Rating: NC-17
Classification: Case file/MSR, WIP, Humor, Alternate Universe…people are actually happy here…well, some of them
Spoilers: Everything through the first third of Season 7, the story taking place in the universe set forth in Absolute Beginners I, Absolute Beginners II–Better With Practice, and Absolute Beginners III–Comes The Morning—available on Ephemeral, Whispers of X, Fran’s Fanfic Addiction, and The Grove. (It’ll help to read ’em, honest!)
Keywords: Be careful what you wish for. Character death…not who you think. Necromancy. Santeria. Marriage Proposal.
Summary: This story takes place late in the year 2000. In the early Spring of the same year, Mulder and Scully finally got off the dime (after a false start, angst, guilt and a nightmare or two) and did the dirty deed. After a weekend of ‘solidifying their relationship’, they are pulled off the X-Files, but managed to find at least one way to console each other. Fast forward about six months–and you’ll be right we begin, dear reader.
Disclaimers: You know, they’re not ours. They’re Chris Carter’s. Just using them for the fun, no money involved.
Archive: Yes, anywhere. Just keep it intact.
Feedback: Yes, please. You can contact me: alvaradomccain@earthlink.net
Chapter 6
6:00 am–breakfast finished. They were both feeling sleep deprived, but neither one of them was complaining.
He was already in typical hotel-room-briefing mode–sitting up against the headboard, crime scene and autopsy reports strewn across the bed. With his black suit, white dress shirt and black tie, he was a well-tailored island in a sea of photos, Xeroxes of police files, handwritten notes in his semi-legible scrawl. Nothing new there. She had her back to him, brushing her hair as she stood in front of the beveled mirror above the dresser. Watching his reflection as he scanned the papers, she’d always been amazed at the amount of data he absorbed, how quickly he’d make connections, take point on each case.
Last night, he’d waited for her to bring up the interview with Cardenas. This morning, as room service cleared their trays, he’d asked her how she wanted to proceed. He was deferring to her more, seeking her input. She could see the effort he was making to have things on a more balanced footing. She liked it, although it’d taken her a minute to answer, to get her bearings.
“Something wrong, Scully?”
“Not wrong…just surprising. You usually don’t ask me my opinion at the outset.”
He sheepishly shuffled through sheaves of paper, “It was long overdue. Let’s just say I have a new found appreciation for where some of my strengths lie.”
“That almost sounds like flattery, Mulder.”
“Not flattery…just a statement of fact.”
She stopped what she was doing and turned toward him. “Then I can’t let you down, can I?” Her eyes held a glimmer of warmth that her intent expression couldn’t hide. “Well… each of the deceased were also arrested for crimes like the ones resulting in their own deaths. It seems important to check those crime scene photos against the ones taken on this case to check for discrepancies.”
He slid off the bed and strode to the writing table where he’d set up his laptop, settling in as best he could into a chair that was clearly a tight squeeze for his lanky frame.
“Agreed. I’m guessing you can get those from Det. Jorgensen. I looked at Gonzales’ case files yesterday and again this morning, but I’m interested in what you’ll see once you review them and check the autopsies of our unholy dead.”
“I’ll ask her to pull a set of photos from Gonzales’ files when she calls…which should be any time now. Apparently the CPD is sending a squad car to pick me up this morning.”
“Ah…the VIP treatment. Just make sure they don’t make you sit in the backseat. You know…if it looks bad…”
She finished it for him, “…it’s bad for the FBI.” She chuffed after that one, and her eyes narrowed, the scope of the day settling in. “Well then, my day looks pretty mapped out…what’s on your agenda, partner?”
“I’m looking over the most recent crime scene data one more time. And just to be sure, I’ll set up a walkthrough with the someone from the evidence collection team. So far, there’s no indication of anyone present at the these new murders, except the deceased.”
You certainly won’t win any popularity contests doing that.” She’d done enough of these consults and knew that the local PD always chafed at the idea that anyone would be looking for blind spots, mistakes.
“I think Lazarov and his people are already clear I’m a pain in the ass.” He shrugged off the knowledge that that it could be problematic. Truth was, he didn’t care. Besides, there was one other thing, another approach beginning to occupy his attention
“I…also want to locate a footnote in an old X-file.” He paused a second and went on. “It refers to a Santeria practice concerning retribution and untimely death. There may be similarities to certain Haitian voodoo rituals, and cross-referencing may give us a better handle at some possibilities. After that, I’m thinking I want to visit some botanicals to get some firsthand information.”
“Mulder…Isn’t it a little soon for us to make that kind of leap?”
“But Scully…that’s why we get the big bucks.”
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He memorized every move as she slipped on her jacket and shrugged on her trench coat. Coat, brown pantsuit, beige silk blouse–had all been smoothed into place with an efficiency and grace that fascinated him. It was that same fluidity of movement when she made a Y-incision, sutured his wounds, pulled the trigger. Leaning back from his laptop, he wanted to make sure he could fully appreciate the view–her daylight persona in place, ready to take on the world, adjusting her holster as a finishing touch.
