He pulled his gun and searched, but there was no one in the room. The
postcard, a photo of the Idaho Springs Visitors Center complete with its
statue of the 1940's comic book hero Steve Canyon, had been slipped under
the door. Using his handkerchief to pick it up—carefully—by a corner,
Mulder turned it over to read the message.
"3 a.m. Lodge porch."
He closed his eyes and felt his cock harden. Mulder knew the handwriting.
He'd begun to hate the Colorado mountains. After three weeks of clean air,
clear starlit nights, Friday rockabilly and limited cable, he was ready to
maim. He didn't care how golden the fucking aspens were.
At least he was no longer sharing a room with Scully.
They'd come to Colorado to investigate a series of apparently unrelated
murders. The total thus far was thirteen. Each victim was found within a
25-mile radius of the little town of Idaho Springs, located some 30 miles
west of Denver along the I-70 corridor. The victims were so unrelated as to
be impossible to predict. Their only commonality seemed to be the universal
feeling that each one deserved to die.
It was rather refreshing, as serial murders went. For once in a Violent
Crimes investigation, Fox Mulder felt no anguish for the innocent. He was
plagued with no nightmares, nor stomach problems, nor migraines.
The first victim was a Chicago pimp known to have beaten four women to
death—known, but never proven. The second, a minor evangelist from
Hoboken, specialized in "healing" people who'd been handicapped on the job
right out of their savings and settlements. The latest, latest two, were
a couple of middle-age foster parents out of Orange County, California, who
ran a lucrative Internet business selling customized child porn.
It was tough to conjure up much outrage over someone ridding the world of
monsters.
Mulder had requested the case. While not an X-File, it was intriguing.
Scully agreed. Why would a professional—and the murders were professional,
one bullet to the back of each head, execution style—use the same gun each
time and transport the bodies cross-country to this area? Was he someone
whose work sent him through here regularly? If so, why not dump the bodies
closer to where they were first abducted and killed? If he were trying to
confuse the investigations, why use the same gun every time?
Mulder couldn't get a handle on the perp. He or she didn't seem to fit any
profile for either serial killers or vigilantes. Most serial killers picked
victims according to type—big-breasted blondes, for example, or
15-year-old black boys—and vigilantes tended to be territorial, cleaning
up their own nests, so to speak. This one crossed the country, always
ending up here. Or close to here, at least.
It was a puzzlement.
He'd poured over the forensic evidence from these last two while Scully
performed the autopsies in Denver. Nothing new, nothing definitive, no
emerging patterns.
Frustrating.
At least he was becoming acclimated to the altitude. His morning runs no
longer resembled torture, although he still finished up with long soaks in
the hotel's hot springs. His first run here had been horribly painful; the
thin air made his lungs hurt, it'd begun snowing and he'd slipped on the
wet clay on the side of the road, pulling a muscle.
Luckily, the early morning desk clerk took pity on him, after a concerned
lecture on altitude poisoning, and unlocked the door to the men's
geothermal caves, directing him to soak and get warm. He'd complied,
letting the hot, mineral-rich water loosen his muscles and soothe his
bones. Then the lights had gone out, and he was joined by a traitorous,
sexy-voiced thug who'd all but crushed his windpipe before bending him over
and fucking him senseless.
And then the bastard had blown him.
Mulder could still remember that intense orgasm, brought on as it was by a
mouth he couldn't see and a man he couldn't resist. A man he'd always told
himself he hated.
Three frustrating weeks later, he was no closer to the killer and had seen
no further sign of Alex Krycek. Until now.
Three weeks, most of which were spent having to share a
shower-and-television-less room with his partner, whom he loved dearly but
who snored like a lumberjack. Three weeks of frustration and want, time
enough to face the fact that he didn't hate Alex Krycek. Quite the
opposite, and that's what he hated.
Thanking the universe for cancelled reservations and more modern rooms, he
relieved himself in the shower, not wanting to sit through dinner with a
hard-on. It didn't take long, and he cried when he came, grief he didn't
understand coursing through him like ejaculate.
Scully had developed a taste for buffalo chili, so they went to the Buffalo
Bar in downtown Idaho Springs, driving the few blocks because it was
starting to snow.
When Scully started to order a glass of wine with dinner, Mulder
uncharacteristically changed it to a bottle. If she noticed his
distraction, or that he drank everything but her one glass of wine, she
didn't comment. Mulder was grateful. He thought that if she made the
smallest of remarks, everything would come pouring out.
Dinner didn't last near long enough. There were still more than four hours
until his rendezvous with Krycek. Assuming it was really a rendezvous and
not the set up to another betrayal. He almost hoped for the latter.
