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

“I . . . Are you saying you’re pregnant?”

She nodded and bit her lower lip.

“We . . . You and me, we . . .”

“That’s how it usually happens.”

He leaned back, his eyebrows jumping above the rims of his glasses.

“Are you upset?” Gina ventured.

“Are you?”

“I don’t know, Jed. I mean, actually, I’m pretty excited about it.”

“Well, you should be.”

“And you aren’t?”

“Of course I am, sweetheart. That’s awesome. You’ll make a great mother.” He reached for her hand, and this time she let him take it. “Forget about Nikki and all that baggage. You’re not her. You’ll be amazing.”

Gina dragged her lower lip between her teeth. “I hope so.”

“I know so,” he said.

CHAPTER

THIRTY

En Route to Kiev, Ukraine

Headed back to Kiev, seated in the blackness of an enclosed train compartment, Erota used her superior night vision to examine the snoozing pair of travelers across from her: a college-age girl in ripped jeans with a Union Jack sewn onto her backpack and an older woman with frizzled red hair, her head lolling, a pocket Bible lying open in her lap.

Their aroma was overpowering. Unmistakable. It filled the cabin with a haze of glittering scarlet jewels.

Nazarene Blood.

Erota felt aroused and tucked her hands under her legs as her nails began sharpening, extending. These unsuspecting women were cups brimming with the purest and richest of nectars. A forbidden elixir.

Lucky for them, Erota was full.

Lucky for her too. One sip and she knew she would suffer a grisly fate.

She contemplated finding a seat elsewhere, but there was something titillating about sharing space with Those Who Resist. The world was riddled with churchgoers in pious disguises, but many of them had only the stench of death. She’d never been this close, for this long, to the real deal.

She felt like a child, quivering with nervous curiosity, face pressed between the bars of a lion’s enclosure. Except there was no zoo, no enclosure. Only taunting desire.

She was full, she reminded herself. She could make it through the night without another feeding. Her skin was already warm to the touch, tinged with color.

All thanks to the Amits. One unhappy little family.

An hour before the departure from Arad’s central station, Erota had ducked into the nearby park for a few minutes of solitude. She’d read aloud from an evocative poem and found the words going out like strings of notes from the Pied Piper’s flute.

Here came Dalia. Here came Benyamin, right on her heels.

Their son was left crying in a restaurant lobby.

Though the kid would be spared Erota’s direct attention, she suspected—or at least hoped—that vines had already latched onto him as well. Loneliness was an easy opening to exploit. Of course, she’d noted through the years that certain children showed a resilience far superior to most adults.

For example, Mr. and Mrs. Amit were easy prey.

Erota fed off them there in Eminescu Park. In the darkness, she drew them closer, and her numbing saliva rendered them delirious, oblivious, donors to the ongoing Collector cause. She used the technique demonstrated at the Cetatea chapel and extracted knotted brambles from a throbbing heel and a swollen armpit.

So easy. She broke off each at its exit point. Supped from the thorns. Gorged herself to the point of bursting.

It was a fitting conclusion to her time in Arad, and a serendipitous sending off for her impending journey to the United States.

She’d been told Americans were skeptical of paranormal dealings, but that was of no concern to her; Collectors were given leeway to make adjustments within their environments, so long as the basic goals remained in place. In simplified terms, the Collector Procedure Manual listed three primary methods:

1) Over-the-top—Attack and feed in ostentatious ways, so that the population suspects unholy involvement in each and every misfortune . . . Example: A crowded boat catches fire, goes down, and the average person is convinced it’s an act of evil spirits.

2) Under-the-surface—Attack and feed in covert ways, so that the population denies any and all unholy intervention in modern life . . . Example: A boat catches fire, goes down, and the average person is convinced it’s another example of shoddy management and poorly maintained equipment.

3) Behind-the-back—Attack and feed in subversive ways, so that the population blames all things mournful and distressing upon a punitive, distant deity . . . Example: A boat catches fire, goes down, and the average person assumes God didn’t act because He simply didn’t care.

Erota rested her head against the curtain, as the rocking of the train lulled her toward sleep.

Then she sat up straight again, all efforts at relaxation rebuffed by the presence of the two females opposite her. Her temples pounded. Her nostrils flared at their stifling sweetness.

Oh, for one sip from the cup.

The red-haired lady stirred and opened her eyes. She squinted into the darkness and felt for her Bible, then turned her sights to Erota.

Erota sat motionless, sure she could not be seen.

“You don’t really want to be here, do you?” the woman whispered.

The heavy curtain was cutting off all but the smallest particles of light, and Erota figured she must be dealing with one talking in her sleep.

“You can go,” the woman said. “Just go.”

“Are you talking to me?” Erota inquired. “Are you awake?”

“You don’t belong here.”

“This is my seat.”

“I’m not going to waste my time.” A dismissive wave of the hand. “Please, just find somewhere else.”

Erota bristled. “Who do you think you are? You don’t even know my name.”

“I don’t want to know it. I’m sure you’d be lying to me anyway.”

Erota brought her hands into view, her nails curved and glowing green. She imagined bridging the gap and slicing through that sun-wrinkled neck. She fantasized about a crimson geyser erupting from the carotid artery. She would drink, a vampire at the schoolyard fountain, satisfying her thirst between activities.

One sip. Please, just one.

Through the blackness, the woman’s watery eyes fixed upon Erota, and a stream of soft syllables rolled from her lips. Although forming distinct words, they seemed to be encoded so that