Title: Canticle
Author: CeilidhO
Summary: Four years after the capture of serial killer George Hoffman, Mulder and Scully's new life together is shattered when an unexpected visitor sweeps them into a new case, more terrifying and deadly than either could have imagined. (Sequel to "Disciple")
Disclaimer: Chris Carter and 1013 own the rights to Mulder, Scully, and all characters and concepts from the series. I, however, am the proud owner of all characters and situations I invented myself. All mine…
- - - -
FBI Field Office
October 26
7:01 pm
Something unnamable coursed through Scully in the ringing silence after Rob's words. Sick and sour, it felt as if it was poison, burning and nauseas. In the interminable moment of paralysis the feeling gave her, she heard Dan speak words of comfort and action, heard the phone put down, and finally put a name to it.
It was doubt; slow and spinning, it was filling her senses. Could she have been wrong, wrong in her fervent conviction that Jude was innocent? Could she have overlooked something crucial in her sentimental blindness? The fact of both boys missing at once, with all of the force of Mulder's suspicions behind it, seemed insurmountable. Slowly though, Scully's mind revolved back to the fact that John Holtz was also unaccounted for. The thought settled her back to the action around her.
"But who should go where?" Dan was asking. "I know Rob Abrams, but I also, of course, know my own house and family better."
"I certainly shouldn't go to the Abrams'," Mulder answered quickly. "I'm the last person they need to see."
Scully forced her tongue to move, and she said: "I'll go, and I think Alex should go with me. That seems to be the most logical way to divide us up."
Mulder nodded. "All right. Let's go now, and gather all the information we can. We'll meet back here at ten or eleven tonight."
"Dan and I can get the cars ready," Alex said, "If you two can collect all the forms and documents we'll need."
Scully agreed, and Mulder nodded, his face closed. The other two grabbed their coats and strode out the door, urgency apparent in every line of their bodies.
After a moment, they began to gather up their papers in preparation, but as Scully slid the materials into her briefcase she noticed Mulder's hands were shaking. He was two or three feet from her, but she could see that the papers in his hands were trembling, and his skin was pale as he tried in vain to stuff everything into his own briefcase.
Impulsively she reached over and seized them, feeling how cold they were beneath her touch. Mulder looked up, surprised, and they locked eyes. Scully felt the wind knocked out of her by they expression they held. She stepped closer, and she could feel the heat that emanated from him, that began to suffuse his hands within her own. She struggled to pull in a breath, her heart racing, and Mulder's eyes seemed the softest and warmest thing she had ever seen, the lines of his face the most beautiful thing in the world. He stepped a few inches closer.
In the next second he kissed her, his lips slightly rough against hers, and she felt again the great bubble of happiness rise up through her body as it had in the earliest moments of their life together, and she knew with the greatest certainty that she was in love.
- - - -
Residence of Mark Abrams
Taylorsville, Utah
Suburban Salt Lake City
8:05 pm
Scully stepped from the black sedan and crossed to the porch of the pleasant two-story house, her skin cool in the damp air. Inside the house, every light was on, and Scully could see figures moving back and forth rapidly behind the pale curtains. Alex stepped up on the porch behind her, rubbing his hands together for warmth. Scully glanced over at him for moment, receiving his brief smile, and then she pressed the doorbell.
It was opened almost immediately by a tall boy with wavy brown hair and a worried face. For a moment Scully didn't even recognize him, and for that same moment the aching brown eyes debated, and then Tyler Abrams threw himself into Scully's arms. He held her fiercely, and she gripped him back, running a hand through his thick hair. He pulled away after a few seconds, and looked up at her with a face gleaming with tears.
"Dana, he's gone. Thomas, Thomas, he's gone, and that killer is going to get, him, Dana..."
"Shhh, shhh... I'll find, him, I will. I promise to you, Tyler, I will find him." Hurt burned through her chest, and she thought about how a promise like that would sound to Mrs. Brigham, alone and breaking apart from grief in her little house in Aneth. She put it aside as best she could, and gripped Tyler by the hand. "Take me to your dad."
He led them into the house, which was bright and loud and smelled like fear. All of the extensive Abrams clan- two parents, six siblings, their assorted husbands and wives and innumerable children- was crowded into the same network of rooms, making phone calls, printing flyers, crying and comforting, shell-shocked with grief. Tyler led them to his father, Mark, who was sitting with a formidable older woman and speaking urgently on the phone. Nearby, Lauren, his wife and Tyler and Thomas' mother, was clutching a pillow and staring into space, absentmindedly shushing a toddler Scully didn't recognize.
