by S. Cedric
He shook his head, observing the buried creature that was rising, dragging itself out of the earth and stones. A relic. A stolen soul.
“Idiot,” he whispered.
The creature rose to its feet, and he saw it was a dog, or at least what was once a dog. But this was not the ridiculous poodle Madeleine had sacrificed. Louis knew what this dog was. It was the Doberman whose throat he had cut on the altar. Twenty-five years ago, the Doberman had been a puppy. Dragged from veil of death, the animal was now bigger—much, much bigger. It had had the time to grow, as had its anger and frustration. The dog’s ghost was now a river of hate raging toward the person who had sacrificed it.
Louis froze. His eyes narrowed into blood-red slits. His smile, however, did not vanish. He made a sign in the air and blew a spell off his fingers.
The creature opened its enormous fang-filled jaws, sticky with rot. It leaped at him.
In one smooth movement, Louis seized the creature’s throat. The animal screeched, sounding half dog, half human. It furiously clawed the air.
“Attack!” Madeline yelled. “Attack him! Take him away!”
The ghost could not. Held as it was by the throat, the dog could not bite Louis or free itself. Louis hoisted the dog higher, holding it effortlessly. The powerless creature’s eyes sparked with rage. Its powerful fangs grew and then grew some more. The flailing thing no longer looked like a dog, but instead like concentrated fury.
“Is that all you can do?” Louis asked disdainfully. He didn’t even look at Madeleine. “Resuscitating that poor thing? Its body grew, but its soul is still a puppy’s.”
Madeleine’s eyes rolled back. She gripped the edge of the altar, drawing up all the power she could from the ruins of the past. She continued reciting the hissing syllables of the sacred spells. She called up the most destructive powers they had awoken here all those years ago and pleaded with them to help her today, as they had before.
“Bou elai ve-eten lachem korban!” she shouted.
Louis moved toward her. The Doberman creature twisted and turned at the end of his arm, biting at the air with its oversized fangs.
“Atem asher shochvim ve-holmim al teshuka ve-nekama, hadlu lishon! Shimu le milotai ve-kumu! Shimu le milotai ve-avru et hareala. Shimu le milotai ve-hargu lemaani!”
A second dog and then a third rose from the snow, shaking off the rot and the mud before letting out wild howls and leaping on Louis.
The sorcerer used the dog he was holding as a shield. The freshly revived dogs dug their fangs into the Doberman’s flesh. Mad with rage, the Doberman struggled to bite them in turn. When Louis let it go, the three dogs continued to bite and claw at each other, letting out shrill howls as they grew more ferocious. They had forgotten their initial opponent. Fighting each other, they rolled in the snow and ran into the archway. That only intensified their fury. They dug their fangs into their own flesh, their rage increasing with each new injury.
The crows took flight and circled the dogs, encouraging them with high-pitched caws.
“Kill him! Kill him!” the birds seemed to croak.
Louis showed his pointy teeth. His red eyes shone.
“What a shame, my dear. Has your power diminished that much?”
But Madeleine was not ready to admit defeat.
She continued to recite her chants, gathering spells from the air in front of her.
“Madeleine,” Louis said, moving toward her. “Madeleine, Madeleine.”
A vibration shook the ground. It spread from the altar throughout the chapel. The flagstones under the snow cracked open, making a deafening noise.
Louis stopped, surprised by the violence.
Madeleine quickened the pace. The words spilled out like a giant, thundering waterfall. She was gripping the altar with both hands to keep herself from falling backward. Her back was arched at an inhuman angle. Her chest quaked, as if something alive were trying to break out. Light—the light of a hungry, black sun—spewed out of her open mouth.
“The blood of saints is powerful,” Louis said. “But I ate Guillaume’s and Ismael’s hearts. You cannot fight that force.”
A new vibration spread under his feet, and this time, the albino took a step back.
Something else—a much larger animal—had come to die here. And it was waking up.
The ground split, and an enormous fur-covered mound—the back of the creature—rose up through the snow. The creature’s legs were folded underneath its body. Finally, its head broke out of the frozen earth.
The creature, which had once been a stag, drew up its bristling antlers.
“Interesting, Madeleine.”
Roaring, the creature stood and charged him.
Louis stepped to one side, dodging the attack as skillfully as he had dodged the dogs’ assault. The monstrous antlers came within an inch of his jacket. Then the creature slipped and fell on its side, crushing the dogs. When it stood up, its mouth was foaming with rage, and steam was rising from its quivering body. The fire in its eyes was a whitish green, like fireflies or deep-sea flora. Under its muscles, its skeleton had the same phosphorescent glow.
It lowered its head, ready to charge again. Its antlers grew and bristled even more. Then it sprang toward Louis.
The man was ready. He held his arms out to meet the animal and recited a spell. His face was twisted in pleasure.
Matter and willpower came together as the animal crashed into the man.
Louis thrust his hand into the animal’s chest, piercing muscles and breaking bones, and grabbed its heart. He ripped out the organ in one clean movement.
The thing that had been a stag collapsed like a large pile of excrement.
