Doctor Hannibal Lecter had really not expected to get in difficulties this chilly October-night, when he was on his way, back to his car, after being shopping food in a delicatessen shop, called Goldstein’s Delicatessen.

It was Tuesday. This is where it began.

The air outside was chilly, but doctor Lecter thought the weather was stimulating rather than freezing. His car, a Jaguar, was on a parking lot, about 70 yards from the store. He had been able to park closer if he’d wanted to, but relinquished, because he wanted to get a chance to enjoy the weather.

It was this fancy, that caused devastating consequences for Hannibal.

He held his food bag with his left arm, and his briefcase with his right, while he was walking with fast, light steps towards his car. He inhaled the freshening night air. Aah!

His heels made a loud smatter against the asphalt.

Doctor Lector just wanted to get to his car, and was not the least prepared to be prevented from getting there - when he got attacked and molested by a gigantic neanderthal, with hands big as spades, huge arms, no neck, and a sloping forehead.

He appeared in front of doctor Lecter like a bolt from the blue. Like a giant he piled himself up in front of Hannibal, who also was short in stature.

- If you scream, he said, I’ll knock your teeth out. Get it?

He grabbed the doctor’s arm and wrenched it up behind his back. The food bag fell to the ground and spread out the contents.

Doctor Lecter was the only pedestrian within a radius of at least 50 yards. No help close, and even the nearest cars were one block away.

The attacker pushed him into a narrow, nightblack alley, between two buildings, where there only was one, faint bulb.

Doctor Lecter crashed into a garbage can, hurt his hip and his shoulder, staggered, but didn’t fall down on the ground.

He gasped and whimpered, and whispered protests, played more helpless than he was, tried to make the attacker feel safe, because first he was assured that he was armed.

Doctor Lecter could defend himself, but he was not stupid, and knew therefore, that you had to please a gunman. No resistance. Because the one who tries to resist, gets shot, he thought.

He got pushed again, and was shoved deeper into the alley, even farther away from the rest of the world, and farther away from the bulb too. The illumination was faint.

Hannibal willingly gave away his briefcase, and the mugger emptied out the contents on the ground.

There weren’t much, just his wallet and his fake IDs, and maybe 50 dollars, registration papers for his car; not much for a mugger, and apparently, the mugger thought the same.

- Where’s your money, old man! he hissed menacingly between teeth pressed tightly together.

- There, that’s all I’ve got. I promise.

- You lie!

Doctor Lecter backed away from him, but besides the faint light, he could now see, that the mugger wasn’t armed. Suddenly there was hope. He appeared as menacing because of his huge body, but doctor Lecter understood, that behind that, he was only a dumb coward who relied on his size to obtain what he wanted.

The muscles gave him a false security sense of invulnerability, so probably he wasn’t very good at fighting.

The mugger threw the briefcase away, and the rest of its contents, but he kept the wallet. He still didn’t seem pleased. He stared at the doctor with his threateningly gleaming eyes.

- Get your money here now, or you’ll be sorry, count on it!

Doctor Lecter didn’t back away any longer, and the mugger reached out his hand, probably to grab Hannibal by the throat, but that’s where it stopped.

Doctor Lecter grabbed the hand with both his hands, lifted it to his mouth, and bit him hard in the hand. He gave out a shrill cry of pain and surprise.

But the doctor acted quickly, kicked the mugger in the groin, an act that made him bend double, and then grabbed his hand again, and bent his index finger straight backwards, till the pain in the hand must have been even more intensive than in his pounding genitals.

Through this act, the doctor stretched the digital nerve in the front side of the hand, which hurts like hell, and can neutralize anyone, no matter how big and strong he is.

Doctor Lecter knew that the pain probably also spread to the nerves in the mugger’s arm and shoulder.

The mugger hit him in the face with his free hand, and one could hear a nasty, cracking sound, and the doctor could the moment after feel something warm flow down his upper lip.

It hurt, made him give out a scream, and made his eyes water, but he didn’t yield, but endured the pain and increased the strength in his grip of the index finger.

The merciless grip quickly removed every thought of resistance from the mugger’s brain. Instead he sank down on his knees on the ground, spitting, spluttering, swearing - and helpless.

- Let me go! he yelled. Let me go, you fucker!

Hannibal blinked the sweat from his eyes, and felt salt secretions in his mouth get mixed with the metallic taste of blood he felt after biting the mugger’s hand. He had bitten deeply.

Now he grabbed the index finger with both his hands, and begun dragging the mugger out of the alley, towards the rest of the world, and held him like if he’d been dragging a dangerous dog in a leash.

The mugger got forced to drag his way forth on his knees and one hand, and he gave doctor Lecter stares with eyes that were obscure of a willing of murder. Even if the doctor couldn’t see much of his face, he noticed that it was so distorted by pain, wrath and humiliation, that he no longer looked human. He looked like a demon.

Hannibal Lecter wondered if the mugger knew who he had really attacked. He doubted that.

He could almost believe, that his reputation around in The States was so notorious, that those who knew about him, not even a gorilla like this one, would attack Hannibal Lecter. At least not without wearing a gun. But on the other side, if people didn’t know who he was, there were many, who underestimated him to begin with. And this because of his feeble physique. Doctor Lecter was small, a bit under 5’7 feet, and slender. Not physically impressive and definitely not scaring - in case you didn’t know who he was. If you did, most people probably thought he looked like the Devil himself.

Besides his physique, the way he appeared influenced people’s first impression of him. He was awaiting and vigilant in his way of being, two qualities that easily could be associated with shyness.

None of these things were accurate of course. Hannibal was physically strong, had impressive reflexes, was extremely intelligent - and dangerous. That he was a multiple killer was something no one who saw him for the first time could expect, but that some people had experienced.

When doctor Lecter had dragged the mugger halfway through the alley, he started to get tired. Even though he was strong, he wasn’t superhumanly strong, and to drag an almost twice as heavy mugger, and simultaneously maintain the iron grip of his finger, definitely drew on his strength.

But he mustn’t yield now. Because if he only got the chance, the mugger would not just beat the shit out of doctor Lecter - he would beat him to death. If he lost his grip of the finger now, he wouldn’t be given any more opportunity to get a new one, so instead he stopped, spit out some bloody saliva from his mouth, and concentrated all his strength on maintaining the grip, so the mugger absolutely wouldn’t suspect that he was weakening.

After two, three seconds of rest and a deep breath, the doctor proceeded, sickened and frightened, to drag him along, even faster than before.

Even if there only were about 50 feet left to the sidewalk, it took an eternity to get there, and when doctor Lecter finally reached the sidewalk, there was still no one close enough to help him.

He didn’t dare to let go of the mugger’s hand.

Hannibal forced his attacker out in the middle of the street, and a car coming along towards them, had to stop, before this unexpected spectacle.

The driver in the blue Honda, which had stopped, had gotten out of his car, and was on his way towards them. Finally Hannibal dared to let go of the mugger’s hand.

He did, and was ready to rush off right through the little crowd of people that had come to witness the happening.

As fast as doctor Lecter had loosened the mugger, he was running out of there. He collided with a young woman with silver-blond hair, took a stumbling step backwards, while the woman grabbed him, so that she wouldn’t fall herself.

Doctor Lecter mumbled a quick excuse to her, and hurried on. He didn’t look over his shoulder, but he doubted that somebody was following him.

He had lost his food bag and his briefcase, but not his car keys that lay in the pocket of his coat. Now he took them up while he was running towards his car, and unlocked the car doors with the remote controlled locking mechanism.

He knew how he must look like, running through the whole block like some loony.

An older couple looked surprised after him when he whistled past them, but doctor Lecter didn’t see this. All he saw was his car.

When the doctor reached there, he ripped the car door open, threw himself in the driver’s seat, turned the ignition key and pressed down the accelerator, and the car tore off.

Marks of burnt, black rubber were left in the asphalt.

But when the doctor had gotten on his way, he calmed down. He kept the speed limit and put the seatbelt on, because the last thing he needed right now, was to get into a police control.

Hannibal wanted to get home. His house was about a distance, which took around 15 minutes with car from the store he just visited.

This had come unexpectedly. Not that Hannibal was unfamiliar with problems and challenges. On the contrary, he often welcomed them, because he’d be bored if his road always just would be steady and even.

Some challenges were of course more welcome than others, but generally, he could handle everything he came across. He was no longer young, he had soon passed his sixtieth year, and believed that he had been through the most.

On this point doctor Lecter made dreadful mistake. It never crossed his mind, that he during the following days, would get in trouble which he couldn’t handle.

He was the victorious in the combat with the mugger, but he was not without injuries. His right shoulder and hip were sore, by injuries he had gotten when he was pushed into the garbage can. He yet didn’t know how his nose was. Just what he’d seen after a brief look in the rear-view mirror.

He had blood all over his upper lip and around his mouth. What he didn’t know, was how much that was his; most of it came from the mugger, when doctor Lecter had bit his hand.

He took out a handkerchief from the pocket of his pants, and tried to wipe off the blood. His nose hurt.

Besides the injuries, he had lost his food bag and his briefcase, where there actually had been some quite important stuff. He was convinced that the people who had seen him drag the beaten mugger out on the street, saw him as the villain of the piece. It must have looked like he was. But that didn’t concern him the least.

The house that Hannibal Lecter lived in, was in a secluded district, a bit drawn in from the street, on a gigantic garden.

He didn’t own the house, just hired it, but he still saw it as his own.

How the house was dark.

Doctor Lecter drove his car into his garage, and then went towards the front door. His heels smattered against the paving.

He went into the house, didn’t even bother to switch on the patio lights, and went straight into the bathroom, to see how bad his nose was.

After a brief examination of himself, he could with a relief state the fact that it wasn’t broken. He had been lucky.

It hurt, of course, but that was something he couldn’t do anything about, except for maybe take an analgesic pill.

He watched his own reflection in the bathroom mirror. This day had been little more eventful than he’d expected.

He gave his wristwatch a quick look.

Five past ten, P.M. But still all strange happenings weren’t over for this evening yet.

After getting home, and fixing everything up, doctor Lector ran water into the bathtub and stepped into it.

That is where he was lying now, and started to get sleepy. He wanted to sleep, but he was strongly determined not to do it in the bathtub. Because that could get serious consequences, he knew.

Doctor Lecter leaned his head backwards, and closed his eyes, and inhaled the fragrant foams coming from the bath salts.

Hannibal almost fell asleep, but when he noticed, he opened his eyes and got up from the water. The bed would be a better place to sleep. If you compare.

Some of the feeling of fatigue disappeared when the doctor got up from the bad, and when he had done that, he stood in his living room, and poured out a glass of his finest vintage to himself.

He was dressed for the night in a pyjama, dark blue robe of silk and slippers.

Doctor Lecter brought the wineglass with him and sat down in a deep, brown armchair made of leather, pulled up his legs under him and began to sip at his wine.

He held something else too in his hands, and this something was a photograph of Clarice Starling, which he had cut out from a magazine and magnified to a size of 8 x 4 inches.

He looked at the picture of her face; this was taken on an open street, and Clarice had obviously not been expecting to be photographed, for her mouth was halfway open, like in a protest, and she frowned irritably.

He was looking thoroughly at her face, and saved the image of her in his memory palace, together with the rest of the images of her, which he kept there.

He took another swig of the wine and then put the glass away. He huddled up in the soft armchair and closed his eyes, still holding the photograph of Clarice in his hand.

Two minutes later the photo slowly went down to the floor, where it landed softly on the mahogany-floor.

Hannibal Lecter had fallen asleep.

0.24 A.M. the phone rang, and doctor Lecter got involuntarily woken by the persistent ringing.

He got up and answered after the fourth signal.

- Hallo.

No reply.

- Hallo? the doctor reiterated.

Still nothing, but the line wasn’t broken. The caller was listening on the other side, though not saying anything.

- Who is this? doctor Lecter said calmly.

He could hear a ‘click’ when the caller hung up the phone, and then the line was broken. Hannibal looked thoughtfully at the receiver, which he held in his hand before he hung up.

Who had that been? Wrong number? Sure. It must have been. But then why didn’t he or she tell that?

No, some people were just like that, the doctor thought. Rude. Impolite. Free range rudes, as he himself called them. The person who phoned seemed to be one of them. We all know the doctor’s opinion of rude people.

Hannibal went back to his armchair, and was just about to sit, when a thought struck him.

What if it hadn’t been wrong number? It might be...something else.

But he didn’t waste anymore time thinking at that, but left the living room to go and lie down in his real bed.

He brought a science-fiction novel, written by Robert Heinlein with him. He was fond of science fiction.

That weird phone call had scattered the fogs out of his head and he didn’t feel like going to bed and sleep again right away.

When he was lying in his bed, and had come into the story of the book, didn’t think any longer neither at the attack nor the phone call.

Hannibal Lecter did not worry unnecessarily.

Two days after Hannibal Lecter got attacked outside the delicatessen shop, he drove back there, to buy the things which he had lost that disastrous Tuesday.

He had already fixed copies of everything else he lost together with the briefcase, but the groceries could be bought there only, and now Hannibal was sitting in his car, dressed for a town-visit.

He arrived to the parking lot of the store, twenty one minutes past three, in the afternoon; did not this time park far from the entrance to enjoy the walking, even though the odds probably were astronomical, that he would be exposed for the same thing again. It was day, and a lot of people were out on the streets.

Still he had his bent, serrated little knife in with, in his pocked, which he didn’t have two days ago. "Just in case".

Inside the store, which was very crowded, as usual, the doctor moved with great enthusiasm along the long counter, where he could choose from a multitude of delicatessens.

The whole place was filled with the sweetest fragrances.

Doctor Lecter didn’t hurry, gathered the things he wanted: pastrami, a home baked pain riche, goose liver kippered salmon and potato salad, then paid for his groceries, and headed towards the way out of there.

Hannibal this time managed to, arrive safely, and without losing anything, all the way to his car.

He found himself giving a sigh of relief when he was safe behind his wheel.

The doctor started his motor and drove away.

When he arrived back to his home, he stopped his car, and looked (as always) in his mailbox.

He didn’t normally get so much mail, just the most usual stuff, so this afternoon, when he reached his hand down in his mailbox, he got honestly surprised.

There was a brown parcel, addressed to the false identity, which he had used for almost a year now, and still used. Besides the parcel, there was nothing. The rent of the house and the electricity bill he had already paid last week.

Doctor Lecter brought the big brown parcel with him in his car. After parking in the garage, gotten into the house, put his groceries into the fridge and pantry, he got a chance to give the parcel a closer look.

But not before he had gotten a little more comfortable.

He took off the dark silk suit, and changed to black jeans, a T-shirt to wear under, and a sweater to wear over it. These were clothes which he used when he was alone in his home. To look neat and cultivated was important to doctor Lecter when he was out among people, but with only himself as company, he didn’t feel he had to. The silk suit went back into the wardrobe.

No one had of course told doctor Lecter that he was about to get visitors.

Hannibal had no idea of what the parcel could contain. But in was kind of heavy, so it most likely contained a solid object.

A bomb.

The thought flickered through his head and disappeared as quickly as it had arisen. That was of course ridiculous. Why would anyone send him a bomb?

What the thing that confused him was that he didn’t know who had sent the parcel. There was no postmark or return address.

Doctor Lecter got gloves to wear when he opened the parcel. He didn’t seriously believe that it might be anything dangerous, but it could not hurt being cautious.

First he shook the packet with his gloved hands, like a little child shakes its presents trying to guess what they contain. It sounded hollow. It seemed to be a compact metal object.

The doctor stood at the kitchen table, grabbed the parcel’s both sides with his hands and tried to shake forth whatever it contained, on the table. He wanted to avoid grabbing it with his hands before he knew what it was.

And when "it" finally slid down on the table, Hannibal’s curiosity wasn’t satisfied. But the right opposite.

It was a small box, cubic-shaped, perhaps with the face three inches. It was made of metal, had golden engravings on all six sides. Beautiful.

The box had been thoroughly packed. It had been carefully wrapped into a piece of soft cotton wool, which followed out when doctor Lecter shook out the box.

But nothing else. Not letter, no card. Just the box. Provided of course, that anything was inside it?

The doctor considered it now safe enough to pick up the box in his hands and look for himself. But he couldn’t open it. The box appeared to be solid. There was not anything else than metal inside it, it seemed.

But who had sent it?

Doctor Lecter was a hermit. Had always been a hermit. He did not have many close friends even before he got classed as a "monster", and now he had as good as any. That was perfect for Hannibal. Mostly, he was perfectly pleased with only the company of himself. He could any time visit his memory palace and enjoy all it had to offer him, and to do this, he needed no other human beings.

But sometimes, when he was lying alone in his bed, he couldn’t help thinking, how it would have been if Clarice Starling had lain beside him and loved him.

But that was of course a utopian fantasy, that never would come true, and this was something that doctor Lecter had accepted. Clarice Starling belonged to another world. He had realized and accepted it already the first time he saw her and got fond of her. That is why didn’t spend so much time thinking about it.

But the box? Who had sent it? Not a friend of him. So it must be a threat. Had someone unveiled him? What did that person what to tell him, then? "I know who you are! Here is a box!"

But a note like that had not been with, and besides doctor Lecter kept thinking, he could draw any parallel between the box and something definitely linked to him.

A mystery.

Why so secretively? He could not imagine anyone who could possibly made all this trouble getting a box like this, (the doctor had never seen any before), wrap it up and then send it anonymously. Without any hint at all.

Doctor Lecter sure was intelligent and clever and was quick on the uptake, but he did not understand this.

It didn’t make any sense. If it was meant as a threat, would it not be better to talk turkey?

The mystery got bigger.

What could he do about this? Unfortunately not much, if he wasn’t given any other hint. Would he get one?

Doctor Lecter went into the living room and watched himself in his full-figure mirror. He told his reflection:

- Come on, Hannibal. What is happening to you? Huh? This isn’t like you. You know the deal. You cannot do anything about this, at least not now, so stop brooding. Focus on things, which you can do, instead of things you cannot. Right now you are acting very inefficiently.

He listened to his own voice that resounded against the high ceiling in the living room.

- You heard me? he told his reflection contemptuously.

This was enough to give him a little more colour. He was thinking. What could he do at the time? Hmm? Cook himself dinner, for example. He had not gone and bought his groceries for nothing.

He went with fast steps back into the kitchen.

The box had to lie unmoved on the table for another few hours.

Doctor Lecter had been strolling around in his big house, done all sorts of trifles, which otherwise would have taken him several days to get done, if it hadn’t been that he wanted to keep himself busy, so that he would not brood about The Mystery of The Box, as he had started calling it.

He really focused on what he was doing, and actually had managed to drop his thoughts around the box.

He had worked long, and with great enthusiasm, cooking himself a dinner, consisting of fillet of beef, homemade potato cakes, vegetable soup with bouillon, and for dessert peach pudding with apples.

For drink, he opened a bottle of Chateau d’Yquem.

Hannibal was very interested in cooking, and was an excellent cook. He always got hilarious by cooking, and that was also the best way of relaxing.

He had made the table for one, himself, and eaten his fragrant dinner in the living room, with just one candle for illumination.

When he was done with his meal, the time had been ten past six in the evening, and now it was half past nine, and doctor Lecter was sitting huddled up in his brown armchair in the living room, reading. The latest hour, he had spent there, eating shamelessly from his recently bought jar with potato salad. Now there was no more, and the empty can lay on the little, triangular table next to the armchair.

Books were another good way of relaxing, and the doctor had earlier this evening gone through his shelves in his workroom, searching for something good.

He had finished the novel by Robert Heinlein yesterday evening, and was now sitting with a new science fiction novel, this time one written by H G Wells, which was named: "The Island of Dr. Moreau."

The plot of the book was of course childish and ridiculous; completely absurd, but maybe that is why the book interested Hannibal.

The story circulated round an insane geneticist, Dr. Moreau, who at an island out in the South Pacific was conducting experiments by supplying animals with human genes.

Ridiculous, but doctor Lecter sat with his nose in the book, reading, with great interest. He also knew that the book had been filmed some time in the thirties. He had not seen the movie, and had not plans doing it. Completely uninterested in all kinds of movies, as he was.

He had just reached the chapter when the beast people began to revolt their creator, when the telephone rang.

Hannibal answered already after the first signal.

- Hallo.

Just silence on the other side of the line.

He did not say "hallo" again this time, because he knew that it would not do any good, but hung up right away.

That is what you were supposed to do. Show the caller that you did not care.

He was now absolutely certain that it wasn’t wrong number. Not twice within two days, without an excuse both times. Besides that, the silence sounded dangerous, like an unspoken threat.

Someone was fucking with him. Who?

Apparently the same person who had sent him the box. But what was his point? To come with guess work to pester doctor Lecter? Could that be a possible theory?

If that was the case, doctor Lecter announced to himself, that that kind of stuff did not work on him. To get menacing phone calls and mysterious packets certainly made him annoyed and curious, but you did not get Hannibal Lecter off balance like that.

You can do better! he said within him to the person who was behind this. And if you can’t, you would better not come near me.

Doctor Lecter had during the day almost been able to put the thoughts of the box away. Now they came over him again like a surge.

He was not worried or afraid, just so damn curious. There must be a meaning with the box, he thought. But I have not come up with it yet. He wants me to come up with it. He, she or they, are waiting. The phone had rung again today, just to check me. To check if I had solved the puzzle.

That was too much for Hannibal. He went to the kitchen and picked up the box in his hands. Almost manically he began twisting and turning it to find the answer.

Was there anything? Did the box have something that he had overlooked? And where did it come from? It seemed expensive, perhaps was it even a valuable antique. That those stuff did not just grew on trees, the doctor knew very clearly. He decided that as soon as possible, try to trace the box’s origins.

Doctor Lecter brought the box with him to the living room. He stood on the floor, wearing black jeans, a T-shirt and a sweater, holding the box above his head, simultaneously watching it from below, as if he was looking for an important message in the box.

And partially, that was what he did. But no matter how thoroughly he searched, he could not find anything unusual.

Early in the morning next day, he would find out what he really was holding in his hands.

Hannibal Lecter twisted and turned the object. Was it really not possible to open? He tapped it lightly with his knuckles.

It seemed as if...

He had no luck, not before the box took a jump out of his hands, like the metal-piece suddenly had come to life, flew in a curve through the air, and landed on the floor next to the TV, about 15 feet from doctor Lecter.

The box had changed shape. It had no longer the shape of a cube, but had transformed into a kind of star, did it by itself while it was lying on the floor, and all doctor Lecter could do, was to watch. What is...-

"What is going on?" doctor Lecter was thinking, but only got halfway through, since he was interrupted by an enormously strong, blinding, white, bright light, that suddenly appeared from nowhere, and the splitting pain in Hannibal’s eyes was at the moment so sharp, and overcame him, so that he was thrown down to the floor.

Together with the pain, he only saw white spots. Nothing else. He had convulsively pinned his eyes shut when the light hit them, but even if he had opened them, he couldn’t have seen anything. Just white spots.

But the light only lasted some tenth of a second and vanished as quickly as it had come. But it took substantially longer, at least five, six seconds, before Hannibal had recovered so that he could get his sight back.

But already before he got his sight back, and already before he had turned his face up from the floor, he knew that he was no longer alone in the room.

At first doctor Lecter only saw their silhouettes. There were four of them. Humans. The outlines of four human beings were in his living room.

His eyes could now discern more than just the outlines. The four shapes were only moderately human. If that much.

The one who stood closest to him seemed to be a man, dressed in a black suit with shoulder plates. His skin wasn’t pasty, but white as chalk, and his face was filled with nails. His eyes were totally black, like crude oil. He had no whites in the eyes. The next figure was female. She resembled the man with the nails in his head very much, besides of that she had not any nails herself. Her skin too, was unnaturally (and disgustingly) grey-blue-whitish. She was entirely bald, like the man was.

The female had a nail through her nose, and steel wire through her jaw, formed to a half circle. The skin over her throat was split open and was kept apart by the wire. Her clothing was about the same as the man’s.

The other two were still worse. Their features were far from human, and doctor Lecter did not have words to describe them. The strange thing was that he at first didn’t feel any fear. Just astonishment.

Slowly he got up. The man with the nails began to speak.

- The box, he said. You solved the puzzle. We came.

His voice was deep, calm, hypnotic, not entirely unlike doctor Lecter’s own. He spoke with British accent. His black eyes looked into Hannibal’s.

- Come to us, the woman said. We have such wonderful sights to show you...

Her voice was more like a metallic screeching, as if she had been partially robot. Who knew? Perhaps she was. The tone in her voice sounded dead.

The other two were quiet. But one of them whole the time made a clattering sound by clutching its exposed teeth together, in its faceless head, with no lips.

The man with the nails turned his head about 90 degrees left.

- Take him, he told the two mute creatures.

Now doctor Lecter was struck by terror.

He knew what the dial was. Run or die. Run or die.

This was a fear he had never known before. Never ever. He was suddenly in an amorphous dream landscape, everything else but himself began to dissolve and disappear. He knew now, that if he did not run, he would die where he was standing.

