“Four more days,” Earl Roy said to himself, using the hushed tone of someone keeping a secret—or trying to talk himself out of doing something rash. “You can wait four more days to destroy the demon. You’ve done it before.”
Four more days.
He was talking about day eight, when he killed the kids.
Mulder’s logical side told him to stay quiet and hope that Earl Roy left the room long enough for Mulder to work his hands free. But logic almost never won out with him. He acted on instinct. Right now, his gut was telling him to get as much information about Earl Roy as possible.
Initiating a conversation with an unstable man seemed risky, but he wasn’t about to sit in a dog kennel and do nothing.
“What happens in four days?” Mulder asked, his voice not much louder than a whisper.
“The cycle will begin again.” Earl Roy didn’t look at him, but at least he didn’t seem irritated that Mulder had spoken to him.
Mulder scooted to the side of the cage that was closer to Earl Roy, and he saw something dangling from the seat of the chair.
Two small feet.
“Leave me alone. It’s not your decision,” Earl Roy said, facing the birdcage and the back of the chair. Was he talking to the bird again? He turned the chair around, leaving streaks of white greasepaint on the blue velvet.
Sarah Lowe was propped up in the gold chair, her small body nestled against velvet. She was dressed in a white gown, with her blond hair neatly brushed and a garland of white roses draped over her shoulders like a mantle. The top of the chair was decorated with silver Christmas tinsel and cheap gift-wrap bows like a makeshift throne. Strips of fabric were wrapped around her chest and wrists and tied in loopy bows, securing her to the chair.
The child’s eyes were shut, but Mulder saw her shoulders quiver as if she was having a bad dream. She looked drugged, most likely with a sedative like the one listed on Billy Christian’s autopsy report.
“The vessel is making an honorable sacrifice. You want a gift?” Earl Roy stood in front of Sarah, looking disgusted. “In four days, I’ll give you the gift you deserve.”
What the hell is going on?
Earl Roy stormed out of the room. Mulder heard the bell again and more shuffling. He caught a glimpse of something pink near the doorway.
No …
Mulder tasted bile in the back of his throat. Earl Roy was pushing a child-sized pink bicycle with rainbow-colored streamers and a shiny gold bell. Mulder’s mind flashed back to the scrap pile of bikes behind the house. Had those been “gifts” for other children once?
“Here it is,” Earl Roy said proudly as he presented the bike to the drugged child.
Play along. Get him talking again.
Mulder cleared his throat. “That’s a really nice bike,” he said, fighting to stay calm. “Are you going to let her ride it?”
“I never had a bike.” The killer turned toward Mulder, but he didn’t make eye contact. “My father said bikes were expensive. Special things for special people.” He wandered over to the pink bicycle and rang the gold bell. “He said I wasn’t special enough to have one.” His painted white lips formed a hard line, and he shook his head. “Me. The only human who can see the sword.”
Mulder had Earl Roy talking. But now that he did, how was he supposed to respond? He needed the Major to translate.
“If you let the drugs wear off, Sarah can ride the bike when she wakes up,” Mulder said. “You didn’t give her anything that will hurt her, did you?”
Earl Roy gestured at the little girl, confused by the question. “Stormbringer doesn’t need protection.”
Why is he calling her Stormbringer?
In the books, Stormbringer was a demon that took the form of a sword—not a child.
Was Earl Roy hallucinating? He was definitely delusional. But he believed every word he was saying.
And there is power in belief.
“But the little girl in that chair isn’t a sword,” Mulder said.
The killer approached the cage, his white face inches from the thin metal bars. He curled his fingers around them. “You can’t see the blade glowing inside her. I’m the only one who can, because I am special.” He peeked over his shoulder again, as if he thought Sarah—or in his mind, the demon-sword, Stormbringer—was eavesdropping on their conversation. “In this world, the children are the vessels. That’s how Stormbringer torments me. It knows I don’t want to hurt innocents.”
Mulder thought about the end of the novel. The demon-sword turned on the Eternal Champion and killed him. Was Earl Roy afraid the same thing would happen to him?
“Is that the reason you kill the kids?” he asked. “To keep Stormbringer from hurting you?”
“The demon won’t hurt me. I feed it souls. It’s the Eternal Champion it wants.” Earl Roy wasn’t making sense.
Wasn’t he supposed to be the Eternal Champion?