Cecil L'Ively (played by Mark Sheppard) is a British national with pyrokinesis, the ability to control fire. Deeply psychopathic, he used this ability to murder several important dignitaries in England, as well to commit arson for thrill, once setting Windsor Castle ablaze in 1992. Scotland Yard, who presumed the IRA to be the probable culprit, once questioned him in connection with the death of one of his employers, but he was released due to lack of evidence. He was ultimately defeated by FBI agents Mulder and Scully with assistance from Phoebe Green.
The killings were motivated by a sort of erotomania, with a fixation on unattainable women, which typically targeted the wives of high ranking men, typically aristocrats and/or politicians. He would first sent love letters to his object of obssession before insinuating himself into the lives of his victim and covertly stalking the wife, usually watching from afar while staying at their property as a groundskeeper or simply shadowing her. A few days later, he would then use his ability to kill either the man of the household or the entire family. This was due to his frustration from his inability to act or show his affection towards the object of his fixation in a healthy way. Scully's profile on the then-unidentified serial killer characterized him as "most likely a male, less than 25 years of age [who] will often act out of impulse, satisfying sexual urges or insecurities with destructive behavior, which compensates for his social inadequacies or maladjustment".
In 1993, after murdering the wealthy husband of a woman in Bosham, he became infatuated with the wife of Sir Malcolm Marsden. This time, however, he failed to kill Sir Malcolm when he manages to escape from his burning garage, causing the Marsdens to temporarily relocate the United States for safety. L'Ively followed them to Massachussets and travelled to their new estate on Cape Code, where he meets with the unsuspecting family, impersonating Bob, the caretaker he had murdered before their arrival. In preparation for his act, he painted all the walls with flammable varnish and stepped in as the family's replacement chaffeur after their long-time driver got sick, implicitly after L'Ively spiked his cough syrup, later burning him to death.
During the episode Scully finds out that a person in the UK with this name has died two times under hot and strange circumstances. The first person was a kid that apparently was burned alive in the Toddingham Woods near Bath during a satanic ritual in 1963. The second person was a model citizen with no criminal record who died in 1971 in a terrible tenement fire in London.
He begins to grow increasingly reckless, blatantly showing off his powers to the Marsden sons as magic tricks and burning a local bar to the ground for kicks. In another foolhardy stunt during a party in Boston, he set the building's upper floor ablaze to stage a daring rescue of the children kept there, which earns him the praise of an unknowing Green. Finally, when his identity is discovered, he attempts to level the entire Marsden house with everyone in it, but is stopped when he is splashed with fuel, spontaneously combusting into flames shortly after in a maniacal fit.
In the end of the episode, it is shown that he survived with 5th to 6th degree burns and was sent to Boston Mercy Hospital for treatment. He was later transferred to a military hospital for special examination, due to his extraordinarily rapid cell regeneration, with a prognosis for full recovery within a month, and a recorded core temperature of 109 degree Fahrenheit. He is kept in hyperbaric chamber, away from any flammable material, until he is deemed fit to stand trial for his outstanding arson and multiple homicide charges, though it is still in question whether a facility exists that can confine him and his abilities. On asked how they can help him further, L'Ively responds to the nurse that he would die for a cigarette. (TXF: Fire)
Trivia[]
- L'Ively bears a lot of similarity to Darin Oswald (D.P.O.). Both were young, antisocial psychopaths with psychic elemental abilities, are implied to have been gained said powers through supernatural means and used them to go on killing sprees, which ended when they were subdued by the elements they controlled. Both also orchestrated life-threatening situations during which they saved the victim(s) for approval and harbored unrequited romantic feelings for the spouse of at least one of their targets.