The air was still cool from the early spring morning, and Monica was wishing she had her trenchcoat with her. The fact that she was given no time to get it when Tess hustled them out of the restaurant made it clear to her that Tess was not happy with what was going on.

She and Andrew both fidgeted uncomfortably as Tess stood in front of them and spoke her mind. "Usually, I don't have a problem getting information from the two of you when we're on an assignment. In fact, Monica, most of the time I have a hard time getting you to make your own decisions on an assignment. However, this time, not only do you two seem to be making most of your own decisions, I don't seem to be hearing any more about what's happening here than the regulars at the diner! I have no idea what to make of it. Now will one of you tell me exactly what is going on here?"

Monica looked at Andrew, and decided that, however uncomfortable this was going to be, she best just spit it out. "Mulder and Scully found out that we weren't humans."

Tess sighed. Somehow she expected that. "And what did you tell them?"

"The truth, of course," replied Monica.

Tess sat down on the restaurant steps and massaged her temples. Normally, they would never reveal their identity this early in an assignment. There must be a reason why they needed to stay on this assignment as both humans and angels. "Could someone tell me _why_ you were compelled to tell them who you were this early on?"

[Mulder was right,] thought Andrew, [no use keeping secrets.] He asked Tess, "Did you feel anything different when you approached this town?"

Tess nodded and replied, "I felt really sick - like something was strangling every ounce of strength from my body. Can I assume you know what caused that?"

Andrew nodded. "There is a demon working in this town that is nothing like the two of you have probably ever seen before. From what I can tell, that's the reason I'm here."

Tess asked him, "So how do you know what it was?"

Andrew replied, "Before I was assigned to you as a case worker, I was in Special Forces. The last time I felt a demon this strong was at Bacon's Corner."

At that point, Tess did something that Andrew never saw her to in all the years they had known each other: her eyes bugged out and her jaw dropped practically to the ground. [So that's why I never heard any stories about his days before he became a case worker,] thought Tess. "How did you get transferred? I thought no one ever left Special Forces."

"After Bacon's Corner, I felt like I wanted to be involved with humans on a more direct basis. I hated all the fighting and started to take things a little too personally. I went to Captain Tal and confessed how I was feeling. He and Clara are good friends, and they arranged for me to become a case worker. Clara thought it best if you didn't know the background I had just come from."

Tess nodded her acceptance. "So Mulder and Scully know about you two?"

Andrew and Monica nodded, but they both still looked very uncomfortable. Tess looked at them and said, "Why do I get the impression there's something that you're not telling me?"

Monica knew they couldn't hide what was going on. She had to find out. "They asked us if there were any other angels in the area..."

Tess cut off her thought. No matter what happened, she knew she was going to have to accept what was coming next, whether or not she liked it. "Don't tell me..."

Monica completed what they were all thinking. "They know about you, too."

Tess held her head in her hands. Now she really had heard everything. "Well, it looks like there's no sense in my keeping my distance from you guys, now is there?"

Monica looked at her supervisor in awe. "You're not mad at us?"

Tess smiled. "I could never get mad at you, angel girl. I just wanted to know why Mulder seemed different all of a sudden."

Andrew replied, "He seems to be taking the truth a lot better than his partner. After last night, he seems to accept it as one more fact about the case. Scully, on the other hand..."

Tess added, "Well, you have to remember that, although Scully went to church when she was little, she has believed only in science for a long time now. She'll follow Mulder's lead on the case, and she'll come around to everything else. Don't worry, it may not take as long as you think. She's just a little overwhelmed right now; give her time." That seemed to reassure Monica, who was uncomfortable with the fact that Scully still had a hard time believing that she was an angel.

Monica asked Tess, "Are you still going to work as a waitress?"

Tess nodded. "There's something about the people in this diner. I need to stick with them and find out how they fit into all this."

At that point, Mulder and Scully walked out of the diner, carrying two white paper bags. Mulder looked at Monica and Andrew, then at Tess, and wished he could come out of a chewing out from Skinner as relaxed as these two looked. He told Monica and Andrew, "You two were out here for so long you didn't get a chance to eat your breakfast, so we got it to go."

Scully asked the three angels, "So how is everything out here?"

Tess smiled at the skeptical agent. "Just fine, Agent Scully. Monica and Andrew were just telling me about the little talk you four had last night."

Mulder looked at her, and wondered if he would ever get a chance to get to know Tess. He hoped that he would; she seemed like such a wise woman. "So what do you make of the case so far?"

