Chapter Text
The room was full of people; noisy, busy, moving like a hive. Before him was the table, long, dark wood. Upon it was the body, Melinda Inman was her name, not a body, a person. Closing his eyes didn’t help. Christ, I can’t hear myself think. The hand he raised to rub at his aching right temple was shaking.
“Jack? Jack.”
Will Graham turned to find the man he had asked for standing against the wall, eyebrow raised and phone at his ear. Jack caught his eye and raised his hand, one finger up. Will ground his teeth and tried to reign his anger in tight.
“You asked me here, Crawford,” Will muttered loudly, “will you get everyone the hell out of here..?”
“I want them by one o’clock,” Jack was speaking into the phone, trying his best to ignore everything Will said, “no later, understand?”
“Jack I swear to god...”
“Good, that’s what I wanted to hear,” suddenly the man smiled, hanging up as the coroners walked in.
“Don’t even think about it!” Will snapped at the two men, making them stop short; he looked to Jack and didn’t care that his stare was clearly murderous, “if you let them in to mess with the scene then you let me the hell out. I’ve seen enough,” Will felt his voice break as he swallowed, blinking, “I’ve seen enough of this shit in my life, I don’t need any more of it in my fucking skull. Do you want my help or not? Because if not then all you’ve done is serve me up a plate of nightmares for the week.”
There was a moment of silence, only ruined by the feet and murmur of the crime scene analysts working the house. Eventually Crawford stood up, pocketed his phone and nodded to the coroners.
“Give us a minute, will you boys?” the coroners left looking uncertain, and Jack closed the door after them, “Good enough?”
“Not good enough,” Will said, “and you know it. I want everyone out.”
“Everyone huh?”
“Including you,” Will crossed his arms and couldn’t help feeling huddled in; his nerves were jangling like sleigh bells, “I can’t have anyone near. You’ll screw with my methods.”
“Remind me,” Crawford narrowed his eyes, “just how that works again?”
“Fuck you, that’s how it works,” Will responded flatly; when Crawford opened his mouth with a frown Will leapt in, “don’t start you son of a bitch. You brought me here, you asked me to help. I’m helping. But don’t expect special fucking treatment, understand?”
It was easy to be nasty. Will knew nasty. Nasty was familiar, nasty was an old friend. Just like Crawford, only nasty was easier to deal with. Finally Jack cracked, smiling once more. He opened the door and was half way out before he turned back.
“You haven’t changed a bit, have you,” he said.
“Not an iota, now get everyone out. I mean it Jack, you know the rules you’re only getting one shot at this.”
Crawford nodded, his smile fading to a look Will knew well. Resigned . The door closed behind him and Will stood stock still, listening. He could feel the house loosing its tight grip on the truth as each pair of feet and camera flash and analysis instrument was trotted out the front door. After five minutes Will walked over to the window, a large bay window, facing west, it would have caught the sun in the evening, and closed the curtains. They slid with ease, making a pleasant scraping sound.
“Ok,” he said to himself, taking a deep breath, “ok.”
Turning to face the table, Will let the pendulum swing.
Once.
It had started at the door . Will walked steadily to the door Crawford had left minutes before and looked down. There was the first spray of blood, dark now against the door frame and the floor. Something heavy. He bludgeoned her and she went down in one. No more spray, but he could follow the drag lines with his feet.
“You dumped her here,” Will said softly as he looked beside the chair at the head of the table, at the pooling blood on the floor, “because you didn’t care about who she was. No respect.”
Twice.
The chairs that were now set neatly back by the table were on the floor. He could see it in the scratch marks on the floorboards, where they had fallen and been dragged. She fought back, didn’t make this easy. Either the man they were after was very powerful, or there were two of them.
Thrice.
They had wasted no time. Brought her up onto the table and got to work. One heavy stab to the chest and they had opened her like a tin can. Will looked down at the woman on the table, on her back with her arms and legs splayed. She was pale, so very pale, with long jet black hair all in a tussle. She had died quick, from the shock. Her eyes had glazed and the pain didn’t register, which would have been a mercy. The assailant or assailants had worked fast, taking everything they could, emptying her body cavity until there was nothing left but ribs. Then they had scrawled some half-assed pentagram on the wall in her blood, which when Will looked closer had six points. So it was really a star of David. Will sneered at the crude drawing and shook his head, looking back to the victim, his eyes softening.
He knew he was ready. He could smell it in the air, a sort of ionised, metallic scent. Pulling out the chair at her head Will sat heavily. It made his skin itch. He licked his lips. She was served before him, like a meal. This was nothing so tasty, not a work of art, there was no design here. It was a fraud.
