Of Fever and Blood

by Cédric Sire

  “No!” the woman screams behind her. “Come back!”

  Eva hoists herself up each step.

  When she was six, she had crawled up the steps the same way.

  The steps were so high.

  But she climbed them all.

  Toward the door that led out of there.

  Toward life.

  That’s what she is doing again.

  And the steps are just as high.

  She’s going up yet again.

  One step.

  After the other.

  All the way to the top.

  Surrounded by the heavy buzzing that will not leave her alone.

  Behind her, the woman’s cries turn into beast-like howls and then into barks.

  76

  The front door. The key is in the lock. Eva grabs it feverishly and turns it. The door opens into the night. She sees a small garden with well-tended trees. Behind the hedge, there’s a street lined with suburban houses. Street lamps flood them with light.

  Eva makes her way across this garden, dazed, naked, numb from the cold. She grabs the gate, gropes to open it, and when it does, she almost falls to the ground. Eva staggers onto the sidewalk. She sees a lamppost a couple of feet away. If she can reach it, she can rest for a few seconds.

  She miscalculates and falls into an icy puddle.

  Pain shoots though her body.

  She knows she must get hold of herself.

  Right now.

  Stunned and shaking, she calls out for help. But as though she were in a dream, only breath escapes her tight throat. She tries to force a sound from her chest. A small grunt gathers momentum and emerges as a deep, moan.

  “Help!”

  A sound is coming from the house behind her. She is unable to turn around. All she can do is muster the last of her strength.

  “HELP!”

  Finally, a light comes on in the house next to her. She can see the drapes being pushed aside and a man pressing his face at the picture window.

  “Help me!” she screams. “Help!”

  She is so weak, she can’t even raise a hand toward him.

  She breaks into a coughing fit.

  That is when she hears the growl.

  The sound of an unearthly beast.

  Glancing back, she can see it. The wolf. In the driveway of the house she has just left. The animal is crouched, legs flexed, ready to lunge. A black wolf that isn’t a wolf. A look of red flames that is not the look of any creature from this world.

  And suddenly she recognizes him in that shape of an impossible animal, in that look filled with cruelty.

  “Claude?”

  Eva swallows. The black beast lowers its head. Its hungry eyes stare at her. And in the flames of those eyes dance images from the past. One year earlier, the madman had sent her the same look.

  “Claude Salaville?”

  The beast bares its fangs in a parody of a smile.

  You can’t do nothing against us, bitch.

  Its chest is close to the ground. The animal is ready to spring at her.

  “Leave her alone,” a little girl’s voice orders.

  And Eva feels the small hand resting on the nape of her neck.

  “Run. Quick.”

  “But…”

  “You have seen. Now you know. The souls must be freed,” Justyna says.

  Eva is unable to respond. The world is spinning around her. She senses that lights have gone on in other windows along the street. A door opens. A man has come out on his front steps. Maybe.

  The little girl with white hair walks away from her and toward the black beast with the eyes of red lava.

  “No, don’t,” Eva stutters. “You can’t do anything… against him.”

  Justyna keeps walking.

  And the monstrous animal leaps out, its jaws open wide, and engulfs her in a mass of fur.

  Eva begins to scream.

  The beast snaps the little girl in two. Then the girl and beast intertwine and merge. The world spins faster and faster.

  “Miss? Miss? Oh my God!” someone cries.

  “Call for help! Hurry!” someone else shouts.

  Eva can feel the blood leaving her body.

  There is no more trace of her ghost sister, nor of the wolf that was not a wolf. She is lying naked on the wet sidewalk. And as more people come out of their houses and gather around her, she passes out.

  77

  Tuesday, dawn

  The first light of day in the frost-coated countryside gave the dozen or so police vehicles parked around the Saint-Clair house a bluish tinge. The entire Rodez force had come out, and the officers were standing dumbstruck, their faces red from the cold and their eyes wide, not knowing what to do. One of them, unable to stand it any longer, laid blankets over the mutilated bodies of his colleagues. Then others, finally coming to their senses, began to secure the perimeter. Another officer resolved to bring out the yellow evidence markers, not knowing where to start. A female procedural officer turned on a camera to start making a video of the crime scene.

  They were still numb, but their hesitation would not last. They were familiar with the dance. Already, the pace was picking up. Finding their footing on the rocky soil beneath the tall grass, the dancers were becoming more confident. They would soon find the rhythm, frantic and reassuring, of the anthill. Vauvert had no doubt about it.

  The only difference was that this time he was not part of it.

  This time, he was sitting in the back of a van.

  He had been confined there with Leroy and forbidden to go anywhere. He was not really considered a criminal—at least not at this point—but in the eyes of the local force, he certainly was not a colleague.

  It was the first time he had been in this kind of situation, and he did not like it one bit.

  He gestured at a young officer as the man walked by.

  “Excuse me. Do you know where Captain Nadal…”

  The officer kept on going without talking to him, without even looking at him.

  “…is?” Vauvert finished, clenching his fists.