Betrayal he could deal with. It was hope that gave him problems.
Mulder turned over the car keys wordlessly when Scully held out her hand.
She had noticed.
Back in his room, he could do nothing but brood. The storm made television
reception nonexistent and he couldn't face the country band in the bar. He
was afraid that he might actually start to like it. Or, more likely, drink
too much. He was already over his limit.
He tried to work on the case, going over the crime scene photos and
forensic results. No good. Each monstrous victim appeared to be wearing
black jeans and leather. The more he stared at the photos, the more they
all resembled Alex Krycek.
Now there's a thought. If someone was hunting monsters, wouldn't Krycek
make the perfect victim? Traitor and assassin. Thug-for-hire. Liar. Lover.
Lover.
The thought made something tickle at the nether side of his brain. A
theory...some skittish idea that peaked out then hid. Mulder shook his
head. It left before he could grasp it. Closing his eyes, he sighed. It'd
come back when it was ready; if he tried to pursue it, it'd hide forever.
Lover. That wouldn't hide. It was imprinted on his brain in bright neon
letters. Blinking, bright neon letters.
He'd come to terms with his sexuality years ago. Hell, he'd mostly ignored
it. His interpersonal relationships, male and female, were normally so
disastrous that he'd happily settled for his strong right hand.
Until he met Alex Krycek. Krycek pushed his buttons. All of them. Then the
bastard betrayed him, betrayed them all. And still Mulder obsessed about
him. In their encounters, when Mulder had the upper hand, they fought and
Alex lost. When Alex had the upper hand, they fucked, and Mulder won.
He tried calling it rape the first time Krycek forced him into a blinding
climax. The same with all their subsequent skirmishes as well, until he
found himself masturbating to those memories. His innate honesty disallowed
that excuse; he could only lie to himself for so long. Then he called it
seduction, and knew that for a lie, also.
Half past the witching hour and the television cleared. Mulder inwardly
cheered, hoping for something good on MonsterVision. "Ghost Busters." It
wasn't porn, but it'd do.
The yowling woke him. Sounds of a cat victorious from the hunt raised the
hairs on the back of his neck. Flickering shadows cast by the glow of the
television showed a parading feline, long-tailed prey dangling from its
jaws. Mulder watched entranced as the shadow-beast stalked toward him,
dropping its spoils near the foot of his bed. The cat disappeared only to
return with another victim, then another and another, the pile of rodents
growing to an obscene mound.
Atavistic fear kept Mulder flattened on the bed until, heart pounding, he
forced himself up to inspect the pile of dead things. Crawling to the foot
of the bed, he bent to look, then cried out, recoiling in horror. They
weren't mice after all. Mutated things, rather. Some eyeless, two-headed.
Alien. Wrong.
The yowling increased, and the shadow grew until it covered one wall and
part of the ceiling. As it grew, it too changed, distorting out of a feline
shape into something more pointed. Narrower, almost bipedal, the snout
elongated and twitching.
It yowled, high-pitched and wailing, looming over Mulder as if he were to
be its next victim.
Mulder woke with a start, heart pounding. The cable was out again, roaring
snow filling the screen, and he could hear the wind howl outside, making
his windows shudder and wine.
A surge of adrenaline hit him, and he grabbed his travel alarm. Two-thirty.
He hadn't missed the rendezvous after all.
At a quarter till, Mulder gave up trying to wait. He pulled a sweater on
over his turtleneck and stomped into heavy boots. The snow had stopped, but
he'd gotten as many lectures on hypothermia and the wind-chill factor as he
had on altitude sickness. The debate on whether to carry a gun and, if so,
how many, took 10 minutes to resolve. He decided on one gun, then had to
choose which one. If he ended up killing Krycek, would he want to use a
cold gun so he cold ditch the body and be done with it, or use his own
Bureau weapon so he could shout it to the heavens, pointing out, 'Look what
I did, look what I did'?
In the end he took them both. This was Alex Krycek he was meeting after
all.
At five till, he walked across the road to the main Lodge. The front door
was unlocked, he knew, for any late returning guests. But no one was on
duty, and wouldn't be, for another three hours.
Mulder breathed in air that was so cold and dry it hurt. The clouds of a
few hours past were history, leaving a jeweled sky crowded with tiny points
of light. Nothing like this existed in the cities he was used to, not even
the skies of his childhood were so overcrowded with watching stars.
Watching, and waiting.
Mulder shivered there on the porch, as much from the aftermath of his
nightmare and a bereft feeling of being alien and alone as from the cold.
He stood in the dark cold for the five minutes until it was 3 a.m. straight
up, searching the shadows for movement or life. Then five more minutes,
then another five, and another.
