Hi everyone,

At long last the sequel to my story, "Page of Cups," is finished. "Page of
Cups" was never posted to this list because it was written before the list
existed, so, even though it's available on my webpage, I'm posting it here
before I post the sequel. The sequel is somewhat longer and (I think) not
as good, but once it has been proofread and split into postable parts, you
can all decide for yourselves.

"Page of Cups" introduces you to a character named Cassie Hamilton who
helps Mulder and Scully solve a case involving the occult. There is MSR and
sex. I couldn't manage to make the NC-17 part a separate part, but there
will be a warning included so that you can avoid reading the NC-17 part
while not missing any plot. I hope to do the same with the sequel.

I fear I have not done a very good job of splitting "PoC" into parts.
Please let me know ASAP if any of the parts is too long.

Thanks,
-joan the english chick

Summary: whatever it says on Gossamer...something like "Mulder and Scully
make a new friend while investigating the usual string of unexplained
murders"

Quick Description: about 80% X-File, 20% MSR. Definite NC-17.

Disclaimer: The characters Fox Mulder and Dana Scully are property of Fox
Television and 10-13 Productions. No copyright infringement is intended.
All other characters, and all situations portrayed herein, are mine! Oh
yeah, Madonna also isn't mine (thank goodness), nor is her song which is
used herein.

Additional disclaimer: I do believe in the Tarot, but I don't believe in
all the pagan stuff contained herein. However, I know people who do. I also
don't have a Boston accent, but I know people who do :)

Sorry for the long intro. Onward!


"Page of Cups"
Copyright 1995 joan the english chick, all rights reserved.

This story takes place sometime before the X-Files episode "Anasazi."


It was ten AM, Eastern time, and Boston was in the midst of a searing
heat wave. It was already in the upper 80s and humid as FBI Agents
Mulder and Scully exited Logan airport and boarded a waiting police
car.

"Takin' ya right to the scene," the cop at the wheel said, and that
was his last pronouncement to them. Mulder, who had slept little,
shed his suit jacket and loosened his tie, gazing vacantly out the
window, while Scully pulled the light fabric of her dress away from
damp breasts and fanned herself with a small hand.

So the ride proceeded in silence until they arrived at the scene. An
ordinary street, lined with ordinary apartment houses, three or four
stories each, almost anonymous in their sameness...except for the
crowd of police cars, ambulance, cops and gawkers outside one of
them.

Their escort handed them over to the ranking sergeant, who took
them inside via a set of stairs leading down, separate from the main
staircase. They emerged directly into the basement to view the body.


"We didn't want to move him till the MD was done," the cop
explained as the agents wrinkled their noses at the smell. The corpse
was already an hour or two old, and the heat had done its work.
Mulder nodded at the junior cop by the body, who pulled aside the
rubber sheet.

Scully noted the details with clinical detachment: a middle-aged
Hispanic man, average height and weight, short hair, casual clothing.
The cause of death was probably related to the knife still protruding
from a jagged wound in his chest, and his own blood had been used
to draw five-pointed stars on his forehead, chest and palms. He lay
on his back, staring at the ceiling, his arms by his sides with the
palms facing up. The points of the stars pointed to his feet.

"Pentacles," Mulder observed, "Satanic symbols," he added somewhat
unnecessarily.

"We, um...We don't get mucha this kinda thing around heah,"
Sergeant O'Grady said, wiping his brow with the back of his hand.
"That's why we called you guys in. I mean, we get yer usual swastika
stuff and that, but..." A large, meaty Irishman, he shook his head.
"My fatha and his bruthas, they was cops too, and they woulda called
it good riddance to bad rubbish. Just a buncha Jews, ya know? But
me, I say a Jew's a citizen like anyone else, he's got a right to
protection. It's them skinhead Nazis I got no use for." He nodded
emphatically, obviously determined to impress upon them his
politically-correct philosophy.

"But you haven't seen this kind of thing around here much?"  Scully
prompted. The sergeant's face brightened.

"Yes ma'am, dat's what I been sayin'. I been a cop fiffeen years, ain't
never seen nothin' like this."

"I understand both doors were locked when he was found," Mulder put
in.

"That's right, sir. An' them windows? Painted over years ago. By the
look of the dust they ain't been opened since da Cold Wah," the cop
said, and laughed at his own joke.

"We'll need a copy of the autopsy report," Mulder began, but a
younger cop interrupted.

"Sorry, sarge," he said breathlessly, "the, uh, widow wants to talk to
you." He jerked his head toward the street entrance, and the big cop
headed that way, Mulder and Scully close behind.

The widow was clearly not yet ready to think of herself that way.
Short and stocky, she barrelled toward the senior cop with her jaw
out like an unstoppable freight train and delivered several rapid-fire
slights to the habits and origins of the police department at large in
gutter Spanish before switching to imperious English.

"Why yoo big jerks standin' aroun' like a buncha dicks? Whatchoo
doin' 'bout my Carlos? When you gonna 'rest that Star Lady? Ain't
you know howta do yer job? I oughta smack yer face!"

"Calm down please, Mrs. Morales, we're doin everything we can,"
Sergeant O'Grady told her with more grace than Scully would have
thought possible. "We're gonna get whoever did this."

"Ma'am, who is the Star Lady?" Mulder enquired. The woman looked
suspiciously at him.

"?Quien es? Who you?" she demanded.

"These are the FBI people who've come to investigate yaw husband's
murdah," the cop explained, and the woman immediately softened.

"FBI, eh? 'Bout time you showed up," she said, but with less fire.
"You gonna catch them punks?"

"Is there somewhere we can talk?" Mulder asked. Grimacing, O'Grady
led them to an unmarked police car. It was air-conditioned inside,
and Scully sighed with relief. She got into the front seat, while
Mulder sat in back with Mrs. Morales.

"You mentioned a Star Lady," Mulder said. "Who is she?"

The stout woman colored. "She ain't no one," she muttered to her
hands, which twisted nervously in her lap.

"Mrs. Morales," Scully said gently. "What's your given name?"

"Aida," the woman said softly.

"Aida, it sounds to me like you have some idea who might have
killed your husband. Will you tell us about it?"

"There's this girl, she's in wit a buncha punks," the widow began, and
then cast an apprehensive look at Mulder. An unspoken agreement
passed instantly between Mulder and Scully, and the tall man
excused himself. Opening the door, he climbed out of the car and
went to interview some of the policemen.

A few minutes later, Scully emerged and joined him. "I think we're
done here," she said, and Mulder concurred.

"Is there somewhere we can get some lunch?" he asked Sergeant
O'Grady.

"Sure," the beefy cop replied. "There's a deli right around the cawna.
You need a transport to your hotel?"

"No, thanks, we'll be getting a rental car shortly," Mulder replied
easily. "We'll be in touch."

Over an early lunch -- a dripping Reuben for Mulder and tuna salad
on rye for Scully -- they discussed the case.

"The Star Lady is a fortune-teller," Scully informed her partner. "I
couldn't find out why they call her that, but she's apparently a young
girl who reads the future for money. She's reputed to have mental
powers, ESP, precognition. According to Mrs. Morales, she commands
a gang of teenagers -- street kids who worship Satan and murder for
human sacrifice." A twist of her mouth showed what she thought of
this unlikely proposition. "She didn't want to talk about it much, but
I gather Aida went to this fortune-teller for advice about marital
problems. She seems to think that while she was there, the Star Lady
divined some personal information and used it to direct her hit men."

"Interesting," Mulder commented, wiping oil from his chin. "So what do
you think, Scully? Your classic closed-door murder? I had a look at
those windows, and the sergeant is right. No one's been using them for
years."

