01 - Goblins (16 page)

Watch your back.

And if it was true, that he had to watch his back, why hadn’t he been killed,
like the others?

I don’t know, he answered, but the voice and the nightmare wouldn’t stop.

Rosemary couldn’t take it anymore. Her knees buckled, and she sagged weakly
to the floor, her back against the elevator wall.

“Are you all right?”

Hoarse, painful to listen to.

She nodded.

“What happened?”

Gone, all gone, she thought; everything’s gone and Joseph will kill me and
it’s gone, damnit, all gone.

“Dr. Elkhart, what’s wrong?”

She raised her head and gestured defeat.

“Dr. Elkhart, say something. You’re scaring me.”

“My dear,” she said with a brittle bitter laugh, “you have no idea what
scared is.”

A shuffling, a shifting, a soft hand brushing across her ankle.

“Can I help?”

She made to shake her head, and stopped. She stared at the elevator door,
seeing the two of them, reflections twisted out of recognition in the polished
steel, and before long she felt her lips pull back into what might have been a
smile.

“Yes,” she said at last. “Yes, dear, I think you can.”

Scully’s purse was on the floor between the toilet and the tub. She reached
through the gap and fumbled it open, pulled out her gun, and straightened,
staring intently at the bathroom door, still open about an inch. Her left hand
shut the water off; her right wrist slid the shower door away.

Once on the bath mat, she grabbed a towel and wrapped it hastily around her;
it was no protection at all, but it made her feel less vulnerable. Her teeth
chattered and her lower Up quivered as the room’s chill raised a pattern of
gooseflesh on her skin.

She switched off the light.

Water dripped too loudly from the shower head.

The only illumination in the outer room came from the brass lamp on the nightstand between the two beds, just as she had
left it.

There was no sound or movement.

Using her left hand, she opened the door as slowly as she could, crouching
low until she could slip over the threshold and duck behind the nearest bed. The
gun barrel swept the room just ahead of her, but no one else was there.

Don’t assume, she told herself; never assume.

Feeling like a jerk now—
never assume, Scully, never assume
—she
half-crawled around the footboard to be sure her visitor wasn’t hiding between
the beds. Once satisfied she was indeed alone, she sat on the mattress and tried
to remember if, maybe, she hadn’t left the bathroom door open by mistake; or
maybe she had closed it, but the latch didn’t catch; or maybe Andrews had
returned, heard the shower, and decided Scully didn’t need to be disturbed.

But if that were true, if she had heard the shower, why had she opened the
door?

A trickle of water slipped out of her hair and down her spine.

“All right,” she said aloud, as much for the sound as the comfort. “All
right. It’s all right, you’re alone.”

That didn’t stop her from turning on the hanging lamp over the table to help
banish the room’s shadows, or from drying off as fast as she could, with the
bathroom door wide open. Once that was accomplished, dressing was quick and easy—blouse, skirt, matching wine jacket. By then she was almost calm, and
she looked in the dresser mirror as she smoothed the blouse over her chest,
deciding that one of these days, Bureau or not, she would get herself a fashion
life.

Back into the bathroom, then, to wield a brush through her hair, using her
reflection as a sounding board as she practiced telling Mulder what his stupid
notions were doing to her. It didn’t help. Her reflection just gave her the same
sardonic look he would when he heard. If he heard. By the time she was finished,
she had decided this was something her partner did not need to know.

A lopsided smile sent her into the front room, where she started and gasped
when she spotted someone pacing her at the corner of her vision.

“Listen carefully,” Rosemary said urgently. She stabbed a thumb at the door.
“He’s trying to destroy us. Tymons. He’s afraid, and he’s a coward. He doesn’t
care about you, me, or the Project. He wants… he wants us all dead.”

A silence then, and she held her breath, praying.

“He didn’t approve of me from the beginning, you know.” Still hoarse, now
with sullen rage. “He thought I was too… emotional.”

Rosemary agreed silently.

A giggle: “He’s really scared of me, you know.”

“Yes. I know.”

