Temple Boys Read Online Free Page B

tramp to me,” said Flea.
    â€œHe only went and saved Big and Snot. He only stopped the Imps arresting them. He only rubbed their Roman noses in the dirt.” Red slapped Flea on the back, held up Halo so he could have a look, then slapped Flea again.
    Flea could not get excited. Disappointment didn’t do justice to his feelings; betrayal was more like it. This small man with the showman’s smile could not be a famous magician, let alone the Chosen One. It was the biggest letdown of his life. “That can’t really be him, can it?”
    â€œYou’re the expert,” Red said. “You brought us here.” Which was true and just added to Flea’s sense of deflation.
    â€œBut we can’t rob him now,” Flea said. “The magician’s seen us. He’s ruined our plan.”
    Red looked at him, appalled. “Of course we can’t rob him now,” he said. “He just saved Big and Snot from the Imps.”
    â€œBut—”
    â€œForget about the plan. This is better.” Red dropped Halo to the ground as the donkey passed underneath them, then followed behind, punching the air and shouting.
    The cheers rose louder and louder as the magician, still riding the donkey, approached the city, the crowd trailing behind him like a long cloak. Still sitting in his tree, Flea saw Red say something to one of the magician’s followers—a tall, broad-shouldered man with a face like a twisted root. To his amazement he saw the man turn back, stoop, pick up Crouch and Halo under his arms, and carry them off. He felt a jab of jealousy and resentment but, not wanting to be left alone, he dropped from the tree and caught up with the crowd as it streamed toward the Temple.

 
    9
    Flea was a vulture hanging on broad, ragged wings high above the city.
    He was drawn by the stench of blood. His broad wing tips feathered the column of warm, meaty air that roared skyward from the Temple’s fire altar. His keen eyes scanned the courts below and nothing escaped his piercing gaze: the livestock pens to the north where the newly washed lambs glowed white; the high towers and blazing gold rooftops of the Temple walls; the crowds that milled in the huge outer court; the gathering press of people in the inner courts; and, right in the middle, the inner sanctuary where the fire blazed and the slaughter floor was wet and red. A dozen lambs slaughtered at a time, a hundred doves—thousands killed in a day. Mountains of flesh, fields of gore, rivers of blood.
    But for what? People never said, but Flea sometimes wondered if the Temple’s invisible god had a vulture’s tastes and greed. Or maybe not quite a vulture, which preferred raw flesh to cooked and was always hungry. Apparently the god of the Temple only visited the sanctuary once a year. Maybe he didn’t have to eat. Maybe he just liked to smell the meat.
    The rumbling in his stomach brought Flea back to earth when he reached Temple Square. Well, he did have to eat, and one of the reasons he usually kept away from the Temple was that the smells from the fire altar always reminded him of how hungry he was.
    He took stock of the situation from his level, which was approximately halfway up everyone else’s. The magician, his followers, and the enormous crowd had disappeared into the Temple, forcing their way through the tunnels that carried them up, up, up to the level of the first huge courtyard.
    Flea had missed them, which meant none of them could have stopped to ritually cleanse themselves. Usually that was enough to get you barred from the Temple, but the guards must have looked at the crowd and decided it was too dangerous to try to stop it. What was going on?
    He washed his hands and feet at the communal pool and splashed the worst of the dirt off his face. He forced his way into the middle of a group of gawking tourists—out of sight of the guards—and let them sweep him up through the vaulted