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

in a long line of history’s ruthless leaders. With such a man at the helm, who would take time to investigate the orphans’ misfortune?

Across the way, Ariston saw a larger room, darkened and vacant. There he would be better able to marshal his forces.

First things first.

He poked through the supplies and found a stack of transparent bags inscribed with numbers and lines. They were similar to old wineskins or animal bladders, with puckered funnels and corks the color of pomegranate.

So much was different in this new era, and yet the basic principles of most items seemed rooted in ideas long ago comprehended. With a little dedication and time, his group was already finding some of its bearings.

“Barabbas.”

“Sir?”

“Take an armload of these bags.” To the others, Ariston said, “Follow me, quietly.”

“We’re thirsty,” Sol complained.

“You’ll have to wait a little longer, son.”

“In a building full of sustenance, you can’t expect us to hold back.”

“That’s exactly what I expect. A modicum of restraint.”

With the henchman bringing up the rear, the Collectors glided across the hallway into the larger room. With Salome gone, the group was down to seventeen. Nearly bloodless, they were all feeling the effects of the long voyage—from Israeli Arad to Romanian Arad.

Last week, diesel trucks had carried them through Syria into Turkey. Thirty hours ago, stuffed into the hold of a Turkish fishing vessel, they’d left the beautiful port at Zonguldak and ridden Black Sea waves toward Constanta. Here, they’d been dropped south of the shipyards, where they griped and cursed as jellyfish stings chased them from surf to shore.

Hadn’t Ariston warned them?

Pleasure and pain, all part of this mortal life.

Each day was another lesson in how times had changed. Cuisine lacked the wholesome flavors they remembered. Transportation, though a marvel, still brought with it physical wear and tear. Most surprisingly, twentieth-century clothing indicated an impoverished civilization, unable to afford modest bodily coverings.

Not that Ariston was complaining.

In his mind, fine women were objects deserving of display. With bare bellies, swollen cleavage, and lips sweet as honey, they also made useful hosts. A female Collector might have even more leeway than in ages past.

“Barabbas.” Ariston took hold of the big man’s arm. “I want you to scout out our meal. We were told there should be only one guard in the place, but make sure that you’re not seen.”

“I’ll be careful, sir.”

“No marks. No fatalities. Slow and easy, you understand? Tap the first infant, just enough to regain your own strength, then siphon small portions from the others into the bags, one by one. We’ll drink what you bring back.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Lord Ariston, we should go as a family,” Megiste said. “Fresh is sooo much better.” She was a willowy creature, a former priestess over the households and former mistress to Eros. Auburn curls blazed on either side of her stark white countenance.

“Seventeen of us traipsing through the halls? We’d be sure to draw attention. No,” he said. “We’ll dine together when Barabbas returns.”

“Alone, he might be caught while drinking.”

She had a point. Ariston recalled that first attack outside the Akeldama—the deafening roar in his temples, the heady rush as nutrients flooded his mouth and throat.

“Megiste, did you drink alongside Barabbas at the tombs?”

“We all did. We—”

“Did you tap the same victim?”

“I did. And while I don’t mean to gripe, the man tasted sour—if not horribly diseased.”

“Barabbas told me the same thing.”

“One of the vilest contaminations I’ve ever experienced, if you must know. And until I have a more substantial feeding, until that initial par-taking has been entirely absorbed, the taste still lingers on my lips.” She pouted, bringing attention to the soft lines of her mouth.

Ariston was unmoved. “Good.”

“Good? You know, I sooo wish you had tried a drop or two.”

“Enough of this. You may go with Barabbas.”

She arched an eyebrow.

“Why not share the contamination?” he said. “With the children.”

Her pout spread into a grin. “My dear Ariston, you are a cunning man. I love that about you.”

“Go on, then.”

The hulking henchman and the willowy priestess slipped into the corridor. Together, they would send infection marching through the ranks of the young, and from here throughout the whole of Romania. Anyone with connection to these infants would suffer along with them, emotion-ally, if not physically.

And the orphanages would never know what had hit them.

“The Akeldama Cluster begins to make its mark.”

“If we don’t wither away in the time being,” Sol grumbled.

Shelamzion, Ariston’s first wife, shivered and clutched her blouse to her breast. Like the rest of them, she was functioning on minimal blood flow. In the starlight at the window, she sulked and sighed, as though per-forming for theater patrons below her class.

Ariston faced the others. “Listen, I believe we’re getting closer to the Nistarim. We have a link to them, anyhow—if that man Mendel was to be trusted. Isn’t that what we’re after? Their destruction? Please be patient. By sundown tomorrow we could be in a position to wreak some genuine havoc.”

Sol peered down his curved nose. “What if we’ve been tricked?”

“Speak your concern plainly, son.”

Ariston found himself accepting these familial terms, since they worked as well as any. If the Collectors were to carry on in mortal shells, it was to their advantage to appear as normal as possible, with histories and relationships intact.

“What if,” Sol said, “there is no village prefect named Vasile? That silly man—Mendel, in his holier-than-thou disguise—what if he only meant to chase us away from his sandy little realm? Perhaps we were too close for comfort, feeding around Arad. It’s not as though there’s a long history of goodwill between the clusters.”

“True. Yet I’m willing to put his claims to the test. And if Mendel lied, so be it. No matter how long it takes, whatever it requires, our aim is to bring down one of the Nistarim. Considering our previous vigil, even another decade or two would be inconsequential, don’t you think?”

“Another decade, father?”

“Or two.”

“What would we be doing all that time? Redesigning the abacus?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Even in this room, there are