By Amperage
Amperage@aol.com

Something I wrote during Christmas Vac.  It's rather long and
disgusting and I divided it into sections.  I give it an R for adult
situations involving gore.  And of course, of course, I beg forgiveness
for stealing the characters of the X-files from Ten-Thirteen
productions.

Amp.

THE SACRIFICE
By Amperage@aol.com
2/1/95

     The cushion under her was of velvet, a dark velvet.  Meredith
opened her eyes dazedly.  She sat up, still half-awake, looked around
her.
     The church around her was very big.  It had three aisles and a
balcony.  Long windows told the story of Christ's life.  It was very
pretty.  This was a Baptist church or some sort of evangelical church
anyway, because of the front.  Except the pulpit had been moved over
to one side and the communion table that normally set in front of a
pulpit was on the platform down in front.  There was a little boy on
the communion table.  He had been tied down with black straps and he
struggled.  His mouth was full of cotton so he could not scream, only
make little strangling noises.
     They had taken the little boy's clothes away.  This was usual, of
course.  Meredith hated the thinness, the paleness of the human body
against the plastic sheeting.  Her own skin did not seem as white, as
devoid of color.  Even the black children killed in such places seemed
pale, cold.  But Meredith did not cry; she had seen many other
children in other midnight churches and she knew what would happen.
     The worshippers did not watch Meredith.  At first she had been
frightened they would see her, but they never did.  They were still
covering the area around the communion table with clear plastic
sheeting.  The table was already wrapped in plastic.  The worshippers
wore white and black robes with large, veiling hoods.
     Their leader was not present.  When he arrived they would make
twelve.  A coven, according the books in the school library.  That was
so the thirteenth member could come--the devil.  But Meredith was
thirteenth and she wasn't a devil.  She was a preacher's daughter,
which put her firmly on the other side.  Sometimes, when Meredith
thought about it, she though that maybe she saw the murders so she
would be thirteenth, so that the devil couldn't come.
       Meredith knew what was coming next and hated it.  They would
gather around the little boy and then the leader would take a long knife
with a white handle and he would cut the little boy open.  He would
show the little boy his own heart.  The heart, not very big, not as big
as Meredith would have guessed before she saw one, would beat two
or three times, then the leader would crush it in his hands.  And the
little boy would die.  And then Meredith would go back to sleep.
     She would wake up in her own bed, crying.
 

     Dana Scully had nightmares now.  There were three main kinds
that woke her from her sleep with a worrying familiarity:  dreams of a
case, dreams of her abductions, and dreams of betrayal.  No matter
what the subject of her dream, their ending had a definite pattern.
Waking with a start, a sudden intake.  Then staring at the alarm clock,
trying to remember where she was, reminding herself that she was
safe, the dream was not real, was not happening, that right here, right
now, everything was all right.  Sometimes when the dream was too
vivid, too real, she would turn on her bedside lamp and read for a
while.  Usually she just rolled over in bed.  Two and a half years ago
she had not had many nightmares.
     She thought about that, where her life had gone, rolling over in
bed, waiting for sleep.  She wasn't unhappy.  She had work that she
enjoyed, hard work, good work.  There was Mulder.  There was the
truth.  Being Mulder's partner was kind of satisfying in and of itself.
It was like a marriage: she knew his quirks, his likes and dislikes, his
personality traits, strengths and weaknesses.  Mulder knew the same
about her.  She trusted Mulder and Mulder trusted her.  Implicitly.
She cared about Mulder and Mulder cared about her.  Absolutely.
     Scully would yawn, think about going back to sleep.  As she
would fall back asleep she would think of Mulder and worry that he
was dreaming.

     He woke, heart pounding, mouth dry, terrified.  Tears coursed his
face, clogged his nose so he couldn't breath.  For a moment he could
not think, could not remember who he was.  The pain constricted in
his chest, extended up into his neck, into the inner part of his throat
and stretched down into his groin and into his hips.  His arms were
already wrapped around his chest, waiting for the pain to alleviate.
     The worst dreams were those that hurt so badly that he could only
curl fetal to pad himself against the pain.  He rocked back and forth,
finding comfort in the motion.  Those times he was beyond crying:
then he moved into the soft moans, the anguished animal sounds that
betrayed how badly he had been hurt.
     He had never been in such pain before and could not explain it
now.  He only knew it hurt, only knew the dreams would come.
     A few weeks ago, on a stakeout, Scully had seen him come out of
one of the worser dreams.  Mulder hoped she never saw it again.  She
had been frightened for him.  She had held him the way a mother
holds a child in need of love, held his fighting arms down with a
gentle strength.  It had helped the pain go away.  Crying against her
chest made him feel safe and secure, made it easier.  But her concern
later had been overwhelming. The fear she felt for Mulder's mental
state had reflected in her eyes for a long time.  Sometimes he still saw
it.
     This dream wasn't so bad.  Mulder focused on the television set.
Focusing on something else was hard.  Still, he concentrated.  After a
while he realized he was watching a t.v. show in black and white.  A
little while longer he recognized it was a sitcom.  Then he tried to
remember what the show was.  Father Knows Best.  That was it.
     Mulder reached for the remote, flicked channels until he found an
old Battlestar Glactica episode.  He tried to stop crying.  He would
watch the rest of the show then get up, go jogging.
 

     Meredith sat up.  She knew this dream well.  The boy was dead,
but she must accompany him to his final spot before she was released.
     Woods, but not woods like those close to home.  There were
Mountains.  The ground sloped.  Three men got out of their bronco in
the darkness.  There was a shallow grave already dug.  The little boy,
wrapped in the plastic, was dumped into the grave and the men began
filling the grave.   Meredith waited as they filled the grave.  She was
terribly cold.  It was warm at home, but cold here.  Terribly cold
through her thin nightgown; icy on her little bare feet, but she was the
only mourner.  She would stay until they finished.
 

     "Morning."  Scully said.  She assessed her partner's mood quickly
as he sat behind his desk and handed over her ritual morning cup of
coffee.  It was a clear sign of just how bad his night had been that
Mulder took the coffee without a single snide comment.  Scully
sighed, put her hands on her hips, but didn't say anything.  Any word
would put him on the defensive.  He drank her coffee, savoring every
sip.
     "We've been invited to work on a high profile case."  He said after
her coffee had been deposited down his throat and he'd gone for a
second cup--in her mug.
     "Hmm?"  Scully looked up, curious.  She had resumed her own
desk, was going through her own paperwork.
     "I am still the FBI's best Satanic killer profiler."  Mulder told her.
     "The Church murders."  Scully guessed.  She leaned back in her
desk chair.  "So they want you to. . ."
     "Go in and look things over, profile the murderers.  See if I can
find any pattern to the choosing of victims and the choosing of ritual
sites.  I get to choose my forensics expert. .."
     "Does this mean I can stay home?"
     Mulder honored her remark with a withering look.  "I get carte
blanche on the case.  We won't be working with the task force, except
in name.  There are eleven other agents on this thing and they're
getting nowhere."
     "Are they scared you'll corrupt everyone?"
     "Or that I'll strangle them all after one too many Spooky jokes."
Mulder replied.  "We'll make more progress on our own."
     "What do you think's going on?"
     "I'm not sure.  I know it's more than one person, probably more
than two or three."  Mulder stood, paced a moment.  "From what I've
read this morning, they're a wealthy group, very intelligent.  This is
part of a larger ritual.  From the professional nature, I'd guessed that
the five murders that have been identified are just the tip of the
iceberg.  Children have probably been murdered in numerous
Churches.  The five that have been found and paired off with the
appropriate churches were exposed due to the kind of sloppiness that
comes from doing a thing too often."  Mulder handed his partner a
file.
     "If you write the monograph that catches the murderers you'll be
the FBI's darling again."  Scully commented, glancing through
detailed photographs of butchered remains.
     Mulder smiled almost sardonically.  "I doubt that I could ever do
anything to make me the FBI's darling again, short of proving that
Hoover wasn't a transvestite."
 

     "We're not going."  Mulder announced as Scully slid into the
Taurus beside him.
     "What?"  Scully frowned at her carry-on bag.  They were
supposed to be headed for Archer, Nevada where one of the bodies
had been found.
     "I got this early this morning."  Mulder handed his partner a
computer printout.  "This is a listing of phone calls from America's
Most Wanted Hotline; they ran a story on the murders a week ago.
Look at the synopsis of the ones I've circled."
     "A child.  No message posted.  A child again.  This time she said
it was a coven.  Hung up.  Umm. . ."  Scully scanned quickly.  "All
right."
     "Read the two I highlighted.  Read it aloud."  Mulder clenched the
steering wheel.
     Scully glanced at her partner.  "All right `There are many children.
Many bodies.  They bury them in round holes.'  Umm. . . `In the
churches they are very neat.  They move the communion table to the
stage and the podium to the wall.  One you found they scuffed the
wall.'"
     "It's the same child."  Mulder told her.  "The child's only on
maybe a minute before she hangs up, so she's scared of someone
knowing that she's talking.  She's giving us information she couldn't
know from any source other than as an eyewitness.  I didn't even
know they dug round holes.  I asked investigators to check the
churches.  There were scuffmarks on a piece of drywall in a rural
church that matched the corner of the lectern."
     "Do you think she's involved in this?"
     "I don't know.  But I'm going to try and talk to her.  She's called
every day, between two thirty and four thirty."
     Scully stared at the printout, aghast that no one else had caught
this.
 

     The operator nodded, waved her hand.  Mulder spit out his
sunflower seed and ran to the cubicle, grabbed the headset. It was
faster, safer than transferring the call.  "Hi.  I'm Agent Mulder.  I'm
working on this case."
     "Hi."
     "You've been calling a lot."
     "Mhm."
     "Can you talk to me some more?"
     "No."
     "Please don't hang up."
     "You'll trace it."  The voice was self assured.  "I seen it on t.v.."
     "Why don't you want us to know who you are?  Are you scared?
Is someone you know involved?"
     Silence.  Click.
     "Damn it."  Mulder threw down the headset, exasperated.  "Damn
it.  How long was she on?"
     "One minute twenty seconds."  The operator cleared her boards.
     "A child's asking for Agent Mulder."  A man, three chairs down,
handed over the headset.
     "I'm not scared.  But I'm not supposed to be having dreams.  My
momma and daddy think I'm taking my medicine."
     "You're having dreams?"
     "I see them in dreams.  All of them.  The devil is supposed to be
13 but it's me so he can't come."
     "You see the murders in your dreams?"
     "Mhm."
     "Listen, if you tell me who you are, I promise your momma and
daddy won't be mad when they find out."
     Click.
     She did not call back.
     Two a.m.  The hotline had only a skeleton crew.  A memo had
been posted above each cubicle about the child.
     "Hi.  Is Agent Mulder there?"
     "Hi honey.  No.  He went home."
     "Oh.  I'll call back.  In a half hour?  Or tomorrow?"
     "Why don't you talk to me I can get another FBI agent."
     "No.  I want Agent Mulder.  He's probably asleep I'll call back
tomorrow.  Okay?"
     "Honey, I'll get him right up here.  He won't mind."
     "Half-hour."  The line clicked.

