Hitchcock Blonde by Shahara Zade 2/2
(Disclaimers in part 1)

Lack of evidence never justifies a conclusion, but we would have 
to drop the pretense soon. Cliffs are not sexy.

"Marita, who is it?"

"What do you mean?"

"The car following us. Your mystery man?" She sped up again 
and panic tightened in my throat. "Marita, we can end this. We 
can get a restraining order easily. It didn't come up earlier, but 
I'm a federal-"

"I know who you are, Agent Reyes."

"Uh...oh." I would have to consider the implications of that later. I 
went for my handbag. My badge and cell phone. My weapon. I hit 
the cell pre-set for the New Orleans office. A courteous recording 
informed me that my account was no longer in service. What the 
hell?

"He will have gone through the preliminaries by now, Agent 
Reyes. Erasing you. Isolating you. Your friends and family aren't 
dead yet, but your credit and bank accounts, your possessions 
and affiliations, they're mostly gone by now."

"Don't you think that's a little paranoid, Marita?"

"Paranoid is just another word for longevity. In another six hours, 
you will have vanished entirely. I am sorry. Unfortunately for both 
of us, it isn't me he wants, it's you. Ready to jump?"

"What?"

"I have to crash the car. Alex will know better, he taught me the 
trick himself, but his colleagues will be diverted for a while. It's 
always better to avoid them if possible. At the count of three, I'm 
going to put on the emergency brake. Try to go out at an angle 
and don't forget to tuck your chin and roll on impact-ok? One-"

"Marita!"

"Two..." She unbuckled her seatbelt and then reached over and 
unbuckled mine. Her manner was hard, matter of fact. She could 
have been discussing an order of office supplies.

Fuck. 

The car began to skid.

"Three."

* * * 

Nothing was broken and I had blackberry brambles to thank for 
that, but I didn't want to move. Everything hurt.

"Agent Reyes...Monica?"

"You are *so* under arrest."

"Are you injured?"

"Yes. Get away from me."

"We need to get moving. Come on."

"You have the right to remain silent.where's the car?"

"Down on the rocks. Come on, we can be seen here."

"I don't think so."

She leaned down and said, "If you want to retain any room for 
negotiation at all, shut up and follow me." I shrunk from that 
coldness, dazed and stung by the abrupt shift. Her hand closed 
over my arm, urgent. I caught a flash of her again from the night 
before, taut body yielding to me, mysterious. Sensuous.

"Marita?" She swallowed, pain flooded into her features like a 
beam of light, distorting her expression. Only gradually did she 
go blank again, calm and beautiful and distant. 

"Marita?" I said again. Instead of answering, she released me 
and began making her way down the slope. I should have 
climbed back up to the road. Found help.
But I followed her.

* * * 
In a more mundane context I would have loved that beach house, 
its rough-hewn wood beams, the stone fireplace, the canopied 
beds and the feather quilts. I gulped my sherry, watching the 
mist float over the beach. Beads of it had collected in her hair like 
silver pearls after our hike. She had begun interpreting the 
events of the past few hours and how they related to John's 
case. The dead agent in Montana had made some unusual 
enemies and allies. Somehow, after I had cooled down, I felt 
worse for her than for me.

"This cloak and dagger thing, you can't just get out, Marita?"

"There is no out."

"And it never gets easier?"

"No. It never gets easier." She seemed so tired, a scorched shell 
on the inside. I wanted to reach out to her, to brush her hair out of 
her face with my hands, but I didn't dare.

"At least tell me the good parts."

"Alex is a mercurial man, unfaithful, violent, manipulative. He 
uses people."

"I said the good parts."

"Those are the good parts."

Leave it to me to get seduced by the inamorata of an unbalanced 
black ops man.

"And he thinks I'm Jeremiah Smith? Or that Smith is 
impersonating me?"

"Not anymore. I determined you were Monica Reyes and not 
Jeremiah Smith last night. I told him as much this morning, but 
in the mean time he found out about your mother."

"What about my mother? My mother was a disreputable old 
alcoholic."

"And she was a respected vaudun priestess. Look, Alex gets 
kind of crazy sometimes. Somehow he's gotten it into his head 
that you could-"

"No."

