"Jadestone Ripper," I declare, a righteous, bombastic testimony of my hard work and brilliant intellect. More accurate than Graham, less invasively dangerous than Lass; I am truly a superstar. Dr. Lecter smiles, bemused, and he looks down at his lap, something I've noticed he tends to do when he speaks to me. He focuses eye contact with almost anyone else, staring straight past their irises into the splotchy, vein-laced backing of their retina, but he tends to be less forward with me. Is this shyness? Or is he just tired from a long day of trying to be intimidating? His approval is all I care about, I'll state my curiosity some other day.
"A creative name. Did you bestow this title upon the murderer yourself?"
"Beverly thought of it, I figured it was clever. This is really interesting, if you think about it; so outdated, so impractical, but yet the murderer managed not to leave a trace. If he's so hellbent on killing, why would he do it with an obsidian blade? It's a give or take."
"Reformed religion often stubbornly maintains its roots in custom and tradition no matter how impractical, Ameya," he admonishes, his voice soothing my overexcited joy at finally impressing him, dragging a prey back to show it off, and he sighs as he threads fingers through his hair. The casual radiance of the gesture immediately etches a warmth that sews my arteries shut and play with my heart strings like a harp.
"I wouldn't call some mythology 'religion,'" I scoff, but he looks ahead, steady eyes perched on a steady visage.
"All religion could be decreed as mythos by an outsider. My faith in God is not understandable by you, nor anyone else: we all have a very personal relationship with Him. We interpret Him as we see best, and whether He be divided into any different celestial bodies, fused into one, merged into the aspects we can observe on Earth or even decreed as nonexistent, faith and an obsession with a life after death and a meaning to the life we hold now is what drives us to build cathedrals and burn the dead." He turns towards me, and I think I can envision his skull underneath his skin. "This killer is doing God's work; after all, if God intended for the victims to be spared, they wouldn't be dead, would they? It's a test—whether for you, or for me, or the killer, I can't say."
So his victims are to be treated like NPCs in a video game. That names my teeth clench and my jaw lock tight, and I nod hesitantly, feeling my fingers curl and my tailbone rub against the chair's cushion. I sit in his office, books lining the wall like paintings, open air space and cluttered knick-knacks to not look entirely sterile. I have the feeling that we're getting nowhere, and Dr. Lecter's prying into my subconscious isn't as unwanted as Will Graham's, but it's equally unpleasant. I want to pry him open like an oyster and find what meddlesome grains of unpleasant sand have coagulated within him to form a pearl.
"Adieu, then," I muse.
"With God," he translates, and I stand up faster than I meant to and say farewell, this time, in English.