First Blood

by S. Cedric

  None of them had returned in the past twenty-five years. It looked like the chapel had not changed. It could have been frozen in time. Maybe that was the case. This isolated spot was so hard to get to and seemed to protect itself from intruders.

  The magic was still powerful.

  These old stones had bathed in their impious rituals. They had witnessed real power. Yes, these ruins had seen their secret faces, their hidden vices—and their weaknesses. Those of all five of them.

  She breathed in the icy air, holding the pickaxe with dwindling self-assurance.

  The relics of their youth lay in this place.

  She felt it in her blood. She felt the presence, intact. Waiting.

  Behind the altar. In the tomb. Where they had buried it.

  Loisel caught up with her, looking as beaten-down as ever. He leaned against the stone archway and started coughing. He spit reddish bile on the pure snow.

  “Good God, I can’t believe we are back here,” he said.

  “It feels like yesterday,” Madeleine replied, fascinated in the absolute silence of the place.

  Loisel coughed again, harder this time.

  “We met here so many times,” he said.

  “For five years,” Madeleine added.

  “We woke the forces lying dormant behind the veil.”

  “And we are going to do it again,” she said.

  She advanced into the ruins, dragging the pickaxe behind her.

  Her boots sank into the snow.

  Loisel, pale, limped behind her.

  The bones of their victims had to be here, buried somewhere under the snow. Madeleine remembered slitting the dog’s throat on the altar. That stupid little poodle. She had pulled out its guts with her bare hands in front of the others and in front of the gods.

  The cross she had urinated on and broken into pieces had to be somewhere, too.

  She shivered at these memories.

  Doing all those things had given her such a feeling of power.

  Illusions.

  She walked over to the altar and brushed it off. Freed of its blanket of snow, it had not changed much over the years, either.

  Their sacrificial altar was intact.

  “It happened here,” she said.

  Memories—so many memories—came back. Five years of her life. Five crazy years, full of taboos they had systematically transgressed. Together, they had pushed the limits. They had tasted blasphemy and had experienced the devouring desire to walk with it.

  When they had found this place, they had uncovered an ancient altarpiece in the rudimentary tomb behind the stone altar. They had divided it among themselves. It was a game. Maybe superstition or simply fascination. The panel—actually, it was half a panel—represented the Last Judgment. Madeleine was the first to find it ironic and a sign of encouragement. That was the day they decided to return here to continue their initiation, their training, and, little by little, to start spilling blood.

  “The red magic,” Loisel said. “Our pact.”

  “Our relic.”

  Madeleine stepped behind the altar and into the remains of the apse. She dug around in the snow with her boots.

  “It was here. Somewhere over here. There.”

  She knelt and plunged her arms into the snow. She felt around. After a few minutes, her hands brushed a hard, rough surface. She knew she had found it. She scooped up the snow in heaps and threw it behind her. Finally, she uncovered the gray cement that had been poured here to close up the pit, once and for all.

  “The cement hasn’t been touched,” she said, brushing it off with her arm. “Look.”

  Loisel sat on the altar.

  “Don’t be crazy,” he begged. “If we use the magic, he’ll be here right away. Especially here. It will be our death sentence.”

  “Why do you think I brought the pickaxe?”

  He looked at her wide-eyed.

  “Do you realize how deep you’ll have to dig? We used two bags of cement.”

  “I’m not going to do it alone. You’re going to help me.”

  “I don’t have the energy for that, Madeleine. You know it.”

  “You might die doing it, but you’re going to dig.”

  Loisel threw his head back and breathed out, making steam.

  “Bitch,” he said. “You’re such a bitch.”

  Madeleine grabbed the pickaxe with both hands.

  “I’ll start.”

  “Even if we manage to get it out of there, we don’t know what will happen,” Loisel said.

  The woman in the fur did not answer. She lifted the pickaxe and brought it down on the cement. The impact was violent. But if it had caused any damage at all to the cement slab, it couldn’t be seen.

  Pierre Loisel sighed and said nothing more.

  He watched as she lifted the tool again and brought it down with a hoarse, determined grunt. She struck again. And again. Madeleine had always had unbelievable discipline. She continued to beat down on the slab, breaking off small fragments. A little more with each swing.

  Yes, it would take a long time.

  They had filled the whole pit with cement so that nobody could exhume the relic.

  How ironic.

  Loisel closed his eyes.

  He asked himself if he would have the strength when it was his turn to dig.

  63

  Rodez

  The autopsy room looked like all other autopsy rooms. The floor and the walls were tiled. There were rectangular metal tables equipped with sinks, lined up workspaces, and tools of torture. And there was the characteristic pestilential smell that was so hard to mask and impossible to chase away—the odor of death.

  An employee dressed in rubber boots and a long green smock was washing away fluids that had dripped on the floor during the previous autopsy. A police officer handed them a sealed bag. The man’s face was wrinkled with age, and an impressive gray mustache spilled out from under his mask. He seemed to be terribly uncomfortable.

  “We found that in the grave,” he explained. His voice was hoarse. “It was put there with the kid.”

  Eva was wearing bright blue latex gloves. She took the bag carefully.