Jorgensen had called to say a car was on the way and Scully’d arranged for the photos to be at the lab when she arrived. She also made sure the dieners pulled all the bodies from the cooler and set them up in an exam bay, and that all the tissue samples and test results were available. She’d already hit the ground running, and expected everyone else to keep up.
Her drive was apparent on their first case. It took him a while to admit it to himself, but it spoke to him, made him willing to trust her, even though he knew she thought he was probably certifiable. Time and tragedy had given him many more reasons, not the least of which was somewhere along the way he’d fallen in love with her.
She’d caught him red-handed. “We’re on the clock, Mulder.”
“My nose is pressed to the grindstone.” He was smiling despite his transgression.
“Grindstone, huh? I don’t think so.” She leaned back against the dresser and folded her arms across her chest.
“I could see how you might miss the level of intensity. I tend to hide it…it can be intimidating.”
“Uh huh.” There was the barest hint of a smirk teasing the corner of her mouth.
“Seriously, I’m deeply focused on uncovering new leads.”
“You just won’t stop, will you?”
“I’ve got some momentum here, Scully. Can’t blame me for tryin’ to run with it.”
She walked over, put her hands on his shoulder and whispered in his ear, “I can see it’s up to me to keep you in line. Go on. Get to it, Mulder. We’ve got our work cut out for us…” She brushed her lips against his jaw. “I’ll see you tonight, partner.”
He turned so that they were facing each other, and his hands snaked up and around to lace behind her neck, “I’ll be good. See you tonight.”
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The ride to the Coroner’s office and the County morgue was brief. The complex was attached to the County public hospital just south and west of the downtown area. The building was a huge slab of dark cement and steel–ugly, utilitarian–harsh looking even from the outside. Scully felt her composure shift and slide. It was a cold, slate-colored day, typical for October in Chicago. As rain pelted the windows of the squad car, something coiled tight in her chest and she worked at drawing slow deep breaths. There was no room for a repeat of yesterday–no room for hesitation, today had to go by the numbers.
It’d never occurred to her to tell Mulder what had happened at the morgue yesterday. It wasn’t something for him to fix.
The patrolman let her off at the staff entrance, and she tried without success to shake off the chill, making her way down the dank, poorly lit halls to Bay #3, where Kris Jorgensen was waiting. She strode to the doorway, paused to take a deep breath, to force down a wave of dread that tasted like bile.
Scully walked quietly toward the other woman and saw a keen interest lighting the her features as she checked out the dressing on two of the corpses, bending close to examine the wrapping, the ties.
“Detective?”
Kris jerked away from the light touch above her elbow, then immediately flushed with embarrassment. “Agent Scully, sorry. Didn’t see you there.”
“You seem absorbed, Det. Jorgensen. Feeling less put off by the dead in this setting, it would seem.” I wish I could say the same, she thought.
“Actually, I should thank you for insisting I stick it out yesterday.”
“Why is that?”
She looked away from Scully and focused on some of the linen dressing, fingering it as she spoke, “This is all so…fascinating. I feel like a new avenue of investigation’s been opened up for me. This is work I’d like to be more familiar with, understand better.” She stopped to consider something for a moment, “Who knows? Maybe I’ll ask for a transfer to the Forensic Unit.”
Scully swallowed hard and nodded in response to what appeared to be her liaison’s rapid-fire conversion from avoidance to affinity “Great. Are we ready to get started?”
“Well, actually…there’s one thing. We’ve got all the bodies here, except for Nat.” Jorgensen looked at he rows of corpses. “When we tried to exhume, Nat’s family told us that Alex Cardenas had power of attorney. She blocked it…said it was too painful…”
“Nothing we can do about that.” Scully was sure Mulder would jump on Cardenas’ reluctance to cooperate. That woman was anything but the typical grieving lover.They’d get to her later–right now, the dead were demanding her attention. “What about the tissue samples?”
“They’re in collection jars next to each body, just like you asked.”
She stared at the line of dead bodies. Vincent Coluko, Ashleen Wienhoft, Albert Breen, La Shawn Michaels, Dakota Roberts. A bitter lump started to form in her throat and she had to force down the urge to dry heave. Taking another deep breath, “We’ve got plenty of work to do, so let’s get started.”
As she walked to the display of photos laid out on the Assistant M.E.’s desk, her mind formed just three words, a prayer. ‘Please. Help me.’
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Scully let Jorgensen pace up and down the rows between the exam tables, studying the bodies, while she looked at the crime scene shots, the crimes these dead had committed. Children, mothers, couples, old people–gutted, raped, sodomized, shot, stabbed, branded, garroted. She could feel a trickle of sweat between her shoulder blades, even though it was almost as cold as storage in the bay. I have to do this, she told herself, I have to.
“Agent Scully,” a voice from amidst the cadavers, “should I suit up? I’ve got gowns, masks, and latex gloves.” She was ready for action, and feeling a little restless. It was time for revelation, and she wasn’t about to miss a thing.
“You do that.” Scully piled the pictures with care into some kind of organized whole–Murderers on one side–Victims on the other–first dead at the bottom, with the most recent staring at her from the top of the pile. “I’ll be there as soon as I’m done looking at these.” She took the new lab results and checked the drug screens against the write-ups of all the stomach contents. No rum. No rum in any of these victims. Maybe the thing with Coluko was a fluke. There was only one way to find out. She made her face into a mask of passivity–bland, unreadable.
