaked and clinging to him, see-through with moisture.

"My fever broke," he murmured.

As he moved the damp blankets away from his legs, the morning light caught something metal on his hand, reflecting a brief flash of rose-gold. He stopped moving, transfixed, staring at his hand. There was a gold ring on the third finger of his left hand, a thick band engraved with floral and leaf designs. It seemed old, medieval in its design, but in perfect condition, cleaned and buffed to a glowing luminosity.

It fit his hand perfectly. His left hand. His ring finger on his left hand.

It was a wedding band.

Flashes of the chapel, full of warm light and smiling faces, Hannibal waiting for him at the altar. Let this ring be a sign of my love and fidelity in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Will rubbed his face, desperate for the clarity he'd enjoyed for a few moments to return. When he examined his appendage again, reached out with his right to touch the golden band, he saw pencil smears all over the side and heel of his hand, the kind a child might have when learning to write.

He didn't remember writing anything, not recently at least. Maybe something about the villagers coming to work on the chapel? His memory wasn't just murky; there were pieces of it simply missing, an oil-painted landscape with holes chewed into it by time and vermin.

Will eased down and retrieved his journal from the hiding place. Why had he started hiding it? He was lucky he remembered where it was. Flipping through it, his eyes widened, and a slow spread of fear clutched his neck like a phantasmal hand taking its time choking the life out of him. The journal was nearly filled with pages and pages of his handwriting. Entries he didn't remember, that weren't written in shorthand. The entries reminded him of the Spiritualists that practiced automatic writing, claiming they were transcribing the spirit world, their whorls and loops slowly becoming words bearing messages from the beyond. "Bloody hell," he whispered, eyes flying over page after page, trying to make sense of it.

He is a monster. This is the being I am helping to transfer to London, where for centuries to come he might, amongst its teeming millions he will eat — make more. How would I kill him if I could? I would use my hands. It would be intimate. He deserves that much. But I would never be strong enough, no one is strong enough.

I have to get on a train. I have to get to a train station and get away before nightfall. He's the devil, he is smoke. God doesn't grant mercy but it might be more than what I'm offered here and I would die as a man and not as one of them, but would I just come back again? I'm not allowed to die?

GET OUT. YOU HAVE TO GET OUT.

Will's mind reeled. His memories and visions and dreams were a house of cards, each one a different image of the past or present, of reality or illusion, the entire structure collapsing. The deck was a chaos heap now, face up, face down, the suits and numbers and face cards jumbled together.

Trying to make sense of them brought a white-hot surge of pain that crackled through his brain like low-horizon lightning.

GET OUT. YOU HAVE TO GET OUT.