From n9489595@scooter.cc.wwu.edu Thu Sep 26 02:04:47 1996 Return-Path: n9489595@scooter.cc.wwu.edu Received: from scooter.cc.wwu.edu (scooter.cc.wwu.edu [140.160.240.24]) by sh1.ro.com (8.7.6/8.6.9) with SMTP id CAA22922 for ; Thu, 26 Sep 1996 02:04:46 -0500 Received: by scooter.cc.wwu.edu (5.65/WWU-M1.0/UW-NDC Revision: 2.26 ) id AA11969; Thu, 26 Sep 1996 00:04:48 -0700 Date: Thu, 26 Sep 1996 00:04:47 -0700 (PDT) From: Vasaris the Fuzzy Dragon To: Kelsy Subject: Bitter Almonds Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-UIDL: 290e1bc8f996697cb22c290c7299afa4 DISCLAIMER: Fox Mulder, Dana Scully, Walter Skinner, et. al. do not belong to me, which is unfortunate because if they did I'd be the one making money. They do, however, belong to Chris Carter, 1013 Productions, and Fox Broadcasting. No copyright infringement is intended, I'm just borrowing them for a while. Please don't sue me, I don't have any money anyway. Note: This story is a little bizarre, and one or more people die in it, with a couple of not particularly graphic descriptions. Okay, maybe one semi-graphic description. There, that shouldn't give anything away. Enjoy! -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Bitter Almonds by Vasaris "Will you have a cup of tea?" The girl's voice was light and sweet as she turned to the cupboard. Special Agent Fox Mulder smiled slightly as he saw her pale hair shine almost blood red in the ruddy firelight. Elessandra Kerrington was a lovely young woman, lithe and graceful. A beautiful girl, really. It was a pity that she preferred this remote cabin in the wilderness instead of an apartment in town and didn't socialize much. Questioning lavender-grey eyes turned to look at him as she pulled two mugs from the shelf. Her hands trembled slightly, and the weight of the cups helped hold them still. Mulder deliberately relaxed and nodded, realizing it would relieve her inner tensions. "Please." He smiled at her reassuringly. "It's been a long day." Special Agent Dana Scully read the toxicology report on the last body and nodded sharply to herself. It was rather what she'd expected to find... Given the cyanosis of the extremities and of the lips and the telltale odor of the poison... There was no doubt. Each of the male hikers had been poisoned, and each of the females had been shot with the same rifle. Sighing, Scully turned and looked at the deputy who had been assigned to her. "Sergeant, where is Agent Mulder?" "Well, ma'am, Agent Mulder got this here lead that Harriet Soames had seen that first hiker... Wilson Elliot... in the company of Elessandra Kerrington, up by Hellhammer Ridge. Ellie'd been hunting -- had a brace of something in her hand and her rifle over her shoulder. Your Mr. Mulder thought he'd check it out." Scully stared at the Sergeant. "And he didn't think to tell me?" The young man looked surprised. "Well, now. He shore did, but you was real busy-like, so I told him to go on up to Miss Ellie's. She's a right nice young lady, for all of the fact she stays up there on the mountain and hardly ever comes down to see the rest of us. Makes a mighty fine cup of tea. Mighty fine. Says that its her mamma's recipe... Bitter Almonds, or some such. He weren't likely to come to harm, so's I figured like he'd be safe enough there." Diamond hard blue eyes bored into the Sergeant's, cold and relentless. "Really?" Scully walked up to the hospital dispensary and ordered a few supplies. "Where does this Elessandra Kerrington live, precisely?" "I'm told that you met Wilson Elliot." Elessandra's hands stilled as she filled the tea kettle. "Yes. I knew him. He was a nice enough young man, though he'd gotten rather lost. As I recall, I ran into him on Hellhammer Ridge... I offered to bring him back here, but he wanted to get out of the forest as quickly as possible. When I told him that I didn't have a phone, he demanded to know the quickest route out of the woods. Babbled something about his girlfriend." She shrugged. Mulder nodded. Given the condition that his girlfriend had been in, it would have been surprising if Elessandra had found Wilson Elliot coherent. The young woman had been shot twice in the head by someone with a sniper-rifle of some sort. "Did he try and ask you for help?" She placed the kettle on a small stand near the fire and swung into out to rest slightly above the flames. "Well... I guess he did. I wasn't entirely able to figure out what was wrong... At first he wanted to know what was the fastest direction out of the forest, then, when I told him I lived nearby, he demanded to know if I had a phone or a radio or something. When I said I didn't, he was simply frantic to get out of the woods as fast as possible. I pointed him down the right trail. I didn't have the right equipment with me to hike