At a quarter after, he muttered "fuck this," stamped feeling back into his
feet so he could walk and took one step back toward the road.
"You've got more patience than I gave you credit for," one of the shadows
spoke. "I'd wouldn't have thought you'd last four minutes, tops."
Mulder stifled a yell as the shadow detached itself from the corner of the
porch and moved toward him. He suppressed the urge to draw his gun, saying
instead, "What fresh new hell is this, Krycek?"
The shadow, now illuminated by the porch light, raised its eyebrows and
bent its head, indicating Mulder should follow.
"Want to know what my favorite Dorothy Parker quote is?" asked Krycek as
they walked the wooden bridge over the creek.
"I'm astounded you recognized that as a quote, let alone who said it."
Alex snorted. "I'm not Oxford educated, Mulder, but I am educated."
Mulder's turn to snort, but he otherwise kept silent, following Krycek down
the path parallel to the creek to the end of the long Quonset hut-type
structure that elled off the main Lodge and housed the hot springs-fed
swimming pool and banquet room.
"You got me out here to break into the swimming pool?" Mulder asked
incredulously when Krycek crossed back over the creek and up the steps to
the pool's back door.
Krycek shook his head. "Got a key," he said opening the door. They entered
the humid heat of the dark banquet room, the tall tropical plants casting
weirdly monstrous shadows from the moonlight coming in through the
translucent fiberglass dome. It was the only light.
"Why are we here?" Mulder was edgy, waiting for, for what? They had yet to
trade blows, or even insults. No weapons had been drawn—his two guns were
beginning to seem superfluous—and this didn't seem like the place for an
ambush.
"Keep your voice down. We don't want to get caught."
"Caught doing what?"
Krycek grinned, looking suddenly like a bad little boy with a secret rather
than the lethal operative Mulder knew him for. "Taking a mud bath."
"A mud—" Mulder snapped his mouth shut. He wouldn't ask the obvious. "So
what is it?" he said instead.
"What's what?"
"Your favorite Dorothy Parker quote."
The grin widened. "Take your clothes off, and I'll tell you." He spoke so
low he was hardly audible, but Mulder's cock heard, and started to harden.
He closed his eyes for a moment, willing his brain to stop. He couldn't
think about what was happening here.
He was motionless for so long that Krycek whispered in his ear, "Would it
help if I held a weapon on you?"
Mulder shook himself a little before opening his eyes. Krycek stood so
close it was startling. "You're armed?"
"Of course. Aren't you?"
Mulder nodded. "Shoulder and ankle guns," he said, wondering why he was
telling Krycek this and frowning at the gleeful grin his confession
engendered. "What? How many weapons are you carrying?"
"Seven."
"Seven!" Mulder's voice rose to a shriek that he quickly squelched.
"Seven?" he repeated softly. "You're carrying seven guns?"
"Fuck, no. Three guns, two knives, a garrote and a blackjack. Just
traveling light. Figured I'd be among friends." He shrugged. "Friend."
"Friends? Is that what we are?"
Another shrug. "Does it matter?" He reached over to unzip Mulder's parka.
"You're beginning to sweat."
"It's just lust, you know." Mulder watched the hand lowering his zipper.
"Chemical reactions." Krycek stayed silent, easing the parka off Mulder's
shoulders. He tossed it behind them on a lounge chair. He pulled Mulder's
sweater up over his head, undressing the tall agent like he was a child.
Mulder let him, sweater, turtleneck, t-shirt, until he was barechested.
"Alex," he breathed when the long-lashed incorrigible started on his jeans.
Alex unbuttoned and unzipped Mulder, reaching in to fondle the erect and
straining cock. "She hadn't been around for some time, and when asked why,
she said she'd been too fucking busy, and vice versa." Mulder blinked. "My
favorite Dorothy Parkerism."
"Alex," Mulder repeated in a low groan.
"You have to take off your boots," Alex told him, letting go and stepping
back.
"Argh," said Mulder, trying to gather his wits enough to control some motor
skills. He knelt to untie the heavy boots, watching Krycek efficiently, and
quite sensuously, disrobe. Boots off, Mulder stood then froze when a naked
Alex grabbed his jeans and peeled them down.
"Step out," Alex directed and Mulder obeyed. He expected Alex to turn back
and kiss him after tossing his jeans on the clothes pile under a stunted
banana tree. When Alex didn't, walking away with another head gesture, the
bereft feeling Mulder'd had while waiting under the stars flooded back. He
didn't want this. Not just a quick, hot fuck in the dark.