Tess replied, "I haven't been able to make heads or tails of it. Andrew seems to know more than any of us."

Scully replied, "Well, hopefully we'll rectify that today." She started toward where the rented Tauruses were parked. "Coming, Mulder?"

Mulder replied, "Yeah." He then looked at Andrew and Monica and asked them, "Are you guys going to follow us to the first crime scene?"

Andrew and Monica both nodded. Mulder then turned to Tess and, in an unusual move for him, warmly shook her hand. "Tess, it has been a pleasure to finally properly meet you. I hope we will get a chance to talk again."

Tess looked at Mulder and wondered what it was about last night that changed Mulder's attitude like this. As Scully watched from a distance, she wondered the same thing.

308 March Street
Former home of William & Jessica McLintock
9:30 a.m.

[Life goes on,] thought Mulder, as he watched the young children playing not two doors down from the porch where he and his partner were now standing. There was none of the familiar yellow "Police line - do not cross" tape along the door; it had been a week since the murders; all the 'true crime' fans had gone home, and the people in town wanted nothing to do with the places where these couples had been killed, except for wanting the four people now standing in the too quiet entry way to find out who killed them and bring those missing children home.

Andrew and Monica agreed to go in the back and check the kitchen, while Mulder and Scully went upstairs. A trace of stale blood smell still hung in the air - evidently the house had not been aired out since its owners were killed. As Mulder and Scully entered the master bedroom, everything was as the police had left it: the thick goose down comforter laid in a crumpled mess on the floor, close to the doorway. Black dust lined the windowsill, the doorframes, the top of the dresser, and any exposed surface, yet showed none of the latent fingerprints that the local police had hoped for. At first glance, the mattress was the only indication that anything sinister had gone on: It was soaked with blood.

Scully immediately headed for the bathroom: her intention was to look in the medicine cabinet and see if the victims were taking any medication, specifically anything that might heavily sedate them for long periods of time or cause hallucinations. She also wanted samples of anything that might look ordinary but could have been tainted to produce that reaction, such as over-the-counter vitamins or painkillers. Even toothpaste or drinking water could be suspect. She worked in silence, trying to gather her own thoughts while allowing her partner to collect information.

Mulder started to slowly wander around the bedroom, trying to get a feel for what might have gone on that night; he looked for any of the minute details that the local police might have missed: a 'trophy' obviously missing from the nightstand or dresser, a possible unusual point of entry (after his work on the Tooms case, any hole is the wall was suspect). He found a picture on the night table of a young Sharon McLintock, six years old, with chestnut brown hair in ponytail braids: obviously a posed first grade school picture. The resemblance to Samantha at that age was so striking that he had to choke back tears for a minute. [We'll find you, I promise,] was the thought that resounded in his mind-in his heart, it applied to both little girls. He carefully place the picture back in its proper place and turned around.

Seeing the bedspread tangled in front of him, he picked it up to carefully examine it. He recalled the details from the file of how the victims were initially found: each victim had been shot through the heart at close range, and the bedspread had been placed back over them, their eyelids closed to make it look like they were still simply sleeping. [The blood should have been on only one side of the bedspread then,] he thought. Which made it so surprising to find small traces of blood about two feet down from the top of the clean side of the bedspread. He called out to his partner, "Scully, could you come here for a minute, I need you to take a look at something." He pulled a Swiss Army knife from his pocked and opened the scissors attachment. As his partner knelt beside him, he began to cut open the comforter just below the blood stain. "Scully, do you see this bloodstain on the bedspread?" She nodded. "What do you think could have caused blood to get on this side of it? As you can see, this was the side facing away from the victims."

Scully replied, "More than likely, the blood soaked through the side of the bedspread that covered the victims. There was about eight or nine hours between the time of death and the time the bodies were found, after all."

By that point, Mulder had made a significant tear in the comforter. He commented, "True, but if that were the case, why so little blood? If blood was soaking through the comforter, after eight hours, there would have been a lot more blood on this side. Plus, the feathers would be soaked clean through on this side. Look at this." He opened the tear to show the condition of the feathers just above the blood spot. Except for a few tiny brown spots, they were pure white.

