There was something in his eyes—something sticky and black that had begun to flake. Blinking felt like closing his eyelids over an expanse of sand.

It was the smell that hit him next, a raw, charnel-house reek.

I'm dreaming.

The air was very still and very cool.

Through the miasmic veil over his vision, he saw his own hands. They, too, were flaking. Frederick tried to wiggle his fingers, but they wouldn't obey. He flexed other muscles, feeling as if he were inside a second skin, emerging to cold and pain and light.

In the few moments before he realized he was naked, he saw that his hands were bound with bright orange cord, the digits swelling and going numb. Frederick made a noise that might have been an attempt at speech.

"Don't move," came a voice from above him.

"Okay." The word sounded like cement and tasted like it, too. "Okay."

"Frederick, can you see me?"

"Will? I can't see much of anything. There's something...on me."

"It's blood, Frederick. Turn your head and look at me."

Wincing as the crisp hairs on the back of his neck snapped free from his skin, Frederick dragged his cheek along the wood floor and strained to see the man sitting on the chair in front of him. He looked instead into the black bore of a pistol, and couldn't help flinching back, making the electrical cord around his wrists tighten further.

"If you do it again, I'll put a bullet between your eyes,"

"Do what?" Frederick blinked madly to clear his vision. Chunks of dried blood dangled from his lashes.

Will chambered a round.

"Jesus Christ!" Frederick shrieked. "Okay, okay! Whatever it is, I won't do it." He tried and failed to raise his blood-engorged fingers in helpless supplication.

"Do you remember what happened?" Will asked.

"I had this dream...this—but it wasn't a dream."

Will shook his head, at the same time lowering the pistol just a little.

Frederick tried to breathe without gasping. There was a knot of terror pulled tight in his gut, and entwined with it were strands of something else. Disgust? Satisfaction? He squirmed on the hard floor, suddenly self-conscious. "That was Randall Tier, wasn't it?"

"Yes," Will said.

"He's dead."

"Yes."

"In my dream, I—oh, god." Tears began to prickle at the corners of Frederick's eyes. To his horror and humiliation, a fat one broke free and ran over the bridge of his nose, cutting a trail through the blood on his face. "Did I...did I kill him?"

Will hesitated, but only for a split second. "Yes."

A raw sob coughed out of Frederick's chest. "Oh, Jesus. Oh, no." The tears flowed freely now. If he had been able to see Will's face, he would have seen it contorting in sympathy, but only the dark, dancing punctuation mark of the pistol's end swam up through his watery vision. "Do you think I killed those agents? At my house? I must have. Oh, god, I must have."

"Frederick," Will said, nudging Frederick's forearm with the toe of his boot. His tone was gentler. "Stay with me."

"Did I kill them, Will? Please."

"I don't think you did, Frederick. I really don't."

He took a great, shaky breath, licking his dry lips and bringing up the gunmetal taste of blood. Frederick remembered how that great gush had tasted, flooding his palate. It tasted the way he imagined Hannibal felt when he killed. When he carved up and served his victims to his high-society guests. Frederick tried again for nausea and failed, even though he was encased in the slowly drying caul of Randall Tier's blood. "How did I do it? Tier, I mean. Do you remember?" He asked the question even though he was afraid of the answer.

Will, as always, responded without prevarication. "You used your teeth."

Frederick could have sworn that the pistol inched closer to his face. "Oh, dear Christ. Will, you have to turn me in. I'm going crazy. I've gone crazy. I'm a danger to people. I'd rather be sedated in my own hospital than keep doing this."

"I'm glad you did it," Will said.

Frederick felt the air knocked out of his lungs. "What?"

"It was Hannibal. He sent Tier to kill me."

"Why the...What would he…?"

"While I was in the hospital," Will said, "still under your care, if you can call it that."

For once, Frederick was too shattered to even feel affront. "What? What did you do?"

"I sent someone to kill Hannibal. Your orderly. Brown. As you can probably guess, he failed."

"You would...actually turn yourself into a killer? For Hannibal's sake?"