"Wait." Mulder grabbed his arm and turned him around. Alex raised a
questioning eyebrow, saying nothing. "I want," Mulder began..."we don't..."
He couldn't finish, couldn't say it. He closed his eyes, not able to bear
Krycek's puzzled frown. When he opened them, two wide-set eyes stared from
just inches away.
"Is this what you want?" Krycek whispered, leaning closer. "This?" He
brushed his lips over Mulder's, then leaned back a bit to check the result.
"Yes," Mulder breathed, finally articulate. He leaned after Alex for a
real kiss, and it was...exquisite. They'd never kissed before, not like
this. Their kisses, few as they were, had always been claiming, hard and
brutal. An act of possession, not affection. Not like this. Not this sweet,
searching intimacy. Not this sharing.
Roaming hands cupped butts and smoothed over backs, caressing hips bucked
just enough to rub erections against each other. Magic.
It was sweet enough to shatter hearts.
Alex broke it eventually, with a final nip at Mulder's lower lip. "Come
on,"
he said with a grin. "I want to get you dirty." He took Mulder's hand and
led the way, walking parallel to the steaming swimming pool toward the
other end, where the mudroom was located.
"Too late," Mulder replied. He'd meant to be sarcastic, to break the mood a
bit, bring it back to something they were more used to, but the words came
out sad, a bittersweet comment on their lives.
They stopped Alex, who paused and turned. "I sullied you." It was neither
apologetic nor sarcastic, simply statement of fact. "Tarnished that shiny
armor of yours." Mulder just stared, saddened by his inability to neither
love nor hate purely. Krycek shrugged, slight smile still in place. "It
needed tarnishing." He squeezed Mulder's hand and began walking again, bare
feet silent on the concrete.
"Alex," was all Mulder said, following.
They came to the end of the pool, then passed the snack bar, which was
designed like a bamboo hut, complete with signpost showing the direction
and mileage to places such as Tahiti and Casablanca. Beyond that was a
closed room with a sign on the door that read "Club Mud."
"No," said Mulder, refusing to go further. Lust was one thing, but this was
tacky.
"Yes," said Krycek, unlatching the door.
It was almost totally dark in the mudroom, no translucent ceiling letting
in moonlight. Low-slung shapes hulked in the dark like crouching beasts.
"Fuck!" cried Mulder, running into one.
"Be quiet!" Alex hissed, leading him through a maze of lawn chairs. "Here
it is. Careful." He sat on a low cement wall, like the edge of a child's
wading pool. Mulder yipped when Alex pulled him down to sit beside him, the
cement cold on his bare backside.
"What the hell are we supposed to do now?" The lust engendered by a naked
Krycek was ebbing. He had far too much time to think in this encounter. And
in this dark, he couldn't see Krycek's nudity.
"Get in," replied his nemesis with a plunk.
Mulder gingerly swung his legs around to hang them into the cold, wet mud.
It was thick and gooshy, like...mud. He shivered, and not just from the
cold. He had only Krycek's word that this was just...mud...ordinary,
benign, mud. He couldn't help picturing...things...primordial eyeless
things, pale and sharp, living in this dark, cold ooze, waiting for
unsuspecting prey. Like his feet.
"Careful," he heard from the dark. "It's slippery."
"I'm supposed to sit in this?"
"Well, normally, people just sit on the side and smear the mud on. But I've
always wanted to immerse myself in it. It feels great, Mulder. Like liquid
velvet."
"It's cold and ooky."
"Chicken."
"You know, I have parts that I don't want mud in."
"Braack, braack braack braack braack."
Mulder grit his teeth and slid down into the dark, cold ooze. He gasped
when the cold hit his genitals, seething at Krycek's soft laughter. "It's
cold!"
"Yeah, great contrast, isn't it?"
It was true. The warm, humid air and the cold silky mud, coupled with
Krycek's hot, velvety voice was the stuff of wet dreams. Or nightmares. It
felt...primordial...like ooze from the beginning of time.
Mulder heard thick slurping and sliding noises, and then felt a smooth
touch at his shoulder. "Alex?"
"I've dreamed about this, you know," said a breathy voice at his ear. "You,
naked, in the mud. In the dark." Mulder started when Alex' mud-filled hand
slid over his shoulder down his chest, smearing the cold viscous substance
over sensitive nipples. Alex smoothed and caressed until Mulder's back and
chest were covered. He continued the erotic massage, smoothing layer upon
layer of mud on Mulder, until the agent thought he must be as bulked up as
Skinner.
When Krycek's clever hands moved below his waist to caress his balls and
cock, Mulder's body and most of his brain readied itself for sex.