The female demon (he now saw them as demons.) They were not ordinary human beings, even if they stood upright and spoke, they were not human, so the best designation for them was simply demons) swiftly as a lightning pulled out a knife from her belt, a serrated dagger, which she threw at doctor Lecter, but missed.

The doctor dodged for the knife, with a speed he normally didn’t have, but that had been born out of the horror. Almost at the same time he threw one of the mute demons away, that had come forth to grab him.

With superhuman strength and flexibility, he ran, the fraction of a second later.

Hannibal’s pumping legs worked their way through up the stairs to the upper floor in the house. He got into his workroom, and he must have locked the door, even though he didn’t have a memory of it, and rushed to the window.

He grabbed the hafts in the lower part of the window, and pulled it open without the slightest effort. He was strong normally too, but now when it really was a matter of life and death, ‘strong’ wasn’t enough. He could better be described as "unbelievably strong" or even inhuman.

The demon with the clattering teeth, he had thrown away like down cushion.

He jumped out on the roof of the porch, about two feet below the window, and turned a controllable somersault through the icy wind which hit him, against the edge of the roof.

He almost rolled over, but grabbed the gutter with his left hand, and hung there for a moment, while the gutter screeched alarmingly. It would yield soon. He was too heavy.

Doctor Lecter let go. He landed on the garden path, on his left side, with a nasty crack, but did remarkably not injure himself badly anywhere, except for his left hand, which he scraped against the paving. He had fallen about seventeen feet. Maybe twenty.

Doctor Lecter was back on his feet again, two seconds after he fell, and turned away from his house to run out on the street.

At the same time as he had gotten about 20 yards, the demons broke into his workroom. The man with the nail, who obviously was the leader and the female looked after him from the window.

- He is getting away, the woman said.

- Do not worry, the leader demon replied. He won’t get far.

The creature, that once had been Elliott Spenser, stood at the window a while after, a minute perhaps, he had seen his proposed victim throw out through it, and run a way.

His partner, the female, had shortly after the man threw himself out of the window, left the room.

Elliott Spenser was a cenobite. He answered to the name "Pinhead", which you could tell by the nails in his head, which was bald. He had been Pinhead, the leader-cenobite, for 80 years now, soon.

Pinhead was slim, six foot tall, and looked stiff when he moved. Perhaps it was because of the suit he wore.

Suddenly his female partner entered the room again. He did not turn around, even if he felt her eyes in his back.

- Are you coming or not? she told his back.

- Just another minute, Pinhead replied with his uncannily hollow, monotone voice. His British accent shone through his speech.

The woman was a cenobite, just like Pinhead himself. She looked pretty much like him, besides of, that she did not have any nails in her head, but instead a needle through her nose, and through her jaw, she had a device, that in some degree reminded of an old-fashioned brace. Her throat was split. Her skin had the same colour as Pinhead’s. She too was bald.

The woman didn’t have a real name. Most cenobites just called her "Female Cenobite", but he called her by her birth name, which was Rosalyn.

- I’ll be there in a minute, Pinhead said when the woman refused to leave the room.

- We have to find him, she said.

- He will not get far.

- We have to find him. He is our victim. He solved the box. He belongs to us. We must find him.

- We will. Definitely.

But the cenobite-woman didn’t give up, but approached Pinhead and put her hand on his shoulder. It was a firm grip.

- We must start searching. Right now.

- There is no need yet, Rosalyn.

- We must start searching, Pinhead.

- You just don’t give up?

- Don’t be stupid. You know what Leviathan would....-

- Do not start on Leviathan. I know already.

No Pinhead’s voice was sharp, or as sharp as it could get, without sounding like a snubbing. Pinhead didn’t snub. Not ever.

His hollow cenobite-voice had been trained to sound as it did, like a monotone burial-voice, calm and flat, and angry snubs didn’t belong with it.

But he could not really stop himself when she mentioned Leviathan to him. He needn’t be reminded of his master at this time. But the cenobite-woman had a point.

They should not let their victim get a too big lead. Perhaps he should ask her to start searching. They "searched" their runaway-victims telepathically. Though Pinhead had not any telepathic abilities himself, but this was something that his female colleague stood for.

He could take part of her visions by having physical contact with her while she was searching.

To be able to seek, the cenobite-woman had to put herself into a trance. It might take a while before she saw anything. Depending on how far away the victim had gotten. But she always succeeded. Pinhead had till now not experienced any failing when she had been with.

He faced the woman. She was about six inches shorter than he was, that would make around 5’6 feet tall.

- Let us search, he said.

The female was sitting on one of the victim’s chairs in the room, where the human had thrown himself out from the window. Pinhead had pulled the curtains, and lowered the Venetian blind in the room; no one actually knew why, but to be able to concentrate properly and get into trance, no light from outside could get in.

The lamp in the ceiling was switched on, though.

Pinhead plus the two mute, low ranked cenobites, who by their own were called The Chatterer and Butterball, watched her.

Her breathing became more and more forced when she went into trance. Her closed eyelids flickered from time to time, but she didn’t move and she didn’t open her eyes.

While Pinhead was waiting for a vision from her, he took a look at the victim’s things that were in the room.

There was a bookcase with a multitude of books. He pulled out one book from the bookcase. Its title was Dante’s Inferno.

He opened the book, and saw a name written on the top of the first page.

Hannibal Lecter. Their victim’s name was Hannibal Lecter.

A rare name. Provided of course, that the man had stolen the book from somebody by that name. To be sure that wasn’t the case, Pinhead pulled out another book.

The same name was there. But it really didn’t interest him. Cenobites did not care about their victim’s identities.

Flesh and human agonies were principal points for them.

Pinhead put the book back.

Suddenly he heard the woman sitting in the chair moan. He turned around and grabbed her extended hand. She jerked. She shuddered. Her eyes rolled up in her head, so that only the whites were visible. She gasped with open mouth, as if she was drowning.

She extended cold, hissing noises. Her other hand, which Pinhead didn’t hold, fell back onto her lap, like a dying bird. Her metallic raspy voice quivered when she opened her mouth and said:

- Dying.

Pinhead had not yet managed to connect a link between them, and therefore didn’t see what she saw, and also didn’t know what she meant.

- What do you mean? Rosalyn? Is the victim dying? Is Hannibal Lecter dying?

Then he remembered that the woman did not know that the victim’s name was Hannibal Lecter, and could therefore not associate the name with the victim.

Her hand squeezed Pinhead’s firmly.

- Dies, dies, dies...the cenobite-woman droned.

Pinhead wished he had seen what she saw right now. It took some time to connect the link.

- We have to...- she hissed hoarsely.

Pinhead then caught a glimpse of an image that flickered through his mind. But it was there such a short moment that he did not have time to see what it was. All he could pick out was a roadway. That was all.

Then he saw why. His partner had woken up from the trance-state. She now looked at him with clear eyes.

- We must hurry, she said and let go of his hand.

Hannibal Lecter ran.

He was only faintly aware of what he was doing.

Run or die. Run or die. Run or die.

Everything else, the surrounding and all other noises had dissolved and disappeared, and he didn’t notice them. Just the phrase "Run or die" buzzed in his head, louder and louder, until his ears were filled with the almost unbearable roaring.

Neither did he notice the cold and the wind that whipped him when he ran along the black, asphalt surface of the road.

Run or die.

He was lightly dressed in relation to the weather. In the biting cold and the furiously whipping wind, he would have needed a coat and shoes, but he had neither, but this was at the moment nothing that doctor Lecter paid attention to, or worried for.

He ran, like through fog; and the fogs didn’t disperse until he reached the highway.

Then, but only then, he woke up from his "fugue-state" or whatever he would call it, that he had been in the last few - he didn’t know exactly - minutes.

The first doctor Lecter got aware of, was the cold. It pinched him in his face, and he had totally lost the feeling in his hands and feet. It forced its way deep into him through his thin clothes, and he shook violently.

His heart pounded like possessed and he could not breathe normally; his body began to make itself felt of that he had run for his life only a few seconds ago.

He had been supplied with superhuman strength and speed when he ran from the demons, but now, when he no longer was in the same panic-state, the exertions claimed their due.

He couldn’t take another step.

Gasping and panting for breath he sank down on his knees at the side of the road. His head and chest hurt. When he tried to stand up, his legs had been turned into rubber, and he was lying flat on his stomach on the cold street.

The cold from the asphalt pierced its way into him, and Hannibal knew that he should get up so that he would not get pneumonia.

But he had no strength to manage that.

How long had he been out?

The distance from his house to the highway, could be done by a good marathon runner in about 20 minutes, but doctor Lecter had finished it in less than a quarter of an hour.

Now he had to pay the price.

- No, he whispered inaudibly while he was lying with his face against the ground. The demons...

He oscillated between consciousness and unconsciousness the following minutes, fought to stay awake, fought not to fall asleep, and then freeze to death, as he knew he would do, if he feel asleep.

When he at last slipped into unconsciousness, the difference was barely noticeable, just a very tiny difference in his way of breathing.

Another eight minutes passed before a car stopped to see how he was.

- Hurry! Call for an ambulance! a brunette woman called to her traveling companion who stayed in the car which had stopped.

The only thing doctor Lecter remember of the ride in the ambulance on the way to the hospital was the sound of hooting sirens and a cacophony of voices that seemed to be scream right into the mouth of each other.

He saw nothing, since he was only faintly aware on and off.

While doctor Lecter was lying on the stretcher, wrapped up in blankets, the ambulance crew checked his pulse, blood pressure and his body temperature.

Hannibal woke up during the arrival to the hospital. He had been transferred from the stretcher to a hospital bed on wheels, and now four or five people dressed in white were pushing the bed along a long, long corridor. He was on the casualty department.

- What do we know? the voice of a woman said.

- White male, in his mid-fifties, pulse 74, BP 120 over 60, suffering from hypothermia. No ID on him. He doesn’t seem to have other body-injuries, except for...-

Hannibal opened his eyes. He blinked a few times, hoping that his sight would clear up. It didn’t. He saw everything like through a thick, gray cloth, but he was no longer unconscious.

He heard upset and hectic voices chatter now too. But suddenly the white dressed people stopped pushing the bed, and a man standing on his left side, told the others:

- Look, he is coming around.

Four pairs of eyes were now focused on him. A voice said:

- What’s your name? Can you tell us your name?

Doctor Lecter heard the words, but he didn’t respond to them. The nurse repeated what she just said.

But doctor Lecter was far away from the rest of the world. Even if he had understood what the nurse asked him, he could in this very confused moment not remember his name. Neither his real name (which perhaps was lucky) nor the false identity he used.

- The demons...,was all he said. The demons, they’re coming...-

- What was that? the nurse asked and leaned over him so that he could smell her hair and breath.

Suddenly doctor Lecter became wild. He pushed away the nurse and knocked her down. She hit her shoulder against the wall and smashed down firmly on the floor.

- No! doctor Lecter screamed and tried to flow up from the bed, but many strong hands immediately pressed him down again.

The demons. Run or die. Now he remembered everything as clearly as if a videotape was played on before his eyes.

- They’re coming! he cried and tried to break free. Let go of me! They’re going to kill me!

He threw on and off and those three - two doctors and a nurse, got trouble holding him down. Even if he was strongly chilled, and in the need of medical care, doctor Lecter was strong, and another two people dressed in green, hurried to rescue.

- Has he taken anything? one of them asked.

- I don’t know, one of the people who had stood there the entire time said. Probably. He is extremely strong. Hysteria caused by PCP often occurs together with abnormal strength.

Doctor Lecter managed to get one arm loose, and tore the shirt of one of the men holding him, in rags. After that, he pushed the man away.

Upset voices:

- Give him something sedative!

- Considering his condition, I don’t know if...-

- I know. Do it. Right away.

Doctor Lecter felt a pinprick in his left arm, and slipped back into unconsciousness again, only two minutes after regaining it.

"The demons" he said before it all went dark.

Hannibal Lecter regained his consciousness for the second time the same night, and found himself lying on his back in a hospital bed.

He didn’t move an inch; he was lying still, waiting for the world to clear up.

He took a deep breath, and grimaced when he felt the acrid smell of hospital in his nose.

He had a drop cannula in one of his arms and a hose supplying him with oxygen in his nose.

Doctor Lecter sat up from the bed hastily, into sitting position, faster than he actually should have done, considering his condition, and swung his legs over the edge of the bed.

Then he had to stop. The nausea came over him like a wave, and made him put his hand over his mouth and lean his head between his knees, not to throw up.

He waited a few seconds, till the nausea was gone, and then straightened his back again. This time more slowly. He also felt that he needed to visit the toilet, and was just about to disengage the drop and go, when he heard steps coming towards his room.

Considering how it sounded, at least two, or more people were headed towards the room where he was.

Doctor Lecter quickly lay down again and pretended to sleep. He turned his back at the sound, and therefore did not see them come in, but he heard them. They were two, a man and a woman. They came in and began to converse a few feet from his bed.

The man said:

- Have we found out anything about him?

Doctor Lecter knew they were speaking about him.

- No, absolutely nothing, the woman replied. He was registered as a John Doe. He had no ID on him. I guess he is homeless. Or a dope. Maybe both.

Homeless dope! doctor Lecter thought. Oh sure!

- Did he say anything when they brought him in?

- Something about that some kind of "demons" were about to kill him. He was raving of course. Or then he was high on something.

- Nothing else?

- No. But he was difficult to hold down. It took five men to do that. He had gotten some really bad shit, probably.

- How are his other vital signs?

- Oh, they’re stabile. He has recovered surprisingly well after almost frozen to death. We’ll have to talk to him when he comes around. Let’s see what he has to say. Just hope that he has cleared up a little till we do.

Doctor Lecter listened to the conversation. He tried to breathe like a sleeping person, and succeeded. They didn’t suspect anything.

Could they not leave soon? This started to get boring.

After another minute of low speaking, the man and woman finally left. Doctor Lecter opened his eyes when their steps no longer heard.

Has was going to leave the hospital as quickly as possible. He knew he was in danger.

Hannibal had no trouble remembering what had happened the last few hours. He was entire clear in his head now, although he felt a little woozy; if it was because of he had been chilled or the sedative he had gotten, was impossible to tell.

When he was sure of that those two who had been there earlier wasn’t coming back in a while, he pulled out the cannula from his arm and even removed the hose from his nose.

The floor felt cold against his bare feet, when he got up and pattered into the toilet, which was connected to the room.

He relieved himself and then turned against the mirror. He didn’t look very sick. But he was extremely pale. And he had chased expression in his eyes that he did not like. He took a few heavy breaths while he was standing in front of the mirror. Was he strong enough to leave the hospital? Yes? He had to be.

Hannibal went back to his hospital bed and sat down on the edge of it. What would he do?

He got goose pimples on his bare legs and felt vulnerable dressed only in the thin hospital shirt.

He went to his closet to see if his real clothes were there. They were. Quickly he pulled on his jeans and his sweater and his socks, as if it was possible to lure the danger by being properly dressed.

But if he was going to leave the hospital under the current weather conditions, her also needed a topcoat and real shoes, something he did not bring with to the hospital. Besides that, he needed money. He didn’t have a nickel.

Doctor Lecter’s roommate was a 72 year-old man, connected to drop and a squeaking cardiogram monitor. A green line bumped steadily and stably on the monitor.

The other patient was asleep, thank god, and doctor Lecter sneaked to his closet to see if there possibly could be any of the things he needed.

There was a black leather jacket, doctor Lecter felt in its pockets, in case there would be some money, and pulled out a wallet. Hastily he went through the contents of the wallet. There were the ID cards, a Visa card, come receipts, and ninety dollars in cash.

Doctor Lecter took the jacket and the money, left the wallet and the rest of the things in it, because he wouldn’t have any use for it. He also needed shoes. This man’s shoes had to do, even if doctor Lecter at the first sight of the jogging shoes marked Nike, noticed that they were too big for him.

There was nothing to it. He quickly put them on, and tightened them as much as he could, so that he wouldn’t step out of them when he raised his feet.

The patient in the bed next to him, rattled in his sleep, and for a moment doctor Lecter thought that he had woken up. Then he noticed that the man only had changed his sleeping position.

Doctor Lecter left the room and went into the corridor. He glanced at his wristwatch. 2:24 A.M. In the middle of the night. Hopefully there wouldn’t be so many people walking about at this time of day.

Correct. Maybe just some alone doctor who was doing his round. Since Hannibal was a medical doctor, and had previously worked at a hospital, he knew the routines used there.

He walked calmly and collectedly. Doing that, he wouldn’t draw so much attention to himself.

He met a young, blond nurse who was pushing a carriage with towels in the corridor. She gave him a friendly smile and he smiled back; probably she thought that he was a doctor, or perhaps a patient, who had in mind to stretch his legs a little, because she didn’t seem to pay so much attention to him.

Doctor Lecter did fine, until he reached the stairs in the end of the corridor, which led downstairs to another floor.

The demons were headed at him, and they were only one landing away. The leader demon was ahead, then came the woman with the metallic android-voice, and the two grotesque, mute creatures made the rearguard.

The leader demon was looking up towards him and captured his eyes, and for a moment doctor Lecter stood staring into the black eyes of the demon, as riveted by his eyes.

They kept coming up, did not hurry, but approached inexorably. In just a few seconds they would have him caught. Hannibal was wondering if he was awake. Perhaps this whole bizarre hunt was the part of a nightmare, maybe he actually was lying home, sleeping in his own bed, safe under a warm cover.

But he knew that was not the case.

Hannibal broke put from the paralysis, turned back to the direction he had come from and ran.

This time he was not in the same amorphous "fugue-state" as he was when they chased him before; now he was fully aware of what he was doing, which was good. But he was afraid of that it meant that he neither had the same strength and velocity as then.

Doctor Lecter was now physically exhausted and felt it; that was not good. He had a pain in his chest and an assiduous buzzing had begun to sound in his head. He wasted no time in screaming, because he doubted it would help him in any way. Beside the screaming would make him lose speed, and he would perhaps be caught and silenced before anyone reacted on his screams.

Hannibal had never ever been in better need of his good physical shape, strength, fast ability to comprehend, and mental activity as now. They were the only things that could save him, because he had no faith in good luck.

Doctor Lecter searched for an elevator. He got around the winding in the corridor and continued running at the right.

He ran pass a multitude of rooms where the names of the patients and doctors were on the doors.

He found what he was looking for in the end of an about 100 feet long corridor. Three elevators were standing quiet and still in the sharp illumination from the fluorescent tubes in the ceiling.

Hannibal pushed the buttons on all three of them, one by one, and waited to hear the jingle when an elevator door slipped open. He turned around and watched the demons just appear around the winding in the corridor.

He pushed again, again and again. 70 feet to go.

The elevator door didn’t open.

50 feet.

He could see the female demon draw a knife, which she lifted over her shoulder.

Then, like through a miracle, one of the elevator doors opened. Doctor Lecter sneaked inside and began pushing the door closer button frantically.

25 feet.

The demon woman threw the knife at him, and hit the elevator door, just when the doors were gliding together.

Doctor Lecter leaned against one of the walls and pressed the button to the entrance floor. The elevator slowly began moving down. While the elevator was moving, Hannibal sank down in one of its corners, mumbling inconceivably to himself.

He was horrified. There was no other word to describe his feeling. Just simply horrified. In only a few hours, his now calm, quiet life had been turned into a nightmare.

He made no attempts trying to figure out who the demons could be. What he must do now, was to accept that the impossible had become reality. As a scientist and psychiatrist, it was hard to accept this as a fact. But it was true.

If he was lucky, the demons would not be on the place where he stepped put from the elevator next time. Had they perhaps counted on that he maybe could get away from them this time too, and placed someone to wait for him down there?

No. They could not be that fast. Provided that they couldn’t teleport of course, but doctor Lecter came to the conclusion that they could not, since they had to chase him by foot.

The elevator stopped and the doors slipped apart.

He could get a glimpse of the main entrance through the slit, which increased in time with the doors opening.

But no demons. As soon as the gap between the doors had gone big enough for him to get through, he pushed his way out of the elevator, ran pass the surprised lady in the reception desk, out through the main entrance and out in the cold night.

Doctor Lecter ran away from the hospital, and knew that he had to find a really good hiding place in case he wanted to survive this night.

He crawled in under a parked truck, one block from the hospital. Lying there, in the dim light from the streetlamps, he peered out from his place of refuge, but saw only the lower parts of the cars that were parked across the street.

No demons. Yet. He didn’t know exactly how long he had been lying there, but his hands and feet had again gotten cold. He could not lie there all night, if he did, he would freeze to death, eve if he now had both jacket and shoes.

- Hey! Hey there, what are you doing?

Doctor Lecter blinked and turned his head towards the voice that came from the back of the truck. A man was lying on all four, looking down at him.

It wasn’t one of the demons. They had obviously given up at the moment when they could not find him and gone away. He had never seen this man before.

The man said:

- What the hell are you doing there?

When Hannibal didn’t answer, he said:

- Well, however, let me help you out of there. I don’t want to risk running you over. Come on now.

He reached out a gloved hand against doctor Lecter.

With some hesitation the doctor crawled forth to him and let himself be pulled put from under the truck.

The man was young, had brown hair and brown eyes, and was wearing a thick overall. He pulled doctor Lecter up on his feet and then asked what was going on. Doctor Lecter didn’t know what to respond. He was absolutely not going to say anything about the demons now, because the he would be classed as either crazy or high.

- What are you hiding from? asked the man.

But doctor Lecter never answered. He didn’t want to stay on the same place longer than what was necessary. He turned around and ran. The man was calling after him.

Hannibal usually didn’t feel sorry for himself, but now he was filled with self-pity. He understood how he must have looked like, running through the whole block, and then crawling under a truck like some poor agora phobe. All his former dignity was gone.

This was not the kind of trouble Hannibal was used to deal with. To escape the police was not a problem for Hannibal, had never been, but this was something totally different. An encounter with the unknown, as if he suddenly had been snatched away from the real world, and thrown headfirst into the supernatural.

But how could they find me this quickly? was a question doctor Lecter asked himself. How could they?

He knew he absolutely couldn’t return to his home. The demons certainly had the house under surveillance.

The time was almost three in the morning. No motels were open at this time. He had to wander about in the city, at least until the morning. Doctor Lecter believed, that the demons’ chances of locating him would decrease if he kept on the move. But he couldn’t continue like this for very long.

In a couple of days his cash would already be gone, and in the current situation, it was almost impossible to get new ones. He also had to leave his car.

It definitely did not look good for doctor Hannibal Lecter.

Clarice Starling had after a hard day on the FBI, returned late to her home, and was lying in her bed sleeping, at the same time as doctor Lecter was pulled out from under the truck where he had been hiding.

He had taken his refuge in a night open laundromat, four blocks from the hospital. He wanted to be in a place where it was bright, and the strong fluorescent tubes in the ceiling left no room for shadows.

He was all alone in there now, sitting on a green plastic chair, staring at the rows of tumble driers, and inhaled the keen smell of detergent, bleacher and soap.

He tried come up with something, a plan for what he would do next. Run. That was the only alternative. He had lost all his resolution to try to fight against the demons. In a combat like that he would be turned into meat.

What he first and foremost had to try to do, was to live through the night in one piece. Then maybe leave the city.

Hannibal thought, that so in the hell he would walk on foot from the city. With some luck, he could get a ride out on the freeway by some decent truck driver.

He was going to try that as soon as the morning came.

Hannibal sat inside the laundry, fully aware of that he had no reason what so ever to think that he would be safer at this laundromat just because there was bright, than anywhere else.

Because the hospital had still been a quite public and illuminated place, and they had attacked him anyway. But however, he wasn’t going to stay where he was.

He was still without a plan of action, other than to sit and wait inside the laundromat, and wait for the dawn. And then what? Go out and get mutilated?

Good Hannibal! Excellent strategy!

He realized himself how pathetic his plan was compared to the problems. He actually should be able to do better. Had he not been at large, escaping both the police and the government for several years now, and besides that done very well? Should he now founder the first night when he was running from these demons? But those who were after him now, weren’t of course in any way comparable to ordinary polices and people.

These...creatures would never give up, they would just keep coming and coming, and not stop before he was dead.

Unlike human beings, that were driven by money, vengeance, or maybe love these creatures were driven by something far stronger and more powerful, and doctor Lecter doubted that they would ever give up. He couldn’t name what was driving them. But he knew that the only way to lose these stalkers was to kill them. And to kill four demons alone, was easier said than done, even for Hannibal Lecter, multiple killer.

But why him? He did not believe that they wanted him because he was Hannibal Lecter. Probably it was a mere coincidence that they had chosen exactly him.

But, he thought, if it was a coincidence, and had nothing to do with him personally, then why were they so determined to get their hands on him? It made no sense what so ever.

Even if he would live through this night, and the next, he would need help, eventually. Since he was a wanted criminal, he could not turn to the police or the state authorities, but he didn’t believe anyway that they could protect him. Instead they were a part of the problem.

He needed somebody he could trust, someone who was prepared to help him and not tell anybody if they met. But that was trickier. Doctor Lecter had no friends or connections that he could turn to, in a situation like this.

