Blood Relics (A James Acton Thriller, #12) Read Free

combination
dulling the senses for what was to come.
    Who is this man?
    A hammer
hit an iron spike, someone cried out in agony, the gasp of the crowd suggesting
the man who had shown so much courage and strength up to this point.
    But
he can’t escape the pain.
    He tried
to tune out the taps of the hammer, instead returning to his thoughts on the
man’s words. Perhaps the tree was a metaphor? That made sense, but
Longinus wasn’t much for metaphors, in fact he wasn’t much for any of the
flowery language those who would call themselves philosophers and scholars
espoused whenever he heard them. Speak plain, speak straight, then there’s no
misunderstandings.
    Perhaps
the green tree means when times are good?
    That
made sense. Perhaps he meant if things like this were done in good times, then
what horrors might be seen when times were bad?
    Another
spike, another cry. He forced himself to not wince with each tap of the hammer,
each one eliciting a shriek from one of the gathered women. He wondered who
they were, what connection they had to this man, for it was sympathy that he
was hearing for this one man, not the other two. In fact, all the support, and
all the hatred, seemed exclusive to this one soul, and he again wondered what he
must have done to elicit such diametrically opposed reactions from those
gathered.
    The
tapping of the hammer echoed across the rocky hilltop, different this time, and
he recognized the sound made when something was tacked onto the cross.
    Probably
his sentence.
    The
sound of the first cross being lifted, its base slipping into the hole dug long
ago, the thud followed by a cry from the poor soul condemned to die in such a
horrendous fashion, signaling at least the beginning of the end of these doomed
men’s time on Earth.
    The
other two men were next, the impact of their crosses slamming into their holes
reverberating through the stone Longinus stood on.
    It was a
feeling he had never noticed before, he never before particularly caring about
any of those who had been condemned.
    But something
was different here today.
    Something felt different.
    As if
some great injustice were being committed, something that they would later come
to regret if they continued.
    He
shivered.
    Feet
scraping on the rock behind him had him turning slightly.
    “How are
you, my friend?”
    It was Albus.
He nodded. “Fine. Who is he? The one they’re all crying over?”
    “I’ve
never heard of him, but according to the sign Pilate wanted nailed to his
cross, he certainly thought a lot of himself. No wonder they sentenced him to
death, and no wonder so many of these people are pissed off.”
    “Why,
what does it say?”
    “It says
‘This is Jesus, the King of the Jews’.”
     
     
     
     

 
     

     
     
    Cathedral of San Salvador, Oviedo, Spain
Present Day, Two days before the Paris assault
     
    Father Rodriquez leaned over and poked the fire, getting a little
more life out of it before stoking it one final time, his eyes heavy. It had
been a long day, the world inside the walls surrounding him not immune to the
struggles of these times his beloved country found itself in. An economy nearly
bankrupted by the Great Recession and a foolish dalliance in expensive green
energy had resulted in a youth unemployment rate of nearly fifty percent.
    Which
meant a restless youth.
    His days
were filled with endless parades of mothers leading young sons—literally by the
ear sometimes—to see him, to give them a talking to in a too often futile
effort to keep these bored and frustrated young men on the straight and narrow.
    And too
often his nights were filled chasing away those same men looking to blow off
steam with a little vandalism.
    He
hooked the poker on its stand then picked up the book he had been reading from
his lap, one of his perennial favorites, Robinson Crusoe. Reaching over to the
small side table without looking, his hand instinctively found the glass of red
wine he had been nursing. He began to read