The giggling stopped. “What can I do? I’m not stupid, Dr. Elkhart. I know
what’ll happen if you stop helping me. What can I do?”

Rosemary tried to think, tried to set the priorities that would keep her
intact.

“Do you need him? Dr. Tymons?”

There wasn’t a second’s hesitation: “No. No, we don’t.”

“Others?”

“Three,” she said without having to think. Then concern made her stand when a
wrenching cough made her wonder if they could pull it off. “Can you do it, dear?
Are you well enough?”

“I can do it. Really. But it’ll take time. A couple of days, maybe. I can’t—”

The coughing increased, grinding into spasms that made Rosemary reach out a
hand, grip a shoulder, and squeeze until it was over.

“It’s okay,” she whispered, rubbing now, soothing. “It’s going to be okay.”

And she believed it. It would be all right. Everything would be all right.

Then she spoke the names.

Scully’s right hand was already reaching for the gun on the bed when she
realized the movement was only her reflection in the dresser mirror.

Too damn many mirrors around here, she thought sourly, and pointed at it as if to order it to find someone else to
scare.

She froze.

Something moved on the wall behind her. A slight movement she would have
missed had she simply glanced in that direction.

She watched, waiting, thinking maybe it had only been a shadow cast by a
passing car.

It moved again, and she turned and made her way between the beds.

A moth fluttered its wings slowly and began to make its way toward the
ceiling.

Fascinated, licking her lips, she climbed onto the bed, balanced herself, and
looked away.

Looked back, and it took a full second before she could find it again.

“Well,” she whispered.

A tentative smile came and went.

Then she bounced on the mattress, just high enough to snatch the moth away in
a loose fist. Feeling its wings beat against her palm. Whispering to it as she
opened the door and flung it away. Standing back, rubbing her chin thoughtfully.

She needed another test, and footsteps outside made her think fast.

With the hanging lamp on again, the night-stand lamp off, she sat on the far
bed and pushed herself back until she rested against the headboard, legs crossed
at the ankles. She could barely see herself then, but she could see just the
same.

A key turned in the lock.

She heard it but didn’t move.

The door opened and Licia stepped in. “Scully?”

Dana opened her mouth, but kept silent.

Andrews headed for the bathroom. “Scully, you in there? Look, are you going
to leave me with that boy all night? Damn, you should hear—” She pushed the door
open and cut herself off, sighed, turned, and yelped when she noticed Scully
sitting on the bed, pointing at her.

“Jesus!” Her hand splayed across her chest. “God Almighty, Scully, I didn’t
see you there. Why the hell didn’t you say something?”

Scully smiled. “You didn’t see me.”

Andrews scowled. “Of course not. It was dark. You’re sitting in the dark.”

Scully pushed at the hanging lamp. “Not really. But you see me now, right?”

Andrews didn’t know how to answer, her lips working without a sound. Finally
she said, “Well… yes. I guess so.” She laughed at herself. “Of course I do.
The light was—”

Scully pushed off the bed, shoved her gun into her purse, and reached for her
coat. “Go get Hank,” she said. “Meet me at Mulder’s.”

“Again?”

“Again.” Scully pushed her gently but firmly outside. “God help me, but I
have a feeling Mulder is right.”

Andrews gaped. “Goblins? About the goblins?”

“Something like that.” She couldn’t believe she had just said it. “Yes,
something like that.”

Wrapped in nothing but a thin stubby towel, Mulder examined his reflection in
the steam-shrouded mirror. He looked drawn, and probably a little too pale. But
he certainly didn’t look like a man who had almost been killed. Twice in the
same afternoon. However a man like that is supposed to look, that is. He rose up
on his toes and inhaled sharply when he saw the full extent of the size and
shape of the bruise below his ribs. That, he knew, was going to be hell in the
morning.

He toweled off slowly so as not to aggravate either the bruise or the hammer
and anvil gearing up in his skull. Deliberately slowly, because, as Scully had
already sensed, he had begun to feel that electric spark of anticipation, the one that signaled the true beginning
of the hunt.

