First Blood (37 page)

Madeleine shivers. She forces herself to stand straight and not show her fear.

“The previous times?”

Louis smiles. His teeth shimmer in the shadows.

“That’s what I said.”

“You already did it?”

She again looks to the others for support. She doesn’t find it in any of them. Even Ismael is looking down, submissive.

“You’ve murdered other people, too?” she cries out.

“So naive, little one.”

He walks toward her.

She steps back.

“You are a beginner,” he says, his voice full of venom. “You don’t understand anything. The world is at my feet now. Just look.”

He raises his hand. The flagstones in the chapel crack and explode, one by one, right up to the place where she is standing. Pierre and Ismael step aside, protecting themselves. Guillaume is so stoned or subjugated by Louis’s stifling aura, he doesn’t move. When a stone splits under his feet, he falls on his behind.

Madeleine has trouble controlling her rising panic, but she stands her ground. She refuses to show any weakness.

“I’ve had enough!” she screams. “Nobody and nothing is at your feet, Louis. You have just become a monstrosity.”

Louis smiles. She feels the pressure of his look. It is an absolute meanness that pierces her. She does not bat an eye. She does not tremble. She challenges him, refusing to accept his lies, once and for all.

“I have become a god!” Louis roars. “If you want me to make you kneel in front of me, then so be it.”

Madeleine stiffens at the challenge. She feels her clothes start to pulsate, as though they are breathing, as though they have come alive.

“Nobody will ever kneel down in front of you. You’re creating illusions, but you’ll never be anybody but yourself,” she says.

“You see?” Louis says, looking at the others. “There she goes again.”

“What? I’m saying that you’re depraved and a damned psychopath,” Madeleine screams. “I’m not afraid of you, Louis. Do you hear me? Whatever you’ve done, I’m not afraid.”

“You see how she’s trying to turn us against each other? She wants to turn off the power.”

“He’s right,” Guillaume says. He is leaning against the wall. “Madeleine, you’re trying to scare us.”

Madeleine turns to him. She is livid. “Me? I’m trying to scare you? Are you going to believe his lies again? If he’d really become some god like he says, how could I diminish his powers? Can’t you see he is manipulating us?”

Guillaume stares at her with eyes that look like embers. He shakes his head and refuses to believe. “He did it, Madeleine, like he said he would.”

“You are alone,” Louis says.

Madeleine wonders if she can run to the car and flee this nightmare. She sees Pierre, who is totally subjugated. She turns to Ismael, her last hope.

“Say something, for God’s sake. Do something.”

Ismael looks down, like a submissive dog. Where have his seductive arrogance and strength gone? She has always felt that he was protecting her. She has always been ready to do the craziest things for him, as long as she could be in his arms. Now she sees him for what he is, as he has always been. He is a lost child, a self-absorbed child with more power than any mortal should have.

Louis is beaming, both from satisfaction and from pure, intense meanness..

“I’ll show you the miracle. And you will kneel before me, I promise you.”

“I won’t watch anything,” she says, her voice shaking. “I don’t want to see these illusions anymore.”

She turns to Ismael.

“I’m leaving you all. I’m leaving the circle,” she says. She knows the impact this provocation will have. “And this time, it’s for good.”

The four boys stare at her. She sees they are shaking. She senses their fear. Fine. Perfect. Be afraid. Be as afraid as she is.

“Madeleine,” Ismael begins, cowardly and at a loss for words.

“No,” is all Guillaume says.

She starts moving away.

Louis keeps walking toward her, smiling and focused.

“I don’t want to be damned like this pervert,” she screams.

Louis licks his lips and says, “And yet you are. I’ll show you just how much.”

Then she cracks. She knows she shouldn’t, but she spins around. She thinks she might have time to run, to drive away and leave the four behind her forever.

She feels the air move when he jumps her. She barely has time to lift her arms to protect her head as it hits the flagstone. Louis tackles her and turns her over. On his face is a mask of hate.

