Disclaimers:  Some of these are Chris Carter's, some of the concepts come from Greg Widen and were expanded on by Davis-Panzer; and some of them are mine.  Set between the end of season 5 on X-Files and the first XF movie.  Breaks off from standard HL canon before the Ahriman arc.  Part of the Aidan-verse.  Beta by the usual suspects and all faults are mine, not theirs.  Takes place after Sirocco and Signs & Portents.  crossovers100 prompt#22 -- enemies.
Rated:  R at most

Pointed Fingers

Mulder parked the rental car by the driveway, already broiling in the late May heat.  Charleston might not be as far south as you could go, but as far as he was concerned, it was more than far enough.  At 9:30 on a Saturday morning the thermometer had already climbed to 83 and promised to make it up to the low 90s before the day was over.

He was at the right address, or at least the one on his paperwork.  The front door stood open, with only a screen door keeping the flies and mosquitoes out.  Every window seemed to be open, with curtains fluttering in the morning breeze.  As he watched, a tiny blond woman in blue jean shorts and a white cotton shirt stepped out onto the small front porch, carrying a wooden chair.  It matched the other three chairs already out there, and Mulder grinned; he recognized spring cleaning when he saw it.  A bright blue bandana held the curls back from her face and her back pocket held a hideously green feather duster.  Its feathers quivered in the breeze as she turned to frown in his direction.

"Can I help you with something?" she called to him and Mulder walked up the driveway toward her, glad he'd left his jacket in the car.

"I'm looking for Damien Appesard," he said, still looking around the house.  "Is he here?"

She stood there, studying him in a way that had nothing to do with Mulder's looks and made him wonder if she was involved in law enforcement somehow, despite being too short for even police minimum requirements.  "I think," she drawled finally, "that I'd like to know who you are and what you want before I answer that one.  You don't look right for a Jehovah's Witness, not that they come around here anymore."

Mulder grinned at that, a brief amusement that lit his face even after it had left his mouth.  He pointed out, "No Bible, no pamphlets.  I'm with the FBI and I need to ask him a couple questions."

Now the small woman did frown at him, and she straightened to an almost military erectness as she stated her requirements.  "I see.  I'll need to see your ID first, Agent.  Is he wanted for anything, or are you just needing information?"

Mulder frowned at that, but reached back to pull out his badge case.  "A little suspicious, aren't you?  I just need a few answers, Ms. ...?"

She flipped the leather folio open, checked the badge and compared his face to the photograph on the Hoover Building passcard before returning them.  "Sylvana Storm, Agent Mulder.  Usually called Stormy.  Now then, you said you had a few questions?"

"Yes," Mulder said simply.  "I'm not here to arrest Mr. Appesard, and he's not being charged with anything."

Stormy nodded, blond curls sliding across her shirt as she did, and drawled sweetly, "Then you won't mind if I sit in on the discussion, Agent.  I'll go get him."  Before Mulder could argue she was inside the house, calling back over her shoulder, "Do feel free to sit down on the porch."

Mulder shook his head, amused by her tenacity.  "Classic Southern stonewalling," he muttered.  Clearly he wasn't invited inside.  Instead of sitting down, he began to examine the porch and its contents, looking for some clue into Appesard's personality.  The house was a shotgun design:  narrow, long, and high-ceilinged.  The porch paint looked new, a light grey that went well with the slate blue wood walls and the maroon trim.  The porch trim also looked fresh, but the trim on the north wall was a different color: a faded, weathered green.

Three cars were parked in the driveway.  He strolled over to examine them and decided they either belonged to different people or Appesard should be checked for signs of incipient multiple personalities.

Closest to the house was a faded yellow Toyota Corolla that had to be from the early '80s, given the square profile and the occasional rust spot where the paint had faded or chipped completely away.  The windows had been left cracked open, and a faded bumper sticker warned 'If you can read this, you're in range.'  A Gold's Gym parking decal on the front windshield was more recent, as was a parking decal for Trafalgar Square Condominiums.  The back seat had a couple classic mystery novels; the front seat had a mesh bag full of batteries, empty film boxes, and lens caps, plus three battered and much-used notebooks and a half-empty box of pens.

An outsized dark blue Ford pickup truck was parked behind it.  The front seat was clean of clutter or trash; a plastic Barnes and Noble bag was threaded down over the gear shift to hold trash, but seemed to be empty.  The rear was covered with some kind of liner that locked down into place and converted the entire truck bed into a trunk.  It had a small parking decal in the back window, also for Gold's Gym.

