|
|
Twelve
Past Entropy Part One copyright 2001, by Nyx Fixx
Part One Early
Morning Clarice
Starling was sitting on the porch of a rented house on the Chesapeake,
looking out over the bay and considering her options. The morning was
beautiful, all the air soft and crisp at the same time, the sun bright
and warm. She was irritated and restless, and unhappy with herself for
harboring such emotions. Time
had been passing, slowly, slowly, and she had been flitting aimlessly
around this dark old house outside of time for what seemed an age. There
were decisions to be made here, questions that would have to be
answered. And all possible
answers seemed as though they must turn out to be bad news, the worst
news. What was she doing here? That was an important question, wasn't it? One that she assiduously avoided, the same way one might tiptoe around the white elephant in the room that no one was supposed to notice. I'm
a prisoner. He intends to kill me Uh-huh.
Now there was a chicken-hearted answer. Strange how the thought of being
his enemy seemed more comfortable than any of the alternatives. But it
was nonsense, she could not realistically entertain it. Whatever Dr.
Lecter's intentions were, she was somehow aware, with total clarity,
that they did not now include murder. At some point during the dreamlike
unfolding of last night's party, his course, whatever it may have been,
had changed. She was armed with a .45 and a set of car keys, and the
master of the house had been invisible all morning. What more did a girl
need? She'd
been sitting out here, nursing what felt like a massive hangover, for
over an hour. That was one thing she was doing. But she was clear, oh,
yes, no lingering fog in the old noodle today. If only there were. Here
was something else she was doing: cringing inwardly as she remembered
the previous nights' events. It was like the way you felt the morning
after a wild party where you'd gotten hammered and done things you could
hardly recognize as your own actions. The
Mad Hatter and his tea party. So glad you could join us, Alice. Just
hand me that autopsy saw, would you? This won't take a minute. Um-hmm.
Murdering and eating your boss wasn't exactly like wearing a lampshade
and singing "Wild Thing" at the top of your lungs, was it? It
wasn't a matter of having embarrassed herself. It was more like totally
obliterating whatever identity she'd imagined she had. Which
left her, in the final analysis, with nothing. Except some painfully
clear memories and an ugly sense of absolute glee over certain actions
that, as everyone in the entire world knew, were unspeakable. She
couldn't think of last night's dinner without a loathsome impulse to
laugh and laugh and laugh. She
couldn't think of dessert and coffee afterward without an equally
loathsome impulse to fly into the house and find the Goblin King who was
lurking, she knew, just inside. She'd find him and part that cloak of
shadows he'd woven around himself and take what she wanted, take
everything she wanted, over and over and over. But what was it that she
wanted? Perhaps that was better left unanswered too. But
I was drugged. I'm not responsible How
exquisitely polite he was, to have left her such an out. It was like
deliberately playing a bit below your game for the comfort of a lesser
opponent. How sweet! And how derisive. Every little thing he did had an
edge to it, didn't it? Every caress could also sting. She could go home
and believe she'd been victimized for the rest of her life, if she
wanted. If she could stomach adding self-delusion to her growing list of
crimes. Home?
Where's that? Are you drugged now, Missy? Who's
voice was that? She'd been hearing too many unrecognizable voices,
lately. Who
said that? Who are you? "I
don't know," she answered aloud. A
step behind her, uncharacteristically audible. He ordinarily crept
around his house like a cat, silent and quick. Another courteous
gesture, then. "Good
morning, Clarice. How lovely to find you here. I notice you skipped
breakfast. Are you sure that's wise?" She
didn't turn around. It was hard to know why. After
a time, he folded himself up and took a seat on the porch steps beside
her. Along came a spider. A mannerly two-and-a-half foot empty space
between them. She took
herself in hand and found the steel to look at him. He was gazing out at
the light on the water. "What
a pretty day. I'll be sorry to leave this place." Ah,
it was time to talk about the future. That would be hard, but maybe not
quite so difficult as talking about the past. "When
will that be?" she finally asked. He'd never leave her alone until
she did. "It
all depends. Soon, I think. What are your plans, Clarice?" "You
tell me," she fired back, a barbed dart that, she saw, did sting. "Poor
little Starling. Lost in the wood, having strayed so far from the path.