"Well, I'm sure there's a perfectly logical explanation," Scully
replied firmly. "Maybe a hidden trap-door or something."

Mulder shook his head tolerantly and changed the subject. "I've got
to have a look at that autopsy report. From the look of the wound, I'd
say someone was trying to cut out his heart."

"It did look like that," Scully agreed, impressed. "You never cease to
amaze me."

Mulder grinned slightly. "I'll remember that."

"You don't think this is our friend Eugene again, do you?"

"Naah," Mulder shook his head. "It hasn't been thirty years, and
anyway, they went for the heart, not the liver. By the way, did Mrs.
Morales tell you where we can find this Star Lady?"

"Nope," Scully shook her head. "She was pretty embarrassed about
the whole thing. She just said 'Quando necessitas, encontras.' When
you have a need, you'll find."

"An epithet for our times," Mulder quipped, and they finished eating
in silence.

Later, after they had picked up a rental car -- an old but sturdy
Toyota with standard transmission -- and settled into their
connected hotel rooms, Scully placed a phone call to the Medical
Examiner to see what his initial impressions were of the autopsy.

"The ME came to the same conclusion we did," Scully reported,
knocking on the door that connected their rooms and letting herself
into Mulder's. "It looks like the murderers tried to cut out Mr.
Morales' heart, but they probably panicked and gave up once they
saw how much blood was coming out, and realized how hard it was
going to be to cut through all that muscle and bone. They used a
meat-boning knife, but it still wouldn't have been strong enough."

Mulder's lips twisted sourly. "You know what this means, don't you,
Scully?" he asked. "Amateurs." He spat out the word like a curse.
"They may well have been Satanists, but they didn't know what they
were doing."

"But that means it'll be easier for us to catch them, right? They're
more likely to make mistakes," Scully pointed out, privately wondering
if this case really was an X-File.

"Yes, but fatal mistakes. They're also more likely to hurt innocent
people along the way." Mulder, who had removed his sweaty shirt,
scratched absently at his chest for a moment and then grabbed for
the phone as it rang. Scully sat in the overstuffed chair and admired
his well-muscled physique as he spoke.

"Yes...Hello, Sergeant O'Grady. Yes, we've spoken with the ME...No, the
rooms are fine, thanks. Yes....That'll be fine. Just one question." He
glanced at Scully and his lips twitched with amusement. "If you were
looking for a gang of punks, where would you go?...I see...Thanks, we'll
try that. We'll be in touch. Yeah." He hung up and Scully quirked an
eyebrow at him.

"As I suspected," he told her, grabbing a fresh shirt from his open
suitcase on the bed. "Prepare yourself, Scully; we're going to Hah-vud
Squay-uh."

[end part 1]


See summary and disclaimer, etc., in part one.

MSR Warning. This part isn't NC-17 but it ain't G either.

Part 2

On O'Grady's advice, Mulder and Scully didn't attempt to park in
Harvard Square; they left the hotel and took a subway train in.
Emerging from the train station into the bright sunlight, their senses
were assaulted by the sights and sounds of trendy across-the-river
Cambridge. Bagpipe music squawked shrilly from a street
performer's efforts, colorful tourists and natives poured past on
either side, and the indented sidewalk area around the subway
station was filled with leather-clad, jewelry-sparkling misfits. The
sweet smell of marijuana hit, and Scully raised an eyebrow. A large
black man handed her a newspaper-like publication filled with
coupons for area retailers. Tossing it in a trash can, she hurried to
catch up with her partner as his long legs took him in a purposeful
stride toward an enclave of young punks.

"We're looking for the Star Lady," he said to one at random, a young
black kid who was practicing with a yo-yo. The punk glared at him.

"Messin' up my concentration, man," he chastised. "Y'all wanna talk to
Jake over dere." He jerked his head expressively, and returned his
attention to the toy.

Scully and Mulder approached the kid named Jake. No more than
sixteen or seventeen, he was a slight, fair-skinned boy with
reddened cheeks, a peroxide-blond Mohawk about an inch long, and

two earrings in his left ear. He wore ragged shorts and a torn T-shirt
that might once have been white; a saxophone case was slung across
his back.

"We're looking for the Star Lady," Mulder repeated, and the kid
looked him up and down slowly, then did the same to Scully.

"Yeah man, she into that threesome stuff," he said, and laughed at his
own wit. Mulder quietly removed a bill from his wallet and held it
out.

"Hey man, for ten bucks I ain't doin' you no favors," Jake announced,
but he took the money and added, "She expectin' you."

"She is?" Mulder shot a quick look at Scully.

"Hell yeah. She knows, okay? She know you're coming before you
know. She be waitin' for you." The kid nodded emphatically. Mulder
didn't doubt his sincerity.

"Where can we find her?"

"She gotta place over on Harvard Street." Their informant pointed.
"Hey man, I gotta gig. Have yerself a funky time." He pocketed the
ten dollars and took off.

A few minutes later, Scully was hurrying to keep up with Mulder,
whose long strides ate up Harvard Street with ease. Only a few short
blocks from the bustle of the square, it was a quiet residential street
quite similar to that on which Carlos Morales had died across the
river.

Outside one house, a man of indeterminate age between twenty and
forty sat on a bench, idly playing with something that glittered dully
in his lap. Mulder stopped.

"Excuse me sir, we're looking for the Star Lady," he said for the third
time. "Do you know where she lives?"

"Second floor," the man replied, waving his hand at the building
behind him. He didn't look at them, and after a moment Scully
realized he was blind.

The agents entered the house and climbed the dimly-lit stairs to the
second floor. There were two apartments; the door to one stood
slightly ajar, but peering inside, they found it was empty, the bare
floor gathering a carpet of dust and the unshaded windows as vacant
as the eyes of the blind man outside - or those of Carlos Morales.

"Mulder," Scully panted as she followed her partner down the hall,
"what aren't you telling me about this case? Seems like an ordinary
murder investigation to me. Why aren't we just leaving this to the
local police?"

"Beats me," Mulder shrugged. "Our orders came from higher up, Scully.
I honestly don't know."

The door to the second apartment was adorned only by a simple
wreath of dried flowers. Mulder knocked, and a cheerful female
voice called, "Just a minute!"

There ensued a brief pause during which muffled scuffling noises
were audible from inside, and then the door opened. The agents
beheld a slender young woman, long dark hair rumpled, brown eyes
sparkling.

"Come on in," she said amiably, not appearing at all surprised. The
same could not be said of Mulder and Scully; after a brief pause,
however, Mulder regained some of his composure and pulled out his
I.D.

"We're from the F.B.I.," he said. "This is Agent Scully and I'm Agent
Mulder."

"Come on in," she repeated, opening the door wider to reveal a
modest-sized, comfortably furnished living room. "Care for some iced
tea?"

"That would be lovely," said Scully gratefully, but Mulder declined.

"Are you the one they call the Star Lady?" he asked bluntly.

"It's just a silly nickname I picked up," the young woman replied,
leading them into a kitchen which opened off the living room to the
right. "The name is actually Cassie Hamilton."

The kitchen was small, tidy, and quite homey; the window over the
sink looked out over the street. A plain wooden table dominated,
along with four similarly ordinary wooden chairs.

"Aren't you going to ask us why we're here, Miss Hamilton?" Mulder
asked, turning one of the chairs around and straddling it. Scully sank
limply into another chair.

Their hostess went to the refrigerator and took out a tray of ice cubes
and a pitcher of pale amber liquid. Turning, she gave a pleasant half-
smile and replied as she reached for a glass, "I'm sure you'll let me
know when you're ready. And please, call me Cassie." She plopped a few
ice cubes in the glass, filled it with tea and handed it to Scully.
After regarding the agents in silence for a moment, she opened
another cabinet and got out a small bowl.

