"Malus Genius, vel Hoc Lemma Nequiquam Latine Scribitur"
(The Evil Spirit, or This Title Is Written In Latin for No
Reason) 


By: Plausible Deniability & Amanda Wilde (MaybeAmanda)
Address: pdeniability@hotmail.com /maybe_a@rocketmail.com
Link for Spookys and for those missing parts: This story can
be found in its entirety at:
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Dreamworld/2528/mgtitle.html


Archive: freely 

Category: X, R, A, H 

Rating: mostly R (sexual situations, mature language, and
implied violence), but there are a couple of NC-17 sections.


Spoilers: Brief episode references late in the story; no
major spoilers. This is a stand-alone, with the typical
stand-alone disregard for the mytharc. 

Keywords: MSR 

Disclaimer: The characters and situations of the television
program "The X Files" are the creations and property of
Chris Carter, Fox Broadcasting, and Ten-Thirteen
Productions, and have been used without permission. No
copyright infringement is intended. 

Summary: What's *your* evil spirit? 

THANKS appear at the end. If you don't read any other part
of this story, we hope you'll read those. 

---- 

There was a little wart-covered demon in Mr. Kopeck's desk.
He couldn't tell people about it because they would think he
was crazy, but if he opened the file drawer and peeked
inside, he could see two yellow, malevolent eyes glowing at
him from the dark interior. The worst part was, in a few
minutes Mrs. Chernoff was supposed to take over his seventh
period class, so he could talk to Principal Waters about
that unfortunate incident last week. 

Mr. Kopeck didn't know what to do. Should he warn Mrs.
Chernoff about the thing in his desk? Should he keep the
information to himself, and just take the chance that she
wouldn't open the drawer? Maybe, he thought, he should
simply pretend he didn't know anything about the creature,
even if she did find it. Really, was it his fault that the
thing was living in his desk? 

At the back of the classroom, Brittany Woodall raised her
hand. 

"Yes?" said Mr. Kopeck, dragging his attention back to his
students. 

Brittany -- she really was a hot number, Mr. Kopeck thought
-- brushed eraser crumbs off the front of her sweater. "Can
I go now?" 

His brows drew together in confusion. "What do you mean?" 

She sighed impatiently. "My mother wrote you a note, Mr.
Kopeck. I have a dentist appointment. I'm supposed to be
excused at 2:15." 

Mr. Kopeck nodded. "Oh -- that's right. Of course, Brittany.
Just be sure to take your textbook home with you. The
homework assignment tonight is the chapter review on page
82." 

A collective groan went up from the class. 

Mr. Kopeck ignored it. He watched Brittany sweep her books
and folders off her desk and gather them to her chest. She
was wearing that sweater he liked again, that tight one with
the blue stripes. When he'd been in high school, he thought,
he would have killed for a date with a cheerleader like
Brittany Woodall. 

A rustling sound from his desk drawer brought his thoughts
back to the ugly little demon, and Mrs. Chernoff. He opened
the drawer a crack and peered at the sharp teeth that
glinted at him from the darkness. 

Screw it, Mr. Kopeck thought. He had never liked Mrs.
Chernoff that much anyway. 

**** 

"This is where she was found," said Principal Waters,
looking down at the floor with a troubled expression. "Right
here in front of the blackboard. They took the body this
morning, but otherwise nothing's been touched." 

Scully knelt down. With gloved fingers, she examined the
bloodstain. 

"I don't know how something like this could have happened in
my school," the principal said, wringing his hands. "Nothing
ever happens around here." 

Since the school sat across from a postcard-perfect New
England common in a village with more quaintness than
people, Scully found nothing incongruous in the claim. "I
just came from examining the body," she told the hovering
principal. "The victim died from massive head trauma.
Judging from the shape of the wound, I'd say she hit her
head on the metal eraser tray." 

"She must have hit it with a lot of force," Mulder said
behind her. She heard the edge in his voice, and wondered
whether it was meant to convey mere doubt about her medical
opinion, or lingering resentment over whatever had been
bothering him all day. "The last time I saw a head wound
like that, the victim had been hit with an axe." 

Principal Waters whimpered. 

Still on her knees, Scully looked at the classroom around
her. The air smelled like chalk dust, musty books, and
pencil shavings. It had been a while since she'd been in a
setting like this, but the feeling was familiar, and
agreeable. A person didn't forget two decades of being a
teacher's pet overnight. 

She gestured to the overturned office chair lying a few feet
from the bloodstain, then to the line of partially-erased
writing high on the blackboard. "It looks to me like she was
standing on that chair so she could reach the top of the
board, and the chair went out from under her. She was just
unlucky enough to hit her head on the tray as she fell." 

"What about the bite marks you saw on the body?" said
Mulder, looking over Scully's shoulder at the pool of blood.


"Rats." 

"Rats?" 

"Rats," said Scully emphatically. 

Principal Waters paled. "Oh, dear. I didn't know we had rats
-- except in the cafeteria, of course." 

Scully got to her feet, and drew off her latex gloves with a
snap. Mulder was fooling himself, she thought, if he
suspected an X-File here. It was sheer coincidence that
another teacher from this same school had died in the last
week. Full-figured women in pumps were simply not meant to
go standing on chairs, especially not chairs with casters. 

Of course, she couldn't tell him that outright, not after
the way he'd been behaving all day. She'd never realized
Mulder could be so touchy. 

"This isn't even poor Mrs. Chernoff's classroom," said
Principal Waters behind her, still peering anxiously at the
red stain. "It's Larry Kopeck's. She was only here because
he had a meeting with me." 

Mulder took a step backwards to look up at the writing on
the blackboard. "'Venio, venis, venit,'" he read. "'I come,
you come, he comes.'" 

"Some kind of grammar exercise?" Scully said. 

"Either that, or the play-by-play for a Roman orgy." 

"It's the present indicative conjugation of the verb
'venire,'" said a voice from the doorway. 

All three of them -- Scully, Mulder, and Principal Waters --
wheeled around. 

Scully was surprised by the man attached to the voice. He
was a little over six foot, she estimated, an inch or two
taller than Mulder, with broad shoulders and long legs, the
kind of physique one expected to find on a second-string
high school quarterback or a weekend warrior who took his
games seriously. The pale patches on his nose suggested it
had met a curveball or the sharp end of a hockey skate once
or twice but had been carefully patched up afterward, and
the faint, neat, but visible scar on the underside of his
square jaw was clearly the result of stitches. His neatly if
unimaginatively cut black hair was just beginning to recede,
and Scully knew he was the sort of man who'd go a
distinguished salt-and-pepper at the temples first. All in
all, she thought, not a bad looking man. The only thing that
didn't seem to go with the rest of the package was the air
of uncertainty he projected. 

Principal Waters stiffened. "Mr. Kopeck," he said, with the
sort of dry disapproval one usually reserves for shoplifters
and people who drive without car insurance. 

Mr. Kopeck smiled disarmingly, and shrugged. 

"You teach Latin?" Mulder asked. 

Mr. Kopeck shook his head. "I teach World History. We've
been doing a unit on the Roman Empire, and I just wrote that
on the board as an example of the language. I had some
better-known phrases up there, too, but it looks like
they've been erased." 

"Still, you do read and write Latin?" 

"Yes," said Mr. Kopeck. "Not that there's much call for it
these days." 

Scully wondered what Mulder was getting at, and why he was
even bothering. If the victim had been wearing a cardboard
sign that read "I lost my balance and hit my head," the
facts could not have been more obvious. 

She decided she ought to assert herself a little, at least
in a tactful way. She took out her badge and showed it to
Mr. Kopeck. "I'm Agent Scully, and this is my partner, Agent
Mulder," she said. "Is there anything you can tell us about
Mrs. Chernoff's accident?" 

"It was definitely an accident, then?" said Mr. Kopeck, with
a note of hope. 

"Yes," said Scully. 

Mulder glanced back at the Latin on the chalkboard. "We
can't be sure." 

Mulder had many sterling qualities, Scully thought. He was
smart and dedicated and he knew a thing or two about
erogenous zones. At the moment, however, she wanted to smack
him. 

Beside them, Principal Waters cleared his throat. "Mr.
Kopeck was with me yesterday afternoon when the unfortunate
incident occurred," he told them. "I doubt he can shed any
more light on the matter than I can." 

"You can come in, Mr. Kopeck," said Scully, since the
teacher was still standing in the doorway. "The forensics
team released the scene this morning, when the body was
removed. We're just verifying a few things for ourselves." 

Mr. Kopeck looked even more uncertain. "Actually, I was
hoping I wouldn't have to see the, uh -- to see where Mrs.
Chernoff was found. I just came to collect my gym bag, if
that's possible, and those two books on the corner of my
desk." 

"You didn't need those things yesterday?" Mulder asked, his
tone so sharply suspicious that Scully felt a surge of
impatience. 

Mr. Kopeck shook his head. "No. I didn't know there'd be any
reason to move my classes to the auditorium, and I only work
out on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. After my meeting
with Principal Waters, I went straight home." 

"The scene's been released," Scully repeated. "You can take
anything that's yours." 

Mr. Kopeck remained in the doorway. "Could you possibly...
you know, pass the things out to me? I just need those two
old books, and the gym bag under my desk." 

Scully resisted the urge to roll her eyes. She knew there
was no shortage of squeamish people in the world, but she
found it hard to understand what was so intimidating about a
dried bloodstain.


She collected Mr. Kopeck's belongings, then walked them over
to him, feeling slightly ridiculous. As she handed the
teacher his things, she was surprised to see that he was
sweating. 

"Thanks," he said, and disappeared quickly back into the
hallway. 

Mulder was already giving Principal Waters the old "Thanks,
be sure to contact us if you remember anything that might be
of importance" speech as she rejoined them. They all shook
hands, and Principal Waters made his exit. 

Scully crossed her arms over her chest, waiting for Mulder
to admit that he had brought her on a wasted trip. 

Instead he crossed his arms over his chest, too, and leveled
a challenging look at her. "You're sure this was an
accident, Scully?" 

"Positive." 

"In that case, I have just one question for you." 

She sighed. This conversation was fifty percent
professional, she sensed, and fifty percent whatever it was
that had put him in this mood. "And that would be...?" 

"If Mrs. Chernoff was standing on the chair and erasing the
chalkboard when she fell and hit her head, where's the
eraser?" 

Scully looked around her at the bare floor. 

Finally she said, "I see what you mean." 

"The chief detective on the scene assured me that nothing
had been tampered with, and Principal Waters told us the
same thing. So what happened to the eraser?" 

"Couldn't the janitor have moved it when he found the body?"


Mulder shook his head. "He said he didn't touch anything,
just ran out of the room in a panic." 

Scully frowned. "So maybe she got up on the chair, and then
realized she'd forgotten the eraser." 

"She must have had it at some point. Mr. Kopeck said someone
had erased his Latin phrases. Why would she put it away,
halfway through erasing the board? Someone else was here,
Scully. Someone tidied up." 

Mulder was regarding her with an air of what looked very
much like smugness. He wanted to prove her wrong, she
thought. This wasn't just about the case. This was about
settling some mysterious score. 

Scully's gaze drifted to Mr. Kopeck's desk. Dusting powder
on the drawer pulls told her that the forensics team had
already collected prints. If she looked through the desk,
would she find the eraser neatly put away? 

She reached down to open the bottom drawer. 

**** 

He was just going to leave town, Mr. Kopeck told himself as
he tossed his books and his gym bag in the front seat of his
car and jumped in. He was going to go home, throw a few
things in a suitcase, and then hit the road and never look
back. There was nothing in this town to hold him here any
more anyway. 

He had never dreamed that the demon in his desk would kill
Mrs. Chernoff. Scare her a little, maybe; but Mrs. Chernoff
had deserved a little scaring. She'd been a thorn in Mr.
Kopeck's side for a couple of years now, ever since he'd
opposed her campaign for a stricter student dress code. Mr.
Kopeck had never understood why teenage girls in belly
shirts were supposed to be the ultimate peril to Western
Civilization, and he'd told Mrs. Chernoff so. Since then
she'd had it in for him, the meddling old busybody... 

He caught himself. Jesus, that was a fine way to refer to
the dead. Poor Mrs. Chernoff was never going to meddle in
anything again, and it was all his fault. 

He'd been horrified when he'd heard about her accident. Of
course, that was only the second shock to his system in a
week. The first had come when the incantation in that dusty
old book of his father's had actually worked. He'd almost
peed himself, then. He still might pee himself. 

Now there was a death on his head. Maybe two deaths -- he
still wasn't sure about Mrs. Stiller, the guidance
counselor. Supposedly she'd killed herself, but who could
say for sure? They'd found her dead in her office on
Tuesday, with an empty bottle of Valium in her hand. She'd
called a friend that same day, though, sobbing and saying
that she was going insane. She'd called her priest, too,
leaving a message on his answering machine asking about
exorcism. What if she'd seen the demon in his desk drawer?
He'd talked himself out of feeling responsible, but now he
was starting to have doubts again. 

Damn it, how had he gotten himself into this mess? The whole
thing had seemed ridiculous, a chant for calling an evil
spirit from the underworld. Just a big joke. He didn't even
believe in an underworld, for God's sake -- how was he
supposed to know he could actually summon a demon? 

Well, he was getting out of here. Let someone else find the
horrible thing; he was washing his hands of it. He was going
to head somewhere sunnier and more modern than this
oppressive little town, Phoenix or Miami or L.A., someplace
where pretty women wore bathing suits nine months of the
year. He was going to start a new life. From this day
forward, he wasn't going to be the loser for whom everyone
in town felt sorry. Instead he was going to be the most
careful, most capable, most self-assured man in the world. 

Yes, that's what he was going to do. His life had gotten
completely out of control, and the only thing to do was
start fresh. 

Halfway to the health club, Mr. Kopeck discovered that the
demon was in his gym bag. 

End 1/10 Malus Genius 2


"But Scully..." "Valium, Mulder. If you swallow them back
like they're M&M's, you die." 

They were eating, or rather waiting to eat, in the village's
small diner. Mulder had no idea what to call the meal they
were about to have. It was too late for lunch and too early
for dinner; what's more, distrust of the menu had compelled
him to order the all-day breakfast. "But you said there were
teeth marks..." 

"Which, Principal Waters assures us, were likely caused by
rats." 

"Come on, Scully..." 

She held up a forestalling hand. "She swallowed a handful of
pills, Mulder. She went into respiratory arrest and then she
died. Her body wasn't found until the next morning. The rats
gnawed on her during the night. End of mystery." 

Mulder opened his mouth to reply -- argue, really -- when
their young, leggy, and oh-so-teenaged waitress dropped his
plate in front of him with an unnecessary thud and frowned
rather fetchingly. "We, like, didn't have any more hash
browns." 

"What?" Mulder glanced down at his plate. Home fries.
Whatever. "Oh. That's fine. Now, Scu -- " 

The girl rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet,
holding the tray in front of her like a particularly ugly
melamine shield. "And no, um, white bread, so you've got,
like, whole wheat." 

"Yes, I see that." He did, too. "That's okay, that's great.
Really." He flashed a quick *everything's-fine-here-now-go-
away* smile and turned back to his partner. "Scully, I -- " 

"And I don't think the cook knew what you meant by
'overheard,' so, like, he made the eggs sunny-side-up.
Sorta. See?" 

Mulder looked down at the mess on the plate before him,
really looked this time, and all but cringed. Sorta was
right. Yuck. Insufficiently toasted toast, too-browned
potatoes, and he half-expected the seeping yellow slime to
resolve itself into yolky worms, crawl up his left nostril
(or maybe the right; it was hard to guess what semi-sentient
yolk creatures might do, given half a chance) and attempt to
infiltrate his brain. 

Not, he thought with a mental sigh, that brain infiltration
would necessarily be a bad thing, right now. Not that it
would in any way make the day worse. 

He'd asked, of course, for eggs *over hard*, something he
hadn't done in years, probably since Oxford. The English had
an interesting knack for overcooking everything that should
have been, maybe, a little undercooked, and undercooking
anything that, by all the laws of god and man, should have
had the living tar flamed out of it. He'd learned to ask for
his eggs *over hard* after his first nauseating encounter
with a couple of underdone ones and the startling
realization that semi-congealed egg white looked alarmingly
like --


"Is that okay?" 

"S'fine," he assured the waitress without much conviction.
Whoever said the all-day breakfast was always a safe bet had
clearly spent no time in Craftsbury Common, Vermont. 

"Oh and, like, we only had orange juice." She twitched her
head from side to side with what was becoming a grin, and
her ash blonde ponytail brushing from shoulder to shoulder.
Across the table, Scully almost choked on a mouthful of BLT.


Mulder was not a stupid man. Slow, sometimes, yes, but not
stupid. The light having dawned, he put on his best smile
and pinned her with what was meant to be a flirtatious gaze.
"You aren't from around here, are you" -- he made a show of
eyeing the name tag pinned to her shirt-straining left
breast -- "Kandee?" 

"Nuh uh," she beamed, shaking her pretty, apparently vacant
head and setting the ponytail in motion again. "My family
just moved here, like, about a year ago, right? From
California? And, like, you, you're from the FBI, right?" 

"Yes, *we* are," Scully chimed in, her eyes still down.
Mulder sensed that if she looked up at him or at Miss
Congeniality, Scully was in serious danger of losing it. 

Kandee glanced over at Scully as if she really hadn't
expected to find an especially unattractive warthog sitting
at her station, then turned her attention back to Mulder.
"Brittany, she's in my gym class? She said you're here
investigating Mrs. Chernoff's murder." 

"Your gym class?" Mulder repeated absently, wondering if
there was anything edible on the dessert menu. 

"Uh huh. She said the school board called the FBI in 'cause
they think there's a serial killer loose in the school. Like
'Scream' or something." 

"'Scream' or something?" Maybe the coffee -- no, Mulder
could see a fine film of oil swirling on top of it. "They
do, do they?" 

"Uh huh. First Mrs. Stiller, and then Mrs. Chernoff. That's,
like, a pattern, right? An accelerating pattern. I saw that
on 'The Profiler.'" 

