what if we kissed on the jairs

“What is it?” he asked, coming up behind her. “Oh.”

She swallowed hard against the scent of the corpse: the raw sewage reek of it seemed more powerful than such a small body justified. Maybe it was the scent of the predator that had murdered the hare. “I think it knows we’re here.”

“So it would seem.” He moved behind her and came back with the camera. He crouched to take pictures of the scene. Scully leaned over him, peering out the door. There was no sign of whatever had left them this gift, no footprints or detritus. The wood of the porch wasn’t conducive to such evidence. There was no helpful trail of bloody paw marks staining the planks.

”Maybe what was what woke me up,” Scully said.

“Probably,” Mulder agreed. He stood and turned the camera on her, snapping a photo before she could stop him.

“Mulder, no,” she put a hand up. “I haven't even brushed my teeth.”

“I don’t think the camera has that much zoom,” Mulder said. “Should we shift this? I have to pee.”

There was a broom in the corner. They used the handle to nudge the hare’s corpse and the mat aside before they took their morning trip to the outhouse. Scully found herself scanning for broken branches on the trees, claw marks in the wood of the porch. But there was nothing.

“I think it can fly,” Mulder said. It would have seemed apropos of nothing if she didn’t know he’d seen her scanning the area.

“A very large owl,” Scully suggested. “They fly almost silently. It could have dropped the hare.”

“That would explain its nocturnal habits,” Mulder said. “But no, I can’t imagine an owl sucking a hare dry, or turning one into Dust. Nor would that explain the so-called demons testified to by our one witness.”

“Who is decisively not our witness,” Scully said, “given that he is not in our custody or even accessible to us.” She stepped into the outhouse. Mulder, surprisingly, didn’t try to talk to her through the door. She imagined he was watching for their visitor, the way she did when she stepped out again. "Maybe it killed the hare elsewhere and the blood drained out while it was flying." That would have left spatters, or at least blood on the fur, but it felt comfortable to push back.

“I still think we’re dealing with a vampire of some kind,” Mulder said when he emerged from his own turn. “Humanoid or not.”

“Now it’s a non-humanoid vampire,” Scully grumbled.

“That depends on your definition of humanoid,” Mulder said. “Human-scale does necessarily connote human features.”

“Naturally,” Scully said in a dry voice.

“The original Jersey Devil wasn’t thought to have human features,” Mulder said. “It was more like a bat. As I think I’ve said.”

Scully inclined her head. “Yes, I’ve heard the vampire bat theory.”

“Big bat-shaped vampire creature,” Mulder corrected. “That hare wasn’t killed in the way most vampire bats feed — they carve shallow holes in their prey and lap the blood. Those wounds were much narrower.”

Scully went into the cottage and pulled latex gloves out of her suitcase. She snapped them on, crouching next to the corpse of the hare. Aside from the slashed-open belly, it was remarkably intact, the grey-brown summer fur barely ruffled. She found four deep puncture wounds in the throat. A delicate crust of blood rimmed each wound, but they were largely clean. Whatever had made them was sharp. The blood had been extracted quickly. Mulder was right. An owl couldn't do that.

“These aren’t shallow holes,” she said.

Mulder peered over her shoulder, keeping his distance. “That’s more like the bite of the chupacabra.”

“And what’s that, exactly?”

“Folkloric cryptid from Mexico and Latin America,” Mulder said. “The name translates as goat-sucker. They’ve got four fangs, two top and two bottom.”

“There you go,” Scully said. She went back inside and rummaged under the sink, coming up with a trashbag. She wrapped the hare in it. “The Mexican goat-sucker drained this hare. I’m sure they’re understudied — maybe they migrate like monarch butterflies, gnawing their way up the coast. We should preserve this.”

“Maybe in someone else’s freezer,” Mulder said, looking a little green around the gills.

Scully shrugged, leaving the bag next to the door. If Mulder’s theory held, their suspect wouldn’t return in the daylight. The hare wouldn’t degrade too much in the time it took them to have breakfast, unless it turned to Dust in the bag, and that would tell them something. She scrubbed her hands in the sink while Mulder brushed his teeth, then she brushed her teeth while he made toast. She put the kettle on and measured coffee grounds into the French press.

“Mooseberry jam?” Mulder offered, passing her the open jar along with a plate of toast.

“Why not?” Scully said, digging a knife into the gooey red substance and spreading it on her toast. It oozed over the edge.

Mulder swallowed. “I’ll try it tomorrow.”

Scully shrugged. “Suit yourself.” She bit into her toast. The jam was good, tart and tangy. Like the huckleberries, it had an edge of wildness that domestic fruits didn’t have.

After a leisurely breakfast, they made lunch and got dressed. Scully regretted that she hadn’t made it to the store for a sports bra, but at the same time, she wouldn’t necessarily have wanted to take him shopping with her. She imagined him lurking outside the changing room, trying to talk to her about vampires while she wrestled her breasts into a tight bra. Maybe it was better this way. This way, she didn’t have to examine her slight disappointment at the thought that he wouldn’t be thinking about her cleavage instead of about supernatural creatures and she wouldn’t have to negotiate privacy to change.

“How do we think our buddy Logan feels about handguns?” Mulder asked. He moved his arms back and forth, his overshirt opening over the holster that held his weapon. “After that, I’m not particularly inclined to leave it behind.”

Scully pursed her lips. “Can you hide it?”

“My ankle holster isn’t compatible with hiking boots,” he said. “Think I could pull off a Han Solo look?”

She had a very vivid flash of Mulder in an open white shirt and tight pants with a thigh holster, which she immediately tucked away for later examination. “Not sure it fits our harmless personas.”

He shrugged. “I‘ll put it in my bag. Have you got yours?”

She lifted the hem of her half-zip to reveal her weapon. His eyes narrowed appreciatively, which made her stomach flutter. “Got you covered, partner.”

“Tell any beast-women to get in line,” he teased.

“That’s right,” she said. “You’re spoken for. If anyone’s going to shred you, it’s going to be me.”

“Hell of a tagline for our honeymoon,” he said with satisfaction.

“Maybe we can find one of those t-shirt places,” she said. “Make you a souvenir.”

“Better than another scar.” He finished repacking his backpack, putting in an extra bottle of water and some snacks. He clipped his bear spray to his front pocket and slung the camera around his neck. “Ready?”

“Yeah,” she said, shouldering her pack. She locked the cottage door and they walked down the boardwalk, carrying the bag with the hare inside. It seemed relatively solid, so at least it hadn’t turned to Dust. Scully stashed it in the industrial freezer at the coffee shop and washed her hands again. As they emerged, they saw Logan tying up his boat at the dock.

She turned to Mulder. “It occurs to me it’s going to be challenging to conduct any kind of investigation with our guide around. Breaking and entering one house to use the restroom might be reasonable, but checking every house is not. Most tourists aren’t going to be collecting Dust.”

“Yeah,” Mulder said. “Good thing our sandwiches aren’t in an evidence bag today.” They’d stashed them in the paper bag from the grocery store instead, rolled up inside Scully’s backpack like an oversized kindergarten sack lunch. His brow furrowed. “Maybe we take this as a day to get the lay of the land and ask him to come back in a couple of days.”

“The honeymooner gooey eyes seem to work in terms of repelling people,” Scully said.

“That’s something we’ve got going for us,” Mulder said in a cheerful voice. He took her hand, swinging it just a little as they made their way down the dock toward Logan. “Hey there. Grace told you we were looking for a guide?”

“Yup,” Logan said.

“That’s great!” Scully said. “We’re so grateful.” God, she was bad at this. She spent too much time talking to Mulder, using words that were only found in specialized encylopedias, an elevated jargon cobbled together in hushed tones. Her ability to make small talk at a normal volume and distance had atrophied. Maybe she should go back to church.

Logan just nodded. “Where are we going?”

“Oh, well,” Scully started, looking up at Mulder as if they hadn’t decided in advance. “We‘ve seen this area and the east side of town. We were interested in the south part. Maybe you could show us some hiking trails?”

Logan looked at them searchingly, as if evaluating their fitness to walk a few miles on cleared paths. It made Scully want to drop to the ground and start doing push-ups. “Okay.” He motioned toward the boat. “Can’t get there walking.”

“Oh, I guess not,” Scully said, glancing around. “I didn’t realize this part of Halibut Cove was essentially an island. Especially when the tide’s in like it is now.”

“Yup,” Logan said.

That seemed to be the sum total of his commentary. Mulder and Scully exchanged glances and then climbed into the boat. Logan undid the quick hitch and navigated across the cove, taking them back out into the bay.