“What about the tissue samples?”
“I plan on checking them after each autopsy, away from the bodies. We may have a repeat of what happened with Coluko, where the scent is evident on exam. If so, then checking the samples separately is an additional safeguard. If not, then it’s a more discrete method to find if rum is present.”
“You’re very thorough.” Jorgensen’s admiration was evident.
“It’s what the job requires…” Scully’s voice trailed off.
“Agent Scu…”
“I”m coming, Det. Jorgensen.”
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On the surface, it all appeared to go smoothly. First, checking and finishing the re-dressing of Coluko, then beginning the re-autopsy of Weinhoft. Only someone who knew her would sense that she was struggling, the set of her jaw was just a little too tight, her grip on the scalpel whitening her knuckles. Jorgensen was too enthralled with the proceedings to notice any of it, not even Scully choking back the nausea that would appear erratically. The sweating had stopped a while ago, and she felt drained and hollow, but she went on, providing a running commentary for Jorgensen’s benefit.
It was a perverse relief, having to focus on explaining the routine of slicing through skin and muscle, sawing through bone, weighing organs, instead of thinking about what these people had done. Jorgensen wrote down the specifics on the chart, inspected the straight line bruise across Weinhoft’s back where her spine had been snapped, while Scully looked over her shoulder.
“So she fell, or was pushed against the sofa, that’s how she broke her back?” asked Jorgensen, forehead creased in concentration. “It’s obvious there was a fight in the living room, but who attacked who?”
She stretched her arms over her head, leaned to her left, then her right, rolled her shoulders and neck back and forth several times before answering. Don’t, don’t do it, she told herself, stay focused. Scully looked over Wienhoft. Despite pallor and rigor, she could make out that the twenty-five year old had been pretty, but her youth and her beauty had begun to fade. Her shoulder-length dark brown hair showed traces of gray, her face etched with the legacy of life on the stroll–wrinkles at he corner of her eyes, bitten and broken nails tipping her slender fingers, her full breasts, narrow waist and long legs mottled with bruises, and the ragged cut in her pelvis, a horrible, bloody gash.
For an instant, the image of the young couple Wienhoft and Coluko garroted for the fifty dollars in the man’s wallet had flashed before her eyes. Scully could feel herself blanch, her grip on the instruments slacken and tighten. Keep going, she urged herself. Just keep going.
“Let’s review the findings. Although both of her fingerprints were on the beer bottle, I’d concur with the assessment he didn’t hit himself in the back of the head with it. Aside from the implausibility of self-abuse, the angle and the amount force precludes any other option but another party. His skull gets cracked and he bleeds all over the floor in front of the TV. Coluko manages to get up, somehow tries to stumble towards the kitchen when according to the ME, Wienhoft apparently slits his throat from ear to ear. Despite his injuries, he manages to get up, drag her toward the living room where he’s able to not only able to assault her, he get the knife away from her and guts her in a crude hysterectomy. Judging from the crime scene photos, it’s assumed he shoves her, forcing her to trip over the coffee table and she just lands wrong on the edge of the couch. The ME postulates a double murder, with the lovers killing each other, which would make sense, except…”
The other woman’s head bobbed up in curiosity, “Except for what?”
“The amount of alcohol in their systems would have impaired both strength and motor skills…I don’t think she could’ve done that kind of damage in a struggle.”
“So the ME was wrong?…Maybe some drug use we didn’t catch?”
“The screens were the most comprehensive available.” Scully’d already catalogued this one as an X-File–unexplained dual murder.
“So what are you saying?” Jorgensen was feeling confused and a little pissed. This investigation was unraveling the loose ends, not tying them up in the neat resolution that Lazarov was expecting.
“I’m saying the ME made a reasonable assumption at some level, given that there was only evidence of two people in the apartment. The condition of the livers supports a diagnosis of chronic alcoholism on both their parts. He assumed that chronicity was at the maintenance level, still affording them the capability to function. I disagree, even at the maintenance level; the savageness and the extent of the attacks suggest some other variable.”
“Like a third party? Agent Scully, did you find something? Skin under the fingernails? Something the ME missed?” Jorgensen was getting worked up. Maybe there was a lead, something to point to a perp. “I helped with the evidence collection…there was no physical evidence present but the victim’s. Not a single goddamn clue to be had. Not in Coluko and Wienhoft’s apartment, not in any of the crimes scenes.”
“Sometimes one has to consider extreme possibilities.”
“Like what? A killer who can murder at will and not leave a trace? That’s not something I’m comfortable with.”
Scully had managed to push back the nausea yet again. “Welcome to my world, Detective.”
She’d spoken slowly and deliberately as she leaned down, sniffing at the abdominal cavity. She wanted to wretch and the sweating had started again. But there was one thing she was sure of.
The faint odor of rum coming off Ashleen Weinhoft.
She beckoned Kris Jorgensen closer, grabbed the sample jar and walked them about fifteen feet away.
“Here’s some on-the-job training in forensics, Detective,” handing over lump of flesh floating in the jar. “Open it.”
