From: Humbuggie <san@sv-tales.com>
Date: 6 Jul 2003 12:51:07 -0700
Subject: xfc: Nocens Phasmatis 1/1
Source: atxc

Nocens Phasmatis 
By Humbuggie 
(c) 2003 
 
Disclaimer: the characters belong to 1013. I'm only borrowing.
 
Story-teaser: The only way to find a monster is to become one
yourself.
 
Spoilers: This story is a post-ep story for two episodes: The Calusari
and Grotesque. It holds major spoilers for both episodes and takes
place a few months after Grotesque. It also has a slight spoiler for
Dod Kalm.

 
 
Nocens Phasmatis
 
"The only way to find a monster is to become one yourself."
 
I looked up in shock and found myself staring at the young man sitting
quietly and tensely on the chair facing the window. I could only see
his profile, but it was enough to send shivers down my spine. It had
been a while since I heard that. In fact, I had tried to forget the
last time someone said the same phrase to me. It felt like I was
instantly being forced to return to the darkest place I had ever been
in; beyond reason, beyond fear and beyond sanity. I had begged never
to return there, never to hear those words again, knowing how much
they rang true for my former boss, Patterson.
 
But here it was, coming from the mouth of a young, ambitious lawyer.
And killer.
 
Patrick McNeil had walked into a D.C. police station this morning and
asked for me specifically. He showed them his hands, covered in blood
and human tissue as the ultimate proof of the horrid actions one human
being could inflict upon another one. It was disgusting, yet somehow
fascinating to hear how this man, being highly intellectual and of
sane mind, walked out of his penthouse on Moseley Avenue, took the bus
instead of the BMW convertible he used to drive, stalked a young woman
and her son home, and killed them.
 
He had slashed her pretty face until there was hardly anything left of
it. She was only identifiable by her wedding ring and the clothes she
wore. Her curly red hair was soaked in more redness, coming from her
own face and skull. Her body remained untouched, but I was fairly
certain that McNeil would have removed the arms, had he not awakened
from his stupor in time to realize what he had done. His brief moment
of lucidity spared the woman's son, who had been lying unconscious in
another room. He too would surely have suffered the same fate. Now,
McNeil ran to the police station, merely a block away, and turned
himself in.
 
By the time he arrived, the insanity from within took him over, and he
struggled against the cops who took him into custody. It was then,
sitting in his isolation cell that he requested to see me. Had I known
the evilness would return to see me, I would not have gone there.
 
But I didn't know.
 
I went alone because Scully was still at home asleep, recovering from
the flu that had made her sick to the bone for nearly two weeks.
Weakened and exhausted from the long illness, she had even been
hospitalized for a few days to get some fluids into her, so I'd
decided to go alone. I ran the office alone as well. I just sent
Skinner an email telling him where I was and that I possibly had a new
case.
 
The fierce eyes of the handsome lawyer stared into mine. They were
large, dark blue, and seemed to fit consummately into the near-perfect
features of a man who obviously had it all. I had read the short file
the cops at the precinct had dug up on him.
 
"We know him," Officer Morse had explained. "He's a notorious lawyer
in these quarters. He gets murderers off on a regular basis. We don't
like him. I think the guy went nuts. After all he's seen and heard, it
couldn't be any other way. He became just like his own clients."
 
McNeil's sheet was clean, of course. Otherwise, he would not have
passed the Bar and been such a successful lawyer. In the hour that it
took me to get to the precinct, the police had discovered the body.
The boy was fortunately still out cold and wasn't aware of the fact
that his mother had been sliced and diced. He was taken to a hospital,
where he later regained consciousness. He had a concussion and was
still out of it, but chances were that we might be able to speak with
him in a short while.
 
I swear that the Mostow case was the last thing on my mind as I
entered the precinct. They had told me that a lawyer had murdered a
woman and had asked for me, claiming I would be interested in the
case.  That was it. However, as McNeil's fierce eyes bore into mine,
and he opened his mouth, I almost fell off my chair in utter amazement
and pure, animalistic fear. I felt my body tighten, my hands clench,
my mind go numb.
 