Besides...Clarice Starling. Could he ask Clarice Starling? Doctor Lecter quickly dismissed the thought. No, absolutely not.

With her perfect moral sense of right or wrong, she would not even consider it. And even if she would, he didn’t want to pull her into this. Oh, god, he really didn’t want that! If anything would happen to Clarice because of him, then...

But at the moment she appeared to be his only hope. Doctor Lecter weighed the pros and cons about contacting Clarice at each other. The scales were quite even.

He began to carry on a dialogue with himself, inside of him:

It’s possible to arrange without risks for her.

No, it is not.

She is your last hope.

No

Where else could you get money?

I will have to find a way, something that won’t take a lot of money.

You need money in any case. Even if you come up with another plan.

I won’t expose Clarice for any risks.

It’s possible to arrange safely.

Bullshit.

Then you’re history.

Doctor Lector got up, watched the pay-phone which was placed at the far end of the long row of tumble dryers.

Call her, a voice from inside encouraged him. Call her. You won’t lose anything on calling her. If she says no, she says no. But try. The time is running out.

Doctor Lecter stood up and went over to the pay phone. When he lifted the receiver, he first didn’t get any dial tone in his ear. He put in a quarter, hoping it would start the dial tone.

It did.

After a quick visit in his memory palace, he brought forth the phone number to her home in Washington DC.

Doctor Lecter’s hands shook when he dialed the number to the woman who at the time seemed to be his only hope. It was 5:07 A.M.

Clarice Starling was woken from her well-deserved sleep by the phone, which began to ring. It took some time before she realized it actually rang, partly because it was in the middle of the night, and on the other hand because she first had thought it was a telephone in her dream, which rang, half-awake and confused as she was.

She sat up in her bed and gave the luminous green digits on her alarm clock a quick glance.

5:08 A.M.! Who had in mind to call her at this time of night? The sixth signal was coming.

Clarice Starling sat on the edge of her bed, blinking sleepily, wearing panties and a T-shirt.

The seventh signal. The caller was a stubborn individual. Most people had hung up if they didn’t get an answer after seven signals.

She got up and started to lumber towards the phone. She snatched a robe to her when passing. She answered first after the eighth ringing.

- Hallo?

After some seconds of silence, a voice on the other side said:

- Is this Clarice?

- Yes, this is Clarice Starling. Who’s calling?

- It’s me, Clarice. Hannibal Lecter.

A thrill went through Clarice when she heard the metallic, although familiar voice again. She put a hand against her chest, as to stop her heart from jumping out from her thorax and sat down on the floor with a bump. She barely had any voice left.

- Doctor Lecter? she whispered.

- Yes, Clarice. Is this a bad time? Please forgive me.

She could hardly believe it. She hadn’t heard from him since that time when he called her after he escaped from his guards in Memphis. And he had promised not to call on her.

- Doctor Lecter? she said again. She wasn’t dreaming or what?

- I’m sorry to call you like this in the middle of the night, but I just did not have anywhere else to go...

His choice of words and even the intonation in his voice confused Clarice. It sounded like doctor Lecter, but still not. Her grip of the receiver got harder.

- What do you mean, doctor Lecter?

- I’m in trouble, Clarice. A very serious trouble, he said with emphasis.

- Are you, doctor Lecter?

- I know that I absolutely don’t deserve to ask you for anything, but now I am desperate. I beg you, Clarice, please help me.

- What happened, doctor Lecter? What have you done?

- That is a long story, and I don’t want to get into it over the phone. Do you think we possibly could meet?

Clarice couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Her throat felt dry and her heart was pounding like a whole machinery.

- Meet...? she stuttered. Are you serious? I...you know that I have to rapport everything you say hear and now, don’t you?

- Yes, Clarice, I am aware of it. But do you think you could help me?

- Doctor Lecter, I’m afraid of, that if you have gotten into trouble, I can’t do so much to help you. The best thing for you is to turn yourself in to the police. They will protect you.

- They cannot protect me against this, Clarice.

- And you think I can?

- They couldn’t be able to protect me, because they wouldn’t believe me, but I sense that you would.

- Then tell me, doctor Lecter. What have you gotten yourself into?

- Not over the phone. Clarice, please, let me see you, face to face. You do realize that I wouldn’t hurt you? Bring a gun if you don’t believe me now, but I beg you Clarice; come alone.

- Do you realize what you’re asking me, doctor Lecter? she said. If I see you, I will be a criminal.

- Yes, I am fully aware of that, and I would not ask you if it wasn’t so that you are my only hope. Let me see you, that is all I’m asking. Let me tell you, and then decide for yourself what you will do. What do you say, Clarice?

- Where are you, doctor Lecter?

She had not expected him to answer that question, and that’s why she got very surprised when he did it at once.

- Right now, I am at a night open laundromat in Baltimore, he said. But I cannot stay here for very long. Have you made up your mind?

- I don’t know, doctor Lecter. Let me think.

- All right, he said. I can’t stay here much longer, but shall we say...I will call you again in...One hour? Have you considered my offer till then, Clarice?

- There is no need, I’ve made my decision, she said.

- Well?

- Where shall we meet, doctor?

What the fuck am I doing? I must be out of my mind!

That was a question Clarice Starling had asked herself over and over again, ever since she had sat in her Mustang and driven a way.

The meeting with doctor Lecter was set to eight sharp in Baltimore, outside Baltimore State Hospital, the institution for criminally insane people, where doctor Lecter had been locked up before he escaped. It was his idea to meet there.

She asked herself why. Why would doctor Lector want to meet at a place where he had so many unpleasant memories from?

But she didn’t spend anymore time thinking of that, but focused on the driving.

She would absolutely get fired because of this if anyone knew, perhaps even go to jail. What could she do about that?

Make sure no one finds out, was her best advice to herself. Actually she wasn’t so worried. Not because she thought doctor Lecter would hurt her. He had told her that he wouldn’t, and she expected him to keep that promise.

No, if only doctor Lecter behaved himself, there wouldn’t be any trouble. Besides she couldn’t help feeling a bit sorry for him, after she heard how imploring and uncertain he had sounded over the phone.

She also wondered, what the hell could have happened to him, that he could not deal with himself. Just the curiosity urged on her strongly.

Clarice gave her watch a quick glance. She would be in Baltimore within this hour. This could actually be really exciting.

She carried of course her pistol in her usual holster at her hip. Not so much as protection against doctor Lecter, really, more because she was used to having it there.

Clarice Starling switched on the car radio.

Soon she would be reunited with doctor Hannibal Lecter, who she hadn’t seen since he escaped from his guards in Memphis, and then she had always seen him through a thick pane of glass or through bars. Never out in the world, among other, mortal humans. Now soon she would. But the thought of that did not scare Clarice.

Soon.

She had no trouble finding the old, brown building, which had been Baltimore State Hospital, even if she had not been there since her interviews with doctor Lecter.

The hospital was shut down now, and there were no more patients. The building was locked and closed down, and was probably waiting for to be tore down. No maniacs were held captured there any longer.

She parked her car in front of the building, and stepped outside.

It was 29 October, and the weather had already gotten intensely cold. Although Clarice didn’t freeze. She was warmly dressed in blue jeans, a black pullover and long, green coat and leather gloves.

She looked at her wristwatch. Five to eight. Would doctor Lecter come soon? She leaned against her car. She held her bag under one of her arms.

The time went on. Clarice took out a juicy, green apple she had in her bag and took a bite.

Eight. Still no doctor Lecter. When she had eaten her apple, and threw away the apple-core, the clock was already thirteen minutes past eight, and doctor Lecter had not shown up.

Clarice considered to get back in her car and drive home again, when she suddenly heard creaking footsteps behind her.

She turned around and groped for the gun at her hip.

About eight, ten feet ahead of her, stood a small, slender figure, that she after a closer check-up identified as Hannibal Lecter.

- Good morning, Clarice, said doctor Lecter and raised his head and looked into her eyes. First then she really recognized him.

- Good morning, doctor Lecter, she replied, but she saw right away that the doctor’s morning had not been very good.

To be the cultivated, educated, refined doctor Lecter, with an exquisitely consummated taste for almost anything, he now looked shabby. He was wearing a pair of washed out, black jeans, a leather jacked which looked borrowed, and under that, a sweater which hood he had pulled over his head. No gloves, even if he looked to be in need of a couple.

His reddish brown eyes were looking at her from a face that wasn’t very alike the doctor Lecter she had come to know.

Rings of swollen, dark skin surrounded his eyes. He could not have gotten a wink of sleep last night. He looked tired.

- Pardon me if I scared you. Did I scare you? he asked.

- Not at all. Now I’m here, doctor Lecter. Now tell me why you wanted to meet me.

He approached her. Instinctively her hand went down to the gun.

- Stop! she said. I don’t want you to come closer.

Doctor Lecter held up his empty hands.

- I won’t hurt you, Clarice.

She raised her hand again and instead approached him, until there only were three feet between them.

- If you don’t mind me saying this, doctor, but you don’t look very well. Now tell me what is going on.

Doctor Lecter waited a while before he answered.

- Some are after me.

- Who?

- I don’t know who, Clarice. But they don’t leave me alone. He took a deep breath. Where ever I go, they come. And I don’t know what to do to get rid of them.

- How long has this been going on? she asked.

- Since yesterday evening. I was forced to run from my home, just managed to get away. I almost froze to death out in the cold, since I had neither warm clothes nor my car, and went into hospital. I would believe that the time was about eleven when that happened.

- Go on, said Clarice.

- They found me at the hospital, only three hours after I got there. I ran again, and after that, I have been wandering about in the city by foot. I came here by bus, Clarice. That is the reason I was late.

- Okay, okay, she said and tried to see a connection in his story. Who are these guys that are after you?

- I don’t know. I have never seen them before.

- Can you describe them? How many are they?

- I think they are four, unless there aren’t more that I haven’t seen.

- Four? Okay. How did they look? Men? Women?

- A man and a woman, and...The man appears to be the leader.

- I thought you said they were four?

- That is accurate.

- A man and a woman, you said. What about the other two?

Doctor Lecter looked at her for a moment, without answering.

- Clarice, I don’t know how to say this, without risking to sound crazy.

- Tell me the truth, she said straightforwardly.

- The people following me now, are not human. I couldn’t answer what gender the other two were, because, well, it wasn’t possible to see that on them. They were so...distorted that it was impossible to tell.

And the first two, the man and the woman, they were not human either. The man’s head was full of nails. And the female...yes, well, they were indeed far from human.

Clarice Starling observed him quietly for a while, and doctor Lecter could not tell what she was thinking. The she said:

- Doctor Lecter, it is soon Halloween. If you saw some freaks in a costume...-

- It wasn’t a mask! doctor Lecter broke in on her. They are real.

- But -

- I don’t imagine things.

- I know you don’t. But at the hospital, perhaps you were confused, and...-

- I saw them already in my home previously, and then I was neither confused nor sedated. They are coming, Clarice. I know that.

Doctor Lecter looked upset. Clarice could tell on him that he did not believe that she believed him. This was the first time she could remember seeing doctor Lecter this upset. He wrenched his hand, and she didn’t know if he did it because she was freezing, which was likely, or if he was just so anxious.

- Are you cold? she asked.

- Yes, Clarice. I’m cold. Very much.

She opened her shoulder bag and picked up a pair of blue knit cotton cloves, that she handed to him.

- Here, doctor Lecter. Take these. I don’t want you to freeze.

- That’s not necessary. You need those yourself?

- No, I already have a pair. She held her gloved hands visible. Come one, now. Put them on.

Then he did. His fingers brushed against hers when he accepted the cotton gloves. Just like in the cage in Memphis, when he reached out his hand through the bars to give her Buffalo Bill’s case file.

He put the gloves on.

- Thank you, Clarice.

Doctor Lecter’s eyes looked into hers. Their trouser legs flapped in the piercing wind. Now even Clarice Starling had began to feel the cold bite her cheeks and chin.

- Clarice, said doctor Lecter. Could we continue this conversation at some café or a restaurant nearby? It starts to get uncomfortable out here in the cold, he said and then shivered as a demonstration of how cold he was.

- All right, Clarice said almost immediately. She didn’t like either to stand out there, and she was curious to hear what else the doctor had to say.

Doctor Lecter walked around the car to sit down in the front seat, but she stopped him.

- You drive, she said.

He gave her a puzzled look, but did as she had asked him, and instead sat down in the driver’s seat. Clarice herself sat down at his right as a passenger. The reason was that she wanted to keep him under observation, so he couldn’t do anything foolish.

- I like your car, Clarice, he said while he started he engine. You must like it, don’t you?

- Yes, it’s okay, she answered, but she really did not feel inclined to discuss cars right now, even if motor vehicles were one of her greatest interests, usually. But it was of course not comparable to the feeling to sit next to Hannibal Lecter in flesh, in a car.

The car slowly rolled away.

- Where do you want to go, Clarice?

- I have no idea. You’re the one from Baltimore. Which place would you recommend?

Doctor Lecter was driving the car, and after a short while Clarice could relax in the front seat. She was now almost sure of that he would not do anything stupid. He seemed stabile.

They stopped at a café with the name Treasure House Café, and which doctor Lecter said, he had never been to before. Just one look at the café was enough for Clarice to see that it made perfect sense. It would be an insult to his "sense of taste" to go there, but now it didn’t seem to bother him. He had enough trouble already, not to care where he went for a coffee.

Obviously.

A young waitress with long, curly dark hair and pale skin escorted them to a booth. She had long and narrow, green eyes.

She was wearing a black, low-necked uniform, and a white apron over it. A nametag with the name "Helen" was attached to her chest.

- One moment, please, Helen said and walked away with quick steps, probably to serve someone else before them.

Doctor Lecter caught a faint smell of musk perfume from her.

- We can eat something while we’re her? Have you had breakfast? No? Neither have I, doctor Lecter, Clarice said while they were waiting for the waitress to come back.

Helen hurried back to them.

- Would you like to order? she asked.

Clarice nodded, but still she turned to doctor Lecter first.

- Sir, what would you like?

- Just a cop of coffee, please, the doctor said. Black, without cream and sugar.

Helen wrote down his order in a pad, and then faced Clarice Starling.

- And you, miss?

- A bottle of Corona, please, and then I take two eggs, bacon, French fries, and some toast, she said and gave the waitress a forced smile.

But Helen did not notice it. She was much more interested in checking doctor Lecter, that was obvious. But the she still went off, and they were left alone. They were sitting at a table, facing each other.

- Doctor Lecter, would you...-

- I beg you, Clarice, call me Hannibal, doctor Lecter said softly. Because I’m going to keep calling you Clarice.

- Doctor Lecter, I...-

- I insist, he said resolutely.

- All right, Hannibal...she said, a little unaccustomed to calling him by first name. He had just always been "doctor Lecter" to her, as long as she had known him.

- Hannibal, now tell me, what else has happened to you lately. These people who are after you, are they...-

- They are not people, he broke in.

- What else could they be, than people?

- You haven’t seen them. If you had, you would not doubt me. But certainly I understand your doubts. I would do to, if I had not seen them with my own eyes.

He lowered his voice down. "I hope, Clarice, that you never have to see them!"

- Did they show up yesterday evening, is that right?

- Yes.

- Just like that? Without any particular reason whatsoever? Have you felt threatened lately? Have you got letters, or menacing phone calls, or something that could indicate...-

- I have, he said. A few days ago I received a phone call, when the caller hung up the phone when I answered.

- What did you do about it?

- I did nothing. I assumed that it was wrong number.

- Could it have been?

- That’s what I thought, but I had one call just like it yesterday evening, before they came to my residence. That cannot have been a coincidence.

- No, Clarice agreed. It’s very unlikely. But didn’t he say anything?

- No, he, or she, hung up straight-away.

- Anything else?

- Yes, I received an anonymous packet yesterday afternoon. It contained a small box, with cubic-shape. Nothing else. Just a box.

Clarice raised her brows.

- That sounds odd, she said. Was there anything inside the box?

- No.

- Was it empty? Just an empty box?

- It was solid. It was not possible to open.

- Doctor Lecter, sorry, Hannibal...what exactly makes you think that they are not human?

Doctor Lecter looked thoroughly at her with his reddish brown eyes.

- Clarice, he said, they are not human. They way they act...they female’s throat was split. And one had nails in his face...

- Of course they’re twisted. Sick, abnormal, completely bizarre. Perhaps some sect or a murdering cult, like the Manson-family. Religious fanatics, who have distorted themselves.

It’s unusual, but it happens. You don’t know how far a religious fanatic can go. They aren’t scared of anything, and they suffer from megalomania. They live in another reality, one they’ve made to themselves, and have they built it up well, it can be almost impossible to break it or make them lose their faith in it. They just seem to think that they are invulnerable, and they move through mountains to get their will through.

Doctor Lecter chuckled.

- Who’s the psychiatrist here, anyway?

- But admit that my theory can be accurate.

- Sure, the doctor admitted, it could, but I don’t think it is.

- Then let me hear yours, Clarice said and leaned back in the chair.

- I have none. Not at the moment. I have been forced to let the analysis of my experiences wait until later.

Then Helen returned to them, carrying a mat with several plates on it. She gave doctor Lecter his cup of coffee, and simultaneously gave him a seductive smile.

He was aware of her interest, but ignored her. She was completely uninteresting to him. She leaned one hip against the edge of the table, and slightly leaned forwards against him.

- There, here you go, she said, even if she had already given him the coffee.

- Thank you, miss...

- Lomack. Helen, she the she added, as if he had not already read it at her nametag. Then she remembered having another guest at the table, and gave Clarice her bottle of beer and the plate with her food.

- Here you are. Have a nice meal, she said courteously.

Before she went away she gave doctor Lecter another seductive glance. When she had gotten out of reach, Clarice couldn’t help laughing.

- I think you’ve got yourself a fan!

Doctor Lecter said: - Oh her? Well. Yes, I couldn’t help noticing it.

- How old do you think she is? Twenty-three? Twenty-five?

- That is possible.

- Did you like her?

- Beautiful young woman, but not attractive to me, he said and considered he had answered the question comprehensively enough.

Suddenly the doors to the café were thrown open and a cold draft swept along through the whole place. Both Hannibal and Clarice could hear people screaming. Something flew into their booth with a whistle and hit the back wall, just a few inches from Clarice’s head. A knife.

- Get down! screamed doctor Lecter, but Clarice didn’t react quickly enough.

Another knife came whistling, and doctor Lecter managed with the help of an impressing reflex throw himself over the table and floor Clarice Starling, just some tenths of a second before the knife would have ended up in her head or throat.

He pressed himself tightly against her, while they were lying there, on the dirty floor, and gave her the little extra protection, which his body could provide.

At first she didn’t at all know what was going on, but he did, even if he hadn’t time to think.

The demons. They had found him. This was the worst possible occasion Hannibal had been through, since he now wasn’t alone.

Clarice screamed, where she was lying under him, pressed against the floor.

He could not see the demons, only their feet. But still he saw that they were not coming at his direction. They were headed towards the kitchen.

They could both hear the waitress named Helen scream. Did she scream by fear, or had the demons done something to her?

Doctor Lecter didn’t dare to take his eyes off the demon’s feet, which he saw moving in the kitchen area, so far quite far away from them. They could not see him, but they would find him - and Clarice.

His whispered in her ear:

- Clarice, I can get us out of here, it’s possible, but you have to do exactly what I tell you. Do you understand? They are here now, but I don’t think they know where we are. Get up and try to run, when I tell you to. Nod if you understand.

She nodded as much as possible, when one’s head is pressed against the floor.

- Good, Clarice. We will get through this. Trust me.

She nodded again.

One of the windows shattered together with a deafening clatter. A waterfall of pieces of glass gushed out on the floor. Splinters rained down over doctor Lecter and Clarice Starling.

The feet of the demons vanished from doctor Lecter’s sight. He and Clarice were lying on the floor on the long side of the table.

It wasn’t possible to see anything else than feet from that angle of view. He had to get up if he wanted to see where the demons were.

Again he whispered in Clarice’s ear:

- Clarice, I’m going to rise and check out how we are doing. Lie down. Absolutely lie down. Be as quiet as you can. Get up and run when I tell you, but only when I tell you. Clarice?

She nodded again, panicking.

- Okay...she whispered.

Doctor Lecter sat up, straddled over Clarice. He raised his head over the table edge, risked to get a knife or something through his frontal bone, and noticed that the leader demon was far away, in the far end of the place.

He was alone. The woman and the two mute demons had gone through the swing door into the kitchen, not too long ago, since it still swung back and forth.

Would they make it to the entrance before he reacted and stopped them? Maybe, but this was their best chance. Doctor Lecter didn’t know for how long the other three would stay in the kitchen; not so much longer, and they could never escape all three. The best thing was to make a try now.

He leaned down again, over Clarice. Her beautiful hair was covered with dust and pieces of glass.

All around the room, people were screaming. From the kitchen they could hear the sound of a scream that seemed to originate from someone who was being butchered alive.

- Now! Hannibal cried and bounced up on his feet. He expected Clarice to do the same thing, but her reflexes were not by a long way as good as his. When he already had raised from the floor, and was ready to run, she hadn’t even gotten up on all fours. He grabbed her by the upper arm, and pulled her up, at the same time as the leader demon turned his head at their direction.

A howl went through the room.

- Get him! Him and the woman!

The rest of the pack rushed through the swing door, but at the time doctor Lecter had already headed towards the exit. He partly dragged, partly carried Clarice. It had gone faster if she had run for herself, but with the help of strength and speed strengthened by adrenalin at Hannibal, it went pretty quickly anyway.

There was a ringing in his ears, and therefore the angry shrieks of the demons sounded distant and distorted. But he could hear them. He wished there had been time to take the gun from Clarice and put some bullets through the fuckers, but there was not.

The female demon threw herself at his legs. He watched her come, and jumped aside, and she grabbed Clarice by the ankle. But the grip wasn’t strong enough to keep them there.

Clarice managed to kick herself loose on her own, and the demon threw her arms wildly to keep her balance. Then she fell, crashed into one of the tables, and and you could hear a smash when the table she crashed into, fell over.

Then doctor Lecter was, together with Clarice Starling in his arms, already outside the building, running towards the Mustang, which was parked outside.

Please Clarice, you didn’t lock the car? he thought while they approached it, and the he recalled that he had been driving, and had the car keys, fished them out with his right hand, holding Clarice by her waist with the left.

He ripped the door to the passenger side open, pushed Clarice into the car, and then hurried himself to the driver’s side.

Right then, the demons rushed out from the building, in the usual order, the leader demon ahead, then the female, and last came the two mutes. In the middle of the day. They did not seem to care that people saw them. It was in some way even worse to see them in daylight.

When something diabolical haunts you during the dark hours of the night, it does not come as unexpectedly as it does in the day that only confirmed that this was really happening.

The creatures were not, even though he had never believed so, brought up by the quality of the night. They existed and they were coming.

He started the car and drove away before they could reach it. Clarice moaned where she lay on her side in the front seat. Her face was white, except for a little wound on her left cheek, caused by a broken piece of glass, probably.

Clarice ripped out her gun from the holster at the end of her back, but he was too fast for her, tore it out of her hands before she could point it at him.

- Clarice, he said, sounding disappointed, what did you do that for? I am not going to hurt you.

She pressed herself against the car door, still shocked, after what had happened at the café, and stared at him. She was shaking.

When he reached out a hand against her, to comfort her, she jerked.

- Clarice, he said gently. Honey, we are safe now, he tried, even if he knew they only were safe temporarily.

- Can I please have my pistol back? she whispered, almost inaudibly.

- Not if you are going to point it at me. I would rather not have a gun at my head when I’m driving. It makes me nervous. Do you think you could not point at me?

She nodded.

- Promise?

- I...I promise.

Then he gave it to her, more or less prepared for that when she’s get it, she would point it at him, but instead she gently accepted it and put it down in her lap.

- You got me wrong, she said faintly. I...I wasn’t going to point at you. I just thought, that I have to keep it ready, in case...in case they’d follow us in a car.

- Oh, Clarice, forgive me! I am so sorry, Clarice. Please, forgive me.

She didn’t answer. She held her right hand pressed against her chest, as if she was in pain.

- Are you hurt, Clarice? asked doctor Lecter.

- My hand...

The doctor Lecter noticed that she had a fresh scratching that went over the whole back of her right hand. It had probably been cause by him when he snatched the gun from her.

- I am so sorry, Clarice...I didn’t mean to...

- No, it’s all right, she said. I understand you. I should maybe have told you before I took it out. Never mind. I would have done the same. You saved my life. Thank you, Hannibal.

- You didn’t for one moment think that I would leave you there, did you?

- I don’t know. Where are you headed?

- We have to leave the city immediately.

- But I want to go home! she exclaimed.

He shook his head.

- You cannot go home, Clarice. Not now. They know who you are, and they are after you. They are probably waiting for you at your house, and they will kill you.

- How can you know?

- Because I know what they are capable of. They will not give up. They will kill you if you go home, Clarice.

- How could they do that? They don’t even know who I am.