"Carlos Morales was killed early this morning in Boston," Mulder told
her as she opened the fridge to put away the pitcher.

"Oh? I'm sorry to hear that," the young woman replied, her expression
devoid of recognition. She placed the dish, which was filled with
sunflower seeds, in front of Mulder and sat in one of the remaining
chairs. Mulder looked at the seeds, then looked in surprise at the
young woman before him. Her expression was blank. Slowly, he picked up
one of the seeds and put it between his lips, wondering how she had known.

"Mrs. Morales apparently consulted you recently," Scully said, taking
a sip of her tea. The young woman's eyes registered comprehension.

"I see," she said. "Well, you can't honestly expect me to remember all
my customers by name. There must be quite a few Carlos Moraleses
in the area."

"But only one who's lying in the morgue this morning," Mulder pointed
out. "Are you sure you don't remember her?"

"Not specifically, but I can certainly check. If you'll excuse me for
a moment?" She stood up and left. In the sudden quiet, Mulder sucked
noisily on his seed shell, and Scully squirmed slightly at the
unabashedly sensual sound. Before either of them could say anything,
Cassie was back, carrying a looseleaf binder.

"Now then, Morales," she said, flipping the pages. "And...did you get
her first name?"

"Aida," Scully put in.

"Aida! Here she is." Cassie skimmed quickly over the sheet of paper.
Mulder was impressed.

"You keep records of all your clients?" he said. She looked up.

"Oh, yes, I have to," she said. "I'd never be able to remember them all
otherwise. Generally I just note down when I saw them, what kind of
reading I did, and what the outcome was. Sometimes I even note
down the exact cards that came up in the reading if it was particularly
interesting. That way if a client ever comes back, I have a record of
what happened the last time I saw them."

"Can you give us an idea of the kind of thing you do here?" Mulder
prompted.

"Well, are you familiar with the Tarot at all?" she asked. Mulder
glanced at Scully, who shook her head.

"A little," Mulder replied. "It's a deck of seventy-eight cards, divided
into the major and minor arcana. The minor arcana are divided into
four suits, corresponding roughly to the suits in a regular deck of
playing cards. Each card in the deck has a meaning, and its
positioning in a layout determines what it means in any particular
given reading."

"Not bad for a basic overview," Cassie commented. "Most of my
customers are ordinary people looking for answers to ordinary
unanswerable questions. I get your usual unhappy lovers, poor people
looking to get rich quick, that kind of thing. I charge on a sliding-
fee scale. For ten or fifteen dollars I do a simple three-card spread;
for $25 to $40 a Celtic Cross reading, which uses eleven cards and
usually takes around forty-five minutes or an hour; and for fifty
dollars and up, an elaborate yearly forecast using three or four cards
for each month of the coming year."

"No crystal balls? No contacting the spirits of the dead?" Mulder
enquired. Cassie smiled and shook her head.

"Nothing like that," she answered. "A lot of what I do amounts to
personal counseling. I give advice and try to help people. I don't
believe that the Tarot, or any other form of divination, should be
used as a replacement for plain old common sense. If a woman is
being abused, I tell her to leave him and get help. If someone's
addicted to drugs or alcohol, same thing, I tell them to get help. If
people have medical conditions I advise them to find a doctor. I have
lists of 800 numbers and shelters in the area. I'm no social worker,
but I'm also not trying to take the place of social workers."

"But in Mrs Morales's case...?" Scully prompted.

Cassie frowned slightly. "If I were a doctor, a psychiatrist, a lawyer,"
she said, "I could say that was priviliged information, and you would
be legally as well as ethically bound to respect that. But I'm just a
lowly fortune teller, so I have no such recourse. I'm sure it would be
easy for you to obtain a subpoena and force me to answer that
question, and I'm almost tempted to make you go through the
paperwork...But I guess there's really no point." She looked at her
notes again.

"Mrs. Morales came to me two months ago, concerned about her
husband's behavior. He had been acting strangely lately. I gathered
that he had always been a very attentive and affectionate husband,
but in the past few weeks he had become cold and distant. I got the
feeling, although she was too embarassed to talk about it, that their
sex life had become less than satisfying. Aida was afraid that he was
having an affair, and she wanted me to confirm that." She looked at
her notes again.

"I did a reading and the Death card showed up in the immediate
future position. Now," she looked quickly from Scully to Mulder and
then back at her notes, "the Death card does not necessarily
represent the actual physical death of a person. In fact, it most
commonly represents a metaphorical death; a dramatic change in
one's life, the end of a phase. However, in this particular case, given
the surrounding cards and the overall feel of the reading, I felt that
the death involved was a literal death, although not necessarily
Aida's."

"Did you tell her this?" Scully asked.

"No." She made a face. "I made a quick judgment and decided I had
neither the right nor the information to make such a pronouncement. I
said something vague to the effect that an important event was
upcoming, which would make everything clear, and that all would be
well in the end...which is generally true anyway."

"So you lied."

"No," she said emphatically, "I did not lie. I interpreted the reading
in a less specific way than I might have otherwise."

"I guess we're still a little unclear on how the cards work," Mulder
said, although Scully knew he understood it perfectly well. Cassie
seemed to realize that too, and she nodded at him.

"Perhaps a demonstration is in order," she said, and produced a deck
of cards. "Agent Scully, if you'd care to be our guinea pig?"

"Um...sure, I guess so," Scully said uncertainly. "I don't really
believe in this stuff, I must admit. What do you want me to do?"

"Don't worry about belief. Agent Mulder and I will take care of that,"
Cassie said, grinning. "Take the cards..." She handed them over.
"Shuffle them three times and give them back to me. Try to keep your
mind blank. This is to imprint your aura on the cards."

Scully glanced quickly at her partner; his expression was solemn. She
admired the ornately decorated backs of the cards, but they were
rather too large for her small hands. She managed to get them shuffled
overhand, and finally handed them back. Cassie and Mulder remained
quiet throughout the process.

"Okay," Cassie said when she had the cards back. "We'll do a simple
three-card spread: past, present, future." She dealt the top three
cards out with a practiced turn of her wrist and set the deck aside.
All three leaned forward to examine the cards.

"All right, the six of swords represents your past," Cassie began.
Scully looked at the card, which depicted several formally-dressed
people in a boat. "The card's meaning is "A journey across water."
Now, again, this is not meant to be taken literally. The four
elements, earth, air, fire, water, each correspond to an aspect of our
lives. Water is the element of emotion, so this represents an
emotional journey you undertook recently -- within the last year, I'd
say. The experience was precipitated by some dramatic event, following
which it was necessary for you to journey within yourself, to do some
soul-searching and think about your goals, your beliefs, your
feelings." Scully shivered slightly, thinking about the lakeside
visions she had had during her recent coma.

"Now," Cassie went on, "your present is represented by the Empress.
This is probably you. The Empress is a woman of breeding and
intelligence: well-educated, compassionate but sensible. She has
confidence in her abilities and knows her limits. In relation to the
past card," she tapped the picture of the boat, "your emotional
journey has played a significant role in shaping you into this self-
assured woman. It helped you explore your limitations and come to
terms with them, as well as affirming your talents." Scully continued
to squirm, and Mulder's face was a blank.

"Finally, your immediate future is represented by the Emperor," Cassie
said, tapping the final card. Her glance swept briefly from Scully
to Mulder and back, and she licked her lips, choosing her words
carefully. "Similarly to the Empress, the Emperor is a confident and
competent man. He is in control -- probably in a position of power --
and knows how to use his position without abusing it. He is probably a
man you know, or will meet soon, and he-" She cut herself off and
started again. "And he will play an important part in the continuation
of your emotional journey." She gave a quick nod and looked up from
the cards, staring into Scully's eyes. "Does that ring any bells?"

