|
|
10 X 16: NEW BLOOD Mulder and Scully offer somewhat differing stories about how they put the bite on a smalltown vampire... |
"Of course, the whole thing was written off to a major electrical storm, and the Eisenhower administration put the creature on ice, I suspect in the same hangar where the Roswell spacecraft is collecting dust," Arthur Dales concluded, lifting his scotch glass to his lips for punctuation. He then recalled that he had drained the last of the whiskey three plot twists and 20 minutes ago, and his liver-spotted hand reached for the bottle of store-brand alcohol.
"Wow," Scully responded quickly, snapping out of her near-coma. William, while abnormally intelligent, was nowhere near as polite: The child was snoring quietly but insistently in his mother’s lap. " Mulder, don’t you think we ought to start heading home and put William to bed?"
They’d located Dale’s mobile home "village" about four hours earlier, after an exhaustive search of rows upon rows of brightly colored modular units. Mulder’s mentor and hero had indicated through a friend of a contact of a friend that one of the cases he had dealt with as the original head of the X-Files
Mulder , who had been mesmerized by the ex-FBI veteran’s tale, glanced at the alarm clock/radio next to Dale’s pullout couch. "God, look how the time’s flown. But it’s not really that late, Scully, and besides, William looks like he’s pretty comfortable where he is."
"Why, yes," she smiled coolly. "So he does."
"Shank of the evening," Dales murmured happily, pouring brown liquid to the halfway mark of his plastic tumbler. He had performed this feat four times previously that evening, and Scully began to worry that the X-Files’ founder might spontaneously combust from this copious alcohol consumption. But each half tumblerful only seemed to brighten Arthur Dale’s eyes and sharpen his storytelling capabilities, much to Scully’s chagrin. The old man snapped his fingers suddenly. "But I told you I’d give you that file, didn’t I? Forgot all about it."
"Aw, we’re in no hurry," Mulder assured him, nestling back into a plush chartreuse armchair Scully suspected to harbor potentially harmful organisms.
"Gotta remember to take my memory pills," Dales shook his head, chuckling. "Gingko biloba – what Larry King takes, I believe. Done wonders for my retention."
"Actually, the latest research indicates gingko’s effect on memory and cognitive ability may be seriously overrated," Scully suggested. "In fact, I’d question the effectiveness and potentially the safety of dietary supplements overall. That the FDA hasn’t yet clamped down on --"
"Does she know how to pump up a party, or what?" Mulder asked, grinning. "Actually, I can think of an instance recently when dietary supplements saved my life."
Dales twinkled as he sipped his scotch. He smiled at Scully. "You have to pull this one’s fat out of the fire again, Agent Scully?"
"Yeah, right," Mulder snorted. "She didn’t even show up until the whole thing was over. I resolved the situation entirely through my own ingenuity."
"Well..." Scully interrupted.
"Well, what?" Mulder snapped.
"Well," she drawled reluctantly, "You might not have had to apply that famed Mulder ingenuity if you hadn’t placed yourself in a position of risk."
Mulder sputtered. "Position of risk? I had the whole situation totally in hand—"
Dales was ecstatic, and he leaned back on the couch. "Tell me all about it. Agent Scully, that is."
"But," Mulder began. Dales waggled a finger at the younger man, and Mulder sighed loudly, crossing his arms. Scully beamed triumphantly.
"Agent?" Dales invited.
Dana Scully
Wellspring,
Two months earlier
Mulder clearly was showing the strain of seemingly endless months on the road.
"Muddy fudging gut-danged piece of Schlitz!"
he yelled at the car, kicking the bumper for the fifth time since it had
stalled on
"Yeah," Harold, of Harold’s Garage fame, chuckled as he scratched the huge gut beneath his filthy NASCAR T-shirt. "They’re like a woman, ain’t they? Drop a wad on ‘em , treat ‘ em nice, take ‘em for a spin every once in a whi --" He glanced at me again – or at least the area between my collarbones and my navel. "Uh, sorry, hon. No offense."
"None taken," I smiled graciously, admiring the gallery of bikinied and less-than-bikinied young women smiling down on an array of tires, mufflers, tools, and soda cans.
"Anyways," Harold continued, working a glob of tobacco in his cheek, "You’re lookin ’ at a ring job, minimum. Probably a few blown gaskets, too.Real shame. I’m probably gonna have to drive up to Marion to get the parts I need. Plus I promised I’d finish up one of the sheriff’s cars first, so it’s gonna be a few days."
"No, no, no," Mulder groaned, beating his forehead with the heel of his hand.
"C’mon, Mulder ," I said soothingly. "It’s not like we’re in a hurry or anything, right? It’ll give us a chance to enjoy the area, take a little breather. When life hands us a lemon, right, sweetie?"
"Bleepin ’ bleep," he muttered under his breath. He turned to Harold with a dark look. "And what kind of ring job are you gonna do on us?"
"Huh?"
"How much is this gonna run us?"
"Ooh, I couldn’t tell you ‘til I get inside. Three or four hundred, minimum, I’d say."
"Cars," I shook my head, smiling. Harold chuckled again, ogling my legs, as Mulder fumed.
**
"Oh, please," Mulder broke in, slapping the arm of his chair. "As if I’m going to be fuming about some 70-year-old geezer checking out the action. And I’m not so sure he was ogling so much as pondering how your little legs could reach the brake pedal."
"Fox, could you please get us another box of Triscuits?" Dales requested cheerfully. "Right above the sink."
"I’m not going anywhere," Mulder fumed.
"May I continue?" Scully asked.
**
Mulder bitched endlessly about our choice of accommodations – a rather futile exercise seeing that the Wakeup Inn was Wellspring’s sole option for lodging. I figured he was hungry – low blood sugar tends to make him snappish – so we looked around the town square for some place to eat. Mulder was leaning toward some dingy little tavern on a side street, but based on the line of Harleys out front and my desire to celebrate William’s second birthday, I suggested The Well Spring, a seemingly less lethal greasy spoon located between the local drugstore and the American Legion.
"We got a good fried walleye special today, or if you’d like, the country-fried steak’s a favorite," recited a pair of two mammoth breasts supported by a teen-aged girl. Mulder’s jaw was scraping the filthy linoleum. "You want an appetizer while you decide? We got French fries, onion rings, fried mushrooms, fried cheese balls, or fried cauliflower."
Mulder glanced for too long at the girl’s name tag, which threatened to put out one of his eyes. "Ah, Sherrise , what do you recommend?"
"Oh, everything’s real good, but I guess I’d go with the chicken-fried steak. Roger down at the treatment plant got a little green off the walleye last Friday."
"Well, chicken-fried steak it is," Mulder piped, shutting his menu and turning on what he believed to be his high-wattage charm.
I coughed, and Mulder began to guiltily examine the collection of farm implements handing from the plaster walls. "Do you have anything like a grilled chicken sandwich or maybe a chef’s salad?"
"I might could ask Jeff to throw a couple of thighs in the deep fryer," Sherrise suggested ("Might could?!?" Mulder squeaked before Dales hushed him).
"I think a grilled cheese sandwich would be fine," I decided.
Mulder pretended to wait until our waitress was out of earshot, taking the opportunity to observe the swiveling synergy of Sherrisse’s departing buttocks. "Very carefully look at the table by the window, and please tell me that isn’t who I think it is."
I glanced over to where a tall, very handsome man was occupied with the USA Today Sports section and a burger. It took me a second – he’d grown a beard and mustache – but then it kicked it.
"Sheriff Hartwell," I breathed.