“What’s over there?” Mulder asked, pointing directly across the cove.

Logan looked. “Houses.”

“Any hiking over there?” Scully asked.

“Nah,” Logan said. “Take you around to China Poot Bay.”

“China Poot Bay?” Mulder was clearly trying not to laugh.

“Yup. Coalition Loop Trail.”

“Grace told us there are whales in the bay,” Scully tried.

“Yup.” Logan squinted at the water. “Whales. Sharks. Porpoises. Wouldn’t swim in it.”

“Anywhere you would swim?” Mulder asked, as if they’d brought suits.

“Maybe China Poot Lake,” Logan said. He thought about it. “Maybe not. 'S cold.”

They started up the Coalition Trail Loop, which the sign said was essentially only accessible at high tide. The trail was lovely, winding its way through deep woods. The trees were so interesting here. Even the deciduous trees seemed to be needle-bearing. The understory of the forest was largely open; only the youngest trees had low-hanging branches. The mature spruce and hemlocks stretched toward the sky, their lower trunks bare. It gave the forest the lofty feeling of a cathedral.

At one point, Logan held up his hand silently to bring them to a halt. He pointed. They peered between the trees to see the round shape of a black bear snuffling in the leaf litter. They watched for a minute, Mulder taking pictures, then moved quietly on at Logan’s signal. Another time, it was moose, browsing at the edge of a lake. Fortunately, they were on the other side of the water, although Scully recalled that moose could swim. Mulder took pictures of the animals and then fanned his hands by his ears, which nearly made her laugh and earned them both a subtle eye-roll from Logan.

After a couple of hours, they stopped for lunch at a little lake that Logan called Two Loon. Mulder made his way to the marshy edge and dipped his fingers in the water and winced, shaking drops from his fingertips.

“It’s chilly.”

“Yup,” Logan said.

“Don’t know what I expected,” Mulder said to Scully in a low voice.

“Are there any houses back here?” Scully asked Logan as they packed up the remains of their lunch.

“Naw,” he said. “‘S the state park.”

“Are there any houses in the woods around the cove?” Mulder asked. “We’re just loving it here. We might look into property around the bay.”

“Naw,” Logan said. After a moment, he volunteered, “Most everything’s on the water or close to it. No roads.”

“Huh,” Mulder said. “Not so much as an ATV trail?”

“Naw,” Logan said. “Not much use here. Snow machines, maybe. Too much work to keep trails clear. Plus there’s moose and all.”

“Yeah,” Mulder mused. “There’s moose.”

They carried on with their hike. The trail they were on intersected with a few others; at each point, Logan pointed out the signs indicating the Coalition Loop.

“Don’t get lost,” he said. “Nobody here to hear you yell.”

Scully took out her phone. There was no service at all. She didn’t even know if the FBI’s phone plan worked here. Maybe it was lower 48. They hadn’t had a chance to test it at the Arctic lab — they’d had radios instead.

“Do people get lost out here?” she asked.

“Sometimes,” Logan said. “Rangers do a loop every so often.”

“It’s amazing out here,” Mulder said. “Does seem kind of dangerous, though.”

Logan shrugged as he walked. “Like everywhere.”

“Seems strange that everyone in Halibut Cove is gone during tourist season,” Scully mused. “Of course we’re delighted to have you here, but I’m surprised we couldn’t find a guide there.”

Logan shrugged again, but his brows drew together.

“Do you think there’s going to be a tsunami?” Scully pressed.

Logan, unsurprisingly, shrugged.

"Does that kind of thing happen around here?" Mulder asked.

“Grewingk Lake,” Logan said. “1967. Called it a mega-tsunami. Caused by a landslide.” He nodded to himself. “It could happen any time. Gotta take it seriously.”

“Is that where everybody went?”

Logan looked uneasy. “Dunno.”

This time Scully let the silence speak for itself. She and Mulder hiked on, saying nothing, breathing a little hard on the slope. She watched Logan’s shoulders tense and drop and tense again.

“Heard it was something else.”

“Like what?” Scully asked brightly.

“Something,” he said, and subsided again into an uneasy quiet.

Scully exchanged looks with Mulder. He nodded at her, just a tiny inclination of his chin. You got this.

“Maybe they got eaten,” Logan said abruptly.

“Eaten?” Scully said, putting a little extra astonishment into her voice. “By what, Logan? Wolves? Bears?”

“Something else,” he said. “Just rumors though.”

“We saw a display at the museum,” Scully said. “It said there are unexplained disappearances here sometimes. People blame the Kachemak Specter.”

“Yeah,” Logan said. “‘S an old story. Dena’ina story.”

“Oh, the tribe who lives on these lands?” Scully asked.

Logan nodded.

“Do a lot of people get eaten by the Specter?” Scully asked.

Logan shook his head. “Now and then. You hear tales. Never a whole village. Story says it avoids people mostly.”

“What changed?” Mulder asked.

Logan combined a head shake and a shrug. “Dunno.”

“Well, I’m sure Grace would have warned us away if it weren’t perfectly safe for us to be there,” Scully said with a tinkling laugh. She put her hand on Mulder’s arm. “Don’t you think, Jonny?”

“I’m sure you’re right, honey,” Mulder said. “And we haven’t noticed anything weird, have we? Nothing’s tried to eat us except mosquitoes. A lot of mosquitoes.”

“Good,” Logan said, and then was quiet until they reached the end of the trail. The tide had gone out a bit and they had to push the boat back into the water. Mulder and Scully climbed in while Logan gave one last splashy shove. He took them back to the dock in Halibut Cove. Mulder pressed $50 into Logan’s hand as they debarked.

“Thanks for a great day,” he said. “We’ll let Grace know if we’re looking for another adventure.”

“Yeah.” Logan turned the boat and was gone, looking back a few times with what Scully thought was an expression of worry.

“Why does everything you say sound like you’re searching for a threesome?” Scully muttered.

Mulder laughed. “Now that you’ve got me all to yourself.” He pulled his bag of sunflower seeds from his shirt pocket. “What should we do with ourselves?”

“We should probably figure out what we’re doing for the next few days.” Scully propped her hands on her hips.

“Mm,” Mulder said in agreement. “I don’t really want to spend all afternoon and all night in that one room. Should we head over to the lighthouse? Looks like it might rain.”

“Yeah,” Scully said. “A change of venue might help us make new connections.”

They walked up the boardwalk and found the trail. Scully noticed more clusters of valerian around. There were several near the lighthouse, bright white and pink against the white siding of the building.

“I’d like to do a survey,” she said, bending to sniff a tall cluster of blossoms. “These flowers are everywhere. I wonder if there’s any significance to the way they grow.”

“I’ll start a list,” Mulder said, shoving open the door of the lighthouse-turned-vacation house. He produced the notebook and wrote down “valerian?” as item one. They sat at a table by a bay window; this one actually looked out over the bay. Scully could see boats dotting the water. She picked out one that was probably Logan: bigger than the other dots, therefore closer, but trailing white wake as it sped away.

“We need to look at the houses on the other side of the cove,” Scully said. “We should try to do that this afternoon. Hopefully the rain will hold off until then, but that would explain why we haven’t found much Dust. Maybe it’s been washed away over the past few weeks.”

“We can start our flower tour there,” Mulder said. “Pick up the rest of the houses tomorrow, since we know we can do that in a day.”

“We need to go to Anchorage,” Scully said. “Develop the film. Dissect the corpse of the hare, unless they have someone to do that. I think I’d rather do it myself if I can. And we need to submit the Dust for analysis.”

Mulder dutifully recorded it. “That’ll be an overnight, unless you want to spend eight hours in the car in the same day.”

“We’ve got plenty of daylight to drive in,” Scully said, “but I think you’re right. It’ll take time to get the results.” She thought. “Flowers tomorrow. Anchorage the next day. And I want to go back to the museum. I think Miss Violet has more to say.”

“Agreed,” Mulder said. “We’ll stop in on the way back. She can tell us about the mega-tsunami, I bet.”

Scully sighed. “Please don’t tell me we’re searching for a murderer and avoiding a mega-tsunami.”

“I haven’t heard any suspicious rumblings,” Mulder said. “Except here.” He patted his stomach.

"I hope you haven't got the kind of hunger that can bring down a mountain," Scully said in a dry voice.

"You never know," Mulder said. They both gazed out the window at the mountains that ringed the bay.

“What a place,” Scully said admiringly. She looked over the water. “Oh! Mulder! Whales!”