You can go home, you know.
That's what I'd like to talk about today." "Home.
Sure. I'll be taking some fancy new baggage with me, won't I?" "And
leaving some behind. You'll find, Clarice, that it's much easier to live
with even the most outlandish things than you think it is. It's a bit
frightening what extremes we can process within ourselves, how little
they truly trouble us in the end. The nice, orderly world you imagine
would never take you back will welcome
you. I've seen it happen." "There
are consensus standards. You spent eight years locked in a display case
because of them." "Touché.
Nevertheless, it's still all largely illusion. You know that. Think on the things you've seen." She
did. He was right. Doors would open for her. But did she want to return
to the cramped rooms beyond them? "I'll
help," he said. "If that's what you want. Krendler will be
credited to my slate, not yours. You'll become a rare survivor. I have
some light anesthetics inside. I can give a you a few superficial marks
and send you back as an escapee. You could be a media darling.
Publishers will throw money at your feet, producers will beg you to
appear on television shows; you'd never have to worry about making a
living again," he waved a casual hand in the air. "I'll write
some nasty letters. We can start today, if you like." "And
I'll never be able to tell the truth, is that right? Not without
incriminating myself? Spend the rest of my life lying for a
living?" "Agent
Starling, you are a danger to me.
I'm doing the best I can." "You
think I'll go back," she remarked, surprised at the accusing edge
in her voice. "To the FBI." He
sighed, tired and frustrated. Then he caught her gaze and bored in as he
spoke. "If
I thought I could stop you from rejoining the FBI by begging, believe
me, I would. Wherever you go, I'd ask, please, please,
be sure it's not there. I
dread the prospect of knowing you're there, say, five years from now.
Though I don't honestly think you could survive that long. Don't you
realize that they were trying to kill you? Whether they knew it or not
is immaterial. And debatable, in my opinion, at least. Do you really
think it will all stop, now that Krendler is gone? That no one new will
come to take his place?" "Nobody
was trying to kill me," she argued stubbornly. There was
a vague shape of such monstrous malice here she that she could
not bear to look at it. "Consult
your memory, please. Refresh your recollection of my case file. You can,
you know it very well, don't you? You remember the details, the crime
scenes, the atrocity, do you not? Who am I? And who abandoned you to me,
Clarice?" It
was all true. A sudden flash of such vengeful rage whipped through her
that she was tempted to go find Paul Krendler wherever he'd been hidden
and drag his dead carcass out into the sun and kill him again. But
Krendler had not been an isolated phenomenon, had he? He hadn't set her
out as live bait for the Bogeyman all by himself, had he? Hadn't put her
in Dr. Lecter's hands without some necessary compliance up and down the
line. She'd been there, she knew how things worked. Was anyone out there
now, desperately scouring the earth to find her, hoping beyond hope to
rescue her from a nightmare fate? Nope, not likely. She would be
officially listed as missing, unofficially presumed dead. One more
Lecter victim. Too bad, so sad, good fucking riddance. "Goddamn,"
she barked aloud. "What did I ever do to earn such ill-will? Why in
hell would anyone hate me that much?" "I
have some theories, Clarice, but that's something we can discuss another
time. If there is another time." An
uneasy joint silence fell between them. He had the bad habit of never
modifying the truth. In some ways, he lacked even the most rudimentary
social skills. Or disdained them, more likely. "I've
been an inattentive host," he added, with an ugly smile. "I've
done you the grave disservice of failing to kill you according to plan.