out, and the amount of time it would take to walk back here and then drive down is nearly twice the amount of time it takes to get to the ranger's station by the ridge." Mulder nodded. The approach to the cabin was not an easy one and easily took around an hour to get to the main road. It was at least an hour back into town from there. The ranger's station was only about five miles downhill from the Ridge, so it would have been much faster for him to simply walk. Which didn't explain why his body was found ten miles in the opposite direction. He almost shrugged, knowing that he'd work it out soon. He looked up into Elessandra's eyes, watching their mystery shimmer in the reflected flames of the fireplace. She smiled slightly and turned back toward the cupboard, pulling down a glass jar filled with small leaves and bits that Mulder couldn't quite identify. Carefully, she spooned a tiny amount into each cup just as the kettle began threatening to whistle. "Agent Scully, where do you think you're going?" The faint whine of the sergeant's voice *really* got on Dana Scully's nerves. It was the fifth time in twenty minutes that the man had asked the same question. "We're going to Ms. Kerrington's." Each word was precise in its form and elocution." "Why?" "Because my partner is there without backup, which, as you may know, is strictly against Bureau policy. Because there is a lunatic killer out in those woods and Ms. Kerrington and Agent Mulder may be in danger from the person who has calmly executed twenty people in the woods around here in the last six weeks." "Now, Miss Scully, I'd hardly say that he ain't got no backup. Miss Kerrington is a fine shot and she shore as heck can take care of herself." Electric blue fires burned in Scully's eyes. "That's what I'm afraid of." "Good tea. What is it?" Mulder buried his nose appreciatively in the cup, allowing the fragrance of the steaming liquid to caress his senses like an adoring lover. Ellie smiled. "Bitter Almonds -- a blend my mother came up with when I was small. I've kept track of the recipe, its useful for all kinds of purposes. It makes almost any kind of medicine go down without a complaint. Unlike willow bark tea, which makes people cringe." "A spoonful of sugar, eh?" Mulder grinned. Elessandra stared at him. He shook his head. "Never mind. I don't suppose you met up with Frederick Josten or Kevin Hamilton?" She shook her head. "No. I rarely ever see anyone up here. Mama picked it because its far away from everything. She'd gotten very tired of living in the 'rat race' and when I was born, she wanted to bring me out here and teach me the simple life... the joys of living at one with one's environment." Mulder nodded, eyes focused some place far away as he sipped the tea. "It's a lonely place to live." "Not really. I've got many friends in the forest." Mulder looked up at her, questions forming in the back of his eyes. "Do you?" "Where's the turnoff?!" "It's up here a ways, Miss Scully. I could get you there --" "Don't start with me. Do you know how those men died?" "Exposure, of course. Dr. Gellison said so." Scully cursed under her breath. "Not hardly. If Gellison couldn't see what was right under his nose, he needs to be replaced as ME for this area. They didn't die of natural causes." She could see his surprise out of the corner of her eye. "Well--" He fumbled for words. "If it weren't exposure like the Doc said, what was it?" Scully's face twisted into a feral smile as she saw the turnoff just up ahead. "They were poisoned." Mulder was getting tired and his eyes weren't focusing properly. It was time for him to go, but he knew better than to drive in the condition he was in. A gentle voice spoke up beside him as he struggled to put his trench coat back on. "Mr. Mulder? Are you all right?" He stared stupidly down at the young woman on his right. Slowly he shook his head, wishing that the room would stop spinning. He wanted to collapse and sleep for a week. He stared into lavender-grey eyes that smiled up at him as gentle hands removed his half-donned coat and guided him to a bed in a small room just off of the living room. Something was wrong... But he was too tired to think about it. Gratefully he closed his eyes to sleep. Scully managed to say on the trail up to Elessandra's cabin with great difficulty. It had gone midnight, and Mulder should have completed his interview if he'd done one. Without thinking about it, Scully pulled out her cell-phone and hit the first speed-dial on it. Mulder's number. The phone rang and rang and rang.... Blissfully unaware, Agent Fox Mulder slept in a small bed, covered by a quilt with small sprigs of lavender and lilac embroidered all over it. Elessandra Kerrington stared at the cell-phone that she had pulled from Fox Mulder's trenchcoat