They both watched, transfixed, as the sleek shapes rose from the choppy waves like a dream. Scully understood, watching them, why people believed in sea monsters. The whales seemed like something from another world. First there was the unbroken water of the bay, and then, like magic, there was the swell of a slick back, or the flick of a fluke. There was so much power in the grace of their movements. Even from here, Scully could tell they were massive, and yet there was something delicate about the smoothness of the way they swam. They mastered the water, in a way people could never imagine.

After twenty minutes or so, the whales swam out of sight. Scully sighed, turning back to Mulder.

“You know, you called me Mulder,” he said.

“Did I?” she said. “Sorry.”

“I didn’t know I missed it,” he said, with a smile that looked somehow tentative. “Pretending to be your husband is fun, but it’s nice to be reminded that I’m your partner.”

Maybe she’d been getting the wrong messages the last few days. A few midnight cuddles signified nothing but two bodies yearning for warmth, pure animal instinct. “One hopes that a marriage is a partnership, although of course a partnership is not a marriage.” Her voice sounded stiff to her own ears.

“That’s not what I meant,” he said. He reached across the table and caught her hand. “Hey. Scully. What we have is more meaningful than most marriages, or at least most of the ones I’ve seen. We might have been assigned to each other originally, but that's not why we're here on this case. You could have spoken to Skinner or that jerk Colton or anyone else and they would have yanked out out of the basement so fast I would have thought I imagined you. If you'd wanted to leave, you'd be gone."

"I suppose that's true," she allowed, thinking of the peace of the lab at Quantico, how bored she'd be there now.

Mulder was gazing at her. " We choose each other every day, without all the external pressures from society or legal structures. I’m glad to see you every time you walk in that door.” The expression on his face was so earnest. She couldn’t look into his eyes without something inside her chest melting; she settled for his lips instead, which at least inspired a different liquidity, warm in her belly.

“I’m not sure it’s every time,” she teased.

“Every time,” he said, like it was a vow. He was still holding her hand. “Even when I’m frustrated, I’m always glad to see you.”

“Me too,” she said in a small voice. She looked up again and met his gaze. It felt like the bravest thing she’d ever done.

She hadn’t been lucky in love, not like her parents. Her relationships had never felt like a match between true equals. Granted, she’d fallen for or sought men who were her superior in some way, at least in the systems in which they functioned. But she’d been smarter than Jack, kinder than Daniel. If she suggested to Mulder she were in any way less than his equal, he would insist she possessed similar or greater capacity, even in laughable areas like their relative physical strength. It was like he believed they were the same size, in some unmeasurable interior dimension. He believed in her capacity in a way that she'd never encountered before, wholly and profoundly, as if it were a simple fact.

Mulder occasionally left her behind in their quest for the truths they both pursued, for reasons variously valid and spurious, but he never let her fall. It was a dynamic she’d had difficulty describing to her sister Melissa, but she understood it as a fundamental truth of their relationship. Mulder believed they were partners. Equally yoked, as the scripture said, even if that wasn’t from his portion of the book.

He squeezed her hand. “I like the way you say my name,” he told her, and it seemed to contain more depth than the surface showed, like the glacier-carved lakes Logan had told them about.

“I like the way you say my name,” she said back. “And if I had to pretend to be married to someone, I’m glad it’s you.”

“Yeah,” he said, smiling at her in that way he had, his eyes searching her face. It always made her feel as if they were the only two people in a crowded room. Funny for it to have the same effect when they were the only two people on a what was essentially deserted island. She squeezed his hand back and released it.

“I should probably go back to being your husband for now,” he said. “We’re already odd enough to arouse suspicion.”

“I agree,” she said, even though it felt like surrendering some intimacy, which was absurd. “The locals are already skeptical of outsiders. I can’t imagine the badge would inspire any extra confidence.”

“I think Miss Violet would feed us to a bear,” Mulder said dryly. “Or the Kachemak Specter.”

“I’m going to say something,” she said. “And I need to you to be cool about it.”

He tipped his chin inquiringly at her. “I’m always cool.”

She snorted. “Both of us know that’s not true.” He tipped his head, granting the point. His eyes twinkled as he waited for her. “I’m willing to grant that our suspect may not be human.”

“Wow, Willa,” he said, and somehow “Willa” sounded more like “Scully” than it had before. “That seems like a significant breakthrough for you. What inspired this?”

“Although I can imagine a few scenarios where a person could create four almost-identical puncture wounds that appear to have been made fairly simultaneously and with even pressure, your four-fanged creature is more plausible. The way the corpse was drained of blood suggests some amount of suction, based on my initial examination. It wasn’t hung to drain, for example, the way a butcher would. I suspect the fur was likely licked clean, which would explain the lack of staining.”

“I see,” Mulder said thoughtfully.

“The autopsy will reveal more,” she said. “I can’t make any precise judgments until then.”

“I appreciate your willingness to consider all the evidence,” he said. “If I haven’t told you so lately. Or at all.”

“It might have been a person wearing some sort of dental augmentation that resembled fangs,” she said. “However, given the general dearth of services in this remote area and the amount of territory that remains essentially uncharted, I believe that an undiscovered mutation in a known species would be more reasonable. Possibly even an undiscovered species. This territory has been inhabited for thousands of years, but on a scale that suggests any number of creatures could evade human notice.”

“Yeah,” he said. “The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but they may contain things of which we do not speak.”

“I don’t think that was exactly Frost’s point,” she said. "Nor did it scan."

His eyes twinkled again. She felt absurdly pleased with herself, even though the reference was simple. They both enjoyed this game, sprinkling citations into their conversations from sources that ranged from children’s cartoons to abstruse scientific texts.

“Maybe not,” he conceded. “But you grant the premise.”

“I do,” she said. She rose from the table. “I think we should check the other houses.”

It felt absurd, getting the boat out to cross the cove. It took longer to untie it and then secure it on the other dock than it did to traverse the water. They found a heap of Dust in one of the other houses. Mulder photographed the scene, pointing out the angles again to Scully, as if she couldn’t triangulate from the window. The other houses revealed little, though they dutifully checked every building around the curve of the spit that led to China Poot Bay. Scully drew a map in their notebook, marking patches of valerian. It grew by most of the houses. In front of a few, it seemed to have been trampled down; the patches were marked with broken stems, although the flowers had survived.

“What do you think?” Mulder asked.

“I’m not sure,” Scully said, rising from where she’d been crouching next to a brick-bordered bed of valerian: planted, purposefully. Someone had dug it up recently, disturbing the dirt. A faint reek rose from the roots. It was a sweaty, funky, musky scent, deeply organic. But it didn’t look like the plants had been removed. “The marks of the digging here look purposeful, moreso than if it had been some animal. I wonder why they did it, if not to harvest the plants.”

“Maybe to deter something,” Mulder said. “That stink would turn me back.”

“Huh,” Scully said. “You may have a point.”

“Every so often, I stumble into wisdom,” Mulder said. “I think that’s from the Tao Te Ching.”

Scully shot him a quick sideways glance. He grinned, giving up.

“I’m taking a sample of this,” she said, tugging at one of the plants. It came out of the loose earth fairly easily. She bagged the root and folded the plant’s leggy stems into the bag before sealing it. When she looked back, Mulder was wrinkling his nose. “Oh, come on, it doesn’t smell worse than your socks after a long hike.” She winked at him.

“Reminds me of a cheese shop I used to go to during my college days, actually,” he said. “I could never achieve that depth in just one day of sock use.”

“Don’t underestimate yourself,” she said cheerfully.

“Wow,” he said. “I didn’t realize I married a brat.”

She checked her watch. “We should go back and make dinner. I’d like to go to Homer tomorrow if that’s all right with you.”

“I think we should stick together,” he said. “But there are definitely some things we could accomplish there.”

“We just need to figure out the boat situation,” she said. “We’d be SOL if we needed to leave in a hurry and one of us was away in town.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you use that expression before,” he said. "Shit out of luck, huh."

“I’m a Navy brat,” she said. “I use all sorts of expressions." It was truth that she usually kept her couth better around him, but being away from anyone else was freeing. "There's got to be an extra boat around somewhere with the keys in it. People seem trusting here.” She checked the sun, then set out back toward the west side of the village, following the trail. “We can head to Homer in the morning. Hopefully we won't get any of those dangerous tides Grace was talking about.”

“We could go back tonight,” he offered. "We're not lacking for daylight. It's not a big town, but there's got to be a hotel or a motel or someone letting a room."

“No,” she said. “Willa and Jon are adventurous. They wouldn’t leave after one night. It’s our honeymoon. The thing we crave most is privacy. We barely even noticed nobody’s here.”

“I was lost in your eyes,” he said, hiking along behind her. “As usual.”