     "My uncle is a sheriff.  He just got elected last year."
     "How old are you?"  Mulder asked, relieved she wasn't wasting
her time with pleasantries.
     "Seven.  Listen, my name is Meri Aimes.  I live at 5537 Highway
422 East.  In DeMarr Louisiana."
     "Thank you, Merry."  Mulder leaned against the wall of the
cubicle smiling.
     "Could you come and explain it to Uncle Kenny and then let him
explain it to my momma and daddy?"
     "I think so."
     "I decided it was silly for me to be scared of them.  Momma
doesn't even spank.  The little kids. . .they. . ."  She paused. "It was
silly of me."
     "How long have you been seeing the murders?"
     "I don't know.  Since I was in first grade I guess.  They took me
to a psychiatrist and made me stay in a hospital.  Now I have to take
medicine.  But I can't think when I'm on it and I think, even though I
don't like it, that the dreams are important.  You have bad dreams
too."
     "Yes."  Mulder tried not to breathe.
     "A lot of them."
     "Yes."
     "Oh.  I guess I gotta go.  I got school in the morning."
The phone clicked again.
 

     Scully refused to pass judgement.  "The child has dreams with
information she could only have gotten as an eyewitness."  Mulder
said the next morning as they boarded the plane that would take them
to Houston.  From there it was a commuter plane to Lake Charles, and
from there a rental car to DeMarr.
     "You're taking her word from three telephone conversations, two
of which lasted less than a minute."  She pointed out, letting Mulder
stow the carry-on luggage.
     "Her father is a minister and Agricultural Agent.  Her mother is a
schoolteacher.  She's seven years old and has been very sheltered since
she was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder at the age of five.  She
attends a rural school where the average class size is 14.  She doesn't
even watch television unless it's off a video tape her parents have
previewed.  Where is she going to get information about a murder that
took place in Oregon?"
     "I don't know.  But her allegations are. . ."  Scully threw up her
hands ". . .all right.  I admit to not having the slightest clue how she
knows.  Can't I refuse to give into the notion of psychic phenomenon
for at least the length of the plane ride?"
     Mulder sighed, smiled.
 

     "Hi.  So you're agent Mulder.  Meri has told me a great deal about
you since this morning."  Sheriff Aimes took Mulder's hand in a firm
shake.  "I'm sorry she was so. . .elusive when she first called your
hotline."
     "I understand she was worried about. . ."  Mulder let the sentence
falter, hoping Aimes would pick it up.  He did.
     "Robin and Ellie have been sending Meri to a shrink since she was
real little.  They've tried so many drugs. . ."  Aimes shook his head,
led both agents down a gravel path towards the small, neat house.
"She's been on imprimine for sleepwalking for, oh, I don't know.  A
couple of years."

     "Meredith. . ."  Ellen Aimes, a young woman, not over 30, closed
her eyes.  "Is our only child.  We've spoiled her somewhat.  But it's
hard not to.  She's always had problems.  When she was two the
doctor first said she was autistic.  She had her own inner world.
Hadn't learned to speak or stand.  Then in a year she discovered. . .I
guess she saw the outside world or something.  When she was four she
started hearing voices, seeing things.  They said she was childhood
schizophrenic.  Then she stopped.  Just stopped."  Mrs. Aimes
snapped her fingers, tossed her blonde hair back over her shoulder.
"She told us she was tired of being in special preschool.  She wanted
to be in kindergarten.  When she was five she started waking up in the
middle of the night screaming.  She developed all these phobias--she
was scared of the dark, of shadows, people in white dresses made her
scream.  I still can't take her to a baptismal service or a wedding."
Mrs. Aimes looked up.  "I know this sounds so odd.  But you have to
meet Merri.  She's. . .she's so delightful to be around."
     "Merri never has acted like a child."  Robin Aimes added, shifting
from his spot leaning against a bookshelf.  "I guess that's our fault.
She's always been around our friends, adults.  We're the only people
in our social group with any kids."  He looked down at his leather
work boots.  "I don't believe in psychic phenomenon."
     "Your daughter has described murders that have happened in states
as far north as Oregon and Maine.  She has said things she could not
have known, things we didn't even know."
     "Did you know there had been other murders?"  Reverend Aimes
asked.
     "I suspected it."
     Aimes nodded.
     Sheriff Aimes glanced sympathetically at his brother.  "Ellen, why
don't you go get Meri?"
     Ellen nodded.  "Meri?"  She called, getting up from her seat in an
old rocker.

     A small figure appeared from the door way.  She looked perhaps
six, but Scully's belief, having heard the description of her mental
problems, that she would be a thin child, with dark circles under her
eyes, was shattered.  Meredith was tiny, petite, but she was also a
beautiful child with dark brown, curling hair, deep set brown eyes.
She hugged three big chief tablets to herself like a talisman.
     "Agent Mulder."  She went straight to Mulder's seat beside Scully
on the loveseat.  She stared a moment, wrinkled her nose, smiled.
"Hi.  You were right.  They weren't mad."
     "I told you they wouldn't be."
     Meri nodded and sat down on the coffee table, facing Mulder.  She
glanced back at her mother, not hesitantly, but as if to assure her
mother.  Then she looked at Mulder.  "I. . . this are my books.  I kept
them taped to the undersides of the bottom shelves in my closet so no
one would find it.  Umm . . ."  She held out her tablets hesitantly. "I
wrote down after every dream what I knew.  The first one has really
big handwriting.  I was only in kindergarten."
     Mulder took the pads gently.  "How do you have your dreams?"
     Meredith looked at her parents, at Scully.
     "Do you want to talk privately?"  Mulder asked.
     Meredith glanced at her mother, bit a lip.
     "I don't mind."  Ellen Aimes said softly.  "I won't be hurt."
Meri considered Agent Mulder and Agent Scully.  "Yes. I don't like
talking about it."
 

     "They tried to make me stop, so I stopped telling them.  It worried
them."  Meri told Mulder.  They sat, alone, in a glassed in porch.
     "Who's them?"  Mulder asked.
     "My momma and daddy and the shrink and oh, everybody."  Meri
replied.  "I dreamed about this church.  There was this preacher and
we'd play games in the church.  Preacher was so nice.  He told me
Bible stories.  I started having dreams when I was three.  See, I wasn't
talking to anyone or anything.  Preacher said he was going to help me
know how to talk to people outside."
     "When did the dreams change?"
     "When I was five."
     "What did you start dreaming?"
     "About the murders.  The first one took place in his church.  Then
Preacher was gone."
     "How often do you dream about the murders?"
     "As often as they kill someone."  Meri stared at Mulder
unflinchingly.
     "How often is that?"
     "Once every three weeks."
     Mulder nodded as though this information did not shock him in the
slightest.  "How do the dreams go?"
     "I wake up and I've been asleep on a pew.  I sit up and I see
they've got a little kid strapped to the communion table.  And they . . ."
Meri shut her eyes.  "They cut him up."  She opened her eyes.
"People don't die when you cut them open.  People don't die then.
They don't even die when you take their heart out."
     "No."  Mulder agreed.
     Meri nodded.  It was obvious she had cried often in the past.  She
was used to this knowledge now, horrible as it was, it was something
she knew, had to live with every day.
     "The next night or the next, they bury the body.  The last place
was very cold.  We've had a heat snap here, that's why it's so warm.
I only wore my cotton nightie to bed.  But it was so cold there.  Icy
cold."  Meri stared at Mulder.  "I don't know why I know.  But I do."
     Mulder nodded, taken with the child before him.
     "I don't scream anymore.  I'm just like you that way.  But you
were older."
     "Yes."  Mulder nodded.
     "You were in a hospital too.  That's where I learned not to scream
too."
     Mulder looked away, to the winter woods outside.
     "I'm sorry."  Meri's voice was terribly soft.  "I didn't mean to
remind you."
     "It's all right."  Mulder turned back to Meri, considered the pad he
held.  "How many murders have you witnessed?"
     "29."  Meri replied.  "I kept count."
     "Will we be able to find most of the churches and bodies from
your descriptions?"
     "No.  I can only tell what I see.  Most of the time I can't see where
I am."
     Mulder nodded.  "You said on the phone that they were 12 and
that you were 13."
     "It's in this book I checked out of the library.  Momma and Daddy
didn't know I got it, don't tell them 'cause they'd be mad at the
librarian.  They want to protect me from bad things; they're worried I
won't grow up normal.
       "The book was on witches. It talked a lot about the good witches,
how they're just another religon.  But it says that black witches, the
bad kind, must have their covens in 12 so that the devil can come and
be 13.  But see, they have their 12, but then I'm there too. They don't
know I'm there.  And I'm 13.  So the devil can't come.  They do the
sacrifice to make themselves powerful, but since the devil can't come
they aren't getting powerful.  They just think they are."  Meri flashed
a quick, scared smile.  "I guess.  You know it's funny.  I'm thirteen
and so are you."
     Mulder didn't track.  He shook his head.
     "Dana's the twelth and you're the thirteenth.  The seer."  It took a
moment, but Mulder finally got it.  He was the thirteenth agent on this
case.  A chill went up his spine.
 

     "She knew about something I've never told anyone."  Mulder told
Scully over lunch, a quick meal in the motel restaurant.
     "What?"
     Mulder sighed, looked around.  Closed his eyes.  "After Sam
disappeared, my parents started. . .losing it."  He said.  ". . .Social
services was called in on an anonymous report of child abuse. The
social worker was sufficiently upset with my behavior that she called
in a psychiatrist who decided I was emotionally disturbed.  I was taken
from my parents and placed in the adolescent unit of a psychiatric
hospital for about a month."
     Open-mouthed, Scully stared at her partner.
     "I shared a room with a boy who was about 14.  He got tired of
my screaming at night, so he would punch me when I screamed. I
learned not to scream."
     "I didn't know. . .Mulder, why haven't you ever told me any of
this."
     "It didn't last long.  My parents got another psychiatrist to say I
was okay and the judge agreed with them so I went home."  Mulder
shrugged.
     "Were you disturbed?"
     "I don't know.  I . . .I remember crying a lot and talking about
how Sam would be home when I got in from school.  I remember one
night, right after they made their 'placement' decision, standing in
front of the doors, which were locked, of course, and demanding to be
let out because Sam was going to be home and I had to be there to
babysit." Mulder smiled, embarrassedly.  "I guess I was pretty far
gone.  I've never talked about that month, never made any mention of
it.  No one knows."
     "But Meri knew."
     "She knew."  Mulder agreed.
     "You don't have any other kind of dream any more, do you?"
Scully asked as their sandwiches were brought out.  "I mean, all your
dreams are nightmares now, aren't they?
     "What makes you ask that?"
     "Just answer it."
     "I used to have other kinds of dreams."
     "Until I disappeared."
     "Yes.  But then, when you came back, they got better."  His eyes
begged her to believe him.  "They did.  I had okay dreams.  But now . . ."
He looked off, at a waitress.
     Scully sighed, bit into her club sandwich. Chewed carefully and
swallowed. She wanted to push, to find out what was going on in his
mind.  "Mulder."  She began, being very careful with her words.
"I'm worried about you.  I know it really bothers you for me to be
worried.  But I'm your partner.  I know you trust me.  Probably more
than any other person in the world."
     Mulder stared at her, begging her to shut up.  Shut up and leave it
alone.  Leave him alone.
     "I know you can probably keep going like this, you won't lose it.
But. . ."  Scully broke, searched desperately for words.  ". . .you're
hurting.  I know you're hurting.  It's not right, and it's not fair.
When you saw that I was hurting, you didn't shy away from helping
me."
     Mulder tried to think of something to say to this.  She had not
accused him of being crazy, she had not tried to find out what was
going on.  Those were things he could slap back, things he could stone
wall.  She said something that they both knew was truth.  Any denial
would weaken his own position.  He smiled awkwardly.
     Scully ignored his reaction, tasted her potato salad.  When she had
eaten a small portion she looked up at Mulder.  "I'm sorry."
     Mulder did not insult her by pretending not to understand.  He
nodded slowly.  "I don't remember that you're safe."  He said quietly.
     Scully looked at Mulder, questioning.
     "When I wake up, I think you're dead.  I know it was my fault."
Mulder pushed his roast beef plate away.  "That's why it hurts so
much."
     Scully reined her emotions in tightly, forced herself not to over
react.  She was walking a very fragile line.  One misstep and he would
shut her out again.  "What can I do?"
     Mulder closed his eyes, took a deep breath.  "I don't know."
     "I think. . .the dreams are getting worse, not better."
     Mulder opened his eyes, stared at Scully.  "How did you know
that?"
     "I've been watching.  I am a government agent.  It *is* my job."
     Mulder smiled.  Scully let herself smile.