Jorgensen did what she was told after only a second’s hesitation. Closing her eyes, she took a whiff of the contents.
“Rum. I smell rum.”
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They took a brief break in the afternoon, giving the dieners an opportunity to move away Weinhoft to the far side of the bay, and place Albert Breen in the central exam area. Over late lunch from the vending machines by the snack station, Scully barely finished half of a sandwich, relieved that she could keep it down. She hoped she might be leveling off, with whatever she was going through this morning, finally over. Focusing all her attention on the repeat tox screens, she saw confirmation of the initial findings of PCP use in La Shawn Michaels’–vodka and sedatives in Breen’s–heroin and cocaine in Dakota Roberts’. There was so far, no explanation of the anomalous odor–both of them had smelled rum emanating from Coluko and Wienhoft. If the same happened with Breen, Scully honestly didn’t know what she’d say to Kris Jorgensen. She’d already decided Mulder would have to come up with one hell of an intuitive leap to piece together this puzzle.
As she walked back in Bay #3, Jorgensen in tow, Scully had a strong flash of intuition, one she couldn’t ignore. She was getting more and more like her partner all the time. Not knowing why, she grabbed one of the dieners by the elbow as he was leaving, “Take the tissue samples and put them back in storage.”
Jorgensen shot her a surprised look.
Ray Faneuil, the diener, started to protest, “Jeez, Doc…My shift’s over…’
Scully cut him off, “Just do it and do it now. I don’t think you want me calling the ME over this.”
Faneuil gathered each jar, set them on a rolling cart and hustled his way to cold storage. Not completely under his breath, he muttered, “Fucking bitch.”
Scully pretended she didn’t hear a word.
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Scully glanced up from her examination of Albert Breen’s bruised lung and blinked. This was going well enough. They were a couple of hours in–no sweating, no urge to vomit–just the still, cold dead, formalin, scalpels, bone saws, body parts weighed in grams. She’d peppered her play-by-play of this exam with bits and pieces of forensic history. For example, the origin of the manner of wrapping cadavers. Jorgensen was enthralled when Scully revealed it had started with the ancient Greeks, with its current style having been developed in the Middle Ages.
Now they were taking who’s who in the field.
“My opinion as to who’s the top forensic specialist? I’d have to say Dr. Henry Lee.”
“Is he published?”
“Absolutely. His ‘Crime Scene Handbook’ is a text at Quantico.”
Then the conversation took a turn for the worst. It went bad when Scully glanced up from re-closing the gaping abdominal wound. There was definitely an odor of rum emanating from the man, slight, subtle, buried underneath the stench of putrefaction and the slight sweetness of ethanol from the breakdown of bodily processes. Somehow, she could still smell it after working on bodies since early this morning. It must be some kind of marker. Of what, she wasn’t ready to say.
The detective had a dark look on her face “How could he do it?”
It didn’t register. Somehow she’d capped what she’d been going through before. This autopsy was just her doing what she did. With Kris Jorgensen’s remark, that terrible knowledge sprung forth again like tainted water from a polluted well. Breen had been suffocated and shot, gutted like a fish, lower intestine removed, sodomized and there’d been traces of semen present in his mouth. Scully had managed to block and compartmentalize, and shut-down and soldier on and it’d gotten her this far. And then she was brutally shoved back to Ground Zero. She could feel a knife-sharp pain twisting her gut–pain so strong it made her stop suturing and grip the table.
Breen. Albert Anthony Breen. A man who raped and murdered a child in front of her parents, who eviscerated a ninety-year old woman, then sodomized her while she was dying, using part of her own intestines as a condom. Scully’s field of vision narrowed, she thought she might faint. She didn’t. Instead of the relief of blackness, she saw the ten year old, suffocated, her Winnie-the-Pooh pillow held tight over her small mouth, that same small mouth corrupted beyond all understanding, her parents screaming until Breen shot them dead, an old woman whose last sight in this life was a man slicing her open, her bloody entrails pulled like a leash while he took her from behind. Her punishment for opening a door to a man who said he was lost.
Scully’s breath was shallow, and she could feel the sweat bead up on her forehead.
Jorgensen did notice that. She was about to ask what was wrong, when her cell phone trilled in her pocket. Hannah. It was Hannah calling from Rachel’s house. It was eight o’clock and her daughter had been waiting since three for a ride home. Jorgensen walked to the far end of the room, and stood near the doorway.
“Sweetie, I’m sorry…I’m really sorry…Yeah, I got caught up at work. Again.” A pause. “OK…I’ll come get you…I know Rachel had class, that’s why she couldn’t drive you home…I know, it’s my fault.” She needed to get her head out of her ass, go pick up her daughter, bring her home, and try acting act like a concerned mother. She could think about the Forensic Unit and these stiffs later. She did want to know if Agent Scully was all right, see if she should come back to the morgue once Hannah went to bed. “No…don’t try to walk home, it’s too far. Stay there, I’m on my way.”
Jorgensen strode back to the table, where Scully stood ramrod straight, lightly mopping her brow with a Kleenex from her pocket.
“Are you OK?”
