by Cédric Sire
“Okay, let’s take a look in there.”
“You are out of your fucking mind,” Nadal said.
“It’s private property,” Lascrosse added. “You can’t.”
“Look, we believe that Judith Saint-Clair is still alive,” Vauvert said, cutting him off. “And we suspect that she’s killed dozens of people.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Nadal asked in an alarmed voice.
“I’m telling you the truth. She abducted one of our colleagues, and we have reason to believe that she’s going to kill her if we don’t find her. She may be in Paris now, but it’s possible that she lives here most of the time. We’re going to go in there, and then we’ll know for sure. Okay?”
The three officers looked at each other, far from convinced.
“Now, move back.”
He raised his Smith & Wesson and shot the lock twice.
Leroy gave the door a hard kick. The remains of the lock fell to the ground, and the door opened.
Revealing a dark entryway.
“Can’t see a thing,” Leroy said. “I’m going in.”
Everything happened in a split second. Vauvert sensed it even before he heard the click of the mechanism the moment his colleague set foot in the building.
“Erwan!” he yelled.
There was a sharp whiz.
“Look out!”
The blade shot out, and Leroy couldn’t move fast enough. The projectile grazed his shoulder. Leroy howled in pain.
“Down! Everybody!” Vauvert shouted.
There was another click. Then another.
The blades nearly shaved Leroy’s skull as they whizzed toward Lascrosse.
The boy stood frozen in the path of the blades.
Shock registered on his face when the first blade struck him in the throat. A second later, another blade flew into his forehead.
The projectile had all but decapitated him. His head slumped to the side, and from his slit throat, a crimson geyser shot into the air. He raised his hands as though trying to put his head back in place, but his cervical vertebrae snapped with a sharp crack
Still more blades raced toward them.
“Pierre! Oh, shit!” Captain Nadal moaned. “No! Christ, no! Shit! Shit!”
Lascrosse remained on his feet another few seconds, his severed arteries spurting all around him.
Then a final blade hit his neck again and finished severing his head.
His torso crumpled.
His head fell into the grass.
63
Eva has stopped screaming.
She doesn’t have enough strength anymore.
She doesn’t have any chance of getting out.
She’s way too little.
When the man is done slitting Justyna’s throat, when her sister’s blood is done spurting every which way, he sighs and says “ohh…” as though it is the most beautiful thing in the world. He opens his arms and lets go of the little girl’s body. Justyna collapses on the basement floor with a horrible, dull sound.
The lifeless body continues to pour out blood, bringing with it the smell of death.
The red stream works its way toward Eva. Toward her white skirt.
The man raises his eyes in her direction.
“One mistake righted,” he says.
Then he approaches her.
Eva has thrust her hand into a cardboard box. Mrs. Rieux stores old cooking utensils in there. She grabs what feels like a huge kitchen knife. It looks very sharp. She closes her little fingers around the handle.
Pulling the knife out of the box, she stands up.
The man with the white hair stares at her. They are in the basement. There is almost no light, and yet her eyes are perfectly adjusted to the darkness. Just like those of this man. She has never seen a grownup with her kind of white hair before. She’s never thought about anyone else having it. Mommy told her that she and Justyna had a special look, something from their father.
The man gets closer. She is frozen with fear, yes. But for some strange reason, she cannot help grinning, in spite of herself.
The harder she clutches the knife, the more she grins.
When the man leans over her, she lunges.
She drives the knife into his chest, the wild desire to kill him giving her strength she did not know she had. Stunned, he clutches the little girl’s hand with his own large old-man hand. He looks at her the way Mommy does sometimes. With tremendous love in his eyes.
“Oh,” he says.
Just that.
Now he is on his knees, the bad man, while she, Eva, looks straight into his eyes. And in his red eyes, she sees admiration.
He reaches for her. He grabs her. She bites him. Drawing blood. The salty taste fills her mouth.
He pulls her toward him, and she drives the knife even deeper into his chest. Blood trickles from his mouth as he whispers in her ear, “Eva.”
The man rests his white lips on her forehead. She can smell his strange fragrance. The smell of old reptiles? She doesn’t know why this image comes to mind. It reminds her of the crocodiles at the zoo, lying still and staring with their glassy eyes—until they opened their jaws.
“I know why… I came back, now… Because I was wrong…”
Eva doesn’t understand what he’s talking about. She tries to get away from him, but he’s still clutching her hand.
“Eva, my child…” the man whispers in her ear. “You have no idea how proud you make me.”
And deep inside, she recognizes something—something that has been waiting to be discovered. It’s a dark part of herself that is enjoying this moment and doesn’t want it to end, ever.
While at the same time, the rest of her screams with rage and disgust.
Eva finally manages to pull away.
She opens her mouth and finds enough energy to scream.
It’s her own scream that wakes her up.
She opens her eyes.
She sees her tormentor standing above her, soaked with her blood.
“My… father,” Eva whispers.
The woman licks the blood from Eva’s her cheek.
