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

the saying that ‘It’s more blessed to give than to receive.’ Mr. Amit here is the epitome of that. He’s migrated with his family all the way from Israel to be near the one who first tapped his blood. I guess he wants to keep giving, Ariston.”

“I don’t mind receiving. Not at all.”

Erota crowded in with the others, drawn by the pumpity-pump-pumpity-pump of the victim’s pulse, by the sweet, coppery haze above his pew.

The haze seemed cleaner than the majority she’d seen before, devoid of the dietary impurities so prevalent in this modern era. She figured he must eat mostly kosher. If given the ability to swim through the air, she would be diving and bathing in this cloying mist. It would be her sacrilegious mikveh, her baptism.

“Helene, tell everyone what’s going on here.” Ariston folded his arms over his belly. “The things you and I discussed.”

“Love to, dear.”

Benyamin remained rigid and unresponsive.

“I first met this man,” Helene said from her knees, “on the job at city hall. He likes to make small talk with me while waiting on his employers. He’s decent enough, polite. Only when he thinks no one is looking does he allow himself to hobble along, and a few weeks back I began to suspect something was amiss when I asked him what tuica was. I’d heard other men mention it, and I hoped to increase my cultural understanding.”

“As we all should be doing,” Ariston said. “As a tool. A weapon.”

“Absolutely.”

Megiste nudged Helene. “Tell them what you saw.”

“Well, it was clear as day. The mere utterance of that word, tuica, and Mr. Amit’s eyes took on this intense, emerald gleam, like an ember coming back to life. I knew then he’d been compromised somehow, and it was his occasional limp that suggested to me the point of entry.”

“Where I’d bitten him,” Ariston said. “Back in Israel.”

“That’s right. In a moment of privacy, I asked to see his wound, and he obliged me. I noticed then the infection—the infestation, if you will—and later asked Megiste to help me discern its source. In a moment you’ll see it with your own eyes. Mr. Amit tried to give me all the reasons for bringing his wife and son to Romania, but I believe he was drawn by our presence—yours, more precisely, Ariston. By allowing the bite to fester, he gave the poison time to permeate his body, and the very infection that’s been eating away at him tells him he can only be soothed by more of the same. In his case, another drink.”

“Fighting fire with fire, as they say.”

“Father.” Sol gave a protracted sigh and shook off Auge’s censuring hand. “This is all very entertaining, as usual, but we were discussing the destruction of the Nistarim. Revised techniques and whatnot. Is this all you have to show us?”

“I think it’s rather significant,” Eros said.

Unimpressed, Sol huffed.

The Houses of Ariston and Eros fell silent. The flames of Barabbas’s torch whistled and crackled.

The confrontation intrigued Erota. In light of her impending marriage to the man from Atlanta, she’d been observing interactions between husbands and wives, parents and children, siblings and cousins. What drove individuals onward? More important, what drove them apart? She’d seen all manner of discord among humans, in some of the lower organ-isms too. As a Collector, she drew perverse pleasure from this.

Yet the Principles of Cluster Survival were explicit: When a challenge arises from within the cluster, the leader will determine its validity and, if necessary, banish any Collector that displays mutinous intentions.

Ariston hooked his right arm through his son’s. “Sol, Sol, dear boy.”

“Don’t start patronizing me now.”

“Come, you two.” Ariston hooked his other arm through Shelamzion’s. “My first wife, and my oldest son. The issuance of my loins. You mustn’t allow jealousy to blind you. Yes, I’ve always preferred Helene—a better wife, better lover. And so, it’s only natural I would prefer the offspring I shared with her.”

“Father, this is—”

“This is necessary. For your well-being.” Ariston leaned forward, his joined arms forcing wife and son to bow with him toward the kneeling Helene. “By the sails of Sicily, look at her, look with me, and enjoy what you see. Look.”

“I’m . . . looking,” Shelamzion sputtered.

Sol only glared.

“Looook.”

The torch flames wavered as Ariston drew in air. He did so slowly, intentionaly, sucking the color from the lips of his wife and firstborn and draining all semblance of vibrancy from their earthly habitations. On either side of him, they began to droop like deflated pig bladders.

“We’re a small cluster, true. But,” Ariston said to the incapacitated pair, “we are infused with traces of the Man from Kerioth and the Master Collector himself. This gives us potential never before explored. Now. I’d like it if we could share in this as a family. Would you be kind enough to give Helene your attention?”

Megiste held out slender arms. “Show them, Helene.”

She looked to Ariston. “Now, dear?”

“Yes, show these loved ones. Show us all.”

Helene’s fingers moved over Benyamin Amit’s heel, then squeezed and pulled upward in the movement of a seamstress drawing needle through cloth. The skin swelled, rose, reached a tented pinnacle, and finally col-lapsed as a large thorn punched through, as clear fluid gushed forth.

“Arrrgghhhh!”

The man on the pew snapped forward. The hiss that issued from his mouth reverberated between walls and chapel ceiling and awakened in each of the Collectors’ eyes a peculiar glow.

Erota felt herself respond, felt her parched throat tighten. Her thirst was strong.

As suddenly as he had reacted, Benyamin fell back into a stupor.

Helene kept tugging, and the thorn—the thorns—kept unraveling from the wound, curved and glistening, mottled red and black.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-TWO

Chattanooga

Gina was in the employee restroom, with seven minutes before her shift. She stared into the mirror, ready to do her job. The facts, the anecdotes, the history—all there, committed to memory.

Over the next few hours, she would walk close to five miles as she guided groups through limestone caverns of flowstone and drapery formations, stalactites, and calcite crystals. Located more