“They killed you for money,” he said as he lifted his hands and placed them on both sides of her face; her eyes were dark, lifeless, “I’m so sorry.”
He licked his lips again. Wasn’t supposed to, hell he knew that. Wasn’t supposed to use it, but it was reliable and it was foolproof and...reflexively he took a deep breath and tried to steel himself. With only a moment of hesitation he reached out and touched the clammy, cold skin of her cheeks with both palms.
A kick like an electric shock, his body was rigid, he could feel the blood in his veins running double time, his heart straining to keep up, and there, there in front of him, if he looked up, just looked up there stood the thing, oh god the thing, the thing was looking right at him!
The next thing he knew he was out the front door and down the steps, rushing as fast as he could without passing out. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion, the leaves on the trees rustling like jingling bells, the eyes rising to watch him, the sound of voices, birds, cars. He thought he could hear his name but it was garbled, strange. When two hands grabbed hold of him he stopped, rigid, huffing, gasping, shaking.
“Christ, Will, what the hell is wrong with you? Is that blood on your hands, shit what did I tell you about touching the corpses..?” Crawford was muttering in irritation.
“I saw it,” he managed to choke out, grabbing Jack by the lapels, smearing blood across his fancy grey suit, “I fucking saw it Jack, jesus I saw it!”
“Calm down, ok, just calm the hell down. Here, sit here,” Will felt himself bump into something and sit without looking, jerking his gaze around to see that he’d reached the cavalcade of black SUV’s and was now sitting in the back seat, “I’ll get you some water.”
“No, don’t,” Will shook his head, “I need to get it down before it fades, quick for fuck’s sake get me a pen!”
As Crawford stood, legs crossed as he leaned against the side of the car and spoke on the phone in a subdued manner, Will wondered why the hell Jack put up with him. His hands scribbled furiously, using the sight in his mind to form the picture, let it take shape. To be fair, he thought to himself, Jack was the one who always asked for help with the strange cases, but then Will knew he couldn’t refuse. He shouldn’t be so hard on Crawford, he knew that. Still, it didn’t make any of this easier on either of them.
In his fizzy, shaken state, Will didn’t have the nerve to be polite. Instead, when he was done, he simply shoved the clipboard out the door and waited. After he heard Jack end his phone call, he felt the clipboard leave his hand and managed, after blinking to clear his eyes of the last of the vision, to look at Jack standing in the sunlight.
“You’re sure this is what you saw,” Crawford asked, looking sceptical.
“Believe me,” Will muttered, “I wish I wasn’t as sure as I am.”
“Ok,” Jack was nodding, rubbing at his face, “and this is what killed her?”
Shaking his head convulsively Will knew Jack was getting angry at him. He raised his hand and swallowed.
“No, it didn’t kill her,” Will said as he looked down at the drawing in Jack’s hands, of the ebony figure, tall as a man, fingers like claws, eyes of milky white and, upon its head a rack of fine antlers, jutting up into the sky like a testament, “it didn’t kill her, but it’s the reason she’s dead,” Will looked up, straight into Jack’s eyes and knew that the man believed him, that in that moment all the bullshit was pushed aside and Jack believed him, “it’s eating them, Jack. It’s eating them.”
The cup of coffee made a dull thunk as it was placed in front of him with little care. It spilled over the side, a puddle on the shiny tabletop. The sight made him itch to find a kitchen towel and mop it up.
“Drink it,” he was instructed, though Jack wasn’t looking at him when he said it, tapping something out on his tablet, “it’ll make you feel better.”
“I don’t think caffeine is a good idea right now,” Will said, pushing the plastic cup away and ignoring the sour look of the man who had brought it to him; he hitched up the blanket around his shoulders and shivered.
FBI Headquarters in Baltimore wasn’t exactly the most hospitable place he could think of to be right about then. A big block of concrete built in the seventies, with no shape or fashion to it. More a function than a building, its lack of tact extended to the inside too. Plastic chairs, old paint and chipboard. The break room they were stationed in now came across more like an underground tomb, no windows, no working air conditioning. Will felt buried.
“Couldn’t find anything on the database like what you described,” said the young woman at the table next to him, sitting on her laptop, bright eyes focused, long dark hair waving blue in the artificial light, “you’re sure of what you saw?”
“Unfortunately,” Will swallowed and shrugged.
“Oh, Beverly by the way,” she said, looking up with a smile and a cynical crinkle to her eyes.
“Will Graham,” he said mechanically, unable to meet her eyes.
“Yeah, I know.”
“Ok.”
“I’m Brian,” the surly man who’d brought him his coffee said, looking around a little irritatedly, “not that anyone has cared to ask.”
