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

beefy arms, his plump calves, were there for all to see. “Have garments digressed this much during our time away?”

“There weren’t many choices, Father. We grabbed all we could before a dog’s barking drove us away.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“It’s certainly, uh . . .” Barabbas coughed into his hand. “Colorful.”

Ariston glowered. “It’s decorated with red and yellow circles.”

“Maybe it’s to be worn while at the reins of one of their shiny chariots.”

“Ridiculous. I’d look like a moving target for some Babylonian horde. Even worse, I could be mistaken as a Bedouin woman displaying clothes for sale.”

The henchman choked. Hammered his fist into his chest.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes, sir. I’m . . . I’m fine.”

“At least your tunic and leggings have a more masculine look.”

“Thank you, sir.”

From the side, Ariston heard Shelamzion huff as she smoothed a beige robe over wide hips and eyed the more attractive drapings of Helene’s attire. The rivalry between his two wives was yet more evidence of the earthly obsessions with which they were all saddled. He’d forgotten how difficult it was to set aside such matters.

“Come around,” he called to the cluster. “Come close.”

Still squirming into clothing, they shuffled and hopped his way.

“If you find this annoying, or even—in my case—humiliating, remember that we’re here with a shared purpose. Isn’t that so?”

“Lord Ariston, please reiterate it for us,” Eros said. “Let’s be sure our two houses are united.”

“Certainly. Have some of you forgotten the wrong we suffered? We were two thousand strong. Our cluster was dominant, enjoying the infestation of a single human host. And then—quite rudely, I might add—we were banished by the Nazarene himself. Sent forcefully away. Squealing like swine into the depths.”

He had their attention now, each word a splash of paint from a haunted brush, flung across the canvas of night.

“We lost most of our companions in the aftermath. In one fell moment, we were chopped down, belittled, and discarded.”

Another splash.

“Separated even further from this land of the living.”

Splash.

“Yet,” he said in a whisper, “we did not die.”

“Really? After two thousand years of inactivity, what’s the difference?”

The objection came from Sol, his firstborn. Offspring of Shelamzion. Husband of Auge. Father of little Kyria. Without blinking, Ariston allowed the tension to crackle between their eyes. Best to stare down his son’s rebellion here at the onset.

“We all know,” Sol continued, “what brought us to this point. The question is, what will we do now that the Akeldama’s been opened?”

“We’re not here to do nothing.”

“Agreed.”

“To do nothing is to be nothing, which we are not. We are the Akeldama Cluster. In our stillness, we watched and waited, and we now have a chance to reestablish ourselves.”

“By tracking down the Nistarim,” Megiste said. She was the former priestess for the House of Eros, a comely woman with auburn ringlets and features carved from pure alabaster.

“Yes, the Nistarim. The Concealed Ones.”

Sol folded his thick arms. “Seeking and finding are two different things.”

“Son, we’re not the only ones who know of them. They’ve been spo-ken of in legend, and they’ve wandered the earth since the final days of the Nazarene. Others surely seek them even as we speak. Such obstacles will not stop us from pursuing our purpose, though.”

“Which is?”

“To bring them down,” Eros noted over steepled fingers. “Rabbinical wisdom says that if even one falls without being replaced, they all fall—the human race, included. The entire thing collapses like a house built on sand.”

“And where do we find these Concealed Ones?”

Ariston grinned. “Sol, your curiosity pleases me.”

Cuvin

Gina crept from her bed.

The midnight hour had ticked past, meaning she was now twelve years old. In a few hours Nicoleta would pat her on the head and prepare a favorite breakfast for her, but that would be the extent of the celebration. This grim approach to such high-minded affairs was meant only to prepare her daughter for womanhood. Gina understood that.

Nevertheless, it didn’t keep her heart from skipping in anticipation.

She closed the bathroom door, lit the candle over the toilet. She unfolded her fingers slowly, as though removing ribbons from a box, and she imagined the Provocateur’s eyes bright with encouragement. In her plam lay a gift meant for a lady: modest earrings with dangling ruby orbs.

Her heart quickened. These were for her?

But what would her mother say? Nicoleta had thrown them out, hadn’t she?

Gina decided she would wait a week or so before testing them in public. For now, she would enjoy them alone and in reflection. She held them to her ears in the mirror, where they seemed to capture the flame’s dance in their deep red centers. She tilted her head, flicking back long chestnut strands for a better view.

And that’s when she came upon a more jarring discovery.

A mark on her forehead.

She leaned closer to the glass, traced fingertips over her it.

After scrubbing at it with her hand, then trying again with soap and water, she decided the faint symbol was part of her skin. It looked like a splash of ink, a translucent blue x with curled tips.

Was it a bruise? A stain? Did it have any significance?

Her mother’s words: Do you wish to die . . . babbling incoherently while some blood disorder turns your brains to mush?

If Nicoleta were to spot this mark, Gina suspected the knife would come out again. Maybe if she just left the thing alone, these thin lines would fade away. It was the best she could hope for.

She tugged on a lock of hair to shield her forehead, thankful for the first time for this unruly, thick mop of hers.

Judean Hills

“We will find them,” said Lord Ariston.

In the broadest sense, Collectors were body thiefs. They sought out vulnerable creatures for vicarious thrills, any who might surrender their wills. Of course, he knew that some preferred nonhuman hosts—no questions of morality or ethics, and none of the archaic burdens of guilt or restitution.

It was survival of the fittest in its most twisted form.

In Greece and the Balkans, Collectors favored the fangs