"A Game of Dark" part 1 of 1 by Pellinor RATING: PG CLASSIFICATION: TA SUMMARY: A late night chase after a dangerous criminal leads to some important decisions, but could also lead to death. ____ Why can I never write a short story that fits into a neat classification? The T has distinctly V-ish overtones, and the A has a touch of R - not much, but a little. Sorry. I won't do it again, honest. ____ DISCLAIMER: Mulder, Scully, their friends and their enemies belong to Chris Carter, 1013 and Fox, and I torture them without permission but with no mercenary intent. It's fun, though. FEEDBACK: Yes, please. ********** Death was in the shadows, at the end of a trail of blood. He could hear it, he could feel it, he could smell it, the pungent iron smell of the blood seeming to wreathe through the velvet darkness and choke his throat with the proximity of death. The other man had a gun. His heart was loud, pulsing in his ears, and his footsteps echoed through the darkness, clattering in the night like some film noir nightmare. He was breathing fast, his breath like the clouds of smoke that issued orders and threats from the darkest corners of his superiors' offices. The other man had a gun. _He_ had a gun, held tight in sticky aching fingers, poised to shoot. To shoot.... To shoot again. There would be a death tonight. The blood trail glowed black in the pale moonlight, glistening and vibrant. First blood to him, tonight. The other man - the criminal - was running scared, his life pouring away, red on the dirt. There was nowhere to hide. It was a signal to death to come and find him, to take him. As it would. As it should, he corrected himself, grimly. As it should. There was danger still. The other man would not go without a fight - _had_ not gone without a fight. _He_ had shed blood too.... They had been a startling red in her face, the beads of blood. Red against the white of her skin, snaking down her face from her blow that had felled her. Red, a terrible red. It had been..... beautiful. Terrible, but beautiful. Red and white. The red flashed before his vision, drowning it. Images of death and revenge.... He'd seen the face before, of course - committed it to memory as the flat and soulless representation of a wanted poster, shown to the whole team before the operation began - but now it was different, twisted with pain, suffused with red. Images of death and revenge and the coming future.... A bullet shattering the skull, splinters of bone piercing the brain. Eyes streaming with torment as the blows landed and landed and kept on and on until the voice begged for a death that would not come. A knife slashing the face open, piercing the eyes, cutting the throat. Red and black and screams of agony, endlessly suffering.... But he couldn't. He _shouldn't_. Not by the book. He smiled wryly, remembering.... _She'd_ remembered, even then. "You mustn't kill him." She'd struggled to sit up, blinking in pain even at the small soft light of the moon. "Remember," she'd gasped, as she'd fought to stay conscious. "Don't kill him. Not unless...." "But he _hurt_ you!" he'd protested, at a loss for further words. The man had hurt her. That was all that mattered. There were no words sufficient to express the enormity of that crime. "I'm fine." She'd tried to smile, although her every muscle was taut against the pain. "I'll be fine. You go after him now. Capture him. " Her breath had come in small bursts, and he'd heard the tremor beneath the rigid control of her voice. "If he resists, you can kill him. Just don't...." A gasp. "Don't forget policy out of.... a mistaken desire.... for revenge." "Policy!" He'd spat out the word as if it burnt his mouth, and it still disgusted him even now. Policy. Following flawed orders. Memories of smoke-filled offices and unsavoury new assignments. "I can look after myself." Even through the pain, her eyes had darkened with warning. "Go!" And so he'd left her, though it made his whole body ache with the pain of leaving her like that, hurt and alone. But he'd had no choice. The warning in her tone - the threat. He knew what it meant - how sensitive she still was to any suggestion that people were judging her any less capable because she was a woman. Women were still so rare in their line of work. He paused mid-step, suddenly doubtful, full of remorse. Did _he_ judge her - act over-protective of her - because she was a woman.... because she had eyes that made his breath catch in his throat with their intensity.... because he l....? A clatter of metal, not far away now, making his heart beat with renewed intensity. The man had gone to ground, close now, his gun watching from the darkness now he was too weak to run. Too much of his blood had been shed on the stony ground, though not too much - never too much - for him.... for _her_. For her. Because he l.... Her pale face flashed before his eyes again, her eyes closed as she drifted towards unconsciousness, but he forced that thought away abruptly. There wasn't _time_. She was his future, she was his life, but she wasn't his _now_ - his present facing death in the darkness. For her sake, he had to concentrate, to drive her face from his memory. But it was _so_ difficult. Silence. He stood, scarcely breathing, listening to the total lack of noise. His fingers clenched upon the gun, clenched and unclenched, as his imagination showed him flashes of fire from every dark hiding place and his body resisted the urge to flinch from a dozen imagined wounds. Step forward. Step, step.... A bullet in his chest, as his heart pumped out his life in a fountain of warmth. Step, step.... Legs shot from beneath him as he fell forward into the dust and the man - the cruel sadistic face of the enemy - stood over him, savouring his death. Step, step.... And her eyes.... Her eyes would be so red and swollen with weeping, even though she never cried, never smiled, never let them see through the facade. Red and swollen and drenched with pain, like the eyes of.... "No!" He nearly spoke aloud with the force of his denial. He wouldn't think of _that_. If there was blood on his hands, it was the blood of the guilty - the blood of criminals who deserved to die. The cause of just. The cause was just, and this man threatened it, threatened everything he believed in. Step, step.... Silent, not breathing..... Into the tunnel, feeling the enclosing darkness fold upon him like a fist, feeling the cool touch of moonlight retract from his body like a lifting blanket of snow. He reached for his torch for the first time, knowing he was at a disadvantage now. The man - her attacker - was hidden in the darkness, eyes adapted now, while he himself was