The ceiling swam around me, spinning to meet the floor. So that 
was what they wanted. Funny in any other context. "I don't do that, 
Marita. That stuff my mother did was mostly fraud anyway. Even if 
I could, I wouldn't, it affects both medium and spirit irreversibly.
I 
don't care what Alex wants, he didn't have to watch that poor 
woman screaming for her partner!"

"Actually, he did, and it's part of the reason he's so intent on 
somehow...I don't know. I won't let him force you; we have 
enough blood on our hands. The irony is, he will think I have 
betrayed him, but everything I have done has been to keep him 
as clean as possible. Spiritually speaking."

Damn. She loved him. I crushed my fourth cigarette into a 
chipped Waterford crystal ashtray. The gum was in my purse. In 
the car. Fish food now. He used people, hurt people, and she 
loved him. And I had fallen for her. The thing reeked of screwball 
comedy. Or Greek tragedy.

"You're his Jiminy Cricket. So what do we do? Keep running? 
Hope he doesn't catch up and attempt to force some kind of 
séance at gunpoint? What will he do when nothing happens? 
What would he do if something did happen, if the ghost of Fox 
Mulder possessed me and beat the shit out of him?
Look, this is California, surely we can find some sort of conflict 
resolution consultant..." 

"I already called one."

"You mean you called someone bigger and badder than Alex to 
*persuade* him not to put a bullet in my head when I refuse his 
request?"

"Not exactly. I wouldn't allow anyone to harm him if I could help it. 
The key to dealing with Alex's various fixations is distraction. 
Years ago, I found the perfect distraction and managed to keep it 
hidden. Held it back like the ace you play only when you have to."

Marita did not look as smug or proud as someone who had 
found the perfect solution to a difficult problem should look. Her 
eyelids had dropped to half-mast. As the sky darkened, she 
chewed her lower lip. She looked guilty as hell.

"Couldn't you please elaborate, Marita? I need to have some 
idea of what to expect. I think you owe me that much." I crawled 
back into official business mode as fast as sanity would allow. 

"His name is Victor Mansfield," she said. "You'll understand 
when you see him."
************************************************

Victor:

I hate California. The veggie burgers at the drive-through. The 
self-actualized yuppies in their Saabs and Beemers. 

She had to have known I would figure it out, and she had trusted 
that I would keep my mouth shut. For her. Until she needed me. 
Her Alex had finally gone out of control and I was supposed to fix 
it. Non-fatally. Show up and play bait and switch. Humiliating, but 
there I was, crammed into an economy rental, crawling down 
Highway One towards Bodega, riding to the rescue. Pathetic.

The mailbox at the end of the driveway was inscribed, M. 
Daniels. Ha. Marauding sea gulls would have been an 
improvement. Lucy had left me quite an inheritance, a safe full of 
documentation on Marita Kendall. Daniels. Covarrubias. She 
was at least a triple; spent a lot of time in ugly places, doing ugly 
things. She spent a lot of time with someone named Alex Krycek.

I knew my target immediately. Even in the twilight. Even at a 
distance. Had to be him, he was wearing my skin. The reports 
had prepared me somewhat. No solid explanations to how or 
why, of course. Like so much that came from Lucy, it just *was*.

He hadn't known. From the way his hand shook as he sighted 
down his arm at me, his back to the door. No one bothered to 
brief him. Poor asshole. Then again, Marita had called me in as 
damage control for him. Fuck sympathy. I understood why she 
did it though, even as I pointed my own gun carefully between his 
eyebrows. It was disturbing.

Behind him, Marita opened the door. It took a conscious effort not 
to look at her too long. Not to register shock. The years had taken 
a toll on her, or maybe it was just the night. I was glad Lucy's 
reports had been so vague, I didn't want to know.

"Miss me much, lyubov maya?" His jaw barely moved as he 
spoke.

"Alex, I-" 

"You said Smith wasn't here."

"That isn't Smith. But he's human." Nice of her to remember.

"Nice timing, Marita. Care to go into detail?"

"If you put the gun down." She spoke slowly, as if he were a 
young child.

"Sorry. I don't have that much time." His fingers twitched on the 
trigger.

