CERVALCES LATIFORMS
i.
There is a house, imposing, dark and Victorian, the furnishings sparse save for carefully chosen pieces, the very colours of the walls betraying a certain masculine, regal elegance. It is a beautiful home, with wisteria vines and an open view into the woodlands beyond from the windows framing the grand dining room. It is sometimes difficult to decipher if one is outdoors or in, especially with the rich herb garden decoratively displayed along one wall, embedded in a manner that looks as though it was carved into the stone. With this mossy injection, the king of this castle wields a seemingly benign reign. Classical music putters in from the confines of another room, a lighthearted baroque piece by Chopin, the stray notes seeming to dance with the shadows that twist from fat candles on the mantelpiece.
There are screams beneath the floorboards. If one was not distracted too cleverly by the house's outward beauty it would be easy to hear them. Beneath the creaks and footfalls on loose wood the basement was a perfect workshop, one that opened into a deadly cavern fit for a murderer's appetite, namely his penchant for human livers, hearts and kidneys. His was no simple art, his victims were butchered with the careful skill of a master chef and their presentation likewise resplendent.
The house welcomed this carnage. Like a true forest, the house encompasses all of nature within it, including its most vicious rule-eat or be eaten.
The roaring fire at the hearth awaits the welcoming of guests, its flames longing for the pleasant hellos that surround banal conversation and never dares to dip below the realm of the impolite. Jack Crawford would be ever the stern yet approachable patriarch, and would be eager to talk about the latest case his team was working on. Alana Bloom would arrive with her sweet smile and a bottle of wine that was far too cheap for his tastes, and he would hide it away from his table in the kitchen cupboard. Dr. Chilton, ever the pompous ass, but was a colleague with interesting enough connections that he could always glean a meal or two out of his acquaintances.
It was he who had remarked on the two as yet unknown guests who were arriving here for the first time. "He is not just a psychiatrist, but he has an officer companion as well, one who has, well...*issues*. The physical and environmental similarities are astounding-But I'm afraid they end there. Dr. Palanchuk doesn't equate as even a footnote in our circles. He wouldn't dare call himself a peer."
It amuses him that Dr. Chilton imagines, quite wrongly, that he is on the same level as himself. He would be as shocked and horrified as the next bland example at his table, and Hannibal smiled to himself at the thought of Dr. Chilton's jaw actually dropping off into a messy, meaty heap into his lap at the very thought. There would be words, no doubt a book in Chilton's case, just as there would be many miserable future conversations should his guests glean the horrors laying in wait beneath his floorboards. He did not take as much pleasure in this as he wanted, for a part of him did consider them friends, even if they were immediately expendable should the need arise. Yes, a revelation would upset them greatly, as would the fact that was not at all pork on their fork.
The dining table was set to perfection, all cutlery polished, napkins starched and ironed. The centrepiece of the table was a twisted bouquet of dried meats and dark fruits, a gothic aperitif with human flank prosciutto rolled into delicate roses.
As he rolled the meat into the tiny, delicate shape, its pliability silky beneath his touch, he thought of Will Graham. He presently wonders if that soft desire had transferred into the flavour of the meat. Taste is as malleable as the mind. He thinks of Will popping one of the tight circles into his mouth, his tongue sliding over the smooth, salty rinds of fat. It is an arousing notion, one that Hannibal needs to suppress if he is to play a calm and kind host, who thinks only of the happiness of his friends.
He stands back to admire his work, and gives its splendour a soft smile of gracious approval. He glances at his watch and with a final check of his overall appearance (it is impeccable) he retires to the living room for a pre party brandy.
The screams beneath the floorboards have stopped at last. And just in time, too. There is already an early guest.
"We're lost."
The cramped confines of the vintage Volvo was no place to start or end an argument, But with his usual, perverse need for picking every bone out of his companion's store of patience, Callum Wilkes sighed, and rumpled the already wrecked map in his fist, and sighed again, and fidgeted with his seatbelt. There is a certain impatience lurking beneath the calm intonations of an Englishman, and while Callum was far more Liverpool cockney, the constant fussy picking against that which upset his comfort betrayed a long standing cultural norm. "This is beyond the realm of Nowhere. You have really done it this time, I told you that I was the one who should drive, you never listen to reason."
"As if you are reasonable. You insisted on turning left back there when the instructions, according to *your* GPS, are that we are to continue in a straight line. Like this, you see?" A slender finger pointed at the tiny map on the screen placed in the middle of the dashboard. "We are heading in the correct direction. You are being paranoid and perhaps looking for excuses." His companion, Dr. Vasyl Palanchuk, gave Callum a decidedly exasperated sigh. "It is not enough you did not want to go, you have to now make it difficult for me as well, hoping I will relent and give up."