Mulder strolled down the driveway while he waited, whistling aimlessly and off-key as he investigated the last car, a dust-covered Geo Tracker with no decals or stickers whatsoever, just a back window patched up with duct tape.  The back compartment held more clutter than Mulder had seen since he'd done a week on stake-out:  fast food wrappers, a Wal-Mart bag stuffed with more trash, a bag of chocolate covered espresso beans that looked like the chocolate had run together to fuse the whole thing into a solid mass, and that was just what he could see around the duct tape.

Hmm.  A photographer who liked mysteries, a truck that would drive any novel's investigator crazy, and a car that looked like it did regular surveillance duty?  A very interesting mix, and maybe the lady was law enforcement....  Mulder shook his head, grinning.  At least this might not be boring.

Then Ms. Storm emerged from the house with two men in tow, and boring became the least likely word in the world to describe the morning.  The redhead looming along her side stood approximately five foot ten, Mulder guessed, and had to weigh at least two hundred -- all of it muscle, which made him look shorter.  He looked annoyed, more than having his painting interrupted should justify; Mulder kept his face blank as he walked back up the driveway to meet them.

The redheaded weightlifter smelled faintly of turpentine and paint, and the maroon paint smear on his forehead wasn't that much darker than his hair.  The taller brown-haired man next to him had a blotch of maroon on the back of his wrist and a few splatters of it on his faded grey t-shirt.  Like his companions, he was dressed in cut-off jeans and well-worn hiking boots, but he was easily six foot two, and his eyes met Mulder's evenly.  He finished drying his hands off and stuffed the bandana into a back pocket.

That was all Mulder had time to notice, because the redhead had stopped no more than a foot away from Mulder to demand, "What can I do for you, Agent?"

Despite the phrasing, it wasn't intended to be helpful.  Mulder continued to study him for a moment longer and barely kept his face impassive as he noticed incongruities.  If this was Damien Appesard, and Mulder thought it was, he didn't add up.  Olive-gold skin rarely went with red hair and green eyes, the easy balance and leashed speed made his bulk seem even more dangerous, and those angry eyes were far too knowing.  Mulder restrained a frown and forced his mind back to business; later he could speculate and piece the puzzle together.

"I just need to ask a few questions about a temporary visa extension filed by Farrell Jameson of Lausanne, Switzerland, Mr. Appesard," Mulder said, deliberately calm and flat.  Standard government inquiry, give me what I want and I'll go away....

The brown-haired man glanced at him then, a quick, annoyed expression which made Mulder wonder briefly if he'd just found Jameson.

Then Ms. Storm interrupted his train of thought.  "Why?"

Mulder started his usual reply, "I'm afraid it's connected to an ongoing investigat--" only to be interrupted again.

"Bullshit," she drawled sweetly and smiled when he raised an eyebrow at her.  "Agent Mulder, for one you're not INS, and for the other you're not local Bureau.  If this was a routine set of questions, the locals'd be handling it, not you.  The locals'd know that coming here would mean running into me, and they'd've had a warrant or permission to tell me which active or inactive case it's regarding.  So either you've already pissed off the local boys at the Bureau or this isn't official.  And if you'd pissed 'em off... the local agents might still have called me.  So let's try this again.  Who are you, what're you doing in Charleston, and why're you asking here about Farrell Jameson?"

Mulder had no doubts now how she'd acquired the name Stormy as she went on, "Catch more flies with honey than vinegar, Agent.  You sure you don't want to be reasonable?"

"What makes you so sure I'm not local Bureau?" Mulder asked her while he debated how to handle this.

"Because she knows all of them," Appesard replied and he was starting to smile.  It was more worrisome than the frown had been.  "Last chance to be reasonable, Agent:  why are you looking for Farrell Jameson?"

Mulder studied all three of them then, frowning a little at how hard it was to keep his eye on his probable suspect.  The second man hadn't moved, but Jameson faded into his background all too easily for a man his size.  That would be invaluable if he was the photographer of those cars, but it would be even more invaluable in dodging the police... or FBI agents.

Mulder tabled it again before Appesard decided to order him off the property or, worse, call the cops.  Instead, he ran with his instincts and admitted, "Actually, I'm not here officially.  I'm investigating some murders that I can't prove."

Storm raised an eyebrow. "Beg pardon?  You want to translate that?"

Mulder shrugged and indicated the chairs.  "Mind if we sit down?  This might take a few minutes to explain."

"I've got a house to clean up and paint, Agent," Appesard growled.  "Yes.  I mind.  Are you investigating murders or not?"

"That depends on who you talk to," Mulder said, deliberately calm against the anger radiating form Appesard.  "If you ask me or the local shaman?  Yes.  If you ask the local police, they won't have a clue what you're talking about.  We haven't found any bodies."