- Don’t ask me how they do. I only know that they will do. They have seen you. That’s enough.

- Come on! This isn’t "Terminator"!

- You are right, Clarice. This is a lot worse than Terminator.

- I want to go home.

- Clarice, haven’t you been listening to what I said?

- The FBI can protect me. And they can protect you too.

- No, they cannot. Not against them.

The Mustang rolled down the streets.

- Where did you have in mind to take us, then?

- I don’t know. We’ll see. We lost them for now.

How could they find me this quickly? was the question he desperately asked himself while he was driving.

How? How are they doing?

- Stop the car, Hannibal, suddenly Clarice said.

- What?

- You heard me. This is my car. Stop. I’m driving home to Washington DC.

- No, he said.

- No?

- No.

Now she raised the pistol and pointed it at him.

- Do it, or I will shoot you.

- Good, because the only way to make me stop this car is to shoot me. He looked at her. "And you will not do that."

- Try me, she said.

He kept on driving. To all appearances unconcerned.

- Please, she said.

- You know how I feel about having a pistol against me when I’m driving, he said. Please take that away now.

- I’m warning you...she said, but her extended arm had already begun to lower.

She put the gun away.

- Good girl, said doctor Lecter and stroked her over the cheek.

She sighed.

- Prey for yourself that you’re right, she said.

- I am so sorry for pulling you into this, Clarice. I didn’t want you to get between, he said honestly.

- But it’s too late for that now. I’m stuck with you, and there is nothing to it, she said.

After driving around without structure for several hours, driving west from Baltimore, doctor Lecter suggested that they should try to find a motel, a right kind of motel, a place where they could keep hidden.

He didn’t want any modern, glittering motel of good repute and a heated pool, since they at those kinds of establishments certainly demanded identification and credit card. (He had neither on him) and he did not want to leave any papers that could be tracked by either the demons or the police.

They needed a little shabby, inconspicuous place, which didn’t get so many customers, and where they were happy to have one, and neither did ask a lot of annoying question, in fear of scaring the guests off.

A motel named "Sleep Tight Motel" seemed the fit their description exactly.

The motel consisted of two houses at right angles to each other, with parking in the middle. Doctor Lector parked the car and went to wake Clarice Starling up, who had laid down to sleep in the back seat. She dropped off several hours ago. He had taken the gun away from her, so that she wouldn’t risk firing off an accidental shot in her sleep.

- Get up, Clarice, he said and opened the car door. She had taken her neckerchief off and held it against her cheek like a little child holding her teddy bear. Now she woke up and looked to begin with confused. Then she remembered what had happened and sat up.

Doctor Lecter held out his hand to her and helped her out of the car. She said nothing. Neither did he. In silence they walked across the asphalt.

They entered through a door, above which it hung a sign with blue, luminous letters that formed the word "Office".

There was no one in the reception.

After little more than thirty seconds of wait, doctor Lecter rang the bell which was on the counter.

A door opened, and a man, wearing a robe and slippers slowly came out. He was thin on top, in his early fifties, and had a tired, bloated face. Doctor Lecter immediately felt on the man’s breath that he was an alcoholic, even if he perhaps at the moment was sober.

- Can I help you? he said without looking neither of them in the eyes.

- Yes, please, we would like a room, Hannibal replied.

- I only have one big double room. You take it?

- Yes, that will be fine. Or what do you say, Clare?

Doctor Lecter looked at Clarice Starling. She nodded.

- Yeah sure. We take it.

The man didn’t ask them for any identification, and accepted cash. He gave them a form to fill in, and they signed it with an invented name.

- Very well, the man said. Room number sixteen, Mr. and Mrs...Smith.

Their room was on the second floor. It was small, but clean and tidy. The motel offered clean sheets every day, cleaning, and TV. In the middle of the small room was a big bed, with a chequered bedspread, which was a little wore in its edges, but smelled freshly of washing detergent.

There was a bedside table on each side of the bed. The TV was a 14-inch TV, which was screwed tight into a table, which was screwed into the floor, so that no one could take the TV with when they left the motel.

They had nothing with them, except for Clarice’s shoulder bag that miraculously had followed them from the café where they were attacked.

Doctor Lecter sat on the left side of the double bed, turned on the TV, trying to find a program that interested him, perhaps a documentary film or a scientific program, but he didn’t find anything like that.

He let the news stay on, even if he didn’t really care so much. But he wanted to see if it said anything about them or the demons, who must have been seen by more people than them, by now. He did not know how many at the café had survived to tell about their experiences. But some should have done it.

Nothing was said. The woman in the TV mostly just kept on repeating about a smaller earthquake which had claimed about ten lives in India.

Hannibal drew his attention to Clarice, who was sitting in one of the armchairs on the other side of the bed. He put his head on one side, and watched her thoroughly. She looked worn and haggard and tired, and was very pale, also she had a small scratch on her left cheek, but all this only made her more beautiful. Doctor Lecter thousand times rather looked at her than at the quacking television screen.

Clarice had noticed his look, and after a while she began to feel unpleasant.

- Can you stop that? she felt forced to say.

- What?

- Looking at me! It gives me the creeps.

Doctor Lecter immediately lowered his eyes.

- Forgive me, Clarice.

- I don’t want you to look at me like you’re going to have me for dinner.

- I would never do that, Clarice.

- So I hope, so I don’t want you to look at me like you were going to.

- I was not!

- It felt like it!

Doctor Lecter said quietly:

- You are very beautiful, Clarice. I like looking at you. But I will stop if it’s bothering you.

- Thank you, doctor Lecter.

- Doctor Lecter?

- Sorry. Hannibal.

She had still not gotten used to addressing him other than "doctor Lecter", but it was coming.

- Does anyone know that you were supposed to meet me? he asked her.

- No, she replied.

- Should you not be at your work now? Do they miss you?

- No, I called there, and told that I was home down with gastric flu.

- And you’re here with me.

- Yes, she said, smiling.

Clarice was wondering how this really would work out. Not so much about how it would work out with "the demons", since she had not yet realized the gravity of the situation, but what she was considering, was, how she would handle to be forced together in a small motel room with Hannibal Lecter.

She no longer thought at all, that he would hurt her, but would he let her leave if that was what she wanted? She didn’t think he would. Of course he kept her there with the best of intentions, but still, she didn’t like being a prisoner.

She leaned back in the chair and watched her hands, which were lying slack in her lap. She suspected that doctor Lecter was staring at her again, but when she raised her eyes, she discovered that she wasn’t doing it at all.

- I think you should take a shower, he said suddenly. You look like you need one, Clarice.

- What is the difference? I have no clean clothes to put on anyway, she said hesitating.

- I know, but I guarantee that you will feel much cleaner even without clothes.

She gazed at the bathroom door, hesitating, and doctor Lecter knew what she was thinking.

- I won’t sneak in after so look at you, he assured her. I’m not rude. You should know that.

She didn’t come up with anything to say, since this was exactly what she thought. She felt a little embarrassed.

- No, of course you won’t do that, she said. And you are right; I will feel better after a nice hot shower.

She went into the bathroom, closed the door, but did not lock it, since there was nothing to lock it with. The key which should have been in the keyhole had fallen out and never returned.

While Clarice was showering, the news ended, and "Ricki Lake" began. Hannibal wasn’t really watching, he let the TV be on as a background.

He was asking himself the same questions over and over again, and got back the same answers he had gotten during the last 24 hours.

Where did the demons come from? Another planet, another galaxy?

No. He did not believe they were extraterrestrials. Instead maybe they were time-travellers? Did they come from a future world? Or...from...

No. This didn’t make any sense at all. Too many paradoxes, no matter which theory he tested. He let it be for now.

The TV’s gabbling became more and more obtrusive, where people were screaming meaningless taunts at each other, gabbled and went on, and there were bounds, even for what Hannibal Lecter on the run could tolerate, so he switched the TV off.

He was tired, both physically and mentally, and was dozing off to sleep, to the sound of running water from the bathroom, when Clarice suddenly called his name.

- Hannibal?

He twitched his eyes and sat up.

- Yes, Clarice?

- I’ve gotten myself in bit of a situation here. I forgot my towel. Could you hand me one? Please?

He got up and took one of the motel’s towels that lay neatly folded-up at the bed.

- I’m coming Clarice, he said and went quickly over to the bathroom. He opened the door carefully and put in his arm, which was holding the towel. He didn’t try to look in.

She immediately grabbed it.

- Oh, thank you!

- Not at all, Clarice.

He went back and sat down in the armchair where she had been sitting before, and waited for her to come out.

Clarice wiped herself with the towel doctor Lecter had given her, and then got dressed. She stood at the bathroom mirror and pulled her fingers through her wet hair.

She was thinking about what she would do. She assumed that she could spend the night at the motel with doctor Lecter, but after that....

And he told that those following him now were after her too, and that they would kill her if she went home.

Could that be accurate?

She thought, that logically, it couldn’t. They did not know who she was, or what her name was, and could therefore not know where she lived, either. She had not left any information behind her, which could lead them to her.

Was doctor Lecter lying consciously, or did he overestimate them?

She had caught a glimpse of them when they rushed out of the café, and even if that was only one quick glimpse from the corner of her eye, she did not want to see anymore. They had looked exactly like doctor Lecter described them; monstrous.

In this current period of time, she yet didn’t believe that they were demons, but stuck to her theory about a murdering cult or a fanatic sect who distorted themselves.

Clarice stepped out of the bathroom, and sat at the edge of the bed. She made a direct approach:

- Hannibal, am I kidnapped?

- What do you think? he asked.

She thought for a moment. - Let me tell you this; if I’m not free to leave when I wish, then...yes.

The doctor sighed. He looked into her eyes.

- You are free to leave anytime, Clarice. I feel that I have not the right to keep you here against your will.

She was surprised at the answer.

- Really?

- Yes, but -

- Thank you, Hannibal.

She got up directly and started to see if everything was still left in her bag. Doctor Lecter also got up and approached her, grabbed her by the shoulders and watched her gravely into the eyes.

- I beg you, Clarice, don’t go. You will be killed. Trust me. They will find you, then kill you. You will be safe if you stay here with me for now.

- Considering, she said, it was you they were after in first place, it will be safest for me to keep as far away as I can from you.

- Please Clarice.

- I have made my decision, she said and fought to sound more confident than she felt.

- Are you taking the car?

- Well, yeah, I won’t walk away from here.

She then got aware of what an exposed situation she left doctor Lecter in. She didn’t want him to get hurt, definitely not; and she was forever grateful to him because he had saved her life, and because he cared for her.

She said:

- Hannibal, here, take my money, and opened her wallet and gave him those 200 dollars she had in cash. It’s at least enough for you to get out of here with. Rent a car, or... Do what you want.

He accepted the money, but said nothing. He looked imploringly at her.

But Clarice was implacable. She put her topcoat and shoes on, and went towards the door. Her hair was still moist.

- Hannibal, she said with her most friendly voice, I am forever grateful to you because you saved my life. You are more than welcome to come with me if you want.

- And where would you take me?

- To the police, of course. They could protect you...

- No. Thank you, Clarice, but no thank you.

- Well then. Good bye, she said.

- I beg you Clarice, don’t go.

- Good luck. I mean it.

Then she said nothing more, but resisted his plea and shut the door to room number sixteen and went off.

Hannibal started already the minute after Clarice Starling had gone off, regret that he did not hold her against her will anyway. He definitely loved her as much as one can love someone, and his love to her was so total and intense that he found no words to express his feelings.

Her well being was more important than her free will.

When he came to this conclusion, it had already passed three minutes since she left, and probably it was already too late to run after and bring her back.

Why didn’t he hold her? Those demons would find her and kill her; Clarice was as good as lost.

He could not stand the thought.

He approached the window and spread the curtains enough to gaze out over the motel’s parking lot, to see if Clarice’s Mustang still stood there. Perhaps she had not driven away yet.

It was there. He almost couldn’t believe it was true, she had not gone yet, and maybe there was time enough to catch up with her. He took one step towards the door, when it was thrown up by itself, he first thought, but then he could see Clarice standing in the doorway.

Her face was red and her hair bristled. Hannibal knew at once. They had found her. They were after her.

Clarice said, from the doorway:

- Hannibal, I have a proposition for you.

She came in and closed the door.

- Well? he said, now aware of that she had come back for some other reason than the demons.

- Yes, I will stay here with you, and help you through this, on one condition.

- And that is?

She appeared to pluck up courage to make the suggestion.

- That you, after this is all over, come with me and turn yourself in to the police.

"Yeah, sure, we have a deal" ha could have said, but since doctor Lecter never lied, he couldn’t give her a false promise.

- I can’t make that kind of promise, Clarice. You know that.

She seemed surprised at the answer she got.

- In that case, I will leave.

- Please Clarice, don’t! Okay, let’s make a deal, if we survive this, I will turn myself in. All right.

She came and sat down next to him in the bed.

- Is that a promise?

- That is a promise.

- Let’s shake hands on it. You shake hands on real promises.

She reached out her right hand towards him, and he took it gently, and raised it to his lips and gave her a gentle kiss on her hand.

He was so happy to have her back, with him, so that he could watch over her and protect her, that he felt inclined to hold her, kiss her and tell her how much he loved her, but he was just looking at her, with himself under perfect control. He didn’t let go of her hand, and stroked with his thumb over the back of her hand.

After a while Clarice pulled the hand to her. She seemed embarrassed.

- Hannibal, she said without looking him in the eyes, I have to tell you something.

- Yes, Clarice?

She stopped speaking already before she said anything.

- Never mind.

She got up. She pulled her fingers through her hair and sat down in the armchair again. By some inexplicable reason she appeared nervous. Doctor Lecter knew that it had something to do what she just had in mind to say. Had it something to do with him, or did it happen something while she was out?

- Try to get some sleep, he suggested. You look like you need some sleep.

She shook her head and bit her nails.

- You would feel better thoroughly rested, he said.

- No, I cannot sleep.

- Are you afraid?

No she shook her head again.

- Is it me? she asked. Do you think I will go berserk and murder you while you sleep?

- No! Now Clarice was annoyed. Remember your promise, was all she said.

- Yes, of course.

- Don’t try to resist, or run. You would never get away. Be smart enough to understand that!

Now she sounded exasperated, suspicious, and he understood that she had trouble with the thing called trust, since she was threatening him so that he would not break their deal.

He saw that she was deeply unsure of herself, and that she was that because she had had many bad experiences with people she had loved and trusted. She must have suffered emotional damages during a long period of time, since she now demanded as good as fanatic loyalty. She had gotten defensive, and didn’t let anyone near her.

Hannibal realized that this wasn’t the time to psychoanalyse her, but he couldn’t help wondering what Clarice Starling really had gone through.

- Clarice, you can trust me.

- Can I? How do I know, that as soon as you get an opportunity, will run from me, when I am about to arrest you? How I can be sure of that?

And I understand you, I understand that you don’t want to go back to some glass cage with the surface 15 by 15 feet, where you won’t be able to see the sun, anywhere else than on pictures in magazines. Because that is where you will end up, I’m only telling you the truth. Everyone is talking about how important it is to catch you alive, and do you know why?

Well, because they will use you as a guinea pig, Hannibal. You know how rare we capture pure psychopaths alive, and you, you’re the one everybody wants most. So, still interested?

She made a break and then gave him a chance to say something. He said nothing. But he was wondering what could have caused this sudden outbreak. Did she want to scare him? Scare him so that he would pull out?

- I already know what those institutions are like. You don’t need to tell that to me.

- Very well. Then you don’t want to go back there either, huh?

- No, that is correct. I do not.

- But you’re not going to break our deal?

- No, Clarice. A promise is a promise.

- You might not even get your own cell, she said.

- Maybe I wouldn’t. What is your point?

- And the jailers can be ferocious. Cruel.

What the hell was the matter with her? he asked himself. He stared at her, surprised by the sudden change in her attitude. He began to lose patience, and paid her back in her own coin.

- I really don’t need to worry, he said. If it truly is so bad, then you can sit with me in my cell and hold my hand. Could you not, Clarice? Would you do that?

She stared back, calmly but at the same time with cold rage, like a dying fire in her eyes.

- Can we leave the subject?

- I would appreciate if we could.

- That’s okay by me. I will not sit here and listen when you make fun of me...

- It was absolutely not my intention to make fun of you.

- It wasn’t?

- No, it wasn’t. I apologize.

- Shouldn’t we leave the subject?

- Oh yes. Excuse me. Friends?

She hesitated, the nodded. The rage in her face died off and once again she looked embarrassed.

- I’m sorry, she said. I didn’t mean to blow you off, Hannibal. This has just been to much for me, and...and...

She began to cry. She didn’t turn into hysteric, and nor did she start to whimper, she just took deep, tremulous breaths, and her eyes got watery, and tears were flowing down her cheeks. She sobbed.

Hannibal got up, wanted to comfort her, but did not know how to do it.

With quivering voice, said Clarice:

- It’s not you, it’s just...I actually don’t know what it is.

He approached her, gently pulled her up on her feet, and led her over to the bed. He pulled off her shoes and her topcoat, and lay her down. He went to get an extra blanket from the wardrobe and spread it out over her.

Her breathing had calmed down, but the tears were still flowing.

- Try to get some sleep, Clarice. I will stay here. I will make sure that nothing happens to you. Go to sleep now.

He stayed at her side until he was assured that she was sleeping, and then went to the door. There was a locking device on the doorknob, which he pressed in. There was also a safety chain in brass; he used that too.

When there was nothing more to do about the security, he slowly padded back and sat down in the armchair, and watched the sleeping woman.

She looked so incredibly innocent and vulnerable. He seemed so small and tender, that he wondered if he would ever be able to protect her. The fear grabbed him.

Doctor Lecter took a well-read paper and started to skim through it, while all that sounded in the room, were his own and Clarice’s breaths.

When Clarice Starling woke up, she first expected to be in her own bedroom at home, but then she recalled everything that had happened during the last day, and closed her eyes again.

Doctor Lecter was sitting down and looking at her from the chair. He had his fingers beneath his chin and sat almost unnaturally still. He noticed at once that she was awake.

- Clarice, he said, moving no other part of his body than his lips, you slept like a dead.

It was almost dark in the room, except for the dim night lamp, which was turned on, at her side of the bed. She sat up in the bed.

- What is the time? she asked doctor Lecter.

- It is late, he replied. The time is...he glanced at his wristwatch, 10:36 P.M. Just in time to go back to bed.

- Now I’m not tired, she said. How long have I slept?

- Almost four hours.

- You were very quiet during the time.

- I thought you needed to sleep.

She swung her legs over the edge of the bed. Hannibal’s eyes followed her movements. He didn’t get up. He stayed in the armchair and only raised his head when she stood up.

- I am also going to bed soon, said doctor Lecter.

At first Clarice did not know how to take the thing doctor Lecter just said. Was it a declaration, or did he just want to inform of her that they should bring up the matter about there being just one bed in the room?

The thought had struck them both, already when they first entered, but the discussion had lain dormant; none of them had wanted to bring up the subject until it got absolutely necessary.

Clarice saw that she couldn’t demand doctor Lecter to sleep anywhere else than in the bed. By now he must be totally exhausted, after all he had been through. He hadn’t gotten any sleep in almost two days, and was therefore in greater need of deep, relaxing sleep than she was.

But so the hell she would stay awake all night. But she couldn’t say she was looking forward to sleeping under the same cover as doctor Lecter, even if all they would do, was to sleep.

The bed was approximately six feet wide. That would make three feet each, then... She watched the bed for a few seconds. Would it work?

- Clarice, said doctor Lecter. Would it bother you very much if I lay down on the other half of the bed?

- I’m not so fond of the idea, she said honestly.

- No, I understand that. But I need to get some sleep, Clarice. My body will not cope otherwise.

- No, I know.

- May I?

- Okay, she said after one second of hesitation. But you keep on your side of the bed. Get it?

- Of course.

- Good.

She got up to get cleaned off before the night. Hannibal stayed sitting in the armchair while she went into the bathroom.

She washed her face thoroughly, and since she had no toothbrush with her, she had to confine herself to just rinsing her mouth.

That was enough. She went back into the room, and then doctor Lecter already was sitting on the edge of the bed, busy undressing himself.

- What are you doing? she exclaimed with dismay.

He had taken his sweater off already, and was now pulling one of his feet out of the trouser leg. He turned his head and looked at her, questioningly.

- I am going to bed, he said.

- You’re not sleeping naked, I hope?

He twitched his eyes. - No. I normally sleep wearing a pyjama, but well, forgive me, but I did not bring any with.

She immediately realized how stupid she must have sounded when she terrified had yelled why he was taking his clothes off. She didn’t want to sleep through the night wearing blue jeans and a pullover, and she could see that neither did Hannibal Lecter, no matter how odd he appeared as otherwise.

Doctor Lecter, now only wearing his underpants, lifted the chequered bedspread away, and then stretched out on the bed, leaned his head against the pillow. He took some deep breaths. He was lying very still, and stared up at the ceiling.

Doctor Lecter had lain on the left side of the double bed, so that meant that the right side was hers. She sat at the edge, with her back faced towards him, and tried to look unconcerned when she took off her pullover and her jeans, but she was convinced that doctor Lecter noticed that her spontaneity was false. This was a difficult situation, and she was doing her best to seem unconstrained. But for no use.

Under the pullover she wore a sleeveless vest and a bra, and besides that only panties.

It would be easy for doctor Lecter to rip them off her, in case he decided to rape her. She reached for her bag and took out the gun and put it on her bedside table. Doctor Lecter noticed what she was doing, and said:

- Clarice, is something wrong? he asked, suddenly sounding worried.

- Nothing is wrong, if you keep your hands away from me, she said and felt her hands trembling. So did her voice.

She crawled in under the covers, still watchful.

He appeared surprised by the answer she gave. Astonished by her repugnance towards trusting him, he said:

- Clarice, I would never...-

- But admit you’re thinking it, she said defensively.

- I would lie if I said that I wasn’t attracted to you, Clarice, you are a very beautiful woman, but I would never even dream about molesting you. Believe me.

- No? Oh well, okay. If you only keep on your side of the bed, we won’t have any problems.

- You seem to believe that I’m going to rape you.

She said nothing.

- I want you to know, he said, that even if I wanted to rape you, I am in the present state too tired to be able to do it. You don’t need to be anxious. Sleep tight, Clarice.

She nodded. Apparently she had calmed down a bit.

- Okay, she said.

Clarice was aware of that she did not think that doctor Lecter really would rape her, but after all, he was a indisputably remarkable man, who was a riddle to everybody who had met him, a mystery, and she knew very little about how he really functioned. He had treated her well, and it was hard to believe that he could compose a threat against her.

No, sexual crimes were not doctor Lecter’s division. He had never been accused for any. But on the other hand - what did she know?

Still she let the gun stay on the bedside table, so it would be easy to get if it was needed. There was another threat, a threat she knew even less about; the murdering cult, or whoever they were.

If they suddenly blew into the motel room like Hannibal had said they could, the gun would be good to have. Now she was ashamed of that she had taken it out as a security for doctor Lecter.

Clarice was not tired. She took a magazine from the drawer of the bedside table, and began to turn over the pages. She skimmed through the rag, but didn’t find anything in it that interested her, and therefore put it away again.

She had not sat with the magazine for more than five, at most six minutes, but when she put it away, she noticed that doctor Lecter had fallen asleep. He lay hunched up in a fetal position, faced towards her, but obediently keeping on his side of the bed.

Clarice didn’t want to disturb his sleep. She switched off her night lamp, and stretched out on the bed also.

- Good night, Hannibal, she whispered even if she knew he couldn’t hear her.

Unfortunately she didn’t fall asleep right away like doctor Lecter had done, as if the contact with the pillow had turned off a switch, in his case.

Clarice lay awake for a long time, listened to the calm rate of doctor Lecter’s breathing, and tried to breath in the same rate, to see if that could help her sleep.

Nah. She was anxious and scared. Couldn’t sleep. She got up from the bed and sneaked through the dark room to the window, where she spread the curtains and gazed out in the night.

She saw her car lie there on the parking lot. Then she suddenly thought of, that the car could disclose them. The people, who followed them, had seen the car when they tore off outside the café, and therefore easily could associate the car with them.

All they needed to do, was to ride pass the motel and catch a glimpse of the car to know they were there.

That she hadn’t thought of that before. She almost felt inclined to put her clothes on, rush out, and move the car.

Then she changed her mind. What possible excuse could she have to do that, if someone got up with her and asked?

Besides that the motel was closed this time of night.

Clarice thought, that she actually didn’t need to worry that much. The odds were not that great for that they would choose to go pass exactly this motel. As good as astronomical. But still the first thing she would do in the morning, was to go down there and move the car.

She lumbered back to the bed. The madras swung a little when she lay down, and was hoping that it didn’t disturb Hannibal.

She was convinced that she would have to lie awake all night, but after a while she still dozed off, and together with a yawn she slipped into the void.

Some time, not long after she fell asleep, Clarice began to dream. It was not any nice dream. She was at some place entirely dark, and she couldn’t see anything, only feel.

She stood against a stonewall, a wall with blocks of stones tightly joined together.