Tyler tapped on his father's shoulder, attracting the attention of the older woman across from him. Scully looked over, and matched gazes with Tallulah, the matriarch. She braced herself for the onslaught of hostility and tirade that had been the woman's trademark when Scully had known her, but instead the crackling blue eyes softened, and Scully felt herself clasped by the arms. The dappled hands on her forearms shook slightly, and Tallulah spoke, in a voice rasped and tentative with fear.
"Please, Dana. Please find our boy. We need him back... We need him home... I need him safe." The woman's gaze grew brighter with faith. "You found that odious Choirmaster, you found that little boy Judas... You can find my Thomas."
With searing pain, Scully remembered Jude's own similar words, his own similar faith. And what had that got him, what had that got Matthew? A tiny gravestone and a broken life. Scully felt terrifyingly paralyzed, powerless, and as worthy as an ant for the faith bestowed in her by all of these grieving, desperate people.
She was saved from answering by Mark hanging up the telephone and tuning to her, his own eyes determined and denying, wavering resolution on the brink of desolation.
"So," he said. "I'd better give you and your partner the facts as they occurred then. The timeline is this..." Scully could feel him begging her to play along in this game of desperate bravado, and she did.
"Let me just get out my notebook," she said.
The story that emerged was this: six year-old Thomas had been seen exiting his first-grade classroom, and walked out to the playground with a cousin of the same age, Abrams sibling Becky's daughter Ariana. As they were walking to the bus stop, he had realized that he had forgotten his book bag, told Ariana to get on the school bus ahead of him, and ran back into the building. When she didn't see him on the bus, she had guessed that it was simply too busy and crowded, and that he'd gotten a seat up front with someone else. Clapping games with a friend had pushed him from her mind for the remainder of the trip, and he had only re-entered it when he failed to get off the bus to meet his waiting mother and younger brother, the toddler Scully had noticed with Lauren.
Even then, Lauren- taking into account Ariana's explanation of the forgotten book bag- had merely assumed that he had missed the first bus, and would soon arrive on the second. The second came and went and Lauren, beginning to panic, drove them all to the school to pick him up there. However, he was nowhere to be found at the school, and none of the teachers could remember seeing him after his return for the bag. They all then conducted a basement to attic search of the school, then the playground, and then several teachers drove back and forth along the possible walking routes between the school and the bus stop by the little boy's house. It was then 6:43, three hours after Thomas' expected arrival at the bus stop.
Finally, at 6:55, Thomas' tiny book bag was found in a planter outside of the north entrance to the school, hastily shoved under the fallen leaves that littered it. The police and the closest extended family (i.e. Rob) were then notified, but Rob's call had reached the FBI just ahead of the Salt Lake City P.D.'s.
Rob came in from the kitchen as Mark finished speaking, struggling to control himself, and handed him a glass of ice water without a word. Scully looked sideways at Alex, blinking heavily against the stinging in her eyes, and saw him huddled over his notebook, over his shorthand transcript of Mark's words, and wiping furiously at his lower eyelids.
Rob clasped his brother on the shoulder, and then placed a hand on Scully's arm, whispering: "Can we talk somewhere quiet?"
He led her through the bright, hot, dense rooms, and soundlessly up the front staircase. On the second floor, the noise below became hum of pained voices, and faded even more as Rob ushered her into a small bedroom, closing the door behind him with a faint click. The moon beamed through the gauzy curtains on the windows, and lit a silver trail on the wooden crib by the far wall.
Rob crossed to it, and gripped the rail until his knuckles were white. Scully came up beside him, and stared down at the sleeping form within. The baby was asleep on her back, her arms flung out and her thin blond hair still barely covering her head, and Scully recognized her as Rob and Jenna's five month-old daughter, Sarah.
"Do you know what her middle name is?" Rob murmured. "It's Katherine. I chose it, and Jenna has no idea why. It's better that way, I'm sure, but I thought you might like to know."
Scully felt something thick in her throat, and managed: "Rob, I..."
He interrupted swiftly. "Why Thomas, Dana? I know you know why, but I thought it might not be an explanation you wanted to give in front of the whole family."
