Of Fever and Blood Page 3

  5

  His blackout lasted for just a split second. The moment he hit the ground, the stabbing pain made Vauvert come to.

  The man in the house fired once again. Vauvert felt the buckshot whiz by inches above him.

  The next moment, Inspector Svärta was retaliating, firing her Beretta multiple times.

  Vauvert felt like he was in the middle of a street-gang shootout. He shut his eyes until the flashes of light in his retina began to fade.

  The exchange of gunfire didn’t last long. A door slammed inside the house. Their attacker had retreated.

  For a few seconds, Vauvert remained on his back, wracked in pain.

  Then he cautiously opened his eyes and saw the leather-clad figure of Eva Svärta crouching next to him. She leaned over him, her white hair a silky curtain.

  “Good thing I forced you to wear the bullet-proof vest, huh?”

  Vauvert didn’t reply. He put his hand on his chest. The vest had saved his life, indeed, but it was rather damaged now, and Vauvert felt blood oozing under his clothes—and razor blade-like sensations all over his chest.

  “Holy fucking shit. It tickles.”

  “You hurt?”

  “Scratches.” He meant it. He had seen worse. “But it always feels weird to get shot,” he added, feeling under his clothes. When he pulled his hand out, it was wet with blood. “Shit.”

  The woman rose up like a flame, noiselessly, except for the creak of her leather jacket. She lifted her Beretta and pointed it at the wide open door.

  “I’m going in. You go around the house. See if we can catch them in the rear before they get organized.”

  “No way we’re splitting up,” Vauvert objected.

  The woman had already slipped into the blackness of the house.

  He frowned. The damned Parisian. He massaged the back of his left shoulder and tried out his arm. He could move it, and he wasn’t oozing blood anymore. He’d be okay.

  He pulled himself to his feet.

  6

  While some of the things people said about Eva Svärta were untrue, some things were entirely correct. She never bothered denying any of the nonsense people spread about her. Neither did she go to lengths to explain herself. Her status in the Homicide Unit was complicated enough already.

  Crouching in the pitch-black hallway, she took off her sunglasses. Her vision was precise in the dark. That’s why her colleagues called her “Terminator.” It wasn’t the only nickname she’d been given. She preferred to ignore the other ones.

  She crept forward. The smell she’d detected from outside was unbearable here. Blood had been shed in this house, yes. And it had been left to rot. The stench of carrion made her stomach churn.

  She began to dread what she might discover.

  At the end of the hallway was the door their attacker had slammed shut. The inspector pushed it open ever so slowly with the tip of her boot. The man was nowhere around. She slipped into this new room as silently as possible. It was a large dining room, cluttered with a tremendous mess of beer cans and garbage bags piled on top of each other. A massive wooden table stood in the middle of the room. On the walls were deer trophies, their glass eyes gleaming in the dark. Two huge gilt-framed mirrors rested on the floor in a corner—both of them smashed.

  Filling the rest of the wall space were symbolic inscriptions. And there were the names of demons taken from every religion, from Isis to Belial, including Sekhmet and Thor. It was chilling.

  Eva Svärta slid along the wall and kept moving. The leather of her jacket brushed the wallpaper with an almost inaudible shhh.

  There was nobody in here.

  Where were the Salaville brothers? In what part of this house?

  Cautiously, she stepped into a hallway that led to a living room, where the darkness was even thicker. Only a few streaks of golden light filtered through the shutter slats, allowing her to make out a sofa.

  A figure was waiting for her, immobile.

  Eva Svärta raised her handgun.

  The shape on the sofa didn’t move.

  “Police!” she screamed. “Let me see your hands!”

  Still no movement. Only that horrendous smell.

  Eva Svärta took another step forward, her eyes searching the darkness.

  She recognized the characteristic stench of human meat.

  The girl lying on the sofa, legs wide apart, was in an advanced stage of decay.

  Where her face should have been, there was only a red mask with grimacing teeth and empty sockets.

  Eva put a hand to her mouth, gagging.

  Drawing closer to the corpse, she was able to take in the full extent of the abuse the girl had taken. They not only had ripped the skin off her face, but also had thrust a knife between her thighs.

  The entire length of the blade was sunk in the girl’s vagina.

  The inspector realized her hand was shaking.

  Get hold of yourself.

  Yes, get hold. You’re a cop. Think like a cop, dammit.

  She had come here on a mission, to put an end to this horror. That’s what she was going to do.

  She wasn’t going to break down. Not now.

  She lifted her head.

  That’s when she saw the symbol on the wall across from the sofa. She took a few steps toward it. The yellow wallpaper was entirely covered with the cabalistic names, but in the middle of the wall someone had painted a huge brown circle with three horizontal bars.

  This symbol was the center of it all.

  The eye of the hurricane, the illusory calm in the heart of chaos.

  She drew closer.

  It was not paint.

  She held out her hand and touched the circle, bringing the powdery matter to her nose. The characteristic acrid smell of dried blood assailed her.

  From the start, she’d known that the Salavilles were involved in some kind of mystical mania. It was the common element in all the disappearances. The only thing she had not expected was the heights their psychosis had reached. What she saw here did not jibe with the reports filed by the doctors who had treated them.

