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

“Why’d you bring me here?”

“So we could talk. Don’t you see, Gina? You’re my link to the Nistarim.”

“Let me go.” She could only imagine what this creature would do if he found her orphan children. She hoped Dov was still alive. “Please, undo my wrists. My arms are getting numb.”

Her foe pulled closer. “We all endure pain, don’t we?”

She met his gaze, saw tears sizzling down his cheeks, sketching oily trails. One by one, they fell to the dirt and exploded into tiny molten flames. With the toe of his shoe, he extinguished them.

“Why are you crying?” she mocked.

“I care about you, my dear.”

“Then set me free.”

“Would you be free? Really? Your pain is a foretaste, that’s all. A chance to share what I feel every waking hour.”

Gina’s limbs turned rigid. If only she could reach her dagger, but her arms were trussed too tightly. One thing she knew: Cal wouldn’t be coming for her. Either he was dead, or he would be waiting for her in Bucharest as they’d planned. She imagined joining him there, sipping espresso at an outdoor café while he told her of his escape from the bear and his rescue of the orphans.

Assuming any of that were true.

What else had he wanted to tell her? Would she die here, never knowing?

Focus, she told herself. She would have to deal with this on her own. She needed to keep her captor talking, to give herself time to think and regain strength.

“You’re not human,” she told him.

“Not entirely. I’d say I’m more human than a human. I’m—”

“White Zombie.”

The Collector tilted his head. “Not quite.”

“No, it’s a rock group. They have this song about . . . Never mind.”

She closed her eyes, broke the stare. She sensed the presence of some-thing insidious and barbed, running along the left side of her neck. It was connected to the tangle around her arm. What had been done to her? She remembered the thorns Cal had mentioned. Were these the same thing? They were coiling from the scar on her neck, the place Nikki had cut and bled and infected with her twisted thinking.

Gina chuckled. Now wasn’t this ironic? Her mother’s attempts to purge her of impurity had only contaminated her with resentment.

“Why’re you laughing, dear?”

Her breath caught.

“By all means, don’t stop. It sounds nice.”

Her eyes popped open. “Go to hell.”

“Oh, yes, I’m sure your mother drilled that religious stuff into your head. Strange, isn’t it, how those who feel the most guilty often point the longest fingers?” He touched his own fingertip again to his lips.

Could he taste Gina’s bitterness in her blood?

“And what’s my mother guilty of ?” she inquired.

“The desire to be loved.”

“Right. By living on the run and changing identities?”

“Humans—always running from their sins.”

“Or trying to bleed them away.”

“I could help you with that. A moment’s peace—isn’t that what you want, Gina? Rest from your turmoil?” His mouth brushed along her neck.

Her nostrils filled with his musk. Dizziness blossomed in her head. This was the same emptiness she’d always felt beneath the blade of the dagger, and her pulse was tapping at her temples in a soporific rhythm. His mouth—so tender, so warm. She hadn’t expected that. This couldn’t be how the others had died. She’d heard about their corpses, the manner in which they’d been eviscerated.

Along her skin, the Collector’s lips parted.

Why’d it always start this way, with a kiss? She thought of that infamous betrayal two thousand years ago. There was also her own fateful kiss on that morning at Erlanger Medical—before she’d walked away from her baby boy.

A whimper caught in her throat. She leaned her head back, a sob welling within. “Jacob,” she cried. “I’m so sorry.”

“You can’t blame yourself,” the Collector said.

“What have I done?”

“We all cause harm to those we love. Your mother certainly knows that.”

A squeal of anguish rose in Gina’s throat. Like an animal flushed from its burrow, the sound bounced between stone walls on its dash off into the darkness. She didn’t care what this creature thought. How could he possibly understand the love between a mother and child.

Between Gina and Jacob. Between Gina and Dov, even.

What about, between Nikki and Gina?

“Shhh,” the Collector comforted.

She tuned him out. There was something important here.

The thorns . . .

She realized these barbs at her neck were a product of her own unforgiveness. Sure, Nikki had tilled furrows in her daughter’s skin, yet it was Gina who had tended the seeds of bitterness and left them to grow. How could she put all the blame on her mother’s distorted methods, when she, Gina, had nursed the vines? She’d wrapped herself in them, never considering the dark fruit of this corrupted harvest.

She had to break free. Could she be one of those Cal had talked about, one of Those Who Resist? It seemed impossible now. To make even the smallest movement would lead to more pain and eventual death.

The Collector’s black hair tickled her chin as he nuzzled close. His head nudged the earring dangling from her left lobe.

What had Cal said?

A drop of His Blood . . . that’s all it takes.

Gina recalled their discussion along the Chattanooga riverfront. She thought of these thorns rooted in anger, oozing from her neck and encircling her arm. Could one drop really free her? Could she swing that dangling orb into her mouth and bite down, ingesting the life force of the Nazarene.

Freedom. Forgiveness. Life.

Could it be that simple?

Then her thoughts turned to Jacob again. Where had Cal been when her newborn son needed him? When those nails exploded through the air? And why had Cal left her to her mother’s insanity during all those childhood years?

Gina wanted to believe, she really did.

But how did any of that help her now, in the real world, with real scars and a real enemy?

She wasn’t going anywhere until she dealt with these thorns of the past.

Ariston drew in the heady scent of his prey’s fear and panic. The pounding