and listened to it ring and ring and ring... Frustrated, Scully hung up and re-dialed Mulder's number, praying that he would answer, that he'd left it in the car while he visited the men's room... To her relief someone opened the connection. "Mulder? Mulder? It's Scully... Where the hell are you? Mulder..." There was silence on the other line. Scully's eyes narrowed. "Who's there? Where's Mulder --" *click* "Miss Scully --" Scully considered throwing the phone at the sergeant. "Yes?" "Uh..." He seemed to be trying to come up with something brilliant to say. "Someone else picked up the phone." "Where is he?" "I don't know. But we're definitely headed in the right direction to find out." Elessandra stared at the phone, enraged. A woman. A woman had called for Fox Mulder, had had the nerve to call him *here* in *her* home. She hurled the phone against the wall, feeling a satisfaction when it shattered. The woman wouldn't know where Fox was. There was time. Fox would wake soon. Deftly she put the kettle on. Perhaps he'd like to have another cup of tea. Fox Mulder awoke to the sound of a faint whistle and the wonderful scent of that tea Elessandra had made earlier. There was a cup of it sitting on the bedside table. He smiled and took a slow taste. It had cooled to the perfect sipping temperature. Slowly he got up and walked out to the living room. Elessandra was sitting on the floor. One of her rifles was out and she was cleaning it. "Hello Agent Mulder. I hope you had a good rest? Since you seemed out of it, I thought it best to put you to bed rather than let you drive." Her voice was filled with gentle humor. "Yeah... I've never done that before." He watched her quick, economical movements with a professional eye. Whatever else Elessandra was, she was an expert gun woman. He had no doubt that she could put that gun together with her hands tied behind her back while she was blindfolded in the dark. "Uh, how long was I out?" "Maybe an hour, hour and a half. How do you feel." "I feel fine. Energized almost. Better than I've been in a long time." He smiled down at her. "I think it might be the tea." Her lips crinkled up. "Could be. It's wonderful stuff." Mulder chuckled. A faint sound stirred the darkness. Elessandra's head turned, lavender eyes almost gone violet in the light of the leaping flames. "Someone's here." She waved to him to sit down. "I'll get the door." Mulder nodded, slowly drinking down the last of the tea. He sat down at the table as Elessandra headed to the door. The remains of his cell-phone mocked him from the shadowed corner of the kitchen. It had shattered. Mulder thought of the rifle in Elessandra Kerrington's hands. All of the women had been shot. The men had died of exposure... Extremities blue... <"It makes almost any kind of medicine go down without complaint..."> Any kind of medicine. Any kind of medicine... He stared down at the empty mug. Medicine. Mulder tried to get up again, only to find that his legs wouldn't obey him. Sergeant Lewis Jeffries stared at the petite redhead that had grabbed a bag full of medical supplies and jumped out of the car as soon as the engine stopped turning over. He was a good deal slower than the FBI agent that had poked her nose into everyones business in town without relenting. On the whole, he thought she was crazy. It was damn obvious that she was an incompetent Medical Examiner if she thought that those male hikers had died of anything other than natural causes. Hell, this sort of thing had happened almost every year for as long as he could remember. People just got careless out on the Ridge. That was all. The women... Well, that bore looking into, but hell, drug activity was way up in the neiboring towns. It was probably some kind of turf war, out there in the woods, where they assumed that no one would find the bodies. He saw the little lady start sneaking around to the back of the house and thought that she was nuts. After all, Elessandra was a nice girl and would do what she could to help. So he walked up and knocked on the door, cursing the stupid FBI woman for the fool she was. The door swung open. The last thing Lewis Jeffries saw was the glint of firelight on gun metal. The crack of the rifle was sharp in Fox Mulder's ears. "Damn. Where is she?" Elessandra's voice had taken on a hard, mean edge. Mulder turned his head toward the door, holding it up with difficulty as he began to lose control of his muscles. Elessandra's feral smile gleamed in the firelight. Her strange, lavender-grey eyes were dark violet now, almost indigo, and the flames reflected in them didn't only come from the fire. Elessandra tossed him a glance, somehow sorrowful and proud. "She can't have you, Fox. You're mine now. Like all of my friends in the forest. You'll be mine for