by Kami Garcia
Mulder took her hand and laced his fingers through hers. “No. They were adult bones.”
“Only a psychopath would do that kind of thing.”
Mulder heard the fear in her voice. “Now you’re an expert on psychopaths?” he teased.
“I read your murder books. Remember?” Her shoulders relaxed a little. “Where do you think the killer is getting the bones?”
“The morgue, if I had to guess? Otherwise somebody would notice.” Mulder’s head buzzed, almost as if he could feel the synapses in his brain firing as the thoughts formed. He shot up in his seat. “Start driving. We need to get to Gimble’s house.”
“First it was pull over. Now it’s drive. Are you aware that you have a problem making up your mind?” But she hit the gas and guided the car back onto Massachusetts Avenue. “Fox? That was a joke. What’s going on in your head? Think out loud.”
It’s just a gut feeling.…
“What if the Major isn’t as crazy as everyone thinks?”
* * *
Mulder knocked on Gimble’s front door for five minutes before he heard someone shuffling around inside.
“They’re probably asleep.” Phoebe stood halfway down the brick steps that led up to the house.
“All the lights are on upstairs.” He pointed at the second-floor windows. “And I hear someone.”
The dead bolts clicked one by one, and Gimble poked his head out.
“Don’t open it!” the Major shouted from somewhere behind him.
“It’s just Mulder!” Gimble yelled back at the top of his lungs. “He has clearance, remember?”
“Sorry to come by so late,” Mulder offered. “But you said you’d be up all night.”
“He saw the crime scene photos,” Phoebe added.
Gimble opened the door a little wider. “Get in here and tell me what I missed. And ignore the Major. He’s having a rough night.”
Mulder and Phoebe sat on the sofa and he recounted the story for the second time, while Gimble sat on the edge of the recliner hanging on every word. The Major stood at the window, with a mop propped against his shoulder like a rifle, watching the street—in case they had been followed.
“Arrows made of bones?” Gimble shuddered. “Gross.”
The Major was talking to himself. “Anyone who tries to breach that door will find out what the soldiers of the 128th Recon Squadron are made of. Mark my words.”
Mulder leaned over the arm of the sofa and lowered his voice. “Before we left for the police station, you said the Major thinks aliens are making a cyborg because some of the victims on his map were missing bones.”
“Not some of them.” Gimble’s dad was suddenly standing behind the sofa where Mulder and Phoebe were sitting. “All of them.”
“Do you have to sneak up on everyone?” Gimble asked, frustrated.
The Major raised his chin, with the floppy gray mop head resting on his shoulder. “You can take the man out of the air force, but you can’t take the air force out of the man.”
“Would you mind showing me your map again, sir?” Mulder asked.
“You’re lucky you’ve got clearance, airman.” The Major gave him a sharp nod.
When Phoebe stood up, the Major stopped in his tracks. “Not so fast, young lady. I’m afraid you’ll have to stay here.”
“Why? Because I’m a girl?” Phoebe narrowed her eyes and planted her hands on her hips. Her side buns had come loose and now she was left with two pigtails, but she still looked terrifying. “I speak three human languages, in addition to Elvish, and I know Morse code. I could’ve graduated from high school at fifteen, but I didn’t want to go to MIT before I had a driver’s license.”
The Major opened his mouth to say something, but Phoebe cut him off. “I’m also willing to bet that I’m the only person in this room, besides you, who knows how to fix an HT transceiver like the one you have over there.” She pointed at the two-way radio on top of the TV set. “And I won the Massachusetts State High School Science Award two years in a row by demonstrating how the Big Ear telescope at Ohio State University intercepted the Wow! signal, and for a prototype I designed using applied robotics.”
“Is she serious?” Gimble asked Mulder.
Phoebe’s head snapped in Gimble’s direction. “As a reactor operator at a nuclear power plant.”
“I don’t care if you’re a man, or a woman, or a grizzly,” the Major said. “You don’t have security clearance, and no one is allowed access to my intel without clearance.”