Storm shook her head, her mouth tight and her tone disapproving.  "Agent, there's this little thing called habeas corpus -- you might have heard of it?  If you don't have any bodies, how in hell do you have any murders?  Anyone even been declared missing?"

Mulder shrugged again and decided against leaning on the support pillar of a just-painted porch.  He kept watching for their reactions as he continued, "What I have are nine people who came into the United States, ended up in New Mexico... and seven of them vanished.  Number eight left for Hong Kong three weeks ago.  And Farrell Jameson applied for a visa extension to stay in the U.S. for at least a year.  This is the address he listed on his paperwork."

"So why do you think they're dead?" the tall brown-haired man asked.

"Because they left eight swords behind, one of them broken.  The swords were causing nightmares at the nearby reservations," Mulder said grimly.

"Nightmares?  You're investigating nightmares?" Appesard asked incredulously.

Mulder's suspect leaned against the front door's frame, heedless of the possibility of damp paint, and shook his head.  His accent wasn't anything Mulder could place; if anything, he sounded faintly Australian or British, not Swiss.  "Nightmares and swords and FBI agents?  You said you checked his ID, Stormy?"

Storm said more practically, "I surely did, but I'm wondering now too.  You ain't got a case, Agent Mulder.  You got to know that."

"I know," Mulder agreed.  "I don't.  But eight of the nine had criminal records.  Lim Mahn's turned out to be long enough that I understand Customs is cleaning house to find out who in hell let him into the country.  And the other seven are either dead, which is what I think, or they're loose in the U.S.  Now, Jameson doesn't have a record, and my informants couldn't understand what he was doing with the other eight.  So I'm trying to find out."

"Agent, what branch of the FBI are you assigned to?" Storm asked him bluntly.

"Violent Crimes," Mulder told her and pushed away the thought of what Skinner would say if he found out Mulder was investigating something on his own time.

Her chin came up, eyes narrowing, and Mulder had a moment to realize where Stormy had really gotten her nickname before she cut loose on him.

"Violent Crimes ain't gonna pay to fly someone in to look into a visa extension without probable cause, Agent Mulder, which means--"  She cut herself off, staring at him in a way Mulder knew couldn't be good.  "Wait.  Agent Fox Mulder?  Now I know where I've heard that name before."  She glared at him, hands coming up to fist on her hips.  "Persona non grata on Fort Bragg, Fort Lewis, and Fort Hood, and God only knows where the other services don't want you."

Appesard did growl at that.  "Agent, we're done.  Your ass isn't welcome there and it's not welcome here, either."

Mulder held his ground.  "Look.  The only thing I want from Jameson is an answer or two.  He's not wanted for anything.  But damn it, I'm an FBI agent.  If we have smugglers and possible murderers running around, I need to know about it."

The quiet man in the back said, "Agent Mulder, you're trying to play it both ways.  Either they're dead, and you know it even without bodies, or they're not dead and you're worried.  For that matter, either you're here as an agent of the government... or you want us not to tell the rest of the FBI you were here.  Which is it?"

Stormy just watched him.  "It don't matter worth a hill of beans.  He's just screwed his case.  The Bureau purely frowns on 'unofficial' investigations because the courts think that means it's gotten too damn personal.  Hasn't it, Agent Mulder?"

Mulder ignored her to focus on the stranger.  "Are you Farrell Jameson?"

He got a slow smile about as real as a campaign promise, even as Appesard tensed.  "I think I'm going to decline to answer that without a lawyer present, Agent.  But I will give you something to think about while you head home.  Nine people.  Eight swords.  One man fled across the border and another one... inaccessible.  Did you even consider magic?"

"Did I... Scully is never going to believe this," Mulder muttered.  "Nine is a classic number in any number of traditions, yes.  And the swords?"

Storm shrugged.  "If we're sticking with classic, they're elements of air and insight.  Gone wrong, that could surely lead to nightmares, Agent."

Mulder gave her a look that would have been more suspicious if he hadn't known he was dancing on the edge of being thrown off private property.  "And Jameson's survival?"

"Innocent blood," Appesard growled.  "Way too fucking traditional."  He moved in front of his unnamed guest and the twitching tendon along his jaw made it clear that this bout of anger was not for appearances.  "It'd be past time one of the lambs got smart, wouldn't it?  Go away, Agent Fox Mulder.  Bother us again and I'll file a formal protest with the local Bureau, at which point you can explain what you were doing here without going through them.  Get off my land and don't bother us again without a warrant.  And it better be fucking good if you bring one."

