"Hello, Dr. Lecter."
Hannibal Lecter offered a small smile to Will Graham, the little caged bird who could only now see the bars. This section of the Institute for the Criminally Insane was relatively clean, but had an underlying odor - rank, sour-onion smell of delusional sweats, damp creep of moisture around the outside of the building's foundation, the tang of dried sexual fluids on men who had nothing more cerebral to do with their time than to relieve themselves.
Will's cell, newly inhabited, was blessedly clear of odors.
"Hello, Will." There was a new look in Will's eye, behind the glasses. Sharp gaze, like a hunter who had found a meal. The old vulnerability around Hannibal was gone. Will would not be open with him, after what had happened. "I came to say farewell."
"'Farewell'," Will smirked. There was a thing that Hannibal could count on - that Will Graham would always speak. Rarely did the man exhibit quiet introspection. He blurted his reactions, he verbalized his detective thought process. "After all of this, your curiosity is satisfied, and that's the end?"
"I'm not satisfied, Will. Not at all." Hannibal let his smile slip away, allowed disappointment to enter his voice. It was true disappointment, for Abigail, for Will's being caught, for Will's almost catching him. The game was, for now, over. Intermission.
The second act was coming soon.
Dr. Frederick Chilton had aspirations beyond his ability. Like a blind worm trying to fly, doing so only in the belly of an early morning robin.
"Will Graham harbors a special dislike for you." Dr. Chilton took his wine glass by the basin and sipped. A light wash of sweat made his forehead glisten. Like a worm.
Conscientious of touching the basin and transferring the heat of his hand to the perfectly cooled wine, Hannibal moved the base of the glass in small circles, swirling the liquid and releasing the aroma, which he took into his sensitive nostrils. Smells of leather, moss, spice. "Lawyers and psychiatrists bear the brunt of some hostility when their clients lose their freedom."
"Is that all it is?"
Hannibal picked up the glass at the base and let his eyes flick to the light shining through the wine, a deep warm glow. Only for a few seconds, not enough time to allow his guest to begin spawning uncontrolled hypotheses. "What else would it be?"
Chilton didn't answer immediately. Only a brief pause, but Hannibal recognized a thought appearing behind the man's eyes, and then being tucked away. "Too soon to say. I suspect he'll be under my observation for a while. Complicated case."
"Will Graham has always been an interesting study. I confess not a small amount of jealousy Frederick. His is an extraordinary thought process, and you have him to yourself." Hannibal took a bite of beef - simple beef, he would not share Abigail with the spineless Dr. Chilton as he had with superb Bedelia - and he let the thought germinate and squirm in the other man's brain.
He swallowed.
"Especially surrounded by so many criminal minds."
Chilton's gaze brightened, recognizing immediately possible study. The man had a dozen deviant minds around him to expose to Will Graham. "What can you tell me about him?"
"I'm afraid I may have known him primarily when encephalitis was affecting him. Though I'm certain I saw the real Will Graham on many occasions, it would be remiss of me to anchor your thought process with encephalitic symptoms that medical science has cured. I would certainly like to assist, but yours should be a pure evaluation, starting from the man you've had delivered to your care. Perhaps if you come across anything in current conversation you can make note to clarify with me."
Chilton nodded. Then nodded again and returned to his meal. He took a bigger sip - a swig - of wine this time. "I keep tapes."
Only Hannibal's eyes flickered up to look at his guest. As he chewed, meat juice tinted with spice and the faint hint of char slid down his throat. Delicious.
"You could give me your opinion. Tell me where the relevant mind and madness begins."
"That would be breaking doctor patient confidentiality," Hannibal dutifully warned.
"You told me once 'Deny everything'."
"So I did."
Hannibal practiced the sword.
Conspicuous to carry, impractical against a modern gun, the katana had always moved with him after the long ago night on the canal where Lady Murasaki had turned away.
The movements were iaido - focused drawing of the sword and moving into position - not the more active kendo. Draw - move the scabbard - posture. Stand - replace. Draw - move - posture. Stand - replace. A battle ends. A new one begins. In the near-dark, near-empty room, Hannibal repeated the movements, feeling the weight shift through his leg, his abdomen, his chest, shoulders, arms, in specific motions. Different draws and different postures came naturally to Hannibal after decades, though he always practiced with meditative focus.
Tonight his meditation was disrupted, by images of Abigail's ear in Will's sink. Painkillers strewn around the metal basin and the meat of a beautiful young girl.
(Mischa's eyeteeth scattered in the stinking stool pit.)