She brushed away a swarm of mosquitos. The bug spray was wearing off. “That’s Jon. Such a romantic.”

“Hopeless,” he agreed.

Winding around the village to reach each building had taken all day, but it was a fairly straight shot back. It only took them half an hour or so to reach the causeway, and another ten minutes to reach the boardwalk. The coffee shop was close to the end of the cluster of buildings. Though the front door was locked, the back was not. Mulder pouted about not getting to demonstrate his skills at lock picking. Scully tactfully refrained from expressing her opinions of said skills.

Inside the back door, they found a narrow staircase that led to a small apartment, neatly kept. There was no Dust there, aside from the ordinary household variety. The closet door was open, as if the occupant had grabbed a jacket and left in a hurry. Mulder stood there, contemplating the array of outerwear as if he were reading tea leaves.

“What are you thinking?” she asked him.

“Not sure,” he said, turning away from the closet. They went down the stairs again and into the coffee shop.

There was nobody in the coffee shop, although they found a whole pile of Dust behind the counter, a little ways away from the window. Mulder took pictures, calculating angles with his arms, and then Scully scooped a healthy sample into one of her evidence bags using a clean teaspoon. Mulder, standing beside her, hit the drawer key of the cash register, which dinged open to reveal a modest stash of bills.

“Not a robbery,” he said. “Just Dusty.”

“That’s the first time we’ve found any inside,” she said, straightening up.

“Curiouser and curiouser,” said Mulder. “Someone couldn’t pass up their morning joe.”

“Maybe they couldn’t,” Scully said. “They came in here for coffee or shelter or something else.”

“And then the sun came up and Dusted them Dracula-style?” Mulder said.

“And then some complex process happened that resulted in Dust,” Scully said stubbornly. “We can’t prove this is human remains, nor is there any evidence that sunlight was involved in the process if it is.”

“Yet,” Mulder said. "But it's classic vampire mythology, Wilhelmina Harker."

Scully sighed. “I haven’t ruled out the possibility.”

“I’ve never known coffee to protect against vampires,” Mulder said. “But that’s all the more reason to take some with us just in case.”

“It didn’t protect this poor soul,” Scully pointed out. She couldn't help yearning toward the cabinets, which she was sure Mulder noticed. The instant coffee was worse than the swill they got from the bullpen back at the Hoover Building.

“They didn’t have time to make any,” Mulder argued. “Look around. No dirty cups. No used grounds. I think we have to take this coffee. For science. We’re supporting local business, even if it’s possibly—" he looked at the remaining Dust and winced "—probably posthumously.”

“When you put it that way,” she said.

There was plenty of coffee in sealed containers, to Scully’s conflicted relief. They borrowed a French press and a bag of pre-ground beans. Mulder put a $20 bill in the register, which assuaged most of Scully’s guilt. Still, it felt strange to walk out with the coffee. They carried their somewhat ill-gotten goods back to the cottage, shedding their boots just inside the door. For dinner, it was soup again, and grilled cheese sandwiches Mulder made in a dry pan because they didn’t have any butter. But it was better than nothing. They’d worked up an appetite, hiking around the village.

“Fresh air makes me hungry,” Mulder said.

“Make another sandwich.” Scully shifted on the bench. “We can always get more supplies tomorrow.”

“Butter’s on the list,” Mulder said. “I didn’t think it was important, but I was wrong.”

“Butter. Fruit, even it it’s canned. Maybe some pasta and a jar of sauce.” Scully got up and washed her dishes. She scrubbed the remnants of soup out of the saucepan, leaving the still-warm skillet for Mulder’s anticipated second sandwich. “It’s hard not to feel like we could have taken most of that from people’s fridges and pantries today. When we were eating lunch, I thought about seeing if there was mustard in their fridge. But it would have felt like looting.”

“This place is a microcosm of dystopia,” Mulder said, leaning his elbows on the counter. “Taking the coffee from the shop feels less personal. More transactional, less scavenged. I’ll gladly put it on the expense report if we can find somebody to receive payment.”

“Yeah.” Scully stared out the window over the sink. “Do you think the people who lived here liked it?”

Mulder got up, apparently deciding against a second sandwich, and brought his dishes over. He twisted on the faucet as Scully made room for him. “I don’t think you stay in a place like this if you don’t.”

“It’s beautiful here. Lonely, but maybe some people enjoy the isolation. You can’t help living in harmony with nature to some extent. You're so much more subject to its whims.”

Mulder hummed his agreement. “There’s something poignant about living so close to the wilderness. Indigenous peoples have lived here for centuries, adapting to the environment. Then we come along expecting it to adapt to us. We bring in plumbing and power and complain when they fail.”

“No electricity I could live with for a little while,” Scully mused. “But if we lost the running water, I’d be in the boat as fast as I could pack. Too many hours in med school learning about waterborne pathogens and parasites.”

Mulder chuckled. “Fair enough. Speaking of water, should we hit the showers?”

“Sounds good.” She gathered her things, and they stepped out into the bright evening. It was cool and breezy. Scully inhaled the scent of green growing things and salt water. The tide was mostly in, slopping up the cliff just past the boardwalk. “Looks like we’ll have a high tide sometime tomorrow morning — that will make it easier to get to Homer.”

“My on-the-water experience never included tides like this,” Mulder reflected as they arrived at the gallery. “Just one more thing to make me remember I had a soft upbringing.”

“Hmm,” Scully said, and stepped into the gallery. “You or Jon?”

“Maybe both of us,” Mulder said.

“If you’re trying to tell me I married rich, I’m going to tell you you can buy me a dinner that’s not soup once we’ve wrapped this case,” she said, going into her shower stall and shedding her clothing gratefully. Mulder just laughed. She turned the water to hot and stood under it. A fleck on her forearm startled her; on closer inspection, it was just dirt, but it reminded her.

“Check for ticks,” she called to Mulder. “They love to hide in creases. Armpits. Groin. That kind of thing.”

“Are there ticks in Alaska?” he called back.

“I’d rather not find out when they’re already embedded,” she said.

She soaped up, checking for ticks by feel as she went. She didn’t immediately find any, which was nice. Mulder was humming to himself in the other shower. “The Girl From Ipanema”, she thought, though it was a bit tuneless. The sound of it comforted her.

It felt good to wash off the ambivalence of the day. They’d found some Dust and confirmed a lot of absence. Scully raked her nails gently through her hair, hoping to dislodge any unwelcome bloodsucking passengers. She didn’t feel anything like a scab. They’d stuck generally to the dirt roads or trails and inside the houses, so she was somewhat hopeful she’d be spared. She wished she had a mirror, just in case, but it would have been steamed up anyway.

Soon enough she was clean. She towelled off and put her pajamas back on. Her mother had always told her she’d never regret buying pajama sets. This time, her mother had been right. Her old-fashioned nightclothes were a barrier against the night’s chill and the warmth of Mulder next to her in the bed. Mulder, in his worn Knicks t-shirt and pajama pants, seemed so casual, more suited to their woodsy environment. They walked back to the cottage.

“I was musing on Dust,” Mulder said, “and the types of vampires.”

“There are types of vampires?” Scully said, because she liked to hear him talk.

“Of course there are,” Mulder said as they strolled down the boardwalk. “Vampires have always been with us, in ancient myths and stories passed down from early man. From the Babylonian Ekimu to the Chinese Kuang-Shi to Motetz Dam of the Hebrews, the Mormo of ancient Greece and Rome to the more familiar Nosferatu of Transylvania. In fact, there are as many different kinds of vampires as there are cultures that fear them. Some don't even subsist on blood. The Bulgarian Ubour, for example, eats only manure. To the Serbs, a prime indicator of vampirism is red hair.”

“Oh good,” Scully said, unlocking the cottage door. “Does that make me a suspect?”

“Not yet,” Mulder teased. “But I've got my eye on you."

"The eye in FBI," she muttered.

Mulder rambled on. "Some vampires are thought to be eternal. Others are thought to have a life span of only 40 days. Sunlight kills certain vampires while others come and go as they please, day or night.”

“We haven’t seen anything during the day that could do any of this,” Scully said. “Maybe a rabbit or a squirrel. A few birds. Nothing big enough to make fifty people disappear.”

“Based on the Dust, I’d imagine this potential vampire is susceptible to sunlight,” Mulder said. “Or its victims are.”

“At least it’s not manure,” Scully muttered.

“That would have been more unpleasant to collect,” Mulder agreed.

“If whatever did this is sensitive to sunlight, maybe it was getting desperate because of the longer days,” Scully said. “We’re close to the summer solstice — there won’t be much darkness for a while.”

