Bram Stoker's HANNIBAL

Chapter 53: And the Stars Leapt Out of the Darkling Blue

Chapter 53: And the Stars Leapt Out of the Darkling Blue

The lunatics are howling tonight. The word derived, of course, from luna, coined when phases of the moon were thought to influence the mind, drawing madness like the tide. The night is still and clear, the stars jumbled overhead, the air crisply cold. On a night like this in Transylvania, I would have run through the mountains and down into the valleys, then up again over rocky slides and through inclined glades, splashed through frigid, clear streams. Chased down a deer just to do it, drag the creature to the ground and feel its heart beat beneath my teeth, my jaw clamped over its throat.

Sometimes, I would let it go. Other times, I would kill it and bring it to my pack.

I miss them. The wolves. Where my mortal family's line died with Mischa, I had the pleasure of watching their generations flourish. I didn't name them all, but some of them I did. The great white female I called Diana, goddess of the hunt, pale and pitiless as the moon. The jet black ones I thought of as twins. Romulus and Remus, raised by wolves. It's likely I will never see them again. I've traded the primal wilds for opulence, for an endless sea of blood, for opera. For Will. An easy decision, but that doesn't mean I don't yearn for a beautifully exhausting race through the wilds of my homeland.

Tonight, I am a wolf, but I feel caged. Running the length of the fenced-in grounds of my estate in a loop, the only challenge here is to ensure none of the human staff of Carfax see me. And that is easily remedied with mesmerism, so there is no real danger. It is this time of night when I am restless. Will is at home, keeping watch over Miss Bloom. Sleeping in her room in an attempt to keep her safe. I know it is only a matter of time before the inconvenience of her existence is removed, and she suffers what she deserves for toying with my beloved's heart and being party to his abduction, but now, as my padded feet pound over the grass, crunching along fallen leaves, I am impatient. Agitated.

I leap the fence and land on the grounds of the Purfleet Hospital for the Criminally Insane. It takes everything I have not to add my voice to their yelps and howls. Instead, I keep to the shadows until the asylum is in sight, dimly lit, the cries of the wretched within dribbling from open windows laced with bars. Between these rods of iron, in one of the openings on the second floor, I see a pale face with dark, expressive cerulean eyes. A young man, not raving like the others, his gaze appearing calm and resolute. But I see the pained lines of his mouth as he looks out the window at the moon-strewn dark. He wishes, more than anything, to be free. I don't need to read his mind to understand the expression. He is a coiled ball of longing and anger. I see my own agitation reflected back at me as he rests his head on the bars, curling his pale fingers around them in a constricting grip. I can almost hear him praying for the power to rip them apart as though they were made of soft clay.

I step out into the moonlight, still in my wolf form and look up at him.

His eyes widen. Another patient with a window on the same side begins to scream, having noticed me, convinced I am something called the Grim, the portent-hound of doom. But the boy does not fear me; his eyes fill with tears, but they are the kind of tears I wept when I saw Iliya walk down the aisle of the chapel on the day we were married. He finds me sublime. Interesting.

I am curious what he will do if I change forms in front of him, and so I do, my fur evaporating off of me like black mist as I rise up on my hind legs, my tail and snout sinking back into my body. He is enraptured, a hand over his mouth. Even as his neighbor shrieks that the devil himself is out on the lawn, this man looks at me like I am more angel than demon; he sees me as the dark miracle I am, and this pleases me.

I lock eyes with the madwoman in the cell next to his that is frantically pointing out her window and calling me Satan. In an instant, she is mesmerized, sinking to her dirty pallet and drifting into a restful sleep. Now that we're alone, I come closer, looking up at the boy with an open expression of friendliness. "Hello," I say.