Chapter 2: To monsters then...
"Dr. Bloom." A voice floated to her from a passing room, feminine and darkly tempting. She drew back to stand in the threshold of a room that appeared to be a sort of study. Books lined the walls, old volumes and first editions, a black desk stationed in the middle of the room with rich leather furniture flanking around it. Tall, narrow windows evenly broke up the shelves, revealing nothing of the sprawling grounds around them as an inky winter night had suddenly descended in the two or so hours that she had spoken with Mason. A fire burning in the hearth was the only light source casting most of the room in flickering shadows and patches of orange light. Through the shadows, Margot sat poised as a queen on the sofa with an open book in her lap and a tumbler of amber liquid held loosely in her fingers tips, like it may slip from grip and go shattering to the ground at any moment. Alana imagined that if the glass did drop, the woman would remain entirely unmoved.
"Miss Verger." Alana regarded her. "It seems I got turned around and can't find my exit now."
"That's twice you've lost your way today. Is this a habit of yours?"
"And twice you've found me. Is that a habit of yours?" She challenged the corners of her lips twitched in a smile. Margot returned it with an amused smirk.
"Perhaps…" She murmured thoughtfully. "Would you like a drink?"
"That would be lovely, thank you."
"Please, have a seat." Margot gracefully rose from her place, gesturing to the spot on the couch closest to the fire. As she passed she wordlessly helped Alana out of her bright coat, her fingers trailing down the backs of her arms. The seconds slowed down, Alana felt each tick with her heart for the duration of the contact. And then it was gone; time resuming its normal pace.
"Do you like Old Fashions?" The tall woman asked, draping the garment over the back of a chair before coming to stand behind a drink cart and beginning to prepare the drinks without waiting for an answer.
"I'm not sure." A simple raised eyebrow from Margot requested her to extrapolate.
"After my… accident," Her head inclined subconsciously toward the cane she had resting beside her. "I've found my proclivities have been changed. I'm still learning."
"Only one way to find out what one likes." Margot was twisting a freshly peeled orange rind into the whiskey and bitters. Then dropping a black cherry, like a dark jewel, for the finishing touch. She joined her on the couch, passing the glass gently chiming with ice to her, which Alana accepted gratefully.
"So Dr. Bloom-"
"Alana, please."
"Alana." Her name rolled pleasingly off her tongue. "Can you help my dear, poor brother?"
"Depends on what you mean by help Miss Verger."
"Margot." She corrected airily before continuing. "In regards to his mental health, of course."
From her dispassionate tone, Alana sincerely doubted that she had any concern towards her brother's well being mental or otherwise. "In that case, no. Your brother has a sadistic personality disorder and sees no fault in his thoughts or actions. He will always seek to inflict pain and destruction for his pleasure. But you knew that."
Margot watched her curiously, her voice slightly impressed. "You know he is a monster but when you spoke with him today you scarcely bat an eye."
Margot must have lingered longer than she had thought if she had seen her initial contact the disfigured Verger. Or perhaps she has her own secret network that allowed her to know what went on in the vast spaces and many dark nooks of her home in the way that Mason seemed to be immediately aware of her arrival. She imagined both Verger siblings had many tricks up their sleeves and Alana found herself more and more interested in Margot's. "Mason is undoubtedly a monster. But he is not my monster. Not all are quite as easy to spot as your brother."
An image of Hannibal, bloody and disheveled, throwing himself against the pantry door flashed in her mind. His frame hulking and powerful, which once was a point of attraction for her now, twisted into something terrifying and violent. When they had spoken his voice portrayed a calm, rational man yet his human face had slipped and she could not unseen the blood dripping from him. She pushed the image back into the fog.
"Yes, I do take some level of comfort that his outside now matches his inside… To monsters then." Margot lifted her glass in a proposed toast. "May we live to see them vanquished."
Alana remained silent, not quite feeling that her monster was indeed vanquished, but never the less clinked glasses in a show of camaraderie. She brought the beverage to her lips and took her first sip of the smoky sweet cocktail. She immediately liked the way the whiskey curled down her throat and warmed her stomach, decadent and biting.
Margot continued to pry. "How can you help my brother then if not in his psychological matters?"