Louis looked at the heart that continued to beat in his hand. It was a powerful striated muscle coated in black sticky matter still connecting it to the inert carcass. When the sorcerer pressed on it, the beating turned into bubbling, and thick tar oozed over Louis’s hand.
He turned around slowly.
“I believe the die is cast,” he whispered.
Madeleine was no longer behind the altar.
“That little bitch.”
He crossed the chancel and peered into the shadowy forest that spread beyond the ruins.
She had fled. The idiot still thought she could escape him. Louis roared, as the stag had. It was not husky, but shrill and reptilian, amplified by the emptiness. It echoed in the valley like a terrible omen.
Then he climbed over the wall—as silent as death—and started the hunt.
Nobody will ever be able to open the passage for him. You know that, right?
77
Vauvert gathered Eva’s things.
He tried to draw up a list of what she had brought with her and what she had left in the apartment.
First, her gun was missing. That was not surprising. He had never seen her go anywhere without it.
He did not find the picture of the students either. Nor did he find the evidence that they had picked up in Rodez, the piece of wood with the painting that represented the Last Judgment.
“Saint John, Saint Jean. Dammit. Saint Jean de what?”
He took a deep breath and waited for the pain in his ribs to subside.
He had to think quickly.
78
Louis’s roar ran through Madeleine like an icy wave, causing her to falter. She was trying hard to keep her balance. She knew that the slightest weakness now would be fatal.
She had to keep going, whatever it cost her. She could not give him the opportunity to catch her off guard with his spells.
She moved carefully over the slippery rocks. Skirting the ruins had been more difficult than she had imagined. Fortunately, she could see, thanks to the luminosity of the snow covering the peak.
Little by little, she descended the rocky terrain. She just had to find the path through the trees.
“You can run.” She heard Louis’s voice.
She trembled again. It was still as though he were whispering in her
ear.
“But you can’t hide.”
He was bluffing.
If he could have stopped her, he would have.
She quickened her pace, ignoring the bitter cold.
She weaved through the pine trees, all the while chanting. She recited an ancient protective rite to keep him from finding her. But her panic was winning. It was breaking her concentration. Her temples pounded. The blood of the saints had regenerated her and was shining in her veins now like rivers of diamonds, but that did not change anything. Louis was stronger. She thought about what he had said. He had eaten the hearts of two sorcerers, her blood brothers. She knew what that meant. It intensified his power. She was no match for him. Nobody could stop the kind of creature Louis had become.
Despair kept her running through the snow.
Where is that path? She had circled the peak, but could not find the route in the dark. Her car had to be somewhere below, behind the clump of black pines. She stumbled when she entered the stand of trees and scraped her shin against a rock. Everywhere, rocks were jutting out of the ground, like spiky traps. She knew her blood was sprinkling the snow. The tree branches grabbed her coat and clawed her eyes, but she continued feeling her way over the snow and through the trees.
Illusions.
She kept heading down the slope. If she kept going down, at some point she would find the road and her car.
She slipped several times. She felt more and more lost among inextricable branches, snow and fog. There was still no sign of the road.
He was gaining ground.
Then she felt him in the rustling of the pines. There was more movement around her. Suddenly, she heard the shrill cry of crows. They were circling above her, calling out, “Ma-de-leine! Ma-de-leine!”
“Leave me alone,” Madeleine said.
A hand grabbed her shoulder. She screamed and struggled to free herself. It was only a claw-like tree branch that had gotten caught on her coat. She managed to unsnag her coat but then banged into a rock and screamed, this time in pain.
“Ma-de-leine! Ma-de-leine!” the birds continued.
The branches attacked again, several at a time. They were like human arms, determined to grab her.
She took a step back, away from the tree. Madeleine did not see the limb unfolding behind her. It set its long spiny fingers on her right wrist, and Madeleine could not pull away quickly enough. The bough wrapped itself around her, trapping her.
She screamed and struggled. She tried to free herself with her other hand, but more branches reached out for her. One grabbed her left wrist.
“No. No.”
She pulled. She fought. In vain. The tree was too powerful. The branches tightened as she pulled at them.
Then they spread out, stretching Madeleine’s arms into a kind of cross.
Slowly, they raised her off the ground.
“You,” she said, feeling him come closer. “You.”
She took a deep breath of icy air and continued to chant. That was all she could do to save herself. She called for a final miracle, a last illusion.
“Shimu le koli adonei ha mavet vehazevuvim...adonei nekama shechorim...kaele hamilim.”
She had to succeed.
“Adonei ha tohuh vavohuh, banim shechorim ha darim be mamlechet ha mavet...Elohei hahashecha hameshabchim korbanot meratzon.”
When she felt the branch crawl up her back, slip through her hair and creep around her cheeks, she knew she would fail. There was no time left.
Offshoots crept between her lips, forcing her to open her mouth. They pushed and crowded their way down her throat. Although she could still breathe through her nose, she was unable to say a word.
Louis emerged from the trees and marched toward her.
“Everything comes to an end, Madeleine.”
