Date sent: Wed, 08 Oct 1997

TITLE: Absalom II: The Snare of the Hunter
AUTHOR: Joyce McKibben mckibben@cc.memphis.edu

DATE: October 1997

DISTRIBUTION: Please post to ATXC and the archives. Thank you.

RATING: PG-13 (some profanity)
CLASSIFICATION: A,S

SUMMARY: I would suggest that you read "Absalom, My Son" before
reading this part. This is part 2 of a developing series.
Jason begins to craft a plan to draw Mulder into the Project.

DISCLAIMER: FM and CSM belong to CC and Fox Broadcasting and I am
only borrowing them for a moment and will return them.
No infringement is intended. Lord knows, I'm not
making any money off of this and have no intentions of
making any money from it.

FEEDBACK: Always welcome. Send to: mckibben@cc.memphis.edu

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: I would like to thank my editors, KL and
Meredith without whom I would probably flounder in
a sea of words.

==================================

The Snare of the Hunter

"For among my people there are wicked men.
who lay snares like a fowler's net and set
deadly traps to catch men." Jeremiah 6:26

"No, there's no change." Jason kept his voice low without
whispering, barely loud enough to reach the cell phone held tight
against his cheek. There was no one within ten feet of him, yet
decades of caution kept his voice soft as new-fallen snow.

"His condition?" Jason felt the smoke curling out of the phone
in his hand; envisioned his friend wreathed in smoke that hid his
purpose and emotions.

"Critical, but stable. He just came out of surgery," he replied
calmly. "The doctors seem surprised he survived to reach
surgery," Jason allowed a hint of wry exasperation to color his
bland tone.

"Then I am in the unusual position of being relieved that your
usual skill and efficiency was sadly lacking this evening," the
smoker's voice held a chilling mixture of affection and
reprimand. Jason's shoulders twitched in an involuntary shudder.
In his world, men died at the slightest twitch of the smoker's
finger -- or his own, for that matter.

"The devil's luck perhaps?" Jason replied with a touch of irony.

"Perhaps," the smoker's voice echoed the irony. "Remember our
bargain. Find his price. Bring him home." Satisfied with the
command delivered and confident in its execution, the smoker
severed the connection.

Jason sighed. The devil must be chuckling in hell tonight. It
was open season on Fox Mulder's soul. Now it was his task to
bring the man into hell to sit at the right hand of the devil's
own chamberlain. Whoever said it was better to rule in hell than
serve in heaven had never felt the bitter bite of damnation.

Well, Mulder was not going anywhere for awhile. From where he
stood, Jason could hear the steady whoosh of the respirator as it
pumped air into a narrow hole in the base of Mulder's throat,
about an inch below the gash that should have ended his life.
Jason was not a man who believed in miracles, but Mulder's
survival came close to fitting all the descriptions he had ever
heard about miracles.

Jason rubbed his face with hands only lately scrubbed clean of
Mulder's blood. He was tired. It had been awhile since he had
pulled a twenty-four hour shift, but the other pieces that were
part of this puzzle that was Fox Mulder would be arriving soon.
This was no simple puzzle he faced. The standard inducements
held no power over Fox Mulder. Jason needed this quiet time to
observe the habits and habitat of his quarry. He needed to
consider which pieces could best be used to bring Mulder's soul
into his grasp.

I'm getting old, he thought wearily and gave a quiet chuckle that
sparkled in his tired grey eyes. He remembered Jonathan
commenting that coping with Fox Mulder gave him more gray hairs
than thirty years of serving the Project. Then again, Jonathan
was trying to protect Mulder, not convert him. Time for the
devil to come into his own. Time for Mulder to follow in his
father's footsteps and join the Project; past time in fact.

The soft chirping of his cell phone brought Jason out of his
reverie.

"Yes?"

"Her plane has landed. She has been apprised of the situation."
His operative's voice was as dead as his soul. Jason despised
the man even while acknowledging that he was one of his best men.

"Acknowledged. Continue to follow. Do not, under any
circumstances, interfere." Jason's clipped tone left no doubt
that any variance from his orders would be extremely detrimental
to the operative's continued existence.

"Yes sir." The man's resentment crept through his effort to
maintain a neutral tone. Jason nearly laughed at the man's
belief that he was being given a grunt's job. Keeping up with
Agent Scully was nearly as arduous as trying to keep tabs on
Agent Mulder. It might do the agent's ego some good to discover
he wasn't quite as good as he thought he was.

