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.
“Yes,” he said in a thick voice. “But what you’re saying doesn’t make sense. I knew Judith Saint-Clair, years ago. She was a poor sick woman. She must have died a long time ago.”
“That’s what we’re going to check out now,” Vauvert said.
Nadal, pallid and bloody in the beam of the flashlight, looked crazed. His breath vaporized in puffs as it hit the frigid air.
“At least let me call for help, so they can send an ambulance,” he said.
“Go ahead,” Vauvert responded.
Nadal took out his phone and, with a trembling hand, pressed an emergency number. Nothing happened.
“It’s not working. No signal.”
Suddenly, the officer named Puech let out a scream. They all turned to him.
“Arnaud!” Nadal called out. “You okay?”
“I saw… I saw…” the young man stammered.
“What? What did you see?”
“Some kind of beast. With fucking red eyes.”
Vauvert felt the blood rush to his temples. If he did not take charge right now, things were going to get out of hand very quickly.
His sensed movement and spun around.
All he could see were the two flaming globes in the bushes.
He raised his gun and shot several times.
“What the hell is that?” Nadal exclaimed.
Now there was movement all around them.
Vauvert knew he was losing control of the situation.
“We need to take cover,” he ordered in a voice that he hoped sounded steady. “Quick.”
“What if there are more traps in there?” Nadal yelled.
“We don’t have a choice.”
The bushes rustled. He raised his gun, ready to fire blind.
But he couldn’t see anything. Only darkness. The tall grass rippled in the beam of his flashlight.
There. A figure.
And another.
He fired. Movement in every direction.
“Hurry! Get inside.”
Before Vauvert could finish, something leaped out of the bushes and landed on Puech. He let out a dreadful scream just before the creature took his face in its jaws. There was a terrifying cracking sound.
“Arnaud!” Nadal screamed.
The beast moved from the face to the neck. In one simple twist, he tore out the man’s throat. A fountain of blood spewed out.
“Do something!”
The animal settled on its victim. There were sounds of fabric ripping and bones splitting.
Then a second beast leaped out, and the two monsters together pulled the officer’s mangled remains into the bushes.
The attack hadn’t lasted more than ten seconds.
There was silence again.
“Follow me!” Leroy cried as he dashed into the building.
Nadal and Vauvert rushed in after him. They slammed the door.
Leroy flipped the light switch. They were in a large, very long room that must have been both a living room and a kitchen, judging from the sink and the counter at the far end. A table and a battered couch took up the rest of the space.
The yellow tile floor was spattered with brown stains.
“Give me a hand!” Vauvert ordered, grabbing a wooden dresser.
Pushing it as quickly as they could manage, they barricaded the door.
Leroy stood at the only window and scanned the yard. At first, he didn’t see anything. Then, here and there, red eyes appeared and disappeared.
“Looks like there’s more and more of them.”
“What are they? What the fuck are these things?” Nadal cried out.
“Wolves,” Vauvert said.
“Are you kidding me? Those fucking things are not wolves.”
“Then I don’t know what they are,” Vauvert admitted.
“In any case,” Leroy said, “we’re surrounded.”
The three men looked at each other, their eyes filled with distress.
66
Fiber by fiber.
Eva can feel the rope getting weaker.
Or else she is imagining this too.
But she continues. She must.
The masked woman is now on her hands and knees. Eva can make her out. She is quivering, growling, and chanting.
“Oriens! Paymon! Ariton! Amaymon!”
Eva pays no attention. She keeps moving her wrists.
“Gebeleizis! Diseebeh! Dark sons of Isten! Come taste the life beyond death, for death has just freed life!”
Up.
Down.
67
“What’s that?”
Nadal was looking at the heavily knotted wooden table. It was covered with dark-red and lumpy-black stains.
The tiles underneath the table had the same kind of splatter. There were circular rusty stains too,
