Title : Querant: The Hanged Man Author : Suzanne Turgeon Archive : As you wish Spoilers : Bits from Seasons 7 and 8, and spinning forward. Rating : PG-13? Category : Action / Drama Summary : Scully and Doggett reach a new balance. Feedback : to: TURGEON2@prodigy.net Disclaimer : These are, of course, all Chris Carter's wonderful characters, profiting only the exercise of my own overactive imagination. Author's note: Done for the pure enjoyment of writing and reading. Title: "Querant: The Hanged Man" by Suzanne Turgeon Prologue -- The rain was more bitter than cold. It began as he stared down, only vaguely aware of the threatening deluge that turned the vast lawns into a misty vista. The grave plot consumed his attention. It was an anniversary that should never have been celebrated. The weather played out like background theme music at the periphery of his focus and it was so bitter, like the saline taste creeping into his mouth despite his tightly shut lips. He had to stop coming here on this day. It left him hollow for weeks after. Abruptly he turned away and began the walk across the sodden grass to the concrete pathway. She followed his journey in the binoculars. Under the umbrella, Special Agent Dana Scully waited until the man had left the cemetery, got into his car and driven away. Then she set out across the manicured park. It took a few minutes to pinpoint the monument; seconds to absorb the implications. One marker: Laura Ann Doggett - 1962 - 1992. James Andrew Doggett - 1985 - 1992. "Oh my god," she whispered and looked off into the pastel distance. So much was explained by those austerely engraved names. -I- # The following morning, Monday, the office phone rang. Special Agent John Doggett took the call. It was A.D. Skinner and it was short and to the point. "Well, here's an interesting one," Doggett said, putting down the phone. "Some Hungarian Embassy official was offed overnight in a fortune teller's parlor in downtown D.C. Along with the alleged Gypsy." "Any bite marks?" Scully hardly glanced up. "Spare me the ex-sanguination routine." His voice was unusually sarcastic. # On the floor by overturned chairs, the man identified as an Hungarian diplomat and a dark-complected woman in a stereotypical Gypsy costume lay on their backs opposite each other. A round table stood between them. A layout of ornately decorated cards was spread out on the rumpled table cloth. The remaining deck sprawled slightly askew, as though toppled by a sharp blow to the table. Each person' expression was frozen in a rictus of terror. The musky incense permeating the room barely dented the stench of death. The Washington, D.C. detective who escorted in Scully and Doggett said that by initial appearances the victims had been dead for around eight hours. "I don't see any wounds. No blood at all," Scully said, glancing over the scene as she and her partner gloved up. She seemed philosophical. "Beats me," said the homicide detective, dubiously. "No obvious signs of death. Just dead as doornails. Looks kind of like they got scared to death. The guy's holding something in his fist. We went hands off and left that for you as soon as we found out this guy was a politico. Have fun." Doggett wore a now familiar demeanor of pained skepticism as he took in the details. He examined the identification documents that had been removed from the man's body, the now late Ivano Teranko. The name of the woman, advertised as "Madame Velana" by the painted sign on the outside window of the shop, was revealed by the conspicuously posted business license as Velana Hruska. The two agents looked at each other then, eyebrows raised in unison. They began to work the crime scene. Against the black and gold Persian rug, a card protruded from beneath Teranko's head. His left hand was locked around something with a heavy gold chain attached to it. After the photographer finished up, Doggett carefully extracted the rectangular card. One side was black with a scrolled filigree design in gold and silver. The obverse featured the illustration of a man, bound, hanging upside down by one foot from a tree limb. "What do you know about fortune telling cards?" Doggett asked, holding up the card between two fingers. Looking up from her examination of the dead woman, Scully considered, a backward tuck of her head pulling a little smile from her. "Not much. That's not an area we ever really got into." "Guess we've got our homework cut out for us. I don't know squat about this crap." Doggett slipped the card into a plastic bag. He went after the fist. The stiffened fingers were finally persuaded to yield their secret. "Check this out, Agent." Scully looked up at the glint of a two-inch-diameter golden medallion rotating at the end of the chain. Doggett caught it back it up into his hand, hefted it. "Pricey little bauble, my guess. Maybe it was an attempted robbery and the perp got scared off before he could get this." He bagged the evidence. Next, circling the table, he examined the skewed arrangement of cards on the rumpled cloth. He directed the police photographer to record what was there. Afterwards, he gingerly confiscated the entire deck of colorfully faced cards. "The lab can check these for prints, and unusual substances like contact poison or drugs. I don't want anybody else getting bit like I did on that Via Negativa cult case, or worse." "And we can round up the usual gang of suspects," said Scully, looking around the ornately draped room and its esoteric accouterments. There was no other sign of foul play, nothing that seemed out of place, just a carefully created aura of mystery in blacks and deep reds