A/N: Sorry sorry for the long wait. Put simply, midterms are hell. But they're over now. *grins widely and throws a masquerade ball* Also, this chapter was originally about 16 pages but I chopped the last bit off to be part of the next chapter. So the next chapter should take less time to write. This chapter's still plenty long though, so hopefully that will make up for the delay.

A million kudos go to my spiritual twin and beta-diva extraordinaire, Aine Deande. I would have sat on this chapter for so much longer if it weren't for you. Thank you thank you and thank you.

In this part, lines of poetry have been purloined from Poe's "The Raven".

Chapter 7

Rage

I must be in hell.

It was the only rational explanation that dawned upon the unfortunate man's consciousness as he gazed into those fiery red eyes.

He swore vehemently. "Demon!"

The apparition laughed and blinked his eyes. When he next looked upon his victim, the inferno was gone from the maroon irises and replaced with something that resembled delight.

"Ah, Mr. Firmin, it is time you learned that the true demons of society are not those that hide away in shadows," he said, his hand drawing lazy patterns in the air with the blade of the Harpy. "They are the ones that mask themselves more effectively with lies and deceit than our phantom friend ever could. Those you see everyday. Men like you. And me."

He tilted his head and modified his smile slightly. All of a sudden, he looked like a different person: pleasant and amiable, the corners of his eyes wrinkling as he grinned. "Do you see? That's all it takes. A wink here. A smile there. A few thousand francs to your name. People are so easily deceived when they only see what they want to see. And you, my friend, have seen too much." The Harpy blade glinted ominously in the half-light of box 5.

Firmin had a small library at home that he kept under careful lock and key. Although he enjoyed all genres of works, he had a special fondness for mystery and drama. The Opera Ghost fiasco had caused him great deals of stress, but he couldn't help feeling the slightest bit exhilarated at being part of something so utterly mysterious.

Now it seemed that he had become part of something more mysterious than all the tales he had ever read. If he were in a different position, he was sure he would have found it an enjoyable read.

As fear and curiosity battled for dominance within his sluggish mind, he could not suppress the feeling that he knew this man and that he should be sitting with him around a coffee table rather than standing with him in hell.

The unfamiliar urge to scream swelled inside his body, and he noticed that he could not have done so even if he wanted. A gag covered his mouth, tied loosely enough to allow quiet speech but nothing more. The demon had thought of everything.

His voice cracked like brittle leaves. He swallowed and tried again. "Wha-what have I seen?"

The figure spread his arms open wide. "Me, monsieur. Has my prowess amused you? How long did it take before your greed threw caution to the winds? You could have lived quite comfortably upon our blood. I believe the price is now close to half a million American dollars for the both of us. Or was your motive more…carnal?" His eyes darkened dangerously.

Firmin half expected the apparition to laugh maniacally then, as would befit a creature of his genre. The demon did nothing of the sort. Instead, he reached down and smoothed his rumpled dress shirt, fastening his cuffs more securely around his wrists. This achingly normal gesture struck his impaired consciousness like a hammerblow.

He felt the anxiety building inside him along with a growing sense of disbelief as several windows aligned within his mind and, finally, he recognized his captor. "Monsieur Fell? You? My…my God man, what's happened to you?" A tearing sensation ripped through his abdomen, and he gasped, attempting to double over in pain, straining against the ropes.

He felt coolness upon his skin as Dr. Lecter placed a hand against his forehead. Somewhere through the fog of agony, he felt the sting of a needle and then the voice speaking: "The dosage is correct, monsieur. Take a few deep breaths to clear your head."

Firmin took a few rapid breaths, and a new wave of pain wracked his body as the oxygen cleared his head and he could see, could see everything.

"Let me go," he whimpered, tears mingling with sweat underneath his eyelashes, "I want to go home. I don't like this game."

"Ah, monsieur—"

Firmin's muffled shriek filled the box. "I don't know what you're talking about! I never meant to be rude to your wife, I was drunk at the time, I apologize. I apologize! Just let me go, please, oh—oh God, oh God..." He was sobbing now from the pain and the blind fear, tears soaking the gag and choking him.