"Sheriff, my ass," Mulder growled. "Wonder what Goober Pyle’s doing in these parts?"
Lucius
Hartwell was no Goober Pyle: He ostensibly was a vampire, quite possibly
the leader of a community convinced through some group psychology that they
had vampiric tendencies.
Despite experiencing some rather unusual events in the
**
"Stop that," Scully said through her teeth as Mulder began to snore loudly.
"Group psychology?!" Mulder snorted. "How do you exsanguinate a cow, much less a couple of tourists, through group psychology?"
"One more outburst, and I’ll make you go up to the Bingo game in the park rec center," Dales threatened.
Mulder straightened and glared at his partner as William continued to purr beatifically in her lap.
**
"Just try not to wet yourself ," Mulder whispered as we approached Hartwell’s table. "Remember, he drugged you and did God knows what God knows where and with what before I found you."
"He didn’t touch me," I sighed, recalling Hartwell’s immaculate manners and gentility. "Sheriff?"
He looked up, piercing me with his luminous dark eyes. His brows popped up, and then he broke into an ivory-white grin. "Why, if it isn’t the lovely Agent Scully. And Mr. Muller."
"Mulder ," Mulder rasped. "What are you up to? Where are they?"
"Mulder ," I chided.
Hartwell folded his paper. "How did you two ever catch up to me? You are good, Agent."
"I’ve, uh, retired from the Bureau," I informed him. "Um, Mulder, too."
"You two got hitched?" Hartwell smiled warmly. "He’s a beautiful boy – favors his mom."
"Cut the cornball crap, Gomer," Mulder snapped. "You and your bloodsucking pals camped out somewhere around here?"
Hartwell looked sympathetically at me. "I’m traveling solo. Kind of a special security mission, actually. Guess I can tell you two, since we go back some."
Mulder snorted. I pinched him with my free hand, and he silently glowered at Hartwell.
"After you folks caught onto Ronnie Strickland, we had to kind of keep moving around for a year or so," the "sheriff" related. "By the way, you might be happy to know Ronnie’s totally turned himself around. We got him into counseling, and now he’s studying accounting. Even found himself a girlfriend."
"Hope they haven’t moved past the necking stage yet – that oughtta be one magical hickey," Mulder grumbled. "Let’s just give us the Anne Rice Reader’s Digest version, OK, Vlad?"
"Vlad , that’s good," Hartwell chuckled sincerely, his dark eyes twinkling (Dales held up a hand as Mulder began to protest). "OK. The upshot is, we’ve found ourselves a nice little community where we can assimilate into society a little better, but every once in a while, we run into a little hitch. Somebody gets tired of the small town life or the travel when somebody like you or Agent Scully here get onto our past history. They look for a new life outside the group, but without the community’s support, they fall back into old ways."
"And the next thing you know, you can’t find a pint of O Positive anywhere. Yow, hey! That hurt, Scully!"
"And of course, that puts the rest of us at a risk of exposure," Hartwell continued. "If Nathan Treese – that’s the fella I’m looking for – gets caught and the authorities realize who he really is, what he really is, then we’ll never have a moment’s peace."
"I thought you guys were immortal," Mulder sneered.
"Well, then, you can imagine how many unpeaceful moments that would be. Anyway, we keep our eyes on the newspapers – almost every paper of any size’s got a site on the web, and all you have to do is feed a few keywords into Google. Well, a month or so ago, we got some curious hits. The county cops here found a couple of good old boys coming back from deer hunting all burned up in their truck. There was some suspicion of foul play because even though the bodies were chargrilled , the coroner found punctures in their throats and ‘some other inexplicable anomalies.’ That was a little weird, but we didn’t get too alarmed until we came across a few other mysterious deaths in the area. The clincher was when one of the news stories mentioned some dairy cattle thefts that had been going on for a few months before those hunters got killed. The cows just disappeared. I figure Nate realized a bunch of bloodless bovines would attract attention."
"How did you decide the killer lived here?" I inquired.
"Well, a couple things. The hunters and the other victims weren’t from around here. It’s like he started with the cows and then, when the urge got too strong, he turned to human victims, but not anybody that’d point suspicion toward him. So we figured he must be living around here, maybe even for awhile. He left the community maybe 25 years ago. Which of course isn’t that long for us – it’s like he blew ‘town’ yesterday. Then, of course, there was the call."
"He called you?" Mulder perked up, and William cooed in response.
"After what we figure was the third murder. Human murder, that is. Guess you can’t really call killing a cow--"
"He called you?" Mulder growled.
"Yep.
Thaddeus, one of the elders, got a call about
"Great deductive logic," Mulder muttered. Hartwell smiled sheepishly.
"So the elders decided I ought to see I could come out here and maybe convince Nate to rejoin the fold."
"And if he doesn’t want to?" I asked.
"Well, I got some stuff in the truck’ll take care of him, otherwise. You don’t mind, we’ll leave it at that. I get the feeling Agent Mulder here might like to know our trade secrets, since the Buffy the Vampire approach didn’t work any too hot for him with Ronnie."
"Heh , heh," Mulder said, mirthlessly. "Well, nice to see you again, Lucius. Me and the little woman and the boy have to hit the highway if we’re going to make the Peoria Museum of Colorful Redneck Vampires before closing. And yes, Scully, I know we’re not driving anywhere today. That was sarcasm."
"And very pithy sarcasm, indeed," I said calmly.
"You know, actually, I could really use some help from you two, especially if you’re retired and all. You were some kind of profiler, weren’t you, Agent Scully?"
"I was the profiler," Mulder huffed ("Huffed?" Mulder sputtered. "Huffed?"). "Look, while I’d love nothing more than getting my carotid opened by some hicktown Nosferatu , I think we’ll just get back to our chicken fried whatever-it-is and let you stake your own claim."
"Mm, too bad," Hartwell frowned. "Seemed almost like fate, you two showing up here…"
"Well, as Scully will tell you, we don’t believe in fate, right, Scully?"
The conversation was interrupted by a loud crash. The three adults’ heads turned – William’s had swiveled toward his parent’s table a split-second before the calamity. The blade of a large scythe, probably once used to thresh wheat, was lodged in the vinyl-upholstered seat of Mulder’s vacated chair, its handle wobbling.
Sherrise was almost immediately at Mulder’s elbow. "Oh, wow, Mister – I’m so sorry! I told Frank those things weren’t nailed to the wall good enough. Lemme just make your drinks on the house." The waitress looked fretfully at the farm implement that had very nearly cleaved Mulder’s skull. "Gosh, to think if y’all hadn’t seen your friend over here! It’s almost like, like, you know…"
Mulder held up a hand before the grinning Hartwell could speak. "Don’t even say it."
**
Mulder threw up his hands. "You make me sound like some kind of drooling moron."
Scully stroked William’s downy hair. "Not at any time did I refer to drooling."
"Hey. C’mon, Arthur; she’s screwing
this thing up. Let me tell you what actually happened."
Dales held up a finger, hastily drained his scotch, and poured
another two fingers. "All right, equal time. But I must warn you, Agent
Mulder: The BS meter is running."
Fox Mulder
Wellspring,
"That grease monkey tries to screw us, I’ll have his right testicle with some fava beans and a nice chi-anti," Scully growled. Her hair was a tangle, and she’d been on the ra—, I mean out of sorts since the car’d broken down.
