Of Fever and Blood Read online

  “I don’t see what you’re getting at, but it’s not funny.”

  Vauvert didn’t know what to say.

  “We’re heading back now. But you’d better take care of the report tonight. The boss will want us to justify that trip to Ariège.”

  Vauvert uttered something that sounded like a groan.

  “So?” Mira asked.

  Vauvert said nothing. Things were getting out of control. He stared at his cell, tiny in his enormous hand. In the menu, he looked for the folder where he had saved the photos from the farm. There they were, the photos.

  He opened them one by one.

  He couldn’t see any traces of the black lumps that had littered the ground in the barn. The droppings had vanished from the images.

  “This can’t be possible.”

  He had also taken three photos of the wall. “Lords of death and resurrection.” He couldn’t have imagined that, too.

  He scrolled down and opened the photos.

  The wall was blank. There were no traces of blood on the wall, not in any one of the photos.

  Alexandre Vauvert turned off his phone. He tossed it on the desk and glared at it for a long time. Then he took his head in his hands and shut his eyes.

  “Damien, I think I’m losing my fucking mind.”

  31

  Paris

  Sunday evening

  It was night when Eva drove back home in her Audi. Rain was pouring down in sheets, hitting the sidewalks with raging force. The gutters were overloaded with black rivers that rushed into the streets. Eva had to be careful, because her wipers could not move fast enough to clear away all the water on the windshield.

  She saw the hooded figure at the very last moment. The guy was wrapped in a large coat that had not reflected the car’s headlights. He was leaning over the edge of the curb, and the Audi came dangerously close to hitting him.

  “Holy shit!” Eva swore, swerving away from him as she could.

  She tried to get a glimpse of the man in the rearview mirror, but all she could distinguish was the shape of his coat and the flash of a surprisingly white face turned toward her.

  This idiot was going to wind up in real bad shape if he was always this careless about crossing the street.

  A second later, it was forgotten. Eva was exhausted. She had just spent more than fifteen hours plowing through computer files in her office, and her eyes ached. All she wanted now was her apartment cocoon. She needed a break, if just for an hour or two. Nothing else mattered.

  She brought the car to a stop in front of the parking garage gate and stretched her arm through the window to press her magnetic key against the reader. She pulled in, and the first gate slowly came down behind her. Only then would the second gate open and allow her to drive into the underground parking lot. The system was supposed to prevent burglary. Even so, two vehicles had been stolen already this year. It seemed that criminals could always crack a security system.

  Eva drove down the curved tunnel to the third level, where her spot was. She maneuvered into her space and turned off the headlights.

  The parking lot was silent, as usual. It was one of those empty silences that always made Eva uneasy, despite her years of police training. Tonight was no exception. She hurried toward the exit, her heels clicking on the concrete floor. Again, she pressed her key against the magnetic reader and went through the two successive fireproof doors. The elevator was right behind the second door, by the staircase. Here too, she needed her magnetic key. The elevator doors slid open, and Eva stepped inside.

  The doors closed with a swish and the elevator started up, slow as ever. It always seemed to take hours to get to the ninth floor.

  Eva leaned her back against the mirrored wall of the elevator and closed her eyes to rest them. Information swirled in her head. All those names and nightclubs, possible leads and rejected explanations. Before leaving headquarters, she had made a final progress report with her colleagues. But neither the neighborhood interviews nor the phone analysis had yielded any clues. Even the fingerprints provided no information. Leroy was still digging through the archives of the many mental institutions, with the help of truckloads of coffee. He came across a few disturbed teens who fantasized about Countess Bathory, Gilles de Rais, and satanism, but none of them seemed that dangerous. As for Deveraux, he was fixed on putting together a list of youths who had desecrated graves with the intention of holding them for questioning. He most likely hoped to force a confession out of one of them. It was an obvious abuse of power, but Eva refrained from saying anything and let the man do his thing. At least he was off her back and she could do her work.

  Not that she had made much progress, but at least she had managed to retrace the victims’ steps. On Desiderio’s part, there was nothing too surprising. The editor was a typically sad case of a workaholic who had sacrificed her personal life for her career. She spent most of her time at the office. Late at night she used sex with strangers to drown her loneliness. Her unlikely affair with Barbara Meyer, however, actually seemed to be serious. The two women would have spent the weekend together if their lives had not been cut short.