Mulder gave Scully a significant look. He'd been suggesting
a connection between the two deaths --albeit not this
connection -- and had only gotten some comment about putting
his overactive imagination to better use for his trouble.
Fabulous mouth on Scully, no question about it, but the
things that came out of it, sometimes... 

"We're here looking into Mrs. Chernoff's death," Scully
answered. "It seems to have been an unfortunate accident.
Could I get another Coke, please?" 

"Yeah, right." Kandee flipped the tray over to her right
hip. "No way that was a accident. Mrs. Chernoff is -- was --
a really hard grader, you know? Everyone hated Mrs.
Chernoff." 

"Did they?" Scully sounded even more bored than usual. 

"Well, okay, not everyone." Kandee took a step closer to
Mulder. "But someone must have, right? 'Cause, like, they
killed her." 

"That's an interesting theory, Kandee." Mulder pulled out
his notebook. "Let me take your -- " 

Mulder was interrupted by the sound of ice hitting glass.
"Coke?" Scully asked, and rattled the tumbler again. "And no
ice this time, please?" 

Kandee took the tumbler with a tight little smile that said
she knew Scully wasn't much of a tipper, and turned on her
platform sneaker-clad heel. "Certainly." She tossed Mulder
another jailbait grin and bounced off to the kitchen. 

Scully arched an eyebrow in the direction of Mulder's
notebook. "What was that about?" 

"What was what about?" Mulder tucked the pad back into his
pocket. "She could have some information, some insight. She
seemed eager enough to talk." 

"Eager is right." Scully took another bite of her sandwich,
chewed and swallowed. "Please, Mulder. She's young enough to
be your daught -- well, definitely to be your daughter's
really good friend." 

Mulder's mouth twisted. Another crack about his age?
Yesterday she'd idly mentioned, post-coitally, that she
wished she could have known him "when he was still in his
prime." The remark wouldn't have bothered him so much,
maybe, if he hadn't just been congratulating himself on
having given what he'd thought was a pretty energetic
performance. 

As if that weren't bad enough, she'd twisted the knife early
this morning in the shower. Without warning she had not-so-
delicately yanked a hair from somewhere in the vicinity of
his right nipple. Then she'd frowned at it thoughtfully,
said "Hmmm...a gray one," and let it wash unceremoniously
down the drain. 

"I'm guessing she was born in about 1984," Scully said,
staring off in Kandee's direction. "That would have put
you...where, Mulder? At Quantico?" 

"Oxford, actually," he said, trying to sound not at all
bothered by the question. 

He looked down morosely at his runny eggs. 

**** 

The demon made its presence known as Mr. Kopeck approached a
stop sign. The bag stirred, and a voice, muffled but
nevertheless horrible and otherworldly, rumbled "Expedi me."


Mr. Kopeck almost rear-ended the Volvo in front of him. 

"Expedi me," repeated the voice -- set me free. 

"No!" said Mr. Kopeck, his heart beginning to pound wildly.
"I told you before, I'm never letting you out. If I could
send you back to wherever it is you came from, I would." 

"Expedi me!" 

"No." Mr. Kopeck shook his head emphatically, the hair on
the back of his neck bristling. "Tibi non licet exire." 

"I will crush you utterly. I will feast on your flesh!"
snarled the demon in Latin. 

It can't get out unless I let it out, Mr. Kopeck reminded
himself fearfully. It's like a genie in a bottle. 

"Carnim tuam epulabor!" repeated the demon, his voice
booming through the car. 

"I know what you did to Mrs. Chernoff," Mr. Kopeck said,
gripping the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles showed
white. "Why would you do something like that?" 

The gym bag shook with the demon's evil laughter. "Latibulum
meum aperuit," he said -- she opened the drawer. 

Mr. Kopeck shivered. "Jesus, you're an evil little shit." 

The demon just laughed harder. 

Damn, Mr. Kopeck swore to himself. What was he supposed to
do? Nothing in fourteen years of teaching had prepared him
for handling warty, foul-mouthed spawns of Satan. 

High school students were frequently foul-mouthed and
sadistic, but very few of them had horns and came from the
dark netherworld. 

**** 

Mulder moved his eggs around on his plate. There was no
sense fooling himself; he was pushing forty. He *was*
getting old. It was only a matter of time before he was
watching Matlock reruns and playing shuffleboard in Bermuda
shorts. 

"Mulder?" Scully interrupted his wallow in self-pity. 

"Hmm?" 

"What was it you were saying before Hurricane Kandee blew
through here?" 

"What? Oh -- Kandee. Did you notice the desk blotter in
Principal Waters' office?" 

She shook her head. "No." 

"There was a note for an appointment. 'Kopeck re: K. Caine,
7th p." 

"So?" 

"Mrs. Chernoff was killed right after seventh period, in Mr.
Kopeck's room. And I'm willing to bet that's K. Caine, who
just told us everyone hated Mrs. Chernoff, on her way over
here right now with your Coke." 

He paused as Kandee set the tumbler in front of Scully. She
turned to him. "Anything else I can do for you?" 

"Just the check, Miss Caine." 

She beamed at him. "Certainly. I'll be right back." 

Mulder wore a smug look as he watched her saunter off. The
smirk was half self-congratulation at having correctly
deduced her name, and half appreciation of the view. Kandee
had the kind of perfect ass found only on sixteen year old
cheerleaders. 

"So what does that prove?" Scully's voice suggested a scowl,
so her face wouldn't have to. 

"It proves her parents had a weird sense of humor, or really
high hopes she'd have a future in lap-dancing." 

"I meant the appointment." 

"Oh." He half-shrugged. "Nothing, yet, but it seems a little
too coincidental." 

"Nothing, yet? Look, Mulder, I think you're trying to make
connections that don't exist." 

"It's possible," Mulder agreed, inwardly discounting the
possibility. "But, statistically, the violent deaths of two
teachers in a tiny little nowhere high school in the span of
six days is suspicious." 

Scully didn't quite roll her eyes. "It's anomalous, I
agree." A glob of mayonnaise hung mesmerizingly at the
corner of her mouth and she swiped it away with her tongue,
a move Mulder found rather distracting. "But anomalous is
not the same as suspicious." 

"Mrs. Stiller called her priest and complained she was
having visions of demons..." 

"A psychosis which no doubt explains how she got hold of a
prescription for 60-odd diazepam." 

"...and Mrs. Chernoff had complained to her doctor only a
few days before that she was hearing voices that weren't
there. 'Weird chanting, and after all the students had gone
home' were her exact words."


"I know, I heard her doctor, too." Scully frowned. "So,
fine. She said she was hearing things. Chanting. From this
we can conclude that she was -- what? Fantasy prone, maybe?
Suggestible, if she knew all about Mrs. Stiller, with whom
she was apparently friends? In the early stages of an
organic or mental illness? Delusional?" 

Mulder half-shrugged. Some days he wondered if they were
going to play these games forever. "Maybe. But both of
them..." 

"So, yes, statistically it's an aberration, but that's all
it is." 

He took a deep breath. "Possibly." 

Scully hesitated. Then she sighed and her expression
softened. "Mulder, I know why we're here." 

"Oh? You do?" 

"I do." She nodded. "And I appreciate it. I appreciate that
you were actually listening when I said I wanted to get out
of DC for a few days." She startled Mulder by reaching
across the table and brushing his knuckles, quickly, with
her fingers. "And I appreciate that you tried to find an
official excuse to use as a pretext. I know you take this
work seriously and it has to be hard for you to chase these
pretend leads. But there's no case here. There's no X-File.
There's nothing here but a couple of unfortunate, unrelated
deaths." Her lips quirked into a tiny grin. "And a really
useful king-sized four-poster back at the bed and
breakfast." 

Mulder contemplated this sudden, unexpectedly pleasant
assault. Even he had to agree that, while strange, the
evidence didn't point to a whole lot of anything. There were
some odd elements to the deaths, true, but they weren't all
that odd. And to be honest, his Spidey-sense just wasn't
tingling the way it usually did when something weird was
going on. "Really useful, huh?" 

Scully gathered her coat and stood, brushing a few crumbs
from her suit jacket. "Pay the bubblehead and I'll show you
how useful." She smiled, instantly inflating his ego, and
promising to do the same for regions lower. 

Mulder returned her smile with one of his own as he threw a
twenty on the table and placed his hand squarely on the
small of Scully's back. No, he thought wickedly; this no-
longer-in-his-prime guy is going to show *you* just how
useful. 

****

End 02/10

Malus Genius 3


Mr. Kopeck's breath came in short puffs as he hiked to the
ridgetop at the edge of the village, the gym bag slung
awkwardly over one shoulder. He could hear the demon
snarling at him from inside the bag. "Saccum patefac,
pedicator!" 

"I'm not opening the bag," Mr. Kopeck panted. "And stop
calling me a buttfucker." 

He had left his car parked in an empty lot, where the
falling leaves were collecting on the hood and against the
hubcaps. Now, as he approached the edge of the high ridge
that overlooked the woods far below, it seemed to him that
the gym bag grew heavier with every step. 

"Huius te paenitebit," hissed the demon -- you will regret
this. 

Mr. Kopeck stumbled to the edge of the ridge, and paused for
a moment on the precipice. Before him, the forested hills
and mountains of Vermont's Northeast Kingdom stretched out
for miles in all directions. The early October colors in the
valley below might have taken his breath away, if he hadn't
already been breathless from lugging the cursing demon up
the slope. 

"The only thing I regret," Mr. Kopeck said, lifting the gym
bag over his head, "is stupidly summoning you in the first
place." 

With that, he heaved the Nike bag out into the valley
beneath him. It sailed out, spiraling down, down, down,
until finally the dark blue tote disappeared from view in
the thick treetops far below. 

"Thank God," whispered Mr. Kopeck under his breath. Perhaps
someday a cross-country skier or a hiker might find the bag,
but Mr. Kopeck rather doubted it. The countryside was remote
enough, and the winter snow-cover constant enough, that no
one was likely to discover one little demon in a zippered
bag. Mr. Kopeck dusted off his hands, and turned back toward
the village for the trudge to his car. 

His heart was light -- well, at least lighter --as he drove
past the Common with its white steepled church and baseball
diamond, past the high school and the library and the
village post office. This might be the most boring town in
New England, he thought, but right now boring was exactly
what he needed. 

As he slowed his Camry at the quiet intersection, he spied
the two FBI agents from the high school that afternoon,
emerging from the diner. He stuck his arm out the car window
to give them a cheery little wave. The redhead was damned
attractive, he thought, craning his neck to watch her
walking away; it was nice to see a woman dressed in
something other than corduroy and flannel. 

That was the problem with Craftsbury Common, he thought,
making the turn toward his house -- well, one of the many
problems. All of the good-looking women moved away as soon
as they were old enough to afford a ticket out of town. That
left only the strapping androgynous women who'd graduated
from the local college with a degree in Forestry, women who
could fell a spruce with two or three chops of their mighty
arms; or, on the other end of the spectrum, the little blue-
haired old ladies who kept bed and breakfasts for the
tourists. Was it any wonder he had a hard time keeping his
eyes off his high school students? 

Well, he'd worry about that, and about his little problem
with Principal Waters, some other time. Right now he was
just going to enjoy the feeling of having rid himself of the
demon. With satisfaction he pushed the button on his garage
door opener, and pulled slowly into his garage. With
satisfaction he got out of the car and slammed the door
soundly behind him. Free -- he was free. 

It was such a good feeling that, even after he stepped
inside the house and switched on the kitchen light, it took
him a minute to realize that something about the room was
different. 

The gym bag was sitting on his kitchen table. 

**** 

The four-poster in Scully's room was big, one of those
colonial-style affairs that stood high off the floor, so
high that the furniture included a pair of mahogany steps
for climbing into bed. Mulder restrained himself from making
a joke about Scully's little legs, and closed the door to
her room quietly behind them. 

She was already removing her jacket and toeing off her
pumps. He might be past his prime, Mulder thought with a
slight shake of his head, but Scully was pretty obviously
entering hers. These days she was apt to get down to
business without so much as a preliminary glance. Sometimes
he even found it a little disturbing. 

He started unbuttoning his shirt while she efficiently shed
her clothes. In no time she was nude. She climbed up and sat
on the bed, watching him with a smile while he finished
undressing. 

Her frank curiosity seemed out of place amid the picturesque
old-fashioned furnishings. The room didn't even have a
television, for God's sake. He turned his back to her to
peel off his socks, feeling slightly ridiculous as he hopped
naked on one foot. 

Ridiculous, but turned on. He might be pushing forty, but a
nude Scully still worked like magic on his system. That
tumbled red hair, those bee-stung lips, those firm breasts
with their rosy nipples, those sleek legs -- even on a day
like today, just the thought of her could get his motor
running. 

He went to stand before her, and she scooted to the edge of
the bed to greet him. "You're slowing down, Mulder," she
teased, her small hand closing around his cock. "It used to
be that you'd have your clothes completely off before I
could even step out of my shoes." She tilted her face up for
his kiss. 

He cradled the back of her head as their tongues twined.
After a moment his hand strayed from her soft hair to her
breast, where it lingered for a few moments, his fingers
lightly circling her nipple, evoking a sigh. Then his hand
dipped lower, to find her already slippery and hot. 

She spread her knees a little wider. The mattress was high
enough that, though she was sitting on the edge of the bed
and he was standing before her, their hips were at the same
height. Her hand, which had been stroking up and down his
cock, tugged him closer. He positioned himself against her.
She broke off their kiss and watched as he eased slowly
inside her body. 

"Mmmmm..." she sighed. 

He'd been watching, too. "Lie back, Scully," he said, a
little hoarsely. 

She did. There was something about the sight of Scully,
lying flushed and passionate on the rumpled bed, that sent
his pulse into overdrive. Standing at the edge of the bed
this way, he had both his hands free. He reached out and
caressed one of her breasts with his left hand, while with
his right he found her clit, already silky and wet from his
earlier explorations. He began fucking her slowly while his
hands played over her. 

"Mulder..." 

"Yes?" he said huskily, hoping she was getting ready to talk
dirty. 

"Why were you so interested in whether the history teacher
could read Latin?" 

Mulder felt his hopes plummet like an anvil shoved from a
balcony. "What?" 

"Latin. Mr. Kopeck. Oh, yeah, right there..." 

"Like this?" 

"Like that," she gasped. "Just like that. Yeah. What about
the Latin?" 

"Could we focus, here?" 

"I'm focused," she answered, "extremely foc -- oh, focused.
Now explain the Latin." 

"I wanted to know because," he said, punctuating every
couple of syllables by stroking firmly into her,
"historically in the West, rites of summoning and exorcism
have usually been in Latin." 

"Summoning and exorcism? But that's -- oh god." Scully
wiggled her hips closer to intensify the contact. "But
that's only because Latin was the language of the early
Church, and not" -- she gasped as he thrust harder -- "not
because there's anything intrinsically magical in the
language. And what's it got to do with...with...oh..." 

He didn't answer, too intent on the slick plunge of his body
into hers. Scully's hands clutched the sheets. "Did you know
Mr. Kopeck was sweating today when he came by his
classroom?" 

Speaking of sweat, Mulder felt a trickle inching its way
down between his shoulder blades. "Really?" he said, hooking
a hand under her right knee and lifting it higher. 

"Mmmmm-hmmm." 

Mulder was beginning to pant, his chest rising and falling
with each impassioned breath. 

"That was an odd look Principal Waters gave him, too,"
Scully added thoughtfully. 

Mulder frowned. Damn, when was she ever going to stop
talking? Wasn't this doing anything for her at all? 

"Maybe it wouldn't hurt if we checked him out," Scully said.


He'd once been afraid that the sex might interfere with the
work; it had never occurred to him that, in fact, it might
be the other way around. "Am I keeping you awake?" 

She smiled up at him. "I'd just like to ask him if -- ohhh,
Mulder, that's good just like that -- " 

Finally, Mulder thought with gratitude. He'd been starting
to wonder if she even realized they were having sex. 

"Oh, yes, oh -- " Scully moaned, a blissful expression
dawning on her face. 

She looked like a goddess on the bed before him, Mulder
thought: her red hair spread over the ivory coverlet, her
eyes heavy-lidded, her breasts bouncing slightly with his
exertions. God, she was beautiful. Suddenly he, too, wished
she could have known him when he was in his prime. Then
maybe she wouldn't have been able to do this and talk work
at the same time. One of these days he was going to find it
difficult to keep up with her... 

That day wasn't quite here yet, though. He still had a few
good years left in him. A perverse desire seized him to
outdo Scully at sexual multitasking. 

"So...you think we should interview the teacher?" he asked,
thrusting firmly into her. 

She opened one eye and looked at him in surprise. "Yes," she
gasped. 

He rubbed her swollen clit. "So you're beginning to think
the deaths might be more than mere anomalies?" 

She sank her teeth into her bottom lip and nodded.


"You think it might even be an X-File?" he demanded, fucking
her with pure determination. 

She bunched the bedcovers in her fists. "Yes," she panted.
"Oh -- yes!" 

Her back arched. She squeezed her eyes closed and came,
moaning his name in a long, shuddering sigh.


Mulder watched the whole thing with a surge of satisfaction.
"Jesus, Scully," he said. He could still feel the tremors
rippling through her. 

He figured he'd proved his point. 

She smiled, slowly opened sleepy eyes, and stretched her
arms out in an invitation. He covered her body with his. As
he kissed her hungrily she lifted her legs higher, wrapping
them around his back. 

He went a little crazy then, thrusting into her, still half-
standing, his toes digging into the Oriental carpet for
purchase. Oh God, oh God, oh my God, he thought, his brain
whirling feverishly. He was not too old for this, he would
never be too old for this, he'd show her just how many good
years he had left -- 

He groaned, and spilled into her. 

He was dizzy afterward -- he was always dizzy afterward --
so dizzy that he even forgot for a moment where he was, and
why he was half-on, half-off an enormous four-poster bed.
Gradually, however, with the slowing of his heartbeat,
lucidity returned. He realized that Scully was speaking to
him. 

