That thought, and the image it invoked -- the tons of masonry and steel towering above, a massive, mysterious architecture just beyond the thin sheaf of metal shaft -- only escalated the pounding in her chest and temples. Her vision swirled with the onslaught, and she believed, sincerely believed for the space of one heart-crushing moment, that she had felt the building sway. Tectonic plates, stationary for eons, were shifting. The earth, that violent, blood-thirsty goddess, was opening its jaws to swallow her whole, prepared to devour half a city just to have *her.* Her sister-in-blood.

Sisyphus froze where she knelt, body convulsing, heart pounding fist-like against her ribcage, and waited for the squeal of metal, the flesh-destroying impact of concrete as they -- she and the Embassy Suites -- dropped into the heart of the earth. She huddled, panting, eagerly anticipating. There was a rumble. An echo. She wasn't imagining this--

The rumbling deepened, shuddered, sighed and then rolled on, high above, distant.

Thunder? Was it only thunder? Surely not--

She waited with the infinite patience of those resolved to the certainty of death: palms flat against the floor of the shaft, forehead pressed down between them. Her knees were beneath her now, her butt in the air, a pilgrim rendering homage to Mecca without benefit of compass.

Another deep-throated rumbling, more distant this time, faint.

Thunder.

She lifted her head and blew air out her cheeks. She might have felt ridiculous if her lungs were working properly; instead, she just felt nauseated. The shaft was narrow and she wasn't a tiny woman, nor was she accustomed to crawling about on all fours like some dissipated cat. The fabric of her black slacks provided far too little cushioning for her knees, her back hurt, her shoulders ached, her head throbbed--

Well, it was just her luck to have found the *exhaust* shaft, she supposed. The air here was plentiful and constantly regenerated, but it was hot, and too humid to breathe easily. Could one suffocate in an air shaft? She hadn't a clue, but decided that if anyone could pull it off, it would probably be her.

The warning signs had come early; she couldn't fault her body for lying to her. There had been that fluttering in her chest from the get-go, when she'd first shoved herself into the vent. She'd been too excited to listen, too proud when she'd proven fit enough to leverage herself up the short vertical section of the shaft and into the infinite horizontal plane on which she now traveled.

That initial elation had carried her a surprising distance. The lighting in the shaft was dim, an oh-so-faint glow from the parking garage that glimmered and reflected its way down the recess before her. She'd taken this bit of illumination for granted, had assumed, contrary to all logic, that it would remain with her, or that the shaft had come equipped with some kind of lighting system -- a necessary detail for maintenance, surely.

The second corner had proven her folly. She'd entered darkness, a blackness so complete, it might have been a living entity. It certainly had mass, a density that suggested physical presence, and it enveloped her in impenetrable arms. It had hands, too, impossibly heavy. They stroked insistently: her hair, her face, her breasts. She'd tucked her thighs together tightly without thinking why, waited, gasping, the lazy fluttering in her chest bursting into spasmodic tremors, sharp throbs of panic that gripped her lungs and intestines.

No. No, she couldn't stop. He was waiting--

The black beast heaved, a seething blast that tore the breath from her throat. Sympathetic stars flared before her eyes, phantom light registered by a brain frantic for visual stimulus.

Was she even conscious? In the darkness, she couldn't honestly say. Wondered if it mattered. She continued moving -- into dreams, visions or reality -- determination carrying her forward, against all reason, into the tunnel of night.

Because he waited.

Her progress was slow, made slower still by the fact that her hands were clenched like claws, nails scraping against the metal.

He waited.

A screw, misfed or loosened from its hole, impaled her hand as she sought her way. She yelped, more in surprise than pain, sucked at the blood running slick against her palm, grateful for something real, some reassurance of life.

He waited for her.

She couldn't disappoint.

Somewhere above her, metal creaked, a quiet threat that might have been a laugh. She took a deep steadying breath. He'd be worth it, she reminded herself.

She'd make certain of it.

XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXX

Uncharacteristic of most psychopaths, however, the subject is rarely glib or grandiose. She will flatly deny being deceitful, appalled at the suggestion. In her non-homicidal roles, she is rarely manipulative and displays a level of responsibility bordering on compulsion. She prides herself on being a "good girl." Neighbors will describe her as gracious, if not socially gregarious, a model citizen. She has no criminal record.

Subject's PRIMARY CHARACTERISTIC is a profound lack of empathy. She is indifferent to all that makes life joyful or interesting. Love, horror, humor are beyond her experience and have no ability to move her, and she cannot comprehend that others are moved by them. If she has ever known joy, love or compassion, she cannot recall them as sensations, and knows only that "something" is missing, without comprehending the intensity of the loss or lack. An above-average intelligence has allowed her to compensate socially, and she has learned the appropriate emotional responses required by others. These reactions are strictly paint-by-number, however. Her emotional life is non-existent, and she has no experiential knowledge of human feeling. Locked in this emotional void, she lacks even the capacity to feel sorrow for herself...."

Fingers, slick with grit, reached down into nothing. She grunted, snatching blindly at the place where metal should have met her hand and didn't. The broiling air rushed faster here, slapping her hair into her face and blasting down over her fumbling hand. The current tumbled from high reaches, an invisible Niagara, eager to be gone, hungry for the heart of the earth. Disoriented as she was, it took an additional minute for her to register the significance.

