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By Jstarz927 and Aine Deande
A/N: Many thanks once again to all our reviewers, you mean the world to us. And don't worry if you're confused so far, we promise that everything will be explained eventually. This chapter, like the previous chapter is rated R for violence.
Chapter 7
This Years' Roses
Work. Work, work, work to do. So much a mess, so much to do and so little time to do it. My little puppet is waiting, waiting…
Chanting inwardly to the familiar rhythm of her own beating heart, Ariadne began the usual procedures. Taking out her purse she pulled on a pair of white hospital gloves, always careful as to not catch any infection by her oversight. She could afford no faux pas when it came to these matters.
She was cool and professional at the job, pulse rate never above eighty-five, even when she later cut out his tongue. But within, a demon was raging, wild like a thunder-blaze, uncontrollable once beyond the point of preparation.
Hannibal…I doubt that even you knew then just how much you would do for me.
Ariadne smiled as she remembered with fondness their long talks in the overly appeasing psychiatric room with the personal touches, remembering his eyes foremost with a clarity as though he was before her. She remembered the plush leather sofa they had both sat upon and the weathered grandfather clock set across the room, ticking away the seconds of her life. She had never forgotten his smile, either. A sudden strike of venom and honey, altogether in one flash of teeth, those small, white teeth that had ripped open many men's skins.
He had smiled to her with pleasure flooding his eyes and she had smiled right back.
Ariadne. The name he had given her. Her one true name.
But enough of that now.
She got up, placed the tools unnecessary for the moment on the counter. A very visible pause then. A resting hour, moments before the storm would arise within her. She waited, prepared.
She turned with a twist, spinning on her heels, took two controlled steps towards her victim, still sprawled upon the parquet floor. A smile. His smile. A mixture of deadly venom and sugar-sweet honey.
She was ready.
She turned off the light-switch and darkness consumed the room, only dark bodies sketched and silhouetted in the night-light of the moon. She closed the curtains. A weak beam of amber continued to peek in from a streetlamp outside. It was good enough for now. She needed complete darkness to perform her task. Only then would her eyes truly see.
Human beings generally use no more than the top portion of their lungs while breathing. Old stale air can rest at the bottom of the lungs for weeks at a time and leads to quick fatigue and rapid heart rate during strenuous exercise.
Ariadne closed her eyes and took a deep breath, began to level it, slowly, making sure her heart rate maintained its calm and rhythmic beat throughout her body. She began breath-control procedures. Easy breathing, concentrating only on breathing, while easing her high-strung body in the process. Puffing stale air out of her lungs in breath after breath. His touch of before still hung heavily about her skin, like old rags. She felt those disgusting hands, smelled them clearly all around her.
They would be the first to go.
Perhaps followed by his disgusting tongue. And then his face, bit by bit, pieces of his carefully-constructed mask stripped off. His whole life was there, imprinted into his face. Oh, how she would enjoy cutting it away.
Up until this point, Ariadne had been very careful to follow Lecter's methods to perfection. But now…Starling was already safe in her possession; she need not be so meticulous any longer. There was room now for some fuuuun.
After two, three minutes of inhaling and exhaling, in and out, slowly, calmly, she opened her adjusted eyes to the almost complete darkness surrounding her. She blinked and her eyes seemed to be slit like the lioness' yellow orbs.
Then, almost as though it had a will of its own, her mouth opened and out came her tongue, exploring the air like it could still taste the raw emotion of Lowe's still-palpable fear. It slid right back in after a minute, resting at the roof of her palate as though at peace, and Ariadne savored the flavor of old fear and new death as though it was fine wine.
She marked the large living room fireplace and the large stack of wood with her gaze. His sweetbreads would be deposited there, surrendered to the flames, after she finally got around to cutting him open. A wry smile tugged the corners of her lips. Despite all the habits she picked up from Hannibal, cannibalism happened not to be one of them.
And then, she was moving again. Eyes closed and still behind her eyelids, her hand shot up to her shoulder blades, toward the spaghetti-thin bands holding up her tank top.
Without as much as a rustling noise, she let the bands slide off her shoulders, and she worked herself out of the uncomfortable top and built-in bra as though it had been a straightjacket. Who can possibly breathe in such tight clothing, anyhow? How those women survive all night in a crowded bar smothered in cigarette smoke and the smell of other people's exudation… she would never know.
