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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
- 7
- 8
- 9
Though the four walls of his hotel room are white and smooth, the paint spread like silk atop the drywall, when Will looks at them, he sees the shapes of shells.
When he looks into them.
The constant hum of the air conditioning, its rises and falls, the buried oscillations, creeps beneath his skin. It dulls the sound of his own breath. It sharpens his skin, makes his teeth shimmy together.
Whelk.
Cantharus.
Kitten’s paw.
This susurrus of air, its steady flow and the way the walls make it curl in upon itself, makes him think of the sea.
He closes his eyes.
I sleep in the dark. In the dark that isn’t dark, in the dark that is illuminated by the spare light of the stars. Only when the stars are looking may I sleep. This. This is when I sleep. This, for how long. I am troubled out of dreams by the first hint of sunlight.
My bed is small. It is long, but narrow.
I board the boat while it is still dark. The line of the horizon is blue. The water is black.
“Olive,” Will mutters. “Murex.”
The sun comes. It pulls itself up through the bright vapors. It sheds the seven veils of the seven seas, tosses them aside so that it might pour the full measure of its heat across the world.
The sun’s light may touch me while I am on the water, but only then. I must be off the land when it comes.
Will opens his eyes. He sighs. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
His phone buzzes. He rubs his eyes, turns his head. He lifts up his phone. He squints at the brightness of the screen.
—You ok up there?
He picks the phone up off the nightstand, holds it between his face and the ceiling.
—I’m O.K.
—You need anything?
—No.
—Sure?
—Yeah.
—Jim + Bri are out hunting the wild sashimi.
—No interest.
—K. Just checking. Did you call Dr. L?
—No.
—Jack’s gonna spank you.
—I know.
—Night, Will.
—Night, Bev.
He turns the phone face down.
“Coquina.” He looks at the ceiling. “Angel wings.”
He sits up, swings his legs over the edge of the bed. He takes a crumpled t-shirt off the floor. He yanks it on.
I must be off the land.
I must be off.
He stands, hops one-footed into his shorts. He grabs his keys off the nightstand. He goes still, looks into the blank face of the television.
I must be.
I must.
“I don’t sleep in the dark,” he mutters. “Not always.” He rubs his face. “Not today.”
The hall carpet is plush, soft on the soles of his feet. The light fixtures are islands, pouring hot yellow light into the shadows. It chases them into the corners, under the doors.
The air outside is heavy, wet, it carries the limp remains of the day’s heat. The sky is moody as a bruise. A wind drops out of it, plows through the palms. A brief scatter of fat warm raindrops rattles across the pavement, strikes the hood of his car. It slaps the side of his face.
He gets into the car. Starts the engine. He rolls the windows down and wind gushes in, smelling of salt and rot, lightning, mangrove flats.
I am off the land beneath the light of the sun. The land tells all my secrets. The water hides them. She is like a mother. She will take anything. She will give anything.
He backs out of the parking space.
The road is long, straight, the esplanade is crowded with greenery turned black in the orange sodium vapor lamps. Yellow flowers appear and disappear in the flash of his headlights.
Motor oil, he thinks, sniffling. He wipes his nose, glances at the back of his hand. Exhaust and night-blooming jasmine.
“The feet,” he says. “Why does he cut off the feet?”
Here is the water, it lies broad and flat beneath the moon, laid out on the sand in foaming slices and embedded with splintered light. This water, it whispers, murmuring words drawn up out of the depths—syllables exploding, weakened by the ascent to the surface: entreaties cast out of the water and made foam. The water swoons, languid against the shoreline, rolling itself open. It sprawls beneath the deep black gaze of the sky.
The long white limbs of a woman rise up out of the broken light, her hair a wave, her white face crowned with sand. Water gleams on her skin, wraps her in fine silver ribbons. Each spinning turn of her hands casts shells along the tide line.
Will’s hands twitch.
Strains of music filter up through into the air, dragging beneath the weight of the water. The sea pulls the notes out of shape, drags its Latin rhythm. It dips and sways, a heavy wet red hibiscus in the dark.
She dances, a silver flame skipping across the sand. Whirling, bending, hair a long golden veil swirling, her body writes hieroglyphics across the dark. Her footprints fill with puddles of blood.
Will jerks. For a cold sharp moment he’s blind, his breathing quickens and he looks around, feels for the steering wheel. The wind rams into the car, tosses his hair. It clears the shadows from his eyes. First the shapes of shrubbery pull themselves out of the gloom and then the jersey barriers, white in the purple light. He looks up and sees a beach, pale and flat.
His heart strikes his breastbone. It booms, he shivers, the taste of metal blooming on his tongue.
He grabs the wheel, looks around. His breath comes quick and soft and irregular. The city lights recede, leaving this curve of land to the sea.