highlighted with the brilliant accents of an ornate Eastern European peasant decor. And, of course, there was not one suspect in sight. She missed Mulder beyond words. # The brownstone Hungarian Embassy sat back sedately among the trees behind spiked iron fencing. They met in a small private office, the walls of which carried through the Old World theme of dark wooden closeness characterizing the building's entrance way. There was an airless sense of old wax and claustrophobia about the place that both agents shared uneasily without knowing the other's feelings. "Ivano," the elderly ambassador, Stefan Mindru, spoke sadly of Teranko in fluent English, "had a deep interest in history as do I, but he had an even deeper one for the esoteric. Even an obsession. He always carried a Tarot set with him and made no decision without privately consulting his cards." "Cards like these?" said Scully, holding up the photographs of the card layout from the crime scene. The ambassador nodded. His skin's general pallor hinted that he was not a well man. "In fact, Ivano used that particular style. He told me the design was copied from cards dating to the early Renaissance. The original set is now held in the National Museum in Budapest, Hungary. There is debate among historians of the subject about the ultimate origin of the Tarot. Most commonly favor ancient Egypt but the Roma, as the Gypsies prefer to be called, made the fortune-telling art peculiarly their own even before the Renaissance began. That particular card deck is now widely available commercially, but the old hand-made decks, even single cards, are quite valuable in the antiquities market." "If Teranko did his own readings, why would he consult someone else?" asked Doggett. "A cross-check, I suppose. He did not always trust his own readings." "Was he a Gypsy?" "Not that I am aware of. It is not common that Roma find their way into higher office. There is still too much prejudice against them." "This is the woman Mr. Teranko was found with." Scully showed the ambassador a crime scene shot of the dead woman. Mindru's eyes widened. "Is she familiar to you?" "No, no. But, like Ivano, she appears terrified." The ambassador looked away with a grimace from the contorted features. "Then you would have no knowledge whether she was an authentic Gypsy?" "I do not know whom he saw during his private time away from here," Mindru said, "I do know that he had a great interest in the Gypsies. His wife, in fact, claims Gypsy blood." "Where is she? We would like talk to her," Scully said. "She has been confined to bed. Our embassy physician had to heavily sedate her when she received news of her husband's death. It will probably be mid-day tomorrow before she can answer any questions." "What can you tell us about this?" Doggett passed the plastic-bagged medallion to the ambassador. Mindru recovered some of his scholarly interest. "I have not seen this exact design before but I do know a little of jewelry making. It could be talismanic, judging from the symbols." He examined it more closely. "There is some sort of...perhaps...heraldic device. It appears rather roughly made by today's standards. It is likely a lost wax cast, and I would say that it is a unique piece of folk art and quite old. Early Renaissance, even earlier." "Is it Gypsy?" "Perhaps." Mindru seemed guarded. "Well, there had to be a third party involved, the murderer we have to find. Someone who either accompanied Teranko to the fortune teller, who was already there waiting, or who came in on them. All we need is a live body and a clear motive." The ambassador shrugged sadly. "Perhaps the answer is in the cards." Doggett's tolerant expression told Scully that he knew it would be in the investigation. A few more fruitless questions clearly showed that there was nothing more to be gained by their remaining at the embassy. Then, as they crossed the broad black-and-white tiled foyer in the company of the courtly old man, Scully saw Doggett's head snap toward a shadowed hallway. Briefly, she saw a female form recede into its depth around a corner. "Hold it!" Doggett called out and was already halfway across the tile to the hall's entrance. "You there, wait up." Scully bit back a cautioning. She was beginning to realize that Doggett possessed that uncanny sixth sense of the streetwise cop and that he had picked up on the fact that they were being furtively watched where she had missed the onlooker's presence altogether. She stared resignedly at her edgy partner's departure and smiled uneasily at Ambassador Mindru's seeming befuddlement. It had not escaped her that instead of letting the security presence stationed in the foyer assist Doggett, the ambassador had quietly signaled the uniformed guard to hold his position. In seconds, Agent Doggett realized his quest was hopeless. The hallway turned into a rabbit warren of corridors and closed doors with not a soul in sight and he was in an Embassy without warrant or permission to continue searching. "Damn!" he said through clenched teeth. He came back into the foyer, demand crisp in his blue eyes. "I want to know who that woman is." The FBI man's forceful demeanor startled Mindru. Scully felt sorry for the Ambassador; Doggett's presence could be downright intimidating and right then he seemed to fill the entrance hall. Mindru recovered enough to say quietly, "Perhaps a day worker, one of the cleaning staff? I'm sorry, I did not see her." Doggett pressed. "She was a young woman and she looked familiar, as if she might be related to the dead woman in that picture. I want to know who she is." The Ambassador's unease increased. "She