"Alex," he rasped with the small part of his brain that was still working,
"I really do have parts that I definitely don't want mud in."
He heard a chuckle in the dark. "Don't worry, Fox. Polluting the mud with
bodily secretions was never part of the dream. After all, people put this
stuff on their faces." Alex demonstrated by running a muddy finger down
Mulder's nose. "Close your eyes."
The FBI's most brilliant profiler closed his eyes and leaned back against
his problematic lover's sturdy chest, enjoying the gentle facial massage,
his desire leveling out to the sexual equivalent of a dull roar.
"What else do you dream about, Alex?" Mulder whispered, trying to keep his
mind off the muddy caresses that were sending him over the brink. The mud
was amazing. Not gritty or sandy like normal mud. It was the Godiva
Chocolate of mud, silky, smooth and rich. He wished he could eat it. Lick
it off Alex. Swirl his tongue around those tiny erect nipples...he groaned
and realized with a start that what he was fantasizing doing with his
tongue Alex was actually doing with his hands. His chocolate mud covered
hands. "Tell me," he insisted, trying hard to stave off ejaculation.
There was silence for a time. Just the feel of those hands on his chest and
belly, rubbing and kneading...hell...needing...
"I dream of marking you," said the raspy voice connected to those
tormenting hands.
"Marking me?" The words sent a jolt of something beyond desire flooding
through him. Fear certainly, and enough adrenaline to tremble his muscles
and make him weak. He felt his spine melt and knew instinctively that
Krycek wasn't talking about hickeys.
"Yeah," the voice husked. "Sometimes it's with a knife. Not too sharp.
Something I'd have to really work at." His fingers traced something on
Mulder's left shoulder blade, making him shudder. "A dull dirty knife,
Fox, so it'll get infected and leave a wonderful, raised scar."
"Infected." Mulder felt like he was trembling, though Krycek didn't seem to
notice. He thought of altered DNA and alien viruses. "Infected," he
repeated.
"Yeah." Krycek's hands were under the mud now, caressing Mulder's lean
hips. "Not so bad you'd die," one hand grasped Mulder's cock, giving it a
friendly stroke. "Just enough to hurt bad. That nasty throbbing, you know,
that makes you think the only way to stop the pain would be to stop your
heart?" The voice was enthusiastic, and Mulder could taste his insanity.
"God."
"Sometimes I dream of branding you."
"Yi-haw," Mulder said quietly, frantically willing the blood to redirect
from his cock to his brain, trying to profile, to decide if Krycek was
merely fucking with him, or was truly deranged and dangerous. Not that he
wasn't dangerous anyway.
"No, not with a branding iron. Not like you see on TV westerns," His hands
sneaked around Mulder's hips, massaging mud into the sensitive crease
between hip and thigh, moving inward, forcing his legs farther apart. "In
Russia, they have these great horses. Beautiful beasts. Like thoroughbreds.
They brand them with wire coat hangers. They twist them into intricate
patterns, Cyrillic, heat them almost to the point of melting before
pressing them into the horse's flesh. It's so hot that the horses don't
even feel it until it's over." He traced another pattern on the meaty part
of Mulder's right thigh. Mulder felt Krycek's chin on his shoulder. "I can
smell your flesh burning." He wrapped his arms around Mulder, tight. "Makes
my mouth water."
"Alex," Mulder said, trying to keep his voice steady. "You're a sick fuck."
A heavy sigh. "A boy can dream, can't he?" Alex gave a squeeze and sighed
again. "I know you'd never let me."
Mulder pondered for a moment, feeling on the verge of an epiphany. He'd
never let Krycek do anything. Alex was a force of nature, a sociopathic
hurricane blowing into Mulder's life, laying waste to his emotions and
blowing out again. Until tonight, their encounters had always had a
non-consensual tang to them with Mulder feeling overwhelmed and coerced.
That Krycek thought Mulder had any kind of say in this...relationship...
was an eye opener.
"Not with a dull knife, anyway," he replied finally, aiming for levity.
"Wuss."
"Psychopath."
"You really think I'm a psychopath?" The voice was wistful, another eye
opener.
"I..." Mulder didn't know how to answer that. Alex Krycek was the one
person he'd never been able to profile. He didn't have an inkling as to
what motivated him, what he wanted (besides Mulder himself), what forces
shaped him. "I think I have no clue as to what you are."
They sat there in muddy silence, Alex with his arms wrapped around Mulder
who grasped his hands, keeping them innocent.
"Are you the murderer?" Mulder asked the darkness.
He felt Krycek's snort. "Asking me to confess?"
"Off the record."
"Journalism 101, Mulder. There is no off the record."
"So you're not the murderer?"