“You’re supposed to introduce yourself,” Beverly said, sipping her vending machine drink with one hand, tapping on her keyboard with the other, “not be asked,” she returned her attention to Will who felt his hackles rise at the shift, “couldn’t have been any of the usual suspects? A monster we already have in the rolodex?”
“No,” Will said succinctly.
“You can be that sure?” she asked, eyes narrowing, “so how do these visions work? Can you control it or..?”
“Enough digging Katz,” Jack broke in, putting his device down on the table with a clack, “when Will says he’s sure, then he’s sure. But what about our suspects? There was a pentagram at the scene," Jack observed, picking up a printed picture of the wall, he tried to hand it to Will but was rebuffed.
"No, there was an arts and crafts project," Will said sarcastically; when Jack sighed and Brian frowned Will rolled his eyes, "are you serious? You've never seen misdirection before? Either these are the worst satanists in history or they didn't realise that pentagrams only have five points."
"Good point," Beverly said, smiling wryly as she took the photo from Jack.
"Or they were in a hurry," Brian offered, "were scared and got it wrong?"
“It saw me,” Will blurted out suddenly, hating the pressure of the room; he could feel Jack staring, like heat against his skin. When he looked up Jack was there, right in his personal space, “back off,” he spat, eyes dark.
It took a moment, but Crawford obeyed, though he looked put out by the order. Will could tell the others were watching him carefully. Probably hadn’t ever seen anyone speak to their boss like this, Will thought. He took a breath and scratched at his jaw.
“To answer your question,” Will said, motioning to Beverly who was watching him with intent curiosity, “it’s not like a vision, per se. More like, seeing through another’s eyes. It’s not easy to control but I can, if I try. Other times it’s just flashes, short, a little longer sometimes, there doesn’t seem to be a rhyme or reason. Skin to skin contact makes it easier to find what I need, focus in.”
“I heard you can see the future,” Brian spoke up, voice still tinged with resentment.
Will gave him a withering look and continued, “it’s not a reliable thing, like I said. But there’s one thing that I can be sure of,” he looked to Jack, “no one, and I mean no one has ever looked back at me from the other end. It saw me Jack, I swear to god.”
“You’re sure it wasn’t just looking at the victim?”
“It wasn’t even in the room, weren’t you listening to me?” Will scoffed, “I told you it didn’t kill that woman, but it made sure someone else did. Harvested her for everything it wanted. It’s residue was thick on the walls, the floor, like resin running down a tree, hardening into the reality of the room. It was never there but it was...there. And it was fucking looking at me! It saw me,” Will knew he looked dangerous because Jack’s mouth was a thin line and, despite her friendly introduction, Beverly’s hand was hovering near her fire arm, “and now that’s my fucking problem, isn’t it. You put me in this situation Jack, what are you going to do about protection?”
“We don’t even know yet if what you saw was real,” Jack said, knowing Will wouldn’t like it if his resigned expression was anything to go by.
“Oh fuck you,” Will said with a tut, getting up and folding the blanket angrily into a neat square before putting it onto his seat, “I should have known the one-way-street policy still stood. If you’re done with me?”
“Not quite,” Jack said, jerking his eyebrows up and bringing them down as he tapped his fingers on the tabletop, “but perhaps that’s enough for one day.”
“Good,” Will said with an acid smile, “because I’ll need time to reaffirm the hexes at my house before it gets dark.”
“I’ll have a uniformed officer posted outside your house for the week, ok?” Jack said, raising both hands palms facing outwards.
“Fat lot of good that’ll do, don’t bother,” Will said with a raised brow, “see you tomorrow?”
“You bet,” Jack was laughing softly as Will left, waving away Brian’s outrage and Beverly’s concern, “he’s fine. Don’t worry, he’ll adjust. He’s always rough at the start. Come on, we’ve got a long night ahead of us.”
Thick with snow striped red by the sunset, his little ship on the sea anchored deep in the Wolf Trap wilderness bumped into view as his truck meandered up the driveway. Parking on the crunching, squeaking ground, Will turned off the engine and sat back with a sigh. He didn’t close his eyes, partly because he was worried he’d fall asleep right where he was, and partly because he was worried about what was lurking there.
It had been a long time since he’d worked with Crawford, and he was beginning to remember why.
“Stupid brat,” Will bit at his bottom lip, “aren’t you. Always looking to see, even what you’re not supposed to.”