     They were on the road again that night.  Five locations Meri had
written about could be ID'd.  And a body had already been found.
They took the commuter plane to Houston, were on an almost empty
American airlines flight to Omaha by midnight, spread out with copies
of Meri's big chief tablets, reading, making notes, exchanging lists,
making new notes.  There were others reading and studying the Meri's
record of course, but it couldn't hurt. And it was all they had to go on.
The mighty force that was the FBI was poring over an eight year old's
Big Chief Tablet with an intensity that more than equalled any other
revelation or clue presented to it.

     He fell asleep somewhere over Oklahoma.  They had taken over
four seats on this nearly empty airplane, gotten comfortable. Scully
smiled at Mulder, propped up by a pillow against the outer wall of the
plane, knees slung over the armrest of his two seats and took his copy
of the notes.  A flight attendant got him a blanket.  Scully put his notes
away, reached into her portfolio and dug out the forensics on the
bodies found and autopsied thus far.

     The child had been seven, born and raised in Stillwater Oklahoma.
He had been killed in Merrick California, a tiny community in the
northern part of the state.  Scully glanced briefly at the faxed school
portrait, flipped over to the meat of the report.  A noise startled her.
She looked over the top of her report, across the aisle, on instinct.
     Mulder jerked in his sleep.  Scully eyed the flight attendant, so far
the woman hadn't seen anything.  Good.  If she was fast and lucky,
she could wake him; this would pass without incident.
     She edged over to where he sprawled.  By the time she got there,
the dream was in control.  "Mulder? Wake up."  Her voice was sharp.
"Come on.  Wake up.  You're having a bad dream.  Wake up."
     Mulder was crying, softly, without sound.  "Come on.  Wake up."
Scully edged her voice with steel.  "You have to wake up.  Now."
     He jerked, hard, in his sleep, then sat up with a deep breath.
"Okay."  Scully brushed hair away from Mulder's face.  He wrapped
his arms around his chest.  "You're awake now.  It's all better.
You're awake."
     He didn't hear her, just stared across the aisle blankly, crying
silently, rocking softly.  He did not look, not then, like her partner,
Fox Mulder.  He looked like a child, a terrified child.
     "Is something wrong?"  The flight attendant looked over Scully's
shoulder.
     At her voice, Mulder tensed, the rocking grew harder.
     "Mulder.  Come on.  Snap out of it."  Scully said.  She did not
allow emotion into her voice.  "Wake up and snap out of this.  You're
all right.  I'm all right.  Wake up."  In a few minutes she hoped he
would be better, he would focus, blow his nose.  It would be all right.
But somehow she knew it would not be all right.
     "It's all right."  She grabbed his shoulders, tried to stop the
rocking that frightened her so.  "It's all right."  She repeated.  She had
no idea how long it would take him to reemerge from the twilight.
The only time she had seen, it had taken Mulder the better part of
fifteen minutes to become lucid, then he had been useless the rest of
the night, reticent, ruminating the dream, unable to focus on anything
properly.  Mulder had claimed five minutes and said he was a "a little
depressed" and stupidly she had kept her mouth shut.  He had also
claimed that had been one of the worst times.  She did not know
whether or not he was lying.
     Meanwhile the flight attendant was looking terribly nervous.  "My
purse is over there.  Get it."  Scully said, finally.  She did not want to
do this, but she had no other options, not right here, not right now.
     A second attendant came and stood, made sure the other passengers
did not notice.  The attendants were watching, worriedly.  Dealing
with crazy--no, let's all be PC--dealing with "emotionally disturbed"
people might be in the manual, but it wasn't something they were used
to dealing with in real life.
     Scully fumbled through her purse.  She had gotten this, and then
cursed her own unprofessionalness, but she didn't want to be alone
with his fear again.
     "Mulder.  This is a barbituate, a major tranquilizer."  Mulder was
still in the darkness, lost somewhere.  And he wondered why it scared
her.  She got a hypodermic, ripped it out of its little paper packaging,
got the bottle out, filled it. . .50 mg a ml. 150-200mg usual dosage,
not to exceed 5 ml, Scully recited to herself.  200mg then. He had
taken off his suit jacket and was in rolled up shirt sleeves.  Good.  She
pushed the sleeve up as far as she could.  This would be much better
in his backside, but circumstances warranted that she forego that
convient muscle mass.  It would take a few minutes now, but he
would calm down once the drugs took over.
     Meanwhile, Mulder still showed no signs of emerging into the real
world from his dream.  "Mulder.  Samantha is gone.  That's true.  But
I'm not. I promise."  She forced him to stare at her by putting her
hands on his face, turning his head towards her, by not letting go
when he resisted.  "It's me.  Dana.  I'm here and I'm all right.  I'm
alive and I'm well and you don't have to be so frightened.  It's
Scully."
     The rocking began to still a few minutes later.  Scully did not know
whether it was the drugs or his waking.  She knew she never wanted
to deal with this thing again.  She knew she had every reason to be
frightened.  Mulder calmed as the Nembutal began coursing through
his system.  Scully talked softly to him, about things that didn't matter.
About how she was there and she wasn't dead, that it was all right.
He listened numbly and she could still see the painful fear in his eyes.
He had let their friendship go into the dark stillness of his soul without
thinking about the idea that she could die.  Scully wondered how
desperate a betrayal it was for him to realize that she could die just the
same as anyone else, to realize that he could be completely alone
again.
     "What's happened?"  The flight attendant asked Scully, once
Mulder was again asleep, again sprawled across two chairs.
     "My friend and I. . .were involved in . . .some things. . ."  Scully
began cautiously.  "We're federal agents."  She tried again.  "My
partner has been experiencing the symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress
Disorder, related to a past incident.  What happened is perfectly
normal.  He would have eventually calmed down and begun acting
rationally on his own."
     "What did you give him?"  Another woman, the one who had kept
other passengers from seeing their minor emergency.
     "Just a tranquilizer."  Yeah, right.  Thank god this woman had no
medical training.  "He'll be fine when we get to Omaha."
     "Does this happen very often?"
     "No.  Very rarely.  We're both extremely tired, that's all."  Scully
finished calming the attendants down and went back to her own nest,
stared at the sleeping figure.

     "Come on."  Scully shook Mulder gently.  "Come on."  He stared
at her with confused eyes.
     "We're in Omaha."  She added softly.  She had waited until other
passengers were gone.
     "Oh.  I don't feel good."
     "I know."  Scully smiled, took his hand, helped him up.  When he
came down out of la-la land he would be highly upset.  She doubted
he would remember being given a tranquilizer, but he would be able to
figure out what had happened.  She got him out of the plane and into a
rental car without any difficulties,
     "I need two rooms, with a connecting door if that's possible."
Scully requested, knowing how it sounded, not really giving a damn if
some hotel clerk in Omaha, Nebraska thought two FBI agents were
screwing like minks on taxpayer's money.
     "Umm. . ."  The clerk, a middle aged woman looked through her
reading glasses at Mulder.  "We're pretty booked up.  The Rodeo
Finals are this week and we're the official hotel."  She looked at
Mulder again.  Mulder was leaning against a wall, staring dazedly at a
wall clock.  "Why don't I just say that we only have one room open
and make a note of the discount on your bill.  Your beancounters may
find it irregular but they won't say anything."
     Scully stared at the woman.  "No, thank you."  She said, flustered.
     "You're not going to be in the other room.  Why waste it?  We
aren't going to have any vacancies when the night's over.  This way I
have to turn away one less traveler."  The woman stared at Scully,
eagle eyed.  "Look, I don't think you're sleeping with him if that's
what's got your panties in a wad.  But he doesn't look too good, and
he's not too with it or he'd be part of the conversation.  I'm trying to
do you a favor."
     Scully took a deep breath.  "All right.  Thank you.  I'm sorry."
     "No problem."  They went down to the other end of the counter
where the credit card scanner sat innocently.  The woman nodded in
Mulder's direction, leaned over her forms and whispered softly, so
that only Scully could hear.  "My husband came home from Vietnam
with it so bad he can't work, in and out of the VA hospital.  At least
whatever's happened to your friend isn't so bad he's getting a
disability check from the government every month."
     "Come on." Scully helped Mulder out of his jacket, out of his
pants and shirt.  Mulder fell into the bed.
     "What did you give me?"  He asked.
     "Nembutal."
     He nodded.
     "You were having a bad dream.  Do you remember?"
     "No."
     "If I'd left you alone you would have come out of it on your own.
But I couldn't leave you alone.  There were other people."
     "I'm not crazy."
     "I know that."  She sat on the edge of his bed.  "But when we get
back to Washington you have to see a psychiatrist."
     Mulder sighed, turned his face away.
     "This isn't going away."  Scully sighed.  "All right.  This isn't the
best time to discuss it.  You go to sleep.  I'm going to take a shower
first.  All right?"
     He nodded tiredly.
     "Okay."

     The next morning she woke to the sounds of Mulder showering.
She got dressed while he took his time in the bathroom.
     "How are you feeling?"  She asked, leaning close to the room's
full length mirror as she applied make-up, watching from the corner of
her eye as he emerged draped in a hotel robe.
     "I'm all right."  He replied, going to his hang up, pulling out a suit
and shirt, grabbing underwear from the side pocket.  "I was going to
be angry, but you didn't have any choice."
     "No."  Scully stopped putting on mascara, stared through the
mirror at her partner, surprised.
     He faced the wall and started getting dressed.  "I don't remember
anything until the hotel."
     Scully forced herself to finish putting on her mascara, got out a
lipstick.  "There's a window where you're awake but still part of the
dream, and you may remember it as just a little out of touch, but even
when you become aware of your surroundings, you're still not. . .
normal."  She said.  "I tried to talk to you about it before, but you
shut me out."
     Mulder zipped his pants, pulled on his shirt, and turned to face her
mirror.  "How long have you had tranquilizers in your purse?"
     "About three weeks."
     He nodded, tucked his pants in.  "Why didn't you tell me?"  He
was upset, trying not to be.
     "Tell you what?"  Scully turned to face him, amazed.  "You arched
like a spitting cat when I even mentioned your dreams.  If I said
anything you shut me out completely.  I'm supposed to go in and tell
you I got a prescription of Nembutal filled so that the next time you
wigged out I could get you calmed down?  You wouldn't have even let
me into your thoughts the little bit that you did."
     Scully took a deep breath.  "Mulder, I know you've been having a
difficult time, and I know you'll make it through this.  But when you
wake up from a nightmare and I'm there I have to deal with it
somehow.  I don't have the physical strength to restrain you, and you
are incapable of any rational thought at those times so I can't talk to
you.  I had to have some way of dealing with the aftermath of your
dreams."  She was suddenly sick to her stomach.
     "If you don't go see a psychiatrist--not just a therapist, I want you
to see a medical doctor--when we get back to Washington I'll go to
Skinner and I'll make it sound like you are about two steps from
psychosis."  She stared at Mulder unflinchingly.  "You know he'll
believe me.  If I didn't care about you I wouldn't bother and you
know that too."
     Mulder stared at Scully, not quite believing what he was hearing.
Suddenly he nodded, defeated.  "All right."
     "Good.  Finish getting dressed."

