Chapter 17: Wonderful, the gang's all here.
Time and space moved amorphously around Alana with black stars still exploding behind her eyelids from the desperate, frenzied release Margot had driven them to. Alana wished to stay in the haze of post-orgasmic endorphins buzzing through her system but she could feel valuable minutes slipping away. She remembered the savage, torn expression that Margot had displayed when she first charged into the bedroom, then the auburn-haired woman trying to tamp down the fire that raged inside her, but Alana didn't want the blaze to be quelled. Instead she stoked the flames, letting it spread to her own body so that her muscles burned and pleasure scorched her skin.
The memory dissipated like smoke. Alana forced her eyes open, letting the world come into focus, letting Margot come into focus. The other woman gazed at her with a reverent but far off look, like all of the anger and pain had been wrung out of her. She loathed disturbing whatever peace the other woman had achieved but she finally found her voice, calling to her with unintended softness, "Margot."
Green eyes snapped to attention as she asked, "Margot, what happened?"
The Verger falls onto her back and stares bleakly at the French ceiling. Alana waits while she finds the order to her words. Eventually she sighs out, "Mason knows. About us."
Alana tenses but remains calm and rationalizes quickly, "Okay. He has Hannibal and Will being dropped at his doorstep any minute. He'll be busy and by the time he is ready to turn his attention to us it'll be too late. He will be in prison."
"It's not just that." Margot said sounding as if her throat were constricting. "There is a surrogate."
The doctor propped herself up on her elbow, "You've found a surrogate to use?"
They hadn't further discussed the logistics of having a Verger baby but Alana had begun to operate under the assumption that there wouldn't be a surrogate, that if there were going to be a baby she would be the one to carry the child. Disbelief, hurt, and maybe unjustified betrayal made her ears ring with a white static as she tried to comprehend with the other woman was saying. But Margot shook her head, "No, Mason has a surrogate."
She went on to explain when Alana's brow furrowed in further bewilderment. "He didn't scramble all my eggs, he just found someone else to carry them. She's on the farm and pregnant with my baby. My baby Alana."
"You're sure?" Alana blurted out but then also rapidly asked, "What else did he say?"
"He wouldn't tell me where she is. He says I need to prepare myself emotionally or whatever." Frustration coiled around her words.
Alana falls back onto the bed and mimics Margot's vacant stare at the ceiling, though she isn't really considering at the ornate plaster moldings above her. Instead she cannot help but think about Greek mythology, specifically the story of Tantalus. The Greek mortal had stolen ambrosia and nectar from Mt. Olympus and for his infractions Zeus devised a cruel punishment. He was doomed to suffer in a deep level of the underworld where he would never be able to satisfy his hunger or thirst, with fruit hanging overhead just out of his reach forever. Like Tantalus sinned against the gods, Margot sinned against Mason; daring to try and take what he believed was his ordained right to be the sole source for a Verger heir. And like the cruel gods of the ancient mythos, Mason would never allow Margot to have the legacy she reached for.
This possible Verger baby, the key to the kingdom, was still in Mason's grasp and he was dangling it in front of his sister, taunting and tantalizing. Alana knew that Margot was so fixated on the bait that she didn't see that Mason was certainly leading her off of a cliff and Alana had to stop her from plummeting.
The doctor suddenly got out of bed, a rush of formless panic flooding through her as she rapidly formulated a plan to get them out of there. Wrapping herself in the crisp white sheet as she went, she returned to the desk and rifled through her papers she'd been working on before. Her eyes flitted over the words she'd written.
"What is that?" Margot asked sitting up in bed.
Alana spared her a distracted glance, "This is a file on Mason. I've been making notes on our sessions so when the time comes I can hand over a file to the FBI documenting his behavior becoming increasingly erratic, suspicions of Mr. Doemling, concerns over your brother's delusions of grandeur, etcetera… I need to get everything in order."
"Right now?"
"We need to call in the FBI." Alana said firmly still shuffling through the papers. "We have to turn Mason in before he can he get any further in whatever he has planned."
"No." Margot gets up herself now and agitatedly throwing on a robe. "Not until after Hannibal is dead."
"We can't wait any longer. It's too dangerous." Alana insisted.
"It's too dangerous for us not to wait." The other woman argued back coming to stand across from her at the desk. "Hannibal is too clever to be imprisoned by the American justice system forever. One day he will get out and he'll come for you. I won't let that happen."
