She thought she would wind up sprawled on the ground.
But she managed to keep going.
She ran frantically. She could not tell if her tormentors were gaining on her, and the uncertainty was unbearable.
Halfway across the yard, she leaped behind a stone container filled with rainwater.
Her heart beat wildly. She risked looking back at the house.
Complete and utter silence.
She then turned toward the wall-toward freedom.
And stopped dead.
The black wolf was back. It was standing in front of the wall, erect and immobile. Its eyes shone with a reddish gleam.
It bore its fangs.
A vicious smile.
Eloise Lombard held back a scream and forced herself to be still.
The wolf blocked her way.
She raised her head. Blood pounded in her temples. She had to be losing her mind, right?
The wolf wasn’t moving.
She had to get a hold of herself. Get away quick, before the creature attacked her.
She slowly turned around and retreated.
The barn. That was the closest shelter.
For now she could come up with no other option.
She hurried along the barn’s stone facade and reached the door.
She slipped inside.
She had made it. And the beast hadn’t followed her.
She took a deep breath.
That’s when she noticed the smell.
The stench hit her like a punch in the gut and pushed her back against the wall. She felt her leg muscles weaken and wondered if she was going to collapse.
She opened her mouth to scream, but nothing came out.
She couldn’t tear her eyes from the sight in front of her.
There were corpses.
Not just a few. Dozens. Skinned bodies. The flesh of some of them was blackened with decay. The remains were piled on top of each other, and for a moment the sight felt so surreal, she thought she had to be looking at dead animals in a slaughterhouse. But they weren’t animals. They were humans. Dead people. Their flesh opened and raped. Their limbs mutilated. Their throats slit. Their hair sticky.
One of the corpses was still hanging in the air by its feet, suspended above a metal bucket half filled with blood.
But what struck Eloise was that this body no longer had a face.
They had cut-torn? — off every bit of skin, from forehead to neck.
This time, reality cracked. Utter chaos ripped through her mind.
Eloise felt a hand grabbing the back of her neck.
It was Claude Salaville’s.
3
Her blood froze.
But there was no way she would give up now. She was going to fight as long as she could.
She turned and bit at the hand clutching her.
Howling, the man drew back. A brief respite. But then she saw Roman Salaville. She hadn’t noticed him come in. He lunged at her and wrapped his huge arms around her. His brother planted himself in front of her and slapped her. Once. Twice.
“No!”
“Oh yes,” Roman whispered in her ear. “We have to.”
“No! No!” the girl shrieked in vain.
While the fat man held her tight against himself, Claude put a strap around her ankles. He fastened it with a good yank.
Now she understood what they were going to do to her. That’s why they had abducted her. And it was worse than anything she could have imagined.
Claude slid a butcher’s s-hook into the strap, bruising her ankles, and walked to the barn wall to activate a pulley. A thick rope tightened. All of a sudden Eloise was hoisted upward. The world turned over, her body upside down. Her hands clawed the air as blood rushed to her head and throbbed in her temples. She could not scream anymore. She was yanked higher and jerked with every turn of the crank.
Having gotten her to the desired height, the man secured the rope, and then returned to her, boning knife in hand. The bluish blade, razor-sharp, glinted in the barn’s half-light.
“Roman, get another bucket. Hurry.”
Eloise Lombard struggled to free herself. Impossible. She was suspended by her feet beside the previous victim. The skinned face almost pressed against hers.
She began to pray. To Jesus, Buddha-any deity that would hear her pleas. Now only a miracle could save her.
Claude came closer, edging his knife toward her naked stomach. She felt the cold blade on her genitals.
Suddenly, the shrill sound of a bell rang out.
The knife slipped from her skin.
The ringing was so loud, the roof and beams shook; dust and dirt whirled down.
It lasted about ten seconds, then stopped.
The brothers looked at each other, their eyes filled with concern.
The bell blasted once more. Longer this time. Again, the ceiling’s beams shivered under the assault.
Claude took a step back.
Roman’s eyes widened.
“Want me to go check it out?” he asked.
Claude glanced at the hanging girl, then his brother.
“No. You’re too damned stupid. If it’s the cops, you’ll get fucked. I’m going. Here.”
He handed Roman the boning knife.
Then he walked over to an old wooden cupboard, weighed down with tools, and opened the middle drawer. He pulled out a shotgun, then a box of shells.
He rushed to the barn’s doors.
“You stay here, got it? You keep an eye on the little bitch and wait till I get back.”
The bell rang a third time, with even more persistence. Whoever was at the door was running out of patience.
Claude left the barn and headed for the house. Roman scratched his gut, thinking. He turned to the girl hanging before him and, eyeing her slender body, broke into a grin as he traced the curve of her buttocks with his fingers.
Eloise Lombard said nothing. She started to pray again.
4
The woman let go of the doorbell for a few seconds, then went at it again. In the depths of the house, the high-pitched bell rang once more.
Impatient, she shook her head. The tips of her distinctive white hair flowed over the collar of her black jacket. Beneath the leather, her legs were molded into a strict pantsuit.
Standing in the dirt road that led to the farm, Inspector Alexandre Vauvert watched silently. He had agreed to follow his colleague all the way out here, but he was not sure he liked the idea. Over the past years, he had heard a lot about this woman, not all of it positive. One thing everyone agreed on was that Inspector Eva Svarta was the most able profiler the Homicide Unit had seen in a very long time. She specialized in anything even remotely connected with sects, particularly cases involving the occult. People said she really liked nabbing the serial killers, the real ones. She had a reputation for being the best at it. So when the Paris headquarters had ordered her to join his own unit, down south in the city of Toulouse, Vauvert did not have a say.
Anyway, she was the one who had established the connection between the missing girls.
Up until now, he had to admit, she had made no mistakes.
When she had called him at dawn to say she had found a link to the Salaville brothers, he had not argued, either.
The albino inspector rang again.
“What the hell are they doing in there?”
“Maybe they’re not home?” Vauvert suggested.
“Don’t be silly. You saw that their SUV is here. It’s their only vehicle.”
“All the shutters are closed, though.”
“And you don’t find that odd?”
Vauvert sighed.
“I’m not saying you’re wrong. But what can we do? The judge will never sign a warrant without any hard evidence.”
Eva Svarta turned to face him, a grin on her thin lips. She wore the sunglasses that never left her face. People said her eyes were so sensitive, she would go blind in daylight without them. But so much was said about this woman, Vauvert preferred to ignore the gossip.
“We can get all the evidence we need,” she insisted. “All we have to do is go inside.”