by S. Cedric
Then she once again pointed the gun at her father, trying to sort out her contradictory feelings.
“If I kill you, will all these horrors you caused stop?”
The crows answered.
“I-diot! I-diot!” they cawed. “You-can’t-do-anything. Nothing at all.”
Eva shivered. The monster had not yet lost all his powers. He could still talk through the crows.
“Let me go!” He begged through the crows. “My daughter, try to understand me!”
Fortunately, birds had only rudimentary vocal chords. He could control them, but he could not use them to chant his diabolical spells.
At least Eva hoped he could not.
Louis Canaan tried to get up, further proof that he still had reserves of energy.
“Don’t move!” she yelled.
“No! Help me!” the birds cried out. “Please. You still can!”
“There’s no more help for you,” she said. Her voice was as cold as the ice around them. “You have destroyed so many lives. You murdered your own family. Why?”
“For power!” the crows cawed. “You also! You also want the power!”
What he said made her want to throw up.
“Is that all you’ve got in your psychopath head? Power? Your depraved fantasies? Even now, when you’re going to die?”
“You too!” the crows insisted, circling her. “You too.”
“THAT’S ENOUGH! SHUT UP!” she screamed.
She could not help herself. She went over to him and kicked him in the chest. He fell back in the snow. He opened his mouth, exposing the teeth filed down to points. They were sticky with his own blood. His eyes lit up with a fragment of something beyond all human feeling. He put his hands on his throat and pressed, staring at her with a murderous look that promised more than just suffering.
“I-diot!” the crows cawed. “Too late! Too late! You too!”
Louis Canaan threw his head back, exposing the gaping wound that would have killed any normal person—but this man was anything but ordinary. He exhaled. It was white breath that immediately dissipated in the snow flurry.
Eva felt the spell travel through the air, like a wave flowing toward her.
She moved back quickly.
And what she feared happened.
The crows—guided by Louis’s fierce will—attacked her. They came down on her, pecking at her face, clawing at her hair, crying out in rage. Those were Louis’s cries, amplified dozens of times.
Eva screamed, too, in pain and terror. She protected her eyes with one arm. With her other arm, she tried to wave the crows away. In vain. One of them swooped down on the hand that was holding the gun. The bird caught the barrel in its claws. Eva waved even harder, but then more crows came down. Pecking and clawing, they targeted the hand holding the Beretta.
“No. Leave me!” she yelled. “Get back.”
A shot went off as she struggled with the birds. The bullet ricocheted off the altar, where a film of frost was already covering Loisel’s body.
Seconds later, the birds were carrying away the weapon in a swirl of feathers and cries of victory.
“Shit!”
But they were not done. They returned to attack again. Staggering and trying to protect her face, Eva fought back.
When she tripped over a rock, she bent over to pick it up. She threw it and hit a crow. The others attacked harder. Their claws dug into her scalp, and she felt their beaks pecking everywhere. Stunned by the onslaught and lost in the flurry of snow, she felt her strength ebbing. She looked for another rock or a piece of flagstone, anything she could defend herself with. Under the snow, she felt the handle of the pickaxe. She grabbed it with both hands and twirled it over her head.
The tip caught one of the birds. The crow’s bloody feathers flew everywhere, and Eva cried out with increasing rage. She twirled in one continuous movement, swinging the pickaxe through the clouds of aggressive wings.
After awhile—finally—it seemed that Louis’s control had faded, because the birds abandoned the attack. They flew back into the forest they had come from in a black chattering cloud that seemed to mock her.
Eva fell to her knees in the snow, amid the bird corpses.
“My God.”
She looked at the altar where Loisel’s eviscerated body lay. She searched for Louis. But he had disappeared. His blood splattered the snow. She saw the red path perfectly, as it twisted to the wall at the foot of the steeple.
“No!” she cried out. “NO!”