"Do I fit the profile?"
"You're a professional. The perp is a professional. The perp travels. You
travel. The perp has an attraction for this area. And you...well, you seem
to really like it here." A breath in his ear, a muddy finger tracing the
whorls.
"I like it here with you."
"And then there's that."
More silence, then Mulder felt shaking and realized that Alex was laughing.
"I was just picturing your report. Your conjecture that the perp is a
sexual deviant who goes around the country kidnapping and killing bad
people and dumping their bodies here in Colorado merely to lure a certain
FBI profiler into the area for hot sex and a roll in the mud."
"First rule of investigation Alex: Everyone's a suspect."
"Actually, I like it." He dug his chin into Mulder's shoulder. "It works."
"Is that a confession?"
"Would you like me better if it were?"
"Would I like you better if you were a serial killer?"
"Yeah. Would you think of me in a more positive light if you thought I was
killing horrible people and bringing them to you?"
"Like a cat with a rat?"
Mulder could feel the grin against the back of his head. "The cat I had
as a kid brought me junebugs. You know those flying beetles? It was awful.
She'd bring in these huge half-dead hissing insects and put them in my
shoes. Really disgusting."
"Think how I feel," Mulder told him. He felt a kiss against the back of his
head, which was one of the only kissable spots left unmuddied. He wouldn't
get his answer. Not this night. "I'm really cold, Alex. Do we have to wait
till this dries?"
"Oh, hell no. It's on so thick it wouldn't dry 'til tomorrow, and then we'd
have to take it off with a chisel. Stand up." The solid comfort against his
back disappeared with a thick slurping sound, so Mulder followed its
instructions and with much slipping and hard concentration, managed to get
upright to stand shakily awaiting further instructions.
Steadying hands on his shoulder turned him. In the dark, Krycek was merely
another shadow, slightly darker than the surrounding dark. Shadow hands
scraped satiny mud down and off his body in a moving caress that was almost
as sensual as the putting on had been. Down his chest, taking particular
care to make sure his nipples were mud-free. Pushing mud off his waist and
past his hips, kneeling down to sluice it off each leg, then helping him
over the cement lip and guiding him into a tin shower.
The first burst of water was icy and they both yipped then shushed each
other, giggling like girls. As the water warmed, so did they, rubbing the
other free of mud. Krycek kissed as he cleaned and seemed to spend a lot of
time with his hands in the crease of Mulder's ass. "I told you I had parts
I didn't want mud in," Mulder said.
"Don't worry, Fox. I'll make damn sure you're mud-free here once we're in
the pool."
Mulder moaned at the thought. He'd been hard for so long that the ache had
come to feel normal. "You're not worried about bodily secretions in the
swimming pool?"
"No. It's a big pool."
"Are we clean?"
"Enough," Alex answered and turned off the water.
The warmth of the pool after the cool mud made them languid and slow, and
their lovemaking sweet. Mulder floated, his shoulders anchored on the side
of the pool while Alex entered him. They didn't last long, coming one after
the other with muted cries. Mulder wrapped his long legs around Krycek's
waist to hold him in, staying embraced like that long after Alex had
softened and slid out, putting off their real lives until the moon had set
and the sky began to lighten.
Outside they stood shivering in their damp clothes, both unsure of how to
leave.
"Are you the murderer?" Mulder whispered again, pleading.
Alex just smiled and leaned over to lick Mulder's lower lip. Then he turned
and walked away. Mulder watched until he passed the small RV park along the
creek and disappeared behind the Lodge. One vehicle was lit from inside, a
compact green and white unit that Mulder thought probably cost a special
agent's yearly salary and then wondered where he picked up that useless
factoid.
Only a few stars were still visible when Mulder entered his room.
Post-coital exhaustion hit him hard. He stripped and hit the bed, hearing
nothing until, an hour later, Scully came pounding on his door.
"They've found another one, Mulder. Here. On the mountain, right behind the
Lodge."
He froze and shivered, from more than just the cold morning air on his bare
legs.
"Time of death?"
"Won't know until we look. Meet me in the Lobby," she told him, closing the
door to let him dress.
A three-minute shower, more to wake up than to wash Alex off him, gave him
too much time to think. It couldn't be true. Not even Alex Krycek could go
directly from a murder to that sweet lovemaking. He wasn't that unfeeling.
That insane.
He wished he could pray. Wished he could stop thinking about Krycek's
hands. About the feel of Krycek's cock in his ass. About Krycek killing for
him.
Scully greeted him with a large coffee and a cheese Danish.
"Some boys looking for animal tracks found him," she said. "They wanted to
try making plaster casts of tracks. Like they do in the cop shows."
