Summary: Young women have been vanishing from the same loch for months, all without a trace. The Scottish police think there's a serial killer skulking in the Highlands, but some local residents are blaming the Kelpie, a seductive spirit who appears as a man or a horse. Soon Mulder and Scully find themselves sorting through a dizzying array of folklore and forensic evidence, knowing only that nothing is what it seems, and the next victim has already been targeted...

Author's Introductory Note: This novel-length story is the first fan fiction I ever wrote. It was completed years ago (18 chapters plus an epilogue) but never published. Now that the X-Files is briefly back on TV it seems like the perfect time to dust this off, fill in a few plot-holes, polish the rest, and hope for the best. Maybe some folks will enjoy the ride despite a few flaws here and there.

This X-File is an in-canon case file, Monster-of-the-Week type, with some UST. The setting is Scottish Highlands in October 1998, shortly after the first episode of season six (The Beginning). Consider this first chapter the typical, pre-titles teaser.

Disclaimer: The standard. Scully, Mulder, Skinner, Kersch, & the Scully Clan all belong to 10-13 Productions. I am not profiting from this exercise in any material way. All other characters aside from the few listed above are entirely my creations and belong to me. Any similarity to actual people or events is a coincidence.


"Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight,
Alone and palely loitering;
The sedge is wither'd from the lake,
And no birds sing.

Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight,
So haggard and so woe-begone?"

La Belle Dame Sans Merci

John Keats—


Without Mercy


.

Loch Gnathaigh,
Scottish Highlands

16 September 1998

A brisk September breeze plucked at her clothing, whipped long strands of reddish gold hair into her eyes, and beat white-capped waves into the surface of the loch. She lifted a hand to her face, pulling her hair back and shading moss-green eyes with one economic gesture. Roiling cumulus clouds hurried across the sky, casting their shadows in a patchwork of light and darkness that rippled across the moor. The wind sang in her ears, danced over the heather, stirred silvery leaves into unsettled whispering. She breathed in the scent of heather, peat, lake and sky, and found it easy to believe, as the ancient Celts had, that the very air was alive.

Standing on the mucky shores of Loch Gnathaigh, Eva Campbell gazed over the water, over the rustling grass and heather that carpeted the moor, over the low, sweeping hills to the mountains of Glen Coe, and felt something within her stirring in reply. She felt at home.

That was strange, because she'd never been here before. Her parents had emigrated to the United States over twenty years ago, taking four-year-old Eva out of Glasgow and across the sea to Chicago. From there they'd moved to tiny Kelso in Washington State which, her father assured her, was as close to living in the Highlands as one could get. And he should know, Eva mused with a wry chuckle, having seen very little of the Highlands himself except in postcards. Now that she'd experienced the real thing, Eva acknowledged that Kelso bore as much resemblance to the untamed beauty of the Highlands as a rain forest to the Sahara. And if her poor, homesick parents had ever been to Glen Coe, or to Rannoch Muir, they never would have settled for Kelso — never would have left Scotland at all.

She'd never been here before, but familiarity sang in her blood and brought tears to her eyes.

Okay, so it was the wind that was bringing tears to her eyes, Eva amended. She twisted that thick hank of curling russet hair she held into a loose knot before stuffing it into the collar of her shirt. Once her hands were free she wrapped her woolen sweater more closely about herself in defense against the September chill.

The ache in her throat, however, the indescribable awe she felt in this place, could not be blamed on the wind. Something on the Moor, some essence of the loch itself, called to her in a language she could not understand but recognized nonetheless. The language was that of her ancestors. This, despite the fact that Campbells had never lived on the Moor; indeed, Campbells hadn't lived anywhere near here in over two hundred fifty years. Traditional Campbell lands lay to the southeast and those lands had passed into Murray hands by the time of Culloden in 1745.

That didn't matter. This was Scotland; this was the Highlands. And Eva was a Scot. Regardless of where she lived, the Highlands would always be "home." She supposed that was why her father convinced himself that Kelso was an adequate substitute for this... Standing here on the shores of the loch, she thought she could taste history. She was one with the past in this place that existed outside the passage of time.

Rannoch Muir.

Gaelic for watery bracken region —literally it meant Sea of Bracken— the Moor was once thought to be haunted, inhabited by fairies and ghosts, kelpies and water spirits. In later years it was home to bandits, the hiding place of Rob Roy MacGregor and other outlaws. Now its rolling hills and peat bogs made up the largest and last wilderness left in Britain. One lone highway wound from Glen Coe through the moor on its way south. The highway offered lookout points and sandwich trucks —lorries, the locals called them— but it was a tame, sterile experience. Eva had wanted to feel the land. So she'd left her rented car behind and walked over the only public footpath leading to Loch Gnathaigh at the heart of the Moor.

She'd kept the footpath within sight as she left it to hike over the spongy ground and wander along the shore of Loch Gnathaigh. The crystalline lake lay serenely azure under a turbulent Highland sky, mirror-smooth during those moments when the wind was calm, alive with ripples when it was not. A line of trees stood on one side of the shore, clinging to life in the only place that would tolerate them. They persisted in the moist soil despite the wind-swept moor's lack of hospitality.