He looked down. 

"We should probably ask Mr. Kopeck about Kandee," she was
saying matter-of-factly underneath him, in perfect FBI Agent
mode, "and if he had any reason to want Mrs. Chernoff out of
the way..." 

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

End 03/10

Malus Genius 4


Mr. Kopeck tossed his copy of "Claudius the God" down beside
him on the couch, and stared at the gym bag in the center of
his living room. It was no use trying to read over the
demon's steady stream of invective. "Foolish mortal! I will
torment thee beyond imagining!" snarled the demon in Latin. 

Mr. Kopeck frowned. "Yeah, you talk real big for somebody in
a gym bag." 

Twenty-four hours of hearing the demon cursing at him had
strengthened his resolve considerably. He was still afraid
of it, but he was damned if he was going to let it push him
around. 

"Te exanimabo!" snarled the demon. "Testiculos tuos dentibus
sanguinolentis conteram!" 

Mr. Kopeck put his feet up on the coffee table. "Kiss my
entire ass." 

The gym bag fairly shook with rage. 

Mr. Kopeck smiled in satisfaction. If he was going to go to
hell anyway, he thought, he might as well enjoy the trip. 

The sound of the doorbell halted the demon in mid-curse. Mr.
Kopeck got to his feet, wondering who could be at his door.
Usually when students toilet-papered his front yard, they
just honked their car horns. 

He opened the front door, and froze. 

"Oh my God," he said finally. "Kandee." 

The blonde smiled up at him. "Mr. Kopeck, you are, like,
totally cute when you're surprised." 

She was wearing a short pleated skirt and a skin-tight top
that was just abbreviated enough for him to see the ring in
her navel. Mr. Kopeck swallowed, and found his voice again.
"Quick," he said, reaching out to haul her inside. "Get in
here before someone sees you." 

Kandee's nose crinkled happily as he yanked her in and shut
the door. "Mr. Kopeck! I was hoping you'd be glad to see me,
but you are sooo the eager beaver." 

His lips thinned into a grim line. He took one look at the
living room, remembered the demon in the gym bag, and
marched Kandee in the other direction, toward his kitchen.
If Principal Waters got wind of this visit, he thought,
there was going to be hell to pay. 


"Sit down," he said, pushing her toward a dinette chair. 

She sat. 

"Kandee," he said, stabbing an accusing finger in her
direction, "do you have any idea how much trouble you've
already gotten me into?" 

Blue eyes blinked up at him innocently. "Me? Like, what did
I do?" 

Mr. Kopeck clasped his hands behind his back, and glared at
her. "You know very well what you did! First you proposition
me -- " 

"Proposition you? Like, no way, Mr. K." She tucked her chin
and looked up at him through her lashes, a hint of a grin on
her lips. "Or can I call you, you know, Larry, now?" 

"You most certainly may not call me Larry. And I think 'I'll
do anything if you change that D to a B, Mr. Kopeck.
Anything, anything at all,' is pretty clear. I haven't seen
such a blatant come-on since Ginger found out Gilligan was
judging the Ms. Castaway contest." 

"Since who was, like, what?" Kandee asked, even more
confused than he'd come to expect from his weakest student. 

"Never mind," he half-snarled. "That's not even the worst of
it. Did you really have to go telling all your friends about
your offer, making it sound like I was actually considering
it?" 

"Oh please." Kandee balled her fists on her shapely hips,
pulling her T-shirt even tighter 

He shook his head in confusion. "Look, that's beside the
point. The point is, word of your little offer got back to
Principal Waters. Only, the way he heard it, I propositioned
you." 

Kandee squealed. "Seriously? Oh, that is, like, totally
hilarious!" 

"Yes," said Mr. Kopeck dryly. "When he told me he wanted to
fire me, I thought I was going to bust a gut." 

Kandee giggled. "You are sooo funny, Larry," she said.
"That's why I like you so much." 

"Don't say that. And don't call me Larry." 

She grinned up at him frankly, the dimples deepening in her
cheeks. "But I do like you. For an old guy, you're totally
hot." 

He was struggling not to notice the shininess of her ash
blonde hair, the pertness of her upturned nose, the taut
muscles of her teenage body. She had the kind of flat
stomach that made him want to reach out and run his hand
over her smooth skin. 

Good lord, he was old enough to be her father. 

"What if someone knew you were here right now, Kandee?" he
asked in a strained voice. "What if your parents knew, or
Principal Waters? Can you imagine what they would think?" 

"No," she said. "What?" 

Mr. Kopeck counted slowly to ten. "Kandee, you should go
now." 

She leaned closer, her soft lips parted. "I really don't
want to get cut from the cheerleading squad. But, like, the
grade wasn't the only reason I offered, you know?" 

The shirt she wore was cut low, so low he could almost see
the tops of her nipples. Mr. Kopeck looked away hastily. "It
doesn't matter why you offered, Kandee," he said stiffly.
"You should go." 

"Are you sure?" she asked, her voice a husky whisper. 

Mr. Kopeck swallowed. "Kandee..." 

They both froze as the doorbell rang for the second time
that day. 

**** 

Mr. Kopeck lived in an ordinary white clapboard house on an
ordinary street in an ordinary neighborhood. As Mulder
knocked, Scully noted some flaking paint on the shutters,
and a spectacular display of late fall dandelions going to
seed in the front lawn. 

"Agent Scully?" Mr. Kopeck half-asked, obviously surprised
and flustered to find them on his doorstep. He looked at
her, blinked twice, then shifted his gaze. "And Agent,
um..." 

"Mulder," her partner supplied smoothly, slipping his badge
back into his pocket. "We'd like to ask you a few questions.
May we come in?" 

"What? Oh. Of...of course." Mr. Kopeck stood aside and
ushered them, with what looked like reluctance, into his
living room. "But I told the police everything I could think
of..." 

"Routine follow-up, Mr. Kopeck," Scully assured him, taking
in the sparse furnishings and minimalist decor. There was a
gray rectangle under the window where the carpet was still
its true color and deep indentations near the corner where a
large piece of furniture had once plainly stood. A gym bag
and some small weights were pushed under a water-ringed
coffee table that matched nothing else in the room,
newspapers were scattered around, and mugs and drinking
glasses rested on most horizontal surfaces. The couch and
matching chair had seen better days. The only conversation
piece in the room was a saber-toothed tiger skull on the
dusty mantle. 

"Routine how?" Kopeck asked apprehensively and tucked his
hands into the front pockets of his jeans. "I don't know
what else I can tell you about Mrs. Chernoff's awful ... um
... accident." 

"We're just finishing up the paperwork," Mulder said easily.
He pulled out his notepad and pen. "I'm sure, as you said,
that there isn't much you can add, but since it was your
classroom, we have to conduct a formal interview. Shouldn't
take more than a few minutes." He nodded toward the couch.
"May we sit?" 

Scully watched Mr. Kopeck's eyes swing around the room.
"Sure," he said. "Sure, just let me get this junk out of..."
He lifted the bag and weights and took them quickly into a
room she thought must be the kitchen. "I was getting ready
to go out..." His voice drifted off. 

"Nervous," Mulder mouthed to her, as if he'd made some great
discovery. 

Of course he was nervous. People almost always got nervous
when you waved a badge in their faces. Particularly, she'd
noticed over the years, the innocent ones, the ones who
thought they'd never have a run-in with law enforcement more
interesting than a speeding ticket. "Duh," she mouthed back.
That got her a smile. 

"So, um..." Mr. Kopeck was standing in front of them again.
"Can I get you anything?" he asked her, without so much as a

glance toward her partner. 

"No, thank you," Scully replied. "We don't want to tie up
your Saturday, Mr. Kopeck. Especially if you were, as you
say, on the way out." 

"That's right," Mulder continued in a tone that was entirely
too jovial. "I'm sure you've got plans. If you could just
answer a few questions, we'll get out of your way." 

Kopeck perched on the chair opposite them, looking decidedly
uncomfortable. "I was just going to the gym. But, all
right." 

Mulder flipped through his notes. "You've been at Craftsbury
Academy for six years, is that right?" 

"Yes." 

"And before that, after graduating from Boston University,
you worked for Art-o-Fax?" 

"Yes." Mr. Kopeck nodded. "It was the family business." 

"Specializing in?" 

"Reproductions." 

Scully arched an eyebrow. "Reproduction?" 

Kopeck shook his head and grinned a little sheepishly.
"Reproductions," he said, emphasizing the final *s*.
"Antiquities. Coins. Jewelry. Movie models. Fossils, real or
imagined." He nodded toward the skull on the mantle. "Copies
of the Declaration of Independence, the Treaty of
Versailles. That sort of thing. Mainly mail order." 

"And your mother sold the business after his death?" 

"The time was right," Mr. Kopeck nodded. "Dad started out
doing props for theatre in college, then got into movie
work, doing sets, props, special effects. The business
started out as a sideline, and grew from there. But it was
more work than either mom or I wanted to put into it after
he was gone." 

"Movie work?" Mulder leaned forward, a curious gleam
lighting his eyes despite the routine nature of the
questioning. "Your father wouldn't happen to have been
Richard Tyler Kopeck, would he?" 

Mr. Kopeck looked surprised. "You've heard of him?" 

Mulder nodded rapidly and scooted even farther forward, so
far that Scully momentarily feared he was going to fall off
the edge of his seat. "I've seen every -- " he began
eagerly. 

Just then he seemed to recall her presence, and that they
were in the middle of and interview with a suspect. He
stopped, glanced at her quickly, and then looked back down
at his notes. "That is, uh..." Mulder flipped a page. "You
did keep a few souvenirs from your father's business when
you sold it, is that right?" 

"Yes." Mr. Kopeck's frown grew. "Look, I don't see what
this..." 

"I don't either." Mulder gave a *what-can-you-do-about-it?*
shrug. He was really playing up the Good Cop routine, Scully
thought. "But I have to ask. For the report. I'm sure, being
a teacher, you can understand about paperwork." 

"Oh." Mr. Kopeck sounded deflated. "Yes, of course." 

"You live here alone?" 

His mouth twitched. "I do now." 

Mulder nodded in that *been-there-done-that* way he had.
"Children?" 

"Just the ones I teach." 

"We interviewed a Miss..." Mulder turned to her. "What was
her name, Scully? Sandy? Mandy?" 

Finally, Scully thought, her cue. "Kandee, I believe. Kandee
Caine." 

Across from them, Mr. Kopeck's jaw dropped. He glanced
quickly from one of them to the other, alarm in his
expression. He appeared to decide that she promised a more
sympathetic ear, even if she was supposed to be the Bad Cop.
"Look," he said to her in a rush, "whatever she told you, it
isn't true." 

Scully felt her eyebrows climb. Oh, brother. So he was
hiding something after all. "And exactly which part wasn't
true?" 

Mr. Kopeck swallowed nervously. "All of it. Or some of it.
Whatever she told you about -- about us." 

"About the two of you?" Scully asked. 

Mr. Kopeck had gone absolutely pale. "I never touched her --
I swear!" 

Scully traded a look with Mulder. 

"It's just..." Mr. Kopeck shifted his appeal to the only
other man in the room. "It's just, women today -- " He shook
his head in confusion. 

"What about women today?" Scully asked, a little sharply. 

"I wish I knew," Mr. Kopeck said, with a helpless gesture.
"I grew up in this town. It used to take three dates just to
get to second base, for God's sake. There used to be rules."


Scully wondered if Mulder was as baffled by all this as she
was. "What does any of this have to do with you and Kandee,
Mr. Kopeck?" 

He shook his head. "Don't you see? This place is one of the
most old-fashioned, traditional little towns you could ever
hope to find - and even so, there are sixteen-year-old young
women with navel piercings jumping out at a person from
behind every tree." 

Scully was still in the dark, but she could see Mulder
nodding sagely. "Sexual politics aren't what they used to
be, even in small towns." 

Scully found herself struggling to catch up. She frowned at
Mr. Kopeck. "So you're saying that Kandee...made a pass at
you?" 

"I was out of the dating scene for thirteen years and,
frankly, it scares me now," said Mr. Kopeck with a troubled
expression. "I'm only thirty-seven, but it seems to me
things used to be different. Women used to be different." 

Scully waited for Mulder to set Mr. Kopeck straight and
forge ahead with the interrogation. Instead he surprised her
by nodding sympathetically. "The sexual dynamic has
shifted," he said. "Women have always been in charge, but
now they don't even bother to pretend otherwise." 

Mr. Kopeck gave Mulder a grateful look. "That's right. I
knew it wasn't just me." 

Mulder stuffed his notepad back in his breast pocket. "It's
unsettling, given that modern man evolved from hunter-
gatherers." 

Again Mr. Kopeck looked at him with gratitude. "Exactly!
We're supposed to be the hunters." 

"Of course, we're still better off than the male black widow
spider. The female of the species kills him after they
mate," Mulder observed, using the rapid monotone he usually
employed when spinning theories. "Or the male praying
mantis. The female mantis is initially passive throughout
the mating dance, letting the male make all the moves. If he
seems to hesitate, however, she seizes him in her mandibles
and bites off his head, the source of his sexual
inhibitions. Then, as his now-headless body reflexively
proceeds to mate with her like there's no tomorrow, she
continues to devour him. Finally there's nothing left except
his still-twitching sexual organs." 

"But back to your meeting yesterday, Mr. Kopeck, we -- "
Scully began, trying to bring the conversation back to the
investigation. 

"Yes," Mr. Kopeck replied glumly, ignoring Scully
altogether, "at least we're better off than that. I
sometimes think we're headed in that direction, though." 

Scully clenched her jaw, biting back her growing irritation.
Mulder's apparent inability to stay on topic was annoying
enough all by itself. Not only that, but she sensed he
intended his little side-trip into entomology as a veiled
jab at her. 

Enough, she thought. If Mulder was the Good Cop, that must
make her the Bad Cop. She'd just put an end to this
conversation. "So Mrs. Chernoff found out about your affair
with Kandee?" 

"No!" said Mr. Kopeck, his gaze darting to her wildly. "No,
you have it all wrong. There was no affair. Kandee was
worried about her grades, and rightly so, and, and...well,
she propositioned me. Her exact wording was 'a lay for an A,
Mr. K.'" He blushed slightly, and shot Scully an apologetic
glance. "I told her in no uncertain terms that I wasn't
interested, that I AM not interested, but the next thing I
know I'm being called down to Principal Waters' office to
explain the affair Kandee and I never had." 

"I see." Scully nodded slightly. "Mr. Kopeck, when we spoke
with her, Kandee implied that Mrs. Chernoff was not well
liked by the students...or the staff." 

He was silent for a second, absorbing this information, and
then a look of horror dawned on his face. "Oh my God. You
think -- don't tell me you suspect Kandee and I planned -- "


"Just routine questions, Mr. Kopeck." 

"I thought you said it was an accident." He didn't look at
her, instead choosing to pick at a spot on the arm of his
chair. "The coroner here said it was." 

"It seems to have been," Mulder reassured him. "We're just
tying up a few loose ends." 

"Because I would never kill anyone, and as for
Kandee...well, if you knew her, you'd realize she's hardly
the criminal mastermind type." 

"I can believe that," Scully said dryly. 

Silence fell. Then, from the kitchen, she heard a faint
rustling. She could tell Mr. Kopeck heard it, too, because
he sat bolt upright. 

"Is there someone else here?" she asked. 

"No!" 

"Because I thought I heard something -- " 

"It's a rat," said Mr. Kopeck quickly. 

"A rat?" 

"A rat. Absolutely." 

They all looked at one another. 

After a moment Mr. Kopeck sighed and said, "Okay, I admit
it. I have a confession to make. Kandee was here earlier. I
hustled her out the back door when you rang the doorbell,
but it's not what you think. I never expected her to drop
by, and I asked her to leave as soon as she arrived.
Absolutely nothing happened. If I seem jumpy, it's just that
this has been a tough week for me. My job is on the line." 

Mulder, the Good Cop, nodded. "Thank you for telling us." 

Mr. Kopeck stood up. "Now is there anything else you need to
ask me? Because I'd really like to get to the gym." 

Scully shook her head. "Nothing else." 

"Good." 

She and Mulder both got to their feet, and Mr. Kopeck
ushered them the few steps to his front door. "I'm glad you
understand about Kandee," he said, with a nervous smile.
"Even a false accusation of impropriety..." His voice
trailed off. 

"It's the sort of thing that could ruin a career," Mulder
agreed with a nod. 

Mr. Kopeck sighed. "Even if it is only a teaching career." 

They shook hands and he closed the door behind them. 

A few seconds later, as she and Mulder were getting in the
rental car they'd left parked in the driveway, Mr. Kopeck's
garage door opened. The man must be a regular fiend for
working out, Scully thought. She could see him hurrying into
his Camry, his weights in one hand and his blue leather Nike
bag slung over his shoulder. 

"Did you ever work out, Mulder?" she asked. 

He shot her a strange look. "I still do." 

She raised an eyebrow. "Do you?" she said, fastening her
seatbelt. "Huh." 

****

End 04/10 

Malus Genius 5


"Well, I think that went rather well, all things
considered," said Mr. Kopeck to the gym bag on the seat
beside him. He wiped the sweat from his brow with an
unsteady hand. A furious voice from inside the bag rumbled,
"Pedicator!" 

Mr. Kopeck sighed. "I told you to stop calling me a
buttfucker. Besides, can't you think of something a little
more original?" 

He felt a sense of relief. He'd made it through an encounter
with Kandee, and gotten rid of her without doing anything he
should regret. He'd survived an actual interrogation --
well, questioning, anyway -- from a pair of FBI agents, and
said nothing to make them suspect he was harboring the
murderous spawn of Satan. Most importantly, neither Kandee
nor the agents had discovered the demon in his house. He was
starting to feel like he might actually have a handle on the
situation. 

The gym bag stirred, and the demon spoke again. "Expedi me!"
it demanded for the hundredth time that weekend -- set me
free. 

