Chapter 10
As she looked at the little child lying in bed, she grieved. To know this innocent little thing was molested hurt. That was the worst part of this whole business. It positively made her sick to see and think of all the evil things they did to them.
Poor little thing.
I'm here to make it all go away.
Yes, she'd make it all go away. She had helped the other children, she would save this one too from the clutches of those devilish people who dared call themselves parents. They had lost their right to having the responsibility of a child. They had forfeited it.
I have something for you that will make it all go away...
With good old-fashioned red rubber household gloves on, she took a little bottle from her bag and unscrewed its cap. Carefully, she leaned over the sleeping child and gently opened its lips with one hand. With the other hand, she dropped the contents of the bottle into the child's mouth. She saw her swallow.
Well done, my baby, well done.
She capped the bottle and replaced it in her bag. She took out another bottle, somewhat larger than the previous. She unscrewed its cap and holding the bottle with her left hand, she poured some of its contents into her right hand. Then, with solemn movements, she sprinkled the child's forehead three times with some water.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit...
She then waited for the poison to do its work. While waiting, she tried not to think about the difficult job ahead. [MB]
She consciously matched her breathing to the child's, slower, softer. At the last exhale she held her own breath and forced her mind into a separate plane.
It seemed a lifetime ago that she'd taken weekly yoga classes. The doctor, along with many of the books she read, said stress reduction would greatly increase their odds. At first her frustrations at trying to de-stress only increased her feelings of anxiety, and she felt like an idiot sprawled out on the spongy pink mat. But she wanted it so badly, he wanted it so badly, that she stuck with it and willed her body and then mind into compliance. Finally she could reach true stages of meditation. Her time on that pink mat never did result in two pink lines, but it was a handy trick to be able to flip that switch in her brain.
Of course she now knew the teachings from her yoga instructor were blasphemous. She was a convert to the True Church. Only He had been able to answer their prayers. And what the Lord gives, the Lord..
She swallowed a strangled sob and forced her mind back into a removed state so she could accomplish the Lord's work.
The scalpel reflected dimly in the moonlight, its color muted silver, soft and pretty. [D]
Her fingers took hold of a bit of hair, the last two inches of the girl's dark and lush hair. Carefully, she cut it off and placed it inside a small box she retrieved from her bag.
I'll make sure you will be remembered. People will know you are a saint.
Then she moved the child into position for butchering. A nasty job, but inevitable. This child had sinned, too. The child itself had to be its own sin-offering. How else could she go to heaven immediately?
She could feel her hands moved with more knowledge and accuracy than before, she was getting experienced at this. But still, it was a gory and sickening thing to do. She'd never get used to this. She made the first cut from the throat, then across the chest and abdomen, ending at the child's private parts. The skin separated and a large opening appeared, through which she would be able to remove the intestines.
The child's blood flowed freely now, but not spurting, without the blood pumping it. Still, she took care not to spoil her clothes. Blood made such nasty stains. Luckily, most blood was absorbed by the mattress.
One thing had to be done with the blood. So she took out a small container from her bag and filled it with blood from the abdominal cavity. As before, a visit to one of the cities many churches the next day would allow her to put the blood upon an altar, and pour the remaining blood at its base. And leave the hair, the relic, there also.
When we're done, my baby, I will make atonement and you shall be forgiven...
She started to remove the child's intestines. The entrails were always first to be removed, they created room in the abdomen and they were hardest to remove. After that, everything else would be easy. She tied two pieces of rope at the beginning of the duodenum, then cut the intestines between the two knots. Then she placed the duodenum next to the child's hips and started to transfer the long strand. As she neared the end, she made sure to keep the rectum closed by tying another knot there, before severing it from the sphincter.
That sickening part performed, she severed the stomach, after tying that up too at the cardia. She placed it somewhere on the bed. The bladder followed, then the liver and the kidneys. All intestines were carefully removed from the dead girl's abdomen, with knots to keep the contents from spoiling, if necessary.
All this done, she took a few deep breaths. This child was safe as could be for now. Tomorrow morning, she would sacrificially finish the job.
You're safe now, baby. They can't hurt you anymore.
She was relieved her gruesome job was done, she really hated it. But the children needed to attain redemption. If she were to save them, she had to make the sacrifice.
There was one more thing to do. This always made her feel better. Gently, she turned the girl on her side and tucked her in, as if fast asleep. She took a final look and smiled. The girl was safe now. [MB]
Murky predawn light spilled in through a single slit in the posh, floor length curtains of Clarice Starling's suite. It allowed her just enough illumination to study her sleeping partner's profile. He really was ridiculously handsome, from his Grecian nose to his chiseled jaw and beyond. She could see movement under the delicate skin of his eyelids and knew he was dreaming. The lashes gracing those lids were long, thick and actually curled at the end.
A snort from her ruffled strands of his silky hair as she thought, not for the first time, that she was sleeping with a man prettier than herself.
But there was much more to him than just an attractive face.
What had started as a convenient tumble in the sack had evolved into something more.
They'd been working the Il Medico case for a little over two months now. After those first days of establishing boundaries, they settled into a comfortable division of work and private life.
He possessed an earnestness, paired with what could only be called naiveté, that had initially annoyed her. He was young enough and inexperienced enough to still believe in absolutes; to him there was right or wrong, good or evil, with the law or against it. Now Clarice had adjusted to his perspective and found it almost quaint. It brought to mind the long ago agent she'd been, with similar principals, hell-bent on saving the world. A world she knew now was colored with shades of gray.
He was also intelligent, quick to laugh, and genuinely kind. The last attribute worked its way under Clarice's skin, and she felt a loosening from somewhere deep inside as she extended him a tenuous trust she granted very few. As more time passed, she knew that trust would strengthen. The thought frightened her, aside from Ardelia and a handful of others no one had penetrated the armor she'd so long ago erected around her heart. People died. Worse, people chose to leave. The loss could only be bearable if a distance was maintained. But a few friends had slipped through over the years. And one man had touched her heart.
Perhaps it was more accurate to say he'd taken her heart, because lying here in this luxurious bed with a gorgeous and truly good man, she wasn't satisfied. She ached, and she wanted someone who was probably more a creation of her mind than anything flesh and blood; half a dozen conversations paired with a decade of internal dialogue of what she thought he might say. God Clarice, you're an idiot.
Her musings were interrupted by her phone vibrating and she took a moment to wonder if Ardelia was still screwing up the time difference.
"Hello?"
"Ms. Starling?" said a gravely, heavily accented voice.
"Yes? Speaking."
"This is Ispettore Gregoris…" just then Alessandro's phone started to ring, and Clarice knew before Gregoris finished his statement, "signora, another one has been found. Il Medico has killed again." [D]