Blood Relics (A James Acton Thriller, #12) by J Robert Kennedy Read Free Book Online Page B

cloning effort, it needs to be stopped.”
    “But
why?”
    Everyone
turned to Mai who withered from the attention.
    “What do
you mean?” asked Laura, gently.
    “Well,
isn’t your entire religion focused on the second coming of Christ? Maybe this
is how it was meant to happen?”
    Acton
paused for a moment as he contemplated her words. They were a simple truth
spoken by a Buddhist with no vested interest in something she didn’t believe
in, which made her words all the more poignant. Could that be what this was all
about? Some religious zealot trying to get a sample of DNA that they would then
use to create a new baby Jesus?
    It was a
fantastically terrifying idea, something he hoped no one would actually be
foolish enough to try and do. All you would be doing was creating the body, and
though he wasn’t terribly religious by any stretch of the imagination, even his
own basic understanding told him it was the Holy Spirit that was actually the
Son of God, not the flesh and blood that had walked the Earth.
    He
looked at Laura.
    “I think
we focus on the job.”
    She
nodded. “Agreed. We help Hugh stop the murderers and thieves and use their
motives against them. We’ll leave the ethical and metaphysical debate to
others.”
    Acton
sucked in a deep breath, grimacing.
    That
could be easier said than done.
     
     
     
     

 
     

     
     
    Golgatha, Judea
April 7 th , 30 AD
Approaching the Twelfth Hour
     
    “Are you okay?”
    He felt Albus’
hand on his shoulder, shaking him as tears filled his eyes at the sight of the
man hanging above him, dead, water and blood still flowing out of the hole he
had made only moments before, it now a trickle but still inexplicable. Turning
toward his friend, he looked at him and smiled.
    “I can
see.”
    Albus’ jaw
dropped, a jaw he hadn’t seen clearly in years, the expression on his face one
of pure shock. Shock he could discern with ease once again. The idea of seeing
again was something that had never occurred to him. His thoughts on it had
always been one of hoping that the shadows he could make out would continue to
at least be discernable, it giving him at least some warning of something
coming at him.
    But to
see again?
    Never in
a lifetime could he have imagined something so wonderful.
    His
friend let go of his shoulder, dropping to his knees in front of him, looking
at him skeptically. He held up two fingers. “How many fingers am I holding up?”
    “Two.
And your hair is much grayer than I remember.”
    A smile
broke out on Albus’ face as he grasped him by both shoulders, shaking him in
excitement. “You can see! It’s a miracle!”
    They
both looked up at the man, slumped on the cross high on the hilltop, the two
other men on either side in their last gasps of life, their knees broken, their
chests heaving as their lungs, straining to provide precious air, slowly failed
as their bodies finally gave in to the inevitable.
    But he
didn’t care.
    They
were criminals.
    But not this man. He pushed himself to his feet, feeling remarkably well, though he was sure
it was the rush of the moment, the excitement fueling his weary bones.
Twenty-five years in the Roman Army didn’t leave the body in good shape, his body
still beaten but his soul replenished, he now feeling a vigor he hadn’t since
he was a boy.
    Life was
worth living again.
    He stepped
toward the cross, raising a hand and touching the foot of the man he had
listened to for almost six hours, a man who was clearly everything he had said
he was.
    He
turned as the mourners approached and smiled.
    “He
truly is the son of God.”
    “He’s my
son.”
    The
broken lady collapsed to her knees, several of the women, and the man who he
assumed was the one Jesus had spoken of as her son earlier, rushed to her side.
    “I was
blind and now can see.”
    “Even in
death he saves,” said a younger woman, taking his hand and squeezing. “Now you
see don’t you? Now you see he was an innocent man, a man who hurt no