Perhaps you'll accept my apologies." Oh,
his little jokes could cut. But they often drew his blood too, she'd
learned. There
was an option here somewhere, a faint outline of a possible path she
might take, perhaps an invitation, suggested ever so obliquely in her
thoughts on his remarks, not in the remarks themselves. She was presumed
dead. She could always stay that way. She could stay. She could
stay. Did
she want to? Stay and do what? How did he see her? As a human falcon he
could train to perch on his arm? "You
haven't said what you
want," she reminded him. "Why don't you
take a turn on the dissecting table, Dr. Lecter. What are your
plans?" He
hated to be examined in such a way, she knew. She felt giddy with the
risk; he'd killed people for less. No
answer. "Dr.
Lecter? What do you want? Will you follow me if I go? Will you haunt me
like a ghost? What do you want?" Finally,
a cold hard voice: "I might take an interest in your affairs from
time to time. If I saw a pitfall in your path I thought you'd overlook,
I might eliminate it. Problem people might sometimes disappear, but
you'd never know why. You'd never know if it was me.
You'd never see my face or hear my voice again. Are you
satisfied?" There
was a clear warning in his tone. She'd engaged his anger; there were
some boundaries he would never relinquish easily. But she needed
answers, even if she had to fight him to secure them. "You
aren't answering my questions. I
need to know where I am. What do you want?" "I'm
not making any more decisions for you, Clarice. Not one more," he
stopped and turned to her, letting her see the vicious intent in his
eyes before he voiced it. Using the same derisive cornball accent he'd
pierced her with on other occasions. "Stop
playing games with me and axe yourself.
Ah aint your Daddy. Ah
jest aint the type." It
still sliced and diced, all right, no doubt about that. But she'd heard
this voice before, she'd developed some immunity.
Nice try, pal. An incongruous thought struck her and she
surprised them both with a sudden peal of laughter. "Tell
you what - you sound like Foghorn Leghorn when you do that, you know it?
It's the worst dang accent I ever heard, hoss." He
stared at her, comically shocked. For a moment he teetered on the edge
of some cutting rejoinder, then gave it up. It was no use trying to
think of acid things to say; he was laughing too hard. "Oh
- oh, ah - really, I had no idea! You should have mentioned it to me
sooner, I'd have worked a little harder on perfecting it."
He went on laughing; he seemed to relish it. She supposed such
moments were a rarity with him. But she could wait. "Ah,
Clarice," he finally said, the
lunar cold in his voice completely thawed, as though it had never been
there. "You really are good for me. I need . . . pruning, from time
to time, like an unruly hedge. Cutting back. What do I
want, was that the question? Let me ask you this. What makes you think I
ever really know?" "Well,
you want the world to reorder itself to reflect your subjective
aesthetic, you want the laws of space and time to turn inside out, and
you want your sister back. That's what I
know so far. Don't you have any quests that aren't
doomed?" "I
really don't think so. But then, I'm insane. Ask anyone." "The
recognized authorities can't even agree on that,"
she sighed. "Please. You're making me tired. I can't dance with
you, I'm not quick enough to keep up. Tell me what you want. Tell me
what you don't want. Tell me something, anyway." "The
capital of Bolivia is Bogotá. Principal exports - " "Stop!
Just stop. God Almighty, have you ever thought of just irritating people to death?" "Certainly,"
he answered promptly. "A mutual acquaintance of ours, in fact, met
his end in just such a way. Oh, I made a suggestion or two, but in the
end, it was just that he couldn't stand listening to me anymore. Don't
tell me you don't remember, Clarice. You'll hurt my feelings." Oh,
the fine art of biting without biting.
I ought to just shoot him, she thought. Do us both a favor.
He'd
been watching her intently, making sure his latest barb had hit its
mark. Apparently he must have caught the hardening of her face as she'd
entertained a moment of murder, because he'd started laughing at her
again Objective accomplished! What a scream. Fine.
She hunched down into a self protective little ball, and turned her head
toward the east, a direction that was directly opposite to his position.
What she didn't want to think about was how much fun all this was, in
its way. This verbal fencing, this easy rhythm they could fall into
together, this had been their way from the first. Her ability to spot
the absurd in the monstrous had grown like a fungus since she'd been a
guest at this house. "You
really are, you know," he remarked, softly. "Quick enough to
keep up." Don't
say that. I'm so afraid it's true She
struck back, the ever ready malign alchemy in the human soul converting
her fear to anger, the better to envenom her tongue. "MMM.
