Chapter One: My patients

I love sitting in this black armchair, it is so soft, so luxurious and warm, especially on a cold winter day like this. I look at the snow piling up outside my window, and shudder to myself, wondering what it would be like to go some place warm for a vacation or two. Haven't I earned it, killing off three pests of society, doing a service to the world? I sit back and enter my memory palace, counting down from ten to one as I descend down a dark stair case into the palace.

The carpet is purple and lush, and walls are expansive as are the corridors, filled with classical paintings from the greatest Reneassiance artists, filled with statues of art, filled with a soft musical note simmering in the air, along with delectable scents of lily flowers and chamomille filtering through non-existence nostrils.

Ah my mind palace. This is home. This is where I belong, in a world where I am in control of everything, where I am all powerful, where I can do and be who I want to do and be. I open my eyes as I hear footsteps from the outside of my office. They don't sound like the maid, and she has gone home long ago. I stare at the grandfather clock and it shows that its almost midnight. Who would interrupt me in this late night of studying, on a day where I had no appointments. Ah of course, the scent seems familiar. It is the cologne that Will Graham wears.

I hear a knock, and I smile to myself because here's my chance to unnerve the young boy a bit. "Come on in, Will," I said, and sniff the air again. The smell of that cologne gets stronger. It is a disgusting smell, a musky scent that seems to hang about the man, who is as clouded and hard to read as the perfume he wears. "Any leads yet on our favorite serial killer?"

Will chuckles a bit and sits down on the armchair in front of me. I get up and go to the liquor cabinet, pull out a bottle of scotch that I know he likes and pour both of us a glass. "Something tells me you have bad news," I said, noting the bags under his eyes, the crinkle of his pants that show he has not had time to iron it for at least two days.

"Well yes I have, not news really," Will said, looking at me, facing me with his innocent naive eyes. "But I have a theory, an idea if you will. We found the remains of the latest victim, her cheeks were cut out, and she was stabbed in broad day light on Hastings street."

"Ah, the street of crooks, muderers, and drug addicts," I said, giving him a knowing look. "Not surprsing, but our MO is a little bit subtler, a little craftier."

I knew the girl who had died, who I had killed. She was a bitch, whining about the unfairness of the world when she should have been counting her blessings. And she had a snobbish attitude I didn't like, as well as her taste in music. It was horrendous. She simply had to go, but I admit there were some good points to her. She had the most soft cheeks, very tasty, so much so that during our dull tedious sessions together where she seemed to blabber on and on about the most inane topics, I often fantasized about tasting her cheeks, her lips, cooked rare.

And I had done that, boldly, but not too boldly. I was very careful and read up a bit on disguises. It is a passing interest of mine, one that I wanted to apply to the real world, so as to bridge scholarly knowledge with real life value.

"So Will, you think that this is the same serial killer you are hunting?" I asked, probing him for more information. "Do you think you are reading too much into this? Are you obsessed about this case yet?"

"Obsessed? What are you-" Will sighed. "You're pretty perceptive, doctor, my wife said the same thing to me last night."

"Of course she did, women have a sense of awareness that far exceed our capabilities as mere men, especially when it comes to their husbands," I never had a wife, but I have successfully treated many of them for their neurosis, and saved their marriages. I am the most renowned pscyhiatrist in America, well known, well respected, with a hidden secret, with a Jekyll and Hyde phenomena though I hated to use such a bland and over used analogy.

"Well, she said that I need to take a break, relax for a bit, perhaps go on vacation," Will said, as he sipped his scotch, relaxing into the humble abode that is my office. It would be rude to send him away so soon, even though I really wanted to be left alone, in peace, reflecting on my last murder, on my last delectable feast of human flesh.

"And I have been having the same thoughts about myself, actually," I said, and thought about my old patient Sabrina Bones, who was taking a vacation to England in the next week. Should I join her? Feast on her liver? That would solve her of her abusive boyfriend problem for sure.

"Really? Where do you want to go?" Will asked me curiously. He is not subtle when probing for information. I can see right through him. He knows something, suspects something, but what?

"I think I'll go to the bahamas," I lied. I will just take an indirect flight route to England so I won't be traced as easily. "Anyways, Will, tell me everything on this case of yours. I am eager to work on the criminal profile of our serial killer."

"Well see the thing is, I told you how her cheeks were cut, right?" Will said, "And in the last case, the victim's stomach was gutted, and so on. I think the killer is eating our victims. I think he's a cannibal."

"That is a very intriguing thought, Will. I will sleep on it, and contemplate it while sipping pina colatas on a beach somewhere. I would suggest you do the same, but I know you are too caught up in your work to do so," I said.

"It's getting late, doctor, and I appreciate the help you are giving me. I think, that together we can get very close to our killer. I almost feel like I know him, like I'm inside his head."

I chuckled, "Well no need to get overconfident," I said, hiding my anger behind a mask of happiness and pride. Really, who did Will think he was, just a boy out playing FBI, playing hard to catch me, the serial killer, the one that I am profiling myself. But how can I profile myself? I am too complex, too emotionally layered to do it myself, because the subconscious of my mind is different than the thousands of patients I have been through. I am different. Am I a human being? Biologically I am a human being, but mentally I am something else, a part of the human race, but evolving, changing in ways nobody can understand, in ways that I barely have a grasp of, starting with Mischa and ending with what? My capture? I hope not, no I am too good for that, too brilliant, too creative, too analytical to get captured so easily by society.

I am a man. But I am also greater.

I don't know who I am exactly, because I am beyond categories, beyond definations, and nobody can understand that, not my peers in psychiatry, nor the FBI who routinely track serial killers, but none of the same calibre as I.

Still, a trip to Britain will be wonderful. After escorting Will out of my office, I go throw out the scotch in the glass and fill it with some amorone wine, exotic, delicious, well suited to my palate. If only I had some liver to go along with it, like I had with one of my patients. Then this night would be brilliant.

Celtic traditions have been an interest of mine for a while now, from the stonehendge to other structures that have long since outlived their usefulness in practicallity, but not in sentimality. Perhaps it is the fact that new research has shown cannibalistic behavior among the celtic tribes. It will be both an educational experience, as well as a culinary experience.

I turn the pages of Sabrina Bones' file. She is going to visit her sister, one Amelia Bones, in Britian, and I shall follow, I shall make sure she gets her last visit, and then her last meal... eaten by me, made by her.

Or should I say of her?

With that last thought I close the file, and head home to a nice sleep.

The alarm clock rings at ten in the morning and I awake blearily, because I am not an early riser by any means. I am a luxury being, a man who needs and wants and must have the very best, in food, wine, and of course thrill. There is nothing more thrilling, more heart racing then to eat someone, at least that is my experience of it.

I take a shower, have some breakfast and am out the door to book a flight to England.