Swansong It comes as a complete surprise. Somehow, no matter how hard you try to prepare yourself for the inevitable, it always strikes you like a gut-punch out of the blue. Much like the one dear old Skinner gave me that night in his fancy Crystal City condo.
Now, I've been dealt my share of gut-punches, delivered quite a few as well. You'd think I would have learned to ride them by now. My body is starting to look like a road atlas of pain, scarred beyond its years. My heart, if visible to the eye, would probably look pretty much the same. Missing a few bits and pieces, criss-crossed with the silvery-smooth traces of old scar tissue, the screaming red counterpoint of more recent injuries.
They say scars are the decorations of a warrior, and that he should wear them with pride. But I'm nothing so romantic as a warrior, and I mourn the smooth-skinned, beautiful thing my body was before I was seduced to the dark side. Yeah, right, as if I ever walked in the light.
There are people who still think my body is beautiful. It's certainly strong, honed to a sharp blade, a lethal weapon, by years of hardship, battles, training. Even maimed and broken, it's still functional. But what it is more than anything is hard. Much like the rest of me, hard and cold. Just not hard enough, it seems. If I were as hard as I imagined myself to be, I wouldn't be feeling this pain right now. This pain that claws through my body as if it were my chest that's been mashed into a broken ruin on the rain-slicked street.
Just when did I start really caring about him? When did the assignment/pleasant-but-not-significant-bedroom-romp turn into a personal mission? I have no answer to that question, but the reality of it is right here, in my desperate longing to change places with the slight, well-dressed woman who's now kneeling next to him, kneeling and not caring about the rain soaking through her once-impeccable power suit, not caring about the blood staining the sober grey sleeves. She's crying already, and this more than anything stuns me into a helpless, gasping, light-headed wreck. No hope. Scully is crying and cradling his head in her arms. She's not examining him, not looking for a pulse, not reaching for her cell phone to call 911. She isn't doing any of these things, because it is too late. I can see it from where I stand. His body is crumpled like a discarded candy wrapper, thrown into the gutter like so much garbage. His face is miraculously intact, smoothed out into the impersonal blankness of death, his beautiful mouth slack, his bright, sharp eyes empty and staring. I can't go to him, can't join his partner in her mourning, and it hurts like hell to be so helpless, so removed from the world of light and normal social behavior.
The initial, searing pain is already fading into a deep, throbbing ache that I know will take up cosy residence in me for a long time. It will sit there, whittling out an echoing hollow in my heart, and maybe one day, if I live that long, the hollow will grow shut, covered in a new patch of insensitive scar tissue.
The thing is, I really don't think I'll live long enough to see the back of this pain. What reasons are there for me to fight anymore? I'm tired, so tired of running, and when a man in my position gets tired of struggling to stay alive ... well, there's always someone willing to help him on his way.
Scully, now she'll survive this, as she has survived before. He's died so many times, it seems, and she's gone on living. Maybe her heart is as scarred as my own by now, but she is in many ways stronger than I am. She's resilient, elastic. My hardness has made me brittle, and maybe it only takes one blow like this to shatter me. Scully has her job, her family, her small, but faithful circle of friends. I have turned myself into the island no man supposedly is. There is no helpful social safety net for Alex Krycek. Everyone I ever trusted is dead. Mulder was perhaps the last one, and damn it, I must have been desperate to allow myself to trust him. To love someone, to let them touch you, to touch them back, doesn't necessarily mean you trust them. But I did, and now he lies dead in a pool of his own blood and guts while the rain falls mercilessly into the open cavity of his chest.
There is one thing I can do for him, for Scully, who can mourn him in public. One thing a rat bastard like me is good at. I have the plate number of the sorry fuck that mowed him down. A hit and run. Nothing like it to arouse some good old righteous wrath. A stupid fucking way to go, for a man like Fox Mulder. If I believed in God, I'd be on the psychic hotline to Him this minute, reporting this almighty cock-up. Mulder was destined for a martyr's death, surely, not this sordid, mundane, avoidable sum of DUI, lousy weather, and bad karma. The driver probably didn't mean it, but he'll be getting plenty of opportunity to mend his ways. Oh yeah. A few phone calls, and a vengeful angel in the shape of this pissed-off, one-armed murderer will descend upon him, whoever the unfortunate asshole is that picked the wrong fucking night to drive home from the pub.
Now that I have something to concentrate on, I can tear my eyes from the scene in the street, although it will be imprinted on my retinas for the rest of my natural life, no doubt. Anger is good, because it doesn't hurt at all. It fills me with fire, an incredible high. The taste in my mouth, thick and cloying and metallic, like rotting blood, that's the taste of anger. Soon, I will be able to taste revenge, as well, and it's not sweet as they say, it's bitter, bilious, poisonous. Revenge doesn't take away the pain, not in any permanent way, at least, but it does give a sad, lonely fuck like me something to do with his time.