"And I won't let Mason destroy you." Alana glared up at Margot, expecting to see her anger matched in her green eyes and she was angry but the hardness was softened with understanding.
"I want search every room in this god forsaken house until I find the surrogate but I can't do that until I know you're safe."
"Damn you, Margot." She said exasperated, flipping the folder shut with the papers haphazardly hanging out and slumping against the cold wooden back of her chair. Her arms broke out in goose bumps as an uneasy chill settled over her. She exhaled softly as she continued, "Whatever this is… Whatever Mason has in store isn't good. We can't trust him."
"I know." The heiress sighed, running her fingers through her mussed hair. "But the only way is for us to see this through to the end."
"You're right. But I wished you weren't." Alana said in resignation.
A surprising, gentle knocking on the door interrupted them and then Cordell came barging in without waiting for a reply. Margot held her robe together at her chest, stepping to her left slightly to better obscure Alana still only wrapped in the sheet and the paperwork sitting out. Margot seethed with indignation, "What is the meaning of this Cordell?"
"No need for decorum on my account ladies. I have no interest in your type." The man said with barely veiled contempt.
"Yes, I know your type. I've read the police reports." Alana snapped.
The nurse cleared his throat in apparent discomfort and spoke with forced politeness, "Mr. Verger requests both of your presences for lunch. A sort of welcome feast for our new guests."
"Dr. Lecter and Will have arrived then?" Margot asked.
He smirked, "They've been delivered, yes."
Despite knowing that the men had been due by now, Alana felt surprised that she hadn't realized they were on the property. She imagined she could have felt a shift when Hannibal was close like a rabbit's intuition that a fox was near. Or even more incredibly there would have been some omen, like a raven tapping at the window or dark storm clouds descending upon them. But the window framed a baby blue sky with wispy clouds drifting amiably across it giving no indication of danger on the horizon. Cordell continued speaking, "Their long journey has left them in a bit of disarray. They're being cleaned up and lunch will be served at 2 o'clock sharp. Don't be late."
He said crisply and turned with the same sharpness, leaving the room with his quick little steps. Margot fell back to sit on the edge of the desk once he was gone, her elegant figure seemed bent with exhaustion that was not normally there. They sat the thin silence for a long stretch, lost in expanse of it. Finally Margot looked back to Alana with a wry sigh, "We should get dressed. We wouldn't want to keep our guests waiting."
When Alana entered into the dining room, it felt like she could be stepping back in time with the damask wallpaper, chiaroscuro still lifes in gold frames, and flickering candlelight; it appeared as if nothing had changed in the room since the 18th century. Then there was the company; the men who had once predominantly made up her inner circle. In the not so distant past Alana would have walked into the room to share a meal with Hannibal and Will and the men would have stood ceremoniously, she smiling at them and they at her. They would have talked business or debated psychology or laughed over one-too-many glasses of wine. They didn't stand for her now, as they were strapped into custom wheelchairs not unlike the one Mason was confined to. And though they had been dressed impeccably there was evidence of a fray, Hannibal had a rash of cuts on the right side of his face and Will looked even worse with a black eye, scraps, and a stark white bandage over the left side of his forehead. He looked physically ill at the sight of Alana but Hannibal gave her a disarming grin.
"Margot, Alana it's good to see you." He greeted them almost jovially like he were not a hostage.
"Hannibal." She said simply as she took the seat next to him with Margot silently sliding into the seat between her and Mason.
"You look well." He commented pleasantly.
"You look… restrained." Alana replied drolly and Hannibal laughed with genuine amusement. Sitting next to him was easier than she thought it would be, nearly cathartic even. He'd been built up in her mind as the mad ripper; the blood soaked images from their last night together pervaded her memory of him. But now sat before her was the calm, polite Hannibal that she'd known before. Logically she knew it was a façade but it was a comforting one or perhaps it was the thick leather straps holding him in place that were comforting.
"Wonderful, the gang's all here." Mason spoke up from his end of the table then address Hannibal. "I snatched Will Graham right out of your mouth. You must be famished."
As if on cue, Mr. Doemling came from the hall that led from the kitchens having replaced his customary nurse's uniform with a pristine, white chef's coat. He walked primly with a round, silver plate that he places in front of Hannibal, bending at his waist with exaggeration to serve him an array of baked oysters then he whisks himself out of the room.
"There is an inescapable parallel between you and Jezebel, Mason." Hannibal states, selecting the proper outermost fork for the dish. Alana watched Mr. Verger for his reaction, knowing that he would be most offended by being compared to a woman. Hannibal knew this too as he said. "Keen Bible student that you are, you'll recall dogs ate Jezebel's face along with the rest of her."