Mr. Kopeck, both hands on the steering wheel, broke into a
falsetto rendition of Sting's "If you Love Somebody Set Them
Free": "Free, free, set them free, who-o-oa..." he warbled.
"Free, free, set them free..." 

"Puellae modo cantas," spat the demon from inside the bag --
you sing like a girl. 

"I sing like Sting," Mr. Kopeck corrected, relief making him
flippant. "You're just unable to appreciate it fully because
there's no music and no tantric sex in the underworld." 

"Verpam meam suge, mentula contumax!" 

"Now, now," said Mr. Kopeck mildly. "I think I actually
preferred it when you called me a buttfucker." 

He turned the car down the road that would take him to the
gym. Birch trees and a white-washed wooden fence lined the
quiet road. From behind the white fence, a brown cow watched
his car go by with bovine indifference. 

"I haven't given up yet, you know," said Mr. Kopeck to the
demon. "I'm sure eventually I'll find some way to get rid of
you. My father did. An exorcism, maybe." 

"Cacabo ego vos et irrumabo!" the demon snarled --I will
shit on you and fuck your face. 

Mr. Kopeck shook his head sadly. "My, my, we certainly have
a serious case of potty mouth today." 

He swung into the parking lot of the gym, pulled into a
space, and cut the engine. "You be quiet from now on," he
told the demon as he picked up the gym bag. "I thought I was
going to have a heart attack back at the house, when that
FBI agent heard you stirring." 

Whether the demon was actually heeding him or was just too
furious to answer, all was silent as Mr. Kopeck strode into
the gym with the Nike bag over his shoulder.

****** 

Even in the car, it smelled like autumn: crisp air, burning
leaves. This was the kind of quiet country place that most
people pictured when they heard the word "romantic," Scully
thought as they drove back to the bed and breakfast. It was
certainly having that effect on her. 

"Well, I guess that settles that," she said, admiring the
red and gold beauty of the landscape. "Mr. Kopeck didn't
particularly strike me as the Svengali-type who would put a
teenage girl up to murder." 

"No," Mulder agreed. "And despite her air of brilliance and
intrigue, Kandee never really struck me as the murderous
type, either." 

He appeared not to notice her pointed look. 

"So is that it for this case?" she asked. "Are we agreed the
two deaths at the high school were just an unfortunate
coincidence?" 

Mulder frowned slightly. "I'm not sure. Kopeck's family
history does suggest some interesting possibilities." 

"It does?" 

"I'm thinking of his father. Richard Tyler Kopeck was more
than just some guy who sold genuine fake EBE skeletons by
mail, Scully. He was prop master and special effects
consultant on a number of well-respected cinematic classics
and -- " 

"Was he?" She folded her arms under her breasts. She needed
a coffee. And some Mulder. Not necessarily in that order.
"Which ones? Casablanca? Citizen Kane? Braveheart?" 

Mulder snorted. "I said 'classics.' Unearthly Evil I, II,
and III, Night of the Banshees, Return of the Banshees,
Vampire Vixens, Vampire Vixens on Fire... 

"Guess they haven't shown those on the Discovery channel
lately." 

"Fine films," Mulder assured her. "Highest quality. True
art." 

"So what's his family doing in Craftsbury Common? It isn't
exactly Hollywood." 

"True enough. But the last film he worked on was -- Gothar's
Revenge." He gave her an expectant look. 

She felt like the slow contestant on Jeopardy. "Should I
know this one?" 

"Scully, Scully, Scully..." Mulder shook his head in mock
disgust. "THE Gothar's Revenge. Probably the best-known
unfinished film never made. The entire production was
plagued by one disaster after another -- accidents, fires,
the near-drowning of a boatload of extras. The leading man
broke both legs before the production started and had to be,
as they say, hastily replaced, and the leading lady was
attacked by a knife-wielding psycho on the way to the set
one morning. The cast and crew complained of things going
missing, inexplicable noises, random acts of destruction.
The second lead was brought in and within a week OD'd on
aspirin of all things, and a stunt man lost an arm in a
misfired explosion. Finally, about halfway into filming, the
director, writer, producer and three cameramen were all
killed when a scaffold collapsed. Not surprisingly, the
whole project was thought to be cursed." He shook his head
again. "I can't believe you don't know anything about it." 

"And I can't believe you know that much," she countered with
a smile. "So this forced Mr. Kopeck's father into early
retirement?" 

"Maybe. Probably. But Richard Kopeck was one of the best.
Through his work, he not only became the grand old man of
pre-CGI special effects, but acquired an almost encyclopedic
knowledge of the occult. In fact, after his Hollywood
career, he was pretty much a regular on the expert witness
circuit, giving testimony for cases involving either." He
turned to her and grinned. "Or both." 

The conversation was becoming unsettling, though she wasn't
sure why. "So...what? You're thinking there's some
connection between the senior Mr. Kopeck's expertise and the
deaths here?" she asked. "The man's long dead." 

"I know." Mulder nodded. "But Richard Kopeck was also
extremely well known in certain circles for one other
thing." 

Scully had to suppress the urge to roll her eyes. She rubbed
her forehead with her fingertips. "Do I want to know?" 

"Richard Kopeck could conjure demons." 

"What?" 

Mulder nodded, grinning his kid-in-the-candy-store grin. "I
always assumed it was a special effect of some kind,
something to do with smoke, mirrors, and dry ice. But
this...this fits." 

"Fits how?" she challenged. "Fits what?" 

"All of it," he answered decisively. "Everything."


She stared at him a moment, watching the scenery rush past
behind his obviously delighted profile. Demons. How very
Mulder, she thought with sudden resentment. And how very
stupid of her to have believed he had anything more on his
mind than his usual crackpot theories. Here they were in the
middle of a beautiful New England autumn, and he wasn't
thinking of romance, togetherness, or even the mind-bending,
toe-curling sex that had marked the trip to date. No. He was
thinking of evil spirits. When was she going to learn? "I
see." 

He gave her a puzzled frown. "You see what?" 

"Plenty," she muttered, and turned back to the window.
Autumn in Vermont had suddenly lost its charm. 

**** 

"Hi, Larry," said Belinda, the girl who worked at the front
desk of the gym. She leaned her elbows on the countertop and
tilted her head to watch as he signed his name in the
members' book. 

He looked up at her with a half-smile. "Hi, Belinda. Busy
Saturday?" 

She laughed. "Nah, not really. Cheerleaders are coming
through to practice with me at three, but right now,
nobody's here." 

He couldn't think of anything witty to say in return and so
he pretended to be absorbed in noting down the time. He
wished he knew how to make small talk with her, but she was
in her early twenties, not much older than his students.
They didn't have that much in common. 

"I heard about you and Karen," Belinda said. "Sorry about
that." 

He shrugged. "I'm adjusting." 

She gave him a sympathetic smile. "Yeah, I've been there. If
it's any consolation, my last boyfriend was cheating on me,
too." 

"Thanks," he said, wondering why people always thought their
infidelity stories would cheer him up. 

She glanced up at him through her bangs, and reached out to
play with the chain that connected the ball-point pen in his
hand to the desk. "I was just wondering..." 

"Yeah?" he said, and was suddenly seized with the notion
that she was going to ask him out. Uh-oh, he thought, his
heart starting to beat faster. He didn't know whether he
wanted her to be interested in him or not. 

"I was thinking of going to see that movie -- " 

"Hey, Belinda!" called a chummy male voice. 

Mr. Kopeck spun around. He groaned inwardly when he saw Eric
Noonan bounding toward them, wearing sweat-stained workout
gear and a grin. Eric sold cars at the Ford dealership in
Hardwick and was, to put it mildly, a colossal asshole. 

Belinda brightened. "Hey, Eric." 

"You're looking gorgeous as usual, baby," Eric said, and
winked at her. He seemed to notice Mr. Kopeck as a sort of
afterthought. "Oh, hi, Larry. I heard Old Lady Chernoff
bought the farm in your classroom day before yesterday." 

"Yes, she had an accid -- " 

"God, I hated that old bat," said Eric, turning back to
Belinda. "My junior year, she gave me a D in Civics. What a
bitch. Did you know her, baby?" 

Belinda shook her head. "I had Mrs. Dorset for Civics. I
think I got a B." 

Eric grinned at her, flashing white teeth in an artificially
tan face. "B as in Babe-a-licious. I was just on my way to
hit the showers. Care to join me?" 

"Oh, Eric," Belinda said with a giggle. 

He laughed. "Yeah, I guess there wouldn't be room in the
shower for me and you and Mr. Happy. One of these days,
though, baby." He hunkered over the desk toward her and his
voice dropped to a more confidential tone. "Hey, I was
thinking of going to see the new James Bond movie tonight. I
figured maybe you'd like -- " 

Mr. Kopeck picked up his gym bag, and turned toward the
locker room with a sigh. Now he would never know what
Belinda had been about to ask him. No, instead she'd be out
tonight with Eric Fucking Noonan, Mr. Smooth Used-Car
Salesman, Mr. Self-Appointed Cocksman of Craftsbury Common.
Eric had been an asshole in high school, and twenty years
later, he was still an asshole. 

Mr. Kopeck was so discouraged that he actually forgot all
about the demon as he swung the Nike bag into his locker,
and slammed the metal door shut with a clang.

****

End 05/10

Malus Genius 6


Several long minutes of glacial silence passed. Mulder
tried, and failed, to ignore it. It was hard to ignore
glacial silence when you were alone in a car with a woman
and there was nothing else to look at except falling leaves
and white-washed fences. He was just about to ask Scully
what was wrong when she cleared her throat. Still looking
out the window, she asked, "Mulder, what was all that about,
back at Kopeck's place?" 

He glanced at her, surprised at the tack she had taken.
"What was all what about? The questions about the family
business, or about Kopeck's father?" 

She shook her head. "No, Mulder. The black widow spider, the
praying mantis..." She turned her face his way and regarded
him coolly. "Is there something you want to say to me?" 

He considered giving her a flippant answer, then decided
against it. He drummed his fingers thoughtfully on the
steering wheel. "Yeah. I'd like for you to see me as
something more than a sex object, Scully." 

She snorted. 

The car swept through the bright autumn landscape. Leaves of
copper and gold were falling on either side of the country
road, floating softly down to the grass. 

After a minute she said, "You're serious." 

"It's just..." he began. He sighed. "I'm getting old,
Scully." 

She cocked an eyebrow at him. "And?" 

"No, I am. I mean, I'm still a decade or two away from
needing Viagra, but the day is coming. Time marches on.
Someday I really will be gray, and then -- " 

"Oh, my God," she said, surprising him with the incredulity
in her tone. "Is that what this is about? The gray hair in
the shower yesterday morning?" 

"No," he said, and gnawed at his lip. "Or yes. Partially,
maybe. The truth is, I'm not in my prime any more -- " 

"Mulder, I was only kidding about that." 

He glanced at her, then away again. "You didn't sound like
you were kidding." 

"Unfortunately, there's no laugh track in your bedroom." 

"You think it needs one?" He smiled, but the smile didn't
reach his eyes. 

She didn't smile back. "Mulder, don't start. You have very
little cause to complain when I just found out that you knew
damned well -- " 

He opened his mouth to interrupt, but before he could form
the words his cell phone rang in his breast pocket. "Damn,"
he swore, pulling out the phone. "Mulder," he snapped into
the receiver, frustration coloring his usual flat
professionalism. 

The voice on the other end was so loud and so agitated that
he flinched and jerked the phone away before bringing it
gingerly back to his ear. He listened to the excited caller
on the other end of the line, watching the road with only
half his attention now. "Okay," he said finally. "We're on
our way." 

"What is it?" Scully asked as he tucked the phone back into
his pocket. 

"There's been another death," he told her, checking over his
shoulder before starting the car into a three-point turn.
"It looks like Mr. Kopeck might not be so innocent after
all. This time, the body's at the gym." 

**** 

It was just too awful, even for someone like Eric Noonan,
thought Mr. Kopeck. He glanced at the dead body with a sense
of horror. He supposed death was rarely dignified, but to
die naked in a gym while stealing someone else's deodorant
was the epitome of indignity. 

The locker room was streaked with blood: blood on the
lockers, blood on the three wooden benches. It ran in a
rivulet to the little metal drain set in the concrete floor.
Mr. Kopeck shuddered. The locker where he'd left his gym bag
yawned open, the empty Nike bag inside. 

Law enforcement -- the two FBI agents, two Troopers from the
Vermont State Police, and a detective from the same Derby
barracks -- milled around him. The FBI agents seemed
perfectly at home amid the carnage, the Troopers completely
at sea, and the lone detective somewhere in the middle. All
of them were talking in the language of crime and death:
fingerprints, footprints, trace evidence, post-mortem
lividity. Mr. Kopeck buried his face in his hands. 

"Right Guard," noted Agent Mulder, observing the deodorant
in the dead man's grip. "Too bad it wasn't the strongest
protection he could buy." 

"No," said Mr. Kopeck, looking up. "That was mine. I think
he was borrowing it." 

Agent Scully pinned him with a glance. "Borrowing it?" 

He shrugged. "Stealing it. Whatever." 

The younger of the two Troopers squinted at him. "So you
killed him because he was stealing your deodorant?" 

"No!" yelped Mr. Kopeck. "I didn't kill anyone. I just found
the body. You can ask Belinda out there. I walked in here
and found him this way." 

"You didn't see anything suspicious?" the detective asked
him. 

"I didn't see anyone -- any person," said Mr. Kopeck
scrupulously, wondering which would be worse, a prison cell
or a rubber room. 

With the FBI in charge, neither the Troopers nor the State
Police detective had much to occupy them at the scene. Soon
the Troopers announced they were off to notify the next of
kin. The detective followed. 

The fewer people there were in the room, the more disturbing
Mr. Kopeck found the murder scene. Besides, he wondered,
where was the demon? Had it returned to his desk? His
kitchen? Was it running around loose, a menace to every
unsuspecting citizen of Craftsbury Common? Was it even now
watching him from some shadowy corner? 

Mr. Kopeck wiped his damp palms on his sweatpants. "Can I go
now?" he asked the two FBI agents. "I already gave the other
detective my statement." 

Mulder and Scully exchanged looks. "This is going to take me
a little while, Mulder," she said, gesturing at Noonan's
dead body. 

"Take your time." He said it as calmly as if he were sitting
behind a desk pushing paper, and not standing over a naked,
blood-spattered corpse. He turned to Mr. Kopeck. "I would
like to ask you a few more questions, if you don't mind." 

Mr. Kopeck's gaze slid to the body on the floor. "Do we have
to do it here? It's just a little hard to concentrate, you
know, with Eric -- " 

"If you'd prefer, we can go outside." 

Agent Mulder pulled the locker room door open, and Mr.
Kopeck got up and walked with him out into the hallway, to
where the smell of established mildew and fresh blood gave
way to the cleaner air of racketball courts and waxed wooden
floors. Mr. Kopeck glanced back and forth, half expecting to
see the demon disappearing around a corner. 

Mulder gestured to a bench against one wall, and together
they sat down. "So how did it happen?" he asked without
preamble. 

"I -- I don't know," Mr. Kopeck stammered. "The last time I
saw Eric alive, he was flirting with Belinda at the desk.
The next thing I knew, he was lying dead on the locker room
floor." 

Mulder lifted one eyebrow. "You say the victim was flirting
with the woman at the desk?" 

"Well, I consider it flirting," said Mr. Kopeck stiffly.
"Maybe you wouldn't." 

"Did she flirt back?" 

Mr. Kopeck wondered if all FBI agents were so nosey. What
could this possibly have to do with Eric's murder? "I guess
so. She was laughing at his jokes, anyway. It -- it
surprised me, because..." 

"Yes?" said Agent Mulder after a moment. "You were saying?" 

Mr. Kopeck shook his head. "Nothing." 

"No, you said it surprised you. Why did it surprise you that
she flirted back?" 

"Well," answered Mr. Kopeck, feeling foolish, "I realize now
I was probably wrong, but before Eric came in, I thought
maybe Belinda was -- I think she was going to ask me out." 

"Oh?" 

Mr. Kopeck squirmed. "Maybe. I don't know. She talked to me,
and she mentioned she was going to the movies. And
then...you know, I was half-hoping she was going to ask me
out, and I was half-terrified she was going to." 

"That would have been a problem?" 

"I don't know. Maybe. She's a little young for me. Plus she
always sets the radio here to the bubblegum pop station from
Burlington, and no offense if you're a Backstreet Boys fan,
but if I have to listen to one more chorus of 'As Long as
You Love Me,' I'm going to drink Drano. I mean, she's nice,
but...I'm not sure I'm ready..." He shrugged. "Anyway, she
probably wasn't going to say anything anyway. It's just that
I've never been very good at reading these situations. And
I'm way out of practice." 

Agent Mulder nodded slowly. "You knew all of the people
who've died here this week, didn't you, Mr. Kopeck?" 

He swallowed, and wondered how he was supposed to answer.
Outraged innocence? Mournful agreement? He couldn't decide,
so he just nodded. 

Agent Mulder was silent. Finally he leaned back against the
wall behind them. "You said you teach World History?" he
asked conversationally. 

Mr. Kopeck had not expected his casual tone. "Yes, that's
right." 

"In that case, do you know the story of Brutus before the
Battle of Philippi?" 

Somewhat puzzled, Mr. Kopeck nodded. "Yes -- it's in
Plutarch, and Shakespeare too. Brutus was an ambitious Roman
who had joined in the conspiracy to assassinate Julius
Caesar. Civil war followed. On the evening before the battle
in which he was to die, Brutus couldn't sleep. In the
darkest hour of the night he was visited by a -- " 

Mr. Kopeck ground to a halt. 

"Yes?" prodded Agent Mulder. 

"By a -- a demon." 

Mulder nodded. "Do you know what the creature said when
Brutus asked it who it was?" 

Mr. Kopeck bit his lip nervously. "'Sum malus tuus genius' -
- 'I am your evil spirit.'" 

Agent Mulder regarded him in expectant silence. 