She sprang to her feet and ran to the crumbling chapel facade. The icy wind lashed at her face. Through the snow, she saw flashing lights in the valley. As always, Alexandre was coming to her rescue.
But she was not sure that he could save her this time.
She searched the snow for traces of blood. If she could follow his tracks...
“You won’t catch up to him now,” a broken, asthmatic voice behind her said. “You know that, right?”
Eva shot around, her heart pounding.
86
Eva’s mouth dropped open.
Madeleine Reich walked to the middle of the ruins under swirls of white snowflakes. She was visibly weakened, but cold determination shone in her eyes.
“You’re no match against him,” she added. Her voice had changed and had a new other-worldly tone. She coughed, as though something were still in her throat.
“The tree let you go,” Eva said.
“Thanks to you, because you weakened him just enough.”
“I shot him in the throat.”
“You are smart. I expected as much of you.”
“But he isn’t dead,” Eva said with a sigh. “He should have died, right?”
“There’s little that can actually stop him,” Madeleine said. “He will hide. He will wait. He will come back stronger.”
She coughed again. Her breathing was labored.
Eva noted, with some disgust, that long splinters and pine needles were still all over her forehead, like a parody of the crown of thorns. Then she observed that the branches had left other scars. These stigmata were all over her. When Louis’s power had diminished, Madeleine had had enough energy to undo the branches but not enough to remove all the fragments that had attached themselves to her body and her clothes. Tiny pieces of wood were stuck to her coat. And some still seemed to be under the influence of Louis’s spell.
Madeleine picked up the can of gas Louis had left behind.
“What are you doing?” Eva asked.
“There is only one solution.”
“Don’t move! Set that down right now.”
“Or else what?” the woman said, shaking the can in front of her. “He’s the one you want, isn’t he? Not me. So leave me.”
She opened the can of gas, still defying the inspector.
“And what do you want?” Eva asked her. “What do you plan to do?”
“Me?” Madeleine asked. “I’m just going to complete what was started. Do you want to stop the wake of deaths left by your father?”
“Of course I want to!”
“Then we do not have a choice. You don’t, and I don’t.”
The woman went over to Loisel’s body. She brushed the frost off the frozen abyss that had once been his mouth, where his tongue had been removed. Then she tipped the can over him. Gas flowed out. Shimmering streams fell onto his body and the surrounding snow.
“Hey, what are you doing?” Eva cried out.
“I’m purifying, “ Madeleine said. “I’m opening the doors.”
“Is that how you intend to stop him?”
Madeleine looked at her, and her pale metallic eyes were filled with a curious glow. She answered in a honey-coated voice.
“That’s part of it.”
She smiled. It was the same smile that Louis had worn—that of an otherworldly creature preparing to do what no person would.
“Madeleine,” Eva said.
“If I become as powerful as he is, then I could stop him, yes.”
&n
bsp; She advanced slowly, with her strange smile glued to her defiled Madonna face. The gas can continued to release a stream of shimmering gas.
“But for that to happen, I have to do what he planned,,” Madeleine said, her voice quaking.
Eva suddenly saw her for what she was: a crazy woman. What this woman had gone through had removed a part of her, light that she would never get back. The torture Louis had subjected her to had chased away any reason that remained in her mind. It had been replaced by morbid avarice.
“Madeleine, you have to stop, right now.”
“It’s the only solution,” she said as she walked toward Eva. “Your heart, a medium’s heart and an albino heart. I renounced everything. What is one more sin?”
The gas was spreading out behind her, splattering her coat, and its stifling smell rose up around her.
“If I eat your heart, I will be stronger than he is. He was the first to understand. He was always the first to understand. He even predicted that we would all do it. He was right. Even I did it. It cost me my own baby. I killed it for the power, even though I swore I would never do it. There is no going back for me and no going back for you.”
A wave of primordial terror shot through Eva. This madwoman had a depraved fire in her eyes. Eva did not intend to become her victim.
She swooped up the pickaxe lying on the ground.