At first she wasn’t afraid, just confused, while she felt her way forth along the wall. There were no sounds, except for the sounds she caused herself. She had been walking for several minutes along the wall, and had not reached anything else.

She moved in the dream from the wall, and began to walk with her hands reached out in front of her. Now the curiosity began to pass on to fear, although she didn’t find anything. She tried to turn back to the wall, but since it was pitch-dark, she couldn’t know what direction to go at.

Suddenly a strange noise, like svisch, svisch, svisch, began to sound.

It sounded like some big object cut through the air. It passed her, very close, and she could feel the draft.

She knew she had to get away from this place, quickly. She was aware of that she was dreaming, but that didn’t make the experience less terrifying. You can’t escape from a nightmare, so the only way to be free was to wake up...

- No!

Then she woke up. But it took some time for her to notice that her own scream hadn’t waken her. It was doctor Lecter’s.

Clarice quickly switched on the night lamp, and then saw doctor Lecter sitting up in the bed, staring into the darkness with terror in his eyes. His face was shiny with perspiration and he shook violently.

- No! he cried again, and just one look at him told Clarice that the doctor’s nightmare had been many times worse than her own was. The fear in his distended eyes didn’t vanish, and he kept on staring blankly, and she understood that he wasn’t staring at anything in the motel room, but he was at a different place, in a different time, and relived something from his past. His face twitched.

A shrill and penetrating cry came over his lips, and he sank down in the bed, crying.

Clarice had never seen Hannibal Lecter cry before, she didn’t even know he could cry, so therefore this situation came quite as a surprise. But she didn’t react slower because of that., but did what she had done for any other human being who was in the same deplorable condition as doctor Lecter was right now.

She reached out her hand against him, and put her arm around his shoulders. Then she settled closer to him, until she almost sat on his side of the bed, and took him in her arms. She held his head against her chest, cupped her hand around his head and put the other one around his back.

Doctor Lecter pressed himself against her, cried, sobbed, gasped for breath, and mumbled incomprehensibly, indiscriminately.

- I couldn’t save her...he whispered between the whimpering and sobbing. I couldn’t save her... I couldn’t...I...I...

- No, of course, she said even if she hadn’t any idea of what he was meaning. It’s okay, Hannibal, it’s okay. I know you couldn’t.

She mumbled with a voice full of consolation and rocked him gently while he was crying. She was very aware of what she was doing, but she didn’t care of, that it actually was Hannibal Lecter she held in her arms; this was a human who needed comfort, and she gave him that. Anything else was irrelevant.

Doctor Lecter’s mouth had ended up directly at her throat, and he could at any time have taken a bite out of her neck, but she didn’t worry the least that he would do that.

She leaned her chin against his head, and used a handkerchief to wipe dry his wet face.

She sat there a long time with him in her arms, and even if his tears had dried off and his breathing no longer was irregular and uncontrolled, but calm and even, she couldn’t induce herself to push him away.

At first she only offered comfort, and comfort was all he sought, but still the character of the embracement slowly began to change.

Doctor Lector put his arms around her waist, and it was no longer clear who embraced and comforted whom.

He let his hands move over her back, up and down. Her body was so smooth and lithe under the thin clothing.

Clarice kissed his forehead and his cheeks. For the first time since she took him in her arms, he turned his face up towards her, and they met in a kiss.

At the same time, they knew what was happening, and they stiffened. But it was too late now. They knew that besides the circumstances, besides that the time and place weren’t so good, this would develop into something more than just kisses.

The few pieces of clothing they wore, went off during the following minutes, and Hannibal Lecter and Clarice Starling lay down together in the big double bed and made love.

This really shouldn’t happen, Clarice thought while she felt doctor Lecter’s lips against her throat and her own pounding pulse.

It was the wrong place, the wrong time, wrong...everything.

Still he kissed him back, on his cheeks, his lips, and his eyes...

If she had wanted, she could have pushed him away, and yelled at him to take his hands off her - he would hardly have tried to force her. But she didn’t do anything like that.

Never ever. She wanted this to happen. Obviously as much as he did.

Doctor Lecter had till now lain in her arms, leaned his head against her chest and shoulder, and now he got up, so that they could kiss on level with each other.

Clarice saw that Hannibal’s eyes still were a little red and swollen from the tears, but he didn’t look miserable any longer. He seemed excited.

They still had their arms around each other. They sat in the middle of the bed. A long time, they just sat there, and Clarice almost began to believe that nothing else would happen, when doctor Lecter began to grope with his hands for the lower part of her vest, to pull it up, but she stopped him, a little slackly.

- No...

- Can’t I look at you? he asked quietly and his body ached with longing. He really didn’t know what to believe.

Clarice kissed his cheek and whispered in his ear:

- Hannibal...stand up.

He didn’t ask her why she wanted him to, but he did what she said, pulled away from her arms, got up from the bed and stood up on the floor beside the bed. Clarice quickly followed him, stood right in front of him, and again they put their arms around each other.

Clarice’s eyes sparkled and her beautiful hair shimmered in the light originating from the lamp, which was turned on. She was so beautiful. So beautiful. He wanted her. He wanted her more than anything else.

They embraced each other, kissed each other, and Hannibal felt that he was about to get erection. Since Clarice was pressed so tightly against him, she felt it also.

She stopped the kissing, and for a moment doctor Lecter thought that he had scared her. But what did she expect? Of course it would happen, sooner or later.

But no, Clarice had not been scared. He moved one of her hands down, and began to rub his erected penis through the cloth in his underpants. This didn’t ease his craving. His cheeks began to burn, and his usually quite pallid face became red with excitement.

Clarice continued caressing him for another while, and then she kissed the corners of his mouth. - Hmm...she said.

She lay down on her knees in front of him to pull down his underpants, the only piece of clothing he now wore.

Hannibal had a nice body, and he knew it. He was slim and slender and looked good, even without clothes on him. Did Clarice think that too?

When Clarice pulled down his underpants, she noticed that doctor Lecter had a little scar on his right hip. It was not any big scar, perhaps one inch long, but it looked quite fresh. There was also a bluish bruise, with the approximate size of a coin.

Actually she would have liked to ask him what had happened to him, but this wasn’t the time to ask. She stroked the swollen skin that surrounded the scar tenderly, and she felt doctor Lecter get rigid. She suspected that the scar embarrassed him. She wanted to tell him that he absolutely not didn’t have to feel embarrassed, but she couldn’t come up with anything good to say.

She rubbed his erection instead, and that obviously made him feel better. She could hear his heavy breathing.

She got up again and they kissed. Doctor Lecter’s erection rubbed against her stomach when she pressed herself against him. He skinned out of his underpants, which had been lying down at his ankles.

When the kiss ended, Clarice pulled off the vest she wore above the bra. She was standing there now, wearing only a bra and panties, and waited for to be freed from them. Hannibal unbuttoned her bra and she shook it off and let it fall down to the floor.

She had incredible beautiful breasts. He cupped his hands around them and squeezed them gently. She liked that. She sighed. Doctor Lecter was very nimble-fingered. He caressed her nipples.

When he lowered his head to kiss her breasts, he noticed that she was still wearing her panties. Now he sank down on his knees in front of her to free her from them. When it was done, he let his hands move over her now naked body, he squeezed her breasts again, then her firm buttocks, and her smooth back. She was so delicious.

After a little while, said Clarice:

- Come.

She lay down on the bed, directly on top of the covers, and made a sign to him to join her. She was lying on her back, with her head against the pillow, and with her legs spread apart, as if she was going to give birth to a baby, but of course she had something totally different in mind. Her breathing sounded in the room. She took slow, heavy breaths.

Hannibal came, lay down on his knees in front of her, leaned out between her legs and put his hands on her breasts.

He however didn’t try to penetrate her yet. His penis brushed against her labium, but that was all.

Clarice looked up in his face while she was lying there. When a couple of minutes had passed, and he had yet not made any attempts, he could see anxiety suffuse Clarice’s face.

- Hannibal...she whispered, is something wrong?

Hannibal moved one of his hands from her breast up to her cheek. He caressed her gently. She had very smooth skin.

- No, of course not, Clarice, nothing is wrong! You are absolutely wonderful.

Clarice looked confused for a moment. She was very excited, and didn’t want to wait anymore.

- But...won’t you get on with it? she said.

He looked deep into her eyes. He imagined she looked a little frightened.

- Is it sure that you want to? he asked gravely.

Clarice sighed and raised her head a bit.

- Do you think I would lie down like this if I didn’t want to? she said. Please Hannibal, I really want to. Come on now.

She squeezed his hand that lay on top of her breast. Her hand was warm. Dry and warm.

Suddenly Clarice got an anxious expression in her face again.

- You haven’t lost your erection? she asked and reached down a hand between them and grabbed his penis. No, he had not lost it.

- Come on now, she urged him. I can see you are interested.

She squeezed with her hand. His erection throbbed when she did.

Clarice let go of her grip and pulled her hand up. She raised it and stroked doctor Lecter over the chest instead. Now she was smiling.

Hannibal opened her vagina with his fingers before he penetrated her. Her warm, wet slit seemed wonderfully tight.

- Okay... he said. Are you ready?

- Yes. Yes...ready...she whispered.

Now he penetrated her. First very gently, then a little harder. Clarice whimpered and sighed a little when he did, but it was sighs coming from pleasure, not of pain. It felt good to hear them. The last thing he wanted to do was to hurt her.

Clarice had closed her eyes. She was now taking short, thrusting breaths.

Doctor Lecter took it slow. He didn’t thrust into her hard and quickly, but slowly and passionately. She liked that.

It had never been better for Hannibal. The one thing he wasn’t really satisfied with, was their position. Clarice was lying on her back, when he was sitting upright, that was not the way he wanted it, but he wanted to feel her body against his own, skin against skin, so to speak, so therefore he put his hands under her back and lifted her up against him, so they were both sitting up.

She straddled over him, with one leg on each side of him. They were on level with each other now. Doctor Lecter held his arms around her, and she around him, and they kissed.

It was very long since Clarice had been with a man. She enjoyed sex, but to get it really working, of course also it needed the right partner. And she hadn’t found one lately. But doctor Hannibal Lecter appeared to be just splendid. She could not come up with any other word to describe him with.

Neither of them knew for how long their lovemaking lasted, but since this union was so special to doctor Lecter, he wanted it to last for very long. But he found it hard to control himself, since Clarice was so unbearably exciting to be with. He actually didn’t really know why it was so; she was so nice and smooth and soft and wonderfully beautiful, and besides that all these things were true, they were not the whole cause of why she was so special to him. It was something he had not yet defined, the thing that made her Clarice, and no one else.

He never wanted to stop, but there were limits, even for Hannibal. He felt that he was soon about to come. His grip of Clarice grew harder, and he whispered in her ear:

- Clarice, darling, I...

- I know, she whispered back. Go on. Go on...

They moved rhythmically in time with each other. Clarice noticed his coming orgasm. She stroked his back to assure him of that it was all right.

When doctor Lecter got his eagerly awaited ejaculation, they fell back into the bed, he on top of her. He really didn’t want to burden her with his full weight, but it didn’t seem to bother her. Her breasts flattened out against his chest when he was lying over her.

For a long while they lay still, without saying anything, and listened only to each other’s heartbeats and breathing.

- You are wonderful...whispered doctor Lecter.

He really meant that. He almost felt intoxicated. He could notice that even now, he was till shaking with excitement. He wondered if Clarice noticed it.

Hannibal rolled over to his side, since he didn’t want to load Clarice with his weight any longer, and instead leaned his head against her breasts and began to draw circles with his fingers on her stomach and chest. He kissed her left nipple.

Clarice had put her arm around his shoulders. She stroked doctor Lecter’s back when he kissed her breast. They were naked and had no cover, but they were not cold anyway.

- How are you feeling? Clarice asked quietly.

- Oh, I have never been better, doctor Lecter replied mumbling.

- Aren’t you tired?

- No, not tired.

He kept on kissing and caressing her breasts.

- Hannibal, said Clarice.

- Yes?

- Should we not try to get some sleep?

- I don’t want to sleep, he said.

She was about to ask why, but then she recalled the horrible nightmare he had previously at night, and apparently he was afraid of that it would come back.

- Hey, she said, stroking his shoulders, it’s okay, I’m here now.

- What’s the time? he asked.

Clarice reached out one of her arms for her wristwatch, which was lying on the bedside table to the right. When she got it, she had to bring it close to her face to see what it was showing. The light from the night lamp was quite dim. At first she thought she saw it wrong.

The time was 5:14 A.M.

Could she and doctor Lecter have made love for several hours? No. They couldn’t have. She announced him the time, and mentioned that they could not have been doing it for so long.

- Oh yes, Clarice, he replied. Everything is about time, you know. We don’t notice how fast it flies off when we have fun. And we had fun, had we not?

- You have no idea. I am so happy we made love.

- Did you know, he said, this was the first time I made love with someone.

She almost didn’t believe what she heard.

- You can’t mean that...-

- No, no. I have had sex with other women before, but I didn’t make love with them. It was the first time with you.

Clarice knew what he meant. To make the sexual act completely satisfying, and to call it "making love" one must feel love, or at least affection for one’s partner. If one didn’t, and just had sex because of the physical sensation, one didn’t make love. One had sex.

- I understand you, she said.

It made her glad to know that doctor Lecter not only had slept with her because of lust. He actually liked her. And that was much better than if he only had wanted her because she "turned him on".

- We will be tired tomorrow morning if we don’t try to sleep now, she said. What do you say?

- Okay. Let us sleep, he said.

Clarice actually didn’t freeze, but still she wanted to sleep under the covers, not on top.

- Hannibal, she whispered. Get up.

He reluctantly did what she told him, stood up beside the bed. Clarice jumped off the bed from the other side, lifted the covers away, then lay down in the bed again, this time under the covers. She told him to come and lie down with her. He did.

They didn’t bother putting on any clothes. He crawled down closely against her and couldn’t help kissing her breasts.

- You have got so beautiful breasts, he said. You’re beautiful everywhere.

- Thank you very much, but now we must sleep, she said.

- Very well. Let’s do that.

They kissed each other good night, and fell asleep in each other’s arms; the time was ten to six in the morning.

Clarice Starling was lying on her back in the bed when she woke up in the morning, together with doctor Lecter.

Doctor Lecter lay on her left side, huddled up closely against her, with one hand on Clarice’s breast, and with his lips pressed against her naked shoulder. His warm breath caressed her skin.

When Clarice woke up and saw him lie there, next to her, she was fully aware of what she had done, and wasn’t terrified. But still...the knowledge itself, that she actually had slept with doctor Lecter scared her a bit. He still was doctor Lecter.

She didn’t want to wake him. He needed sleep. There hadn’t been much sleep for neither one of them last night. Hannibal had been a very enduring lover. More then you could expect from a man his age. Very impressive. Hmm...

Clarice wondered what other hidden talents doctor Lecter carried.

It was already bright outside. She wondered what the time was. She tried to reach out her hand towards the bedside table where her wristwatch was, however without moving too much, so that she wouldn’t wake doctor Lecter.

When she was fumbling for the watch, she managed by accident push it down to the floor, and without thinking her hand snatched for it with the help of a reflex movement, and she could no longer stay on her back.

Doctor Lecter woke up by her sudden movement.

- Good morning, Clarice, he said.

- Good morning, Hannibal, she replied and lay back down again. Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.

- Not at all.

She rolled over to her side, with her face towards him. They were facing each other, she on her left side, and he on his right. Their eyes met, and while Clarice looked into doctor Lecter’s reddish brown eyes, it seemed that he was not only looking at her, but even through her, into the very thing that was her soul.

For the moment shaken, Clarice broke the connection through closing her eyes. Hannibal put his arms around her, pulled her to him, and for a while they were lying there in the bed, holding each other. They said nothing, because nothing needed to be said.

What had happened had been an incredibly fine experience for them both, and it felt like it would ruin a part of the experience if they would go ahead talking about it directly afterwards. That is the reason they were quiet.

Clarice was the one who at last broke the silence.

- I guess we have to get up, she said and crawled out of his arms.

Doctor Lecter lay on his back and folded his hands over his chest.

- I am sorry, he said without looking at her.

- Sorry? she repeated. For what?

Now he looked at her.

- Because I...I know I promised that I would not...touch you.

- You promised you wouldn’t molest me, yes. And you didn’t. You made love to me and I...liked it.

She looked down at him and smiled to assure him of that there was nothing to be forgiven for.

- But I have to get up now, she said.

- Stay.

- It’s late.

- I just want to hold you.

- You’ve done that enough, haven’t you?

- I can never get enough of you.

- Should we not go down and have something to eat? I’m hungry.

Doctor Lecter smiled. - I bite of food wouldn’t be wrong, he said.

- You don’t have me in mind, I hope?

- You see a lot indeed.

- Thank you, but you are going to have to wait a little for this meal, she said and sat up, ready to get out of the bed. She wrapped the covers around her body, since she was still a bit shy; doctor Lecter and she were still quite new with each other.

She heard him chuckle behind her.

- Oh, don’t be shy now, Clarice, he said teasingly, "you have nothing there that I haven’t already seen."

She pretended to get mad, and snatched a pillow, which she threw at him. But doctor Lecter didn’t seem to get offended, on the contrary, he appeared joyful.

Clarice got up and began to dress herself. Hannibal’s eyes took in every inch of her when she pulled her clothes on in the dim illumination which came from outside, through the curtains.

He would keep the image of her in detail in his memory, and he would repeat the procedure for him inside his head as many times as he wished.

He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. Lost in thoughts he was lying there a while, until Clarice’s voice scattered his thoughts, when it cut like a blade through the air.

- Hey! Are we going to have breakfast or not?

She was standing there now, fully dressed, and looked down at him.

- That can wait, he said. Come back and lie down again. It got cold without you. She smiled and sat on the edge of his bed. She caressed his cheek. She studied him while he was lying in the bed, on his back. His arms were slender, but still had a distinct marked musculature. Doctor Lecter worked out quite a lot, she guessed.

But even if it was obvious that he was in good shape, it was impossible to tell how strong he really was, before one had seen, or been subjected for it.

- Shall we? she said again.

- I can bet on that that rubbish they serve down there is uneatable.

- I don’t think it’s that bad. Get your clothes on now, so we can go down and see. And if it really is that bad, I saw a soft drink device out in the entrance. We can always have ourselves a soda if there aren’t anything in the cafeteria of the motel. All right?

- The demons can easily get us down there.

- I don’t think we need to worry about them, honestly. The chance that they know we went to exactly this motel is...

- They find us easier than we think.

- Even if they will show up, we have the gun. And this time, I’ll be ready. I will put my whole magazine in them if that would be necessary. I promise, they will be sorry if they show up!

Hannibal took her hand in his own.

- I just don’t want anything to happen to you, he said.

- Nothing will happen to me, and not to you either, she replied resolutely.

- We are safer up here.

- But we cannot sit here all our lives! Some time we have to leave this place anyway, and we might as well go now. I’m starting to get really hungry.

- They could come, he said.

- What makes you think we’re any safer up here? They could come even if we’re here, and I actually think that we have a better chance against them if we go somewhere with a little more space, than if we stay in the bed.

- If they want to catch us in here, they at least have to get in, through the door, and we will notice them coming, but if we sit at some table downstairs, they suddenly can appear behind our backs without us having any clue about it.

Clarice started to get annoyed.

- Then stay here. I’ll go down anyway and have something to eat, and I will bring the gun with me. I would make a guess that our chances of resisting them increase if we stick together. What do you say?

- You are right, he admitted. Let’s go.

Reluctantly, he put his clothes on. While he was taking on his socks, Clarice stood at the door, waiting for him. She had put the gun down in her bag, so that it wasn’t visible, because maybe somebody at the hotel would see it and call the police, believing they were going to rob the motel, or something like that, but it needed to be easy to get.

- What did you dream tonight? she suddenly asked.

- Pardon?

- Yeah, you must have dreamt something really nasty, since you...

She let the rest of the sentence trail off, just to see if he was going to answer her.

- I don’t want to talk about it, doctor Lecter replied in the lowest voice possible, without looking at her.

- So you don’t, huh?

- No.

- You were crying in my arms half the night, and I don’t even get to know what you were crying for?

- It is personal, he said.

- Personal? Maybe you’ve repressed it, what do I know?, but when we met at the Baltimore State Hospital, you forced me to tell you about my worst memory of childhood, so that I in exchange would get information about a serial killer who was keeping a young woman captured, and you were our only hope to ever find her alive.

It was difficult, but I was honest with you. It was quid pro quo, you said.

- Do you have to bring that up now?

- Are you going to tell me what it was?

He tried to divert the question. - Are we going down to eat?

- Answer the question.

- I really do not want to discuss the matter, Clarice.

- You came to me for comfort, but I don’t get to know what made you break like that?

- Clarice...-

- It sure must have been horrible?

- It was.

She went away from the door and came closer to him, and said:

- Tell me what it was, damn it!

- You probably wouldn’t understand it.

- You think I’m some moron, don’t you?

- No, not at all. You would understand the thing itself, but you would not understand how it affected me.

- Are you going to tell me by free will, or am I going to have to take a skewer on that place, and torture it out of you?

He sighed and shook his head. He wished she had never brought it up in first place. He wasn’t ready to discuss it with her, not yet. But maybe he would be able to at the right place and in the right time.

However not now, and not here.

- Perhaps I can talk to you about it, he said. To you. But not now. Later.

- And what if those ‘demons’ kill us, and there won’t be another opportunity?

- Clarice, please, don’t rush me, he begged.

- Maybe you weren’t grieved at all, she said as a joke. Maybe it was just tactics from your side, to make me lie on my back and spread my legs for you?

Doctor Lecter took the joke seriously.

- No, Clarice. Absolutely not, I would never...-

- Take it easy. It was a joke.

She knew that that couldn’t be true. No matter how skillful actor doctor Lecter was, he could not have faked his hysterical breakdown last night. What had happened, and what he apparently had been dreaming of, was real to him; he couldn’t have pretended it, to seduce her by playing helpless.

He had trembled, whimpered and cried.

She decided to leave the subject. If doctor Lecter didn’t want to talk about it, then there was nothing she could do to force him.

Still a little sour because of his obstinacy, she said:

- Come one. Let’s go down to eat.

They left the room, locked the door, and let the key slip into the pocked of Clarice’s coat. They were watchful, but not exactly worried.

The time was ten to ten when they went down to the motel’s cafeteria to have something to eat.

_______________________

Hannibal Lecter and Clarice Starling sat in a booth in the motel’s cafeteria, eating breakfast.

Doctor Lecter had been inexorable, and told that he was not going to eat any of the food, which was served in the cafeteria. She was very well aware of his exotic taste when it came to food (and many other things) and in normal cases she would have accepted it, but this wasn’t any normal case, and there were limits even for Clarice’s patience.

- Drop that foppish fancy stuff now, she said when doctor Lecter for the third time said that he wasn’t going to eat anything from there.

- You are eating, I will make sure of that, if it so will be my death! But think now, you will lose strength if you don’t eat.

He didn’t give any answer to this, but just looked at her from the other side of the table.

Clarice held her bag close to her, with the gun near at hand. There were some other guests in the cafeteria as well, not so many, maybe five or six people.

- Would you like to order?

They both turned their eyes up against the waitress, who had come to the table. It was a chubby young woman, with long, curly blond hair, whose name was Bernice; she wore a nametag on the uniform-blouse.

Clarice gave her a brilliant smile.

- Yes, I’ll take the breakfast of the day, she said, and orange-juice for drink, please.

She tuned towards doctor Lecter.

- And you?

- I don’t think I -

- He will take the same thing as me, Clarice broke in on him before he had finished the sentence. Won’t you, sweetheart?

Hannibal gave her a look, a disliking look, but since he didn’t want to draw attention, he didn’t protest.

Bernice hesitated, perhaps to find out if they were fooling her around.

- Won’t you? Clarice repeated knowingly.

Doctor Lecter nodded, barely observably.

Bernice left them. Before Hannibal could say anything, Clarice said:

- Don’t start now! You need to eat. You know that. Don’t you?

- Well, yes, I suppose you’re right. But it had undeniably been more pleasant if I could have satisfied my hunger with something else than that rubbish you ordered for us.

- Don’t blame me...-

He held up his hand. - I am not blaming you. I just stated a fact.

- But you are going to eat, right?

Now doctor Lecter smiled, and exposed his white little teeth.

- I guess I will, he said, but only if I get a really nice dessert!

Clarice didn’t know what he was referring to, and neither did she ask.

The food came, and they ate in silence. Even doctor Lecter. Clarice noticed to her surprise, that his plate was empty long before hers was.

- Is everything all right? asked the waitress Bernice when she walked pass.

- Of course. The finest food we’ve ever eaten, said Clarice.

- That makes me happy! Would you like anything else?

- Just our bill, said doctor Lecter.

When they had finished eating and paid, they quickly sneaked back up to their motel room, relieved that the "demons" had not shown up. Perhaps they were safe here after all. Perhaps not.

