Devil's Advocate (The X-Files: Origins #2)(15)

But there were only a few words spoken in that dialect. There were also words in the version of Greek known as Koine and in a very ancient version of Hebrew that contained elements of Phoenician.

Words from those languages made up 5 percent of what the boy said. Of what he screamed. The rest were either nonsense words or from a language unknown to the scholars who worked for the Syndicate. Some of those words were so strange that it clearly hurt the boy to speak them. More than once he woke gagging on blood from his torn larynx and tongue. As if such words were never meant for a human throat and mouth to speak.

Tonight, though, he kept repeating an Aramaic phrase the experts had decoded months ago. A phrase Danny and Gerlach knew by heart now, even if they did not understand its meaning or implication. The translation of that phrase was written on a strip of white surgical tape that had been pressed along the bottom of the sixth screen.



SHE WILL CHANGE THE WORLD. HEAVEN WILL FALL.

It might have been a phrase of no great importance, except for the fact that when he said those words, he was screaming with absolute terror.

The image on the seventh screen was of a pretty fifteen-year-old red-haired girl dressed in very modest pajamas lying sprawled on a bed that was soaked with her sweat. She thrashed and turned as she slept, and now the sheets and thin blanket were knotted around her. Above her bed, colored lights flashed and popped like tiny fireworks, but they came from nowhere and vanished without leaving any trace. No one in the Syndicate understood a thing about those lights.

“No…,” she said, moaning it out as a protracted wail. “Please … no…”

Danny said, “Do any of them know what’s happening?”

“Some of them do,” said Gerlach. “Most don’t. Why?”

“Well, because they look like they’re in pain. How do we know this won’t kill them?”

Gerlach and the other man exchanged a look.

Neither said another word, though.





CHAPTER 14

Scully Residence

April 3, 12:33 A.M.

Sleep was no escape.

None at all.

Deep in the night, Dana seemed to wake within a dream, knowing that she was dreaming, but afraid that this was every bit as real as the waking world. She knew that she didn’t have the lexicon to even put any of this into words that would make sense. The walls between fantasy and reality were broken, crumbling, irrelevant.

And that was terrifying.

Wasn’t that what happened when the mind fractured? Wasn’t that the definition of being insane?

The dream unfolded like a movie.

She woke in her room, but she wasn’t dressed in her pajamas. Instead she wore a dark suit that was almost masculine. Navy-blue pants and jacket, white blouse, the look softened only by a thin golden necklace from which her tiny cross hung and the lack of a tie. Her hair was stiffer, shorter, styled in a severe way she would never wear. Shoes with chunky heels.

The clothes were nothing she owned, but they fit her. She felt like she belonged in them. But when she stood up, there was something odd. A weight on her hip. Dana crossed to the mirror as she unbuttoned the jacket, and when she held the flap back, she saw the gun.

The.

Gun.

A small automatic snugged into a leather holster clipped to her belt.

“What…?” she murmured.

Dana knew guns. Military brats always did. Her brothers and Dad took her and Melissa to the range in any town where they lived.

“You can’t touch a gun unless you’re going to be smart about it, Starbuck,” her dad said the first time they’d gone to a gun range. That was what he called her: Starbuck. And he was Ahab. It started when they’d first read Moby-Dick together. A book she loved and Melissa hated. A book that created a connection with her father that Dana didn’t always feel. A connection that seemed to be interrupted way too often. Sometimes he was hard, distant, cold; and his coldness chilled her and pushed her away. But then he’d smile and there would be a secret twinkle there, as bright as the North Star, and he’d call her Starbuck and she’d call him Ahab and things would be okay.

The gun in the holster was not a model she had ever seen. She looked at the reflection of the weapon but did not touch it.

It’s not yours, said a voice inside her mind. Not yet.

Then she noticed that her reflection was wrong. Different. The face looking back at her wore the same frown she felt on her mouth, but this face was older. A woman’s face, not a girl’s. Not much older, though. Ten years? A little less. Old enough, though, to show that the years had not been easy ones. There was a rigidity to the face, a glitter of doubt and submerged anger in the eyes.

And fear.

There was real fear there, too. Hidden, compressed, repressed, shoved down, pushed back. But there.

“I’m afraid,” said her reflection. Her voice was different, too. Older, not as soft, more controlled.

“Afraid of what?” Dana asked her reflection, speaking as if this were a different person.

The reflection answered. “I’m afraid to believe.”

Dana licked her lips. “Me too.”

The reflection looked sad, as if that was the wrong answer. “What are you afraid of?”

Dana said, “I’m afraid that God is speaking and no one is listening.”

“I know,” said the other Dana. Motes of dust swam in the air on both sides of the mirror, moving in perfect synchronicity even though the two Danas were so different.