Margaret clung to her grandson, thankful that the child was being quiet. She now knew what she was up against. Letting instinct guide her, her mind played out one scenario after another against her enemy. When her family was at stake, she abandoned civility. She imagined Attila crouched against a wall while his intestines were eaten away by disease. She dredged up every memory of helping Dana study for medical exams, and aimed that memory at the unseen terror, fighting in the only way she knew.
Thank God, at least the iconoclastic trio of computer geeks didn't call her crazy. At least, not to her face. And the young Englishman was focusing exclusively on maintaining himself above the wall of pain. His colorless lips whispered directions from a crude map, while Langly and Byers formed a human chair for him. They moved as quickly as their circumstances allowed, doubling back to the ancient elevator which could carry them back to ground level.
Acrid fumes rose from the sludge running through the lines, but their more immediate concern was the thunder that rumbled overhead, and the fact that the tainted water was rising. If the storm resulted in heavy rainfall, they would drown in this sub-basement to the city.
Voices echoed down the line, and the entourage froze. Had Attila discovered their escape and sent his young soldiers to stop them?
"That's Mulder!" observed Frohike, his shoulders slumping in relief.
"And that's Sydney!" The Bailey boy's face broke into a smile. "I'd know her voice anywhere!"
Heartened by the recognition, they redoubled their pace. "Mulder!" Byers called. "We're coming your way. We've got the baby and Mrs. Scully, and the Bailey kid. Any idea how to get them out of here?"
"That you, Byers? We're working on it!" Mulder called back.
"Nigel? How are you doing?"
Sydney's concern washed over the young man and he straightened. "I'm fine," he lied with a valiant flourish..
By honing in on the voices, they were able to rendezvous within moments. Sydney brandished a long piece of rust – it was too far gone to rightly be called a sword any more – and Mulder's arm supported Agent Doggett. Doggett, for his part, looked little better than Bailey.
"All present and accounted for," quipped Langly. "Any idea where to go from here?"
Nigel nodded, swallowing. "I think so. The elevator is that way." He waved his arm to the next intersecting pipe. "I'm not sure how far."
"Not very," Sydney confirmed. "Of course, they'll be waiting for us."
Margaret's heart sunk. "They're children."
"They're Stepford children," Frohike added grimly.
"We may not have a choice," Mulder pointed out. "But if there's any way, we don't hurt these kids. They've already been victimized by a monster."
Scully was pissed, and Reyes wasn't far behind. At this point, following her new female partner's directive wasn't a problem. Scully simply told her to direct very specific and very vicious thoughts at their enemy. Reyes replied evenly, "No problem."
They moved silently through the warehouse, guns drawn. Reyes bit her lip. Could she fire on a child if required? And could the FBI justify killing a child, if it came to that? The Bureau had taken hell for its bungling of Waco. What would the press do if it came out that the agency took aim at children? If these children were themselves violent, it was unquestionably due to brainwashing.
This whole scenario was every peace officer's worst nightmare.
The warehouse was eerily quiet now, save the occasional soft rumble of thunder and the drum of light rain on the tin roof. An FBI SWAT team flowed silently through space, a swarm of black jackets and caps emblazoned with white letters that announced their affiliation. Tears sprang unbidden to Reyes's eyes. Never mind the FBI… Could she ever face herself in the mirror again if she knowingly hurt a child?
The thought pushed her forward and renewed her inaudible mental assault on their enemy. Now she imagined him covered in pustules that oozed pain. Whether or not thinking had any impact on Attila, it helped keep her focused on the nature of their quest. This was war, like it or not. Attila had achieved his goal, if his goal was to remind everyone how precious and fragile life was, and how important to defend it.
When they encountered the first of the tiny warriors, they were surprised. Despite the fact that the little girl carried an armory, she offered no resistance when officers reached for the semi-automatic she carried. One of the younger men knelt beside her and gently wiped tears from her mocha cheeks, whispering, "It's gonna be all right, honey." She yielded the rest of her equipment without fanfare, and her self-appointed savior carried her to safety.
The second child behaved comparably, as did the third and the fourth. Even the older kids were subdued, confusion shadowing their eyes.
Scully motioned to Reyes and the two women darted through a half-hidden doorway, stepping boldly into the darkness. Reyes clicked on her large halogen flashlight. There was a creak and a loud groan to one side of the room as the ancient elevator awakened.
Scully raised her Sig Hauer, her body poised to release a deadly barrage at whoever stepped out of the maw of the sub-basement. Reyes doused the light, figuring they didn't need to paint a target for Attila's practice.
Both women held their respective breath while the antique machinery ascended. They wouldn't have a choice. With the light, they'd be sitting ducks. Without it, they'd be forced to fire blindly into the elevator.
The old elevator squealed in protest, jerking upward inch by inch. Inside the concrete-lined shaft, the only constant was perfect darkness.