Directly after the breakfast, Clarice lay down in the bed again, mostly because there was nothing else to do. She didn’t really lie down to sleep. She was a little tired, and tensed too. She couldn’t relax down there in the cafeteria, in fear of getting attacked.

Her neck was stiff and ached. She rubbed her aching muscles with her hand.

In her own mind, she was wondering how long she would have to stay at this shabby motel, in this little room. She had been asking that ever since she arrived, but there was now an important difference, which hadn’t been there the day before.

Doctor Lecter was no longer a problem. The right opposite, actually. She had begun to enjoy his company, and he was, after all, a very good lover.

That thing that at the time appeared as a blessing, could, or would later develop into a problem. A very huge problem.

With no easy solution.

Clarice was thinking of this, while she was lying huddled in the bed, rubbing her aching neck. Suddenly she felt a light bump behind her. Doctor Lecter had come and lain down next to her. She wasn’t surprised. And apparently, neither was he.

- Can I hold you, Clarice? she asked.

- Certainly.

He pressed himself closely to her. He put one arm around her, and held his hand against her stomach. They were lying like two spoons in a cutlery box, he with his stomach against her back.

They were quiet for a while. She absolutely didn’t mind at all having him there. No, she welcomed him and thought it felt so good to feel he was there. He was after all a human being, warm and alive, and he cared for her.

After a moment of silence, doctor Lecter whispered:

- Clarice, do you think that I could get my dessert now?

It took some time before she understood what he was referring, and when she did, she burst out laughing.

- Wasn’t your hunger satisfied?

- Not even close. You are the one I want to take a bite of.

He opened his mouth and pretended to bite her in the neck.

- You wouldn’t dare, said Clarice.

- What would you do, Clarice? Give me smack on my butt?

- Yes, she said. You would get so much smack, that you wouldn’t be able to sit down for a week!

Doctor Lecter laughed a little.

- I didn’t know you were kinky!

- There are a lot of things that you don’t know about me.

- I am sure there are.

She turned around, so that she could see him.

- Are you still going to turn me in to the police? asked Hannibal.

- Of course. What makes you think otherwise?

- Then we won’t be able to do anything like this.

- Why not? I can come visit you in your cell. We can have a lot of fun.

- They will not let you see me without a guard present, he said.

- Then we will invite him to a ménage à trois, and I think he will let us be alone next time!

They were surprised at that they could laugh together.

Doctor Lecter said: - And Clarice, also remember to bring a madras, because the bunks at prisons and mental hospitals are often very uncomfortable.

They laughed even more. Hannibal said:

- Hey Clarice...Is it not unethical to have a sexual relation with an intern?

- I think. But never mind, who gives a shit?

- I thought that you, with your perfect moral sense, would care?

She smiled and shook her head.

- Not any longer, she said. I am so tired of being moral. I have nothing for it anyway, so I might as well stop being it!

- That’s my girl! Can I have my dessert now? I think that I have waited long enough.

- Anything special in mind?

- Yes. You.

She pretended to get offended.

- Do I look like a dessert, perhaps?

- Hmm, said doctor Lecter. The finest dessert ever.

She seemed pleased with the answer. He looked deeply into her eyes. He had the most piercing look she had ever encountered. It could appear as frightening for some. But it didn’t scare Clarice Starling. Not anymore. She didn’t close her eyes, as she could have done, but looked straight back into his eyes.

Doctor Lecter seemed pleased. He pulled the cover over them, slowly undressed Clarice, then himself. Their clothes ended up in a heap on each side of the bed.

- My dessert, he said.

Then they made love again. It was even better this time.

Afterwards they were lying next to each other in the bed, holding hands, while their heartbeats remained slow and calm.

Clarice was both physically and emotionally exhausted by the experience. She didn’t know how Hannibal was. He seemed blessed with an obviously unlimited staying power. It was impossible to believe he actually was as old as he was.

Clarice was so far away from herself, that she at the moment didn’t care of that a whole pack of murderous, deformed maniacs were after them.

Neither did she think about her job, or that the person lying next to her, was Hannibal Lecter, one of the FBI’s ten most wanted fugitives. She didn’t want to think about that now. She only wanted to lie beside him, and revel in the heat they had created together.

Everything else seemed light years away.

- Are you tired? she asked him.

- No, he said. Are you?

She shook her head. His hand stayed in hers.

- Come closer, he said.

She crawled so close to him she could get, leaned her head against his shoulder.

- What are you thinking of? he asked.

She did not answer because she didn’t actually know what she was thinking of.

She grinned. - Did you get your dessert now?

- Yes, he said. I have never had such a satisfying dessert.

They devoted a while to nonsense talking. Mumbled dreamily.

Then doctor Lecter said, in a low voice, but with a more serious intonation:

- I love you, Clarice. Did you know that?

In an attempt to avoid the implied question in what he said, hoping to preserve the easy tone, she said:

- Is it me you love, or do you love fucking me?

He tried to determine whether or not she had understood what he said.

- I am serious, he said.

- Right now I only want to be easy, Hannibal. This isn’t the time for gravity.

- I love you, he said again.

- That sounds serious, not easy.

- I only say what I feel. I do love you. I always have.

Clarice had a little difficult to accept that. Doctor Lecter had said he loved her, which she honestly didn’t think he did. She knew he was interested in her, fascinated, attracted and various other things too, but she had never really known it was love.

But she also knew that the one thing he didn’t do, was lying.

He kissed the crown of her head.

- Clarice, he said. You must promise me that you will come visit me, where ever they will put me.

- I will, she said, meaning every word she said.

Her relation to him had changed within only 24 hours. Of course she would come see him. Not because she felt she owed him that, but because, well, she had begun to like him. But still she would arrest him when the maniacs no longer threatened them, and turn him in to the police.

She had to do it. She mustn’t forget that he after all was Hannibal Lecter. But right at this moment that was irrelevant.

They stayed in the bed for another half an hour, but then they got up and got dressed, since neither of them felt inclined to sleep.

The time was fifteen past one.

Hannibal and Clarice sat in the bed, locked up in their motel room, watching TV. They were watching a re-run of some comic strip, with foolish actors and foolish humour, that didn’t amuse neither of them more than a funeral had done.

They were watching simply because they had nothing else to do.

The time was soon five P.M.

No signs of the demons. But Hannibal knew of course, that only because they had not shown up yet, didn’t mean that they had given up. Not at all. But he had still promised Clarice that they would leave the motel if they hadn’t shown up five o’clock the following day.

Suddenly Clarice got up.

- I will just go pee-pee, she said. I’ll be right back.

After peeing and washing her hands, Clarice went back into the motel room. The TV was still on, and she didn’t notice anything special with doctor Lecter when she sat down on the bed, next to him. Not yet.

- I am such an idiot....she suddenly heard him say.

"Of course you are" she had in mind to say for a joke, but she stopped herself when she saw his facial expression. This was no joke, but doctor Lecter had something in mind.

He was no longer watching at the TV, and neither was he watching her. He kept his head down and looked at his hands, which lay limp in his lap.

- Of course...he sent them after me...said doctor Lecter.

Clarice was waiting for an elucidation, but none came, so she had to interfere. She took a hold of his jaw and turned his head up towards herself.

- Hannibal, what? she said zealously.

The look in his eyes was introverted, as if he didn’t see her, even if he was looking straight into her face, while she was holding a hand under his chin. Neither did he seem to have heard what she had said. She repeated.

- Hannibal! What’s the matter? What have you come up with?

Finally he responded, but he talked slowly.

- The mugger, he said. It must have been he, who...

- What? What mugger? What are you babbling about? Explain closer.

He twitched his eyes.

- Clarice, a few days ago, I was attacked outside a store, on my way to my car. He who attacked me was big as a house, and he demanded to get my money. I gave him my briefcase. If he had been pleased with that, I would have let him be.

He made a short interval, to give her time to swallow what he just told.

Clarice asked: - Did you kill him?

- No, I did not kill him. Even if he was going to kill me. No, I only defended myself. He had pushed me into a nightblack, narrow alley, so I was forced to get him out of there to be safe.

- How did you do?

- A little of everything. I bit him, kicked him, and bent his index finger backwards. It went really well. He was in a considerably worse state than I was, when I dragged him out on the street.

I think I made a real fool out of him. A lot of people were watching when I was dragging him.

Clarice saw in her mind, doctor Lecter, small and slender, drag an attacker, who was at least 6’8 feet tall with a physique like Arnold Schwarzenegger. She could understand everybody’s astonishment when they watched it happen. The image was so comical that she burst out laughing.

She saw doctor Lecter stare at her with a surprised look, and she quickly choked down the laughter. She cleared her throat. - Excuse me.

- That’s how it happened, said doctor Lecter. When I had wrenched his finger, and let him know that he was beaten, I saw him stare up at me. That was enough to see that he had killed me at once if he got the chance.

- Why did he attack you?

- I don’t know that, Clarice. He just attacked me. Totally unexpectedly.

- You don’t think it had something to do with your...-

He shook his head.

- No, no. I don’t think that he knew who I was...well, that I was Hannibal Lecter.

Clarice watched him thoroughly.

- Why are you telling me this now? I asked you before, if something peculiar had happened to you lately, and this is hardly something classified as an every-day event? You never mentioned this mugger to me before. Why is that?

- I just didn’t think it was relevant. I saw no connection to the events with the demons, the phone calls, etc.

- But now you do?

- Yes, certainly. It’s him.

She raised her brows. - What? The mugger?

- Yes. He got hold of my wallet. He knew where I lived. It must be him.

- He doesn’t seem to fit in to any of those I saw. If he is that big...-

- No, no, Hannibal cut her off. He is not with himself. He sent them after me.

- You think he is the leader of the sect?

- There is no sect, Clarice. They are not human. Do you know what I think they are? He leaned closer to her. Whispered.

- Golems.

- You must be kidding?

She tried to look at him to see if he was messing her around, or if he was serious. She had not been given the same ability to see through people like doctor Lecter had, but he appeared serious, was the judgment of her experienced eye.

- They are golems, maintained doctor Lecter. He has made them. He controls them.

Clarice knew what golems meant, but she didn’t know the exact definition. Only that they were traditionally made by mud or sand, and that they were controlled by their maker. And only could be destroyed by their maker.

But that doctor Lecter seriously thought that that was the explanation, surprised her - and also made her worried. Was he really losing his conception of the reality?

- You really don’t believe that, do you? she tried.

- How do you explain it otherwise?

- I cannot explain it, but Hannibal; there are no golems.

- No, I know.

Doctor Lecter was not interested in the occults, had never been. He was not more acquainted with that area than the most of us others. Now he wished he had been.

- No, I know, he repeated. Let us forget this now. Discussing it will not make us any wiser.

Clarice nodded, and asked herself if the doctor had come up with how silly his train of thought had been, and therefore left the subject.

- I am going to take a shower, said doctor Lecter.

Clarice nodded. - Do so, she said.

He brought a towel and disappeared into the bathroom.

Clarice remained sitting on the edge of the bed. She was thinking of what doctor Lecter had said about the mugger and the generated golems. She couldn’t understand, how he, doctor Hannibal Lecter, could have gotten such a fixed idea.

She stuck to her own theory. The ones chasing them were humans, not normal human, but still humans. How could Hannibal manage to get in mind something as preposterous as golems?

She heard the water splash inside the bathroom. Suddenly the splashing stopped. She assumed doctor Lecter was done showering.

And by that, their calm existence reversed. Clarice heard that someone felt on their doorknob.

Terrified, she turned her head against the direction of the sound. She sat there at the bed, less than ten feet from the door leading to the public corridor, and that was close enough for her to be able to see the doorknob turn back and forth when someone tried the lock.

The doorknob clattered and the door scraped against the doorframe. They didn’t even make any efforts trying to hide it.

The door was locked, and the safety chain was on, and although it was a strong and solid chain, it didn’t even have a tenth of the effectiveness that everybody believed. It would be ripped away from its roots by just a few strong pushes against the door.

She sat a few seconds like deafened. She knew. She didn’t think the person who tried to open the door was any guest who had taken the wrong room. Just as she was going to rush up and get the gun and scream for doctor Lecter, the doorknob ceased to clatter.

Clarice stood at the bed for a while, listening carefully before she dared to go and out her ear against the door.

She heard voices out in the corridor, but they didn’t come exactly from the other side of the door. They came from somewhere further away in the corridor. She could discern two voices, one deep, low, calm voice, and another, speaking in metallic, raspy whispers.

No matter how hard she tried, she could only hear two voices. Hadn’t the stalkers been four? Why did she only hear two voices?

She couldn’t make out anything of what they said.

Clarice was confused.

If they looked for her and the doctor, then why had they retreated?

She breathed as quietly as she could, while she was listening to the strange voices. She heard steps walk pass the room. It was the sound of many feet, three, or even...four.

Down at the doorstep there was a fissure about half an inch wide. Clarice lay down on all fours on the floor, pressed her face against the floor, and gazed out in the corridor.

The optic angle was limited, but the motel door was not supplied with a peephole which gave a 180 degrees optic angle, so this is what she had to do.

What she saw move pass the door, was the glimpse of one pair of feet. The rest, how many they now were, had already passed.

They were not alone at the motel. There were other guests. Not so many, perhaps two or three people, and they would hear her if she screamed. It surprised her that if that were the lunatics that were out there, had dared to come here, even if here were other guests.

But what? she thought then. They were not alone at the café in Baltimore either. And still they came. Persistent and fearless types.

She heard the voices mutter in the far end of the corridor.

Suddenly and unexpectedly the whole motel shook with a violent crack which made Clarice scream and jerk.

The first crack was immediately followed by another, and the heard the door give up in one of the other rooms.

She heard a man and a woman scream. The screams were horrible to hear. It sounded as if someone was beating them to death, or something worse, a lot worse. It sounded like...yes, as if they were ripped into pieces, or if they were about to be gutted.

It became unbearable to hear. She was screaming too now.

- Good God, no! she cried. Good Lord, don’t!

Hannibal rushed out of the bathroom. His hair was wet and she was hastily pulling his clothes on.

- It’s them! he hissed. They are here. They’ve found us.

He had not needed to say that. She already knew. Far too well.

The screaming from those two people, who obviously were being butchered, continued.

Doctor Lecter reacted quickly. They had smashed one door. They could smash theirs, too. He quickly took the armchair, hurried with it to the door, and wedged it up underneath the doorknob.

During the time, Clarice had brought out her pistol. She cocked it and said with her eyes riveted on the door:

- I’m going out there. They are killing people. I am going to put some bullets in them!

Doctor Lecter held her back.

- No! he said. You are not going out there. They will kill you!

- They’re killing people! I can hear them scream.

Clarice had not yet noticed that the screaming of the two people had stopped.

- They’re already dead, said doctor Lecter. If you try to interfere they will kill you too!

- I’m going to blow their fucking brains out!

- It is like stepping inside a tornado! You don’t have a chance! They are four, Clarice. One of them will kill you before you have shot them all!

She was obviously in shock state, and didn’t want to listen. She tried to hit herself loose. Doctor Lecter was stronger than Clarice, and held her back with little effort.

He had to roar to be able to reach out to her.

- Don’t you understand?! If you go out there, they will do the same thing to you as they just did to those two people!

She stopped trying to hit herself loose. Her eyes met his. Her lower lip trembled.

- Oh, Jesus! she said miserably. Hold me, Hannibal. Will you do that?

He grabbed her again, and held her close to himself. Even though he knew that this wasn’t the time for endearments.

A whole pack of murderous, bestial demons were in the hallway only a few feet away. They had apparently smashed the wrong door, but still killed those people, obviously for pure pleasure.

Thanks to the chair, their door would not yield as easily as the other guest’s door, but it would not hold for more than a couple of cracks. The demons would break into the room, and kill them.

Doctor Lecter held Clarice at arm’s length.

- We have to get out of here, he said.

Their door shook. Something hit against the door. Firmly.

- How? hissed Clarice and stared at him with a glassy look.

- The window, he said and grabbed her by the wrist and began to pull her towards the window that faced the parking lot.

He grabbed the hafts in the lower part of the window, and made an attempt to pull up the window. His hands slipped. He was obviously so nervous that his coordination ability was reduced. It could not have anything to do with strength.

His second attempt succeeded. He pulled up the window and looked down. They were on the second floor. They were about 18 feet down to the ground.

During the time Clarice had gone to pick up her stuff and put them in her bag. She stood at the bedside table.

- Come on! hissed doctor Lecter. Hurry.

She ran to him with her outdoor clothes on, and her bag under her arm. She looked out through the window, but just a short glimpse was enough to make hr back again.

- What is it? Hannibal asked.

She was pale, paler than she was than before she had looked out through the window. She stuttered when she was talking.

- Do...do...you mean....that we...we...are going...to jump out?

- Yes, he said. We have to. Your car is standing over there. It’s the only way.

Once again the door shook. They were pressed for time.

Doctor Lecter quickly pulled his shoes and his jacket on, but he didn’t bother to neither tie his shoes nor button his jacket.

- I can’t, said Clarice. I won’t. I will kill myself.

- No, said doctor Lecter calmly, you will not.

Her eyes had gotten wet with tears.

- Jump, he said. You have to.

- Don’t make me do this...she said in a very faint little voice.

- Don’t make me make you!

She pressed against the wall. She looked distressed.

They hit against the door again, harder. Wood was shattered. Clarice turned her head towards the noise. She stared at the door that soon would yield.

- Listen, Clarice, said doctor Lecter. There are two ways out of this room. The first one is the door, through the corridor over there. He nodded against the door. "And other one is the window. So, which do you choose?"

She didn’t respond.

- Come on and jump, he said. The worst thing that can happen, is that you get a few bruises or scratches. But it will not kill you.

He rather wanted her to jump by her own will, because if he threw her down by violence, she might land badly and be injured.

- Clarice, jump!

The door would soon give up. Doctor Lecter asked himself, if it would be necessary to throw her down after all.

Clarice moved her eyes between him and the ground beneath the window.

- Okay, she then said. But you go first. I’ll jump if you go first.

Doctor Lecter did not like the idea. Not because he was scared of jumping. It would be an easy jump. What concerned him, was, that in case he jumped first, he would not be able to get up again and bring down Clarice if she then refused to jump. But.

There was no time to get into a discussion about that now.

In less than a minute they would have the demons inside the room.

Hannibal Lecter sat on the windowsill, swung his legs over the edge and looked down. The pavement glistened black. An easy jump.

Before he jumped down, he looked into Clarice’s eyes. She obviously understood his concern, for she said:

- I’ll be right behind you. I promise.

Doctor Lecter jumped down from the windowsill. He landed on the wet asphalt and slipped because of the rubber soles of the shoes, but she did not fall. Immediately he turned his eyes up towards the room above, where Clarice was standing in the window. He heard wood break into splinters under even greater noise than before.

Clarice looked down at him. He saw terror in her eyes. What scared her more, the demons or the jump she had ahead of her, he did not know.

- Clarice, he said. Come on now.

She sat down on the windowsill with her legs on the outside, exactly like he had done before. She turned her head and looked back into the room.

Doctor Lecter heard the twisted metal shriek, when the locking mechanism began to break. Now it was a matter of seconds. She sat there.

- Clarice! he cried.

Why in the earth had he allowed himself to jump first? He regretted that he had grabbed her right away when she started to be contrary, and thrown her down.

Clarice put her hands against her head, and began to chant:

- Okay, okay, okay, okay...

Her voice was very faint and hollow at the same time. He reached out his arms.

- Clarice, I’ll take you. Please. Jump now.

And then she jumped. She fell through the air, with her eyes tightly pressed together and the bag in her left hand. The fall itself took less than a second.

He received her, caught her skillfully in his arms, but did not manage to maintain his balance, but fell down on his back on the ground. Clarice did nor hurt herself, since she landed upon him. She didn’t let go of her beg even when she had reached the ground.

Clarice was no heavy woman, but when she, with full speed, fell upon Hannibal, and just when they hit the ground, Clarice’s body upon his, felt like a great and gruesome weight.

He pushed her away from him, to be able to get up and run. He got up on his feet, even though the blow caused by Clarice’s body, when she fell over him, had made him lose his breath.

But doctor Lecter recovered quickly, and was up on his feet again five seconds after he had fallen. When he had taken a couple of steps towards the car, which was parked about twenty yards away, he noticed that Clarice not had gotten further, than trying to get up on all fours.

He turned back, and grabbed her arm and pulled to get her moving.

It succeeded. She stumbled on next to him, and when they had gotten about halfway to her Mustang, a cracking sound cut through the air. It was the sound of the door to their room that was smashed, when the demons rushed in on their pursuit of them.

Clarice Starling was sitting in her own Mustang, with the passenger door to her right, and Hannibal Lecter to her left, who was driving the car.

The time was twenty past six, P.M.

It was raining. Thundering too. Flashes of lightning moved over huge areas of the darkening sky.

Good, thought doctor Lecter. The storm, especially the atmospheric interferences, like those caused by the lightning, gave them protection. And they were really in the need of protection, more than ever before.

Clarice was anxious in the front seat next to him.

- It must be here somewhere, she said.

- What? he asked.

- The transmitter, of course! It’s the only way. They must have put a transmitter on something that we have carried with us. How else could they have found us in such a short time?

Doctor Lecter said: - I don’t think we have carried any transmitter.

She was surprised at that he so quickly overruled her theory.

- Right? And how could they find us if we didn’t have?

- I have no idea, but any transmitter is not accurate, Clarice.

- And how can you know that?

- But, he said, are those transmitters not quite hard to get hold of? I mean, they are not just things you buy in an ordinary store. And, he added, I have seen them. They aren’t into high-tech. They don’t do that kind of things.

The doctor’s obstinacy started to annoy Clarice.

- So you think they aren’t into high-tech? Right? How about, Hannibal, if you instead could focus on what we know instead of what you think.

Who knows, perhaps they have stuff that aren’t even out amongst the spies? What do you know?

Doctor Lecter noticed that she started to excite herself, and remained calm.

- I don’t know much about them. That is exactly why I have to make a judgment and use hypotheses. Do you understand, Clarice?

- Precisely! But I think you should keep to fact, anyway. All this talk about golems and...Jesus! She caught her breath and continued. "What other scientific way could they have used to track us down, if not a transmitter?"

He pondered upon it for a while. - Let’s assume that we actually have carried around a transmitter, then they must have been able to put it there too. I can recall any opportunity they could have done that.

She had no answer on that.

- And where should they have put it? doctor Lecter continued.

- On something we have carried with us all the time. Like my bag. Or the car.

- When could they possibly have put a transmitter on your bag? Have you not had it with you all the time?

- Yes, she admitted.

- And it must be a very little thing, that is not visible, in case we are not supposed to notice we are carrying it around.

- You have no idea what modern technology can do. You’d be surprised.

- I know approximately, Clarice. Must not those transmitters have some kind of battery? A power source?

- That’s right.

- How big radius of range do those approximately have?

- Hmm...it depends.

- More precisely?

- About four, five kilometres. Perhaps ten if it’s really sophisticated.

- That’s too little, doctor Lecter said immediately.

Clarice could not other than agree. - Yeah. It’s too little.

- That was the end of that theory.

- There is still a way. They maybe guessed that we were headed at this direction, and stayed somewhere around, simply hoping for good luck, zigzagged across the area with their receivers, until they came close enough to pick up signals from the transmitter. That would be enough to track us down. If we assume that the transmitter is somewhere in the car.

- That does not hold, said doctor Lecter. We could have driven to hundreds of other places. How big is the chance that they would pinpoint themselves to exactly this area?

- It’s not a big chance, but it’s the only way. They must have done it like that. How else could they have found us?

- But that does not explain how they found me at the hospital already the very same night. I was registered as a John Doe. Even if they could guess that I had gone into hospital, they could impossibly have known that it was I.

They showed up there, three hours after I arrived. How do you explain that, if you stick to your theory about a hidden transmitter?

After a while, Clarice said:

- Have you got any object, which has followed, ever since you escaped from your home, about two days ago?

- Only the clothes that I’m wearing. Besides my shoes and my jacket. I took them at the hospital. Don’t come here and say that they could have put a transmitter in my clothes.

- I wasn’t going to, said Clarice. I am trying to find out how they could have done.

- You will not succeed, Clarice. There are no transmitters. They methods they use are...different.

Clarice had gotten really sick of doctor Lecter’s annoying habit to refute all her arguments with a logic analysis and blinding witticism.

That wasn’t anything new, of course. In the beginning of their acquaintance, she had kept her mouth shut and not argued with him, but the situation was different now. She was no longer scared of him, and his presumption had really begun to exasperate her. She had had enough.

- Is that right? No, of course, they don’t need a transmitter! she said as sarcastically as she could. They can just take a look in their crystal ball, or why not their tarot cards? That is a much safer and effective method! Perhaps we should start advertise alternative ways of hunting people down?

Would that be correct, then every goddamn sibyl would be billionaire by now!

Doctor Lecter gave her a sidelong glance.

- You have absolutely no reason to be sarcastic, Clarice, he said. The only thing I said was, that your theory about the transmitter does not hold.