"C’mon, Scully, give the poor guy a break," I smiled, trying to soothe the mother of my child ("Actually, I think it was the pizza guy," Scully told Dales. Mulder coughed loudly). The mechanic was a sweet old guy, and after we’d consulted under the hood for a few minutes, he’d agreed with me we needed a ring job. Unfortunately, he didn’t have the parts immediately on hand. However, Wellspring seemed like a charming little village, and I welcomed the opportunity to bask in some rural hospitality.
"We have a fried walleye special today, or if you’d really like to test my skills in CPR, the country-fried steak’s a real killer," our waitress, Sherrise , chuckled dryly. Scully growled almost inaudibly – she’d been fixing Sherrise with her beady little evil eye since we’d come in. "Would you like something to start off with? We have pommesfrittes – sorry, French fries, and tempura-style onion rings or mushrooms, mozzarella en croute."
"Sherrise , what do you recommend?" I inquired. She smiled, a sort of impish Mona Lisa smile.
"I’d recommend we order in from La Brasserie in Chicago, but the food would be frigid by the time it arrived." We laughed as Scully’s expression grew darker. "The chicken-fried steak is fairly satisfying proletarian comfort food, I suppose. Kind of retro Andy Griffith Meets Bob Evans."
"Sounds delightful," I piped, shutting my menu. Sherrise nodded shyly, her smile growing. "The décor here is very intriguing, by the way. Is that an 1878 corn sheller up there. "
"Well, yes," Sherrise murmured, clearly impressed.
Scully coughed. "Do you have anything like a free-range chicken sandwich, grilled not fried, five-grain bread, or maybe a chef’s salad with some nice organic endive?"
I shrugged, slightly embarassed , but Sherrise took it in stride. "Well, the endive truck doesn’t make it to these parts that often, but I suspect we might have some arugula in the crisper," she suggested.
"Sounds good," I said, before Scully could dig herself in any deeper. "And you know what, I’m not feeling quite as peckish as I’d thought. A grilled cheese sandwich might just hit the spot."
"
**
"Peckish
?" Scully challenged, her jaw hanging open. "We’re on Masterpiece Theater
now? And if that grease pit had
"Agent Scully," Dales scolded mildly, slurring slightly. "The child, please. The child. Proceed, Mulder ."
**
"Scully?" I asked, alarmed. She was gazing toward the front of the café, and her eyes were glazed. William gurgled, alarmed, at his mother, but she ignored his pitiful cries.
"Scully?" I repeated, following her stare to a table by the plate-glass window. It took me only a second to identify the lanky man with the big buck teeth.
"Hartwell," I whispered. I suspected Scully had been mesmerized by the vampire, although he seemed intent on the bloody burger before him.
"Hartwell indeed," Scully murmured lustfully, rising from the table. "Your turn to hold the kid, um, ah, Mulder."
"Hey," I exclaimed as my former partner wiggled her plump little backside toward the other side of the room. I wrestled William into the crook of my arm and pursued her to Lucius Hartwell’s table.
"Hey," Scully breathed as she pressed her pelvis against the former sheriff’s arm. "Remember me, big guy?" ("For God’s sake, now you’re writing porno, which given your past proclivities would seem to be a sound career move," Scully cajoled. "I have the floor," Mulder countered with dignity).
"Remember us?" I asked. The spell was broken, and Scully looked up, bored.
"Oh, yeah, you remember Mulder and, um, this is my, ah, baby."
Hartwell’s arcticly cold eyes glittered. "This is your child, Dana?"
I protectively wrapped my arms around William as I sat down. "Scully, you want a wet wipe or something?"
She plopped down in the chair next to me and stared lasciviously at Hartwell.
"Just what are you up to?" I demanded. Hartwell flinched for a moment, then grinned, projecting undistilled evil even with his maloccluded incisors.
"I seek one of our own, who has strayed from the fold," he explained. "He must be reassimilated."
**
"That’s the Borg," Scully said flatly. "Make up your mind, Mulder : Is he a vampire or a member of the Borg Collective?"
"Fine," Mulder snapped.
"Great."
"Whatever."
**
So he gives us his little song-and-dance about his missing bloodsucker pal, yada yada, yada , and I tell him to take a hike. All this time, Scully here looks like she’s about to reenact a scene from Taxicab Confessions with the Sheriff Lestat .
"Mm, too bad," Hartwell frowned, his brows furrowing into a single ridge of fur. "Seemed almost like fate, you two showing up here…"
"Well, as Scully will tell you, we don’t believe in fate, right, Scully? Right?" Scully licked her lip at Hartwell, then glared murderously at me. Then Hartwell did something, moved his hand or twitched his nose or blinked or something, and the conversation was interrupted by a loud crash.
Across the room, the blade of a large scythe, probably once used to thresh wheat, was lodged in the vinyl-upholstered seat of my vacated chair, its handle wobbling.
Sherrise was almost immediately at my elbow. "My god – I’m so sorry! I told Frank those rusty old dust-collectors weren’t nailed to the wall nearly well enough. Of course, your meal’s on the house." The waitress looked fretfully at the farm implement that had very nearly cleaved Mulder’s skull. "To think, if you hadn’t seen your friend over here! It’s almost like, like, you know…like some sort of telekinetic force!"
(At this point, Scully’s drink exited in an impressive fume through her nose. Mulder glared daggers at her as she wiped William’s spattered face.)
Though I don’t like to give in to threats, I had to consider Scully and William’s safety. And besides, I wanted to know what Hartwell’s real agenda was before he harmed any of the local residents.
"All right, ‘Sheriff,’ we’ll go along for right now," I advised him. "But we play by my rules, or we walk."
"After the car’s fixed," Scully reminded me.
"Yeah, after the car’s fixed. Capish , pal?"
"I appear to have no choice," Hartwell replied darkly, pushing his chair back with a screech.
"And you got the bill," I added.
Hartwell’s eyes began to darken, and I could tell he was about to do another one of his Bewitched-I Dream of Jeannie things, but I stared him down, he pulled out his wallet and threw a $20 on the table.
Wellspring’s downtown district was about three blocks long, capped at one end by a large minimart and at the other by a grain elevator/feed store. A few antique shops, a post office, a drugstore, an insurance agency, a pizza place, and a video store/tanning parlor lined the wide state highway that ran through it. We strolled slowly toward the grain elevator end.
"So, ah, how long have you been in town?" Scully asked Hartwell, beaming and carting our son down the sidewalk like a sack of No. 2 Idaho spuds.
"Three weeks," he replied, his beady eyes darting up and down Greater Wellspring.
"I wouldn’t’ve thought it would have taken this long to find your pet vampire," I challenged. "I mean, surely there are photos of him when he lived with you other bloodsuckers."
"The camera can’t capture our images," Hartwell supplied. "That’s where a lot of that can’t-see-a-vampire-in-the-mirror crap came from. Besides, he may have changed a lot over the years."
"But you know he had to have moved here fairly recently. Little town like this, how many new arrivals they get?"
Hartwell stopped in front of the drugstore, glanced around to ensure no one was eavesdropping. "Actually, I have no way of knowing. You know, I have had some actual police experience, and I know how to run a pretty good background check. Well, aside from Frank, who owns the minimart, and a few others, practically no one in this town of what, 3,000 or so appears to have been here more than about 10 years. And the few I’ve investigated don’t seem to have any history before they came here."
"That’s nearly inconceivable," Mulder said.
"I know. I can only come up with one solution." But Hartwell’s explanation was interrupted as he pitched back against a mailbox and blood sprayed from his chest.
"Scully!" I yelled. "Somebody’s shooting
at us! Get William into the store." I yanked the
Glock Spender had supplied us with and peered at the rooftops
and generally vacant second story windows along
"Where’s a stake when you need one?" I muttered.