Things like this weren't supposed to happen to him. They belonged in the newspaper headlines: shocking stories filled with impersonal names, to be gawked at by the common man. It couldn't happen to him, never to him…he looked up and fixed his tear-filled eyes upon those of his captor; they were twin points of red light, markers alongside the road to hell. His insides seized up with the cold fear and he knew no more.

Dr. Lecter stepped back from the unconscious man. Something was stirring, stirring inside the dark hallways of his mind. A simple fact traversed the twisted labyrinth before seizing his subconscious and shaking it like a rat-killing dog.

Firmin had no idea who he was up against. He had suspected nothing and was about as dangerous to them as a choirboy.

And Dr. Lecter had known all along that the man was no danger to them.

And his actions would have remained the same regardless. There was no doubt in his mind.

Hannibal Lecter's mind is a palace of a thousand rooms, bounded by the dreaming and descending, level by level, deeper and deeper into the unplumbed depths of awareness. He has passed years in this residence, while his body laid in caged darkness, the screams of fellow prisoners his only music. Eight years ago, he knew every single inch of the corridors of his mind in as exquisite detail as he knew the walls of his 10 by 15 foot cell. But after gaining his freedom, he had strayed from his path, and, as happens so frequently in dreams, the paths he once knew so well were no longer there.

The architecture is changed and even now, he sees that the adjustments he had made were not as he had remembered. The palace has made modifications of its own, and Dr. Lecter sees them only now, as if awakening from a deep sleep.

He sees now that he had desired no excuse for his actions. The free-range rude and incarnate saints were the same in his eye, specimens of the unique race known as human.

He had not chosen Firmin because he was dangerous or because he was rude. He had chosen Firmin because it had amused him to do so.

Realizing only now what he had done, Dr. Lecter begins to laugh, the sound reverberating through the empty theater as well as the far vaster corridors of his memory palace. He had never denied to himself that he was brilliant by human standards. But never had he imagined that his own mind could escape his own comprehension. Never had he imagined that his mind could string him along a sequence of events like a puppet, raising the curtain and revealing the stage mechanisms only after it was too late to turn back.

Too late, too late now, and no way to go but forward…

Hannibal Lecter could not deny his pleasure at the way events had evolved.

He reached forward and grasped Firmin's throat, his fingers pressing against special places on his neck. The man came back to himself with a muffled shout.

"What is the spot upon my wife's cheek, if it is not dirt?" Dr. Lecter asked, the moment Firmin shrank back from him once again in horror.

"A scar? A mole? I don't know!"

"No, you really don't, do you? It is gunpowder, monsieur. The nobles of this country call it 'courage'. But you didn't know that either. That is what sticks people like you to things. The desire to know. It's like glue. You could easily have quit your position as manager and gotten another equally well-paying job when Erik began playing his games. But you didn't. You were right in the middle of extraordinary events, and you couldn't bear to leave then. Just like you haven't completely taken leave of your senses now. You want to know how it will end for you. You want to know what the newspapers will whisper about in the morning."

Firmin shivered as the Harpy sliced through the first rope wrapped around his chest as if it were no more than a thread. Who was Erik?

"That is your tragedy, monsieur," the doctor said, continuing to cut ropes away. "Although you know how this will end for you, you never knew what any of this was all about. And you never will."

With a flick of his wrist, Dr. Lecter cut the next-to-last rope binding Firmin to the wheeled carrier, and rolled him to the edge of the balcony. The wheels were high enough that the balcony pressed against the man's knees. He whimpered like a child. His wife would be furious when he didn't return home. She would think he was off on another of his drunken, gambling escapades. Oh cherie, I am sorry…

"Adieu," the doctor said in a hollow voice, not bothering to look into Firmin's frightened eyes.

A flash of the Harpy up the victim's front, and an agonized scream rent the silence of the theater. The empty seats fixed their ever-upward gaze upon the balconies as an unprecedented drama played out above them. The heavy body of a man fell through the air before stopping with a jerk. His blood completed the fall, landing with a breathless curse among the seats and the resounding snap of a breaking body filled the air like a burst of applause.

Hannibal Lecter turned his back upon the gruesome spectacle and shut the door behind him. Had he known that a scene even more hideous lay in his very near future, he would have never turned away.