Callum shifted, uncomfortable in his seat. Vasyl, of course, was in his element, not quite following the GPS but not entirely not following it either, which ensured they would reach their destination through some osmosis of cosmic navigation that irked Callum's pride in his map reading. Not that the map was now easy to follow with all the extra folds and Callum's red marker lines that cut across it like veins. It was an unhealthy map now, almost impossible to follow with the stigmata of Callum's spilled coffee stains, the important landmarks along the way reduced to a sepia smudge. He tossed the injured map behind him onto the back seat, giving up. His collar was itchy. The car was too hot. The buttons on his dress shirt felt like pinpricks.
"I hate wearing these shirts. Crisp cotton my ass, it's bourgeois sandpaper."
"I wear dress shirts every day and suffer no ill effect."
"I can feel the insidious acidic power of its bleached surface eating through the marrow of my soul." Callum glanced over at Vasyl, hoping to have gotten a small rise out of the stoic doctor, and was immediately disappointed that he hadn't. Vasyl was insufferable, full of relaxed poise and an easy nature, a man far too comfortable in his own skin. Callum narrowed his eyes at him as he shrugged his long, black leather trench coat closer around himself, its oversized pockets and folds wrapping him in a cocoon of cured flesh. He would get it, he would make Vasyl's little feathers ruffle and that hurt little note in his voice would eke out beneath the soft Russian inflections of his speech.
"I think we should have turned left back at that sign."
"What sign would that be?"
"The one that said, Turn Around You Dumb Prat, You Are Going the Wrong Way."
Vasyl's lips set into a straight line. "We are nnnot lost."
Callum tried to hold it in, but it was difficult to swallow back the victorious smirk that welled within him. He got him, it was in evidence in that protracted, small stutter that always showed up when Vasyl was annoyed. An elongated 'nnn'. 'Nnnnot.'
Callum raised a dark eyebrow in acknowledgement of his victory. He brushed back his mane of messy, equally dark waves with his fingers, which was the sole brush he owned. He slouched further into his ancient, black leather trench coat that had more pockets than was sensible, as proved by how many times he'd lost his wallet within it. Of course, Vasyl had begged him not to wear it which only secured that he would and his constant insistence he scrub up at least a little resulted in the starched, uncomfortable white shirt, his neck feeling like it was being cut off at the collar.
Not that Vasyl didn't have good reason to expect some effort. For the hundredth time, Callum picked up the delicately scripted invitation card, its embossed, over the top formality suggesting this was very much a black tie affair. According to Vasyl, Dr. Hannibal Lector was one of the most prestigious psychiatrists in his field, and to have such an invite was a great boost to Vasyl's own career. He was not about to miss this opportunity no matter how much Callum scowled.
"There's only one word for a man who gives out an invitation like this." Callum dared to smell it and was horrified to discover it had the lingering scent of an expensive cologne. "Wanker."
He gave Vasyl a good once over, taking in his neat appearance, his suit carefully pressed and clean, his hair neatly trimmed, his nails perfectly manicured. Vasyl had done his best, but though he outwardly projected an image of spotless agreeability, there was still the nagging little bits of things that didn't quite fit. The small tic of anxiety that sometimes crept at the corner of his wickedly sensual mouth. The button on his left sleeve that was missing. The socks that seemed to be the same colour but in bright lights never quite perfectly matched. Always, Vasyl retained the tiniest measurements of disorder, not enough to be noticed, but enough to make a person feel unbalanced in his presence.
"Dr. Lector is said to be an excellent cook," Vasyl said. He impatiently slapped Callum's hand away from the radio, the tinny, chopped static of a classical station grating on Callum's nerves.
A flash of movement in the dark woods beside them gave Callum pause. He frowned into its hollow darkness, which seemed to expand the closer they came to Dr. Lector's stately home.
"He's going to be disappointed you are a vegetarian." He cupped his hands around the passenger window, shutting out the light in the car as he peered through them. "There's something running in the bushes just there, I think we startled it." Callum slumped back into his seat. "All cooks hate vegetarians."
"That is a sweeping, untrue and unfair generalization."
"Dr. Lector will like me better than you. He will adore me. Do you know why? Because I will request a steak, rare and bloody and will opt out of the salad accompaniment."
"That is not funny. You are nnnot funny."
Shadows of branches clawed across Callum's laughing face through the windshield. "I wonder what he will think when he witnesses you having your usual 'puke and seizure' at the grand main course presentation. That should leave quite an impression at the table. I know you want to impress him, Vasyl, but this is hardly the venue. You haven't thought this through at all."