     They were given a young woman to drive them to the site.
     "She has a Grand Cherokee and relatives who're members of
Grace Baptist."  Supervisory Agent McCall told them.  "You'll need
four-wheel drive to get out there.  She had to drop out of Quantico,
after her family--Mom, Pop, Bro's and Sis's  got wiped out in a car
accident.  She'll be back next session."  Mulder and Scully had both
winced.  The young woman, Becky Martin, was professional,
however, except for her liscence plate, which read "Precious."
     The area was desolate and bitterly cold.  The people working on
the site seemed not to notice the winds gusting around them.  Scully
knelt beside another forensics worker, discussed whatever it was that a
good pathologist would find to talk about.
     Mulder separated himself from the others.  Martin, luckily, was
not someone who insisted on talking.  She left him alone, let him
scope out the playing field.

     He stopped about fifty feet from the activity.  Here.  Meredith had
said that this was the place.  She stood here, bare feet burning cold on
an ice strewn ground.  A little girl, Meri's diary recorded, a blonde
girl missing three teeth.  He squatted, trying to see things as Meredith
would have.  It had been dark, and the moon had only been a quarter
full, but very bright.  Mulder squinted up into the morning sky, at the
crystalline blue sky.
     Three men in a Bronco.  They brought out shovels and dug a small
hole, slid the body, wrapped in heavy plastic drop cloth, down into
their shallow hole.  Then they covered the place as best they could and
moved on.
     Mulder stood.  There was nothing really to be learned here.  A
stench began to assault him.  He strode towards its source.  Scully
came to him at the edge of the excavation.  "Was she accurate?"  He
asked.
     Scully nodded tersely.  "Down to the placement of the missing
teeth."  She responded.  "I'm going to stay here for a while."
     Mulder nodded.  He'd seen what he came to.  "I'll take Martin and
go back then."
     "All right.  I have some errands to run when I'm through here.
I'll meet you at the field office around five."
     "Yeah, fine."
     The church had crime scene tape over the doors and a sheriff's
deputy curled up in his cruiser reading a Ghost Rider comic book, but
otherwise the area was deserted.  A small church, not one to attract
any attention.   Mulder found everything as Meredith had said it would
be.  Folding chairs set up in loose circular rows around a small
podium.  A communion table set to one side.  The only ostentation,
only evidence this was a church and not a community hall, was a
leaded glass window depicting a dove flying out of a fire.
     "It's not such a bad little church."  Martin said.  "Never been real
big on church in my family."
     Mulder smiled faintly, wished he could say the same.  Meredith
had woken on the floor, facing the window.  He moved around,
trying to find her place.  There.  She sat there.  So close she sat on the
plastic covering.  Mulder dropped down, considered how it would
have looked.
     First, clad in their white robes, members of the coven had tied the
naked child to the table, had carefully prepared the area.  Then the
leader and all the members of the coven assembled, all in white robes.
They gathered around the child silently.  Their leader stabbed deep
with his knife.  Blood spurted.  The leader rips up, cuts through the
ribs, up into the chest.  Finished, he pulls out the heart, shows it to the
child then squeezes all the life away.

     All right.  He had a victim, he had a ceremony.  That much was
certain. Mulder put his knees up, apart, sat with his arms between his
legs.  Martin sat in one of the chairs, glanced at him, shrugged; she'd
heard the stories about Spooky Mulder.
     This smacked of procedure rather than ritual.  Ritual, define it.
Mulder thought of what the word connotated.  Doing things a certain
way because it was comfortable, because it had been done that way
before.  Did it have to make sense?  No.  In a cult a ritual had a
purpose.  It had to be that way or something, some higher force would
be highly upset.
     Procedure.  Define it, he ordered himself.  A way of doing things
that has developed or been developed with a purpose.  Procedures
changed when they needed to change.  People as a rule are scrupulous
in the observance of rituals, they do rituals even when it isn't best to
do them.  Why?  Because, that's the way a ritual is done. If you don't
do the ritual right something bad will happen to you.  Sometimes,
because of repetition people got sloppy with procedures, procedures
did not carry the same penalties.  Rituals meant something.
Procedures were just efficient.  Five murders had been found because
of sloppy procedure.
     There were no sacred words according to Meredith.  No sacred
rituals.  They bound the child to the communion table, put down
plastic wrap.  The leader came and killed the child.  All right.  That
was ritual.  They did that the same way, perfectly.  No. scratch that.
Their leader did that perfectly.  That was all he did.  The coven did
everything else.  And sometimes they got sloppy.
     They were twelve because the thirteenth was Satan.
     Mulder stared at the leaded glass.  No mumbo jumbo, no ritual
involved in choosing places, just crafty planning.  There should be
ritual, there should sacred sayings, something.
     No.  Just the leader cutting out the heart with business-like
precision.  Well, a heart surgeon uses procedure and never gets sloppy
or people start dying.  So the leader's actions could be defined as
procedure too.
     So what were they trying to do and why didn't they act like a cult?
     Mulder put a hand to his face, thought about it.  This was not a
cult.  No, this was a an organization working towards a practical goal.
A goal?
     That was a new question.  If they had a goal what was it?  The
killings were not killings for the purpose of killing were they?  In a
cult, the killings would be part of a religous
ceremony.  Not here.  They had a purpose.  If he took Meredith on
face value, which he did, then this was not a cult.
     They would be impossible to catch.
     No, scratch that.  They should be impossible to catch.  Mulder had
Meredith.  He had a chance.
     "Let's go."  He told Martin, standing up suddenly.

     Mulder was finishing a preliminary report when Scully showed up
at the regional office.  He let her read over his shoulder as he
proofread the report.
     "Are the wounds identical?"  He questioned.  "I assumed they
were."
     "Yes.  Everything is depressingly the same."
     Mulder nodded, unsurprised.  "Do you remember what Meredith
said about the first church she witnessed a murder in?"
     Scully thought back.  Nodded.  "She had dreams about it before."
     "Dreams where she and an older man, a minister, went around the
church.  Played games.  He taught her Bible stories and songs."
     Scully nodded as though she had the foggiest idea what was going
on.  "So?"  She prodded.
     "I think if we could find the history of that first church we might
have a clue as to the reason for these murders."  Mulder paused.
"There was some reason Meredith dreampt about that particular
church.  I don't know.  Maybe she visited it when she was younger
and didn't remember it.  But there had to be a reason."
     Scully groaned.
     "What?"  Mulder glanced up at her, surprised by her reaction.
     "This means we're flying back to Louisiana, doesn't it?"
     Mulder smiled.
     "No middle of the night flights, please."  Scully told him.
     "Come on.  Let me send this and we'll go to dinner.  Martin told
me about a great steak place."
 

     She pulled Nembutal into the syringe, sitting on the bed.  Mulder
pretended to ignore her preparations.  "I'm not going to sleep
tonight."  He told her, coming out of the bathroom in his jogging
sweats.
     "You've got to sleep."  Scully replied, putting the cap back over
the needle.  "Here."  She had gotten a prescription of Ativan at the
druggist, not bothering to tell anyone why she needed to stop at a
pharmacy.  Let them think she was out of birth control pills or that her
period had come early, let them think she needed Ativan because
Mulder was driving her crazy.
     "No thanks."  Mulder smiled, headed out the door.  Scully sighed
and pulled out her file on the little girl, as yet unidentified.
 

     It was not human.  Scully's eyes opened and she reached
instinctively for her gun.  There on the coffee table.  Darkness.  She
had fallen asleep on the couch, over paperwork.  Mulder had
graciously put the file away and slung a blanket over her.
     The sounds of the shower reassured her and she put her gun back.
Mulder had come in, tidied up and was taking a shower.
     She lay a moment in the darkness, thinking she ought to get up, get
undressed.
     The sound.  Again.  Scully sat up, questioning.  A faint noise.
     She got up.  "Mulder?"  Rapped on the door.  "Mulder?"  She
questioned again.  "Hey?  You in there?" She got no answer.  The
sounds were coming from the shower.  Scully stumbled back to the
bed and got the Nembutal.  He'd fallen asleep in the bathroom.
Wonderful.
     The door was not locked.  Mulder had gotten his sweatshirt off and
turned the shower on.  He sat, huddled on the tiling, bleeding a puddle
on the floor around him.
     "Mulder?"  Scully knelt beside him.  His hands and face were
bloodied.  The blood in his hair was drying in pockets of mats.  She
touched his face.  "Shh."  She said, considering him under the bright
bathroom lights.  She could not tell the extent of his injuries.  They did
not appear to be serious, but there was so much blood.  She put the
syringe down on the toilet seat.
     "How did you get this?  Did you fall?"  She asked.  Mulder stared
at her dazedly, shivered.
     Scully snapped her fingers trying to get his attention.  Carefully,
she took his face in her hands.  There was no evidence of any drugs or
head trauma though she could see a large cut on his temple.  His
pupils responded normally to light, his skin was not clammy.  Pulse
rate fast, but not dangerously so.  He pulled away from her hands.
She crawled over to the shower, turned the water down to the spigot,
wet the bathmat, then turned the water off.
     "Do you know who you are?"  She asked, sponging water onto his
face.
     He did not respond, but jerked away from her ministrations.
Scully sighed and pulled his face back to her.  "It's all right."  She
held tightly onto his chin, cleaned blood away from a large wound on
his right temple.  It looked as though he had fallen, hard, onto
something hard and sharp edged.  She looked up, directly at a towel
bar.  No doubt if she inspected it she would find blood.  That did not
account for most of the blood though.  Mulder jerked away from her
again, rolled onto his side, tucked fetal, hands wrapped tightly around
his chest.
     Scully could not explain this.  It was not head trauma.  It was not a
psychotic state induced by his nightmares.  She pulled, but he was
completely tense now, unwilling to let her do anything.  She reached
for the Nembutal and injected it intramuscular, tugging the sweatpants
down, cleaning a spot on his hip with alcohol.
 

     He had a headache.  Mulder stared at the ceiling blankly.  His head
hurt and he was terribly thirsty.  He tried to sit up.  Someone gently
pushed back, then let him push up on the pillows just a little.
     "Good afternoon."  Scully swam into view, held a glass of water,
helped him sip it.
     "How are you feeling?"  She helped him push into a gentle recline,
bolstered by pillows.
     "Head hurts."  He said, licking his lips.
     "You've got a nasty cut on your forehead."  Scully told him.
"You were lucky it didn't need stitches."
     "What happened?"
     "I don't know.  I was hoping you might remember.  I found you
on the floor of the bathroom completely incoherent."
     Mulder tried to think back.  "Someone threw blood on me." He
remembered.
     "What?"
     "When I went out jogging.  I was coming back and someone threw
blood onto my face."
     "Did you see who?"
     Mulder shook his head.  "By the time I cleaned out my eyes they
were gone.  I came straight back.  You had fallen asleep.  I got you a
blanket.  I was going to clean up so I went to the shower."  He
paused, confused.  "I don't remember anything else."
     Scully nodded, got up, returned with some aspirin and more water.
"Here. This should help your head."
     Mulder took the pills, holding his own glass this time.
     "It's already noon.  I woke up last night because I heard you
moaning.  When I went into the bathroom you'd taken off your shirt,
you were curled up against the wall.  You wouldn't let me help you
and you didn't seem to understand anything.  I drugged you, cleaned
you up as best I could, got you into bed.  You went to sleep.  As soon
as you're feeling better you need to shower and wash your hair.  I
changed the plane reservations to 3."
     She got up, dug around in her portfolio for an evidence bag and a
small pair of shears.  "If the blood in your hair isn't yours we need to
find out whose or what it is."
     Mulder nodded, turned his head.  Scully considered carefully
before clipping.  She didn't want to leave her partner bald in a patch.
Carefully she clipped around the side of his face, catching two clots of
blood into her bag.
     "It's conceivable that the blood is cow's or chicken's."  Mulder
said, pushing up into a higher sit.  "But I doubt it."
     Scully nodded, looking at the two clots.  "This means someone
knows we're on the case."  She said, sitting on her own bed.
     "Someone related to the coven."  Mulder amended for her.  "I
know.  It confuses me though.  Why just throw blood onto my face?
Why not kill me?"