This man sounded exactly the way Patterson had spoken to me, right
before we discovered he had taken over Mostow's work and killed young,
attractive people. His terminology was the same, his use of words so
recognizable. I could not disguise my alarm.
 
Both Patterson and Mostow were behind bars and had been for the past
three months. It had taken me days to regain my senses then, weeks to
recover from the ordeal, and months to regain any kind of control over
the nightmares that often sent me back into the darkness, into the
mouth of evil.
 
It was not an experience that I cared to remember, let alone relive.
Even now, three months on, I still thought about the way the case had
sent me off spiralling into the abyss. It had reopened my ability to
crawl into the murderer's thoughts, to become one with him and to find
the truth.
 
I did do more profiling cases but in this case, I hadn't profiled a
serial killer. I had profiled a monster; a creature, a ghost, a spirit
maybe. It had the ability to crawl inside a man's mind, and I believed
it had entered John Mostow, turning him into a serial killer. When I
confronted Patterson, I believed that he had become the monster's
mirror image, finishing off the job John Mostow had started and
descending into his own inexorable aberration.
 
However, I did not believe that the madness inside Mostow could jump
at will from one entity into another. It was pure evil, but not
transferable or transposable, and that's why Mostow now remained
locked inside his own mind, just like Patterson. The two of them would
never see the light of day again. Thankfully.
 
I wondered. Had the entity known to look into my past? Had it taken
the one man capable of going insane, having been worn down by his
intense history?
 
I had wanted it to be this way, fought for it and pleaded with the
judge not to release them. He had read my report and agreed.
 
My photographic mind recalled a previous meeting with Patrick McNeil.
I would have known if he were involved with Mostow or Patterson, at
least when I was still on the case. If one of them had switched
lawyers, it might be the connection I was seeking.
 
McNeil smiled and his eyes, so filled with darkness, were totally
devoid of any emotion. His handsome young face became distraught in
the grip of madness. He was not the man one could see staring back
from his I.D. and personal photos stuck in his wallet. He had a wife
and three children.
 
"I knew I would get your attention," he spoke with a hoarse, dark
voice as I sat down opposite him and placed what little information I
had on the table. Detective Mark Johnson, assigned to the case, sat by
my side. I could feel myself inexplicably tremble. Johnson didn't seem
to understand and shifted his glare between McNeil and myself.
 
"Do you know him?" he asked me. I shook my head.
 
"But he knows who I am, don't you, Agent Mulder?" McNeil ignored
Johnson and directed himself toward me. It was almost as if we were
alone in the room, the rest of my surroundings fading out behind me:
the monster and his captor.
 
"Yes, I know."
 
"So, who am I?"
 
I couldn't say it out loud, but my worst suspicions while
investigating this case were that Mostow had been taken over by
evilness in its purest form. I had almost been relieved when I
eventually theorized that Patterson had simply identified himself with
the heinous killer. There had not been an X-File attached to it.
 
.Until perhaps now.
 
Or had McNeil too been so involved in Mostow's story that he would
also become one with evil? If so, should we not isolate Mostow from
the public for the rest of his life? Could evil be contracted by the
simple touch of the hand or by merely talking to a man so fascinated
by it?
 
Had I too not been transfixed by it? So shattered was I, that I found
myself infiltrating Mostow's mind and entering his house. I could have
been a murderer too. If Scully had not stopped me, I might have
killed. I had never come so close to becoming a murderer.
 
"Who am I, Agent Mulder?" he repeated strongly, placing his hands on
the table and leaning forward. Johnson watched.
 
"You are evil," I said, somehow convinced that he truly was. There was
no doubt in my mind that what I saw in his eyes was just as bad as
that which I had seen in Mostow's.  "You've been in touch with John
Mostow."
 
He leaned backwards. "Patrick McNeil has, yes. But not I. I was him.
Nocens phasmatis."  I backed away instinctively. Every nerve flickered
on alert. I knew what those words meant. I had heard them before, a
long time ago, during one of the most horrific cases Scully and I had
ever solved.
 
Oh no.
 
"This can't be," I whispered.
 
He grinned an evil smile. "It's true."
 
"Are you telling me Mostow was possessed?" I asked hoarsely, terrified
that my worst fears had come true.
 