“I’m fine, really.”
“You sure?”
“Yes, Detective, I’m sure. Probably a combination of bad food and too little sleep.”
“I guess you heard everything, huh?” She hesitated. “I…need to go pick up Hannah, get her home, make sure she’s settled in. But I can be back later, by about ten… ”
“It won’t be necessary, Detective. I’ve done this alone for almost a decade.”
“Are you sure, Agent Scully? You know, it wouldn’t be a prob…”
“Just go..” She managed to paste a wan smile on her pale face. “Like I said before, I’m fine.”
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Jorgensen had been gone about fifteen minutes, but Scully hadn’t moved. She made herself pull deep, cleansing breaths, tried to find the center, tried to talk herself down. She almost made it, too.
Looking at Breen’s lower abdomen, Scully saw something pushing up out of his pelvis. It was tiny, wriggling furiously. Snagging the tweezers from the instrument table, she quickly and carefully probed the spongy flesh for the larva. She caught a glimpse of white and immediately went after it, holding up its soft body under the lamp. Depositing the maggot in an empty sample jar, she turned back to search the body further. Maybe she’d find another.
She didn’t have to worry, Breen’s body was now swarming with them, a seething, milky-white mass. Reflexively, her eyes darted to the adjoining tables that held the rest of the bodies. All of them, teeming with maggots, swarms of them working their way through the dressings, making steam rise from the heat thrown off by their feeding frenzy. She felt her hand drop to her side and the tweezers hit the floor. “Good. Let them eat your miserable flesh, you sonovabitch,” she murmured.
Whatever thin strands of control she’d tried to hold had finally shredded to nothing.
The room filled with obscenities she realized were coming from her own mouth. Her voice — she was screaming at corpses, shaking and sweating like a pig. Bile scorched her throat, with one vicious epithet after another hurtling through the air like molotov cocktails. Reeling from the venom and the rage that coursed through her veins, the room spun, and her hand went instinctively to her throat, her fingers brushing against her cross.
It was her undoing.
Who had she become? All too quickly, the bitter knowledge washed over her. Faithless. Vengeful. Someone without discipline, courage or strength. Betraying everything she’d built her whole life upon. Scully felt the scalding, stinging tears stream down her face. She wanted to pray, but she could feel the spasms start. Running to the bathroom, she barely locked the stall before vomiting, wretching violently into the ancient toilet.
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White as a sheet, weak, and still trembling, Scully put all her effort into pulling herself together. She had to get back in there, get someone to help her clean off the bodies. With handfuls of rough paper towels, she bathed her face in the icy tap. Reaching out for God and science–she desperately prayed out loud, “Please, give me the strength.” By the time she dried her face and rinsed her mouth, she could feel herself start to calm.
As she made her way toward the bay, a litany ran through her mind–she needed her other bedrock–science–and its answers. ‘Egg to larva to pupa to adult, and then the cycle repeats until the optimal conditions for that particular species have passed. What had she seen in there? Calliphora vicina, Cynomyopsis cadaverina, Phormia regina, Sarcophiga carnaria.’ Latin for the common bluebottle, the shiny blubottle, the black blow fly, and the family of flesh flies. Sarcophiga carnaria–Flesh flies. Both pupa and adults can consume a fifty times their body weight in carrion.’ She could feel her heart race as she opened the door.
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Breen’s body was no more than a skeleton. Scully ran and hastily undid all the wraps on the cadavers–only skeletal remains. The maggots had slithered off the bodies, and were one swirling mess on the floor. Scully walked over to the intercom the wall and paged the dieners. Pulling herself up, and squaring her shoulders, she wanted to appear in charge, able to minimize any possible resistance from staff in handling the clean up. It felt like posing after what’d just happened.
After a wordlessly staring at the floor and the bodies, Joe Gilliam, the 60 year-old second-shift guy, who’d seen it all, asked dryly, “Why do I always get the weird-ass calls?”
Over her shoulder, as she passed him on her way to storage, Scully yelled, “Good to know you’ve got it covered.”
She could see wisps of her breath as she opened the jars containing Breen’s, Michaels’, and Roberts’ samples. Taking a whiff of each–there it was–what she’d smelled all day long.
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Yesterday, his instincts told him Shinoda wouldn’t be a viable lead. Today–so far, so good. Lazarov didn’t dig in his heels when he’d called to ask to for the walk-throughs, he’d been able to locate the necessary reference, and a combination of web surfing and the yellow pages narrowed down the list of locales friendly to Santeria. Something told him he should make his search based on Alex Cardenas’ choices for veneration.
Lucky for him, of all the dozens of botanicas in Chicago, there was only one connected with Oya, and one associated with Obatala. Apparently, there were no cults of Ellegua, no botanicas dedicated to him, so he’d have to punt to come up with how to locate his devotees. Hopefully, he’d be able to get these walk-throughs done by mid-afternoon, and start interviewing members of houses after that. Right now he was on edge, his sixth sense tingling. He was going to find something important to the case. Something hidden, something no one was expecting.