     Meredith hoped her message had been heard, but she doubted it.
She leaned over her schoolwork, frowned at the instructions Mrs.
Andersen had sent.  Uncle Kenny was busy with paperwork at his
desk.  They had set it up so that when Meri wasn't at home she was
at the sheriff's office.  That way the FBI didn't have to have agents
out taking care of her.  Momma got her schoolwork for her.  Meri had
gone to DeMarr elementary in Kindergarten.  It was a big
kindergarten. 8 teachers just for kindergarten. Now she went to
Breaux High School, which was all the schools in one.  There were
only 11 kids in all of third grade.  Momma taught at Breaux, so Meri
went with her to school.
     Mrs. Andersen had sent all Meri's schoolwork.  So Meri had
something to do for about three hours.  Uncle Kenny took her to the
library every morning and Meri had all kinds of art supplies--crayons,
pastels, tempera, watercolors and lots of paper.  She looked up from
the work on four number subtraction, sighed and watched uncle Kenny
work.  When there was something Meri shouldn't see or hear she went
out to the dispatcher's office or to a detective's office.  He was busy,
busy enough he wouldn't notice if she took a break.
     Meri, curled up on a little rug, put her paperwork down and picked
up her book.

     Mulder popped two extra-strength Tylenol into his mouth,
swallowed with some diet coke.  They were cramped into their
assigned seats on this flight into DFW.  He looked down at his copy of
Meri's notes, looked at an annotation they'd gotten in from the
bureau.  Handwriting experts said the writing was consistent with the
fine motor development of about a four or five year old.  A child
psychologist said that the writing style was more reminiscent of a third
grader.  A call to the Aimes confirmed that Meredith had been reading
since preschool.  A great deal of trauma present in the first accounts.
A notation that it seemed as though someone was telling Meredith to
write the first entries.  Mulder scratched the back of his neck.
Preacher's influence?
     How did Meredith's Preacher fit into all this anyway?  From
Meredith's account Preacher was the one responsible for leading her
out of Schizophenia.
     Mulder pulled out the report on Meredith, read the nitty-gritty
information.  He'd heard it all before so he hadn't bothered until now.
He knew what he would find.

     "Scully."  She looked up from her perusual of photos of the sites
they hadn't visited.
     "Hmm?"
     Mulder handed his partner Meredith's file.  "Look at this."
     "What?"
     "Meredith was adopted."
     Scully groaned.  "Now you're going to tell me she has some kind
of psychic link to someone in the coven because that person is her
genetic mother."
     Mulder gave Scully a hurt look.  "I was not."
     "Well, what then?"
     "Her birth mother is a a close friend of the Aimes who got
pregnant when she was raped.  I was going to suggest that someone in
the coven must be her birth father."
     Scully groaned again.

     Meri was glad to see Agent Mulder.  As soon as she got him
alone, she would see if he got her message. "Hi."  She told the two
agents, leaning against her uncle's car.
     "Hi."  Both agents replied. From the window, Uncle Kenny
watched.  Now that she was with the two agents, he went back to his
work.  Meredith lead them into the sheriff's office, past the
receptionist, past the first set of offices.  There was a little room where
they talked to people they weren't going to arrest. Meredith didn't like
it much because it smelt nasty, but it was a good place to talk.  Uncle
Kenny'd told her they were coming in last night.
     But they'd gone to the Best Western and it was this morning before
they saw her.  They'd talked to her parents over the phone. Meredith
heard Aunt Alexandra's name mentioned several times.  She knew
Agent Mulder hadn't slept last night.  He'd done paperwork instead.
Agent Scully had a drug in a needle to give him if he went to sleep and
had a nightmare.  It was odd that she saw him. It was odd that she
had seen him before.  She'd been listening to him cry for a long time.
Since a couple of months ago.  Before she knew who he was.
     Aunt Alexandra was nice.  Babies came out their mother's uterus,
which was a place in a woman's stomach, another way of saying
womb.  But Meredith had come out of Aunt Alexandra's uterus
because Momma couldn't have babies.  That was why she didn't look
like her Momma or Daddy, because you looked like the person whose
womb you came out of, and like the person they loved.
     Aunt Alexandra liked to spoil Meredith.  Aunt Alexandra was in
college, getting a Master's in psychology but when she came home she
would take Meredith to the Mall in Alexandria and spend lots of
money on her.  Momma pretended to get upset, but wasn't.  Daddy
didn't even pretend to get upset, just admired all of Meredith's new
outfits and laughed at the gag gifts Meredith and Aunt Alexandra
bought Momma and Daddy.
     But now Agent Mulder and Agent Scully were here.

     She told them about how she wasn't allowed to go to school for a
while.  But it was pretty cool because Uncle Kenny or Mr. Grant, one
of the detectives, took her out to eat at a fast food restaurant for lunch.
     "It's cold in Nebraska."  She finished.
     The agents exchanged looks, Agent Mulder shrugged.  "Yeah. But
it'll get colder."
     "Mhm."  Meri smiled.  "Did you get my message?"
     "Message?  No.  Did you send me one?"
     "Last night.  Late.  I wanted to tell you about Preacher.  I didn't
know you were already coming."
     The two agents exchanged another look.
     "How did you send your message?"  Mulder asked.
     Meri frowned.  "Special way."  She said.  "I've never done it
before.  The books say it's ESP.  Daddy thinks ESP is horse hooey,
which is a nice way of saying horse poop."  She decided not to
mention knowing Agent Mulder's dreams.
     Another look.  Agent Mulder fingered a bandage on his forehead.
"I got it."  He said.  "But I couldn't hear what you were saying."
     "It was about Preacher."
     "The one who taught you."
     "Mhm."  Meri bit her bottom lip.  "I don't understand.  But I think
Preacher's the reason I see the Murders."
     "What can you tell us about Preacher?"  Mulder asked.
     Meri frowned, bit her bottom  "My daddy has a picture of him in a
photo album.  I found it last year when I had the flu.  He was really
nice.  He taught me how to read and how to write.  He taught me
about manners and lots of games.  He had a big orange cat
named Ba'ar."

     "There he is."  Meredith pointed to the photo of three men sitting
around a small table, eating ice cream..  "That's him."
     Reverend Aimes pushed up his reading glasses, stared at the photo,
glanced around his church office nervously.
     "Meri, why don't you and Agent Scully go outside." Mulder
suggested.
     "You can show me the church."  Scully suggested, taking
Meredith's hand.
     "Can you tell me who this is?"  Mulder asked, when they were
gone.
     "That's a distant cousin.  He was a minister in Mississipi, Jim
Kelly, we grew up together, real close friends.  This was taken before
Meri was born, in Glorieta, a Baptist conference center. Before Meri
was born, Ellen and I went every year. We'd plan it out so that
Kelly would be there at the same time. Then we'd all go up to
Colorado for a week."
     "Did Reverend Kelly ever have a Cat named Ba'ar?"  Mulder
asked.
     "Yeah.  He used to smuggle Ba'ar into hotel rooms; cat went
everywhere with him."
     "Where is Reverend Kelly now?"
     "Umm. . .about seven years ago he was killed in an auto accident.
Ba'ar too."  Aimes frowned.  "That's when we stopped going to
Glorieta.  There were too many ghosts."
     Mulder nodded, glanced down at the first page of Meredith's
notes.  "This is from your daugther's notebook.  Does this describe
any church Reverend Kelly pastored?"
     Aimes took the highlighted material, read it.  "This is Kelly's last
church."  He said, surprised.  "It's a really nice church.  He was
full-time, not bivocational."

     Going back to their hotel, Mulder and Scully discovered that the
media knew that the FBI had gotten psychic help, that the psychic was
a child, and that there were 29 murders.
     So much Mulder and Scully watched on CNN before going to
lunch.  Bernard Shaw reporting.
     "At least they don't know who she is or where."  Mulder
commented wrily as an FBI spokesperson dedicated to not saying
anything, appeared on the screen.  He was part of the "official"
taskforce.
     "They will."  Scully replied reading through their messages. "Have
you tried to use your cellular?"
     "Nope."
     "Well, apparently there isn't any cellular coverage in DeMarr
Louisiana."  Scully held up three notes.  "What do you want to bet
that we're supposed to get Meredith Aimes and her family under
Federal Protection before Ted Turner's hounds find her?"
     Mulder took the pink notes, frowning.  "Wonderful."
     Scully sighed, picked up the phone, called D.C..
     "I'm going over to my room to change."  Mulder said.
     Scully nodded.
     He came back before her call had gone through.  "That can wait.
Come over here."  He ordered, face pale.  Scully hung up the phone,
followed him out.
     Scully wrinkled her nose at the stench.  Mulder stood just inside
the door.  Blood, urine and feces covered the walls, the floor, the bed,
the furniture.  Obscene words had been scrawled in blood and feces on
the mirror.  The television had been smashed as had the toilet, to judge
from the water spilling onto the floor. Mulder's files had been strewn
about the long lowboy and shredded, then covered in blood and urine,
his clothes covered in feces. His laptop lay in several violent pieces on
the floor.
     "They know we're here."  He said unnessesarily.
     "They probably know where Meri is."  Scully added.
     They left the room before either agent could follow through on the
stomach's command to vomit.
     Scully called Sheriff Aimes from her hotel phone, described the
scene, then called D.C..