He smiled. "Evilness like Mostow's is not human. It comes from beyond
this world, outside the realm of what can and cannot exist. It needs a
body to live in, a form to dwell."
 
"I don't believe in jumping spirits," I said. "I don't believe in the
devil, either. I believe in nothing of that sort."
 
"But you have seen evil before in its purest form. It was inside the
body of a young boy, and you helped to get it out. It swore that it
would come back for you. That's why you fear it so much. You saw into
its eyes, and it knows you now. Would it then surprise you that this
evil would seek you out again and keep its vow? Do you think it was a
coincidence that you were obsessed about it? Your innocence was
forever lost when you saw Bill Patterson struggling with it. You
thought he would be stronger than that. You thought that he had
crawled inside Mostow's mind. But what if it was the evil spirit all
the time, Agent Mulder? Would you then set Patterson free? And before
that, when you met the boy, Charlie, you knew he was an innocent, and
yet he wasn't. The Calusari may have helped you to purify the boy, but
they cannot help you to hunt it down forever. And it vowed to come for
you."
 
If I could ever feel myself pale, it was now. I should have known. Oh
god, I should have known. The Calusari had warned me that the evil was
not gone. And it would come back to haunt me, to take me and to
destroy me, where it had not succeeded.
 
Perhaps it would do so now.
 
Detective Johnson stared at me as if we had both gone crazy.
 
"I don't fear evil," I spoke hoarsely, staring into its eyes; more to
convince myself than anything. "It cannot reach me."
 
"But it already has, and it wasn't even that difficult." McNeil
smiled. "It will come again, Agent Mulder. I swear."
 
McNeil closed his eyes and then suddenly slumped backwards against the
chair. It was almost as if he lost all of his strength. He had nothing
left in him to hold himself up.
 
"Get a doctor in here!" Johnson called out. I was horrified and
fearful to touch the man lying unconscious or dead on the chair, yet
my professionalism sprung into action, and I reached forward, probing
his throat with my fingers for a pulse. He was still breathing.
 
Seconds later, he opened his eyes and coughed, touching his mouth with
his hand. He looked up, dazed. The darkness was gone from his eyes. He
was McNeil again, lawyer and father of three...and now a manslayer.
His body had destroyed a woman and no one would ever believe him if he
said he didn't remember. Temporary insanity does not work well in the
court of law. Neither would they buy this claim of possession by evil
forces, if he was even capable of stating that. He did not understand
the realm of possibilities that existed within our earthly boundaries.
 
"What?" he asked dazed, "Where am I?"
 
I let Johnson do the talking; listening to him as he gruffly stated
that McNeil should not pull such tricks to escape the law. The young
lawyer stared at me begging, somehow sensing that I knew the truth.
 
I vowed to find it, but I didn't know how.
 
 
Skinner stared at me intently for a few moments before directing
himself toward Detective Johnson. "My agent is specialized in the
paranormal," he said firmly. "He has plenty of experience with it and
knows more about the subject than anyone. I don't doubt anything he
says."
 
"Your agent obviously knew Mr. McNeil. When I asked him about it, he
said Mr. McNeil might be related to another case he had solved months
ago. He talks about spirits, Mr. Skinner. That doesn't strike me as an
ordinary case."
 
Skinner looked at me, ordering me silently not to say another word.
"My agent was asked by his former supervisor to profile a serial
killer, one that the FBI had been pursuing for the past three years.
Since Agent Mulder is a brilliant profiler, he crawled inside the
killer's head and ultimately captured him. It turned out that there
were two killers: one was the serial killer, captured quickly; the
other one was my former colleague himself, Patterson. The fact that
there is now a third killer indicates that Agent Mulder's suspicions
about the nature of this case might be correct."
 
"Which were?.."
 
Skinner hardly looked at me, lying through his teeth. "That this might
be an X-File after all."
 
"And an X-File, you say, is an unsolved case?"
 
"No, they are paranormal cases, or unexplained by normal means.
 
"Like how?"
 
"In the case of John Mostow, Bill Patterson, and Patrick McNeil, I
would say that we are dealing with a possible paranormal link between
the three individuals."
 
