S. Cedric - Of Fever and Blood

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.

“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 terror 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.

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.