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“He’s a monster. I think of him as one of those pitiful things that are born in hospitals from time to time. They feed it, and keep it warm, but they don’t put it on the machines and it dies. Lecter is the same way in his head, but he looks normal and nobody could tell.” — Will Graham, Red Dragon
“Eating her is honoring her. Otherwise it's just… murder.”— Garrett Jacob Hobbs, Potage
Will’s heart lurches. The corpse has long dark hair, a slim figure. She could be a reel life substitute for Abigail. Hannibal, standing off to the side, sees that. Hannibal, flint-eyed, sees everything.
The pendulum swings, heavy and harsh. Will bears its weight, the rafters of his mind creaking with the strain. Faintly, he hears a snapping, like of a violin string bowed too tautly.
The body is laid out on a mountain of landfill debris. Silver coats her tongue. Gold leaf, pressed into thin bracelets, encircles the pale dead skin — wrists, ankles, waist. The girl is too young for the Ripper’s usual taste.
I revere her. She meant something. I didn’t want to; I had to. Out with the weakness.
There’s a humming in his ears and his heartbeat is a relentless pound. Will inhabits the killer’s mind like it’s a second skin. The words flow forth of their own volition.
I remove the organs from the back to preserve her appearance. She is silver-tongued. The aesthetics are sublime. This is my design.
Jack is right, this time. It’s him. It’s the Chesapeake Ripper.
Will’s speaking before he recovers his breath, babbling, “It’s… it’s the Ripper all right.” Hannibal’s eyes are on him, steady, grounding. “This, this is a performance. It feels off, because it’s a stand-in. A representation of someone important. He wants to honor her. It’s an exhibition piece. It was deliberate. This is him wanting… to be seen.”
Hannibal is still looking at Will, head tilted like a robin — or a shrike. Will can’t stop the last of the words, “And… he knows me.” Just like that, Will’s mind feels like it’s imploding, like galaxies folding in on themselves, like self-immolating stars. He’s never wanted to be wrong so badly.
Will fights to keep it off his face, he really does. But the fort crumbles, as they always do, and he sees that his flicker of panic ignites an answer in Hannibal’s eyes. Call and response. Give a predator an inch of skin, it’ll shear it off and take more. Keep it down.
Will drops his eyes quickly, too quickly even for him. Stop, stop thinking, he’s chanting to himself. He knows I know. I know. Jack and the rest are still in the dark, so Hannibal won’t react outwardly. The Ripper doesn’t bare his teeth unless you’re as good as dead. Dead meat. Will shivers, and Jack tells him to get into Hannibal’s warm car.
On the drive back to Quantico, the shivers don’t stop. It doesn’t help that Will has pressed himself against the car window. Hannibal exits the highway on the pretext of finding a gas station. He parks behind a ramshackle building, switches the engine off.
Will radiates tension, despite being distantly, logically aware that Jack would figure it out if something happened to him. His breathing is loud in the confines of the car.
They stare at each other. Hannibal is as inscrutable as ever. Will gets one word out, “You—” before Hannibal clamps a hand over his mouth.
“Remarkable boy,” Hannibal says, “Don’t. Don’t say it.”
Hannibal bares his teeth and shifts forward so quickly Will thinks the Ripper’s about to bite his tongue off.
He’s wrong.
Hannibal grins against his lips, “Isn’t this much better?”
Will’s panic sputters and fades. I found out, and he’s grinning, he thinks incredulously. He doesn’t want to think beyond the soft pressure, the warmth of this car-cocoon. He closes his eyes.
The Ripper doesn’t bare his teeth unless you’re as good as dead. Dead meat.
There is one exception to that. When you’re his.
“His method was unique not only because of the sui generis circumstances that shaped it, but also because of the depravity it required, its vile manipulation of trust, and its gradual evolution, like the terrifying unfolding of a nightmare.” — Jorge Luis Borges, A Universal History of Iniquity