From: mrkeller829@gmail.com   
      
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   "Chermera" by Mary Ruth Keller Part 04  of 45   
   E-mail: mrkeller@eclipse.net, mrkeller829@gmail.com   
   PG-13   X-File: Myth-arc   Disclaimed in Part I   
   Already sent to Gossamer   
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   Annapolis, MD   
   Wednesday, 3:03 pm   
      
   Margaret Scully eased the station wagon onto her newly repaved driveway. It   
   had been many more hours than she had planned since leaving her daughter's   
   apartment in Alexandria, but Route 50 had been snarled by the inevitable   
   summertime beach traffic. {On    
   a Wednesday, too!} She had passed the closed garage door of the Alberts's at   
   the end of the street, wondering as she did so how they managed to stand the   
   commute from here to the Pentagon and back again every day. Despite her   
   entreaties when Dana had    
   begun working at the Bureau, she was relieved her daughter had found an   
   apartment so close in. To have those irregular hours with travel from one side   
   of the country to the other at a moment's notice, then a two-hour drive at the   
   end of it, were more    
   than Margaret could bear to contemplate.   
      
   She collected her bag before hurrying up the stone walk to the front door. As   
   she turned the key in the lock, she frowned. The Pomeranian was whimpering   
   from the upstairs, not dancing in front of her as she began to step in.   
   "Little Boy? Where are you?"    
   The whines turned into barks accompanied by popping sounds coming from blunt   
   claws pulling on the carpet. {How did he get locked in?} Worse, the house was   
   dark, the curtains drawn, not as she had left it at her departure with the   
   early sunrises of mid-   
   June.   
      
   "Come in and close the door, Margaret." The voice was oily with unmistakable   
   evil, yet strangely familiar.   
      
   She reached for the switch beside the entrance. "Who's there?"   
      
   A black chuckle reached her ears. "Please, refrain for the moment. I don't   
   like the light."   
      
   Margaret stepped back onto the landing, giving herself space to run to the car   
   if necessary. "Who's there?" She forced a tone she had not used since   
   disciplining four unruly children, bored and cranky during yet another   
   cross-country move.   
      
   "I'm not surprised you don't remember me, Mrs. Scully, or, should I say,   
   Agrippina Maior? We've only met briefly, and under the most unfortunate of   
   circumstances."   
      
   As she peered into the darkness, she watched a thin orange flare grow, then   
   recalled her visitor's identity with a gasp. "I don't let anybody smoke in my   
   house, Sir."   
      
   The acrid, burning ring disappeared. "Yes, of course. My manners have become   
   most atrocious over the years."   
      
   Margaret stalked over toward where she had seen the glow, but her toes   
   collided with an antique embroidered footstool he had obviously moved to block   
   her approach. "You! You had Mel killed, you monster! And what you did to Dana!"   
      
   "Monster." He snorted. "Indeed." Another mother's voice, using the same   
   charged word, echoed in his mind.   
      
   She considered fleeing up the stairs to try to free the Pomeranian, but, with   
   the glowering evil in her living room probably armed, she realized she would   
   be cutting herself off from escape, should it come to that. "What did you do   
   to my dog? To Dana's    
   little dog? What did you do?"   
      
   "I?" He reached toward the nearest table lamp to click the lowest setting on,   
   then waited while they both blinked at the light. "Nothing. I'm not quite what   
   you think I am." He shook his dark head. "It is not my choice to abuse   
   innocence so. It never was.   
   "   
      
   The brown-haired woman took a small step toward him. "How long have you been   
   lurking in the shadows in my house?"   
      
   The old spy sighed. "Only long enough to prepare for your return. I have seen   
   too much hurt in my long years." He rose to approach her. "There is so much I   
   wish I could do. For all of us."   
      
   She crossed her arms. "Or, undo. I should call the police right now."   
      
   He winced as he straightened. "I genuinely wish you wouldn't do that. I'd hate   
   to have to use this." He patted a bulge in his jacket pocket. "Again."   
      
   She pointed to the door. "Just go. Dana and Fox have already warned me about   
   the horrors you inflict. There's no need to threaten me. I don't know anything   
   you don't already."   
      
   He nodded. "Then, consider this your third and final warning, Marcus Vipsanius   
   Agrippa's child. Don't look into things that are better left unknown. This is   
   a dangerous time, for them, for you, for all of humanity. There are ancient   
   forces at work,    
   factors your daughter of the Enlightenment and Caroline's son simply do not   
   understand. They think they have all the answers, but they don't. There are   
   more things in heaven and earth - "   
      
   She stalked to the entrance, then sent a narrow swath of mid-summer brilliance   
   lancing into the darkened space. "Don't quote Shakespeare to me. Just get out   
   of my house."   
      
   Stepping onto the porch, he looked over his shoulder. "Caroline is well? Happy   
   with the man who loves her utterly?" The question was nearly inaudible.   
      
   Margaret had begun to close the door, but pulled it wide at the open longing   
   in the soundless voice. "Both, no thanks to you."   
      
   He lifted a print out of his shirt pocket to hold where she could peruse the   
   image in the high-resolution surveillance photograph, taken from a distance on   
   the ground, not from a satellite.   
      
   In it, Margaret could make out Max, Caroline, Fox, and Dana, eating what was   
   probably a small lunch around one of the glass tables on the deck behind   
   Atlantis. She herself had spent happy hours in that exact spot. She checked   
   his face, seeing an    
   inscrutable mask, then looked down at the figures in the print again. Max had   
   rested his arm along the back of Caroline's seat, as she had seen him do so   
   often while staying with them. The gesture had left her saddened by the memory   
   of quiet times with    
   her own long-dead Captain. Fox was leaning close to her daughter. Dana had her   
   chin tipped up at him, obviously responding to one of his endearingly playful   
   tweaks of her serious nature.   
      
   His hand grasping the foil-wrapped box in his pocket, he regarded her soberly.   
   "Yes, both, very much thanks to me, wife of Germanicus Julius Caesar. Remember   
   that. Remember that I warned you. I shall not warn you again."   
            
   --o-0-o--   
      
   Charles Scully residence   
   Virginia Beach, Virginia   
   Wednesday, 8:49 pm   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)