A vertical shaft.

Her stomach knotted. The moment of truth had finally arrived. Her breath caught in her throat. There has to be a service ladder, she reminded herself. The one she'd been anticipating since she'd entered the shaft. There had to be a service ladder to the next level, right? So that people could fix things. Ever so often, surely someone had to fix something--

*But there are no lights,* her eyes accused, throbbing in their sockets. Yes, the air was occasionally sprinkled with stars, but these were only the private inventions of her stubborn brain. The truth was simple: there were no lights. There were no lights because no one ever came here. Because there was nothing here to fix, just a tunnel full of air.

She could die here, she realized without wonderment. She could fall clear to the subbasement and die and no one would ever know. They probably wouldn't even notice enough to complain about the smell while she rotted--

Sisyphus laid down and reached into the rioting wind, extending her body as far as she dared, one hand steadfast against the wall beside her, the other hand groping into darkness.

Nothing. She reached further, blind eyes squeezed tight against the pounding of the gale. Her hair lashed her cheeks, sharp as slivered glass. She ignored the sensation, black leather pumps sliding in her struggle to reach farther into the emptiness that blocked her way. Just a few more inches, surely, just a little more--

Her fingertips brushed metal, hot, dry, and far too distant. A flat wall. She tapped it out, fingertips tracing, scraping, coaxing secrets from the dark. The wall of metal yielded nothing.

Rage overwhelmed her and she flailed her arm at the wind like a wild thing, up, down, left, right, body balanced precariously. Air and smooth metal wall just beyond the full reach of her arm. More of the same to her left. She slapped her palm to the right and the shaft resonated with the impact and with her yelp. Hand still stinging, she rubbed it across the metal in the darkness.

No hint of hardware. No rungs. No recesses. Nothing.

No. This wasn't possible. She had *plans.* She hadn't been consulted--

Sisyphus resettled herself, panting, wordlessly cursing the darkness, too incensed to speak. No one, nothing, said "no" to her. She simply wouldn't have it. How dare--

She was moving again, struggling to hold her position in the shaft, wind-chafed hand searching the stretch of wall that dropped down below her. More seamless metal. She swung the arm like a pendulum. Left. Right. Left, growling--

Wait. Something brushed her fingertips, the barest change of air current that set her hand to tingling. She strained, wriggling her upper body forward. Just a few more inches-- and she flattened her palm against metal. The vertical shaft had a floor, then. Well, of course it did. She was just below the first floor and her tunnel was the exit. The sub-basement would have its own ventilation system. Some building code nonsense, probably.

Sisyphus folded herself carefully, trembling, not daring to hope. Discovering a floor in the darkness might be significant, but that was for later, when she'd be needing to locate her exit. Right now, *down* was not a direction she was particularly interested in. She slid into the shaft, careful as the metal creaked beneath her feet. Unhindered now, she explored the walls, confirming her earlier appraisal: no ladder, no access to the heights above.

The darkness left her dizzy and the sudden space beneath her hand -- the entrance to her own tunnel -- was a welcome friend. She climbed back inside, then slapped one hand against the ceiling of the tunnel, left it there, sliding it slowly as she pushed herself back out into the vertical shaft. Her legs collected beneath her, muscles tightly bunched, bracing the weight of her body. She reached up, straining, a cursory exploration before collapsing back into her little crawl space. The results were no surprise. More metal walls, ascending. No hint of purchase, no indication of an entrance for the next level. Michael Jordan might have found it, she surmised. Cecile Fuche would not.

She was enraged. She could tell because her heart was pounding in time with her head, her blood pressure thundering in her ears. She was gritting her teeth, too, and her left hand was clenched so tightly the nails bit into her palm. All this physical turmoil, however, was quite distant and distinct from the silence within. Her mind calculated quietly. With her back against one wall and her feet braced against the wall opposite, she might be able to propel herself upward, a delicate counter-balance of push and shove and traction. She'd seen it in a film once. Some fabrication about the life of Harry Houdini. She could do it. But not in these shoes. Not in her flabby physical condition. Not at her height. She wouldn't be going up this shaft. Not in this lifetime.

She sat still for a moment, stunned by impossibilities. She hadn't cried since the early years of her marriage, when tears could still manipulate and incite guilty obligations. Tears were not possible for her now, even if there had been someone here to see and grant her desires. The air, boiling in at her, had dried her tear ducts. She could no longer tell when her eyes were opened or closed. What did it matter to one gone blind?

She laid down on her belly, and slid backward a few feet into her shaft to nowhere. She reached out one hand, fingertips intruding into the vertical column to be assaulted by the wind. The pounding in her chest steadied and she contemplated the whispering of the torrent and the gentle hum of air-conditioning. She didn't think, didn't need to. Deep inside, things -- impulses, unbidden decisions -- were shifting quietly. She waited for further clarity, squeezing her fist harder, harder, meanwhile, enjoying the sensation.

The noise had gone undetected for some time before she noticed: a change in the background melee which, although distant, traveled down the network of metal tunnels as though through a badly connected amplifier.

