CHAPTER NINE: Draught of Living Death

Nine Hours Later

Alana Bloom's P.O.V

The tape was already up, slicing off the house in a rope of yellow. What a strange colour, Alana thought. Yellow. Bright, like sunshine, but with none of the warmth. The blocked words scrawled across the tape like white lines flashing down a winding road.

Crime Scene. Do Not Enter. Crime Scene. Do Not Enter. Crime Scene. Do Not Enter.

Alana Bloom registered the words, felt them in the core of her like birthing pains, one long thought, as with the cord, circling about her head. Crime Scene. Do Not Enter. The officer tried to stop her at the gate. Reached for her, shouting.

"Ma'am, you can't go in there! Ma'am!"

But Alana ran. She ran, and slipped, and tripped, and ran again. Her feet hurt, stinging and burning… She'd forgotten her shoes, and the winter wind was shredding through her wool coat to prickle at her pyjamas, and-

The door was open, men in coverall suits dusting in the hallways, taking measurements of a bullet still stuck in the wall, blood on the… Blood on the floor, black in the low morning light. She stopped and stared. Gazed at the puddle. Ink. It could be ink. Nothing was wrong, just ink and-

"Shit… Alana, what the hell are you doing here? Come on, let's-"

Hands snatched her shoulders, pulling, yanking, jerking, like the sudden drop in her stomach, hauling her through the floorboards, taking her somewhere dark and deep and dire. She held true. She stood there, shoeless, staring at a puddle of black blood, telling herself it was just ink.

"Is that her blood… Jack… Tell me it isn't… Tell me this isn't…"

Crawford sighed, a calloused hand creeping down her arm, hand draping around her limp one dangling hopelessly at her side, desperate. Still, she stood and stared. She couldn't move, even if she wanted to. Mesmerized and hypnotized. It was just ink, and any second now, Hemlock would come racing down those wide beam stairs, laughing and smirking in the keen way she did, telling her this was one big joke and Alana would giggle and-

"Alana, please, let us leave and we can talk and-"

"I heard it on the news… The reporters said there was a police blockade at Willow Road slowing down traffic, and I… Hannibal's house is on Willow Road and I thought, no… No, it couldn't be, but I had to see. I had to come and see. Why have you sectioned off the road for spilled ink? It's just ink… Just ink…"

But it wasn't just spattered ink. It was never just ink.

"Alana-"

The abrupt rush of rage was like steam. Burning and uncatchable, and aimless in its target. It burned her, burned Jack, burned everything it touched. Alana didn't know when she turned to face Crawford, she didn't know when she started beating at his chest, pounding and wailing, or when the forensics' team glanced over hunched shoulder to watch, wide-eyed, but she heard that thought again.

Crime Scene. Do Not Enter.

"No! You promised me, Jack! You promised me she would be safe with Hannibal! You promised she would be okay away from me! You promised… You promised…"

Hands grabbed at her wrists, and she fought, and she spat, and she clawed and she, Alana Bloom, broke. It wasn't sorrow. It wasn't grief. It was unnameable. A blackhole in her gut, sucking in, devouring her, so heavy she could not stand up straight. There was blood on the floor, and this was a crime scene, and Hemlock wasn't going to come racing down the stairs.

"I know, Alana… I know."

Guilt, hot and fresh, skulked in Crawford's voice, his mouth nothing but a grim line burying in the stubble of his cheek, but that was all he said. I know. She slumped, helpless and hopeless, and utterly legless, as he wrapped an arm around her shoulder and began to walk them away, back out the house. She felt… Nothing.

Alana had never noticed how time was so much like water. A raindrop, a frozen lake, a rushing river. The clocks said it was something countable, constant, calculated in a tick and a tock. The clock lies, she thought. Everything was passing like raindrops caught in a wind, fragmented and glossy, as Crawford led her out the house. All the while, Alana felt absolutely nothing, her insides empty, steam gone, nothing there. A cavity patched together by flesh. A man in a white coverall met them on the steps, cutting off their route to Crawford's car.

"Sir, perhaps it would be best to take Dr Bloom down to the morgue. She can identify the two bodies we have in cold storage and-"

"Shut the fuck up before I rip your tongue out from between your teeth, kid. Got it?"

Jack didn't falter in his stride, even as the young man nodded sharply and darted away like a rabbit hopping across a road, eager not to be hit by the four by four truck it couldn't see speeding around the bend. Would its blood too look black on the asphalt?

"Bodies… Bodies, Jack? Please-"

Jack said nothing as they made it to the car, springing a door open and ushering Alana inside to the passage seat. He went to close the door, her hand shot out, overlapping his own, squeezing, frantic and hopeless, as his had been back in Hannibal's house. She met his dark eye, held it there, stole it.

"I need to know, Jack. What happened?"

He stared at her much like she had stared at the puddle of blood. She wondered if he was pondering too, if he saw a woman here, or whether he was sure she was just a fissure stitched together by tendon and muscle. His hand slipped from underneath her own, sighing anew. If Alana was steam, Jack was a spring gust, neither able to hold onto the air that made them real.

"We don't know. The security detail posted outside said they witness no fighting, no shouting, not so much as a rough wind yesterday. They saw Will Graham enter and then-"

"Will Graham was there? I thought he was meant to be isolating himself at home in case the copycat…"

In case the copycat came hunting.

