General warnings: graphic violence, cannibalism (well, obviously), poisoning, description of disturbing crime scenes, mutilation, some body horror. If you think any of that may disturb/trigger you, it's probably best to turn back now.

If rape, poison, dagger and fire,
Have still not embroidered their pleasant designs
On the banal canvas of our pitiable destinies,
It's because our soul, alas, is not bold enough!

~ Les Fleurs Du Mal, Charles Baudelaire

one.
"affrioler"

9.05 AM
Aberdeen, Maryland

The old power station at the edge of the city would normally have been utterly deserted.

It had been out of operation for a great deal many years, and had been slated for demolition for nearly half that amount of time. It had become obsolete – the newer power station, located several hundred miles away from the old location, ran that section of the city's power just as efficiently, if not even better. And yet, today it was absolutely crawling with people – and most of those people in question were the police.

Lower-level officers were busy pinning the standard, cliched 'POLICE LINE, DO NOT CROSS' tickertape when yet another car pulled up, adding to the crowd of them that were already there. Out of the car emerged three people – two men; one tall and intimidating and the other rather diminutive and holding his black-and-red umbrella like it was a walking stick; and a young woman who was tugging her badge-encrusted jacket on and hurrying to keep up with the other two.

"Everybody," said Jack Crawford, striding into the crime scene with his usual unrelenting, hurricane-like authority, "we've got company today. Say hello to Doctor John Smith and his assistant – they're from a special agency, and they're going to be helping us out with this case."

There was a general murmur of scattered hellos from the forensic team, and an Asian woman with long dark hair pulled up her lab goggles for a second to smile at them. "Hey. Welcome to the team."

"Charmed, I'm sure," said the little man, doffing his straw hat at her.

"Hi," said his companion, waving cheerily.

"Wait," said another forensic tech, pausing in his walk towards the main powerhouse of the station, "what do these guys have that Will Graham doesn't? I thought this was just another Ripper case?"

"So did I, at first," Jack admitted. "But it looks like the organization that Doctor Smith comes from thinks otherwise. And his credentials were impressive enough that I couldn't say no."

"I have some amount of unique experience in this particular type of case," Doctor Smith allowed, leaning on his umbrella and allowing a small frown to cross his face. "Hopefully it isn't what I suspect it is, but... better to be safe than sorry, hm?"

"Sounds good enough for me. Also, Will hasn't checked it out," said yet another forensic tech, nodding. "So we can't say it is another Ripper incident or not either way. When's he getting here, anyway?"

"He texted me a few minutes ago," said Jack. "Apparently Doctor Lecter's driving him here. So it shouldn't be too long. In the meantime – Katz, can you show Doctor Smith and his assistant to the crime scene? I'd do it myself, but – it looks like the press just showed up."

"Sure, I didn't get a proper look the first time round," the Asian woman said, pushing up down her goggles again, and rummaging around in her satchel. "Here, you two – gloves." She presented the visitors with two sets of rubber disposable gloves, and pulled a slight face as she started walking towards the main building. "You're going to need them."

"Cheers," said Doctor Smith's assistant, snapping hers on and hurrying to follow. "Hey, Professor; you haven't told me what's going on here, anyway. What sort of-?"

"Shh, Ace," said Doctor Smith, shooting her a warning look as he fell into step with her and the other woman. "I'll explain later."

"Oh, well, in that case," she said with a hint of sarcasm in her voice, and looked over at the woman who was leading them. "I'm Ace, by the way. He's the Doctor; but you already knew that. Nice to meet you."

"Beverly – likewise. I don't mind filling you in, if that's what you need," she said. "Jack can be a bit vague on the details sometimes."

"Oh, Jack's not the only one," Ace muttered, and then neatly dodged Doctor Smith's umbrella and insulted look, both of which came at her in near-synchronicity. "–Professor, I'm only joking –"

He huffed out a fond sort of sigh. "Yes, I know," he said, and turned to Beverly. "Miss Katz, a brief refresher would be most appreciated. I myself have not been to Minnesota in quite some time, and I'm nearly certain Ace never has."

"Sure thing," she said. "All right, so: cliff notes. The Chesapeake Ripper is a notorious uncaught serial killer who's been killing in sets of three for years around here. He keeps slipping through our fingers, Jack's getting furious about it, et cetera, so on and so forth. He generally kills in a dramatic, messy, almost artistic fashion – displaying his victims, making it all symbolic – and he always takes surgical trophies from his victims."

"Bet he's great fun at parties," Ace said, hopping over one of the many beds of flowers that were scattered around the premises. Apparently the fact that the power station was abandoned didn't mean the flowers there weren't flourishing.