"Alex, the technology was available, you know that. I didn't tell you 
because...oh damn it, he was safe..."

"He was safe from me, you mean- never mind," he shook his 
head, "it's irrelevant now. Let me in."

She pushed the door open wider and he backed in. 

He didn't really look so much like me. An inch, maybe and inch 
and a half shorter. Wiry, more compact. He held himself as if 
constantly aware of his own balance. I know cleaners. Never 
could relate. It wasn't the killing; it was killing someone who 
wouldn't kill you first if they could. That kind of precise distance.
I 
looked at Alex Krycek and saw a guy that could do that. Squeeze 
the trigger and walk away and sleep just fine at night. 

I looked at Marita, and saw that she would stand by him until the 
awful end. The dark woman beside Marita paled as he brushed 
past her, and I wondered how she had been drawn into their 
vortex, if she too had dropped everything for a satin plea over a 
phone line. His semi-auto probably held a modified clip, 
eighteen bullets. I had to buy time. Distract him. Do the job and 
go home.

"What is it you want, Alex? Why are we here?" I asked.

"Agent Reyes is going to do me a favor."

Agent Reyes. That explained the woman's relative composure. 
Marita hadn't mentioned that part. Reyes swallowed and, 
strangely enough, smiled. She must have been terrified, but she 
contained it behind walls of careful construction.

"You kidnapped a federal agent, Marita?" I asked. I had hated 
being her doomsday weapon. I had wanted to sit Marita down 
and make long speeches on how angry I was with her for doing 
what she had done. The anger drained away. I wasn't sure if she 
had diplomatic immunity in this situation or not. Maybe we would 
live long enough to find out.

"I can't do what you want, Alex. Have some compassion, the man 
is dead. Leave him in peace," Reyes said, her voice small like a 
child's.

Alex faced her. "I just need to talk to him, ask him some things...I 
have to...it's not so much, is it?"

She looked like she might cry. "It's wrong. Unconscionable. The 
Invisible World sucks you in, and when you call the spirit, you 
bind it to you. It becomes trapped between planes. We don't have 
the right to do that to him!" 

His humanity slid away, and in a blur of motion he had her. He 
pressed the barrel of the gun into her ribs. The situation was 
escalating.

"Reyes," I said, desperate, "I'm counting two guns in the room 
here, his and mine. If all he wants is some table rapping, don't 
you think you could just go with it? Play along? Hell, make it up if 
you have to!"

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

Monica:

The two men glided like dancers, circling each other, energy and 
grace waiting to explode into violence. I had lost my weapon at 
the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, hadn't been ready when Alex 
grabbed me. His hand was hard on my arm, the creak of his 
leather jacket vaguely obscene. I let go of a breath, defeated. 
Marita was in trouble and I would help her if I could. Simple. 
Complicated. My own trouble seemed secondary. In a surge of 
adrenaline clarity, I knew I would do it. Not because Alex was 
terrorizing me, but because he was broken and she needed him 
whole and I could do it. I would call the Guede, the spirit of Fox 
Mulder. Talk to it. Let it talk through me.

"Alex, I won't allow this!" Marita started towards him, hesitant.

"How badly do you want to die, lyubov maya?"

"It's okay, Marita. I'm going to do it."

"You can-"

"I know the ritual, that's all. I've only seen it done...never wanted 
to try."

Once, when I was about ten, I found a gris gris on Mama's altar 
in the attic. It was made from bone and black bird feathers, and 
when I held it in my hand, it seemed to grow and pulse. I held it 
with every hair on my body tingling, my heart thudding in my 
throat, until Mama found me and took it away. I release a breath, 
feeling it hiss between my teeth.

"I won't make any promises, Alex. I remember the divination rite- 
that's all-okay? I will try to petition the Loa. We will need 
something that belonged to Agent Mulder."

Alex pushed me against the table and reached into his jacket. 
He pressed the balled up cloth into my hand and I almost 
dropped it. Boxers. I'm usually not a squeamish woman, but god. 

Marita flinched. It must have been an old pain...but still raw. 

Alex must have been too young to have all those things I saw 
etched in his face. Regret. Sadness, cut wide and deep. It was a 
horrifically private thing to witness, lacking both accusation and 
explanation. 

