Bram Stoker's HANNIBAL

Chapter 48: Busy At Her Brain

Chapter 48: Busy At Her Brain

5 Sept.

My dear Count Lecter,

Thank you wholeheartedly for your kind invitation to view the Perseids from your estate. No doubt Purfleet will provide a better view, being further away from the city lights. Unfortunately, my sweet Alana has struggled with her health, and Dr. Chilton says she must rest as much as possible to save her strength for wedding preparations. We have a dress fitting tomorrow afternoon, which would be the most activity she should be allowed. However, Mr. Graham will be in attendance. I am sending him with his employer, Mr. Brauner, who also received an invitation. I am simply devastated not to be able to see all the renovations you've made to Carfax; I look forward to exploring your lovely home on a later date. I pray for clear skies tomorrow night!

Yours most sincerely,

Prudence Bloom

***

I know who you are and what you've done.

I know the exact nature of your greed and cruelty. The first few bodies were fresh from the grave, stolen from their coffins. You ripped the jewelry from their fingers and necks and sold their mortal remains to the bodysnatchers. Come resurrection day, those graves will be empty, and your victims will arrive in heaven missing their organs, carved up like vivisected animals.

So much work, though, isn't it? As you pore over your books and struggle through your lecture notes, knowing that it will never come as easily for you as it does the sons and daughters of wealth and privilege. You fought to get here. You've paid your own way, but the money's gone and tuition is due.

And digging up graves takes up so much time. Watching for death notices in the newspapers. Lurking in the cemeteries. The digging. Much easier to get the bodies before they go into the ground.

Much easier just to make a body to sell.

And killing, Mr. Sylvestri, was so much easier than you thought.

You might have continued for years. Paid for your medical degree. But I knew who you were and what you'd done, and I wanted everyone to know.

This is my design.

Will opened his eyes. Price was examining the bloody scalpel on the tool tray. Zeller was helping the photographer pack up his equipment. He stepped closer to the body again and looked down into the dead man's face. While the face looked placid enough, there was something about the muscles around the eyes that betrayed a deep, existential terror. Yet the mouth and brow were smooth and untroubled.

The Scotland Yard photographer left, and Zeller, Price, and Will were alone again in the operating theater. The inspectors had their notebooks out and were waiting for him, trying to seem casual and relaxed when Will could read them just as easily as anyone else – even more so, since they'd worked together for years even before the Ripper case.

"Will," Zeller began. "People are gonna want to know. I need you to be sure."

"Medical knowledge," Price reminded him. "Organs removed." He indicated the liver and heart that had been sliced free and placed carefully on trays on the table nearby as if ready for the medical students to learn from them, sketching their dimensions in their notebooks.

"It's not the Ripper," Will told them firmly. "Devon Sylvestri wasn't a sex worker. The-the anger isn't there. Gideon hated women. There was a pathology. This... it's not the same. Whoever did this wanted everyone... to-to know what Sylvestri was doing."