Mr. Kopeck turned his head and asked with lowered brows, "So
what are you implying, Agent Mulder?" 

Agent Mulder folded his arms over his chest. "Ambition
caught up with Brutus. Manifest ambition in the form a
demon, Mr. Kopeck, in the form of an evil spirit." 

Mr. Kopeck's mouth felt suddenly dry. He swallowed. "It's a
story, Agent Mulder. The demon is just -- WAS just a
dramatic device." 

"Is it?" 

"Of course it is," Mr. Kopeck replied, trying to look
appalled instead of terrified. "Are you...are you seriously
suggesting...?" 

Mulder cleared his throat. "You're just recently divorced,
aren't you, Mr. Kopeck?" 

Mr. Kopeck looked down at his shoes. "It's not final yet. My
wife left me two months ago." 

"Left you for another man?" 

Mr. Kopeck flushed, and glanced at Mulder resentfully. "Not
that it's any of your business, but yes." 

Beside him, Mulder nodded sympathetically. "I imagine that's
been hard to get used to." 

"You could say that." 

"So, then..." the FBI agent continued, "I suppose this has
been an eventful couple of months for you. Recently and
quite unfamiliarly, you've been propositioned by one
student, probably found yourself eyeing others, and had
reason to wonder if the woman at the desk outside might be
interested in you." 

Mr. Kopeck turned and regarded him apprehensively. "Yes." 

"And three people have died." 

Mr. Kopeck sat for a moment, wondering what Agent Mulder was
getting at. "So what are you suggesting? Are you trying to
tell me my evil spirit is...lust?" 

Mulder tilted his head thoughtfully, looking off into the
distance. "Maybe it would be more accurate to call it a
manifestation of the conflict you've been feeling lately
about sex." 

Mr. Kopeck snorted. 

"Or I could just be nuts," Agent Mulder said lightly. 

"I think that's more likely." 

"Still," Mulder said, "it makes an interesting theory, don't
you think?" 

They heard voices in the hallway intersection beside them,
and both turned their heads. A second later Belinda strolled
past in the tight-fitting uniform of an aerobics instructor,
spandex shorts and a sports bra. She was talking to another
woman in similarly body-hugging workout gear. The two men
watched the women go by, listening until the soft sound of
their voices faded. 

Mr. Kopeck sighed. "Sex used to be so much fun," he said
sadly. He shook his head in confusion. "How did it turn so
complicated?" 

"Forget needing glasses or starting to go gray," Agent
Mulder said. "That's the real sign of encroaching age." 

Mr. Kopeck frowned. "I think you're right. I remember when I
was a teenager, it was all I could think about. I wanted to
do it all day. Hell, when I was twenty-one, I did do it all
day." 

"I did it all day when I was fourteen," said Agent Mulder.
"Of course, those were all solo flights." 

Mr. Kopeck leaned his chin on his hand and sighed. "I think
it's unfair that men are in their sexual prime when we're
nineteen. That kind of potential is wasted on a nineteen-
year-old. I mean, did you have your sexual act together when
you were nineteen?" He turned and looked at Mulder
questioningly. 

"I'm not sure I have my sexual act together now." 

Mr. Kopeck nodded. "I certainly didn't when I was nineteen,
I know that much. At that age I considered the evening a
swaggering success if I didn't end up scrubbing at my date's
sweater with a handkerchief and apologizing for my over-
enthusiasm." 

"Assuming you could get a date at all." 

"Exactly," agreed Mr. Kopeck. "I was skinny, I had zits.
Whereas, women...women don't hit their peak until their mid-
thirties. They've got motive AND opportunity." 

"They out-live us, too," Agent Mulder pointed out helpfully.


Mr. Kopeck shook his head. "Life is so fucking unfair." 

They both lapsed into silence. 


A few minutes later they heard the brisk tap of high heels,
and Agent Scully appeared, trim and efficient-looking,
tugging off a pair of surgical gloves as she approached.
"All done here, Mulder," she said. 

Agent Mulder stood. 

"Is that it?" asked Mr. Kopeck, looking up hopefully. "Are
we finished?" 

"For now. But think about what I said," Agent Mulder told
him. "I have a feeling you're not going to solve your
problem until you face up to what's causing it." 

Mr. Kopeck nodded, and watched as the two agents turned and
walked away. Agent Scully paused to throw her gloves in a
nearby trash can, Mulder adroitly stepping aside for her as
if the move had been choreographed. 

Mr. Kopeck stared after them. It was easy for Mulder to
talk, he thought bitterly. He'd seen the way Agent Scully
looked at her partner. He had a feeling Mulder was getting
some on a regular basis. Everyone seemed to be, except him. 

"Hey, Mr. K." 

Mr. Kopeck turned at the sound of a familiar voice.
"Brittany," he said with some surprise, getting to his feet.
"And Kandee." Both were standing before him in their blue
and gold cheerleading uniforms, pompoms at the ready. The
day, he reflected sardonically, just kept getting better. 

**** 

END 06/10 Malus Genius 7


"So..." Scully said as they sat in the front seat of the
rental car, drinking bottled water. "You and Mr. Kopeck have
a nice talk?" Mulder glanced at her uneasily. "Nice enough."


"I suppose you talked about Goatboy's Revenge." 

"Gothar's Revenge," he corrected. "And as a matter of fact,
we didn't. You want to get a late lunch?"


"We have to swing by the sheriff's office first so I can
drop off my notes," she replied. "And I want to look over
the physical evidence. Shouldn't take long, though." 

Mulder nodded. He hoped it wouldn't take long. He was
hungry. "What did the preliminary examination show?" he
said, starting the engine. 

"Massive blood loss. Head trauma. Assorted edema,
contusions, abrasions. Cuts, scratches. Something did a
number on Eric Noonan." 

Mulder's eyebrows arched as he steered the car out of the
gym parking lot. "Some*thing*, Agent Scully?" 

"We found what I'm pretty sure is fur, and there were claw
marks, bite marks..." 

"Bite marks? Like Mrs. Chernoff and Mrs. Stiller?"


"Similar." Scully laced her fingers behind her neck and
stretched, arching her spine. Her neck cracked. "But bigger.
Something decidedly vicious." 

Mulder nodded. "How much bigger?" 

"Hard to say." 

Mulder grinned. "Guess." 

"I don't know." She sighed wearily. "Mulder, you've got a
theory. I know you've got a theory; you know you've got a
theory. So, what's your theory?" 

Mulder bit the inside of his cheek, and kept his eyes on the
road. They'd finally reached his least favorite part of any
case: the part where he told her exactly what he thought,
and she told him he was crazy. "You know my theory." 

She slumped in her seat as if the wind had been knocked out
of her. "What? An evil spirit? A demon?" 

Mulder nodded. 

"I don't believe this..." Scully muttered under her breath.
"Mulder, why are you doing this?" 

"Doing what?" 

"This. Why are you trying to make something out of nothing?"


"Nothing?" Mulder echoed. "Scully, there have been three
suspicious deaths in a week, all of them revolving, to some
extent, around Lawrence Kopeck. That isn't nothing." 

"Agreed," she replied. "But all the evidence suggests he's
not responsible for any of them." 

"Not directly responsible, no." 

"And not indirectly, either," she shot back. She paused,
took a deep breath, then exhaled loudly. "Mulder, why do you
so desperately need for this case to be an X-File?" 

He turned to her, his jaw set. "And why, Scully do you so
desperately need for it NOT to be?" 

**** 

"Why are there, like, cop cars and stuff all over, Mr. K?"
Kandee asked with a frown. 

"There was...there's been an accident." 

"Again?" Kandee pursed her cherry-red lips. "This is what
happens when they let old people use the StairMasters.
Someone is always, like, having a heart attack or breaking a
hip." Just as she spoke, the somber-suited men from
Highsmith's Mortuary pushed Eric's body through the health
club doors. 

"Ohmigod!" Brittany gasped. "Someone is...like, dead?" 

Kandee frowned and planted a fist on her shapely left hip.
"You know, Mr. K, when we like, lived in LA, my 'rents were
all, 'in my day no one brought submachine guns to school,
there's too much violence here, let's move back east, no
gangs in Vermont, it's safer blah blah blah.' But like,
lately," she shook her head, "I would have to say, in total
seriousness, nuh uh." 

Mr. Kopeck opened his mouth to reply, but Belinda spared
him. "Girls," she called in an undertone, appearing again in
the hallway intersection, her tone hushed out of respect for
Eric Noonan's recent demise. She beckoned to the teenagers. 

"Shouldn't the dead guy mean practice is cancelled?"
Brittany asked in a wheedling tone, as she and Kandee
trailed after Belinda. 

Mr. Kopeck sat back down on the bench. With a sigh he leaned
his head on his hand. He wondered how he was supposed to
find the demon now -- or if the demon was going to find him.


**** 

Scully was silent a long time. Mulder wondered if the
conversation was at an end, or if it were merely sliding
into suspended animation. Nothing about this trip was
turning out the way he'd expected, not one damned thing. He
was starting to wonder if he should just stop pretending to
plan anything in his life. He was getting too old to keep
swimming against the current. 

"I don't care if it's an X-File or not, Mulder," Scully
said, finally rousing him from his meditation. "I really

don't. I have always given -- tried to give -- one-hundred
percent to all our cases, either way. I just wish -- I
deserved some advanced notice on this one." 

Mulder's brows knit in confusion. "Advanced notice of what?"


"I was under the impression that we were here for some token
investigation and then to spend as much time as we could
ruining Mrs. Alden's sheets," she explained in an even,
steady tone. "Instead we're knee-deep in Goatherd's Revenge
and you're spouting demonology, of all things. If you knew
about the X-File right from the start, however ridiculous an
X-File, you should have told me. I'm still your partner; I
deserve that much." 

Mulder was momentarily overwhelmed, uncertain which part of
her tirade to respond to first. He went with the easiest.
"What -- what makes you think I knew about the X-File right
from the start?" 

"What am I supposed to think, Mulder? That Kopeck and
Kopeck's father and Vampire Vixens on Fire, all of that is
just coincidence?" 

He thought a moment and scratched his cheek. Scully was so
brilliant and insightful and distractingly gorgeous that
sometimes he forgot she didn't see the world quite the way
he did. He'd long assumed it was simply because she refused
to, but maybe... 

"I didn't say it was just a coincidence, Scully," he said in
what he hoped was a conciliatory tone. 

She folded her arms across her chest. "So you did know, and
you just didn't bother to share with the rest of the class,
is that it?" 

He shook his head and smiled, almost apologetically. "No, I
honestly had no idea Kopeck's father had ever lived here. I
would have been willing to buy that Mrs. Chernoff's death
was simply an unfortunate accident, at least at first. But
as more and more evidence accumulated, that seemed less and
less the case, and I started looking for another
explanation." 

"The least likely explanation, you mean." 

"The most likely explanation," Mulder countered. He
hesitated a moment. "Come on, Scully. Almost seven years.
You must have noticed by now: I'm a Weird Magnet." 

Her eyebrows rose and she blinked rapidly at him. "I'll try
not to take that personally." 

"I mean it," he replied seriously. "Look at my history.
Human/Flukeworm hybrids. Tooms. Vinyl-siding salesbugs.
Mind-controlling fungi. Government-alien conspiracies.
Nymphomaniacal vampires..." 

"Excuse me?" 

"Who else does this stuff happen to?" He shook his head in
disbelief. "Face it; I'm Ground Zero for the strange." 

Scully looked shocked, then disbelieving, then simply
puzzled. Maybe even with that fine analytical mind of hers,
Mulder thought, she really hadn't considered it before. 

Finally, she frowned. "That's nonsense. I was there for all
that, too." 

"Yes, you were." He cleared his throat, feeling suddenly
tired and alone. "Most of it. But profoundly strange things
have happened to me my whole life. I don't think you can
honestly say the same about yours, can you? For you, it's
only been the last few years. In my case, though, weird
stuff was happening to me before you came into my life and,
um..." He cleared his throat again. 

"And?" 

He swallowed. "And it will still be happening to me after
you're, um, gone." 

"After I'm gone?" she echoed, her face clouded with concern.
"After I'm gone where? Where am I going?" 

Mulder pulled the car smoothly up to the curb and put it in
park. "Right now, inside the sheriff's office," he replied,
his mouth twisting. "We're here." 

**** 

Yellow police tape was stretched across the men's locker
room door. Kandee flicked it with her finger once and then
twice, then again, frowning. Do Not Cross -- thwap. Do Not
Cross -- thwap. Do Not Cross -- thwap. Craftsdorky Common
seemed to be full of lines you couldn't cross, but this was
the only one they'd bothered to mark so clearly. 

Things were easier in LA, the rules of the popularity game
simpler. All you had to do was dress hot, look hot, BE hot,
and you were in. The latest look, the perfect shades, the
right car, a nose that looked like, sure, you could have
been born with it: those were the only things that mattered.
No one cared what you did or thought or believed. People
judged by what you looked like, not what you were. 

Here, it seemed, the only routes to popularity involved
sweating or thinking, neither of which had ever been high on
her To Do list. Everyone in Mayberry was all about athletics
and good grades and -- she shuddered involuntarily -- school
spirit. Like anyone really cared about that crap. They were
all such fakes. 

She dropped her pompoms, looked down at her uniform. So yes,
she looked terrific in it, but still, it was so phony. She'd
taken up cheerleading as a compromise, because it wasn't
really a sport and no heavy thinking was involved. If any of
her friends, her real friends, could see her now... 

She thwapped the tape again, wondering where Brittany was.
The cops had locked up the women's locker room, like they
were worried the dead guy would decide to get up and take a
shower in there, or something. Brittany had bounced off to
find Ms. Patteson and the key ages ago. 

Kandee shook her head. Brittany, with her week-last-Thursday
clothes and her Haircuts R Us 'do and her Keds and captain
of the football team boyfriend. Miss Aren't-I-Nice? Miss
Congeniality. No one was that nice. Brittany had to be the
biggest fake of them all. 

"Found her," Brittany's voice echoed along the empty
corridor, interrupting her reverie. 

"'Bout time," Kandee replied. "She give you the key?" 

"She can't." Brittany shook her head. "Insurance or
something." She slid down the wall and sat on the floor next
to Kandee's discarded pompoms. "She's still talking to the
police, but she promised she'd be here in a minute." She
dropped her pompoms and leaned in close. "You know what I
overheard?" 

"What?" Kandee asked with as much fake interest as she could
muster, afraid it would be something about the debating team
or somebody's SATs. 

Brittany's eyes widened and her voice became low and
confiding. "One of the cops was talking to another one. The
guy who died didn't just have a heart attack, like we
thought." 

"No?" Kandee joined her on the floor. 

Brittany shook her head. "He thinks the dead guy was
attacked by some sort of large animal." 

"An animal?" Kandee blinked. "In the gym?" Another reason to
hate Vermont. 

"Yeah." Brittany nodded enthusiastically. "Something big. I
looked over one cop's shoulder and he was holding a picture,
you know, a Polaroid? Blood everywhere, even on the
ceiling." 

"That is so gross." Kandee curled her lip. "How would an
animal get in the gym?" 

"I don't know." Brittany shrugged. "They don't seem to
either. And you know who found the body?" 

Kandee shook her head. 

"Kopeck." 

"Oh, that must have been good." Kandee rolled her eyes. "I
can hear it now. He'll be, like, telling us all about it in
Latin or whatever. 'Quigquam wig wag ergo dead guy ibi sum.'
No, thank you." 

"I know." Brittany chuckled appreciatively. "Mr. Excitement.
Speaking of which, you never told me if the two of you
finally, you know..." Brittany winked suggestively. 

Kandee lifted an incredulous eyebrow. "Excuse me? Me and
LarryBoy?" She snorted. "He should, like, live so long." 

"Well, you know, he's not bad looking, and..." 

"Puh-lease!" Kandee groaned, even though, in truth, she
agreed. While she may have offered, she had known all along
that Mr. Kopeck would not follow through. Experience had
shown her that in matters such as these, the teacher was
usually either flattered or intimidated into giving her a
passing grade. It had worked before, and since she had no
intention of wasting prime tanning time in summer school,
she was still hoping it would work this time. 

"He isn't that bad. I mean, for an old guy." 

"Yeah, right, he's the next Brad Pitt." She wished Ms.
Patteson would hurry up. The dead guy would still be dead in
a few hours, but if she didn't get into the shower now, her
hair would be damaged beyond repair. "He's old enough to be
my great grandfather twice removed." 

"I swear you said you liked him. You said he was hot, at the
beginning of the year." 

Kandee scowled. "Ew. Ew ew ew!" 

"Come on. You don't think he's at least a little hot?" 

Kandee sighed, exasperated. "Like, I'm in school all day,
where I'm failing World History, along with just about
everything else. I'm on academic probation, which means if I
cut a class, they tell the 'rents and I get shipped off to
Our Lady of the Immaculate Loser Convent School in Middle-
of-Nowhere, Alaska or Arizona or something. My parents have
got me working in that dorky restaurant to pay off the
damage I did to my mom's Jag, which takes up, like, every
weekend and most of my time after school. Add to that
cheerleading and all the time I have to spend pretending to
study, and I haven't exactly got any time to waste lusting
after the world's oldest living doof, okay?" 

"Okay, okay." Brittany held up her hands in the universal
sign of surrender. "Geez, touchy much?" 

"It's just, like, disgusting." Kandee gave a theatrical
shiver. "Like having sex with Bill Clinton or Charlie Sheen
or something." She looked impatiently at her watch. "We've
only got two hours before the football game. If she doesn't
open this door soon, I can't be held, like, responsible." 

"I know. My hair is so disgusting." Brittany raked her
fingers through her brown ponytail. "Oh, that reminds me.
Mike's cousin Phil plays for Burlington." 

"And?" 

"And Mike asked me to ask you if you'd double with us after
the game." 

"Double?" 

"As in date. As in, Mike's parents expect him to" -- she
drew some air quotes -- "'entertain' Phil while he's here.
And you'd be perfect." 

"I am perfect, but..." 