The twilight was bringing on the freeze. Will worked quickly, walking his perimeter with the flash-light he’d grabbed from the trunk, making sure his charms were still intact. Most were buried beneath the snow, small trees with scraps of rag tied tight in place, still rust red, another the beak of a crow with the eye of a deer secreted inside, an antler with a carven inscription in rough runes. He knew they wouldn’t stop anything that went bump in the night, but it would let him know what was coming at least.
When he finally stepped over the threshold he was cold, tired, hungry and his jeans were soaked. He closed the door and murmured a quick incantation with his palm against the wood, drawing a simple unicursal hexagram with his forefinger. When he turned back to the room it was to find an array of paws, wagging tails and licking tongues to greet him.
“What, you were all asleep huh? Like me to believe that,” Will said wryly, smiling as he offered strokes and scratches for his throng of mongrels, “come on, it’s dinner time. I know, I know,” he said as the barks started, “I ran late, ok? I’m sorry.”
Seven cans of dog food, one microwave dinner, one shower and one cup of hot chocolate later Will found himself in bed, the glare of the television the only thing lighting the room as the dogs settled, fidgeting for position on the double bed duvet.
“Hey now,” Will frowned sternly as Buster the Jack Russell let a snap out at Angel the Bernese cross as she turned round and round on her spot, “no fighting, or you’re all in your beds on the floor. Got it?”
Buster looked at him with his alert little eyes before putting his head down between his paws, gaze still swivelling back and forth between his companions. Will itched his nose, taking a breath and trying to focus on the crap playing on his television. Buster’s insecurity always made him nervous. He was the most astute of his pack. When Buster was alert, it meant he should be too.
Sleep came fast and sudden. One minute he was checking his clock, the next he was out. Which made the reverse so much more jarring.
The scream of a corvid pecked at his mind, Will jerked awake so quickly that he sent dogs scattering. In his head it still called, cawing, cawing, cawing; an alarm. Then the braying of a stag, loud and low and echoing across the moor. Without hesitation he ran to his closet and yanked it open, grabbing the shotgun there, already loaded. Will hissed out ‘ quiet, be quiet ’ until the dogs stopped their yelping. On bare feet he hurried out of the room and padded down the stairs. The darkness was all encompassing, caressing his pale skin. It spoke to him. The movements of the air, flowing soft as ether, clean and reliable. Closing his eyes didn’t make a blind bit of difference to his sight as he raised the gun. But it did allow him to see.
Left, now, the window.
Instinct was a double edged sword, Will knew. It was the reason he was a social pariah, an outcast, to be feared and used more than anything else. But in the same notion it was the reason that, when he fired both barrels of his gun into the window pane, sending glass shattering into the air, the flash of the gunshot revealed the man that had been making to lift the window and break in fly back with a yell, screaming.
Only it wasn’t in time to show him the second; an arm around his neck puled him back off his feet, choking and suddenly, screamingly overwhelmed by the images, fast, flashing, fierce and terrified, blood and gore thick up his arms, eyes watering from the smell, the sulphurous stench, but he cut deeper, deeper, all so this wasn’t him next time on the slab. Will tried to gasp but could barely breathe, his eyes rolling up as the man’s fear and rage started to take over.
“What’d you do, you fucking witch!” the man was shouting, “Johnny?! Johnny you ok? Shit!”
Then a yell, sudden and pained, and Will fell forwards with an involuntary shove, hacking and coughing on the ground. His muscles shook, convulsing, but he could hear the snarling and the barking now as the flashes faded.
Right hand, push out, gun. Lamp, table, beyond.
It was in his hand and the light was on, showcasing what was left of the man who had broken into his home. Will managed to get slowly to his feet, looking down. His tan pitbull Lenny had the man’s neck in his jaws, shaking him roughly. At the other end Rusty his shepherd cross had the man’s ankle, teeth sunk in deep enough to show tendon. Around him the others were yapping and barking, teeth bared. The floor was beginning to pool red.
“Enough,” Will coughed, rubbing at his throat, “hey, enough,” he whistled, garnering eyes and ears. It took a couple of snaps of the fingers to get Lenny to release. The dogs came to his call, surrounding him tightly, protectively. He reached out and caressed Lenny’s head as he came to sit by him, Rusty not taking her eyes from the man on the floor, “stay now, ok?”
Will decided to keep the gun, just in case. As he walked forwards shakily his foot ended up in the red, the liquid seeping in between his toes. He felt his lip twitch in disgust, eyes narrowing. Hunkering down, looking into the face of a man no more than twenty, tanned, green eyes glazing over, Will cocked his head. This close he could hear the gurgle in the man’s throat as it pumped blood freely. Smell the terror, the clamour and the dark, dark sulphur.
“Who sent you?” he asked calmly.
