First Blood (42 page)

“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.

“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 its 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.

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.

They slalomed through the pines, using branches and bushes for stability. Every time they brushed a bough, a cloud of accumulated snow fell on their heads and shoulders. They advanced ever so carefully.

“Shit,” Vauvert spit out at regular intervals, every time he tripped on a log or a rock. “Shit, shit and shit!”

Eva did not say anything. She tried not to waste her energy.

The snow was so thick, they sank to their knees at some points. In other places, they slipped on icy rocks and nearly fell.

The flashing police lights still seemed just as far away.

“If only we could see where we’re going, ” Vauvert said.

The slope was suddenly steeper. He slipped and tumbled into the snow. Eva saw it coming but could not avoid falling herself as she tried to catch his arm. She picked herself up and extended her hand to Vauvert. He took it and rose to his feet.

“I see better than you in the dark,” she said. “Stay next to me.”

“Okay,” he said with a groan.

They continued their descent. Snow was everywhere, blinding them, even flying into their noses. Vauvert sneezed and wiped the snow off his face.

“I believe I dreamed about this forest,” he said as he made his way around an enormous dark tree. “It was a horrible dream.”

“I’ve had my share of dreams,” Eva said. “I’m sure they are no better than yours.”

The cloud they were walking through began to fray around them. They would soon be under the layer, in the basin between the two mountain peaks. The slope began to level off and smooth out.

Then, suddenly, there were no more trees.

They walked across the flat terrain toward the strobes. The blue lights were close, just a few hundred yards away.

“What’s that?” Vauvert asked.

Just ahead of them, the snow ended at the edge of an icy surface that looked like a mirror in the ink-black night.

Eva took the giant’s hand to hold him back.

“It’s a lake.”

She stopped in midsentence.

She had just seen her father, standing in the middle of it.

Hand-in-hand, they approached the edge of the ice.

Vauvert stared at the white-haired shape a hundred yards in front of them.

“The ice won’t hold his weight for long,” he said.

Eva pressed herself against his chest.

She looked at the frozen water. The lake was circular, opaque, like a big frozen eye set between the mountains.

Louis Canaan’s last refuge.

The end of the line,
Eva thought, with a strange painful feeling deep inside.

Her father was bent over, trying to keep his footing. His bloody hair was sticking to his face. His jacket reflected slivers of the flashing lights.

Not far off, she saw the police officers. There were ten of them, spread along the other side of the lake. They had not dared to follow the fugitive onto the ice trap but had him in their sights, blocking access to the road. One of the officers was talking into a loudspeaker, ordering him to come off the ice and give himself up before it was too late.

“This time, he’s done for,” Vauvert said, fascinated by the sight.

The man turned in their direction, his scales glimmering. Eva saw his ghost-white face and his eyes, which even at this distance looked like crimson embers. She shivered.

What are you preparing for us?

What is your last illusion?

“He’s going to try something,” she said.

“Let him try,” Vauvert said. “It won’t do him any good. He’s trapped.”

“You don’t understand,” Eva said. “He’s mocking us. He has to have some final trick up his sleeve.”

Vauvert just kept holding her hand. Whatever Canaan had planned, it was too late to change the course of events.

On the other side of the lake, an officer spoke into the loudspeaker again. Eva recognized Benjamin Blanca’s voice. He ordered the man to surrender. He repeated that there was no hope of escape and that he needed medical attention right away.

Louis Canaan gave no sign of obeying. He just stared at Eva with animal intensity. He was holding his hand to his throat to keep it from bleeding. And, strangely, he was smiling.

Eva held onto Vauvert’s arm.

Something was wrong. Doubt filled her. She thought it was because of her fatigue, the cold, and the snow that just kept falling.
That look in his eyes.

“He wanted us to come here,” she said.

Those incandescent eyes that pierced right through her.