What a nice compliment. Thanks a million. Maybe you can show me how to
fetch a little later." A
frozen silence blew in from the west. "Is
that what you've been
thinking?" he finally demanded, no cruel play animating his voice
now. "That I see you as a . . . what? As a pet?" She
raised her head and leveled her gaze at him. No compromise. Fire at
will. "Why
not? I'm clean and well trained and dogs probably don't like you." He
stared at her for a full minute, anger
and more than anger coalescing in his face and eyes like a silent
explosion, red sparks
beginning to fly, a faint trembling throughout the compact body like a
malignant electrical current. This
is the face I don't want to remember , she thought, terror and a
terrible black enchantment mingling in her heart in equal measure. This
was the hellish vision that had been the last thing others she knew of
had ever seen. Then
he was on her, a series of moves too fast and too complex to follow,
hands gripping, fearfully apt fingers digging into her flesh, terrifying
strength, the lethal mouth so close, too close, to her ear, whispering,
hissing, cold and hot, lips moving against her unprotected skin,
pressure of the teeth behind them, shaking her, shaking, shaken, a burst
of fear through her so keen that it was like an orgasm - -what was he
saying, what -- "Do
you know what will happen to you if you don't leave? While you
can?" the insinuating, metallic voice, intrusive and urgent, all
the world reduced to this moment, this voice. "Clarice?
Do you? It'd cost you everything,
every single thing you've ever valued or known, all your choices gone,
every road closed but one, all your past life lost, irretrievable.
You're presumed dead now: you'd have to tend that illusion for the rest
of your life, change your hair, change your face, cease to exist as
yourself, and still, one day, perhaps one day soon, you'd be seen, you'd
be identified. With me." He
was shaking her again, as a savage teacher might shake a maddeningly
thick student. Rocking her back and forth and hissing, hissing like a
serpent in her ear. "I'm
a 'monster', Clarice, I'm notorious, people whisper about me and the
things I've done; people
positively gloat on my story,
they shake their empty sheep's heads in counterfeit horror and
secretly slaver over the blood I've spilled. Haven't you seen it? Think
of your fellows in the FBI. The
questions? The rumors? The thrill
? I've skated on it for years, trust me." Biting
on her earlobe, because, perhaps, it was there, a light touch, not
painful, not yet, then releasing the morsel of flesh to whisper some
more, more poison pouring into her ear, ah, GOD, that had felt so good - "But
you, Clarice - what would the
world say of you? Would that
'consensus standards' world of love and light you've spoken of ever forgive you for wanting me? Never in a thousand years. You'd be
the Devil's Whore. Can you imagine the insults, the vile jokes, the
clever little nicknames? Can you? Your superiors in the FBI despised you
to begin with, without any real provocation at all. Think what abuse
would be heaped on you if there was a reason.
The vilification would never stop, not ever. Your name would continue to
be blackened long after you were dead and gone. We know what I am. What
does that make you?" Tears
spilled from her eyes, this hurt,
this was pain, so true she couldn't bear it, couldn't stand it, but she didn't flinch, would not look away. No. His
mouth left her ear for a moment and he darted the pointed tip of his
tongue to her cheek and captured a tear, swallowing the tiny drop of her
essence with a frank shudder of pleasure. Then, the hungry voice in her
ear again - ah - "Stop
asking me what I want,"
he murmured, voice gentler now, the worst over perhaps, or perhaps yet
to come. His grip on her had loosened, she could move away now if she
wanted, his hands moving and seeking on her body, the implacable voice
interrupting itself to kiss - ah - now the hollow of her temple, now the
pulse in her throat, now the juncture of her jaw and neck, each spot a
kill zone, none chosen at random. "Stop
now, Clarice. If you don't stop asking . . . I'll tell you."