"Just do it, Carsten," Jason snapped back in his best 'I am not
amused tone'. He sensed the agent's arrogance deflating and felt
immeasurably better. There were some rewards to damnation. Now
to find a way to persuade the stubborn Fox Mulder of those
rewards.

Watch and learn, Jason reminded himself. A good hunter must
learn the ways of his prey before he can ever hope to bring him
down. "Tally ho," he breathed softly as he drew the shadows
around him and became no more noticeable than the wall. A grey
man blending perfectly into nothingness.

**************

Fox Mulder hung crucified on the mast of a great ship that plowed
heedlessly into a raging storm. The wind scoured his flesh and
sucked him dry. Pain flowed through his veins instead of blood.
He opened his mouth to scream, but no sound came forth. His
silent scream echoed only in the dark caverns of his mind,
mocking his pain, reminding him that he was alone.

The sound of the sail behind him buffeted his ears until all he
could hear was the rush of air in and out of his seared lungs in
time to the slapping of the canvas sails against the wind. His
hands were chained at his sides, preventing him from covering his
ears. Even his head was pinned against the mast by a spike
driven between his eyes.

This was hell, he concluded. He had become a fucking figurehead
on a ship of the damned. Even his laughter, as dry and bitter as
the wind which striped the flesh off his bones, burned in his
throat. Fire burst from his lips and haloed his face like some
damned mockery of heaven's holy fire.

Scully, he screamed silently. Her spirit had held him, had
protected him from the angel of death in the cold slush of the
street. Why had she abandoned him? Had she taken his place in
death's arms?

Frantic, he twisted and turned in the chains which bound him to
the mast. A demon sprang to his chest and began clawing at his
throat, tearing open great gouts of fire that poured onto his
chest. A great weight pressed him down as the ship rolled over.
He felt the cold waters of the sea close over him, taking him
down into the heavy darkness. The cold cleansed his mind in the
last seconds of thought before the sea consumed him.

Of course, stupid, he chastized himself. He was in hell. Scully
didn't belong in hell. Strangely comforted by this thought, Fox
Mulder allowed the sea to swallow him. The fire retreated into
sullen embers of pain as the cold dark depths of the sea quenched
all thought and feeling.

**************

The sound of heels clicking at a fast pace echoed down the
hospital corridor. Angry heels or perhaps only worried heels,
but heels that stepped out the distance in short authoritative
snaps like the crack of bullets. Jason smiled as he straightened
up out of his reverie. A diminiative red-haired terrier in a
crumpled business suit was barreling down the hallway aiming for
Mulder's room with unerring accuracy. Even if one of the nurses
had managed to intercept her course to ask or give directions, it
was obvious that Special Agent Dana Scully knew exactly where she
was going and would brook no interference.

He watched her slow to a stop outside the room. Jason could see
her reflection in the large observation window as she silently
assessed what damage this latest storm to overtake her partner
had done. Her shoulders moved in a long slow sigh. For a split
second her face betrayed a weary resignation. Then, with a
slight hunch of her shoulders, she resumed an expression of calm
assurance in time to the arrival of her companion.

Feeling in a doggish mood, Jason decided that if Dana Scully was
a terrier, then this man had to be a mastiff. Broad shoulders, a
military bearing that screamed ex-Marine, and a bald head that
reflected the light from the overhead panels with a painful
glare. Jason had no difficulty recognizing the man from his
friend's descriptions.

So this was the arrogant SOB who dared snatch Mulder from the
fate that had been so painstakingly contrived for him. The
smoker had waxed profanely eloquent when he realized that
Assistant Director Walter Skinner had sprung the trap meant to
ensnare Fox Mulder. Two years of careful planning. Two years of
gradually pushing Mulder into ever greater dependence on his
partner. All the work to bring him to the point where he would
freely sell his soul to redeem her life, and this damned petty
bureaucrat had deflected Mulder's sacrifice and stepped into the
trap himself. Sometimes Jason wondered if Lucifer really paid
attention to his field operatives.

Jason wondered why Skinner had interfered. Mulder attracted
strange allies. One of the reasons the Project was so interested
in him was his ability to pull otherwise sane and rational people
into his insane orbit. Like a hungry flame his passion drew less
passionate souls ever closer until their souls ignited and they
were swept up and away. It was this passion that the smoker fed
on, relished until all that mattered was harnessing Mulder's fire
to feed the dying fires of his own passion.