“Where the hell am I?” He feels around for his phone. “Shit.” He turns on the car. The GPS screen blinks, fills with light. His eyebrows lift. “Fuck.”
He turns the car off. When he opens the door the wind covers his chest, pushes him. He slams the door shut. He stands on warm smooth pavement. He leans into the wind, digging his bare toes into its thin layer of sand.
A path beckons. He puts his hands in his pockets. He starts to walk. He winces at each loose pebble, every sliver of shell, the broken end of each twig pressing into the bottoms of his feet.
Every step she took was as the witch had said it would be; she felt as if treading upon the points of needles or sharp knives.
Will halts. He looks up at the sky.
“He’s saving them.” The low-flying clouds race, tatter apart beneath the constant breath of the sea. “When he takes the feet, he’s taking away the pain. It’s not a mutilation. It’s a…a cure.”
When all the household were asleep, she would go and sit on the broad marble steps; for it eased her burning feet to bathe them in the cold sea-water. And then she thought of all those below in the deep.
“He’s returning them to the sea.” Will looks down the path. “He’s taking them home.”
He moves down onto the beach. Upon it he is laid bare to the wind; it blows up over him, crashes through his hair. The sand is cool. The odor of the tide line is strong, fermented, crusted with salt.
“Let us go then, you and I,” he whispers, holding his face up into the wind. “When the evening is spread out against the sky.” He closes his eyes. “Like a patient etherized upon a table.”
Long white arms, pale fingers arched. Her skin turns grey by the sky, the torrents of dirty purple light falling upon it, long flowing hair burnished at the tips by a weak neon kiss. Her feet weave out a familiar pattern. The wind makes a body for her, gives her fingertips a secret skin to caress, the sharp angles of her knees a reason to go soft.
His shoulders jerk. His eyes fly open. With an explosive exhalation he looks down. He’s swathed in sweat, shaking, cold and slick beneath his clothes. Far away, distorted by the wind, he hears the broken notes of beach bar music, lyrics of a smoky-throated woman warbling across the water:
…like a lazy ocean hugs the shore
Hold me close
Sway me more…
He presses the heels of his hands into his temples until the pulse of blood gets too tight. He lets out a long slow breath, scrubs the oily wet off his hairline.
The music is still there. It’s florid, bloody, it plops into his ears, words like chunks of flesh. It moves into his blood, surges into flame. It lightens his head with hot fumes.
The dancer loses her balance. She pirouettes, her grace leaving her, sprawls facedown into the shallow water. Her hands tremble beside her white face, small broken birds. Her eyes, long and black, deadening, stare at the jetty. Her mouth, like the first notes of false dawn, opens and closes and opens and closes.
His breath breaks apart, runs aground on the back of his throat. He pulls off his shirt, tosses it up onto the dry sand. He strips off the shorts.
The ladder of bloodless gashes in her long neck flexes, pulses, flutters her long gray shark’s tail grows feeble beneath its weight, fins quivering, smothered by the air.
He runs into the water. With each slash of his ankles, his hands, it splashes white, falls back in curds of foam. He breaks the surface with his belly and the water falls back, kindles into blue stars. He drops to his knees. The water rises up around his face, swirls through his hair. It seals the drumming thunder of his heartbeat deep into his ears.
He pushes back to his feet. He breaks the surface and the wind cuts through the beads of water on his skin. He shakes his head. He wipes his face.
“Cold,” he mutters.
A high-pitched squeak nearly drowns in the waves.
Will lowers his arms. “Do I…do I hear something?”
A wet scuffle, two or three frantic overlapping chirps, one long disconsolate howl.
“Are you kittens?” He keeps an ear turned toward the jetty. “Because you sure sound like kittens.”
Nothing.
He listens to the wind. He makes a smooching noise. “Kitty,” he calls out. “Are you there, sweetheart?”
The squeaks start back up again, two distinct pitches of them. He splashes his way closer to the rocks and first one pair of eyes, then the other, flash at him like pale green mirrors.
“Oh goodness,” he says, groping his way past submerged rocks, “look at this. There are two of you.”
One of them scuttles along the spine of a wet rock, tail standing straight. It looks at him, lets out a piercing meow.
“Okay, okay, I see you.” Will holds out his hand. “I see you. You’re stranded up there. I get it.”
A soft nose bumps his fingertips. A raspy tongue licks at his nail.
“I can barely see you.” He strokes the tiny chin. “You must be black.”
The other stumbles over, sniffs at his wrist. The whiskers tickle. It bumps its head into his arm.
Will chuckles. “Hello.”
