Title: Daemon

Author: Alex Winck (alwinck@fastlane.com.br)

Category: X-File/angst

Keywords: none

Spoilers: "Memento Mori"/"Emily"/ Before "The End"

Rating: R for language

Feedback: send me for God's sake!

Summary: Mulder and Scully have their whole lives questioned when they
discover the most unlikely serial killer: an angel.

Los Angeles, 

July 5

11:49 P.M.

It's a decaying singles bar, with a vaguely fifties look. The tables
are empty, except for a young dark-haired woman of moon-shaped face and
sleepy eyes. She shakes the ice cubs in her empty glass of Jack Daniels,
in a slow round movement, just to listen to the glassy noise. This woman
is dating for the first time the classic symptoms of chronic depression,
the worst one being not sadness, but apathy. Just to make the scene
complete, she wears a t-shirt that says: "Keep cool, Jesus loves you".
Unexpectedly, gets in a handsome man, with angelic blue eyes, dressed
with taste but no snobbism, wearing a white social shirt and sea-blue
pants. He looks at the woman with hopeless compassion:


"Can I take a seat, please?"


She makes some vague disorganized gesture with the hand that appears to
mean "whatever" and he sits. He tamps on the table for a moment and
tries to smile at her, but she's not paying any attention.


"I'm really sorry, but you won't get your job back. Ever", says he.


"What?"


"As awful as it sounds, the truth is that they really didn't like you.
Yes, it has to do with you being a woman, it has to do with you being
not particularly attractive, at least to their taste, and with the fact
that they find your religious talk annoying. But it's also because -
he pauses - to say the truth, you were not competent enough. Wonder if
anyone is these days." 


For a moment, she tries to figure out if it was not her advanced
alcoholic state talking to her. She thought it was probably the only way
a handsome man could be talking to her in that place, specially to say
these things. Then she makes an effort to say something.


"Who... who the hell... are... you?"


He tries not to look at her while talking, but then gives up.


"And... it's not all. For somewhat similar reasons, this man you seem
to be considering the love of you life plains to break up with you
pretty soon. Not much longer after that - he pauses again, now a little
longer - you will develop inoperable cancer."


"Now... you wait... a minute.", she says, pointing an abandoned finger.


"Please, don't take me wrong. I don't put the blame on you for that,
you know. You're essentially a fine person. It's His fault."


"Who? My... former boss? My... future ex-boyfriend? My... still...
unnoticed... cancer?", she asks, and gaggles.


"No, it's... I don't know why he created you people... No, it's
not even the people, it's... it's the whole thing, you know? World,
universe, all that stuff. I mean, people like you have so much faith and
are so good and see what happens!"


"Man, you crazy or something? Jeez, you're even drunker than me!", she
laughs. He, on the other hand, gets drop-dead serious.


"No, I'm not. In fact, I feel more sober than I've been in
millennia."


"MilleWHAT? What the ..."


"Sorry, Rachel. Forgive Him, for He knows what He does but I think
He's got the wrong idea."


So he closes his eyes, holds strongly the boards of the table and raises
his head, in a very concentrated gesture. He begins to shine intensely
and vividly, and wings like those of hawks appear on his back. Rachel
gets terrified and suddenly sober, but the bartender acts as if nothing
was happening. 


"Oh my God!"


Then a sword, of great natural brightness and beauty, golden and
carefully carved in baroque style, appears in his right hand. She tries
to stand up and run, but he points her his left hand and she just
can't move, neither scream, but on the inside.


Rachel still gets to look at the bartender. He just cleans beer-dirty
glasses and whispers some old Frank Sinatra classic.


The angel hesitates for a moment, but then sticks the sword quickly,
precisely, into her heart. Her sleepy eyes are wide open while life
abandons her body, now just a bag hanging on the steel. He takes it off,
stops shining, the wings disappear.


"Forgive me too, for I can only hope that I know what I'm doing."


He begins to shed quiet, silver-bright tears.


Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

9:45 A.M.


