01 - Goblins

by Charles Grant - (ebook by Undead)

  He made a sour face at her, then swiped at his hair again. “A chameleon—”

  “I don’t need a biology lesson,” Andrews snapped. “Or zoology. Whatever. I know what they can do.”

  “They change colors,” Webber said anyway. “To fit their background, right?” He stepped away from the dresser. “Wow. Do you really think this is what we’ve got?”

  Mulder held up a finger. “First, you’re wrong. Sort of. Chameleons can’t change color to fit every background. They’re limited to only a few, like black, white, cream, sometimes green.” He grinned. “Put him on a tartan tablecloth, he’d probably blow his brains out.”

  Webber laughed, and Scully smiled.

  Mulder’s fingers began to tap eagerly on the table. “But within certain limits, yes, he can adjust his pigmentation.”

  “I don’t believe this,” Andrews muttered. “I swear to God, I don’t believe it.”

  Mulder ignored her; he wanted Scully to follow and watched her as he spoke, in case he made a mistake.

  “Now, contrary to popular opinion, chameleons don’t change at will, right?”

  She nodded.

  “It’s things like temperature or emotion that cause the coloration to alter. When they get scared or angry. I don’t think they sit down at breakfast and decide to be green for a day.” He sat back, then stood.

  “Careful, Mulder,” Scully cautioned.

  “But we can’t do that,” he said to Webber. “Right?”

  “Change color? Hell, no. Except when we get tan or something.”

  “Right.” He moved to the door, snapping his fingers at his side, turned and gripped the back of his chair. “But suppose our Major Tonero and his group—Tymons, right? and Elkhart—suppose they’ve been able—”

  Around the edges of the drapes he spotted flashing lights and yanked open the door. In the parking lot below he saw a police cruiser, warning bar alit and swirling color. A patrolman looked up. “Hey, you the FBI?” he called.

  Mulder winced and nodded.

  The policeman beckoned sharply. “The chief wants you right away. We got another one.”

  Two patrol cars, parked sideways, and a quartet of orange-stained sawhorses bracketed a fifty-yard section of the street. An ambulance was parked nose-in to the curb, and two attendants leaned against it, smoking and waiting. Blue and red lights swarmed across branches and tree trunks, and the faces of two dozen onlookers gathered on the sidewalk opposite the scene. Flashlights danced in back yards, and in the distance a siren screamed.

  There was very little talk.

  Mulder and Scully followed their driver around the barrier; Webber and Andrews were behind them in the other car.

  Hawks met them at the foot of a gravel driveway. “Man walking his dog,” he said, pointing to a young man standing in the street, a terrier in his arms. “He found him.” He sounded angry.

  “Are you sure it’s the same?” Scully asked.

  Up the drive two men knelt beside a body in high grass between the gravel and the porch; one of them was Dr. Junis.

  “See for yourself.”

  Mulder moved first, but he didn’t have to go all the way before he saw the victim’s face. “Damn!” He turned to block Scully. “It’s Carl.”

  “You know him?” Hawks demanded.

  Scully inhaled sharply and stepped around the two men, nodding as Junis glanced up and recognized her.

  “He’s a reporter,” Mulder explained, disgust and sadness in his voice. “A sports reporter.”

  “Sports? Sports, for God’s sake? So what the hell was he doing here?”

  “Corporal Ulman’s fiancée was his cousin. He wanted me to come up and look around. I guess… I guess he was doing a little looking on his own.”

  “Jesus.” Hawks clamped his hands on his hips, glowering, breathing heavily. “Son of a bitch, what the hell’s going on around here? Mulder—” He stopped and wiped a hand over his face. “Mulder, is there some shit you’re not telling me?”

  A man on the porch called the chief, who hesitated before telling Mulder to stay where he was. When he left, Mulder scanned the growing crowd, and the shadows the cruiser lights created between the trees, between the houses. It was bad enough when the victim was a stranger, but this… He crammed his hands into his pockets and stared at the ground until footsteps on the gravel made him look up.