Scully shook herself slightly. "Yes," she said softly, and then louder
"Yes, it's certainly food for thought."

"Well, that's just an idea of the kind of thing I do here every day,"
Cassie said in a businesslike tone, gathering the cards up with a
skillful motion. Mulder watched her carefully, wondering what she was
trying to hide. "In any case, I'm sorry I can't be more help in your
quest for the killer."

"On the contrary, you've been very helpful," Mulder said. "I'd like to
ask you a few more questions."

"Be my guest." She tossed back her dark hair and fixed a solemn gaze
on him.

Mulder glanced around, and the question that came out wasn't the one
he'd been planning to ask. "Do you live here alone? Have a boyfriend?"

"All alone. No boyfriend." The solemn expression didn't change.

"How about a girlfriend?" Scully asked challengingly, then wondered
what had made her ask that. Mulder was clearly wondering the same
thing. But Cassie remained unruffled.

"Nope, not one of those either."

Mulder cleared his throat and got back on track. "Supposing we were to
tell you Mr. Morales was killed as part of a Satanic rite. Would you
have any idea who might have done such a thing?" he asked, mostly
fishing. Cassie pursed her lips.

"Agent Mulder, I think I can safely say that if there is anyone in the
Boston area performing pagan or occult rites, especially of the black-
magic variety, I would know about it," she said. "I'm sort of a cult
figure around here, as you may have noticed. I know all the groups:
the ones that are serious about their worship of what they call 'dark
forces;' the ones who are only in it for the chic value; the ones who
get a sadistic pleasure out of ripping the heads off chickens and
painting pentacles on things." Scully shot her a quick look, but
Cassie made no mention of pentacles painted on bodies. "In fact," she
went on, "if I were an FBI agent looking into an occult-related crime
in the area, I would come to me for advice."

"Okay, then consider me asking for advice," Mulder replied. "Who
should we be investigating?"

"Off the top of my head? I can't think of anyone who would just kill
randomly; even those that do believe in killing usually pick their
victims carefully. Maybe if you told me a little more about the
particulars?" Scully went on mental alert, and watched Mulder
carefully.

"We can't do that," he said diplomatically. Cassie grinned.

"Sure, because I'm a suspect, right? I understand," she said. "I can
introduce you to some people if you like. But consider this: Maybe you
shouldn't assume that Mr. Morales was killed because his wife came to
me. Maybe you should think of it in reverse."

"His wife came to you because he was going to be killed?" Scully asked
skeptically.

"Well, more loosely, the same factors that made Aida desperate enough
to consult me are the factors that precipitated his murder," Cassie
offered. Mulder was nodding slowly, cracking sunflower seeds. Scully
tried to signal him with her eyes, hoping he wasn't taking too much of
this to heart.

"We'll give that some thought," was all Mulder said, looking blandly
at Scully. "We may have more questions for you later."

"Well, you know where to find me." She smiled beatifically at him.

"Yeah." Mulder got up. "Scully?"

"Thanks so much for the tea," Scully said politely, reaching for her
purse. "It was delicious."

"Lemon for energy, and chamomile for your headache," Cassie
replied amiably. Scully was still mulling that one over as she and
Mulder caught the subway back into Boston.

The agents spent the afternoon speaking to friends, relatives and
acquaintances of the victim. All agreed that in recent weeks Carlos
had not been himself; the word that recurred frequently was...

"Possessed," Mulder grunted, loosening his tie and relaxed into the
cool of his hotel room after dinner. "Possessed, Scully. That's what
they all said. It was as if he had a demon in him."

"It's just an expression, Mulder," Scully said absently, bent over her
laptop computer. Mulder looked over at her.

"What've you got?"

"I ran a background check on our friend Cassie Hamilton, and found
some very interesting stuff. Get this..." Scully shuffled some papers
around, and turned to face her partner. "Both her parents were FBI."

"What?" Mulder sat down, giving her his full attention.

"And both doctors." Scully glanced at her notes. "They met in medical
school, 1962. Graduated, got married and were recruited by the FBI in
the same week. They went through the Academy, then went on to do their
residencies. Dr. Paul T. Hamilton, a neurosurgeon; Dr. Audrey J. Brace
Hamilton, a child psychiatrist. The U.S. government paid for their
medical residencies, and as soon as they were done, they went to work
for the Bureau." She took a sip of lemonade. "In four years with the
FBI, they had the best case-solved percentage of any team in the
history of the Bureau. And then they quit."

"Why?"

Scully shrugged. "Their resignation letters say they burned out. They
were expecting Cassie, and apparently Audrey almost miscarried during
their last case. Anyway, they quit, took positions at hospitals here
in Boston, had Cassie and lived their lives. But get this, Mulder..."
She leaned forward. "Seven years later, the Director of the FBI
contacted them and asked them to return...to investigate the X-Files."

Mulder was fully alert. "Say again?"

"This would be 1980. There's a letter in the file from the
then-director of the Bureau." Scully handed it over. Mulder read
aloud.

"Dear Audrey and Paul, hope this letter finds you in the best of
health...blah blah...Let me get directly to the point: I believe you
are both aware of the existence of certain unsolved cases in the FBI
vaults, colloquially known as "X Files." There are factions in the
Bureau which are agitating strongly to reopen some of these files, and
we are considering opening a new division to do so. In light of
recent events, we feel the two of you would be ideal to head up
such a project. Your salary and clearance level would of course
be commensurate with your long experience... etcetera." Mulder
looked up. "What could these 'recent events' be?"

"I don't know," Scully replied. "But there's a copy of their letter,
politely declining the invitation. There's a handwritten note
scribbled on there; it looks like 'Watch the kid.'"

"The kid! Cassie!" Mulder jumped up and paced back and forth a couple
of times. "She did something or saw something. They say she's got
psychic powers, and the common people don't lie. Something weird
happened to her, or because of her, and scared her parents."

"Mulder, you're jumping to conclusions. This could mean anything,"
Scully said patiently. "Anyway, there's more. The director kept
pestering the Hamiltons, another request regularly every twelve to
eighteen months for a few years. And then in 1989, when Cassie was
sixteen, both her parents were killed in a car crash." Mulder pursed
his lips. "The FBI investigated and determined it was a simple
accident, no foul play involved. Cassie was a ward of the state for
the remaining time until she turned eighteen, and she still gets a
comfortable annuity from the government."

Mulder sat on the bed beside Scully to look at the papers. "It means
something, Scully. I'm sure of it," he said earnestly. "Cassie's
connected to this somehow."

"That much is clear," Scully conceded. "If only because Mrs. Morales
brought her into it." She turned her head to look up at her partner,
and became suddenly aware of the nearness of him. She could smell his
aftershave - slightly smoky - and the heat of his thigh warmed hers
where they were touching. Slowly, almost thoughtfully, Scully leaned
closer and tilted her head up, putting her mouth on his in a soft
kiss.

Arrested in the act of reading Cassie Hamilton's profile, Mulder went
very still with surprise. The slight pressure of Scully's breast
pushing against his ribcage, the smell of her nearness and the tiny
warmth of her hand on his arm made his head spin. Any minute now, he
was sure, Scully would take her soft lips from his and slap him silly,
or laugh at his gullibility; but instinctively his body responded, his
tongue came out to trace the outline of her lips, and Scully made a
low, breathy sound, not vocal enough to be a moan. She pressed closer
to him, the gentle kiss teetered on the edge of hungry passion, he was
lifting a hand to touch her, and who knew what might have happened
next if the phone hadn't chosen that moment to ring? It shrilled in
his ears and Mulder leapt up, disappointed but also sorely grateful.
Scully turned her head away and pressed a hand to her heated forehead,
trying to slow her heartbeat and her breathing while Mulder talked.