"And they found a body instead. God." He took a sip of the strong brew.
"Please don't tell me they think it's cool."
"They're so high from the experience they're jumping out of their skins. On
the other hand," she reached over to wipe frosting off the corner of his
mouth, reminding him of Alex wiping off a last bit of mud this morning,
"they've seen enough television to know not to touch anything or mess up
the crime scene."
Mulder tasted the Danish. Scully brought him things to eat that she
wouldn't for herself, getting some vicarious satisfaction out of his junk
food habit.
"What do we know?" he asked her, chewing and walking. She was dressed in
what he thought of as Colorado drag: blue jeans, turtleneck and flannel
shirt, hiking boots. A knit cap covered most of her copper hair, leaving
just a wild fringe of orange. She'd gotten ready quickly, too.
"We know that these two boy scouts know more about preserving a crime scene
than most first-year rookies do." A Mulder's raised eyebrows she added,
"One of them took pictures of the frost while the other ran for a phone.
They say there were footprints."
It was full light now, and any trace of frost was quickly burning off.
"What kind of camera? Any chance of decent pictures?"
"Your basic 35mm point and click. Depends a lot on what the light was like.
The film's being couriered to Denver, even as we speak."
They were walking around the end of the pool building, and Mulder almost
had a panic attack. He shushed Scully's concern, chalking it up to the
altitude. She was skeptical. He'd been running here for weeks.
Another fear hit him suddenly. Not of Alex as perpetrator, but Alex as
victim.
"Scully, have you seen the body yet?"
"No, Mulder. I'm just telling you what the Sheriff told me."
Oh god oh god oh god. The last view he'd had of Alex had been walking
around this corner. He stopped, unable to breathe, suddenly gasping like
he'd swallowed a frog.
"Mulder!" Scully concerned, setting him down on a rock, head between his
knees.
"We have to solve this case," he gasped. "I have to solve this case."
It took a few minutes before he could walk again, and control was tenuous.
Oh god oh god oh god. He thought it like a mantra, climbing up the
mountain, the clay slick from last night's snow making the going slow.
The crime scene was in sight of the Lodge if you had good eyesight and
squinted. They reached it in just a few minute's time.
The victim was black, and Mulder almost wet himself in relief.
Scully took over the crime scene while Mulder just inhaled the ambience,
trying to taste Krycek. Or not. Looking for something that would tell him
yea or nay if his lover, his love, was involved in this obscenity that
wasn't. Quite.
"Holy shit!" said the deputy when they finally turned the body over. He
looked amazed at all the eyes looking at him. "Don't you know who this is?"
"Enlighten us," said Mulder.
"It's Anton Graves. You know. That preacher guy. The one who leads that
cult, AA"
"Alcoholics Anonymous?" said Mulder, incredulous.
"No!" Disgusted "Angels of the Apocalypse. The ones who say the Rapture's
coming on New Year's Day."
"I've read about them, Mulder," said Scully. "They're the ones who got
thrown out of Israel. Now they're saying that Boulder is the new
Jerusalem."
More pictures, and plaster casts, were taken, the crime scene gone over
and, as expected, nothing of moment was found.
"He's local?" asked Mulder of the deputy.
"Well, he's been in Boulder now for the past several months, gathering
followers. Folks've been talking like it's gonna be the next Jonestown."
"Another monster," commented Scully.
"When did he die?" Mulder asked her.
"Hard to tell, it's been so cold. But based on lividity, I'd say he's been
dead less than 12 hours."
"How long's he been here?"
"There's frost on the body so at least three hours. No more than six."
Mulder looked green. With that time frame, Krycek could have easily been
the perp.
"This is our break, Scully," he said, heart heavy.
"Motive's the key, Scully," he insisted on their way to Boulder to
interview everyone remotely connected to the Reverend Graves. "Motive and
opportunity." Krycek had opportunity. And, perhaps, an insane motive.
"Motive, Mulder? We know the motive. He's killing bad people. Really bad
people. He's living out a cop's wet dream."
"But why these bad people, Scully? The world's full of monsters. They're
connected somehow. There's a thread. We just have to find it, and it'll
lead us to the murderer."
Mulder investigated with a vengeance. If it were Krycek, he needed to be
the one to bring him down and bring him in. He tried not to think of what
that would do to his career, his reputation. If it weren't Krycek, he
needed to prove that, too. He had to know. He brainstormed with Scully,
nagged the Bureau data techs and bribed the Gunmen.
"The Three Stooges, Mulder?" Scully asked him after one bizarrely
convoluted conversation with Melvin Frohike who, after twenty minutes of
cajoling, finally admitted to wanting Mulder to call him back.