  What did this symbol represent? A circle with three bars. Blood had dribbled down the wall, and it was hard to make out the details. What was certain was that it resembled none of the pentacles usually used by Sunday satanists.

  She would have to look it up. Find an explanation of what went on in the heads of these men. Understanding these kinds of things was vital to Eva Svärta. It gave a bit of sense to her own chaos.

  She would deal with that later. This would be for the office investigation, after the Salaville brothers had been neutralized. No longer able to slaughter defenseless kids.

  7

  Vauvert positioned himself in front of the barbed wire-crowned gate. The bullet scratches under his vest were itching. Getting rid of it was out of the question, though. In the very likely event of another gunfight, he wanted to stay alive.

  He scanned the yard. He could see the stone barn, typical for the area’s farms, as well as another house in the background, all shutters closed.

  He jumped when his cell phone began to vibrate in his pocket. Finally, he had service! Staying put for fear of losing the connection, he yanked the phone to his ear.

  “Damien? Where the hell are you guys?”

  “We just left the main road. What a fucking goat path.”

  “I know. Listen, we had an exchange of gunfire here. Hurry up.”

  “Oh shit. Okay. We’ll get there as quick as possible.”

  “And call backup too. I’ve got a bad feeling. Got it?”

  “Loud and clear.”

  Vauvert ended the call. Silence still reigned on the property.

  There was no time to waste. The inspector caught sight of a spot where the barbed wire looked a little less dense. He hoisted himself onto the gate and jumped down to the other side. He froze when he recognized the red pools on the ground.

  He carefully took stock of the farm’s layout. Two houses facing
each other, with a barn between them. Where could the kidnappers be?

  He decided to go with his instinct. The barn. He sneaked toward the building, all his senses alert. There was a strip of muddy ground. Beyond that was a curtain of fir trees, thorn bushes, and black trunks. The Salavilles had blocked this way with an even thicker tangle of barbed wire that wouldn’t be easy to get though unhurt.

  Vauvert heard a burst of voices and crouched at the edge of the barn.

  The brothers were inside, all right, and they were having quite a row.

  Good. If they were panicking, they would be divided.

  Vauvert slowly pulled his weapon out of its holster.

  Creeping near a closed shutter, he could hear their argument more clearly.

  “I’m telling you we’ve got to untie her! She was chosen, get it? The gods chose her!”

  “I don’t care! The cops are out there! We ain’t got no time to wait for her!”

  “You’re gonna fuck everything up, you fat dumbass!”

  “Fuck you, Claude!”

  Very, very good.

  The spaces between the wooden shutters were too narrow for Vauvert to make out anything inside the barn, but they let out an excruciating stench. What else were they up to in there?

  He intended to find that out.

  He crept along the barn, ever so slowly, toward the doors.

  If Svärta didn’t mess up on her part, the brothers would be trapped. Then, hopefully, the rest of the unit would show up. Given their situation, the Salavilles would have only two options. The first would be to remain holed up in this barn and fight for their lives, shooting at anything that moved. That was the option most psychos went with. More often than not, it all ended in a monumental bloodbath.

  Or else they could try to flee the farm before the entire police force swooped down on them.

  Roman Salaville went for option number two.

  Vauvert barely had time to see him. The fat man dashed out the doors and disappeared behind the barn. Vauvert reacted right away. Spinning on his heels, he ran around the building in the opposite direction, hoping to catch the runaway on the other side, face to face.

  But when he got to the back, he realized Roman Salaville was following the muddy path leading to the woods. The man reached the barbed-wire wall and started climbing it, hurting himself in the process.

  Too late for discretion.

  “Police!” Vauvert shouted. “Don’t move!”

  Salaville climbed twice as hard. His pants tore. He’d worked his way up only twenty inches or so, when the wire ferociously grabbed his shirt. He struggled and thrashed, bloodying his arms and legs.

  Cursing, Vauvert ran toward him.

  He saw the huge man topple over the fence, leaving scraps of clothing in the barbed wire, and then heard him thud down heavily in the bushes, beyond Vauvert’s field of vision.

  “Bastard,” he mumbled, speeding up.

  When he reached he fence, he saw his suspect tearing as fast as he could through the fir trees.

  Not a second to waste. Putting his handgun back in its holster, the inspector began to climb the fence himself. The sharp spikes pierced his hands. He clenched his teeth, trying to minimize the damage. He was just as challenged as his fugitive as he laboriously made his way to the top and finally tumbled to the other side. He squawked as he landed in the bushes. The collision with the stony ground sent a wave of pain down his spine.

  God dammit, the fat bastard was going to pay for that.

  He leaped to his feet, scanning the woods around him. He soon located Roman Salaville, who was slipping between the trees, and without a second thought he darted after him.

  8

  Eva Svärta hurried across the foul-smelling living room. There was no one here.

  She went through a second hallway and entered a small room where a stained mattress lay, straps attached to it at the top and the bottom. Light shone into the room through a half-opened door.

  As she approached the door, she put her sunglasses back on so she could see outside without burning her eyes.

