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Lumen Obscura	By : PinkSiamese Category: -Misc TV Shows > Crossovers Views: 1077 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Hannibal or Dexter in any of their incarnations (TV shows, movies, books). I am making no money off this story.

Chapter List
- 4
- 5
- 6
Will Graham sprawls atop the bed, stripped to his boxers.
Outside, beneath the lowering dark, the trees are shrouded in deep purple. Momentum hums in his bones. He’s still tied to unfurling miles, still plowing through rare air at triple-digit speeds. Crickets crank up against the heat into a shrill, rapid pulse. In his mind, he sees a road. Light flashes off the broken white line. Countryside flows by, swift and foggy.
He’s so tired he cannot wear his own skin. The exhaustion drags through him, catches on a dank streambed. He twitches and stirs up old silt, tides, the desire for forgetfulness.
The house, marooned in the woods. The tall trees, the grass. Shipwrecked.
Inside each room, the air is thick and still. It stinks of wood. Each room is stacked to the rafters with shadows. His bedroom, stained with thin yellow luminescence, is full of dogs. They pant, the heat of their bodies gentle and languid.
A light breeze strokes his skin. The fatigue of his blood takes him by the hand, leads him toward dawn. His limbs creak the mattress. Claws click against the hardwood floors.
“No,” he mutters.
His phone buzzes. He turns into a thin sheen of sweat, reaches toward the nightstand. He fumbles it into his hand. “I just got home.”
“Hello, Will.”
He opens his eyes. “Jack.”
“I wouldn’t disturb you if weren’t important.”
Will rubs his forehead. “This can’t wait until morning?”
“It could, but I would rather it didn’t.”
Will sighs. “What have you got?”
“Something I want to show you.”
He sits up, opens his glasses. “Is this going to make me happy?”
“I’m afraid not.”
He pulls his tablet out of his carry-on bag, flips open the case. “Now, on a scale of one to horribly gross—ˮ
“Two girls were found this morning on a beach near Miami.”
He taps the screen, turns the tablet on its side. “—what am I going to see?”
“Have you opened any of the files yet?”
The image fills his mind, drowned in light, churned-up white sand blinding. In the picture, on the beach, lies a young blonde woman. Her hair is long, tangled, gritty with sand. Hanks of green seaweed weave through it and cling to skin so pale it’s translucent. Her neck, broken stem. Her hand rests half-open beside her face. The lividity underlines her like a sunburn. Beyond, out of focus, a blazing sun scatters pinpricks across pale blue water.
“She’s been posed,” says Will. “Her eyes left open.”
“To look at her companion,” says Jack. “Have you seen the rest of her?”
A ladder of purple gashes grips the side of her throat. A line of tiny, tight, translucent stitches bisect her body, a ragged line drawn below the dimples of her back. Wide gray fins spread from each hip. The long, sleek body of a shark makes a trench, bending in an arc toward the damp sand.
Will exhales. “Yes. The cuts in her neck look postmortem. You said there’s another body?”
“Look at her mouth.”
Will pushes the tablet off his legs. He flips it closed, turns it face down on the bed. “He pulled out all her teeth.”
“And replaced them with shark teeth. Yes.”
He looks through the screen. Stars burn in the black. In the rippled grass, hanging in the low branches of trees, fireflies blink. The air smells of rain, hot gravel, honeysuckle. “I take it you want to go to Florida.”
“In the morning, if possible.”
He stretches out onto his back and groans. He wipes sweat off his temples. “I still feel like I’m moving.”
“How did it go, by the way?”
He puts an arm over his eyes. “It didn’t. There was nothing. I didn’t…I don’t know, feel anything. The whole trip was a waste.”
“Abigail is doing well.” Jack pauses. “She wants to see you.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Alana…”
Will grits his teeth, lets out a slow breath. “Where were the women found, exactly?”
“Coral Gables.”
“Is there more?”
“A similar victim was found in Texas about three months ago.”
“Okay?”
“By the time she was found, the body had disassembled dues to tides and animal activity. The stitch material was still present, though.”
Will tosses the tablet onto the nightstand. “May I go to bed, please?”
“I’ve got your tickets. Your plane leaves Dulles at 10:15.”