*Thump-screech-pause, thumpthump.* Repeat.

She tilted her head, considering. The sound lacked any real rhythm, but it was rapid. And nearing, as best she could tell, coming down the shaft from some distance above. The squeaking bothered her most, however. It was vaguely familiar... Fingernails on a chalk board? But she'd never actually heard anyone run their fingernails across a chalk board. She was reminded of televised basketball games, though: Nikes sliding roughly across a polished court.

Tennis shoes. On metal.

Her hands flattened and she concentrated on her breathing. The rolling in her soul had stilled, awaiting further development. There was a distinct warmth growing low in her hips.

Above: a long screech, the protest of rubber against metal. A hastily muffled yelp -- human. Masculine. A heavy thud. A long quiet.

Then the *thump-screech-pause* resumed. A bit more cautiously this time.

She smiled, content, the warmth spreading up her belly and down both thighs. She ignored the sensation, and gathered herself for retreat with honor. Still on her stomach, feet slightly elevated, she shoved backward with both hands, the effort sending her sliding several yards back down the way she'd came. And silently, too. The distance traveled surprised her, and her smile broadened. She should have thought of this earlier. She'd be back to the garage in no time--

"Mmmmmlllldrrrr!"

It was little more than a hiss reverberating down the maze of shafts above, consonants ricocheting on metal, vowels -- if there had been any vowels -- too mangled to have mattered much.

Sisyphus held her breath. The *thump-screech* had paused, too, listening as intently as she was.

"Mlldrr!" The profanity that followed after was surprisingly distinct, even filtered by distance. The squealing thump resumed, however, making its precarious descent down the shaft.

*Thump-thump-ping-thump.*

She wriggled, insuring her own comfort, and pushed again. Harder. Oh, yes, indeed. This would do quite nicely.

*Thump-screech-thumpa-thump--*

Good things do come to those who wait.

She slipped free of the shaft and staggered back, breathless. After the prolonged darkness, even the dim light of the garage was blinding, white-hot lancets piercing her optic nerve.

She reveled in it. Giggled.

She tripped but kept her footing with difficulty. Mutt, damn him, had caught against her heel. She steadied herself, eyes gradually re-adjusting, and gave his lifeless body a kick for his insolence. He scarcely registered her anger, as immune to it, at last, as she was.

Her eyes widened, Mutt forgotten almost immediately. There were two guns on the concrete beside him. A high caliber pistol of some sort, high tech, too, from all appearances, and no doubt complicated. It lay just beyond the reach of Mutt's out-flung hand. His fingers were still curled to grip it, unaware that such things were unnecessary now, untrained in the fine art of knowing when to say when.

The second weapon lay only inches from his chest. A .22 pistol very like her own.

Sisyphus reached instinctively for the weapon holstered against her ribs -- no, it was still there. Curious. She picked up the duplicate weapon, examining it carefully. A semi-automatic Ruger, compact, light as guns go. And recently fired....

Ah. The young executioner. *He'd* left it behind. Well, it made a certain kind of sense. Professional killers, or so she'd read, didn't use the same weapon repeatedly. Such frugality would provide a trail of ballistic matches, allow law enforcement to combine clues from multiple crime scenes, and intensify the risk of exposure. Then there would be all those additional charges to deal with. The young man had left the weapon here, then, deciding, no doubt, that *here* was just as good a dumping place as any other.

Sisyphus, of course, had no such desire for anonymity. She was proud of her accomplishments and worked hard to make certain her calling card was easily identifiable. One should always, she believed, take pride in one's craft.

She slapped the weapon against Mutt's knee. Again, he had no reaction and she giggled, giddy with anticipation. The mirth was hollow, and echoed back at her. The garage was as cavernous as the crawl space had been, and sounds here were distorted, writhing echoes. She could still hear that rhythmic *thump-squeal* thundering in her head--

No -- her hand gripped the cast-off pistol and she stood. No, these were not thumps. They were footsteps. Footsteps echoing across the garage--

A black man, bulky, his trenchcoat flapping as he ran, rounded the cars several rows over. His hand fumbled at his hip.

"FBI!" he shouted, "Stay--"

She shot him without thinking, and was surprised when he grunted. She'd never trusted her aim on a moving target. Not at this distance--

But he spun, staggered. She fired again, and again as he went down, blood splattering from his temple and onto the white column beside him. She waited, unmoving, the .22 weighting her hands, her wrists tingling from the recoil. She fired again, the gun responding with only the empty click of a spent cartridge. He lay still, one arm visible beyond the rear wheels of a station wagon. The hand didn't seem to be moving, either. Not even a twitch.

*Whump.* She jerked at the hollowed lumbering in the wall beside her and brought the gun to bear on the opening to the vent. She winced at her own foolishness, leaned to drop the pistol soundlessly onto Mutt's chest, fumbling her own weapon free in the same motion. Her foot slipped on drying blood and she stumbled, one leather pump finding purchase to the left of Mutt's leg, the other to the right. She kept her eyes and her weapon firmly trained on the opening, her breath steadying.

