Grotesque

At George Washington University, a group of artists paint from a sitter. One of the artists, an emigrant from Uzbekistan John Mostov, draws a demonic creature. After the sitter's lesson, an unknown person attacks in an alley. The next morning, Mostov is arrested by FBI agents led by bill Patterson, who finds a bloodied knife with a retractable replacement blade among Mostov's belongings.

Mostov, who has already been subjected to compulsory medical measures at home, is accused of seven murders. Mostov himself claims that the murders were committed not by him, but by the devil. His statements have already been indirectly confirmed: after Mostov was taken into custody, another murder with a similar handwriting occurred. Mostov draws a gargoyle, claiming that this is the creature that commits the murders.

Agents Mulder and Scully meet with bill Patterson, who has been working on the Mostov case for three years. Patterson was previously Mulder's instructor at the FBI Academy, and is skeptical of the latter's theories. Mulder and Scully search Mostov's Studio, where they find bodies mutilated by a knife in a secret room in clay sculptures of gargoyles.

A glassblower at a factory is attacked. Patterson's partner, Nemhauser, informs Scully that Patterson, despite his vitriolic comments about Mulder, personally requested that he be assigned to this investigation. At this time, Patterson makes a mockery of Mulder in the library, where he studies the literature on the gargoyles. Scully goes to Mulder's apartment and finds it covered in gargoyle drawings. Mulder goes to Mostov's Studio, where he makes a gargoyle sculpture out of clay, and then falls asleep. Suddenly, the agent wakes up, feeling someone's presence nearby. The man with the gargoyle face, who was two steps away, runs away. Mulder chases him, but the fugitive jumps around the corner, attacks the agent with a knife and wounds his face. Mulder doesn't tell Scully what he was doing at Mostov's Studio, and visits Mostov in prison. The prisoner refuses to explain to the agent how to find the creature that attacked Mulder. Enraged, Mulder punches Mostov, to which Mostov replies that the creature may have found Mulder by itself.

Scully discovers a knife blade at the crime scene, and finds out that it was issued by Mulder from the evidence warehouse. In Skinner's office, Scully shares her concerns about Mulder's state of mind with her boss. When she gets home, she finds a half-finished message from Nemhauser on her answering machine, asking her to call him back. Mulder wakes up from a nightmare in the middle of the night and drives to Mostov's Studio, where he finds a severed hand. Scully calls Nemhauser, but the call is answered by Mulder, who found the phone in Mostov's Studio. Immediately after, Mulder finds Nemhauser's mutilated corpse inside a fresh clay sculpture, and Patterson appears behind the agent, who does not remember how he ended up in the Studio. Mulder realizes that Patterson was so intent on catching Mostov that he turned into a killer himself. After a brief chase, Mulder manages to injure and arrest Patterson. Two weeks later, Patterson vainly shouts from a solitary cell that he did not kill anyone, and in the back of the cell, on the wall, a gargoyle is drawn in blood