  She saw the farmyard.

  The large brown splatters could only be blood.

  The space looked deserted.

  The inspector studied the two other buildings composing the farm.

  A high-pitched scream rose from the barn.

  The girl was still alive. Eva’s heart filled with an unrealistic hope. She had to stay focused.

  At that very moment, a bolt of lightning tore across the sky. The sudden brightness blinded her, and she had to shut her eyes.

  When she opened them again, she saw Claude Salaville dashing out of the barn. The man was carrying Eloïse Lombard. The girl was a naked, pale figure, so fragile that she looked about to break at any moment. She was struggling, but the man was holding her tight with one arm around her waist. The other hand held a shotgun.

  Eva planted herself in the doorframe.

  “Police! Freeze!”

  Claude Salaville offered her the grin of a wild beast and pointed the gun at her. He fired.

  Eva dove back into the house. Buckshot ripped chunks off the door. The mirror over the chest of drawers exploded into a thousand shards.

  She rolled onto the ground and, flat on her chest, took aim at the man.

  But he held the girl in front of him, making her a human shield. If Eva fired now, she might harm her.

  Claude Salaville crossed the yard, heading for the other house.

  If she had been wrong, and the brothers had another vehicle in the back of the property, he would escape.

  The man fired another round. Then he rushed into the house.

  He’d chosen the option of true killers.

  He took refuge inside.

  Ready for an apocalypse.

  At this point, the inspector knew she was supposed to wait. The procedure was quite clear about that. But the girl’s screams rose again.

  Eva Svärta had no choice. This profession drove her crazy with frustration. Sometimes she was too late and found killers already splattered happily in their victims’ blood. Sometimes she did manage to stop them before they crossed to the irreparable. But always, she found herself reminded of the reason she had decided to join the force: to exorcise the darkness, her very own darkness.

  She’d been a girl, too.

  Nobody had come to her rescue.

  She was not going to let the past repeat itself.

  She got up and ran across the yard, weapon raised.

  In spite of the lightning that had blinded her a minute earlier, the sky showed no sign of rain. It seemed odd, but she had no time to think about it.

  As she passed in front of the barn halfway to the house, a premonition hit her. She pressed herself against the wall and took a quick look inside to make sure the other brother was not holed up there, hidden and ready to pounce.

  There seemed to be nobody, yet the smell was abnormal.

  She stepped into the doorway.

  Nobody alive, anyway.

  Eva had to fight back a violent urge to vomit.

  The air was heavy with the stink of decomposing flesh.

  She forced herself to breathe calmly. She pushed her hair back so it would not be in the way. Then she pushed her sunglasses up the bridge of her nose.

  She hesitated to step into this slaughterhouse. She had expected something awful. But this was beyond horrible.

  She gulped, swallowing what tasted like bile. Her hands shook. On the walls she could see inscriptions drawn in blood, circles and occult symbols. The Salavilles had left dozens of victims, and they lay strewn in the barn. Broken, ripped-apart figures. Girls with no faces. Not a single one of them had a face.

  Here we go again, said a little voice she knew all too well. All that blood. You remember?

  It was the voice of a little girl in her mind. A six-year-old girl she had held in her arms. An entire life annihilated.

  She forced herself to forget it. It all belonged to the darkness.
/>
  Refocus. You’re a cop. You’re on a mission.

  A mission, yes. One she had every intention of seeing through.

  She went back outside and moved along the stone wall. Then she cut through the rest of the yard, double-quick.

  She reached the second house.

  The door had been left open.

  It could be a trap.

  She had no time to worry about it.

  More important, she didn’t care anymore.

  She pushed the door all the way open, revealing a living room with furniture covered with plastic sheets. She entered, pointing her gun in every direction.

  “Come out, asshole! I’m by myself. Let’s settle this, right now.”

  Laughter came from the top of the staircase.

  She drew closer. And saw Claude Salaville on the top floor.

  “It’s all settled already,” he said. “You’re going to get the fuck out of here right away and shut the door. Or else the kid dies.”

  He was holding the girl against him, a huge boning knife under her throat.

  9

  The fugitive bolted though the trees.

  “Salaville!” Vauvert shouted, fast on his trail.

  He was in good physical shape. He just had to avoid slipping in the mud. The fat guy ahead of him, on the other hand, was not used to such exertion. He was losing ground every second.

  Now Vauvert was just ten yards or so from him.

  He ran even faster.

  Unexpectedly, the man he was chasing left the narrow path and threw himself into the bushes.

  “Stop!” Vauvert shouted at the top of his voice. “Don’t move!”

  In the branches, the obese man rose to his feet. He pointed a handgun in his direction.

  The inspector barely had time to dive behind a tree as the man fired.

  “Salaville! You don’t want to do that!”

  A second shot rang out in the uncanny silence of the forest. The tree Vauvert stood behind shook as the bullet hit it. Roman Salaville fired several more times. The bullets whizzed by the trunk. Vauvert crouched.

  The gunfire ended. The moron had run out of rounds. Vauvert heard branches snap as the fat man made his way deeper into the woods.