"Do I have a parallel with Jezebel?" Alana asked, reaching for the glass of red wine that had thankfully already been filled and waiting at the table. "Or maybe just an intersection?"
Hannibal answered thoughtfully, a bemused smile playing at his lips. "I suppose that would be up to you. Jezebel did not survive her fall from the window. You did… or perhaps you are still falling, Alana."
She didn't want to contemplate that possibility, instead shrugging, "I've always enjoyed the word defenestration. At least now I get to use it in casual conversation."
"Well," Mason found his composure and his tongue. "If Jezebel was right with the risen Jesus, the Riz would have provided her with a new face, as he has provided mine."
His eyes fell onto Will, lingering hungrily and raising his eyebrow suggestively. Everyone in the room shifted their attention to him. Alana blinked, glanced furtively at Margot who merely sat with there with a stony expression and her arms crossed, then looked back to Will as the understanding sunk in. Mason managed to devise yet another demented twist to his vile scheme. Cordell reentered the dinner room with a platter of some gauche dish for the table. Mason went on, "The transplant surgery is extremely skillful, which is why Cordell here will be performing the face off."
The man paused in his duties at the mention of his name. He turned to the men and cocked his head to the side to make his brief, soft introduction, "Hello."
Then he went back out once again. Mason took his turn at trying to goad Hannibal, "You boys remind me of that German cannibal who advertised for a friend and then ate him and his penis before he died."
Hannibal happily dug into his appetizer since it appeared no one else would be getting served while his host extrapolated, "Tragedy being, the penis was overcooked. Go to all that trouble to eat a friend and you over cook his penis. They ate it anyway. Our Margot and Alana here wouldn't partake in that meal. Seems you've turned Dr. 'loom here off sausages entirely."
"Really?" Hannibal stopped his fork mid-bite to inquisitively peer at Alana.
"Really." She took a deep swallow of her wine. Margot didn't move an inch.
"That is a rather unforeseen development." He admitted. "I'm curious how this came about."
"Naturally." Alana sighed but conceded in divulging some insight to him, supposing there was no harm in it now. "The doctors told me a lot of marrow got into my blood and that I should expect to find myself thinking differently, feeling differently, but I'm not one for much introspection these days."
"Fascinating." His eyes flitted between her and the sullen Margot, alight with interest like he were a scientist discover a new life form under his microscope. His dark eyes settled on her again.
"I wonder how else you've changed… Tell me, do you still prefer beer to wine?" He asked, noting the wine glass in her hand.
"No, I stopped drinking beer when I found out what you were putting in mine."
"Who." He corrected.
"Who." She bristled not wanting his questioning to go any further.
Fortunately Mason had been feeling neglected and pulled the attention to himself. "I wonder what wines you would pair well with Dr. Lecter. I'll have to pick your brain before I'm picking it from my teeth. You see I'm fully committed to enjoying every bite of you."
"You're going to eat him… with my face?" Will spoke for the first time since the scene had started, his voice slightly tremulous from disuse.
"Yes. I got a taste for it after you two had me eat my nose."
"You must be terribly proud that you could bring this off. It's dangerous to get exactly what you want. What will you do after you've eaten me?" Hannibal asked.
"You could wreck some foster homes and torment some children?" Will suggested glibly, speaking of Mason's old tricks.
"No, I'll drink martinis made with tears." Mason said snarkily.
"But where Mason would the hardcore fun come from?" Dr. Lecter proposed.
Mason clucked his tongue; "It's foolish to dilute such ecstatic time as this with fears about the future… Uh Cordell, Mr. Graham is looking very dry. A little moisturizer please?"
The nurse nodded and turned to rummage in the sideboard, apparently prepared for anything. Moisturizer would not be enough to save Will Graham's face from its current state Alana thought.
Hannibal looked down the table at Mason, "What will be the first cuts of me you'll serve?"
"The first course, of course, will be your hands and feet." Cordell stopped his futile task and announced his plan pleasantly as if he were a waiter describing the special of the day. "Sizzling on a Promethean barbecue. The coal is white, and very hard, makes a clear ringing sound when struck."
Dr. Lecter seemed to carefully scrutinize the tall, plump man, assessing his threat level, planning his demise, or possibly neither. Hannibal could be recalling and experiencing an opera in elaborate detail that he'd seen 15 years ago. Having some grasp of Hannibal's mind, Alana imagined it could be all three happening simultaneously. Eventually he smiled at him then said approvingly to Mason. "You've thought of everything."