"Yes...thank you. We'll be right there." He hung up and turned to
Scully, somewhat wild-eyed. "There's been another murder."

[end part 2]


See summary, explanation, etc., in part one.

MSR Warning! This part contains NC-17. If you are under 17, or if you wish
to avoid graphic descriptions of sexual acts, stop reading when you see a
line of X's that looks like this:

X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X etc.

You may safely skip from the X's to part 4 without missing any major plot
points.

Part 3

"I can't believe you never learned to drive a standard, Scully,"
Mulder said for the thousandth time, minutes later, as he navigated
through the winding streets of Boston. "One-way again? Aren't there
any two-way streets in this town?"

"My father kept saying he would teach me, but he never got around to
it," Scully said defensively. "Then I went to college and it just
didn't happen." The brief incident in the hotel room had been firmly
relegated to the backs of their brains, marked off with a "Work-
Related Stress" label and a sigh of relief.

"Hey, that's okay, you don't have to get all defensive," Mulder
assured her. "Anyway, it soothes my male ego to do all the driving. I
think this is it." He pulled over and parked, and they got out,
flashing their ID at the cop on duty.

"Bridgemont Psychiatric Facility?" Scully said, following Mulder up
the stairs.

"The victim was in solitary confinement," explained Sergeant O'Grady,
meeting them at the door. "Had herself committed about three months
ago, said she didn't feel like herself." He shrugged. "Body's over
here."

The picture was mostly the same: the bloody pentacles, the closed-up
room, the knife still in the wound. "We didn't get any prints off the
first knife," O'Grady said, "but we'll check this one, a'course. This
here's the shrink, Dr. Perry. These're the FBI people."

"Hi," said Perry, a thin man in his 50s. "Yeah, everything was shut
up when they found her...no idea how it happened. Her name was Deborah
Fuller. Checked herself in here a couple months ago. No explainable
cause of her psychosis, but it was confirmed by our evaluation and we
put her in solitary at her request. She said she felt like there was
something controlling her actions, she didn't feel able to override or
identify it."

"We'll need a list of everyone who was on duty when she was killed,"
Scully said. "And when was that exactly?" The cop was nodding.

"Already got a coupla my men working on that list," he said. "The ME
estimates time of death around one or two this afternoon, that's about
the best he could do."

"Nurse Benjamin was patrolling this ward when it must have happened,"
the psychiatrist added, indicating a stout older woman sitting in a
lounge area. "She swears she didn't hear or see a thing, and I for one
believe her. If there was anything to see or hear, she would have."

"Okay, thank you, Doctor," Mulder said. "We'll be in touch." He
signaled Scully with his eyes, and she followed him back outside. The
hot sun attacked them with a blanketing embrace as they emerged onto
the steps.

"What are you thinking, Scully?" Mulder asked neutrally before she
could say anything. Scully pursed her lips.

"We were with Cassie Hamilton between one and two," she offered.

"Yeah." Mulder was nodding. "But we agreed she's involved somehow." He
reached into his pocket and pulled out his cellphone. "Hello? Miss
Hamilton? This is Agent Mulder...No...Yes, we'd like to meet you
again, and some of your possibly homicidal acquaintances, if
possible. ...Yes...Sure...all right. Thank you." He hung up.

"Well?"

"We're meeting her at a nightclub called LaserMan," Mulder said. His
lips curled upward in a slight grin. "She said, 'Try not to dress like
federal agents.'"

-----

At ten PM that night, Mulder and Scully pulled into a dark parking lot
and got out of the rental. Mulder wore tight black jeans, a soft yellow
shirt and a light grey blazer. Scully had changed into an ankle-length
flowered dress. The day's heat had alleviated with the setting of the
sun, but it was still humid, and Scully had tied her hair up off her
neck. Cassie Hamilton stepped out of the shadows to meet them, and
Scully raised both eyebrows in surprise. Cassie wore very short black
shorts, baring a long expanse of leg, and a low-cut turquoise tank top
that likewise bared muscular, tanned arms. She looked much younger
(and much sexier) than her casual bathrobed persona of the afternoon.
Scully glanced at Mulder and saw that he appreciated the
transformation.

"Shall we?" Cassie said lightly. "I think it's best if you go in
separately, Agent Scully...give us a minute or two, and pretend you
don't know us."

"Um...okay," Scully agreed. Cassie took Mulder's arm, and they
proceeded toward the club.

Inside, of course, it was dark and smoky, with loud pounding music and
wildly flashing colored lights. The patrons were varied, but tended
mostly toward the early twenties, and were mostly dressed in haute
grunge style. Scully paused in the doorway to assess the scene,
watching as Cassie led Mulder into the thick of things.

Cassie abandoned Mulder by the bar momentarily, slipping through the
crowd to the DJ's box. He was a slim, energetic young man in a
backwards baseball cap, bouncing to the music. He and Cassie exchanged
a quick hug, a few words, a nod, and then she was back, taking
Mulder's arm again.

The song ended, and after a nanosecond of silence, Madonna's voice
thundered through the room and Scully laughed aloud, thinking how
appropriate the choice was for Mulder.

"And you can dance...for inspiration!"

Across the room, she saw Cassie mouth the next line, "Come on!" as she
pulled a reluctant Mulder onto the dance floor. Watching, Scully made
her way toward the bar and commandeered a stool. She was amused to see
how uncomfortable Mulder looked as Cassie gyrated her hips suggestively
in time with the music.

"Get into the groove, boy, you've got to prove your love to me..."
Cassie was singing along as she pressed up against Mulder, her hands
encouraging him to dance with her. To Scully's surprise, he adjusted
rather quickly and let Cassie glue her ass to his thighs, their hips
moving in unison in a familiar rhythm.

Mulder leaned his head forward to yell in Cassie's ear, his hands on
her hips: "This isn't the reconnaissance technique they taught me in
the Academy."

Cassie laughed and turned her head to reply. "These are young men
we're dealing with, Agent Mulder. They operate on a pack mentality.
You're establishing your position as an alpha male. Relax and enjoy
it." Mulder grinned and slid his hands down across her thighs.

"See the girl over there in the Hole T-Shirt?" she went on, leaning
her head back against his chest so he could hear her. "She leads a band
of amateur Satanists and sadomasochists. They mostly sit around eating
raw meat and having orgies. Pretty harmless really." Mulder filed away
the face for future reference. "And the one over there, with the green
Mohawk? He and his older brother have 'rituals' at their place every
full moon. They get high and sometimes slice open their fingers to
make blood pacts. But their main interest is running crack."

"No murderers here tonight?" Mulder asked half in jest.

"Doubt it. Wait...the guy over there. In the black headband? His bunch
call themselves 'Pagan Avengers.' They go around beating up people who
they think are dishonoring the name of paganism in whatever way. Kinda
weird, really."

"Would they go further than a couple of shiners?"

"Might. I'm not really sure." She went on to point out a couple of
other ringleaders of various types, and Mulder made note of all their
faces.

The song ended, and Cassie took Mulder's hand to lead him to the bar.
There, she spotted Scully and feigned surprise.

"Dana!" she exclaimed in mock delight, swooping down to hug Scully
briefly. Scully returned the embrace, feeling the rapid heartbeat
pounding behind Cassie's sweaty breasts.

