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

tried to leave a few at least. Here.” He surrendered an untapped thorn, displaying his willingness to share while also making her complicit with his perceived wrongdoing

Megiste drank, smiling as she siphoned out Benyamin Amit’s earlier and distant admiration of her appearance. Yes, the man was quite right. She did look good through a scope, although a bit pale.

“Do you think I’ll be punished?” Barabbas was asking.

“What?”

“When Ariston gets here?”

“You’re not comprehending what I’m saying. Look.” She took a step toward the hay cart and cupped Eros’s fractured cranium, lifting it into view. “Your victim isn’t the only one Ariston’ll have to worry over. It seems you and I may have both gotten ourselves into some trouble, don’t you think?”

“Eros?” Barabbas tripped over Mr. Amit in a rush to see this for himself. He moaned, pulling the unresponsive corpse away from the dead woman and examining the horrendous split in his skull. His whisper was gruff. “How did this happen?”

“There’s one easy way to find out.” While Megiste snapped off the next thorn along Dalia Amit’s infected strand, she reflected on the skittering sounds she’d heard earlier from the shadows. “But I already have a good idea which little rodent it was that tried to rescue dear old Mama.”

“Who?”

Megiste sipped. Sipped again.

Searching for, and finding, answers from Dalia’s fated last hours on Earth.

Two Hours Earlier—Arad

Dalia was incensed. Yesterday she’d confronted her husband about his nocturnal escapades and hoped to shame him into an act of contrition, but he’d given no response. Not that she expected any different. Long ago, he’d set off on his own path, with no intentions of returning to the more respectable road she traveled.

“Come along, Dov.” She turned off the oven, put a lid over the supa. “We’re going to find out what your father is up to. He comes home late. He has little time to spend with his own wife and son. When, I ask, was the last time you two went fishing together? Or hiked the trails?”

“We’re going this weekend, Mama. He promised me.”

“Phaw. Promises are nothing to him. When was the last time he even arrived home in time for supper, huh? You tell me.”

Her son lowered his head until dark hair brushed thick eyelashes.

“When, Dov?”

“I’m thinking, Mama. Maybe a few months ago.”

“Well, now—don’t you think it’s time he showed what a true father should be? You are nearly thirteen, nearly a man. How much longer can he put off such a matter? Fetch a coat and follow me.” She removed her apron. “We’re going to see that he listens to his family. Perhaps he’ll give heed to your words more than mine.”

Dov reappeared at the front door with a pack hanging from his arm.

“What is that?”

“Our camping supplies,” Dov said. “Just in case.”

“Hmmph.”

“He made a promise.”

“I wish I had your optimism.”

Dalia tugged her son by the hand, down the stairs, onto the street. They hailed a taxicab to city hall, then parked a half block away from Benyamin’s Peugot. He would drive from here, and they would follow at a distance. He was up to something, and Dalia intended to discover what that was. Or who it was.

“Don’t worry,” she told the cab driver. “You’ll be paid.”

Forty minutes later, they were moving through Lipova, chased by the day’s lengthening shadows, toward a castle on a nearby peak. The Peugot had turned off somewhere just out of town. Had they lost Ben? Did he know he was being tailed?

“Slowly,” Dalia said.

Her son tugged on her arm. “Just over the hill there, this is close to where he said we’d go camping. Maybe he’s here to scout it out.”

“Maybe.”

They passed a smattering of farms, houses, and a sloping property with the name Totorcea Vineyards scrolled across a placard between two posts.

That name. Dalia knew it. On a number of occasions, she’d been to city hall to keep tabs on her husband’s whereabouts and his companions. Helene Totorcea was an archivist on the lower level, a simple but pretty woman. Benyamin had always denied infidelity, but now the picture took shape in Dalia’s mind, substantiating years of suspicion and accusation. She was about to catch him redhanded.

And if his son’s presence brought greater shame, so be it.

“This is the place, driver.” The rap of her knuckles against the window sent a jolt along her skin to her underarm affliction. “Here. Right here.”

“You are sure?”

“Must you argue with a paying fare? Goodness.” She flung a wad of lei onto the front seat, then turned to Dov. “Are you ready?”

“Yes.” He patted his pack, producing a metallic clink. “I have it all here—the tent stuff, some food, and a couple pictures from our last trip. You could join us, Mama. It’ll be fun. We can camp out beneath the stars.”

She hadn’t seen her son this animated in some time, and though she wanted to believe the best, she hadn’t the energy to maintain such hope.

“If you need a pillow,” Dov went on, “you simply wrap up your clothes in a coat. That’s what Dad taught me.”

The poor boy was in denial.

“Go.” Dalia shooed him from the backseat. “Let’s move along.”

Megiste dropped the thorn.

“Who was it?” Barabbas said.

“Her son. A measly, meek twelve-year-old.”

“Is he infected, the way his parents were?”

“I don’t see how that’s possible. Not if he could get away with . . . with this reprehensible violence against our own kind.”

“Defending his mother—”

“Killing a grown man, Barabbas. Don’t gloss over the details. Well, wherever you are now, little Dov Amit, you’re an orphan, I’m afraid.”

“He could still be nearby.”

She pointed. “I believe he crawled off in that direction.”

Together, Megiste and Barabbas searched the premises, in agreement that this was the first order of business before revealing to the Akeldama Cluster the horror that had befallen them. Later, much would have to be decided—a burial site for the Amits, and a new leader to guide the House of Eros.

At a gap in the warehouse wall, Barabbas found scuffs in the dirt