The Blood Gospel

Tommy tore his eyes away from her lips to look where she pointed. The massive building didn’t look anything like a palace. It was a wreck. The old stone walls were missing large sections and clad with modern scaffolding. It looked like someone was halfway through building a movie set for the next Indiana Jones installment.

There must be a deep history under all that scaffolding, but he didn’t feel it. He wanted to. History mattered to his father, and it should to him, too, but since the cancer, he felt outside of time, outside of history. He didn’t have room in his head for other people’s tragedies, especially not people who had been dead for thousands of years.

“This next building we believe was a private bathhouse,” the guide said, indicating a building on the left. “They found three skeletons inside, skulls separated from the bodies.”

He perked up. Finally something interesting.

“Decapitated?” he asked, moving closer. “So they committed suicide by cutting off their own heads?”

The guide’s lips curved in a smile. “Actually, the soldiers drew lots to see who would be responsible for killing the others. Only the last man had to commit suicide.”

Tommy scowled at the ruins. So they killed their own children when the going got tough. He felt a surprising flicker of envy. Better to die quickly at the hands of someone who loved you than by the slow and pitiless rot of cancer. Ashamed of this thought, he looked at his parents. His mother smiled at him as she fanned herself with the guidebook, and his father took his picture.

No, he could never ask that of them.

Resigned, he turned his attention back to the bathhouse. “Those skeletons … are they still in there?” He stepped forward, ready to peek inside through the metal gate.

The guide blocked him with her ample chest. “Sorry, young man. No one is allowed inside.”

He struggled not to stare at her br**sts but failed miserably.

Before he could move, his mother spoke. “How’re you doing, Tommy?”

Had she seen him checking out the guide? He blushed. “I’m fine.”

“Are you thirsty? Do you want some water?” She held out her plastic water bottle.

“No, Mom.”

“Let me put some more sunscreen on your face.” His mother reached into her purse. Normally, he would have suffered the indignity, but the guide smiled at him, a stunning smile, and he suddenly didn’t want to be babied.

“I’m fine, Mom!” he spat out, more harshly than he’d intended.

His mother flinched. The guide walked away.

“Sorry,” he said to his mother. “I didn’t mean it.”

“It’s fine,” she said. “I’ll be over there with your father. Take your time here.”

Feeling terrible, he watched her walk away.

He crossed over to the bathhouse, angry at himself. He leaned on the metal gate to see inside—the gate creaked open under his weight. He almost fell through. He stepped back quickly, but before he did so, something in the corner of the room caught his eye.

A soft fluttering, white, like a crumpled piece of paper.

Curiosity piqued inside him. He searched around. No one was looking. Besides, what was the penalty for trespassing? What was the worst that could happen? The cute guide might drag him back out?

He wouldn’t mind that at all.

He poked his head inside, staring at the source of the fluttering.

A small white dove limped across the mosaic floor, its left wing dragging across the tiles, scrawling some mysterious message in the dust with the tip of its feathers.

Poor thing …

He had to get it out of there. It would die from dehydration or get eaten by something. The guide probably knew a bird rescue place they could bring it to. His mother had volunteered at a place like that back home in California, before his cancer ate up everyone’s life.

He slipped through the gap in the gate. Inside, the room was smaller than his father’s toolshed, with four plain stone walls and a floor covered by a faded mosaic made of maddeningly tiny tiles. The mosaic showed eight dusty red hearts arranged in a circle like a flower, a row of dark blue and white tiles that looked like waves, and a border of terra-cotta and white triangles that reminded him of teeth. He tried to imagine long-ago craftsmen putting it together like a jigsaw puzzle, but the thought made him tired.

He stepped across the shadowy threshold, grateful to be out of the unforgiving sun. How many people had died in here? A chill raced up his spine as he imagined the scene. He pictured people kneeling—he was certain they would be kneeling. A man in a dirty linen tunic stood above them with his sword raised high. He’d started with the youngest one, and by the time he was done, he barely had the strength to lift his arms, but he did. Finally, he, too, fell to his knees and waited for a quick death from his friend’s blade. And then, it was over. Their blood ran over the tiny tiles, stained the grout, and pooled on the floor.

Tommy shook his head to clear the vision and looked around.

No skeletons.

They were probably taken to a museum or maybe buried someplace.

The bird raised its head, halting its journey across the tiles to stare up at Tommy, first with one eye, then the other, sizing him up. Its eyes were a brilliant shade of green, like malachite. He’d never seen a bird with green eyes before.

He knelt down and whispered, his words barely a breath. “Come here, little one. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

It stared with each eye again—then took a hop toward him.

Encouraged, he reached out and gently scooped up the wounded creature. As he rose with its warm body cradled between his palms, the ground shifted under him. He struggled to keep his balance. Was he dizzy because of the long climb? Between his toes, a tiny black line skittered across the mosaic, like a living thing.

Snake was his first thought.

Fear beat in his heart.

But the dark line widened, revealing it to be something worse. Not a snake, but a crack. A finger of dark orange smoke curled up from one end of the crack, no bigger than if someone had dropped a lit cigarette.

The bird suddenly burst from his palms, spread its wings, and sailed through the smoke as it fled out the door. Apparently it hadn’t been that injured. The smoke wafted Tommy’s way, beat by the passing wings. It smelled surprisingly sweet with a hint of darker spices, almost like incense.

Tommy crinkled his brow and leaned forward. He held his palm over the smoke. It rose up between his fingertips, cold instead of warm, as if it came from some cool place deep within the earth.