Perhaps Skinner believed that a bluff once worked could work
again. Jason gave a predatory grin. Well, Assistant Director
Walter S. Skinner, hell's newest recruit, would pay for that
arrogance with tears of blood until his soul was a withered husk
and pride was only a distant memory. His friend was not a man to
forgive or forget. Jason was not above issuing a gentle reminder
should the fires of memory fail.

"Agent Scully," Skinner began, his gruff voice sounding almost
hesitant, as if he did not want to intrude on whatever communion
she was having with her unconscious partner. Jason slowed his
breathing to better overhear their conversation. He was here to
learn, to discover what pearl of great price Mulder would barter
his soul for.

"He got too close to something, didn't he, sir?" Her voice was
firm, almost angry. Whether her anger was directed at Skinner,
at Mulder or even at herself was beyond even Jason's ability to
discern.

Jason watched as anger, fear and some other less definable
emotion chased themselves across Agent Scully's almost
inscrutable face. He noted the exact moment anger fled and
her eyes softened in entreaty and prayer.

"Don't you dare ditch me again, partner. Next time will be my
turn," she whispered so softly that Skinner standing beside her
heard nothing, but the tiny amplifier in Jason's ear betrayed her
soft words into the hands of the tempter.

Jason quelled a smile. He knew he was dangerously sympathetic to
this woman. They were too similar, even down to the arguments
she had with Mulder. Their spy turned ally was still dangerous,
as much to them as to Mulder. She was the perilous queen mated
with Mulder's erratically dangerous king piece on the chessboard
of this dark game they played. Jonathan had been no more immune
to her peculiar charisma. It had been Jonathan who first came up
with the chess analogy when they realized the mistake they had
made in sending her to Mulder. He suspected even the smoker held
her in higher regard than he would ever admit. His friend
admitted to few mistakes, yet seemed to respect her more because
she had eluded all his calculated estimates of her effect on
Mulder's work. Jonathan had warned and they had not listened.
Realizing his attention was drifting, Jason closed off his
memories and returned to the duty at hand.

"....attacked without warning by a single individual. The young
boy who called 911 said the man fled when he shouted and began
running towards him. That doesn't sound like any of the Smoking
Man's agents. Why use a knife? They had a clear shot."

Scully turned angry blue eyes on her superior. Despite his
quarrel with the A. D., Jason gave the man high marks for
courage. Skinner didn't flinch.

"Agent Scully," Skinner's tone was brisk and professional with
just a hint of a reminder of authority. "The police are treating
this as a mugging. I have assigned Agents Akers and Jackson to
investigate as well. I'm sure you would agree that they are
extremely competent agents?" Skinner's stare dared her to say
anything. "Good. There are no indications that this was
anything other than a random act of violence."

"Begging to differ, sir, where Mulder is concerned nothing is
ever completely random," Scully retorted in biting tones a
hair's-breadth away from insubordination.

Skinner looked as if he was having trouble swallowing a retort,
but held her eyes until she turned away to return to her silent
watchful vigil over her partner. Her stance indicated that she
was not, would not, be convinced that this was a simple random
act of violence. Jason watched her eyes in the glass and saw
guilt. She would not go into her partner until she had burned
the image of him lying broken and alone into her mind - a penance
of sorts to flagellate herself for the sin of not being there
when he needed her.

"Welcome to the club, Agent Scully," Jason murmured softly.
Jonathan's words on the night of his death were acid-etched
into his memory. Jonathan had smiled while assuring him that
he could handle the transfer perfectly well alone. Jason
recalled in bitter clarity his joking response that he was no
Sancho Panza to follow Quixote against the windmill, but he'd stop
by the pick up the pieces later. The memory of that jest and
the death that followed it served as his dark and bitter penance.

"Just in case, Agent Scully, I will assign a guard." Skinner
offered this as a peace offering without sounding in the least
bit conciliatory. He followed Scully's fixed stare. In turn,
Jason watched and knew what they must be thinking. Despite the
assurance of the doctor, Agent Mulder was too still. His passion
which had flared so bright earlier in the evening, now lay
dormant, smothered by the machines which were giving his battered
body a chance to survive. The heavy dressing on his throat made
it seem as if he had been decapitated.

Jason reflected on the Mulder he had tracked earlier in the
evening. The Mulder that he had stalked had been furiously
alive, a burning comet that blazed across the placid heavens in
furious assault against the shadows that strove to blanket the
stars with their lies. Even banked and muted, Mulder's passion
could still draw in any who harbored a spark of the same
impassioned faith. Jason saw Skinner's eyes grow sad and
suspected that he held a deep admiration for his embattled
agent who seemed to take a licking and keep on ticking, once
again.

