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

the Ukrainian border. My friends from Kiev will meet you on the other side, then hide you away for a couple of nights. They’ll help you find menial jobs and learn the language. Soon you’ll blend right in. From there, you’re on your own.”

“No one’s going to find us.”

“There is one other possibility, you know. I could go with you.”

“And draw more attention our direction? No,” Nicoleta said, “we already discussed this. And to be honest, I’m not sure I can trust you ever again.”

His tone softened. “You’re trusting me now.”

“For one night, that’s all.”

“Which,” he said, “is how all this trouble started in the first place.”

“Shush, Cal. Just drive.”

The Provocateur turned toward Nicoleta with a censoring expression, and in the dash’s glow his green eyes reflected gold. She breathed an apology. He turned his attention back to the road as a string of lights indicated passage through a town.

Cal . . .

So that was his name.

Gina studied the man’s strong profile. What did they mean, that one night had started all this trouble? Could Cal be her father? Had her mother lied about her husband’s death?

Yet these suspicions didn’t seem to mesh with the Provocateur’s age. He was ten years older than Gina, at the most.

“Here,” Nicoleta said. “It has to be done.”

The man braked, turned off the headlights, whipped down an embankment.

Gina held her breath. Had they heard her thoughts?

Cal pulled beneath overlapping branches of evergreen, switched off the engine, then without a word climbed out and came around to Gina’s side.

He was opening her door, allowing in a rush of alpine air. He was looming over her, exhaling the crisp scent of mint gum. He was tying one of her blouses around her forearm. Her mother was twisting around and handing him the dagger from the black walnut chess set. She was nodding, mouthing for him to proceed.

A sense of panic. “Mamica?”

“You’ve sinned, Gina. You kissed that boy and allowed lust into your heart.”

“Teodor? But it was only—”

“Sorry. You gotta sit still.” The cap shaded Cal’s face.

It was pointless to argue against such fanaticism. In her mother’s mind, the world was an evil place, a battle arena, and even children were vulnerable to sin’s wretched blackness. Better to cut away the gangrene. To spare the soul.

The part Gina dreaded most was the disorientation that followed these episodes, the way the knife seemed to slice away memories and leave gaping wounds in her mind.

She bit her lip as the blade drew a scarlet line across her arm.

CHAPTER

FOURTEEN

Borsa, Romania

Swooping through a mountain pass, the cluster leader sighted the town of Borsa below. These concentrations of modern lights still impressed him, white diamonds and red rubies, dazzling in the darkness. He lifted a wing tip, slid down a thermal, and leveled out over frost-speckled treetops.

He screeched. He empathized with the bird’s exhaustion, its hunger. Above keen eyes, its black plumage was stiff with cold.

Still operating with the residue of Ariston’s intellect, the lead Collector had delivered instructions throughout the night, while relying also on the kite’s instinctive behaviors. The bird resisted him once, stopping for roadside carrion—strips of flesh from a rotting fox, as well as some live grasshoppers—then mounted up again to resume pursuit of the Dacia that now threaded through the center of Borsa.

Mother and daughter were in there. And a fair-skinned man at the wheel. Their faces matched those he’d found floating through the prefect’s blood.

Only the girl bore the letter, though.

Initially, from high above Cuvin, the Collector had spotted the lone vehicle fleeing southeast toward Lipova. Calling upon his memory of local maps, he’d cut over the hills, past the medieval fortress of Soimos, and intercepted the car as it threaded along the Mures River. Although he struggled to match its prolonged straightaway speeds, he was able to cut distances while it negotiated curves and steep drop-offs. It was one of only a few traveling this late, save the sporadic gypsy caravan.

His goal: determine their final destination.

Though a skilled predator, his feathered host was not equipped to take on a trio of healthy humans. The cluster leader would have to gather the other Collectors, then return for a quick strike—to rip the limbs from man, woman, and child, in an effort to learn more about the Concealed Ones.

On the far side of town, the Dacia slid away toward the east, where slopes of trees formed a corridor of darkness. Time for him to close the gap.

Instead, the black kite slowed and began a spiraling descent.

No, the Collector directed. Don’t stop. Keep following that red car.

The weary bird continued downward toward Borsa’s perches and residual heat. The Collector plied the creature’s will with promises of fresh flesh ahead, but soon he’d lost sight of his prey beyond the spire of an Orthodox church.

Keep going. You need food, don’t you? A little bit further.

The kite lifted its short, black beak, emitted a whistle, then caught an upward draft that was swirling through the town. For now, it would remain compliant.

The car, however, was nowhere to be seen.

The Collector’s frustration came out as a shrill shriek. His eyes roved over the landscape—the ribbon of road, forested peaks, patches of snow. He beat at the wind, racing along the lonely highway for kilometer upon kilometer.

Nothing, nothing.

At last, the bird revolted and cut back in the direction of town.

Had the car outdistanced him? Where could it have gone?

Dawn’s glow crept over the timberline and gave the Collector his first clue. The moment the tire tracks leaped into shadowed relief, he flattened his wings and dove. Flakes of red paint against a stump suggested that the vehicle had eluded him beneath this copse of trees. A stained, rumpled cloth fluttered from a nearby bush.

The black kite couldn’t resist.

It lighted on the foliage and tore into the still-tacky material, extracting what little energy it could from blood-soaked cotton. To the Collector’s surprise, myriad images and voices washed over him . . .

Mentions of Kiev.

A striking, raven-haired mother.

A young