“Whatever did this,” Mulder said. “Like a vampire. A vampire that had ample prey before the sun started poofing all its victims.” He made an explosive gesture with one hand.

“Our witness says it was an angel,” Scully countered.

“Angels aren’t known for turning people into Dust,” Mulder said.

“Ashes to ashes,” Scully said, digging out her toothbrush. “Maybe it was the kind of angel you can’t look upon.”

“Goodness gracious, great wheels of fire,” Mulder quipped. He hesistated. “Scully, before you brush your teeth, I have a weird request.”

“Hmm?” She turned toward him.

“Maybe it’s not weird if you’re my doctor,” he said. “A little weird if you’re my partner.”

“Well, this week, I’m your wife,” she said. “What kind of weird request?”

“I realized there are unforeseen benefits of shaving your armpits,” he said, fidgeting a little. “Which is to say, I’m not sure I did a good job of checking for ticks.”

“I can do that,” she said automatically. “Did you check your hair?”

“No,” he said. “I guess it’s been a while since my camping days. For some reason, I was always more interested in making s’mores and tying knots.”

“Sit on the edge of the bed,” she told him, as if there were anywhere else to sit. He plopped down obediently. She stepped between his knees, running her hands through his hair, scratching lightly at his scalp. She was acutely aware of her proximity to him, the way his thighs boxed her in. If they were really married, he’d be settling his hands on her hips and nuzzling at her cleavage. Instead, his hair parted under her hands, damp and silky soft, showing glimpses of pale skin at the roots. But there were no ticks that she could find, even after she’d spent long minutes slipping her fingers through his hair, acutely aware of the warmth of his breath in the space between their bodies and the unquestioning way he bent his head under her touch.

“Feels nice,” he said, his eyes half-closed. “I thought check-ups were supposed to be unpleasant. Maybe not when you’re the doctor.”

“All clear,” she said, pretending there wasn’t a thrill in her belly at the rumble of his voice. “Stand up and take off your shirt.” She took a step back as he rose and pulled off his t-shirt in one smooth motion. She positioned his arm behind his head, his elbow crooked. His armpit was still in shadow, so she put a hand on his hip to turn him toward the light. His skin was smooth and warm. She tried to ignore that as she examined him. Her face had never been in such close proximity to his nipples. That was an interesting thought to have about her coworker.

“Are you ticklish?” she asked.

“I don’t think so.” He craned his head to watch her. She ignored him. She hadn’t gazed into anybody’s armpit on purpose in some time — the last occurrence might have been their last sojourn in Alaska, checking for nodules — and this experience was a little different. Mulder smelled like soap with a very faint note of sweat. It was compelling in a way she couldn’t explain. She tried not to inhale too deeply as she teased apart the wiry tuft of hair to peer at his skin. There was something, she thought, but no, it was a tiny mole.

“Good,” she said after a moment. “Turn.”

The other armpit appeared as tick-free as the first. She ran a hand over his back while she was at it, his skin lithe under her palm. “You’re fine,” she said. “You can put your shirt back on.”

“I don’t have to,” he teased, already skinning it back on.

”Suit yourself,” she said, pretending not to care. “It’s not that cold.”

“Not with my wife all cuddled up next to me,“ he said. “Should we build a fire tonight?”

“It’s not that cold,” she repeated. “It would also give us away. Smoke is more noticeable than a light. Especially in a windy area like this, the scent travels.”

“Hmm,” he said. “I guess it’s cuddling for warmth again tonight.”

“Maybe when we get back from Homer we can build a fire,” she said. “Surely whatever’s here will have noticed us by then. If it or they or whatever are still here.”

“Maybe it’s time to call attention to our presence,” he said.

She hesitated. “When we get back. I’m tired tonight. Unless you want to stand watch to see what we attract.”

He yawned ostentatiously. “Lotta walking today. We can have a fire tomorrow.”

”You’re going to be embarrassed if this turns out to be the work of some kind of giant moth and we could have solved the case the first night by building a big fire,” she teased. “Or turning on the lighthouse somehow.”

“Meeting Mothman would be an honor,” he said solemnly. “Besides, our last killer bugs were afraid of the light.”

She groaned. “Don’t remind me.”

“Should we turn in?” he suggested.

“Let me brush my teeth,” she said, and retrieved her half-forgotten toothbrush. She stared out the window for the requisite two minutes of brushing, but it was as calm as ever outside. After that, they closed all the curtains and made sure the dishes were tidied away. The bed was cool as she climbed between the covers, but it warmed up quickly, a cozy nest in the dim of the room. Mulder eased in next to her, clearly being careful not to disturb her.

“I’m not made of glass,” she said, amused.

“I know sharing a bed with me wasn’t your first choice,” he said. “I’m trying to make sure you’re comfortable.”

“Sharing a bed doesn’t bother me. This is better than the time with the glow in the dark bugs,” she said. “And better than the quarantine after that.”

He turned toward her, making the covers rustle. “We have gotten into some shenanigans, haven’t we.”

“I wouldn’t describe them as shenanigans, no,” she said. “A mixed bag of mortal peril. Sticky situations, literally. Unnecessary conflict with federal and local law enforcement of various stripes.”

“At least we’re never bored,” he quipped.

“That’s true.” She sighed. “We’re never bored.”

“Personally, the mortal peril makes me feel alive.”

“It would,” she scoffed.

“It doesn’t invigorate you?”

“No,” she said firmly, wiggling around to face him. “It just makes me afraid.”

“Unfortunately, mortal peril’s part of the job.” He gazed at her. “Less unfortunately, it turns out you’re kind of a badass.”

“That part’s okay,” she admitted. “But I don’t feel it in the moment. I just do what needs doing.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Exactly. I’ve seen seasoned agents fall apart. You just do what needs doing until it’s done. It’s admirable.”

“It’s the job,” she said.

“Not everybody does it like you do.” His eyes searched her face. “You know you’re a good agent, don’t you, Scully?”

“Willa,” she whispered, needing the distance of fantasy.

“Willa,” he said softly. “Remind me what Willa does.”

Scully thought for a long moment. What would bring a person here, to this place on the edge of the wild? “She’s a loan officer at a bank.”

Mulder nodded into the pillow. “Safe. Bet there’s job security in that.”

“She teaches Pilates on the weekends,” Scully said, warming to the idea of Willa. “That’s why she’s somewhat fitter than average.”

“The routine job made her want to go somewhere off the beaten path,” Mulder mused.

“Yeah,” Scully said. “She’s proving something to herself. She’s shaking things up a little. She didn’t expect to get married. She wants to test her limits.”

“Was it a whirlwind romance?”

“No,” she said. “We met right after college, introduced by mutual friends. It took time to fall in love, but when we did, we fell hard.”

“So this is Willa’s big adventure?”

“You’re Willa’s big adventure,” she said shyly. “Love is Willa’s big adventure.” She felt awkward, suddenly, and a little embarrassed. She and Mulder didn’t say such soft things to each other. But he was intuitive: he'd instantly understand the kernel of Willa's feelings about Jon that held Scully's tender feelings for Mulder. He’d touched her face when her father had passed and called her by her first name, and that had nearly undone her. She was surprised, now, that he’d opened up to her that first night in Oregon, that he’d held her when she panicked. Mulder was skittish about other people’s open hearts.

She’d tried to call him by his first name once and he’d gently rebuffed her, pulling her up short like a chain lock on a motel door. <i>This far and no further</i>: the message had been clear. He was kind to her, but he couldn’t bear her showing him any tenderness. She understood the way warmth could crack something open inside a person, a tight knot of pain unfurling, old bruises renewed. She’d backed off. But now they were lying in bed together. In the soft dim, anything felt possible, the way it had in that motel in Bellefleur.

“What about Jon?” she said.

“What do you think?” His voice was warm.

“I think he’s kind,” she said. “Passionate in a quiet way. Generous, though he doesn’t want you to know it. That’s what drew Willa to him.”

“Not his good looks?” Mulder teased.

“Good looks don’t make a marriage,” she said in a solemn voice. “My mother told me that.”

“Your mother’s a wise woman,” Mulder told her.

“She is,” Scully said. “Tell me about Jon’s career.”

“He’s a sports therapist,” Mulder said. “I know jock psychologist isn’t much of a stretch, but I’m not much of an actor. He thinks he’s very smart. Has a collection of turtlenecks and blazers with elbow patches. Listens to professional athletes talk about the yips while he nods sagely. Occasionally goes a little too hard in the pickup game on the weekend, remembering his glory days, but he was never really going to make it.”