The man’s eyes widened, pained. He tried to shake his head but it only made him pale, choking.
“Did they send you here to kill me?” Will asked tightly.
“..N-augh...” the man tried to speak, his lips spattered with red, “no-ach….ch-choll...cht y-y...”
Another hitching, guttural breath and then he was dead. Will wished that the deep breath he took wasn’t tainted with the stench of rust. The man had been left staring at him, eyes forever forwards even though they saw nothing. Hesitating, only once, reached out to touch his eyelids closed.
There, like a flash, a smile behind black lips.
Will jerked his hand back as if the man were a furnace he had touched with his bare hands. Standing as quickly as he could Will made his way to the window. Outside, in a pile of glass and blood was an older man, bald and wearing a denim jacket. The holes ripped into his torso were only visible as patches of red in his t-shirt. He was sure there wasn’t a need to check the man’s pulse. Will had seen enough death to know it on sight.
“Will, this better be good, it’s three in the morning,” Jack said when he finally picked up the phone.
“I have two dead men in my house,” Will said, sitting on his couch with Buster in his lap and Rusty licking at his bloody toes, “couldn’t send someone out here to get them, could you?”
“I don’t need a doctor.”
To be fair, Will knew Crawford’s frustration was cut with guilt and that it was making him act out because of it, but it didn’t mean he had to pander to it. Will stared at the EMT from behind his glasses and waited. The young woman, blonde hair tied back in a tight ponytail, just smiled.
“It’s just routine, Mr. Graham,” she said.
“So is an autopsy,” Will said morbidly; when she reached out he shifted back, “I don’t like to be touched.”
“I see,” she said, still irritatingly chipper, “then can I just do some checks for concussion? And if you can just pop this on your finger and your arm, I’ll check your BP and HR.”
“Whatever makes you happy,” Will sighed.
It was all over quicker than he presumed it would be. Jack was the grease in the cogs of the local P.D., none of which seemed to be taking too kindly to both the FBI presence and to Will himself. But then he already knew that the authorities were wary of him, some definitely prejudice to the extent of open hostility. Most just muttered behind their lips, and kept their nasty comments in their heads. Not enough that Will couldn’t catch most of it, camera flashes of vile thoughts, flashes of what they saw him as.
“And here I thought you were gun-shy,” Jack was saying when Will blinked, tuning back into the conversation; the blond EMT was gone, and Will found himself concerned that he didn’t remember it happening.
“Since when,” Will said grouchily, rolling his eyes when he found Jack watching him intently; jumping images, seeing himself dead, seeing himself murdered, guilt, pain, “Christ, Jack will you keep your fucking thoughts to yourself. I’m in no state.”
“Sorry,” Jack, looked away, “look, I’m just glad you’re ok.”
“Sure, sure,” Will nodded, waving him away, “I can take care of myself.”
“Unless you’ve grown some canines I don’t know about it looks like your mutts might have had the last say on that.”
“Don’t you touch them,” Will said darkly, “they did what’s natural.”
“No one’s touching anything,” Jack sighed, “which is actually what I need to talk to you about...”
“Alright, yes, I touched him, ok? I did and it wasn’t fucking worth it, you’re right, just...” Will swallowed his words as they ran away from him like boulders down a mountainside, “shit.”
The frozen air was starting to nip at his skin. Will rubbed at his upper arms and took in the sight of his house, surrounded by flashing lights, cops and analysts walking in and out of the front door, people inside taking swabs of blood, coroners carrying out the bodies. It wasn’t the first time, but then that didn’t exactly make it any better.
“Do you want to go inside?” Jack asked softly.
Will shook his head, looking down at the wooden boards of his porch.
“Not right now. Not right now, I...” Will swallowed, closing his eyes; it was difficult to voice mainly because he was trying his best to ignore the shock and fear creeping into his system, vines of ivy strangling the tree, “it was the same.”
“What was?”
“I...touched his eyes,” Will said, hurrying on as Jack took a breath and shook his head, “no, I didn’t want to see, he was looking at me, ok? I'd just...seen him die and he was looking right at me. I only wanted to close his eyes but I saw it again.”
“The same creature from before?”
Nodding, Will licked his lips and felt them chapped from the cold, “I mean I think so. It felt the same, I think. I’m not sure what’s going on, but it’s not like last time. I don’t think they came here to hurt me.”
“Could have fooled me,” Crawford snorted, “you haven’t seen what they had in their truck.”
“I can guess,” Will said sourly, “but still, I don’t know, I don’t...christ. Look, can we do this tomorrow? I’m really tired and I don’t even know where the hell I’m going to sleep tonight.”