Pacing in front of the Burnham for about fifteen minutes, his trenchcoat flapping in counterpoint to his steps, he was close to wearing a groove in the rain-slicked pavement. Waving off the doorman’s offer of an umbrella, the nervous energy came off him in waves. Mulder ran his hands through his hair and shuddered off the excess dampness like a dog shaking water off its fur. It’d been a little over two hours since Scully left.
“Where the hell is the asshole from the ECU?,” he spat out under his breath.
Grabbing his cel, he’d started punching in Lazarov’s number again, when he felt a tap on his shoulder. Whipping around, he almost fell on a woman wearing a CPD windbreaker over jeans, a Bears’ sweatshirt and shoulder holster. She was almost his height, athletic build, her curly brown hair pulled into a ponytail and tucked under black a baseball cap. She’d jerked back to avoid a head-on collision, her brown eyes flashing.
The woman brushed herself off reflexively and adjusted her cap, “I’m Detective Patricia Garrett, Evidence Collection Unit. I’m supposed to assist you.”
Mulder just kept taking the woman in. Fair skin, thin lipped, not smiling. Definitely not smiling. He decided to go for the obvious joke, which proved to be a very bad choice, “So you’re Pat Garrett…”
“Uh-huh. Before you say anything else, I’ve heard every half-assed Wild West, Billy the Kid, OK Corral remark on the planet, so let’s not go there…” She straightened her jacket, muttering, “I must’ve really fucked up to pull this assignment.”
Mulder extended his hand, hoping to salvage the situation, making his voice as placating as he could. “Sorry. I’m Special Agent…”
She didn’t reciprocate. “I know who you are, why you’re here, and for the record, I’d rather be doing anything else than giving you a guided tour so that you can try to hang us out to dry. We know how to do our job, Agent. And just for your information, I’m fifteen years on the job, five as ECU Supervisor.”
Mulder wanted her on his side, but his own frustration was eating at him by this point. “Detective, I’m here to find the truth, I assume you are, too. I was invited here to do what I do and I’d appreciate you removing whatever’s crawled up your ass so that we can get on with it. You and me. Together.”
That appeared to get through, some of the hostility subsiding, “All right then, we’ll get started. I’m parked around the corner…I’ll wait for you…Get your car and follow me.” She turned to go and Mulder motioned one of the car hops to get his rental.
Garrett turned back, “Agent Mulder?”
His head snapped around, “Yeah?”
“Just remember, I didn’t invite you here.”
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Pulling into the parking space right across the street from the last location, he could make out Garrett’s glare even from inside his car. Her resentment hadn’t lagged much since they’d started six hours ago, fed by the fact that he’d come up with nothing. He wasn’t exactly a happy camper, either. The good news was that this woman was right, the Unit’s work a textbook example. Print dusting, moulage castings, fiber, hair, and blood collection–laboriously done, virtually perfect. The bad news was he’d shot a good portion of the day on another dead end. He wasn’t about to share that particular assessment with Garrett, however.
He clicked off the ignition and rolled his neck until he could hear the vertebrae pop. Slamming the car door behind him, he jogged over to where she stood arms crossed over her chest, waiting. She was in front of the crack house where Dakota Roberts had dealt his last rock, a dilapidated graystone in the heart of Englewood, one of the poorest neighborhood’s in Chicago. According to the photos and write-up, Roberts had been killed in stages–brutally beaten with a truncheon, his ribs and right leg broken, larynx crushed, spleen ruptured. He was found face-down on the floor next to piles of tens and twenties, shot in the back of the head execution-style.
“You ready, Agent?” Garrett was curt, not even bothering to wait for his answer. She’d already turned and started waking up the stairs.
Mulder took the stairs two at a time, closing the distance until they were both standing in front of the door. He was pissed now, and decided to sling some attitude. Pushing past her, he pulled up the yellow tape blocking their entry, and jimmied open the door. Motioning her through, “Ready as I’ll ever be, Detective…After you.”
Garrett went in, thinking she’d later fire off a complaint to Lazarov–report this Fibbie’s unorthodox entry, then decided against it. She had a feeling this piece of work was used to being called on the carpet. No sense in wasting my time, she told herself as she waited for him to follow her.
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Dust motes swirled around them as they made their way through room after room, mattresses dotting the filthy linoleum floor. Geeking crack heads would sit down, smoke up, sputter and stutter and buy more, and be shoved out by Roberts’ posse when the money ran out. Incongruent to the whole scene was the formerly barred room where Roberts and his boys counted and sorted the money–expensive furniture, empty bottles of Cristal scattered all around, the black bloom on the floor, remnant of Roberts’ exit wound.
Mulder ran the scene like he had the others. To anyone else but Scully, all someone would see was an intense, highly focused review of the chain of evidence. He took in more, so much more. He was always hyper-sensitive, absorbing, cataloging and analyzing the environment, the situation, the people. Striding through each room, blinking like the shutter of a camera as he mentally recorded every aspect, thinking about every possible scenario. He’d noticed the traffic around the house, the music coming from the boom box the teen next-door had been playing, the fact that they were in a first floor apartment, and there were no footsteps coming from above, even though he’d seen a name on the second mailbox.
Most of the time he’d find something in those details, those nuances–have a breakthrough, an insight that blew the case open. It hadn’t happened in the other places, it wasn’t going to happen here. Strange thing, his premonition about today hadn’t gone away.