-----------------------

She had thought only about getting out, getting away from it all. As a result, she had found herself swaying in a rainstorm atop the roof of the Opera House, staring into the eyes of a figure that seemed to be the embodiment of night. The rain ran cold down the back of her neck, as cold as the gaze upon her. The apparition's amber eyes had gleamed in the darkness, yet even without that clue, she would not have failed to identify him.

The Phantom of the Opera had not been in high spirits last night. She could see as much. Clarice would have expected otherwise, considering the magnitude of his revenge against the incompetent managers. But the figure had been downcast, clinging to the roof of the Opera as if it were a nest rather than a throne. He seemed to shrink within his massive cloak.

She was aware of when he had turned his eyes upon her. She felt when he began opening the doors inside her mind — and when he recoiled and fled.

She had come away from that adventure confused, intrigued, and suffering from the early stages of hypothermia. She had returned to an empty mansion, and, after glancing about to make sure Hannibal was not around, poured herself an ample amount of hard liquor.

The alcohol warmed her body while dulling her mind, and that was exactly how she liked it. Yet her mind was denied rest that night as she dreamed of dark corridors, invisible footsteps, and bright, unbearable light.

She awoke the next morning with a dark sense of foreboding. It didn't take her long to confirm the reality of her dread.

It was hard to say which story the newspapers featured more prominently in their headlines: the disaster of the falling chandelier, the shocking rumors of the engagement of Vicomte Raoul de Chagny to a chorus girl, or the devastating discovery of the body of Monsieur Richard Firmin, disemboweled and hanging from a private theater box.

Before long, the phone at the de Londres estate was ringing off the hook: Andre, Raoul (although he would neither confirm nor deny rumors of an engagement), and other nobles the Fells had never spoken to wanted to do nothing but discuss the heinous crime.

Clarice answered all the calls patiently with a well-practiced tone, cheery and paper-thin. As her mouth formed soothing, senseless words, numbness enveloped her entire soul. Denial pulsed through her body like even beats of music even as she remembered the clues she should have recognized. The stiffness in his gait. The distance in his eyes. The restrained hunger and wildness in his gaze.

She had no doubts about who had committed this crime. The method was too public and – she hated to think it – crude for the Phantom's taste. And the circumstances were too similar to Florence…and she had been too much of a fool to prevent it.

What happens now?

From a quick glance outside, Clarice could see that Hannibal had not taken the carriage. Therefore she would receive no warning before she would hear the key turn in the lock and she would have face him.

No. She set her jaw rigidly. He would have to face her.

But for once, they had never discussed his previous life. They preferred, always, to solve problems in the oldest language of the world, that which required no words, their minds joining and understanding each other, sharing closeness beyond that of the flesh.

But for once, the day they left the States for Paris.

"Hannibal, I love you, and I will not try to change who or what you are. All I ask of you is that you show me the same courtesy."

"Understood."

Understood…

Hannibal Lecter may have accepted her request, but there was no possible way that he could have understood. Not when he had not known at that moment who or what she was.

Clarice had fully expected to die that night more than a year ago. Even in her drugged state, she knew that Hannibal wanted to mold her into something special…something that could then be removed, making room available for something—someone else.

It was hard to say who was more shocked when he went down on his knee in front of her, accepting her offering. He had ceased using the drugs on her after that night, and both of them had asked no questions, for fear that what they had created would slip away.

Now she could feel the past year slipping from reach, drowning beneath the surface of the darkness that had once again appeared, cloaking her memories with a mocking shadow.

Clarice's head snapped up with the speed of a cobra as she heard the faint scratching of a key turning in the front door lock. A quick glance at the clock told her that it was four o'clock in the afternoon. Dr. Lecter would have accomplished the deed the previous night and had no reason to return this late. Where had he gone?

She heard the rhythm of his footsteps, steady and even as her heartbeat. There was one door between the hallway and the parlor where she was sitting. She heard the footsteps stop in front of the door and for the longest time there was silence.

And then he knocked.

Tap. Tap. Clarice's head pulsated with the noise, soft as a whisper and grating as nails across slate.

Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door – This it is and nothing more…

Tap. Tap. The words of Poe pulsed through her mind, the meter of its cheerless words as regular and discomfiting as the current rhythmic rapping upon the parlor door.