"Very funny. Anyway, there hasn't been a Ripper strike for... a month or so, now? Which isn't unusual, sometimes he doesn't show his face for years at a time, but it's possible he's started a new streak. In which case, this is a new opportunity to catch him, if we can find the pattern."

"That seems entirely reasonable," the Doctor agreed, nodding.

"What about Graham bloke you mentioned?" Ace asked.

"Oh – Will." Beverly grinned, pushing hair out of her eyes. "He's one of our consultants. Well, our main consultant, really. He's a cool guy. He has a knack for getting into killers' heads. Super weird, but super helpful."

"He deconstructs crime scenes; reconstructs what a killer's motive might have been?" the Doctor said, looking interested. "Fascinating."

"Uh – yeah, that's more or less it, actually," said Beverly. "Except a whole lot more intense, because he kind of – becomes the killer, I guess? But only in his head." She shrugged. "Actually, I'm going to stop talking about this because I really don't like that I'm gossiping about him behind his back. Feels wrong, you know?" She stopped just before the massive double-doors that led to the central processing room of the powerplant, and rested one hand on one of the handles. "Right. Here we go – you might want to brace yourselves –"

The Doctor and Ace exchanged glances of trepidation as Beverly grunted and huffed, pushing the solid metal doors open.

There was a second or two as both of them had a chance to take in what, exactly, they were seeing. The Doctor didn't appear visibly affected by the interior of the room, apart from his mouth tightening ever-so-slightly. Conversely, Ace made a disgusted, horrified noise, and briefly closed her eyes, stepping back and shuddering slightly.

"Yeah," said Beverly sympathetically. "Not pretty, is it?"

Inside, it looked as if a bomb had gone off; and that bomb had been someone's actual literal body. The floor was almost completely covered in dark red liquid, and the walls were similarly stained. There were suspicious lumps and parts mixed into the blood and some shining white miscellania sticking out that looked like shattered, scattered bits of room was positively reeking with the scent of blood, and something else too – something almost sickly sweet.

The body at the center of the room, hanging from a metal rack in front of some broken-down machinery, and positioned in a way that implied biblical crucifixion, was apparently the source of all of the viscera – although it would be hard to imagine how any one human body could contain enough blood and parts to cover the entirety of the (rather large) room in this way. The body's features were virtually indistinguishable under all of the gore on its face and skin. It appeared as if their chest had exploded outwards – it was torn wide open, with the victim's internal organs on view for all to see.

"Jesus fucking christ," Ace said, voice void of any sort of emotion. "Why – what sort of –" She didn't finish the sentence, apparently unable to come up with anything else to say.

"Language, Ace," the Doctor chided, although without any actual recrimination in his tone, and accepted Beverly's silent offer of plastic shoe covers, slipping them on over his brown Oxfords before pulling out a hand-held flashlight from a pocket, and flicking it on. He carefully entered the scene, navigating elegantly through the pools of blood around him until he reached the center of the room and directed the beam of light he was holding at the body.

He audibly breathed in; a sharp intake of breath, and then was silent once more.

After a second, Ace and Beverly joined him, having donned protective equipment of their own. Ace was grimacing, and holding her t-shirt over her nose, but she tapped the Doctor on the shoulder. "Oi, what is it, Professor? I can see that expression on your face. What've you seen?"

He turned to her slowly, and then indicated the body, frowning. "See for yourself."

They swapped places, and she leaned in to examine the chest cavity; although not too close. It took her a second to see it, but then she frowned too. "Oh. Two hearts. That's..." She squinted. "...not natural, though. It's not connected to anything, it's like someone's just shoved it in there."

"Can't see how it would be," said Beverly, making notes on a pad as she re-examined the crime scene. "I don't think too many people are walking around with a naturally-occuring bivascular system inside them."

"Not on this planet, no," the Doctor said, and then quickly: "But, yes. Somebody rearranged the organs after death to make room for the second one. Rather neatly, actually. Presumably they obtained the heart from someone else... hm."

"Another thing," Beverly said, and politely squeezed her way in between the other two so she could point her own flashlight at the open chest explosion. "See those bottom two ribs?" The ribs were indeed also exposed, bones white against the sea of shades of red. "Yeah. They're not meant to be there. The human body only has twenty-four, and you can see if you look closely – they've just been kind of jammed into the flesh."

"So whoever killed him added an extra heart and some ribs?" Ace asked.

"And another liver," the Doctor added quietly, directing his flashlight beam to indicate the organ in question.

"I don't get it," Beverly said after another few seconds of examining the body. "We're going to have to take him back to the lab for a proper inspection, but – it looks like those three things are the only bits that were added? Literally nothing else was. It could be... symbolism, maybe, but what the hell is an extra liver supposed to symbolize?"