  “Come on,” Scully said gently, her voice trembling slightly.

  Hawks called them from the steps, and held out a piece of paper found jammed into the doorframe. It was a note from Barelli, requesting an interview which, he promised, would be paid for by a complete dinner at the best restaurant in town.

  “Who lives here?” Mulder asked.

  The house was rented by Maddy Vincent. The day-shift dispatcher, Hawks added. A gesture to figures moving around the inside told him the woman wasn’t home, and no one knew where she was. “No surprise, it’s Friday night,” the chief said in disgust. “Shit, she could be in Philadelphia for all I know. Or…”

  Mulder checked the porch, the blood on the flooring and on the door. Carl was attacked here, he thought, and the force of the attack, and his probable retreat from it, sent him over the railing. Where he bled to death without ever getting his story.

  “Damnit,” he said, and stomped down the steps. “Damnit!”

  An hour later, Carl’s body was gone and those neighbors who’d been home had all been interviewed.

  No one had seen anything; no one had heard anything. A call had gone out to Officer Vincent’s friends in the vain hope she hadn’t left town. A check with the station told them Barelli had stopped in only a short while ago, specifically looking for the dispatcher.

  “But why?” Hawks leaned heavily against his patrol car, his face drawn and tired, his voice hoarse. Most of the crowd had retreated to nearby houses; two of the cruisers had left. “What the hell did he think he knew?”

  Mulder held up a small notebook. “Nothing that he wrote down.” He handed it over. “He had dinner with Miss… Ms. Lang, and wanted to see your dispatcher. All he had were more questions.”

  “He’s not the only one,” the chief growled.

  Mulder sympathized with the man’s frustration, but it didn’t extend to telling him about the major. That, he decided grimly, was someone he wanted to talk to himself, without the complications Hawks was bound to create.

  The chief finally mumbled something about getting back to his office, and Mulder wandered over toward his car, where the others waited. They said nothing as he turned to stare at the empty house, ribboned now in yellow, a patrolman on the steps to keep the curious away. The dusting had been completed, but he doubted they would find any useful prints besides Barelli’s and Vincent’s.

  Goblins, he thought, don’t leave handy clues.

  He was angry. At Carl, for playing in a game well out of his league, and at himself, for the helplessness he felt for not knowing enough. It was a waste of energy, he knew that, but there were times, like now, when he simply couldn’t help it.

  He walked back to the middle of the street and stared at the house, ignoring the damp wind that whipped hair into his eyes.

  Carl was a big man, and definitely not soft. He had to have been surprised. A single blow, and it was over. He had to have been surprised.

  “Mulder.” Scully came up beside him. “We can’t do any more here.”

  “I know.” He frowned. “Damn, I know.” He rubbed his forehead wearily. “Major Tonero.”

  Scully looked at him sternly. “In the morning. You’re exhausted, you’re not thinking straight, and you need rest. He’s not going anywhere. We’ll talk to him in the morning.”

  Any inclination to argue vanished when she nudged him into the car; any inclination to do some work on his own vanished as soon as he saw the bed.

  But he couldn’t sleep.

  While Webber snored gently, and murmured once in a while, all he could do was stare at the ceiling, wondering.

 
Finally he got up, pulled on his trousers and shirt, and went out onto the balcony, leaning on the railing while he watched the trees across the road move slowly in the slow wind.

  He thought of Carl and the times they had had; he thought of the man who had tried to kill him that afternoon, an afternoon that seemed years distant, in another lifetime; he shivered a little and rubbed his arms for warmth as he wondered why Carl had wanted to talk to Officer Vincent. Elly Lang was obvious, but what did Hawks’ dispatcher have to do with the goblins?

  “You’re supposed to be sleeping.”

  He didn’t jump, didn’t turn his head. “The day you figure out how to turn off my brain, Scully, let me know.” He shook his head, but carefully. “Amazing, isn’t it.”

  “Your brain?” She leaned her forearms on the railing. “It’s okay, but I wouldn’t call it amazing.”