Kandee was interrupted by the sound of jangling keys and
cross-trainers squeaking against the polished floor. They
rose. 

"Sorry, girls." Belinda Patteson pulled down the yellow
tape. "Where's the rest of the squad?" 

"Most of them left right after practice," Brittany replied.
"I guess me and Kandee were the only ones who got our stuff
in the lockers before the police sealed everything off." 

Belinda twisted the key and pushed the heavy door open for
them. "Well, that'll teach you two to be on time," she said
good-naturedly. 

The two girls went inside. 

"Well, I'm not so sure I want to go out with some guy who,
like, can't get his own date," Kandee said, reverting to
their earlier topic. She tossed her pompoms on a bench. 

"You'll like him. He's cute." 

"Yeah, but you think everybody is cute. Your standards are
totally lower than mine." 

Brittany laughed. "You are one King Kamehameha bitch." She
reached for the bottom of her sweater, and pulled it off
over her head. Kandee, too, began to undress. 

Just then there was a sound above them, from atop the
lockers. "Ahhhh! Roseas papillas vestras ostendite!" hissed
someone, in the lewdest, most glottal voice Kandee had ever
heard. 

They both looked up -- and froze. 

****

End 07/10

Malus Genius 8


The criminal always returns to the scene of the crime,
thought Mr. Kopeck as he slipped back into the gym. He'd
learned the saying from old movies and detective novels. Of
course, the demon was the real criminal in this case, but
since no one but him had ever seen the thing, that was
probably a moot point. If he was caught here, it wasn't
going to look good. He closed the main door silently behind
him. He had to find the demon and get it under control
before it struck again. Visions of Eric Noonan's bloodied
corpse swam in his brain. Mr. Happy, he thought grimly,
would never be happy again. 

He tiptoed across the lobby without signing in. He felt like
a cat burglar, stealing into the gym unseen. To boost his
morale, he began singing the theme from Mission Impossible
in his head: BUM buh bum-bum, BUM buh bum-bum... 

Yeah, he was cool, he was Tom Cruise, he told himself; he
was Guilio in Topkapi, he was Steve McQueen, he was Pierce
Brosnan in that Thomas Crown movie. He should be dressed
completely in black and holding a Mag-Lite clenched between
his teeth. He rounded the corner just past the racquetball
court... 

...and bumped right into Belinda Patteson. 

"Hi, Larry," she said. "Did you forget something?"


Oh damn, oh damn, he thought, and said the first thing that
popped into his head. "I was driving by and I -- I really
had to use the bathroom." 

So much for Steve McQueen. Belinda looked like she wanted to
laugh, though whether it was because of his red face or his
imaginary predicament, he couldn't be sure. "Well, okay." 

"I didn't sign in," he said. "Under the circumstances." 

"Okay, Larry." She gave him a polite smile. 

Fortunately, he realized with relief, she didn't appear to
know the old saw about the criminal and the scene of the
crime, and had not yet pegged him as the Terrible Instrument
of Eric Noonan's Death. "Thanks," he said, and started back
down the hall.


"Just keep an eye out, okay?" she called after him. "There's
some kind of animal loose in here." 

He halted in his tracks. "An animal?" 

"Yes, two of my cheerleaders saw something in the Womens'
locker room." 

He felt the blood drain from his face. 

She must have noticed his pale complexion and staring eyes
because she hastened to explain, "Don't worry, it might just
be a squirrel or a woodchuck or something. It disappeared
when they screamed." 

"Oh." His voice came out sounding tight and unnatural. 

"Just in case it has something to do with Eric's death,
though, I called those FBI agents. Probably a little caution
wouldn't hurt until they arrive."


"Thanks," he croaked, and started back down the hall, his
thoughts racing. 

Someone else had seen the demon. Two cheerleaders. My God,
the thing must have been within striking distance of them.
They could have been killed. It was a miracle, he thought
frantically, that they hadn't been. 

Two cheerleaders -- almost certainly, in a village this
size, his own students. The other deaths had been bad
enough, but if the demon slaughtered two of his own
students... 

He shuddered. 

Time was running out. He had to stop the awful creature
before it killed again. But how? He didn't even know where
it was. Not only that, but Agents Mulder and Scully were
headed here to the gym. He couldn't let them see him here
now, not when they were already so suspicious. 

There was only one thing for him to do, he realized. 

He had to find a way to lure the demon to him. 

**** 

"What do you think?" Mulder asked as they left the gym after
interviewing Kandee and Brittany, and headed across the
parking lot. 

"I think I'm sick of this car," she answered, climbing in as
Mulder held the door for her. "Next time, let's ask for a
color other that red." 

"Everyone's a comedian," Mulder answered good-naturedly,
climbing in behind the wheel and fastening his seat belt. 

"About their statements, you mean?" 

Mulder nodded. 

Scully pushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear and
sighed. What did she think? She thought, maybe, she wanted
to go home. "Frankly, Mulder, I don't know what to think." 

"I do," he answered, swinging the Taurus out onto the road. 

"Belinda Patteson seemed to think it was a squirrel," she
offered weakly. "She says they occasionally get in through
the vents." 

"A Latin-speaking squirrel? A hairy, fang-toothed, yellow-
eyed Latin-speaking squirrel?" 

She had to admit that was unlikely. Kandee and Brittany's
stories were just the same enough, and just different
enough, to sound legitimate, no matter how insane. She
turned to Mulder, who was clearly trying to keep a smug
little smile off his handsome face. "Quit gloating." 

"Moi?" Mulder answered, all innocence. 

"Yes, you." She sighed. "So, what do we do now?" 

"We find Mr. Kopeck and we get him to undo whatever the hell
he did." 

"Oh." 

"For what it's worth, Scully," he said, turning to her, "I
don't think this was intentional. I don't think Mr. Kopeck
tried to summon a demon deliberately. I don't think he
wanted anyone to die. I think...I think things just got out
of hand. My guess is that he's probably trying to call it
back right now. He'll probably try doing that in the same
place where he originally summoned it. Since the first
murders were at the high school, that's the best place to
start looking, if my demon lore serves me." 

She chuckled. "You've got demon lore?" 

"I've got demon lore." He winked. 

She nodded and watched the fences roll by, tinged pink now
by the setting sun. She knew those posts were white, bright
white, solid, unadorned white, but in this light... 

Weird Magnet, he'd said. Ground Zero for the strange. What
did that make her? What did that make them? 

"Mulder," she said after another mile of silence. "I don't
believe in demons." 

His head bobbed slightly. "I know." 

"No, Mulder." She sat up straighter. How could she explain
to him what she couldn't explain to herself? "I do not
believe in corporal, flesh-and whatever-passes-for-blood-in-
demons, demons. I can't. I don't." 

"And I don't believe in income tax," he shrugged. "But they
keep sending me these 1040s." 

She bit her lip. "I'm serious." 

"I know you don't." He reached across unexpectedly and took
her hand. "That's okay. I'll believe for both of us." 

She nodded, unsure how to answer that. "What you said before
Mulder, about me going away...?" 

"There's Kopeck's car," Mulder said, pulling into the high
school parking lot. "We've got to hurry."


**** 

It was his late father's fault, indirectly, that he had ever
summoned the demon, thought Mr. Kopeck. Last week he'd been
in his classroom leafing through one of his father's old
Latin books, looking for something interesting to include in
his lesson plan on Ancient Rome, when he'd seen the
incantation. He'd never thought it would actually work; he'd
just assumed it was the Latin equivalent of a party trick.
After all, how many fathers collected books that could
actually raise evil spirits? 

But if it was because of his father that the demon was loose
now, it was also because of his father that he had the means
to get rid of it, or at least to try. Among the accumulated
paraphernalia his father had left him were a Latin copy of
the rites of exorcism, oil that had been blessed by a
priest, and several vials of holy water. 

Mr. Kopeck struck a match and lit the candles on his desk.
He'd decided that the best place from which to banish the
demon was the same place from which he'd summoned it, his
classroom. He hoped to call the demon to him here again. His
hand was shaking a little, he noticed before blowing out the
match. Well, it wasn't every day that he had a showdown with
a demon. 

He opened the book on the desk in front of him, and took a
deep breath. "Adjure te, spiritus nequissime," he began
reading in a deep, solemn voice, "per Deum omnipotentem..." 

He went on, intoning the words. The candles flickered on his
desk, lending an eerie orange glow to what was usually the
most commonplace of locations, his perfectly mundane
eleventh-grade classroom. Wisps of smoke rose overhead in
ghostly tendrils. 

"Hearken, therefore, and tremble in fear, Satan, you enemy
of the faith, you foe of the human race, you begetter of
death, you robber of life, you corrupter of justice, you
root of all evil and vice," he read in Latin. He reached out
and turned the page. 

Just then he heard something stir in the back of the room. A
chill passed over him. 

"Seducer of men, betrayer of the nations, instigator of
envy, font of avarice, fomenter of discord, author of pain
and sorrow," he continued doggedly. 

"Euge, certo me exasperas," rumbled the demon --All right,
you're really pissing me off. 

Mr. Kopeck kept reading. "Depart, then, transgressor.
Depart, seducer, full of lies and cunning, foe of virtue,
persecutor of the innocent," he chanted in Latin. "Give
place, abominable creature, give way, you monster, give
way." 

"Extra saccum nunc sum, mentula," said the demon, creeping
closer -- I'm out of the bag now, dickhead. There was menace
in its tone. 

Mr. Kopeck's hand closed around the vial of holy water in
his pocket. It would protect him, he hoped, in case the
demon tried to attack. "To what purpose do you insolently
resist? To what purpose do you brazenly refuse?" he read in
Latin. His voice did not falter. 

"Tuam vitam miserrimam finiam!" snarled the demon -- I will
put an end to thy most miserable existence. 

What Mr. Kopeck lacked in bravery, he struggled to make up
for in determination. "For you are guilty before almighty
God," he continued, doing his best to ignore the demon,
"whose laws you have transgressed." 

"Intestinam tuam peruram! Sopioni tuo pellem detraham!" spat
the demon -- I will burn up thy inner organs! I will flay
the skin from thy dick! 

Still reading, Mr. Kopeck took the holy water out of his
pocket and held it up for the demon to see, jiggling it
tauntingly. 

"Cule!" the demon shouted -- you butthole! 

Mr. Kopeck kept going. 

It was going to be a fight to the finish. 

**** 

"Hear that sound?" said Mulder, his hand on the doorknob of
Mr. Kopeck's classroom, his heart pounding in anticipation.
"He's chanting something in there." 

"Or reciting something," Scully said. "He's a teacher,
Mulder. It could be a poem or a speech, part of a lesson he
intends to teach." 

Mulder ignored her. "This is it," he said with barely-
contained excitement. He took a deep breath, and threw his
shoulder against the door. 

It burst open with an explosive bang. They tumbled through
the doorway together to see -- 

Nothing. Just Mr. Kopeck, standing at his desk, gaping at
them in astonishment. 

They all stared at one another. 

"Can I help you?" the teacher asked finally, after a long,
awkward pause. 

Mulder's shoulder hurt where he'd driven it into the door.
His eyes roamed the room. "We heard you talking to someone."


"I was reading," Mr. Kopeck said. "Aloud." 

Mulder approached him. "What about those candles? Why are
you burning candles here in your classroom on a Saturday
afternoon?" 

"Just testing the dramatic effect," Mr. Kopeck said, a
little uncertainly. "I find it helps me to keep the
students' attention if I do something showy now and then
when I'm lecturing. It's an old theatrical trick I picked up
from my father." 

An old theatrical trick, my ass, Mulder thought. What
teacher burned candles during a high school history lecture?


The demon had to be here somewhere. Mulder paced back and
forth across the front of the classroom, peering down the
aisles of desks. Then he got down on all fours, and searched
the floor. 

"Um...would you mind telling me what you're looking for?"
Mr. Kopeck asked, his eyes flickering to the open door at
the back of the room. 

"Just a routine check," Scully said. 

She could have at least tried to sound a little more
convincing, Mulder thought with a frown. He straightened up.
His knees creaked as he got to his feet. 

Mr. Kopeck was still wearing the slightly stunned air of a
man whose door had just been unexpectedly kicked in. "This
kind of thing is routine for you? Hmmmm..." 

Mulder noticed the book on the teacher's desk. "Is that in
Latin?" 

"Yes," said Mr. Kopeck, nudging it closed. Something about
the gesture reminded Mulder of a student caught passing
notes in class. "It's, uh, part of the unit I'm teaching on
the Roman Empire." 

Mulder's eyes narrowed. "Does the phrase 'Roseas papillas
vestras ostendite' mean anything to you?"


Mr. Kopeck stared at him, his face flushing scarlet. "What?"


"Two witnesses at the gym today heard a voice saying those
words -- 'Roseas papillas vestras ostendite.' What does it
mean?" 

"It means," said Mr. Kopeck, shooting an uncomfortable
glance at Scully, "'Reveal your pink tits.'" 

Another awkward silence fell over the classroom. 

"Well," said Scully finally, "I think we've accomplished all
we're going to accomplish here." 

Mulder took one look at her face and knew better than to
argue. 

"We're sorry to have disturbed you, Mr. Kopeck," Scully said
crisply. "Come on, Mulder." 

He nodded his good-bye to the history teacher, and followed
her out of the classroom like a dog with its tail tucked
between its legs. 

"See, Mulder? Nothing paranormal here," she said, when they
were back out in the hallway and she had closed the
classroom door behind them. 

"Scully, he was burning candles!" 

"That's not against the law, Mulder." 

"It's also a classic component of demonic rituals, both
summoning and exorcism. And who killed Eric Noonan? You
can't tell me he hit his head on an eraser tray, too." 

"I never suggested he did. But there must be a better
explana -- " 

"Oh, hi," said Brittany Woodall, appearing around the corner
in her cheerleader outfit, complete with pompoms. "Are you
two here for the football game?" 

"No," Scully said. "We were just on our way out, as a matter
of fact." 

"Yeah, I figured you were both probably too old to go for
high school football," Brittany said cheerfully. She passed
them, pompoms rustling. "I guess you heard about all the
excitement," she remarked as she went by. 

"What excitement?" Mulder asked. 

"You know," Brittany said, turning back. "About the bear." 

"The bear? There was a bear?" 

"Two State Troopers shot a black bear, right in the gym
parking lot," she said with a toss of her ponytail. "They
figure that's what killed that dead guy." 

Scully turned her gaze his way. He could feel her I-told-you
stare boring into the side of his head.


"What about that thing you saw, Brittany?" he asked in a
voice bordering on desperation. "That wasn't a bear, was
it?" 

Even as he asked the question, he knew it was a lost cause.
Brittany struck him as the uncomplicated, upbeat type who
took life as it came. If the State Police thought she'd seen
a bear, then a bear it was. 

Brittany laughed. "Oh, that. I guess it must have been." 

"But it talked to you." 

"Well, maybe, maybe not." Her nose wrinkled. "Don't, like,
tell anyone else I said it did, okay? I wouldn't want them
thinking I was...you know, weird or anything." 

Mulder felt the last of his hopes for the case crash and
burn. There was no way he was going to convince Scully to
stay in Vermont another day now, not with a bona fide bear
to blame for the death today. And what evidence did he have
that this was an X-File, really? Nothing that couldn't be
explained away as accident or coincidence. 

He sighed. He was going to be hearing from Scully about this
case until the end of his days. Even the sight of Brittany
walking away, her short cheerleader skirt bouncing with
every step she took, did nothing for his mood. 

Scully cleared her throat. "Well, I guess that settles
that." 

He nodded glumly. "Yep, I guess so." 

"So...maybe we could go back to the bed and breakfast and
make the most of the evening." Her faintly suggestive smile
was for Scully what answering the door dressed in Saran Wrap
was for most other women. "If you're not too tired, that
is." 

He straightened his back. Great, so now she was starting
with the Geritol cracks again. "I'm not too tired," he said
stiffly. 

"Good." 

The worst part, he thought as they headed for the front
doors of the school, was that he really did feel tired. Not
only that, but his shoulder hurt from banging it against Mr.
Kopeck's classroom door, and his left knee was still
creaking from kneeling on the floor. 

He felt tired, foolish -- and old.

**** End 08/10

Malus Genius 9


Mr. Kopeck strode out of the side door of the high school,
Bible and holy water in hand. He looked to the left and to
the right, searching for the demon. The thing had to be
somewhere, he thought, and mentally berated the two FBI
agents for bursting in when they had and somehow allowing it
to escape. At least they hadn't seen it, he thought, and
breathed a silent thanks for small mercies. There was a
still a chance he could manage to solve this predicament
himself. Though Agent's Mulder's words from their
conversation in the gym still echoed in his brain: 

...What is your evil spirit?... 

...Maybe it would be more accurate to call it a
manifestation of the conflict you've been feeling lately
about sex... 

...I have a feeling you're not going to solve your problem
until you face up to what's causing it... 

What a load of bullshit, Mr. Kopeck thought. But even as he
thought it, a part of him wondered if it might be true.
Nothing in his life had been going right since the day his
wife had told him she was leaving him. 

For now, he reminded himself, he would have to forget about
the psychoanalysis and concentrate on more practical
matters, like finding the demon. In forty minutes the
football game would be starting, and the school grounds
would be teeming with people. A demon loose in a crowd like
that --well, he didn't want to think about the
possibilities. 

Nope, Agent Mulder's psychological mumbo-jumbo would have to
wait. He didn't have time to worry about his sex life or his
self-esteem right now. If he could just finish the exorcism
maybe that would take care of everything. It was worth a
try, anyway. He just had to - 

"Oh! You totally evil bastard!" a woman cried with feeling. 

He froze in his tracks and spun around, expecting to witness
some innocent bystander confronting the demon in horror.
Instead he saw only a slim but decidedly curvaceous blonde.
She was standing beside a black Mustang sedan that had a
flat rear tire, struggling to raise the car on a jack. He
set the Bible and the holy water down on the ground, and
stepped closer. 