Crime Scene. Do Not Enter.

A puddle of blood on the floor. A bullet wedged in a wall, a blackened shooting star across brick. Sometimes, words weren't enough. They could never capture sense of an image. They said a picture held a thousand words, and perhaps it did, perhaps that was for the best, because, there, then, seeing what she had, Alana was sure they also held a million more nightmares.

"Yeah, he was supposed to. God knows what the hell he was thinking, driving in the middle of the night to…"

Crawford trailed off.

"The bodies…"

The spring wind blew once more as Jack sighed. He ambled around the car, slid into the drivers seat, slammed the door shut as Alana closed her own and there they sat. He and her, staring out a dash window to a house surrounded by yellow tape, as bright as sunshine, as cold as death.

Silence. It was silent in the house, it was silent in the car, it was silent inside herself, and Alana couldn't escape it.

"I was first on the scene. Alana…"

He brought himself to look at her, eye to eye, mind to mind. She knew what was coming like the rabbit on the road, as Jack knew he promised to keep Hemlock safe, and they both knew, and they both dreaded, and they were both struck by the truck that came around the bend.

"It was Will and Hemlock."

Alana said nothing. There was nothing to say, as there is nothing inside her. Hollow. Numb. Cold. A little voice in the back of her mind tells her she's in shock, that she knows this too, that she had treated a thousand patients before for it. But it all meant nothing.

Nothing at all.

She turned back to the house, with its imposing shadow, clean lines and airy windows, and its fence of yellow tape.

"Hannibal?"

From the corner of her eye, she saw Jack shake his head.

"Missing. There's a lot of blood in the dining room… We think it's his. Forensics will tell us more in an hour or two."

She had the strangest thoughts then, staring at the house. Who was going to mow the lawn? Who would shut the curtains, come night? Who would walk Will's dogs? Who would finish the slice of cake Hemlock left in the fridge? They couldn't be gone. They couldn't. They all still had so much to do. A fishing trip not took, a diner party not prepared, one last sarcastic quip to give.

"Take me to the morgue."

"Alana, I don't think that's smart right now. You're in shock and-"

"Take me to the fucking morgue."

Silence and nothing. Nothing and silence. Then, a blink, a sigh, winter now, not spring, dead, the turn of a key and the roar of an engine. The car pulled away, down the road, and Alana watched the yellow tape disappear behind the bulk of police cars and forensic trucks.

What a strange colour, she thought.

Bright like sunshine, cold like death.

Nine Hours Ago…

Will Graham's P.O.V

"If I was you, Will, I would catch Hemlock before she drops."

Hannibal said as he pulled the tea towel off his shoulder and dusted off his hands, Will staring down the barrel of his gun, aimed right over his rising chest. There was no time to question what he meant, no time to fire a shot, as Hemlock lurched forward, pouncing, ready to strike and-

And fell, legs failing, knees crashing to the floor with a muted thud. She scuttled, floundered, bashed into the table beside her as she struggled to a stand, the teapot crashed to the hardwood, taking a teacup with it, smashing beside her faltering hand. Will's finger twitched on the trigger, though he dared not take the muzzle away from the man standing at the door.

"What the fuck have you… The tea… The fucking tea… You bastard… You…"

Hemlock struggled to a stand, took a step, fell again. Lower, crashing, collapsing. Hannibal tutted, folded his tea towel, laid it to rest on the back of a Chester chair. Will edged closer to her, feet braced, as the stick tumbled from her hand and rolled across the floor.

"Hemlock? Hemlock what's going on-"

Hemlock rolled, twitched, just as the fish on Will's line would flap as he reeled them in.

"The tea… The tea…"

The shattered teacup on the floor, the slurred speech, the loss of motor control…

"A trivial dose of flunitrazepam. Nothing more, I promise. She will be perfectly fine come morning."

Hannibal drawled, careless, voice soft like a lullaby. Will's hand quivered on his gun, sweat gathering at his brow, his own voice pitching with disbelief.

"You dosed her tea with rohypnol?"

Hannibal went to take a step forward, shiny leather shoe lifting from plush carpet, and the trembling in Will's fingers stopped. There was no time for fear, no time for shock, no time for hesitation. Only anger.

"Not another step, or I swear I will unload this clip."

Hannibal's foot deliberately and slowly fell back into place as a reverberating sigh trundled in the still air about them.

"It is for the best, at present, if we are to have a civilized conversation."

The chuckle that escaped the confines of Will's chest was something murky and mean. As murky and mean as Hannibal Lecter's eyes in the lamplight.

"You thought Hemlock would be out cold by the time I arrived. You weren't planning on us talking and finding out the truth."

Hannibal smiled, teeth flashing white, small and warm and predatory.

I see you now.

As Will saw Hemlock.

As he saw himself.

He saw it all, and he wanted to weep.

What a tragic trio they made.

"I will admit that was my original plan. I did not anticipate you deciding to kill Hemlock as quick as you did and arrive so early. However, I am… Glad it has turned out the way it has."

No, Hannibal couldn't do this. He couldn't turn it all around on him and-

"I wasn't going to kill Hem-"

"Then why do you have the gun, Will?"

It was a gentle question, a touch patronizing. The type of question you asked the kid with their hand still in the cookie jar.

Yet, how could Will argue?

His hand was in the proverbial cookie jar.