He reaches up, eases a hand beneath one of them. He cups the belly, lifts the little body off the rock. The kitten is wet, it squirms a little, legs splaying as he brings it in close to his body. Will holds it against his shoulder. The kitten curls up between his chest and his palm, starts to shiver.
“Now, I’ve got to get your friend too.” He turns sideways, takes a step, walks his hand up the wet stone. “Can’t leave him here.” The second kitten noses his knuckles. “I’ve got you,” he murmurs. “Shhhh.”
Will takes the second one and it twists, back claws digging into his wrist. He hisses in breath. “It’s okay,” he says, bringing it close to the first. He cradles them together. “I forgive you. You couldn’t help it.”
Both kittens start to purr in their loud, ragged voices. One of them looks up at him, twists its head around, and chirrups.
He carries them out of the water. He pushes against the deep sway of the waves, flesh growing heavier as the water recedes. He strides up onto the dry sand and squats, placing the kittens on his shirt. He uses the sleeves to rub them dry. “You need a bath,” he says. “Both of you. You’re all salty. And you’re hungry, I bet.”
One of them lets out a tiny, sharp meow.
“I need to get you guys some food.”
One wanders off the shirt and onto the sand. Will picks it up, places it back. It turns around in a wobbly circle, heads back toward the water.
“You don’t like to do what you’re told.” He picks the kitten up, flips it onto its back. He grins. It reaches up, bats his nose with a gentle paw. “This is a problem with all of your kind, you know.”
The other kitten plunks its butt down in the middle of the shirt, extends one leg, and licks its toes.
“Come on. Let’s get you guys to the car.”
He bundles them into an empty file box and they don’t like it, yowling, paws reaching through the handle-holes to scratch at the sturdy cardboard.
“Sorry, guys,” he says. “It’s not pleasant for you, I understand that, but I can’t just let you run loose in my car.”
He sits down behind the wheel and his skin starts to tighten, roots of his hair itching beneath the drying salt’s strangle-hold. Sand crumbles off his feet.
He starts the engine, backs out, the crunch of the sand beneath the wheels loud despite the wind. His headlights flash across the bushes, sun-faded paint, palm trunks. A bleached-white grocery bag, hung up on the edge of a trash can, ripples like a flag.
“Now,” he mutters, looking around, “how do I get out of here?”
On the way, he pulls over to consult the GPS. It tells him in its too-loud electronic voice where to turn, when to stop, where to look for big green signs that hang over intersections, the letters white and reflecting, bouncing meager light back to his eyes.
He finds a 7-Eleven manned by a sleepy teenage boy. He runs in, buys two cans of Friskies with what little money he has.
He looks for cat litter, but there is no cat litter. He buys a newspaper instead.
He finds his way back to the hotel. The building is too big, too white, the orange roof ungainly. He doesn’t remember the short feathery palms that hug its walls. The shapes of the oleanders are foreign to him. The outside lights pierce the greenery, cast big circles on the asphalt.
Inside, the air is too cold. Will starts to shiver as he crosses the threshold, cardboard box held in both hands. It scratches and rocks as he carries it up the two flights of stairs to his room. The cat food cans slide back and forth, back and forth.
The four walls of his hotel room are white and smooth. The carpet, dull brown, receives the kittens. By his gentle hands, they tumble out of the document box. Both of them are black. One is long-haired. The other, big-eared, has a tiny white spot in the center of its chest.
“Here,” says Will, ripping the newspaper into strips. He gets on his knees to arrange them in the lid of the box. “Sorry, guys. It’s the best I can do.”
He fills the sink with warm water. He uncaps the bottle of hotel shampoo.
The one with the white spot is female. “Stella,” he says, soaping up her wriggling hind legs. “Stella Maris, star of the sea.”
She lets loose a piercing meow, tries to wriggle out of his soapy hands.
Will shrugs, scoops water with his hand up over her back. “It’s as good a name as any.”
The long-haired one is also female. “I don’t know what I’ll call you yet,” he says, rubbing her head dry with a washcloth.
He rubs them dry, puts them on the floor. He strips off his clothes. He leaves them on the tile floor and thinks about taking a shower, but as he imagines himself lifting his foot over the rim of the tub, turning on the water, the spray hitting his head, the room starts to waver. He blinks. In the mirror, the overhead light makes his face look bruised, his neck dead. It blackens his hair. It turns the veins along the insides of his forearms a frigid shade of blue.
He wanders out of the bathroom. He climbs onto the bed, falls face-first into the pillow.
Later, the kittens haul him out of a black stuporous sleep with their cries. They refuse to settle until he picks them up, one at a time, and places them on the bed.
Will shuts off the light.
One climbs onto his chest. The other curls in a tight ball next to his hair.
They sleep.
- 7
- 8
- 9
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Lumen Obscura