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

brow into the sun-cracked reaches of a drought-ridden land, and the gold flecks in his eyes melted and pooled into drops of quicksilver sorrow.

Except there were no tears. Only rivulets of shadow streaking his face, slices of anguish carving his cheeks.

Was this a nightmare? A premonition?

The former patrolman could come up with no logical explanation for what he was witnessing. The younger man had aged fifty years in a matter of seconds, and a loaded Makarov pistol was no protection against such alchemy.

Nickel’s earlier words: I won’t bite . . .

Benyamin figured he should wake Nickel from this ordeal. He over-rode his fears and reached a consoling hand across the table, but as he did so, the man in the Tolkien T-shirt threw back his mop of wheat-colored hair, opened his mouth wide—so large and round that his teeth looked like the crenellated ramparts of a castle turret . . .

And screamed.

The tone was earsplitting, heart wrenching, pregnant with the groans of a dying planet and the horrors that washed across her shores.

It was raw, even primal, bellowing out an anguish that couldn’t possibly come from one source, but perhaps from a thousand, tens of thousands—an entire generation’s—indignant rage.

It was, Benyamin realized, the sound of a shofar. A ram’s horn.

Despite his disinterest in religious matters, he’d heard the horn blown on numerous occasions in his homeland, for feasts and festivals. In times past, it’d also been used as a call to battle. That strident sound cut through everyday activities, awakening listeners from slumber, alerting them to coming judgment. Even now it gave him chills, and clawed at his old wound.

The shofar, as an ancient instrument, had symbolic ties to the ram that Abraham had seen caught in the thicket, just as he was going to plunge a knife into his son Isaac’s heart. The ram was God’s provision. A substitute. A sacrifice.

Benyamin peered around, expecting horrified or angry stares from the few people in the café, but no one seemed impressed by the Almighty’s sleight of hand or the American’s scream. There was no one looking this way. Everything was as it should be: the sound of steaming milk, the clink of glasses, and friendly chatter.

Café Focsani was a picture of tranquility.

Nickel, looking fresh and young, waved a hand. “You okay there, Mr. Amit?”

“Yes.” Two short blinks. “I was . . . I was just thinking, I guess.”

“And I haven’t even got to the punch line yet.”

“Punch line?”

“The part that really packs a wallop.” Nickel’s left fist smacked into his palm. “Usually, at the end of a joke.”

“I’m not amused.”

Benyamin finished his drink and pushed back from the table. He could feel his bewilderment turning to anger, and he questioned his own perceptions of what he had just witnessed. Was it a momentary case of insanity? Maybe it was drowsiness from the late night out at the Cetatea chapel. Perhaps the alcohol still in his system.

His religious grandfather would have reminded him of God’s unfathomable ways and of the strange methods sometimes employed to get the attention of stubborn men.

Of course, his grandfather had died in the gas chambers.

Strange methods, indeed.

“Nickel, you misled me,” Benyamin accused. “On the phone, you spoke of an opportunity that could be of great benefit to my family. That’s why I came. Not for this mischief, these games, whatever it is you’re playing at.”

“It’s no game. Your wife and son are in grave danger.”

“Excuse me?”

“By working together,” Nickel said, “we can minimize the threat to them. What could be more valuable than that?”

“Blackmail? Is that what you’re up to?”

“I wouldn’t stoop so low. Listen, I’m not claiming to be a saint. Sure, I’ve got my own reasons for being here—not gonna lie to you—but I also wanna help you.”

“Explain yourself.” Benyamin slipped a hand beneath his jacket, fingers brushing over the holster. “Or I’ll walk out that door and never look back.”

“I believe there are nineteen killers, still on the loose.”

“Nineteen?”

“Just listen.”

Benyamin folded his arms.

Cal Nichols said, “Back at the Field of Blood, archaeologists checked out the tombs and reported a buncha ossuaries—stone boxes for the dead, reflecting burial practices from the Second Temple Period. We’re talking old. Right around the time of Christ. All sortsa stuff in those caves. Pottery, jewelry—”

“Yes, yes. And that gold armband, Nickel. I understand.”

“But of all the burial boxes, nineteen were empty. No bones, nothing.”

“Grave robbers, I’m sure.”

“Nah. That’s just it, man. The archaeologists found no signs of plundering, not jack-diddly. I mean, yeah, there were some cremated bones tossed in by later generations, but basically these tombs had sat untouched for two thousand years.”

“Tell me, what is your point?” Benyamin saw that the man and woman in the corner were still entranced by caffeine and candlelight.

“I think that the grave site was broken open, and that the two men who were there paid the price. I think we’re talking about supernatural killers.”

“The dead? The missing nineteen?”

“Undead. Just to be technical. One life is all you get, right?”

“What’re you suggesting? Zombies from an American horror film? Vampires?”

“You tell me. You saw the bites on that Norwegian kid.”

“You are speaking in crazy terms, Mr. Nichols. And, as you mentioned, there were only eighteen bite patterns on the Brazilian.”

Even as Benyamin said it, he realized how far the conversation had veered from typical coffee chatter. It was all relative, wasn’t it? You began talking of grisly deaths and empty graves—suddenly, numbers lost significance. Eighteen, nineteen. What did it matter?

“Yeah,” Nickel confessed. “That part’s got me scratching my head.”

“Perhaps one of these . . . these undead went hungry.”

“After thousands of years? I doubt it.”

“Listen.” Benyamin shook his head clear of this foolishness. “I don’t want to know any more of this. I have my own life here, a good job, my family, and—”

“Your family. You cannot forget them.”

“I’m not forgetting, Nickel. I’m trying to avoid whatever nonsense you are playing at. I want nothing to do with this. Why do you even waste your own time?”

“I wanna catch Lars Marka’s killers,