PART THREE
Disclaimer and other junk in part one
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Part Three-Dragons and High School Magic
Friday, September 25, 1998
7:56 a.m.
Notre Dame Academy and High School
The playground on the side of Notre Dame Academy was
still in the early morning air. Sunlight flickered through
the trees surrounding the yard, dotting the concrete with
gold flecks. It was the perfect place to arrive unnoticed.
From high up in the sky what looked like a leaf
suddenly circled and landed behind the big oak tree in
the corner of the playground. The thing shook itself
out, and turned into a boy of about 5'11" with oak brown
hair and bright green eyes that glowed in the sunlight
falling through the leaves.
Alec Ramsay exhaled explosively and leaned against
the trunk of the tree. He hated being late for school,
especially when he couldn't get a ride. His father,
Colin, was on a business trip in Palm Springs, and Mom
had decided to go along for the ride and the sunny
weather.
His face broke out into a grin. Sometimes it was
definitely handy to be a Dragon. Flying to school was
much easier than making a mad dash to catch the next
public bus up to school. Although the form of Dragon
he'd used to get to school more resembled a five inch
fire lizard more than a true Dragon. A lizard,
especially one that small, was much less conspicuous
than a full-sized Dragon.
He glanced down at his watch and his eyes bulged.
It was 7:59. He was already four minutes late for
homeroom. His teacher would kill him, not to mention
what Molly would do to him when she heard the excuse he
was coming up with as to why he was late.
With that, Alec set off at a dead run towards the
high school.
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8:00 a.m.
Mrs. McCready's Class
Mulder and Scully stood near the teacher, Mrs.
Christine McCready, by her desk, surveying her first
period class. This was the class that all the kids
had disappeared from, although it hadn't seemed to
affect the rest of the students in there. They were
still just as rowdy as any high school class that
were stuck in uniforms that were too warm for the
early fall day. Mulder looked up at the clock.
The first period bell had rung five minutes ago, and
everything seemed normal.
Scully turned to Mrs. McCready, who had a rather
agonized look on her face. "Is something wrong?"
Scully asked gently.
Mrs. McCready looked at the door to the classroom,
and then back at Scully. "One of the students isn't here
yet." She felt Mulder come up behind her.
"Do you think he or she could be the next victim?"
Mulder asked.
Mrs. McCready shrugged. "I don't know. Alec,
that's who's missing, had mentioned earlier in the
week that he was staying at his grandparent's home
because his parents were on a business trip. It might
be further from here than his home is."
Scully looked up at the clock. "Well, if he's not
here in fifteen minutes we'll go out and look for him."
None of the three adults noticed Molly Addison
lingering around them, listening in on their conversation.
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Molly rolled her eyes and looked up at the clock.
Alec was late, she thought angrily. She knew that he
wasn't attacked by whatever it was in the forest, he'd
just turn into a Dragon and scare the crap out of whomever
or whatever it was.
No, he wasn't in any danger, just extremely late.
And he promised me he'd be here on time, she thought,
gritting her teeth together. She smoothed down the short,
itchy, black plaid skirt, trying to look cool even though
she was about ready to kill someone. Someone whose name
was Alec Ramsay.
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Alec turned the corner into the hallway where his
classroom was, his Doc Martens skidding on the freshly
polished floor. Molly was going to rip out his heart
with her bare hands if he didn't get there within five
seconds.
When she had called him up that morning she said
she had something very important to tell him concerning
whatever was in the woods. Finally the door to the class
loomed in front of him, and he jerked on the handle and
pulled the door open just as his feet slid past the door.
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Mulder, Scully, and Mrs. McCready looked up at the
sound of the door almost jerking off his hinges. Scully
saw Mrs. McCready let out a breath of relief. This must
have been Alec, not injured or in a coma, just very late.
The door opened fully and Scully had to fight to
keep her mouth from dropping in surprise. Alec Ramsay
looked incredibly like Mulder, or at least how Mulder
would have looked during his high school days. Alec was
pretty tall, about 5'11", with bright green eyes that
had a strange glitter in them, and hair that was the
same shade as Mulder's, but just a little longer. His
white polo shirt was untucked, and his black wool pants
were dusty, showing he'd run quite fast to make it to
class. That and the fact that he was panting with his
forehead propped up against his left forearm that was
resting against the doorjamb. She looked over at Mulder,
but he didn't seem to notice the resemblance between
himself and the boy, even though he was looking straight
at Alec. He just looked relieved that there wasn't
another victim.
Scully looked from Mulder to Alec once more and
concluded that there was a piece missing in the whole
situation, but she just couldn't figure it out.
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Molly's eyes shot from Alec to Mulder and back to
Alec. This is just too damn spooky for words, Molly
thought. They could have been twins, or father and son.