  He was itching to hurl insults, but he had gambled enough with his luck. He had no doubt that these men would make things way worse for him if he opened his big mouth. Instead, he fished a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and lit one. He took a long, burning drag that warmed him a little, then exhaled the smoke through his nose.

  Beside him, Leroy sat waiting, his phone against his ear.

  “Did you finally get a signal?”

  “Yep. The connection sucks, but if I don’t move, it works.” He abruptly changed his tone. “Ah, boss? Yes, yes, this is Erwan speaking.”

  Even from across the van, Vauvert could hear Ô screaming.

  “Yes, boss, I know… I can explain everything… Detective Vauvert was right… We’ve IDed the killer… We’re at her house in the Aveyron area.”

  Vauvert decided to leave the man alone while he explained the situation to his superior. He slipped out of the van and took a few steps in the grass glittering with frost. Now that the sun was rising, the sight of the blue mountains and fir trees was idyllic. A thin layer of fog hovered in wisps over the countryside.

  Only the wizened old sheepfold house, with its thick walls of black volcanic stones, marred the landscape. It was a stain on this country field.

  Stoic officers left the house, one after the other, carrying black plastic bags.

  “I thought I ordered you to stay in the van!” Nadal shouted.

  The captain was coming his way. His face was pallid, and his eyes were bloodshot.

  “Don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere,” Vauvert said, trying to calm things down. He pointed his chin at the plastic bags. It was a question.

  “In the back of the house, we found…” Nadal got hold of himself. “For heaven’s sake, there was another room where we found more remains. There have to be twenty corpses tossed like garbage in the back of that house. I’ve never seen anything so fucking disgusting in my entire
life.” He looked lost. He shot Vauvert a wary look. “I don’t know how the hell it happened, but we were victims of a collective hallucination. The shadows, the darkness… We thought we saw things.”

  Vauvert shrugged. “Whatever you say.”

  Nadal cleared his throat.

  “I know you think I’m some dumb country bumpkin, Vauvert. But that’s what you and me are going to write in the report and nothing else. You hear me?” He watched his men come and go, collecting evidence. The truck from the morgue had finally arrived. “You think you’re so good? And now look at the fucking result! Two of my men are dead because you forced us to come here instead of sticking to procedure. No one will ever cover your ass for such a thing.”

  Vauvert understood that full well. He was aware of what he had done and the trouble he was in. But he also knew that if he had surrendered right away, none of the local men would have lifted a finger to check his story. These very same guys had not even tried to investigate the missing girls three years ago.

  Meanwhile, he still did not know where Eva was or even whether she was still alive.

  Vauvert was spared any more grief from Nadal when Leroy called to the captain from the van.

  “Captain Nadal! I have Unit Chief Ô, from Homicide in Paris, on the phone. He would like to talk to you. But if I move, I might lose the connection.”

  “I’m coming,” Nadal grumbled, walking to him.

  Leroy handed him the phone and took the opportunity to join Vauvert.

  “How is he taking it?” Vauvert asked as he flicked his butt into the damp grass and lit another cigarette.

  “The boss? He’s on our side,” Leroy assured. “He’s going to take care of everything. There’s no way we get away without sanctions, but as we speak he’s giving orders to our friend here to let us get back to Paris.”

  “Good.” He pointed to the officers working the crime scene. They were shooting them looks brimming with anger. “I’d rather not be stuck too long in the hands of these guys. If they had half the chance to lynch us, they would do it without thinking twice.”

  “But there’s something else,” Leroy added, his voice hesitant. “Eva.”

  Vauvert turned toward him with an anxiety-filled look.

  “What about Eva?”

  “She’s alive,” Leroy hastened to say. “She fought with Saint-Clair and managed to get away. She got away, okay?”

  Vauvert threw his head back and let out a long sigh.

  “Thank God. Thank you.”

  “They just got her to the hospital,” Leroy said. “She’s lost a lot of blood, and she’s been cut badly, but she’s okay.”

  “What about Saint-Clair?”

  “Not a trace. They think that Eva wounded her pretty seriously, but she’s still at large.”

  VI

  THE SCARLET FEAST

  78

  “Eva?”

  The voice was coming to her from far, far away.

  “Can you hear me?”

  Eva opened her eyes.

  The light was too bright and too white. Little by little, the world came into focus. She realized that she was lying in stiff bedsheets. She recognized the smell of hospital disinfectant.

  She tried to weave through the holes in her memory.

  She had no recollection whatsoever of having been brought here.

  Squinting in the blinding light, she tried to identify the various shapes in her room. She finally recognized the massive figure sitting next to her bed. Unshaven, hair unruly, eyes anxious.

  “Eva?” Vauvert said again.

  He was holding her hand in his, which was shaking a little. As her vision became clearer, she took in his misshapen nose, the line of his jaw, the sharp angles of his face.

  He was smiling at her. And in his eyes, she could see undeniable relief

  “I’m so happy to see you again,” he whispered, in an unsteady voice.

  “And you’re crushing my hand,” Eva grunted.

  He let go of it immediately, looking sheepish.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I’m happy to see you, too. Even under the circumstances.”

