He stared at her briefcase, spread his arms at all the work yet undone he could see in the office, and said, "What?" at the twitch of a smile on her lips.
She didn't have to answer.
He usually reacted this way when a clear X-File landed in his lap. A switching of gears, of mindset, excitement of one kind changing to excitement of another. Impossible, to him, meant someone else had decided there were no explanations for whatever had happened.
But there were always explanations.
Always.
His superiors, and Scully, didn't always like them, but they were there.
Sometimes all it took was a little imagination to find them. A less hidebound way of looking at the world. A willingness to understand that the truth sometimes wore a mask.
"There's something else," she added as he reached for the sunflower seeds and his briefcase.
"What?"
She stood and brushed at her skirt. "There was a witness to one of the killings."
He felt his mouth open. "You're kidding. He saw who did it?"
"She," Scully corrected. "And she claims it wasn't a person."
He waited.
"She said it was a shadow."
Brother, he thought.
"Either that, or a ghost."
SEVEN
A low fire burned in a shallow pit.
Smoke rose in dark trails, winding fire-reflected patterns around the large underground room before escaping through the ragged round hole in the ceiling.
Shadows on the roughly hewn rock walls cast by shadows seated on planks around the pit.
Six men, cross-legged and naked, their bodies lean and rawhide-taut, stringlike hair caught in the sweat that glittered in the firelight, their hands on their knees. Their eyes on the flames that swayed to a breeze not one of them could feel.
Over the fire, resting on a metal grate, a small, flame-blackened pot in which a colorless liquid bubbled without raising steam.
A seventh man sat on a chair carved from dull red stone, back in the shadows where the rite said he belonged. He wore no clothing save a cloth headband embedded with polished stones and gems, none of them alike, none bigger than the tip of a finger. In his right hand he held the spine of a snake; from his left hand dangled the tail of a black horse, knotted at the end and wound through with blue, red, and yellow ribbons. His black eyes were unfocused.
Eventually one of the six stirred, chest rising and falling in a long, silent sigh. He took a clay ladle from the hand of the man on his left, dipped it into the pot, and stood as best he could on scrawny legs that barely held him. A word spoken to the fire. A word spoken to the smoke-touched night sky visible through the hole. Then he carried the ladle to the man in the chair, muttered a few words, and poured the boiling liquid over the seventh man's head.
The man didn't move.
The water burned through his hair, over his shoulders, down his back and chest.
He still didn't move.
The horsetail twitched, but the hand that held it didn't move.
The old man returned to the circle, sat, and after shifting once, didn't move.
The only sound was the fire.
A lone man waiting in the middle of nowhere.
He stood in the center of a scattering of bones-coyote, mountain lion, horse, bull, ram, snake.
And from where he stood, he could see smoke rising above Sangre Viento Mesa, rising in separate trails until, a hundred feet above, it gathered itself into a single dark column that seemed to make its way to the moon.
In the center of the smoke-made basket the moonlight glowed emerald.
The man smiled, but there was no humor.
He spread his arms as if to entice the smoke toward him.
It didn't move.
He was patient.
It had moved before; it would move again.
And after tonight, when the old fools had finished, he would make it move on his own.
All he had to do was believe.
Donna rolled over in her sleep, moaning so loudly it woke her up. She blinked rapidly to dispel the nightmare, and when she was sure it was done, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and sat up, pushing hair away from her eyes, mouth open to catch the cool air that puckered her skin and made her shiver.
The house was quiet.
The neighborhood, such as it was, was quiet.
Moonlight slipped between the cracks the curtains left over the room's two windows, slants of it that trapped sparkling particles of dust.
She yawned and stood, yawned again as she scratched at her side and under her breasts. The nightmare was gone, scattered, but she knew she had had one, knew it was probably the same one she had had over the past two weeks:
She walked in the desert, wearing only a long T-shirt, bare feet feeling the night cold of the desert floor. A steady wind blew into her face. A full moon so large it seemed about to collide with the Earth, and too many stars to count.
Despite the wind's direction, she could hear something moving close behind her, but whenever she looked back, the night was empty except for her shadow.
It hissed at her.
It scraped toward her.
When she couldn't take it any longer, she woke up, knowing that if she didn't, she was going to die.
She didn't believe in omens, but she couldn't help but wonder.
Now she padded sleepily into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and wondered if it was too late, or too early, to have a beer. Not that it mattered. If she had one now, she'd be in the bathroom before dawn, cursing herself and wondering how she'd make it through the day with so little sleep.
She let the door swing shut with a righteous nod, yawned, and moved to the back door.
Her yard was small, ending, like all the other yards scattered along the side road, in a stone-block wall painted the color of the earth. Poplars along the back blocked her view of the other houses even though they were too far away to see even in daylight, unless she was right at the wall.
Suddenly she felt much too alone.
There was no one out there.
She was cut off, and helpless.
The panic rose, and she was helpless to stop it. Running from the room did her no good because she could see nothing from the living room window either — the rosebushes she had spent so much time training to be a hedge fragmented her view of the road, erasing sight of the field across the way.
Trapped; she was trapped,
A small cry followed her to the door. She flung it open and ran onto the stoop, stopping before she flung herself off the steps. Cold concrete made her gasp; cold wind plastered the T-shirt to her chest and stomach.
I am, she decided, moving back into town first thing in the morning.
It was the same vow she made after every nightmare, and it made her smile.
Oh boy, tough broad, she thought sarcastically; think you're so tough, and a lousy dream makes you a puddle.
She stepped back over the threshold, laughing aloud, but not loud enough that she didn't hear the hissing.
The smoke rose and coiled and swallowed the emerald light.
Mike Ostrand was a little drunk.
Hell, he was a lot drunk, and could barely see the dashboard, much less the interstate. The gray slash of his headlamps blurred and sharpened, making the road swing from side to side as if the car couldn't stay in its proper lane.
This late, though, he didn't much give a damn.
The road from Santa Fe was, aside from occasional rises not quite hills, fairly straight all the way to Bernalillo, and into Albuquerque beyond. Just aim the damn thing and hold onto the wheel. He'd done it hundreds of times.
He hiccuped, belched, and grimaced at the sour taste that rose in his throat, shaking his head sharply as if to fling the taste away.