The cavernous dining room is immaculate; the mahogany table inexorably distended beneath the hulking centerpiece. The bulging hog, head intact, stares vacantly at its audience behind six taper candles in a sterling silver holder. Beneath the fine china hangs a white damask cloth, shadows cast between cutlery and exquisitely arranged placemats. On an elevated platform in the back of the room a boy plucks the strings of a violin.
"To my dearest and closest friend, Will Graham."
Hannibal smiles equivocally from the head of the table, gold doublet glimmering under the dazzling chandelier. Twelve sets of twinkling eyes turn to face him, but Will is reticent. He raises a glass and watches as each merry face knocks back a mouthful of wine.
"To Will Graham," they echo.
Conversation commences with a sweeping gesture, a euphony of bass and laughter. Will slides his finger across the deep groove in the finished wood, listening to the affectionate noise through the tremor traveling across the tablecloth. The girl opposite to Will is no more than a child, but she quirks her lips when he catches her gaze.
"Monseur Graham," she says politely. His name is clandestine in her mouth. She introduces herself before smoothing out her petticoat and sipping demurely from the crystal.
Will wipes his palms on his breeches and swallows the lump in his throat. He's starving, but he doesn't dare touch his plate. Instead, he observes with mounting trepidation as the giggling shrew to his left falls victim to drowsiness.
"Mademoiselle Hobbs," Will manages with some level of decorum. "What a pleasure."
Thereafter, the guests quiet in succession, oblivious until the balding brute at the end of the table sags forward and cracks the dinner plate with his forehead. The crow across from him topples from her chair in an effort to escape. The little brunette across from him stiffens, round eyes glazing over.
Will steps back so suddenly the chair topples over. "You've put the devil inside me," he says.
Hannibal crosses the room to kill the violinist and turns to Will without remorse. The boy's body is limp in his arms. "Dear boy, you invited him in."
Sedated but conscious, she begins to tremble when Will's resolve crumbles. He hauls her from the chair and holds her in his arms like a lover. The dogma of the Dark Gift swallows his soul as he tears through the ruffled collar and presses his lips to her neck. Her muscles seize when he sinks his teeth into an artery, blood flowing freely into his mouth.
The steady drum of her heart falters, a deafening boom shared between the two of them. Her breasts spill from her bodice as the heat ignites the monster inside him. As an undisciplined fledgling, the little drink eludes him, and the flow in her veins grows weaker with each swallow. Feeding has become another form of self-immolation.
When Will releases her, the flush from her face is gone. Her chest no longer rises, but he can hear the stuttering beat behind her rib cage slowing to a stop. Hannibal towers over them from where Will is crouched beside her on the floor, helpless. He stares at the two perfectly neat puncture wounds marring her milky flesh.
"Please," Will begs around the blood in his mouth. "Save her."