Field of Blood by Wilson, Eric (pdf e book reader .TXT) 📕

ADVANCE READER PRAISE FOR FIELD OF BLOOD

“Wilson rises far above most in modern fiction and portrays the fight between good and evil in an innovative, refreshing way.”—RED, rock group

“In a market flooded with ‘perfect’ heroes and squeaky clean Christian characters, Wilson gives us a healthy dose of reality. It’s realistic and accurate where it should be and pure entertainment where it should be. It’s everything you could hope for in a Christian book—something for the lost to contemplate and for the believer to never forget.”—Meli Willis, www.inside-corner.com

“Ahhh! That was utterly amazing.”

—Mara M., a fan

“Not only Eric Wilson’s best novel to date, but easily one of the most powerful and inspirational novels I’ve read in years. This is intense and edgy writing to be sure, yet nowhere will you find the redemptive power of Christ’s blood explored so brilliantly in fiction. And the best part? There are still two more books to come!”

—Jake Chism, www.thechristianmanifesto.com

“Field of Blood was wonderful! I loved the ending . . . it left me wanting more, more, more! Gina is the perfect representation of the human condition . . . a mind blow-ing story!”—Julie P., a fan

“Ridiculously topnotch!”—Jeremy M., a fan

“A classic genre seen through new eyes. The book was well researched and . . . I was blown away by the story.”—James N., a fan

“Eric Wilson reveals his full potential as an extraordinary writer with Field of Blood. Characterized by a tightly woven plot, unforgettable characters—living and undead—and an overall remarkable story, Field of Blood is sure to please readers of all kinds.”—Brandon V., a fan

OTHER NOVELS BY ERIC WILSON

The Best of Evil

Dark to Mortal Eyes

A Shred of Truth

Expiration Date

NOVELIZATIONS BY ERIC WILSON

Fireproof

Flywheel

Facing the Giants

© 2008 by Eric Wilson

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Page design by Mandi Cofer.

Excerpt from The Vampire Book: The Encyclopedia of the Undead, © 1994 by J. Gordon Melton, reprinted by permission of the author.

Thomas Nelson books may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected].

Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation. © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

Publisher’s Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Wilson, Eric (Eric P.)

Field of blood / Eric Wilson.

p. cm. — (The Jerusalem’s undead trilogy)

ISBN 978-1-59554-458-2

1. Vampires—Fiction. 2. Jerusalem—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3623.I583F54 2008

813’.6-—dc22

2008019837

Printed in the United States of America

08 09 10 11 12 RRD 6 5 4 3 2 1

CONTENTS

A Note from the Author

Prologue

The First Drop: Revenants

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

The Second Drop: Refugees

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

The Third Drop: Revelations

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-four

Chapter Forty-five

Chapter Forty-six

The Fourth Drop: Return

Chapter Forty-seven

Chapter Forty-eight

Chapter forty-nine

Chapter Fifty

Chapter Fifty-one

Chapter Fifty-two

Chapter Fifty-three

Chapter Fifty-four

Chapter Fifty-five

Acknowledgments

A NOTE FROM

THE AUTHOR

I love stories full of grit and emotion, especially when I find them sniffing around history’s unexplored corners.

A few years back, my Romanian travels piqued my interest in the legends of the undead. Later, I came across this passage in J. Gordon Melton’s The Vampire Book: The Encyclopedia of the Undead:

an increasing number of novelists . . . possess no understanding or appreciation of any power derived from Christian symbols. For the foreseeable future, new vampire fiction will be written out of the pull and tug between these traditional and contemporary perspectives.

The words were a challenge to me, a flag waved before a bull. There were powerful concepts at work here: life, blood, and memory; evil, redemption, and immortality. I knew I had rich soil in which to plant a story.

The soil deepened when I read of two separate events from 1989.

The first involved a mysterious outbreak among thousands of Romanian orphans, an epidemic of subtype F HIV-1 that started with a single infectious source.

The second was a discovery of unplundered burial caves on Jerusalem’s outskirts. The tombs contained one sarcophagus and thirty-nine ossuaries—stone boxes built to hold the bones of the dead. Archaeologists determined this place was the Akeldama, a cemetery for foreigners and the site of Judas Iscariot’s death. They also found that a number of the boxes were empty.

Okay, now I knew I was onto something.

As I headed to Israel for two blistering weeks in the summer of 2007, I had no clue how sharply my experiences would hone the concept for a trilogy.

I visited historical locations, made new friends, took hundreds of pictures, and reveled in how much could be done on a shoestring budget and a prayer. The highlight was Jerusalem, with its collage of cultures, religions, and history.

There was, however, a lingering frustration.

Where was the excavation site for these ancient tombs? I couldn’t pinpoint the spot, and it was absent from any tourist maps.

The day before my return to the States, I was making a final drive around the Old City when I looked back over my shoulder and spotted the Rockefeller Museum, the building that houses the Israel Antiquities Authority. I made a U-turn into the angled driveway and stopped at the gate.

“I am sorry,” the guard said. “The museum closes at three.”

My watch read 3:05 p.m.

Disappointed, I reversed onto the road. Then, in a stubborn moment, I parked the car and jogged back.