**
The pharmacist, a rabbity little guy, was alive with speculation as we waited for the local cops.
"You folks know that fella ?" he asked from his pulpit behind the drug counter, nodding his heard toward the body on the sidewalk. "He was awful curious, that one. I’m thinkin’ he was one of them hitmen from back East. Or maybe back West , from the looks of him. Where do most of the hitmen come from, anyway?"
"I think it’s about divided equally," Scully suggested. She snatched a huge bottle of cheap cologne from William’s near-grasp.
"Guy was hangin ’ around askin ’ all kinds a’ questions," the pharmacist related eagerly. " Betcha he was casin ’ the joint, the town, I mean."
"Who would he have hit around here?" I asked. An idea had been forming before Hartwell had bit the dust – the cement, that is. It was an idea with jaggedy edges, and if it were true, I wanted to get out of town quick, car or no car. I was hoping this reject from a Mayberry casting call might shed some light on the jagged edges before Andy and Barney showed up.
The druggist frowned, staring at his
stamped tin ceiling. "Oh, there’s
lotsa possibilities. It was me, I’d hit
"Contract," I corrected. "Stoker, you say? I know some Stokers. What’s his first name?"
"Brad," the pharmacist supplied. "Maybe somebody oughtta warn him. Of course, like I said, there’re a lot of possibilities in this town, these days—"
"Mort," a stern voice called from the front of the store. I turned to see a stocky uniformed man marching between the greeting cards and the Russell Stover chocolates. "Chief Durrock. Old Mort chewing your ear off already?"
"Oh, no," I assured him. "He was just sharing his theories on, um, the man who got shot out there."
The chief looked edgily at Mort the pharmacist, who glared back feebly. "Well, I’m pretty sure Mort’s theories and 35 cents would buy you a local phone call. So you two have no idea who that guy outside was?"
I smiled and shook my head. "He came up to us in the street, wanted directions."
"To where? Where did he want directions to?"
"
"Boy, was he off track," the chief snorted. "And somebody just shot him, huh?"
"I couldn’t tell what direction the shot came from," I said. "But it sounded like a rifle. I mean, I guess."
The chief stared silently at me for a moment. "And what about your gun, Mr …?"
My heart stopped for a moment.
"Jesus H., they must be the hitfolks!" Mort yelped.
"Mort!" Chief Durrock shouted. He turned back to me. "Got a witness says you yanked out a pretty sophisticated piece of firepower after the fella outside went down."
I sighed, and started to reach inside my jacket. Durrock’s hand twitched toward his regulation belt, and I pulled the jacket aside so he could retrieve my Glock .
"Look, Chief," I said in a low voice, leaning in. "We’d better just straighten this out right now. Can I get out my ID?"
His eyes narrowed. " Your ID?"
"Your ID?" Scully squeaked. I shot Rain Man a look of distress.
I dug into the zipped interior pocket of my windbreaker, where I kept the special ID case. Spender’s shadowy cohorts had equipped Scully and I with ID for virtually any occasion, and because rooting through a dozen driver’s licenses was a no-no in the official AAA Guide to Disguise, I kept two or three wallets on me at any given time.
Durrock’s furry brows rose quickly. "FBI? Her, too?"
"Special Agents William Morris and Elizabeth Crocker." I pumped the lawman’s hand. I hoped he wouldn’t spot the cookbook display to his right.
He nodded at William. "And you brought a kid with you?"
"Well, this was supposed to be an undercover assignment," I reminded him, witheringly. Scully’s jaw was hanging wide open, and it took all my strength not to reach over and shut it. "This way, the Bureau discharges its federal child care responsibilities. You know how cheap Uncle Sam is."
The chief was silent for a long second. Too long. "Tell me about it – never have seen any of them Clinton law enforcement grants I applied for. So what’s up? That guy out there another agent? Or maybe a suspect?"
I leaned in further, and I could smell yesterday’s lunch. "Don’t have the slightest. I think maybe Crocker and I might’ve been the targets."
The policeman leaned even closer. Lasagna.Swanson’s. "Just what the hell kind of case you on?"
I took my shot. "C’mon, you know."
The chief didn’t flinch. Three more brain cells than I’d estimated. "I do?"
"Your special residents?" I prodded. "You know, the ones we bussed in?"
Chief Durrock quit breathing for a second, then remembered it was necessary. "So….You two are working with Witness Protection?"
**
"Witness Protection," Arthur Dales delared, as if he’d remembered where he’d left his reading glasses. "Of course. A small out-of-the-way Midwest town full of people with no pasts. The drugstore fellow’s theories about hitmen ."
"What I said about Uncle Sam being cheap?" Mulder posed. "Well, with budget cuts and all, apparently the Witness Protection Program decided to place several of its prime snitches and unsavory Mob associates in one convenient location. Wellspring. The police chief was the only one who was supposed to know, but you know how it is in a small town. Almost impossible to keep anything secret for long."
"Betty Crocker?" Scully asked, incredulously.
"Well, one of us had to think on his feet, and you’d left your Bureau ID at the motel," Mulder shot back, defensively.
Dales tippled a few more inches of scotch into his tumbler. "So you thought maybe Sheriff Hartwell had been asking all kinds of unwanted questions about his vampire, and one of Wellspring’s displaced goodfellas had him whacked?"
"Well, that was one theory," Mulder said, drawing a chortle from his partner.
"Agent Scully?" Dales smiled.
**
Fortunately, Wellspring wasn’t overflowing with law enforcement acumen, and the chief bought Mulder’s half-baked tale.
Mulder informed me he was going to "check around," which translated to a great potential for calamity in the near term. But I couldn’t launch into a domestic dispute in front of Chief Durrock and Mort and maintain the tissue-thin illusion of Agents With Children. Instead, as Mulder grilled the chief about his less reputable citizens and the recent string of local murders (bovine and human), I rocked William and studied a photo of Mort’s drugstore (Nichtmann and Son’s Pharmacy, incidentally) hung crookedly above the prescription waiting chair next to the framed first dollar bill Mort had accrued as a distinguished merchant of Wellspring.
"Chief," I finally interrupted as Mulder appeared poised for some kind of rambling symposium on the science and culture of exsanguination . "Would you have any problem with my looking over any reports and evidence you have on your serial killings? There may be a connection to, uh, that man’s murder."
"I figure those are Satan killings,
you know, by some out-of-town cult or something, maybe from
"It could be some form of smokescreen for the killer’s real motivation, or perhaps a veiled message to one of the informers or former mobsters here in town, maybe about bloodletting," I suggested, realizing it sounded like something from a bad TV cop show. Though the chief had been prepared to believe a major showbiz agent and his culinarily gifted partner were investigating a sniping with an infant in tow, I suspected our tale of the crypt might strain his credulity.
"Well, one of them hunters was divorced,
and the ex wouldn’t take his body, so he’s still on ice at the morgue. Troy
Hegeman’s
"I wanna see the cow," Mulder exuded.
"We’ll start with the hunter," I said firmly, balancing my other child.
"Chief, you mind if I confer with my partner for a moment?" Mulder requested. The chief tipped his hat, and began discussing high school basketball with Mort the Pharmacist. "Scully, you did catch the name of the guy Mort thought Hartwell might be wanting to hit? Stoker?"
"Brad Stoker," I nodded, wearily. "As in Bram Stoker, the author of Dracula. Yes, Mulder; that wasn’t lost on me."
"Well?" he demanded.