What he was looking for was somewhere else, hidden in the world of The Seven Powers.
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Mulder wasn’t expecting any professional courtesy as they left the building and made their way to their prospective cars.
He didn’t get any.
He did get Garrett to yell the directions out her car window to his next two stops as she sped off–Botanica Santa Teresa, a likely place to find acolytes of Oya, and Jardin de Obatala, both located in a part of the city known as WestTown. She told him he was about twenty minutes away. As he headed toward Division Street, his premonition grew stronger.
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It was almost dark and the air was heavy and thick, chilling him as he made his way along Division by foot, leaving the car in front of the Woods Street police station. A patrolman tried to wave him off, but he flashed his badge, got the fraternal thumbs-up as he walked the four blocks toward what he hoped was the beginning of enlightenment.
Mulder stops next to a restaurant specializing in ‘comida criolla’, 1947 W. Division–This is the place. But instead of going in, something pulls him across the street. He wasn’t startled by this, it’s happened before–one of the most memorable times led him to ignore a dusty crossroad and plunge headlong with Scully into the midst of Texas cornfields.
The urge keeps pushing him down the block until he finds a storefront wreathed with butter-yellow drapes. Statues of The Virgin Mary in various sizes stand in the window, surrounded by votives and bunches of roses, jasmine. The scent of the flowers mix with orange and cinnamon, the heady odor wafting through the open doorway. He sees dishes crowded with slices of pumpkin and mango, pieces of honeycomb–all spread on blue cloth shot with gold metallic thread. This is a House of Oshun, dedicated to matters of the heart. He knows there’s no logical reason for him to be here, and that being here is absolutely right.
Entering quietly, he passes a couple talking to a young woman in a sunshine-colored robe, asking questions as to what herbs would best to protect them from lovers’ quarrels. The young woman reaches over to a near-by stalk of what looked and smelled like goldenrod. She dips the dried plant an uncovered dish of honey, wraps it in white tissue, and rings up the purchase on an old-style cash register.
A tall, bronze-skinned man strides up to the visitor and without a word, leads him to a seat in what appears to be a waiting area. He too, is dressed in yellow, and exudes an air of strength and control. There were five people ahead of Mulder, clutching talismans and small, folded pieces of paper. All of them, male and female wear coral bead necklaces, which he recognizes as elekes, marking them as devotees of. He guesses the young man is a temple guard and that this is the antechamber. The priestess must be in the rear, behind the velvet curtain covering a small doorway. Listening to the conversation swirling around him, he finds out her name.
The fact that the young man doesn’t seem surprised to see him is not lost on Mulder. The cult of Oshun, as well as most of the other cults in Santeria, were known to have many clairvoyants as members. The level of psychic ability varied from person to person and from cult to cult. Either the guard, or the priestess–possibly both of them had been waiting for him. He’s grateful he knew enough not to show his badge or ID. That would’ve been seen as an insult, an act of arrogance and disrespect. If he was going to get any information, he had to come as a seeker.
He readies himself for whatever answer he’s going to get.
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He rubs his eyes and when he looks up, there’s the same young man, beckoning him up and through the curtain. He gets up immediately, passing by the others who are left waiting in their chairs. As he brushes past the velvet and enters the small dimly lit room, he can hear the guard speaking firmly to one of the waiting supplicants.” Iya asked for him. Do you question her choices?”
Iyalosha Adisanya, swathed in a golden robe, sits at a small table, smoothing the cloth that covered it. The only light in the room comes from candles that were perched on shelves and small, wooden stands. Iya herself was fiftyish, Mulder thought, but he wouldn’t swear to it. The flickering lights dance across her face, revealing and obscuring. She is beautiful–dark eyes, smooth, brown skin barely etched by the passing of time, high cheekbones, and a long, graceful neck. Tapered fingers play with a locket that holds a photo of someone he recognizes as he draws close, someone whose face he is not surprised to see.
Mulder approaches the woman, bows and holds his position until he feels her touch the crown of his head. It is taboo to touch the hands of a priest or priestess in greeting–their hands are consecrated for sacred tasks, for blessings, for the work of the gods. Bowing is the way a humble person approached a Keeper of the Temple. He raises his head to find her with eyes closed, one hand clutching the locket.
“Iya…I’m here about Alex.”
“I know. Oshun told me you were coming…that you would help my Alejandra.”
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She’s motions to Omi, telling him to bring them tea made from flor de tilo. While they wait, Iyalosha tells him her story, her other name, Florinda Zavala. How she came with the Cardenas family from Cuba as their maid, how she became Alex’s nanny. She glows with pride as she recounts how she became Alex’s nanny, how much she loved that baby, what a wise and kind child Alex Cardenas had been. What a beautiful woman she’d become.
Mulder sees the love in her eyes, mixed with fear and something like expectancy.
He listens thoughtfully, and wondered in Iya ever saw the arrogance, the insincerity. Perhaps she did, and chose to ignore it, seeing with a mother’s eye instead.
Two china cups are placed on the table, each with a piece of honeycomb to sweet it and strengthen the drinker.