The leather pants, which Lowe had been so kind as to remove for her still lay upon the couch, scrunched up toward the armrest. Finally, her high heels came off landing with a thud on the wooden floor, and she flinched at the unexpected break of atmosphere the sound triggered in the perpetually placid space, like drops of stray paint on a masterpiece. This was her territory, this was her haven. She was home here.
She made this room as his had been, the day Hannibal had…
Hannibal. The immediate air around her crackled as his name was allowed to filter through the barren walls of her memory palace, casually, though nothing associated with Dr. Lecter's first name was ever casual.
Ariadne stepped over the roses of blood with her bare feet, naked to the crown. Her golden jewels she left on. They were as much a part of this part of her personality as his presence was. His presence, inside her mind.
She stepped to the mirror. Instantly when they had come into this room she had noticed Lowe had a full-size mirror covering almost all of the opposite end of the room. The walls narrowed into a corner there and this corner would be her altar. Yes. It was appropriate he should have placed his mirror here. Nothing else would do quite as well. She didn't feel like dragging the body all the way up the stairs to the master bedroom where there undoubtedly would be one too, anyway.
Unclad before the looking glass. She felt a familiar twinge of exposure, the same sort she had felt when she had first come in to visit Dr. Lecter for her… problems. His eyes had been her looking glass then, age-old knowledge reflecting behind those maroon pinpoints of vigor and sinister intensity.
She had known, then and there, as he unclothed her with his eyes, not to bare her body to him, as so many common, forgotten women had in his past. But she had seen faith to bare her soul to him in all its ugliness and glory. Her soul, enigmatic and shapeless to others but an undefined treasure to him. Little by little, she allowed him to know her, stunned as much as he had been that she could hide herself from him. That had almost been the death of her. He had marveled in her growth as he tutored her, managed her, reached inside and with one well-collected swing of the axe, dashed a thousand walls to the ground. Walls where behind were buried long lost traumas, and emotions she had longed to forget. He had taught her how to see herself with the clarity of a rising sun.
He had called her a nymph, an old spirit of nature, mysterious and misunderstood but treacherous as the sea. When she allowed him to see beyond her layers of image for what she really was.
He had called her a lioness, sleek, stealthy and the most deadly creature of the pride. With a smile now, she wondered if he would ever know what he had truly created.
She had her own pier glass now. Bare and still before the mirror…oh crude all-revealing reflection let me see the self beyond me.
Ariadne looked and looked into the looking glass as her fingers began to travel places. Her left thumb went up and down a scar formed like a crescent moon, sickle-shaped with protrusions like rose thorns, on the left side of her abdomen. She caressed it delicately as though it was a wound made of love. It wasn't. And she needn't close her eyes to remember…
The red-hot poker scratching her abdomen, burning her flesh…A silent scream then, muffled by the years. A face without a name hovers above her, the scorching pain makes her double over, and she utters this prayer to the one who has no name…
"I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry…"
With one calculated blow of the fist she broke the mirror before her, the image of herself breaking as she looked at it. The pieces crashed to the floor with a clattering noise that reminded her vaguely of another night, only that time it had been china. She took an especially wicked-looking shard into her hand, careful not to cut her hands upon the edges. The burnished silver seemed to reflect in her eyes.
No more scars to see. Only scars to make, apply, on a rightful victim of her own hand.
'Twas a pity that he wouldn't feel.
Showtime.
For this year's roses are red, Margie.
Ariadne smiled to her, to herself, to him…most of all to him, as she brought down the mirror shard swiftly upon Lowe and split his face in two.
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When a person loses one of his five senses, the other four are magnified exponentially to make up for the loss. A blind person can memorize the layout of the room simply by running his hands along each wall once, seeing by touch and the changing intensities of light.
As Clarice Starling lay in the bed for a week, robbed of her sight, she had memorized the structure of the room she was in four times over. High-arched ceiling planks over ornate paneling. Once when Cahlin had brought in the lamp for her second meal of the day, the light had flared a bit brighter than usual, and Clarice could just make out the carving of a bull's head engraved over the doorway. She looked to where the carving was now, imagining the curving horns and slanted, opaque eyes, seeing them in her mind.
She imagined the animal detaching itself from its wooden prison and ambling through the silent halls of the mansion. Clarice could hear every single creak of the house, every sigh of musty air, and imagined that it was the bull causing the noise. And when the strange noises had started a few days ago, soft music, echoing footsteps, and once a thin, piercing scream, she offered them not a second thought.