Gimble pretended to bang his head against the wall.
“Then how do I get clearance?” she asked.
The Major put down the mop. “You have to crack a code, and none of that easy stuff.”
“Maybe she could take a quiz or something instead?” Mulder suggested.
“That’s not the way I run my unit.” The Major marched over to the shelves across from the sofa and returned holding a metal box. “Crack this and I’ll grant you clearance.”
“What’s in there?” Mulder asked Gimble.
He shrugged. “No idea.”
Phoebe took the box and opened it. She scrunched up her face and gave her friends a strange look. She flipped over the box and held up an object they all recognized. “A puzzle cube?”
“It’s the only code the aliens can’t crack,” the Major said proudly, as if he had made the most significant discovery of the twentieth century.
“It’s called a Magic Cube. You can’t even buy them in the US yet.” Gimble scowled at his father. “I told you not to go in my room.”
“And whose contact got it for you?” The Major narrowed his eyes and pointed at Gimble like a drill sergeant. “Man up, airman, and support your unit.”
Gimble crossed his arms and flicked his hair out of his eyes. “I get it back when she’s done.”
“All the squares on each side have to be the same color,” the Major explained, turning to Phoebe. But she was already twisting the cube.
“Like this?” She held it up, each side a solid color. She tossed it to the Major, who stared at her with his mouth hanging open. “Now, let’s see this wall.”
After the Major recovered from the shock, he led them to the map, where he had added a new pin to Southwest DC.
“The woman pimping out those poor, innocent girls was the first target,” he said. “She was missing her hand.”
“She was a madam,” Gimble told his dad. “We talked about this.”
The Major frowned. “People called my grandmother ‘madam.’ I will not insult her memory by referring to that evil woman the same way.”
Gimble shook his head. “I give up.”
His dad pointed at the newspaper clipping. “Says it right there. Third paragraph.”
“What does it say?” Phoebe asked, craning her neck to get a closer look.
“The victim’s body was mangled, leaving her right hand severed at the wrist,” Mulder read. “And her hand was never found. According to a witness at the scene, there was blood everywhere, and bones were scattered all over the alley.”
“The aliens tossed her around after they killed her, so no one would notice the missing bone,” the Major explained.
The article confirmed his version of the story, except for the part about aliens. Not exactly the proof Mulder was hoping for, but the Major was just getting started. “Victim number two was the doctor. He almost slipped past me.”
“But he wasn’t missing a bone,” Mulder pointed out.
“That’s what I thought, too. Until I contacted my source at the morgue.”
“Your what?” Phoebe blurted out.
“I installed a member of my unit at the county morgue, and he has friends in the same profession.”
Gimble blew out a loud breath. “What he means is that one of the guys in his conspiracy forum happens to work there. His name is Sergio, and when he isn’t checking bodies for missing bones, he lives in his mother’s basement.”
The Major gave Gimble a ster
n look. “Never judge a man by the size of his bank account or the place he hangs his uniform. Sergio risks his life for the mission. If the aliens found out that he’s supplying intel that could expose their plan, they would take him out.”
Gimble ignored his dad. “The psychiatrist was missing a foot bone.”
“The second cuneiform,” the Major added.
“Sergio wrote down the results of the autopsy report word for word on the paper bag that his burger and fries came in that day,” Gimble said. “He mailed it to the Major’s PO box.”
Mulder shrugged. “Sounds official enough to me.”
“So the psychiatrist is a strong maybe,” Phoebe said.
The Major provided them with the details on other less-than-stellar citizens—a guy selling moonshine in the woods who was missing plenty of bones after he was supposedly attacked by wild animals, a drug dealer who was missing a piece of his jawbone after he was beaten to death (according to the newspaper), and a bookie who was missing a bone in his arm (according to Sergio).
Mulder knew Gimble’s dad wasn’t someone most people would consider a reliable source, but the man spent every day holed up in the house, scouring the papers and the news, looking for connections and patterns.