  She broke into a coughing fit. The world shook a little before settling down again.

  Only then did she notice Leroy. He must have been sitting in the other chair. He rose to his feet, looking shy, and came closer. He too had shadows under his eyes and wore a smile that radiated relief.

  “Welcome back to us, tough girl.”

  “What did you expect?” Eva kidded, her voice weak. “As for you, kid, you look like hell.”

  “For a guy who hasn’t slept in three days, I think I’m pretty damned handsome,” he snapped back with his usual aplomb. He ran a hand through his blond hair, making it neat again. “Is that better?”

  This made Eva smile.

  “No excuses. It’s not like you got butchered by some crazy bitch.”

  She glanced around at the room. Small, bathed in light. Everything she hated. Through the window, all there was to see was a slice of grayish fog.

  “Where am I? Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital?”

  “That’s right.”

  “What’s today?”

  “Wednesday. You got here early yesterday morning. You lost a lot of blood, but the docs got you patched up pretty good.”

  “I feel funny.”

  “It’s the morphine,” Leroy said. “You’re pumped full of drugs.”

  Eva shot him a smirk.

  “Finally, some good news.”

  The events of the past few days were still a blur in her mind.

  Of course, some things she could remember. Her wrists still bore the marks of the ropes that held her down for almost two days. And she remembered the unbearable pain of the scalpel sinking into her flesh.

  But not much beyond that.

  She tried to recall the details. Impossible. Her mind had built a new wall to protect her. But against what?

  She changed the subject.

  “And what about you two? You been here long?”

  “We just arrived an hour ago,” Leroy said. “We were, well,” he said, and opted to evade. “We had a couple of administrative issues to take care of down south. The last forty-eight hours haven’t been quite a picnic for us either. Thankfully, the boss made sure we could get back right away, and let me tell you, he got us out of a fairly major jam.”

  “Rudy always does that,” Eva said. “He puts on a show, but he loves us.” She paused before adding, “You guys saved my life. Thank you.”

  “We didn’t do a thing,” Leroy assured her. “You got out of it all by yourself, like a big girl.”

  Eva knew it wasn’t true.

  It was all coming back to her.

  She remembered the mask hovering over her.

  That mask that had become like a mirror. She remembered it very well now. Her tormentor had gone into some kind of trance. And that is what saved her.

  “I saw you. Both of you. It’s thanks to you that I could escape.”

  “We were down in Aveyron,” Vauvert told her.

  “Maybe, but I still saw you guys. I don’t know how, but the fact remains, I saw you both in the mask that mad bitch wore.”

  Vauvert and Leroy frowned.

  “You were in her house,” Eva continued, digging into her memory. “That’s what happened, right?”

  “Well, yes, that’s true,” Leroy admitted. “But it was…”

  “There were mirrors. You fired at them. That’s what wounded her. I don’t know how it happened, but she was connected to the mirrors. When you shot at them, you actually hit her.”

  The two men didn’t know what to say and didn’t want to contradict her.

  As for Eva, she tried to remember the rest. Jumbled images were coming back to her. She could recall reaching the door. She remembered a garden. She remembered crossing it, heading for the gate.

  “What is…”

  She swallowed hard. Yes, she had reached the gate, and she had
opened it. In her mind’s eye, she could see the little albino girl by her side, her ghost sister who watched over her. And suddenly, she remembered the black wolf that appeared in the driveway. The wolf that crushed the little girl in its jaws.

  A violent shiver ran through her body.

  “Are you okay?” Leroy asked.

  Eva nodded with difficulty.

  “Yes. I’m fine. I just wanted to know, who found me?”

  “You were calling out for help on the sidewalk. A whole bunch of people from the neighborhood came out. You don’t remember? You were covered with blood, and not only yours. Looks like you gave that crazy bitch one hell of bad time.”

  That crazy bitch. Yes, that crazy fucking bitch with the mask who held her captive in the basement of that house. She had tied her down on a table and cut her open, as she had the previous victims.

  That woman who had wound up seized with spasms like a feverish beast on the basement floor.

  She remembered very well now.

  “She was so old.”

  The images were coming back. Streams of images. The world started to spin.

  “She has a form of progeria,” Leroy said. “It’s a disease that makes you age prematurely.”

  “No, that’s not it. She was sick. That’s why she was wearing a mask. At the beginning, you could tell she was kind of old. But when you shot up the mirrors, that’s when she really started to age.” Eva looked at her hands. “Her nails were growing. Like claws.”

  “Are you sure?” Leroy asked.

  “I’m positive. And…”

  More images.

  “I killed her.”

  Leroy drew closer, looking like he had not heard her correctly.

  “Can you say that again?”

  “I killed her,” Eva whispered.

  The scene was crystal clear in her head.

  “I killed her with my own hands. I remember perfectly. You guys barging into her house threw her into a fit. She was in some sort of trance. I took advantage of it to free myself. I stabbed her.”

  Leroy knit his brow.

  “You’re sure you didn’t dream this?” Vauvert suggested.