Clarice could smell the damp sweat that still clung to her skin, mingling with the fabric of her shirt. She hadn't been allowed to shower in over a week now. Perhaps she could present the request for a bath to Cahlin the next time she saw her. 'Twas a pity to die without smelling your best. That thought almost succeeded in bringing a smile to her lips, but not quite. However, Clarice's newfound sense of smell could not be overlooked. She had often wondered how Dr. Lecter could sniff out fear in a human being but no longer. Fear was all around her, clinging to her skin like her sweat. Fear had an earthy, decaying tone to its scent, prickling her nostrils like a pungent corpse.
She detected other older
scents in the room besides her fear and anticipation. Faint remnants of laundry
detergent and bleach in the silky sheets of the bed. Mothballs underneath. And
a strange, subtle smell that was exuded by the sheets, the headboard, and much
of the carpet around the bed. It reminded Clarice of rusty copper, but she could
not quite place it.
Considering the subtleties of the scents Clarice had attuned herself to, it did
not surprise her when she smelled the approach of Cahlin ten seconds before her
footfalls betrayed themselves to her ears.
Clarice could smell the blood on Cahlin's hands. It hit her with all the force of a tidal wave and Clarice relived ten years of jump-out squads and shootings in a millisecond. This blood however, was tainted with the scent of triumph.
Clarice chose to ignore it and instead proposed the question of the shower.
Cahlin laughed. She was in a good mood. "Of course, I should have thought of that before. Please forgive me. You are my most prized possession after all."
Clarice suppressed an inward shudder. "Thanks. I think."
"Oh Clarice, that is one thing I will always admire about you. Your wit." Cahlin walked closer then, and Clarice could see the flat metal tray in her hands. The tray held one syringe filled with clear liquid. "I do not doubt that under different circumstances, we could have become rather good friends. But in lieu of that, I will guarantee you at least two more weeks to live." She set the tray down on the bedside table and placed the lamp beside it.
"Why?"
"Why what?" said Cahlin, taking the syringe into her hands and tapping the side of it.
"Why do you want to kill me?" Stupid, stupid. Think of something more clever than that at least. "It's because of Lecter, isn't it?"
Cahlin had enough control over her reflexes that Clarice could not see her inward flinch at the sound of his name. "Perhaps. What makes you think that?"
"If you're…" Clarice paused, considering the implications of what she would say next. If she was wrong…well, it wasn't as if Cahlin didn't read newspapers. She would have had become acquainted with the National Tattler at some point. And it wasn't as if Clarice could make a bigger fool out of herself than she already had.
"If you're one of his old girlfriends seeking revenge," she said, a twisting feeling in her stomach as she spoke, "I'm not your…competition. The Tattler isn't exactly your most reliable form of information." There, she'd said it.
Cahlin stared, her expression unreadable. Then she threw her head back and laughed, the sound ringing off the arched ceiling of the room like cathedral bells. "I believe we already had this discussion, but then again you were nursing a hangover at the moment, so I don't truly expect you to remember too well."
Her voice dropped in volume then, her words increasingly hushed and menacing. "You FBI agents with your achingly simple way of thinking. It's no wonder that there are so many fugitives that you are seemingly incapable of apprehending. Yet you, of all people should know…things are never that simple. It doesn't matter what Lecter said. Simplicity plays no part in the lives of people like us. But if you really must know, I had the opportunity to make the acquaintance of Dr. Lecter a long time ago. Dr. Lecter murdered my husband."
Confusion abounding in Clarice's mind. If this woman had a grudge against Lecter,
why was she targeting her? Clarice was the main force in helping to bring him
to justice. True, she had not prevented him from making his escape that night
on the Chesapeake, but she had been drugged. He had unmistakably planned
everything in advance that night, there was nothing she could have done.
Yes there was. You could have taken your gun and shot his ass when he was carving up your enemy's brain.
Clarice pointedly ignored that thought.
But Cahlin wasn't quite finished yet. She moved closer to Clarice, her golden eyes reflecting the lamplight like molten lava. She had had her little fun. Now was the time to see what Starling was made of and she would. She would see every inch of her mind, every nuance, every fear, every hidden desire. But first…she leaned even closer, her mouth an inch away from Clarice's ear.
Cahlin's voice was a hissed whisper. "Lecter was late, you know…" and the lioness bared her small, white teeth to her prey…
"I should have killed that bastard years ago."
The needle pierced her arm. Clarice felt a numbing, coldly burning sensation around the spot that swiftly spread through her entire arm, down her torso, climbing into her face, into her brain. And then her world melted before her eyes.