"I will have my phobia under control," Vasyl assured him, but the tiny tic of anxiety had begun to pounce, and the corner of Vasyl's lip began to work out the problem. "I brought Gravol. Besides, Dr. Chilton will be present, and I did give him very specific instructions that he was to relay to Dr. Lector concerning my condition."
"Oh, yes, the lovely Dr. Chilton. Certainly a man I would trust with my innermost phobias and resulting physical reactions. Dearest Dr. Chilton who called your published paper a 'black stain upon the concepts of crime and criminality' and 'a dangerous hypothesis rife with inaccuracy'."
"I cannot pick and choose amongst my peers, and I take no offence to his subjective opinion of my work. He works very closely with the FBI on serial cases, as does Dr. Lector, so the very fact that I am a naysayer getting their audience proves that my work has more merit than he gives it credit for." Vasyl's gaze was steel as he concentrated on the road ahead. "You must understand how difficult it is for those enraptured with monsters to pull themselves free of the concept of a multiple murderer to understand that a singular murderer is culturally far more dangerous. As I have argued this over emphasis on serial killers has placed your average murder into a dimmed room that no one truly wishes to investigate. You yourself have seen the thousands of cold cases, lives lost to the hands of others who have washed themselves clean of the crime."
Vasyl sighed, the sadness in his voice pouring through the confines of the tiny Volvo. "There is no romance to a singular murder. It is a boring footnote that rarely finds a resolution, especially if the victim is poor, or unlikable. They are denied justice via ennui. And as a result, there is an unspoken rule creeping into our culture that is extremely disturbing. That murder is sanctioned, as long as we are not greedy."
"Bravo. An excellent lecture. Tell me, Dr. Palanchuk, will you be able to remain on that podium if he's serving roast beef?"
"The very smell of it will make me retch," Vasyl reluctantly agreed.
"We'll no doubt be late," Callum reassured him. "We'll arrive just in time for dessert, and then we make a quick exit. Put in an appearance, and gone. You'll have done your professional duty and no harm done." Callum snatched the invitation up from the dashboard and shook his head over the careful calligraphy. "There is no hope for it, we've pissed him off already. I get the impression this one is a real stickler for details. A miserable clock watcher. If he's in with Chilton he's only there to shut you down for his amusement. I hate the prat and want to punch him already. I'd rather we didn't go, let's pretend we had car trouble." He pointed at the jewelled spattering beginning to form on his window. "See? It's raining. We fell into a ditch."
"We're too close now to turn back," Vasyl reminded him. "Besides, Dr. Lector was far more open to my ideas than Dr. Chilton. In his letter to me he said he was fascinated by my observation that murder in all of its forms is the direct result of one or all of the unholy trinity of excuses-sex, personal gain, personal power."
Callum couldn't help but notice the little puff of pride at this, and his gaze travelled along the length of Vasyl's body, resting at his neck and moving upward, slowly creeping with lingering attention across the line of his jaw. "You're wearing your best suit."
"I am."
"You're quite the preener."
"It is important to look one's best when trying to give a good impression."
"You're being a preener for a prat."
"You have never met the man, you cannot be certain that is what he is. Stop smiling you are nnnot being amusing."
Callum meant to press the point further, maybe even pull Vasyl into an all out argument that he could pounce upon and twist into all sorts of illogical shapes until it ended, as it usually did, in a button or two going missing. But he was nearly clocked by the dashboard as Vasyl suddenly put on the breaks, the tiny Volvo skidding along the dark pavement in a painful, screaming stop.
The high beams shone onto a large figure splayed in the centre of the road. In front of the Volvo lay the body of a young moose calf, its throat slit. The remains were fully intact, which seemed odd to Callum, especially as they were in a forested area that had to have more than its fair share of hungry predators.
"Someone has done this," Vasyl said, his breath unsteady. "Someone left it here to rot. How very sad. What measure of hatred could do this?"
Vasyl was immobilized by the scene, his breathing unsteady as a well of feeling began to bubble to the surface of his calm veneer, a sensation Callum had learned to recognize.
"Should I be jealous?"
Vasyl frowned, confused. "It's a dead calf."
"I'm talking about Dr. Lector. Should I be jealous?" Callum undid his seatbelt and inched closer to Vasyl, who shrugged in response to his seeming anger. "You are doing all you can to be teacher's pet and I want to know why."