"Well, I would assume that what we are witnessing, once again, is an example of that paranormal phenomena we call coincidence. Fate laying a one-liner on us. Cosmic humor.But definitely not a vampire or a phantasm or a Mexican goatsucker."
" Aaah!" Mulder exclaimed, throwing his arms up and stalking out Mort’s door with a huffy chime.
**
"Here’s
those effects I told you about," the coroner, a morbidly obese local physician
named Freestone announced, plopping a plastic bag almost into the body cavity
I’d reopened in the deer hunter, who had been a
"These were in his pockets?" I posed. Freestone nodded eagerly, no doubt having seen the postmortem scene from Silence of the Lambs several times. I leaned in closer to the underbudgeted county morgue’s 20-year-old Radio Shack tape recorder. "Pocket contents of victim Ray Theobald include three dimes; one quarter; assorted bills amounting to…"
"$43," Freestone volunteered.
"…$43; one set of 12 assorted keys on a Mustang keychain; one box of prophylactics, ah, ‘extra pleasure ribbed’… Dr. Freestone? Did you find it curious that Mr. Theobald was carrying a box of condoms on his person? Don’t men usually, ah…"
"Lock and load?" Chief Durrock posed cheerfully, patting a sleeping William as he burped him against the far wall. The chief had turned out to be surprisingly nurturing. "I checked Theobald’s wallet, and there was a distinct condom indentation in one of the coin compartments. But you want to know why he was loaded for bear – or I guess, deer. I thought about the idea he and his buddy might have had more than just a freezerful of venison in mind out here in the sticks, but I found out the gentleman here had talked one of the gals at The Well Spring into a late-night rendezvous at his RV. Probably stocking up for a big night, be my guess."
"Ah, hah," I nodded, returning to the body. The exsanguination had been nearly complete, leaving Theobald a bag of liquor- and polyunsaturated fat-abused organs. I turned to the hunter’s throat. Two punctures, all right, spaced at an interval consistent with the incisors of a normal adult male or possibly a large woman. But that result could have been easily manufactured to disguise the use of a siphon or pump.
"I don’t suppose you found any traces of saliva at the puncture sites?" I asked.
Freestone shuffled his huge feet. "Well, we did bloodwork, but we’re not really equipped for real detailed DNA work, and besides, we didn’t figure Count Dracula had sucked that blood out of him, right?"
"Right," I murmured, letting it go. "Do you have an electron microscope handy?"
"Yup," he chirped, partially redeemed. "The Kiwanis had a pancake fundraiser five years ago and helped us buy it. Why?"
"I want to check for ‘ballistics,’ you
might say. Dental ballistics.
By the way, speaking of bloodwork
, were there any unusual stomach contents or drugs in the victims’ bloodstream?"
"We suspected they were chloroformed, except the cows, of course
– they were stunned with an electrical prod. But no, no signs of any ingested
or injected drugs. One of the victims, middle-aged lady touring historical
sites, had an unusually high level of
dramamine in her system, but her sister said she
tended toward car sickness."
I sighed.
"All right. Doctor, could you get Mr.
Theobald ready for an examination of those punctures?
I suppose I have a date with a
**
The date fell through. The large dairy cow had been frozen intact among Mr. Hegeman’s chops and steaks and roasts and deer sausages, and an autopsy could not be attempted for at least three days. The puncture marks on the animal’s hide were nearly identical to those on Mr. Theobald’s throat, and strangely clean. No hacking or gnawing, despite the thickness and toughness of the bovine’s throat. That contributed to my theory that the exsanguination had been accomplished through mechanical means.
"Could you please thaw this animal?" I asked the chief.
"
"Need a winch or something, be my guess,"
I left it to the professionals.
**
Sherrise waggled her expertly trained ass slowly and reluctantly over to my table as I buckled William into The Well Spring’s only battered baby seat.
"Where’s that cute husband of yours?" she asked subtly, oozing with artificial sweetener.
"Out chasing vampires," I smiled as sweetly. Sherrise’s smile soured slightly.
"What can I get you, Honey?"
"Decaf, Sugar."
Her teeth shined brighter, triumphantly. "Fresh out, Hon. I’ll ask Frank to boil up a new pot, OK? May take 15 minutes or so."
"Oh, and Sherrise ?" She turned with a witheringly polite look. I took out the phony ID case I’d retrieved from our motel and flashed her the Bureau acronym with my fingers strategically concealing my alias, which was neither Betty Crocker nor Duncan Hines. Her beady possum eyes popped wide open. "My partner and I are helping the police chief look into the killings around here lately."
"I don’t know anything about no murders," Sherrise stammered.
"Not even about Ray Theobald ?"
The waitress wavered, and then slid into the chair opposite me. "I didn’t even hardly know the man. Him and his buddy came in for some pie…"
I bet, I thought.
"And me and him started talking about stuff, you know, and I could tell he was attracted to me, and, well, you know." Her eyes came up, flashing defensively. "Hey, a girl’s got urges, you know? And it’s hard in a small town, especially when your ex-boyfriend knows everybody and works just a couple of doors away. So I agreed to go out to Ray’s RV after my shift, you know, just have a little fun. But when I got there, the chief and everybody was running around, and I found out the next morning Ray and his buddy had got themselves sucked dry."
I passed on a good punchline . "OK, Sherrise . We may have some questions later. Just watch out for any more strangers, and get my decaf."
She hustled off, and I reflected that playing Bad Cop was kind of fun.
**
Mulder came in about 20 minutes later with a new friend. He was about the size of a Sasquatch, and the green coveralls with the Stoker Foods patch on the chest made him look like a huge beanstalk with a gorilla’s jawline and a single eyebrow. The man’s hand was jammed into the pocket of his uniform, wrapped around a familiar bulge.
"Honey, look who I ran into down to
the canning plant," Mulder
grinned tensely, dropping into the chair across from William and I. The
giant lowered his bulk, and the chair next to me creaked. "Betty Crocker,
meet the Jolly Green Giant."
"Shut the hell up," the cranky behemoth growled ("He didn’t actually
say hell, but this is the PG-13-Month-Old version,"
Mulder informed Dales). "We
all’sgoin’ for
a ride in the country."
"You wouldn’t guess in a million years he didn’t come from around these parts, would you?" Mulder said.
"I assume he’s not a you -know-what," I inquired.
"What the hell’s a you -know-what?" the giant snapped.
"Whoa, big
fella ," Mulder
said. "Nah. He’s a former
enforcer with the Soprano mob out
"Viggo
Giambini?" I gasped. "The
"With $15 million
in family funds? Yeah, that one.
Chances are that in the last five years, you’ve eaten his stewed tomatoes."
"Mr. Giamb—
Mr. Stoker’s a legitimate entre
-, entrepremiere, ah,
crap, a legitimate canning tycoon," the massive mobster protested. "We
ain’t gonna let
you two or that cowboy those bastards sent to kill Mr. Stoker screw that
up. Hell, he’s a Noon Optometrist."
"Optimist," Mulder corrected very mildly. "Look, Big P., if I can call you that. How about you let us leave the baby here, huh? He can’t identify you or your boss."
"I dunno ," he pondered. "What with that redressive therapy and all that, who knows what memory some shrink might bring out of him some day? Course, I don’t wanna whack no tot, though…"
"Can I offer a suggestion?" I said, shifting William onto my left thigh.
"Spose ," the giant grunted.
"How about this?" I rammed my elbow into the wall beside me. The giant shrieked just before the heavy wooden handle of the scythe hanging above him clunked against his skull and he went down, setting off a seismic reaction three tables around.