eternity." Her laughter rippled like slow molasses, dark and sweet. With sudden insight as his vision began to fade, Fox Mulder realized what had been bothering him earlier. Elessandra had little commerce with the town. She took no papers, had no television and no radio... But she'd talked about Wilson Elliot exclusively in the past tense, though no one had spoken to her in weeks... As though she'd known he was dead. A gentle hand caressed his cheek as he fell into darkness and the scent of bitter almonds wafted to his nose. "Forever, my darling Fox." Scully moved with a silent tread taught to her by her hunting father instead of the trainers at Quantico. She knew how to move in the woods at night without a sound, wasting time she knew to be precious in order that she might have a chance to get into the cabin alive. When she heard the rifle she froze, behind cover, feeling the heat of Elessandra's anger buffet her like a violent storm. "Damn, where is she?" The voice was hard and cold, splintering against the air like ice. The door banged shut. Cloaking herself in silence, Dana Scully crept toward the kitchen window. She peeked in, through the hazy gauze of curtain lace, and saw a lithe young woman touch Mulder's cheek gently as he lost his balance and slipped to the floor. Scully reacted without thought. "Move away from him! NOW!" She knew the enraged shout would carry through the thin window pane. The girl looked up, violent hatred sparking in strange, violet eyes. A rifle was pulled from the floor... The gun bucked in Dana Scully's hands almost simultaneously with the wide stain of red that caught the young woman at the base of the throat. Dana never remembered pulling the trigger or hearing the shot. It was like swimming against the current in a river of molasses, trying to get to the door, to get to her partner. On the table was an overturned mug of tea... and everywhere the scent of bitter almonds... "Nooooooo!" Mulder was still, lips and finger tips tinged with blue. "Mullllllderrrrrrrr!" He had no pulse, his eyes were slightly open, staring at the ceiling as if in confusion. "DAMN you, you CAN'T die..." One hand ripped futilely at his shirt as the other spilled medical supplies around her. "Live!" A loaded ampoule of specific antidote. Another of adrenaline. "Live, damn you, you contrary, cantankerous, aggravating idealist!" Pumping up and down on his chest, breathing for him. A shot of epinepherine. "Damn it!" A desperate desire for a portable recusitation unit. "LIVE. MULDER!!!!" Forcing his heart to beat, his lungs to take oxygen. Exhaustion. Dead, staring eyes, pointed forever skyward, questions still in their hazel depths. Dana Scully stared at her partner, too tired to even cry as she gently closed his eyes and checked her watch. Wearily she sketched down information... Fox William Mulder, pronounced Dead on Scene. 2:15 am, 27 March 199- Dana Katherine Scully, M. D. Scully flipped open her phone so she could call 9-1-1 and stared at it dumbly. It was too much to take in. Mulder was dead. Elessandra Kerrington's blood was soaking her pant legs. And the scent -- bitter almonds... "9-1-1 emergency..." The voice of a little girl, chanting nursery rhymes... "9-1-1 emergency, may I help you?" Helpless giggles mixed with tears, and through it all... "All around the Mulberry bush..." "Excuse me is there..." "...the foxy chased the weasel..." "...anything I can do for you?..." "Everyone's gone..." High and childlike. "Where are you?" "Ring around the rosy..." "Where are you?" "pockets full of posies..." "Where are you?" "Ashes... Ashes..." "Help me. Tell me where you are." "we all fall down...." *click* Four days later the bodies of Fox Mulder, Dana Scully, Elessandra Kerrington and Sergeant Lewis Jeffries were recovered at the site of Elessandra Kerrington's cabin. Assistant Director Walter Skinner of the Federal Bureau of Investigation led the inquiry into the case, finding no evidence that his agents had done anything wrong in the investigation. There were factions however, that were able to use the incident to weaken A. D. Skinner's position in the Bureau, and within two years he was forced to resign. Certain unorthodox cases that had been under A. D. Skinner's purview were closed and filed away in the basement. A mysterious fire, some three months after the resignation of the A. D. destroyed nothing but a few old, closed case files. The space was then used to install the only bathroom in the basement of the J. Edgar Hoover building. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Vasaris, the Fuzzy Dragon aka Jill E. Flansburg | n9489595@animal.cc.wwu.edu CS HMC 1994 | jflansbu@muddcs.cs.hmc.edu History WWU 1996? | "Thesis? Who? ME? AAIGH!" ----------------------------------------------------------------------------