  “It’s just a piece of painted wood,” the officer added. “It looks like a religious painting.”

  “True enough,” Eva said. “It comes from an altarpiece.”

  She examined the black and gilded rectangle through the plastic. There were flames and horns. The damned were screaming just before being devoured by a bright red devil with long teeth.

  Another fragment from a religious panel.

  It clearly had come from the same piece that had been found in Constantin’s freezer.

  Why was that?

  She turned the bag over. As she had expected, this piece appeared to go with the other one. She could read the word “Jean,” followed by letters that were hard to make out--maybe a “d” and a “u.”

  “It represents the Revelation of Saint James,” she said aloud. The Last Judgment.

  This piece of wood fascinated her. It was a lead that had to be important. And at the same time, it was very frustrating. She felt like she was holding a key, but she did not know what lock it fit. She looked at the police officer.

  “Have you looked for prints?”

  “What do you think—that we’re country bumpkins?” the man asked. “There was nothing on that thing.”

  “Okay. There’s no sense getting so worked up,” she said.

  The officer grumbled and closed up like a clam.

  The doctor was bearded and well built. He announced his name, David Calmejane, when he came into the room to do the post-mortem.

  Eva prepared for the worst.

  She looked at the dissection table when Calmejane lifted the plastic cover revealing Madeleine Reich’s baby. It was a tiny caved-in shape, a grimacing skull beneath a veil of dried skin.

  She breathed through her mouth, slowly, and moved closer.

  She tried to detach from the scene. T
he scalpel running across the gray skin. The baby’s body. An innocent creature. It was more than she could take.

  “I can confirm that this was not a stillbirth,” the doctor announced. “The umbilical cord was cut ante-mortem. This baby appears to have lived for several days. The cause of death is far from being natural.”

  Doctor Calmejane had long spidery fingers. Yet he touched the human remains with a visible gentleness.

  “Its throat, chest, and lower-left temporal region have been perforated several times by a sharp object. There is no sense taking imprints after fifteen years of decomposition, but I would bet on a knife or an ice pick.

  Eva did not say anything. It only confirmed what she thought.

  She stayed in her bubble, detached. She analyzed the information.

  Vauvert stood next to her, leaning forward. He did not betray any signs of emotion, but she knew him and recognized that he was deeply affected by this procedure.

  “Are all of the injuries on the left side?”

  “Yes, indeed,” the doctor said. “The person who killed this child held the weapon in his or her right hand. They struck from up high, like this.”

  He lifted his arm and mimicked the attack. Five successive blows. The baby probably died with the first. But the blade came down four more times.

  Vauvert turned to his colleague. She nodded. The other baby had been killed by a left-handed person. This one—this girl—had been killed by a right-handed person.

  “It’s her,” Eva said. “It has to be her.”

  “Is there anything more we can learn from the body?” Vauvert asked.

  “In the state it is in, I don’t think so. I’ll do a tox screen.”

  “Is there any indication that this could have been some kind of ritual?”

  “A ritual? What are you talking about?” Calmejane asked.

  He looked at the plastic evidence bag containing the fragment of the painting. The shiny black and gold depiction of the Last Judgment. “Is this some devil-worship thing? Is that why there was something in the grave?”

  “What if that were the case?”

  “Okay, let me look.”

  The doctor first examined the brain and then carefully removed the internal organs from the tiny body.

  Eva looked over at the police officer. She noted that he had stepped back, and his eyes were shut. It looked like he was going to faint.

  “No, there’s nothing we can use,” Calmejane said. “I’m sorry I can’t be of more help. The body has decomposed too much. We will have to analyze the clothing fragments. I have already sent them to the lab.

  He lowered his green mask and looked powerless.

  “Seriously, what is the world coming to? Don’t you agree, Bertand?”

  The mustached police officer nodded before he left the room, as white as a sheet. He was staggering, and Eva feared he would collapse in the hallway.

  “Don’t judge him too harshly,” Calmejane said. “Bertrand is a little sensitive. We had a bad case here not so long ago, a real serial killer using diabolical rituals and the whole nine yards. Bertrand’s brother-in-law was decapitated at the crazy murderer’s place.”

  “Oh,” Vauvert said.

  “Can you even imagine that?” the doctor asked.

  Vauvert smiled politely. He certainly could imagine it; he had seen it with his own eyes. The events were a little more complicated than that. But the doctor did not need to know.

  “Yep, what is this world coming to? Thank you for your help, Doctor Calmejane.”

  64

  The crack widened every time the pickaxe came down.

  Madeleine was showing signs of fatigue. When the pickaxe got stuck in the cement, she was panting like a draft horse. She twisted it left and right, but it refused to budge.

  “Piece of crap.”

  The man sniggered. He was sitting in the snow, propped against a stone block that was shielding him from the icy wind. He had lit a fire, but the flames provided no real warmth. He continually worked his hands through his beard to remove the ice crystals that kept forming.

  “I told you. We’ll never, ever get through.”

  “SHUT UP!” she shouted.