Will swiped the back of his wrist across his sweating brow. Frederick watched the trajectory of the gun as he did so. "I wasn't thinking clearly in those days. My only comfort was resentment. The need for vengeance."

"And you've gotten over that? Pardon me if I don't believe you."

"No, not at all. Quite the opposite, in fact. I only intend to play the game by Hannibal's rules, now that I see what they are. Now that I can beat him. Or, at least, that was my plan until you came along and turned everything on its head."

"By killing Tier? I don't understand."

At this, Will's lips curled into a small, inexplicable smile. "What do you remember about tonight? I need you to tell me everything."

Taking a deep breath, Frederick replayed the few, scattered shards of memory he could dig from his blasted brain. The demon-beast crashing through the window. Losing consciousness. Surging upward as the dream-dog. The snap of tendons within his jaws. "I thought—I thought I had passed out. Trust me, it's a very Frederick Chilton thing to do." No point avoiding self-deprecation when one was just about as low as one could get. "But I saw myself...not as myself but as a, well, a dog. The dog I keep dreaming about. Now do you see why I need to turn myself in? I'm hallucinating, dissociating. I lost time in this idiotic, fear-fueled delusion and killed someone, Will."

"I agree with the last part of that."

"What part?"

"The fact that you killed someone. But if you hadn't, I would have tried for myself."

"So what do you not believe?"

"I don't believe it was a delusion, Frederick. You say you saw yourself turn into a dog." Will leaned closer, causing Frederick to shrink back as the gun also moved closer. "That's what I saw, too."

"You what?"

"I stood there," he gestured toward the far wall with the pistol, "and I watched you turn into a dog. Or something like that."

"No," said Frederick. He shut his eyes. "The last thing I need is you validating my delusions. I'm sick, Will. Sicker than I ever thought."

"If you're delusional, then so am I," Will said. "Because I know what I saw. The only reason I have this gun on you is for my protection."

Frederick heaved a phlegm-laden laugh before he could stop himself. "Just in case I turn into a dog and rip your throat out?"

Will's stolidity spoke of its own accord.

"You—you're serious," Frederick said, beginning to babble. "I knew it. I knew I shouldn't have let you out of the hospital. You're sick; you've made me sick. I think—I think you and Hannibal are in it together. That's what I think. Conspiring to make me go crazy. To make me into your puppet, your creature. I'm an idiot! I'm a fool!"

"You're not a fool, Frederick. You're something neither myself nor Hannibal ever could anticipate."

"What am I?" Frederick was on the verge of tears once again. "Tell me, Will. Because I don't even know anymore."

Will bit his lip. Frederick could have sworn there was something a little impish behind the gesture. But then Will's expression grew as grave as that of any doctor delivering news of a terminal illness. "I think...you're a werewolf."

It was possibly the fact that Frederick hadn't laughed outright that made Will agree to untie him. He winced at the tingle of returning blood flow to his fingers when the taut cord was loosened. Only when Frederick was freed did Will seem the least bit abashed that he was looking at a naked man splattered with blood.

"You may want to shower," Will said.

Frederick unfolded his cramped legs and stood, placing his hands over his groin. "Are you going to hold a gun on me while I do it?"

After a pause, Will shook his head. "I'm going to figure out what to do with this." He gestured to the table.

Given the conversation that had just occurred, Frederick felt oddly detached from the sight that greeted him. Tier's exoskeleton, which had been menacing when animated, was a sad heap of bones, its artificial tendons slack. Aside from the blood, which stretched in a great, tacky pool over the wood, Tier's motionless body was serene. Frederick was perturbed that their attacker lay face-down and he didn't see any evidence of his purported attack.

You used your teeth.

"I want to see it."

"See what?" Will asked.

"The wound. The, uh, bite. I want to see it."

"I don't think that's a good idea."

Leaving only one hand cupping his crotch and freeing the other to gesture toward the corpse so he could at least retain a modicum of civilized decorum, Frederick raised his chin and said, "If you're worried I might faint, I promise you I won't."

"I can't be sure of that," Will said. "Remember what happens when you pass out."

"It can't possibly happen every time."

