The Blood Gospel Read Online Free Page A

he could see. Sand slapped against rocks. Millennia of wind erosion had eaten those rocks away, grain by grain.
    No people, no animals. Did the defenders see this view before the Romans arrived?
    A killing wasteland.
    He turned and scanned the plateau up top, where all that bloodshed had happened two thousand years ago. It was a long flat area, about five football fields long, maybe three times as wide, with a half dozen or so crumbling stone buildings.
    This is what I climbed up here for?
    His mother looked equally unimpressed. She pushed curly brown hair out of her eyes, her face pink from sunburn or exertion. “It looks more like a prison than a fortress.”
    “It was a prison,” his father said. “A death row prison. Nobody got out alive.”
    “Nobody ever gets out alive.” Tommy regretted his words as soon as they left his mouth, especially when his mother turned away and slid a finger under her sunglasses, clearly wiping a tear. Still, a part of him was glad that she let herself feel something real instead of lying about it all the time.
    Their guide bounced up to them, rescuing them from the moment. She was all bare legs, tight khaki shorts, and long black hair, barely winded by the long climb. “Glad you guys made it!” She even had a sexy Israeli accent.
    He smiled at her, grateful to have something else to think about. “Thanks.”
    “Like I told everybody else a minute ago, the name Masada comes from the word metzuda , meaning ‘fortress,’ and you can see why.” She waved a long tan arm to encompass the entire plateau. “The casemate walls protecting the fortress are actually two walls, one inside the other. Between them were the main living quarters for Masada’s residents. Ahead of us is the Western Palace, the biggest structure on Masada.”
    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 breasts 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,