"And after that, we'll have a little pajama party, you and I. You can be in shorties by then." Mason blathered on. All of the faux niceties and acting in this macabre charade, like anyone had a choice in being there, started to exasperate Alana. She was ready to excuse herself when suddenly Cordell screamed in agony, his shouting echoing around the room and rattling the crystal chandelier. He seemed to thrash against Will as if her could not pull away from him. For all the commotion, the other members of the table scarcely blinked, remaining unmoved. Then her brain caught up to what was happening. When the nurse had leaned in to apply the lotion, Will had sunk his teeth into the roundness of Doemling's cheek with the adamant intention of tearing away his flesh. The man finally was able to stagger away and Alana saw a round chunk of skin missing from his face before he hand covered the gaping wound. Will spat out what he'd bitten off onto the Gien French plate in front of him, the place set especially chosen for being a favorite of Hannibal's. The blood splattered across the bone white china and dripped down Will's chin.
"No pajama party for you, Mr. Graham." Mason scolded. "We're going to feed you to the pigs as soon as Cordell has removed your face, in a much more civilized fashion than you just tried to remove his."
"Well, this has been truly mortifying." Margot spoke for the first time since entering the room, her words rude but tone good-natured. "I think I've had my fill of the nightmare dinner theater."
She rose and slunk toward the exit. Hannibal called after her, "I hope this won't be the last time I see you Margot."
The heiress paused at the threshold and stared coldly at him but eventually gave him a nearly imperceivable nod before disappearing into the darkened hallway. There was a small flurry of activity in the next moments; Cordell scooping up the chunk of his skin and departing hastily, Mason calling for the guards to collect Hannibal for the man to be taken to the stables and following them out as he persisted in regaling his captive with his recipe ideas. As everyone took their leave, Alana stayed seated, leisurely sipping her wine and when everyone was gone she turned her gaze to Will Graham who had been forgotten about, his shadowed eyes watching her fixedly. Her old friend shook his head in disbelief at her, "What are you doing here?"
"I'm Mason Verger's psychiatrist." Alana said as if the answer were obvious.
"And is this part of his therapy or yours?" He asked cuttingly.
"I think we're all working through some issues. I'm putting an emphasis on self-preservation." The doctor spun her cane for effect. Offering him some good news, she continued, "Jack's alive."
"Good for Jack." Will said dismissively. "You helped Mason Verger find us."
His tone was sharp and accusatory. Alana arched her brow at him, noting how he'd used the word us, and she was certain he wasn't referring to him and Jack. Less than 24 hours in the vicinity of Hannibal and he already fell in line with his fickle friend. Since their first encounter, they'd taken steps toward each other, willing and unwilling, finding a strange symbiosis. And Will evolved. The scruffy charm and jittery aloofness faded from him, replaced with a man who was cool and poised and biting. Even the earth browns and mossy greens of his wardrobe were replaced with sleek grays and cobalt blues. It was a side effect of brushing against Hannibal Lecter; a person was irreparably changed.
"I helped Mason find Hannibal." She pointed out a little heatedly. "We followed Batard-Montrachet when we should have just followed you."
His face twisted in disgust, "Almost as ugly as what Mason wants to do to us is the fact that he can do it with the tacit agreement of people sworn to uphold the law."
"I was trying to get to Hannibal before you. I knew you couldn't stop yourself, so I had to try."
"By facilitating torture and death." He spat out.
"Is this judgment?" Alana asked offended. "That's rich coming from you considering you'd gone to Italy to kill Hannibal, considering the hand you had in how Mason Verger ended up."
"And now you're defending Mason?"
"No, I can abide the though of him being tortured, just as I can abide the thought of Hannibal being tortured. I'd say he has it coming, wouldn't you?" Then added after some consideration. "Or maybe you wouldn't."
"What did you think would happen?" Will asked wearily.
"I thought Jack Crawford and the FBI would come to the rescue when the time came." Alana admitted. Though nothing, especially in the past few days, had gone according to plan. "But the finer details of what I thought would happen have evolved."
"Then you have to evolve, Alana. You have to spill blood. Either by your own hand or someone's else's." He said with grave seriousness.
Alana leaned forward as she replied with the same grim tone. "I know what has to be done. I wouldn't worry about the blood on my hands, Will. You should worry about the blood on your face."