FBI agent Dana Scully holds a small porcelain angel and kind of rubs it
with the fingers, with the sensuous curiosity of a child. It's pretty
much the kind of thing she thinks about in moments like this, in which
her life doesn't seem to make any sense at all. Here she is again, in
a crime scene, on a Sunday morning, when other women are waking up late
and taking breakfast in bed with their husbands or boyfriends, "and some
are throwing their guts up", she reminds herself, in a useless attempt
to feel better. Once again, her partner, agent Fox Mulder, took her to
some mysterious case without much explanation. Old bar, on the verge of
bankrupt and now even closer. At one of the tables, a woman's dead
body was lying down on the chair until not so long ago. On the table, a
glass of whiskey only with water from the melted ice. Her partner looks
at the scene appearing to be very interested. In what, she doesn't
exactly know. He comes to her.


"So, Mulder, there is a religious, or anti-religious fanatic, for that
matter, that's murdering the kind of people that goes to the church
every Sunday and he uses a sword, as if he was an angel or something.
Out of that, what's so bizarre about this?"


"Scully, when did you last go to the church?"


She answers a little ironic, a little disappointed with herself.


"Not recently enough to be a potential victim."


"You know, that's the point. Religion is not the only connection
between all the six victims. They were all people in more or less
hopeless situations. No money, disfunctional family, wrecked love life,
and, that's interesting, in all of them were detected, after the
death, the development of malign tumors."


"Oh God."


"What?"


"I'm just wondering if that's the part where you're gonna say that
the serial killer we're looking for is an angel."


"Come here, Scully, I think you're gonna love this detail."


They get to the table. He shows her, under the table, small burning
marks, the shape of shoes.


"Do you see that? It's as if somebody was burned to ashes right here,
standing up, with a heat of at least four hundred degrees."


"Yeah, but I thought it were, you know, the other guys that burned
things and did evil stuff. As a catholic, I been taught that angels were
good creatures that helped people, not murdered them."


"Not necessarily. According to some theologists, angels are merely
servants and that condition has nothing to do with being good or bad. By
the way, Lucifer was the angel of light before his fall. He was the most
beautiful of them all, not a monster with horns and tail. He fell
because He wanted to be God. Do you know where the word 'demon'
comes from? From Greek word "daemon", which in ancient Greece designed
entities that acted pretty much as guardian angels. In his own way, this
angel might believe he is doing the right thing, bringing mercy to these
people."


"You mean, like what, the doctor Kevorkian of the angels?"


"Not exactly. Kevorkian claims that all the people he gave the fatal
injection to had clearly manifested the wish to die. In these cases,
there is no evidence of that, although the principle is basically the
same."


Scully stares carefully at the marks and smiles with a sudden idea.


"By the way, do angels have a contract with Reebok?"


He takes a good look, shaking his head with a pretended serious look.


"No, in fact it looks more like Nike. It's hard to tell, but I think I
used one of these to play basketball."


She's glad that her partner is able to see these situations with so
much sense of humor. It'd be awful to stand such a passionate believer
that takes everything too seriously. Could be like having a Jehovah
Witness at your side all the time.

Then he pointed to the chair. There was a small mark on it.


"The sword cut through the body, precisely into the heart, and touched
the chair. The same weapon in all the crimes. According to pathologists,
it's a real piece of art. The razor is sharper than a laser beam. The
victim barely felt it. The cuts indicate an European model, probably
Middle Ages, just like Escalibur."


He takes the glass of whiskey and gives it a little shake.


"It's also interesting that the crime scene has absolutely no signal
of fight or even resistance from the victim. She remained sitting on
this chair and didn't even stand up while this guy took a sword to
kill her. It's as if she was in a trance." 


"Pathologists reported that she was really, really drunk at the time of
the death."


"Yes, she was, and other two persons were, but three of the victims
hadn't taken any substance of this nature and they also didn't show
any reaction."


"The murderer could have used some undetectable substance." 


Mulder smiles in excruciatingly sarcastic way and makes a "come here"
gesture. The bartender is sitting on a chair, talking confused, sweating
and trembling.


"I swear, when I looked at her, I didn't see anything wrong. The next
minute, she was dead. Just... dead."


Scully glances aside and down, kind of twisting her lips, showing her
blase disappointment with mankind in a way that only she can. Mulder
nods.


"All the crimes had people present, people that should have witnessed
what happened, but claim that they saw nothing."


