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Title: It Knows You
Author: Rev. Anna
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Why must I say it again?! They're not mine,
all right? I'm just playing with them, honest. I'll return them in
one piece, I swear.
Summary: When the evil encountered in The Calusari comes after
Mulder, help comes from an unexpected source from AD Skinner's past
Spoilers: Avatar, One Breath
Ezekiel closed his eyes, took a deep breath then stepped
quickly, but carefully into the empty corridor. He could see the soft gray
residue all along the floor of the hallway as he made his way toward the
elevator. His mind was thrown back to the first time
he had ever seen it seventeen years ago, scattered all over the floor in the
chancel of that presbyterian church on Lafayette Street in
Brooklyn.
The victim, a church trustee, lay face down on the floor of
the sanctuary; his body as flat as a balloon with all the air sucked out of
it. All around him was the gray ash. The body smelled like rotting
eggs and every cop in the room had to go out at least twice for fresh air.
Every cop except for him and the guy from the FBI, Walter Skinner.
As he watched him, Stone knew instinctively that Skinner would
be the most help, the most open-minded. His instincts hadn't been wrong,
even though Skinner had balked initially when Stone finally told him what he
thought was going on. It was after they found the third victim -- the
pastor of a presbyterian church on Beverly Road. Stone and Skinner were
sitting in a restaurant called George on Coney Island Avenue.
"Get the fuck out of here with that bullshit," Skinner
exclaimed softly, sitting back in the booth, looking at Stone
incredulously. "You must be on drugs to say something like
that."
"Why? Because I had the guts to say it or because I had
the sense to say it only to you?"
Skinner looked around them uncomfortably before he took off
his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Stone hit the table with a
triumphant laugh.
"I knew it. I knew it. You're not fooling
me,Skinner. You've been thinking it too. I could tell. Everytime you
entered each crime scene, I could see it on your face. You've had a
paranormal experience that's telling you what I've just
said and what you've been thinking all this time is true."
"Only kooks believe in paranormal phenomena. Why would
you even want to look in that direction?" Skinner asked, leaning in close to
Stone so as not to be overheard.
"Because it's the direction where the truth is. You know
it's out there, whether you want to look at it or not."
The ash crunched under his feet as Stone continued to step
cautiously down the hallway, looking left then right, shaking his head to stop
his reverie. But it was as if seventeen years had never passed and he
found himself back in the booth at George's, remembering the sound of relief in
Skinner's voice as the FBi agent told him of the emotional and physical death he
had experienced in Vietnam.
"Don't be so proud of seeking the truth. Having it isn't
the salvation it's cracked up to be. I blew a ten year old kid's head off
to save my life and the lives of the guys I was with. That kind of truth
doesn't free anybody. It sure didn't free me."
The remorse with which Skinner spoke was as solid as the table
between them. His hands gripped the coffee cup before him, his thumbs rubbing
its edges absent-mindedly as he continued to speak.
"Nothing could deaden the pain of killing that kid," Skinner
confessed. "Saying it had to be done didn't help either. I mean, if
we had stayed the hell out of that country, it wouldn't have had to be
done. Who knows? In the best of all possible worlds, his family
might have emigrated to the US, maybe even to my hometown with him being
coached by me in a little league team."
Skinner looked out the window, giving the tears a chance to
creep back in his eyes, not wanting them to spill down his cheeks.
"Why is the paranormal real to you?" Stone asked, after a
respectful silence.
"My unit was ambushed and we all bought it. I was so
glad when I thought I was dead. I thought I was finally going to have some
peace. Then out of nowhere this old woman showed up and carried me back to my
body, back to the living hell of waking up alive but alone; knowing everyone
else I knew and had fought with were all dead. I still can't shake the god awful
question of why I'm still alive. I need to believe I'm still alive for
some reason. I want to believe. I really want to."
Stone hadn't known it at the time, but he was getting a
glimpse of the hurt that would make the spirit target Skinner. Those
physical and psychological wounds had scarred and scared Skinner. They
were what made him vulnerable to the thing they were hunting then.
The same vulnerability peered out at Stone from Fox Mulder's
photograph now. Anger, covered over by the dead gloss of pain, shone in
those hazel eyes just as they had seventeen years ago that night in Skinner's
brown ones. What was it that Fox Mulder needed to believe, wanted to
believe that enabled this spirit to come after him?
Stone sighed as he reached the elevator doors, the gray
residue smeared in and around a sizeable dent in the door's metal surface.
It looked like a bomb had detonated against it.
He closed the bottle of holy water and put it away. The
spirit had gone, but so long as Mulder was still vulnerable, it would be
somewhere close by. It would find a way to try again. They just had
to be ready for it.
Stone stepped back and started singing at the top of his
lungs.
"Ezekiel saw the wheel, way up in the middle of the
air
Ezekiel saw the wheel, way in the middle of the
air."
The elevator doors tried to open but only one succeeded.
Stone smiled inwardly as he watched Skinner step out first. Cautious to
the last. Skinner knew no one else knew the spiritual was their all clear
signal, but he came out first, making sure the coast was really clear before
allowing his people to exit.
He always put others first. It was a depth of caring Stone
missed when the Brooklyn case was resolved and Skinner was
transferred to Washington. Never again did Stone feel the kind of
closeness he had with Skinner; not even with Rosalyn. Was it chance that
brought them together on Mass Ave a week ago? Or was it part of a larger
plan?