“What are you saying, little tiger?”
“It was…”
Eva is unable to finish her sentence.
She coughs up blood.
Deep inside, emotions are fighting. How did she manage to forget such a thing? She wants to scream it, to howl it out.
“It was my father,” she cries, spitting blood.
64
“Your father won’t save you, you know.”
Eva pulls on the ropes, more and more violently, unable to control herself in spite of the pain, in spite of the exhaustion. Every fiber of her body blazes with fury. Or maybe it is shame.
“My… fucking… father,” she pants, incapable of pulling herself together.
Her tormentor tilts her head, intrigued, amused. This sight summons another wave of blind rage in Eva.
“I will… kill you…” she screams at both her tormentor and the memory of that man with white hair.
Who is still alive. Somewhere. Inevitably.
“Oh, really?”
“With my own… hands…” Eva says with a demented grin.
The woman turns away from Eva’s face.
“Listen,” she says. “Can’t you hear their whispers?”
Eva listens. And yes, she can hear.
A dull noise, continuous, a pulse maybe, is coming from the ground. It is making the stone walls vibrate.
“They’re here. They’re watching us. They’re waiting. Oh, yes.”
This is surreal. This is just impossible. And yet, the sound is getting closer, louder. The gods, just as this woman claims. Whatever they might be, they are here, with them in this basement. Now Eva can have no doubts. She can feel their hungry eyes on her.
“Zalmoxis! Isten!” the woman is chanting again. “Fearsome lord of death and resurrection! Come into the servant worshiping you! You who long for blood and bring terro
r to mortals! Answer my call, and accept once again the blood that gives life! Come to the scarlet feast!”
Her supplication becomes an unintelligible wail as her body quivers to the rising rhythm of her cries. Only the porcelain mask remains still. The eyes underneath lock on Eva’s. The woman is now a maelstrom of sighs and groans.
Swirling.
Drawing closer.
Until even that porcelain mask is no longer a mask.
Or at least, it is no longer made of porcelain.
It is reflections and images.
The mask is a mirror.
Eva can see the woman’s eyes, but in the mask she sees her own image, the warped image of a bloody victim with wild hair and desperate eyes.
She opens her mouth and tries to breathe but can not find any air.
In the reflecting surface of the mask, her image is warped.
Then she sees something else in this unlikely mirror. Two shadows.
And Eva recognizes them—Erwan Leroy and Inspector Vauvert.
Eva regains her senses.
The woman is still standing over her, covered in blood, but her depraved smile has faded. The fervor in her eyes is gone.
“What…”
Clenching her fists, she steps back.
“What?” she says again.
Wild with joy, Eva searches the basement with her eyes.
She finds no Vauvert or Leroy, even though she has seen them.
It doesn’t make any sense.
What happened?
Something did happen.
The masked woman is doubled over. She looks older.
“They entered my house,” she spits out, her voice sharp.
Eva does not understand what she’s talking about, but she is filled with renewed strength.
And in her mind, the memories are back. Everything that she had carefully erased.
And she has the certainty that her father is still alive, along with the rage to find him, at all costs.
Unable to think of anything else, she focuses as best she can and works her wrist up and down, hoping to finally undo the rope that keeps her captive.
In spite of the pain in her shoulder, she moves.
Up.
She can feel her sister’s hand on hers.
Down.
Helping her move.
Up.
And again, down.
Fiber by fiber.
65
2:30 a.m.
Pierre Lascrosse’s decapitated body slowly bled out.
Lying on his stomach nearby, Captain Nadal sobbed. “I can’t believe it,” he said over and over..
“Everybody, stay down!” Vauvert shouted, as he crawled toward the entrance.
But the trap seemed to have released all of its lethal gifts.
“Erwan! You okay?”
Leroy rose to his knees, one hand holding his shoulder.
“My coat took the worst of it. I’ll be fine.”
He groped the ground around him, hoping to find what had hit him, and soon brandished a metal plate, sharp as a razor.
“It’s a lawnmower blade. Must have been sharpened with a grindstone.”
Vauvert signaled that it was okay to get up, and Nadal and Puech went over to their colleague’s body. Both men were shaking.
“Shit,” Puech said, moaning. “Holy shit.”
“I can’t believe it,” Nadal said again.
“Get hold of yourselves,” Vauvert ordered.
Nadal looked at him, anger filling his eyes.
“He was a kid!”
“I know that.”
What had happened turned Vauvert’s stomach too, but he was not about to show it. Retreating now would not bring the young officer back to life.
“I’m truly sorry,” he said.
Nadal stared at him with fury. Tears were glistening in his eyes.
“What is going on here?” he finally asked, his voice shaking.
“Judith Saint-Clair,” Vauvert answered slowly. “She’s the one who set this trap. She has already killed many people. If we don’t stop her, she will go on killing innocents, believe me.”
“What?” The captain stared at his man on the ground. He stooped to wipe his bloody hands on the grass. It did no good. There was too much. “Shit. Shit,” he sobbed.