*Thump. Ump.*

He materialized in sections and sound. A solid thud, the whispering of fabrics. His shoes were too dark to distinguish clearly from the gloom of the shaft. Even his jeans were a bare hint of dimension: slender columns of black against deeper black. His torso was yet to be revealed, still behind the wall above the vent. The Nikes shuffled as he got his bearings, decided his course.

Her stupidity reviled her suddenly, and she bit her lip to keep from swearing. She should have found a hiding place: out of sight around the wall, a few feet away behind a car, perhaps. Should have waited for him to get free of the shaft, and taken him unawares when he'd been certain of his freedom. As it was, he needed only to withdraw back up into the darkness whence he'd come. The walls were concrete, impenetrable to her .22. He could pull himself back up, kick her senseless if she attempted to pursue.

It was too late for plans, however. Her movement -- to hide, or to avail herself of Mutt's larger caliber firearm -- would only alert her prey and she would lose him altogether.

She just wanted to see his face, she told herself. She could kill him where he stood -- regrettable, certainly-- but she had to see his face as he discovered her. Watch as the realization dawned.

She remained where she stood, body bathed in shadows, gun trained on the shaft, hands steady despite her rising excitement.

This was joy. Surely this was joy.

Mulder's hands slid into view first, long tapered fingers so familiar to her from hours spent watching him sleep. The hands were animated now, tensing as he crouched, countering his body weight as he shifted in the confined space. His sweater was impenetrable black, his arms and torso invisible as he dropped to his knees, all disembodied hands, the face in profile, neck and a V-shaped glimpse of chest.

This was like... eloping, she decided. She wondered if he would feel the same, just as she'd wondered how her husband had felt so long ago. Mulder's face, bathed in darkness, was too closed to tell her. Did he have the same burning in his gut, did he wonder at the wickedness and wrong of it all, sneaking away from all who loved and cherished you, away into the wholly unknown? Into the arms of one who did not cherish, into the arms of one who merely wanted you?

His dark head ducked down almost immediately, one hand fumbling to his face, fending off the glare as his eyes adjusted to unaccustomed fluorescence. His free hand, more reliable than his vision, probed the air before him, seeking the non-existent grate. He glanced up, bewildered, blinking spasmodically, his face in the shadows a series of deepening grays. Intent upon the opening and still half-blind, he didn't see her, but, after a moment's confusion, he focused further, to the carnage on the garage floor.

He saw Jeff first. Difficult not to, considering Jeff lay sprawled to his right, almost directly beneath him. Jeff's face was turned toward the shaft. Sisyphus watched Mulder's face, aching to see what he stared upon: the lax jaw, the flaccid features, the skin so smooth it seemed inorganic. The vacant eyes that somehow managed to make you feel that they saw so much more than you did.

She waited his reaction, willing herself not to breathe, not to destroy this singular, perfect moment.

Mulder's breath had frozen in his lungs, but beyond the sudden cessation of his chest muscles, there was disappointingly little reaction. His hand clenched to a fist, skin pale against the darkness. His jaw tensed, too, but otherwise all expression had washed from his face. Or perhaps it was there, just hidden by shadow. Sisyphus clamped her jaw. *Not* squeezing the trigger was taking real effort now. She deserved better than this. Sure, Mutt and Jeff weren't truly her work, but *he* had no way of knowing--

Mulder leaned slowly forward, vision moving on, his face finally, fully, into the light as he located Mutt's out-flung arm, the hand, so pale there, glowing a fluorescent milky-white against the concrete. But Mulder's face, so intent, revealed nothing. Beyond a kind of resolved sadness and a convulsive swallowing, there was simply no expression.

There would be, damn him. Before the night was out, she'd have her money's worth.

He looked at her then. His eyes startled her with the suddenness of their attention. There had been no lingering transition from Mutt's body to her own, no slow panning from Mutt's face, down his chest and hips, to her feet, then, disbelieving, moving upward to find her there. There was no dreadful recognition. He'd simply looked from Jeff's hand to her face, the shift so sudden she couldn't even say that he'd blinked.

Her hand tightened on the gun, her mouth frozen in the process of forming words. But there was nothing to say. He simply stared at her, without remorse or fear. And completely without surprise. There was no evaluating appraisal in the glance. No sizing-up of an opponent. No judgment rendered. No plans being re-evaluated. Just an electric meeting of the eyes, an acknowledgment of presence and person.

He'd been expecting her.

She forced herself to breathe deeply. This was... wrong. He was making no attempt to flee, no effort to avail himself of Jeff's gun. He remained crouched in place, his fist loosening to rest on his thigh. The other hand remained forgotten against the wall of the shaft. His shoulders, too, had eased, a voiceless sigh of relief, as though he'd discovered an old friend at the end of his journey. She was struck suddenly by how young he was, how boyish, except for those too-steady, shadowed eyes. Perhaps he'd already seen far worse than she was capable of.

Oh, no. He'd seen nothing yet.

"I'm going to climb out now."

The gravely tenor surprised her: warm with no hint of tension or concern. He might have been asking her permission. She nodded, rendering consent without being entirely certain. He shifted again, working his long legs free of the shaft, but he did not take his eyes off her. His focus was unnerving, as much as she hated to admit it. Predators do not like being stared at, and he should have known better. He did know, but he stared all the same.