"Enter, monsieur," she said, the words heavy and crystal-clear.

The door swung open like a whisper of silk on its well-oiled hinges, and she gazed solemnly at the sight before her.

Darkness there and nothing more…

He was wearing a different suit than the one she had seen yesterday. This one was jet black with high boots that gave his legs a pinched, narrow appearance. The boots were damp and dirty. His suit jacket was immaculate and buttoned all the way, leaving only a tiny triangle of white visible below his collarbone.

There was a mahogany dresser against the wall, and, as she watched, he leaned upon it, pushing the door closed with a small click. She could not read his eyes.

"What woman calls her husband 'monsieur' within her own house?" he said at last.

This felt uncomfortably different from their typical mind games. This time, she did not know where she stood.

"What man knocks on the door of his own house?" she replied coolly, watching him as a charmer would watch a snake.

He spread his hands in a small gesture of concession. "A man who is unsure of the reception awaiting him."

She snorted. "At least you're not denying it."

He tilted his head and looked at her in question. "Denying what? I assumed you would be upset that I was away for so long."

"Stop playing games, Hannibal. This is not the time."

"Oh, I believe it is the perfect time." Like a shadow, he leaned away from the dresser and moved towards her with a fluid gait. She stood up without even realizing that she had done so. "We are circling each other like hostile animals," he said, "neither willing to broach the subject of contention, neither sure of what the other knows."

Clarice growled in frustration. "Where were you all morning, Hannibal? Washing the blood from your hands and covering your tracks?"

He raised one eyebrow. "In fact, I was meeting with M. Andre. It is my job, I believe, as patron to keep abreast of happenings at the Opera."

"Including the happenings that you caused?"

"My dear," he said, his eyes glittering dangerously, "if you have something to say, please do so in plain words."

Biting back an accusation of hypocrisy, Clarice looked into his face furiously, finding it as firmly closed as the doors to his mind. "I'm talking about a certain misfortune which befell one M. Firmin of the Paris Opera House, after the performance when the chandelier fell. The same performance that you so inconveniently could not attend."

"I must admit I was told nothing of the sort. I was told, however, that Andre needed a new partner to manage the Opera House. I told him that I had someone in mind." He looked pointedly at Clarice whose face, if possible, lost yet more color as her fury grew.

"You—don't you dare tell me that you killed that man for me."

"I have told you nothing of the sort. You drew your own conclusions."

"What else could I possibly conclude, Hannibal Lecter? This isn't the first time you've done something like this." When she got no response, she continued, seething. "So you insist on letting Christine make her own choice – yes, I remember, does that surprise you? – But you think nothing of making this sort of decision for me!"

"Are you saying you don't want the job?"

"You know perfectly well what I'm saying."

"I do," he retorted as his eyes narrowed. "I also know that you made your decision a year ago. If you were anyone else, I would inquire whether it has slipped your mind."

"The man didn't deserve that."

"I had no idea you felt so amiable toward him."

"He was a chauvinistic, thoughtless, selfish idiot. But he was also harmless, not to mention heavily publicized from the heavily public way you killed him."

"Judging from the warm exchange between the two of you yesterday evening, he was an idiot who suspected something about you. He was a danger to us."

"Don't be stupid, Hannibal. It doesn't suit you." Clarice watched him stiffen in anger, her eyes steely. "You didn't murder him to protect us. If you had, you would not have locked me out of your plans. If you had, you would have tucked the body away in some alley where he would never be found. Instead you hanged him from an opera box and spilled his intestines in the middle of the most popular theater in Paris. And don't think I can't tell that you fucked with his mind before killing him. I can see it in your eyes."

"And what do you see, Clarice, what do you see?" Hannibal walked forward and stopped with his face inches from hers. "What do you see in the eyes of this…murderer?"

She flinched but her voice was steady. "Ecstasy. Perverse delight from taking a man's worthless life."

Hannibal blinked and did not back away. "Do you mean to tell me that you didn't know what you were getting when you chose me?"

"No, Hannibal. I'm saying that you didn't when you chose me."

He recoiled as if she had struck him, moving barely an inch, but moving nevertheless. "What?" he whispered in disbelief.