Jason watched the pair in silent amusement at how transparent
Skinner was. His every glance betrayed his thoughts. Jason
translated the silent language stance and gesture. Skinner
looked at Agent Scully who was staring intently at her partner.
Jason followed the twitch of muscles in Skinner's jaw, the
thinning of his mouth into a grim line, and the slight stiffening
of his spine and knew that he regretted his deal with the devil.
Skinner half raised a hand to touch Scully's shoulder then let it
drop.

//Yes, Mister Assistant Director, you would give your soul, if it
didn't already belong to us, to assure her that, yes you believed
her. You're too good a soldier not to believe. How many jungles
have you fought in? What's this war we're in right now, but a
jungle of lies, misdirection and half-truths waged in the
shadows.//

Jason smiled ferally as he watched Skinner struggle with his
knowledge that this was no random act. There was no evidence to
back him up, Jason had made sure of that. If Skinner failed to
heed the signs and pushed hard enough, he would receive a cold
visit from his master reminding him of his place. His smoking
friend had merely to suggest that Agent Scully's health would be
best served by an official acceptance of the police report and
Skinner would be a problem no longer.

//Nice doggy. You'll learn to roll over very soon.// Jason
looked forward to the lessons. Skinner had much to learn about
keeping his place.

"Thank you sir. I'll stay here until the guard arrives," Scully
moved to the door. Returning to a neutral professional tone, she
continued, "Could you send someone over to Agent Mulder's
apartment to check for evidence of a break-in?"

Jason almost saluted. She was good, damn good. The old dragon
might have miscalcuated - she might be more useful to the Project
than just as bait to draw Mulder in. Maybe they should take a
greater interest in how the ova they collected were used.
Interesting possibilities arranged themselves in scattered pieces
of a jigsaw puzzle. Definitely worth looking into.

Jason watched as Agent Scully walked into the room and sat down
beside the bed. One hand rested on Mulder's left hand and Jason
sensed that he would learn nothing new by staying. He would give
them their privacy, for now. He was tired and wanted to sleep
and mull over the possibilities his evening's gleanings had
provided him. Giving a curt nod at Carsten who was doing a bad
imitation of a wall, Jason left in A. D. Skinner's retreating
shadow.

**************

"Mulder...." Scully began, then hesitated, suddenly uncertain,
adrift between what her scientifically logical mind told her and
what her soul took on faith alone. Her arms still felt the chill
of his body as she held him in the street, defying a dark, winged
angel to take him from her. The smell of his blood reeked even
to her diminished sense of smell. All this her soul knew and
accepted without hesitation, but her mind flailed furiously in
counter-attack, refusing to yield ground to such fantasy.

Scully looked down at Mulder's hand, studying with sudden intent
interest the long tapered fingers and neatly trimmed nails. She
let the warmth of her own hand banish the faint blueness that
lingered as a reminder of his body's efforts to preserve the
blood in the vital organs while abandoning the extremities.

Coward, she accused herself even as she let her eyes wander over
his still form. Mulder lay on the bright side of death, cast
back into life like some flotsam rejected by the dark ocean he
flirted with so often. It was in these quiet moments that she
allowed herself the luxury of savoring the long lean lines of his
body, admiring the curve of his muscles while consoling her
conscience with the myth that as a doctor she was immune to his
physical charms. She always liked to save the face for last.
That oddly put together face that should have made him homely and
ordinary yet by some divine sense of humor combined the rich full
lips with a grand beak of a nose, the dark stubble that hovered
like a permanent shadow on his cheeks into a harmonious, even
handsome whole.

Now, however, she was slow to follow the lines of his chest
upwards. This time there was no firm neck muscles to lead her to
his face. Instead, when she resolutely forced her eyes upward, a
respirator tube pumped air into his lungs through a hole cut in
the base of his throat. Above the surgical tracheaotomy lay a
thick dressing covering the gash that had severed his windpipe
and come within a hair's-breadth of slashing open the cartoid
artery. He would bear a scar, but he would be alive to heal.
Scully breathed a prayer of thanks to a God she sensed had
abandoned her (or perhaps the other way around, she conceded
truthfully) for Mulder's life.

Her emotions were a tangled skein without beginning or end. She
could no longer tell where her anger at Mulder began and her fear
for him ended. Mixed up with the fear and the anger was a
soul-wrenching relief that he was still alive to bear the brunt
of her anger.

