Chaos evil? Was this guy serious?
Phoebe leaned closer to Mulder. “He’s talking about his character’s alignment in the game,” she whispered, anticipating his question. “It determines the character’s ethics and morality.”
“Is that so?”
Phoebe put a hand on her hip. “I told you I knew how to play.”
“I’m a bard. Level thirteen. Chaos neutral,” Gimble was telling Sam, who seemed impressed.
“Chaos neutral, huh? Good choice. It makes you unpredictable.”
A blonde in a white dress embroidered with colorful flowers popped her head out of the back room, where the previous meeting had been held. “Let’s get started, Illuminates.”
“Why don’t you come to the meeting and see what you think?” Sam suggested. “If you like D and D, you might dig it.”
Gimble glanced at Phoebe and Mulder, and they both nodded.
“If you’re sure it’s cool,” Gimble said.
Sam motioned for them to come with him. “Everything about our group is cool, and we’re always interested in hanging out with open-minded people who are curious about chaos magick.”
“That’s us. Open-minded and curious,” Mulder said, in an attempt to sound enthusiastic. But with his dry tone, it came off more like sarcasm.
Sam gave him a strange look and led them into the meeting room, which doubled as storage space. Chairs were arranged in rows across from stacks of cardboard shipping boxes.
Mulder noticed other rooms, including a yoga studio. “Why meet in a storage room when there are so many other rooms back here?” he whispered to Phoebe.
“No clue. Maybe they’re all booked.”
“Sit anywhere you like,” Sam said, taking a seat at the end of the second row.
They slipped past him and claimed three seats together, leaving an empty seat between Sam and them.
Other people drifted into the room and sat down, while the blonde in the embroidered dress walked past them to the back of the room, juggling a banner and boxes of doughnuts. Mulder listened to the conversations taking place around him. He didn’t expect anyone to start talking about dead birds, but he was hoping for something related to protective stones—not a debate between the women sitting in the front about which member of the Bee Gees was the hottest.
The blond woman returned to the front of the room. “Welcome, everyone. For those of you who are new, my name is Rain Sky.” She paused and smiled at the three newbies. “If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask.”
Rain Sky? Real original.
Mulder zoned out while the ten Illuminates recited a pledge. “… and through the power of belief and the balance between Chaos and Law, we will stretch the limits of what is possible.”
He elbowed Gimble and whispered, “Didn’t your dad say—?”
His friend nodded. “Chaos and Law are two sides of the same coin.” He took a black triangular die out of his pocket and rolled it between his fingers. “Unfortunately, the Major read about the concept in Stormbringer, and now he talks about it all the time. Apparently, Law is important to the aliens.”
Gimble accidentally dropped the die, and it fell on the floor and rolled under his chair.
Mulder bent down to pick it up and his gaze locked on the wall behind them, where Rain had hung the banner, and he froze.
The symbol in the middle of the banner … Mulder had seen it before.
CHAPTER 17
Beyond Beyond, Craiger, Maryland
5:15 P.M.
Mulder stared at the symbol—a circle with eight arrows radiating from the center. It looked exactly like the arrows sticking out of the magpie’s body.
Phoebe nudged him, but he couldn’t look away. He heard her gasp, and a moment later Gimble whispered, “Is that…?”
Mulder nodded.
Gimble leaned over and signaled Sam. “That symbol on the back wall is cool. What is it?”
“Most people call it the chaos symbol,” Sam said. “But in chaos magick, we call it the Symbol of Eight.”
Mulder sucked in a sharp breath.
Eight days. That’s how long the killer keeps the kids alive. And the kids are eight years old.
“Why eight?” Phoebe asked.
“It’s an important number in chaos magick. The eight arrows in the Symbol of Eight—the chaos symbol—represent all the possible paths chaos can take. And all eight arrows are exactly the same length to remind us there isn’t one ‘right’ path.”
Gimble nodded. “So it’s a chaos magick thing?”
“Eight has been a powerful number throughout history,” Sam explained. “In ancient Egypt and ancient Greece, with significance in math, science, music, and art.”
Gimble gave Sam a blank stare, as if he was racking his brain trying to figure out what this guy knew that he didn’t. But the moment Sam mentioned math, Phoebe was way ahead of him.
“You mean because eight is a Fibonacci number? Or are you referring to the fact that, aside from one, eight is the only positive Fibonacci number that’s a perfect cube?” she asked Sam. “Obviously, eight is also a perfect power, and people describe the infinity symbol as a sideways eight.”