is probably on her way home for the day. That is all. I will find out tomorrow from the head of housekeeping who she is -- " "You know, it's not appreciated when people don't come clean with us," Doggett said. "This could read like you're intentionally hampering the investigation." "My apologies," said Mindru as Scully moved in to attempt to deflect her partner's rising anger. The ambassador spoke gently: "I do recall hearing something about someone on staff who was associated with a Roma group in the area. Perhaps it was she." "So where do we find these Gypsies?" "That I do not know either. I will attempt to find out. Perhaps Mrs. Teranko will know something as well. You will now excuse me, it has already been a long and upsetting day and I have more meetings ahead before I retire for the evening. And I am not as young as I once was." "We'd appreciate your letting us know as soon as you learn something," Scully said carefully. The ambassador paused before the beautiful red-haired agent and regained some command. "Wait here a moment." Leaving them in the hall, Mindru exited through a door in an alcove. "He's stonewalling. He knows something," Doggett growled. "And you could have been blunter about it," Scully hissed. "Damn it, Agent Scully --- " "He's an old man and not well. And he is still an ambassador. Take it easy with him. And what is wrong with you? You're as wired as I've ever seen you." Marine-stiff and jaw set hard, Doggett gave her one sharp look and fixed his gaze on the closed door. Presently Mindru returned to hand Scully an old leather bound volume. "I will lend you this book. It is an English translation of a nineteenth century study of Gypsy beliefs. Perhaps it will aid you in your research." On the way out into the late afternoon, Scully smiled sweetly at Doggett who stolidly ignored her. # In the car, Scully used her cell phone to arrange for assistance with the evening's autopsies. To Doggett, she said, "I want to get this turned around as quickly as possible. But, and this is just a small but, I have the feeling that the final results are going to be just as negative as the preliminaries. Maybe toxicology will be more interesting when it comes back -- Oh, turn the corner there. There's still time to stop and pick up something else we're going to need." # A few minutes before closing, Scully and Doggett stepped through the door into an alternate realm in search of enlightenment into the Ancient Wisdom. The psychic supply store was a sleek glass-and-chrome supermarket of the occult, paranormal, New Age crystaldom, and UfOlogy. "Oh my God," Doggett winced. They made their way across the store to a wall display under a sign advertising "Tarot." "How many flavors of fortune telling cards can be right, for Chris sakes? There must be a hundred different kinds of decks here. People can be such gullible idiots." Scully looked slightly askance at the glass case and racks of decks within. "Think I'll stick with fortune cookies," Doggett muttered. "Limits the options." "And predictably dull." Doggett frowned down at her. "Here." Scully pointed. What appeared to be a back design similar to the set from the murder scene adorned the front of a plastic-wrapped pack. A sample pack, marked as incomplete, perched on a nearby accessible shelf, along with other styles. She compared the cards within to the photographs, then found a clerk to get them an unopened deck and to recommend a book designed to interpret those cards. # Doggett leaned against a cabinet counter on the periphery of the morgue room, idly watched Scully and the coroner work over the two victims, listened to their commentaries, and contemplated the strange turnings of life. He had been unable to bring himself to independently begin work on the Gypsy research and the Tarot business which he found patently offensive. Eventually, he simply watched the red-headed agent perform her pathology duties, and couldn't deny his admiration of her efficiency and expertise. Or her stunning good looks. It was pushing 11 P.M. when the autopsies wrapped up on the news of a head-shaking negative that sent them in temporary defeat back to the office. - II - # "This set is definitely reproduced from that classic deck of cards the Ambassador mentioned," said Scully, as she looked over the two books, one antique, one soft-cover and pristine, laid out on the desk. Late dinner, plastic-wrapped sandwiches, sat on plastic plates by their elbows along with the inevitable Styrofoam coffee cups. She was obviously weary and her partner had scaled back from his earlier edginess. Doggett sat at the corner of Mulder's desk, precisely at 90 degrees from her as she paged along, and watched her covertly but closely. "And, according to this book, the Hanged Man image is one of the Major Arcana cards, signifying someone who is facing a major life change." "Yeah, death is a pretty major change, I'd say." Scully went on: "It can signify personal sacrifice by an adept. Or a life in suspension, as in waiting on the cusp of change or sacrifice, a change in priorities. Very profound in its significance, what that import is may not easily be seen or grasped. In some cases that may be anything from, say, martyrdom, to duty, to an understanding or great awakening to the purpose of the Querant's higher nature." "The what?" "The Querant. The Seeker who is asking a question of the cards. And, depending on whether the card was laid down upright, it can indicate that the Seeker, through dedicated service, should, basically, have faith in the Higher Force's power to resolve a situation or accept its resolution as ordained. If the card is