The memory of the dream that brought her home still had its claws
around her heart. She had been so sure the dream was just that -
a dream, a vivid nightmare allegory of her own dwindling into the
shadows of death. Now the nightmare was reality. So close to
losing him. Dying alone, in the cold with so much unsaid.

She was the one dying, not him. She drank life from his passion,
clung to his fierce faith that the truth, for both of them, was
out there. She clung to the slender faith that he would go on
without her, wounded perhaps, but still inextricably bound to his
quest. And she would live on in his quest. Without him, she
would die. She would continue, for awhile, demanding answers
from the silent shadows that had condemned them both, but she did
not have the faith left to pursue the trail alone. Without
Mulder she had no leverage. Without Mulder, she was merely a
discarded pawn in a game that no longer had any meaning. All the
shadows had to do was wait in silence as she spent her last days
helpless as a becalmed ship. With the passing of her life, she
was shedding faith in all but him, leaving behind cast off pieces
of her belief in an ordered universe.

"Mulder," she repeated his name. Stronger this time, more
assured, calling him back to her. Whatever happened, happened.
Past and done with. She was here. Why and how were unimportant.
He needed to know, she needed to reassure him, that he was not
alone.

**************

Floating deep in the dark heavy sea Mulder listened to the roar
of the sea. Voices sang to him. Whalesongs, dreamsongs, songs
of the sea from which he was born and to which he returned so
often that it was as a second home.

Eons passed drifting, listening to the songs, until a single
voice called to him, pulling him out of the song, up towards the
light waves that danced on top of the sea. Weightless he let the
song pull him upwards until the first sparkle of light touched
him and he remembered the pain.

Let me go back, he pleaded with the voice as he tried to sink
back into the sea, twisting away from the light. Arms held him,
pulling him up into the light which blinded his sea-dead eyes.
Always there was the voice, crying out a single word - a word
that held him powerless to do anything but follow it out of his
safe haven back into pain and fear.

"Mulder"

That word again. Stronger than his fear. His soul leapt for joy
before his mind understood both the word and the voice that
summoned him back into life.

Aware now, of pain and self, Mulder struggled to answer. His
throat burned in acid and flames as he tried to speak the answer
to the word.

"Shush, Mulder. Don't try to speak. The doctor's have numbed
your vocal cords so you won't damage them further by trying to
speak."

He came awake to the calm, rational voice of his partner. She
had not abandoned him. He couldn't focus on exactly what she was
saying - something about not talking. Well, considering how much
his throat hurt right now, he thought that maybe that was very
good advice. His memory was still hazy from the drugs, but he
remembered a knife, blood and a desperate struggle to breathe
and a young boy's hands stopping his life from draining out in
the slush of a Washington street.

Carefully he opened his eyes, almost afraid that the voice was
just a torment hell had devised for his eternal entertainment.
Scully stood over him, carefully brushing his hair back off his
forehead, her eyes so blue he expected to find the sun in them.
She smiled, that same sad, joyful smile that greeted him in
Alaska.

"Welcome back, partner," she said softly.

Mulder smiled, unaware that Scully saw her own sun in the light
green dazzle of his eyes.

Mulder mouthed just one word. A word that meant home, thank-you,
and a host of emotions too complex for him to ever limit by any
other word.

"Scully."

Scully nodded her understanding of their cryptic tongue and watched
as Mulder closed his eyes and relaxed into her guardianship.
Time enough later for the anger, the rebellion, the impossible
patient to appear. Now there was simply relief shared and the
reassurance that the future was still theirs, even if only for a
little while.

**************

Smoke drifted in serpentine coils around the smoker. He pondered
the smoke for a heartbeat, then carefully exhaled another thread
in the web that obscured his thoughts from his erstwhile comrades
in the Project. They were fools. Let them pursue their petty
little games. He understood the larger Game. Fox would
understand as well. He couldn't help but not understand once he
was brought into the Game.

"Soon, very soon, Fox. I promise you will understand everything.
Bill was a fool and paid the price, Agamemnon's price." The
smoker smiled a grim, tight-lipped smile.

The whisper melted into the smoke and drifted out into the early
dawn through the open window into the world of dreams and
portents. Across town, Mulder cried out in his dream as Samantha
was pulled through his fingers into the light that burned away
his memory. A cool touch caressed his face, banishing the evil
dream and bringing sleep's benediction to his uneasy soul.

The End

Feedback will be given a good home and a warm bowl of milk at the following
address: mckibben@cc.memphis.edu