     They sat in the Best Western's restaurant as darkness began
cloaking the world of DeMarr Louisiana in her soft blues.
     Agents Mahoney and Greer from the New Orleans office sat with
them.  Mulder was tired.  He wanted to curl up on his couch at home
and watch a really bad horror flick.  Meredith was somewhere else, a
safe house Mulder supposed, though he didn't know where right now
and really didn't care.
     Scully watched him, concerned.  She was of the same two minds as
the FBI was.  They were in danger and needed to be taken off the
case.  But Mulder's work had made more headway into this case than
the work of all the other agents combined and the public was
demanding a solution to the case.  Janet Reno was promising a
solution to this case.  So Mahoney and Greer had been sent up.  In the
morning the pair would be replaced by two other special agents who
would, essentially, babysit.
     Mahoney and Mulder had gone to a J.C. Penny's and bought
Mulder some other clothes.  He sat in new Levi's and a rugby shirt,
new hiking boots.  She knew that in deference to her sex no one would
try to stay in the room with her.  Mulder she wasn't so sure about.
His room, his things had been targeted.
     "They're not going to try to kill me."  Mulder said for quite
possibly the twelth time.  The waitress brought their orders out,
glanced nervously out the window at their motel room now festooned
with yellow police tape.
     Scully frowned at her broiled chicken and baked potato, tried to
eat.
     Mulder didn't even glance at his hamburger, but sat thinking.
     "Eat."  Scully told him after a couple of minutes.
     "Hmm?"  Mulder looked at her surprised.
     "Eat something."
     "Oh."  Mulder glanced down the table at Greer who was busy with
a Rueban.
     "Hand me the ketchup."  He asked Mahoney.
     Mulder covered his fries, stared at the ketchup, lost again in his
thoughts.
     "You haven't been without sleep long enough to get this spacy."
Scully said, swallowing a bite of potato.
     Mulder looked up, played back her comment mentally and then
smiled.  "No.  Maybe not.  I'm just. . .Meredith's birth mother is in
school down in Baton Rouge?"
     "Mhm.  She's taking graduate courses in psychology and teaching
high school English."  Scully replied.
     "But she lived in DeMarr when Meredith was concieved."
     "I guess so."
     "You know, when I was growing up the minister of our church asked
friends of his to preach our revivals."
     Scully's eyes narrowed as she caught his train of thought. "Are
you suggesting that Kelly was Meredith's father?"  She asked.
     Mulder shrugged.  "Was Kelly ever married?"
     "I don't know."
     "I think I want to talk to her."

     Mulder talked the other two agents into driving them down to
Baton Rouge that night.  Scully was against the idea whole heartedly,
but decided not to argue too strenously.  They rode in the back of the
agency Taurus.  Greer and Mahoney talked with each other about
Louisiana problems, riverboat gambling and how financial support for
state colleges and universities was drying up.
     "If you start having a nightmare" Scully told Mulder softly "I'm
drugging you immediately."
     Mulder considered this and nodded.  It would be best if the agency
didn't have to get involved with his emotional problems, at least not
right now.  It would just be SOP to remove Mulder from the case and
put him on extended leave.  There would be no argument, no appeal
no matter what the reason.
     Mulder settled back in the dark.  Scully did not have to see him to
know he was thinking, mulling things over in his mind.  She thought
back to a professor she'd once had in Med School, she forgot the
class; the professor had come in one day on a rampage about
something, about some incident that had nothing to do with the
course and proceded to give them a lecture on Post Traumatic Stress.
     "A survivor of extraordinary stressors suffers because he behaves
normally to an abnormal event.  The stressful event imprints a mind
hard"  the professor slapped his lectern sending a rousounding pound
through the hall "deeply, so deeply that all behavior from that point on
relates to the experience.   When a person has had such an experience
all thoughts lead back to that one event. All thoughts."  He had paused
for thought.
     "When the indivdual ties his shoes, his mind is wondering, did I tie
my shoes before?  Is that what lead to it happening?  When he orders
the veal instead of the chicken his mind is wondering, was it the veal
last time?  Did I order veal sometime before it happened?  Should I
order chicken?
     "The mind will avoid that horrible incident if it can in any way, so
the mind is constantly challenging any new experience for similarities.
It doesn't want to ever, ever, ever let anything like that happen to it
again.
       "If similarities between the stressor and a current happening are
found the survivor reacts strongly.  Chemically, there are differences
between someone with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and someone
without the syndrome, which indicates that the incident has been
imprinted.  Indicates that the person is obsessive because they cannot
stop being obsessive.
     "You've all seen a movie where a Vietnam vet has bad dreams.
Well, hell yeah.  If every thought that ran through your brain went
back to one horrific event you'd wake up in the cold sweats too." The
professor had paused, thought, gotten to whatever was bothing
him most.
     "When someone like this comes into an emergency room or walks
into your office don't patronize, don't judge.  *THEY DO NOT
HAVE A CHOICE.*  They're stuck with the constant thinking.  The
best you can do is try to help."
     The lecture had remained with Scully.  Dealing with Mulder you
had to remember that.  All his thoughts led back to Samantha.  He
hadn't said her name this entire case, but Scully knew that dealing with
the murders of children the same age as Samantha, dealing with
a child Samantha's age who bore a resemblance to the child in
Mulder's photographs, must be hell.
     All right.  This was not Dream Anxiety.  This was not Sleep
Terror.  Were these, as Mulder assumed, severe flashbacks?  She
moaned.  Not her speciality.
     Mulder was quiet, ruminating.  Scully knew better than to try and
draw him out. They were on I-49 when he surprised her by speaking.
"I'm beginning to understand our Coven."  He told Scully.  "I don't
know why they're doing this, but I'm beginning to understand some
of their procedures."  In the darkness Scully could see him wipe his
face with his hands.  He would need to buy toiletries in Baton
Rouge, as well as more clothes, she thought inanely, giving him a
kleenex.  He hadn't bought any hankerchiefs. "They scare me."
     Scully tried to make out Mulder's features, but they were hidden.
     "They're not doing this from deluded notions.  They have a plan.
They have money.  They have anonymity.  I think we're dealing with
twelve professionals.  They've been drawn together for a purpose.
They have a recognized leader.
     "Do you believe in Satan?"
     "As a being?  I believe Evil exists.  I believe Good exists. But not
a fallen angel named Satan."
     "What about Demons?"
     "A couple of years ago I would have said no."
     "Now?"
     "Now I don't recognize them as part of my belief system. That's
all I'll commit to."
     She could feel Mulder's smile through the darkness.
     "I don't."  Mulder replied.  "But I'm beginning to wonder.  If you
look at the ideas behind most theological descriptions of evil, it
reduces to this--the purpose of evil is to defile good as much as is
possible.  Evil can only gain power through the plundering of
the natural power of Good.  That's what the whole mythos of Satan
being a fallen angel is about and that's why most cultures have a fallen
angel myth."
     "All right."  Scully could almost agree to that.
     "Meredith is a catalyst.  She has a great deal of power.  She told
me Preacher was sent to her to teach her how to connect with the
outside world.  This was during the periods when she was classified
autistic and schizophrenic.  He was gentle and loving and a perfect
mentor.  His going away coincided not only with the start of the
murders, but also with the time period when most of Meredith's true
problems ended.  What's going on now is Post Traumatic Stress.
     "All right."  Scully could understand that they were on Mulder's
mental highway, but could not make out where he was headed.
"What if the thirteenth is supposed to be Meredith?"
     Scully frowned.  "They're trying to take over Meredith?"
     "No.  Nothing so gothic.  Just keep her from becoming whatever it
is she has the potential to become.  The forces of good have invested a
lot in her--parents firmly committed to raising her well, even though it
appears she will have limited abilites, a second ghost father who
counsels her.  A peaceful envirament.  Meredith has great power.
If they can take even little bits of it they can use it to their own ends.
Plunder."   The last word sounded obscene.
     Scully nodded.
     "Of course, it's just a theory."  Mulder finished. He leaned
towards Scully.  "Give me some of that Ativan."  He said softly.
     "No water."
     "I don't care."
     Scully took the small bottle out of her purse, handed him a couple
of 2 mg. pentagonal pills.  Great shape to put them in guys. She
thought as he took it without water, swallowed it dry. Like we need
any more dealings with pentagonal shapes: military, magical, or
medicinal.  Scully watched as he closed his eyes, crashed against the
seat, legs eventually moving and taking over her foot space.

     She caught Greer's eye in Opelousas.
     "I see why they call him Spooky."  Greer said.  "And I don't mean
it in a bad way."
     Scully smiled, glanced at her sleeping partner.  "Imagine being his
partner."  She replied wryly.
     They were put up at the Hilton.   Mulder roused druggedly.  He
was lucid, but stumbly.  It looked as though he'd gone too long
without sleep.  At least Scully hoped it looked that way as she let
Greer and Mahoney check them into rooms.  Mulder didn't have any
bags--his one surviving suit, the one he'd been wearing, was tucked in
among Scully's hang ups.  He fell into a bed the moment the bellboy
left.  Greer had a room next door to Mulder's room. Mahoney was
across the hall and Scully's room connected with a door to Mulder's.
Mahoney was going to take this room but she intervened.
     "No.  We're not sleeping together."  Scully took the key from
Mahoney's hand with an ironic smile.  "But unless you want Mulder
waking you from a sound sleep with a new theory on UFO's at
Roswell I wouldn't reccomend letting him have full access to your
room."
     "He does that?"  Mahoney asked.
     Mulder smiled, yawned from the bed.  "No.  Usually it's a new
theory on Genetic Mutations among FBI agents.  I'm of the theory that
they're injecting us with DNA from J. Edgar Hoover and that's why I
have this sudden attraction to feather boas and high heels.  Scully
believes it's from Eliot Ness and that's why she keeps wanting to
carry a bigger gun."
     Mahoney and Greer smiled nervously.
     "Mulder." Scully said, shaking her head.
     "Hmm?"
     "Get to sleep before someone takes you away to a padded room."
     "Yes ma'am."

     She curled up on Mulder's couch after taking a shower,
comfortable in warm-ups, pulled out paperwork, but it was only for
show.  She glanced through some files, then pulled a blanket over her
shoulders and curled up like a cat.

     He was crying, softly.  Scully woke, sat up, grabbed for the
Nembutal.
     The bathroom light was still on and she made her way to his bed
guided by this.  She shook him gently.  He rolled over, stared up, at
her, then past her.
     "Come on.  Wake up."  She said gently.
     Mulder woke but did not sit up.  He continued crying.  "You're
not dead."  He repeated over and over again.
     "No."  Scully replied every time he said his rote phrase.
     "But Sam is?" He finally asked.
     "Sam is still gone."
     Mulder nodded, swallowed, burst into sobs.  "I dreamt you were
dead."
     "I know.  It's all right."
     "No.  I. . ."  Mulder trailed, but his crying lessened.  He touched
her hand, as if to assure himself that she were real.
     "Was Sam really abducted by Them?"  He asked.
     Scully gently put a hand to Mulder's face.  "I don't know." She
said simply.  "Possibly."
     "There were voices."
     "I know."
     "I heard the voices again once."
     "Oh?"  Scully kept her voice gentle and soft.
     "In Puerto Rico."
     "What did they say?"
     "Not to be afraid.  But I was.  I don't remember anything else."
     Scully nodded.  This didn't surprise her any.  "Are you going to
be able to go to sleep?"
     Mulder nodded.
     "Do you want any more Ativan?"
     "I. . ."  He paused.  "Yes."
     She nodded, got up and got another pill, filled a glass with water
from the sink.
     "Here."
     Mulder took the pill, held the water glass himself.
     Scully tucked him back in, relieved.  There were no dream terrors
this evening.  Just ordinary nightmares.

