“You reek of the devil, witch.” Garrett Jacob Hobbs became his father, inhaling, shivering, sucking at his own teeth. “He’s reflected in your eyes, his scent lingering on your skin, and his mark is on your lips.”
There was no point in denying this. Will could breathe Hannibal in, still taste his kiss burning on his lips and tongue, mingled with the blood they’d spilt. Drink deep of the Great Red Dragon, of the life they’d savored while stealing it. The Dragon meant to ravish the Devil slowly of his life, but the Dragon had been no match for the Devil and his witch together. Now that witch felt more like a vampire, still feeling the rush of Francis Dolarhyde’s life, beating in his veins and temples.
“No,” he whispered. “If I cannot put an end to us, I must do something with this life. Something meaningful.”
“Still clinging to notions of good and evil, Will?” Tenderly Hannibal fed Bedelia Du Maurier morsels of her own leg, yet he kept his attention focused upon Will. “I thought you’d given them up for behaviorism. Or was that another lie?”
Bedelia gazed at him, pity, contempt, and anguish playing across her face. How lovely she looked in her evening gown, even though she’d tried to stab Hannibal with a fork twice right before Hannibal threatened to take her arms. He’d done the same to Abel Gideon. They were all prisoners of Hannibal Lecter’s dinner table. Bedelia couldn’t run because she was missing a leg. Will was tied to a chair, feeling as woozy as he’d been in Florence when Hannibal nearly sawed open his skull. Perhaps he’d try again. And then there was Francis Dolarhyde, only Francis was already dead.
Wait, if Francis Dolarhyde was dead, how could he be sitting at the table, silently at Bedelia’s other side? Was Will’s mind playing tricks upon him again? Only it had been the Great Red Dragon he and Hannibal Lecter took down, not Francis, but the Dragon had been wearing his flesh. Poor Francis, Francis who sat in a blazer and a clean dress shirt, politely listening to everything Hannibal said. Francis, who couldn’t go home to Reba any more than Will could go home to Molly and Walter.
No, Francis Dolarhyde wasn’t really here. Nor was Garrett Jacob Hobbs or Will’s father. A different man sat in their chair wearing a blazer and shirt, or was it a strange gown, a tapestry of skins which gave him the likeness of an androgynous goddess? Every once in a while, Will saw the pendulum drop, swing, clear away the skins to expose the man, the man who looked a lot like Jimmy Price.
Only this wasn’t Jimmy. This man wore a cold, inquisitive sneer which Will could remember ever being on Jimmy’s face. Not that he’d known Jimmy Price well. They’d just worked together, but Jimmy had talked about himself from time to time.
“My parents gave me a brother, a twin. Who wouldn’t want two of me?” Those words swam to the surface of his memories with the sharpness of a blow.
“Some notions are hard to shake, even if we no longer believe in them.” Will looked down at his plate. “We’re too accustomed to them.”
“Only too true,” Jimmy’s look alike said with surprisingly gravity right before he plunged his nails into his face.
Hannibal did nothing to stop him, simply observed the action with weary sympathy. “Poor Bill. He craves change as much as you shrink from it.”
“Will and Bill.” The man giggled as he bleed. He tried to wrap himself in the skin suit, but the goddess costume kept trying to crawl away. It had, after all, been made of insecure woman after insecure woman, chasing after illusions, something to worship themselves. “Perhaps you should have been my twin. Yours isn’t the face I want, though, pretty as it is. I crave something far more feminine.”
For a moment Will looked up from the table and met my eyes, making me aware of myself, that I’m watching this, dreaming this, imagining myself feeling what he’s feeling, just as he’s imagined himself as so many other people.
“Remember, Clarice,” Will said even as I woke, the table fading away. “Remember our faces. Remember what hides behind them.”
Sweating, I opened my ears, heard the soft grumble of Miriam’s snores beside me.
How could I? The faces were already starting to fade. I couldn’t dwell on images of what could be or might have been. I had to consider the future.
The scary part was my dream might have been a warning about my future, my subconscious trying to tell me what was to come.
Wish it would be a little clearer. I sniffed my own arm, only to breathe in the scent of the blood and roasting meats.
This was impossible. I was a vegetarian. I didn’t eat meat. How could I smell like this, smell like…like Will Graham had in the dream?
It had all been so vivid, but it was just a dream. How could I still be smelling it?
It was just one more mystery left in the wake of Will Graham since his disappearance, what many regarded as his death. Only he was starting to haunt me. I could almost hear his voice whispering, becoming a lamb’s bleat, mixed with so many other bleats.
I clapped my hands over my ears and tried to find sleep again without success.