I don't even bother to draw my gun. This snivelling little bastard isn't worth spending a bullet on. I don't want to kill him, anyway. I want him to have plenty of time to think about what he's done. So I go for my trusty little knife. It's not a big one, not at all, but in the right hands it can do plenty of damage. Well, in the right hand, as it were.
The man who finally managed to kill Fox Mulder is so far from the cold-eyed assassin I always figured to be the one as you can possibly get. Middle-aged, paunchy, soft-featured. A face like a scared rabbit's, bright porcelain eyes, receding hairline. Just your everyday drone. And terrified of me.
I catch a glimpse of my face in the hall mirror and almost scare myself. I look truly ghastly tonight. A wraith with chalky skin and hollow cheeks, looking like I've lost twenty pounds just these last hours. And my eyes, always large and intense, seem, more than anything else, like windows opening straight into hell, huge and glowing with unearthly green fire. This isn't the face of a rat anymore. This is someone I've never seen before, a ghost too shellshocked and numb to know it's dead. I find the image appropriate for the occasion.
I've tied my unhappy avengee to a chair in his own living room. Apparently, he lives alone. Probably divorced, paying alimony to some frustrated bitch that left him because of his penchant for downing just a few too many before hopping in his all-American car to menace the highways.
He's crying. Not softly and gently, like Scully did back there, but in ugly, panicky sobs, snot running down his chubby jowls along with an abundance of tears. He's been talking to me, shouting at me through the sobbing, for a good ten minutes, but I have been too busy studying myself in the mirror to acknowledge him. Now I jerk myself out of my reveries and turn to him, fast enough to make him jump.
"What?" I snap, and he falls silent, eyes wide and blue, child's eyes.
"Please..." he whispers, suddenly forgetting what it is he wants. I've got him pinned with my eyes, my new fire-and-brimstone eyes, and he's petrified.
"What?" I repeat, softer now.
"What do you want? Who are you? Do you want money?" Stupid, stupid, stupid little man. I'm tempted to gag him, but I want him to beg.
"I'm nobody."
"Wh-what?"
"If you want, you can think of me as the anthropomorphic personification of vengeance." This sounds pretty pompous in my ears, but I think my guy's in a state mellow enough to appreciate a little drama.
"Ve-vengeance? Wha...?" I slide up to him, careful to give my movements that special fluidity that makes me look both sexy and menacing. With my face hollow-eyed and pallid as it is tonight, I probably look like a demon.
Good.
"You killed something I loved. I'm here to make sure you're really, really sorry." At this point, I see fit to whip out my slender, attractive switchblade. The poor sod in the chair jerks backwards, new tears spurting from his eyes. I wish I could cry that easily. I didn't shed a tear back there in the alley, not even when Scully started crying. It's like someone turned off the water sometime around the first time I killed a man. He was just some stupid, coke-pushing queer who made the big mistake of trying to get a piece of my ass when I wasn't willing. I'm not one bit sorry I lost my temper and slit his throat. One less pusher on the street. But I haven't been able to cry since then, so maybe the experience took something out of me, something I haven't missed at all until today.
I've zoned out again, I realise, and this is, quite frankly, unheard of. I'm starting to suspect that maybe my whole heart isn't really in this endeavour. Little whiney scourge-of-the-street has been babbling incoherently to himself again, and I'm reminiscing about my first kill. I tell him this, just to shut him up. It doesn't work. He just babbles faster, trying to figure out what I'm looking for at the same time.
"Hit and run," I say sharply, and *now* he's quiet.
"Shit," he whispers.
"Say that again. Next time you go drinking, you might want to think long and hard before getting behind the wheel. Let's just say you picked the wrong fucking guy to mow down."
"Who are you?" Desperate, pleading.
"Someone who no longer has shit to lose."
I go to work. I don't want him to die, so I stick to places that hurt a lot without lethal damage. Castration is a good way to make a man see the error of his ways. It's not hard to do, if you've got the stomach for it. I've done it before.
I cut through his belt, relishing the sharp hiss of his breath, the almost audible cranking of little kegs in his brain as he tries to anticipate my intentions. Down with his slacks and sodden, piss-stained Y-fronts. I take a moment to stare at his penis, and compare the ugly, worm-like thing to my memory of Mulder's sculpted, attractive cock. No contest there. But Mulder won't be needing his anymore, and I'm going to make sure this one won't be good for much more than garbage-disposal, either. I lift the penis none too gently with my hard, lifeless left hand, exposing the balls. They look a lot like they're trying to climb right back into the body cavity. Well, that's not where they're going, not tonight, not ever. The operation is a little tricky with only one working hand, but I'm nothing if not flexible. I could do this with my fucking teeth.
