Of Fever and Blood

anymore.

And then she witnessed something that her eyes refused to believe.

Eloise Lombard was being lifted from the concrete rooftop, as though a gigantic hand had grabbed it. And this invisible force began to suck the blood out of her broken body. Streams of blood rose from her wounds, from her open mouth and from her eyes. The streams flowed toward the sky in the middle of the storm.

Eva’s heart skipped several beats, and she lost control of her fingers. The clip she had just retrieved fell in a puddle. She wanted to take a step, pick it up, but she realized that she was unable to move. She dropped the Beretta now.

The pressure in the air was rising by the second.

From the corner of her eye, she caught sight of slender figures working their way closer.

The wolves.

They were gathering. She could see dozens and dozens of them.

A silent pack, forming a circle, preparing for the final onslaught.

Bent in two, Eva could hardly breathe. Absolute terror overwhelmed her.

What if Saint-Clair was right? What if dark gods really were there, above them, in between worlds?

If the ceremony had been completed, then…

What would happen now?

Soon she would see, with her own eyes. All of the surrounding roofs had started to vibrate. A ladder fixed to a chimney came undone and collapsed against the tiles. The concrete rooftop below Eva’s feet shook and cracked.

Eva dropped to her knees. The invisible force that was taking over the atmosphere was crushing her. She couldn’t help wondering if it was air from another world. It was a thicker air unfit for human lungs. And it was getting even thicker

A door really had opened. The blood had been the key. The blood of seventy girls. Judith Saint-Clair had summoned the gods with it, and the gods were now coming into this world. The black beasts with eyes of flame were only their messengers.

“Spirits of the shadows who never sleep! You who never dream! Come to me with all your love, all your suffering, and all your sacrifice! Quench your thirst with this blood and these tears! May they flow down your invisible throats and appease your hungry souls!”

Eva gasped.

She saw Saint-Clair coming her way, radiating with a new and fiery power.

She knew that she was about to lose what remained of her strength.

Saint-Clair stopped in front of her, surrounded by the wolves.

She raised the bloody blade.

As the scalpel came down on her, the inspector suddenly understood. She quickly moved aside. The blade struck her shoulder, near her neck. Eva felt the blood flowing.

In one quick motion, she grabbed Saint-Clair’s mask.

She tore it off her face.

And, at the sight of what lay behind it, she let loose a horrified scream.

Judith Saint-Clair no longer had a face.

Where her features had been, there was a continuous flow of flesh. Facial features appeared, vanished and shifted. Eva recognized the faces. They were the faces of the girls Saint-Clair had murdered. They were now taking hold without being able to stabilize for more than just the briefest moment. The continuous buzzing of the shifting faces shook the woman’s body and escalated her metamorphosis.

“Do you see what the gods gave me?” Saint-Clair exulted, dozens of voices overlapping in her throat. “I am they! And they are me!”

“Not quite yet,” Eva replied.

A desperate surge of hope welled up inside her. It was the hope that things were not over yet. After all, the invisible gods were busy feeding on Eloise Lombard’s blood, sucking it through the clouds. Their attention was not fully focused on Saint-Clair yet. This gave her a bit of time-a tiny bit-to act.

Eva played her very last card.

101

It was the only possible answer. Eva overcame the vertigo that had gripped her and did what she knew how to do better than anyone else. She let her gift of empathy blossom deep inside her. She opened her senses up, tried to understand the other, to be her. And the process began immediately in its natural, organic way, as it always did. Eva let herself be carried by its wave toward the woman’s madness, and she accepted it as hers, as though she was that woman, as though she had always been.

There was no more room inside her for fear. For the first time, she willingly dove into the ocean of darkness, and, ironically, no transfer had ever felt so easy, so natural. But maybe she had always had that drop of evil flowing in her veins, that urge to defy death one last time.

Life and death were but a game of mirrors. The entire picture came to her suddenly in its entire extent and cruel irony. The gods were watching the world through those mirrors. The mortals stayed away from the abyss to avoid meeting their devouring gaze.

Eva, she had to look.

She raised the mask and put it on her own face. To see like her. To be her. To understand this mad woman in order to annihilate her once and for all.

Deep in the recesses of her mind, she thought she heard her father laugh. It was a prideful laugh.

The mask came in contact with her skin.

The porcelain was ice-cold. She felt an external skeleton locking onto her features. And she felt, yes, all the distress bubbling inside the woman. This distress that had turned into hate, into a dazzling energy of destruction.

She could see the world with her eyes, the world transfigured.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Saint-Clair’s seventy voices roared.

“Becoming you,” Eva whispered. “Being you.”

“You will be, don’t worry! You’ll be a part of me too!”

The monster lunged at her.

Eva did not do anything to stop her this time.

The blade penetrated her stomach and was driven all the way in.

The world shook.

Intense pain ran through her.

In that one moment of abandon, she had lost everything.

In that same moment, she had gained everything.

It was the only way. The law of the world of mirrors. The obvious rule of chaos.

She collapsed in the pouring rain.

As in a dream, she felt the wave of pain radiating from her wound, and, against all odds, running in her veins all the way to her face.

The mask was absorbing the pain.

She began to smile below the porcelain, which had turned black.

Judith Saint-Clair leaned over her, her horrible bubbling skull filled with contradictory emotions.

“Why are you laughing?”

“Because the gods are watching you,” Eva gagged, her mouth filled with blood. “You just killed yourself, right in front of them.”

“I did nothing of the sort.”

“Oh yes, you did. You don’t understand what this means, do you?”

The chasms of Saint-Clair’s eyes filled with darkness. No, the monster did not understand.