Leveraging himself free of the wall, he stood. Jeff's gun was to his left, closer to the grate than she felt comfortable with, a deep shadow within a shadow. Perhaps he wouldn't see it. Perhaps she wouldn't have to kill him here. Despite recent setbacks, she still had hopes for the evening. Still had plans.

His foot brushed the weapon as he stepped forward to present himself and he glanced down, froze. Sisyphus raised the site on her .22, a warning, and he turned to her, his brows lifted bare millimeters, offended that she would be so distrusting. But that was the way of the world, was it not? He raised his foot carefully, never wavering his attention, and kicked the weapon away. It spun into the deepest shadows behind her, metal grinding across the concrete as it fled.

"Wise man." She smiled over the gun sight, finding it easier now to return the unblinking gaze.

"Enough people have died, I think." He didn't so much speak the words as submit them for her consideration.

"One more to go."

His brows tightened. "But *just* one."

This was not a submission. The steel in the graveled voice caught her off guard and pushed all the wrong buttons at once. Her finger tightened on the trigger. She could do this here and now. Between Mutt and Jeff, she had an arsenal in this corner. She could fend off a swat team long enough to rip him open--

Those unblinking eyes closed suddenly. Mulder lifted his chin and his hands slid to his hips. She watched him stretch his torso and shoulder muscles, uncertain of this new tactic. He moved slowly, with measured pauses. The garage lights, distant, shone behind him, outlining his right shoulder in bright neon yellow. One side of his face and his hand was red, chafed by the shaft and his effort to descend. The other side of his body remained in shadows, a deep too-cold blue. There was a dark stain on his hand, drying blood, perhaps. But it was his neck that held her gaze: the sliver of yellow halo-ing from behind, bathing the first inch of skin before fading to red and, finally, deepening to a blue rough with evening stubble.

He breathed then, slowly, very deeply, head still back. And she understood without knowing the proper terms to explain: the beta male was exposing his soft underbelly to the alpha, submitting without defense. His Adam's apple bobbed once, and the sight left her trembling with hunger. Her finger eased from the trigger, satisfied.

He lowered his head in a languid, fluid gesture, his hands returning to his sides, each movement carefully executed. He opened his eyes and focused on her again, but this time no higher than her belt buckle. He turned his head slightly, keeping even this gaze indirect.

*I have the gun.* She wondered why she felt it necessary to remind herself of such a fact, to remember that she was the one in control. He had surrendered, hadn't he?

"They'll be looking for me." It was not the grandiose statement of the braggart, merely a quiet observation. "Shouldn't we be going?" There was no resistance in his tone, no hidden dagger waiting to strike.

"To the car," she ordered. "Fourth row over. Try anything and I swear I'll kill you here and now. And then I'll shoot everything that moves in this garage for the next two hours. Understood? They'll all die--"

"I get it." More steel, and the eyes flickered to her face, but jerked away again after only the briefest glimpse, too quick to read clearly. He shrugged, hands raised, demonstrating submission. "I... get it."

"Then get in the car."

He complied, moving carefully, maintaining a respectful distance and keeping his hands in clear view. Stepping to the first row of vehicles, he paused. She followed his gaze: the fallen agent there beyond the station wagon. She watched, waiting: he squinted hard, his jaw clenching spasmodically. In profile, she thought he may have licked his lips briefly. He turned his head away from the spectacle, however, and moved forward before she could remind him to do so.

She followed, black patent leather shoes stepping free of Mutt's dead body, deftly avoiding the slick of blood pooling on the garage floor.

"Fifth row--"

"I see it." His tone was difficult to gauge. It might have been resentful. It might also have been simply weary. The tension across his shoulders was not a significant indicator, she decided. He'd been tense like this even in his sleep.

As he moved, light flowed, opening like water around him. His sweater, jet black, soaked in the light and refused to surrender it in kind. He was a reverse negative, defined only by the halo of diffused florescence surrounding him. He was the darkness given form and animated.

He approached his own vehicle, shuffling a few steps uncertainly. He glanced back at her, and shrugged, mumbling.

"I musta forgotten my keys in my other pants."

She smiled. She couldn't help herself. A gun to his head and the certainty of death, and he could still joke. It would indeed be an interesting evening.

"In the ignition, love. Just keep your hands where I can see them."

He grunted, turning away as he muttered something else. The roar of the garage obliterated the words, but the tone was completely without inflection, yet oddly appreciative. It might have been, "I bet you like it on top, too."

She didn't ask him to clarify.

XXXXXXX

The ASAC yelped and lunged, slamming his hip and both fists against the hood of the trunk as the vehicle rolled past. The garage echoed the impact, its futility, flesh against steel. Purdue clung to the hood, fingers scraping at the hinge, desperate and determined. A face loomed at him from the darkness of the rear window. The face of a woman, unnervingly omnipotent. It was the face from Purdue's fax machine, the face Harris had sent him from Columbus.

And she was smiling.

Purdue slid free of the vehicle, stumbling to his feet, empty handed and panting. The Monte Carlo swerved, already moving too fast, heedless of the confines of the garage. The motion varied the light within the car, just so, and Purdue caught a second glimpse: the glint of metal, as bright and lifeless as her eyes. A revolver. The point of the barrel was pressed against Mulder's skull, just below his right ear and angling upward. Mulder's face in the rearview offered no plea, hooded by too many shadows. They were the eyes of Mr. American Lit, gutted on his couch, his pupils large and dark as any doll's.

