The Blood Gospel

To the side, their leader began the prayers binding the sacrifice above to the one below, using ancient incantations, holy words, and tossing pinches of incense into the small pyres. Atop the mountain, the rebels took their lives as the Romans broke their gates.

That tragic payment of blood would settle the debt here.

With the block clutched in his hand, Eleazar carried the girl the few steps to the open sarcophagus. It had already been filled, nearly to the rim, sloshing and shimmering. It was to act as a mikveh—a ritual immersion bath for those to be purified.

But rather than blessed water, wine filled this bath.

Empty clay jugs littered the floor.

Reaching the crypt, Eleazar peered into its dark depths. Torchlight turned wine to blood.

Azubah buried her face in his chest. He swallowed bitter grief.

“Now,” their leader ordered.

He held the girl’s small form against his own one last time and felt her release a single sob. He glanced at the dark doorway. He could still save her body, but only if he damned her soul, and his own. This terrible act was the only way to truly save her.

The highest-ranking soldier lifted the girl from Eleazar’s arms and held her over the open tomb. She clutched her doll to her chest, terror raw in her eyes as he lowered her to the surface of the wine. And stopped. Her eyes sought out Eleazar’s. He stretched a hand toward her, then pulled it back.

“Blessed be the Lord our God who art in Heaven,” the leader intoned.

Above them, all chanting stopped. She tilted her head as if she heard it, too. Eleazar pictured blood soaking the sand, seeping toward the mountain’s core. It must be done now. Those deaths marked the final dark act to seal this tomb.

“Eleazar,” the leader said. “It is time.”

Eleazar held out the precious stone block, its holy secret the only force strong enough to drive him forward. The stone block’s weight was nothing in his arms. It was his heart that held him trapped for a breath.

“It must be done,” the robed one said, softly now.

Eleazar did not trust his voice to answer. He moved toward the girl.

The commander released her into the wine. She writhed in the dark liquid, small fingers grasping the stone sides of her coffin. Red bled over its edges and spilled to the floor. Her eyes beseeched him as he placed the stone block atop her thin chest—and pushed. The stone’s weight and the shuddering strength of his arms forced the child deep into the wine bath.

She no longer fought, just held the doll tight against her chest. She lay as quiet as if she were already dead. Her mute lips moved, forming words that disappeared as her small face sank away.

What were those lost words?

He knew that question would haunt his everlasting days.

“Forgive me,” he choked out. “And forgive her.”

Wine soaked his tunic sleeves, scalding his skin. He held her inert form until the prayers of their leader ceased.

For what seemed an eternity.

Finally, he let go and stood. Azubah remained drowned at the bottom, forever pinned under the weight of the sacred stone, ever its cursed guardian. He prayed that this act would purify her soul, an ageless penance for the corruption inside her.

My little Azubah …

He collapsed against the sarcophagus.

“Seal it,” the leader ordered.

A limestone slab, lowered with ropes, ground into place. Men slathered the edges of the lid with a slurry of ash and lime to bind stone to stone.

Eleazar flattened his palms against the side of her prison as if his touch could comfort her. But she was beyond comfort now.

He rested his forehead against the unforgiving stone. It was the only way. It served a higher good. But these truths did not ease his pain. Or hers.

“Come,” their leader beckoned. “What must be done has been done.”

Eleazar drew in a rattling breath of foul air. The soldiers coughed and shuffled to the doorway. He stood alone with her in the dank tomb.

“You cannot stay,” the leader called from the doorway. “You must walk a different path.”

Eleazar stumbled toward the voice, blinded by tears.

Once they left, the tomb would be hidden, the passage sealed. No living being would remember it. Any who dared trespass would be doomed.

He found their leader’s gaze upon him.

“Do you regret your oath?” the man asked. His voice rang with pity, but it also held the hardness of the resolute.

That hardness was the reason why Christ named their leader Petrus, meaning “Rock.” He was the apostle who would be the foundation of the new Church.

Eleazar met that stony gaze. “No, Peter, I do not.”

PART I

Who looks on the earth and it trembles

,

who touches the mountains and they smoke!

—Psalm 104:32

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October 26, 10:33 A.M., Israel Standard Time

Caesarea, Israel