I recoiled from the damage they inflicted on one another, 
standing there, but even in conflict the seemed to draw 
something from each other, feed each other. The air almost 
sparked with overcharged ions. I was never a jealous lover, and I 
couldn't begrudge that adoration. That fierce light. What happens 
to us inside when we love that which is dark? Does it eat us? 
Destroy us? Heat spiked around them. Whatever hurt-games 
they played out, they belonged to each other. I didn't want to see 
anymore. Anything to make it stop.

"Did you also bring-" I began.

"In the car. Marita, will you bring the rest of the things?" She 
slipped from the room in absolute allegiance. 

Victor asked, "Isn't there supposed to be a full moon or 
something?"

"No, that's strictly Hollywood, those graveyard 
extravaganzas...those deserted crossroads. Works just as well 
on the kitchen table...if it works at all."

I thought of Mama in her red shantung housecoat, the smell of 
chicory coffee and old blood in my nostrils...Mama saying, 
"You're over the line, girl, headed straight to hell."

"Right behind you, Mama," I whispered under my breath, and 
waited for Marita to return.

* * * 

The chicken squawked and I swayed on my feet. "I just can't do 
this, Alex, I'm sorry." I was supposed to offer the sacrifice, the 
ebo, to Mama's gods: Eleggua, Obutala, Yemalla, 
Shango...except that I couldn't kill the poor chicken. Ridiculous. I 
was hardly vegetarian. Chicken Caesar salad was my favorite 
Tuesday lunch. But the creature was alive and warm and I was a 
hypocrite. Alex sighed, then picked up the bird and snapped its 
neck, calm, without hesitation. I shuddered, because I knew 
somehow it could have been my neck just as easily.

The rite seemed to progress well at first. I couldn't believe I 
remembered the words, couldn't believe the truth of the rolling 
power in my gut, Mama's daughter after all.

"What's wrong now?" Alex demanded sharply.

"It isn't going to work." Emotion swept over me. Confusion. 
Denial. Fox Mulder had been dead...but when I called the Guede, 
no one came. There was no spirit to come, because he wasn't 
dead. "Look." I pointed to the blood beading backwards over the 
cloth and herbs in the Pyrex bowl.

"We did everything right," Alex protested. "I read the texts..."

"I can't call dead that aren't dead."

"What?" I wondered if he would kill me. Kill us all. He seemed 
capable, black gloved hands held too stiffly at his sides.

"I don't know what else to tell you...I saw the body. Marita said you 
saw the body." I felt numb. If Alex decided to take my life, I 
probably wouldn't even notice. 

His voice went raspy. "I've got to get back there."

Marita lingered only long enough to whisper, "Thank you," and 
followed him out into the night. Victor leaned back against the 
stove and watched her go, gun still clutched. I don't know what 
he thought he was going to do with it. He finally set it down on 
the table and massaged one hand with the other, tension 
draining out of him. His eyes were cool and gray, with swirling 
flecks of green. Soulful eyes, sympathetic eyes. She had called 
and he came to her, another white knight. I saw what she had 
done to him, how she used him. Monstrous.

My head was splitting.
*************************************************

Victor:

We collapsed together on the porch steps, exhausted beyond 
grasping at formalities.

"I have a friend who can fix your identity theft problem. She might 
ask you for some information in return...only because of me...the 
Alex thing...but her intentions are honorable. Data you give her 
will never hurt anyone."

She smiled, fatigued. Vulnerable. "Kinder, gentler treason?" 
Some of the color had returned to her cheeks.

"You'll get your life back, Agent Reyes."

"I don't know if I want it back."

"They'll need you for the investigation." 

Monica seemed to hide behind the dark halo of her hair, bent 
forward, rubbing the back of her neck. Rather than push her, I 
closed my eyes, listening to the ocean. After a while, I got up, 
leaving her with her own thoughts long enough to rummage in 
the refrigerator. 

She had not moved when I returned, and she accepted the beer I 
offered her without comment. After several long swigs, she 
rested her head against her knees, resigned.

"Alright, Victor Mansfield, whoever you are...this is what I know."

END