The eyes of a dead man.

These images, minute as flash photos, were impressions only. Purdue's brain supplied the details, burning them into his retina, processing in patterns of white on black, blurs of red and green.

Sandidge materialized from nowhere, scarcely registering on Purdue's consciousness even as the man brushed past him, sending Purdue staggering.

Sandidge's shouts -- "Federal agents! Stop!" -- went unheeded. He pursued the vehicle up the ramp on foot, weapon drawn, but not fired, unwilling to risk the return fire, exposed as he was.

Purdue's stagger became a full run in the opposite direction, back toward his own vehicle. He fumbled in his pants pocket as he ran, seeking keys, twisting past rows of cars.

He faltered seconds, precious seconds, when he found the body: a black man, well-dressed, a former linebacker, surely, face down, coat flapped back revealing the unsnapped holster, the weapon still sheathed. Agent Warren Thomas. Blood pooled beneath the man, mingling with an old oil slick.

Purdue leaped to clear the corpse, heart pounding in time with his legs. He slowed his momentum by slamming his body into driver's side of his Chrysler, jamming the key into the lock in the same violent motion.

He followed Mulder's example, taking the ramp at frightening speed, tires squalling in protest. The Chrysler burst into the street, shocks bouncing with the variation of pavement and Purdue's sudden stop. It was close to one a.m. and traffic was minimal, virtually non-existent, but what had been rain earlier was a downpour now, and Purdue swore heatedly, engaging his wipers.

There was no sign of Mulder.

Purdue fought with the window gear, struggling to hear Sandidge's shout as the agent ran back up the street toward him. A sheet of water poured through the few inches of open glass, soaking him instantly.

"M Street!" Sandidge screamed, one hand shielding his vision from the deluge, the other arm gesturing south. "He's heading west on M! M!"

Purdue gunned the engine, leaving Sandidge flapping his arms on the sidewalk. M was the first corner, and Purdue took it on squealing tires, not bothering to note the color of the traffic light. He was not a praying man but he was praying now. "Clear the roads, just clear the roads--" a mantra to Whoever might be listening and otherwise concerned.

M street was a four lane and the few cars traveling it were proceeding cautiously in deference to the weather. Purdue identified Mulder's tail lights almost immediately: they were the blood-red smears fleeing like that bat out of hell everyone talks about. Purdue fed his engine, passing an offended Nissan sedan just barely visible in the downpour. The rain was hitting the ground with enough force to splatter it back up again a good foot or more. It rose in a fine mist from the pavement.

"Where the hell are we going, Mulder?" Purdue growled. His voice was lost to his own ears, drowned by the combined roar of rain and engine. "Where the hell would this bitch be taking you?"

*Some place quiet --* the Chrysler ate the road that separated them -- *some place rural. She's not been in town long enough to know the city well--*

A blur of yellow hanging in the near distance. Now red. Purdue swore again. A traffic light. Wisconsin Avenue.

Mulder plowed through the red light without even tapping his brakes. Only a few car-lengths separated him from Purdue now and the light was still red when Purdue hit the intersection. Suddenly, Purdue had no time for swearing. A blue Ford materialized from behind a wall of water to his right, swerving in a surrealistic flash of red and white and blinking yellow.

Purdue fought the wheel and his own dread, keeping his focus determinedly on Mulder's receding tail lights while the Chrysler floundered. He was completely into the far eastbound lane before he recovered, horns blaring angrily behind him. He didn't glance back.

Mulder turned abruptly left and Purdue followed, making the turn himself seconds later, hydroplaning, but somehow maintaining his course. Only as the guard rails sped past did Purdue recognize the route: the Key Bridge, crossing the Potomac.

They were heading south, then. Shit, what was south? Virginia, at the end of the bridge. Was Mulder heading for Alexandria and home? No way. Sisyphus wouldn't haul Mulder back to his apartment. She hadn't evaded them this long to suddenly be that stupid.

What then? Purdue replayed possibilities. Harris had said that Cecile Fuche was a homebody, as best they could tell, rarely wavering from her accustomed trek between Columbus and Wheeling. What would she know of Virginia? Hell, what would any tourist know from a map and a half-decent guide book? The entire state was a spattering of national parks and Civil War battlefields, so many nice quiet places prized for their privacy....

Purdue poured on the gas, taking advantage of the clear shot of road to attempt to pull up alongside the Monte Carlo. But Mulder's driving was relentless, matching Purdue's pace mile for mile and bettering it. The ASAC backed down, unwilling to exacerbate the situation, particularly on a bridge.

"Goddammit!" Purdue rattled his steering wheel helplessly. "Goddamn General Motors products and goddam Chrysler!" His head was throbbing, his right eye still tender from Mulder's sucker punch, but his vision, thankfully, was unimpaired. He fished under the dash for the switch to his police radio, flipped it on. They were rapidly running out of bridge.