Following the usual cryptic clue the Devil had given him, he
found himself on the trail of shops dealing in old sailing and whaling
memorabilia. A trail of dead dealers from New Bedford to D.C.confirmed he
had found his demon: Captain Manfred Wharton. Their bodies had been carved
up and turned into human scrimshaw the same way Wharton had carved up ten men
almost a hundred years ago in New Bedford before being killed and sent
to Hell where he belonged.
Stone had picked up Wharton's trail after the most recent
killing and had followed him to a bank on Massachusettes Avenue and 18th
Street. He stood quietly and waited with gun at the ready to send number
thirteen back to the Netherworld.
Seeing Skinner step out from the doors of the bank right
behind Wharton caught Stone totally by surprise, so much so he hadn't realized
Skinner had seen him until it was too late. By the time he had collected his
wits, Skinner had him gripped by the arms, shaking him like a too full piggy
bank. Angry, incredulous and jubilant all at the same time, Skinner hugged
him hard. If he were alive, Stone would have been black and blue for
sure. Wharton had gotten away in the meanwhile and there was no way he was
getting away from Skinner. And truth be told, he didn't want to get
away.
He put his arms around Skinner tentatively at first, not
knowing what he would feel, scared he wouldn't feel anything. But he found
himself happier than when he had gotten that box of Reggie bars. The
warmth of their original bond hadn't cooled, even after all these years of
absence.
He was more than glad to see Skinner then. He was more than glad to see him now.
"Looks like you had a narrow escape," Stone said.
"Narrow is exactly the word, Ezekiel." Skinner
said.
Stone looked quickly from Skinner to Scully to
Mulder. He allowed his gaze to linger the longest on Mulder.
Yep. There it was. Stone could see it clearly because he knew what
to look for. That hurt. That sorrow, deeply imbedded in those hazel eyes,
shouting for someone to help him, heal him.
Skinner turned to Mulder and Scully.
"Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully. Detective Ezekiel
Stone."
Stone shook their hands as Skinner took the walkie-talkie from
him and gave the all clear to Colton upstairs.
"Yeah," Stone said, looking intently at Mulder. "You
really do want to believe. Don't you?"
* * * * *
Wharton sheathed his blade and got out of the cab, sorry he
didn't have more time to spend on the cabbie. At least his last conscious
moments on earth were blissful. He had been whistling when Wharton
returned to the waiting cab from the bargain store with his
purchases.
"Sorry to keep you waiting," Wharton said.
"Hey, don't apologize. I got you to Hegel Place in
fifteen and now I get to sit and listen to my favorite sound: a ticking meter."
the cabbie answered. "The longer it runs, the happier I get."
Wharton smiled at the look of sheer delight in the man's eyes
as he handed him five thousand dollars in hundreds. The cabbie held the
bills in his hands, inhaling them deeply.
"Not exactly retirement money," he said, glancing over his
shoulder at his passenger. "But it's a great start. Thanks
pal."
"Don't mention it, pal," Wharton had answered, moving as if to
exit the cab. When Wharton was sure the guy wasn't looking, he threw his
arm around the guy's throat and plunged the knife deep into the base of his
neck. Death came quickly and Wharton regretted having to leave a perfectly good
corpse uncarved. Oh well. With Stone taken care of
there would be plenty of time for others Wharton thought. Within an
hour Wharton was ready to put phase one of his plan in action.
He stepped into the elevator and pressed the button for the
fourth floor. He sobered his thoughts on the ride up, focussing on the task now
at hand. While a bit slow and quite dim, once Stone was Wharton's captive,
it wouldn't take the wraith long to realize it had been duped.
Wharton knew he had to make sure there was no way for the
wraith to escape when he decided to turn on it. All light bulbs must be
broken and the windows needed to be covered tightly to keep any source of light,
natural or artificial, from giving the wraith an escape route. He planned for it
to precede Stone on his way back to Hell, giving a double snub to
Beelzebub.
Wharton stepped off the elevator and walked past apartment
42. He cleared his throat and knocked loudly on apartment 48's
door.
Harold Golding had just settled down in his favorite recliner,
a beer in one hand and the remote in the other. The fireworks at the Hoover
building topped the evening news at five and the anchor had just moved on the
latest developments in the Scrimshaw killer case when a god awful banging
assaulted his door.
"Come on, Mulder," Wharton shouted. "I know you're in
there."
Golding swore and got up. He was sick and tired of having people
looking for Mulder banging on his door in error.
"I gotta get out of this place, if it's the last thing I ever do," he
sang.
He stormed to the door and jerked it open.
"Down the hall asshole," he started to say, but Wharton's knife caught him
in the throat and the words died in his mind. Golding stumbled backwards,
dead before he hit the floor. Wharton stepped in and shut the door
quickly. He looked down at the corpse that had been Harold Golding.
"I just need the apartment for tonight, Harold. You won't be needing
it anymore." he chuckled.
Wharton dragged Golding's body into the bedroom then did a quick check to
see if he had chosen wisely. From all appearances Golding lived alone and
from the mess around the recliner, he didn't seem to be expecting any guests
tonight.
Golding must have been a devotee of Thoreau. No details frittered
away his living quarters. The apartment was as simple as simple could
be. Wharton shoved what little furnishings there were into the
kitchen so the living room was bare. Next he retrieved his purchases from
the bargain store and quickly set about preparing the room for Stone's and the
wraith's demise. He covered the windows tightly in a heavy black
material and made a flange of it which he taped around the edges and bottom of
the door so no light from the hallway could intrude.
Finished, he stood in the pitch blackness of the room, enjoying the cool
peaceful darkness. He glanced at his watch and smiled. Golding had
died too quickly for Wharton to get any peace from the sound of his screams, but
carving his body up while Wharton waited for his bait to arrive home would
suffice.
End part three
