S. Cedric - Of Fever and Blood

Eva never slept long. That summoned too many nightmares. Yet the seductive call of exhaustion was whispering to her. Her breathing slowed, and she felt her breathing slow and her eyes close. She let herself go for a few moments.

Then fell into a deep sleep.

It was in another state, still in this world but not entirely so, that she became aware of a presence in her room.

Bare feet walking on the hardwood floor.

Drawing closer to the bed where she lay.

She felt the mattress give as a hand pressed down on it slowly, careful not to wake her up.

Eva waited.

The figure climbed onto the bed, resting one knee on the mattress, then another.

Eva did not want to move. She did not have the strength.

The presence drew even closer.

She felt hair brush her and a warm breath on her face.

She knew that sensation.

Half opening her eyes, she saw the little albino girl leaning above her.

But she did not react. She waited for the hallucination to fade away.

She was dreaming. There was no other explanation.

The pills she was taking were supposed to prevent this type of dream. They worked just fine most of the time.

But not all the time.

The little girl with white hair snuggled against her. Eva could feel her body, her hands on her shoulders.

She tried to move, to turn her head.

She could not.

The little girl brought her lips to her ear.

“Watch out,” she whispered. “She’s coming.”

An electric current coursed through Eva’s body. She bolted up, alert.

She scanned the room. It was deserted.

Eva’s skin was covered in goose bumps. She examined the bed, still impeccably tidy, except in the places where she thought she’d seen the little ghost girl crawl toward her.

The sheets showed traces of having been disturbed where she had rested her hands and knees.

It was now a quarter past ten. She had spent over an hour sleeping. No wonder she had dreamed.

“Shit.”

She sat at the edge of the bed, her mind still a blur. She thought about the little ghost girl’s breath against her ear and shuddered.

She’s coming ?

Yeah, right. A dream. It was just a fucking dream. Like the other times.

Nothing else. Absolutely nothing else.

Eva tried to calm herself. She was unfortunately used to these bouts of anxiety. And it was already past ten o’clock, for Christ’s sake. It was time to get ready. She still had work to do tonight.

If the killer had actually found his victims in a club, then that was the first place to go and take a look.

Last month Chick magazine had published a glowing article about one such club.

And it was the place where, according to their e-mails, the two victims had met. It was where their affair had begun.

Eva took off her clothes, carefully folded them over the chaise lounge and walked toward the closet. Her reflection, naked and slender, appeared in the full-length mirror for an instant before she opened the door to select an outfit suitable for a nightclub.

She slipped on black stockings, which looked almost surreal against her ivory skin, and adjusted the garter belt. Running her hand over the silky texture gave her a sensuous pleasure. She put on a short black skirt that revealed the top of her stockings and then a black vinyl corset that she had not worn for a couple of years. Finally, she retrieved a pair of gleaming stiletto boots that laced to the knee. She contemplated her image in the mirror.

I should dress this way more often.

Outside, thunder growled in the distance.

As she tightened her corset, she once again experienced the shiver of contact with the black vinyl. Its deliciously cold glint and smooth texture invited her caress.

She picked up her meds from her nightstand and swallowed them with a glass of water. Then she took the small bag containing amphetamines. She placed two pink tablets on her tongue. They had a vanilla-like but bitter taste. She took the glass to her lips again and downed the pills.

It was eleven twenty when she got into her car.

The underground lot was still deserted, still icily silent. Her headlights illuminated the concrete columns as she drove up, one level after the other, toward the exit. She reached out to press her magnetic key against the reader. The first gate opened with its mechanical creak.

Eva took a box of breath mints out of the glove box and put one in her mouth.

The day had been long. The night would be even longer.

The second gate opened, and the Audi pulled into the street. The rain seemed to have stopped falling, finally. Eva stepped on the gas pedal.

Once the gate was shut and the light had gone off, the figure stepped away from the concrete column, where it had been concealed from view.

The black coat grazed the ground. Only the leather-gloved hands emerged from the sleeves.

The figure stayed still for a few more moments, enjoying the silence of the place. Then it headed for the door of the apartment building, invisible in the darkness. Under the hood, the mask was so pale, it looked white.

The hand rested on the handle. The door remained closed. Only a magnetic key could open it.

That was not a problem. The figure took a step to the side and waited. It had plenty of time.

Half past midnight

In Paris, driving across the city never proves as long as finding a parking spot. Eva had maneuvered around the neighborhood streets for nearly forty minutes before finally finding a space at the end of a graffiti-covered dead-end street several blocks from the nightclub.

The neon lights on the buildings looked like halos in the mist, and the wet sidewalks reflected their bright colors.

Eva could feel the throbbing of the bass two buildings away from the entrance to the nightclub. As she drew close, the music grew louder. Just before reaching the door, she stopped to check her stiletto boots emerging from her long black coat, which was carefully buttoned up. She could feel the vibration of the music under her soles. It was rippling the water in the puddles on the sidewalk.

There was a queue in front of the doors. Some thirty young people, their clothing torn and inlaid with metal artifacts, waited in a disciplined line. Eva stepped in line and waited for her turn to go in.

The Hells Bells was the last underground place in town, as its aficionados proudly claimed. And underground it was, literally. Having past muster with the guy at the door, she walked down the stairs to the nightclub’s anteroom, trying not to trip over the couples making out on the steps.

The volume was now shaking the walls.

There was one last double door to go through. She pushed it open.

The wall of sound rushed at her. She was hit full blast, as the sound threatened to blow her to smithereens. Panting, she stopped at the doorway, the edge of the maelstrom.

A moment later, her senses adapted, her eardrums expanded, and she felt caught up, her internal rhythm moving with the distorted music. It penetrated her, and suddenly she was thrust back into all of the anguish-filled nights, all the anger she was never able to let out. Every assault of the bass drum exploded deep inside her chest, fragmenting her heart, and sending shivers all the way down her back.

People bumped into her. Figures came in and out, wafting odors of sweat, sex, and smoke. Girls or boys, she could not tell. Some had smeared their faces with fluorescent paint. They had pink and green Mohawks and were dressed in black, plastic, and fishnets, as well as materials she could not even identify in the black light, thick smoke, and strobes.

She tried to make her way through the packed crowd, way too many people for the place’s capacity. The stage, the epicenter of this apocalyptic sound, was disappearing behind a throng of young people, their tattooed arms in the air. Others were climbing the railings along the walls in an attempt to see the band. The most resilient ones were hanging seven or so feet above the floor, waving their fists and letting out whoops before hurling themselves into the pack of young people waiting to receive them.