reversed, the Querant needs to revise his position, or will find his situation or beliefs reversed from his original stance." "Sounds like some sort of predestination concept." "More like choosing the correct path, I think. Depending on the Seeker's personality, the proper resolution to a situation can be placed in limbo or 'hung up' if that person is, say, stubborn or prideful, or in some other way selfish and immovable or narrow-minded. The determination to have things the Seeker's own way may impede or totally block these important life changes." "In other words, he can always claim the devil in him made him do it. Great insanity defense." Doggett's sarcasm drew Scully's measured glance. "You can say that about any kind of fortune telling or horoscope, if you can honestly say anything at all." "I think it's supposed to be interpreted in the subtleties of meanings depending on how the cards fall." Scully smiled drily. She examined the print enlargement and paged through the book. She pointedly turned the book around for Doggett. "And the layout of the cards seems to be this one, again a classic pattern. And we might assume that the Hanged Man card was taken from this point," her finger touched an opening in the card positions in the photograph. "Unless the layout was too disrupted by whatever happened at the scene when the victims jumped up from the table and knocked over their chairs, we may be able to tell what the reading might have meant to Mr. Teranko. Of course, with the card having been under his head, there's no way to know whether it was originally orientated up or reversed." Under Doggett's unhappy observation, Scully picked out the depicted cards from the deck and laid them out in the pattern matching the crime scene photograph. # Forty minutes later, they had both combed through the instruction book. Their individual notes agreed that the layout foreshadowed a battle for supremacy to be waged by two deceitful kings over a legacy, which would be mediated at great cost by a third person facing a great journey ahead in life. "*If* that Hanged Man card originally sat here in the layout shown in the photo before it was removed. Big if." "Maybe we need to ask ourselves whether this was the original layout or it was all set up after the murder." Doggett stared glumly at the deck. "A message from the killer?" He shrugged. "If a message, then who for? The dead? Or someone living connected to the victims? The Hanged Man card was deliberately stuck under Teranko's head." "Deliberately? What if it had already fallen to the floor and he simply collapsed on it?" "The rest of the cards aren't in that much disarray. If there was a lot of violent activity, the other cards probably would have been more scattered across the table or onto the floor. I'd bet good money that it was put there under his head." Scully thumbed through Mindru's Gypsy book. The contents covered the Romani culture and beliefs, including various aspects of fortune telling, and had numerous lithographs of artifacts and emblematic designs, but nothing that immediately related to the medallion. Perhaps the book loan had been a peace offering or a lever to send them on their way and out of their intrusion into whatever secrets lay within the embassy walls. "Meanwhile we have the question of whether the fortune teller was a real one and a Gypsy." "They're all charlatans," Doggett said around a bite of sandwich. "I think we need to go to the source and to talk to Teranko's widow and investigate that Gypsy enclave." "First thing in the morning we rattle the ambassador's cage again and see if he's got a location for us." The clock was pushing one A.M. Doggett looked at Scully. "You're beat. You have circles under your eyes. Go home and get some sleep." "And you?" "Not tired. I'll hang in here for a few." Doggett watched her go. With the agitation level he felt, there would be little chance of sleep for some hours. Then, in her wake, the basement office's loneliness set in. He idly fingered the cards, riffled them. A card slipped out onto the desk. He picked it up and looked at it, and found the Hanged Man staring back at him. In irritation, he returned it to the deck and set it aside. Drumming fingers on the leather binding of Mindru's book, he stared around the office, at that infernal flying saucer poster on the wall. He refused to believe. And yet.... Idly, he cut the deck one-handed. - III - # They both showed up at the office very early. Toxicology was back. And it was zero. Fingerprints were a mass of smudges, the accumulation of the cards' life-time of use. Scully assessed Doggett's mood. If anything it seemed darker than yesterday. "Is there a problem?" "Yeah," he said after a long pause. "I stayed up half the night with these cards. Laying them out. Shuffling them, laying them out. It was like I got hooked on the damned things. Every time, that same goddamned Hanged Man card kept turning up in virtually the same position. And the message all seems to be the same, just like the cards at the crime scene. Like the message is intended for me now. What the hell is going on?" Scully sighed and sat down. "Mulder often talked about synchronicity in life." "What?" "In a nutshell, things that don't usually seem important, that keep turning up in one's life scheme and take on a greater significance than normal, without necessarily being quantifiable but which nonetheless become somehow very important to that particular observer." "The new word that's suddenly everywhere you look?" "But bigger than that. Jung wrote some very heavyweight work on the subject. I -- " Scully looked off into some quiet, secret