“You’re not going anywhere, you little brainless bitch. I’m going to show you what real power is.”

Ee... ah... oo.

A disembodied murmur.

He slips in swirls of mist.

Loisel had drunk the sun.

The blood of the black sorcerers.

Still trembling, he set the iron cup on the altar.

There was light in his eyes now, bright flames that spread throughout him, illuminating the veins under his skin.

“I don’t feel the cold anymore. I don’t even feel the pain,” he said.

He unbuttoned the top of his shirt and pulled back the collar to look at his injured shoulder. The wound that had been open just a few minutes earlier was closing before his eyes. It tingled and felt wonderfully warm.

“It reminds me of when we were young,” Madeleine said, a look of total abandonment on her face.

The power of the blood was working on her too, deep in her flesh. Her cheeks were becoming smooth and firm again, and she was beautiful once more. It felt like every pore in her body was radiant.

“Our magic is still strong, Pierre.”

He put his hands on the altar and stared at the chalice and the blackish nectar pulsating in it.

“Yes, we did it. That light. All that light.”

“Didn’t I tell you we could?”

She walked over to the rubble and stared at the pit they had dug with the pickaxe. She spread her arms, and her heart raced. Her communion with the air, the earth, and even the fire was perfect, total. She felt drunk from the sensations, the light, and the penetrating, dark warmth. She twirled, her eyes rolling back.

Then her euphoria ended.

Loisel froze too.

They both perceived it at the same time. The air carried his smell and was suddenly heavy.

“He’s coming,” Loisel said. “He’s near. He’s found us.”

“It had to happen,” Madeleine said. “The trail of your blood was too strong. We need to be very careful.”

“Be careful?” Loisel cried with a note of desperation. “We need to run!”

“Don’t panic. Not now. Let the power of the communion grow.”

Loisel was not listening. He was terrified.

“I’m leaving. I’m running. I’m sure I can outrun him now. I’ll find someplace to hide.” He was babbling.

“He won’t give you enough time for that,” Madeleine warned. “Listen to me. She will come, like we always knew she would. Blood attracts blood. That is the law.”

“To hell with the law,” he screamed, running across the chapel. “I’m not staying any longer.” He rushed through the archway.

Then he was cut off.

His terrified cry was short.

A muffled sob followed.

“Pierre,” Madeleine shouted.

Then she watched as her former classmate was hoisted off the ground, a superhuman hand having grabbed him by the throat. Loisel was suspended against the ink-black sky for some time, his hands and feet waving weakly.

“Oh no. No.”

The man holding him with an iron fist turned him around like a trophy, allowing Madeleine to fully see Loisel’s horrified face.

“Madeleine,” Loisel sputtered. Blood was bubbling from his lips.

“The madman should have listened to you.”

The man holding Loisel had whispered this, but Madeleine heard him perfectly.

It was a dusky, dead voice.

“Louis,” Madeleine said, short of breath. “No.”

Pierre Loisel’s tongue was hanging from his gaping mouth. His eyes were rolling in their sockets.

“Don’t let him...”

The blood flowing from his mouth and down his chin muffled his words.

He was lifted higher, and behind him, the form became more distinct. Louis stepped out of the shadows. His scaly jacket gleamed in the flames of the fire. His red eyes locked on Madeleine with a fierce intensity.

“Finally.”

His smile was a wide-open scar with sharp teeth.

“At least don’t make him suffer,” Madeleine said. She was clenching her fists.

“Oh, if you insist,” Louis said.

He thrust his hand into Loisel’s mouth, breaking his teeth. Loisel arched his back and kicked as Louis grabbed his tongue. Tears of blood flowed down his cheeks.

“You are no longer a black sorcerer,” Louis whispered in his ear. “I’m taking back the miracle that you never deserved, Pierre. And I curse your rotten soul with all the words and seals of the ancient gods, so you never find rest, above or below. So be it. Amen.”

Louis ripped out his tongue.

The man fell on his stomach, shaking violently.