"Now you have your suspects."


"All these people were investigated. None of them have police records,
neither symptoms of psychological disturb, no connection with the
victims or any religious cult, nothing. They were in the crime scenes
but claim that they simply don't recall what happened."


Scully sighs and tightens her own arms.


"Let's assume that your theory is correct. Tell me just one thing,
Mulder. How do you arrest an angel? By the way, how do you take him to
the court?"


"Just like that."


Mulder and Scully turn quickly. The angel is right in front of them, now
wearing a raincoat, extending his hands.


"I did it. I'm giving myself up."


Mulder gets furious.


"Get outta here, you fucking screwed up moron!"


The angel nods. He takes his sword from inside the coat, throws it a
little up to turn it upside down in the air, holds it by the razor, and
gives it to the agents. There is blood stain on it.


"You'll see this blood is from the victim."


Mulder and Scully stare confusingly at each other. Mulder holds the
sword and shakes it, as if to measure its weight.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


FBI Headquarters

July 6

2:04 P.M.


Mulder and Scully stand outside the interrogatory room. Mulder stands
his arm against the glass. It pisses him off to notice that his angel is
smoking, intensely, and making little circles with the smoke. The
cigarette, by the way, is Morley. "Jesus, what do they put in this
thing?", he thinks. Scully holds her own arms, looks at a distant place
with half-open eyes and smiles subliminally, in a "Lord give me
strength" expression.


"It looks like your angel will develop his own malign tumor."


Mulder points his finger to her, as if he is going to accuse her of
something, but then simply swallows the beginning of the sentence. Then
he turns and finally decides to speak.


"Still there's a lot of obscure things about this case, Scully. There
is something else to this guy."


She takes a file with information on the confessed murderer.


"Frederick Nytche, 24 year-old, single, no children, no family. Works
for social security, no police records, no previous manifestations of
violence or psychological problems, no obvious connections with the
victims or any religious cult, anything. By the way, he never even
claimed to have any religion. Couldn't it be just a little
contradictory for an angel to be an atheist?"


Mulder takes a handful of sunflower seeds and walks around while he
chews them, as if he could simply eat the answers. He decides to get in
the interrogatory room. The agent takes a good look at Frederick, but
with the corner of the eye, simulating to have no interest at all. His
murderer was very concentrated in God knows what, head up, hands on the
table, the Buddha of the serial killers. Mulder didn't know if that
somehow satisfied him or totally pissed him off.


"Well, Mr. Nytche, we have blood stain that seems to belong to the
victims on the sword. The instrument is apparently a perfect match with
the cuts and your fingerprints are on it. Even though the potential
close witnesses of the murders don't recall it, we already have two
people that believe they saw you around the places. So we have two of
the basic elements of proof: the means and the opportunity. What we
don't have is the motive. Well, we also miss an explanation for a
series of unusual and, why not to say, bizarre elements of this case",
says Mulder with a sardonic drop-dead serious tone that appears to have
the single purpose to annoy Frederick. "So..."


"So what you want to know, agent Mulder? You want to confirm your
theories that no one gives credit to? The theories that became your
obsession, that made you a lonely man with huge frustrations, peaceless
and restless, with maybe much more urge to believe than real faith? The
theories that took your sister and your father away from you and were
this close to take your mother too? The ones that almost gave a painful
death twice to the only person on the face of the earth that you trust?"


Mulder is speechless. It was not such a big surprise that this man knew
so much about him and that he could throw it on him. After all, so many
people said pretty much the same things to accuse or weaken him. What
astonished him is that Frederick says that without a shred of vicious
sarcasm or calculated anger. He made such a harsh speech with the most
possibly caring tone, not without sad bitterness, as someone who feels
genuine love, even though they had been barely introduced to each other.


"Well, yes, agent. Your theory is right. I am an angel. Not a very
important one in the hierarchy, just a cherubim , but still an angel. I
wasn't supposed to kill these people, but I did. And I can get outta
here whenever I want, but I don't intent to, right now. Am I going too
fast?"


