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

“Somewhere close?”

“Maybe Seattle.”

“No.”

“I wasn’t asking.”

“Not there.” Her mother shook her head. “That would be a poor choice.”

“Again, Nikki—I’m not fishing for advice here. I’m trying to com-municate, keep the lines open and all that slop. Forget it. I should’ve just left it alone.”

“You mustn’t have this child.”

“What? How can you even say that to me?”

“There’s too much at stake.”

“Because you wouldn’t be able to control it?” Gina chafed at the thought. “Is that what worries you? You’re afraid it might be even more corrupt than I was?”

“Dear, it’s for the best. Please believe me.”

“You are delusional. I mean, off your stinkin’ rocker.”

“Gina! You think you’re in any position to raise a child when you can’t even control your own temper?”

Gina repeated herself, slower this time, with stronger and harsher words hammered onto the front end. She met her mother’s eyes and funneled all her resentment and hurt and anger into one pupil-drilling stare. She felt tension crackle along that connection, felt it run down through her neck and stiffen the muscles along her lower back.

She whispered, “Die, for all I care.”

With a sharp intake of air, Nikki Lazarescu lifted her coffee cup, peeled off the white plastic lid, and threw the remaining contents across the legs of her daughter’s pants.

Cursing, Gina jumped from the rocking chair. The back of the chair slapped against the white siding on the house, careened forward, then slapped the house again. Though the mocha had cooled in the half hour since its purchase, she could feel the residual heat spreading down her thighs, over her knees, gluing the cargo material to her skin. Childhood feelings of dazed resentment roiled through her chest.

Nikki set the empty cup on the crate.

“C’mon,” Gina growled. “Why don’t you finish what you started?”

Her mother exhaled and pressed a hand to her cheek.

Gina stared at those porcelain features, framed by waves of raven hair. A jumble of recollections came together in her mind, a semicomplete picture of a toddler in younger Nikki’s arms. On the child’s leg, there were two fresh cuts. Matching the scars concealed by Gina’s boots.

“You think I’m just dirt?” she said. “That somehow I’m not worthy?”

“Shush, Gina. You don’t understand.”

“You’re the one who’s got it all twisted in the head.” Gina unfastened the sheath and dagger from her shin, found the ancient object wet with coffee. “Here you go,” she said, turning the hilt toward her mother. “Take your last ounce of blood from me, if you want it so bad. Just take it. It’s yours. Because after this, I’m done letting you carve your expectations into me. If you haven’t purged the evil from me by now, then I guess you’re out of luck.”

Nikki let her eyelids fall shut.

“Here you go.” Gina removed the knife and flicked the blade across her thumb.

“They’ll come for him,” her mother was muttering.

“For who?”

“Your child.”

“Sure. Whatever.” Gina was done putting any stock in the words from this woman’s mouth. She watched pearls of blood bead down her own wrist, made a fist that squeezed red droplets onto the veranda’s planking. “There, Nikki. You want it? You got it. Is that enough for you, or do you need more?”

No response.

“You can have your knife back too. Far as I’m concerned, that thing’s cursed.”

Her mother’s eyes still closed. Not a word.

Gina sneered. “You could at least look at me while I’m talking to you.” She let the dagger fall with a metallic clang, along with the sheath, then stepped forward and stretched forth her dripping hand. She pressed the thumb to Nikki’s mouth and rubbed it once across, in a glistening smear. “That’s all you get. One taste. You should’ve just bled it all from me while you had the chance.”

Nikki opened her eyes, at last. They had misted over. Through red painted lips, she said: “Darling, it was wrong of me to have ever had you in the first place.”

Ukrainian Airlines, Somewhere over Europe

They left Boryspil Airport in the morning, headed for Atlanta via New York.

This flight aboard an AeroSvit Boeing 767 was Erota’s first ever by mechanical means. Eons ago, she had tried flying by natural—or perhaps, unnatural—methods, inhabiting an Egyptian vulture and soaring upon its broad pinions. The sublime vision of aerial gliding had been marred, however, by the sheer stamina required to hold position in the air. Like most things, it was harder than it looked.

“What do you think, Erota?”

“It’s so quiet up here. So smooth.”

“You’ve really never flown before?”

“Nyet. I have lived a sheltered life,” she said, lying to her husband-to-be for the very first time. She gave a shy shrug, and his gaze flitted to her pouty lips. “Look down there.” She pointed. “The clouds are like lambs’ wool.”

Raymond leaned over for a view through the oval window, and she made no effort to avoid the brush of his arm against her breast. He mum-bled agreement, then turned his attention to a current issue of Fortune magazine. When he wasn’t drinking in her appearance, he seemed capable of tuning her out completely.

Despite his ordinary face, Raymond Pace was better looking than she had expected from the online photos. She wondered why he’d chosen a foreign woman over an American one. His earning power wasn’t the problem, and he exuded a confidence mixed with bits of surly conceit that made him seem dangerous. Perhaps he had a taste for the exotic, the unpredictable.

If so, she would more than satisfy.

“Raymond?” she said a few minutes later. “Can I ask a favor of you?”

He inserted his customs declaration card as a page marker and closed the magazine. “Shoot.”

“Uh . . . I do not understand.”

“It means to proceed,” he explained. “To say what’s on your mind.”

“I will learn these things. My English, I’ve studied only a few years.”

“You’ll get along fine, Erota. Just remember, when I’m reading, I don’t like to be disturbed. You’ll figure that stuff out about me.”

She nodded. “Da. I mean, yes.” The docile bride.

“What’d you want?”

“I am wondering, can I call