"Yes, I do know why, Rob," she answered slowly. "At the very least, we are reasonably certain we know why."
"Tell me, then."
She bit her lower lip for a moment, and then tried her best to compress their theories into a single explanation. "This killer targets boys in the ages of six and seven, with the names of Disciples. That we know of, he has killed twice: six year-old Matthew Hughes and seven year-old Simon Brigham. His victims, or their families, have all been recently been featured in the media, or perhaps have been in the past. He is obsessed with the murders of George Hoffman, and only..." This was the hardest part, and her mouth was dry. "...And only targets those somehow involved with the Hoffman case."
His response was slow and toneless; his features studied and closed in the moonlight. "So it's because I was involved with you. That's why Thomas is being tortured as we stand here talking."
Scully flinched back, is if from a physical blow, but she could not block the swell of anger that rose at his words. "Well, Rob, you do have to factor the psychopath in there somewhere." She sighed heavily, the anger ebbing. She knew she would feel the same in his position. "Yes, though, Thomas is being targeted specifically because of your involvement with me. I seem to recall that you gave statements to the paper when I was in the hospital after Hoffman's arrest, and to the reporters for that People article. That's probably how he found out about you all; we suspect he hoards articles about the case."
Rob frowned for a moment, and disappeared out into the hallway. A minute or two later, he reappeared, clutching something in his hand. It was the magazine. The familiar headline blazed out at her from the article as Rob opened the pages to the marked one, and began to skim through the columns of writing.
"Tyler kept the magazine," he said, "because he was mentioned by name. Here it is: Tyler Abrams, 10, Agent Scully's pseudo stepson- I remember he was very impressed with that word, 'pseudo'- seems worried when he answers the phone at his uncle's home. It's because Dana is in the hospital, he says, and he's been left to watch his brother, Thomas, 2. He is trying to teach the little boy to pray, he claims, to 'Give Dana all the backup he can give her'. When media members phone again two days later, there is no answer at the house, but this charming insight into the recovering agent's personal life is warmly shared between them."
Scully was silent. She had never read the section of the simpering article that dealt solely with her, and this wonderful comment of Tyler's had never been shared with her by anyone before now. "Well," she managed to say, "There you have the most probable source. The killer must have thought to do the math, and found Thomas to be the perfect age."
Rob nodded, and then nodded again, and Scully saw in the shifting moonlight that his eyes were bloodshot and glittering, and he spoke after a moment, his voice cracked and quavering.
"It just seems unfair, just so unfair. I don't even know who to be angry with, I don't even know who to blame, and I've got all this guilt and rage and horrible fear just trampling around inside me, and I don't... I just don't know who to let it out at." Then, face pale and tears streaming, Rob collapsed onto his knees at the foot of his daughter's cradle.
- - - -
He couldn't get enough of looking at it.
He had been sitting just staring at it for ages, watching the small body root around in the darkness, scratching its fingers in the hard red dirt, at the hard red walls, at the scraping red rusted chain that gouged deep into the gleaming white flesh of its neck and wrists and ankles. He had just had just recently come up with the idea of putting fresh sandpaper in thick strips on the inside of the manacles, but as he watched it cry from the stripping of its skin he wondered in the bubbled, flaking oxidized metal wound have had the same effect, at a much lower cost.
Another idea came to him as he watched it burrow for warmth and some semblance of comfort, a delicious idea; and as he thought it he began to absentmindedly strip the skin off his kneecap with a long, dirty fingernail, steadily made dirtier by his own thick blood, now welling in drops and strings from his knee.
Why not buy some old nails or screws, use a bolt cutter to snip them off, oh say about an inch from the tip, and glue or smelt the pointed ends into the wrist manacles- of course placed where they couldn't nick an artery. He felt his pulse speed up as he considered the way it would make the thing in his cave scream, and he instinctively reached down to touch himself, just as instinctively yanking his own hand back before it made contact his naked skin, as if he had been slapped.
"Remember," he mumbled to no one in particular. "Not there." As a compromise, he reached down expertly and began to pick at some of his older scabs, high on his inner thigh.
Above him, the high, wide arc of the bridge blocked out portions of the star- and moonlight, and behind him the river sighed and kissed the solid red earth of the bank. Beneath his naked body the ground, usually shifting and scrubby and loose with dust and pebbles, was as hard as the bedrock he imagined miles below. His own weight left no mark behind him when he stood, no footprint, no disturbance, no indentation to mark his existence.