"What did you think, doctor? That I was an adventurous girl who fell for the bad boy? That I had nothing better to do than throw away everything I had once believed?"

"From your behavior, I would hazard a guess that neither of those options are correct. So why don't you tell me, Clarice?"

She scoffed. "If I had to do that, then we wouldn't be here right now. You know as well as I do what it was. You revealed certain things to me, and I drew certain conclusions about myself from those things. And you know what they are, you know every time I look into your face, a face that had been the last thing so many people saw on earth, with nothing but desire in my eyes. No, there must have been something more for her to fall for the social outcast."

"You give society too much credit. We've been through this before, Clarice. You can't reduce me to a set of influences."

"Oh, I think I can. You forget, Hannibal, I know you better than anyone else in the world. Better even than you know yourself…You see, you're driven by the desire to possess. Ever since you failed to save your sister, you've been determined to regain what was lost to you through her death. So whether that means living in luxury for a picture-perfect life or possessing the flesh of those you feel unworthy to walk this earth…"

She saw his fingers beginning to tremble and took that as a sign to continue. "God failed you, and in doing so, he failed the world, so you took his place. How does it feel to spill someone's lifeblood upon the ground, my dear? How does it feel to determine whether someone lives or dies? You're a selfish man, Hannibal: educated and intelligent, but at heart a selfish man, nothing more.

"And what would Mischa say?" – her voice lowered to a cruel whisper – "What would your dear innocent sister say if she could see what you have become? And to know that she was responsible—"

"ENOUGH!"

A firestorm was raging in his eyes, and his right hand trembled even as it shot out and wrapped itself around her throat. The breath was harsh in his lungs and an intense roar filled his ears as he felt his pulse, swift and uncontrolled, racing through fingertips buried in her soft flesh.

Panic, fleeting and terrible in its intensity, seized her body and Clarice felt walls in her memory palace tremble and buckle under its weight. Then she was throwing herself against the wall, against the exit that was on the verge of caving in upon her. Her hands were clawing at the edges of the door – there was no knob – her nails were tearing from her fingers in her fury as the wood splintered beneath her assault. And when she at last had opened a human-sized hole, she stepped through, raising a trembling, bloodied hand to what lay beyond.

Dimly through his white-faced fury, Hannibal saw her hand rising and, with a cool and inexorable touch, pulling his fingers from her throat enough to allow her breath. With her other hand, she lifted his chin and forced him to look into her eyes.

"Do you remember…when we first met…" Her voice was perfectly controlled as she caressed the fingers that encircled her fragile neck, "…I asked you if you feared to point your high-powered perception at yourself. If you could…look at yourself and write down what you saw. You can't, Hannibal, you know you can't. That is what I do…I am your mirror and you are mine." She forced him to loosen his iron grip even more and reached one hand up to follow the curve of his rigid jaw.

"Do I frighten you, Hannibal?" Her voice was calm and unhurried as she caressed his cheek. "I hope I do. I hope to God I do."

They remained in their grotesque parody of an embrace for a moment, each searching for something, anything in the other's eyes that would explain this unbelievable situation. The grandfather clock chimed the quarter hour.

Hannibal discovered his hand beginning to shake and tighten once again around her, causing her skin to flush the faintest blue.

Then his fingers leaped from her throat as if they had been burned and he turned away from her, his face an unyielding stonewall crumbling underneath its own weight. He crossed the room swiftly and slammed the door of his study behind him.

Clarice stood in the middle of the parlor for an eternity. She then crossed the floor, lowering herself into a sofa. The horsehair upon the cushions pricked her skin through the fabric of her damp gown.

There was silence. A silence now that seemed louder than all the screams she had heard in her life. For the second time in less than twenty-four hours, she felt as if everything was closing in around her. She was once again in the dark barn, in the basement of the mental hospital, panic-stricken from the screams resounding around her…

She rubbed her throat and arms briskly to return feeling to them as her limbs shivered violently. She felt cold.

A noise was intruding.

She felt heavy, wrapped in layers of thick, suffocating wool, as if she had just awakened from an overlong nap, too brief for satisfaction and too long for comfort. A noise was intruding.

Her body could not stop trembling. Perhaps she could use something more to drink—

A noise was intruding.

