Trade Partners
Scully sat hunched in her business class seat on the jet to LA, reading her pathology journals. Exsanguination---hadn't they done that as an X-File before? What was it with Mulder and vampire cults as the holy grail?
Mulder was sitting beside her, long legs jammed over into her space, headphones on, bopping his head gently. Every time any of the cabin attendents saw him, he got another Diet Coke and another package of peanuts.
The pathology of vampire cults was interesting; the cultists convinced themselves that they needed to drink blood. Some members had elongated caps on their canines, to simulate fangs. Once in a while, the literature tracked killers who drank the blood of their victims, but it was almost always a very messy, disorganized kill. The corpses turning up in LA were drained of nearly all their blood, leaving two puncture wounds, with the occasional defensive wounding.
Mulder ate another bag of peanuts and Scully ignored him. The evil son of a bitch ate everything in sight, and never gained an ounce. "Let's get a hot dog, Scully." "Let's try that place on Capital Hill that gives you a trough of cheese dip." "I can bring you a pizza." Scully had been on a diet since joining the Bureau, but Mulder, apparently, required massive amounts of fried protein and fat-slathered carbohydrates in order to maintain his sinewy frame.
God, she hated Mulder. Hated his fashion sense and the way he flicked his glance over her suits, without comment; hated how fast he read and how fast he typed; how waiters and waitresses always refilled his coffee cups and tea glasses; hated his ability to successfully amuse himself in airports, stutter-driving Beltway traffic, and the Food Lion check-out line; and hated hated hated how he could talk her into anything. Including, apparently, going to Los Angeles to figure out how someone could be completely drained of blood at the crime scene by a neck wound, and not a drop being spilled. Autopsies "R" Us, the travelling Scully road show.
"It's a beautiful day in Los Angeles," came the announcement. "Temperature is seventy degrees and we are approaching LAX."
Mulder caught her eyes and smiled winningly.
Oh, she hated him.
Angel hated Cordelia.
She had him cornered on the basement steps. He had just managed to get back to his building through the sewers, because she had borrowed the convertible for a casting call. Naturally, then, he had run into a pack of idiot college kids completely unaware that their hot leather chick dates were all vamps. Hijinks ensued and there he was, covered in dust and draft beer, trudging through the freaking sewer at dawn. All he wanted was a pint of blood, a shower, and just a couple or eight hours of sleep.
"There's no coffee upstairs, and the car is making a funny noise," she informed him.
He opened his eyes (having closed them at her first barrage of what she considered conversation), and said, "It wasn't making a funny noise when I parked it yesterday."
"Well, I'm just sayin' that you may want to go to an all-night garage and get it checked out."
"What kind of funny noise?"
"It's clunking when I turn it."
"Oh, shit, Cordy, did you run over something?"
She gave him an affronted stare. "No." She flung the keys at him, and dashed back upstairs. "Take a shower, you stink."
He was actually in the shower when she pounded on the bathroom door, and opened it a crack. "I'm taking money out of your pants because the blood guy wants cash," she yelled.
"Okay," he said, trying to finish his shower.
"What?" she asked.
"OKAY," he said, over the shower.
"Jeeze. Don't have to yell, Mr. Crankypants." The door slammed shut, and he heard something fall into the sink and break.
Really, really hated her.
Mulder could drive through Los Angeles traffic without recourse to a map or Scully's printed directions from the internet. He could do this while flicking the radio to listen to the drive-time disk jockeys, eating sunflower seeds, asking her how cool it would be to actually interview a vampire cultist, "I couldn't keep a straight face, don't wanna say 'bite me,' to that guy," and suddenly spotting their exit and turning right through four lanes of traffic.
Scully was devoutly happy that a cautious Bureau didn't issue their agents portable blue lights for cars.
"Hey, Scully, whatja say that I drop you off at the morgue and then I drive over to these people Detective Lockley told me about? The PI?"
That was the thing, damn it. She was curious as to how even a vampire fetishist could manage to drain all the blood of a victim through the neck. And Mulder knew it; Mulder knew her little secret was that she adored these wacko murders, completely got off by digging around and trying to disprove his weird theories.
She stole a look at him. He was looking out the windshield, smiling to himself.
Oh, she hated him.
"No, I'll keep the car. I'm sure you can get a cab to the detectives. After all, there's no telling how long the autopsy may take me."
