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

CHAPTER

FOUR

The lead Collector felt enlivened. Passing through a narrow breach, he willed himself into the darkness of the third family’s cave. Earlier he had selected the box he wanted, a limestone fixture in the back reaches.

There, between the gaps of a pivoting stone door . . .

There, past burial troughs and skeletons and a spatulated oil lamp . . .

He entered the final chamber and found the medium-sized ossuary. It bore Greek and Hebrew inscriptions—which he discerned with great effort—and was surrounded by other boxes, some chipped, even broken, but all of them subordinate to their patriarch.

Carved into stone: Ariston of Apamea.

This was to be his identity. As Lord Ariston, he would guide his horde as they ranged the earth once again in physical form. Their goal: to feed, breed, persuade, and possess.

Feed upon wayward cravings.

Breed despair.

Persuade weak wills.

And possess this world, into which they’d been banished.

It was theirs anyway, was it not? Only measly humans stood between them and ultimate domination, and resistance could not be tolerated.

Like fog settling over a meadow, the Collector descended upon Ariston’s remains, a time-consuming process. He was inhabiting a dead man, after all, and this presented a new challenge, drawing vitality from the defilement of old blood.

Soon his host was regaining sight. Over the course of a few minutes, the eye sockets filled with ocular fluids and he began to imagine what it would be like to see again. His muscles and cartilage were also at work, connecting joints and bones, layer by layer.

The process was laborious, even painful, yet he knew it would be rewarded. Plus, didn’t pain indicate life?

Ah, the irony of mortal existence.

The Collector wished he’d had more say regarding this human’s bodily condition, but other factors had weighed in the being’s favor. Personality and temperament, natural talents, the general state of the soul—these were key. They would serve as a foundation, a template, without which the Collector would be nothing.

I am a merchant, he told himself. A man of means.

He drew up more details, siphoning memory from the very marrow in the bones. He was Syrian. Relocated from Apamea. He was shrewd in worldly matters and generous in religious dealings, when there was something to be gained—and who didn’t have something to gain in such contrivances? A father who demanded obedience from his sons. A husband who expected the same from his wives, in household dealings as well as matters of intimacy.

Shelamzion, his first wife. She was at rest in this tomb.

Would she, too, be chosen? Collected? Did Lord Ariston . . . did the Collector . . . even wish for that?

The answers were here within, predilections woven into the human fabric. He was alive again. Or undead. Either way, he’d found a vessel by which to maneuver this earth.

The Collector, the cluster leader, was now Ariston of Apamea.

The gamble, as with any habitation, was that he was subject to Ariston’s physical and psychological makeup. Beyond energy-sapping bursts of activity, a Collector was at the mercy of his host. If Ariston was short and fat—which he was—then the Collector within would be unable to force him into an act of Herculean strength. If Ariston was prone to parental impatience, then the Collector, too, would be a candidate for fatherly vents of rage. While some gained more control than others over their hosts, this internal struggle was a never-ending one.

Ariston let out a groan. By the sails of Sicily, he had only moments before he would outgrow these stone confines.

He coughed, causing dust to swirl into his eyes. He winced. With lips stretched as tightly as dried animal hides over his jaws, he felt grit crumble onto his teeth.

He had to get out of here. Determined to escape, he lifted his head.

Thu-whackkk.

The lid proved a formidable barrier, and the force of impact dis-lodged his left arm, still under construction. The limb dropped, making a soft splat that reminded him of market day and vigorous bartering for sustenance.

Speaking of which, this corporeal shell was famished.

He wiggled downward, teasing the appendage to return. Come, my estranged arm. Your father welcomes you home. Sinews popped and twanged. Layers of skin stretched over sharp elbows and hipbones.

Assured that things had pieced together in proper order, he made another attempt to free himself. His palms thrust upward, and he kicked out against these cramped quarters.

Brittle with age, the ossuary fragmented, and its lid tumbled to the ground.

Through Ariston, the Collector was now free to roam.

He sat up, peeking through functioning eyes for the first time in ages. He’d dwelt so long in shadow that even the nocturnal light seeping into the chamber seemed to blind him. He squinted. Picked out angles and shapes and shades of color.

He also noted that his corpulence seemed to be swelling with a mind all its own. He would soon be a round-bellied temple of flesh.

Bah. It was better than the Separation.

Or a stint in the Restless Desert, that place of unending torment and barren heat. He knew of Collectors who had been sent there never to return.

At his feet, an inscribed fragment of red stone reassured him of his new identity. He found comfort in that. He, Ariston, had arranged for his family’s burial here. And he had amassed riches. Soon, he and his brood would be walking with heads held high and fingers once again studded with jewels.

He stood. Swayed as his equilibrium adjusted. Whereas his hosts of long ago had always been alive, warming him with their beating hearts, this time he was occupying the dead. It was . . . different. He felt chilled, even empty.

He needed blood.

Lars Marka took another step back from the opening in the earth. How old were these graves? Should they even be scavenging through these bones? The whole thing felt wrong, very wrong.

“Retreating already?” Thiago’s eyes narrowed. “You can’t do this to me now, not when we have potential riches right at our fingertips. You think I’d fit through that hole?