The gun was in his hand, not Hemlocks, not Hannibals, his, cold metal branding his palm, and Will was the only one armed-

The only one who had come armed.

Hemlock groaned from the floor, groggy and grainy like an old black and white film, still struggling, still grappling at the carpet she had plummeted on.

It was useless. The drug had stolen nearly all but consciousness from her.

"Don't turn this on us. I know what you did."

Hannibal's head cocked to the side, sleek and keen, like a viper momentarily confused by the little mouse that was nipping at its tail.

That's what this felt like.

Going against nature.

Against instinct.

Against everything that made the world turn.

Battling Hannibal was like watching a meerkat take on a lion. Seeing a tide roll backwards. Viewing sunrise at midnight.

"And what will you do, Will? Shoot me as you tried to shoot Hemlock? In the grand scheme of this evening, my drugging is inconsequential to attempted murder. I think-"

"Stop it! Get out of my head!"

Don't listen. Don't feel. Don't listen. Don't feel.

Pull the trigger. Pull the fucking trigger. Pull it. Pull it now!

Hannibal dared a step closer.

The gun wavered in Will's hand.

Why wasn't he firing? If he could just squeeze. Just one twitch of his index finger, one jolt…

"No. You came here tonight intent on murder, didn't you Will? You could not kill Hemlock, and so, now you turn the muzzle on me. Anybody will fill the need, the hunger, will they not? What if you fail with this bullet too? Will you go to the police stationed outside? A neighbour perhaps? Or will you try Hemlock again? Is this-"

"I said stop! You… You date rape drugged Hemlock and… And…"

Hannibal sighed woefully, long and winding.

Another step forward.

Another bullet not fired.

"You are only seeing half the picture, Will. You are turning a blind eye to what you know deep inside. I did what I must. Hemlock is… Special. You know this too. You've seen it. How she is able to be in two places at once. How she appears where and when, randomly, impossibly. How she knows things she shouldn't know, does things not feasible… You know. If we are to talk, I needed Hemlock in a… State conducive to her listening rather than fighting."

Will didn't fall for the trap, the snare of what Hemlock is or isn't, a ruse that, surely, would get them talking for hours. That's what Hannibal wanted. Hesitation. Diversion. Distraction to snatch the gun from his hand and-

No.

Instead, Will hit back.

I see you.

"Did you do what you must with Cassie Boyle too?"

A tick in Hannibal's jaw. The smallest of jumps in the muscle.

He didn't like that, Will knew.

He didn't like it at all.

"Yes. As you did with Garret Jacob Hobbs, and Hemlock with Marissa Schurr. It seems we've all been a little… naughty."

Naughty?

Naughty like a child refusing to eat their greens?

Naughty like that last one more glass of wine on a Tuesday evening?

Naughty like unloading a clip into the chest of a serial killer because you simply couldn't stop, and naughty like slicing and stitching a girl up to get your point across.

That, Will thought, was slightly passed naughty.

It was fucking deranged.

And still, still, Will could only argue, the child holding their breath in a tantrum, going blue in the face.

"What I did was nothing like Hemlock or you or-"

Hannibal sighed long and low.

"There is no one left in this room to lie to apart from yourself, Will. Are you going to continue, or can we move onto something productive?"

Will fell silent. Breathless. He was lying. He was always lying. Lying when he said it didn't feel good to catch another killer. Lying when he said it wasn't something thrilling to see as Garret Jacob Hobbs fell to the linoleum with a swiss cheese chest. Lying when he said he wasn't like them.

Never like them.

Because…

Because he was. Deep down, deep below, he was… And that terrified Will Graham. It was if he had been the only man in the entire world who knew how to play chess, and then, one day, Hemlock had walked in with her own checkered board and check mated him in a single move, and Hannibal had slithered in from the shadows, set up a new game, redrew the lines, bemoaning their uncouth moves and strategies.

What do you do when you can finally play chess with someone not yourself?

Hannibal saw his moment, took a step forward, and Will shot.

The bullet fired behind him, over Hannibal's broad shoulder, out the open door at his back and lodging in the foyer wall.

A warning that saw Hannibal, anew, halt in his advance.

The giant of a man did not even flinch.

Just a pause.

A delectable, oh, that happened.

"I'm not going to let you hurt her."

Hannibal smiled, and Hannibal nodded, as if this was nothing less than what he expected, what he wanted. Will hated him then, this man, hated him so much there was a fire in his belly, scouring through his veins, burning him from the inside out.

Or that was Hemlock.

Will wasn't sure anymore, where one of them ended and the other began, and what a tangled, grotesque mess they made.

"You know I am not going to, as you know you will not truly shoot me. As Hemlock could not kill either of us. So, either put the gun down, Will, and help me pick Hemlock up and place her on the sofa, or straighten your aim and continue living as you always have. Alone."

Another step, Will's finger tightened. Another step, it twitched. Another step, Hannibal's hand rose, laying on the barrel and, and, and-

The gun lowered.

Will lowered his gun.

Just like that, like a heart dropping, like a star falling, like a breath out from a quaking chest.

Hannibal's smile grew, tooth and nail and snake.

Will felt like sobbing.

He felt like laughing.

He felt so many things unnameable things, unknowable things, dark, dank things.

Hannibal's hand slipped from the muzzle of the gun, and still it stayed low, hanging uselessly at Will's side.

Check mate.