“That’s enough. Stay where you are.”
“Come on. What do you think you’re going to do to me?” Madeleine asked.
Eva took several steps back, brandishing the pickaxe.
“Stop! You know you won’t get away with this!”
Madeleine kept walking toward Eva, who was swinging the pickaxe in a circle, slicing the air in front of her.
“Step back!” Eva yelled. “You psycho, leave me alone. You won’t get away with it ever.”
“Oh yes I will,” Madeleine whispered. “And you will see how useful your sacrifice will have been. Now, die.”
She dropped the nearly empty gas can and brought her gas-coated hand to her lips. When she blew on it, a flame burst out between her fingers. A blinding flash cut through the air and the snow and shot toward Eva.
Eva barely had time to drop the pickaxe and press her arm against her face. The wave of flames struck her head-on and ignited her jacket. She threw herself to the ground and rolled in the snow to extinguish the blaze.
She heard an inhuman sound coming from Madeleine’s throat. Absolute terror flowed through her. The witch was doing a ritual. And now Eva had no gun.
Flames shot up from the altar. Loisel’s gas-soaked body became a ball of glaring flames, and the fire spread to the puddles of gas all around him.
The chancel turned into a huge torch lighting up the night, and the apocalypse blinded Eva. She could make out only Madeleine’s shape approaching her with the determined stride of a priestess, of a black witch that had once again become what she had always been, ready to quench her thirst for death, control, and power. She was no longer whispering her wild chant. She was screaming it, shrieking out the guttural sounds that rose in the air with the crackling of the flames. Eva felt the world rippling and fluctuating, the world catching on fire all around her.
She had to flee from this hell. But she could not. Blood flowed into her throat and choked her. Intense cold spread through her veins.
It was too late.
In the center of the brightness, she saw Madeleine’s shadow over her.
No, Eva wanted to say.
She felt the woman’s hand caress her face. She begged as the war-like words penetrated her ears. But she knew she would get no pity.
Madeleine unzipped Eva’s jacket, lifted up her sweater, and unbuttoned her shirt, exposing her skin to the icy wind.
Not like this.
The witch’s hand slid over her skin. It felt soft—horribly soft. Madeleine squeezed and scratched her breasts, and a victorious smile grew larger.
Then her fingers poked into her skin.
Eva screamed in her mind.
She felt the hands enter her with terrible precision, lifting her skin almost gently. Above her, Madeleine’s eyes had rolled back. Her fingers penetrated deeper, caressing her ribs, trying to go underneath them to grab her heart. And Eva could not do anything to defend herself.
She knew that this was the end.
Her heart raced out of control when Madeleine’s nails brushed it.
A red wave rolled over her.
Vauvert had not given a warning shot. He had aimed at the woman leaning over Eva and had pulled the trigger. The bullet shot through her fur coat, projecting a stream of blood onto the inspector under her.
Madeleine sat up mechanically, as her muscles made a convulsive movement. She took a few steps, reeled, and collapsed next to the greedy flames.
Vauvert rushed to his unconscious colleague.
She needs you, Alexandre. You alone are strong enough to save her from herself.
87
“Eva,” he whispered, lifting her up in his powerful arms. “My God, Eva. I thought, I thought that you...”
She hung onto him, her face nestled in his neck to shield her eyes from the blazing flames. Snow fell on them like a veil of shiny white crystals.
“I’m okay,” she said, lying in a shaky voice.
Little by little, her senses returned. The world became solid once again. Loisel’s flaming body started to burn down. Only her heart, which had felt the brush of Madeleine’s fingers, refused to calm down.
Vauvert moved her away from the fire. Once they were under the stone archway, which provided the only shelter in the ruins, he set her down on the snow. Her knees buckled, despite all her efforts to stand. He grabbed her waist to steady her.
“I’m okay,” she said again, leaning against the frozen stone wall. “I think I don’t have any injuries, really.”