Madeleine felt tears rolling down her cheeks. Twisting, convulsing pine needles filled her mouth. She was suffocating.
He neared the body crucified in the tree branches.
“We could have ruled the world.”
She tried to breathe. Lies. There was no power after the sacrifices, just more sacrifices. The branches were pulling her arms farther apart. If they continued, her arms would come out of their sockets.
All she could do was cry and wait for death to come from Louis.
The albino smiled. His fangs, filed down for the sole purpose of tearing human flesh, were terrifying.
“Don’t worry,” he said in his honey-like voice. “You will be the last. I want you to savor this right to the end.”
The branches tightened around her arms.
He vanished for what seemed like an eternity but was really just a few minutes.
Then he reappeared.
Madeleine saw that he was carrying a can. Gas.
He set it in the snow. With his other hand, he lifted a bag. She knew what it held. Salt, the other essential element of an exorcism.
She was gasping for breath.
“Isn’t it ironic?” Louis said. “When you banished me, you did not have the courage to carry the rite all the way through. You acted like beginners and cowards, exactly like I said you would.”
The crows chattered with excitement, hungry for the flesh of the next victim.
“I will not make the same mistake with you.”
He had the glow of depraved joy.
79
Detective Damien Mira picked up after two rings.
“Alex? Is something wrong?”
“I don’t really know,” Vauvert began. He sounded anxious. “I have a bad feeling. Did Eva Svärta stop at headquarters tonight by any chance?”
He was praying that his colleague would say yes and hand the telephone to her, and she would say that it was nothing, that there was an explanation.”
“Uh, no,” Mira said. “I didn’t see her.”
“Are you sure?”
“I just got back from the coffee machine. I tell you, there is nobody here but the night team.”
Vauvert clenched his jaw.
“Shit. Shit, and shit.”
“What’s going on?”
“I think she’s in danger. Oh, dammit, I know that she is in danger. But she won’t answer her damned phone. I don’t know what to do!”
“Alex, calm down,” his colleague said. “Could it have anything to do with the email I sent her?”
Alex froze.
“What fucking email?”
“The same one I sent you. The court order to open that tomb.”
He had totally forgotten.
“Has it been done already?”
“That’s what I was saying,” Mira said, with a sigh. “Thibaut worked overtime for you. He’s the one who got stuck with it. Let me tell you, I’ve never seen something like this done so quickly. You’ll have to tell me how you did it.”
Vauvert was not listening anymore. He had rushed to his computer, opened the screen, and turned it on.
“Wait a second, Damien,” he said. “This is important. What was in the email?”
“The evidence found in the Loisel family tomb, just like you asked. I sent you a copy of the report and one to your Parisian girlfriend. I thought you would have read your email by now.”
Vauvert hit himself on the forehead. So much had happened that evening. He had not even thought about checking his email.
But Eva, as obsessive as she was, must have.
Eva, why? Why did you leave me behind like this again?
He tried to be patient as his computer booted up, and his email downloaded, but he swore every few seconds.
“I’ve got it.”
“There was a fragment of a painting, like you thought there would be,” Mira said. “I sent pictures of both sides.”
Vauvert had just clicked on the first attachment. A picture of damned souls twisting in the flames of hell filled the screen.
He clicked on the next picture. It was the other side: gilded wood and the end of the inscription.
“Saint-Jean-du-Pic,” V
auvert called out. “That’s the place. Saint-Jean-du-Pic.”
“Like that old fallen-down chapel?”
“What chapel, dammit? Do you know one with that name?”
“Well, yeah. It’s in the Pyrenees, near where my parents live. But I think it’s just a pile of rubble now. I’ve never been there, but I have heard a lot of stories about the place. People say it’s haunted.”
“Haunted?”
“You know, just the usual legends—talk about black masses and zombies.”
“Yeah, I get it,” Vauvert said as he bent over to put on his boots. “I need the GPS coordinates. And backup. Right away. It’s a question of life and death.”
80
She was almost there.
The Audi’s headlights lit up the steep mountainside. The shapes of pine trees spread as far as the eye could see, and their branches were covered in layers of white.
About fifty yards ahead, a car was blocking the road. Eva understood why when her own wheels started spinning on the ice, refusing to move forward.
She hit the parking brake. The Audi slid at an angle for several seconds before it came to a stop alongside a snowdrift.
Eva gripped the steering wheel and took several deep breaths.
There’s no turning back now.
She turned off the lights.
The night was darker than India ink. It did not bother her. The white snow reflected enough light for her to see as well as she did in full daylight.
She opened the door and stepped into the icy night.
What hit her senses first was not the cold. It was the noise.
Cawing crow. The sound of their frantically beating their wings.
That brought back terrible memories.
She tightened her grip on her Beretta.
Then she started up the narrow path leading through the trees.
She just had to follow the noise.
As she walked through the snow, every muscle in her body tensed in anticipation of what she would discover. She recalled the nightmares that had haunted her for so many years. In them, her father was feeding flesh to enormous black birds. Could he have been sending her those dreams?”