"Don’t fear the Reaper, Big P.," Mulder crowed. "Somebody’s gonna get a Scooby Snack tonight, Sweet Mama, if you know what I mean."
"Unfortunately, I do." I turned toward Sherrise, orange-topped carafe in her hand and her mouth gaping. "Call the chief. And don’t run off too far with that decaf. Yikes, Mulder."
He looked down at the blood seeping from the rip in his windbreaker. The implement’s dull blade had sliced his upper arm, and Mulder began ripping napkins from the holder against the wall.
"That needs to be disinfected, Mulder. Sherrise ? You have a first-aid kit back there?"
" Naw. Frank took it fishin’ with him last Saturday, never brought it back."
"My life is flashing before my eyes, and not the really good stuff," Mulder moaned, clamping napkins against his wound.
"It’s a superficial cut, Mulder," I sighed. "It just needs some disinfectant, maybe an antibiotic." I reached out to inspect the cut.
"No! No touching!" he screamed.
The door squeaked open. We looked up to see a tall, handsome man in a cowboy hat.
"What’d you do to yourself, Agent Mulder?" Lucius Hartwell asked, a puzzled grin on his face. "And who’s the Incredible Hulk here?"
"Apparently, the man who killed you," I replied. "Speaking of which…?"
"Aw, that coroner fella fainted when I told him not to cut me open." Hartwell frowned. "God, I think he fainted. Man doesn’t appear to take that good a care of himself."
"Excuse me," Mulder whined. "I’m still bleeding."
Sherrise knelt beside him, and I was afraid for a second she was going to try to suck the infection out of his wound. "Baby, you need to go down to the drugstore down the street – they can clean up that owie and bandage it up nice. Norm oughtta be working tonight – tell him Sherrise sent you and to put it on Frank’s tab."
"That’s right," I said, dryly. "Put plenty of pressure on that upper thigh."
Sherrise’s fingers left his leg, and she and Hartwell helped him to his feet.
"You OK, Sweetie?" the waitress cooed.
"Mommy…" Mulder moaned deliriously.
**
"All right, time out," Mulder groaned, slapping the arm of his chair. "And which Charlie’s Angel are you supposed to be, anyway? Lucy Liu-natic or Mini-Drew Barrymore?"
"Oh, I thought you were the little girl in this story," Scully smiled, stroking William’s thin hair.
"Had I wanted to spend my evening this way," Dales announced, "I’d have watched Will and Grace ." He squinted at the glass in his hand. "Is this my third or my fourth?"
"Yes," Mulder answered. "So anyway, back at the diner…"
**
"Take him – I don’t even work for the
FBI any more," Scully begged the huge mobster seated next to me. I gave her
a look, and she shrugged. "I’m just thinking of William. A boy needs his
mother."
"Shut up, the both of you," Big P. ordered. "Boss says I
gotta whack everybody. Let’s go."
Stoker had taken my Glock , but I wasn’t about to let Hulk Hogan harm Scully and my son. I needed to stall for some time to think. "Well, you can do that, but I ought to let you know you and Giambini’ll have a few hundred feds up your nose by tomorrow. You did call Skinner like I asked you to before I left, didn’t you, Crocker?"
"Huh?" Scully asked, brows rising.
"To let Assistant Director Skinner know I was on the way to question a known mob figure about Agent Hartwell’s murder."
"What? Agent Who?"
I gave Scully a desperate look and kicked her lightly in the shin. "Hey!" she yelled, banging her knee on the underside of the table. The table banged the wall, and the scythe Frank recently had rehung came down with a bang on the giant’s head.
I saw my opening, and went for the gun in his coverall pocket. He grabbed the scythe and got in a swipe that bit into my arm before I delivered a left uppercut that sent his head crashing into the formica of the table.
"Why’d you kick me, you jerk?" Scully complained.
"Scully, focus," I said, ignoring the blood flowing from my wound. "Sherrise !" The young waitress materialized. "Call the chief!"
"But you’re bleeding," she protested.
"I read in last month’s Boston Journal of Medicine
that lacerations of the humerus
can be associated with lost nerve function
and ."
"It’s just a flesh wound," I insisted.
"Yeah, you little tramp," Scully growled. "I’m the one whose shin’s turning blue."
"Just call 911," I directed, and Sherrise fled. The bell over the front door chimed, and Gomer Pyle’s hemoglobin-loving cousin sauntered in.
"I see dead people," I informed Scully.
"Well, hey there," she called, licking her lip as Hartwell approached. He stopped dead – well, not quite -- when he spied my bleeding arm.
"Not on the menu tonight, Count," I warned. "I thought you were, oh, I don’t know, uh, dead?"
The " sheriff"’s buck teeth flashed. "I’m afraid the coroner became a bit predisposed before he could start my autopsy, so I decided to get a burger. Blood rare, of course."
"Yeah," I said, pushing my chair back. I recovered my Glock and handed it to Scully "Scully, watch Big P. and keep your carotid artery covered while I boogie on down to the drugstore for a bandaid."
**
"Hello?" I called as I peered around Nichtmann’s Pharmacy. It was one of the few businesses still open as dusk descended on Wellspring, but Mort was nowhere in sight.
A door to the left of the prescription counter swung open, and a taller, younger, less rabbity version of Mort Nichtmann emerged hauling a case of enemas. He jumped, and almost dropped the carton.
"You scared the bee- jeebers outta me," he breathed. "Just lemme finish up here and I’ll be right with you."
"Sure thing." I wondered over to the waiting area and studied the photo of the drugstore hanging crookedly next to the framed dollar bill. There was something odd about the picture, and something Hartwell had said before he died – well, not quite – came back to me.
"Okey-dokey ," the pharmacist sang, plopping a box of children’s cough medicine on the counter. "What can we do for you tonight?"
I held up my arm. "You the son in Nichtmann and Son?"
"Ah, yeah, Norm Nichtmann ," he said, spotting the blood on my sleeve. "You, uh, know Dad?"
"We shot the bull after the town mobster shot a guy I know. Don’t worry – it didn’t stick. You got some iodine, maybe some kind of antibiotic?"
"Yeah, sure," he said, perplexed but distracted. His eyes didn’t leave my bloodied arm until he disappeared behind the high counter.
I looked again at the photo on the wall, and it hit me. I thought about my options. Nobody was going anywhere. I could take my medicine, literally, and hotfoot it back to the café.
At the same time, we were talking about
multiple murder here, and
if I didn’t take some immediate action, Harry and Marge from
I wished now I’d tied Big P. up and brought the Glock along, though I could’ve had no idea I was walking into the Batcave. The course of action I’d taken with Ronnie Strickland had proven somewhat ineffective, but it had at least slowed the bloodletting pizza boy down. However, in my current setting, I’d probably have to go through a dozen tongue depressors before I got the desired result.
Best to go back, get the Wyatt Earp of the Undead, and let him do whatever counseling or Buffy-tizing he needed to do. You don’t ask a computer tech to fix a toilet or a sous-chef to do a ring job.
But I was an Oxford-trained sous-chef with an insatiable thirst for arcane knowledge and just generally weird shit. I made a decision, and grabbed three bottles of Extra Strength Tylenol from a nearby shelf.
"This
oughtta do it," Norm said with a slight lisp he hadn’t
had before, returning with some serious-looking medications, cotton balls,
and some gauze. He set them down, then
glanced toward the front of the store. "Hold on – I was
gonna close up early tonight anyway, and we don’t want
to be disturbed, eh?"