“Please have something. Refresh yourself, you’ve spent too much time at the gate today.”
“The gate?” He settles back in the chair directly across from her.
“Yes, warrior. The gate, the place where someone leaves this world and enters the next. You seek out the places where that entry happens through violence, through the evil that men do…”
“Not just men, Iyalosha.”
She closes her eyes again, bites down hard on her lip. “Tell me what’s happened to mi hija, my Alex.”
“You call me warrior…”
Iyalosha answers, “Because that’s what you are. Oshun told me in a dream you that you’ve fought darkness for a long time with a strong heart. That you bear your scars well. She told me there’s another one who fights with you…a woman whose story is like yours.”
“You honor both of us.”
“You bring honor to yourselves…Please…why did the gods send you here, what darkness touches my Alejandra?” Her voice trembles a little more with each word.
Mulder tells his story now, his given name, why he’s here, why he met with Alex. She blanches when Mulder says the words ‘los muertos que no muere.’
“We never speak of it; it is the greatest taboo for us. Only Oya can move from one world to the next. Those who practice it are outlaws, close to Ellegua. They could never be of our house…and they pay for their insolence, believe me.” Her hands grip the edge of the table.
“What do you mean?” Mulder felt an urgency–this was it–he needed to know more.
“Whoever would dare to raise the dead must suffer a terrible punishment. They are consigned to death, and forced to endure a terrible fate in the Other World. When they pass from this world, they are never reunited with their ancestors. We believe there is nothing worse–to be severed from family. There is no honor, no peace, nothing but floating between this world and the next…Only someone desperate…”
Mulder stops her, “…someone like Alex.”
She wants to end this and tell him to leave, tell him she knows nothing. Drinking the last of her tea, Iyalosha tries to brace herself for what must come next. She is sworn to serve righteousness above all else, and so she reveals what happened the night Alex came to her with keening grief, how the woman she calls daughter begged her to do the very thing he asks about. Her refusal and Alex’s bitter recriminations. Oshun had taught her the deepest love sometimes forces you to deny those who mean everything to you.
She is crying now, ” My Alejandra didn’t do this…she couldn’t do this.”
“But it’s possible she could’ve found someone who would…”
Mulder feels there’s someone else in the room. He looks over his shoulder and sees Omi standing by the curtain.
Iya looks up, startled to see him. “It’s all right. Go help Osunrete. Go on.” The young man moves away.
Iya stills for a moment, then brushes away the tears running along the length of her elegant cheekbones. “Yes…She met the families of many houses…and there are ways to find the followers of Ellegua.”
“How can I find someone who’d do this?”
She looked at the man for what seemed like a long time before she spoke again, “There’s no one in this house who would do such a thing. But let me ask the people who might know, babalaos of other houses. You stand a better chance if I help you this way…I’ll have something to tell you in the morning. The gods will reveal what you need to know, I feel it.” She took Mulder’s hands in hers, “If it’s true, promise me you’ll stop it. If my…daughter is part of it, promise me you’ll help her.”
Mulder’s eyes burns into hers, “You have my word.”
Iyalosha squeezes his hands then lets go, “Oshun told me that would be enough.”
He reaches into his pocket, pulls out his card, circles his cell number and writes down the number at the hotel. She takes it and nods.
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He’s walking through the store, almost at the door, when Iyalosha stops him. “I have something for you…to protect you…and your lover.” She opens his hand places two red cords in the center of his palm. Thin strips of leather, wound with gold threads. “Wear them on your left wrist, the one closest to your heart. This talisman will keep the two of you from harm.” She closes his hand around them, “There is much danger surrounding both of you.”
Mulder doesn’t hide his curiosity very well, “You mentioned a woman who fights the same enemies I do…you never mentioned a lover.”
That last sentence makes Iyalosha Adisanya smile.”They’re one and the same… You’re a man with much to protect.”
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It is later now, and the remaining temple members help Iya close the store, secure the temple. One by one, they leave, until there is only Omi. He stands next to the entrance of the antechamber, stroking the velvet curtain, watching Iyalosha preparing to leave. Her back is to him, and for a second he tries to turn away.
As she throws a long, dark cloak over her shoulders, something makes her stop and start walking toward him. Omi is troubled, his face knotted with guilt. Iya knowshe’s done many bad things in his life, things that ended when he came to her to begin a new life in Oshun.
She waits for what he has to say.
“I was the one…I told her, Iya.”
She motions him closer, and he goes knowing punishment must be meted out. Remorse pours out of him, but it is too late. There is only what will come next.
“I’m sorry…She was hurting…I thought…I thought I was helping…Please believe me, Iya.” Tears run down his proud face, and he sees Iyalosha looking at him with infinite sadness.
“I swear I’ll never tell anyone else.”
“I know.”
She has to do this, if she doesn’t, Oshun will do something far worse to him, her familiar is the vulture for a reason. Iyalosha will save his life, but she doubts he will thank her for it later. She closes the distance between them, places her hand over his mouth. Whispering in the language of the gods, she holds her hand in place, feeling his breath shudder into her palm.
Omi feel his throat constrict, he tries to cry out, but there is only silence.