Or maybe-uncle and nephew?
Her mind immediately shot to a story Alec's grandma,
Catriona, had told her about a little boy named Fox who
had disappeared into thin air one day. Stealing a
glance at Mulder, Molly decided she'd give anything
to know his first name. Maybe, just maybe...
Her thoughts were cut off by a heavy hand coming
down on her shoulder. She turned and looked slightly
downward into the face of Kevin Silvers, a friend of
both her and Alec. "What?" she asked.
Kevin angled his chin towards where Alec was still
leaning in the doorway facing Mulder, Scully, and Mrs.
McCready. "You remember what happened last time McCready
asked him why he was late?"
Molly's pale face became even paler than was imagined
humanly possible. "Oh, no," she moaned. She looked over
at Kevin, and the two mutually decided to go over to Alec
to stop the mess they both knew he was going to get into.
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Mrs. McCready turned to face Alec fully. "Do you have
a good reason as to why you're late?" she asked him sternly.
Mulder looked at Alec and caught the slight quirking
up of the corner of his mouth. He recognized the look as
one he'd used often, usually when he was pissing off Skinner
and other senior agents. He couldn't wait to see what
the kid had come up with.
Scully saw the glimmer in Alec's eyes. Suddenly a
memory from one of their earliest cases came into her
head. 'Sometimes the need to mess with their heads
outweighs the millstone of my humiliation.' She just
instinctively knew that he was going to say or do
something truly outrageous--except maybe for Mulder.
Alec pushed himself off the doorframe and walked
to face Mrs. McCready. Scully's eyes were drawn to
his left arm. There was a patch of skin that appeared
scale-like in the fluorescent lights of the classroom.
It almost looked like the same thing Mulder had on his
back over a month ago.
Scully watched Alec's face break into a sly grin,
an expression she was all too familiar with. "Well,"
Alec began, but that was all he was able to get out.
Kevin's hands had wrapped around Alec's upper right
arm. Molly clamped her left hand over Alec's mouth.
She glanced down at his forearm, which was coming up
to pull her hand off his mouth, and saw the patch of
scales. So that was how he got here so fast after he
missed the bus, she thought with a groan, and quick as
lightning covered the scales with her right hand.
What she didn't notice was Scully watching her
movements with a sharp eye. Molly knows what the
scales are, Scully suddenly concluded.
"What he was saying," Molly began with her
sweetest smile, "was that he is truly sorry for
being late, and he'll try not to be late again."
Mrs. McCready looked at Alec with a doubtful
look on her face. "Really?" she sneered. Alec's
head bobbed up and down rapidly beneath Molly's hand.
Mrs. McCready sighed and waved a hand toward their
desks. "Whatever. Just sit down now. I've got to
begin class." With that, Kevin let go of Alec's arm
and Molly took her hand off his mouth, but didn't
release her grip on his arm, and they walked to their desks.
Mulder looked around the room with a grimace. The
rest of the kids didn't notice the commotion. From what
he could guess this wasn't the first time this had
happened. He rolled his eyes. High School was just
soooo much fun the first time, he was really looking
forward to spending more time there, he thought ruefully.
Right, and if you believe that then you've got the bridge
real cheap too.
He let his eyes travel around the room, slowing
down when they came to rest on Alec. There was
something about that boy, but he couldn't put his
finger on it.
He looked over at Scully with a slight grin,
and they headed over to the seats by the windows
where Mrs. McCready had said they could observe
the class from.
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"So who's the stiffs in the suits?" Alec asked Molly
as they headed back to their desks.
"Those're the FBI agents I told you about. They're
here about what happened to Jenna, remember? I told
you about them when I called this morning," Molly said.
"Oh yeah," Alec muttered, remembering the
conversation from that morning. He shook his
head distractedly. His memory was usually very good,
but over the past few days his mind was
becoming the equivalent of meatloaf. Maybe I'm
getting the flu, he thought, although he wasn't
really convinced that was the case.
Molly looked over at him staring into space, a
strange habit for him that was becoming more frequent
over the past few days. That and if he noticed
something about the male FBI agent were two questions
in the forefront of her mind. But right now there were
more pressing matters to be taken care of.
Still holding his left forearm, she asked in an
innocent voice "Hey Alec, how'd you get here this morning?
After all, I know you missed the bus and your grandparents
second car is in the shop, and your grandfather left for
work earlier this morning, even before I called." She
looked over at him slyly to see his face pale underneath
his fading summer tan.
"Uh..." he stuttered.
Molly lifted up his forearm and pulled her hand
back to reveal the patch of scales. Alec's eyes bulged
almost comically as they sat down into their seats at
the table they shared. "Oh," he murmured, holding his
arm under the table.