“And that brings us to the slumlord who supposedly hanged himself with a telephone cord,” the Major said. “The aliens took his finger.”
Phoebe squeezed past Mulder so she could read the article. “This one is legit, for sure. The police assumed a disgruntled tenant chopped it off.”
“But the guy hanged himself,” Mulder said.
“That’s what the aliens want you to think.” The Major swiped something from between a stack of newspapers on the floor and handed it to Mulder. A black-and-white crime scene photo.
Gimble realized what Mulder was holding and turned to his father. “Where did you get that?”
“Sergio took it from the coroner’s office when the morgue sent him to pick up the body.”
“You and Sergio could get in serious trouble for doing something like this,” Gimble warned.
The Major scoffed, “We’re at war with extraterrestrials. Do you think I’m afraid of the police?”
Mulder studied the grisly photo of the man dangling from a ceiling fan. “What am I looking for, sir?”
“Have you ever rigged a boat, airman?” the Major asked.
“Uh … no, sir.”
“I bet the man swinging from that telephone cord in his big-city apartment hadn’t, either.”
Gimble moved closer, suddenly interested. “Where are you going with this?” It was the first time Mulder had seen him take his father seriously.
The Major pointed at the knot above the noose. “That’s a sheepshank knot. Sailors use it for rigging.”
Gimble stared at his father in awe. Mulder and Phoebe were blown away, too.
“I was damned surprised when I saw it myself,” the Major continued. “I would’ve expected the aliens to go with something simpler, like a good old-fashioned slipknot.”
“Maybe you can give them lessons,” Gimble said. “And teach them to make macaroni and cheese while you’re at it.”
Mulder tuned everyone out and studied the wall—molecular formulas and geometric sequences, next to a coupon for rug cleaning and a secret message the Major had “decoded” from the back of a cereal box. A conspiracy theorist’s map and extensive knowledge of sailing knots wouldn’t be enough proof for the police.
Mulder shook his head, frustrated. “We’ll never convince the detectives that whoever murdered the people on the Major’s wall is the same man who killed Billy.”
“What makes you so sure the killer is a man?” Phoebe never passed up a chance to challenge him. It was one of the things he loved about her.
“There have only been six female serial killers in America. I looked it up,” Mulder countered. “I was going with the odds.”
“Six they’ve caught,” she couldn’t resist adding. “But I’m not so sure it’s the same person. According to your murder books, serial killers don’t usually change the type of victims they select overnight and go from kidnapping children and stuffing them into crypts to murdering adults and stealing their bones.”
She had a point.
Mulder did a mental run-through of what he knew about serial killers, which extended beyond what he’d learned from The Meaning of Murder. After Samantha disappeared, researching crime and psychology became kind of a weird hobby. At the time, Mulder hadn’t given much thought to how weird. He just added it to his growing list of interests—the New York Knicks and basketball, Star Trek and the NASA space program, Farrah Fawcett and Wonder Woman, and kidnappers and serial killers.
Initially, he had focused—or fixated, as Phoebe called it—on kidnappers. But serial killers, like David Berkowitz (known as Son of Sam), John Wayne Gacy, and Ted Bundy had been all over the news for years now, and with Mulder’s memory, things stuck.
“Maybe the killer isn’t changing his victimology,” Mulder said, thinking out loud. “If the arrows are part of his signature, then he needs to get the bones from somewhere.”
Phoebe nodded, as if she understood what he meant, but Gimble was lost.
“What’s a signature?”
“It’s a calling card—something unique the killer leaves behind at the crime scene,” Mulder explained. Gimble stared blankly at him, so Mulder came up with an example. “After the Boston Strangler murdered his victims, he took whatever he used to strangle the victim and tied it in a bow around the person’s neck.”
“Like the missing bones,” the Major said, picking up the tail end of the conversation. “That’s the aliens’ signature.”