Mulder tried to recover and put some sense in this surreal, even for his
standards, situation. Of course he had came with those ideas himself,
but he never expected them to be tossed like this. His partner's
skepticism was sometimes pretty useful to prevent him from falling for
the wrong theory. Frederick knew so much about him, so why couldn't he
be just trying to manipulate "spooky" Mulder with false proofs and then
discredit him? Perhaps he was from the Syndicate, who knows. Maybe that
was the time to built a wall, to doubt the extreme possibilities.
Frederick smiles.


"Now you're going to say I'm a liar, which is kinda funny coming
from you, agent. But no, I'm not one of your enemies and I'm not
trying to manipulate you, 'spooky'."


Mulder spends some four seconds trying to find something to say. Nytche
just goes on.


"C'mon, don't give me that look! It's not even telepathy, it's
just that after doing this job for thousands of years you gotta learn a
couple things about people. You can throw me all your investigative
techniques, even your so acclaimed intuition. We're not playing by
your rules here."


Mulder never felt so disturbed during an interrogatory before. He had
endless conversations with men that told him about how they severed
children's heads with gusto. Now the agent is terrified in front of a
man who claims to be from Heaven. Mulder looked into the abyss many
times before. Nevertheless, whatever Frederick was, he was able to make
the agent feel like the abyss itself, no matter how cruel the murders
had been. From the outside, Scully couldn't believe the words that
man, or angel, or whatever, was saying, but their meaning somehow echoed
in her heart, tightening it. Something bigger and scarier then mere
mundane madness surrounded that dialogue like the ultimate biological
weapon. 


"Know what's your problem? You people always expect angels to be all
sweet and smiling, with a beautiful light shining around us and white
pigeons flying, just like that stupid TV show, whatsitzname."


"'The Touch of an Angel' or something like that. I never watched
it", says Mulder, arms crossed, looking down.


"Jesus, that makes me sick! Hmm, well, I kinda like that black woman.
She's got some attitude, at least. We're not sweet, agent. We're a
bunch of bastards, that's what we are." 


Maybe it's the most pointless thing to do at this point, but the agent
still felt the need to keep a certain tough attitude. 


"Finish your speech?"


"Yep."


"Well, you still didn't answer about the motive", says Mulder, in a
poor attempt to sarcasm.


"Let's make an analogy, Mulder. As a FBI agent, you're supposed to
serve a certain institution, the American government. But it comes up
this institution is full of people and procedures that you not only
disagree with but also fight against. I've been a servant of something
you might call an institution, the oldest one, since some of the first
moments after the Big Bang. Of course I didn't have this shape but
then there were no humans anyway. It means billions of years. So, well,
you gotta believe me when I say I'm sick and tired of that."


"Sounds like rebellion. I recall what happened with the last guy who
tried that."


"I'm not that important, agent. To be honest, I wasn't even noticed
yet in the highest levels of power. It's pretty much a one man's
war, like yours."


"So why did you stop? Why did you give yourself up? Do you regret what
you did?"


"You want to know why I didn't help them, isn't it? He's an angel,
Right? So why didn't he heal their cancer or something? As I told you,
I'm just a cherubim, I don't have this power. I just want to stop
the damn pain, that's all."


"So..."


"Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention. In fact, I'm not giving myself up."


Mulder was going to say "what?" but barely got to begin the sentence.
Next thing he knows, his body is thrown like a baseball against the wall
without even being touched. His head hits the wall almost to the point
of getting unconscious and his right shoulder is dislocated. When he's
already on the floor, the pain actually begins. He swirls, moaning, his
face all squeezed by the pain, trying to ignore it enough to take his
gun. Scully just stands outside, unable to get conscious of the current
events. Frederick stands up and dresses his coat, very calmly. 


"Of course I knew you were going to try to stop me, agent. But your
partner was right, you can't handcuff an angel, can you? I've told
you everything you needed to know to satisfy your pathetic curiosity,
and, if you're a good listener, maybe even some useful advice. Anyway,
what I want you to understand is that there is no point in coming after
me."


Mulder gets to take his gun with the left hand and points it, but
Frederick just raises his hand for a moment and the agent feels even
greater pain in that arm, enough to drop the gun.


"I can anticipate all your moves, unless your police can protect every
helpless person on the face of the earth. Just remember that I don't
do this for hating people, agent. Beneath all the anger, bitterness and
plain despair that I feel, this is still an act of love. Have a good
life."