She was strikingly attractive, at least from the back. Her
hair was a bright golden-blonde and she wore it in fluffy
curls. He had always liked blondes. This one was dressed in
a tailored white shirt, snug-fitting blue jeans, and chunky-
heeled black oxfords. Her small waist and shapely hips would

have held his attention even if she hadn't been cursing
steadily but cheerfully at the jack. 

He could see she was having trouble. He needed to find the
demon, but...well, he supposed a couple of minutes wasn't
going to make much difference. 

As he approached, she finished with the jack and knelt down
in front of the flat. "Need some help?" he asked. 

She turned her head and smiled up at him. He was pleasantly
surprised to see that her face matched the promise of her
figure. "Oh, no thank you." 

"You're sure?" He took a step backwards, his eyes still on
her. 

"Yes, but thanks. I've got the situation under control." She
picked up the lug wrench and fit it over one of the lug
nuts. 

"Um..." he said, frowning. He cleared his throat. 

She looked over her shoulder at him. "Yes?" 

"Well..." He stuck his hands in his pockets. "You really
shouldn't do it that way. You're supposed to loosen the lug
nuts before you jack up the car. The wheel's just going to
spin on you, and besides, it's possible you could rock the
car off the jack." 

A tiny crease appeared between her eyebrows. "Oh."


He came closer, and dropped down on one knee beside her.
"You don't really have the jack in the right place, either.
See this little plate here?" He pointed to a point on the
frame in front of the tire. "That's where it's supposed to
make contact." 

The crease deepened. "Hmmm." 

She smelled great, Mr. Kopeck thought. She was even prettier
close up -- clear skin, a slender nose, sweetly curving
lips, and the bluest eyes he had ever seen. She looked to be
in her thirties; a year or two younger than him, maybe, but
no more. 

"Maybe you'd better let me do this," he offered. "You look
too nice to get all dirty, and it's kind of a guy job
anyway." 

She sat back on her heels. "That's not politically correct,"
she said with a twinkle. "You're supposed to assure me that
I look capable and undoubtedly I could manage this without
you." 

"You look capable. Undoubtedly you could manage this without
me." 

Laughing, she dusted off her hands on her shapely thighs.
"That's much better. And now that we've got that straight, I
really would appreciate your help, if you're sure you don't
mind." 

"I don't mind at all," he said with perfect sincerity,
reaching out to lower the jack. Beside him, she sighed with
what seemed to be relief. Even her sigh sounded pretty. 

For the moment, Mr. Kopeck forgot all about the demon. 

**** 

Scully toed off her shoes by the door, then bent to set them
neatly side by side. Poor Mulder, she thought. He was taking
this harder than usual. His failures always got to him, but
this seemed extreme. His shoulders had a defeated set to
them, and all signs of playfulness had disappeared from his
expression. 

"Sorry things didn't turn out quite the way you'd hoped,"
she said in what was meant to be a light you-win-some-you-
lose-some tone. When Mulder's brow creased in apparent
confusion she added, "With the case, I mean." 

Mulder half-shrugged and tugged at the reluctant knot in his
tie. "Whatever. It's probably for the best." 

"Really, Mulder? How's that?" 

"If I'd have caught it, what would I have done with it?
Demons make lousy house-pets." He frowned and pulled at his
cuff buttons. 

She went over and climbed up to sit on the bed, still
dressed. Not that she had any objection to getting busy; she
was just a little worried about Mulder. She was beginning to
think he might be sinking into some kind of depression. 

"Well?" he said impatiently, glancing over at her. "Aren't
you going to get undressed?" 

"If you're in that much of a hurry, maybe we could institute
drive-through service." 

He looked up, and his eyes locked with hers. "Sorry," he
said. "I guess I can't get anything right these days." 

Taking a case to heart was one thing; such blatant self-pity
was quite another. "You know, Mulder, we don't have to do
this if you don't want to." 

She said it gently, sympathetically. She was a little
surprised, therefore, when he narrowed his eyes and turned
his back on her. "Damn it, Scully," he snarled, "I'm not
THAT old." 

The words surprised her just as much as the furious tone in
which he spoke them. She watched for a moment in silence as
he angrily jerked off his clothes, wondering what was going
through his head. 

"Mulder," she said finally, "do you want to tell me what's
wrong?" 

"Forget it." 

"No." She wished he would look at her. "I want to know
what's been bothering you." She paused for a moment,
wondering which issue to address first. "What did you mean
before, when you mentioned my going away?" 

"I said forget it." 

He was the picture of affronted dignity, even stripped down
to nothing but black socks and blue cotton boxers. "No,
Mulder. You're going to talk to me. Or, if you aren't, you
might as well stop taking off your clothes. I'm not about to
sleep with you in this mood." 

Peeling off his socks, Mulder wavered, apparently debating
with himself what to do -- freeze her out, argue, or put his
clothes back on and storm out. 

Finally he whispered "Damn," and threw his socks across the
room in a gesture that screamed pure frustration. Shoulders
slumping, he stalked over to sit beside her on the bed. 

**** 

"I haven't seen you around here before," Mr. Kopeck remarked
conversationally, as he finished lowering the car off the
jack and went to work loosening the lug nuts. "I thought I
knew everybody in town." 

The woman looked at him with bright intelligence in her
eyes. "I grew up not too far from here, but I just moved to
Craftsbury Common. I'm going to be teaching here." 

"Here at the Academy?" 

"Yes, I'm replacing a teacher who died." 

"Mrs. Chernoff," he supplied with a nod. "I teach here,
too." 

"Do you?" She smiled at him, a frank, inviting smile that
made his heart beat faster. "Then I guess we'll be working
together." 

He repositioned the jack and began cranking the car higher.
"My name's Larry, by the way. Larry Kopeck." He stuck out
his hand. 

"Rachel Thornton," she said, taking his hand and shaking it.


Good lord, she even knew how to shake hands, Mr. Kopeck
thought in amazement. It was a dying art. Most women these
days gave him one of those limp four-fingered clasps, like
they thought his hand was a bowl of Palmolive and they were
going to soak in it; or, worse yet, they just stared blankly
at his outstretched hand like they'd never seen one before.
Rachel Thornton had a great handshake, firm and confident
and friendly. 

"Until I can find a place of my own I'm staying at the bed
and breakfast," she told him, watching him drop the lug nuts
one by one into her discarded hubcap. "It's just me and a
couple of FBI agents." The little crease appeared between
her brows again. "I've been wondering about that, by the
way. I thought this place was supposed to be so quiet. What
are FBI agents doing around here?" 

He lifted the flat off the car and rolled it out of the way.
"There was, um...a death at the gym today." 

Her smile faded. "A death? Not a friend of yours, I hope." 

Mr. Kopeck shrugged. "Not a friend, exactly, but I knew him.
A guy I went to school with, Eric Noonan." 

"Eric Noonan?" She frowned faintly. "He didn't sell cars,
did he? I think the guy who sold me my Mustang in Hardwick
was named Noonan." 

"Yeah, that was the same guy." 

"Oh." She was silent for a moment. "Not to speak ill of the
dead, but what an asshole." 

Mr. Kopeck had to stifle a bark of laughter. "I always
thought so, too." He fit the spare tire on the car and
loosely replaced the first lug nut. "Er...not to speak ill
of the dead." 

She shook her head. "Nothing turns me off more than a smooth
operator." 

Mr. Kopeck twisted around and gawked at her. "Really?" 

"Definitely. Their lines always sound so rehearsed, as if
they've used them on a million other women before. Plus I
have this theory about them: I think they're just not bright
enough to envision rejection." 

"If that's true," he said ruefully, "I must be a damned
genius." 

She smiled at him, her head to one side. It was a warm
smile, bright and understanding. "So, what do you teach?" 

"World History." 

"Really? I minored in history. In college I wrote my thesis
on oratory in the Roman Senate." 

"You're kidding. Classical Rome is my favorite period. I'm
teaching a unit on it now, in fact, not that my students
know anything about it beyond what they've gleaned from
Little Caesar's pizza commercials." 

"Oh, I love history. I teach Civics -- but then, you
probably guessed that, if you knew Mrs. Chernoff." 

He lowered the car again, then picked up the lug wrench and
started tightening the nuts. "Just about done here," he
said, a little regretful that their conversation would have
to end. 

"Wow. You made quick work of that." 

He couldn't help smiling when he heard the admiring note in
her voice. It had been a long time since a woman had talked
to him that way. "It's not hard, if you've done it before." 

She clasped her hands behind her back, an oddly engaging
gesture. "Unfortunately, I was a flat tire virgin." 

He laughed, thinking it sounded like one of the movies his
father would have made: "I Was a Teenage Zombie," "I Was a
Flat Tire Virgin." With a last turn of the lug wrench he
finished the job, and got to his feet. "Just don't drive on
the spare any longer than you have to." 

"I won't," she said a little shyly. "Well..." She looked
down at the gravel. "Thank you. That was very nice of you." 

Great googly-moogly, she was pretty, he thought. No wedding
ring, either; and she hadn't mentioned a husband or a
boyfriend. In fact she'd definitely said that no one but the
FBI agents was staying at the bed and breakfast with her. 

He felt a nervous flutter in his stomach, and took a deep
breath. 

"Look," he said. "I'm really out of practice at this. I
haven't asked a woman out in thirteen years. I wasn't even
that good at asking women out when I was in practice. But I
was wondering --would you like to have dinner with me
tonight?" 

"Dinner?" she asked. "Just the two of us?" 

His heart was pounding. "Well, yeah. I mean, we don't have
to if you don't want to, but I just thought maybe you
wouldn't know anyone else in town, and -- " 

"Yes," she said, cutting off his nervous babble. "I'd love
to." 

He blinked at her. "You would?" 

She gave him a blinding smile. "Absolutely. I was hoping
you'd ask." 

"Oh," he said, and just stood there, too surprised and
delighted at his good luck to manage anything more. 

She scooped up the jack and the lug wrench, and opened the
trunk of her car. He realized he must look ridiculous,
standing around grinning foolishly, and helped her by
lifting the flat into the spare compartment. 

"Thanks," she said again, giving him a definite look of
encouragement before slamming the trunk closed. 

For the first time in weeks, he felt confidence flooding
through him. 

He followed a step behind as she went to the driver's side
door and slipped in behind the wheel. "I'll pick you up at
the B & B at seven o'clock," he said, stooping a little to
speak through her car window. "That should give me time to
go home and change, and -- " 

Oh Good Christ, he thought suddenly as she smiled and turned
the key in the ignition. He'd forgotten all about the demon.
How could something so important have so completely slipped
his mind that way? He had to stop it before anyone else got
hurt. "Wait, Rachel, maybe we'd better -- " 

"Hmm?" 

Just then, as if his thoughts had conjured the diabolical
thing, he spotted it -- the demon. There it was. The demon
was behind the car, creeping toward him in all its yellow-
eyed malevolence. 

Mr. Kopeck felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. 

"Oh shit..." he breathed. 

It was the most coherent speech he could manage. Dimly he
realized he'd left the holy water lying forgotten on the
grass -- far, far out of reach...


**** End 09/10

Malus Genius 10


Mulder tried to collect his thoughts. He wondered how to
explain what was bothering him without sounding like some
whiny self-absorbed panelist on Oprah. "Scully," he said
finally. He reached out and took her hand. "I'm not a kid
any more." 

He felt silly, saying it out loud. In fact there was
something silly about this whole situation, about the way
she was sitting beside him fully clothed while he was
wearing nothing but slightly threadbare cotton boxers. 

She regarded him gravely. "Neither am I, Mulder." 

"No, Scully. I mean I'm getting old -- really old. Gray
hair, bad knees, the whole bit." 

"Is that so?" She lifted a critical eyebrow. "You look spry
enough." 

He shook his head, rejecting her teasing tone.
"Scully...have I ever told you how old I was when I finally
had sex for the first time?" 

She thought for a moment. "No, I don't think you have." 

"I'd just turned nineteen," he said, hoping it explained
everything. "Nineteen." 

She seemed to consider this for a moment, then asked in
apparent puzzlement, "Is there something significant about
that number?" 

He looked sadly up at her. "I was in my prime then, Scully -
- nineteen. And now I'm as old as TWO nineteen-year-olds put
together. Older. I've lived a whole lifetime's worth of
being sexually active." 

"Nineteen is a whole lifetime?" she asked in dubious-Scully
fashion. 

He waved his free hand. "Whatever. You know what I mean." 

"No," she said, her forehead furrowing. "I don't."


He sighed. He could remember how he'd felt when he'd lost
his virginity. On that long-ago Saturday night, as he'd
eagerly begun the main event in his cramped little room at
Oxford, he'd thought himself pretty damned old to be having
sex for the first time. But no matter how old he'd thought
he was then, it was nothing to how old he was now. 

"When I was nineteen," he explained, "nothing was gray, and
nothing creaked. At nineteen, I had my whole life ahead of
me. I had it going on." 

She gave a snort. 

So much for Scully's lending him a sympathetic ear, he
thought. "You find that funny?" 

"Mulder, I can believe you had it going on," she said,
leaning back on one arm and giving him a challenging stare.
"The question is, did you know what to do with it?" 

His brows lowered in a frown. "You can laugh if you want to,
but it's not funny to me." 

"Mulder, one gray hair does not make you Rip van Winkle.
Lots of women color their hair every month to cover up a
little gray -- not that I'm confessing anything." 

"What about that crack about how you wished you'd known me
in my prime?" 

"I didn't mean that literally. In fact it was supposed to be
a compliment, as in, 'If you're this good now, what must you
have been like then?'" 

He saw nothing but visions of walkers and Viagra bottles.
That would be him one day, he thought, wearing checked
polyester pants and driving a car with the Northstar System.
"So you admit I'm going downhill." 

Scully looked like she wanted to roll her eyes. "I never
said that." 

"But when we were having sex before -- " he began
vehemently, brows drawn together. He caught himself before
finishing the thought. 

She gave him a sharp look. "What?" 

"Never mind." 

"No, you were saying something. What about when we were
having sex before?" 

He looked away, and sighed. How pitiful was this
conversation? "You just seemed like your mind wasn't even on
it." 

She blinked in astonishment. "I did?" 

"Yes," he said, nodding sadly. "You did. Like you weren't
really enjoying yourself." 

"Really?" Her voice had risen an octave in surprise.
"Because I was enjoying myself. Very much. I mean, I thought
it was obvious when I..." She made a flustered gesture. 

"Well, yeah, that part was obvious," he acknowledged. "But
otherwise..." He sighed again. 

That was another thing old people did, Mulder thought
unhappily. They sat around sighing all the time. For God's
sake, he ought to just go out and buy himself a subscription
to Modern Maturity right now. 

"Mulder," Scully said gently beside him. She squeezed his
fingers, and waited for him to look at her. "I think we've
been operating at cross-purposes. You know, at first I
thought maybe you'd decided to take this case because of
autumn in New England. I thought the romance was built-in." 

He looked at her in confusion. "Scully, I wouldn't choose a
case just for that." 

"I realize that now, Mulder. We both take this work
seriously, and we're on the government's nickel. But it was
flattering, at least at first, to think that's what you had
in mind. In fact, I was pretty unhappy with you when I
realized you were building a case during what was supposed
to be a romantic weekend." 

"Oh," he said. "So that's what that was about." 

"I didn't know you were feeling under-appreciated. And it
certainly never occurred to me while we were having sex that
you were looking for some proof, some big SIGN, that you're
still attractive to me." 

Sheesh, what a schlemiel I am, Mulder thought morosely. I'm
sitting here in my underwear next to a beautiful woman,
whining about how I'm losing my sex appeal. He stared at the
wall opposite them, pretending to be fascinated by the rose
pattern on the wallpaper. 

She set her hand on his bare thigh. "And I do find you
attractive, Mulder," she said huskily. "Look, maybe you're
not nineteen any more. But do you really think I'd be
interested in a nineteen-year-old? He'd be a boy, Mulder.
You're a man. And every year that passes just makes you more
attractive to me." 

He grunted doubtfully. 

"Mulder, have I ever lied to you?" 

Silence fell -- the perfect silence of a quiet country bed
and breakfast without so much as a television to disturb the
stillness. Vaguely he realized her hand was on his leg, just
inches from more interesting territory. When he was nineteen
that hand would have been the only thing on his mind, and
here it had taken long minutes for the realization even to
dawn on him. 

Neither of them spoke. 

"I just hate this, Scully," he said finally. "I hate that
the best part of my life was already over before I even met
you." His mouth twisted, and he stared down at her hand. 

She leaned her head closer and smiled up at him. "'Grow old
with me, the best is yet to be.'" 

Mulder laughed hollowly. "You forgot, the rest of that line
is 'the last of life.'" 

"'The last of life, for which the first was made,'" she
corrected. "Nope, I don't think I agree that the best is
already behind you, Mulder. Age isn't going to wipe away
your intelligence, or your personality. Besides, there's a
lot to be said for experience. I'm afraid you and your gray
hair and your bad knees are stuck with me." 

He did not look up, but his frown faded just the same. Ah,
Scully; he should have known he could count on her. Maybe
the future wasn't going to be so bad after all. And her hand
was on still on his thigh... 

"Of course, if you've just lost interest in sex," she said
lightly, "I guess we'll have to think of something else to
do together from now on. We could take up cooking, maybe." 

"I hate cooking," he said, with a note of spirit creeping
back into his tone. "Wouldn't you rather just eat take-out?"


"Maybe we could play canasta." 

"I'm afraid I'm not very good at cards." 

"Square dancing?" 

He smiled at her. "With my bad knees?" 

"Well, then," said Scully matter-of-factly, and began to
unbutton her blouse. "I guess we're just going to have to
fuck." 

**** 

Mr. Kopeck stood frozen to the spot, his blood running cold,
every hair standing on end. 

The demon's thin lips drew back, revealing razor-sharp
teeth. It mouthed something at him: "Praepara mori" --
prepare to die. 

Mr. Kopeck felt as if he were caught in some unspeakable
nightmare. He opened his mouth to yell, but he couldn't make
any sound come out. He could only watch helplessly as the
demon slunk toward him, its belly low to the ground,
creeping closer in all its hideousness. 