  That made Eva think.

  When it comes to behavior and relationships, it is rare that anything happens by accident. There are no coincidences. Only choices.

  Certainly, those two slayings were by choice, not accident.

  But why those two specifically?

  Was it because he—or she—already knew them? Because they could have recognized him—or her?

  Maybe it was for an altogether different reason.

  As for Meyer, her computer was crammed with Goth music and old black-and-white horror movies. The girl spent a fortune on shoes, corsets, concert tickets, and nightclubs. It was in this nightlife’s loud and inflamed fringe that she had met Desiderio.

  This was one point of convergence.

  A lot of people in that crowd had a passion for the occult. Many would know about Countess Bathory’s life, no doubt about that. But to assume that any of them would actually take the plunge, now that was another story.

  Still, it was a tangible lead, and Eva had every intention of following up.

  The elevator stopped on the ninth floor.

  She opened her apartment door.

  It was almost nine o’clock. She had time to rest a bit before going back to work.

  She hung up her jacket and placed her shoes neatly in the closet and headed for the bedroom. Lying down on the bed, she stretched, then turned her head left and right until she felt the delightful crack of the vertebrae. She gazed at the ceiling.

  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 shoul
ders.

  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.

  32

  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.

  And Eva pushed too, moving as she could among the sweat-soaked bodies until she could get a glimpse of the stage. First she saw the bass player, who had long frizzy hair and was wearing a T-shirt that said “Sodom.” He was bent toward the audience, clinging to his instrument, one foot on the stage monitor. Anonymous hands from the audience were clinging to the bottoms of his pants and refused to let go. There had to be a guitar player behind him. The colorful stage smoke obscured him, but his presence was made palpable by the saturated chaos of his instrument, his ear-splitting harmonics.

  As for the lead singer, he was hard to miss. He was tall and imposing, with shaman makeup and bone trinkets around his neck. His voice—or rather his wailing—rose and flew with the music. Head thrown back, eyes rolled upward, he had a foot on his monitor too and seemed to be anchoring himself to the mike stand with one hand. The other hand was raised toward the sky, as though he were trying to hang onto it.

  When he lowered his head again, his eyes underneath the veil of his hair began to shine. Eva flinched with an old atavistic fear. It was the fear of unexplainable and powerful energies that sometimes slip behind the eyes of madmen and saints.

  Under the ultrapowerful lighting, she
had the impression that this man was staring at her and that his gaze was piercing her soul. For a second, the singer’s hair had been white as snow, a blinding sun-like halo around his face.

  Then the hair, pasted to the sweaty singer’s gaunt and haunted face, turned black again. His heavily made-up eyes did not cast any light. On the contrary, they absorbed it, like chasms.

  “What the soul hides,” he screamed into the mike, “blood tells!”

  Eva decided to retreat, making her way back through the crowd and heading for the bar. She needed to have a drink in her hands.

  When she spotted the boy behind the bar, her first thought was that he was incredibly good-looking. Early twenties in all its superb arrogance, as thin and smooth as a pre-Raphaelite angel, his eyes made up with black liner, and his hair like silky snakes.

  As she reached to him, Eva opened her coat. The barman’s eyes immediately fell to her corset.

  “Your hair looks cool!” he shouted over the music.

  Eva smiled and lowered her shades, locking her red eyes with the young man’s.

  “Vodka!” she shouted back.

  “The first one’s on me!” he replied with a wink. As he put the glass in front of her, he leaned over and said, “I’m Anthony, by the way.”

  “And I’m the police,” Eva said in his ear.

  She discreetly flashed her ID. It was a thrill watching the boy’s eyes widen and his mouth twitch, once to the right and once to the left. How could he have imagined that the girl he was hitting on was actually a cop.

  This time, she was the one leaning over the bar to get closer to him.

  “You work here every night, Anthony?”

  “Uh, yes, why?”

  She slid the photo of Audrey Desiderio beside her drink.

  “Have you ever seen this woman?”

  He studied the picture.

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “How about this one?” Eva asked, showing him the picture of Barbara Meyer.

  This time he nodded, which made his braids ripple.

  “Yeah, that’s Barbie! She comes here all the time. You’ll have to wait, though. She’s not here yet tonight.”