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

sustenance for our families, collectively and individually. Is there a reason I’m beholden to your every whim as it pertains to my own feedings?”

“She’s been visited before, on numerous occasions. If you take much more, there’s the possibility it would kill her. We need only enough to erase whatever memories she has of this place.”

Sol’s finger flexed around the wooden rail of the cart.

“Sol,” Megiste said, “I think the concern Eros has is that Mrs. Amit remain a long-term resource for the House of Ariston. We would all adore depleting these humans till there was nothing left, I understand. But we have to ration ourselves.”

“I’m an adult. I’m tired of relying upon Ariston’s or his”—Sol stabbed a finger toward Eros—“weak decisions.”

“He’s your superior. You would be wise to hold your tongue.”

Sol wiped a hand over his mouth. With a deep breath, he took hold of the vine at Dalia’s underarm and tugged—thwapp, thwapp, thwapp. The tangle of withered taproot popped loose, thorn by thorn, and coiled in the straw. He snapped off the first thorn, turned and glared into Eros’s eyes, then gulped down its contents.

Megiste found her own desire stirred by this greedy display. Her nails began to elongate. She was thirsty—powerfully, irresistibly thirsty—after her overland journey to this vineyard. Her skin was cold, her limbs low on life force, and these joined factors spurred a bloodlust that seemed now to have a focal point.

“Eros?” she said.

“I think it’s time,” he concurred. “My patience has worn thin.”

Far away, in Kiev, Megiste and Eros had weighed the options of striking out as a household on their own, forming a cluster independent of and unhindered by the House of Ariston’s infighting. Sol’s brazen dis-respect only underscored their concerns. During the sudden banishment of Salome, they had also witnessed Ariston’s capacity for distinguishing between his host’s emotions and his Collector ideals. Surely, he would understand.

“Time for what?” Sol sneered.

Megiste took one step toward Ariston’s insolent son and slashed his throat with her lethal set of nails. The wound reached through to his spine. Sol, reliant on his protected status as the cluster leader’s firstborn, seemed stunned by this abrupt punishment, pulling both hands to the gaping incision, then sagging to his knees on the warehouse floor.

Blood pumped from the opening, geysers of stolen vitality not to be wasted.

Principle: The strong Collector is encouraged—nay, commissioned—to prey upon the weaker . . .

Principle: The leader will . . . banish any Collector that displays mutinous intentions.

“Will Lord Ariston question our actions here?”

“You heard him voice his frustrations,” Eros said. “I shouldn’t be surprised if he thanks us for doing him—doing the cluster, as a whole—a favor. Are you thirsty?”

Megiste smiled.

Eros, wearing his own silken grin, knelt to take the first drink, and the priestess joined in. She tasted the dreams and nightmares of those whose existences Sol had fed upon. She felt liquid spirits squirt between her teeth, warming her, working their way through her ashen frame. There was nothing but the pulsing in her temples, the hammering of the blood, soothing her migraine and shutting out all other concerns.

When she disengaged at last, she realized Eros had disappeared.

She widened languorous eyes and spotted the leader’s feet dangling over the edge of the hay cart. He had dived into another meal, his hand clasped around Dalia’s prickly vine, with depleted thorns dotting the straw about him.

“I guess Ariston’s son wasn’t enough for the two of us,” Megiste said, still giddy.

No response.

She thought she heard the rustle of straw off in the shadows along the far wall, but she figured rats were to be expected in a drafty facility such as this.

“And to think, Eros,” she said, “that I was the insatiable one.”

Not a word.

“Where’re your table manners?” she joked. “Sir, I’m speaking to you.”

His feet didn’t move.

Megiste let go of Sol’s empty shell. He fell backward, his left shoulder cracking against, then sliding down the curved wagon wheel.

She grasped the rail of the cart and pulled herself up. She looked over the edge and found that Eros also had been relegated to emptiness, to the Restless wanderings that all Collectors feared.

A rusty metal tent peg had been driven into his skull.

CHAPTER

THIRTY-SEVEN

Chattanooga

“You are immortal, Gina.”

“As in, ‘I’ll live forever’ and all that junk?”

“Ja,” the man said in German. “I mean, yes.”

“Yikes. In that case, I should pay more attention to my diet.” Gina swabbed a french fry through the ketchup on her paper plate. “Honestly? My mother’s real big on that religious mumbo jumbo, so it’s sort of burned me out.”

“Some people, they never quite get it.”

“Hey, you can’t judge me by the—”

“I’m talking about her.”

“Oh.”

Gina nibbled on the fry, still bewildered by the identity of this man who had been down in the caverns, who had sounded like a German tourist, and who even now carried himself with a continental flair. Why had she agreed to have lunch with this Mr. Schaefer?

Earlier, he had stepped in and deflected the prying questions of the girl with the reptilian stare. That was a point in the guy’s favor, right? And he’d asked only for a chance to share lunch with Gina at these public picnic tables by the Ruby Falls parking lot. Nothing too creepy about that. The hill here did offer some nice glimpses of Chattanooga below.

None of this had convinced Gina to accept his offer, though.

She had a husband. And a baby in the oven. And tour guides were discouraged against off-hours interaction with attendees.

There was one thing he had said that hooked her: I have a message for you, from your friend in Borsa.

Borsa? A message from Cal the Provocateur?

It was so outlandish that she had to find out if it were true. Gina took a slow breath and felt her baby settle inside. She would’ve discounted Schaefer’s claim, except no one else would’ve even known to mention that obscure Romanian town.

Still, best to play it safe.

She hardened her gaze and said, “Mr. Schaefer, if this is your way of