zone. "I had an experience like that once. Not long before Mulder disappeared." She looked back at Doggett and saw the sharpened intensity of his eyes. "It was subtle. And life-changing. Hard to explain." A long minute ticked off. Doggett grew visibly tenser. Then her partner gathered himself. "Look, I feel like we're getting nowhere here. Have you eaten? I haven't even had coffee yet." "Some toast might work." "Let's go get something. My buy." # They were well into their breakfasts before the silence between them finally screamed to be broken. Doggett carefully, deliberately put down his fork and sat back into his chair. "We need to talk." "Cards on the table?" said Scully. "Bad choice of words." Humorlessly, Doggett reached inside his jacket, pulled the Hanged Man card from his pocket, looked at it with distaste and tossed it onto the table. "No, I guess what I'm trying to say is that *I* need to talk....." Scully took a sip of coffee, and settled back. Her partner's gaze narrowed, stayed on the card, as if he half-expected it to levitate. His eyes had turned to haunted steel. She waited, knowing that for this sort of man, that sort of talking was the hardest kind to do. Doggett said, "I'm not used to things being out of my control. Since I came onto this assignment it's like -- no -- the universe *has* turned upside down...." "I know the feeling. You could ask for reassignment." "I don't quit, Agent Scully. And I made you a promise." "Then you're in it for the long haul.You have to start thinking outside of the box. You have to go with the new flow. Things have changed for a lot of people since I started working on the X-Files. I don't much like it. But there's not much I can do about it. Except to go with that flow. And hope for the best." He looked up at her. His gaze was piercing, looking at her across the breadth of the inverted universe. She moistened her lips. "I saw you at the cemetery Sunday morning." "I know," he whispered. "I saw you, too, when I was getting into the car." She glanced away. "I was visiting a friend's gravesite...." "No, you were following me." Scully couldn't bristle, much as she felt like it. It was not the time and she suddenly didn't have the energy for it. "You're not the most forthcoming person. I needed to know more." "Goes for us both. You were in the hospital recently. You're pregnant, aren't you." She breathed out carefully. "You don't miss much, do you." "No, I don't." He picked up his own coffee and his hand was not quite steady. "We've both lost a lot in this life." Scully's cell phone buzzed. She answered, listened. "It's the Embassy. They've come up with something. And the widow is ready to talk." When they got up, Doggett hesitated, then reached out and grimly picked up the card, put it back inside his jacket. # Ambassador Mindru saw them in private quarters with Teranko's wife. Swarthy and striking, though not a natural beauty, Ilse Teranko bore a startling resemblance to the dead woman and, Doggett was sure, the woman he had glimpsed in the embassy hallway. She was very subdued. "I found this in Ivano's personal effects. He had taken great pains to hide it from me." Uncertainly, she held out a small leather bag that looked very old. Doggett took the bag, eased open the drawstrings. Inside was a deck of cards similar to the cards they had purchased earlier. Yet quite different. Their historical age and worn but painstaking handcraftedness was obvious. Apprehensively, he turned over the top card, and blinked slowly at the hand-painted image of the Hanged Man. "If that deck is what I believe it to be," Mindru said, "it is quite valuable." Scully cast a sidelong glance at Doggett who stared fixedly at the card deck. She cleared her throat. Doggett looked at her, then turned the card face down. He handed her the pouch and the cards. Regrouping with a long breath, Doggett took out the plastic bag with the piece of gold jewelry and addressed Mrs. Teranko. "Apparently he was hiding other things from you as well. Have you ever seen this?" He held out the medallion. The woman's eyes widened. Her voice trembled, "It is a Gypsy emblem signifying royalty. For my tribe. It is very old. It was stolen many years ago, first by the Nazis and then later by Communist agents. Then it was smuggled out of Hungary through the antiquities black market. My people have been trying to find it for many years. Such talismans are usually passed down from son to son as the inheritance of power. It is very dangerous for the wrong people to have. And it should not have been in Ivano's possession." "Meaning what?" Doggett said. "He is -- was not Roma. He was not in any line of descent, he had no right to have this medallion." "But it was found in his hand at the murder scene." "And he was dead." "Did you know a Velana Hruska?" The woman lowered her eyes, dipped her head in assent. "My maiden name is Hruska. Velana was my older sister." "Now we're getting somewhere. Were you aware that your husband knew her?" She nodded, tears working down her cheeks. "He must have recovered the medallion and sought to sell it back to the tribe. Probably the cards, too. He... had a gambling habit. Very bad." "Where were you the night of the murder?" Ambassador Mindru said, "I -- and others -- can vouch that she was here, under our roof." In a rush, Ilse Teranko said, "Both of these things must be returned to my tribe, to the rightful heir. Or...." "Or what?" "Or there will be retribution. These are sanctified objects. They want to go home. They are close and now will not rest until they are in the proper hands." "The objects won't rest?" Doggett glared at a