At one point in time Alana would have up held her professional duty, citing doctor-patient confidentiality to discontinue the direction of their conversation. She would have stopped it long ago. However that woman did not exist anymore after she had been pulled down into this evil underbelly of the world and in this strange new landscape she sensed an ally in Margot. She spoke frankly in a way that still gave her a slight thrill at her new lack of inhibitions. "He wants to find Hannibal Lecter and thinks I'm the woman for the job."
"Are you?"
"Yes." She said decisively. "Though I'm sure I'm his second choice. But I'm no stranger to playing second fiddle to Will Graham."
"Why not help the FBI track down the devious doctor? Surely they are on the case."
"Laws are like cobwebs; they will catch little flies, but let wasps and hornets break through." Alana recited the Jonathan Swift quote.
"An apt metaphor."
"Yes, my confidence in law enforcement has waned considerably. Mason has the means and the… motivation to accomplish the task."
"And your motivation? How does finding Hannibal and placing him in my brother's hands benefit you?"
"Last time I saw Dr. Lector he promised to kill me and facilitated my being pushed out of a window. My angle is self-preservation."
"A worthy cause." Green eyes roved her figure in an appreciative manner in a way that would have previously made her blush.
"I'm glad you agree." She leisurely tipped more of her drink into her mouth. "Do you mind my asking, why do you stay here with your brother? There seems to be no love lost for you."
Alana knew that sadist's first victims were usually in the childhood home, starting with pets and quickly followed by siblings. Margot swirled her drink. "I've tried my hand at running and found Mason's strike hits even with my back turned. I'm no longer interested in self-preservation. I want revenge."
"Hmm, sounds like you could use someone to watch your back." Alana hummed.
"Are you offering?"
Alana grinned conspiratorially but deflected. "Perhaps someday our interests will intersect."
"Wouldn't that be something?" Margot smirked behind her glass, lifting in another half-hearted toast and drained the rest of her beverage.
The doctor sipped the remainder of her cocktail. "This is excellent."
"I'm glad I could help illuminate you."
"I feel as though you could be illuminating in many other ways." Alana said coyly as she dipped her fingers into the remaining ice and retrieved the cherry from the bottom of her glass. She sucked the fruit into her mouth, first tasting the burn of liquor before the burst of sweetness rushed over her tongue. Margot watched her motions intently making Alana feel daring and warm.
The heiress leaned forward placing her hand on Alana's glass so their fingers grazed each other, "Would you like another? And we can discuss more about how we can help each other."
Alana shifted in her seat in anticipation but nearly winced at the ache that emanated from her hip and skittered down her left leg. The pulses of pain thwarted any possibilities for the evening. She sighed regrettably, frustration flooding through her, as she said, "No, thank you. I should actually be going. I have a bit of a drive home."
"Of course." Margot withdrew immediately, taking the tumbler to return it with her own to the drink cart. While the other woman sounded impassive to the rejection, the action felt decidedly cold. The taller woman collected her coat from and stood waiting for Alana to rise. She gritted her teeth and clutched her cane to pull herself up but still wasn't prepared for the spasm of pain that caused her left leg to buckle. She gasped as she stumbled forward. If Margot hadn't been so close, she would have collapsed to the ground. But instead the woman caught her, arms encircling her waist as Alana grasped onto her shoulders, rather falling into her slender frame.
"Are you alright?"
She cleared her throat as she gathered her bearings, inhaling the alluring scent of amber and cardamom and French cigarettes from Margot. "My injuries can be worse in the evening, though it normally isn't quite so bad as this. I think standing in the cold with your brother exacerbated them."
Mason had ranted and rambled on the terrace long after their business could have concluded, apparently taking advantage of having a new audience to horrify. She didn't contribute much to the conversation nor did she think it would have been welcomed. Alana stood with her joints stiffening and the cold settling into the metal of her bones, listening to him go on and on, talking fondly of his tyrant father and the summer camp he ran for the underprivileged youths and his abhorrent treatment of them. He then derailed into listing the attributes of his specially bred pigs and the damage they could inflict on a grown man in disgusting detail. Her reprieve only came when Mason went into a coughing fit so severe that his nurse had to usher him away to be tended to.
"Is there anything I can do?" A touch of concern laced her raspy drawl. It struck her how different her encounters with the siblings were. The piercing nasal of Mason's voice and his inherent ugliness in the blindly white cold felt like the pangs of an afternoon headache. But with Margot it was all heat and gauzy edges with her dulcet tone floating in the comfortable darkness with flickering warmth just dappling her fine bone structure. The opening lines of a Frost poem drifted from her mind. Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice. From what I've tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire.
