8.

Krycek's mouth was dry, and an uncharacteristic fear turned restlessly in his gut. The air still smelt of burnt flesh and charcoal, despite the heavy rains which had come just before dawn.

He watched as Skinner and Geoffrey made a beeline for an ambulance he knew contained Cassandra Spender.

Cassandra.

Everything, Krycek thought bitterly, everything was going to hell. All the plans, all the strategy… everything. Ruined in one strike by the Rebels.

Skinner and Geoffrey disappeared into the back of the ambulance. Krycek stayed for a few minutes longer, watching the milling law enforcers as they wandered around in a daze, their faces horrified by the expression of violence scattered across the train yard.

The expression of a violence they couldn't begin to comprehend.

Going to hell, and there almost no chance of stopping the journey. Unless…

Turning his back on the mud and ruins, Krycek lit a cigarette and chuckled bitterly. There was a chance, he realised, and he would do anything to survive.


The smoked seemed thicker than usual, more cloying. He poured himself a whiskey, well aware his normal behaviour did not include drinking the alcohol the old men enjoyed so much.

"Why did they leave her?" someone demanded.

"She was a success," Spender admitted, his cigarette burning slowly as he held it in his fingers. "She's the one."

"After all this time," a man breathed. "You know what must be done."

"It's too late for that," Spender pointed. "The Rebels know she exists. I have no doubt the others are aware as well. Killing her will achieve nothing."

"Will we establish contact?"

Spender extinguished the cigarette carelessly, dropping the stub into the ashtray. "I don't see we have a choice."

He was wrong, Krycek thought, there was always a choice.


"Who are you?" she demanded. Her voice was huskier than he imagined it would be, but girlish at the same time. Deceptively innocent.

"Someone like Mulder," he responded calmly, still hiding in the shadows. She could see him though; her blue eyes - narrowed at Mulder's name - pierced the darkness as easily as he would pierce her neck.

He could see the exact moment she realised who he was. A small giggle of disbelief escaped from her, bursting forth wildly before she could control it. "How many more of you are there?" Cassandra demanded.

"I don't know," Krycek admitted ruefully. "He was a busy man, your husband."

"Evidently," she agreed bitterly. "You, Geoffrey and Mulder. Couldn't ask for three more different people, could you?"

"I guess not." He was having a conversation with a woman he was about to kill, and it felt entirely natural, as though she knew where it was progressing. The soft hiss of the alien stiletto echoed through the air between them. She didn't flinch when he stepped out of the shadows toward her.

"And out of everyone, you're the only one who can do what has to be done," she said softly. "You're the one most like him."

"Yes."

"Good." She turned for him, showing him the base of her neck, wrinkled and marked by age. The stiletto slid in easily, her blood bubbling green as she slumped forward.

It took longer than usual, and even when the bubbling and hissing stopped, she wasn't completely dissolved. A green and flesh mix of a bastardised world messed across the bed and dripped onto the floor.

Krycek slipped his stiletto back into his pocket and left her room silently.