"Good, now, pass me the rope from that desk over there. We should secure Hemlock before she awakes."

Will couldn't think straight. Hannibal's voice was in his head, coaxing, but Hemlock's voice was in his bones, furrowed like scars, urging him to fight back if only to fight at all.

"I thought you said she wouldn't kill us?"

Hannibal chuckled.

"Kill? Oh, no. She will not kill… but, in her anger and sense of betrayal, Hemlock is spiteful enough to maim. I prefer having all of my limbs as they are, as I assume you do too. I do not know how long the drug will last for her kind, I was shocked it worked at all after she didn't show signs after the first hour, and she could awaken soon. The rope, Will."

Hannibal bent down, over Hemlock, and if Will was going to act, going to strike, it was now, with that broad back to him.

And he didn't.

Will didn't so much as shuffle.

He only stood and watched, watched as Hannibal carefully plucked up the stick she had dropped, as Hemlock groaned in her heap of curl and green eye, sagging, mumbling, words slurred and garbled.

"Mischa in a bathtub… Seven rings for seven devils… I feel sick… Hannibal…"

Hannibal froze at the words, a momentary glitch, before he gently brushed back her hair from her face.

Will could see she was sweating, fighting, losing.

As he had.

"Sleep. All is well."

Will went and got the rope.

What do you do when you can finally play chess with someone not yourself?

Do you flip the board?

No.

Do you burn down the pieces?

No.

You play.

Will was tired of lying.

The game was set.

Eight Hours Later…

Alana Bloom's P.O.V

"I'm sorry, Alana. I tried-"

Alana stared long and hard at the bodies before her, pale in the florescent light on their steel tables, white as the sheets covering their modesty. Side by side, Will Graham and Hemlock Potter lay beside one another, milky eyes staring above to worlds unseen.

They looked peaceful here.

Together.

Perhaps the most peaceful they had ever felt, with their dreadful gifts.

"Leave."

Crawford sighed.

It sounded pained.

Alana hoped it was.

She hoped he felt this as much as she did.

Alana was in no mood for apologies, explanations, long winded condolences.

She just wanted to see her niece, one last time.

She just wanted to know why.

She just wanted to know how it had all come down to this, right here, two bodies in a morgue and one missing.

If she knew that, perhaps she could find the place it all went so terribly wrong. The delivery boy? The first meeting in Jack's office? Or before all that, the moment Alana signed to be Hemlock's guardian and this, all this, was coming from that one little signature?

Crawford's boots thunked on the tile as he left the room, steps heavy with, perhaps, guilt.

Alana hoped he drowned on it.

She hoped it dragged him down into the dark.

She hoped-

She hoped it took her too.

Her hands fiddled with her handbag.

She was dressed now, clean and clear, and she was wrecked inside.

Something in the bag crinkled.

Alana opened the flap, pulled the folded bit of paper out. The words blurred from the tears in her eyes.

Yet, she saw the name on the bottom.

Hannibal was missing.

Will was dead.

Hemlock was dead.

There was no one…

Perhaps one, just one, who seemed to know too much of killers, these killers, these copycats and King Cobra's, for it had to be one of them to slay her niece like this, and perhaps, just maybe, he would know why. He would know how. He would know how Alana could find these bastards and see them bathed white too.

Her watery gaze flickered down the article, to the name etched across the bottom.

Todd Miler.

The guest crime correspondent of the Minnesota Herald.

Alana Bloom turned and left the morgue.

She didn't look back.

Eight Hours Earlier…

Will's P.O.V

Will was staring out from the side table of the dining room, the room Hannibal had chosen, the room he had laid Hemlock out in like a buffet, across the decadent table, slack rope wrapped around wrist and ankle and down to table leg.

Hannibal stood beside her shoulder, as close as the table allowed, whispering down to the dazed girl.

"Do you remember what I said after my trip to Copenhagen?"

Her head lolled, rolling like a wave, battling to get back on shore, to make sense.

Hemlock didn't make it. The drugs inside still pumping confusion through stomach and brain.

Even here, she still fought.

Maybe because that was all she ever knew how to do.

Fight.

It's as beautiful as it was infuriating.

"Cycles…"

The word hangs limp, smeared, but her tongue was getting faster.

Hannibal was running out of time to plead his case.

The executioner was awakening.

Will could almost hear the grind of the axe on the head block.

"Yes, cycles. And what did I say about your cycle, Hemlock?"

Her head rolled back, face to face for the first time. Her perception was clearing, though her pupils were blown black.

"Break it."

Hannibal smiled.

"Yes, that's right. Break it. Change what you could not back then. Break free. It is the only way."

She weakly met Hannibal's eye, tugged on a wrist. It got no higher than an inch before it crashed back down, rope pulling taunt.

"I'll… Break… You… Snap… Neck…"

Was either of them expecting a different answer?

Hemlock was stubborn, even drugged out her mind.

Will, even here, even now, loved her for it.

Nevertheless, she turned like the sea, rolling, tossing, and as she faced him, not Hannibal, him, there was something there through the fog.

Pain.

A wounded animal.

A cornered lion.

"Why…"

Hannibal shuffled.

"I told you once, Hemlock. Everybody craves connection. Everybody yearns for understanding. Humans, your kind included, do not exist in an isolated world."

It took her a while to answer, not once letting her gaze slip from Will in the shaded corner.

"Not… You…"

Will swallowed.