“Did you hear me, captain?” Vauvert insisted.
“Yes,” he said in a thick voice. “But what you’re saying doesn’t make sense. I knew Judith Saint-Clair, years ago. She was a poor sick woman. She must have died a long time ago.”
“That’s what we’re going to check out now,” Vauvert said.
Nadal, pallid and bloody in the beam of the flashlight, looked crazed. His breath vaporized in puffs as it hit the frigid air.
“At least let me call for help, so they can send an ambulance,” he said.
“Go ahead,” Vauvert responded.
Nadal took out his phone and, with a trembling hand, pressed an emergency number. Nothing happened.
“It’s not working. No signal.”
Suddenly, the officer named Puech let out a scream. They all turned to him.
“Arnaud!” Nadal called out. “You okay?”
“I saw… I saw…” the young man stammered.
“What? What did you see?”
“Some kind of beast. With fucking red eyes.”
Vauvert felt the blood rush to his temples. If he did not take charge right now, things were going to get out of hand very quickly.
His sensed movement and spun around.
All he could see were the two flaming globes in the bushes.
He raised his gun and shot several times.
“What the hell is that?” Nadal exclaimed.
Now there was movement all around them.
Vauvert knew he was losing control of the situation.
“We need to take cover,” he ordered in a voice that he hoped sounded steady. “Quick.”
“What if there are more traps in there?” Nadal yelled.
“We don’t have a choice.”
The bushes rustled. He raised his gun, ready to fire blind.
But he couldn’t see anything. Only darkness. The tall grass rippled in the beam of his flashlight.
There. A figure.
And another.
He fired. Movement in every direction.
“Hurry! Get inside.”
Before Vauvert could finish, something leaped out of the bushes and landed on Puech. He let out a dreadful scream just before the creature took his face in its jaws. There was a terrifying cracking sound.
“Arnaud!” Nadal screamed.
The beast moved from the face to the neck. In one simple twist, he tore out the man’s throat. A fountain of blood spewed out.
“Do something!”
The animal settled on its victim. There were sounds of fabric ripping and bones splitting.
Then a second beast leaped out, and the two monsters together pulled the officer’s mangled remains into the bushes.
The attack hadn’t lasted more than ten seconds.
There was silence again.
“Follow me!” Leroy cried as he dashed into the building.
Nadal and Vauvert rushed in after him. They slammed the door.
Leroy flipped the light switch. They were in a large, very long room that must have been both a living room and a kitchen, judging from the sink and the counter at the far end. A table and a battered couch took up the rest of the space.
The yellow tile floor was spattered with brown stains.
“Give me a hand!” Vauvert ordered, grabbing a wooden dresser.
Pushing it as quickly as they could manage, they barricaded the door.
Leroy stood at the only window and scanned the yard. At first, he didn’t see anything. Then, here and there, red eyes appeared and disappeared.
“Looks like there’s more and more of them.”
“What are they? What the fuck are these things?” Nadal cried out.
�
��Wolves,” Vauvert said.
“Are you kidding me? Those fucking things are not wolves.”
“Then I don’t know what they are,” Vauvert admitted.
“In any case,” Leroy said, “we’re surrounded.”
The three men looked at each other, their eyes filled with distress.
66
Fiber by fiber.
Eva can feel the rope getting weaker.
Or else she is imagining this too.
But she continues. She must.
The masked woman is now on her hands and knees. Eva can make her out. She is quivering, growling, and chanting.
“Oriens! Paymon! Ariton! Amaymon!”
Eva pays no attention. She keeps moving her wrists.
“Gebeleizis! Diseebeh! Dark sons of Isten! Come taste the life beyond death, for death has just freed life!”
Up.
Down.
67
“What’s that?”
Nadal was looking at the heavily knotted wooden table. It was covered with dark-red and lumpy-black stains.
The tiles underneath the table had the same kind of splatter. There were circular rusty stains too, suggesting that buckets had been placed there.
“Is this really what I think it is?” he asked.
“I’m afraid so,” Vauvert answered, crouching over the stains on the floor.
He ran a finger over them, removing the film of dried blood.
“We are in the home of a serial killer, captain. She must have tortured people right here, on this table.”
Nadal shut his eyes.
“Oh, God.”
Vauvert stood up.
“At least we know that Saint-Clair was not living in her house. She was living here. Those things outside.” He paused before continuing. “Whatever they might be, they seem to be protecting Saint-Clair.”
He took out his phone.
“Does anyone have service?”
Leroy and Nadal checked their own cells.
“Nothing,” Leroy said.
“Nothing either,” Nadal said, shaking like a leaf.
“We’ll have to get out of here by ourselves then,” Vauvert said. “What do we have?”
They examined the room. In this house, unlike the other one, there were signs of habitation. The cupboards were full. Unwashed glasses were still sticky with wine. There was even a laptop on a shelf, along with a few thick books on European mythology.