Stormy added, "And honest, Agent.  Be real honest in any warrant you bring.  I know the Charleston SAC on a first name basis.  Believe it or not, this is us playing nice."

Mulder was certain now that the man was Farrell Jameson; despite his best attempts to hold up that unconcerned front, he'd winced at the comment about lambs.  His color wasn't as good either, although it was nowhere close to going into shock.  What convinced him the most, however, was the reluctance to talk.  Then Jameson said quietly, "Agent Mulder.  If that's the sort of thing you believe in, and you get eight people with those kinds of records together with someone who doesn't have a record, and eight swords left after...."

Now Mulder winced, contemplating the possibilities inherent in that scenario.  Blood, and pain, and a presumption of power bound into blooded steel....  And a tall, healthy man who looked wounded and had two friends playing lion/lioness and cub.  "I take your point."  He winced again.  "Sorry about the wording there."

Appesard gave Jameson a concerned look, tried to wave him inside, and then frowned at Mulder when the man refused to go.  "Agent.  What part of 'go away' do you not understand?  I am not pulling out the property title to prove the land's mine and I can throw you off it."

Storm had also glanced back, but she just nodded. "We've got a house to clean and paint and I'm sure that you have honest work to do too -- somewhere else.  Word I've heard is you used to be one of the FBI's wunderkind, Agent Mulder, but you do not want to push me any harder."  She studied him, and Mulder had no trouble ignoring the ridiculous green feathers tailing behind her.

"I got the point the first time, yes."  Mulder rubbed the back of his neck, wishing he hadn't worn the suit for this and wishing he could get angry at them for defending Jameson.  Someone, probably Jameson, had left blades behind that had caused nightmares... but someone had tried to lock the blades away, too.  Not effectively enough, but they'd tried.  And it looked to him like it wasn't just the reservation children having nightmares about it all.  "Swords."

Jameson said quietly, "The problem with dark magic, Agent, is that if it's real, then so is light magic.  Swords have two edges."

"Live by the spell, die by the spell," Mulder quipped, but he nodded to them and kept the irony down to a level that wouldn't get him bounced off the sidewalk.  "If you think of anything else you can or will tell me about this, you can contact me through Albert Hohsteen.  He's a medicine man, and he's very good with the nightmares those blades were causing."  That got Jameson's attention; then he turned away from the offer and walked inside.

Appesard took a step closer, Storm closing in with him in a united front that backed Mulder down the stairs -- after dropping one of Albert's contact cards.  It was that or start a confrontation he couldn't win and he wasn't quite that stupid yet.  Just very, very tired.

Mulder left the question of Farrell Jameson's identity alone and turned around, ostentatiously ignoring them to head back to his car.  He did let out one last bit of sarcasm over his shoulder.  "Thank you for your cooperation, Ms. Storm, Mr. Appesard. "

He ignored the growl and the heat.  Mulder even ignored the fact that by the time he started his car up, Storm was working on the porch again and Jameson and Appesard were nowhere to be seen.  Someone had picked up the card.  Good enough.

Clearly he wasn't going to be able to claim this one as an expense, but what the hell, he'd gotten somewhere.  Nine people.  Eight swords.  Magic and innocents and nightmares.... Had they given Jameson a sword first, and he'd left it behind when he survived?  How had they gotten him to come there from Switzerland at all, and why, and how had he survived?  Had leaving the sword behind been part of the deal?  Hell, why did no one write stories about people who turned down devil's bargains?

Mulder drove off, his mind tearing at the types of ritual that might have left seven dead, two alive but apparently unwounded (was Mahn wounded?  He might still be able to find that out, even after this time lag.), and eight broken swords.  It was definitely some kind of ritual, his instincts agreed on that, at least.

Mulder pulled to a stop at a red light, glad that his bag was in the trunk, and worried the woman in the next car rather badly when he muttered, "Of course I considered magic.  I just didn't expect the survivor to be the intended sacrifice."

~~~ finis ~~~

Comments, Commentary, & Miscellanea:

At this point in time/canons, Mulder is still assigned to violent crimes before the first XF movie. Kersh doesn't have him yet, but the X-Files have gone up in smoke, a bug nearly ate him while he was in five-point restraints, and his finger still throbs when fronts come through, where the infiltration job in "Pine Bluff Variant" got messy. He's a very tired man, and entitled to be.

Yes, Mulder has been ruled persona non grata on several bases by now (this takes place after "The Red & The Black", e.g.), and word is spreading.

Albert Hostein was a Navajo code breaker and medicine man who, among other things, kept Mulder alive during "Blessing Way".

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