"Oh, right," he said, unabashed. "Good thought, Scully."
"Cordy. Have you seen my-- Oh, hello, may we help you?" Wes came out of Angel's office, a smelly old book in hand, his half-tucked shirt smeared with something that looked like spaghetti sauce. He shoved his glasses up with an ink-smeared finger.
How had she ever found him attractive? "It's okay, Wes, I've got it covered," she said.
He stepped into her space, totally ignoring her.
"I have it," she said through clenched teeth.
Those vague, blue eyes focused on her, then on the man in front of them. Then Wes's mouth pursed. Dammit, he had that look. The one that said, "Don't you remember the demon impregnation, Cordelia?"
She stepped in front of him. "I'm Cordelia," she said. "Cordelia Chase. I'm the...lead investigator."
Behind her, Wes choked.
"He's our researcher," she said, nodding at Wes. "He doesn't get out much."
The man extended his hand. "Fox Mulder, FBI."
She took it, shook. "FBI?" Oh, right. Like they made FBI agents who looked like that. She cocked a brow at him flirtatiously. "Show me your badge."
He made a big show of reaching into his jacket pocket and pulling out a flat leather case. Which he then flashed at her and shoved back in his pocket.
She held out her hand. "Yeah, right," she said, twinkling at him. "Like I don't watch Cops. That badge could be fake."
Mulder sighed and forked it over. His lower lip quivered like he was pouting.
Oh, yeah. He was giving her the mating call. The lower-lip pout? She so had him.
She made a big deal out of opening the holder, and looking at the badge. It did say FBI, and it had his picture and an ID number on it, but she didn't care about that. Now she was feeling up the leather and watching him while she did it.
Good quality. At least a hundred bucks for the case. Still warm from his body.
A slight smirk quirked Agent Mulder's lips as she fondled his badge.
So she could hold it longer, she showed it to Wes. He made some sort of vague sound and finally she gave it back to Mulder. "Okay, Mr. Mulder. You pass."
"Agent," he said, but it came out all croaky. He cleared his throat. "Agent," he said again.
She tilted her head, watching as a dull flush climbed his neck. "Hmm?"
"Agent Mulder, not Mister. And I'm here to see, uh...." He scratched his throat like he was thinking, but it didn't quite cover the flushed skin. "Angel? Mr. Angel?"
Cordy laughed. "Mr. Angel's off right now. He's kind of a...night person."
Wes stepped in front of her and blocked her view. "Yes, Cordelia and I arehis crack investigative team. We work while he sleeps, so he can work while the world sleeps."
She rolled her eyes and moved around him. Now she was only about three feet from the Feebie. God, he was even hotter up close. The cut of his lapel caught her eye and her mouth watered. "Armani?" It came out in a phone-sex operator's voice.
His Adam's apple bobbed, moving the green and blue rep tie.
She followed the little movement, entranced, breathless, waiting for the answer.
"Uh huh," he said, voice as husky as hers.
Their eyes caught. Her heart sped up, her head got light and that special little twinkle started in her chest and spread all over her body.
The little twinkle that said....
"Oh, crap!"
She grabbed her forehead as the vision hit, barreling through her like a car through a guardrail. She fell over with it, hit hard and rolled. When she opened her eyes she was flat on her back, her head ringing with pain.
The vamp who had her pinned was laughing in her face. Opening his mouth, a little bead of drool caught on the corner of his lip.
She screamed, loud as she could, and as if her wishes always came true, a stake cut through his chest and the vamp disappeared. Dust spattered on her face, the ash-fine grit getting in her eyes and mouth. She sneezed and turned her head to spit.
But there was a hand on her chin, stopping her. "Are you all right?" an excited-terrified voice asked.
When she looked up, she was staring into Agent Mulder's face. "Uh--" she said, and then, she was back in the sunny office, sprawled on the floor, staring up at him for real. "Phone call for you," she said, through a post-vision haze. She cleared her throat, still tasting vamp dust.
He looked panicked as he knelt next to her, a flat-faced look she recognized because it was the same one Angel wore when he panicked. "Wh-what?"
She elbowed herself up into a sitting position. "From the PTBs?"
Wes claimed her attention by putting his hands on her shoulders. His eyes were wide and full of warning. "Cordelia, that was quite a bump you took, maybe you should just rest for a moment." He settled her gently back in her chair.