Doggett's breathing was increasingly labored, and Mulder finally made the connection. He smelled something on the FBI agent, something sickly and familiar and scary as hell.
It was blood. At the very least, Doggett had a punctured lung.
No matter how you sliced it, he was going to die unless they got help fast. And the Bailey kid wasn't far behind. The younger man was hunched on the floor, soundless. Unless Mulder missed his guess, that wasn't a normal state for the little Englishman.
Sydney slowly pulled the sword from its fragile makeshift scabbard. Mulder didn't have to see her with his eyes; somehow he knew it was what she was doing. They couldn't stop the groan of machinery, but for some reason, they felt compelled to remain silent, as though speaking might somehow jinx them. The FBI agent turned reporter pictured the relic hunter raising the weapon, and in his mind's eye, the rust fell away from the sword in sheets, leaving a sleek, slender silver rapier of flawless design. He thought he might even have heard the stuff sloughing away, but perhaps it was only his imagination.
Without quite knowing why, they all dropped to their knees. Sydney was nearest the open door, poised to strike, the sword pointing toward the unseen enemy.
Prayer never came easy to Dana Scully. Nonetheless, soundless, involuntary words tumbled from her lips. Her finger caressed the trigger of her weapon and her heart pounded a staccato beat in her ears. Hail Mary, Mother of God…
The antique elevator ground to a halt, and the ensuing silence was suffocating.
Holy Mother guide me…
Reyes's arm rose and there was sudden movement as a low figure shot toward them from the unseen maw of the machine. Scully pulled the trigger…
And nothing happened.
She heard the other woman's weapon likewise misfire, and in the same instant, a soft, familiar sound echoed through the empty space.
"Mama?"
The silence was ended instantly. Scully cried out, "William!" and everyone began talking at once.
Mulder's voice was thick with emotion. "Scully?"
"Dana, honey, it's Mom!"
Reyes asked "Doggett, you there?" Her flashlight flared to life. Its mate woke from inside the dilapidated lift, giving a clear view of everyone both in and outside of the antiquated machinery.
Sydney froze in mid-lunge, not two feet away. When she realized whom she nearly attacked, she rose stiffly, allowing a long ebony rapier to drop parallel to her thigh. "Something stopped me," the professor explained. In her eyes, relief warred with confusion. "I couldn't carry through."
"We've got injured people here," Margaret reminded. "And we're still in that monster's territory."
Thunder crackled overhead, and water dripped to splatter on the cement underfoot. Scully grumbled, "Anybody besides me feel like we're in a bad Frankenstein movie?" She strode over to the door and yanked it open. "We've got both a civilian and an agent down in here, somebody get a paramedic!"
There was no answer from the SWAT team – or anyone else. Inside the elevator room, unease flitted over all six adults' faces. Scully's only concession to her fears was to give her son a quick hug and kiss and to whisper that he had to stay with his grandmother for a little longer. She couldn't tell her mother to take William and stay someplace safe. Both the baby and Margaret Scully were still in jeopardy, as were the injured men and Sydney Fox. They wouldn't truly be safe until Attila was permanently stopped.
Scully raised her voice, allowing defiance and derision to saturate each word. "I know you're watching, Attila. You're not a warrior, you're a coward and a bully! You don't have the balls to face me alone!" If their enemy fed off of their fear, she wasn't providing him any sustenance now. She was too pissed. Her mind poured out malevolent wishes against the unseen enemy. Medical training allowed her to imagine specific damage to organs and tissues. It was a dance of guilt and fear, anger and anguish, intellect and gut instinct, all rolled into a single, compact stream of thought aimed at the being who took on the name of an ancient evil.
A figure stepped through the wall. The brick and mortar shattered outward as though struck with a human-sized sledgehammer, filling the room with a storm of dust and grit and rubble. Small pieces of cement shrapnel bit into Scully's skin, a quick, harsh reminder that this was no movie. The self-proclaimed warrior emerged from the swirl of dust. Attila's eyes glittered with an evil that sent a collective shiver through everyone else in the room.
Then the female FBI agent gasped. And for just a moment, compassion replaced cold fury.
Attila's body was nearly unrecognizable. Tumors and pustules rose from exposed flesh, and every joint in his hand was swollen and bent in arthritic distortion. He moved slowly, deliberately, allowing her to see his agony. "This is what you've done to me…" he hissed. "And you'll pay. You can't kill me. All you can do is hurt me. And injuring a tiger only enrages it, making it more dangerous."
"You're lying."
"Am I?" the killer sneered. "Try me. Shoot me with your little firecracker. It will only make me more deadly. It will make me stronger."
Killer or not, Attila was unarmed. His outstretched hands were empty. Firing on him would cost her job and possibly get her jail time.
Scully trained her weapon on the walking, talking antiquity and muttered, "Worth every bit of it."