"I'd say that McNeil has pulled a Patterson," Detective Johnson
stated, obviously one of those sceptic types who wasn't interested in
anything a weird FBI agent was going to say. "He became Mostow."
 
"But how?" I asked quickly. "How did he do it?"
 
"The same way your guy Patterson did it: he talked to him, became
obsessed with him, and finally became him."
 
I shook my head and ignored Skinner's cool warnings to stay calm. "I
saw it, Detective. In his eyes, his features, the way he woke up from
his stupor. That man in there does not know what he has done. He
doesn't remember killing that woman. He remembers waking up in her
house, covered in her blood, and then ending up here. That's it. If
you put him through the lie detector test, you will find he's telling
the truth. You heard what he said to me. I've never met this man
before in my life. How did he know about these cases? He spoke of
details that were hidden only inside the case files in my office. This
is real, Detective, and it claims casualties."
 
"So we just let him go, then?" Johnson sneered. "In that case, we
should let your other suspects go too, but if I've got it straight,
they were both sentenced to life in prison. Why is this McNeil guy's
case any different from the supposed possessions of Patterson or
Mostow?"
 
"It isn't," I confirmed sadly. "This man is as guilty as the two of
them. He cannot be freed."
 
"But then, where does it stop?"
 
"I don't know." I rubbed my tired eyes. "Isolation for life. No one
walks out free."
 
"What is this that he said to you? Nonsense ..?"
 
"Nocens phasmatis," I corrected him. "It's Latin for Evil Spirit. When
we freed the boy Charlie from evil, the Calusari said it, too."
 
I would never forget it. Oh god, how to deal with this? This was not a
killer we could lock up in a prison cell after capturing him, or a
human possessed by a ghost. This was evil. Anger. This spirit had
found me twice since Charlie's release from possession. It had killed
so many times. How could I prevent this evil from ever happening
again? I was a problem solver, but I was only human.  I did not know
the answers to this. How could I ever be certain that this entity
would never find me again? It could possibly haunt me for the rest of
my life. It could go after me until I finally submitted to it, too,
became one of its minions.or victims. My propensity to submerge myself
inside a killer's mind while profiling almost made me a blueprint for
the assimilation of the evil that sought me.
 
I shuddered just to think about it. Skinner stared at me in shock. I
frowned, turned around, and walked out of the room, closing the door
behind me.
 
"Mulder." He followed down the hall and stopped me. "I don't want you
working on this case."
 
"Why not?"
 
"Have you forgotten what happened last time? You're not ready to do
this. You're too open, too impressionable."
 
I knew I wasn't prepared for the coming conflict, but this thing was
after me. It would come for me regardless. Perhaps I really was the
only one able to stop it, to compete with its madness, to dual to the
death.
 
I looked into Skinner's eyes. "I am the only one," I whispered. "It
came back for me. I need to deal with it."
 
 He knew what I was thinking. I could tell. "No," he spoke hard. "I'm
not allowing you to do this."
 
"I am. You can't stop me."
 
"Yes, I can. Get off this case, Mulder. I'll pull you off it."
 
"You can't and you know it. It won't stop just because you pull me off
the case. This is mine. "
 
This man, who had gained so much of my respect over the years that
we'd worked together, knew that he had no hold over me. However, he
didn't understand. He had only seen me like this once before, with
Mostow and Patterson. He didn't know that a good profiler needed to
get in there, inside the place where it all started, and figure out
the truth. If he didn't, he would always lose the battle. Skinner had
never been a profiler. He was a man of physical means. He could not
grasp what I had gotten myself into. He had no idea.
 
I envied him.
 
"Please," I said, putting my hand on his arm. "Let me handle it."
 
He nodded slowly. "You have one day, Mulder. After that, it's over." I
realized instinctively that I didn't need a day. The evil had come to
finish this quickly and thoroughly. It had murdered already to prove
its point.
 
"Yes sir," I replied and strode out of the lobby, leaving my boss
standing there alone.
 