“Poor guy,” Scully said, smiling to herself. “I’m sure Willa gets out the heating pad for his back and listens to the same story she’s heard a hundred times.”

“I’m sure she does,” Mulder said. “Willa’s the most diligent and thoughtful person Jon has ever met.” The quiet stretched between them, as achingly sweet as falling in love, until he broke it abruptly. “So we make money. That’s good. We can use that. Talk about our season tickets for whatever team. Spend a little too much money in town. Flash that diamond on your hand. See whose ears perk up.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Scully said, trying for a light tone. It was too easy to talk when they could only half-see each other. Sometime about the shadows revealed truths the light hid. Or maybe it was being Jon and Willa, who were already in love. Who were allowed to be in love, her brain said quietly, and she brushed the thought away like a cobweb.

“What’s Jon’s big adventure?” she asked, trying to realign her thoughts. Mulder cared about her, surely, and he could be tender in emotional moments, but the resonance she felt sometimes, like they amplified each other’s best selves, didn’t mean he was in love with her.

“Definitely being married,” he said. “He was in love before and he got hurt badly. He didn’t think he could ever say yes to this kind of commitment. He didn’t think he had that much left to give.”

“I’m glad he found some healing,” Scully said, her mouth dry.

“Willa showed him that,” Mulder said. “She wasn’t like the women he’d met before. The more he gave, the more he had. Willa’s the world to Jon, and he wants to show her the world. That’s why we’re here. Neither of them has ever been anyplace like this. They wanted to do something brand new together, to make the kind of memories they’d never shared with anyone else.”

“Stars in their eyes,” Scully said.

“The North Star, one might say,” Mulder joked. It eased the sweet tension a notch or two.

They were quiet for a little while. Outside, the night sang its own lullaby. Whatever might be on the prowl, the crickets weren’t concerned.

“Homer tomorrow,” Scully said, as if either of them had forgotten.

“Yeah,” Mulder said. “It might be interesting to visit the field office in Anchorage at some point, but that’ll be an all-day trip on its own.”

“You need something from the field office?” Scully asked. Maybe the agents here would be more open-minded than the denizens of DC’s concrete jungle.

“Maybe some petty cash to throw around,” Mulder said. “Casewise, not even a hunch yet. Just… stirrings.”

“You know where the outhouse is,” Scully teased.

“Yeah,” he said, his voice full of laughter. “Hopefully not that kind of stirrings.”

Scully refrained from mentioning any other kind of stirrings. They had been in the bed long enough that she could feel Mulder’s warmth. She couldn’t decide whether she hoped she would wake up in his arms or whether she dreaded it a little. It was comfortable, but it gave her body all the wrong ideas. It had been a while since she’d had a partner for physical intimacy. It was such a specific loneliness, and strange to feel lying next to someone. Tantalus’ grapes were nothing compared to the temptation of Fox Mulder, long and lean and soap-scented beside her.

“Well,” she said. “Good night.” She turned over, facing the sofa.

“Night,” he said, sounding puzzled. Of course he was. He wasn’t thinking about running his nose up her neck or tangling his legs with hers. She sighed to herself. She should have known better. Maybe she’d move to the couch in the middle of the night. She’d probably fit. And then she’d be out of range, uncuddleable, marooned on the island of her own senseless yearning. There had to be a spare blanket somewhere.

In Homer, there would be other things to focus on than the rise and fall of her desire. Like the tides here, it seemed to surge higher, tugging harder at her than it ever had before. She needed a break in the case to give her something else to focus on.

“Car first,” Scully reminded him, putting on her own sunglasses before picking up her bags again. “And I’m not sure most summer fun involves investigating possible murders.”

“I’d say most people just don’t know how to have fun, but that’s a little insensitive.” Mulder started toward the rental fleet, matching the key in his hand to a Jeep Cherokee. “Four-wheel drive. Think we should expect the unexpected?”

“With you, I always do,” Scully said.

Mulder grinned at her and reached for her bag. His fingers slid over her shoulder as he grabbed the strap. She yielded the bag to him, stepping back. He hefted it into the backseat and shoved his own in after it. The gas station on the edge of town yielded a bounty of snacks, including a slushie for Mulder. Scully stole a few sips to wash down her beef jerky and peach rings. The tart syrup and gritty ice tasted exactly like summer on the beach. It made a strange contrast with the lofty mountains and dense evergreens that crowded up to the road on both sides. Scully pulled her hands into the sleeves of her University of Maryland sweatshirt, cuddling deeper into the passenger seat.

“So why do you think we’re here?” Mulder asked, his arm draped over the steering wheel. His lips were tinted artificial cherry red; they drew her eye. He held out his hand and Scully passed him a Red Vine. He poked it into his mouth like a cowboy with a stem of grass.

“Well, the oil company that wants to drill in the Cook Inlet was at odds with the residents of Halibut Cove,” Scully recited without taking the file from her backpack. “As you might surmise from the name, Halibut Cove was founded as a fishing village and the town worried about the environmental impacts of an oil well in their front yard, so to speak. About two weeks ago, a young man paddled up to the dock in Homer, just across the water, claiming that he had seen an avenging angel who turned the townspeople into demons. He insisted it was some sort of beast, something beyond human. Representatives of the oil company whisked him away to their company headquarters in Texas, allegedly to protect him. When a few of the locals went to check on family and friends, they found that the entire population of Halibut Cove had vanished. The oil company is facing accusations that they disappeared around fifty people, including thirty-five to forty village residents and fifteen tourists, which they loudly deny, but the workers they hired to drill the well refuse to go near the site until the murderer is found. The single witness’ descriptions of the angel don’t match any inhabitant of the area or any known predator.”

“And no obvious signs of weapons or predation.” Mulder pulled the Red Vine out of his mouth and gestured with it. “Neither bear nor wolf, just good red herrings. But that doesn’t answer my question.”

Scully sighed. “I imagine that the oil company representatives have powerful friends who brought this case to the attention of the FBI, rather than local authorities elevating this on the testimony of the lone witness, even if he is a military veteran. From my understanding, he’s been essentially in the custody of the oil company since his escape.”

“Mm,” Mulder said. “From their lips to the director’s ear.”

“And from there to the basement,” Scully agreed. “Nobody else wants an unsolvable case, especially not one that might disappoint someone with influence. Too much risk.”

“What did I tell you when we met?” Mulder asked, tapping her with the hand that held the Red Vine. “Nobody down here but the FBI’s most unwanted.”

She leaned her elbow on the door and braced her cheek on her thumb and index finger. “It seems to me it’s the cases that are unwanted. They come to us because no one else is interested. Whatever happened here, nearly fifty people are missing or dead.”

Mulder smiled and took another bite of his Red Vine. “Then maybe it’s a good thing they find their way to us. We take them seriously. Justice, justice, you shall pursue.”

“All the way to Alaska,” Scully said.

“To the last frontier,” Mulder agreed.

“It’s certainly different from DC.” Scully gazed on the window at the rugged landscape. Mulder’s side of the road was mountains; Scully had forest and the occasional wash of calm water. They’d already passed a couple of trailheads, populated by dayhikers with brightly colored backpacks. “Beautiful.”

“It is.” Mulder had finished his Red Vine. He reached into a bag of sunflower seeds and cracked one between his teeth. “Can’t say I don’t take you to the nicest places.”

Scully smiled into her hand. “I would never say that.”

Mulder glanced over at her, his eyes twinkling. He grinned as he reached for another sunflower seed.

The drive took longer than a flight would have, but at least they had more flexibility. Scully doubted there were many rental car counters in Homer, and if they’d taken a seaplane directly to Halibut Cove, they would still have needed to requisition a boat from somewhere to get around the various parts of the spread-out village. Halibut Cove wasn’t as isolated as some of the places they’d investigated, but it wasn’t convenient, either — there were no real roads, and no access except by air or water. But the Jeep helped their cover, even if they had to leave it across the bay from their desination: it made them look like a couple who were there to explore the relatively unsullied nature found around Halibut Cove but didn't understand the place, outsiders who associated the vehicle with adventure.

“I wonder if we’ll see a moose?” Scully said.

“You see moose all the time,” Mulder told her. He glanced at her puzzled expression. “That was my nickname, on the basketball team when I was in high school.”

She tipped her head at him. “You’re tall, but I never considered you megafauna.”

“One of my teammates saw one on vacation in Maine. He said it looked like me because I had a big rack.” He mimed spreading his arms without taking his hands off the wheel. “You know. Typical teenage boy logic. Moose.”

“So, what, that makes me Squirrel?” she teased.

“If the tiny shoe fits.” He winked at her.

She sighed in mock frustration. “Speaking of secret identities, we should work on ours.”