He stops the pain in Mulder's arm with a quick gesture. The agent lies
pathetically on the floor as the angel opens the door to leave. 


"Oh, yeah, your partner is coming with me. I want to have a little chat
with her."


"What?"


Mulder feels all the muscles in his body suddenly tensed and paralyzed.
He sees through the room's glass. Scully, in some sort of hypnotic
trance, just goes with Frederick, without saying a word.


"SCULLY! LEAVE HER ALONE!"


He forces every muscle of his body, but there is simply no response,
other than pain. 


"SCULLY!"

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


Nostradamus Bar


4:04 P.M.


When Scully gets back to herself, she feels like she just woke up from a
coma. What is she doing in this bar, with a glass of soda in front of
her and Frederick talking to her? She turns her eyes around and there is
no sign of the interrogatory room or Mulder, just people sitting on
their tables, chatting about nothing at all and a serial killer that
smiles at her. Her first impulse is to take her gun, but it's already
on his hand and he points it to the agent. No trace of her cell phone
either. She also felt her arms and legs restrained, like there's some
invisible wall. Her only way out of that is to talk to a murderer, like
she had to do so many times before, even though Frederick Nytche was
like no other.


"Where... where are we? What did you do to me? Where's my partner,
you..."


"Take it easy, agent Scully. Agent Mulder is fine, nothing serious.
I'm not gonna harm you either. I just needed to talk to you and that
room was definitely not the best place."


"Listen, I don't know how you did it, but Frederick, please, listen to
me. You. Are. Not. An. Angel. You're..."


"A human being that needs help? No, agent, I'm sorry. You know, I like
that. I like your attitude. The world is loaded with believers like your
friend, but it could use a few more people like you." 


Unexpectedly, something else seems to interest Frederick. A redhead man,
with an expression of carved granite and oblique eyes, dressed much like
a salesman, shows a police badge to the bar tender. 


"Wait a minute, agent, will you?", says Nytche, and stands up. Scully
moves like she's going to stand up too, but he moves a finger and she
feels like her body decided to disobey her brain command and not to
move. The angel walks quickly to the policeman. The redhead notices him
and tries to take his gun. Nytche aims his arm an the gun just flies
away to his hand, like it was attracted by magnetic force. He then
throws it away and grabs the policeman by the collar. Nytche raises him
up and throws him on the table where Scully is sitting. The man falls
close to her, but without actually touching the agent. He drops the
glass of soda on the floor, although. Scully is terrified but still
unable to move. Before he raises his head, Nytche punches him real hard
and pushes his face on the table, forcing him to stare at Scully, with
his face all contrived like he's in unbearable pain.


"Agent Scully, I'd like to introduce you to one of my associates. A
slave of his greed, with no own will but to climb the hierarchy. He's
probably worse than the cruelest of demons." 


Nytche now pulls the redhead's face closer to him and looks into his
eyes with despise.


"Is that what they send after me? My prestige is really down these
days."


"You... you're nothing... to them, you..." begins the redhead, but
Nytche slaps him on the face.


"I don't care what they think of me, much less what you think. I'd
destroy you with little more than one breath, but no, it'd be way too
merciful, you know. I want you to live every moment of the next billions
of years to regret this miserable thing you are. Now do yourself a
favor. Get the fuck outta here and never, never cross my way again,
understand?"


He throws the redhead on the floor. The man stands up, gives Nytche a
look of hatred like Heaven or Hell never saw, pulls his coat a little in
order to get it fit and leaves. Nytche sits down like nothing happened
and, around them, nothing actually seems to have happened, but for the
glass on the floor.


"Sorry for your soda. I'm going to order another", says the angel, and
snaps his finger to the bar tender.


Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


FBI Headquarters

Meanwhile


A nurse is immobilizing Mulder's arm and shoulder, as he keeps on
desperately trying to call Scully with the cell phone.


"He's got her phone. Are you sure that nobody saw them leaving the
building?", the agent asks assistant director Skinner.


"It's as if they were invisible. But we got them in the security
cameras. They just walked out without being noticed. We ordered tracking
operations, but there aren't many leads. The places of the murders
seem to be chosen by random".