     Alexandra Breaux was animated when she described Meredith.
Alexandra reminded Mulder of her daughter.  Small and delicate, but
alive with vibrancy.  The same deep-set, moonstruck eyes, the same
dark, curling hair.
     He let Scully do the interviewing, sat back on the woman's
comfortable Ethan Allen couch and listened.  Scully led Alexandra
through basic questions about Meredith.  Finally, she dropped the
bombshell.
     "Who was Meredith's father?"
     Alexandra faltered.  "I thought that you knew.  I was date raped.
No way to make a case, so I never reported it."
     Mulder leaned forward then.  "The father was Jim Kelly.  You met
him during a revival."
     Alexandra's eyes opened, she sat a moment, speechless.
     "We don't want to embarrass anyone.  We aren't going to spread
this around.  There's no reason the Aimes even have to know."
     "I. . ."  Alexandra shut her eyes.  "Who told you?"
     "No one."  Scully replied.  "It was a wild guess."
     Alexandra leaned back in her wing chair, composure lost.  "I really
loved him.  He never knew about Meredith.  I had just found out I
was pregnant when he was killed.  I thought about an abortion, but I
couldn't.  I actually made an appointment, but I couldn't go through
with it.
     "So I made up a story and went to the Aimes.  Kelly and Robin
were best friends.  I knew Ellen couldn't have children, I thought it
would be right for them to raise the child."  Alexandra sighed, closed
her eyes, began crying softly.
     "Kelly's wife died of leukemia when he was in seminary and he
never remarried.  He. . .we met when he came to DeMarr for a
revival and we just. . .fell in love. I know how silly that sounds, but it
was true.  We went back and forth between DeMarr and Lysander for
about eight months.  He was going to marry me.  He gave me this."
Alexandra touched a large cameo, in an ornate gold setting, pinned to
her blouse.
     "It's nineteenth century, hand carved, of neptune's daughter. We
went to the beach just before he died.  That's where Meredith was
concieved--at the beach, in this nasty little cabin.  There were
supposed to be two cabins, but the dumb owner. . ."  Alexandra
shrugged miserably.  "He gave it to me on the beach. No one knew
we were in love.  It was like this big bad secret because he wasn't sure
how his church would react--I mean most of the unmarried women in
his churches were hot after him, so he like was introducing me to
people as the `dear friend' of his best friends, the Aimes's. To get
everybody used to me."  She shrugged.
     "Meredith is just like him.  Sweet and gentle.  She even talks like
him--uses Kelly's expressions.  She likes the same kinds of jokes.  I
spoil her outrageously when I get up to DeMarr." Alexandra caressed
the Cameo.  "I've always meant to tell them who Meredith is.  But. . .
I just haven't had the courage.  Why is this important?  I know
Meredith is the psychic in the Church Murders--Ellen called me so I
wouldn't be worried.  What does it have to do with Kelly?"
     Mulder smiled easily.  "We believe one of the first  murders may
have taken place in Kelly's old church.  If so it would be one of the
few connections we have in this case."
     Alexandra nodded dumbly, lost in her own private thoughts.
     "Thank you for being honest."  Scully told the woman gently.
     "No.  It's all right.  I. . .what matters is Meri.  Not my pride.  Did
anyone tell you that Kelly's ghost has been seen in Lysander First
Baptist?  His old church?"
     Scully and Mulder exchanged uneasy looks.  "No."  Scully said.
     "I've only heard rumours. But for about. . .Oh I don't know, three
or four years people used to say they saw him and his cat, Ba'ar.  It
stopped maybe two years ago.  They say they hear children screaming
there at night now."  Alexandra shrugged.  "But you know how
people are."

~~~

Greer and Mahoney were replaced at lunch with Turner and Keyes,
both of whom looked extremely disappointed to be brought in for the
express purpose of babysitting the pariah.
     Both had been briefed on the case.  "Just don't get in my way."
Mulder said after an uncomfortable meal.  "Don't interfere with our
investigation.  The agency sent you here to keep me from getting
killed.  Not to do my work."  He paced the floor of his hotel room.
"We're going to Lysander, Mississipi today.  Commuter plane from
Baton Rouge to Natchez, then take a car."
     "The place they found the latest body." Keyes said.
     "Actually it was the first murder, but our latest find." Scully
replied.
     "From the kid's notebooks?"
     "Yes."  Mulder did not elaborate.  Scully could see the signs now,
things that pissed most other FBI agents.  He was getting high, that
was all, but he would be terse and sardonic with everyone else in the
Bureau from now until the time he finished this case.  He didn't act
that way with Scully because he knew what side she was on.  He knew
he could trust her.
     Briefly Mulder filled the pair in on his current working theory
about why the murders were occuring.  He expected ridicule and in
most situations would have gotten it.  No doubt when Keyes and
Turner were alone together they would ridicule Mulder and their
reports would echo this, but for right now Mulder was the senior
agent: it was his show.
     "We need to go shopping right now."  He told the pair.  "I don't
have any other clothes."
     Scully silently gave thanks for her mother who had fed-exed her
four more suits, otherwise she would be in Mulder's boat--she had not
planned to be in the field this long.

     "How do you work with him?"  Turner asked as Scully perused the
limited book and magazine selection of the Hilton gift shop.
     "Hmm?"  Scully picked up TIME and Newsweek, Life, Discover
and on impulse the New Orleans Picayune newspaper.  She planned to
take a long soak in a hot tub and read until they went to the airport.
     "I mean, he's so. . .weird."
     Scully smiled as she put her purchases down on the counter, and
added a pack of gum, breath mints and a candy bar to the stack.
"Don't forget I was abducted for a month and have no memory of the
encounter."  She said wickedly.
     "But you don't believe in UFO's or Little Green Men."
     "Who do you think abducted me?  They and secret governmental
forces."  She tried to keep from smiling and did not succeed.
     "Oh, ha-ha."  Turner replied.
     "No, really.  I had an alien baby while I was gone.  It was Elvis's
love child."

     It was funny to read about yourself in the newspaper.  Of course
they never gave any names.  But the story kept coming back to "a pair
of dedicated FBI agents, including the FBI's expert on Satanic rituals,
who found the psychic lead and have identified several locations where
murders have taken place."
     The media would get their names eventually.  Scully could just see
a movie about their `quest to find the horrific Coven Murderes'.
Maybe they would get Jody Foster to play her.  She sank down into
the steamy water and let it immerse her to the very tip
of her nose.  She would never get a life at this rate.
     She sat back up, embarrassed at her thoughts, then shrugged. At
some point you had to stop thinking of everything seriously. Just for a
while.  Otherwise, one day, they found you with the back of your
head blown out.

     Lysander wasn't a bad little town.  They were used to nice little
towns.  Except they got to see the bad things, the bottoms where the
worms and bugs hid.   When they drove up the church was empty.
No reporters, no parishoners.  The minister let them in and
Scully got rid of their two bodyguards by foisting the minister off on
them.  Mulder went into the auditorium and sat in the back.
     "It all started here."  He said softly as Scully sat beside him.
     Scully nodded.  Mulder pulled out Scully's copy of Meredith's
notes.  They were minus some notations of course, but still useful.
     "A murder.  I sat in the back.  They put down plastic, like painters
use.  They had a boy tied to a table.  The man cut him. There was
blood everywhere.  In Preacher's church.  There are long stained glass
windows of Jesus dying.  The organ has pipes.  The carpet is dark blue.
The pews are light.  The piano is a white baby grand.  The leader told
them what to do.  He sat two rows ahead.  He looked at me.  He did
not say anything to me."
     Mulder sighed, wrapped his arms around his chest.  "They know."
     "Know what?"
     "They know Meredith is there.  They know she's watching.  They
want her to watch.  Or he does at any rate."
     "Their leader?"
     "Yes."  Mulder hit the pew with an open palm.  "Why are they
keeping me alive?  I'm getting too close."  He put his fingertips to his
mouth, thinking.  "They know that tossing blood in my face, trashing
my hotel room, they know that those things won't scare me,
won't dissuade me.  It's. . ."  He groped for a word.  "It's just a
smoke screen."
     "For what?"  Scully asked.
     Mulder shook his head.  "I don't know.  I don't know."

     Mulder was moody and withdrawn the rest of the day.  He didn't
order any supper, only drank coffee.  They all had seperate rooms.
Scully had to wait until eleven to slip over to Mulder's room.  She felt
vaguely embarressed, sitting on Mulder's bed, flipping through
the television channels, waiting for him to come out of the bathroom.
     When he did emerge he was draped only in a towel.  Scully didn't
know what brought on the foul mood, but ignored him until he had put
on a pair of boxers and spoke to her.
     "I'll be all right tonight."  He said.
     Scully snorted in disbelief.  "You'll all right yourself into a psych
ward."  She replied.
     "I'm not going to bed tonight anyway."
     "So you're going to obsess about why you haven't been killed?"
Scully stopped herself suddenly. She was getting catty.  Just because
Mulder was argumentative that was no reason for her to arch her back
and hiss.   She took a deep breath.  "There's nothing new
in this case for you to read up on or write a field report over."
     "I know why now."
     "Yes, but at this point anyone reading that report would dismiss
your thinking as paranoid and unfounded because you've been
threatened recently.  I know you're dedicated to the truth, but at this
point, you shouldn't do anything to jeopordize your standing on this
case."
     "I still have to do the profile of the coven and the leader." Mulder
shrugged.  "I might as well get it over with."
     Scully sighed.  "If you decided to kick back and watch t.v. or if
you get stumped you'll come to my room and wake me."  It was not a
plea.  It was a demand.  Mulder nodded.
     "As long as you'll give up your powerbook."
     "Sure."  Scully led him out.

     . . .The leader of this "coven" is a white male, between the ages of
30-50.  His I.Q. is at least above the third Standard Deviation.  He has,
at minumum ,a master's degree from a prominent university.  I suspect
multiple degrees.  The main focus of his training has been philosophic
or theologic. . .
     . . .It is obvious that this person possesses a good deal of money.
I doubt this fortune was amassed by the indivdual, nor is he of the
"nouveau riche" class.  He is comfortable with his wealth and not
given to excesses of taste.
     He is also a neat individual and a compulsive planner.  The
churches have all been chosen with regards to location, ease of
entrance, and possibility of being seen, as well as speed in returning
all church furniture to exact original placement: for this reason he
favors evangelical churches.  Every detail has been taken care of.  . .
     . . .He is a charasmatic individual and has no history of psychiatric
difficulty nor has he ever been accused of breaking a law. . .
     . . .The "coven" under their leader's tuteledge will consist mainly
of caucasians.  They will possess either a minimal or no religous
background and training. Several may be avowed athesits.  Ages will
vary, and members will be both male and female.
     I.Q.'s will fall somewhere in the upper 2nd Standard Deviation. For
the most part they will have some college, a few completing a B.A.
degree at a local university or college.   The coven members will not
have accomplished as much as they believed they were capable of
before "working" for their leader.
     They are not anti-social in any way, but have instead been carefully
trained and desensitized.  Their thinking will be highly similar to that
of the German guards who served in death camps. . .
     . . .They are well-paid and comfortable with the amount of money
they make.  They know enough of their leader's plan to make
competent self-justifications for their work possible but do not know
all the details, nor will they question his leadership. . .
     . . .None will have a criminal or psychiatric record and will have
been judged by their families, past friends, and past co-workers as
well-adjusted people. . .

     Mulder was sending his profile over the phone line when Scully
came over, ready for another day of life on the road.  He looked up at
her from the door, went for his watch.  "Damn.  I got to working."
He said, racing to a Goudcheaux's hang-up bag for a new suit.
"Profile's done."  He told her, getting a towel.
     Scully nodded, sitting down on the couch, in front of her
computer.  "Good morning to you too."  She said under her breath,
waiting for her chance to read his analysis.
     "You don't mention occult powers or Meredith Aimes."  She
commented when he emerged from the bathroom, buttoning his shirt.
     "That's not part of a profile."  Mulder replied.  "It's in my field
reports."
