Free The Savage Altar by Åsa Larsson Page A

enemies,” she panted.
    “Yes?” asked Sven-Erik.
    “He did,” she said, seizing Sven-Erik’s arm in a viselike grip. “And now he’s dead, the enemy will be even stronger. I myself can feel how I am beset by the foe.”
    She let go of Sven-Erik and flung her arms around herself in a vain attempt to keep out the bitter cold. She hadn’t put on any sort of coat or jacket. She bent her knees slightly to keep her balance on the slope. If she leaned backwards even slightly the clogs began to slip.
    “Beset?” asked Anna-Maria.
    “By demons,” said the woman. “They want to make me start smoking again. I used to be possessed by the tobacco demon, but Viktor Strandgård laid hands upon me and freed me.”
    Anna-Maria looked at her, completely exhausted. She couldn’t cope with a mad person right now.
    “We’ll make a note of it,” she said tersely, and started to walk toward the car.
    Sven-Erik stayed where he was and took his notebook out of the inside pocket of his fleece.
    “He was the one who killed Viktor,” said the woman.
    “Who?” asked Sven-Erik.
    “The Prince of Demons,” she whispered. “Satan. He is trying to force his way in.”
    Sven-Erik shoved the notebook back in his pocket and took hold of the woman’s ice-cold hands.
    “Thank you,” he said. “Now, why don’t you go back inside, so you don’t freeze to death.”
    “I just wanted to tell you about it,” the woman called after them.
    I nside the church the pastors were engaged in a loud discussion.
    “We can’t do it like this!” shouted Gunnar Isaksson agitatedly, dogging Thomas Söderberg’s footsteps as he walked around the black bloodstain on the floor and moved the chairs so that the dark impression of Viktor Strandgård’s death ended up almost as if it were in the middle of a circus ring.
    “Yes, we can,” said Thomas Söderberg calmly, and, turning toward the well-dressed woman, he went on:
    “Take the rug away from the aisle. Leave the bloodstain as it is. Go and buy three roses and place them on the floor. I want the church rearranged completely. I shall stand beside the spot where he died and preach. I want the chairs in a circle.”
    "You’ll have the congregation all around you," squeaked Gunnar Isaksson. "Do you expect people to sit and look at your back?"
    Thomas Söderberg went over to the pudgy little man and placed his hands on his shoulders.
    You little shit, he thought. You’re not a gifted enough orator to speak in an arena. A theater. A marketplace. You have to have everybody sitting right there in front of you, and a lectern to hang on to if it gets tricky. But I can’t let your inadequacy get in my way.
    “Remember what we said, brother,” said Thomas Söderberg to Gunnar Isaksson. “We must hold fast now. I promise you this will work. People will be allowed to weep, to call out to God, and we—God—will triumph tonight. Tell your wife to bring a flower to place on the spot where his body lay.”
    The atmosphere will be incredible, thought Thomas Söderberg.
    He made a mental note to get several more people to bring flowers and lay them on the floor. It would be just like the spot where Olof Palme was murdered.
    Pastor Vesa Larsson was still sitting in exactly the same spot as during the conversation with the police, leaning forward. He took no part in the heated discussion, but sat there with his face buried in his hands. He might possibly have been crying, it was difficult to see.

R ebecka and Sanna were sitting in the car on the way into town. Gray pine trees, weighed down with snow, swept past in the beam of the headlights. The uncomfortable silence was like a shrinking room. The walls and the ceiling were moving inward and downward. With each passing minute it became more difficult to breathe properly. Rebecka was driving. Her eyes flicked back and forth between the speedometer and the road. The intense cold meant that the road wasn’t slippery at all, despite being covered with packed