involved.”
“Yeah. It explains things.”
Once alone, he grabbed the Falgarde photos and turned them over. He did not want to see the pedophile’s face.
The human soul could be a sordid fucking puzzle. What he had just heard kept playing in his head.
Eva is reliving this.
For the second time, God dammit. There is no justice.
He turned on the computer and shut his eyes for a few moments. With a puzzling clarity, he could smell Eva’s scent. It filled the room. He could not tell whether he liked this sensation or felt terribly embarrassed.
Did she spend her nights in here, as he sometimes spent nights in his own office, searching the Internet for leads, new pieces for the ever-renewed puzzle of human cruelty?
He could not help imagining what Eva had gone through, what she must have felt every time she faced a monster in men’s clothes.
Then he opened his eyes, aware that time was going by.
Terribly fast.
He swore that he would not let his emotions take over.
He also swore that he would not sleep until he found her.
One way or the other.
43
When Eva comes to, she is still lying on the table.
She gags, chokes, swallows a long trickle of blood.
She can’t see anyone in front of her, and for one crazed moment, she imagines that her tormentor has left her, just as another tormentor had once spared her.
It’s the nightmares that never left her. Memories of another basement, another monster.
“You’re back,” she hears the woman saying.
Eva flinches. She tries to turn her head, but the back of her neck hurts.
She blinks, trying to adjust her vision.
She can see that her tormentor is still there. In this basement. She is sitting in an armchair, legs crossed, her face still masked. She’s petting an enormous black beast at her feet.
Eva recognizes a wolf.
The animal raises its head, and its eyes cast red rays in her direction.
One blink, and it’s no longer there.
The woman stands.
The strangeness of her figure strikes Eva for the first time. There is something unnatural about this woman’s posture. Or is it just the way her black dress drapes the curves of her body? Eva can’t figure it out. Her tears blur the details.
The woman comes closer. Her movements are jerky.
Her white mask still sparkles, despite the blood spatters.
There are brown smudges on her lips.
“This is only the beginning,” she says, a perverse pleasure in her voice. “Let’s pick up where we left off.”
Eva is terrified. The smell of her own blood is suffocating.
“Why?” she manages to whisper.
Then she breaks into a coughing fit, reviving pain throughout her body.
“Why?” she asks again. “You… sick… fuck…”
“Why?” The woman leans over, so close this time that Eva can feel her breath against her face. Her hair brushes Eva’s naked chest. It has a synthetic feel. So it is a wig. “Because it must be.” Locks from the wig sweep over her wounds. “You are here because you wanted to be. You selected yourself. What’s happening to you now is entirely your fault.”
“N… No…”
The woman smiles.
“They never chose you, though. They are very specific when they select their sacrifices, you know. And believe me, they’ve never shown any interest in you. But see, you wouldn’t mind your own business. You interrupted the scarlet feast. The gods were furious.”
Eva moans.
“Oh, of course, you’re not intelligent enough to understand,” the woman continues. “For you, they were all just murders, weren’t they? All you can see is the flesh. But what was at stake remains invisible to you. You have to live with death inside you to understand.”
She raises the scalpel.
Runs it in front of Eva’s face.
The inspector flinches. She doesn’t dare breathe, as the blade is too close to her eyes.
“Such pretty eyes. People say that albinos have the gift of clairvoyance. Is that true?”
Eva’s heart becomes a beating drum. She bites her tongue to remain motionless, at any cost.
The masked woman continues her monologue.
“Have you ever longed to speak to the gods, to ask of them what no mortal being could ever offer you?”
Eva breathes as slowly as possible. A drop of blood falls from the blade and lands in her right eye. She does not blink. The blade is so close. One tiny move, and the point will pierce her cornea.
She finds herself praying.
She restrains a moan.
When the blade draws away from her face, Eva can’t help letting out a long whimper of relief, gratitude, or maybe terror. Or all of that combined. Her thoughts are muddled. The black river is approaching, coming to embrace her.
“I’ll let you have your eyes,” the woman tells her. “At least for now.”
Suddenly, behind the masked woman, Eva sees a black and indistinct figure. An animal with red eyes. Then a second animal and a third.
She shuts her eyes for a second, and when she opens them again, they’re gone.
“You can see them? That’s a good sign. They have come for you. They will take you when the time is right.”
Eva does the only thing she is still capable of. She spits in the woman’s face.
The woman laughs softly.
“You’re still feisty, little tiger. That’s good.”
“What do you want?” Eva utters.
“Your blood, your life, your soul. What else? I’m going to take back what you stole from me, do you understand? The ritual has been interrupted for a year because of you. One whole year lost. For a while I thought I’d lost her track. Fortunately, the gods are helping me. Thanks to you, the ceremony can start again. Nothing will stop it now.”
She raises the scalpel.
44