"They don't argue with me."
"Yes, they do."
"Well, they don't call me 'Spooky' behind my back."
"Mulder," she looked almost sad, "yes, they do."
He frowned. "They don't insist on a warrant before they hack information
for me."
"Oh, that explains it."
Mulder's side of the conversation with Frohike was stranger even than hers
had been. It consisted of many "But whats..." and "But whys..." seasoned
with a few "No shits" and much scribbling.
"What do you know about a writer named Jolene Dupre?" he asked when he hung
up, excited. //It's not Alex, it's not Alex, it's not Alex.//
Scully looked interested. "Jolene's done for the true crime genre what
Mario Puzo did for the Mafia." At Mulder's raised eyebrows she added, "made
it sexy."
"Jolene? You know her?"
"Jolene is how she signs her books. I met her briefly at a lecture and book
signing in Georgetown."
"She any good?"
"Well, besides making criminals seem sexy and sympathetic, she does have a
knack for getting people to talk to her. She got confessions from that baby
killer/cannibal out of Georgia that a team of psychiatrists, three
prosecutors and his mother missed." She fished a drumstick out of the
bucket of chicken setting in the middle of Mulder's bed. "She connected to
our killer?"
"She interviewed Graves three weeks ago in Denver."
"No crime in that, Mulder."
"Six of her victims had autographed copies of her books on their shelves.
She was in the same hotel at the same time with four others. Besides
Graves, she'd also interviewed the pimp and the faith healer. Haven't found
any connection with the rest, but I'll bet you donuts we do."
Scully paused in her chewing and swallowed, shaking her head. "You can't
seriously think Jolene's the killer. Have you seen her? She's smaller than
I am!"
"So, she has an accomplice." At his partner's skeptical look he added,
"She's the connection, Scully. The only connection." He grabbed a breast
from out of the bucket and gnawed on it, pacing. High with relief. "What
else do you know about her?"
"She has a fear of flying. In her talk she mentioned how much she liked
traveling in her RV. She," Scully paused, eyes widening. She looked up at
Mulder. "She said that she researches the next book while she crisscrosses
the country promoting the current one. She has a driver."
"In an RV." Mulder's mind flashed to the last morning he'd seen Krycek, to
a green and white RV with its lights on, even at that early hour.
They stared at each other for a moment before Mulder grabbed the phone and
began to stab out numbers. "Sir? We know who it is."
The rest was easy. Jolene and her ex-con driver were both weirdly serene
about being found out. For the writer, the prospect of a trial and prison,
even death row, was simply more research. She'd already taken the ultimate
step from trying to understand the mind of a serial killer to becoming a
serial killer. The driver, a former gang leader who'd spent most of his
teens and all of his twenties in prison for murder, had found religion in
prison. He saw himself, and her, as God's instrument, avenging angels. He
could avenge in prison, too.
Dumping the victims near Idaho Springs was just a quirk. Jolene liked the
resort and had a serious slot machine habit that she indulged in the nearby
gambling town of Blackhawk.
They were both crazy as Krycek's junebugs.
The forensic team found enough evidence in the green and white RV to
convict them many, many times over. Police officials across the country met
the news of the arrest with mixed emotions.
After almost two months in Colorado, Virginia's wet cold was biting and
miserable. Mulder entered his apartment feeling like a stranger. Something
was different. He gazed at his fish swimming merrily in their algae-free
tank. He could've sworn there were only three when he'd left for Colorado.
Now it was full of brightly colored neons and silvery angels. A
mouth-watering smell drifted from his clean kitchen, and there was a red
rose in a crystal bud vase setting on his clutter-free coffee table.
"Frohike?" he called out tentatively. The little hacker had promised to
feed his fish. That he'd cleaned and cooked and restocked was...
uncharacteristic.
No answer. Puzzled, Mulder made his way into the bedroom where he beheld a
long, naked body stretched out on its side reading Naked Rage by Jolene
Dupre.
Mulder dropped his bags in the doorway, and began to disrobe. He was naked
by the time he reached the bed, a trail of clothes marking his progress. He
plucked the book out of Alex Krycek's elegant hands and tossed it away.
Alex cocked an eyebrow at Mulder's growing erection, licked his lips then
slowly stretched out on his back.
"Home is the hero," he started to quote.
Mulder shut him up.
end...
Mud in your Eye
by moco
Another damn frustrating day. Tired, and not a little disgusted with his
inability to get a handle on this latest case, Special Agent Fox Mulder
unlocked the door to his room. He looked forward to the shower, washing
away the stench of the latest deaths. He almost missed the postcard on the
floor.
