01 - Goblins by Charles Grant - (ebook by Undead) Page A

himself had arrived. He figured he would run into Mulder sooner or later, but right
now he preferred it to be later. The way he figured it, the agents wouldn’t be
here more than a couple of days, not on a case that was as cold as this one, and
they’d probably eat at least one meal at the Inn.
    They would talk while they ate.
    Whatever they said, he would know less than an hour after they were done.
    It was so perfect, he crossed his fingers to ward off the feeling that it
just might be too perfect.
    But he wasn’t going to run from it, either. Hell, he got a free room, a free
woman, and a chance to sneak up on Dana again. What the hell more could he ask
for?
    The killer, he answered as he pulled slowly around the side of the building;
I want the killer, that’s what I want.
    He had another feeling, and he leaned forward, looked up, and saw her
standing at her bedroom window. He gave her the smile, and the wave, and when
she waved back he blew her a kiss before speeding out onto the road.
    What a day this was going to be. Lunch with a uniformed toad who thinks his
cousin is a jerk, a little investigative work around town, dinner in Atlantic
City, a roll in the hay in a bed so big he could build a house on it.
    Life, he decided, just doesn’t get any better.
     
    * * *
     
    Leonard stood at the end of the basement corridor, listening.
    He didn’t know what he expected to hear. There was never any noise save for
the faint grumble of the machines that gave the building its power.
    Nevertheless he listened, and wished there were more lights.
    A single bulb over the entrance, one down at the far end. Nothing more. No
need for more. He and Rosemary were the only ones who used it; Major Tonero was
the only one who visited.
    Still, he couldn’t help thinking there should be some sound other than the
rasp of his breathing.
    You’re making yourself jumpy, he scolded as he started toward the Project
office. Not that he shouldn’t be. So much had gone right, and so much had gone
wrong, that half the time he didn’t know whether he should shout or cry.
Rosemary didn’t help either, nagging at him constantly, pushing him, reminding
him unnecessarily that this had to be the right one or all support would vanish
as if it had never been.
    And, he feared, him with it.
    Ten yards down he reached the first of three doors on the right—there were
none on the left at all.
    The first was his private office. No markings, just dull steel. The second
door was the same, the Project center within. He glanced through the wire-mesh window and saw that
it was empty. Rosemary must still be at lunch.
    The third door was closed.
    He glanced at it nervously, checked back toward the exit, and decided he had
to know.
    With one hand in his pocket to stop his keys from jangling, he hurried to it
and looked through the reinforced glass judas window.
    No one sat in the armchair, or at the desk now stripped of everything but the
pen and legal pad. He couldn’t see the bed.
    He flipped a switch by the jamb and rapped lightly on the window with a
knuckle, and jumped back with a stifled cry when a face suddenly grinned at him
from the other side.
    “Jesus,” he said, eyes closing briefly. “You scared me to death.”
    Above the door was a microphone embedded in the concrete, a speaker grille
beside it.
    “Sorry.” The voice was distorted, asexual. “I’m on break. I thought I’d drop
in. Sorry.”
    It wasn’t sorry at all.
    “How do you feel?” He approached the door again, warily, as if the face
belonged to a superhuman monster that could, at the slightest provocation, smash
through the steel. The stupid thing was, the door wasn’t locked. He could walk
right in if he wanted to. If he had the nerve.
    “How do you think I feel?”
    Tymons refused the bait, the invitation to guilt. That sort of emotion had
died the first time he had skinned a subject capuchin alive. He hadn’t liked it,
of course, but there had been no other