Just a shallow, neat incision to open the scrotal sac, and a little squeeze with the prosthetic hand to make the testicles pop into view, and all it takes is a quick cut. It's so fast and neat, you wouldn't believe it hurts so much. But it does. My work is pretty much done with that, but I have a flashback of the rainy street and Mulder's body looking like something useless and discarded, and I work up enough angry energy to break a couple of the pathetic, murdering asshole's fingers.
I wipe my knife on his shirt and slip it back in my pocket. Then I pick up my cell phone and dial a number I know by heart for no very good reason.
"Scully." Her voice is calm, but there is a thickness to it that's a dead giveaway. I can hear sirens and loud voices in the background. The cavalry is there, but it's still too late.
"Hello?" Her voice catches a little on that, and I can almost see her struggling to keep it even.
"Listen, Scully," I say quietly.
"Who is this?" she asks sharply, angrily.
"I've got the guy who did it," I whisper.
"What? Who...?" A little pause, then, "Krycek?"
So she recognises my voice. Isn't that heart-warming.
"Yeah."
"What do you want? Mulder's..."
"I know. I was there."
She must have heard something in my voice, since there's none of the usual bullshit. None of the usual accusations. Just another weary, resigned "What do you want?"
"I want you to listen." I turn to Mr DUI, who, to my delight, is still conscious. "Tell her what you did and how sorry you are. Go on."
He doesn't need any more encouragement at this stage.
"I'm sorry," he bleats into the phone as soon as I hold it to his face. I can hear Scully's surprised exclamation, but I just nod at the guy, urging him on. "I hit him with my car... I hit..."
"Agent Mulder," I help.
"--Agent Mulder with my car-- I didn't mean to, I only had a few..." This warrants a quick slap, of course. Don't even try, punk, there's no absolution in this confession. "I was wrong, I was wrong! I killed him, and I'm sorry!"
"Tell her you've paid. Tell her how you've paid."
"Ma'am, I've paid for it, I have! He... he... hurt me, he hurt me... hurt me..." He dissolves into more snivels, and I can't scrounge up enough energy to slap him again. Instead I stand up and speak to Scully again.
"The debt is paid for"
"Krycek, for god's sake!"
"Don't get all righteous on me, Scully. Don't tell me you didn't look at the guy's taillights and wish you could nail his balls to the floor with a rusty spoon for what he did. Don't tell me you didn't care enough about Mulder, about him dying like roadkill in the street, to want revenge."
"Jesus..." Her voice is weak and tear-filled again, but I can hear the admission there.
"Then be thankful that I spared you the responsibility. Sometimes being a fucking sociopath makes things remarkably easier."
She doesn't reply in a long, long while, but I give her the time. Finally she whispers, almost inaudibly,
"Why do you care?" Time for an admission on my part, perhaps. I owe her at least that, after everything I put her through.
"I loved him." It's that simple, really. What it all comes down to in the end. I loved him, and there was no one else I would have bothered doing this for.
"Oh." Accepting. I guess she's none too surprised. She's a sharp lady. A good one, too. She'll do right by this guy, despite personal involvement. I give her the address, and hang up. It's time to move on.
I don't feel much better for doing this, but maybe some sense of closure has eased the very worst of the agony. I can think straight again, and maybe I won't die tonight, after all. Maybe I'm not deserving of the easy way out.
I slip out of the house, completely ignoring the whimpering wreck of a man in the living room. I'm done with him, I've taken my pound of flesh. Maybe Mulder's death can never be completely avenged, but the price in its entirety would be more than I could ever carve out of this trembling flesh.
I had a mission - to protect Fox Mulder from the wolves everywhere. I did my job, and he was killed by a sheep. I need a new mission. Maybe I'll go wolf-hunting. Yeah. I'll take my red flags, my rifle, my dogs, and go out into the snow and kill as many as I can before they take me down. I'll send their heads to Scully. She won't appreciate it as much as I'd like her to, but she'll understand. I never liked her - still don't - but she meant more to Mulder than I ever did, no matter what he and I got up to in and out of bed.
I hang back in the gloom of Mulder's murderer's small suburban garden and wait until I see the ambulance come in Christmas-lighted splendour down the street. It's accompanied by Scully's car. She came herself. Maybe she'll get in before the EMTs and add a little pain to the one I caused. Maybe. But probably not. I think she knows me well enough, by reputation, at least, to know that I have done a thorough job.
I allow myself a final glance of her small and determined form getting out of the car, before I silently slip back into the shadows. |