Hannibal tried to clear his mind, shut the images back in their place. They didn't stay where he put them. They had resurfaced and overlaid one another, white points and dead flesh of young girls. Each day was someplace new, someplace unexpected -
- looking at the ear of Dr. Bedelia Du Maurier over their dinner together -
- white pieces of minced shallot scattered around his cutting board while he worked at Chilton's meal -
- hallucination in the stainless steel sink at the bathroom near Jack Crawford's office -
The last instance had been dangerous. Jack Crawford, overeager and near the conclusion of a hunt, was still a bloodhound. Bedelia warned him that Crawford was beginning to take notice. The man might be misdirected by Will Graham, but with Will in prison that would change.
Crawford had come in to the men's room and found Hannibal staring into the stainless steel sink. Beaded water caught the ugly overhead fluorescents and turned them into little white spots. Like aspirin around Abigail's ear. Like Mischa's teeth in the pit.
Hannibal had been trembling slightly. Pale, under the fluorescents. Jack noticed, even if he didn't know why. The data would sit in Jack's mind, and risked being connected with other thoughts.
"Perhaps I caught a bit of something while sitting up in hospital with Will," Hannibal had tried to brush it off.
"Well damn if something's got you I'm not far behind."
"Indeed. We can hope for mild food poisoning in that case." He'd straightened and tugged at his cuffs, offering just enough smile to appear rueful.
Jack had caught the change of tactic. He didn't know why it was relevant, but it was data stored in the man's mind now: the image of Dr. Hannibal Lecter, standing over a sink and staring wide-eyed into it, trembling.
Shaking, as he was now. Focus shattered. Balance off, as he blinked the images away. He lowered the sword, willing it to pass. Maybe he had caught something ...
He smelled shampoo. A boring, mass-market salon chemical collection fragranced with a hint of orchid as though it could cover the rest.
Vision was still clouded, but he saw a hint of a figure in the darkened doorway, beyond the blur of ear and eyeteeth. He didn't need to see her to know who she was. He inhaled one more time, the chemical-orchid smell a strange and wrenching fragrance to latch on to, but preferable to the hallucination. "Hello Alana. I didn't hear you come in."
She sipped her beer. Her face was flushed, red. Will's incarceration had been difficult for her. It showed in small rings around her eyes.
"Will's not cooperating with Chilton."
"It's a shame, but not unexpected."
"He's the court appointed psychiatrist. He has to submit to evaluation - prove he was sick."
Hannibal nodded. "Frederick didn't build confidence with his treatment of Dr. Gideon. Gideon was going to drag him to court; it's possible Will just can't take Dr. Chilton seriously as a therapist."
"I think ... Will keeps talking about Gideon. I can't tell why. He rambles, and Gideon comes up in conversation. Did he have a focus on Gideon in conversation with you?"
A tingle ran the length of Hannibal's neck. He opened his mouth long enough to taste the air, like a hunter. Will Graham, cured of the swelling in his brain, was still exposed to danger. More than just Frederick Chilton's laughable skill set. "He has been in Abel Gideon's mind twice. Now he lives in the man's home."
Alana stared, beer halfway to her lips. She took his meaning. Quick-witted, if her priorities were dulled by her rampant emotion. "But the encephalitis has been cured. He won't lose himself." Her tone betrayed her. She knew the excuse was weak.
"It was not swelling of the brain that gave Will his gift of sight. He has been able to see Gideon's mind. He used Gideon's tactic of dislocating his thumb to attack his guards in the transport. Then he shot the man himself. Encephalitis or no, killing has a powerful effect on the killer."
Alana put the glass down. Will had killed Gideon to protect her, the thought was clear to Hannibal. "And now he's staying in Gideon's cell."
She looked down at the table, palms pressed against the linen. Then up at Hannibal.
"He needs you. He knows you."
Hannibal considered her implications. If she was asking him to step in, then Will hadn't told her about his suspicions regarding Hannibal. Perhaps he wasn't even sure of them himself. That wouldn't last, but maybe there was a chance.
"I'm afraid that I'm a witness for the prosecution, when his trial eventually starts. I can't be his psychiatrist right now." Bedelia had insisted. Bedelia was right.
"Then be his friend, Hannibal. Who can act as a psychiatrist that Will will talk to?"
Hannibal didn't answer immediately. They both knew that if Will could be seen by someone else, she would not have sneaked in to Hannibal's house late in the evening.
"I'm afraid I can't think of anyone with better credentials, acceptable to the court, than Dr. Chilton. I will speak to Frederick, however. And you to Will. He must understand that cooperation with the system is imperative to his making it out of there."
She nodded. She smiled - a tired, wan smile, filled with fragile hope. He reached across the table and patted her hand. She lifted her fingers in response to his touch, fractionally.
Interesting.
She took a long drink of her beer. "I'm sorry I startled you earlier. I rang and called and didn't get an answer and ... I couldn't leave. I didn't know where else to go for Will's sake."
"Not a problem. You are welcome here Alana."
She almost asked him something. About the sword, maybe. Or his face when she'd found him. About why he'd been so distracted that he hadn't heard her call. Instead she poured herself more from her private reserve.