Her knapsack lay several yards away, on firmer ground. She picked her way carefully through slick mud and slimy rocks, wandering along the shores in search of wildlife. A mournful cry overhead pulled her gaze up to the sky. The eagle soared on an invisible thermal, circling and wheeling in search of prey. Its sudden swoop to the ground made Eva's heart nearly stop. As she watched, breathless, it caught the hapless rabbit and shot back into the air again with its meal. She felt a fleeting sympathy for the screaming rodent, even as she understood that all life existed at the expense of something else. Leaves shivered as another breeze shook them. She thought she heard a voice in the wind, a mournful cry wailing across the heather and keening through the trees, and it made her shiver with the leaves. When she looked up again, the eagle was gone. The grieving wind died away to an eerie calm.

A glance at her watch told Eva she should be going too. She'd walked for two hours to reach the shore of this, the Haunted Lake. It would take her two hours more to return to the rented Peugeot waiting by the highway. With a regretful sigh, she turned away from the water and carefully made her way back to her forgotten knapsack.

"Are ye leaving so soon, then?"

Eva dropped the pack and whirled around in astonishment as the speaker's words carried to her. Only a moment ago she would have sworn that she was the only person there! He was standing on the shore of the loch, just a few feet from where she herself had stood. Uneasily she wondered where he'd come from. There was nowhere to hide on the flat moor. Her eyes darted to the trees. Had he been concealed there all along? How had he covered the distance between the trees and the stones where he stood now in so short a time, then? And without making a sound!

"I have to head back now," she answered cautiously. "They'll be expecting me for supper." That wasn't strictly true, but she wanted him to think that she'd be missed if she was delayed for too long.

Instinct was telling her not to trust, but curiosity was holding her pinned because she wondered just exactly where he'd come from.

" 'Tis a shame, that," he replied. He stepped away from the murky shore, moving over treacherous stone and sod with an ease born of intimate familiarity.

Eva watched his approach warily. There was nothing specific about him that spoke to her of threat, yet his mysterious presence made her quite uneasy. She stood very still, waiting as a deer waits to see what the wolf will do.

He was dressed simply if old-fashioned, wearing a white linen shirt and tightly fitting tan breeches. Thick chestnut hair was swept back from a high, flat forehead. Midnight-dark eyes framed a straight aquiline nose that slashed between dark, even brows. Full lips twisted upwards at the corners in a disarming grin. It was only his sudden appearance that had her on her guard, she assured herself.

"I'd hoped to have a word with ye," he continued.

Up close he was breathtaking. Long, graceful limbs, well-muscled shoulders, a fluid stride — Eva wondered if such a man had ever existed outside of fantasy. She had never seen anything like him before. He stopped walking and stood there, assessing her as she assessed him. When looking into those mysterious black eyes she felt herself drowning in their depths. The earth slowly began to revolve as Eva stood rooted to the spot. A humming sounded in her ears, the rushing of blood filled her head. Or was it the wind? She shook her head slightly, feeling a bizarre lethargy seeping into her bones.

"Such a bonny lass," he murmured.

Only that wasn't what he said. "Ta an cailin sceimh." Eva realized it with a start that broke through the haze filling her head. He'd spoken to her in Gaelic — and she'd understood every word. She tried to look away from him, but was hopelessly mired in those coal-black eyes. She shivered, felt her will slipping away.

"I— What?" Eva put a shaking hand up to her head, trying to think through the fog spreading in her brain. Try as she might, she could not look away from him. He held her captive; with just his eyes he had her at his mercy. "I have to go," she repeated desperately.

"Don't go," he whispered.

A brisk wind rose off the moor and blew her hair into her eyes, momentarily blinding her. It was curiously just enough to release her from the spell that had paralyzed her. She staggered back a step, tripped over the forgotten knapsack. Trembling, terrified, she tried to run, turned to dash over the lumpy turf.

With inhuman speed he snagged her arm and held her there. "Wait. Bide awhile with me."

"Let me go," Eva sobbed. But as quickly as the fear spiked, his burring plea melted it away again.

"Come back with me."

He was so close now. He smelled of peat and sod, earth and sky. She jerked against the grip on her arm, flinched at the hand that tilted her face up to his. Compelled to look into his inky eyes once more, Eva shuddered at what she saw in them. The water ... the heather ... the past ... her future... He was the moor itself. He was the loch. He was Scotland. And he wanted her to go with him. Home, to the loch.

"Come home with me." It was a plea she could not ignore, laced as it was with unspeakable sadness and loss. In spite of herself, Eva experienced a deep sorrow that penetrated all the way to her soul and weakened her resolve to escape. How could she inflict more pain on a man who had already suffered so much?

They were moving, both of them together, over the rough sod, over heather and clumps of grass, toward the loch. Eva's feet slipped on stones and mud, her shoes soaking from the water lapping on the shore. He did not have to watch his steps, so well did he know the loch. The frigid water rose above her ankles, sent chills coursing along her spine. Soft splashing sounds swirled around her knees as they moved together into the loch.

Eva was trembling from the cold now as much as from fear. Instinctively she knew that he would take her to the center of the bog, to the very depths of the loch. She would drown, just as she was drowning now, and she was powerless to stop it. Water swelled around her waist, and still he led her deeper. It rose to her chest, past her shoulders, splashed at her chin. Trembling gave way to numbness, an apathy so profound that Eva no longer cared when the icy loch closed over her nose and she ceased to breathe.

The last thing she saw was his eyes, ancient as the Highlands.