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

“Our incident . . .” He cleared his throat. “It broke the pattern. They’re thinking it may’ve been just a copycat, so they’re shifting most of the focus back to Georgia.”

“Fine.”

“I guess this package, it was just a regular old daypack. JanSport brand.”

She inhaled the aromas of the candle and bubbles. From under the door, a horsefly buzzed into the bathroom. It explored the vanity, then came at her hand on the tub’s edge. She batted it away, felt her fingernail catch and bend back against the corner of the adjacent countertop.

Ignoring a burst of pain and the red liquid that squeezed from beneath the injured nail, she said, “Jed, thanks for the bath. It feels nice. Listen, I’m sorry for being a jerk.”

His footsteps shuffled off to the living room.

Flies had always disgusted Megiste. She detested the very thought of using one as a host, fearful she would be tainted by its diseased mind-set.

Sometimes, though, a Collector had no choice.

While still in her human host, Megiste had located the Chattanooga apartment without difficulty and taken the elevator to the seventh floor. From a thin gap beneath the locked door of the Turney residence: sounds of a phone, muted voices, then the blaring TV.

She had no time to wait for Gina Turney’s morning exodus to work. She had to do something now. She imagined a brash attack, crashing straight into the apartment and taking by force what she wanted—memories, blood, any available evidence to substantiate the claims of the untrustworthy Erota.

Megiste decided against the direct approach. Already, Erota’s streak of narcissism and violence had raised the ire of police officials and local clusters.

Bump, bumpp, bzzzz . . .

Along the seventh-floor hall, a horsefly bumped against the sconce lights.

No. Megiste really didn’t like this idea. Did she have any better option, though? It was late, with no signs of activity in this hallway. Facing the elevator, two armchairs flanked a magazine table and a fake, potted palm. She took a seat, a safe place for a slumbering host, and pulled up her sleeve to reveal smooth, alabaster skin.

Luring the dreadful thing. Waiting for it to find her.

Find her it did.

Horseflies, she knew, could be vicious. The females fed on blood to foster reproduction and used razored mandibles to pick at the skin of their victims.

Bzzzz, bumpp, bummpp . . .

Megiste met its prismatic eyes and waited for a response.

Moments later, her Collector was in a world bombarded by multiple angles of vision. Thankfully, this female fly was an experienced navigator, coordinating the viewpoints and honing in on what she was after.

There: down and under the apartment door.

The buzzing wings matched the sound in the Collector’s head. She tried to concentrate. Tried to direct her host toward what she wanted. The female hovered near a kitchen counter, looking for blood where someone might’ve cut themselves peeling carrots. She moved next toward the bathroom, where a woman might’ve nicked herself shaving her legs—an American custom she found fascinating, as well as sensually suited to her own brand of delights.

She heard water now, booming like ocean surf. And a sharp, hissing sound. Was someone running a bath?

Gina’s blood, her memories, that’s what the Collector was after.

It was the human scent, however, that drew the horsefly in a hurry.

She descended, tried to latch on for a taste. She was batted away, and in the moment that followed, the scent intensified. She zoomed down toward the drops of blood that splashed against the floor.

Gina pulled the bath plug with her toes. She listened to the glug-glug of the water as it sucked bubbles in a spiraling journey downward. She could hear the twenty-seven-inch TV blaring in the living room, manipulated by Jed’s ubiquitous remote.

She replayed that moment again, at the Ruby Falls picnic area, when she had spilled the Sprite and scooted away the heavy pack beneath Cal’s feet.

JanSport . . . Was she supposed to be surprised?

Cal . . . Had he come to track her down, to cozy up? To target her child?

Covered in fleeting bubbles, Gina started to shiver. There had to be a way to escape from the stark images of the decimated nursery. She thought of her mother’s dagger—that old familiar therapy.

Speaking of her mother, had Nikki tried to stop Cal? Was that why she’d been upset by his visit? Or had her mother been in on it? That seemed unlikely, since Nikki was with Gina at the time of the explosion. Of course, Nikki could’ve planted the pipe bomb herself. Jed said he had found her wandering in the hall.

For that matter, why hadn’t Jed done anything to stop this? Where had he been while the bomber was planting the package?

Maybe the FBI’s Mr. Felsen suspected the baby’s father of mischief, and that’s why he’d called, fishing for means or motive.

Gina told her brain to stop. The thing just kept churning, contorting, a boa constrictor trying to crush its prey before swallowing it down. She was the prey, and these thoughts would devour her if she let them.

Her fingertip was throbbing. She looked down, saw beads of her own blood like ruby bath crystals along the floor of the tub, and was oddly pleased by her revulsion to them. She was done with her mother’s cure-alls.

Beside her, the horsefly was leeching from Gina’s spilled blood on the tub’s edge, storing up to breed its pestilence.

“Shoo,” she said. “Get away.”

What was it Cal had spoken of ? Forming a group of Those Who Resist? His words just didn’t mesh with those of someone who would trigger the destruction at the clinic.

Gina decided she couldn’t accept Cal’s guilt, not till it was proven he’d been there that day. If she wallowed in self-pity, it would only drag down her husband and others. She would stand beside the Provocateur in his belief that this world was a beautiful place.

That wasn’t to deny the evil.

It was here. It slunk in corners,