“The Registry is going to be asking some interesting questions about this. But don’t worry,” Jack said, looking as if he wanted to try pushing for more but, eventually, gave up, “I got you covered. Come on.”
“But the dogs...” Will said, frowning.
“They can go too. Pretty sure she told me she didn’t mind.”
It felt like an age since he had driven up the long lane lined by elms, catching the tips of the dawn light rising over the horizon. It must have been three years or so, Will thought as he sat in the back of Jack’s SUV, gently pushing Lenny back into the boot as he tried once more to jump up over the back seat to sit with him. Outside the countryside farmland rolled past, rolling waves of mud, runnels for later potatoes. It was a little difficult to struggle into his thick, black cardigan while he was still buckled in but Will felt exposed. As they rolled up to a familiar house Will pulled on his black fleece hat and tried his best to keep his sharp tongue in his mouth.
When he stepped out of the car Will shook his arms and stretched. His shoulders ached. It was difficult to ignore the pull at the skin across his throat. He wondered if it would bruise. While he stared at the rising sun he heard a door open, looking over reflexively at the noise. The first thing that emerged was a medium sized brown and white dog, running down over fresh snow leaving little dotted paw prints. Will grinned, squatting down as the dog reached him, ruffling her face as she licked at his chin.
“Hey Peanut,” he laughed, allowing himself the small, offered respite.
“Glad she remembers you.”
Looking up was easier with the barrier of a happy, wriggling dog between them. She was watching him like she’d just seen a dear in the woods and was worried that it would run if she moved too fast. Will’s face set, jaded.
“Hi Alana.”
“Hi Will.”
“I’ll leave you two to it then,” Jack said, opening the boot and spilling dogs everywhere, all running over to greet Peanutbutter with sniffs and play bows and sprinting around, “you’ve cost me a lot of paperwork Graham.”
“Sorry my almost being murdered inconvenienced you so badly,” Will said dryly.
“Try not to pile up any more bodies, ok?” he joked, only Will could see it wasn’t really a joke, and he felt his sarcastic armour fail him, his face falling. Instead of showing it he stuck his face in Peanut’s ruff and scratched her flank as the dog leaned into him happily, panting, “I’m leaving Jerry and Fiona here,” he said thumbing towards the car driving up behind them, “for security. Alana, thank you for helping out.”
“Anytime, Jack.”
As the SUV left Will started to feel trapped. You agreed to this, he told himself sternly. Still, not like I had much choice. He would have heard her approach if the dogs hadn’t been making such a fuss. Will looked up to see Alana Bloom standing over him, hands in the pockets of her puffy purple coat, glossy dark hair loose and a little messy. She had bags under her eyes and, without her usual bright lipstick her face looked pale. It was difficult not to fall back into the routine like he’d never left.
“Sorry we woke you up,” he said, licking at the inside of his teeth, “I...uh, and thanks for this.”
“Can we do this inside?” she asked, sniffing, “it’s freezing out here.”
“Right, sure,” Will stood, rubbing his hands together.
The décor hadn’t changed too much since his last visit. Warm honey walls and oak furniture. Old fashioned tiles on the walls of the kitchen. Varnished floorboards with rugs dotted here and there. It suited her, he thought, all yellows and oranges and soft and safe. Zesty but comforting. Will found himself herding the dogs into the back room past the living room, all decked out in blankets and pillows.
“Be good, ok? You’re guests,” Will told them as he shrugged out of his coat, the dogs watching him with cocked ears; he noticed Rusty still had red stains on her muzzle and rubbed at his chin, hoping Alana wouldn’t notice, “And no accidents. I’ll be up at seven to take you out.”
She was waiting for him as he went to hang up his jacket, boiling a kettle on the stove.
“Peppermint tea, right?” she asked without really asking, a formality.
“Right,” Will nodded, not having the heart to tell her he couldn’t really stomach anything right then, “Alana...”
“I made up the guest bedroom,” she interrupted, “the one at the top of the stairs on the right?”
“Yeah, I remember,” Will nodded, frowning, “you’re not even going to ask?”
“Is there a point? I don’t remember ever getting a straight answer from you before.”
“I killed a man tonight,” Will said.
The kettle began to boil, whistling. Alana took it off and placed it on a cork mat, her back to him. Leaning forwards on the counter she let her head hang. The soft lighting mixed with the red in the sunrise, setting the room on fire.
“Jack said you were attacked in your home.”
“I don’t know what they were planning,” Will shrugged, “nothing good. They had a lot of rope in their boot, and some other things designed to incapacitate someone...like me,” he cleared his throat when Alana turned around, looking grim, “uh, look I’m sorry about this, I don’t want to put you in any danger.”
