Bram Stoker's HANNIBAL

Chapter 54: How the Steel Clanks and Rings as the Rider Springs

Chapter 54: How the Steel Clanks and Rings as the Rider Springs

I've been eagerly collecting the items on Randall Tier's list he needs to build a mechanical wonder, a feat of modern engineering, birthed of civilized brains and human ingenuity. It strikes me as delightfully ironic that he is using these things to thoroughly devolve into the animal that lives inside all of us, that lurks beneath the polished surface, the creature concealed by high-necked shirts and ties and corsets and skirts. I think it's more than fitting to unleash such a being upon London. England made him what he is, the way granite is made, through heat and unbearable pressure. His parents and his priests, his doctors and teachers, all of them tried to muzzle him, the same way society wants to limit my access to Will, and wants us to be ashamed of the things we do during our secret, golden hours.

And so London will bleed. It's already bleeding, hemorrhaging its citizens into my gaping maw. I will be sure to train my animal well. I will urbanize him, so he adapts to this environment. Then his teeth will bear screams.

My acquisition of Randall's needed materials has distracted me from my plans for Alana Bloom. As a result, Will says she's ceased her sleepwalking, and he's been able to return to his cottage. And now, as she and Margot Verger sit across from Will and I at a table set up on Hillingham's garden terrace, she is apple-cheeked and politely devouring her lunch to fuel her renewed strength. Now that list has been assembled, I must return my attention to its original intention.

Will is smiling, watching her eat her fruit and cold chicken salad. His eyes are softly relieved as he steals glances up at her in between bites. I've managed to palm a few pieces of meat below the table to one of Will's dogs that is so greedy for table scraps he doesn't seem to mind that I'm a creature of darkness. His name is Buster.

"I have the appetite of a cormorant lately," Alana says, almost apologetically, as Margot passes over a cup of summer berries for her fiancée to finish. "Margot says I'm getting fat."

"I said no such thing," Margot argues with a smile.

"I'm going to have to have my wedding dress altered," Alana pretends to complain. It's good she's had this brief reprieve from my attentions. It makes the source of her inevitable failing health less obvious, that her wasting disease coincides with my arrival in England.

After a few days of raw chill, summer has returned for one last curtain call, a final aria. This has prompted many social calls to Hillingham while Margot is here to assist with planning the wedding. The four of us have taken walks through the Heath and Highgate Cemetery; one afternoon we drove out to the apple orchard Will and I visited previously. Another day found us with Margot as she visited a stable to examine a few horses she's had her eye on; they were skittish and she was unimpressed. What she doesn't know, of course, is that they were agitated at my presence. The horses Chiyoh trained are more than used to a vampiric presence; these animals were not. I've found that horses on the street, those that pull the cabs, generally do not mind me; they are so used to the cacophony of the city that they are out of tune with their instincts, their senses dulled by the constant sense of alarm. Urbanized indeed. Fine riding horses are more sensitive, it seems.

Yesterday, Will, Margot, and Alana came to Purfleet to fish in the pond at my estate; Will was the only one able to catch anything. And today, we've gathered for a late lunch and lawn tennis.

Alana's recovery and Margot's presence have kept Will more observed than usual, and we have not had time alone together. Instead of resenting it, I've leaned into it, and I can sense he has as well, enjoying the gathering frustration and desire as it grows within us. The air today is warm and pleasant, and I think the warmth will last even after sunset. As we take our places on our side of the net and I hand him a racket, I lean closer to say, "Tonight. Meet me in Highgate. Thomas Sayers' grave, ten o'clock."