As I walked through the corridors, I remembered something I'd read in
Scully's journal after we barely escaped the Norwegian ship, aging
rapidly inside its belly. She had written about a wolf named Skoll who
would come and eat the world. First the moon and stars would disappear
behind a dense fog. Then the world would be covered in an everlasting
snow. Was this the way evil worked too? Did it slowly cover the world,
using a fog to blind people until it was too late to see? Did this
thing - this entity - this spirit - move as if we were its pawns,
abusing us, misusing us, for its own purposes? I needed to know.
 
The only channel of communication was through Patrick McNeil. If the
evil wanted to talk with me, it would not hesitate to use McNeil. It
would take more than just me to fight it, but I couldn't risk other
people getting involved. We needed to speak in private, in silence.
 
I opened the door to the small isolation room where they'd confined
McNeil. He'd been calm and quiet when he walked to the cell, yet
Johnson had him restrained to ensure that he would not pose a danger
if he changed once again into a stark-raving madman. Johnson believed
at least that part, I thought.
 
McNeil looked at me. "I know who you are," he spoke in his calm voice.
"You're the FBI agent. Agent Mulder."
 
"Yes."
 
"You can get me out, can't you? I didn't do any of those things they
told me about."
 
I stayed calm. "I know."
 
"Then get me out!"
 
"I can't."
 
"Why not?"
 
"Patrick," I said slowly, sitting down opposite him. "You have to tell
me details of your life in order for me to understand. You were in
touch with John Mostow or Bill Patterson, were you not?"
 
"Yeah," he said, confused. "I am Patterson's lawyer."
 
"Since when?"
 
"After his incarceration, he hired me. He said he wasn't pleased with
the FBI's lawyer because he didn't bother given him a psych screening.
He was just a client like any other even though he gave me the
creeps."
 
"Did he ever touch you or attack you?"
 
"No. No, he was a kind, quiet man. But he had this strange look in his
eyes. What does this have to do with anything?"
 
"Did he tell you what he had done?"
 
"He said that the FBI said - that you said he was a killer. He claimed
his innocence."
 
"Did you believe him?"
 
"No, but that didn't matter. He was a client and deserved the best
legal representation possible."
 
I rose up out of my chair. "Patrick, do you remember anything odd
about your situation? Do you remember losing consciousness?"
 
"No. I woke up this morning, dressed, got to work as usual, and
suddenly I woke up inside that house, and a woman lay at my feet. I
had a razor in my hand, and she was all sliced up. It was - horrible
." He visibly shuddered at the memory.
 
I nodded.
 
". yet so enjoyable. So much fun."
 
I froze. That voice.
 
Patrick's eyes became clouded darkness again. His body tensed beneath
the restraints that would never hold him. He was far more powerful
than that. I had seen it in Charlie. If darkness could control a
child, it could easily give a grown man phenomenal strength.
 
I moved away from the chair, toward the door. "What's the matter,
Agent Mulder? Scared? You, so high and mighty an expert on the
paranormal, should know that I cannot be stopped. I'm in every person,
in every being, and I can do whatever I want. You will never stop me.
You'll never know what it will feel like to be safe, ever again. I
will be all over you, around you, within you."
 
"Who are you?" I heard myself ask, reaching for the doorknob.
 
"Do you really think doors and walls can stop me? I have waited so
long for this, Agent Mulder.to see the despair in your eyes . to smell
the scent of your fear. I want you to know what it's like to fight me.
If you oppose me, you will pay the price for your actions."
 
How can I explain what I felt? How can I even go there? I shivered,
feared, and ached. My entire body seemed ready to explode. My heart
burned for release of the madness that existed inside this man. If
evil was so strong inside a single man, what could it do to an entire
population?
 
I pulled out my gun, aiming it at Patrick McNeil's chest. He roared
with laughter. "Shoot me then, Agent Mulder. Go on, do it! What do you
think they'll say about the FBI agent who shot an unarmed, restrained
man? What do you think they'll do to you? You'll be the one locked up
for all time. You'll go mad, like your friend Patterson, and I will
have the time to drive you mad. I'll be there forever."
 
"Then I'll shoot myself," I groaned. "I'll finish it with me. If this
will stop you, I'll do it. I won't be responsible for your existence."
 
"It will never be finished. I became alive long before you were born
and I will exist for centuries after your pathetic human existence is
long over. You don't get it, do you?"
 