He suspected that right now, Webber was having fits, and Andrews was pacing
whether she was standing up or not. It was only natural. A little ordinary
poking around had ended up in a deadly firefight, and they probably couldn’t
stop the adrenaline from flowing. Action, they no doubt thought, was the key
now, not methodical investigation. It didn’t matter that nothing but casings had
been found at the site, and nothing at all at the site of his ambush.

Action. Get moving. Keep moving. Sitting down, having coffee, talking things
out, was definitely not the way things were supposed to be.

As he dressed, he glanced around the room, not really seeing the furniture or
the dingy walls. Hints and whispers had come to him while he’d let the warm
water and steam do their work.

Hints and whispers.

Not all of them clear.

Still, the fever dreams he had had—and there was no other way to describe
them—refused to let him go. Every throb in his skull, every touch of fire below
his ribs, reminded him of what he had seen.

Not what he thought he had seen.

He slipped stiffly into his jacket, stuffed his tie into one pocket, and
grabbed his topcoat.

And stopped.

What he should do now was head straight for the Queen’s Inn to meet the
others.

Or he could slip away for a while, away from Scully’s watchful doctor’s eye,
and—

The door opened suddenly.

He stumbled back, tripped over the edge of his bed, and fell on the mattress,
his head nearly exploding.

“Jesus,” he said angrily.

Scully looked down at him without any sympathy at all. “I have an idea,” was
all she said.

Major Tonero sat on the porch of his modest Cape Cod on the outskirts of
Marville, a cigarette in one hand, a tumbler of scotch and soda in the other.
Although he had been expecting the FBI to call on him since meeting those agents
this afternoon, he wasn’t disappointed when they hadn’t. Their attention was
elsewhere now. Whoever had ambushed them had unwittingly done him a great favor.

Now all he had to do was tell Rosemary about his conversation with their
superiors, and they could begin the relocation procedure. By Sunday afternoon
they would, with a little luck, be on their way.

He sipped, and blew a smoke ring.

It was chilly tonight, but not enough to keep him inside.

Besides, he preferred it out here. The neighborhood was small, quiet, so
perfectly ordinary that there were times, both night and day, when he felt as if his superiors had dropped him into the middle of a television
series, circa 1955. But it was definitely better than living with
them,
shortsighted and single-minded officers who lived and died for the service
without once ever understanding what true potential there was.

He toasted that truth with another drink.

There were, now that he thought about it, only two problems remaining: what
to do with Leonard Tymons, and what do with the Project’s subject.

He wasn’t worried, though. The answer would come. It always did.

A car sped up the block. He frowned, hating the disruption of his quiet
evening, the frown deepening when the car squealed to a halt at the curb. He
leaned forward—Rosemary?

After several seconds she climbed out and ran-staggered toward the house. He
was up and at the steps before she reached them, taking her arms and hushing her
until they were inside.

“Leonard,” she gasped, and dropped heavily onto the couch.

She looked like hell; in fact, she looked like a corpse, her hair damp with
perspiration, her cheeks flushed with an unnatural color that unpleasantly
accentuated her already pale face.

Shit, he thought angrily; why the hell can’t it be easy, just for once?

“Tell me,” he said, keeping his voice low.

He didn’t move when she told him what had happened at the Project lab, didn’t touch her when she began to tremble so
violently she had to hug herself to calm down, didn’t offer a word when she
finished and looked up at him, beseeching him for comfort.

He turned to the window and looked out at the lawn, hands clasped behind his
back.

When he turned back, he smiled. “Are you sure he’s dead?”

“He… he has to be by now.”

“There were backups, correct?”

She passed a hand over her face, forcing herself to think. “Yes.” She nodded
hesitantly. “Yes, of course. Although I don’t know how recent they would be.
Leonard was always—”

“No matter.” He took a step toward the couch. “In his office?”

“Yes.”

He rubbed the side of his nose thoughtfully. “And what about our friend?” His
eyes widened in slight alarm and he glanced at the front door.