Standing now, watching the thing inside the hollow pillar scrabble at the ground, he giggled at the irony of it choosing to attempt to tunnel in that particular spot, right above where, if memory served, another of his kind was rotting only three feet below those desperate hands. He remembered what a marvel, what a gift, the remoteness of the bridge had been then, as he had first used metal to strip the skin off anyone but his own self. But he had been too excited, too young, and had lost control. He had ended up flaying the whole back with a kitchen knife, and, in a panic caused by the sheer amount of blood, burying the remains in the rust colored ground and staying away from his bridge for nearly a year.
But its lonely call, along with the hungry ravages of the Beast upon his own body, had brought him back here, again and again, and had now brought this new plaything too.
Lucky thing.
- - - -
FBI Field Office
11: 57 pm
"...No one else in the family knew anything more than what Mark Abrams told me. None of the teachers the police canvassed at the school saw anyone, or any of the students in Thomas' class. As far as they're concerned, he vanished off the face of the earth at 3:30 this afternoon." Scully wrapped up her summary of her and Alex's time at the Abrams', and ran a hand hard across her forehead.
Dan looked down, pinching the bridge of his nose, and when he looked up at Scully again, his expression stony. "It's not looking good for Jude, Dana. He skipped his last two afternoon classes today, telling a friend and leaving school at about 2:15. Cross-town to the suburbs on the bus, his school's about forty-five to fifty-five minutes away from Thomas'. That gives him plenty of time to get there and find a good, hidden place before the school lets out at 3:25. The sad thing for Thomas is, if he hadn't gone back for the book bag, he'd probably be safe at home right now."
"That's not necessarily true," Mulder cut in. "He may have been safe today, but who knows about tomorrow? So, Ju...so the killer picked a bad spot to hide this afternoon- he'd know better next time. And there would have been a next time."
"How did no one notice Jude was missing before... what was it, almost seven o'clock tonight?" Alex asked, his brow furrowed. Dan sighed, and leaned back against the filing cabinet, absently fiddling with the strap on his brown leather holster.
"Well, there was some sort of confusion with the school about his contact numbers. Peggy and I decided, and told Jude, that he was supposed to provide them with our number as the emergency contact for the period he was with us." He took a deep breath, and looked over at Scully with an unfathomable expression. "He must never have done that, because when he was marked absent for the first class he missed, and the attendance got down to the office, they called the Holdermans' house to report the absence- as you may remember, Mrs. Holderman stayed at home. Of course, no one was there to receive that call, and Peggy only found out by getting so worried that she called the school herself. Thank god one of the secretaries was working late, or we might have thought that something had happened to him."
Alex puffed out his cheeks. "Thank god."
Scully felt heat rise through her body, and she looked down, away from the eyes of all the others.
- - - -
Morris Residence
Salt Lake City
October 27
11:32 am
Scully sat at Dan and Peggy's round blonde wood kitchen table, surrounded by the remains of lunch. Across from her, three children were staring at her miserably, picking at cold scraps of food without any real thought. After another few minutes, three year-old Jeremy pulled his thumb out of his mouth and asked her for the fourth time: "Where's Jude?"
"I don't know, Jeremy." Scully repeated. "That's what I'm trying to figure out."
"We told you, Jem," Dan's older daughter, fifteen year-old Rachel said patiently. "Dana, and our Dad, and Alex and Mulder, they're all detectives, like on TV. They find people; it's what they do."
Once again, Scully felt shame prickle at her in answer to the absolute faith invested in her. She thought in the second before she managed to smile back at Rachel of the dozens of people she had disappointed in her career, all of the families whose losses had meant only to her a frustrating rising body count.
"Yeah," twelve year-old Janie continued. "And it's not like Jude is hiding or anything, so how hard can it be, huh Jem?"
The little boy smiled and wiggled onto the younger girl's lap, pressing himself into her and turning the radiant smile to Scully.
"Okay, Jem," Scully said with the best grin she could muster. "Can you have a little grown-up discussion with me now, adult to adult?" The boy grinned more widely, and nodded. "Okay then. Did Jude ever mention to you in the last few days that he was going to take a trip?" A rapid shake of the head. "Did he ever mention any little boys that he knew, did he ever talk about little boys, like first grade boys, that he was making friends with?" Another shake of the head. "Was he really sad or angry in the last couple of days?" A fast nod. "Yeah, I bet he was. I bet you were too, because of the fight that your mom and dad had."