"This is Bill, Bill, Dana," Cassie introduced, and Mulder shook
Scully's hand, playing along with the gag. Neither agent failed to
notice that Cassie knew Scully's first name and that of Mulder's
father. Mulder's thumb briefly caressed the back of Scully's hand
before he let it go, and a shiver of pleasure rode up her spine.

Cassie took the stool beside Scully, and Mulder got them all beers;
Scully was opening her mouth to ask a question when the young man in
the black headband approached them.

"Dude, who's the stiff?" he asked brusquely, without preamble. Cassie
smiled brightly and pretended not to notice.

"Well, Alex, how nice to see you again," she said cheerfully. "This is
my friend Bill, and my friend Dana. Guys, this is Alex, one of the
friendliest guys on the block."

"Nice to meet you," Mulder said amiably. "Must be a small block." The
punk looked suspiciously at him, but apparently didn't apprehend the
insult.

"Cute," he said shortly, referring to Scully. "You busy?" His glance
flicked toward Cassie as if questioningly.

"Hey, Dana's her own woman, ya know?" Cassie said blandly. Scully kept
a straight face.

"Sorry," she said. "You're not my type." The punk shrugged.

"Whatever." He looked at Mulder. "Hey, whatchoo starin' at, man?"

"Nuthin'," Mulder said calmly. "Just wondering if you played hoops."

"Basketball?"

"Yeah, thought maybe sometime I could kick your butt for a couple
bucks," Mulder said, and Scully admired the way he got into the spirit
of the surroundings. He certainly blended better than she did.

"I don't think so, man. That's not my gig," Alex said, looking
slightly confused.

"Yeah? What is?"

"Bill's in a coven with my friend Laura down in DC," Cassie
interjected, and the young punk relaxed slightly.

"Yeah? Well lemme tell ya, man. Some weird shit goin' down across the
river."

"Like what?" Mulder asked. Scully drank her beer and pretended not to
care for the conversation.

"Just some stupid idiots found some dumb book and called up somethin'
they shouldn't a." Alex's frown deepened. "Them demons is nasty
fuckers. But don't worry, me and my boys're takin' care of 'em. All
three of 'em." He clapped his hands three times for emphasis.

"Glad to hear it. I know I'll sleep sounder," Mulder told him with
equanimity. Scully bit her lip. The punk nodded.

"Yeah. Later." He disappeared into the crowd.

"We'll have to run him through the computer," Mulder said measuredly.
Cassie nodded.

"His name isn't really Alex," she said. "It's Sidney Fredrickson. He
changed it because he thought it sounded too ethnic."

"Does he really believe someone could have accidentally conjured up an
evil demon?" Scully asked skeptically.

"Probably. And I wouldn't put it past him to try to solve that little
problem himself."

"Do tell," said Scully, who was beginning to get a little sleepy. Beer
always did that to her.

"I think we're done here...for tonight, anyway," Mulder said. "We'll
drive you home," he told Cassie.

"I'll take a cab back to the hotel," Scully said tactfully. "Good
night, Cassie."

"Good night," the young woman replied, biting her lips to suppress a
grin. Scully shouldered her purse and went outside to hail a cab.

-----

Half an hour and several sweaty dances later, Cassie unlocked the door
to her apartment and let herself and Mulder in. "Thanks for the ride,"
she said. "You didn't have to walk me all the way up."

"Better safe than sorry," Mulder quipped, watching with appreciation
the way her hips moved as she went to the stereo and put on some soft
music. His head and body were still buzzing from the sensual high of
the club. He moved forward and put his hands on Cassie's hips again,
swaying softly against her. She turned in his arms, putting hers
around his waist and pressing her breasts against his ribs. He was
reaching for them when he heard her soft whisper.

"What?"

"Projection, Mulder. Is this really me you're touching? You're
projecting your feelings for someone else onto me." Her voice was
heavy with implication, and Mulder knew instinctively what she meant.
He pulled back and looked at her face.

"What does the Emperor *really* mean?" he asked. She shook her head
and pushed him away.

"Oh, no. I don't discuss people's readings with others without a damn
good reason. You better get going, Mulder. Go on." She was pushing him
gently toward the door, and as his hand turned the knob, her hand
covered his, shoving something into it. Plastic crinkled, and Mulder
knew what it was from the feel. He didn't look at it. Instead, Cassie
caught his eye.

"Use it," she told him, and shut the door behind him.

X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X

When Mulder returned to his hotel room, there was no light coming
from beneath the door to Scully's. Kicking off his shoes, he padded to
the door and knocked lightly. "Scully? You awake?"

"Yeah," he heard her reply, her voice muffled but not sleepy. He
eased the door open and entered, blinking slowly as his eyes
adjusted to the dark lighting.

Scully had been lying in bed, wide awake, unable to turn off her
brain. Now she lifted herself up on one elbow to watch her partner's
approach. "I didn't think you'd be coming back tonight."

Mulder moved forward some more and sat on the edge of the bed.
"She's just a kid," he said quietly. An alarm went off somewhere
inside Scully and she knew now was the time to get Mulder out of her
room, but she heard her voice reply just as softly as she levered
herself to a sitting position.

"Not such a kid," she said. "Not the way she was dancing with you."

Mulder reached out and brushed a stray wisp of hair away from her
face. His touch was surprisingly tender -- gentler than Scully had
ever seen him, even when she was in the hospital. She felt a thrill
like an electric shock when his fingertips touched her skin.

"Just a kid," he repeated, and then he leaned forward and kissed her.

Dana felt a delicious tingle course through her entire body when
Mulder's lips found hers, and the warning bells clanged unheeded in
the back of her brain as she responded to his kiss. His long, muscled
arm circled around her waist and pulled her closer to him, until her
breast brushed his ribs and they both inhaled sharply. His lips were
hungry and demanding on hers, his tongue dipping inside her mouth
where her own tongue met it eagerly. Her hands were on his upper
arms, sliding under the sleeves of his T-shirt, reveling in the silky
skin covering his strong biceps, and she told herself she was going to
push him away -- right this moment -- it was too delicious, it was too
complicated, she couldn't let this happen. But she was only wearing a
light man's shirt to bed; it barely reached mid-thigh when she was
standing, and she wasn't wearing panties underneath. She felt as if
Mulder were touching every inch of her skin as his hand caressed its
way across her shoulders and back, up her sides, over her stomach,
his knowing lips still on hers. Scully heard herself whimpering with
hungry pleasure. Her breasts fairly ached for the touch of Mulder's
long, skilled fingers; her nipples were already hard as diamonds
when, with a desperate groan, she twisted her upper body so that his
traveling hand met her sweaty breast.

Mulder grunted in surprise and cupped the breast in his palm,
feeling its weight on his hand, brushing his thumb lightly across the
nipple. Scully whimpered again, louder and more passionately this
time. Panic threatened and she shoved desperately at Mulder,
dragging her swollen mouth from his. They stared at each other,
panting, wordless for a moment. Then Mulder spoke.

"Tell me something, Scully," he said hoarsely. "Do you scream when
you climax? I'll bet you do." His lips curved sensuously upward. "I
want to make you scream." An erotic thrill, sharper than the others,
ran through Scully at these words, seeming to emanate directly from
her groin. Before she could reply -- so quickly she didn't even see
him move -- Mulder bent over and wrapped his lips around one of
her erect nipples.

Scully moaned again and threw back her head, abandoning all
restraint as she ran her hands through her partner's hair and pulled
his head closer to her. The thin fabric of her nightshirt grew hot and
wet and clung to her breast as Mulder sucked and flicked his tongue
across the tip of the nipple.