“Of course you do.” He reaches up, turns on a fan. “Of course it does.”
“Good night, Will.”
*             *             *
Lumen struggles not to shake all over. Teeth clenched, staring off into the night, she sits at the table for a long time, the picture on the computer out of focus, her whole life out of focus.
There’s so much silence out here in the woods. Such quiet.
Her body loses. Surrender comes on a cold wave of sweat. She shudders, cupping her hands over her face. Her skin smells like lightning.
Why did he talk to me?
Lumen bites her lip. She looks at the ceiling. “Why? Why?”
It could be nothing. It could be coincidence.
She folds her arms tight across her chest. Her mouth trembles. “Bullshit,” she whispers.
I saw you sitting here when I passed you by and thought it would be a good idea to turn around and double check.
She closes her eyes on a vicious sting of tears. The picture in her mind distorts, bends in and out of the day, won’t be stitched down; she sees him in the smeared light, hands out to his sides. Tan shorts. No sunglasses. He shades his face and squints at her, his mouth set. He draws the shades down tight on those unsteady, blue-walled, pit-trap eyes.
I saw you sitting here.
Her nose fills as she searches her memory for a look, a posture, a step, his hesitation, a single burning word trapped in amber.
I saw you.
She opens her eyes. Water pools beneath her eyes, crawls down her cheeks. She wipes her nose and sniffs. “What do I do? What the fuck do I do?”
There was nothing wrong with my car, no four-ways, no popped hood, no list to one side from a flat tire. No orange flags hanging from the windows. No me sitting with the door open, legs out, feet on the pavement, fighting with a phone to get a signal.
“There’s no way,” she whispers.
Lumen gets up, moves toward the fridge; her toes are numb from sitting, her face is on fire, her lungs ache. Her hands moves like an old woman’s on the door, her nails clatter on the handle. She wrenches it open, digs for a hard lemonade. She hates the stuff but it’s ice cold and there’s enough of it for her to forget, if she’s willing, if she wants to.
Was he following me?
In a cold swoon, the idea rolls from her head down to her feet. It cuts the cords in her knees, makes her sway. For a moment the kitchen goes gray. Her palms turn clammy. The urge to vomit flutters up the inside of her throat.
“Oh Jesus Christ,” she whimpers.
Her heart throbs triple-time; each beat booms in her chest. She closes the refrigerator and stumble-walks past the table, bottle scraping its surface. She weaves into the living room, one fist shoved into her chest. Her ribs pulsepulsepulse, quick and light, like a hummingbird’s. She collapses onto the couch, doubles over, gasps for breath. The bottle, soaked with condensation, slips out of her hand. It clatters on the floor and rolls away.
I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do.
Lumen draws in a big jagged breath, shuddering; it’s a sound like birds trapped her mouth.
I could walk outside right now. Run out into the grass, feel it on my knees, fireflies igniting around me with their barely audible pops and slashing the deep blue. A car rolls up. Maybe not. Maybe it’s just walking, long strides swallowing the shadows between the car and the house. White skin in the moonlight. Eyebrows like the shadow of a falcon’s wings, deep furrows pulling them together. Hello, Lumen. Can we talk?
She reaches for her purse. She shakes it and her phone slides out into her hand.
God I hope this number is still active.
She unlocks the screen. The light dims the living room. She flicks through her contacts. She finds what she is looking for and holds her breath, bites her lip.
Here goes.
It starts to ring. As the rings pile up, she feels a slow sinking in her stomach.
Shit.
She is pulling the phone away from her ear when there’s a click and a swallow’s length of silence. “Lumen?”
She bursts into sobs.
“Oh Jesus, Lumen…Lumen…I don’t…what? What? What’s going on?”
Her chest cracks. Heat bubbles up, washes through her blood. Tears and snot sizzle on her skin. The world spins in slow-motion and she scrabbles not to slide off. Her bones long to fall, to crumble in on themselves. She gasps in enough air to speak.
“D-Dex, I think…” She gulps, clutching the phone, “I think I-I-I’m…th-that w-we’re…oh shit I think th-there’s trouble,” she whispers, eyes closed.
“Why? What’s happened? What about you? Are you all right?”