Louis put a foot between Loisel’s shoulder blades and crushed his spine. Blood spread on the immaculate snow.

Ee...

...vah...

...oo...

Vauvert was having one of the dreams he hated so much.

In it, he heard a distant murmur. He knew none of it was real, but irrational fear overcame him. It was a childish fear of the unknown.
A fear of being imprisoned in his own dream.

“Ee...vah...oo.”
He heard it again, closer now.

He sat up. He could not make anything out. Then he realized that a heavy, dark mist was surrounding him. Although he could feel the ground under his feet, all he could see were shapes moving in the fog.

He tried moving. His movement created an eddy that parted the mist a little, but not enough for him to see anything.

He could still hear the murmuring. It was more like breathing or asthmatic syllables. He had already heard this. He remembered now. These were the syllables Elie Dupin—Elie Dupin’s ghost—had spoken when his bloody mouth was pressed against the car window.

I want to wake up. I don’t want to go through this again.

Vauvert kept searching in the mist for a form that he could make out. There was only the sound, the hissing, which was getting closer, as if Elie Dupin’s ghost continued to whisper in his mind. Trying to tell him

(Ee...vah...oo.)

something he still did not understand.

The fog was thick, impossible, nearly alive. It glided along his skin every time he moved, leaving pale meandering arabesques.

Where exactly am I?

Finally, Vauvert saw trees rising from the gray blur.
A forest? Pines?

He wanted to advance but

(Eeevaahh....toooo.)

but something held his leg back, stopping him.

At first, he thought he had run into a length of wire strung between two trees. He stepped back, but it stuck to his legs. It was not wire, but instead, it was the thread of a spider’s web, a monstrous web the same color as the fog. He struggled with the threads and finally broke loose.

Momentarily.

He looked around and made out spidery lines forming an inextricable network everywhere.

This web was bigger than he had thought. It covered the entire forest in his dream.

His anxiety was growing.

He did not want to imagine the size of the creature that had spun it. He did not want to end up face-to-face with that kind of monster.

He started searching for a path that could lead him out of the forest and away from the web. But his arms became entangled.

I’m not going to get trapped in this dream.

He pulled and tore at the sticky web, sending signals along the lines.

I want to wake up.

Dupin’s voice got closer.

“Evaaaa.”

“THAT’S ENOUGH,” Vauvert shouted as loud as he could. “Let me go.”

“....toooooo.”

He felt himself fall back. The web closed around him and lifted him off the ground. He was overcome with panic.

“I don’t want this,” he said.

But he was caught.

Dupin’s ghost appeared, draped in its black raincoat. He slipped across the web without any problem. Its bluish mouth formed an “e” and then a “va.”

Vauvert finally understood what it had been saying since the beginning.

“Eva too.”

That’s what the ghost was saying.

The ghost was very close. The giant struggled to get out of the web, but he was not strong enough. Dupin’s swollen face neared his. His lips were moving, and Vauvert realized that maggots were teeming under his skin.

“Okay, I get it. Get back. Get back. I want to wake up now, dammit.”

He continued wrestling to free himself. When he broke one thread of the web, three others grew in its place.

“Let me go,” he said. “I haven’t done anything to you.”

Dupin’s eyes rolled in their sockets. He brushed Vauvert’s face with his own.

“Eva too,” the ghost said, this time with a woman’s voice.

Its mouth grew, and its face opened up like a piece of fruit.

Enormous black jaws bristling with razor-like hair shot open and then clamped down on Vauvert.

He screamed in terror.

And he woke up.

His panic-stricken heart was pounding.

It was a dream. A damned dream. It’s over.

He was tangled in the sheets. There was no spider web.

“Dear God,” Vauvert said, trying to catch his breath.

He took a deep breath and waited for the stampede in his chest to slow. The room was draped in shadows. The central heating was as unbearable as ever.

He had the disagreeable sensation of floating.

He forced himself into lucidity.

“Eva?”

She was not lying next to him.

He looked around. He was alone in the bed.

“Eva?” he called again.