She realized what she'd just said. Crap. She pressed her palms over her eyes. "Aspirin?"
Wes popped the bottle and then his hand brushed hers. She took the pills and swallowed them with a gulp of her water.
Mulder was staring at her with the same look everyone wore after they witnessed her little sideshow. So much for macking on the hottie, now. There was only so much that bonding over clothes could do. "Sorry about that," she said. "Epilepsy. I've had it since I was...uh...anyway."
She couldn't lie to him, not when he was staring at her like that.
Finally he put his hands on his hips. "You said I had a phone call from the PTBs? Who are they?"
Wes stepped in front of her, all puffed up like a protective pit bull. "It's nothing," he said. "Sometimes she says strange things during a...fit."
She kicked him in the heel. A fit? Like she wasn't already enough of a freak?
"I've heard of these," Agent Mulder said.
Cordy could tell from his voice that he wasn't going to let this go. Crap. What was she supposed to do? "Gee, Agent Mulder. You're going to kill a vamp," just didn't quite sound right.
Agent Mulder made a little humming sound in the back of his throat. "These...I guess you might call them fits," he lectured, "But somehow information is transmitted, rather like a psychic...vision?"
Cordy flinched. "Agent Mulder, you never did tell us why you're here." She tapped Wes on the arm. "Move."
Vision hangovers always made her cranky. By now, Wes knew better than to defy her, so he got out of the way. "Cordelia--"
"I'm not going to say anything," she hissed.
Agent Mulder gave her another one of those disconcerting stares. "Detective Lockley. Ring a bell?"
Wes shot him a look. "Detective Kate Lockley?"
"Uh huh," Agent Mulder said. He smiled, those pretty lips pulling into a friendly curve. "She recommended I come speak with you. After I told her what I do."
Cordy's eyes followed the bulge of his arms, the curve of his pecs. "Which is?"
"I run a special department of the FBI called the X-Files. We investigate supernatural occurrences."
Cordelia pulled her gaze away from his torso and back to his face. "A what?"
Wes coughed. "Supernatural, did you say? Defined, how, exactly?"
Agent Mulder put on his poker face. "You're the experts. How do you define it?" he asked, his voice flat and colorless. His cell phone rang. He looked frustrated but he pulled it out of his jacket pocket and thumbed it on. "Excuse me." He turned away. "Mulder."
Wes looked at her. "Think he's on the level?" he whispered.
She shrugged. "His badge looks real. And this headache is for damn sure real."
"I'll just go call Kate. Stall him," Wes said. He slipped into Angel's office and closed the door.
"...really? All the blood was gone?" Mulder's monotone seemed to take on new life. "And how do you explain that, Scully, if not vampires?"
Cordy felt her eyes widen. Did a Feebie just say the word "vampire" in a sentence?
"No, no, I've got everything under control here." He glanced over his shoulder and smiled his prep-school-boy smile.
She blinked.
Oh, that was a bad sign.
Mulder clicked off his phone and dropped it back in the pocket with his badge. "So, is everything under control here?"
"Agent Mulder," she said, spitting out the first words that came to mind. "It looks like you're going to kill a vampire."
A warm glow started behind those hazel eyes. "Really?" His voice sounded like a rich tapestry. God, he was more turned on than when he'd looked at her cleavage.
The door opened and Wes rushed into the room. "Kate says she cleared him," he blurted.
"It's cool, Wes. I already told him."
"You did?" Wes squeaked. Then he tilted his head. "Told him what, exactly?"
"That Agent Mulder is about to go on a vamp hunt."
Angel was reading an almost illegible note in Cordelia's handwriting. "Went to....address...with Agnes Mullen?" he wondered. The next word could have been "vision" but she or Wesley would have come downstairs to tell him, wouldn't they?
Wesley had left his books and legal pads on the coffee table, which was a little odd, since Wes was usually paranoid about leaving his research out.
Someone was knocking on the outer door. At least it was locked. Angel went through the little lobby, and opened the door to a short redhead in a depressing power suit. She held up a badge. "Agent Scully," she said, in a flat, tired voice. "Is my partner still here?"
Angel stood aside to let her in. "Your partner?" he asked. "I'm the only one here."
Agent Scully's mouth was grim. "May I ask you a few questions?" she asked.