It was almost as if McNeil's body became a force of sheer strength.
Even though his form remained standing, I could feel myself being
pushed against the wall by an unseen force. The back of my head
slammed hard against the bricks, and the gun slipped out of my hands.
I instinctively touched my head, trying to stay alert for what was to
come next.
 
My eyes stayed open; emerging from inside McNeil's form somehow, the
evilness struck me hard, holding me in its grip. I choked. Couldn't
breathe! I seemed to wheeze. My thoughts went crazy.  And it felt so
cold when that being touched me. I couldn't move. I was paralyzed by
it. It seemed to grasp my throat and started squeezing the life out of
me. It had a hold of my arms, legs, torso and head. I stared straight
into its unseeing eyes that suddenly weren't even eyes at all. It
consisted of a strong force of wind, alternately forming twisted
figures and demonic shapes somehow. First it had a form and then it
didn't. It fed from McNeil. It was inside of him and then not. The
restraints did not hold it.
 
It lifted me up until I was no longer touching the wall or the ground.
I floated, and it held me. It kept me alive only because its perverse
pleasure in watching my suffering as I stared in the eyes of madness,
into the abyss I swore I would never approach again.
 
Help me, I called out quietly. Somebody, help me! I cannot do this
alone.
 
"You are a toy," it whispered in my ear. "I will forever watch you,
see you struggle with your fears and then feed on them. It will be my
pleasure to see you die an old, scared, broken man."
 
"Go.to.hell."
 
I don't know exactly what happened next. The door to the room suddenly
flew open. Someone yelled, "Get help in here, fast!"
 
And then I was on the ground, with my back against the wall, gradually
losing consciousness as a lot of activity sprang up around me. I could
feel strong arms lifting me, pulling me up, and lowering me gently to
the floor.
 
"He's choking," someone said, and I could feel them loosen my tie and
unbutton my shirt. I opened my eyes briefly and saw Skinner. Behind
him lay Patrick McNeil, staring silently at the ceiling. He had died
of fright. The catastrophic weight of evil hosted by his frail human
body had finally taken its toll.
 
And me? I nearly died of suffocation.
 
 
 
"Mulder ."
 
My partner rested her hands on my shoulders but I wouldn't turn
around. I was afraid to, terrified that she would see the evil that
had forever tainted me, or so I thought.  What if this creature had
invaded my body just now? What if, some day, I would wake up like
Patrick McNeil, go to work thinking nothing was wrong, but instead, I
drove to my partner's house and slashed her face until there was
nothing left of it?  What if - ?
 
"You can't think like that," Scully whispered softly behind me,
forcing me to turn around so we could see each other's eyes. "You are
not evil."

I froze yet she would not allow me to crawl back into the shell I had
made around me. I had told her everything, and she believed me. I
could tell from the look in her eyes. She had seen Charlie.
 
"Aren't I? That thing killed to prove a point to me. I'm responsible
for that woman's death."
 
"You're not, and you know it. Would you prefer to have been captured
by evil like Patterson, then? Or nearly killed like I was when we
helped Charlie?"
 
"It came for me, Scully. Do you know what that's like?"
 
"No, I don't, but I do know that you can fight it. You are a strong
man, Mulder, someone with courage and character. You have struggled so
hard already, seen so many things. Perhaps this evil will not
completely release you but you can give it a hard time, too, and I
will be there with you. We will be strong together."
 
"And what if the evil comes for you?"
 
"Then I will fight it, too. I believe in you. The struggles you might
face will not overcome you. Your soul will not be taken. Your
character will remain as it was. Your strength lies in there, inside
your heart," her fingertips lightly touched my chest, "and there,
inside your mind. That is what I believe in."  Her fingers ending up
entwined in my hair.
 
She embraced me, holding me as if she was afraid to ever let me go. I
grabbed onto her, feeling her strength.
 
"You will fight it," she whispered. "It will never win."
 
Yet later, as I stared at myself in the mirror, pondering her words, I
saw my eyes darken for just a moment. Just an instant, a millisecond
perhaps, and then it was gone.
 
And I knew I would never be free.
 
Never.
 
End