“I’m a big girl, Will, I know the risks.”
“Well, thanks. I really appreciate it.”
“You’re welcome,” she said sleepily, pouring out two mugs of hot water, tea bags floating inside like little swirling pyramids, “here.”
“I won’t be able to drink it,” Will admitted, amazed that he was falling back to the natural honesty he always allowed himself with her.
“Doesn’t matter,” she smiled softly.
“Ok.”
“Will?”
“I think I should get some sleep.”
“Are you ok?”
Looking up was hard. Looking her in the eye was worse. Will fidgeted but forced himself to bear it. Memories came unbidden and for a moment he wasn’t sure if they were his or hers, deep inside the asylum, curling down inside his own head to hide from the blood on his hands, retracting so far that his eyes were nothing but blank shells trying their best to keep the images out, the thoughts that weren’t his own, and she was there, and she was talking, and she made sense, and she knew what to say, what threads to pull in order to unravel all of the wool Will had willingly pulled over his own eyes.
“Not really,” he said, voice small, “I...don’t know why I involved myself in this all over again. I knew something like this might happen and yet I just, I don’t know.”
“You’ll hate me if I tell you this,” she said before blowing on her tea, taking a sip, “but I knew you would come back.”
“Oh yeah?” he said flatly, “Part of your diagnosis?”
“Call it a hunch,” she shrugged, “being your psychiatrist, predicting you was always the most difficult thing,” she smiled tiredly, “I got really good at it.”
“Wish I could say the same,” Will said sourly; he put his tea down on the breakfast bar to his right, taking off his glasses and rubbing at his face. He could feel the wetness on his cheeks, “it’s bad, Alana. It’s really bad this time.”
“Oh Will,” she said, her face falling from guarded to sympathy in a second.
“I think I really fucked up,” as he spoke Will felt the night creep up on him, the shock, the fear, the adrenaline, the realisation; when the tears began to run down his face it was all he could do to sit down and let them. When Alana pushed away from the counter and came towards him he shook his head, mouth mute.
“Touching bad again, huh?” she said, sounding guilty and disappointed.
“Yeah,” Will said, a little choked, “been bad again for a while.”
“How come you never called me?” she asked, standing beside him as close as he could bear, “It’s what I’m here for.”
“Not everything can be fixed,” Will said, rubbing at his cheeks with the back of his right hand, “patched up, yes, but eventually the threads fray. It’s easier to learn to deal with how it really is.”
“Ok. Ok, I understand,” she said, looking a little lost, “I think you were right about that bed. Rest will do you the world of wonders.”
Tomorrow came as eggs and bacon with a side of black coffee. He had walked the dogs in payment for the bed and breakfast services rendered. Alana looked like she could use more sleep, and Will knew from looking in the mirror as he brushed his teeth that he could use a week’s worth before he looked normal again.
Still, things moved forwards, not backwards. Soon he found himself being bundled into Alana’s sedan, leaving her neighbour from one farm over, Jackie, to dog sit. The Yews looked less mysterious in the daylight than they had the night before.
“This your family home?” he asked as they reached the end of the driveway.
“Uh, yeah, my grandparents built it,” she said a little cagily as she signalled and turned out.
“Did they plant the trees too?” he looked over and found her nodding, “they’re warding trees. They keep out evil things.”
“Sure,” Alana said with a chuff of laughter, “and four leaf clovers are lucky. Some things are just superstition.”
“I’m almost amazed you can say that with me in your car,” Will said with a raised brow; Alana cleared her throat, “I was just trying to make you feel better.”
Returning to HQ was like some nasty, recurring nightmare. Will knew what came next. Litanies of questions, investigations, prying eyes. It was a tale as old as time, or at least as old as Will’s teenage years, when he had finally realised that the gift he had was a curse more than a blessing, that nothing could stop it, not alcohol, not drugs, legal or illegal, could touch him, and that he couldn’t touch anyone else either. That the inside of his head wasn’t his own any more and never would be again. A slow decent into the darker places the world had to offer had ripped a rift in his life, right through his home, his Matron, his sisters. Leaving them behind and moving to Baltimore had been the only respite he was capable of scrounging.
“Did Jack ask you to come along too?” Will asked while they waited to be cleared for entry, the young man at the desk inserting temp keycards into a reader while he typed up their passes.
“I volunteered actually,” Alana, now dressed in her immaculate business attire of blue shirt and brown pencil skirt, black tights and brown boots; her hair was now a set of liquid waves, parted at the side, “thought you could maybe use some backup.”
“Always,” Will shrugged, “but I just need to check, if I ask you to leave the room then you’ll do it.”