"Somehow, I don't believe it is symbolism," the Doctor said, and glanced around the rest of the room. "Or it's not quite the symbolism that you're thinking of."

"O...kay," said Beverly. "That was very cryptic, Doctor... Smith, was it?" She paused, briefly distracted. "Wait, are you a Doctor or Professor?"

"Professor of cryptic, unhelpful comments, maybe," said Ace.

He sighed at that, and said, "'Professor' is a nickname. Please, just call me the Doctor. Smith was my mother's name, probably."

"Okay then – just 'Doctor' it is," she said, and then, "so, do you have something that you want to share with the class? It sounds like you know what's going on here."

"I have a vague suspicion, nothing more," he said. "I believe it would be more helpful to wait for your Mr Graham's professional opinion before I begin to share my own theories."

Beverly shrugged. "All right, sure. Uh – yeah, moving on. About this blood explosion." She circled the wire frame holding the victim up, and then returned to where she had been standing previously. "I'm guessing that at least some part of this bloodbath came from whoever the second heart and liver was taken from. There's far too much of it here for it to be all from this poor guy, whoever he was. We'll need to run tests on that too. Anybody got anything else?"

"Ace?" the Doctor asked, looking at her almost expectantly.

"Uh – I smell blood," Ace said, wrinkling her nose, "which, you know, kinda obvious where that's coming from, but I also smell flowers, I think. Can anybody else, or is that just me?"

"No, it's not," said Beverly, looking around. "I assumed it was the garden outside, but now that you mention it..."

The Doctor hummed contemplatively, and then angled his flashlight down to the mess of blood and viscera currently carpeting the stone floor. He leaned down, and very carefully plucked one of the larger red-covered lumps from the ground, shaking it carefully to dislodge some amount of blood. He looked at it for a moment, and then held it out to the two women. Now that it wasn't part of the gory mess covering the floor, it was easier to see its shape.

"A flower," Beverly said.

"A lily, if I'm not mistaken," the Doctor agreed gravely, and rubbed a gloved finger across the petal. He squinted. "An orange lily, as a matter of fact. Good nose, Ace."

"Thanks, I think," she muttered, and looked around at the rest of the room. "So – the rest of these things floating in the blood-?"

"More flowers," Beverly confirmed, crouching down to pick up another one from the ground. She shook the worst of the blood off, and held it out. "D'you know what this one is, Doc?"

"Carnation," the Doctor said immediately. "I believe it may be red carnation, specifically, but it's rather hard to tell."

A few more minutes of unpleasant flower-gathering revealed that the room had been more-or-less covered in blossoms as well as blood the whole time – and in addition, there were only actually three types of flowers present – orange lily, red carnation, and begonia. Beverly quickly collected samples of all them, and then the three of them left the building in order to talk somewhere far less unsettling.

"It could be the Ripper," allowed Beverly, kneeling down to label her sample bags. "Whoever did it certainly has a flair for the dramatic."

"Indeed," said the Doctor, removing his gloves and retrieving his umbrella, which he had left leaning on the side of the building. "Although, there is something about the placement of these that seems to..." He trailed off, and tapped the umbrella's handle against his lips, evidently thinking hard.

"What, you think they're trying to communicate something through the flowers?" Ace asked. "Like a code?"

"Not quite," the Doctor said. "The art of flower-arranging has been something of a distinct language of its own since the eighteenth century. It's not too far of a stretch to consider that the culprit might have been trying to convey some particular meaning with the placement of these flowers that they've chosen to leave behind."

Beverly looked up, her eyes bright with interest. "You wouldn't happen to know the meanings of these ones, would you?"

"I do, as a matter of fact," he said. "Orange lilies can either mean hatred and disdain, or passion. Carnations in general tend to symbolize various states of love, while red carnations in particular mean something along the lines of 'my heart aches for you'. Begonias..." He hesitated for a split-second. "Well, their meaning comes from the translation of their name, as a matter of fact. French. It means–"

"Beware," said a voice from behind them.

"Yes," said the Doctor after a brief moment of silence, and turned to face the newcomer. "That would be correct."

Beverly smiled, also turning raising a hand in welcome. "Oh hey, Doctor Lecter. I didn't think you'd show up today."

Doctor Lecter – a tall, elegantly dressed man with an expression of light curiosity, or possibly amusement, writ across his features – inclined his head at her. "My apologies for interrupting," he said, his accent thick but his English excellent. "Will was with me when he received the call, and I offered to accompany him, both here and back." He regarded the two strangers with a slightly tilted head. "I do not believe I know either of you."