"We won't find'em, unless he want us to."


"I know that Scully had cancer, but she got cured. So what does he want
from her?"


This got the agent thinking. Could the angel be trying to convert a
skeptic to faith? No, It didn't look like it. Nytche was a rebel, and
a bitter one. He was the Christian version of the Ronin, a samurai with
no master. At this point, Scully's got probably more faith than him.
She wasn't a hostage, as well. He has no need of that. He mentioned a
chat. What could be the nature of such a conversation? What he knew is
that he couldn't feel safe about her partner. Mulder couldn't simply
play some sick mind game this time. As crazy as it sounds, it was easier
to deal with serial killers. Many times, when Scully was taken away from
him, to be in pain or in danger of her life or both, Mulder felt like
God was playing a sick mind game with him. But this feeling was probably
never as heavy and oppressive as now.


xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx




Scully is surprised by how seriously Nytche stares at her right now.
Some of that true and agonizing compassion she had a glimpse of at the
interrogatory room was now manifesting more openly. His eyes, although
physically young, were of an oxidized blue, the most consumed ones she
ever saw. They saw every carnage, every holocaust, every moment of the
inherent stupidity of mankind and life itself, even if only in his mind.
But right after she thought that, he smiles at her and nods negatively. 


"I know what you're thinking, agent, but you know, you get it wrong. I
always feel kinda funny when you people get to feel so miserable about
yourselves, wondering about how sad your Gods feel for your weakness and
cruelty and stuff. Let me tell you something. They don't give a crap,
lady."


Scully felt a knot tightening her stomach. No matter how much she told
herself that this man is a liar, a skillful illusionist, maybe even a
powerful psychic, but nothing else, that was a disturbing idea. It's
like hearing that your parents never loved you or that people don't go
to Heaven when they die. And the agent had to admit, it was hard not to
believe the way those words came out of his mouth


"When I was up there, I used to look at you people with maybe some
compassion, yes, even love, but much more than that, there was a deep
moral arrogance, the one that comes when faith becomes obsession. I
thought about how superior we were for serving the Lord and staying away
from your mundane concerns. No doubts about the existence of a higher
power, no fear from death or Hell. Only when I became one of you I
discovered how great and rich this tiny world is, with all its cruelty
and injustice and insignificance. As you people say, I decided to 'get
a life'. I have to say, nothing touched so much my spirit like being
mundane for a while. Meditation and sacrifice, my ass. The sensuous
feelings, that's what makes you feel real, alive. To eat, to drink.
That almost hollow smoothness of sea, of wind. The smell of vanilla. The
sound of raindrops on the roof when you're falling asleep. Chianti
wine. Napolitan ice cream".


He smiles with a shred of embarrassment. 


"A woman's body".


She nods and smiles almost to the point of laughing.


"You know, even to have a few real perverse thoughts now and then, not
just do what you're supposed to do. Have impulses. This whole
thing's so bigger and more complex than my so-called pure world."


"If you're..."


"If I'm enjoying life so much, why do I take off people's lives?
That's the reason. I care so much about life that I won't just stand
and watch as the old bastard buries them alive. To live to be a
vegetable, to suffer for an endless while and then die? Nobody deserves
that. A demon does not deserve that. If someone is the creator of
everything, he's the ultimate responsible for all that it becomes. He
foresaw every dictator, the black pest, cancer, hunger, nazism, AIDS,
atomic bombs, even the day that sun will become a giant red and
extinguish all life on earth and the universe will revert its expansion
and die and become nothing at all. And He didn't care. Lucifer isn't
even a real rebel, he's just some kind of hired gun for Him to do His
dirty work without being blamed." 


Scully tries hard to hold it but ends up shedding a tear. A tear not for
her, not for us. A tear for everything.


Then an elderly man, holding the hand of a nine-year old child, gets
into the bar and gets Nytche's attention. He glances pitifully at them
and bites his inferior lip. Focuses on the kid: short for his age, big
and frightened eyes, hair as dark as night. Eats a bar of chocolate,
watches his father all the time. Then he turns to Scully again and
points at those two.


"That. That's what I'm talking about."


"What? It's a father and his son. What's so terrible about it?"