“Already done.” Mulder cracked a seed. “File’s in my backpack.”

Scully reached into the backseat and extracted the folder. There was a tiny envelope stapled inside containing two plain wedding bands and an engagement ring with a glittering, ostentatious diamond. She passed the larger ring to Mulder and slipped the other two onto her finger.

“That was my job,” Mulder said with a pout.

She shot him a sardonic look and flipped through the rest of the documents. “Please tell me this is a joke.”

“What?” Mulder said, all innocence.

“Jonathan and Mina Harker? Those are the identities you invented for us? To catch a murderer that allegedly turns its victims into demons that only emerge at night?”

“You can go by Willa if you want,” Mulder said, smiling out at the landscape.

“Mulder, this isn’t funny. People may have died.”

“If the perpetrator is human and versed in the classics, they’ll know we’re onto them.” Mulder cracked a sunflower seed. “It’s a strategy to draw them out.”

“And if the perpetrator isn’t human?” Scully waved the file. “This isn’t disrespectful in some way?”

“Dracula met his righteous end,” Mulder said. “It’s a promise to the victims. Justice, remember?”

Scully eyed him skeptically. “I’m not letting you pick the names next time we go undercover.”

“Deal,” he said, but he was still smiling a little.

“Willa Harker,” she said to herself experimentally. “I don’t think so. Too many Williams in my family.”

“Mine too,” Mulder said. “But maybe not Jon’s or Mina’s.”

“You better not have given me a sister named Lucy,” Scully said. “Willa Harker." She tasted the name, rolling it around in her mind. "It’s a little better.”

Mulder just laughed and they drove on down the highway, the landscape wilder every mile.

Homer wasn’t a bustling metropolis; they drove straight through it and onto the long spit that extended into the bay. It was easy to find a place to rent a boat. The young woman behind the counter was about the same height as Scully. She had dark hair and eyes that implied Alaska Native ancestry. Her nametag read “Grace”. She smiled as they came in. “Hi, folks. How can I help you? Fishing trip? Kayak rental? Boat tour of Katchemak Bay?”

“Hi,” Scully said. “I’m Willa Harker, and this is my husband Jon. We’d like to rent a boat for a couple of days. Well, close to a week, really—we’re headed out to Halibut Cove.”

“Yeah,” Mulder said, leaning on the counter, “we’ve got a little cottage reserved.”

“Oh,” Grace said. “Um. I’m not sure the cottages are open.”

“Why not?” Scully said lightly.

“The, um, tides,” Grace said. “They’ve been really erratic.” She glanced down. “And everyone evacuated because there was a tsunami warning, I think. You know, because of the volcano. It erupted in January, so folks are leery. I’m not sure that they’re back yet. You’d be all on your own.”

“Well, that’s a shame,” Mulder said. “We were hoping to get in some nice hiking, maybe see some wildlife.”

“Gosh, I’m sure we would have heard about a tsunami warning,” Scully said. “I suppose you can’t be too careful.”

“Yeah, but we only have a week of vacation,” Mulder said. “Corporate doesn’t care about tsunami warnings. Can we still get a boat? We prepaid for the cottage.”

“I wouldn’t go there right now,” Grace said.

“Oh, but it’s my dream vacation,” Scully said, trying to sound like a nature enthusiast. “I had a friend who came here a few years ago. She said it was the most beautiful place she’d ever been.”

“Please, Grace,” Mulder said in a quiet voice. “For my wife?” He managed to imply that maybe this was their last vacation, that their marriage was in danger or that Scully was sick and running out of time. It was oddly compelling, even to Scully, who knew better. It didn't really fit with their honeymoon backstory, but she admitted it was working.

“I can rent you a boat,” Grace said, relenting. “And, um, I’ll come with you.” She was clearly reluctant. “My uncle has a few cottages. If yours is… closed, I can put you in one of his. There’s only one restaurant in Halibut Cove, though, and it’s closed too. You’ll have to take your own food.”

“Give us an hour?” Mulder said.

Grace nodded. “I’ll have it ready then.”

Mulder tapped the counter. “Perfect.”

“Thank you, Grace,” Scully said.

Mulder put his arm around her shoulders as they left. “She knows something.”

“Of course she knows something,” Scully said. “Towns this small, word gets around.”

“One witness,” Mulder said. “And that witness essentially in the custody of the oil company, in the name of protecting him.”

Scully sighed. “You know how gossip works. Nothing travels faster than the rumor of a monster.”

“But if the witness’ report is to be believed, there’s almost nothing left of the townspeople to gossip about.” Mulder steered Scully toward a small grocery store. “Gone. Poof. Overnight, a whole village disappeared.”

“Imagine the rumors,” Scully said. “It might be worse not having heard the story. I’m sure that there are legends of monsters in these woods.”

“Sharp teeth,” Mulder said. “Hot breath on the back of your neck in the night.”

“That better not be a monster,” Scully said. “Because I’m feeling your breath on my neck right now.”

“It’s not night, Willa,” Mulder teased. “I’m a perfectly normal man until the sun sets.”

“Good thing there are 19 hours of daylight here in mid-June.” She glanced up at him over her shoulder, and he pouted at her.

“How’s a perfectly normal man supposed to get any shuteye?”

Scully smirked at him. “I didn’t think you slept anyway.”

He clicked his tongue sadly. “And here I thought you were about to suggest a blindfold.”

She rolled her eyes. “Maybe that’s our next ‘vacation’. We can investigate the seedy underbelly of the circus world. I’ll throw the daggers; you get strapped to the spinning wheel.”

“Oooh.” He grabbed a cart from the corral in the grocery store parking lot. “Don’t tempt me, Willa.”

They loaded the cart with a few days’ worth of food: soup, peanut butter, bread, lunch meat, sliced cheese, instant coffee, plus sunscreen and bug spray. They'd already encountered clouds of tiny mosquitos. Scully tossed a package of pads in on top of a flat of bottled water. Mulder raised an eyebrow.

“Just in case,” she said. “We might be here a few weeks.” He nodded and snagged a bag of Dove chocolate squares when they went through the candy aisle, dropping it in with the rest of their supplies. She looked at him and he put a finger to his mouth, winking.

They bought a cooler and packed all the groceries into it, carrying it between them back to the boat rental. Scully got out the bug spray halfway there and spritzed them both; the speed of the boat would deter the mosquitos, but on the dock, they were surrounded. Grace was there to help them into the boat.

“This is my cousin Logan,” she said, waving a hand at a stocky twenty-something sitting behind the controls of a second boat. “He’ll follow us to Halibut Cove so’s he can bring me back once I help you find your cottage.”

“Sounds good,” Scully said. Mulder helped her into their boat and passed down the cooler. He retrieved their bags from the car and handed those down too.

“You have to be careful in the bay,” Grace said, sounding much more confident. “Please put on your lifevests. It’s very important that you wear them. The water is cold, and the tides here can be extremely dangerous. Do you have any experience with boats?”

“Willa does,” Mulder said, jerking his thumb at Scully before he finished buckling on his vest.

“Don’t be so shy, Jon,” Scully said. “You practically grew up on the water.”

“Motorboat’s a little different from a sailboat,” Mulder said. “Plus, like Grace said, the water’s colder here. I’ll let you drive.” He tightened the straps of his vest.

Grace showed them the controls, took them out into the bay, pointed out the major hazards. The middle of the bay was deep enough to navigate easily, but closer to the land, there were shoals to run aground on, especially if they got caught by the unpredictable tides.

“We have rip tides and bore tides,” Grace said, sounding almost proud. “The Cook Inlet has some of the largest and most dangerous tides in the world. And we are at risk for tsunamis, because of the Ring of Fire.”

“Right,” Scully said. “That’s why everything’s closed in Halibut Cove.”

“Yes,” Grace said, lowering her eyes.

“We’ll be extra careful,” Mulder promised. Scully gazed at the water, marking the safe routes in her mind. Grace took them almost straight across the bay, just south of the spit of land that formed the bulk of Halibut Cove, and tied up their boat at a dock among a cluster of others that sheltered under carport-like roofs. Her cousin idled at the end of the dock, apparently disinclined to venture onto the island. Grace helped him secure his boat to the very end of the dock as Mulder and Scully unloaded their supplies. He said something to her, too low to hear. Her reply was curt.

When they were ready, Grace came back up the dock. She frowned, looking up at the village, saying almost nothing as she showed them the boardwalk that fronted the cove. There were several small businesses — a coffee shop, a couple of art galleries, and the usual cottage rentals and wilderness tours — but they all seemed empty. There was a chalkboard outside the coffee shop promoting their strawberry rhubarb scones.