Scully's eyes widened slightly in surprise. She had just made the same connection Mulder had. "That means this blood stain-"

Mulder completed the thought, "Had to be tracked by someone other than the victims." He then called out for Andrew and Monica, who rushed quickly up the stairs. He asked them, "Did you find anything downstairs yet?" They both shook their heads. He then ordered them, "I want you to check the children's rooms and the hallway. Look for anything unusual." The two angels then left to start their search. Mulder then took the comforter and placed it on the bed, to mimic the position it would have been in after the killer tucked in the bodies. The blood stain was exactly halfway between where each of the victims had been.

Scully then leaned over on the bed and examined the bloodstain closely. It was a small down-turned oval shape. She could just make out the tell-tale lines of a small palm. "Mulder, look at this," she exclaimed. "When I was a little girl, I was terrified of thunderstorms. When a clap of thunder woke me up in the middle of the night, I would often go to my mother's room and ask if I could sleep with her in her bed. Mulder, I believe this bloodstain was made by a child's handprint."

Mulder looked again at the handprint, then dropped to his knees and began to examine the carpeting around the room. "My god - it had to have been Sharon. Twelve year old boys usually consider themselves too old to come crawling into their parents' bed when something scares them at night. But then, how is there no blood on the carpet? If the killer had carried her out, the extra weight would have left indentations in the carpet at the very least; if she had walked out, her feet should have tracked blood further than just this handprint."

Just then Monica called out for the two agents, who rushed to the hallway across from the children's rooms to join her and Andrew, who was pacing in a way that seemed, to Scully, to be very similar to the way that Mulder would always pace whenever he was formulating some wild theory. Monica looked at the two agents and told them what she and Andrew had found. "We think we have an idea of how the children disappeared." She was holding on to a small brown teddy bear. "We found this over here by the window. I checked the bedroom, and it seems that Jessica had a collection of teddy bears."

Mulder took the bear from Monica's hands and looked at her. "She was carrying this the night her parents died?"

Monica replied, "It looks that way. We believe that whatever demon is causing the parents to die is taking the children as well."

Scully asked, "You said that you had an idea of how the children disappeared?"

Andrew stopped pacing, looked at Scully, and nodded. He then stated solemnly, "I think it's better that we show you this rather than just describe this to you." He then took Scully's hand, while Monica took Mulder's. Andrew looked into Scully's eyes, and simply asked her, "My only request is that you trust me completely for the next couple of minutes." Scully took a deep breath and nodded. Andrew then turned toward the wall and led Scully toward it. Scully continued to repeat [He's an angel, I trust him, He's an angel,] in her head as she and Andrew stepped through the wall...

...and into the bright sunlight streaming onto the McLintock's front porch. Disoriented and speechless, Scully turned to watch Monica and Mulder appear in the same spot that she and Andrew had just walked away from. If she didn't believe these two were angels, she was sure of it now, especially when she looked down and saw the bottle of Tylenol in her hand that she picked up from the McLintock's medicine cabinet. Mulder looked around at his new surroundings, and quickly acquired the same dumbfounded look that Scully was wearing. Putting two and two together, he exclaimed, "Teleportation?"

Andrew nodded, and answered Mulder's implied question. "Angels do have that ability to some degree, yes. Demons tend to use it more, though. They fly a little slower than angels, so in a pinch, they will teleport in and out of a bad situation. From what I can tell, that is how a demon would get into the house without being seen, and leave the house with the children in tow."

Mulder opened the front door to the house and motioned for the other three to come back inside. "Scully and I found out something interesting upstairs. I think we should all take a look at it." The two agents and two angels walked back upstairs and back into the master bedroom.

Scully declared, "It seems Sharon was sleeping in bed with her parents when they were killed."

Monica raised an eyebrow at this statement. "She watched them die?" She was almost hoping that that was what happened, although she had an idea that it might be something far more sinister.

"Looks like it," replied Scully.

With an action plan in mind, Mulder spoke up. "I think we should split up to check out the other two crime scenes. My hunch is that we'll find the scenes very similar to this one. Monica and I will go to the Thomases. Andrew, do you think you can handle the Jones crime scene on your own?" He nodded. Mulder continued, "All right then. If you can, Andrew, I'd like you to drop Scully off at the local Medical Examiner's office." Andrew and Scully nodded their agreement to that last statement. The group then separated and went off to their respective assignments.

In the bushes across the street from the house, Angelos watched the angels with their human counterparts and smiled. They thought they could find him, they thought they could catch him, but they were very, very wrong. This little town was his, the children were his, and he was going to do what he liked with them. Besides, what could two puny humans do to him anyway? He laughed and rose above the house they had just left, flying off to plan his next victory.

