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

Atlantic? She never spoke to her mother about such matters. In fact, they barely spoke at all. It all seemed so unreal here in this land of freedom.

What about Cal? Did he know where she was?

Gina touched her earrings, the ones with the red ruby orbs, and took comfort in the inane yet persistent belief that the Provocateur was keeping watch. He had made her a promise on that last night in Romania, and she clung to it. Most likely, it was nothing.

Regardless, as she shuffled forward in the coffee line, she caressed the memory with a glimmer of hope. One colorful shard from her jagged tableau.

Seven Years Earlier—Borsa

“I’ll carry her,” Cal was saying.

“No, I don’t want her pampered. She can handle her own weight.”

“Nikki, I said I’d carry her.”

They were parked in a small garage, maybe a toolshed. After pulling off the road for Gina’s bloodletting, they had returned to Borsa and rushed to this alley tucked behind a bakery. Gina was awake, arm still throbbing, eyes burning with tears that she refused to let flow.

“Don’t worry,” Nicoleta said to the Provocateur. “You did what had to be done, and I’m certain Gina won’t blame you. She’s quite impervious to it.”

“Sure. I bet she is.”

Cal came to the passenger-side door. His arms slipped beneath Gina’s petite frame, cradling her.

She stiffened, bit her lip, and looked off over his shoulder as he trundled across a gravel drive and up three flights of stairs into an apartment that smelled of concrete and fresh wood shavings. He set her on a couch covered with a knitted shawl. His hand brushed her forehead, and gold-flecked eyes danced there with interest.

She felt self-conscious. She’d feared that the recent appearance of the translucent markings would elicit ridicule from the kids of Cuvin—though it hadn’t happened that way—and she’d been wearing her hair long to hide it.

As he withdrew his fingers, they caught in her long locks.

“Sorry,” he said.

For this brief entanglement? Or for the inflicted wound? Gina wasn’t sure, so she pulled the shawl over her arm and said nothing.

“You and your mother, you’ve gotta lay low here a coupla days,” he continued. “Then a friend of mine’ll take you guys someplace safe. I’m leaving now. Guess the dragon lady doesn’t want me sticking around. But you’re gonna be okay, you hear me, Gina? I know you feel small, like you’re no one important, but that’s not true.” He leaned in, his breath a gust of winter cold. “Not a word of this to your mom, you swear? Just between you and me, I promise that one day, when it’s the right time, I’ll track you down again.”

“How?”

“You like the earrings I gave you?”

She nodded. “Thank you. I like them.”

“Just keep wearing them,” he said, “and I’ll find you. Somehow. Someway.”

She tucked her chin beneath the shawl. There was no use in letting him see her emotion. Through that one simple gift she felt connected to this man, and wondered if he bore lines on his forehead, as well. What was the meaning of the symbol? Or was it nothing more than a strange skin permeation? She was afraid to ask, fearful of going under the blade again.

“Okay,” she said.

“Atta girl. Now, grab a few winks while you’ve got the chance.”

Chattanooga

Seven years had gone by. Not a word, not one.

Gina released her vain hope, letting Cal’s features fade until she saw only the brass and polish of Rembrandt’s Coffee House. She was still stuck in the line behind the socialites.

Blue Eyeliner: “Oh look, it’s our turn. Like I have any clue what I want.”

Pink Tennis Visor: “Omigosh. You have got to try the baklava.”

“Is that, like, even American?”

Gina touched her tongue to the backs of her bottom teeth, counting, as a form of stress reduction. She figured it was healthier and cheaper than the random drags she took from friends’ cigarettes. For each tooth, she had to think of one person upon whom she could bestow an act of kindness. She’d developed this method during later encounters with her mother’s dagger. It’d also come in handy while living with Jed, her boy-friend of the past fourteen months.

Fourteen. The number of her pearly whites, divided by two. Also, the number of minutes till her mother arrived.

Let’s see. Lower left molar? One act of kindness . . .

Gina resorted to the obvious: dropping dollar bills into the tip jar before pushing outside with her triple vanilla latte.

She found her attention drawn toward a man on the other side of the street. His hair was flaxen, almost the color of wheat. He was walking away. She hurried her strides beneath her ruffled skirt.

Could it be . . . ?

From the direction of the Hunter Museum of American Art, a dingy delivery van bore down on her as she crossed the pavement. Autumn leaves swirled in its wake, deep yellow and auburn.

The driver was squinting into the sun, and by the time Gina realized he couldn’t see her, it was too late. The front grille caught and catapulted her up over the hood in a plume of coffee froth, sprayed crimson, and orange-streaked hair. She came down hard, skull cracking against the pavement amid the sprawl of contorted limbs.

She was wrapped for burial in strips of white linen. Her arms were pressed against her sides, and her ribs sagged. Like a rabbit tensed and motionless in the snow, in that moment before flight, her heart paused.

Everything slowed. Her pulse. Her breathing.

Cold. Icy cold . . .

A tingling, muted and far-off. Vibrations, felt only through the soles of her feet. Then a jolt, followed by the sounds of lightning and tumbling rock. Quaking earth. And fabric rending.

A cry of final release: It is finished.

That dying prayer on her lips,

fading,

fading . . .

Then a touch. Blood in her mouth. Moisture on a parched tongue.

Gina swallowed out of reflex, and began shaking, convulsing. Her eyelids peeled back, and light stabbed through her