First Blood (36 page)

“It’s not what you think,” she said, muffling a groan. “Don’t start imagining things.”

He crushed his lips against hers to get her to shut up. He held her tight in his powerful arms. He wasn’t forcing her, but he wasn’t giving her a choice, either. He felt her body melt into his, stick to him, as she herself held him tighter and tighter.

I don’t give a shit what it is,
he thought as he kissed her all over her body and got lost in her blood-red eyes. His whole being had been waiting for nothing but this moment, the moment that they would find each other again. He did not care about the consequences of this act.
You are here. We are here, both of us, and that’s all that counts.

She held onto him, smiling at him, kissing him back, and groaning. When he entered her, she closed her eyes, her smile widening. She was beautiful. She threw her head back and moaned louder.

They made love for a long time, slowly and then quicker, throwing the sheets to the floor, changing position, the greed not letting up. They loved each other as if it were their final opportunity to feel alive and share this life. Alexandre lost all sense of time, of the minutes, or hours maybe, spent inside her. All he cared about was her body against his and giving her pleasure, always more pleasure, climbing up and down delicious plateaus.

She was straddling him, holding him tight between her thighs, riding him faster and faster, when something strange happened.

Her hair was shimmering like a curtain in front of her face, and her mouth was open in a long, slow moan, when he thought he heard her speaking to him.

Alexandre, it’s always been you. I don’t want you to know it.

The words had slipped into his mind. Eva had not really spoken. That he was sure of. He gasped. He could not have heard her thoughts. He had imagined them. That had to be it.

Eva leaned over him, guiding her breasts to his mouth. He nibbled on her nipple.

“Alexandre, what is it?”

He ran his hands through her silky snow-white hair and pulled her even closer.

“Nothing, nothing at all.”

He kissed her with an animal voraciousness, and their hips returned to their synchronized movement, one melting into the other.

Always been you.
Those words echoed in his mind.

He stopped thinking and got lost in her.

When Louis does it—the instant the sky opens and the fabric of the world tears—the four others stop breathing. Their pupils dilate and change shape. An intense feeling of fire runs through their veins.

“The first blood,” Ismael says.

He is lying in bed, shaking uncontrollably.

Madeleine is next to him and convulsing in the same way. She forgets about the cocaine in the back of her throat and the pleasure the man next to her has just given her. It is as though she has been projected into his body, and her senses have rebooted. Every nerve is turned inside out.

“He did it. The madman really did it.”

They look at each other, holding hands, and the muscles in their bodies contract and rise up in waves. When they finally get up, they dress themselves in silence.

Near their apartment, Pierre is sitting in an armchair in his parents’ house. His head falls back, and blood drips from his nose. The book he is reading lands at his feet.

A primal fear grabs him deep inside and spreads to every fiber of his body.

The wheel is turning.

The course of the stars has been changed.

He has trouble pulling himself out of the armchair. He wipes his bloody nose and walks across the room. It feels like it takes hours. His parents are watching television. They do not look at him, and he does not speak as he walks past them and out the door. He could not have spoken, even if he had wanted to. He crosses the driveway like someone sneaking into the stuffy May night.

In the sky, a star falls.

Guillaume is in an underground bar in Montauban. Shoving aside the girl who is trying to go in before him, he has just enough time to lock himself in the restroom. His grabs the toilet and vomits all the whisky he has drunk that night.

The ground trembles.

A wavering film slides across the dirty walls, ripping off the posters, pulling down the stickers, and carrying off the faces of punk bands. Everything flows together on the floor, and it feels like the ground is sucking up the restroom.

When he finally opens the door, a boy is waiting in the hall. It is the girl’s boyfriend, who has come to defend her. But he just stares when Guillaume comes out covered in blood. Guillaume walks past him and makes his way through the crowded bar and out into the street. He rushes to his car, which is in a disabled-parking spot.

The starry sky looks like a wavering carpet of nails.

Their cars arrive at the forest road at the same time and go up the switchback in single file.

Louis’s car is already there at the end of the road, under the pine trees. He is waiting for them.

The four students stare, disbelieving, speechless. It is Ismael who decides to go first. He starts up the path that leads to the chapel.

The others follow.

Loisel suddenly felt dizzy.

While he was pounding the cement, the inevitable had happened. His shoulder let out a wet snap. His muscle tissue gave way, and the wound opened up again. Blood began to seep into his clothing.

He knelt and had another coughing fit.

“Keep going,” Madeleine said.

Loisel clenched his jaw and stood up, looking frantic. He knew he did not have a choice.

He lifted the pickaxe and brought it down again. The slab was now quite worn down. It would not be long.

He hit it again.

There was a metallic sound on impact.

“Oh.”

It was as though he no longer felt the pain. He brought the pickaxe down again. And then again. There was a spark when the tip ran into the goblet imprisoned in the cement.

“Madeleine,” he said quietly.

The woman stood up. The small blaze illuminated her fur coat, making her look like an animal lying in wait in the middle of the icy night.

“I think I found it.”

“Yes,” she said, coming closer.

The edge of the chalice emerged from the rubble.

“It’s there,” she said with emotion. “It’s still there, preserved for us. Give me that.”

She grabbed the pickaxe from Loisel and started banging to loosen the object. Every time the tool hit the chalice, blue sparks flew into the half-darkness. She knelt over the hole, digging with her gloved hands. The cement was breaking up easily.

Madeleine freed the chalice, along with its cover, and cried in victory.

“I’ve got it!”

Loisel was trembling. The effort had been too much for him. His wound had not opened completely, but he was losing blood. It was pulsating from the torn tissue. Sharp pain spread through his body with every heartbeat. He was white as a ghost and looked nearly phosphorescent in the shadows.