Without warning, the attentive expression dropped from Jeremy's eyes, and he leapt from the table, heading for a jumble of bright toys Scully could faintly see in the living room. "Sorry about that," Peggy said, bringing cups of coffee and juice to the table. "His attention-deficit doesn't seem as bad as Mrs. Holderman led us to believe, but it's certainly present. Just wait about half an hour, and he'll probably be interested again. We've found he usually works something like that."
Scully pushed back her chair and stood up. "Would you mind if I took quick look around Jude's room, his temporary room, then, while I give Jeremy his space?"
Peggy nodded. "Uh, sure. It's the study on the second floor; he's been sleeping on the foldout couch. You remember the way?"
"Yes, I do. Thanks very much."
Scully turned and left the kitchen, heading up the back stairs as frustration mounted in her body. The night had been horrific, visions of Thomas' torture parading through her head, rage at her inactivity making her toss and turn, heating her sheets and making Mulder grumble in his sleep. She could barely stand it, lying in bed, sleeping, while somewhere out there Thomas might be being carved up as she desperately burrowed her face into her cheap pillow.
She had been awakened at 4:55 am by a phone call from Rob, asking if there were any new leads. Despite her negative answer, he, or one of his relatives, continued to call about every twenty minutes. In fact, one of the other agents should be fielding one right now, if the Abrams were on schedule.
There was nothing much of forensic interest in Jude's room, she realized after a quick search. He was still living out of the suitcase Scully knew Mrs. Holderman had been allowed to bring him, and the bed sheets were piled and rumpled, thick on the thin mattress. The curtains were half open, letting dim bleached light into the small room, and it smelled faintly stale. Nothing, Scully remembered from her childhood, unusual for a twelve year-old boy- almost a thirteen year-old boy, Scully realized. Jude's thirteenth birthday was in four days, on Halloween.
With a spark of interest, she noticed something on the desk. It was a newspaper clipping, in color, from where Scully couldn't tell. The picture, however, she did recognize. It was herself, standing at a podium covered with microphones, pale and dazed in the flashbulbs. With her professional eye, Scully could see that there was still a faint sedative haze in her eyes. It was from the press conference the FBI had given three days after Hoffman's capture, if you could call it a capture. She was only just out of the hospital, had been out a day, half a day, she couldn't remember exactly, and all of the questions had felt so overwhelming. Mulder's presence behind her was the only thing that had kept her upright.
Covering her hand with a tissue for precautions, she folded out the rest of the clipping, and read: NEW MURDER CASE BRINGS BACK TOP GUNS. The by-line dated it October 20, the day of her arrival in Salt Lake City. It continued: Special Agent Dana Scully, of the capital's FBI, returned to Utah today to assist the local Field Office once again in their search for a killer. Agent Scully was the lead agent on the infamous Choir case, and in June 2003 she shot and killed serial murderer George Hoffman in self-defense.
It continued, but Scully stopped reading, her attention caught instead by a messy scrawl across the bottom of the article. Squinting, she made it out. Glad to know our girl's back in town. Aren't you?
Suddenly, a young voice spoke from the doorway. It was Jeremy. "Jude was sad since he got a present from the postman. He didn't let me see it, but I saw that fall out, the paper you're holding."
"Thanks, Jeremy," she said after a moment, but he had already drifted away. Her mind was in turmoil, spinning and clicking and beginning to put something together, something she didn't want to think directly at, in case she should lose it.
She sat down hard on the bed, hand coming down first onto the piled blankets, and a sudden cracking noise interrupted her thoughts. Eyebrows knitted, she reached under the blankets and pulled something out, and in an instant her idea slammed together with the force of an avalanche.
In her hand she held a letter, and the return address read: College of Eastern Utah, Price, UT, and the name of the sender was John F. Holtz.
- - - -
A/N: I'm really sorry this took so long, but like a said in the note for Chapter 8, I went on holiday for two weeks (I squeezed out Chap. 9 in the two/three days before I left- I wanted to leave you all with something before I went). Then, right away, I started school, and that's always a horrific time to try and write. Anyway, I made this chapter extra long to make up for it, and I'll do better next time, I promise.
As always, please, please review, and thanks for the reviews for Ch. 9! Ceilidh