“Thanks for that, Major.” Gimble craned his neck and looked over at the window, in an obvious move. “Is it safe to leave that post unmanned?”
The Major’s gaze darted to the window. “Don’t worry, airman. I’ve got eyes on it.” But his paranoia won out a moment later, and he marched back to the window.
Phoebe shook her head at Gimble. “That was mean.”
“Say that after you’ve spent twenty-four hours with him,” Gimble said, then turned to Mulder. “Even if it’s part of the signature, stabbing a bird with anything and then making a symbol with its dead body sounds like part of a satanic ritual.”
“It’s so sick.” Phoebe wrapped her arms around her stomach and cringed.
“And Billy Christian’s body was found in a crypt,” Mulder added.
“Don’t forget about the mummy stone,” Gimble reminded him.
“It’s called nuummite,” she snapped, suddenly on edge.
She’s not the only one, Mulder thought.
Walking into the wrong room at the police station and sneaking a look at the photos and the reports had been dumb luck, and he knew it. There were still so many missing pieces. “We need more information about the stone and the poison. We should hit the library tomorrow morning and see what else we can find out.”
The sound of footsteps and rustling attracted everyone’s attention. The Major had left his spot by the window and was racing around the room, opening boxes and pulling books off the shelves.
“Is he okay?” Mulder asked.
Gimble sighed. “The occult talk probably agitated him.”
The Major rushed to his recliner and lifted the seat cushion. He returned clutching a paperback copy of Stormbringer against his chest like a teddy bear. “The human race violated the principles of Law and upset the Cosmic Balance. That’s why the aliens chose us to be their guinea pigs, and they won’t stop until they achieve their goal.” He pointed at a DNA chain drawn on the wall. “The aliens want to experiment on us, and manipulate and distort our genetic code. Until the Cosmic Balance is restored, we’re at their mercy.”
“Okay, time for bed. Nobody wants our DNA,” Gimble said, steering his father toward the staircase. “You need some sleep.”
“We should go. I think we upset him,” Phoebe whispered to Mulder, and then h
eaded for the door.
“Okay.” Mulder took another look at the Major’s morbid collage before he followed.
The Major darted in front of Phoebe, blocking her path. “Take this.” He thrust the copy of Stormbringer at her.
“I couldn’t—” she started.
“Just take it.” Gimble yawned and rubbed his eyes. He looked exhausted. “He’s not going to let you leave without it.”
Phoebe accepted the tattered paperback. “Thanks.”
“Things aren’t always what they seem.” The Major stared at her, his expression grim. “A skilled puppet master never lets you see the strings.”
CHAPTER 14
Mulder Residence
2:03 A.M.
Phoebe talked nonstop the whole ride back to Mulder’s apartment, arranging and rearranging the information they had uncovered. “I’m giving you permission to make fun of me after I say this, because it’s the kind of thing you hear in lame horror movies. But I still have to say it.”
“Go ahead.” Whatever she was about to tell him couldn’t be worse than the mental train wreck in his head.
“I have a bad feeling about all this. There, I said it.”
“Do you feel better?”
“No.” She hugged her knees, balancing the wooden heels of her Dr. Scholl’s sandals on the edge of the seat. “The person who killed Billy is a sick bastard, but he’s also evil. Like Charles Manson and Son of Sam evil.”
“Maybe you should stop reading my murder books?” He looked over at her. “They’ll give you nightmares.”
“Then why do you read them?” She caught herself. “Because you don’t sleep.”
Mulder parked the car and smiled at her. “You’re pretty smart for—”
“For what?” She narrowed her eyes.
“For someone who believes that Elvis is still alive, making sandwiches at a diner.”
“You’re trying to distract me because you think I’m scared.” She got out of the car and stayed a step ahead of him as they walked to the apartment.
“That’s not it,” Mulder tried to tell her, but she ignored him.He paused at the door and looked at her. “You’re not the person I’m trying to distract.”
“Fox—”