It felt like tiny knives slipping down his throat.

Why?

Did she not already know?

"You said it yourself, once. Remember? Taco bell on a Tuesday? You buy one, you get the other two free, whether you want them or not… Whether we want it or not."

Hannibal did what he did best.

Slipped in through the cracks.

"See, Hemlock? There's a link there. Are you really going to destroy it in fear?"

She was silent, lingering, and just as Will though she was passing out again Hemlock laughed.

Hot, dazed, loud.

"Wrong… Wrong… I was… Wrong…"

She tried to look up, neck weak-

"You're… Not… Tom… I'm Not Tom…"

And just like that, the sands on shore shifted.

The laughter changed, no longer slow and garbled, pebbled rockeries, but fluid, easy, coherent.

And then, like a cobra, she struck.

She blinked.

Pupils pinpricked.

Alert.

She was up, sitting straight, looking Will dead in the eye, no slurred speech, ropes somehow, some fucking way, vanishing from her flesh.

"It really was him all along."

She was up, lunging, Will reached for his gun on his belt, but her stick was somehow soaring through the air, into her open hand, Hannibal diving back, but a bright light flooded the room and-

Bang.

Five Hours Later

Alana Bloom's P.O.V

Alana knocked on the door. Three beats later, it opened.

The man that greeted her was… Well, he was not what she was expecting. Not exactly journalist material. No. He looked like… Well, a businessman. Cashmere sweater, black slacks, black shoes, black hair, devastatingly beautiful.

He smiled and it was keen and charming, and as cold as his pale blue eyes.

"Hello, how may I help you?"

He was British.

She had not anticipated that, either.

Yet perhaps that was how he knew so much about Hemlock, knew exactly what to print in his article. Maybe, just maybe, he knew exactly what she needed to know too.

Alana shuffled on the porch.

"Todd Miler?"

The man nodded, precise, a tip and tilt of a strong chin.

"I am doctor Alana Bloom. I was wondering if I could take a few seconds of your time?"

He did not slam the door in her face, not like a lot of journalist would if confronted with a family member of their work. In fact, he smiled wider, harder, and swung the door open for her to enter, voice low and slick and elegant.

"Ah, I was wondering when I would see you. Come in and have a seat. I am sure you have a lot of questions."

Alana did.

Oh, boy, did she.

And so she stepped in on Mary-Jane heels, through the dark doorway, and the man, this Todd, grinned and shut the door with a click.

Seven Hours Earlier

Will's P.O.V

"Hemlock, you don't want to do this."

Hannibal spoke from the kitchen floor, stooped by the refrigerator. Their limbs were bound, stuck to their side by some unseen force-

Hemlock is special. You know this.

Yes, Will thought.

He knew this now.

Hemlock herself stood at the kitchen island, were Hannibal had left their dinner, primed and ready, cold and congealed now. She was fiddling with the knives, pulling one free to glint underneath the light, before shaking her head and sliding it home.

Another knife.

Wrong glint.

Home it went.

"That's where you're wrong, doc. I do. I really do."

Hannibal tried to sit, but it was useless.

Whatever Hemlock could control, whatever those bright lights caused, there was no simply wiggling out of it.

"Did the rohypnol work at all, or were you merely acting?"

Finally, Hemlock must have found a knife she quite liked but the little flip she gave it, testing out its weight in her palm, smiling at the glint.

Will nearly laughed.

A filleting knife.

Of course Hemlock would choose a fucking filleting knife.

"I thought it was Valium in the beginning you know. I saw you slip it into the tea pot. A little yellow pill. I thought, now, what would my therapist be doing trying to drug me? But even then I thought you were only working in shades of grey, Hannibal. I thought you believed if you could calm me down after such a horrible, I might be able to sleep. How nice, I thought. I better play along. Hannibal doesn't need to know muggle drugs don't work on my kind. But then you came in after I talked to Will, smiling smugly, and it clicked. You wanted me out for the count. I saw my opening. I took it."

She came around the kitchen island slowly, twisting knife through fingers, playing with death.

"I know you Hannibal. You're arrogant. You wouldn't let slip around me. You knew I'd be watching your steps. However, if you thought I was incapacitated, and Will here was all alone for you to drip your poison in…"

Hannibal smiled.

"Then I would spill my little secrets."

She laughed and pointed the tip of the knife at Hannibal's throat. A hair breadth away.

"Bingo! So I played being the drugged-damsel. I did quite the good job, didn't I? Even magic'd my pupils blown and some sweat for a bit of sparkle. You have to pay attention to the small details when being watched by a doctor of all things."

Hannibal nodded, looking almost proud, but there was no need.

Hemlock had already turned her attention on Will, crouching down on to sit eye to eye with his stiff, unmoveable form.

"But I didn't see you coming from a mile off. Harmless Will… Not so harmless. The wolf in the sheep's skin. You duped me. You duped me real good."

Will did not try and refute this.

He'd been duping himself for as many years.

The man who convinced himself into believing himself innocuous.

Was there anything more dangerous?

Yes, possibly… Hemlock with a filleting knife came pretty damn close.

"So what now, Hemlock? Are you going to kill us? Put us on display?"

She-

Well, she snarled at him, lip curled, and stood.

"You still don't see yet, do you? Neither of you see…"

Gradually she regarded them both in a sweeping glance.