silhouetted against the moonlight, an easy target at the mouth of the tunnel. Step, step.... He should go back. Caution told him he should go back. Call for back-up, that what's she would have said. There were others only minutes away, stationed in their own silent watches, waiting for the attack they'd never expected, not really. A minimal presence to avoid suspicion, and the two of them at one of the fringes, but none of them out of reach of help. He should go back.... Step, step.... He couldn't go back. Not with her blood crying out to him, her pale unconscious face demanding that equal blood be shed to avenge every drop of her own. Step, step.... It was the most dangerous part now. Within a breath, one of them could die, their blood falling on the tracks like so much rain. So what if it wasn't policy.... Policy! He smiled again, even though his hands were shaking. Despite all the training, it never got better - it _mustn't_ get better. To forget the fear was to get complacent, careless, and to do that meant death. And he would _not_ be the one to die. He felt it with a burning intensity that surprised him beyond anything. Two days ago, yesterday even, it would have been.... regrettable. Regrettable, painful, but nothing more. He'd never feared death, accepting it as a part of the career he'd chosen. But now.... Now he couldn't die. Not with her blood so fresh in his vision. Not with his memory of what he'd felt as he saw her fall. Not with.... with the truth he'd realised then still unspoken between them. Them.... He savoured the word, absorbing its taste. Them.... Blood on the tracks, shining deep red in the beam of his torch. If he lived..... There was a scraping sound in the darkness and then suddenly was a gun, desperate eyes staring at him from behind the barrel. The torch glinted off the metal, sending out of beam of light that was strangely beautiful. He shut his eyes for an instant, steadying himself, but was strangely without fear. He knew this man - had seen into his mind, his motivations. His fears of death were but the fantasies of darkness. The man wouldn't kill him. The eyes above the gun were desperate. The quick glance of torchlight had shown him the fingers of death clawing at those eyes. "Where is she?" The man's voice was like grating steel. "Tell me where she is." He swallowed, but said nothing. Hearing the man's words, he felt the briefest of surges of fellow feeling, but then it was gone, driven away by the memory of the blood on her head. "Damn you!" The man's finger trembled on the trigger. "I'll _kill_ you." It was so easy - as easy as breathing. Punch, kick, grab, and the man was on the floor, his gun clattering away from his nerveless fingers. He hadn't even tried to pull the trigger. "No you won't." He drove his foot into the man's abdomen, seeing the drops of blood on her pale face. "You can never kill me." Another kick, seeing her face clenched against the pain. "You need to know...." Kick. A kick for every second of pain she suffered. "What I can tell you...." Kick. "That's why...." Kick. "You'll always lose." He paused, breathless, his mind seething with hatred. He'd expected the kicks to drain the hatred from him, but they fed it, making it worse. He hated this man for making him lose his temper and act out of base emotion like the worse of the enemies. "Tell.... me...." The man coughed, blood and saliva trickling from his broken mouth. "Take.... me.... instead...." Tears gouged paths through the red. "Just.... don't.... hurt.... her...." He couched down, raising the man's head by the hair, so he was looking into his tormented eyes. He made his words as sharp and precise as bullets. "You. Hurt. My...." And then he stopped, running out of words. What was she to him? What would she be to him, after.... after this? The man held his gaze, and he saw his own hatred mirrored in those pain-filled eyes. "You.... hurt.... my....." And then the man stopped too, eyes desperate, searching. "You hurt my.... my..... par.... " A cough, red and bloody. "My.... life." He let the man's head fall with a thump, looking at him with disgust. "It is right. They remember no pain. The cause is just." "The cause...." "The cause is just," he said again, firmly. "The cause is just, and you...." Another kick. "You are beneath contempt, obstructing it." But he knew now. He was arguing to himself more than the other man. The cause was just, of course he believed that. But it was nothing. This was not about causes. This was about _her_. He'd been so smug and arrogant, sure that he knew the truth when fools like this man struggled to snatch at crumbs like beggars at the gate. The truth was that every drop of her blood, every breath in her body, was more important than the greatest secret they would ever have to protect. And he knew that the other man knew that too - had realised it too late. "Do you.... know.... what they _do_....., these people..... you work for....?" The man could barely talk now, though his eyes were fiery earnest. "They _took_ her.... Now they.... they've taken her again..... " There was a volume of pain and contempt behind his words. "Do you..... know what they..... do to her? Can you.... can you live with yourself?" "Yes." He bent down and attached the handcuffs to the man's wrists, ready to drag him on the long journey back to the boxcars. _They_ would deal with him now, if he lived that long. "Yes, Mr Mulder. I can." He smiled. ***** end ***** NOTES: This was inspired by writing a summary of "Shadows" the other day and noticing that it had not only a female "Them" but also a female thug - the only time I can think of seeing either in the X-Files. It set me thinking about what might happen if a man and woman, working together for the Consortium, should find their relationship become more important to them than the cause. After stealing titles from Tolkien and Robert Cormier, this title is yet another one I've stolen from a favourite book in my library. This one is "A Game of Dark" by William Mayne, not really a children's book though it has been published as such. FEEDBACK: I would really appreciate feedback on this one, whether privately or on fictalk. As with all my one-part stories, I'm very doubtful about posting it. Did you anticipate the twist at the end, or did you read it throughout as if the "he" was Mulder? Did the twist look too contrived? Is it just a gimmick story, boring other than the cheap trick of the twist at the end? Will I ever write a story that doesn't include the words blood, death and dark at least a dozen times each? Will anyone read long and tedious author's notes? Oh well, back to writing those episode summaries....