Charles Grant - The X-Files - Goblins

The front door slammed open, and they instantly dropped into defensive crouches, their guns aimed and ready to fire.

“Hey, no!” Webber cried, throwing up his hands. “Jeez, guys, it’s me!”

“Hank,” Mulder said, ready to strangle him. He straightened stiffly and lowered his weapon. “You are an idiot. Don’t you know better than that?”

Webber tried to point in several directions at once. “I’m sorry. I saw the car, and the outside door was open, and I thought…” He paled. “Jesus. Oh, Jesus.” Without looking at either of them, he dropped into the chair and leaned over, hands dangling between his legs. “I could have been killed, you know that? I’m so stupid, I could have been killed.”

Scully offered him no sympathy. She stood in front of him, and poked his foot with her shoe. “Where’s Andrews?”

“What?” He looked up, confused. “What are you talking about? She was right—”

“Here,” Andrews said, standing in the doorway. Her gun was out, and it was aimed at Mulder’s head. “Right here.”

“How much do you charge to go to the airport?” Rosemary asked the cabbie.

“Which one?”

“Philadelphia.”

“Lady, are you kidding? In this weather?”

“Whatever it is,” she said, holding up her pursue, “I’ll double it. For the trip over. And for your trip back.”

He shook his head doubtfully. “Lady, I don’t know. They’re saying there’s flash floods—”

She took out her gun. “You either make money, or you die.” She smiled. “Your choice.”

Andrews shifted to her right so she could still keep Mulder in her sights while keeping the wall at her right shoulder.

He held his empty hands wide at his sides. “You’re not doing an awful lot of thinking.”

She shrugged. She didn’t much care. “Do I have to?” She shrugged again. “You’re going to die, what’s there to think about?”

“One against three is pretty awful odds,” Scully said.

“Oh, God,” Webber moaned. “I’m gonna be sick.”

“Oh, shut up,” Andrews snapped. “Christ, how the hell did you ever get in the Bureau?”

Mulder’s gun was on the coffee table with Scully’s, and all a leap for it would get him would be a bullet in the side, or in the head. Scully, who had been ordered to sit on the couch, was in no better position.

“Look,” he said, “Elly is out there somewhere, with the goblin.”

Webber sagged forward, one arm across his stomach. He sounded terrified. “Oh Christ.” He retched dryly.

“What do I care about an old lady?” Andrews said. “And if you think you’re going to stall me long enough for the cavalry to come, forget it. I watch movies, too, Mulder. I’m not as stupid as you think.”

He denied any such idea with a shake of his head, and wished Webber would stop that infernal groaning. He couldn’t hear himself think, and it was only making Andrews angrier than she already was. Then he snapped his fingers, making Scully jump and Andrews steady her gun hand. “Douglas.” He frowned. “You work for Douglas?” His expression hardened. “Of course you do. Because you’re not Bureau at all. Which makes me wonder who the mighty Douglas really works for?”

“Time’s up,” she said blandly.

“Oh, God,” Webber gasped and slipped off the chair and onto one knee. “Oh, God, I’m gonna die.”

With a look, Andrews dared Scully to make a move, then swung the gun back to Mulder, and smiled him a farewell.

He threw himself backward just before he heard the shot, bracing himself for the impact, landing on his back and rolling to his left when he didn’t feel a thing.

He heard Andrews cry out, though, and heard her fall, her gun clattering across the hall floor.

“Nice dive,” Scully told him. She was on the floor by the table, her hand around her gun.

Webber pushed himself back into the chair and closed his eyes, his gun hand dangling over the armrest. “I almost missed her,” he said to the ceiling. “Christ, can you believe it? I almost missed her.”

Mulder jumped to his feet, angry and relieved at the same time. But he said nothing. He picked up his weapon, tucked it into his pocket, and stood over the fallen Andrews. Webber hadn’t missed; the entry wound was through her right eye.

He pointed. “You will answer questions later, Hank. Right now, you stay with her. And I mean stay with her.”

He didn’t argue. His face was pale, his lips trembling; the only sign that he heard was a weak flutter of his hand.

Then Scully looked out the window and said, “Mulder, the park,” and he was out the door at a run, taking the three steps at a leap.

She was there, on her bench, huddled beneath her umbrella, and probably had been there the whole time. He had been so intent on getting into the apartment, he hadn’t bothered with a single glance across the street once he reached the building.

“Elly, are you all right?”

He slowed when he reached the sidewalk, walked when he started across the grass.

The woman nodded, but the umbrella was loose in her grip, and it nearly fell.

“It’s okay, Elly,” he said when he reached the bench. He leaned down and brushed a hand over her knee, then held up a hand to shade his eyes from the rain while he looked over the muddy field to the trees on the other side.

She could be there, he thought; damn, she could be anywhere.

“Mulder,” the goblin said. “I thought I told you to watch your back.”

With a silent sigh he stared at the ground, at raindrops splashing out of the grass. Then he looked over his shoulder as he turned without haste, blinking the rain out of his eyes. The umbrella had been discarded. She sat on the bench back, wearing a long black coat that reached halfway down her shins, her bare feet on the seat, braced to spring. Her short dark hair was matted into a skullcap, her large dark eyes slightly crinkled, as if she were smiling.

Her left hand lay on her thigh, fingers drumming out of rhythm; her right hand held a bayonet, and he could see the gleam of the sharpened edge as she tapped it against her knee.

It was odd, this meeting. Like two friends coming across each other on a rainy day in the park. Only one of them, before it ended, was going to die.

She raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think so, Mulder. Not me, anyway.”

“You can read minds, too?”

“No. But you have that gun in your coat, and I have—” She held up the bayonet. “It’s not hard to figure out.”

The water had taken most of her makeup off, and had washed the white lotion from the backs of her hands. The skin was mottled as if it were dying and ready to slough away in the rain, but it wasn’t just gray and black. He could see blotches of pale green, dark green, and near her toes a smear of something almost red.

It could have been blood.

“Where’s Elly?”

Maddy shrugged. “I don’t know. I tried to get in the back door, and the next thing I knew I heard the front door slam.” She laughed so hoarsely it made his throat ache. “I didn’t know an old lady could run so damn fast. I would have gone after her, but as luck would have it, you showed up.”

Her eyes shifted away, shifted back.

“Tell her to be careful, Mulder,” Maddy suggested. “You may be fast, and a bullet is real fast, but it won’t stop me from doing what I have to, understand?”

“I heard,” Scully said from somewhere behind him.

He spread his arms. “It’s silly, you know. I die, you die, it isn’t going to do you any good.”

Her voice deepened. “I’m already dying.” She held out her hand. “It doesn’t work anymore.”

He couldn’t believe it when her fingers shifted, flesh to splotchy green to smooth cream, and back. Except two of her knuckles stayed dark far longer.