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

Petre stiffened.

To his credit, he never retreated.

Gina planted her left foot, halting her own momentum, and shifted back toward the Collector. Too late. She and Dov were still ten feet behind the loathsome thing, when Weepy Eyes propelled herself through the air and slashed both hands toward the nine-year-old. Though Petre took a swing with his heavy stick, the Collector’s left forearm deflected the force and the right drove razor-edged nails into the child’s chest.

Petre’s eyes widened, and a gasp spurted from his throat as he smashed into the side of the bus. Impaled there, he lifted his gaze to Gina. The light in his eyes showed no fear, no pain, only deep regret for having failed to protect her.

Then the light went out.

Gina screamed, her chest torn apart by a rage and despair she had hoped to never feel again. She wanted to drop to her knees, to melt into the earth and never return, but Dov was still here and the beast had torn free from its latest kill to face the fifteen-year-old with the luminescent mark on his forehead.

Dov risked stepping into the enemy’s reach, an MTP held high.

Through the temple . . .

Gina didn’t hesitate. Corkscrewing all her force through her hips, she drew back the dagger and plunged it into the creature’s side.

Once, twice. Deeper.

The effect was instantaneous. The Collector howled, weakening her grip. Her nails drew thin trails down Dov’s arms, but there was no more strength there. The undead beast was doubly dead.

Gina removed her blade and rolled away the rotund corpse.

Dov stood, his breath ragged and his scratches beaded with red drops. He stared at his foe, touched her with his foot. In a need to be sure, he rammed an MTP into the Collector’s temple.

He collapsed then, into Gina’s arms—and sobbed.

She clung to him and felt something begin to break within her own chest. She found herself close to tears—for Jacob, for courageous Petre, for her damaged marriage, and for the loneliness that ached in her chest.

She released Dov and bent to the body of the fallen twin. She had failed him. Why was she even here? Was it her destiny to march children into the blades of death?

She lifted her chin.

No. This isn’t over, not yet.

With Dov’s assistance, she lifted the boy and fed him back through the window of the bus. The muncitors helped bring him inside, while Pavel pressed his face to the glass in obvious shock.

“Keep down,” Gina urged the passengers. “Don’t let them see you.”

“You’re on your own,” a male muncitor said. “We will not stay for this.”

“You can’t leave. Cal . . . the driver . . . You need to trust him.”

“Trust? Already, we’ve lost one of our orphans!”

Those words echoed Gina’s own sorrow, her conflicted emotions. She wanted to believe, yet Cal had failed her before. And now, once again . . .

“Please,” she said. “Just stay quiet and don’t move.”

The muncitor chuffed at that.

Another deep growl from the trees muffled his dissension and introduced the brown bear that lumbered into view. It rose on its hind legs, standing seven to eight feet tall and probably close to a thousand pounds. The claws on its powerful forearms looked four or five inches long, dull but deadly.

It dropped back to all fours and rumbled forward.

Gina released Dov and glanced back at the bus. Though the door was still closed, she saw a muncitor peek over the lip of a window. Gina jerked her head once, indicating to get back down out of sight.

Cal, oblivious to the bear, had two MTPs left, and he was still trying to deal a final blow to Shalom. Stripped of the facade, her true vampiric nature had been exposed, and the decorous beauty was now a ratty-haired, wild-eyed, one-handed creature. Losing blood, she was pale white, and her breath came out in foggy puffs as she bared her fangs and snarled.

Cal raised a metal spike, but stepped back when she lashed out with her lethal nails.

The bear was picking up speed.

Gina knew she was no match for this monster. Normally, she would’ve admired its strength and size without fear. Brown bears could kill a stag with a single swipe of a paw, yet they often sustained themselves on simple roots and sprouts and fish. Unless threatened, they were docile around humans.

But average bears didn’t have luminous emerald eyes.

“Cal?”

He flicked his gaze her direction.

She pointed at the beast with her knife tip. To run away would only incite the animal’s predatory instincts, yet the weapon seemed small, toylike, in the face of this approaching danger. She, who had been like a mother bear herself only moments earlier, now felt helpless. She pulled Dov around to her backside, lifted the dagger, and hoped, cursed, prayed for the Provocateur to act.

Don’t just stand there. Cal . . . Cal!

If necessary, Gina decided she would stab at the animal’s eyes to protect her young ward, but the chance of succeeding seemed no more likely than that of her flinging the blade across the river and having it lodge into a boulder.

“No, Dov.”

He was trying to step forward.

“Wait,” she said.

She saw Cal darting past the bus, angling to intercept the bear. He had a metal spike in each hand. The bear was also at full speed, its great mass of fur quivering with each step, rolling waves of grizzled brown beneath the night sky.

Dov was not to be denied.

Armed like his mentor, he broke free and trailed on legs that were quick yet hampered slightly by a missing left toe.

“No!” Gina yelled.

Cal feigned left, then planted his right foot and spun the other way, slipping past the monster’s gaping maw. He tried to ram an MTP through matted fur, yet the bear was already past him in a collision course for the small fifteen-year-old boy.

This was not going to happen. Not while Gina was alive.

Though she tried to bolt forward, her legs failed her. She was telling them to move, but they were taking