"Attention any available units--" Purdue gasped as his car bounced unexpectedly, his speed overemphasizing the slightest variation of pavement as the bridge became highway. "Attention any available units," he repeated. "Federal officer in need of assistance, southbound on Whitehurst."

"This is One-Charlie-twenty, Fairfax County Sheriff's Department." The voice, remote and unfamiliar, was the herald of angels. "What is your situation?"

"I have a 41-40, kidnapping in progress. In pursuit of a red Chevy Monte Carlo two-door, license number Robert-Union-Union Seven Four Seventy-five. Suspect wanted for multiple homicide, armed and dangerous. Hostage is a federal agent and is driving at gunpoint."

More static. "Sounds like a situation to me," the voice answered. "Dispatch, One-Charlie-twenty, code three...."

XXXXXXX

She'd chosen the back seat as a kind of refuge/assault base. She enjoyed ease of movement here and the confidence of absolute control. He was readily accessible to her, yet she shared nothing with him but her air.

Mulder sat hunched slightly forward over the wheel, peering into the rain-ravaged darkness. She checked his speedometer, slid to the far passenger side to check the side mirror.

A sign loomed out of the darkness and rain, legible only when they were almost half past it: "Interstate 66" in great white, reflective letters. Suddenly they were rising, the gentle slope of an on-ramp.

"Where are you going?" She grit her teeth on the words, gripping the weapon, keeping it level with his head. She hated admitting ignorance, hated the not knowing more.

"You know," he answered carefully, testing the waters. "*I'm* not the one initiating a kidnapping with no pre-established get-away plan."

"Oh, I have a plan, sir," she purred. "It's called six bullets in your skull in rapid succession if you don't get this thing parked in the very near future."

"That might take all the fun out of it, don't you think?" His face in the rearview was impossible to read. There was a dizzying sensation as the Monte Carlo slid left, easing smoothly past a tractor trailer.

"I'll make up for it when I get around to your friend back there," she tossed her head in the direction of the several sets of headlights following them.

Mulder raised a critical eyebrow. "So, that's the thanks I get for saving myself for you," he muttered.

"Oh, did you now? Liar."

His eyes flickered to the rearview but he thought better of it before he focused. She smiled. He was intelligent, sensitive. This was going to be marvelous.

"I thought you wanted someplace quiet." His voice was subdued, submissive once more. "Just you and me, right?" His sincerity didn't fool her.

"Stop the car."

"Stop the car." He repeated the statement with minimal inflection, squinting, examining the words for hidden meaning. "Stop the car?"

Sisyphus slid to her favored position, dead-center of the back seat, braced at the edge of the upholstery. "Stop the car." She emphasized each syllable patiently. This close to her intended target, she could afford to be gracious. "I do believe I can handle one half-assed Fed, thank you."

He blinked at her in the rearview. "To which half-assed Fed are you referring, may I ask?"

She leaned forward, enjoying the involuntary tension of his body as she invaded his personal space. "Oh, your ass is just fine, love." She lowered her pistol between the bucket seats and dragged the muzzle across the side of his hip. The front sight caught on his pocket and she tugged at the fabric, teasing, watching his face freeze, his entire body stiffening. "It's your shadow, darling," she whispered, nodding in the general direction of the back window, "that I take exception to." She returned the pistol to the level of his head. "Now quit stalling and pull over."

She watched him search the road ahead before glancing at her in the rearview again, his eyes shifting briefly to the headlights behind her. His focus returned to the road and he shook his head with enough genuine regret to make her pause.

"I can't do that, Cecile."

She blinked, jamming the gun into the hollow below his skull. He winced, but didn't try looking at her again.

"Excuse me," she announced, "but compliance is not optional here. I'm *not* asking. Understand?"

He took a deep breath, biting his lip. "No--" he shifted his shoulder, pulling away from the rapidly increasing pressure of the barrel against his neck. "It's just-- It's just that it gets this whole Catch-22 situation started. You know, I stop *my* car, he stops *his* car. You try to blow him away. I try to stop you. You shoot me, then you shoot *him.* Or maybe, he shoots you first, but then he feels bad about me getting whacked... It's just a vicious cycle--"

"What do you care?" she hissed. "You'll be dead."

He shrugged his eyebrows, considering. "Yeah, well, there's *that,* at least," he said.

A siren wailed, nearing, to her left. The rain-smeared windows ran blood red suddenly, then electric blue, then red again, a cyclic revolution of emergency lights, their source impossible to distinguish for the glare, but somewhere behind them. Close.

Mulder searched his mirrors. "Ahhh... shall I pull over now?" he requested mildly.

She jerked at his seat, slamming the butt of her pistol into his headrest. He winced, body tensed for the blow she scarcely managed to contain.

"Just drive, you sonofabitch. You so much as slow down, and I start looking for people to shoot. How's that for your Catch-22?"

He didn't slow and didn't argue. His hand moved to the stick shift and she tightened her grip on the gun. There was a click and the car shot forward effortlessly, the tachometer dipping with a sigh. Overdrive.

She shoved her body to the far passenger side, chancing a glance out the rear window: a haze of lights, red, blue, yellow, white, surrounded them. They lit the interior of the car like a strobe, tossing her shadow, here outlined in red, there redefined in hues of blue, color and darkness splattering in constantly shifting angles. She shimmied back to the center of the vehicle. The view of the front seat was only marginally better. The sensation was akin to being physically assaulted.

