S. Cedric - Of Fever and Blood

The knot in his stomach tightened.

He turned his attention from the desk to the bullet holes in the walls, thinking as fast as he could.

“She’s the one who fired, right there?”

“Yes. Ballistics confirmed that all the bullets came from her Beretta. Besides, our killer has never used firearms so far. It’s not part of his MO.”

Vauvert walked toward the back of the room, near the archway that led to the bedroom, and stood behind a series of yellow markers.

“She must have been standing right here when she was attacked. There are traces of her blood on the floor. And…” Raising his arm, he stretched out his index finger and thumb up, simulating a handgun. “It’s also from here that she fired. In that direction, toward the entrance, see? That’s where the attacker must have been standing. Except that we still don’t understand how that person managed to get in.”

“Same as with the other victims.”

“Yes.”

Vauvert looked at the bullet holes. Three in the wall, at least as many through the large mirror, and one or two others in the floor. He thought of his own strange experience at the Salaville farm. Of the panic that overcame him when he faced those wolves that maybe weren’t wolves. Of the way he fired his gun at random, unable to handle the situation.

“What’s certain is that Eva was scared of something,” he said. “She had to be scared as hell to empty her clip like that.” He paused before asking, “Did we find any blood on the bullets?”

“None at all,” Leroy said. “The only blood was found on the fragments of the mirrors in the living room and the bedroom. The CSI guys can’t explain how the hell it got there. Or how the blood was even shed, since we didn’t find any trace of epithelial cells, not even a hair, nothing. It just makes no sense.”

“Well, what really makes no sense is how someone who doesn’t use a gun managed to neutralize someone like Eva so easily. God dammit, I’ve been in the field with her. I’ve seen her in action. And let me tell you, even I would hesitate to come at her.” He looked around the room again. “Besides, she didn’t shoot just anywhere. She shot at the mirrors. So Erwan, you said you know a lot about the Blood Countess’s life? In that story, is there any link with mirrors that you can think of?”

“Well, like I told you, I spent the night reading a couple of biographies of her, but nothing that would explain it, no. Countess Bathory was obsessed with her own beauty. She was quite insane about it. She had mirrors all over her house. But apart from that detail, I don’t know…”

“Okay.”

Vauvert hesitated. Torrents of thought were overwhelming him. Images of red-eyed beasts that escaped his nightmares to leap into reality.

“And wolves?”

“What do you mean, wolves?” Leroy asked.

“Is there any link between the Elizabeth Bathory story and the apparition of wolves?

The young detective looked at him.

“Well, yes. She was often compared to a she-wolf. It was also said that she roamed at night with a black wolf.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really,” Leroy answered. “But actually, you’ve got to understand that this is a part of Hungary’s history that comes from the Dacian people. Theirs is believed to be the first civilization in Europe. They lived all over the Carpathian and Danube areas. The Dacians were fierce warriors who worshipped blood and prayed to a god of death. They were called the wolves because their symbol was a dragon with a wolf’s head.”

“Like Dracula?”

“Uh, yes. Vlad Tepes is a well-known example of the Dacian legacy. He had a taste for blood and enjoyed torturing his enemies. By the way, the impalement torture that made him so famous was actually a form of ritual sacrifice. But we’re talking about legends. How could knowing this stuff help us?”

“I don’t know,” Vauvert admitted as he examined the mirror fragments. “But I have the feeling that there’s something there, something very important. I just don’t understand what it is just yet.” He turned to Leroy. “Tell me more about the link between Countess Bathory and the wolves.”

“I’m not sure what else to tell you. Just like Vlad Dracula, she had Dacian symbols in her family crest. The crest had three wolf’s teeth and a dragon wrapped around them. The teeth looked roughly like the letter B. Wait.” Leroy pulled a moleskine notebook from his coat pocket. “I like drawing sketches of things. It helps me think. Here, I drew Elizabeth Bathory’s seal. Look.”

Vauvert took the notebook and studied the drawing. The dragon looked more like a snake biting its own tail. It was encircling three horizontal bars that symbolized the three wolf’s teeth.

He recognized the geometric form.

“That’s the thing the Salavilles drew on their living room wall. Pretty troubling, right? The problem is that right now, none of the elements we have make sense.”

The giant walked though the archway that separated the living room from the bedroom. The bedroom was huge, unlike bedrooms in most other apartments in Paris. The bed was huge, too. And unmade.

He inspected the shattered mirror. And there, too, were blood stains. On the mirror only, as though it had bled from inside.

Through the window, Vauvert could see the small park painted gray in the pouring rain. He took his time, observing the room with great care, the chaise lounge, the nightstand on which rested a translucent Philippe Starck lamp. Then he leaned inside the bathroom to take a quick look. Everything was sparkling, perfectly clean. He thought of his own bathroom, with its shower curtain smeared with sediment, the dirty towels he sometimes let pile up till they overflowed from the hamper.

“Yes, they do make sense,” he finally said, in a slow voice. “I’m convinced that all these elements have a very clear meaning. We just don’t get it yet, that’s all. And now, something happened that puts it all in perspective.”

“What happened?”

Vauvert opened his arms.

“Come on, this. Eva’s abduction. Until now, our mysterious psychopath, assuming she’s female, didn’t seem to care much who her victims were. What she’s done here is totally new. She broke into this place to kidnap a homicide inspector. And one thing I know is that this is no fucking fluke. No one can overpower a woman like Eva on a simple impulse. This abduction was carefully planned, like the previous ones. Our suspect must have studied Eva. She has followed her, certainly.”

“Yes, probably,” Leroy said. “So what?”

“It could be one of two things. The killer could have changed her MO. But we know that this kind of person does not deviate from the ritual, at any price. And that leaves only the second assumption.”

He walked back into the living room, deep in thought.

“The second assumption?” Leroy asked, following him.

“What she’s done here is linked to everything else.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning that we’ve been wrong from the beginning and that the lead Eva picked up was the right one. We absolutely have to go over her notes. We don’t have much time to find out where they’ll lead us. Very little time at all. It’s been nine hours already since her abduction.” He took another look at the photo on the desk. He and Eva, in a bubble of calm in the middle of the ant heap. “You were right, you know.”

“About what?” Leroy asked.

“I care about her. I care about her very much.”

Vauvert’s voice cracked.

Monday, 4:30 p.m.

Back at eadquarters, Leroy pushed open the door to Eva’s office, and Vauvert gave the tiny room a surprised look.

“She works in here?”

“Uh, yes,” Leroy said. “She actually likes it that there’s no light. It’s because of her eyes.”