"You people don't notice, do you? No, of course not. Sometimes I feel
like I'm always talking to kids. That man abuses his son every damn
night. He beats him. He touches him. Every night. The poor child will
never get over it. Know what's gonna happen to him if he grows up? You
know something about that. He'll become a psycho, will rape and
brutalize other children and give'em an awful, torturing death. And
he'll never, never have a truly happy moment in his life."


Scully stared at the kid, sweetly fragile like any other, and tried to
take the suggested picture out of her mind. It was hard enough to see a
grown man turned insane and visualize the monster beneath the human
being. To imagine that in a small kid seemed like to abandon all hope.


"If you foresee this kind of thing, why don't you do something to
prevent it, instead of just killing these people?"


He beats on the table and almost drops the glass again.


"Think I never tried? I mean, that's what I'm supposed to do,
isn't it? For each one I was able to help, a thousand were completely
out of my hands. You know, nobody thinks about that. Someone's life is
surprisingly saved and everybody goes: "Miracle! Miracle!" And no one
seems to care about all the other ones, as good and as bad as any other,
that just suffer and die and get no miracle at all. Don't ask me how
that works, I don't know. Maybe I'm just trying to make Him notice.
To make Him take his holy ass out of his throne and show that He cares."


Then he stands up and heads straight for the table where the kid and his
abusing father are now drinking milk shake. Scully wants to shout at him
"no", but her voice is dead. The angel waits for a moment until the boy
finishes his drink. Then Nytche gets to hold the kid's neck while his
father just takes another sip of milk shake. The angel closes his eyes
and still gets to touch gently the kid's hair for a moment and whisper
"I'm sorry". Scully closes her eyes but can't stop but hearing a
tiny moan and a noise, like a match being snapped due to anxiety, that
her memory will take to the grave.


Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


Ale-luia Bar


4: 44 P.M.


Scully just stares at a spot of soda on the table, with the imperfect
round shape of the glass, without saying anything, for a long while. She
had a daughter once. and lost her without getting any real chance to
save her life. That feeling of impotence in front of the powers the
agent and her partner faced during five years haunted her deeply that
time. Nytche starts to say something, but she interrupts him, talking
slowly, with a very distant eye expression but a raging tone, as if her
emotions were too strong for her face to express them.


"It was cruel. Cruel and unjustifiable. You are no angel, you are just
insane."


Nytche nods, pathetically trying to clean the soda spot with his finger.


"I know what happened to your daughter. And I'm sorry as hell for
that."


"Don't you dare mentioning my..."


"There was nothing I'd have done, but I feel responsible. I'm still
one of them and part of all that. These deaths will haunt my spirit when
this planet be long dead. I'll pay a huge, huge price. But you need to
see what is beneath the act itself. I beg you, agent Scully, look into
my eyes and see what you see, not just what you want to see. Please."


He takes her hand. She resists with repulsion for a moment, but then
stares at him and slowly gives herself up. Her eyes touch profoundly
those oxidized ones of Nytche. And Scully experiences something with no
precedent. She senses a glimpse of the divine, in a way she never
thought that there could be. It was not that distant abstract vapor,
full of goodness with no warm and affection with no touch she's been
told so much about. It was powerful. And real. And reachable. And human.
And suddenly she forgot all her fears and traumas and held that man
hard, with tears in her eyes. They were two creatures of conscience,
lost in a world that did not care for their hopes, with more doubts than
certainties and more revolt than trust. 


She cleans her tears out of her face and tries to concentrate on finding
out more about all this.


"Why are you telling me and showing me all these things? Why me? My
partner could be a lot easier to convince, if that's what you want."


"Your friend? No, I'm not very interested in him. His faith is generic
and somewhat naive. If some mysterious informant tells him that sun
rotates around the earth, he'll just go out to investigate it. But not
you, agent Scully. You do have faith in your heart, but also much doubt
and skepticism. I like it. You know, these things your partner looks
for. What matters if a little Abracadabra happens here and there if
millions of innocents need so little to relief their pain and they just
don't get it?"


"Nor even in Heaven?"


"Look at me. Do you think there is no pain in Heaven?"


"So it's all meaningless? Hopeless?"