"I'd rather not take that chance right now. I don't want to have to shoot you."

"I don't want you to shoot me, either!"

"Then go take a shower. Get dressed. I'm going to have a look. If nothing else, I can tell you how the wound appears, at least from a non-medical standpoint."

"That's not good enough." Frederick was almost pouting, then a flashbulb of recognition popped in his head. "Wait! I can prove to you I don't attack people every time I, well, pass out. Remember how I told you that I knew Margot Verger from somewhere? It was here. I knew her from right here. She came to the house one day when you were out on a case. I thought it was a dream, but she had to have been here. She was looking down at me, looking at me like I was one of the dogs. She didn't see a man there at all! She said—" Frederick paused.

"She spoke to you?"

"Not exactly. It was, um, like you'd talk to a dog."

"What did she say?"

If at any moment in his life Frederick could be glad of a literal facefull of blood covering his flushed cheeks, this was it. He returned his other hand to cover his groin and looked down at the blood-soaked boards of the floor. "She said, 'You're a big boy, aren't you?'" Frederick cringed and clenched his teeth.

Will did not respond.

Frederick expected when he looked up to see Will staring at him, but when he dared open his eyes the other man was also looking at the floor, mashing his knuckle against his mouth, his shoulders shaking in silent laughter.

"Oh, go ahead," Frederick said, rolling his eyes.

Will threw his head back and laughed. The dogs, who had begun to creep in from the adjoining room, flinched and whined. "I'm sorry," Will said, struggling to gain control once again. "I'm really sorry. It's just—"

"No," Frederick said. "This is what my life has become. Absurdity punctuated by terror. Or maybe the other way around."

Will held a finger up, signaling silence. "Wait. Terror. When do you say you pass out and dream about becoming the wolf?"

"I'm not a wolf."

"You'd rather be a dog?"

"I'd rather not be either!"

"Just answer the question," Will said.

"Well, when I feel threatened, which I most certainly did when our eviscerated friend here came through the window."

"And when Margot came to the house for the first time."

"Yes," Frederick said. "You can imagine I wasn't keen on being discovered."

"But not the second time she came," Will said.

Frederick shuffled his bare feet. "I suppose that time I was more...intrigued."

"And you become the wolf when you sleep?"

"Yes, I told you that."

"Are you seeing what I'm getting at here?"

Frederick gave a helpless shrug.

"It's entirely unconscious. You're scared or in danger, or your subconscious has the reins, you turn. You're like the Incredible Hulk."

"The what?"

Will smiled. "Don't worry about it. Come on, be a psychiatrist. It means the wolf is essentially your id."

"Don't get Freudian with me."

"I'm standing in my kitchen talking about dreams with a naked, blood-covered man. It doesn't get much more Freudian than that," Will said.

"Gah," said Frederick. "Fine. So when my ego is in control, I'm a man. When I'm running on instinct, I'm a…wolf."

"Exactly," said Will. "And that's dangerous. Now you understand the reason for the gun. But, listen, the Hulk learned to control his rage."

"I still don't understand who you're talking about."

"You never read comics as a kid?"

"I went to boarding school," Frederick said, as if it explained anything.

"What I'm saying, essentially, Frederick, is that I think you can teach yourself to control this. Turn wolf whenever you want, by your own volition. Not just on instinct."

"I've never felt less in-control in my life." Frederick's tone was close to a whine again.

Will took a swift step forward, closing the distance between them. Frederick stumbled back, but Will kept coming.

"Now, who was that arrogant, self-assured prick who ran the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane? Do you remember him? Because I sure do."

"You thought I was a prick?"

"Never mind. The point is, I know you a lot better now, Frederick. Back then, you seemed like a coward who lorded over the pathetic creatures in his charge, but lesser men would have crumbled long ago and gone running back to Jack Crawford, begging to be put in chains. You're stronger than you think."

Frederick's breath caught in his throat; his eyes burned. No. I would give my right leg not to cry at this moment. He sniffled hard and refocused his attention on Will, giving a stiff nod. "Thank you."

"Which is good, because I have a plan." Will's grin was almost feral. "A design, if you will."