distasteful illogic. "What do you mean?" "There is great power imbued in both the cards and the medallion." "Greed is pretty powerful, too. Sounds like someone else was after the medallion at least and killed two people in the process. The medallion was at that shop because of your husband. So how did he come to know of it and its value?" "Over the years, I had spoken of it, of my hopes for its recovery." "I had to pry that medallion out of your husband's fingers. Why would the killer have left it?" "Because it couldn't take it with it." "What?" Bemused, Doggett looked at Scully. "The power," Scully said, "in the medallion." "The power," he mouthed, then snapped, "No, what it means is there is someone else involved who has interests in this medallion. That person was and is looking for it and knew that your husband had it. And must have followed him to your sister's. And killed both of them for it in some way that we haven't been able to detect. That person was also scared away before he or she could get it. What about the other woman I saw here in the back hallway yesterday? Could it have been her?" Ilse Teranko half rose in panic. "No! She is -- another of my sisters. Vana." "Just how many sisters do you have, Mrs. Teranko?" "Six. I have six." "And which one are you?" asked Scully. Doggett stared at her. "What do you mean?" "There is an old superstition about luck or power going to the seventh son of a seventh son. Maybe, in this case, it's daughters." "You have guessed well," whispered Ilse Teranko. "The medallion must go to my youngest sister, Tatiana. And whatever you wish to think, Agent Doggett, the medallion, as well as the cards, must now be returned to the royal heir by the designated bearer." The ambassador nodded. "So who is that?" said Doggett. "You are the one holding them." # Taking a long breath, Doggett put the medallion and cards together in the pouch and secured the bag in his inner jacket pocket. "Okay, do you want to tell me where these Gypsies are, this tribe of yours? We find them, I bet we find your husband's and sister's killer." Mrs. Teranko stared at the carpet. "They aren't exactly camped out on the White House lawn. Okay, Ambassador, do you keep any sort of track of these people?" "Only registered Hungarian nationals in this country. But Gypsies, whatever their nationality, do not often make themselves or their itineraries on this planet public knowledge, Agent Doggett." "On this planet." Doggett stared at the ambassador. "Interesting turn of phrase." "An interesting culture." "Is there any other reason besides financial gain that Teranko would have for wanting these things?" "Power," Scully offered. "A desperate fool's desires." The widow studied her fingers clenched in her lap. Doggett frowned. "Then, Mrs. Teranko, since you have admitted these people are your family, you must know where they are. Please tell us." She mustered courage to look directly up at the agent. "If you promise that it will be you who returns the medallion and the cards." - IV - # Ilse Teranko's map was quite precise. They found their way out to the site through the rain-grayed Maryland countryside without incident, and "no smart remarks about Blair witches," as Agent Doggett warned his partner. The encampment was on an abandoned farmstead tucked down in a hollow among trees and brush breaks. There, the Gypsies had set up a squatter's life around a ramshackle house and barn. A pair of well-used RV buses and several old cars sat parked haphazardly around the yard. As they approached, people began to emerge from the buildings and the RVs. "I think they were warned we were coming," Scully said. A girl in peasant blouse, sweater and long skirt stood on the overgrown grass by the house's porch. She hardly seemed old enough for her obviously pregnant state. As they rolled past, she raised her left hand. A ring glinted on her third finger. She made some sort of obscure sign. "I hate to think what that meant," Doggett said, checking in the rear view mirror as he parked the car. "Did we just get flipped off Gypsy style?" "The book Mindru lent us had several pages of illustrated hand signs. They're warding sigels, for protection. And hexing. We can look it up later." "Yeah, it was probably the Curse of the Cell Phone." Doggett shook his head. "And so much for horse drawn Gypsy wagons. Now it's Winnebagos. Burst my bubble." By the time they got out of the car and formally identified themselves, a crowd of twenty adults and a number of youngsters had amassed in the shelter of the old wooden buildings and two motor homes. The onlookers' expressions were uniformly somber.The atmosphere seemed charged despite the day's raininess. "Hostile forces," Doggett said only to Scully's ears. She acknowledged with a slight nod. "Somebody in charge around here?" Doggett asked as they maneuvered around the yard's mud holes. Eventually, two men stepped forward. They emerged from two separated groups and each seemed to be eying the other in a less-than-friendly manner. "I am Zoltan Phillipe," said the older of the two, a hard-faced, muscular man in his mid-forties, had stepped forth first. "I am Michael Hruska." Both kept equidistant from each other and the agents. The tension between the two men heightened. "We're investigating the deaths of two people, one of them allegedly named Velana Hruska," Doggett said. The announcement was greeted with stoic silence. Scully presented the photograph of the dead fortune teller. No one moved to take it and she had to physically walk the printed image from person to person. She and her partner scanned the faces around them, picking out familiar