afteryourdeathormine:

Maker and breaker, 
I am the ebb and the flood, 
Here and Hereafter, 
Sped through the tangle and coil 
Of infinite nature, 
Viewless and soundless I fashion all being. 
Taker and giver, 
I am the womb and the grave, 
The Now and the Ever. [x]

The night is silken as suede and filled with horrors, and the creatures which dwell within its sooty embrace know full well the hazards and the pleasures beneath the mask of day. The bone-bright color of a freshly-bleached handkerchief hides the claws that pluck it. The scimitar cut of a suit pleat drapes graciously over scales and grossly misshapen ethics. A monster smiles, no hint of fang, and only the most astute prey animal can feel, low in its precious soft belly, the primeval need to run.

This is the domain of the apex predator, adrift on two legs and with its mind the weapon of choice, far more destructive than the splitting scream of a nucleus or the hollow thump of a ballistic round: mahogany panels, polished marble, the soft background whisper of a harpsichord.

Hannibal, therefore, looks thoroughly out of place in his fine blue suit and driving coat, standing on an uneven scrap of flagstone that leads up to the grinning maw of a farmhouse set back on failing farmland. It would have been grand in its own humble way, back when the wraparound porch was painted and its windows weren’t boarded-up sockets, when most of its roof was still intact and starlings didn’t cry angrily from the withered plane tree that threatened to take out most of the east wall the next time a storm blew through.

The house looks at Hannibal, and Hannibal looks back at the house, utterly underwhelmed but eternally patient. It isn’t long before he hears the sound of Will’s underinflated tires rolling over the rusty whisper of bridge that crosses a dried-up irrigation canal and marks the edge of the property.

Hannibal checks his watch. Will has arrived ten minutes late, and his dusty station wagon looks at home beside the house, making Hannibal’s gleaming Bentley all the more incongruous. The wind picks up, making Hannibal wonder if he shouldn’t have brought a more significant pair of gloves; there is the midwinter promise of snow in the low-hanging, steely sky and the ground around them has only the yellow-grey stubble of dead grass and frozen topsoil.

“It was the basement you wanted to inspect, was it not?” Hannibal says by way of greeting, walking towards Will as Will walks towards the porch on uncertain legs. From a short distance, Hannibal can see the feverish glow of Will’s skin and the sweat gathering on his upper lip and brow.

Hannibal smiles, and his fangs do not show.

Even seven months after the scarecrows were found, soon to go missing in death just like in life, Will had no doubt there’d be something left to find. The house was ground zero; a trampled-over and tarpaulin-covered derelict where their kidnapper had become a murderer. The Rye Reaper, suspected name Joseph Kurtz, had gone on to become other things in other places, most of which the FBI were still searching for. But the rupture, the key moment of evolution between thought and reality, had happened out here.

A folder of duplicated crime-scene photos could only take him so deep, and with three new disappearances, Jack was forced to admit they needed deep. It just wasn’t going to be much use to him if the things Will saw weren’t there.

The sun was wintery and growing weak when he ground the car to a stop, its dusty silver paint disappearing into the general washed-out scenery. Ever since the population marker, fifteen miles back, the whole area had seemed devoid – of life, of movement, of anything. Against the backdrop of decline and poverty, Dr Lecter’s Bentley stood out, shining such a deep black that from the road it looked like a funeral hearse.

Will cut the engine and reached up to rub some feeling back into his face, water and aspirin on the seat beside him. He’d had the window open all the way from Virginia, better frozen and awake than warm and crumpled around a tree, and had to fumble around in the glove compartment for a gun holster and gloves with stiff fingers. Wiped the sweat from his hands and the back of his neck with the sleeve of his jacket. In the rear-view mirror Dr Lecter had already started down the path, no hint of anything strange, and Will gave his watch a quick glance before shoving open the door.

He wasn’t just burning up, or almost too tired to think. He was angry. Asking anyone to attend a crime scene, even an inactive one, solely to compensate for his doubts was already skating close to the unethical; allowing them to wait unescorted, especially someone whose life he’d already endangered, was bordering on professional negligence. 

How about we focus on getting from self-flagellation to the door?

Will thought the words, but the crunch of his boots across the frozen yard, and the sick anticipation of where they were taking him were already working on that, clearing his head like the payoff to a spiteful habit.

Hannibal met him at the base of the porch, just shy of the house’s looming shadow, a reassuring sign of life that the dust didn’t seem to land on. In fact, the doctor looked like most people’s idea of a drive in the country. Will greeted him with a flinch of a smile, envying his detachment as they fell into step. 

“I should have called it something worse. Subterranean abattoir; flooded barn. Then maybe I wouldn’t feel personally responsible for the suit.”

Investigating tended to get messy. He had to remind himself that this wasn’t the first crime-scene Dr Lecter had been to. This probably washis idea of old, wreckable clothing. But looking at all the tailored layers made Will’s skin prickle with second-hand heat, so he didn’t, tipping his head back to take a good first look at what they’d come to investigate.

(The windows were boarded up, some more recently than others, but they’d always been shadowed. The light bent oddly around the peak in the roof, like one of the foundations had begun to sag. The house looked strange without the noise. No whine from the combines next farm over; no tuning-out police officers, FBI investigators, or Jack’s keen stare. Quieter, easier, more…)

“Um,” he caught up, realizing he’d been slipping into stillness, “the basement is where we’re going; it’s the only place any traces of the victims were identified. That makes it the most likely location for the murders. But first I need to get there – in the same way Kurtz did.” Will lifted a hand up to his forehead, knuckles pressing briefly into the throb before gesturing towards the pile of overgrowth where a storm-door had been cordoned off. The peeling wall above it still had traces of crime-scene tape stuck to the paint, tiny strips of faded yellow that fluttered when the air moved. Sometimes when it didn’t. “The initial investigation concluded that the victims were never brought into, or moved through, the main house. I know they’re wrong, I just don’t know how or why.

“Still sure you want to do this?”

The question was uncomfortable, especially with the seeds of second-hand fear already pushing up through the warped porch steps. But Will was used to fear, far more than he was used to help. Hannibal hadn’t expressed any particular reservations about accompanying him, but when he hadn’t blinked over coming out here alone and late, to coincide with the estimated times of death, Will had to wonder how much of that confidence was just well-masked concern for a patient.

Jun 14th   29 notes