S. Cedric - Of Fever and Blood

Vauvert didn’t think it was possible, but the rain began to fall even harder.

For just a moment, Eloise thought she might regain her footing.

That was not the case. The metal pipe she had grabbed bent like a piece of cardboard. She felt herself thrown off the ledge and hurled toward the ground.

She crashed painfully onto the next roof, about five feet below, and started tumbling, head over heels, down the steep incline. There was nothing to break her fall.

At the last moment, she caught the edge of a gutter.

Her fall came to a brutal stop.

Her stomach slammed against the wall while her legs dangled in midair.

She clung to the gutter. The rainwater that it carried spilled over, splashing her face and making it impossible to breathe. She was terrified of what would happen if the gutter gave way, but as she kicked the air, she felt the edge of another roof below her. If only she could get a foothold on the tin.

Eloise flailed, trying to secure her footing. Finding that it was impossible, she realized that her only alternative was hauling herself onto the roof above. Did she have the strength to do it, though? Her arms were cramping and cut.

She would not be able to hold on much longer.

And so she decided to give it all she had. Gathering every bit of strength left in her, she managed, miraculously, to throw an elbow above the gutter, and she pulled her head above it. Her hand found an iron bar running horizontally along the wall. She held on.

She was almost there.

Gripping the bar with both hands, she swung her legs, once, then twice, and got a knee on the gutter at the edge of the roof.

Just one last effort .

Looking up, she saw the terrible woman coming through the driving rain.

The woman was on all fours, like an animal, and skillfully slinking across the steep rooftop. The rain had washed the blood from her body, but more than ever, she looked like a monster out of a grim fairy tale. Her whole body was changing. Her hair was growing longer by the second, black curls dancing around her face. Her mask was a mirror reflecting the flashes of lightning.

Between her fingers, the triangular blade gleamed with a bluish hue, an obscene promise.

Eloise tried to heave her whole body onto the roof.

But the stressed gutter broke, and, once again, Eloise was dangling in the air. She held onto the iron bar with all her might. The bar was still holding.

That was all that mattered.

Eloise slowly slid one hand forward, then the other and managed to move along the bar. The rain had plastered her hair against her eyes, making it hard to see. Drops pelted her skin. Her hands felt slippery on the wet metal. But Eloise held on. If she could manage to cover three more feet, maybe four, she could reach the safety of the next roof. That was all she could think about now.

Move one hand after the other. Hold on tight. Don’t look back at any cost.

But her pursuer had not lost any time. Once again, she was hovering right above her. Eloise tried to move faster, but she was not quick enough. The scalpel came at her right hand. The girl released the hand, screaming in terror.

She was dangling in the air, gripping the bar with just her left hand.

Overwhelmed with panic, she screamed.

The woman, crouching over the edge of the roof, raised the scalpel once more.

Eloise managed to grab the bar with her right hand just as the scalpel came down and slashed her left hand to the bone. Broken, lost, Eloise twisted on herself, hanging precariously by her right arm.

When her shoulder could no longer sustain the weight, Eloise knew she had no choice. She had to let go.

With a shriek, she fell.

The next moment, she crashed. A wave of pain coursed through her body, blasting her ribs and knocking the wind out of her. Tiles shattered all around, and once again, she was slipping down a steep rooftop.

She struggled to find something to grab and managed to get an arm around a chimney. Using all of her protesting muscles, she pulled herself into a sitting position and rested for a moment against the bricks. She was breathless and badly cut. She was losing blood.

No sooner had she caught her breath than her pursuer landed on the same roof, just a short distance away. The woman’s hysterical laugh rose against the backdrop of the thunder.

Gasping, ignoring her pain, Eloise began to climb the roof.

“I saw them!” Vauvert shouted over the thunder. “The girl is still alive! Saint-Clair is after her!”

Leroy, who had just climbed the iron rungs too, hauled himself up next to Vauvert and leaned against a chimney. The icy rain poured between them.

“Where? I can’t see anything!”

“Over there!” Vauvert shouted, waving toward them. “We have to hurry!”

“We’re going to kill ourselves if we go after them! We have no equipment!”

Vauvert was not listening. He began making his way cautiously along the edge of the tiles. He managed to walk for a good twenty feet, holding onto rusty pipes and parapets that ran between roofs like veins of some gigantic monster. The slippery tin crest, assailed by the storm, was reminiscent of a strange mountain where any wrong move could result in death. Vauvert walked over several skylights, none of them lit. The rain kept blasting down, making it nearly impossible to know how much distance he had covered. He kept moving, knowing he had a chance. If only he could catch up to them before it was too late.

“Can you see them?” Leroy called out from behind him.

“Not yet.”

He finally reached the edge of the apartment building. He spotted a small ladder attached to a ventilation shaft that led down to the adjacent facade. He realized that all the buildings in the neighborhood were connected this way. Before his eyes was a maze of passageways, ledges and ladders. A bit farther on, the planks and tarpaulin of a scaffold spanned the street, linking the roofs to one another. But just about everywhere, he could also see rectangular openings, which were no doubt inner courtyards. Falling into any of these abysses would mean instant death. The remainder of the rooftop landscape was terraces of varying sizes, abrupt inclines and gray slopes pounded by rain.

In the midst of the raging storm, he could not see Saint-Clair or her victim anymore. But this was the way they had gone. He was sure of that. If he reached the far end of this roof, he would get to the ledge Eloise had fallen from. And he would see where she landed. He slowly climbed down the rusty rungs, praying that the ladder would support his weight. The ladder swayed a little, but held on.

Once he had set both of his feet on the next rooftop, he was able to stand more easily. The slant of this roof was not as pronounced. Still, he would have to move with extreme caution to avoid slipping on the wet tin.

A bolt of lightning blinded him again. It was only then, after thunder made the entire building shake, that he heard the screams.

He looked back in Leroy’s direction. His colleague was trying to get his attention. He was shouting something, but the racket of the storm was drowning him out.

“What? I can’t hear you!” he shouted.

“Behind you.”

Vauvert felt his blood curdle. He spun around as quickly as he could.

A wolf, ready to pounce.

Eyes like red flames surged through the rain and the dark. The beast lunged at his throat. Moving instinctively, Vauvert raised his arms to block it.

The impact was tremendous. The growling mass threw him off his feet. Vauvert crashed against the roof, while the beast’s nails tore through the sleeve of his leather coat and dug into his skin. Yet Vauvert managed to grip the animal’s neck. He squeezed it with all his might, keeping its black jaws, full of razor-sharp teeth, at arm’s length, away from his vulnerable throat. Now he could feel the beast clawing at his stomach and his thighs. The dreadful jaws snapped at his face. It took every bit of Vauvert’s strength to keep them at bay.