As I heard him lock the front door, my arm throbbed and alerted
me that I’d dived into the deep end of the shark tank with a T-bone effectively
tied around my neck. I grabbed the amber bottle he’d put down and hastily
unscrewed the top. I’d worked several kidnaping
cases, and the sweet smell was unmistakable. I set the chloroform down,
and Norm reappeared, smiling broadly – with his mouth closed.
"You always in the drug trade?" I joked, grinning.
"Must’ve been tough," I suggested. "Working that close to that many throats with sharp objects must have been tempting."
"Don’t know what you mean."
"What happened, Norm? When did you lose control of your drinking habit. And why did you move from cows to deer killers and tourists?"
The pharmacist’s shoulders froze for a moment. Then he resumed soaking the cotton balls. "They send you? Dad’s people? He said it was a matter of time. You want us to come back with you or something?"
"Something. We miss Mort, and I’m sure we, ah, could use a good dentist."
He laughed brittlely. "You aren’t one of us, are you? Who the hell are you?"
I adopted a thick German accent. "You can call me Herr Doktor Van Helsing. Or maybe Sarah Michelle Geller. I’m like you – on the run. I can’t risk bringing the law into this, and I skipped Vampire-Killing 201, so let’s just talk."
"Sure. Look, I realize I got a problem, and Dad’s trying to figure out a way I can get some help. But there isn’t any AA for exsanguinators , and it’s a tough issue to talk about with a therapist, especially when you want to suck them dry."
"Kind of interferes with long-term solutions," I agreed. "You can see why I’m kind of reluctant to just trust that you and Daddy Dracula will work things out. I want you to talk to a friend of mine. One of your pop’s people. Lucius Hartwell. Your dad ever mention him?"
"You think he wants to talk?"
That did seem the more logical purpose of Hartwell’s mission. "O- kay. Here’s another solution, a custom observed by my people for centuries. I just forget I ever met you, your dad, and Hartwell, collect my wife and kid, and get out of Dodge. Not the most noble course, but I think one we both can live with."
"I got a better idea,"
He swept around, and his eyes were glowing. The fangs he displayed for me were far more substantial than Ronnie’s had been.
"Little Murine will take care of that redeye, and I’d recommend you see your local orthodontist for a good filing." I cocked my good arm, and swept the topless Tylenol bottles to the floor. Pills flew across the tile floor, and, like a good obsessive-compulsive vampire, Norm shot me a poisonous glare and began to collect them fastidiously.
"I’m gonna make this real slow when I get done here," the pissed-off druggist growled. "You know what the per-unit markup on this stuff is?"
I rushed past him for the front door, but when I reached it, I found a familiar face on the other side. Mort Nichtmann was jiggling his key in the lock, and the puzzled look in his eyes quickly gave way to a hot glow. He jiggled the key faster, and I high-tailed it back into the store.
The supply room door was agape, and I kicked Norm’s hand as he reached for my ankle and darted into the small room. The alley door I’d hoped for was there, but it didn’t budge. Had to call the state fire marshal if I survived.
I slammed the supply room door, slid a flimsy-looking deadbolt, and gruntingly nudged the Nichtmann’s computer workstation in front of it. It wouldn’t hold indefinitely, but once the chief got to the diner and I didn’t, they’d come after me. Though what they’d do was anybody’s guess.
It didn’t take long for Wellspring’s favorite father-and-son team to clean up the Tylenol spill, and their combined shoulders began pounding at the door. The screws holding the deadbolt began to rip from the jamb, and I knew I didn’t have long.
I glanced around for anything I could use. No two-by-fours, no Florentine letter-openers. No 17 th Century revolvers handily loaded with silver bullets. I felt drained, or close to it.
And that’s when I saw it.
**
William gurgled, yawned, and tiny fists stretched in either direction. He looked up at his mother, blinking the sleep from his eyes, and uttered a single word.
"Potty."
Scully patted his back and looked expectantly at Mulder. "I believe, per the 50-50 Partnership Agreement of 2003, reached on Valentine’s Day after too much box wine and make-up sex, that it is your turn."
"But I was just getting to the denouement," Mulder sulked.
"Get your denouement out of that chair and do your duty before he does his," Scully ordered.
"Go with God, son," Dales urged. "The Glade is under the sink."
Mulder accepted his son, draping him over his shoulder, and trudged off toward the trailer bathroom. He turned at the doorway. "Not a word while I’m gone, Scully. Not a single word."
"Of course, Baby," she beamed warmly. The bathroom door shut, and Scully leaned forward, elbows on knees. "All right, where did I leave off?"
**
Mulder seemed to be sucking around for Sherisse to carry him to the drugstore, but by this time, the little nympho was eye-fu--, uh, taking a fancy to Lucius Hartwell. Which was as well, ‘ cause a thought was taking shape in my mind. The chief and his crew – all three – had been called to a three-car pileup, so we had a few minutes to chat, just us girls.
" Sherisse ?" I asked, keeping the Glock trained on the unconscious mobster. "This ex-boyfriend of yours, could he have had any way of knowing you were going to be ‘dating’ Ray Theobald the night he was killed?"
The waitress plopped into a chair at the next table, and her boobs nearly contused her chin. Her face went ashen as if what I’d suggested had never occurred to her. "Oh, my God. Him and Frank are kinda close, and maybe that asshole thought he oughtta let him know I was stepping out on him. Even though I wasn’t stepping out, because there wasn’t no relationship to step out on. Even though he seemed to think—"
"You don’t have a picture of your ex, do you?" Hartwell inquired. His dark, smouldering eyes were intent on her. In a platonic, investigate way, of course.
Sherisse rolled her eyes. "That was one of the things that drove a ridge between us."
"Wedge," I amended.
"Yeah.
He was all freaky about having his picture taken, and every time I tried
to catch him off-guard, he’d always seem to get out of the frame right before
I could shoot."
I frowned – something hit a chord there. I remembered Hartwell
telling us his community, or sect, or whatever it was, believed they couldn’t
be captured on film, but there was something else. Then it hit me.
"Sherisse ," I asked softly. "Where can you buy prophylactics in town?"
"Pro what?"
"Condoms, rubbers. Where
can you get them in Wellspring?"
"Well, most of the kids used to go to the minimart, ‘til the fundamentalists had the rubbers and the Playboys and the Shannon Tweed videos taken out. Only place you can get ‘ em now is…Oh my God."
"Your ex-boyfriend," I demanded, suddenly apprehensive. "Where’s he work downtown."
"Norm works with his dad, down to the drugstore. Nichtmann’s ."
Hartwell laughed.
"What?" I asked, whirling to face him.
" Nichtmann .Nicht means night in German. Roughly translated, ‘night man.’"
"The owner’s name is Mort," I whispered. " Mort’s French for ‘death.’"
The door banged open in the middle of our revelation, and a huge, dissheveled , dirt-smudged coroner stamped into the restaurant.
"You," he charged, pointing a waggling finger at Hartwell. "You’re dead."
"Well, yeah," Lucius smiled sheepishly. "But I’m not now, so thanks, but I’ll be fine."
"Y-you can’t just hop off an autopsy table," Dr. Freestone stammered.
"Is that a crime?"
Freestone blinked, as if hit by a tough quiz question. "Uh, no,
I guess it isn’t…"
Hartwell shrugged, point made.
"Doctor," I said urgently. "Did you get any results from the electron microscope scan of the victim’s puncture wounds?"