“Depends,” she said, thanking the young man at reception with a smile as she was handed her pass, clipping it to her shirt pocket, “are you trying to pretend to me that you can still handle things, or is it to protect me from things you don’t want me to see?”
“Both,” Will took his pass carefully, making sure he didn’t touch the man’s fingers before walking strictly ahead, not waiting for Alana to catch up. Not for the first time in his life he was upset at himself for not stuffing a spare pair of gloves in his pocket.
As they walked the length of the fourth floor Will kept his eyes down, making sure not to pay attention to any prying eyes and keep his breathing even. Shoving his hand in his pocket he found his thick rimmed glasses and fumbled them on, taking a breath as the world became framed, compartmentalised down into two windows he could look through. The sounds of the jumbled office became smoother, less chaotic. He was able to be more sure that what he heard was in his ears, not his head, and thoughts and images were filtered out.
“You ok?” Alana asked softly as they stood outside Jack’s office and she knocked politely on the door.
Will couldn’t contain the sudden laugh that built up in his chest, breaking out in a warped smile and bright eyes, “You crack me up sometimes, you know that?”
‘Come in,’ came the muffled voice from beyond the door; Will took the initiative and turned the handle, walking in first.
Grey, vertical office blinds, rough brown carpet and mahogany wood. Jack’s office was like a time capsule, and for a moment Will thought he could believe it was three years prior, and he was being brought in for the first time, dragged from his teaching post two floors down in the auditorium, to be put to work on something much more front line than just talking about the occult.
Only, right now, something was throwing a spanner in the works of his nostalgia. And Will, tired, shaken, close to the edge as he was, couldn’t keep his mouth from saying what his brain was thinking.
“Who the hell is this?” he asked sternly, pointing to the man seated in front of Jack’s desk.
“Will, let’s not get off to a rocky start,” Jack said amicably, though Will could see the look in his eye that said ‘don’t make a scene’, “this is Doctor Hannibal Lecter, he’s come here at my request.”
He heard the door closing behind him, turning to see Alana standing there like a warden. Will felt his instincts firing, hackles rising. When he turned back to the desk, the man there was rising from his chair; to Will it seemed more like he unfolded from his casual, crossed leg posture, standing elegantly and offering his hand.
“It is a pleasure to finally meet you,” he said with a thick, sibilant accent, his eyes heavy lidded, almost hiding the maroon shade of his iris, the long line of his nose leading down to cupids lips that Will watched move as he would a small animal that scurried into the bushes and hid, eyes peering outwards into the light. It took a moment to blink and look away, swallowing.
“I guess Jack hasn’t told you,” Will said tightly, “I don’t do handshakes.”
“Ah, my apologies,” Lecter said, retracting his hand, “I am sure I was told, but formalities are rather instinctual. Shall we sit?”
"Are you from the Registry?" Will asked coldly, "Because I am not interested in an escort."
All he received was a smile that reached all the way up into maroon eyes, as if he'd told an exceptionally crafted joke that no one understood but the man standing before him. Will shook his head and crossed his arms.
“I'm not agreeing to anything until I get an explanation,” Will said, looking at Jack while the man leaned back in his chair and sighed.
“This case has become rather...complex,” Jack began, “you know that. And you know that my team can’t fully support you, nor can I afford to have you only as a consult. I want you to come on the team full time until this is resolved. Your abilities are intrinsic to how I plan to run this investigation. So, after speaking with Doctor Bloom,” Jack motioned to Alana, and Will couldn’t bring himself to look at her just then, “I decided to bring Doctor Lecter in. He’ll be your psychiatric support.”
“I’ve already got one,” Will said succinctly, jerking a thumb over his shoulder towards Alana.
“I’m not...” Will looked at her over his shoulder, seeing her hesitation; she smiled loosely with the right side of her mouth, “I can’t offer you what you need for this Will. Hannibal is more than capable, he was my mentor. I really think you should give him a chance.”
“...You mean you won’t,” Will said, looking away, his skin suddenly feeling as if tiny insects were crawling there. The upset tried to spread to his eyes but he wouldn’t let it. Finally the quiet room became like a cell and Will reached up to take off his glasses, rub at the bridge of his nose. When he looked back to Lecter the man was watching him calmly, inscrutable, “no lies.”
“Of course,” Lecter nodded.
“No manipulation, no secrets, no judgement.”
“I believe I can offer that.”
“Good,” Will said, pushing all the ticking, sickening hurt down deep, back into its cage; he jerked his head towards Lecter, “he’ll do. Now I’m going downstairs. Maybe some of the corpses will be happier to see me.”