"Nice try, Dragon Boy," she muttered, grinning.
"Laugh it up, Fuzzball," Alec muttered, all the
while subtly shaking his arm underneath the desk in
order to get the scales to shift back into normal skin.
That had never happened to him before, and he'd had the
full Dragon powers for a good few years now. He really
must have been coming down with something. Or that
instinctively he knew something major was going to
happen soon. He'd have to ask his Gramma when he
got home.
Well, whatever he was doing wasn't working because
the scales were still on his arm. "It's not coming off,"
he whispered to Molly. "What am I gonna do?"
She looked at him thoughtfully for a second and
then reached for her purse. She pulled out a compact
full of pale ivory cover-up. "Last ditch resort?"
she grinned.
"No way in hell I'm wearing makeup. Try again,"
he whispered fiercely.
Molly sighed resignedly and placed her hand over
the patch on his arm. She closed her eyes tightly for
a few seconds, then pulled her hand back. He looked down
and sighed with relief-the patch was gone. "Thanks," he
whispered. "Now what was that thing you wanted to talk
about? You know about..." he trailed off suggestively.
"At lunch. I don't want anyone else hearing about
this."
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11:30 a.m.
Can't we go out for lunch?" Mulder whined under
his breath to Scully. The class right now was just
filing out of the room on their way eat lunch in the
school cafeteria.
Scully looked over at him with a look that seemed
to say sorry. "I wish we could, but we have to watch
the class at all times."
"What if the class hasn't done anything so far?"
he grumbled. It was true. So far the class really
hadn't done anything out of the ordinary. Of course,
the kids weren't exactly normal in themselves, but then,
no high school kid ever was.
Pulling a bag out from under her chair, Scully
took pity on Mulder. "Look, Mulder, I got some subs
for us when I went to check in with Captain Avery earlier
today so we don't have to eat the drivel they serve for
lunch here."
"Good," he grinned, taking the bag from her.
Together they walked to the cafeteria and took a seat
in an out of the way corner so they could keep an eye
on the room.
When they were seated and eating, Mulder pulled
out the notes he'd been taking the first half of the
day. He looked over them briefly and then bit his lip.
"Well, so far I'd have to say that whoever is causing
the kids to become catatonic is not in this class.
"I think you're right," Scully said, looking
around the room. Her eyes came to rest on Molly
Addison and Alec Ramsay sitting a few tables away
from them underneath a window. "But there's something
about those two."
"Which two?" Mulder asked, twisting around in his
seat to get a better look at the cafeteria. He followed
Scully's gaze to land on the two kids. Inside he knew
something was up with them also, including a very uncanny
resemblence to him, but he was intrigued to
learn Scully felt the same way, and even more eager to
find out her thoughts on them. "What about them?"
he said.
Scully shook her head. "I don't know, I just keep
getting a feeling that they know something about what's
going on." What she didn't mention was that she wanted
to know if he saw anything familiar about Alec. Truly,
though, she wasn't surprised he didn't see anything. The
man had no concept of how he looked.
Mulder suddenly broke into a grin. "Agent Scully
has a feeling?" Scully reached out a heeled foot and
kicked him in the shin. "Yeah, yeah," he mumbled
although still with a grin on his face.
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Molly and Alec settled down at an out of the
way table to eat lunch. She didn't want anyone else
hearing what she was about to say. Although they
probably wouldn't have known what she was talking
about anyway. She glanced around, and the only ones
within any close distance were the two FBI agents
who, even for all the resemblance to Alec, she
wasn't really worried about them understanding
what they were talking about.
Alec got out his sandwich and took a bite. "So
what did you want to talk to me about?" he asked.
She reached down into her backpack and pulled out
what looked like her algebra book to the normal eye.
But she and Alec weren't normal. His eyes bulged out
when he saw past the algebra book glamour. It was a
fairly large volume bound in dark brownish-red
leather, with gilded pages and gold etchings tooled
into the leather. "That's one of the books from Aunt
Shan's shop, isn't it?" The upper floor of Shannon's
bookstore held all books that were for the reference
of the Dragons and Witches that resided
in the northeast. Basically, if you weren't a Dragon
or a Witch, you had no clue those books ever existed.
"Yep," Molly nodded. "She let me borrow it last
night. Y'know, there's some real interesting stuff
in here," she said cryptically.
"Like?" he urged her on.
Molly sighed and leaned back in her chair. She
opened the book on her lap and began flipping through
pages. She looked up for a moment, her eyes connecting
with Agent Scully's. Suddenly she got a chill down her
back as Agent Scully stared at her and the book she was
holding. Molly shut her eyes quickly, breaking off the
connection. Inside her head Molly suddenly realized that
there was much more to Agent Scully than what met the
eye. And if her guesses were correct something major was
going to happen very soon.
