My mind went blank at the sight of that cross. I knew that there were some vampires that don't fear crosses, but I'd never heard of one deliberately handling one. At least not without intending to inflict torture on a less powerful vampire. This didn't seem to be the case, since none of the other vampires looked the least bit nervous.

"With this, and the cleansing light, you will be free, Chris." The first male said.

"Free." The females echoed.

"Free from this half life." Chris agreed eagerly. "Free from a damning contract."

"We envy you. But we will join you eventually." The first male told him as he and the females turned from him.

I stared at Mulder, my eyes wide. I didn't know if he knew what 'the cleansing light' was, but I was pretty sure I did. I was about to whisper to him when two things happened: the three other vampires kicked the door on the roof open and hurried away, and the sun broke free of the clouds in a beautiful sunrise.

"We have to move. Now!" I shouted, using my shoulder to topple part of our blind. While it was solid enough to keep in heat, it was unfortunately, also solid enough to withstand my initial assaults on it. I now regretted our artful stacking of multiple layers of boxes. For a moment Mulder and Scully just stood there, giving me bewildered looks; I suspected that they were confused, having assumed that the danger was gone when the other vampires left, but eventually they caught on, and helped me create an opening to get out of the blind.

We were too late to do much. Oh, I picked up Chris's coat and beat at the flames, but it was really too late. I half suspected that he'd poured some sort of acellorant on himself, but I'd seen other vampires go up quickly, too. I think that the tears helped keep the smoke out of my eyes. I wasn't crying out of sadness over a dead vampire that I didn't know, but because we'd failed.

Lancaster's eyes were dark when Anita hit the "stop" button on the VCR that night. Mulder and Scully kept giving the vampire nervous looks, but Anita seemed perfectly calm. The fact that Mulder recognized him as the vampire he'd seen at the Nutcracker only made him more apprehensive. Anita had tried to explain to him that vampires can read minds, which is probably how Lancaster had known he was connected to her, but all Mulder could picture was Gibson dressed as Dracula.

No one spoke for several moments. Eventually Lancaster broke the silence." I can't deny the truth of the matter." He said heavily. "Not when the evidence is right before me." Anita was glad that the video camera only taped up to the point when there were the first wisps of smoke started to come from the dead vampire: the camera had been lost and nearly forgotten after that in the scramble to get out of the blind.

"I'm sorry." Anita told him sincerely. Scully thought she could appreciate that. Despite the fact that the man before them was a vampire, the dead one had once been someone, or perhaps thing, that he'd cared about.

He paced, the foolish crown bobbing with every tread of his foot. "A vampire suicide club. Who ever heard of such a thing?" He stopped and faced the three of them. "I want to thank you."

Anita blinked at him in surprise. "Why? We weren't able to save him. He died, and there was nothing we could do about it."

Lancaster gave her a grim smile. "I'm thanking you for delving out the truth. Now that I know that there is nothing harming my young ones, besides themselves, we can all rest more easily. There's no fear of someone stealing away our lives."

Mulder had to force himself not to react to the word "lives." He gave the vampire a sad smile. "I wish there was more that we could have done..." He trailed off awkwardly.

"You've done more than I'd expect from humans. We'll deal with those who are intending to sacrifice themselves to the sun. They need some help and understanding... to see the light." Lancaster said, his face giving away no indication that he was aware of the ghastly pun he'd just made.

"Good luck with that." Scully murmured.

A few minutes later, they left the morose vampire and went home.