"One board, three players… Four sets of pieces. The maths doesn't add up."

Will blinked.

"Hemlock…"

But she was down again, eye to eye, moving, twirling, mind running over and around and deep.

"It doesn't make sense, does it? I told Hannibal about my aunt and uncle in our session, sure, but I never told him where the fuck they lived. It wasn't in my file either. And it's funny, isn't it? You, Will, went missing for three days after Cassie Boyle, just enough time for me to think you the copycat. Freddie Lounds… How did she know to go to Nicholas Boyle? Who pointed her in the right direction? Out of all the art museums in Baltimore, why did Hannibal take me to the one fucking place with the piece on a Dog, something I would never overlook?"

Will squinted to Hannibal.

It was the wrong thing to do.

Hemlock broke.

"These are not rhetorical fucking questions here! Answer me!"

Hannibal responded first.

"A patient of mine left a brochure at my office on the museum. I saw it as I was cleaning for the evening. I knew you were quite fond of dogs, and the brochure contained an image of the work, and so I decided. As for your aunt and uncle…"

Even at knife point, Hannibal seemingly didn't want to give away all his surprises, but he did, in the end, through clenched teeth.

"I found a journalist who was writing a piece on you. He knew you from Britain. He was quite accommodating once I told him that I was your therapist and needed to speak to your family about your history to perform an adequate diagnosis."

The knife tip swung to Will.

"I was adopting Bonny. I saw a man outside in the woods, about to abandon her. He said he could not handle the needs of a disabled dog. I told him to give her to me. He did. It took me a few days to acclimatize her to the rest of the dogs, to her new home."

The knife pulled back, and laughter flooded out.

"A man just so happens to be outside your property, dumping something only you would come and take from him, out of all the fields and woods of rivers and animal shelters in Baltimore, and you don't think that's strange? A brochure is left behind just where you need it to be, and this isn't odd? A man who seemingly knows everything about me, my history, something closely guarded and only a select few can possibly know, and he just tells it all to a man on his doorstep claiming to be a therapist?"

Hemlock stood, and she paced.

Seven right.

Seven left.

Seven right.

Seven left.

"What did he look like, the patient who left the brochure?"

Hannibal's mouth opened… And closed.

"I can't quite remember now that I look back."

Faster. Seven. Seven. Seven.

"And the man who abandoned the dog outside your home?"

Will groaned. Whatever was keeping his limbs stiff was pressing tighter, like the coiled body of a snake.

"Pale. Black hair. Black clothes. Everything black… Apart from his eyes. A startling blue."

Faster, only… Only Hemlock was not the only one hooked by the description. Hannibal's head craned left, eyeing Will at his side.

"The journalist wore all black too."

Hemlock stood frozen.

No movement.

No breath.

Her hands shook terribly at her sides.

"His… His name… The journalists name?"

Hannibal frowned.

"Todd Miler."

Clank.

The knife fell to the tiles.

Four Hours Later

Alana Bloom's P.O.V

The house was immaculate, from kitchen tile to windowsill, every book, coaster, throw and utensil had a place, a home, a gleaming place. Alana Bloom sat within all this finery, at the kitchen isle, with a warm cup of tea clasped between her trembling hands, and did what any psychologist did.

Analysed.

"Are you married, Mr. Miler?"

The man, tall, six-foot two of sharp angled pleasantry, smiled gently as he poured his own cup of earl grey, steam rising to tickle his emerald tie.

"No, Miss Bloom."

Alana did not correct his mistake, did not insist on it's doctor, as she typically would. Instead she was caught by the house.

Two cups.

Two forks, two spoons, two knives, two tea strainers on the draining board.

Two seats at the kitchen isle.

Two bowls and two plates and two saucers Alana had seen in the cupboard as Mr. Miler retrieved the old-style countertop kettle.

Two of everything.

"Oh, I just assumed… Two of everything typically involves married couples."

The smile dimpled in the corner as dark liquid filled the teacup.

A pale slice of lemon waiting on the edge.

"I have a… Companion, you would call it. She's currently busy playing with her toys. She'll be home soon."

Toys? An engineer of some kind then. Perhaps even an architect. This house, so polished, so perfectly ordered, seemed to be a designer's frenzied dream.

"Do you miss her? Your companion?"

Blue eyes pierced through the steam. Todd Miler dipped in his pale slice of lemon.

"Terribly."

Alana took a sip of her drink, to ready herself possibly, to swallow down the sincerity in the stranger's voice suddenly there, conceivably. By the time her cup lowered, she had gathered herself.

"Then you must know why I am here. My niece… She's… The things we do for those we love. You know her, my niece."

The man finally sat, and even this passage from one place to another was smooth, slick, precise.

"Hemlock Potter. I know her, yes. I dare say there is no one else who knows her better."

Alana's hands stiffened on the teacup, fingers strangling porcelain. She wanted to say it was false. She knew Hemlock better, best. She was her aunt, and-

And did she really know Hemlock at all?

She had been murde-

She had been… And Alana was here, at a stranger's kitchen table, lost for what to do next.

"She's… Hemlock… I need to know who would hurt her. You appeared to know a lot about her past in your article. I need to know what you know."

The man dared another sip, long and slow and deliberate.

Everything about him was deliberate.

"Who would hurt Hemlock Potter, you ask? Who other but Hemlock herself. She's so incredibly fond of cutting her nose off to spite her face. Horrible habit, truly. She'll never grow out of it. Not quite like how I did."