She started when Alec began nudging her calf
with his foot. "Hey, Mol, you okay?" he asked gently.
She shook her head to clear it; she'd think about Agent
Scully and her partner Agent Mulder later. "Yeah.
Where was I?"
"You were baiting me with the information in the
book," Alec grinned.
"Oh, yeah. Well, I just remembered last night
that I'd read about the things that are happening to
Jenna and the rest of them."
"In one of the books while you were training?"
Alec said, wrinkling his brow. He wasn't familiar
with the extensive things Witches have to learn when
they come into their full powers.
"Uh huh." Molly looked down at the book again,
and found the right page. "It's called a Cader-Ieran."
"What exactly is a Cader whatever you call it?"
"I think it's one of those creatures that survived
from a long time ago, probably by hiding out and
adapting," Molly shrugged, trying to make some sense
of the old fashioned writings.
"Like Dragons?" Alec questioned, making a connection
to something they could relate too easily.
"Yeah. From what I can tell it says here that
Cader-Ierans have an ability to appear as humans.
Maybe that's how they survived so long?"
Alec wrinkled his brow. "So they're like us,
Dragons, they're humans with not so human abilities?"
Molly bit her lip and stared hard at the yellowed,
crackling pages. "I don't think so. I think
they're creatures who can disguise themselves as
humans." She looked up at him with a scared look
on her face, her grey-blue eyes beginning to cloud
over. "They've got no human qualities at all.
They take one soul, life force, whatever you want to
call it, once a year for food. That's all they need
to eat, no real food at all. The rest they just kill
for pleasure..." she trailed off, her voice dropping
to a whisper, her eyes boring into his.
Alec placed a hand over hers that was gripping
the top of the book tightly. "You okay?" he
questioned sincerely.
She sucked in a deep breath. "Yeah."
"Look, if you don't want to continue I can just
take the book home and read it later."
Molly shook her head. "I'm okay. There's only a
little bit left anyway." She turned her eyes back to
the book. "Apparently the only other thing they eat
is a plant called Foxglove, which combined with a
natural venom their bodies produce, is what puts the
kids to sleep and drains their...energy," she said,
searching for the right word that wouldn't make her
start crying at the horror of the situation.
"So what are we going to do about it?" Alec
said with determination. Molly's head jerked up,
shocked, and he grinned. "Well, nobody else is going
to have any clue as to how to stop this thing," he
looked over his shoulder at the FBI agents, "and the
G-men back there ain't going to be able to help."
"I'm not so sure about that," Molly muttered
under her breath.
"What? Never mind. What I'm saying is we've
got more info on this thing than anyone else, and
that we've got the power to stop it."
Molly smiled weakly at him. "You're right.
But we'll figure out what to do after school. I'm
too emotionally exhausted right now to think
coherently." She leaned over and put the book
back in her backpack. "I'm gonna go use the
ladies'. I'll be right back." She stood up and
shouldered her backpack. As she walked by Alec he
stuck his hand out, caught hers, and held it tightly.
She looked down at him, her grey-blue eyes meeting
his glittering green ones. "I'll...I'll be right
here if you need me," he said, not what he had
originally planned but all he could get out. "Thanks,"
she whispered, and walked out of the cafeteria. Alec
looked after her for a few seconds, and then turned
back to his lunch.
Neither one noticed a minute later that Agent
Scully had gotten out of her own seat and followed
Molly into the bathroom.
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Scully looked around the room again, having
taken a break from her conversation with Mulder.
Her eyes landed on Molly and Alec, two
kids she was beginning not to trust, besides Alec's
resemblance to Mulder. Her eyes fixated on Molly,
holding a math textbook in her hands.
Scully blinked, and got a better glimpse of the
book she was holding. It was now slightly larger,
and bound in a dark colored leather, with gold worked
on the cover. She shook her head slightly and blinked
again, convinced she was seeing things. But the book
was still leather bound. Then, right in front of her
eyes, the cover of the book shifted back into the
algebra textbook as Molly placed it back in her
backpack.
She sighed and rubbed her forehead with her hand.
This whole case was getting too weird, from Mulder and
Alec's likeness to seeing things that weren't really
there (or so she thought).
"Hey Scully, you feeling okay?" Mulder questioned,
concern in his eyes.
"Yeah, just a headache." Out of the corner of
her eye, she saw Molly slip off to the bathroom, and
in a split second decided it would be the perfect time
to question her in private. "I'll be right back,
Mulder. I'm just going to go take some aspirin."
"Okay," Mulder said, relaxing.
Scully walked off to the ladies', an itch forming
in her head to find out what exactly Molly Addison was
hiding.
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END OF PART THREE-Dragons and High School Magic
(
geocities.com/rhiaramsay)