Mr. Kopeck screwed his eyes shut, afraid to look. So this
was how it ended. Bracing himself for the blow, he mentally
counted down the seconds he had left. 

Three... 

Two... 

He heard the hum of the Mustang's engine, a thud, a crunch,
and the squeal of brakes. 

"Oh my God!" Rachel Thornton cried. "Did I hit something?" 

Slowly, afraid of what he might see, Mr. Kopeck opened his
eyes. Rachel was looking at him anxiously, her hand on the
gearshift, uncertainty written all over her lovely face. 

He glanced from Rachel to the demon, and back to Rachel
again. 

He gulped. "Um...I think you did." 

She threw her car door open and leapt out. "Oh my God!" she
cried, looking behind the tire and raising one hand to her
mouth in horror. "I completely squished it!" 

"Yep," said Mr. Kopeck, impressed. "You sure did."


"What was it?" she asked, glancing to him with a look of
confusion. "Please tell me it wasn't somebody's pet. I'll
die if I just killed somebody's cat." 

"No," he said. "I saw it out of the corner of my eye, and I
think it was a...a woodchuck or something." 

"A woodchuck," she repeated. "That's not so bad. Oh, my God,
did that ever scare the daylights out of me." She sighed,
and held out her hands to him. "Feel me, I'm shaking all
over." 

"Feel you?" Mr. Kopeck said in a hushed tone. He did not
have to be asked twice. 

**** 

"Oh my God," said Scully. And then, a little more
breathlessly, "Oh, Mulder..." 

He lifted his face from between her thighs, a smile
spreading slowly across his features. "Learned that trick
when I was twenty," he said smugly. 

She didn't answer, just lifted her hips a little. He
recognized nonverbal communication when he saw it, and went
enthusiastically back to work. 

Enthusiastically -- and passionately. He licked, he sucked,
he dove in happily with his whole face like a man going for
the blue ribbon in a pie-eating contest. He used two long
fingers to do that little trick with her G-spot, the one
that always drove her wild. 

Scully moaned. Mulder lifted his head again for little self-
congratulation. "Picked that one up when I was twenty-two,"
he said. 

"Mulder -- " Scully urged, squirming impatiently against
him. He wasn't sure whether the choked sound of her voice
was a sign of frustrated lust, or just the result of the 69
position in which they'd arranged themselves. 

He set back to work. 

One thing about pushing forty, he thought: sometimes slowing
down a little could be a good thing. He wasn't sure he could
have managed this kind of concentration a few years ago,
under the circumstances. Her mouth was hot on him, making
him feel like his brain was made of helium. 

He rolled his tongue into a U, and slid it slowly up and
down the shaft of her clitoris. 

"Oh my God!" Scully gasped, her fingers spasmodically
clutching at his hips. 

"Twenty-three," he tried to say. This time he didn't dare
stop, and so he sounded rather like a patient in the
dentist's chair -- an unusually happy patient. 

"Ohhhh..." Scully moaned, pressing harder against him. "Oh,
oh, oh -- " 

Mulder smiled to himself. 

The night was still young, and he still had a good sixteen
years' worth of experience left with which to dazzle her. 

**** 

For once, Kandee thought as she and her date made their way
from the stadium, Brittany was right: Phil really was cute.
A little shy, maybe, but he was tall, brown haired,
inarguably athletic, and he looked positively lunchable in
the jeans and Henley he'd changed into after the game. Best
of all, as far as Kandee could tell, he'd already fallen
under her spell. How else could you explain that glazed but
adorable expression? He was either hers or he was a zombie,
and either way, she mused, swinging hers hips just enough to
make the captive walking behind her audibly catch his
breath, it would be fun. 

"...and then we can hit the diner, 'kay, dude? I'm, like,
starved," Mike was saying. 

"Sounds good to me," Brittany agreed. "Sound okay, Kandee?" 

Kandee stopped on the curb at the edge of the parking lot
and pouted winsomely. Phil narrowly missed walking into her,
and she had to suppress the urge to smile. She felt a sudden
surge of power: she definitely had his attention. "I don't
know..." 

"You got something else on?" Mike asked, surprised. Brittany
had probably told him she was a done deal. 

Her eyes flitted to Brittany. Poor Brittany. Her friend
clearly had no idea how this game was played. How she'd ever
landed Mike, Kandee couldn't imagine. Well, she thought,
shaking her blonde mane for effect, Brittany was about to
get a lesson from the master. Watch and learn, Miss
Sweetness-and-light, watch and learn. 

"Oh no. It's not that, Mike. I can't think of anything I'd
rather do, really. But I'm supposed to work at, like, eight,
and I totally need to wash up before I could possibly go,
like, anywhere. I mean" -- she turned toward Phil, arms at
her sides, cheerleading sweater pulled tight across her
chest -- "just look at me. I. Am. A. Mess." 

Right on cue, Phil all but whimpered. 

"S'okay," Mike said and slung his arm across his
girlfriend's shoulder. "Phil can give you lift back to your
place, I'll take Britt back to hers, and we can meet up
after. That'll still give us a couple hours." 

"Oh?" Kandee dipped her chin and looked demurely up at Phil
through her lashes. "You didn't come on the team bus, Phil?"


"Huh? What?" He gave a shy smile and shifted the gym bag he
was carrying -- hers -- from one hand to the other. "Oh. No.
I didn't come on the bus." 

"No?" Kandee smiled and twirled the end of her ponytail.
"Well, like, how *did* you get here?" 

For a minute, he looked confused, utterly baffled. It suited
him, she thought. Suited him very well. And unlike the rest
of the farm boys she'd met since coming to Vermont, he
actually had the good sense to look up from her chest
occasionally. He had potential, maybe, and he lived far
enough away that he wouldn't be hanging around all the time,
getting under foot. And, now that she thought about it, she
hadn't had anyone following her around doing the love-sick
puppy thing in a while. She'd missed that. 

"Oh," he said finally. "I drove. My -- my car." He gestured
toward the parking lot. 

"So, we have a plan?" Mike asked. "You drop Kandee off and
swing back to my place, I'll drop Brittany off and meet you
back there, and then we'll meet up in, say, an hour and a
half?" 

She kept hair twirling, ignoring Mike. "Your own car? How
handy." Her dimples deepened. She wondered vaguely which of
the dirty pick-up trucks she was going to have to pretend to
be thrilled to ride around in. Still, it was something. 

"Yeah." He nodded absently and then pulled a set of keys
from his team jacket, and hit the remote. Much to Kandee's
surprise and delight, the headlights on a sleek black BMW Z3
convertible flashed briefly in the gathering twilight. 

"That's your car?" Kandee tried not to sound impressed, but
it was difficult. Looked like there was more to this guy
than just good looks and excellent taste in women. 

"Yeah, I got it for my birthd..." 

"Yo, earth to Phil," Mike interrupted, snapping his fingers
in his cousin's face. "Plan? Have we got one, dude?" 

"Uh huh, we do," Kandee answered. She had a plan, all right.
"Come on, Phil." She crooked her finger, turned on her heel
and started toward the BMW at a fast enough clip to leave
him a good two paces behind. She didn't have to look back to
know he was following. 

Halfway across the lot, she felt a hand grip her shoulder
and spin her around. "Hey!" she yelped, half in surprise,
half in indignation. "What the hell do you -- ?" 

"Sorry." Phil pulled his hand away as if it had been burned
and took a step back. "Sorry," he said again. "I just didn't
want you to step in that." He nodded at the gravel before
her. 

Kandee turned and looked down. It was difficult to see
clearly in the dusky half-light, but there in front of her
was a lumpy puddle of something disgusting that she would
certainly have stepped in if he hadn't stopped her. "Ew!
That's gross! Like, what is that, anyway?" 

"Don't know," Phil answered. He crouched down for a better
look. "Road kill of some kind. Squashed groundhog and
radiator fluid, maybe. Can't imagine what else that green
stuff would be." He stood again and smiled sheepishly.
"Sorry I grabbed you. Really. I just didn't want you to ruin
your shoes." He paused. "Um, those are Corrados, right?" 

Kandee lifted an eyebrow. How did FarmBoy know about shoes?
Women's shoes? "Ah, yeah." 

"That's a nice shoe," he stated authoritatively. "You
wouldn't want gopher guts all over 'em. Ruin the suede." 

"Right. Right." Kandee's brows met in a puzzled frown. Even
she had her limits. "Like, what are you? A foot fetish guy ?
Or cross-dresser or something? 'Cause, I am so totally not
into that. Or, like, that." 

Phil shook his head, abashed. "No, sorry." He shrugged and
looked away. "Family business." He shrugged again. "We sell
shoes." 

"Oh? So what, like, you're all shoe salesmen?" 

He shrugged again. "Not exactly. My family owns Yorkview
Shoes." 

"Oh." Kandee recognized the name of a medium-high end chain.
Whenever she made it to the mall in Burlington, it was one
of the first places she hit. "So, what, like, you guys own
the store in the mall?" 

"Yeah." Phil nodded, his eyes still averted. "That one, and
the other 283 on this side of the Mississippi." 

Kandee blinked. 284 stores? She could almost hear the cha-
ching of cash registers in the distance. Sure, it was
retail, but around here, well, a girl couldn't be too
choosy. "Really?" 

"Yeah," Phil nodded. "It's not glamorous, but um...well, I
can get you a discount. If you want one," he added hastily. 

If she wanted one? Oh, this was too good to be true. "That
would really, really be nice." She smiled dazzlingly. "Come
on." She extended her hand and waited for him to take it. He
looked, momentarily, as if it were a poisonous snake. She
wiggled her fingers. "Phil, come on. I won't bite. And we
don't want to keep your cousin waiting. So tell me...how big
a discount?" 

Hand in hand, they sidestepped the last earthly remains of
the demon. 

**** 

The diner was busy. Apparently, Craftsbury Common's greasy
spoon was the hip place to be at eleven o'clock on a Sunday
morning. 

>From her seat opposite him, Scully eyed Mulder's heaping
plate. "I still can't believe you're going to eat all that,"
she said. 

"Have to keep my strength up," he answered, grinning around
a mouthful of turkey sandwich. This won him one of her rare
smiles, fleeting but wonderfully naughty for the instant
that it lasted. Oh, that smile... 

He suspected they were both giving off an unmistakable post-
coital glow. She was leaning closer than usual, stealing
more food off his plate than usual, speaking to him in a
more teasing tone than usual. He could feel himself wearing
the relaxed, self-satisfied look of a man who'd just made a
beautiful woman cry out his name in the heat of passion --
twice. 

So what if the case hadn't gone his way, he thought with
equanimity. So what if Scully had joked just this morning,
between the first and seconds bouts of sex, that maybe now
he'd listen the next time she insisted there had to be a
commonplace explanation for a death. Well, okay...maybe it
bothered him a little to be wrong; but all in all, this trip
had been well worthwhile. 

The little bell above the entrance to the diner jingled, and
he glanced over to see Mr. Kopeck coming in, dressed in
weekend attire and accompanied by an attractive blonde. It
was the blonde who drew a second look from Mulder. He'd
noticed her at the bed and breakfast; it would be hard not
to notice those curves and those tousled curls. She was
smiling at Mr. Kopeck, and he was smiling back, the sort of
goofy smile that made them look like they both wanted to
jump on each other and go at it right there in the doorway
of the diner. 

"Looks like someone's got himself a new friend," Scully said
in an undertone. 

"Mmm-hmm," Mulder replied affably. 

Under the table, he felt something brush his ankle, then
slide seductively over his instep. He glanced at the floor
in surprise. "Are you playing footsie with me?" 

"Maybe," she said with an air of intrigue. 

"Agent Scully," he said, shaking his head in amazement. "If
this is how you behave when I'm wrong about a case, remind
me to be wrong more often." 

Hiding a smile, she looked down into her empty coffee cup.
"I could use a refill on this. How about you?" 

He shook his head. "Nah, I'm fine." 

She searched the crowded diner for their waitress. "Oh,
brother," he heard her mutter. 

He followed her gaze. Kandee was leaning over a booth in the
corner of the diner, both elbows on the table, ass in the
air, talking to Brittany Woodall and two football players.
Or perhaps, Mulder thought, it might be more accurate to say
she was talking to just one of the football players. Her
face was mere inches from that of the taller boy, a shy-
looking young man who was gazing at her in doe-eyed
infatuation. 

"Excuse me," Scully called loudly. "Could I get some more
coffee over here?" 

Kandee turned her head and shot them a look of pure poison.
"Can you, like, possibly keep your shirt on for a minute?
I'll be right with you." Then she turned her attention back
to her friends.


Scully sighed. "Did I ever tell you that I've never much
liked cheerleaders?" she said to Mulder. 

"Did I ever tell you about my cheerleader fantasy?" 

"Did I ever tell you that if you know what's good for you,
that fantasy will be about how you turn down the self-
centered pom-pom girl in favor of the brainy but exceptional
beauty in the Chess Club?" 

Mulder chuckled, and watched as she stole another french fry
from his plate. "What time is our flight out of Burlington?"


"Four o'clock." 

"That should give us some time to figure out what we're
going to put in our report." 

"What do you mean 'we,' Tonto?" She dipped her french fry
liberally in his ketchup. "I already know what I'm going to
write in my report: one accidental overdose, one death by
mischance, and one animal attack. Case closed." 

"Okay," he said. "But 'Vampire Vixens on Fire' would make
for much more interesting reading." 

Scully declined to take the bait. Instead she glanced over
at Kandee, who was still nose-to-nose with the football
player in the corner booth. "I think it would be quicker if
I just got my coffee myself," she said with a sigh. 

"I'd say that's a safe bet," Mulder agreed. 

She slid out of the booth, cup in hand, and went to the
lunch counter. Mulder watched her as she crossed the diner,
appreciating the rear view as she walked away. 

He felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned his head to find
Mr. Kopeck in the otherwise empty booth behind him, one arm
leaning on the back of the bench seat. 

"Yes?" Mulder asked in mild surprise. 

The teacher looked sheepish. "There's something I thought
you ought to know," he said, voice low. "It's about your
investigation." 

"Actually we're closing the file on -- " 

"You know that thing you told me?" Mr. Kopeck interrupted.
"How I wasn't going to solve my problem until I got over the
conflict I was feeling? You know, about...uh..." He fumbled
for a way to complete the sentence. 

"Sex?" Mulder supplied. This morning, and last night too for
that matter, had left him in an expansive mood. 

Mr. Kopeck nodded. "Yes. Sex. Well, I think that problem is
solved." He glanced over to his own booth, where the
attractive blonde was sipping a vanilla milkshake through a
straw. "On, um, on both counts." 

"I'm happy to hear that," said Mulder. "On both counts." 

The teacher broke into a grin, a beatific expression
lighting up his features. "Yeah," he said in a voice full of
wonder. "It is pretty cool." 

The blonde, as if sensing she was being talked about,
glanced over to where they were sitting. She blushed, and a
slow, cat-that-got-the-canary smile deepened the dimples in
her cheeks. Mr. Kopeck wasn't the only one who looked to be
in love, Mulder thought. 

Mulder stuck out his right hand. "Well, congratulations," he
said, shaking hands with the teacher. "I'm glad to see
things are looking up for you." 

"Thanks." Mr. Kopeck got to his feet. "And thanks for your
advice before." With a last bashful look, he set off to
rejoin the pretty blonde. 

"What was that all about?" asked Scully, returning to the
booth with her coffee cup in her hand. 

"What? Oh, nothing." Mulder's eyes flickered over her
lazily. "He was --I was just telling him how you were right
about the deaths here being nothing but accidents." 

She eased into the seat opposite him. "That's very big of
you, Mulder." 

He shrugged. "When you're right, you're right, Scully." He
felt her foot teasing its way along his calf again, and had
to struggle not to smile. "You about ready to go, as soon as
you finish that coffee?" 

"Yes, if we can just get the check." 

They looked over to their waitress and her knot of friends.
Kandee remained oblivious to all the customers in the diner.
She was talking a mile a minute, while the poor love-struck
football player hung on her every word. 

"It might take a while," Mulder observed. 

They fell into a thoughtful silence. Scully sipped her
coffee. Under the table, her toes caressed his shin. 

"You want to meet me in the ladies' room?" Mulder asked
after a minute. 

She set her coffee cup down with a clink. "I thought you'd
never ask." 

And, demon or no demon, the two agents set out to enjoy a
little deviltry of their own. 

**** 

NOTES 

Although we've taken a few liberties with it here,
Craftsbury Common is a real village in Vermont; you can see
the 1950s version -- not so very different from the 2000
version -- in the Hitchcock film "The Trouble With Harry."
We didn't make up the words Mr. Kopeck uses in his attempt
to exorcise the demon, either. They're taken directly from
the rite of exorcism in the Rituale Romanum. 

There are several people who helped make this story
possible, and we would like to thank them: 

First, Emily Short was generous enough to proofread the
Latin. She not only brought an expert knowledge of Latin
grammar to the process, but she even recognized a smutty
phrase bastardized from Catullus. PD was VERY impressed --
not to mention grateful, since her careful editing caught
more than one of his mistakes. He promises he will never
again forget that "epulor" is a deponent verb. 

Second, two trusted friends looked over the final draft for
us, Euphrosyne and Dasha K. Both had a lot on their
respective plates, but generously shared their time, talent,
and wisdom with us. Their insights were, as always,
invaluable. 

We'd also like to thank Ebird, for pestering, encouragement,
and just cuz. 

Last but not least, we would like to thank jerry, our beta
reader extraordinaire, who worked on this story with us from
beginning to end. She took time out of her busy schedule to
go over each section with a fine-toothed comb. She helped us
make Mr. Kopeck more sympathetic, and cast the tie-breaking
vote in our rare artistic differences. Without her
unflagging encouragement, this story would probably never
have been written. 

Our sincere appreciation to everyone who helped us, and to
all of you who've read this far. If you're one of those
patient readers, how about dropping us a line so we can
thank you, too?