Madeleine held the goblet over the fire. The flames lit it up. Her fingers scraped away the remaining cement. She pulled hard at the cover and freed the chalice.

“The blood of saints! The blood of black sorcerers,” she cried out.

“Let’s do it,” Loisel begged. “Quick. I’m on my way out.”

Madeleine smiled. An expression of mad, violent joy came over her.

“Let it be, then.”

She stood behind the altar and started to recite. She spoke the words that weaved together and undid the web of the world, and Loisel, despite his ebbing energy, hurried to join in.

“
Ho ietzivut ve-tnuah! Ho metzulot hashuchim metzuafim be nitzotzot! Ho yom lavush lail! Ata hamachbi tachat haadama, bemamalechet haavanim hayekarim et hazera hanifla shel hakochavim!”

The words were stars in their throats. They were a vibrant call that made the ground shake. Pierre felt heat rising in his flesh.

“
Ho gavia mibabalon melea bedam hakedoshim! Oh esh hachoshech she eino iachol lamut! Marveni bekochecha hanitzchi!”

Pierre doubled over as he continued to chant. He felt the web of the universe loosen up and contract as it breathed in and out all around him. The web was detaching from the surface.

Madeleine lifted the iron chalice, and her eyes rolled back in her head.

She poured it over her open mouth.

The blood was still there, in the bottom of the cup, after all those years.

It flowed, liquid again, in a thick, black stream from the chalice into her throat.

Pierre sat up. He felt the power coming from the altar like a dark glow.

When she set the goblet in front of her, the wounds on her face had closed partially. Then she turned and looked at him, and the wounds were completely gone.

“Pierre, are you still a black sorcerer? Are you ready to commune with the cup of Babylon that’s filled with the blood of saints?”

He staggered to the altar and grabbed the goblet. The metal was burning hot, threatening to scorch his hands.

“So be it,” he whispered. “Amen.”

He drank the black blood, while Madeleine continued her ecstatic chant.

When Eva got out of the shower, the bathroom was all steamed up.

She looked at herself in the mirror behind the blanket of condensation and saw herself as almost beautiful.
Almost
. She smiled. Then her phantom reflection writhed in the mirror.

You always knew,
she thought, staring at her scarlet eyes in the blurry reflection.
You just didn’t want to admit it.

If everything is true, there is only one solution.

She wrapped her scarred body in a towel and opened the door.

The living room was dark and quiet.

“Alexandre?” she whispered.

There was no answer. She went into the bedroom and tiptoed to the bed.

She stared at Vauvert’s massive bandaged body lying across the bed. He was deep asleep, his head leaning on his left shoulder and his face wearing an expression of childlike happiness. He looked like a mythological hero. His powerful body had been sculpted by the gods to live among men but shone with a grace that exceeded simple humanity.

She knelt near him, feeling moved, her mind in a torment she did not want. She touched the lamp, first turning the light down and then off. She did not want to wake him and had always been able to see in the dark.

“Alexandre,” she said in a barely audible whisper.

Her fingers traced the tattoo on his right arm. Intertwining black and gray, proliferating like ivy, wrapped around a stylized sword that seemed to bring the whole motif to life.

She touched his hand lightly. Lost in sleep, he took her fingers, and his smile widened.

I can’t. Forgive me.

Silently, like a white shadow, she pulled her fingers away and retreated to the living room, with a dark storm brewing in her mind.

She inspected the freezer. She took out the half-empty bottle of vodka. She then fell onto the sofa. She was wavering. Her bag was on the coffee table. She dug through it and pulled out a bottle of vitamin C. She opened it. It was a weakness, but she really needed it, now more than ever. She poured an amphetamine into her hand.

The ice-cold vodka felt like razors in her throat.

It felt good.

As she waited for the amphetamine to take effect, she checked her email on her phone. There were several messages, a series of them from police headquarters, in response to Vauvert’s request.

The last one read: “Loisel Tomb Report – Evidence.”

Her heart started pounding.

Eva opened the message.

They weren’t wrong. Louis is waiting for them here, in the back of the ruins. He is sitting cross-legged on the altar, like some fallen divinity or a reptile curled into itself, ready to bite.

“Friends, aren’t you going to come closer?”

They can hear his whispering with disturbing clarity.

For the first time, the four students keep a distance from their friend.

“Your voice has changed,” Ismael says.

“Many things have changed,” Louis answers in an almost-breathless voice. “And much will follow.”

He observes them with a smile. His red eyes shine in the shadows. A star falls from the sky, fizzling out in its descent. Another follows. The earth lets out a sigh.

“I opened the door to the gods,” the albino says.

Madeleine shakes her head. She crosses her arms and stands in front of him.

“You killed your own child. How could you?”

“I did it because that is the price to pay,” he says. “The blood of the firstborn is the key to the world.”

His voice changes again and now crackles like a fire.

“And the blood of colorless children is even more precious and more powerful in the eyes of the gods.”

He points an accusing finger at her.

“You know that one day you will do it, Madeleine. You all will do it. That is part of the pact that we sealed with our blood.”

“Never! I will never do that,” Madeleine says.

She turns to the others, looking for their support. All she sees are young boys, afraid of the untamed power glowing in front of them.”

“When are you going to open your eyes? What he did, what he has become has nothing to do with our gift.”

“Madeleine, Madeleine,” Louis interrupts. “Why are you doing that?”

He slides off the altar. She can see him only partially in the starlight, but she recognizes how much he has changed over the months. His hair has grown, and his red eyes are bigger, maybe from the gleam shining in them now. They give off a penetrating dark glare.

Madeleine steps back.

Next to her, Guillaume Alban looks stunned—or ecstatic.

“You were able to do it, and they didn’t take you,” the boy says.

“Who, the police?”

Louis waves his hand with disdain.

“They are all idiots and incapable. Just like the previous times.”