Cursing in Russian, Vasyl turned the key in the ignition, bringing the motor into clattering half-life. "I merely have ambition. I do not know his proclivities. Shall I believe all my preening, as you say, has paid off? Am I truly so dashing as to be whisked away by man, woman or beast at first opportunity?"
Callum couldn't stop himself from giving him a cheeky grin. "Oh, a beast. Most definitely."
Ah sweet victory, for there it was, a coquettish, near hidden blush that crept up the back of Vasyl's neck. "This is not the time or place to be toying with me. We are far too late."
"You're the one playing, pulling the shy routine." Callum dared to lean closer, fingertips teasing at the slicked back hair behind Vasyl's ear. His lips neatly touched the bony cartilage as he whispered into it: "I know you aren't shy..."
Vasyl tried to shrug him off, but Callum recognized the half hearted attempt. "We are late."
"We are late, we are late for a very important date."
"Nnnot funny."
"Where is your pocket watch?" Callum began roughly rummaging through the pockets, inside and out, of Vasyl's suit, a game the man was familiar with. "I want to smash it to bits. You won't be able to fix it and time won't matter..."
"We have to get going..."
"We are off to see the Mad Hatter, and all his little door mice. I will smash all the teacups, I will say off with their preening, pompous heads!"
His face was pressed close to Vasyl's, lips so close to his he could nearly taste his teeth. He dared them to respond to his temptation, to ruin any prospect at all of a punctual arrival. "The least you can do is let me bruise your mouth."
Vasyl's forehead pressed against Callum's, his breathing rapid with anticipation. "You are unbearable."
"I am a full library of terrible ideas and wicked temptations, and the one I'm indulging in right now involves my constant ravishing of your mouth." And before Vasyl could protest further, he captured his lips in a kiss that sent him collapsing in the driver's seat, Vasyl's body melting like pellets of ice against a warm surface. He returned it in kind, a kiss drunk with lust, its passion matching the eager beat of Callum's heart.
When the first hoof hit, it was as if it was in slow motion. A massive, horrific explosion of glass as the windshield brutally collapsed.
Pleasure was replaced with cuts and scrapes as Callum pulled Vasyl into the back seat, away from the stomping Armageddon that suddenly rained down on them from above, from the side, from the vast, angry depths of the black forest. He held his breath as he pushed Vasyl down to the floor of the Volvo. He could discern a black shadow pacing back and forth around the car before striking again, its massive hooves stomping them into oblivion.
"What is it?!"
"It's a moose."
"Of all the ridiculous..."
Callum dared to shout out from the small sliver he was afforded between the now broken front seats. "We didn't kill it, you stupid cow! We didn't do it!
She didn't care for excuses. A furious hoof tore a hole into the roof of the Volvo, and a strong, massive leg comprised of muscle, fur and evolutionary steel bled in a steaming shower over them as she tore a large gash in her leg. It pulled it out with difficulty, and Callum managed to get a good view of the beast as she staggered away from the car, both of her legs torn from the effort of her twelve hundred pound vengeance.
"Hit the horn!"
"It will only anger it! Don't move!"
As quickly as she attacked, she retreated, leaving them in a crushed tin can Volvo that barely left them room to move. She gave her fallen calf a final nuzzle before disappearing beneath the sleet of rain into the dark folds of the forest beside the road.
The forest descended into a tense, waiting silence.
It was raining hard now, thick sheets that covered the battered car and slid in a solid waterfall into its confines through the torn roof, soaking the shivering occupants within. Callum clutched a bottle of wine, a gift for the host, firmly against his chest. Through some miracle it hadn't been broken, and neither had either himself or Vasyl.
"This is not good," Callum said, near drowned from the torrent pouring down on them. "This...This is one of your terrible patterns. We're trapped in it now, we can't get out."
"It is nnnot..." Vasyl tried to protest, but his resolve was shattered before the argument could even begin. "It may not be so bad, it may be something of innocence."
"We were nearly killed by a moose in mourning, I would say this is going to be a night fit for monsters." He pushed the crushed door to his left and it fell to the ground, free of the car, its frame wobbling against the slick pavement. With difficulty he managed to get both himself and Vasyl out, but not without earning a few scrapes in the process. "How far do you think it is from here? Half an hour?"
"I think so."
"Then we'd better get our trudge on."
They abandoned the car, neatly circumventing the corpse that had caused all the trouble in the first place, and Callum edged Vasyl quickly forward so he wouldn't have a chance to look. The car lay like a crumpled can in the background, torn bits of fabric fluttering through the open windshield.
On the cracked dashboard, the embossed invitation lay white against the darkness, the ink smeared as the rain washed Dr. Hannibal Lector's careful script away.