     Scully nodded.  "You don't give any clues about how to catch
them either."
     "Well."  Mulder tucked his shirt in, buttoned the top button of his
pants, sat beside her on the couch to put his shoes and socks on.  "I
can't very well tell them how to catch the murderers when I don't
know that myself, now can I?"
     Scully peered at Mulder through her reading glasses.  "You don't
know?"
     Mulder focused on tying his shoes.
     "You have an idea."  Scully sighed with exasperation.  "What's
going on in your skull, Mulder?"
     Mulder looked up at a non-descript pastel print hanging on the wall
above his bed.  "I think it's time to head back to Washington.  We
won't learn anything new from chasing around to new sites.  And as
much as I hate to say it, we can't do anything else for another week
and a half.  Do you know where Meredith is?"
     "They're putting them up in Lafayette."
     Mulder nodded.  "I need to talk to her, but not for another couple
of days."
     "Why?"
     Mulder rubbed his face.  "I think that if Meredith tells the the
leader something--if she makes a demand--he'll have to give an
answer."
     Scully nodded.
     "Also, I need to get back."  He smiled crookedly.
     "What are you going to do?"
     "I don't know.  What should I do?  I have to go to an FBI
psychiatrist, not a private shrink, because. . .well, as much as I hate to
admit it, this relates directly to my performance.  I think we need to
rehearse our stories, minimize the damage to our service records."
     Scully nodded.
     "Tell them that you had no reason to worry until this trip.  Then
you argued with me, thinking it would be much more theraputic for
me to go voluntarily.  Also you were blinded by your devotion to
justice.  You knew I was the best agent for the job. Now
clinically the syndrome I'm suffering from is closer to Night Terrors
than nightmares."
     "I know that, but sufferers usually have no cognition of any
dreams.  Later on, you do remember your dreams."  Scully replied.
     Mulder grimmaced and shrugged.  "Atypical pattern, obviously not
Sleep terrors.  We've been calling them nightmares." He closed his
eyes and rubbed them tiredly.  "All right you discovered my dreams
were causing such distress *on this trip*." He emphasized.
"No evidence before that." Mulder shifted on the couch.  "My butt
and my shoulder are still sore, by the way."
     Scully smiled.  "What are you going to tell them?"
     "I'm having nightmares.  When I wake I experience intense,
extended flashbacks."
     Scully nodded.  "What do you think they'll do?"
     "Skinner will call us into his office and act terribly worried.  He'll
rant and rave about Agent safety and tell you that you acted
irresponsibility but that he understands how you got carried away and
he's letting you off with an informal warning--nothing in your jacket.
In normal times he'd make me take an extended psychiatric leave and
my career-what's left of it--would effectively be over."
     "But now?"
     "He needs me too much."  Mulder stood, went for a tie.  "He'll
tell me I have to attend mandatory therapy and take my medication like
a good little nutcase.  If they want to hospitalize, he'll make them wait
to make that recomendation until after I've outlived my usefulness on
this case."
     "If you get better?"
     "Then I'll have a notation about being in therapy."  Mulder
shrugged.  "So?  I have three such notations already.  Some people
consider it part of the `Spooky' Mystique."
     "I'll make the call for you."  Scully said.  "I can get you in to see
Stephanie Richards."
     "You know her?"
     "Vaguely.  I carpooled with her to a symposium once."

     The next morning in DC they met with the other agents assigned to
the case.  Everyone had read Mulder's profile, everyone agreed it was
impressive.  There were no snide comments about "Spooky" Mulder.
     ". . .But we still don't have a motive strong enough to fit your
profile, even accepting all these New-Age Ideas."  Agent Barnes,
who'd made the first connection between a murder and a church,
spoke up.
     Mulder nodded.  "I don't know."  He replied.  "As my profile and
field reports state, this man is not your usual nut-variety Satanist.  If
he does consider himself a Satanist--which I doubt highly--he won't
even have read books such as the Satanic Bible."  Mulder rubbed the
back of his neck. "He's more versed in Cabbalistic theories, in
Medival Alchemy, the worship of Bahomet and other dieties secretly
worshipped by Europeans in the middle ages.  Hell, he could even
have knowledge of Eastern black magic stories and AmerInd sorcery.
And what he knows he won't follow, not in such an easy straight line
that we'll be able to pick it up. So I don't know.  His thinking is his
own."
     "But the killings in the churches are highly symbolic in a traditional
way."
     "Are they?"  Mulder yawned.  "If you accept that he has some sort
of control over Meredith, then he kills in churches because Meredith
associates Churches with power.  She's a minister's daughter and the
Church is the holy place--especially a Baptist church or some close
variant, which is where most of the murders have taken place.   If she
were a druid's daughter he'd kill out in the woods.  If she'd been
taught to worship Coca-Cola, then the murders would take place in
bottling plants.  Besides, the church is where she was taught by
Preacher."
     "Is there anyway that we can figure out this man's thinking any
better?"  This from Task Force leader Aarons.
     Mulder shrugged.  "If I had gotten a PhD in Comparative Religon
as well as my PhD in Psychology, we *might* be able to find part of
his pattern of thinking.  You could run a detailed description of the
slayings, along with photos and diagrams of locations to someone
whose lifework has been Medival Mysticism. There are several good
people in Italy.  If that's even where he's gotten his ideas about power
from. If it isn't, you could send your materials to whomever's tops on
Black Magic in Non-traditional American Folklore and see.  It's really
a stab in the dark.  I'm guessing Mediveal mysticism, because of what
I know of his heritage and because of the secondary evidence.
     "Look, as I've said before.  We're not dealing with a mainstream
nut."  Mulder closed his eyes. "This man has too much education and
is too intelligent.  His experiences are from vicarious sources--books,
manuscripts--his behavior patterns are not easily revealed."
     "So there's no way to know?  I find that hard to believe."
     "You mentioned secondary evidence as your best idea that he is at
least partially following European tradition."
     Mulder paused, let the first question drop, addressed the second
speaker.  "The sacrifice of taking a heart from a still living victim can
be traced to almost any culture.  But the number of initiates indicates
European origins."  He wondered if these people had brains.  They'd
completely missed Meredith.  Any high school kid could tell you about
the number required for a coven. He was conscious of Scully beside
him, willing him to act decently.  He wasn't the wunderkind anymore.
He had to play nice.  Yeah, right.   "Besides, the spot is a rather sick
joke."  He smiled, striving for a light touch.
     Their blank faces annoyed him.  "If your brand of religon has a
Communion table read the titling on the table next time you're at
worship and the minister's getting boring."  He said.  "`This do in
Rembrance of Me'."
 

     Richards nodded as Scully finished her description of Mulder's
behavior.  Scully did not mention the incident in the bathroom.
Richards's face had creased in worry the further Scully went into her
description.
     Richards was an older woman.  Rumor had it that she had been a
housewife until 38 when her doctor husband dumped her for a twenty
something nurse with big tits.  Usually Richards did not look as
though her life had been anything but happy, but right now
Scully could see the lines from sadness.  Familiar lines, accustomed to
appearing on her face.
     "When did this start?"  Richards asked Mulder.
     "I don't . . .Maybe two months ago."
     "You weren't worried?"
     "I've been living with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder all my adult
life.  Some times are better than others."
     Richards nodded, closed her eyes, and massaged the bridge of her
nose before speaking.  "Has Agent Mulder ever tried to harm himself?"
She asked Scully.
     "No.  Not to my knowledge."
     "Is he able to care for himself at other times?"
     "Yes.  There's no question of that."
     "What about his moods, is he acting normally?  Is he excessively
moody?"
     "Mulder is always moody on a case.  I don't know."
     Richards took a deep breath, exhaled.  "Let's lay our cards on the
table."  She said.  "Clinically, I'm keeping the diagnosis of PTSD as
the primary diagnosis.  I'm adding a diagnosis of My gut instinct is
hospitalization, but I have been told that is not an option unless you
are, in fact, hurting yourself or completely unable to care for yourself-
-guidelines for immediate involuntary in other words."
     "My choices are limited. You need to talk to someone, probably
two times a week minimum.  I'll get that set up, but you're still jetting
around the country, so you'll have a hard time seeing a therapist."
She took a deep breath.  "And as for drugs. I don't know."  She
looked at Scully directly.  "What good does that Ativan seem to do?"
     "It makes it easier for Mulder to sleep.  But other than that, I don't
know."
     "My first thought was Imiprimine, because that seems to reduce
panic attacks during sleep, and has been recognized as having
beneficial effects on persons with PTSD, but I don't think it will help a
great deal, not if the dreams are as bad as you say, and also the time it
takes for the drug to be effective isn't. . .well, it takes longer than I
can afford, what with your superiors breathing down my neck."
     "Listen, what if I continue to moniter his behavior?"  Scully cut in.
     "It's not your purview.  I can't ask you to. . ."
     "You're not asking me.  I've been taking care of Mulder for seven
days now.  What if we start on imipramine combined with injections
of Nembutal when nessessary after psychotic dreaming episodes?  He
can sleep on my couch, where he slept last night.  I know that in
clinical studies the MAO inhibitors and tricylics have taken around
eight weeks to show significant effect, but at least it might help
eventually, and isn't that what we're really after, bosses or no bosses?"
     Richards's next question was unexpected.  "Agent Scully, are you
having sex with your partner?"
     "No."  Scully replied, tired of the assumption that caring for a
person of the opposite sex meant that intercourse must be taking place.
There were many partnerships in the FBI that involved a man and a
woman.  Was theirs the only one where she had to combat a
constant assumption that they were involved sexually, breaking a huge
taboo?  No one assumed two male partners were having sex, even if
they didn't have steady girlfriends or didn't go tomcatting around.
     Richards stared at Scully a moment.  "All right.  Along with
intensive therapy.  Since Dr. Scully's willing to live with you and deal
with your terrors."

     Skinner behaved on cue.  He ranted and raved, expressed
disappointment, and showed sympathy.  He did not take Mulder off
the case.  No disciplinary action or reprimand was given.  As long as
Mulder followed the recommendation of his primary therapist he
would be given leeway.
     "How are you planning to catch them?"  Skinner asked, having
dispensed with the meat of their conference.
     "Sir?"  Mulder questioned, giving Skinner a wide-eyed look.
     Skinner took off his glasses and stared at Mulder.  "I know you
have an idea.  You always have an idea.  That's why people are scared
of you, Agent Mulder."
     Mulder considered playing dumb, glanced at Scully and decided
against it.  "Meredith Aimes is going to make them tell her."
     "Your psychic?"  Skinner replied.
     "Yes sir."

     Scully moaned in ecstasy as she took her first bite of deep dish
supreme gourmet pizza from Tony's.  Mulder grinned at her reaction.
     "The last time I had pizza. . ." Scully defended herself when she
could talk "was two months ago and it was horrible.  Now shut up or
I'll sedate you."
     "I didn't say anything."  Mulder protested, taking a sip of diet
coke, wishing for beer--Scully's veto, even though a "moderate"
amount of alcohol is "permissable" for someone on tricylics.
     Scully decided to ignore her partner and concentrate on the pizza.
The last time she'd indulged, she'd rented *Gaslight* and ordered
pizza, planning to have a cozy evening at home, but the pizza could
have been put to better use as a manhole cover and *Gaslight* had
broken just as Ingrid Bergman was about to discover that her husband
was trying to drive her crazy.  Scully remembered the next morning
Mulder had drug in looking miserable.
     She looked up from the pizza suddenly.  Ingrid Bergman's
husband had tried to drive her crazy.  Two months ago Mulder's
dreams had started.
     "When was the first corpse found?"  She asked.
     Mulder stared at her, puzzled.  "About eight months ago, why?"
     "Nothing."  Something important had happened in the case two
months ago.  What was it?  "When did they connect the deaths
together?"
     "About two months ago, when the third body was found."
     "When did your . . .problems start?"
     Mulder stopped eating and stared at his partner across the
polyurethened table of the Pizzeria.  "You're not sug