He laughed as if it were a joke.

A joke Alana was too stupid to see.

So he did know her then? On some personal level, he knew Hemlock enough to know how dogged she was.

"She's dead."

Alana grappled the sob in her chest and shoved it down gravely.

"My niece… Hemlock is dead."

The man-

The man didn't seem surprised.

Not shocked.

Not alarmed.

Not fearful.

He-

He smiled that damned, dangerous smile.

"Is she now?"

He chuckled deeply, the sound of tectonic plates moving underfoot. His gaze, that cold blue eye, flickered to the window, to the rising sun.

"She's figured it out then. Smart girl, my Hemlock."

Alana blinked, frowned, struggled for… For something to say.

"Excuse me?"

The man did not look to her, only waved a nimble, pale hand as if he was batting away a annoying fly.

"Took her entirely too long, however. She knows how impatient I am. I suppose it can't be helped."

He shoved the cup of tea away from himself, fine china screaming.

"She's gone and gotten entirely too distracted by those pair of… Well. She has always liked her broken toys, hasn't she? Perfect entertainment, if I do say so myself, pushing them in her way. Gave me just enough time to get my strength back. However, she's become wholly too transfixed on them, the good doctor and the unstable hermit. I thought she would have finished her games by now and be done with it all."

Alana slipped from her chair onto unstable feet.

"I think I left my phone in-"

The man was up in a blink, one moment behind the counter, another in front, beside Alana.

Alana tumbled back in shock, fell, skidding on cold tile. She scuttled.

The man chuckled, edged closer, step by step by step.

"Hemlock's not dead, dear Alana. She's playing dead. Trying to lure me away from here, from you and Crawford and all her little friends, to lure me out. It would have worked too I will admit, if you had not come knocking. Tut-tut, aunty Bloom. You've been very wicked."

Alana glanced over her shoulder, spotted the open door, wrestled to a stand on fragile limbs.

"I have no idea what you are insinuating but I-"

She went to run, swivelled, heels squealing, sprinted for the kitchen door.

It slammed shut.

The man, the smiling, beautiful man, propped a shoulder against it, leaning.

How could he have-

"It's ever so rude to leave without finishing your tea."

Alana chocked on her tears.

"Please, just let me-"

He stepped forward.

She stepped back.

"I… You're… I know you."

And she did, Alana thought.

There was something in his face, the glass cut of his jaw, the slope of his nose, the way he cocked a dark brow-

She knew that face… She had seen it somewhere before… Perhaps softer, perhaps younger… She knew-

But there was fog too. Like something outside was seeping in through her pores, muddying her mind, telling her not to see, don't see, never see.

The voice sounded awfully like Todd Miler.

"I should hope you would. You know, I have a question for you too, Miss Bloom."

A stick was in his hand.

Dark.

Nobbled.

Like the one Hemlock kept in her hair.

"I wonder if you scream like you sister Lily screamed?"

Four Hours Earlier

Will Graham's P.O.V

"Hemlock…"

No answer.

She simply stood there, in the middle of the kitchen, barely breathing.

"Hemlock?"

Will dared a movement, a stand, waiting for the viper to strike.

Hemlock did nothing.

Just stood and stared.

Hannibal moved behind him, a spectre, alert.

Nothing.

Hannibal moved closer.

Placed a hand upon her shoulder.

Nothing.

"Hemlock?"

She blinked at the soft voice, sucked in a quivering breath through flared nostrils.

"I… I felt him. I did. I thought it was you… The copycat… I felt him and pushed it down and… and… It was a nightmare… A wish… Not real… Not here… Todd Miler… Miler Todd… Todd… Miler…"

She turned listlessly, met Hannibal's dark gaze, and she laughed brokenly.

"It's a fuckin' anagram. It's always a fuckin' anagram."

Anagram?

Toddler?

Mildred?

Loiter?

Lorded?

Merlot?

Riddler-

…

Todd Miler.

Tom Riddle.

Four Hours Earlier

Will Graham's P.O.V

Hemlock sat on the couch alone. Limp. Lifeless.

"He's dead. I saw it myself. I did it. I killed him. I watched him burn."

It was the only thing she had said for the last hour.

He's dead.

Dear, darling, dead Tom Riddle.

Tom Riddle who had been pulling strings from the shadows and gravestones.

There was a stab in the bottom of Will's gut. A twisting knot that felt a little like envy. It wasn't, of course. It couldn't be. Only confusion. Confusion and worry. He came before her, kneeled, laid a hand upon her bare knee.

"Are you sure, Hemlock?"

Her gaze snapped to his, green lost in something dark and dusky.

"Of course not, Will. It's Tom."

She said it as if that was enough.

He's Tom.

He can do anything.

A twist and a yank, and no, just confusion.

It was.

"If it is Riddle, Hemlock, what would he do next?"

Hannibal was behind the pair, behind the couch, hand slinking to pat at Hemlock's shoulder.

She frowned, thought, and she was back, Will could see, back to her comet thoughts hurtling through the sky faster than light.

"He's playing at the moment. Testing the waters. Seeing if I could figure it all out yet, left just enough breadcrumbs for me to follow back to the gingerbread house and the oven he wants me in. Follow the sweet stuff back home, dear girl."

Will's own mind churned.