features among some of the women and looking for a glimmer of reaction. They remained rebuffed by silence. As Scully returned to stand beside him, Doggett assessed several of the women. He honed in on one who closely resembled Ilse Teranko. "I saw you at the embassy." Only the slightest raising of the woman's chin confirmed his statement. "And who are you, young lady?" Doggett suddenly asked of the pregnant girl. With features bearing the undeniable stamp of blood common to four other women present, the girl looked all of thirteen yet bore a regal undercurrent of authority. She glanced at the man off to her right who had identified himself as Zoltan Phillipe. He only glared at Doggett, and sent a quick, threatening glance at the man who had called himself Michael Hruska. "Tatiana," the young girl said, her voice growing bolder. "Tatiana Phillipe." "Your daughter?" Doggett asked Zoltan Phillipe. "He is my husband," said the girl, stepping forward. "I am Hruska." "The seventh daughter," Scully murmured. "And you are an Hruska, too," she said to Michael. "What relation?" "Brother," came the proud reply. Perhaps twenty-five, Tatiana's brother had a voluptuary's handsomeness with petulant lips and a cockiness that would never develop into the ruthlessness undercurrent of his camp mate's. Scully felt repulsed by both men. Doggett motioned his partner back by their car and said in quiet undertone, "She's not much more than a kid. A well-schooled innocent in a camp of wolves. Not a State in the Union would recognize that as a legitimate marriage. Child Protective Services could be called in on this one. We might be able to use that as a threat to get some cooperation." "Careful," Scully said under her breath. "There's a power play going on between those two men. And I'll bet that it's over who gets the medallion." "And we'll get nowhere if we don't push the envelope a little." "He has sacred things." The young pregnant girl pointed at Doggett. "I have seen it." "Wha--?" Doggett's disbelief fell silent on his lips. He recovered, said quickly to Scully, "Okay, Teranko's widow told them that we have the medallion. They're trying to scam us." "I wonder," Scully whispered, scanning the subtleties of the unsmiling faces behind them. "I think this whole camp is divided into two rival factions. And they want one thing -- " "I and my unborn son claim our birthright!" shrilled Tatiana. Nonplussed, the agents watched Tatiana advance with her hand outstretched, her eyes fixed commandingly on Doggett. Zoltan leaped forward, seized Tatiana by the arm, pulled her roughly back. "Hey, take it easy," Scully warned and started toward the mismatched pair. The man suddenly flashed a knife, poising it precariously near the girl's throat. "Are you nuts, man?" Doggett said, pressing past Scully. He was already reaching for his holstered weapon. "What do you think you're doing?" In abruptly close quarters, Doggett heard a chilling gasp. He swung around into the flanking action. Into his worst nightmare. Michael Hruska had closed in to grab Scully from behind and swing her back out of Doggett's reach. His own knife pressed in under Scully's jaw and his sister, the embassy worker, was fearfully aiming Scully's weapon at Doggett. In that face-off tempered by the sharp steel at his partner's throat, Doggett eased off the trigger in a split second's instinctive decision. Hruska pulled Scully further backward as his sister stepped in front, effectively shielding Hruska with a double body block using Scully as the second shield. "Let my sister go," Michael shouted at Zoltan Phillipe, and to Doggett, "Give me the medallion." "She's a Federal agent," Doggett returned, his total focus on Scully. "Don't be stupid. Let her go. Let them both go." From his right, Doggett heard Zoltan's command: "Give up your gun, Agent." A tiny trickle of blood was working its way from the knife tip down Tatiana's exposed neck. Seething inwardly, Doggett surrendered his weapon, carefully crouching to lay the automatic on a clump of grass. He straightened, hands raised away from his body. "Back away." Zoltan ordered. In the camp's utter stillness, Doggett slowly stepped back from his gun. As he did, Hruska hissed coarsely at his sister. Still holding the service weapon, the sister moved clear of Scully and her captor. Doggett's partner seemed very pale in the grey light, but her steady gaze did not waver from his and somehow conveyed confidence to him. In him. He prayed he was up to the task. "The medallion," said Zoltan Phillipe. Roughly casting aside his alleged wife, who toppled to the muddy earth, he moved closer to Doggett. In his hand, the blade glinted in the cloud-shielded afternoon light. "No, give him nothing," Michael called out. "Nobody gets anything until Agent Scully is released unharmed." Doggett eyed the knife. He detested blades and the mere idea of being sliced turned his stomach. Suddenly Zoltan Phillipe charged. One of the women gasped. Cat-agile, Doggett avoided the knife thrust but lost his footing in the slimy mud. He rolled with the motion, came up nearer his discarded weapon and dove for it. Zoltan was on him, forcing him away with a kick to the ribs that he partly deflected with a forearm block and a sidewards roll. Then the gypsy was at him again and he was sliding in the mud. Scully's alarmed outcry reached his ears even as severe impact and hot pain at his waist line forced a gasp from his throat. His fist landed solidly and his attacker receded. Then he was on a knee and an arm in the mud surrounded by a hushed pause and his free hand was autonomically pressing against the intense pain just above