"No, I don't think so. I don't want to believe that. It's not
raising your voice to the sky that changes things, agent Scully. It's
fighting. It's living. Fight, Scully. Really fight the future. Fight
with your science, if you have to. Fight against all the powers that be,
even His ones, if that's possible. And have a life. A real one. Live,
you hear me?"


Nytche just says that, a small drip of blood slowly slides down from his
right nostril. Scully gets terrified. She acknowledges this too well.
She had months of this and much more when a brain cancer got real close
to take her life. With her hand trembling, she points to her own noise,
trying to tell him, unable to speak. Nytche nods positively and takes
the drip out with his finger.


"Yeah, I know. I should have expected something like that. You can't
say He has no sense of humor."


Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


FBI Headquarters

5: 21 P.M.


Mulder probably never had a happier sight. After hours of impotent
agony, Scully was there. She simply walks into the room as if nothing
had happened. Being Scully, however, she couldn't stop but notice his
arm.


"Jesus, what did he do to your..."


Before she says anything else, he holds her real hard, touching her hair
with his fingers, even if with just one arm. His faith was safe one more
time. As happy as she feels with that, Scully can't stop but shedding
another quiet tear, with mixed joy and sadness.


"Scully, what... what happened? Are you okay?"


"Yeah. Kind of. I guess."


"Where's Nytche?"


"He gave himself up, this time for real."


"Why did he do it?"


"He tried to fight a battle that he knew, since the beginning, that it
was impossible to win. But he did give me things to think about. He gave
me despair. He gave me joy. I don't know if he changed my life, but I
feel like nothing looks the same way it did before."


"Did he make you in one hour the believer I didn't get to in five
years?"


"Not the kind of believer that you think, no." 


She holds her crucifix. Rubs it with her finger as if it was something
she was seeing for the first time.

"In fact, I think he probably gave me much more new questions than
answers. But I thank him for that."


Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


County Jail

July 7

6: 15 P.M. 


Nytche is in his cell, alone, with the tired sun of the evening shining
on him in rectangular pieces. He talks to a tape recorder.


"Yes, there is pain, even in Heaven. But at least I have felt that for
so long that I'm almost getting indifferent to it. If this is my last,
small and futile act of resistance, so be it. If you can hear me,
creator and lord of everything that exists, fuck you, you arrogant
cocksucking bastard!"


He gets very concentrated, his eyes closed, his muscles tensed.
Meanwhile, Scully gets into jail. She still needs to talk to him one
more time. Maybe to comfort him, or even to get some comfort herself.
She couldn't let Nytche end up feeling such a deep frustration.
Suddenly, the angel starts to shine. She feels it from far and begins to
run. Wings are on his back and sword is in his hand once more. He thinks
about Scully for a moment. Her determined eyes, her intense voluptuous
lips, her serious but smooth voice, the greatness of her spirit. He'd
have loved her, maybe. In other times. In other universe. Scully runs
faster, already knowing it's too late. When she gets to the cell, the
sword is already buried in his chest, standing up, like the grotesque
parody of a grave cross. She holds the bars tight, in tears.


Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx




At Mulder's office, both agents are very quiet. It was hard not to
think that so many bad outcomes of their cases came from some basic
injustice of life, but they still tried to convince each other that
Nytche was maybe not what he said he was, that they still could somehow
trust in the existence of a benevolent force behind the facts of their
lives and that even the pain and defeats had a greater purpose. She
turns on the tape recorder. Suddenly, a picture comes to Scully's
eyes. It's the sky, above the clouds, sunny, cold and unbelievably
beautiful.


"Many people say they envy angels because we can fly with our own wings.
What they don't know is that the greatest experience of flying is
denied to us. The sensuality of flying, these millions of invisible
fingers that slightly touch you, the freedom to let your body go in any
direction and feel, at least once, that your destiny really belongs to
you. Now that I do not care about Heaven or Hell anymore, I feel more
free and alive than it was ever allowed an angel to feel."


Now the agent sees the earth, from above.


"But I care about them. So what are to do these minuscule particles of
matter and energy, almost invisible to the naked eye of God? Maybe they
could stop just looking at the stars and wait for the angels. Maybe they
could begin to be the angels of themselves." 


THE END