She reached a hand anxiously under her shirt. But she did not seem to be harmed. She did not feel any pain either, but she had trouble chasing the dizziness away, as if part of her had been forever sullied.
“It was just an illusion,” she said.
“That was no damned illusion!” a winded voice came from the other side of the archway. “That woman had her two hands dug into your skin! Shit!”
Eva saw an obese older cop with a pale face. He was leaning against the archway just as she was. His glasses reflected the high flames.
“Damn shit,” he said under his breath. “Nobody will believe me, that’s for sure. Nobody.”
“You didn’t believe me when it happened to me,” Vauvert said. “What you saw here...”
“What I saw here is simply impossible,” Damien Mira said, his voice muffled. “That woman, what she did with her voice.”
All three of them looked at Madeleine Reich. The edge of her coat had caught on fire. The woman was struggling to get the coat off. When she had managed to do so, they saw that some of her hair was singed. She limped in the snow, wearing only a thin shirt covered in blood. She shook and coughed.
“I believe she is harmless now,” Vauvert said, frowning.
“Don’t fool yourself,” Eva said, sounding worried. “You’ll have to gag her before she starts up again.”
Vauvert strode over to her.
She struggled when the cop pulled her away from the flames. Vauvert tossed her onto her belly and handcuffed her, making them as tight as he could.
“She’s lost a lot of blood. I don’t think I hit any vital organs, but she’s in danger. We need to get her out of here, quick.”
“She’s tough,” Eva said. “Isn’t that right, Madeleine?”
Vauvert tore open Madeleine’s shirt to get a look at the bullet wound. It was an abyss of ripped tissue and crushed bone. He shivered.
“My lawyers will get me out of this,” Madeleine cried out.
Vauvert tore off a strip of her shirt. He shoved the blood-soaked cloth into her mouth, and she could say no more.
“The justice system will do its job i
ts own way,” he said. “Ours is done.”
He tore off another strip of her shirt to make a firmer gag. Madeleine gave them the evil eye, but she was no danger at this point.
Vauvert got up and shielded his eyes to protect them from the blaze that continued to consume Loisel’s body.
“No, our work is not finished,” Eva said. “Louis fled. I couldn’t stop him.”
A radio began to crackle in Mira’s pocket. The large police officer pulled it out. The radio crackled some more and then spit out a few distinguishable syllables.
“Unit one here!” he cried out. “Can’t hear anything.”
There was more scratching.
A voice finally answered, “Unit three here. Suspect spotted.”
“Good God, where?”
The radio crackled.
“Unit three, I can’t hear you,” Mira said.
“...on the valley road...crossed in front of us...are after him...all men deployed... crossing the fields.”
Eva shook her head.
“They won’t get him that way. Tell them to wait.”
“Unit three!” Detective Mira yelled into the radio. “Wait before you apprehend. Copy. Wait before apprehending the subject. He is extremely dangerous.”
“...exposed... can’t miss him,” the radio crackled.
“Unit three,” the older police officer insisted, “Wait for us.”
Vauvert went over to the edge of the ruins. He saw the flashing lights below.
“They aren’t far. I think we can take a shortcut this way.”
“Okay, let’s go,” Eva said. She sounded determined.
Vauvert turned to his colleague and said, “Damien, watch the witch.”
“Me?” he said, sound alarmed.
“Just make sure she’s gagged. You’ve seen what she can do.”
“Wait! Don’t leave me alone with that monster!”
But Vauvert, following Eva, had already jumped the wall. In seconds, they had disappeared in the foggy snow flurry.
Madeleine gave the police officer a look of powerlessness and anger.
He saw that she was crying.
88
The undergrowth was a frozen hell. The fog was as thick as smoke. Frozen flakes rained down, sticking to their skin. There were branches everywhere, covered in heavy layers of snow, which not only slowed their progress, but also increased the danger. The slightest misstep, and they would tumble down the steep slope.