"Sure," he said, leading her back to his office. She smelled, literally, of death, overlaid by strong disinfectant soap and hand lotion. Who was dead? "What's this about?" he asked, after she sat down.
She craned her neck up at him. "Please sit down, Mr.---"
"Angel," he said, and sat down.
"Angel. My partner and I are investigating a series of exsanguinations here in Los Angeles, and a Detective Kate Lockley referred us to you. She seemed to think that you may have information about these attacks."
"There's a fair number of those cases," Angel said. "Det. Lockley has worked a few of them. I lost one of my first clients to....exsanguination."
She raised an eyebrow. "What do you know about vampire cultists?"
Angel shrugged. "Wannabes. I've met them. The whole Anne Rice line, call vampires 'the lonely ones' and think they're terribly misunderstood."
"Most kids in cults think they're misunderstood."
"They think vampires are misunderstood," Angel specified.
"You talk like there are vampires," the agent said.
Angel wondered what in the world Kate Lockley expected him to tell this woman. "Yes," he said.
"You think these people were killed by vampires?" Scully asked.
Angel was spared having to answer by first Agent Scully's cell phone ringing, then by the office phone. He got up to answer his phone at Cordy's desk, as the agent pulled out her telephone.
The two conversations ran at point and counterpoint.
"Angel Investigations."
"Scully here."
"Cordy, where are you? Why is there an FBI agent---"
"You're breaking up, Mulder, you're where?"
"He's hunting vamps? Where's Wesley? All right---"
"Mulder, you're all right? Well, where---"
"She doesn't believe in vampires. I'm not going to go into it with a federal agent---"
"Mulder! Don't hang up! Mulder---"
"No, Cordy, I'm not going to vamp out to prove a point. Cordy? Where are---You have my car?" Angel's line went dead.
Agent Scully came out, looking annoyed. Since that seemed to be her default expression, Angel waited for her to speak.
"Mr. Angel, can you tell me where they are? My cell phone isn't working."
"Sure, but I can go with you. My assistants are with him. I have the address of the last place they were at."
Scully seemed to weigh the options. "All right."
Angel picked up his coat, and opened the door.
Scully was trying to unclench her jaws. Her dentist had spoken long and eloquently about the dangers of TMJ, and given her pamphlets about stress.
Stress. No one who didn't deal with Fox Mulder, FBI, on a daily basis was qualifed to tell her about stress.
Okay, mildly relaxing to drive down the nighttime streets of Los Angeles with a completely silent man. Silence. Highly under- rated. Soothing, in fact. Mr. Angel would be attractive if he didn't remind her, in an odd way, of her Irish great-uncle. She kept trying to reach Mulder on the cell, but the tinny recorded voice said he was out of the service area.
"How far could they have gone?" she asked her passenger, closing her phone.
"We get crappy cell phone service in this town," Angel said absently. "They're useless."
Hm. He must have good hearing.
At the bar in question, which was pleasantly not a disgusting dive or filled with unwashed bikers and/or weedy, wild-eyed men with pocket protectors and lap-tops, Mulder had long gone.
Scully identified herself to the bartender, who was more than talkative. "Sure, the FBI agents" ("Agents?" Angel murmured beside her.)"chased three guys out into the alley. It's been a while."
"Where is the alley door?" Angel asked the bartender. He touched Scully's elbow briefly, then went through the crowd to the door. Scully felt exactly as though someone were breaking a trail for her, as the bar patrons parted for him.
Outside in an outstandingly odorous alley, Angel crouched down, looking at piles of...."Ashes?" she asked.
"Dust."
"Weird dust?" she asked. "Radioactive dust?"
"No, just dust. Isn't dust supposed to be ninety percent dead human skin cells? Dust." He stood up, slapping his palms together, and pulled out his cell phone. After a moment he said, "Wesley? I'm at the bar. What? You're okay? Wes, I can't---aw, hell." He looked over at Scully. "All I could hear was everything is okay. Then it cut out."
Scully felt very tired. She had lots of interesting things to tell Mulder about the victims, but the change in time was catching up to her. "Mr. Angel, I'm not on the clock. I think I'm going to get a drink, and go back to the hotel." She looked at him. "Want a drink?"
He looked at her for a moment. "Okay."
Angel ordered Bushmills. The sight of the Irish whisky seemed to call forth something in Scully.