Powerless. She would not be powerless--

"Idiots."

Mulder didn't answer, eyes flitting briefly to the rearview, back to the road, back to the mirror, in little spurts. She slapped his headrest again, this time with her open palm. He returned his focus to the road and kept it there.

"Bunch of idiots," she hissed again. "Tell me what you're profiling off of." She tugged at his sweater through the space between the seats. "Tell me where you got your information, smart ass. This bunch sends you into prisons to do your little surveys and fill out your little charts, and make up profiles on people you don't even know. Think about it! All the information you have on file about killers is from the ones *stupid* enough to get caught." She sneered. "Yeah. Sure. Then you think you're going to waltz out here and profile me. You arrogant little shits."

Mulder rubbed his right palm against the wheel, flexing his fingers before gripping it again. The sweat sparkled on the leather, reflecting an angry red that made her thirsty suddenly.

"Maybe," he hesitated. "Maybe you should just rethink this situation--"

"You expect me to surrender?" Her mouth twisted with the word, the impossibility of the concept. "Maybe I *did* pick the wrong half-assed Fed."

She didn't mean it, though, and he knew it. One glance in the rearview told him. He jerked his eyes back to the road, gripping the steering wheel that much harder. She smiled. He understood so much more than his graphs and his surveys, didn't he? More than he wanted to know. Especially now.

She sighed, resting her forehead against the side of the passenger headrest, and raked her eyes down the length of the lean body beside her. Just being near him had been enough to get her heart to racing. It was a good sign. A very good sign.

She had been killing for years: animals, at first. Her mother. A particularly pathetic co-worker behind a bar one evening. Those had been quiet little affairs, listed simply as robbery-homicides, unsolved. Spectacular only in their savagery.

The kills had been intensely satisfying, as only intimate betrayal could be. The problem was, Cecile didn't know enough people well enough to truly attain that level of pleasure routinely. There had been her mother. Her husband, that co-worker. And that was about it. She hadn't the patience to make friends. Too much effort, too much requisite self-restraint. Unfortunate. Otherwise she'd have had a bigger list from which to glean.

Small matter. She was resourceful by nature and had discovered ways to compensate. Savagery had substituted for intimacy. In some ways, sometimes, it had proven even more enjoyable.

Lately, however, killing just... didn't seem to do it for her. It no longer revived her, made her feel alive. When she had been young, one kill would sustain her for months. Years, sometimes. This satisfaction, however, had waned recently, growing increasingly more short-lived. And more difficult to attain. Like a junkie, she needed more and more control, more and more gore, more... something.

And the *something* had been eluding her for months.

Until *this* man. She'd killed that young cop in Bridgeport for this man, a kind of tap at his door, if you will, an acknowledgment of intent. A salute. It had been intensely satisfying, but in so many unusual ways, a kind of sharing she had never expected: imagining his reaction, anticipating his comprehension. His appreciation.

The woman in the diner. That... that had been the best. She had touched something deep with that one. Something very personal to him. Shared whole new levels. It had been *his* blood on the floor that night in the diner: blood he had roused. Skin he had cherished. A body he had made his own.

And Sisyphus had made it hers. Then graciously returned it. An invitation to share. As had been all the kills thereafter. He had understood this, naturally. Accepted it in spite of his companions' interference. As he would accept so much more....

Her hand touched his side, low on that long torso, below the ribs, the sweater as soft against her fingertips as it was against his skin. She let the weight of her hand drag her fingers slowly down: the smooth tension of his flesh beneath the fabric, the sweater bunching slightly at his waist, the thickness of his waistband. The slight curve of his hip, denim pulled tight as he sat behind the wheel, the solidity of his thigh as she rested her palm on his leg, fingertips angling inward toward his groin, nails pressed lightly against more denim....

She didn't need the rearview to see his profile at this angle. Erratic light flickered across his face. His lashes, long and lush, closed, a blink, only a blink, focus held carefully forward. A flash of fire at his cheekbone: a single bead of sweat reflecting the lights of sirens and dash dials. She watched the tiny ball of water descend, leaving its damp track trailing across his cheek, over the curve of his jaw, sliding slowly down his neck--

She caught it with her tongue at the curve of his shoulder and he gasped. She felt the car waver slightly, smiled against his skin as he recovered, vehicle moving steadily again beneath them. His shoulder rose and fell beneath her lips, short, shallow breaths that never reached his lungs. She kissed the damp, salty spot her tongue had claimed, kissed the skin beside it. He stopped breathing altogether, his heart thundering in the vein at her cheek.

"She died quickly," she lied, her whisper warm and humid in his ear. "You owe me for that, you know."

There was no question who *she* was. He nodded, a delicious motion beneath her questing mouth.

"Yeah. I owe you for that."

XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXX

 Note: Mulder's profile is heavily based on comments from *Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of Psychopaths Among Us* by Robert D. Hare, Ph.D. Guilford Press, 1999. Thanks, DJ. Do my friends know how to pick out great Christmas gifts, or what? <g>

Original photo courtesy of TexxasRose's Fox Mulder Gallery, slightly altered

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