He had pulled her partly onto his lap, and against her hip she could
feel how his jeans stretched tightly over his bulging crotch. Breathing
heavily through her open mouth, she reached between them and
tugged the jeans open, sliding her hand inside to wrap it firmly
around him. She squeezed and stroked, and Mulder gasped aloud, his
mouth losing its grip on her breast and trailing a sloppy line of saliva
across her chest. He tilted his head upward and nibbled with pointed
teeth at the soft flesh under her chin, his hands slipping between her
knees and sliding upward. Scully cried out with pleasure when his
nimble fingers touched her, and her hand tightened around Mulder's
erection, drawing another low groan from him. Her mouth went
slightly dry as she measured the size of him with her hands, but she
didn't care; she liked them big. He had pushed a couple of fingers
inside her and her entire body was quivering with growing lust. She
gave Mulder a push and he sank backwards on the bed, taking her
with him. His fingers withdrew ever so slowly from her, stroking all
the way, and she knew she was moaning almost continuously.

Mulder's hand was on hers, covering it where it was still wrapped
around his erection. She realized that he had produced a condom
from somewhere -- she didn't know how or where -- and she took it
from his hand, knelt over him to put it on, straddling his thighs. As
she was doing so, he lifted her shirt over her head, exposing her bare
breasts at long last. He reached out with his tongue to capture them
but she moved away, her breasts bouncing energetically as she
fastened her mouth on his again.

The condom in place, Scully lifted her hips and took Mulder into her,
inch by slow inch, easing him in so she could adjust to the size of him
while savoring each tiny sensation. His face was taut with ecstasy
now, but he kept his eyes open, watching her every move.

Only when Mulder filled her completely and had begun to press his
hips slowly upward, rotating and grinding them against her, did
Scully realize that he was still wearing his shirt. She growled low in
her throat and tore it aside swiftly, searching for the velvety play of
iron muscles across his chest and back, shoulders and arms. He rolled
over so that he was on top, and she wrapped her arms around his
chest, sinking her teeth into the hollow of his shoulder and hugging
herself tightly against him, inhaling his special spicy smell, as he held
her by the hips and thrust into her. The rhythm of his thrusts, like
that of his speech, was slow and measured and steady, and, Scully
realized, infinitely arousing. She slid her hands down to grip his tight
buttocks and pushed her hips urgently up at him.

As Mulder had suspected, Scully did scream when she climaxed: a
high, sweet breathy sound which, even more than the way her
vagina clenched hotly around his thick erection, brought Mulder over
the edge as well. His thrusts decreased slowly in speed as the two of
them subsided, and they lay still for a moment, Scully lapping gently
at the tooth marks she had left in Mulder's shoulder. After a brief
pause, he withdrew slowly from her, each movement making her
gasp and shudder with aftershocks. Mulder removed the used condom,
leaned over the side of the bed to throw it away, and turned back.
They looked at each other for a moment, and by unspoken agreement
both were silent. Scully moved closer, pressing her face into Mulder's
chest, hugging him gently, sighing with contentment as his arms came
around her and he bent his head to kiss her hair. And so they fell
asleep, entwined in a reasonably innocent embrace.

[end part 3]


See summary, explanations, etc., in part one.

MSR Warning! But if you've gotten this far, you know that already. :)

Part Four

A few hours later, Mulder awoke and blinked quietly at the darkness
for a moment before stirring. Gently, he disengaged himself from the
sleeping Scully and padded naked into his room. Leaving the
connecting door open, he went into his little bathroom and turned on
the shower. As the hot water poured over his tense sweaty body, he
thought about the case, about Cassie Hamilton and Carlos Morales and
Deborah Fuller and Scully. Suddenly, something occurred to him. He
dashed the last bit of shampoo from his hair, turned off the shower
and stepped out, rubbing himself with a towel, grabbing a fresh pair
of boxers. He went into Scully's room again and retrieved his jeans
from her floor, struggling damply into them. Then he leaned over the bed
and shook Scully's shoulder.

"Scully, wake up. Come on, we got a case to solve." She muttered
sleepily and rolled onto her back, eyes opening slowly.

"Mulder?"

"Come on, get dressed." He gave her another shake. She pushed him
away and rolled out of bed. As she stood up, a familiar but long-
missed soreness twinged in her thighs and she flushed with
consternation as everything flooded back. Inhaling sharply, Scully
rushed into the bathroom at top speed. She shut the door and leaned
back against it, crossing her arms across chilly bare breasts and

panting slightly. Wild thoughts ran through her head: guilt, self-
reproach, fear. She could lose her job for this...they both could. She
could lose her reputation, her career...her partner, her best friend.
She moaned softly in anguish and moved forward to splash some
cold water on her face.

"Come on, Scully," she heard Mulder's voice from the bedroom. "It's
three AM. Morales was killed around 1AM and Fuller around 1PM, so if
there was going to be another murder, it's already happened."

"That's ridiculous," Scully said, getting back into professional mode
in spite of herself. "We have no basis for such a conclusion, Mulder.
We can't even prove the same person committed both murders." She
opened the door and peered cautiously out.

"Or the same people," Mulder said cryptically as she emerged from the
bathroom. She saw that he had already yanked some fresh clothing from
her suitcase and laid it on the bed. Wondering at her newfound lack of
modesty in front of her partner, she picked up the clothing and put it
on. Well, how could she be modest when it was his semen making that
sticky patch on her thigh?

"Mulder, where are we going at three AM?"

"To see Cassie. If the murderer finds out Mrs. Morales fingered her,
he might try to shut her up...especially if he's someone she knows."

Scully thought that was a rather large logical leap, but it was three
AM and she wasn't feeling particularly bright, so she picked up her
purse and said nothing. She wondered if Mulder could see that she was
walking strangely, and blushed hotly at the thought. Mulder was
looking at her, but she avoided his eyes.

"Besides, she said whatshisname Alex was the type to try to fix things
himself, but she didn't say how. Maybe all he does is chant mantras
and think happy demon-banishing thoughts."

"Sure," Scully yawned as they boarded the elevator. "Whatever you say,
Mulder."

Mulder drove at top speed through the empty streets. Both agents were
surprised to see the light on in Cassie's window, and when they
knocked, her cheery voice called out, "Come in!"

Cassie was sitting on her floor, entertaining a small baby in a green
jumpsuit. She was dangling a hand-stitched plaid snake in its face as
the agents entered.

"My goodness, I didn't expect to see you two for a least a couple more
hours," she said, smiling up at them. Her eyes darted from Scully to
Mulder and back, and Scully resigned herself to knowing that Cassie
knew.

"Where'd you get the baby?" Mulder looked nonplussed.

"My friend Katrina came over right after you left and asked me to
watch him for a bit. Say hi, Ben." She held the baby up and wiggled his
little hand in a mock wave. He stared unblinkingly at Mulder, who found
it a little disconcerting.

"We thought you might be in danger," he told Cassie. Before she could
reply, Scully jumped in.

"If this Alex and his avenging posse were going to solve the problem
of these evil demons, would their solution involve homicide?"

"Possibly," Cassie admitted. "If the demons had possessed someone,
Alex might feel the only recourse was to kill the host and thus
release the demon."

"How do we know when the job is done?" Mulder asked. "I mean, are
there really three demons? three dozen? three hundred?"

Cassie shrugged. "Common lore says you can only conjure three every
six months. There have been two murders, right? I don't see why I'm in
danger, unless you think I'm possessed with the third demon."

"This is all speculation!" Scully burst out in exasperation. "Mulder,
we have no basis for *any* of this. Let's just go get some sleep and-"

Before she could finish the sentence, Cassie suddenly yelled, "DUCK!"
FBI-trained instincts kicked in, and the agents hit the floor. The
window suddenly shattered as something crashed through it. Cassie had
hunched over, shielding the baby with her body. She clutched him to
her with one hand, and scuttled quickly on her knees and other hand in
the direction of whatever had been thrown. Mulder jumped up and went
to the window, glass crunching under his feet.