- Have you any better theory yourself? she asked, still in a bad mood. And now I refer to a theory, which does not come from any golems or other necromancy.

- In that case, said doctor Lecter, is the only alternative, that they found us with the help of luck. Simply guessed right.

- Should they have found you at the hospital, then us at the café, and then later at the motel only by guessing? That’s too much of a coincidence.

- I know. But you wanted a logical explanation.

- That can’t be correct, Hannibal. There has got to be another explanation.

Of course it wasn’t sorcery, Clarice thought. There had to be a logical explanation. That they had carried a hidden transmitter was the most probable.

But no matter what the cause was, they had to find out the answer, or else they would never get rid of these psychotic, stubborn, persistent maniacs.

They would keep coming. They would just keep coming, until both Clarice Starling and doctor Hannibal Lecter had been wiped off the face of the earth.

Apparently doctor Lecter was thinking the same thing, since he said:

- We cannot run and hide forever.

- I know, Clarice agreed.

- They always find us, where ever we go.

- Looks like it.

- We can’t keep on running.

Clarice was suddenly filled with a strange kind of rage, and she could almost feel the resolution ooze within her. She felt like a warrior, preparing for battle.

- Then we’ll fight, she said in a resolute voice, which made even doctor Lecter raise his eyebrows.

- Fight? he said. Shall we fight them and win?

- Yes. Why not? I personally won’t allow four ridiculous clowns in costumes destroy my life without a battle, and I didn’t think you would, either.

- Clarice, think about what you’re proposing, said doctor Lecter. Even if we should try to fight them, there are four of them, and only two of us, so that would be two of them on one of us. Besides they are...superior us in strength. We would never succeed.

- Not with that attitude we won’t.

- I am only being realistic, Hannibal said.

- You said yourself that we can’t keep on running. What do you suggest we do? Go to the police? No? And I personally feel like plague-stricken. Where ever we go, people die like flies around us when they come.

That can’t continue. I can’t cope with it. We have to do something. Make up a plan. We have been improvising this far, but that’s going to stop. Do you understand, Hannibal?

We have to act, instead of react!

- I agree, Clarice, said doctor Lecter. How shall we start?

- Let’s see, she said, feeling terribly important, to begin with, what do we know?

What are their reasons? Who is behind?

- I know who is behind.

- You think it’s the guy who tried to rob you?

- Yes.

- But why would he seize so drastic ways? What did you really do to him? What made him that insane?

- He already was insane, I didn’t infuse that into him. A twisted type. And now he’s looking for revenge.

- On you? Why? Because you defended yourself?

- I made him to a public shame. A big, strong man, beaten down by someone like me... I guess he just snapped.

- And you have no idea who he might be?

- Not the slightest.

- You think he hired them?

- Yes...or something similar. They seem to act on someone’s command.

- You have not had trouble with anyone else it might be?

- No.

- Okay...she said slowly. Let’s assume it is he.

- Good girl.

- Anything else we know?

- I cannot remember anything else at the moment.

- You’ve dropped that golem-thing, have you not?

- Let’s say I have, said doctor Lecter.

- That makes me glad.

- Do you still mean that we should fight them?

- Yes, I do.

- We will not succeed, he said fiercely.

- No hellfire sermon, now, please. We will make it, and even if we don’t, we have at least tried. And I will try anyway, goddamn, I will. With or without your help, doctor. But I’d say, that two have a bigger chance than one. So we stick together, will we not?

- But Clarice, of course we stick together!

- Good! We will get these fuckers, Hannibal. We will think out a really great strategy, and get them, damn it!

She made a little break.

- If they find us in the same rate as before, we have about one day to think out something. And we will. We’ll break them, so they’ll regret that they were ever born into this world!

They were maybe not born into this world, thought doctor Lecter, but he admired Clarice Starling’s will and spirit. He said nothing about that he still thought that they were inhuman.

He had to agree with her. Sometime they would be forced to fight, and that might as well happen right away.

- You’re a rock, Clarice, he said with appreciation.

- Thank you, doctor. Of course I am, she said and felt that he was right.

They had driven around without structure for hours now. To be able to, in peace and quiet, think out a strategy, they were forced to settle down somewhere.

- We have to go somewhere, she said. Some place where there aren’t any other people. No more must lose their lives because of this. Do you know any place?

Doctor Lecter pondered for a while. Then he said:

- Then it would be best, if we go to my house. It is quite secluded, and that is absolutely a place where they will find us.

Besides we have one thing to our advantage; I know the house. I find in there. They don’t.

- Then let’s do so, Clarice decided. Let’s go there. Is it certain that there won’t be any other people around?

- Positive.

- Excellent.

We’ll get them, thought Clarice while they were headed against doctor Lecter’s residence. Now she was furious. She wanted them dead.

A little plagued by the grim complacency in this one thought, she then changed it to: No, maybe not. It would be good if it could be solved in some other way than with bloodshed. But she doubted that.

They were fanatics, totally insane, deranged. They would probably go into death to complete their mission.

To kill them was the only way. They were after all only humans. But, she thought, if we not obliviously have carried on a transmitter, how in the hell could they find us that quickly?

How in the hell did they do it?

Sorcery. Bah! She straightened her back in the front seat and stared out into the darkness.

It was almost midnight when doctor Lecter and Clarice Starling arrived to doctor Lecter’s residence.

The house standing was dark and quiet in the cold night. The house looked in the darkness, like a giant beast, just waiting to throw itself over them.

Since there was only room for one car in doctor Lecter’s garage, and that place was already taken by the doctor’s Jaguar, so he was forced to park Clarice’s Mustang on the approach to the house.

Clarice did not really like it. She said:

- Now they only need to go by the house to see where we are. Isn’t there anywhere else we can put the car?

- I actually don’t think it makes any difference, doctor Lecter replied. Have they gotten as far as the house, they probably don’t need any more clues. We can safely leave the car where it is.

Clarice accepted the resolution. That was the case. If the maniacs had managed to track them down to the house, it made no difference if they saw the car or not.

Clarice had got a scraping on her right hip when she jumped from the window at the motel, and she felt the injury ache a little when she was walking. She told doctor Lecter that it wasn’t serious, but he still insisted on examining her.

Her could with relief establish that she was right. It was just a scratch. She had an about two inches long, shallow furrow, which extended exactly over the iliac crest. Just an abrasion, probably caused by the fall, when she hit her hip against the asphalt.

It was really good that he had caught her, so that she hadn’t received any more serious injuries.

Doctor Lecter’s own back ached also, but he said nothing about that.

Even though it really wasn’t necessary, doctor Lecter brought liquor, iodine and bandage, and bound it up.

Hannibal noticed that Clarice became touched by his concern for her. While she was sitting on a chair in the kitchen, and he was kneeling in front of her, dabbing the wound with iodine, he let his finger move along the scratching, which probably would develop into a scar, eventually. The skin around the injured tissue was smooth as silk.

Obviously lost in thoughts, he must have sat there, doing her longer than he thought, because suddenly he heard her laugh. She said:

- Hey, if it was to finger me you did that for, you could have used the direct approach?

He turned his eyes up towards her.

- Was it like that? she asked.

- That too, he said and smiled widely.

He hurried with the rest, put the bandage on, and let her get up.

- How impolite I am, said Hannibal, I must certainly ask my guest, in case I can offer her something? Would you like something to eat, Clarice?

- In the middle of the night? she said, sounding surprised.

- Yes.

She thought about it for a second. - Yeah, why not?

They helped each other to cook a very late dinner, consisting of spaghetti with pesto sauce, stonepine nuts, cheese, chopped tomatoes, fresh garlic and cold, white wine.

They brought the food with them to the living room, and ate some, but then lost their interest in the food and devoted their time to other things instead.

They were talking on and on, about all kinds of things, Clarice about her work and more about her childhood. Some of her stories were sad, others were funny, and all of them were the most fascinating stories, doctor Lecter had ever heard, because they were about her.

Clarice had never opened up totally and completely to any other human being as he now did to doctor Lecter.

He showed honest interest in what she had to tell, and encouraged her to tell more, and he never gibed her for anything, like he had done in the beginning of their acquaintance at the hospital.

But even though doctor Lecter willingly listened to her stories, he said very little about himself and his own life.

They stayed up for very long. From time to time someone of them said that they should go to bed, since they were both very tired, but still they sat up until the time was ten to two in the morning.

They were afraid to sleep. Doctor Lecter realized, that they were both expecting to see the demons come waltzing into the room anytime. At last he said:

- We cannot stay up all night, Clarice. They will not find us yet. Come, let’s go to bed. We need to be thoroughly rested before what is waiting.

Clarice said: - We can take it in turns to sleep, so one of us can keep watch all the time.

- That is not necessary. They won’t find us yet. It will take a while.

- I’ll take the first shift. Go to bed, and I will wake you up...shall we say...half past four?

He sighed. - No, I will take the first shift. You go to bed, Clarice.

- Wake me up half past four, so that I can take over?

- All right.

They got up and carried the plates and the cups to the kitchen and washed them off, and then went to prepare a bed for Clarice. He did not take her to the guestroom, but offered her to sleep in his ordinary bed.

- Would you like to borrow a pyjama? he asked.

- Please.

He gave her the pyjama, but she chose to only put on the roomy upper part. And when she was standing at the edge of the bed, watching him in the eyes, he went and put his arms around her and kissed her.

She absolutely didn’t resist, even welcomed it. He placed his hand under her chin, lifted her face up, and kissed her, and she returned the kiss.

Clarice noticed that she and doctor Lecter were almost of equal length. She was quite tall for a female, and she was not tall for a male.

If she had not been so tired - and tensed - and the time would have been different, Clarice would have asked him to make love to her again.

But no, she had to be pleased with being embraced and comforted.

- I know what you’re thinking, Clarice, he whispered with his mouth at her ear, I am thinking the exact same thing, but we are too tire now, we are, even if I don’t want anything more than this.

She nodded against his shoulder. Of course he was right.

Reluctantly, she let go of him. She gave him her pistol, and said:

- If those bastards come here, then get them.

He nodded. - Go to sleep, Clarice. Go to sleep. It will be all right.

He put her to bed, kissed her good night, and got up to leave the room, when Clarice suddenly got up irascibly, and the dreamy expression in her face was replaced by anxiety.

- Stay here, she said. Hannibal, please, don’t leave me. I am scared, stay with me.

- Of course, he said and went and sat down on the edge of her bed. I’m not going anywhere. Sleep.

- I know that they can’t make it here tonight already, but...

He put a finger over her lips.

- That is true. Absolutely impossible. You can be calm, Clarice. Nothing is going to happen to us tonight.

- Be ready with the gun, she said.

- Certainly. Even if I won’t need it. Because I won’t. I guarantee. Go to sleep now, Clarice.

Clarice said that she wanted to have the night lamp on. She was for the first time in her life scared of sleeping in darkness.

Hannibal sat down in a chair in the same room, and watched Clarice who was lying in the bed. He wasn’t going to wake her up half past four.

Half an hour after she crawled down, and he was sure of that she was asleep, he undressed himself quietly, and lay down next to her in the large bed.

He had not planned going to sleep, but when he stretched out on the bed, leaned his head against the pillows and closed his eyes, had in mind to rest, he fell asleep at once.

Morning, October 31.

Hannibal got out of bed first, took a shower, and was making coffee when Clarice woke up.

No demons had come during the night. Clarice had no robe, so therefore she wrapped a blanket around herself, and went into the kitchen to doctor Lecter, looking like an Indian squaw. She was a bit mad at him.

- Why didn’t you wake me up so that I could keep watch? she said.

- I didn’t find that necessary, he said, smiling.

- We both slept at the same time, said Clarice.

- Yes. We needed a good night sleep.

- But what if they had broken in here, and we would not have noticed anything before they stood at foot of the bed.

- But that didn’t happen now, isn’t that right? said doctor Lecter and gave her a cup of hot cappuccino.

She accepted the cup. - But you promised you’d wake me, she said.

- If I had not promised, you would not have gone to bed at all, would you?

- No, maybe not, she muttered, but still, you promised. This was the first time you ever broke a promise, Hannibal.

- I am sorry, Clarice. But I only did what felt right to me.

- Well, okay, Clarice said smiling. But just for now!

They fixed the breakfast and ate in the kitchen. Doctor Lecter noticed, that Clarice had brought the gun, which he previously had left on the bedside table in the bedroom, and held it close to her all the time.

- Are you expecting trouble? he asked.

- You never know. What’s the point having a pistol if you don’t have it available all the time?

- I don’t think there is any danger yet...-

- Perhaps not, but it’s good to be prepared.

Doctor Lecter began to believe, that Clarice was being infected by panic. He himself was strongly determined to avoid that. They would be forced to think and strategize, and could do neither if she all the time was looking nervously over her shoulder.

He believed, that they could feel safe here, at least a few hours more. Not even the demons were that fast.

- Try to relax, he told her.

She immediately stopped chewing and looked up at him.

- Relax? she said in a shrill voice. You have to be joking! We are expecting a whole pack of murdering maniacs, and you want to relax? I’m just saying, that when they get here, it’s good if at least one of us is on the alert!

- Okay, that was stupid of me, he admitted.

- If you don’t mind me saying this, Hannibal, it was. Do we have a plan, by the way?

- Not to my knowledge.

- Then we have to think of one. And fast. They can be here anytime.

Doctor Lecter nodded. He knew that. But he still acted with himself under perfect control, and he was about to continue that.

At lunchtime, the "Plan" simply consisted of trying to shoot the attackers to death. That was the only alternative. Since doctor Lecter didn’t have any firearms in his house, which didn’t actually improve their chances, it meant, that only one of them would have access to the gun.

The other one, would in his turn, divert the attention of the pack, so the first one, who was lying in ambush, could come forth, surprise them, and get them, hopefully all four of them.

Clarice would act shot. Doctor Lector had much bigger physical strengths than she did, and was both lither and faster, with reflexes, which could appear spooky, but still they agreed in, that she was the one, who handled firearms best.

Firearms had never interested Hannibal, and therefore he had no bigger experience of them. Unlike Clarice. She was as close a profession they could get, and the chance was great that she would not miss, if only she could catch them by surprise.

Still there were many things that could go wrong. If the "Plan" was going to succeed, every single detail had to tally. But it could succeed. Just like it could fail, and they could both end up like those two people at the motel. They were aware of the risks.

The time went on stubbornly, and no demons came to doctor Lecter’s house. At six o’clock, about one day after the previous attack, directly after having a meal, Hannibal Lecter and Clarice Starling were sitting in the sofa out in the living room, trying to find something to watch on TV.

On one channel, they were showing an old horror movie, named "Halloween". Clarice had seen that film. They always used to show it around Halloween. Halloween...

Yes, right. That was today.

- Do you know what day it is? she asked doctor Lecter.

- October 31, he replied.

- Yes, it’s Halloween!

He thought for a moment. - Yes, it is. And?

- No reason in particular.

She drew her attention to the TV-screen, where a guy in white ghost mask was chasing a stupid, screaming girl who by some inexplicable reason always ran at the wrong direction.

- Do you want to watch this? Clarice asked Hannibal.

- No.

She could understand him. She had already seen the movie herself. Clarice put over to something else.

At first, they devoted the TV-screen only slight interest, and later no interest at all.

They started talking again, and this time, when the conversation was approaching doctor Lecter in a personal level, he didn’t retreat, as he did before.

- Do you want to tell me about that dream now? she asked.

- Yes, Hannibal said. Now I want to. I just don’t know how to say it. I have never been forced to tell this to anyone before.

- I’m here, said Clarice and grabbed hold of his hand, because she had a feeling that this could get really ugly.

- This dream I had, before at the motel, it was about...

- Yes?

- My sister, said doctor Lecter.

- Your sister? I didn’t know you had a sister?

- I...have not. Not anymore.

Clarice began to understand where this conversation was headed, and squeezed his hand harder.

- My parents died during World War 2, in year 1944, during an artillery fire. On that time, we lived near Vilnius, in Lithuania, continued doctor Lecter. Our family’s estate was blown to pieces, but Misja and I...we didn’t die.

- Misja?

- My little sister.

- What happened to her? Clarice asked in a low voice.

- She...died later. Now doctor Lecter’s voice had begun to tremble, but he fought to keep it steady. He continued. "A motley crowd of deserters, used our family’s hunting lodge as a place of refuge."

They...they had almost no food at all, and...and to keep alive, after the Eastern front had collapsed, they kept a few captured children locked up in a shed nearby the hunting lodge, that they...fed on. Me and Misja amongst them.

- Oh, Jesus! If you don’t want to talk about it...

- But I do, he said, suddenly resolved. For the first time in my life, I do want to talk about it.

- I’m listening.

Hannibal continued:

- They took her! They took my Misja....

Not the tears were gushing along his cheeks, and his voice burst when he tried to say something. Clarice gently took him in her arms and held him against her chest. With his head against Clarice’s shoulder, and his face against her neck, Hannibal said, in a very pained voice:

- Oh, how much I wish it was me, Clarice. If it had to be one of us, why couldn’t it have been me?

Clarice refused to accept the horror, and said:

- What happened to her?

- That fact that she died is yet not the worst, in some way. The worst is, that I watched her die...like that... I saw...I...

- Oh, my god. What happened?

His tears kept on flowing. - They ate her...they led her out in the snow...and took an axe, and...cut her up...

- Oh, good god.

- I...I...saw them...cut up my little sister...I heard the axe fall...

- Hannibal...

- I need to talk about it.

- All right.

- So that you will understand...why I am like I am, when it comes to certain things...

- My poor little dear, she said and rocked him gently in her arms.

- Oh, I couldn’t save her...I was just watching...

- That was the only thing you could do, she assured him.

- I could have tried...

- But good god, Hannibal, what could a seven year-old have done?

- I was not even six, he said.

- You cannot blame yourself. You could not have done anything.

- I dream about it, he whimpered at her neck. So often. I get stuck in the same moment, I go through it over and over and over...as if someone is pushing the rewind-button on a VCR, I see the axe fall, I see Misja...I see her be chopped up...and I...and I...

- Quiet. Be quiet now.

The he finally went quiet, and was lying almost limp in Clarice’s arms.

During a long, long time, the definitions "love" and "pain" had been insolubly fused in Hannibal Lecter’s mind. Ever since his childhood.

He was afraid of let himself be loved, and to love again, and had during almost his whole life preferred the loneliness before the loss and the pain.

But he loved Clarice Starling, didn’t dare to believe it at first, since he them would make himself vulnerable, or even...defenseless. But he loved her, loved her as much as he had loved Misja and his parents, gone more than half a century ago, but was simultaneously afraid what it could mean to lose her too. It would be a hard stroke. Devastating. He knew that he would not be able to rise again after that. Clarice could either be his salvation or his doom.

- I have never talked about it before, he said at last.

- Never?

- Never.

- I am so sorry for you, Hannibal.

- It was not your fault.

- Neither was it yours.

- I know. But the guilt is there. It weakens every year that passes, but it’s always there. I assume I have to learn to live with it for the rest of my life.

- Don’t think of that now, she said. It was a long time ago.

- I prayed to God that time, he said, still trembling all over because of the sobs. I prayed so fervently, while they led her away from me, but...nothing happened. And ever since, it had been quiet between God and me.

- What happened to you after the war? asked Clarice.

- Orphanage, said Hannibal. Several of them. The next worse than the previous.

Clarice understood exactly how he felt. The parallels between their childhood and personal losses, were frightening.

After Clarice’s father, the night watchman, was shot to death outside the drugstore, she had, between the ages 10-18 years, spent her time at a series of orphanages and temporary foster homes, surely not completely different from the places doctor Lecter had been put in, and she had been forced to become tough.

Her personality, the traits she saw as good qualities in herself, had been considered as adjusting problems by the society, so she had not been attractive to any potential adoptive parents. She had been considered as a typical "white trash"-case.

But still, even though their experiences were much alike, doctor Lecter had suffered many times worse than she had.

She felt so sorry for him.

From that she met Hannibal Lecter in the basement at Baltimore State Hospital, till this morning, she had almost not known anything about him. Now she knew almost everything. She felt incredibly close to him, even greater closeness now, than when they made love to each other.

She and Hannibal were kindred spirits. There was nothing to it.

She noticed that he was no longer sobbing, where he lay in her arms.

The reason was simple. Doctor Hannibal Lecter had fallen asleep, with muddled hair, and dry tears in his red-streaked face.

Clarice brushed away a wisp of hair from his forehead, and let him sleep.

Clarice let doctor Lecter sleep in her arms for almost an hour. Then she had to wake him, because she had to get up and go tinkle.

When she gently shook him, so that he would wake up, she almost expected him to burst into tears again, but instead he remained calm, and only gave her a little shy and sad smile.

She did not know if he was embarrassed, but she directly saw at him, that he was relieved over being deprived of his horrible secret, which he had had like an enormous weight over himself, ever since childhood.

Clarice jerked when she thought about the six year-old Hannibal, who had stood at the door to the shed, watching his sister get butchered alive.

- I’ll be right back, she told him.

When she left the living room, she didn’t bring the gun, which was lying on the table at the sofa.

Doctor Lecter stayed and watched after her when she went out. He glimpsed at his watch!

Oh, dear! It was half past eight, and he must have slept for over an hour!

That was strange; Hannibal was not usually the one who cried in front of other people, but when he had done that, and unburdened his mind to Clarice, it had not felt awkward, only as a great relief.

For the first time in the decades, doctor Lecter felt the sense of deliverance.

Clarice returned, after being in the bathroom, and was just about to sit down, when the whole house was shaken by a bang. It was the sound of the locked front door, banging up with huge strength, and the following second, they could also hear the leader demon’s deep, dark voice calling to them from the doorway:

- We know that you’re in there! You cannot hide for us! We know!

The demons had found them.

Instinctively, without ant thought of the danger, Clarice snatched her loaded pistol, and rushed out of the living room, through the hallway, which led towards the front door.

- No! said Hannibal.

He jumped up on his feet, tried to catch hold of her, but she ignored him, strongly determined to get through.

She turned towards him, for a bit of a second, and bawled to him, to keep out. She absolutely didn’t want him to run after her, and maybe get hurt in the process. Usually, people had no use telling doctor Lecter what to do, but something in Clarice’s voice at this very moment, made him freeze. Neither of them could really place what it was. It just...was.

She reached the hallway, without seeing if anybody was there, saw only the walls. She rushed forth without any thought of being cautious, not so much because cautiousness certainly was something that the maniacs expected from her, but even because she actually did not have herself under control. This was the only thing she could do.

Those loony, ferocious bastards had chased her out of her own home, made her run, and now they were going to kill her and Hannibal.

They were neither in the doorway nor the hall.

Clarice had never before in her life been hysterical, not like this, but now she was, and was aware of it herself, but could not help it. Did not want to help it. It felt good, so fucking good, to just let it all go and run on, to yield for a primitive desire to see their blood, to make them feel he same kind of pain they had caused her.

The sick bastards had gone into the kitchen.

With the same irrational indifference to the approaching danger, like when she had run out of the living room, into the hall, she stood in the broad opening, which led into the doctor’s kitchen.

There were the maniacs, all four of them, but none of them actually faced her. A fat, bald, stocky creature, was holding a crossbow, but he pointed it at the floor, not at her, because none of them had probably expected her to come rushing directly towards them, but that was exactly what she did, and she caught them by surprise.

Fuck the consequences.

When the fat creature began raising his crossbow, she shot him.

One, two, three times, and hit him in the chest or the stomach each time. She was a good shot, and at that range, it was close to impossible to miss.

The first bullet lifted him up from the floor, the second one lifted him even higher, and the third flung him backwards and knocked him down. The crossbow flew away from his hands.

There were three more except for the man she just shot. One of them was a female, about in the same size as Clarice.

She had a knife in her hand, raised her hand, to throw off the knife, but Clarice saw her one second before she saw Clarice, and instinctively fired a shot, which hit the woman in the chest, kept going through her and destroyed the coffee maker. (Doctor Lecter just had to get a new one.)

The woman fell already from the one shot, which hit her.

Two down. Two left.

The leader was still alive. He was a tall, slim man, with unnaturally pallid skin, and a head covered with nails.

Clarice noticed that he could have looked really good, if it wasn’t for the grotesque outfit. Clarice noticed all these details within a few fractions of a second, with the help of senses, made razor-sharp by adrenaline.

Before the woman’s body had hit the floor, Clarice turned around and put two bullets in a creature that tried to attach her from the left. The bullets flung him backwards before he could touch her.

That was a fast fucker. But she got him. He flew into one of the kitchen chairs, and tipped over together with it.

Suddenly Clarice began to scream. Uncontrolled, she began to curse them, so loudly, that it made her throat sore. But she screamed even louder.

Such terrible obscenities had never before come out of her beautiful face, and she got surprised when she heard herself, but the fury made that she couldn’t stop.

Screaming, Clarice turned towards the fourth psycho, the leader, who was still alive.

He stood about ten, twelve feet away, at the sink.

The maniac stood motionless, arrogant and defiant, did not try to throw aside, as if he challenged Clarice to pull the trigger.