A
immense internal clarion sounded within her, seldom heard before, harsh
and piercing as the peal of a brazen trumpet: TELL
ME TELL ME TELL ME TELL ME TELL ME . . . On
and on. But this voice, this
relentless voice within, she recognized. It
was hers. Ah,
love was a blade. Only a fool would deny it. Love would cut you to
ribbons. So.
Here it was. Now she, like Will Graham before her, had unwittingly found
the way to capture Hannibal Lecter. He was prepared to surrender. He
would put his fiend's spotted heart in her custody. But he would warn
her in advance, because he was a prisoner she could never take without
incurring a most terrible price, and he knew it. A bit of mercy that was
rare and wonderful, for him. Graham had come to grief. She could choose
not to. What
a stunning achievement to add to her law enforcement resume. How ever
did you catch him, Agent Starling? Why, thank you for asking, it's
simple, really. All you have to do is shed your heart's blood. All you
have to do is pay and pay and pay and pay. Simple,
really, yes. The trick was . . . once you had him, what would you do
with him? It was like capturing a unicorn or a griffin, some fearful
mythical beast it was not safe to detain. This
is no myth. This is real. Be sure of that He'd
released her, taken his hands off her and eased back, only a touch,
softening the threat of proximity just enough to let her think straight.
But his eyes were close upon her, the color of ancient blood. The deep
red gaze had not retreated by a micron, and she was caught in it. Yes or
no. Go or stay. Decide. It
was as though there had never been a time when he hadn't
known her, as though they'd been here on this sunstruck porch together
since the beginning of the world . She could not remember when she had
ever been regarded as intently. Observed as closely. Seen
as clearly. Recognized.
Recognition. I know you. I've always known you Clarice
Starling, who had once been accurately characterized as a deep roller,
put caution aside and cast her net. Madness. She swiftly closed the
fragile remaining gap between them and sought her quarry. One kiss. That
would be all that was needed to complete the hunt. Had
such a thing ever happened to him before? With a knowing partner?
She could feel the last shreds of resistance in him, the
adamantine will to freedom, in the minute stiffening of his body caught
in her hands, the momentary hardening of his lips pinned beneath hers, a
trace of frigid coldness, there and gone too quickly, almost, to be
distinguished - ah - now -
there, ah, GOD, - now she had him, melting at last into her,
hungrily invading the warm space inside her with the pointed tongue, far
too besotted with desire to ever refuse such an unhoped-for invitation,
however disastrous, whatever the cost, as ferocious in passion as he was
in everything else. Devouring and devoured. Mine.
You're mine. God help us both One
kiss. Irrevocable. No
calamity that had ever befallen her had ever been so wrenchingly sweet. The
wickedly strong arms around her then,
hands on her again, pressing
her closer, closer than, it seemed, could be naturally possible, as
though the flesh of his body had the supernatural ability to swarm over
her like a tide. She could feel the beat of his heart against her,
fluttering now in a crazed rhythm, a heart that, up until now, had
rarely deviated from its slow, unvarying and relentless pace. Lips at
her ear again, a voice in her head, her heart, everywhere - TELL
ME TELL ME TELL ME TELL ME TELL ME . . . "Stay,
then. Stay. Never leave. I want you with me. Always. That's what I
want." "Yes.
I want to. I will." "We're
finished, you and I, you do realize that?. Things like this don't
happen. God does not permit such happiness. This will finish us. In
time." "Yes.
I think that's right. But maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow." "Will
that be enough, do you think? A few hours? Maybe some few days?" "It'll
never be enough, not even if it was eternity. But we can make do. You'll
stretch it out - if anyone can, it's you. We might even have a year or
two." He
was smiling, a sight that had not been lucky for others, and might not
be for them. But it was still a welcome sight, for her, for all that.
She hoped to see him smile like that often, for however long she could. It's
cracked hope, yes. But it's the only hope we've got The
voices inside her fell silent. She
was home. FIN Part One copyright 2001, by Nyx Fixx
|