Below him, an adversary like none Angelos could imagine watched, hidden, waiting for the moment to strike. [We'll see who wins this town, Angelos,] thought Captain Tal, [It won't be yours for much longer.]

Hamelton Medical Center
1:00 p.m.

Andrew pulled up to the office of the local medical examiner at the same time as Mulder and Monica. Automatically, they mentally went past wasting time with greetings, eager to update each other on what they had each found at the crime scenes. Andrew went first, "I found the same evidence at the Jones house. MaryAnn had definitely been in the same bed as her parents that night, and I could tell that the kids had been taken out through teleportation."

Mulder and Monica nodded, indicating that they had found identical evidence that the Thomas house. The trio entered the medical building just as Scully was finishing her examination of the body of the last victim. She left the autopsy bay and practically ran into Mulder, who had come up just behind her. "Oh, Mulder! Good, I'm glad you are all here. I found some very interesting things when I took a look at the bodies of the victims."

Mulder nodded, and indicated for her to go on. Scully gave him a look that told him they should not be in public when they discuss this, and she led them to a nearby conference room. She took the gloves and hat she was wearing and set them on the table in front of her as Mulder, Andrew, and Monica sat down in chairs nearby. She then sat down and started to discuss her findings.

"First, I can find it safe to assume that the evidence at the other two crime scenes brought about similar findings?" All three nodded. "In my findings from the six victims, although the weapons used were different, the manner in which they died was the same: a violent rupturing of the aorta, causing extreme blood loss and eventual death. The McLintocks' autopsies were particularly unusual: when a bullet is fired into the body at close range, it usually ricochets through the body, causing damage to a number of organs. These bullets were different, though; they went straight through the aorta and out of the body, causing only small entry and exit wounds on either side of the victims. I'll bet we'll probably find the bullets lodged in the mattress somewhere. Again, it makes our findings at the crime scenes all the more unusual. The aorta is one of the most powerful muscles in the human body. Damage like these people suffered would have cause blood to literally explode all over the crime scene. We would have found it everywhere. Instead, the bleeding was primarily internal; what little blood we saw came out the exit wounds and soaked through into the mattress." At this, Mulder and Andrew nodded in agreement; this matched the crime scenes they had just came from. "Overall, all I can say is that these people were definitely murdered. Even someone with medical training could not have caused injuries this precise. I have never seen anything like this in my life. Nothing seems to fit quite right."

Monica then reviewed the facts of the case to that point. "All right, we know that the little girls were in their parents' rooms the night their parents died, and either found their bodies after they were killed or watched them die."

Andrew chimed in, "We also know that each of the victims died in a manner that was unusual in contrast to the means the killer used to kill them. Do we know anything else at this point?"

Mulder replied, "Our killer either cared a great deal about each of the victims or their children. Or at least, he wanted to make it appear that he did. When the victims eyes are closed, usually it shows some sort of concern for how the victims appear after death. He wants to make it look like they were just sleeping."

Andrew disagreed. "I agree with you that he wanted to make it look like they were sleeping, but I don't think it was out of any sort of concern for the victims. More than likely, he was covering his tracks. He wanted to get in and out of there quickly, yet make it look like nothing had happened. At least, not until it was too late for anyone to do anything about it."

Monica spoke up, "That still doesn't answer our primary question. Who killed these people? The demon wouldn't have used human methods, so he had to have had human help. But from who? And why did we find no evidence of this person?"

Andrew sat back and shrugged. "Maybe this demon's really good at covering his tracks."

A lightbulb seemed to go off over Mulder's head. As he got up and practically ran over Monica in his haste to get to the blackboard, the angel heard him mutter, "No one, demon or otherwise, is -that- good."

Scully, Andrew and Monica sat up in their chairs at the table as Mulder drew a stick-figure bed on the blackboard, two people sleeping in it. Turning back to the table, Mulder handed his partner the chalk and asked her, "Scully, based on your autopsy, could you project the trajectory from which each bullet hit its victims?"

Scully shrugged, "Sure," and approached the blackboard. Grimacing at Mulder's crude drawing, she nonetheless drew two dashed lines, explaining, "The bullet that killed Jessica McLintock came from this direction...and the bullet that killed her husband came from this direction..."

Realizing where the two trajectories intersected, Scully leaned back on the table, the shock evident on her face. "My God, Mulder, do you know what this means?"

Grimly, Mulder nodded. "'Fraid I do, Scully. I'm afraid I do."