  “Chameleons,” he said. He nodded toward the woods. “Somewhere out there somebody has figured out a way, maybe, to create natural protective coloration in a human being. I don’t know what you’d call it. Fluid pigmentation?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not sure that’s—”

  “It was your idea.”

  “Yeah, but I still don’t know. Do you have any idea what kind of genetic manipulation that would require? What kind of control on the cellular level that would mean?”

  “Nope.” He glanced at her sideways. “But if you tell me, maybe I’ll be able to get some sleep after all.”

  She rolled her eyes as she straightened. “Go to bed, Mulder. Just go to bed.”

  He smiled at her back, suddenly yawned, and did as he was ordered.

  Sleep, however, was still hard to come by.

  Aside from the aches in his head and side, he couldn’t help thinking about the possibility that there could be someone in the room right now, standing against the wall there.

  Invisible, and watching him.

  Waiting.

  And he wouldn’t know it until a knife tore out his throat.

  EIGHTEEN

  There was no dawn.

  There was only a gradual shift from dark to shades of grey, and a falling mist just heavy enough to keep windshield wipers working, to raise the sharp smell of oil and tar from the blacktop.

  Mulder was not in a good mood. Following Scully’s orders, Webber had let him oversleep, and it was close to ten before he finally opened his eyes to a note on the pillow that told him the others would be waiting in the Queen’s Inn.

  He was also not miraculously cured. Although his head seemed fine except for a small lump beneath his hair, his side felt as if it had been set in cement. Every time he moved, he thought his skin would rip open.

  He supposed he ought to be grateful for the extra healing time, and for the concern Scully showed him, but knowing that didn’t make it happen. He showered and dressed as quickly as he was able, thinking that he would eat quickly, check with Chief Hawks on the slim to none chance there had been any new developments overnight, and then… he smiled mirthlessly as his brush fought with his hair … then he would have a few words with Major Joseph Tonero.

  His stomach growled as he knotted his tie, and he snarled at it to hold its horses. Then he grabbed his coat, stepped outside, and was pleased to see that the weather perfectly complemented the way he felt.

  I live for days like this, he thought gloomily as he descended the center staircase.

  Scully recognized his mood immediately, and after a quick check to be sure he was all right, she hustled them through breakfast and outside, with a reminder that while they were heading for the post, there was also someone else out there, the shooter, they had best not forget.

  Andrews still thought the so-called goblins and the shooting were related; when no one rose to the bait, she slumped into her corner and glared at the passing scenery.

  There was no sound then but the rhythmic thump of the wipers and the hiss of the tires.

  It wasn’t until they had passed through town that Mulder remembered wanting to have a word with Hawks. He punched his leg lightly and scowled, and ordered himself to get with it, or he’d blow it all because he wasn’t thinking straight.

  Once this is done, he promised; I’ll talk to him when we’re done here.

  Fifteen minutes later they passed between two simple brick pillars that marked the post entrance. No guards, no guardhouse; a stretch of woods that quickly fell away to the post’s main complex—barracks, administration buildings, and on-post housing. A transport plane from McGuire lumbered and thundered overhead. A squad of troopers double-timed across an intersection, their dark green ponchos slick with water. They passed a construction site for a new federal prison twice before Scully finally gave up and made Hank ask directions. An MP gave them, and within minutes they were on New Jersey Avenue; it didn’t take them long to find what they were after.

  “Brother,” Webber muttered as he pulled up in front of Walson Air Force Hospital.

  It was a seven-story light tan brick structure, but it somehow seemed a lot smaller.

  Because, Mulder realized, it was mostly empty. A lot of empty rooms and offices, a lot of space for things to happen without anyone being any the wiser.

  He sat up and watched the entrance, something quickening inside when he noted that hardly anyone went in, and no one came out.

  “What makes you think he’ll be here?” Andrews asked, rousing herself from her sulking.

  “If he’s working on a project,” Scully answered, “he will. Something like this doesn’t often hold over weekends.”

  Something like this, Mulder thought.

  “But do we have any authority?”