Cassie held up a slim elegant dagger, the hilt carved with intricate
runes. She squinted at the marks and sounded them out. "Hmm...it means
'Tool of Righteousness.'"

"He must have been on the roof of the next building," Mulder said.
Suddenly he saw a shadowy figure emerge from said building and start
down the street. Mulder bolted for the door, Scully close behind.

Mulder's long legs took him down the stairs at top speed, and he took
off after the fleeing fugitive. "Stop! Federal agent!" he yelled
breathlessly, but the figure kept going.

Crossing a street, Mulder came off the curb and landed on the outside
of his left foot. The ankle twisted and gave way, and he flew forward,
landing heavily on his hands and knees with an "oof!" as the air flew
out of his lungs. Scully plummetted past him, her gun out. Mulder
heard a gunshot, and both agents saw the fugitive go down. He
staggered, and something odd happened; the air around him seemed to
shimmer and contort. The distortion coalesced into a vaguely person-
sized blob, which writhed around and then slammed into the earth with
a sound like a coffin lid closing. The youth on the ground stirred,
then got to his feet and took off again. Scully gaped.

"Guess that was our last demon," Mulder gasped, trying to lift himself
up. Slowly, Scully holstered her gun and leaned down to grab his elbow
and help him up. Mulder straightened, but when he put his left foot
down, a sharp pain shot up his leg from the ankle and he groaned.
Scully looked up at him with concern; his face was twisted with pain.
She pulled his arm around her shoulders and led him, half hopping,
half leaning on her, back toward Cassie's house.

Cassie was on the front step, holding the baby and watching. "It was
one of Alex's boys," she said. "I recognized the gang colors. I guess
they didn't realize they had one of the demons right there in their
midst." She stepped aside and held the door open for Mulder.

Upstairs, Mulder settled painfully into the armchair while Cassie
fetched iodine and bandages. Scully began carefully cleaning the dirt
and blood from his scraped hands while Cassie made an icepack and then
removed his shoe and sock. She probed the ankle gently with all her
fingers.

"I don't think it's sprained," she said. "It's not swelling too much.
Probably just a strain. I know where their hideout is, if you want to
go there."

Mulder sighed with relief as the icepack rested on his ankle and the
pain subsided. The combined scents of the iodine, the herbs Cassie had
put on the icepack and Scully made him slightly light-headed. "We're-"
he began. They all jumped as the phone rang.

"Hello?" Cassie tucked the phone under her shoulder and began to sweep
up the broken glass from the floor. "Oh...Alex, hi." Both Mulder and
Scully came alert, listening intently. "Yeah. Hang on a minute."
Cassie put down the broom, signaled the agents to be quiet, and turned
on the speakerphone. "Go ahead."

"I said, sorry 'boutcher window," the punk voice said tinnily from the
speaker. "Dude, if we'da realized it was Raven all along, man, we
woulda kept an eye on him. But it looks like alla them demons're gone
now. Exorcised back where they belong."

"That's good," Cassie said. "And Raven?"

"Good as new, man!" Alex laughed slurrily. "The Forces of
Righteousness healed 'im right up. There ain't gonna be no more damn
demons in this town, right guys?" Faintly the sound of cheering could
be heard.

"Great. Thanks a lot, Alex," Cassie told him. "I'll give you a call in
a couple days, okay? We'll discuss this thing."

"Yeah. Later, man." The dialtone buzzed. Cassie turned off the phone.

"And there you have it," Mulder said, satisfied. "Case closed."

"You've got to be kidding," Scully said incredulously. "We're not just
going to leave it at that!"

"Why not?" Cassie shrugged. "There won't be any more murders. You can
count on that." Scully sighed and tried to marshal an argument, but
she was just too tired and bewildered.

"There's only one problem," Mulder said. "I can't work the clutch with
this foot."

"I'll drive you guys back to the hotel," Cassie said. "Just lemme call
Katrina and tell her to come get the baby."

-----

"I can't believe you never learned to drive a standard," Mulder said
yet again, stretching out in the backseat of the rental with his foot
elevated. Scully rolled her eyes. Cassie, guiding the car through the
streets with a casual, graceful skill, grinned and said nothing.

"You ever need help...or another Tarot reading...gimme a call," she
said a few minutes later when she dropped them off. "You know where to
find me." She surprised them by kissing both on the cheeks before
heading off at a brisk trot to the nearest subway station.

"Mulder, just give me a couple hours' sleep and I'll tell you why we
can't leave it like this," Scully said wearily as they rode the
elevator up. Too late, she realized the multiple meanings of her
statement. Mulder, however, made no comment until they were back in
their rooms.

"Sweet dreams," he said then, and Scully collapsed on her bed, too
exhausted even to worry about what had happened there.

-----

When Scully awoke, the clock said 11AM and she felt much more human.
She showered, put on another of her beige suits, packed, and went into
Mulder's room. He was on the phone, and she sat in the armchair to
wait for him to be done.

"Yes, the murders are going to stop...That's right...I'm afraid not,
but we can be sure he won't kill anymore....I can't tell you that...
I'm sorry, Sergeant O'Grady, that's classified. You have my word there
will be no more murders....Yes....Of course. Thank you for all your
help. Bye." He hung up.

"Well, the Boston PD isn't thrilled, but they're closing their
investigation," he said, turning to face Scully. He was back in his
usual drab suit, though he hadn't put on the jacket or tie yet.

"I guess that's that, then," Scully said. An uncomfortable silence
ensued.

"Ironic, isn't it?" Mulder said at last, very softly, very gently. "We
can talk about absolutely anything, except..." He left the word
hanging in the air between them. Scully took a deep breath.

"I...I want you again, Mulder," she said quietly. "I want to make love
to you again, and again, and it scares me." She heard her voice quiver
slightly. "I don't want to lose your friendship! It's more important
to me than...than the job, than anything. But I still want..." she
trailed off.

"I know." Mulder came across the room to her, knelt by the chair. She
looked into his beautiful serious eyes and wanted to cry, or
something. He touched her hand and she felt a rush of moisture between
her thighs.

"I know," he said again. "But Dana, it doesn't have to be that way. It
doesn't have to be an either-or proposition. We can still be friends
and partners..." he licked his lips "and lovers."

"We-? But...that's-" She bit off 'crazy,' because this whole situation
was. She tried 'against the rules' but bit that off too, because it
was stating the obvious. "Exactly what scares me," she finally said,
more honestly it made Mulder's breath catch in his throat.

"Me too," he said solemnly. "But it's also exactly what I want."

"Skinner...wouldn't have to know," Scully said slowly. "Half the
Bureau already thinks we're involved. We won't let it affect our
judgment...?" The last statement was half-question. Mulder was
nodding.

"No more than it ever has," he said. "But...half the Bureau?" Scully
blushed fiercely.

"Oh, um...you hear things in the ladies' room, you know?" She squirmed
uncomfortably at the look of mingled interest, embarrassment and
amusement on Mulder's face.

"Like what things?"

Scully stuttered for a moment, and then changed the subject the only
way she could think of - the only way that was threatening to take
over her entire being - she leaned down to kiss him. She felt his lips
vibrate as he growled with pleasure and anticipation. He shifted to
kneel between her legs, pushing her knees apart as his hands twined
into her hair and the kiss deepened. Scully put her hands on his
shoulders and slid off the chair onto his lap, straddling him. He
leaned backward slowly, taking her with him, fumbling at the buttons
on her skirt. The last coherent sentence spoken in the room was
Scully's softly breathed "Meet the Emperor...."

[end]