Clarice started as she realized that someone had been knocking at the door for the better part of a minute. She opened the door to see Mariana quivering as much as she was, her hand poised to knock again.

"Madam…" she said in broken French, "I-I'm sorry, but there is a lady at the door for you."

Clarice took one look at the maid's frightened expression on her face. "Did you hear us?"

"I heard lou-loud noises, madam, but I was not nearby." She paused and gulped. "I-I will tell the caller that you are busy."

A layer of something fell from Clarice's expression, and she sighed, knowing that her strange appearance must be frightening the maid out of her wits.  "Nonsense, Mariana. Show her in."

The woman fidgeted. "Dare I ask—?"

"No." The icy façade returned to her face before softening as Mariana began to tremble again. "You have no need to worry for my welfare," Clarice said wearily. "I will be perfectly fine."

The maid bowed and closed the door quickly behind her. Clarice could hear her voice, muffled by the door. "Come in, mademoiselle Daae. The Duchess will be right with you."

Shit.

Could she pretend to be sick? No, she had already promised to receive her.

Too much was happening in one day…Too late, too late now, and no way to go but forward…

Clarice took a deep breath, attempting to calm her nerves. Her eyes flew once to the closed study door. There was only silence beyond it. A quick glance in the mirror told her that the red marks had faded from her neck, although there would be bruises in the morning.

She pushed the door open and walked into the hallway with her chin high and her expression cold.

Christine was sitting in the waiting room. She was wearing a blue dress with lace frill and a traveling cloak was thrown over the armrest of her chair. Clarice recognized it as the same one she had taken from the singer's dressing room that morning so long ago. Christine had not yet seen her and, as she watched, the young woman fidgeted with the folds of her dress, rolling them through her fingers as intently and nervously as she would a rosary.

"Christine?"

She started, a frightened look upon her face that did not diminish when she turned and saw Clarice. The older woman softened her expression, remembering that Christine had no reason to suspect anything.

"Madam," the young woman said, standing suddenly, "I have come to ask a – a favor."

"What is it?"

"I feel awkward asking this of you, but I have no one else to turn to. I apologize for taking you up on your offer of assistance so soon, I still feel I hardly know you but…" she was babbling now. She took a deep breath. "I need to borrow your husband's carriage."

"What for?"

"There—there is someone I need to see in the town of Perros-Guirec. And…I would prefer that neither of you said anything about this to Raoul."

"Is it true that the two of you are engaged then?"

The young woman's eyes flew open and Clarice nearly smiled at the transparency of her emotions. Another layer of something fell from her visage and she felt blood returning to her veins. "Never fear, mademoiselle. I am not a woman prone to gossip." Was that disappointment she heard in her own voice? Nonsense, the girl was perfectly free to choose whom she would…

"However," she continued, "would it not be more convenient then to ask for his assistance?"

"I…don't want to involve him. You see, I am out of money, and I don't want him worrying about me. Especially when he should just be happy."

"I see." Clarice frowned in thought. She saw Christine begin to fidget again, the fear visible once more in her face.

Clarice looked sadly at the young woman so eager to please and so frightened of disappointment. None of this should have happened to her. Eventually, she will break under the weight.

"A young girl should not be traveling to Brittany by herself," she said at last. "I will lend you the carriage if I may accompany you on your journey."

"Thank you, madam, that would be fine. Won't your husband be worried?"

Clarice clenched her jaw tightly, the memory of Hannibal's hands around her throat quickening her breaths. The need to escape from the house grew in intensity. "He will not be concerned," she said brusquely. "I journey frequently."

She walked to a nearby wardrobe and retrieved a scarf. There would be bruises on her neck by morning. Christine had already fastened her cloak. She opened the front door while asking, "Who is it you are visiting in Perros? It is a very small village." Christine's response nearly caused her to abandon her plans.

"My father."

Clarice's hand tightened upon the doorknob before she gave a curt nod. She stepped outside after Christine and shut the door. From behind the study door, there was only silence.

The midautumn sun was already setting when they set out from the de Londres estate. It shone blood-red in the sky, well past the point of no return, committed now to a steady journey downwards into night fraught with the chill of approaching winter.