  Mulder opened the door, slid out, and poked his head back in. “We’ve been asked in by a U.S. senator, Licia. The senator the major himself called. So if he wants to argue, he can write his congressman.”

  A civilian receptionist sat just inside the entrance, a multiline telephone and a logbook the only items on her small desk. Mulder wished her a good morning, showed her his ID and asked directions to Major Tonero’s office. She wasn’t sure the major was in, and because of her standing orders was reluctant to give him the instructions until he insisted; then she pointed to a bank of elevators to their left.

  As they moved away, he heard a noise and looked back.

  Webber had his finger on the telephone’s cutoff button. “I don’t think so,” he said politely, with a wink. “Government business, okay?”

  Mulder couldn’t believe it when the woman suddenly grinned. “Sure. Why not?”

  Pancakes and women, he thought; the guy’s got it made.

  The major was in.

  But it didn’t look to Mulder as if he’d be there very long.

  The office was a two-room suite on the second floor. When Mulder ushered the others in ahead of him, he saw a handful of packed cartons against one wall, and an empty bookcase behind what he assumed was Tonero’s secretary’s desk. The door to the inner office was open, and he gestured the others silent as he approached it. He could see the major standing in the middle of the room, back to the door, speaking quietly but angrily to someone seated at his desk.

  “Damnit, Rosie, I don’t give a damn who—” He turned and saw Mulder, and forced a smile. “My goodness, Agent Mulder, what is this, a raid?” He laughed as he shook Mulder’s hand and nodded to the others.

  The person behind the desk was Dr. Elkhart.

  Mindful of protocol and egos, Mulder allowed Tonero to direct the conversation, politely answering questions about his health while he noticed that Dr. Elkhart, in a lab coat, was not as composed as she wanted him to think. Although she sat back in the major’s chair, her legs crossed, her hands on the armrests, her cheeks were lightly flushed, and her attempt at a bland expression was nearly a total failure.

  She was, he thought, royally pissed off.

  What, he wondered next, is wrong with this picture?

  “It’s a real tragedy about Carl,” Tonero said, stepping back to perch on the edge of
his desk, ignoring Elkhart completely. “I want you to know that I am not going to rest until this matter is solved.”

  “I appreciate that, Major,” Mulder said, sensing rather that seeing Scully take a chair just behind and to his left, while Webber and Andrews flanked the door. It was a large room, but their positions and attitude now made it seem much smaller. “I can assure you that we’re not going to let it rest either.”

  He smiled quickly.

  Dr. Elkhart uncrossed her legs.

  “Well, good!” Tonero smiled purposefully at each of them in turn before rubbing his hands briskly together. “And what can I do to help?”

  Mulder raised his eyebrows—Gee, sir, I’m not really sure—and glanced at Scully as if looking for guidance before facing the major again. “Well, I guess you could tell me what your project has to do with goblins.”

  Tonero sputtered into a laugh that proved he could appreciate a good joke when he heard one; but the laugh faded into a scowl when neither Mulder nor the others joined him. His back straightened; his expression became somber.

  “I’m sorry, Agent Mulder, but what we do here is classified. I’m sure you understand.”

  “I do, believe me,” he answered agreeably. “The DoD can be pretty tough sometimes.”

  “Absolutely. Now—” He waved one hand to indicate the closing and packing he had to do. “As you can see, we’re being transferred—the orders came just this morning—and we’re in a hell of a mess.” A look over his shoulder that Dr. Elkhart ignored. “Dr. Tymons—you may recall meeting him yesterday—seems to have gone ahead without telling us, so it’s kind of hectic around here at the moment.”

  He stepped forward, with the intention of easing the agents back into the outer room.

  Mulder sidestepped around him, his right hand brushing across the edge of the desk before he leaned on it and turned his head. “Dr. Elkhart, where were you last night? I don’t know, about nine?”

  Elkhart started, and blinked. “What?”

  “Last night,” he repeated.

  “Now look here, Agent Mulder,” Tonero snapped. “Dr. Elkhart is one of our most—”