"It's a test… He wanted you distracted. Put all the pieces in your way and you… You've gone and gotten lost in the woods. Decided to have a tea party with the big bad wolf and the mad hatter. Forgot all about him… He's not going to like that."

A hand on knee, a hand on shoulder, a chain linking, connecting, combining.

"He'll come for you and Hannibal. Not straight away. That's too obvious. Tom likes the long games. He'll wait… Nibble on the appetizers. On Beverlys and Crawfords and Alanas."

Skin hot beneath his fingertips.

"Or he'll make them come to him. The spider doesn't chase after the flies, it waits on its web."

Hemlock folded forward, closer, so close Will could kiss her, eyes alight with fire.

"Then that's what we'll do. We'll tug the web."

Will frowned.

"Hemlock?"

"If we die this night, right here, right now… Alana would be terribly upset."

Die?

Yet, Hannibal was smiling.

"She would go searching for answers. Answers that would lead her, as it did me, straight to Todd Miler."

Will's head cocked.

"But if Tom is as smart as you say, he'll see through it."

Hemlock grasped his hand on her knee, threading her fingers.

"That doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if Tom knows I know… He'll simply believe I killed you both, likely what he had planned for me since the beginning, and faked my own death to hide my trail, pinning everything on this 'copycat' killer. He'll think I'm running…"

Hannibal nodded.

"He'll think you're alone."

Hemlock faltered.

"I will be alone. You two will go into hiding somewhere else. Italy or France or-"

"Taco bell."

Hemlock stalled at Will's voice. He didn't need to clarify. She knew. He knew. Hannibal knew.

No more lying.

All three or none.

Hemlock dipped her chin.

"Taco bell."

Hannibal hummed.

"And once Riddle catches up?"

Are you going to break the cycle?

Hemlock shook her head.

"Then I… Then I talk to him, and I see. That's all I can give right now."

Will squeezed the hand in his grip.

"One problem. Won't he kill Alana if she goes near him?"

Hemlock chuckled darkly.

"No. Tom won't waste an opportunity like that. He might… Rough her up a bit, but kill? No… Not without me there to watch. Crawford won't be offered the same gift. I need to get Tom away from this place… Away from all the collateral."

Her jaw rolled.

"I know where to lead him to."

Hannibal's hand slipped from her shoulder.

"Then shall we begin?"

Will sees it now.

The four horsemen.

He sees it so clearly. A hill of bone and ash and wilted poppies.

The sound of hooves stomping.

Famine with Hannibal's smile.

War with Hemlock's eyes.

Pestilence with Will's curls.

Death with the mind of a Riddle.

Nothing's ever looked so beautiful.

Three Hours Earlier

Will Graham's P.O.V

The overhead lights of the highway flickered like shooting stars.

The sun was cresting over the slope of trees to Will's left.

A new day was dawning.

Hannibal sat in the passenger seat, tapping away on a mobile.

"What is the destination, Hemlock?"

Her head peeked through the two seats.

"Gatwick Airport, England. It's the closest to Godric's Hollow. Tom will follow me there."

Will's hands stretched on the steering wheel.

Dried blood ran red slithers underneath his short-bitten nails.

Dried blood from the two police officers who had been stationed outside Hannibal's home to watch for the Copycat… Now laying in the foyer with Will's and Hemlock's faces.

He could still hear the gunshot he had fired.

Could still see how he had been there, on the floor, dead.

Magic, Hemlock called it.

Just magic.

As if anything like that could be just something.

As if he had not just killed two men and felt…

Well, excitement.

It was okay, Hemlock had said, and smiled at him warmly.

One was touching kids and the other had killed a man and gotten off on a technicality eight years ago.

No one would miss them for long.

How she knew that-

Hemlock.

She was Hemlock, and she was special, and Will had killed two men that night.

There really was no going back.

Worst, or perhaps best, of all, he… He didn't want to.

"Our plane leaves in three hours. We're booked in as the Kubrik family."

Hemlock rested her chin on his shoulder, staring out at the winding road ahead.

"Tom will think I've hidden Hannibal's body to keep the police busy. He'll know mine is a fake, and I'm hoping he won't go looking deeper into Will's."

Will took a left.

"And if he does?"

He felt her smile against his shoulder.

"Then he's in for a nasty surprise."

Thoughts?

*appears out of nowhere and drops this on your lap, acting as if a whole ass year hasn't passed* Surprise! Now, wait, hold on, I know it's been forever, and most of you thought this fic was dead, but…

Something is something, right?

I really am sorry for the terrible wait. I wanted this chapter perfect, or as close to it as I could, because this right here was where everything was leading to, the big bang, and I wanted it to hit just right. Not really an excuse for a whole fucking year lol, but I wanted you to know I am thankful for all the reviews, follows and favourites this fic has gotten, and I haven't forgotten about it or you lovely readers waiting for a sign of life.

I did say, also, that the four horsemen thing would come swinging back lol. Some of you picked up on it, and the anagram in last chapter, and it had me cackling. I really can't sneak anything passed you guys.

I hope this was worth the wait, at least in part, and things begin rolling, really rolling, especially in the romance department, from this point. Which means, in short, smut is coming. Smut and blood.

Tom's here now, and that means bloody chaos lol, and I also hope you will also like how I portray him in this fic.

As always, thank you all so much, and I hope you had fun this chapter!