“Y-Yes, I’m okay.” She blows through her pursed lips, sucks in a jagged breath. “I’m oh-ho-hokay. There was a m-man. An FBI profiler. He…he st-stuh…” She swallows. “H-he…stopped when I was on the s-side of the road. I had pulled over to m-m-muh…make a phone call, and he stopped.” She bares her teeth against a fresh tight wave of sobs, struggles to hold them back. Her forehead aches. “He stopped so s-s-see if I was…if I…if I n-nuh…”
“Breathe, Lumen.”
She nods, wipes her eyes with her other hand. “He stopped. T-Talked to me.” She wails. “Why did he talk to me?”
“I don’t know. Shhhh. Calm down. Can you do that?”
“I-I-I…”
“Can you try?”
“Yes. Yes. Y-Yuh…Yes, I can try.”
“Good.”
Lumen grabs tissues off the coffee table. She blows her nose. Her breath moves in and out, catches. She forces out a slow exhale. She balls the tissues up, grabs more. She wipes her mouth. “Okay.” She nods. “I think I’m…okay.”
“Good. What did he say? Did he tell you he was an FBI profiler?”
“No, no…it wasn’t like that. I was pulled over, he saw me, pulled up behind me. He got out of the car and asked me if I was all right.” She dabs at her raw, reddened eyes. “There was nothing official about it.”
“How did you even know he was a profiler?”
“I looked up the Minnesota Shrike case.” She sniffles. “I guess he was involved.”
“You recognized him? From his picture?”
“Yeah.”
“Well…” Dexter lets out a long breath. “Unless he approaches you in a more official capacity, I wouldn’t worry about it. You live in Minnesota, you said he was involved in a Minnesota case…it probably had something to do with that, and nothing to do with you. Or me. Trust me, Lumen. These FBI guys have no problems letting you know they’re FBI and that they’re looking into you. He’s got nothing to hide.”
“What if it’s off the books? What if he’s just suspicious? Poking around?”
“Sooner or later he’ll show his true colors.”
“Yeah, that’s the part I don’t like.” Lumen half-laughs, half-weeps. “That sooner or later part.”
“I don’t like it either.”
Lumen leans back into the sofa cushions. She sighs, closes her eyes. “I’ve thought about you a lot lately.”
“I think about you too.”
“How are you?”
“Fine. Things are…fine, I guess. Quiet.”
“Harrison?”
“Growing like a weed.”
She smiles. “Good.”
“So…how have you been? I mean, besides the FBI profiler thing.”
“Perfectly miserable. I hate it. Everything about it…this house, Owen. Home.” Lumen rubs her face. “Nothing fits anymore.”
A moment of silence. “You could leave.”
“I know. I should.” She laughs, one hand over her eyes. “I can’t seem to get a job here anyways.”
“If you do,” says Dexter, placing his words carefully, “let me know, okay?”
“I’ll do that,” she whispers.
*             *             *
Blue light. It comes like lightning, settles. It beats like a heart. He is the fog, curling up from the cold ground, stretching, always reaching.
Each flash cuts him. Each pulse sets his blood running.
To acquire feet is a betrayal. Now grounded in flesh, housed in skin, his toes kiss the ground. His blood returns to liquid. It abandons a life of pure oxygen, curls itself into drops, loses heat. Falls. His blood abandons the atmosphere, trades it in for life on earth.
No, he mutters, hands curling into fists.
He parts the grass with his knees. He pushes long thin branches aside, ducks his head. White mist embraces his legs. In the distance, the house. The windows are made of yellow light.
Blue light. Red light. Purple. It stutters.
A row of hedges divides the back yard. Swarming one side, dozens of people, some with the yellow FBI on the backs of their jackets. The earth is disturbed. Mist creeps over it, winds around the bushes and shrouds their leaves.
Off to one side, a girl silhouette. She’s small, pale, wearing a ragged white dress. Her feet are dirty, her hair parted into a pair of cornsilk braids. She holds the leash of a small black and white dog, maybe a terrier-spaniel mix. It faces the bushes, panting.
She turns around. Blue light flashes across her skin. “Sorry, mister,” she says, her lean face all upturned dark eyes. “It was my dog’s fault, really. I’m sorry. No matter what I just can’t keep him from diggin at things.”