Alana cautiously began putting weight back onto her leg, finding that the pain was ebbing to a more tolerable level. She pulled away from the woman and grinned bitterly. "I just need to get home to lick my wounds."
She wished for her bed, a heating pad, and the Vicoden she had stashed in her nightstand. Margot's lip ticked up in an odd smile seeming to hold back a glib remark as she nodded, "I'll walk you to your car."
Margot helped her back into her coat, the material warm with heat it absorbed from hanging by the fire, the tightened the belt around he waist. Fortified for the moment, the two women slowly made their way through the house with Miss Verger hovering closely by her elbow as if preparing to catch her once again and for once she didn't feel patronized by it. Alana made it back to the drive without incident though and she was glad when the auburn-haired woman didn't make a fuss of her getting into the car, simply offering her hand to help Alana push herself into the cab.
"Thank you." She sat with the door ajar for a moment, gazing longingly with Margot waiting for her to speak. Despite the sharp coldness of the night, Margot acted unaffected by the temperature despite having no coat and only the thinness of her silk top. Alana felt mesmerized by her stillness. "A rain check on that second drink?"
"Of course." The iciness in her demeanor was gone; her green eyes sparkled with an unspoken intention.
"Until then. Good night Margot."
"Take care Alana." She said and shut the car door. The doctor twisted the keys left hanging in the ignition and the SUV rumbled to life. As she started off down the dark path back out to the main road, she glanced in the rearview mirror to see Margot's silhouette, unmoving and watching.
Margot eyes followed the red taillights receding down the service road, arms crossed over her chest to fend off the cold of the night. The frigid temperature didn't hurry her inside though as she was compelled to watch all traces of the doctor slip away between the trees.
It felt as if she were standing on a precipice.
She'd read all the news articles surrounding the dramatic unmasking of The Chesapeake Ripper and his subsequent escape, especially those of The Tattler who redubbed the man aptly and garishly Hannibal the Cannibal. Though generally regarded as a gossip rag the unscrupulous magazine tended to have a deeper insight and more scathing commentary that Margot appreciated. The sordid tale played out all over again in ink with the neurotic Will Graham on the edge of darkness and on the end of his leash held by the hopelessly inept Jack Crawford while Dr. Hannibal Lecter freely murdered and feasted under their noses. Alana Bloom's character had been flattened considerably to a short blurb about her being a love-struck former student unfortunately injured in the melee of men and her refusal to comment on the events summated to embarrassment. Clearly Freddie Lounds did not think much of the female psychologist.
The articles hadn't done her justice from Margot's estimation though. From the moment Alana stepped down from her car, a dash of vibrant color with ruby lips and sapphire eyes in the stark winter landscape, the heiress was intrigued. At the very least in that she appreciated a beautiful face. Upon closer inspection Dr. Bloom proved to be more than that. Margot recognized the sharpness in her angles and the frankness in her tone as someone who survived something perilous. She recognized the traits from looking in the mirror as she shared similar ones. This wasn't a woman embarrassed; this was a woman who had been wounded now full of grit and steel.
Margot turned and walked back through the barn where the horses were already blanketed and dozing in their stalls. Only her favorite stallion Reynard stuck his nose out to see her. She stopped to scratch his broad neck while he snuffled at her pockets fruitlessly looking for carrots. She murmured her apologies to him, thinking more of Alana. She'd enjoyed the cadence of their conversation. While most people wanted to fill the void with inane blather, Alana spoke sparsely, only saying what she truly wanted to say, and let the silences speak for themselves.
Stepping away from the animal with a final pat, she wandered back inside. She took her time to leisurely walk the halls. This luxury still felt new with a small thrill, to move through the mansion uninhibited and unconcerned of Mason's whereabouts. He couldn't be lurking around any corners these days. She idly ran her fingers along the wall and remembered the feeling of Dr. Bloom walking next to her. The woman's sudden presence in the house made Margot feel sharper and more aware despite her habit of coating her insides with whiskey and Valium to dull reality. There was something charged between them that ionized the air and sent her blood pumping. And though she would be retiring to her room alone tonight, her flirtations and innuendos had not been entirely rebuffed and in some instances returned. She considered this might be for the better as she sensed there was more for their future than one illicit night in the shadows.