"I've changed my mind. Give me the same," she said. She looked sideways at Angel. "Don't be surprised. I'm Irish."
"No, I'm Irish, too." He leaned his arms on the bar. Scully, that made sense, and the red hair and attitude.
"Irish? With a name like Angel? You have a great, great, great grandmother somewhere." The jet-lag was making her a little loopy; she had faint violet shadows under her eyes. He got the feeling that she had been tired for a long time."You're not Irish," she mumbled into her glass.
"Hey, Agent Scully, don't get bent. I was born in Ireland."
"Oh. You must have lived here a long, long time."
He turned his head and smiled at her over his shoulder. "Yes."
The barrage of bottles and posters and funny signs covered up the mirror behind the bar, which was why Angel chose to sit there. It was surprising how few people actually noticed his non-reflection. He sat, sipping his whiskey and listening to his companion's pulse relax.
It would take more than a couple of whiskeys to make this one unwind.
"I wonder where the hell Mulder went," she said, not irritably, but making conversation.
"Well, my associates tend to be enthusiastic. If your partner's interested in supernatural phenomena---" Agent Scully snorted, and he thought she said, "Is he breathing?" but it could have been "bleeding", "---Wesley, in particular, would be more than happy to take him around. As for Cordelia---" he paused. "Is your partner short and fat? Or bald?"
"Hah. No. My partner is one good-looking guy," she said gloomily. "And he's completely single-minded. If your people said they'd show him a haunted house or a hot spot or a vampire club, he'd be like a kid at Disneyland."
"Cordelia would be like a kid at Disneyland with a good-looking--- is he single? Yeah? Well."
"He wears Armani," she said, stirring the ice cubes in her glass. She had a little color in her cheeks. "He's a good-looking guy."
"Armani? Crap. They won't be back tonight." Angel eyed the female agent. She wasn't in Armani, by a long shot.
"One good-looking guy. Damn it to hell," Agent Scully said, hooking her heels in the rung of the barstool, and settling in for a long evening of drinking.
"You wouldn't believe how many dead bodies I've seen." Scully said earnestly. "In how many different locations. I haven't bought shampoo in a year, because I have so many hotel bottles." She held out her glass for another whiskey. " And he never listens to the results, never listens. Don't you hate that? When you explain something, something someone's asked you to explain, and they don't listen?"
"Tell me about it," Angel said, eying her. She seemed over- enthusiastic with the whiskey drinking. Maybe it had been a while. He was going to have to take her keys away from her, he could tell.
"You're a good listener. I like a man who shuts up and listens. And I didn't even have to show you my gun!" She giggled.
He wondered if she'd shoot him.
He wondered where the hell his car, and Cordelia, and the fed were.
"If we could get the top up," Mulder was murmuring into Cordelia's neck, "We could have more privacy. Does it work?"
They were parked up at the observatory. Mulder had badged the security guard, and said sternly that he was on FBI surveillance, and for the security guard not to draw attention to them. Cordelia had a hard time not going off into giggles.
They had been enthusiastically making out in the front seat---shades of old Sunnydale---but it was a beautiful night, and he did have a gun. Or two.
"Yeah, it does. Comes in handy with that pesky 'going up in flames' problem my boss has." She turned the keys and flipped the switch for the top.
"Nice," Mulder said. "Begs the question as to why a vampire has a convertible, but not my problem."
"Jeeze, if all it takes to turn you on is to kill vamps, Agent Mulder, you should come back to LA more often."
"Yeah," Mulder said, "oh, yeah."
Mulder threw himself into the airline seat, still wearing his Ray-bans. He leaned back, and sighed.
Scully gave him a fulminating look. Then her attention was sharpened. "Mulder!" she hissed. "Your neck. Is that a----"
"Vampire hickeys, Scully," Mulder said, blandly. "Vampire hickeys."
Cordelia Chase entered the office of Angel Investigations, swaying her skirt and carrying a latte. "La la la la," she sang to herself. She looked up and saw Angel sitting at her desk, hands folded, just staring at her.
Cordelia lifted her chin. "What?" She dropped the keys on her desk. "Oh, there's something wrong with the top of the car. It won't go down. It looks like one of the metal things is bent or something."
The phone rang. "You may wanna get that, since you're sitting at my desk."