His eyes were terrible. Black, like a puddle of crude oil. During a few fractions of a second, she stood staring into the man’s black eyes, but did not let herself be affected by the hypnotic in his eyes.

She fired one shot. Aimed the man’s nail-covered head.

Missed.

One more shot. Another miss. She was surprised at that she could miss from such a short distance.

She reconsidered, lowered the gun a bit, and fired a third shot, and hit the man in the chest. His spine should have shattered. Or the bullet should have penetrated some of his vital organs.

However, she fired one more shot, which hit him directly below his clavicle.

This time, he fell.

They were dead. All four of them were dead. She had killed them. The kitchen was now a slaughterhouse.

Not until now, she got aware of how horrible it had been to kill them, even if they had tried to kill her and doctor Lecter.

The nausea came over her like a wave of mud, and she was forced to lean against one side of the refrigerator, since she had to pull herself together again.

They were dead. She was surprised at how easy it had been to kill them. She was only one, and they had been four, but no matter how many they were, they had not been prepared for such violent resistance, not by the slender, frail person doctor Lecter made a show of being, and definitely not by a female. No. Never.

She had certainly caught them by surprise.

She was still sitting there, well aware of that she should go back to Hannibal and announce that she was all right, but she wanted to wait until she had gotten over the feeling of nausea.

But suddenly they were no longer dead. Not one of them. And Clarice, who no longer saw them as a threat, did not hold the gun forwards, but at the floor. She never got to turn it right.

The leader demon - no, they were no longer human; not even to her, they were demons, monstrous things - was the one who was closest to her, and he threw himself over her, and wrenched the gun out of her hand so violently, that she broke a finger.

He threw it away, overpowered her easily, and pulled her up on her feet even before she had time to scream.

She could see he had a bullet wound big as a coin under his right clavicle. But it didn’t seem to bother him. Not one bit.

He grabbed her by the hair with his one hand, pulled up a serrated knife from a sheath in his belt with the other, and put it at her throat.

- Let’s see how tough you are without that one, bitch! he snarled.

_______________________

Doctor Lecter was left in the living room. He had jumped up and tried to catch hold of Clarice, when she had rushed out there like some fucking kamikaze, but he had failed. She had even snapped at him to keep away.

Now he heard shots. Several of them, in a row. Did they come from Clarice’s pistol, or did the demons also have firearms?

Had they...no. Impossible. It mustn’t happen anything to Clarice. He couldn’t lose Clarice.

Still he knew, that most likely, that would happen.

He endured. No more sounds heard from the kitchen and the hall. If they had done something to Clarice, she would have at least screamed?

Suddenly he heard her do that. But they were angry, quelled screams, sounding more like cursing than cries of despair.

Hannibal suppressed the impulse to laughing. Clarice was at least still alive, and she was fighting. Perhaps she would make it.

Suddenly her screaming stopped. Two gunshots sounded again, directly after each other. No more yelling.

Doctor Lecter crawled to the table where he and Clarice had eaten their dinner before, and picked up a sharp kitchen knife. But he immediately realized that the knife would be of no use against firearms, if that were what the demons had, and came in with.

Still he held the knife at low range, ready to thrust it into anyone of them.

But perhaps Clarice had killed them all? He hoped that that was the case. But he knew better. They were alive. And they were coming.

But nothing happened. Three minutes passed. Four. Five. What was going on inside the kitchen? And where was Clarice?

Hannibal stood there, with all his senses at full stretch, ready to act on the first movement, but nothing happened, absolutely nothing. What had really happened?

When six minutes had passed, he couldn’t wait any longer. Clarice could lie there, severely injured, in strong need of medical assistance. He had to go and check on her.

The knife handle had become sleek in his sweaty hand.

Doctor Lecter held his breath, listened.

Suddenly he heard steps approaching the living room. Calm steps. They were in no hurry. That could not be Clarice. This was the sound of several people. It was the demons. They were coming into the living room.

No. The only thing doctor Lecter could do, was standing there, waiting for them to appear.

He could not run. There was nowhere to go.

They came. All four of them. Plus Clarice. The leader demon held her in front of him, with a knife at her throat. But now he didn’t come first, but the female was first, the female with the robot’s voice.

Why?

Aha! He immediately realized why. Very clever. In fear of, that he might be armed, they placed the woman ahead, in hope of that he might have misgivings against killing women, even demon women.

Misgivings they didn’t have. It was almost comical. Hannibal suppressed an urgent burst of laughter.

But he realized soon, that he had been thinking wrong and misjudged the situation. The female was the prime mover of the pack, but not as a shield, but a weapon. As fast as she saw him, she raised her hand, and threw off the knife she held in it, against his head.

The doctor managed, with the help of an impressive, flying reflex, catch the knife between his palms, and stop it from penetrating his face, only one inch before the edge reached his eye.

Clarice, who watched all this happen, just gasped. It was almost frightening. Doctor Lecter was only borderline normal.

Hannibal noticed, that even the demons looked at him - indicating the two who’s eyes he could see, that means the female and the leader - with a new kind of respect in their eyes.

The female demon had pulled out a new knife, but she lowered it and didn’t throw it at him.

- I am impressed, said the leader demon calmly.

- Thank you, replied doctor Lecter, in an equally calm voice.

- You could be useful to us, the leader continued. Join us.

- You throw knives at my head, and now you are asking me to join you? What is it that you want?

- You could be useful.

Surprised at the sudden change in attitude, doctor Lecter said:

- What are you?

- We are The Cenobites, the female replied. Become one. Join us.

- Join you? Allow me to say, I would rather die.

He was looking straight at Clarice, while telling. She was caught in the demon’s grip, white in the face by horror, haggard. But not injured. So far.

Doctor Lecter had never previously in his life been under such pressure as he was right now, in this very moment. Clarice’s life depended on him. He must not fail.

He tried to carry on the conversation with the demons, hoping to find a way to save her. He didn’t even consider the demon’s morbid proposition.

- Do you want me to join you? he said.

- Yes, hissed the woman. Do it. Be one of us. We have such wonderful sights to show you... Her voice turned into a metallic buzzing.

- Let go of Clarice, said doctor Lecter.

- We have no use for the woman, said the leader demon. You are the valuable one. Accept us. And you will grow to love us.

Suddenly both of the mute demons, or Cenobites, as they called themselves, had come up on each side of doctor Lecter, and now they grabbed hold of him, and held on to him.

Hannibal struggled against them with all his strength, but what chance did he have? They were two, and besides that they possessed superhuman strength.

The leader demon handed over the shocked Clarice, and the knife, to his female partner, who occupied the same position with her victim as he had done.

He himself, approached doctor Lecter, bent his knees a bit to come in level with the doctor, and held his nail-covered head only a few inches from Hannibal’s. The demon’s breath, smelling like morgue, washed over him.

Still he kept his head upright, and looked straight into the demon’s black eyes. His eyes did not yield.

- You will come with us, whether you want to or not, said the demon, almost friendly.

- Will I? said doctor Lecter.

- You will. I will make sure of that. But do not fear. You will love us. Unconditionally.

The calm, low burial-tone in the demon’s voice scared doctor Lecter, but he did not let himself be taken down.

- So in the hell I will, he said, with imperturbable composure, and then spat right at the demon’s face.

THe demon said nothing at first. Then he slowly straightened his back, and let his fingers move along the place in his face where the saliva hit him. After doing that, he unexpectedly raised his fist and gave doctor Lectern a hard blow in his face.

It hurt terribly; bur doctor Lectern didn’t give out a sound.

WHen he began to speak again, his voice still was calm and low, but with distinct wrath in the tranquil voice:

- Weak human being. Weak, unruly human being. You do understand, that I can do whatever I want with you? Exactly what I want. Do you realize? Whatever I want.

- Then go on, said doctor Lecter. Come on. Don’t just brag about how tough you are. Show me.

The demon smiled. A dreadful, ghastly smile. It was the smile of a person, who had something dreadful in mind, that was obvious, and doctor Lecter didn’t even dare trying to guess what that was.

- You seem to be a little tough little prick, the demon said in a vexatious voice. Small, but tough. We don’t come across people like you every day. But we will make you change your mind.

Before we are finished with you, you will have a different opinion regarding this.

Then he turned his head away, nodded in direction of the female demon and said in a totally different pitch of voice:

- Kill the woman.

She raised the knife over her shoulder. Soon it would happen. Again. In a second, or two, the knife would cut through Clarice’s soft stomach, the blood would gush, and all he could do was to watch.

But no. Not this time.

Soon the knife would move down, in a long, soft curve.

Then it was almost like something burst inside Hannibal. Together with a piercing yell coming from fury and resolution, he tore himself loose from the demon’s grip, and the speed, with which he threw himself over the demon woman, was uncanny.

Clarice fell out of her grip when Hannibal threw himself over her and floored her with a smash. He hit her head against the floor. Repeatedly. He hit her face.

The knife flew away in a long curve through the air when she hit the floor. He bit her in the hand she had raised to shield herself. He also buried his sharp little teeth in her cheek, and his mouth immediately filled with her blood but he didn’t care.

He fought and bit and kicked and scratched like a furious wild beast.

Clarice, who had fallen to the ground when the demon woman lost her grip of her, now desperately tried to crawl away, far away, while she witnessed what was happening. She was so absorbed by the fight, which took place on the floor, that she did not notice the leader demon who sneaked up behind her, and suddenly put a fine metal-snare around her neck, and pulled her backwards.

This made her scream both from pain and horror.

Doctor Lecter was about to kill the female demon. That was the only thing he had in mind. Kill her, kill her, kill her, kill...-

What finally made him stop trying to rip her into pieces, was the little cry Clarice gave out. As swift as a lightning, he turned his head in direction of the sound. His hands froze in the middle of a movement.

And there, on his left, about 15 feet away, stood the leader demon, again holding Clarice in his grip.

- Hannibal...she whimpered, but had to cease, because the snare around her neck tightened.

- Stop that immediately, the demons ordered, or else I will turn this bitch into raspberry jam, I swear. You are fast, but not fast enough to stop me. I will behead her!

Superhumanly strong as he was, he could without doubt decapitate Clarice, only by tightening the snare enough.

Hannibal had no other choice than to get up. When he had done that, the demon gave him further instructions.

- Good, now go, and lie down on the floor, over there.

He made a gesture with the hand he wasn’t holding the snare with.

Hannibal did not want to do it, because he knew that the demon only wanted him further away from himself and Clarice, to then be able to kill Clarice, without needing to worry about doctor Lecter.

He headed towards the direction the demon announced him, because he knew he couldn’t do anything else, but was interrupted.

- No, said the demon, I want you to crawl over there.

Hannibal sank down on his knees, simultaneously as he let one of his hands grope for something on the floor, something to use as a weapon, and grabbed hold of the golden box, which had arrived to his letterbox a few days ago, and he threw it away, with the help of only a small motion of his wrist.

The demon’s eyes extended when he gazed after the box, while it sailed above the floor, at a low height, to finally land on the floor, and with a crack smash into the base of a bookcase.

By some inexplicable reason, the demon found the box more important than Clarice, so he threw her away, and she flew like a doll through the air, to finally hit the floor.

The he headed off towards the box.

Doctor Lecter did not know why, but was suddenly struck by a feeling, that they would be history, if the demon caught the box, so what he did, was to rush off at the same direction, where he had thrown the box, trying to get it before the demon did.

The box had landed closer to the demon than doctor Lecter, and the doctor realized, that no matter how fast he was, he would never get there before. But on the other hand, he might be able to stop the demon from getting it.

That is exactly what he did.

The doctor came up on the demon’s right side, and grabbed him by the wrist with his right hand, as if he was about to pull him back, which of course wouldn’t work, and it didn’t, either.

He was smaller than the demon, and with less physical strength. He pulled and tore, but could not do more, than a furious little child could, when pulling its mama’s arm.

The first seconds, the demon made no obvious attempts to lose him. Hannibal changed his tactics. He lifted up the demon’s hand he was holding, and bit him in the wrist.

He gave out a cry from pain and surprise. He had been totally unprepared for the bite. When he got bitten, he stopped, but simultaneously he clenched his fist and let it hit doctor Lecter’s back with very violently.

Hannibal was forced down to his knees, and for a moment thought that the demon had broken his spine.

Pain, as sharp and flashing as electricity, spread along his back and up to his neck.

Everything went black for him, but he was strongly determined not to faint, and hardly managed to keep conscious, because the pain was devastating and he had lost his breath.

Stunned as he was, and with a blurry look, it was close that doctor Lecter didn’t see the demon bend down to pick up the box.

But when his fingers were only a few inches from the box, Hannibal threw himself against his legs.

The demon saw him come, hoping to get aside, but was a fraction of a second too late, and whisked with his arms for a moment, in a short and futile attempt to keep his balance.

Then he fell backwards, smashed into the bookcase, knocked over a small table and a lamp, and rolled down on the floor.

A short moment they both lay on the floor, staring vigilantly at each other.

They noticed the box exactly at the same time. It had slid away a few feet over the floor during their battle. Now it was closer to Hannibal than the demon.

He made an attempt. Because of the pain in his back, aching through him in waves, he couldn’t get up and run. He had to crawl instead.

Take the box. Come on. Take it. Throw it away. Anything. Just don’t let the demons get it. By some reason.

The demon grabbed his left ankle. He tried to kick loose. Failed. The demon held on. Cold fingers. Cold as a corps. He had weak rubber-legs.

Doctor Lector gave out a faint cry as a protest. The demon grabbed his other ankle. Soon the demon would be over him and he would be nailed to the ground.

Doctor Lecter put his hand in a wet spot on the floor. Saw broken glass. A vase. The upper half of the vase had shattered. But the solid basis was still whole, surrounded by sharp edges.

The grabbed the broken vase, ready to thrust it into the demon whenever an opportunity was given.

Hopefully kill him. At least slow him down a bit.

The demon let go of his ankles, and grabbed hold of his thighs instead.

Doctor Lecter heaved over on his back. A better opportunity now.

He stabbed the demon in the chest with the splinters of the broken vase. The demon coughed and wailed. Groped for doctor Lecter.

Doctor Lecter kicked. His legs were stronger now. The kick hit its target. The demon fell backwards. Now he was free. He crawled towards the box, reached for it, and grabbed hold of it at the same time as another hand also did.

It wasn’t the leader demon, as he first thought, but it was the demon with those visible, clattering teeth, who had come to aid his colleague.

The mute demon did not let go his grip of the box, and neither did Hannibal. He persistently held on to it, with one hand, trying to rip away the demon’s hand with the other.

The struggle for the box went on for seven, maybe eight seconds, and from the corner of his eye, doctor Lecter saw that the injured leader demon was rising up.

Suddenly the box flew away. By itself, both from his and the demon’s grip, like it had done previously when he had fingered it, a few days ago.

It landed a small distance away, out of their reach.

The leader demon howled. It was first impossible to tell if it was a howl coming from horror, triumph or grief, but he soon found out that it was the last-mentioned.

He made no new attempts to attack doctor Lecter. He just stood up, facing the roof, pressing his hands against his chest, as if he was praying.

How odd this now may seem, that this scenario scared doctor Lecter more than if he had rushed against him.

Something was about to happen. Something. What?

The short, fat, mute demon was the first to dematerialize. He dissolved in some foggy ectoplasm and then disappeared entirely. Then the turn came to the demon with the clattering teeth, who Hannibal had fought with for the box. The same thing happened to him.

The female demon, who doctor Lecter trashed earlier, had not managed rise up, but she jerked and wheezed and gave out a gurgling sound when her turn came. Then she too disappeared, in the same way they used to do in that old science fiction-series, "Star Trek", when they beamed over from one place to another.

The leader demon was the last one to face this destiny.

The demons were gone.

Doctor Lecter got up on his feet. His legs quivered. The sour taste from the half-digested dinner he had eaten, came up in his mouth. He felt a bit sick, even though the pain in his back had begun to decrease.

Then he remembered. Clarice! That made him forget everything else. When the thought "Good God, let her be alive. If you really exist, if you really care, then let this be the place for one of your miracles" flickered through his mind.

While he was looking around for her, he realized, that he after all these years said a real pray again. Perhaps because he again felt as he did when Misja got butchered and eaten, felt like a child in the need of help.

He was so frightened of finding Clarice dead, in a pool of blood, with a broken neck or anything.

She was sitting shrunken on the floor, with her head in her hands, alive, thank god, but was she hurt? Her hair was muddled, but she didn’t appear to have any cranial injuries.

He sat down next to her and put an arm around her.

- Clarice, he whispered. Are you all right?

Then she raised her face from her hands and looked at him. She had blood in one of the corners of her mouth and the whole right side of her face was swollen and red. She had been beaten up, but she did not seem to have any severe injuries.

- Hannibal, where are they? she said.

- Gone.

- Are you sure?

- Positive.

- Clarice looked into doctor Lecter’s face while he sat there, close to her. He looked terrible. Blood all over his face. But the most of it was not his own. It was the blood of the female demon he had gotten over him, when he bit her. He also had three little scratches on his left cheek.

That was the one thing the demon woman had managed to do to defend herself against him. She hadn’t stood a chance.

- How about you? she asked him. Are you hurt?

- I will survive, he said. I’m all right.

- Where did they go? she asked confusedly.

- They disappeared. Don’t worry, Clarice. They won’t pester us anymore. We got rid of them.

Doctor Lecter spoke calmly in short, precise sentences. The look in those reddish brown eyes was focused. He was a man with himself under complete control. Clarice didn’t doubt him even if his response had not made her any wiser.

Doctor Lecter knew what he was talking about. Were they no longer a threat when he said it, then they were not. She was no longer anxious.

Clarice leaned forward against Hannibal and put her arms around him.

For a long time, they sat there on the floor in the messy room with their arms around each other, to get up their strength in each other.

Finally doctor Lecter got up, and helped Clarice up on her feet. He had to prop her up, since she had injured her knee when the demon threw her away.

She refused to let go of him. She needed him now, was in strong need of close contact, and she was stricken by an irrational fear of that he would be torn away from her, only if she let go of him for a little moment. That is why she clung firmly to him.

If some had told her a week ago, that she would cling firmly to, and seek comfort in Hannibal Lecter, she wouldn’t even have taken it as a bad joke. Now she couldn’t imagine anything else.

Doctor Lecter brought Clarice to his bedroom, to put her to bed; he had to lift her up and carry her upstairs, since she had hurt her knee. He gave her two Tylenol against the pain, which she swallowed down, with some water.

He examined her knee, and stated that there were no serious injuries. She would be fully recovered.

He took off her tattered clothes, all except her panties, and lay her down in the bed, which was his own bed. She sighed and mumbled and slept almost before he had put her in the bed.

He stroked her forehead and her good cheek gently, and waited for her to fall asleep. He was not going to leave the room before she slept entirely.

- What about...- she whispered just before she fell into sleep.

- Sch! Don’t think about any of that now. Sleep.

Clarice fell asleep to the sound of her own and Hannibal’s breathing.

Two days later.

Hannibal Lecter and Clarice Starling were sitting at the kitchen table, drinking tea. It was ten o’clock in the morning.

Clarice’s knee was much better now, and she no longer needed support when walking. They had used the time for talking, and doctor Lecter had tried to clean up the worst of the mess, which had been created when the demons ravaged there.

Now, when they sat at the table, drinking tea, the doctor felt forced to ask:

- Clarice, what will happen now? Are you about to arrest me and bring me to the police?

She didn’t reply at once. Then she said:

- Do we have to bring that up now?

- We have to bring it up sometime. And I would like to know what my future looks like.

- Well... She turned up her face towards him. "Would you try to run way now if I said yes?"

- No, said doctor Lecter. We had a deal, and I don’t break a promise. It is all up to you now.

- I don’t want you to end up in a glass-cage, she said honestly.

- No Clarice, I know that.

- How the hell can you know?

- Because I know you. If you would have me locked up now, you would forever feel guilt for me. Is that correct?

She twitched her eyes. - Maybe it is. But Hannibal...Still, you...

- Deserve to be caged, he finished her sentence.

- No, I didn’t mean that...but you have killed people. You have.

- Yes, I have killed people, but I’m no murderer.

- Aren’t you?

- No, said doctor Lecter. Those people I killed, I killed to survive. Not to fulfill some bizarre fantasy. They deserved it. Most of them, anyway. Don’t you agree with me, Clarice?

- Even if that is so, you haven’t got the right to act the hand of God.

- No, he said, and now his look in his eyes was blank when he looked at her. "I have not. And so I know. But one day I just snapped...It does not feel good to kill. But I am not ashamed of it, either."

- I don’t judge you, said Clarice. I am not the right person to do that.

- Thank you.

- You’re free to leave, she said.

- What?

- You heard me. We can always pretend you got away from me...or whatever. It doesn’t matter.

- Are you serious, Clarice? asked doctor Lecter quietly.

- Yes. But on one condition.

- Yes?

- You have to promise me that you won’t kill anyone more.

- I cannot promise you anything like that, said doctor Lecter, since he actually could not. It didn’t fell good to promise something that he might have to do anyway. "But I can promise you that I will really, really try."

- Try?

- Yes, that’s right. I promise, that I will really try.

- Try is like maybe. It’s shit.

- That is all I can promise.

Clarice Starling observed him in silence for a while. She admired the doctor’s honesty. He didn’t try to make things better than they were.

She was split. A part of her, wanted to do its duty and get doctor Lecter in custody, another part wanted to let him go and let him be free, but, one part of her also wanted him to stay with her, and don’t go anywhere.

She tried to suppress the thought and exclude it from her mind, since it was totally preposterous. Of course she and doctor Lecter could not continue to be together. That was impossibility. Or was it?

- Hannibal, go now before I change my mind, she said and realized that the golden moment soon would be past. What she decided now, could not be altered.

Doctor Lecter got up. He took his teacup and put it in the sink.

- I will go. Right away. Thank you so much, Clarice. I owe you one.

- Yes, you do, she replied.

Doctor Lecter left the kitchen. When he had gone out, Clarice buried her head in her hands, and her lips moved without forming any words.

She had been alone for so long. And to a certain extent, she felt comfortable being alone. Change meant a terrible risk. But...

She knew that doctor Lecter felt the same. They were kindred spirits.

She got up abruptly, and rushed out into the hall, and then on to the living room. Doctor Lecter was not there.

She stood at the marble table for a moment, the suddenly felt his hand on her shoulder. There, behind her, stood doctor Lecter.

He was carrying a briefcase, a very small valise, and was neatly dressed in a dark silk-suit and an overcoat.

- Where are you panning to go? Clarice asked and cleared her throat.

- The less you know, the better.

- Of course.

They started walking together towards the front door. For every step they took, it felt to Clarice, like a step closer to an abyss.

When doctor Lecter put his hand on the doorknob to open the front door, he felt her hand on his arm. She grabbed him by the shoulders and turned him towards herself. Then she said, like always looking him straight in the eyes:

- Hannibal, wouldn’t you like some company?

When the meaning of those words was clear to him, he said:

- Clarice...

- I have thought it over, and I want to do it. I regret nothing. I want to, Hannibal. Please, let me come with you.

- I do not want to spoil your life, Clarice, Hannibal said in a low voice.

- Don’t worry, I’ve managed that so good by my own. Now I want to ask you the big favour to correct everything again. Would you like to do that?

For a long while, he was quiet. But then he began to smile widely at her.

- I can promise you that.

She gave him an equally wide smile, and said with a voice, that burst with relief and love to him. - Now I can make sure you keep the promise you promised to try.

He put his arm around her, and together they went through the front door.

To leave his home and his belongings was deplorable, but it had to be done. Doctor Lecter locked the front door, and let the key slide into the pocket of his coat. Even if he wasn’t going to return here, it was a matter of habit, and he did not pay much attention to it.

They went, hand in hand, over the courtyard, sat in Clarice Starling’s Mustang. This time she took the place behind the wheel, and doctor Lecter sat down in the back seat.

Clarice started the engine, and was about to back out on the street, when Hannibal stopped her.

- Clarice, wait! he said. I forgot something in the house.

He opened the backdoor and jumped out of the car, went with fast, light steps back to the house. He called over his shoulder:

- I’ll be right back!

Doctor Lecter went straight back to the living room. He looked around.

Where had he out it...Hmm...It had not gotten lost when he cleaned up the mess? No, the little, gilt-edged box, was the in the top drawer in his workroom.

The doctor almost ran there to get it. When he was holding the box in his hand - he held it like he had been holding a poisonous snake in its neck, with the same cautiousness - he noticed the science fiction-novel "The Island of Dr. Moreau", that was opened on his desk.

He took the book in his other hand and hurried outside. He repeated the same procedure with the key as before.

When he was outside the house, he let the box slide down in the pocket of his coat. To be exposed for the disastrous powers, which the little metal piece possessed, was nothing he wished anyone else. He was going to get rid of it and drop it somewhere no one could find it. The best thing was to let it be lost.

Clarice looked inquiringly at him when he returned to the car.

He showed her the book he was holding in his hand.

- I just brought this, he said and smiled.

Clarice smiled back.

This time, when she started the car, it didn’t stop, but slowly rolled out on the street, going somewhere far away.