“Do you know where your cottage is?” Grace asked.

Mulder shrugged. “I didn’t exactly have an address for it. We were supposed to meet them here.”

“Okay.” Grace stopped at a gallery, opening the unlocked door, and retrieved a key from an equally unsecured office. The kind of town where doors didn’t need to be locked, Scully thought, except maybe during tourist season.

“This was the only one there was a key for,” Grace said, a frown drawing her eyebrows together. “It’s not very big, but it is close.”

“Lead the way,” Mulder said, shifting the cooler. He’d insisted on carrying it down the boardwalk. Scully shouldered both their duffel bags along with her backpack. It was a short walk, just a few minutes down the boardwalk, up a short flight of steps. The cottage was adorable, which mostly meant small, but the one room looked cozy and clean when Grace unlocked it. There was a kitchen with a sink, a fridge, a two-burner stove top for cooking, and a wood stove for heat. Separated from the kitchen area by a half-wall was the sleeping area, mostly taken up by a queen bed, a small sofa tucked into a window nook beside it. The half-wall was topped with a small flat counter that extended into the sleeping area, a bench tucked underneath.

“It’s lovely,” Scully said. She put a hand on Mulder’s arm. “Don’t you think so, Jon?”

“Definitely,” Mulder said, setting down the cooler. “Exactly what we were hoping for. It might even be bigger than our first apartment in New York City. Thank you so much, Grace.”

“There’s an outhouse out back,” Grace said. “You can use the showers at the gallery I showed you. Bathroom too, if you’re willing to walk. Wood for the stove should be stacked out by the outhouse.”

“Rustic,” Mulder said in an approving tone. Scully had a brief uncharitable thought about people who found it simple to pee while standing.

Grace hesitated. “You’re sure you want to stay here? All alone?”

“Of course,” Scully said. She leaned into Mulder a little and he put his arm around her. “It’s our honeymoon. Who wouldn’t like the privacy?”

“We don’t mind roughing it a little,” Mulder said. “And hey, maybe one morning we’ll wake up and everybody will have come back. How long can tsunami season last?”

“Maybe,” Grace said. Her brow was still furrowed.

“Don’t worry about us,” Scully assured her. “We’re only a boat ride away, right?”

“Sure,” Grace said. She turned toward the stairs that led back to the boardwalk and then looked back. “Don’t forget to wear your lifevests, okay? It‘s beautiful here, but it’s dangerous too.”

“We will,” Scully promised. Mulder’s arm was still around her shoulders.

“See you in a few days,” he told Grace.

Grace nodded and left, waving goodbye. Then the door closed and they were alone.

“Can I interest you in a walk?” Mulder said, giving her a reflexive squeeze before dropping his arm. “A little sight-seeing, a little evidence gathering.”

“Let’s put the food away first,” Scully said. She started to unpack the cooler. Mulder moved the bags to the bedroom, setting her duffel and backpack on the lone bed and his things on the couch cozied up next to it. He came back to take the cans of soup and set them on top of the short fridge.

“At least there’s still electricity,” he said. “And hey, a local map.” He picked up a laminated map.

Scully straightened up. She glanced at the map as Mulder traced the illustrated paths with one finger. It looked hand-drawn. “Probably a generator around somewhere too, if we can find the gas for it. I imagine it’s necessary from time to time.”

“There’s extra fuel in the boat,” he pointed out. “Probably some of the others, too, if we needed to scavenge.”

Scully nodded. They both remembered the generator in the Olympic National Forest and the single flickering bulb that had kept the insects at bay. She suspected neither of them would ever be in the woods again without thinking of the eerie luminescent cloud descending. She picked up her pack, took out a bundle of non-essentials, and then shouldered it. “Ready to look around?”

He hefted his backpack. “Bear spray and my gun.” He took out his weapon and holstered it at his hip, under his flannel shirt. The bear spray went into his chest pocket. He slung the strap of a camera around his neck: a different kind of protection. “You?”

She lifted the hem of her sweatshirt, revealing her own weapon. “First aid kit in my pack. Pocketknife. Mace on my keychain.”

“Will that deter a bear?”

“That’s not my usual concern,” she said.

“Oh,” he said. “You‘re packing all the time.”

She looked away. “Honestly, being on the lookout for easily identifiable predators is something of a relief. Even if it is some strange new species.”

“My theory is that it’s not so new,” he said, as they left the cottage, locking the door behind them. “We’re looking for something like the original reports of the Jersey Devil. Not the wild woman we found in the woods, but the bat-like creature from much earlier sightings. Red eyes. Dark wings.”

“But vampiric. A vampire bat-thing.”

He nodded. “Essentially. I think that comes the closest to explaining the villagers who got turned into demons.”

“How does that square with the report of an angel?” she asked as they descended the stairs to the boardwalk. By unspoken mutual consent, they turned toward the lighthouse.

He shrugged. “Even angels can go bad, Scully.”

“Willa,” she said automatically, scanning the empty buildings of the village as they passed.

“Willa,” he corrected. His voice was warm around the strange name with its familiar sounds.

“There’s a chance we’re not alone,” she said. “The villagers might be gone, but there could be other adventurers out there.”

“Honeymooners like us,” he teased.

She shot him a look. “Hunters. Survivalists. Murderers.”

“Angels,” he said solemnly.

“Angels,” she sighed.

The buildings on the boardwalk had been clustered together, but the cottages and businesses began to spread out as they got further from the dock. Like their own cottages, many of the buildings were up a flight of narrow stairs from the main boardwalk, tucked into the trees. After few hundred feet, the boardwalk ended. They continued onto the trail to the lighthouse, a faint path marked through the cleared meadows that rose toward the edge of the land. Mulder took a few photos as they went.

“No moose so far,” he said as they picked their way up the trail.

“Aside from the obvious.” Scully touched a cluster of unripe berries on a bush. “Their buffet isn’t quite ready.”

“Something had a feast.” Mulder cupped a hand over his eyes and looked toward the sky. “No vultures.”

“No remains,” Scully pointed out. At least, I haven’t seen any.”

Mulder grunted agreement.

There was another grouping of cottages along the trail, closer to the lighthouse. All seemed to have been occupied until recently — there were suitcases with clothes spilling out, dry-bristled toothbrushes by the sinks. Mulder documented the scenes. Scully took quiet solace in the fact that there were no children’s clothes. The lighthouse itself looked more like a church, a house-sized building with a lamp for a steeple. The door was unlocked; inside, it was furnished as a vacation rental. Perfectly clean, perfectly innocuous.

“We could have stayed here,” Scully said as they stepped out again. “Look at this view. No electricity, though — not much of a lighthouse these days, with no one to keep it lit.”

Mulder pointed as they rounded the corner. “And it’s still got an outhouse.”

“I don’t imagine people living without indoor plumbing or electricity, these days,” Scully said. “I guess it’s not so uncommon. Wouldn’t make it easy to communicate with the outside world.”

“Meanwhile, here we come with our GPS units and our cell phones,” Mulder said. “Imposing our will on nature. Out of sync with the rhythm of the wilderness.” He looked at her. “Or maybe that’s just the jet lag.”

She laughed. “DC to Halibut Cove is a long haul.”

“In so many ways,” he agreed. "Anyway, I forgot to requisition a GPS unit."

"The authentic experience," she said.

Beyond the lighthouse, the bay looked serene. The dangerous water was a bright blue-green close to shore, deepening to midnight. Across the bay, the mountains behind Homer heaved out of the water.

Scully stood next to Mulder, not too close to the edge of the little cliff that dropped into the water. He picked up the camera and aimed it at her. “Smile, Willa.”

She squinted into the light, brushing hair out of her face as the camera’s shutter clicked. She wondered what he saw through the viewfinder. “Windblown Willa.”

“Willa in the wild,” Mulder said.

Scully looked out over the bay again. “It’s a beautiful place.”

Mulder hummed agreement. “You could believe people would honeymoon here.”

“Is this where you’d go?” Scully asked. She knew so much about Mulder, but he still surprised her. “I didn’t think rustic was your preference.”

“I haven’t spent a whole lot of time pondering my honeymoon, but I think I could be happy anywhere with the right person,” Mulder mused. He gazed out over the water, then glanced at Scully. “Surprised?”

“Honestly, yes,” Scully said. “I thought you were a three-star hotel in a European city kind of guy. Not that I've thought about it much.”

He chuckled. “I could definitely be happy there,” he said. “Still takes the right person.”

She looked at him, on the point of saying something else she’d probably regret, but then her stomach growled.

“Dinnertime?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.