"I'm known as the Doctor," said the Doctor, extending a hand, and Lecter shook it firmly.

"I'm Ace – Ace McShane – hiya," Ace said, also shaking the taller man's hand.

"A pleasure to make your acquaintance," Lecter said, smiling at both of them. "I assume you are here to consult on the FBI's most recent case, yes?"

The Doctor nodded, and said, "you know flower theory, Doctor Lecter?"

"I dabble," he said simply, and took a few steps forwards so as to see the interior of the crime scene. He studied it for a second or two, and then turned back to the group. "I see. Most disturbing. You suspect the Ripper, no doubt."

"The thought had crossed our minds," the Doctor said. "You think differently?"

Lecter's eyes drifted off to regard the sky pensively, and then he said, "I believe I will leave the thinking up to Will, when he decides to join us. I find it pointless to begin theorizing when we do not have all the facts at our disposal."

At this, the Doctor nodded, and then fell silent, regarding the building once more.

"So, what're you a doctor of?" Ace asked.

"Medicine, initially," Lecter replied, shifting his full attention to her. "A surgeon, as a matter of fact. But currently I am a practitioner of the psychiatric arts."

"A psychologist, huh?" Ace bit her lip absently. "I guess it makes sense that you'd be at a murder scene. Someone's got to analyse the asshole that did it."

"Psychiatrist, actually," he corrected her, not ungently.

"Oh – right. Wait, what's the difference? I thought they were the same thing."

"Pedantics, some would argue," he said, mouth curving into a small smile. "In reality, the difference between the two is that a psychiatrist can be classified as a practicing medical doctor, rather than a psychologist, who has merely earned a doctorate degree."

"Huh, all right," Ace said, nodding. "So is it an interesting job, then?"

He appeared to seriously consider her question. "Overall, I would say so," he said. "I have met some truly fascinating people in the psychiatric community. And there is hardly ever a dull moment. No patient is ever the same, which makes for a great deal of variety – the spice of life, you might say."

Ace grinned. "The Professor says that too. And also, agreed. Repetition is boring."

"You live an exciting life, then?" Lecter asked. "Or you wish to, at any rate?"

"Oh, I'm definitely living it," Ace said. "Like you wouldn't believe."

Lecter hummed wordlessly in response to that, and they fell into a comfortable silence. After a moment or two, he looked up, noticing someone. "It seems that our guest of honor has finally caught up with us," he noted.

"Over here!" Beverly shouted, waving, and within a matter of seconds, a tired-looking man with messy hair and glasses approached them. One of his shoelaces was untied. It looked as if he hadn't slept properly for a great many weeks. He nodded his greetings to both Beverly and Doctor Lecter.

"The illustrious Will Graham, I presume?" the Doctor said.

The man – Will – looked at him for a second. Face impassive. "Not the word I would have chosen. But yes, that's me."

"I'm the Doctor," he said, smiling, and extending his hand to shake.

"Sure," said Will, and ignored the Doctor's outstretched hand, glancing over to Beverly and gesturing towards the main power station building. "It's in there?"

"Yep," she said, and passed him the same protective gear that she had supplied to the Doctor and Ace. "It's pretty messy. Be careful in there."

"When am I not?" Will smiled mirthlessly, and pulled on the gloves and shoe coverings. He looked over at the Doctor and Ace. "You're new? Don't come in when I'm working." Back to Beverly. "I'll only be a couple of minutes."

"Take as much time as you need," she told him. He nodded, and set off towards the main building with a sort of grim certainty in his step. He hauled open the doors, and disappeared into the bloody darkness within.

"Cheerful guy," Ace said, watching the double doors shut behind him. "What's his deal?"

"He thinks about killing people for a living, Miss McShane," Doctor Lecter said, also eyeing the building that Will had just entered. His eyes were dark with something that was very hard indeed to pin down. "I daresay that if you spent countless days perusing the insides of the darkest minds humanity has to offer, you would not be too cheerful yourself."

Ace bit her lip, looking at him. "Shit. I didn't mean it like – sorry. He's your patient?"

"Will is my friend," he said firmly. "And as such, I worry. His job is not kind to him or his continued wellbeing, as you may have guessed."

"Yeah, I can imagine," said Ace, gaze returning to the closed doors. "Or, well – I guess I can't, but..." She grimaced. "Poor guy. Can't be fun to get into the head of the person who did that."

"Yes," said Doctor Lecter thoughtfully, tapping a finger against his chin. "I do hope it will not disturb him too greatly – it is a distinct possibility. After all," he added, "there is something about this murder in particular that unsettles even me..."