He blinked at me, then shook it off like an obese Labrador. "Um, yeah, yeah. It didn’t look like any kind of mechanical device or tool the killer used to make those holes. The markings looked dental. Which, of course, was impossible, so I looked a little further, and found traces of material broken off in the tracheal tissue. I think it’s a composite. A dental composite. I think this sick bastard used some kind of special-made, razor-sharp denture to get the blood out of those folks. And cows."
"Denture?"
Sherisse gasped. "
"The box of prophylactics in Ray Theobald’s pocket," I blurted at Dr. Freestone. "The dramamine that woman, the victim, had in her bloodstream. They must’ve gotten them at Nichtmann’s ." I grabbed my jacket.
"Calm down," Hartwell tried to reassure me. " Nichtmann wouldn’t have any idea that Mulder might now who he is. I mean, Mulder doesn’t know, right? And even if he did, unless he does or says something stupid--"
"My God," I said, leaping from my chair. "Let’s go!"
**
The door to the drugstore was ajar when Hartwell, Freestone, Sherisse , and I got there. We’d tied "Big P." with some twine, and I figured Chief Durrock would know what to do with him. William we left temporarily with the ubiquitous Frank, who’d been baking the next morning’s biscuits.
I started in cautiously, both hands on the Glock. Hartwell was armed with a large butcher’s cleaver and a carving knife. Sherisse had contributed a baseball bat Frank kept around for "piss-drunk hunters and environmental activists," and Freestone was his own weapon, an effective obstacle to escape by either man or vampire.
" Mulder !" I shouted. "You in there?"
No one answered, but I heard a sound of human agony from the rear of the store. It was a wail of intense pain mingled with the sound of, well, wretching .
When we reached the storeroom, we found an unusual tableau: A young man who from his contorted facial features could only be Norman Nichtmann was hurling what appeared to be several meals’ stomach contents across the floor, while his father had Mulder pinned against a stack of boxes labeled "Mouthwash," seemingly trying to give my partner a hickey.
"Scully!!" he yelled. "Tell him I’m not that kind of girl!!"
Hartwell got Mort Nichtmann in a neckhold and squeezed until Mort turned a sort of cobalt blue and crumpled to the floor.
" Mulder , you all right?"
Sherisse
nodded, then swung the
bat in an arc, striking the doorway. The top half flew past my head, nearly
giving me free rhinoplasty
, and the waitress shoved past the fat doctor and stood over
"Not ‘worst wasting immortality on,’ huh, asshole?" Sherisse demanded bitterly, raising the makeshift stake and bringing it down with both fists between two of the younger pharmacist’s ribs.
"That definitely is going to sting," Hartwell predicted.
I stepped forward and whacked Sherisse with the stock of the Glock. She went down hard, and I knelt beside Norman, who was already almost white as the blood leaked from him. He whispered something hoarsely, but I couldn’t make it out.
"What?" Mulder asked, rubbing his gnawed but surprisingly intact throat.
I bent down, putting my ear to
"Damned WB," he cursed, eyes rolling up into his head.
**
"He did not!" Mulder huffed as Scully concluded the tale.
"All right," she smiled mischievously. "So I took a little literary license."
"Stephen King, John Updike, and Bill Clinton didn’t take that much license," Mulder murmured. He squeezed William. "Mommy’s a big fat liar."
Dales leaned back in his La-Z-Boy, his tumbler nestled comfortably on his stomach, a satisfied gleam in his eyes. "Fascinating, Just fascinating. So did Nichtmann the Younger recover from his grave wounds?"
"I guess," Scully shrugged. "After his
experience with Lucius
Hartwell, Dr. Freestone was astonishingly cooperative, and with the very
strong prospect
"So vampires really are immortal," Dales mused.
"Every folk legend and cultural myth borrows some elements from reality. Werewolves are still believed to suffer from a variety of genetic and neurological disorders. Vampires – or at least the range of individuals we classify as vampires -- similarly may suffer from sensitivity to light, severe iron or hemoglobin deficiencies."
"But immortality, Scully?" Mulder protested. "And an inability to be photographed?"
Dales snapped his fingers. "That was it, wasn’t it? What tipped you off to the Nichtmanns being vampires! The photo of their drugstore. Mort saved the very first dollar bill he earned there, but he wasn’t in the photo with the store."
Mulder grinned.
"Mass delusion," Scully countered. "They’ve become so convinced of their own folklore that they avoid being photographed because it might disprove the myth."
"Well, then, why did
"Ah, yes," Dales said, popping his footrest back into place and leaning forward, absorbed. "I meant to ask you about that. And you said something at the beginning of this saga about the importance of dietary supplements."
"Hoo boy," Scully muttered.
"I was blockaded in the back room of the pharmacy, father-and-son vampires about to burst in at any second and exsanguinate me," Mulder recalled. "No weapons were handy, no means of protection except one thing. My willingness to believe."
"Yes, yes," Dales urged, impatiently.
"My willingness to believe that in every superstition, every tale of demons and devils, every myth and folk legend, there’s some grain of truth. So I took a chance, and luckily, there was some truth to one of the fundamental myths of the vampire. I remembered that particularly in European vampire lore, garlic was seen as a talisman against the children of the night, the nosferatu . Perhaps the same genetics that contribute to drinking human blood also lack the ability to manufacture the enzymes to process garlic, or even make garlic a toxic substance to the vampire. So when I looked around the storeroom and found a whole carton of these--" Mulder pulled a white, childproofed bottle from his pocket – "—I rolled the dice."
Dales tugged a pair of reading glasses from his shirt pocket, slid them on, and stared at the label on the bottle. He laughed loudly.
"Garlic capsules,"
Mulder confirmed. "100 percent garlic extract.
Questionably good for the circulation, the heart, digestion.
But definitely effective against the common vampire. I
just had to stall the Nichtmanns
long enough to break open 50 or 60 capsules and coat my neck with garlic
extract.
"Psychosomatic," Scully persisted. "He was convinced his system couldn’t handle garlic, so his mind told him to have an allergic reaction."
"Ha!" Mulder responded. He juggled William and held the bottle before her face. "‘Odorless and tasteless.’ He couldn’t possibly have known I’d rubbed garlic on my neck."
"Perhaps he choked on that heavy layer of smugness," Scully said flatly.
Dales pushed up from his chair, slapping his knees. He seemed spirited, radiating with possibilities. "Who’s to say where the truth may lie, between what we mere mortals know and what we haven’t yet fathomed? Perhaps that’s the very object of storytelling – to chew and chew on the details until the true flavor of the facts emerges. It was an excellent tale to close a marvelous evening between friends. It deserves…"
Mulder looked to Scully, who rolled her eyes but swallowed a giggle despite herself.
"…a drink."
**
After Mulder secured his son in his child restraint seat – an operation that rivaled disarming a nuclear warhead – he climbed into the driver’s seat and booted up the engine. He glanced at Scully, leaning back luxuriantly in her seat, Mona Lisa smile enlivening her features, gazing with affection at him.
"What?"
"Oh, nothing," she sighed. "I was just thinking how nice it was just to share an evening with a friend, swapping stories, wasting time instead of racing it for a change. I hope it lasts, you know, the college, Mike White Eagle, all of it."
Mulder cupped her cheek with a palm, leaned over, and kissed her long and deeply.
"Lucius ," Scully whispered passionately as he progressed down her throat. Mulder pulled back for a second to study the triumphant grin on her face.
"You know," he observed, seriously, " there’s a uniform shop in Oglala where I bet we could get you one of those hot little waitress outfits, with the short skirt and white sneakers? So what’s good today, Sherisse?"
"Nothing you’re going to get any time soon," Scully answered sweetly, "y’all."