  Her big fur coat was now spotted not only with blood, but also with mud and slivers of concrete. She looked like a beggar who had happened upon a trophy in a rich woman’s trash or maybe some terrible goddess disguised in the body of a whore. Her blond hair had once been so silky. Now it was sticky with sweat, which streamed down her slashed cheeks.

  Loisel looked down, trying to avoid her eyes, and shivered.

  “It’s your turn,” she announced. “Since you find it so funny, you’ll keep going.”

  She managed to extricate the pickaxe and heaved it in his direction. The handle struck Loisel on the head.

  “Bitch.”

  “Stand up and dig,” she ordered. “It’ll warm you up.”

  He had no choice but to obey.

  The pickaxe was heavy. He lifted it and brought it down on the cement that Madeleine had already dug into. Another piece broke off.

  “Apply yourself,” Madeleine said, crouching near the fire.

  Loisel clenched his jaw.

  “If I get out of here alive, I swear I’ll kill you,” he said, the hate gleaming in his eyes.

  He started pounding on the cement again.

  65

  Their cigarettes crackled. They said nothing.

  Their thick leather jackets were pulled tight around them to protect them against the wind. Neither of the two police inspectors managed to say anything. They needed time to assimilate the autopsy and chase away the images of baby flesh.

  At least they had official confirmation that the child had been murdered. A human sacrifice. They were all sacrificed.

  They contemplated the hilly landscape that surrounded the morgue. They could see the snow-covered rooftops of Rodez on the hill in front of them. The motionless sky was growing darker.

  “Okay,” Vauvert said, exhaling.

  “Okay,” Eva said, imitating him.

  They went silent again. They continued smoking. Here and there, the city’s lights began to sparkle as night fell.

  Vauvert spoke first. He threw the glowing cigarette butt into the snow and asked, “What’s all this about the painting of the Last Judgment?”

  “We think the painting comes from an altarpiece. It represents the Apocalypse. Many churches had them during the Middle Ages.”

  “And that woman put it with her kid after sacrificing her. Why?”

  “I don’t know why, but it is not the first fragment of the painting we have found. There was another one next to Constantin’s child.”

  Eva flicked her cigarette butt away.

  “I’ll explain it in the car.”

  They climbed into the Audi. She turned it on to start the heat. Then she told him about finding the piece of wood in Constantin’s freezer and what Perrine Alazard had dug up about it.

  “Do you think these pieces are from a church that still exists?” Vauvert asked.

  “I don’t have any idea. I thought it was a kind of souvenir from some ritual, but that doesn’t get us very far.

  She took her phone out and pulled up a number of pictures.

  “I took a picture of the first fragment. This is what it looks like.”

  He leaned over to get a closer look at the screen, where there was half of the devil’s profile.

  “If I understand correctly, we have two pieces of the same puzzle.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Don’t you think we’ll find others with the other sacrificed babies?”

  “It’s very possible,” Eva said. “But I’m not sure about anything in this case anymore.”

  “We’ll have to check,” Vauvert replied. “In the meantime, we already have two pieces. Do they fit together?”

  “I think so. Wait.”

  She set the sealed evidence bag on her knee and carefully snapped shots of the piece of wood with
her phone. She repeated the operation on the other side, until she had the whole thing. She made sure the photos were clear enough, and then she opened a photo editor so she could fit the two together.

  Vauvert watched her, fascinated.

  With her finger, she moved the first picture, the one found at Constantin’s, bringing it alongside the second. The two fit together perfectly.

  “Seeing something like that, I don’t want to be around for the end of the world,” Vauvert said.

  Eva smiled. They now had the devil’s whole head, which was terrifying in its Medieval naiveté. The crimson-skinned creature was devouring a damned soul. It brandished a pitchfork, with people impaled on its tines.

  She saved the combined picture and opened the back-side pictures. After the same manipulation, she was able to see the full panel. The back was gilded, with the exception of an inscription that was now legible. It read, “SAINT JEAN DU.”

  Eva chewed her lip, tortured with frustration. She still did not understand where this was leading. But she was sure it was key information.

  “Saint Jean, Saint John,” Vauvert said, thinking out loud. “The Last Judgment. The Revelation of Saint John. Aren’t they the same thing?”

  “Yes. It’s in the New Testament. It describes the end of humanity. But this inscription must mean something else.”

  “Like what?”

  She slid her phone back into her pocket and fiddled with her glasses.

  “Maybe it refers to the patron saint of a church. That would explain why it is inscribed on the altarpiece.”

  “That’s pretty smart. So we could try to find that church, right?”

  Eva took a minute to think.

  “Yes, except we can’t, Alex. Not like that. There are thousands of churches dedicated to Saint John. It’s impossible to guess what the rest of the name is from the pieces of the puzzle we have.”

  “We need the other pieces.”

  “Exactly.”

  Vauvert leaned back in his seat.

  “So we don’t have a choice.” He sighed. “We need to exhume the other kids as quickly as possible.”

  “Guillaume Alban’s kid is buried in Nancy,” Eva said. “But I doubt the guy was able to put anything in the grave, since he was arrested immediately after he threw the girl off the balcony. He was already behind bars when she was buried.”