In retrospect, it was one of the worst things he's ever done; he went in unprepared and only barely survived to tell the tale. But back then - and even now - the fact that he did survive means it was fine, basically. Not his worse experience tracking down serial killers by any means.

"The Major was following deaths of adults - cases that had been ruled accidents and suicides, mostly. There were arrows near them all, and there was reason to believe they might have been the sources of all the hand-carved arrows left with the children." They had fit together in his mind, perhaps inevitably. "We thought there was an occult angle - and so did the cops. Serial killers were everywhere, and ritual murders like these had to have to do with cults, or sacrifices, or Satan."

Mulder laughs a little at the memory. Idly, he reaches over to pull a hanging thread from her collar. "You know what the 80s were like - and we were right on the cusp of them. Preschools were about to be turned upside-down with claims of Satanism. So we found a New Age shop in Maryland - for research purposes - and it turned out our killer had been there, too. He got some of his symbolism from their chaos magic group,and we managed to pull his name and address out of their records. After that, it was a piece of cake - up until he caught me in his living room, anyway."