his belt. He looked down, saw fresh blood reddening his fingers. An inner voice cried out a denial. There was shouting and a shot rang out. Doggett lifted his head to see the Gypsy woman inexpertly holding Scully's weapon trained somewhere on the middle ground between them all. Then the gun dropped from her fingers. Something else was happening. He could hear it, feel it. Something powerfully electrical in the air. "John, the medallion! Get rid of it! Throw the pouch away!" Through the intense haze of pain, Doggett registered the urgency of his partner's strangled warning. Fumbling inside his jacket, he seized the leather drawstrings protruding from its pocket. Darkness loomed. Not the oblivion of impending unconsciousness. He recognized another kind of blackness. It was above him... something...Other, gathering. In a last effort before he was claimed, Doggett instinctively flung away the antique bag. The cosmos shrieked about his head. Fear and awe loosened the lock around Scully's throat. The knife point dropped away. She struck it clear with her forearm against Michael Hruska's wrist, leveraged her weight, replanting a foot in the wet earth and sunk her other foot into the groin of the man behind her. As he reeled away, she caught the Gypsy in the face with a back fist. The roiling black entity hovered, a fog of violence, above the RVs. She ran forward underneath it with single-minded purpose toward the man on his knees, hugging his gut. Around her, Scully heard screams and cries of fright. Her peripheral vision recorded the two Gypsy men converging on each other, grappling for something on the ground. Scully caught her partner as he looked on, struggling stubbornly to keep from pitching forward into the rutted muck. Grasping her supporting arm, Doggett choked out, "God, look!" An elemental storm cloud of doom built low over the farm yard. At the forefront of the cowering onlookers, the small child-mother clutched at her hair. Michael Hruska attempted to wrest the pouch from Zoltan's fingers. His rival's hand closed over his fingers, over the prize of their contention. The older man swung his arm with extreme force. The knife plunged in a vicious upward arc into Hruska's belly just under the ribcage, a heart strike, the target that had been intended to take out Scully's partner. A wail shook the air as the brother's body fell away. Oblivious to everything except what he grasped, the usurper to the throne lifted the prize before his face with a laugh of triumph -- and then his expression froze as he focused beyond his hand into the horror of his oncoming destruction. The blackness descended. # Little Tatiana walked slowly to the bodies of the two prone men. She crouched down, awkward with her unborn child, and retrieved the pouch from the grass. Holding it close to her belly, she stood with tears streaming down her face. The blackness surrounding them all, shutting out the somber day, dissipated, dissolved into the grayness. Mesmerized, Doggett whispered, "If I hadn't seen it myself...my God...." "I'll remind you of that," Scully said breathlessly, staring at the little Gypsy queen standing head bowed over the small package. The jolting shift of the burden in her arms pulled her attention away from the reunion of rightful power. Doggett's full weight was suddenly collapsing against her. From a pale, shocky face, he looked up at her, his eyes not quite tracking. "We really need to talk," he gasped thinly and passed out. # The nurse was adjusting the IV flow as Scully stood bedside, studying Doggett's chart, when Skinner came into the room. "No one at the farm site. Only traces were tire marks in the mud and trash in a pit out behind the house. They've vanished," the Assistant Director said at her shoulder. "How's he doing?" He hated seeing fellow agents comatose, rigged up to medical equipment. It always connoted the sterility of failure. "The surgery went well. He's had three units of blood. His vitals are strong. He's making a good recovery." Scully handed the chart to the nurse as she left the room. Her eyes scanned the monitor above the bed, then Doggett's lean face, before shifting up to assess Skinner. "There were no mistakes made on this case, sir. He did what had to be done as the situation required. So did I. This was just one of those things that happen. The important point is that we worked it together, as partners. It is my very strong belief, now, that the only mistake made was at the very outset. By Kersh. He teamed us." # Epilogue: It was a warm day when Scully parked the car on the grass verge. The walk was necessarily slower, allowing for the stringhalt sensation in his gut. But, together, they visited the grave. In silence, they stood among the memorials, and studied the polished granite, each absorbed in the privacy of thought. When finally he spoke, Doggett's gravelly voice was soft. "Just what do you believe in, Agent Scully?" "I'm a doctor. I believe in healing." Doggett considered those quiet words for awhile. The Hanged Man was secure in his wallet. A symbol, an identification card that he knew he would, and should, carry for however long it was necessary. A reminder to go with the flow. In the days to come, that skill might be the only thing to keep him, both of them, alive. Doggett looked skyward. A few light clouds, a brilliant rain-cleansed day of azure spread out overhead. He caught Scully's gaze from the corner of his eye and turned to her. For a moment they stared at each other in the gentle ambience of the day. His expression was not quite a smile. Touching her elbow, Doggett said, "Time we got back to work." --- Fini --- 1