Can’t sounds like cain’t. Things sounds like thangs. Will reaches out, touches her head. Her scalp is febrile. Her hair is greasy. “It’s okay.”
“No it ain’t.”
The ground is peeled back. Beneath, in the dark crumbly layers of loam, scaled with clay, are long dirty bones. Clothes like rags. Fingers like husks. Teeth like scattered seeds.
Will looks at the girl. She watches him, her hands folded at her waist. “It’s okay,” he says.
Tears well up, sparkle onto her cheeks. They cut through the grime on her skin. “No.” She shakes her head. “I’m old enough to know better. I am.”
Will gets on his knees. The girl sits down too, crosslegged, pulling her dress down over her knobby knees. He sits on his heels. Nods to the dog. “What’s his name?”
“Patches.”
The dog’s ear’s perk up.
His smile is tremulous. “Do you think Patches likes me?”
“I dunno.” She shrugs a shoulder. “Maybe?”
Will leans forward, extends a hand. His skin gleams scarlet past the forearm; dried blood cakes maroon between his fingers and draws black half-moons beneath his fingernails. Red drips off his elbow.
The girl eyeballs the drops. “Don’t that make you feel sick?”
“Nah,” he says, shaking his head. “I have lots to spare.”
“Is it good blood?”
“Yes. It’s good.”
The girl holds out her hand. Three drops fall in her curved palm. She holds them up to her nose, breaks out into a sunny grin. “Mmmmm…roses!”
Patches lurches onto his feet. He inches forward, cringes a little. Will’s fingers bump the dog’s wet nose.
“It ain’t your fault, y’know.” The girl nods to the rectangular hole in the ground, looks at it. A pair of FBI agents lift the pelvis free of the dirt, cradled between them in a sling. “The lady in the ground. I saw him hit her with a brick and then she fell all down on herself like a pile of broken sticks.”
Patches licks Will’s fingers. “Who?”
“The man in the long gray coat. I seen him. Sometimes he runs like a deer on all-fours like. He carries the antlers in his arms. The brick is in the grave.”
Will looks at her face. She looks back, the leash coiled and loose in her lap. Patches moves his head beneath Will’s palm and he scratches, fingers sliding down to the back of the dog’s head. Patches lies down at his knees, turns onto his back. Will strokes his belly.
“You ain’t gonna last,” she says.
Will looks around himself and sees red mud. It reeks of roses, semen, hot iron.
She points. “See?”
One of the agents has a brick in one white-sheathed hand. She holds it up, turns it this way and that. The fitful purple light scatters off it.
“Told you.”
Seagulls screech, their cries rising and falling with distance.
“Now don’t you go in that water. Even good blood gets the blues.” The little girls’ voice starts to fade. “Even blood that doesn’t speak finds its way. Even blood that loves you will enter a shark’s mouth.”
Will stands. It’s dark but the sky is turning pewter in a far-flung, thin line. He looks around. This is nautical twilight, he think. Cobalt and then pewter, silver, pale yellow. The pearlescent pink that ignites into blood orange. He hears a soft murmuring, the hush of water meeting sand. Salt fills his nose. He takes a step. Woods-loam crumbles into beach. The mists burn off. Beneath them, a heavy silver ocean like mercury shifts beneath the strengthening sunlight.
Two bodies lie on the flat sand, shark-tails in the waterline. They face one another. Each has eight arms, mirror-posed. Their long blonde hair curls back and away, as though it’s caught in a breeze. White eyes gaze into white eyes. Shark teeth shred bloodless holes where their mouths used to be.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
Will squats. Sticks his fingers into the sand. Light creeps up from the water and over the dead faces. Their profiles are so alike they could almost be twins.
He wipes his hands on his boxers. Stands. “Oh, and you will sing to me.”
Will startles awake. He holds his breath, lets it out slowly.
Cut into squares by the window, the white light of a false dawn.
*             *             *
In the dark, Lumen stuffs the last box into her car. She slams the trunk.

Owen,
I’m sorry. I can’t.
I should have stayed gone.
Please, take care of yourself.
Goodbye.
L.
- 4
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- 6
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Lumen Obscura