Avenger of Blood

by John Hagee

  “How far are we from Polycarp’s house?” Marcellus asked John. “Is it too far to walk?”

  “Close to an hour on foot,” John said. “It’s uphill most of the way.”

  Antony looked at Rebecca, and she answered before he could ask the question. “I’ll gladly walk.” She turned to the Apostle. “But what about you? Could you make it that far?”

  “Probably,” he said. “But I might slow the rest of you down. Maybe I should wait here with the carriage.”

  “No need,” Antony said. “We’ll take one of the horses with us and leave one for the driver to use while he finds a wainwright. Later, Marcellus or I can bring the horse back.”

  It took both Marcellus and Antony to hoist John astride the powerful animal, but soon they were climbing through the hills of Smyrna at a steady pace. John had offered to share the ride with Rebecca, but she declined; her backside was sore enough from the long carriage ride, and she actually welcomed the long walk.

  At midafternoon they finally arrived at Polycarp’s house, only to discover that the bishop was not at home. John introduced himself to the young man who greeted them at the door and informed them that Polycarp was away.

  “My name is Linus,” the lad told them, “and I’m a student of Polycarp.” He stared openly at John. “It’s a great honor to meet you, sir. A great honor.”

  John smiled broadly. “Would that honor extend to letting a weary apostle and his companions inside?”

  “Of course. Forgive me, sir.” The young student blushed in embarrassment and promptly showed them in. “It’s just that I’ve heard so much about you.”

  “Is Polycarp away from the city?” John asked.

  “No,” Linus said. “He’ll be back sometime this afternoon. At least I think he will. He left in a hurry because we had a bit of excitement here this morning.”

  It took only minimal prompting from John for Linus to expound on the excitement. “Polycarp has gone to find some of the deacons and bring them here for prayer. We had another unexpected visitor this morning. In fact, he was from Ephesus too. But he left a couple of hours ago, not long after Polycarp.”

  Rebecca exchanged a look with Antony, who asked Linus, “Was the visitor’s name Jacob?”

  “I didn’t get his name,” the lad said, “but I heard the man say that his nephew had been kidnapped, and they think a witch has him.”

  “A witch?” Tentacles of fear wrapped around Rebecca’s heart. Damian, who was evil through and through, had stolen her baby and brought him to a witch?

  Frozen in place, Jacob watched as a man and a woman came out of Tullia’s house and walked toward his hiding place in the woods. The woman was carrying a baby—a crying baby—and Jacob immediately recognized the infant’s wail. It was Victor!

  Jacob crouched down behind a tree as the couple neared, and he noticed something he hadn’t paid attention to the first time he’d crossed the thicket. A small area had been cleared at the center edge of the tree line behind the house. On the ground, in the center of the clearing, twelve large flat stones had been laid out in the form of a triangle, four to each side. Symbols had been painted on the stones, perhaps the signs of the zodiac; Jacob was not quite close enough to tell. In the center of the stone triangle stood a bronze bowl, also triangular in shape, perched on a tripod.

  The man was definitely Damian. Jacob recognized his swagger even before he saw his face. But the woman was not the wet nurse who had left Ephesus with Damian; Jacob had gotten a good look at her then. This must be Tullia, he decided. The witch.

  Jacob’s mind reeled. Dear God, help me, he silently prayed. What are they doing with my nephew?

  Tullia handed the baby to Damian, then kindled a fire under the odd-shaped bronze bowl. While she worked the sticks of wood into a small blaze, Jacob pondered the possibilities. Could he rush them and manage to take Victor? Damian was not wearing his sword—Jacob was; he had brought the abandoned weapon with him from Ephesus. But no doubt Damian would have a dagger stashed somewhere on his body. And Jacob couldn’t attack Damian while he was holding Victor; it was simply too risky.

  I should have waited for Polycarp and the others, Jacob belatedly realized. I need help.

  The witch removed a small pouch from her cloak, poured its contents into the bowl, and watched as a plume of fragrant smoke arose. She held her hands toward the burning incense and spoke a few words in a language Jacob did not understand. Perhaps it was not even a language, Jacob thought, but just religious gibberish.

  Then she turned to Damian and took the baby, lifting him high over the bowl of incense. Jacob clearly understood her next words, and they made his blood boil.

  “I call upon Hekate, goddess of the underworld and guardian of the portals of death, to witness our prayers and protect us from evil. I call upon Artemis, Lord and Savior, Queen of the Cosmos. Display your power to us now, for we know that you govern all things, and that we possess great power through you.

  “Give me your strength, enter into this fire, fill it with the divine light, and show me your might. I conjure you, holy light, holy brightness, breadth, depth, length, and height, by the holy names which I have spoken and am now going to speak.”

  The temperature in the thicket suddenly dropped, and the sounds of nature grew strangely quiet as Tullia began to pronounce the names of a string of gods and goddesses. The skin on the back of Jacob’s neck crawled as he listened to the witch pronounce her “holy names.” Some of them he recognized, like Helios, god of the sun; Selene, goddess of the moon; Tyche, goddess of fortune; and Ereschigal, a Babylonian goddess. The witch also called on Demeter and Dionysos, Serapis and Isis, and still others whose names Jacob did not recognize. He knew that the practitioners of magic ascribed great power to names, and that the supposed success of their incantations depended on being able to call on the right names and say the right words as they cast spells or invoked divine assistance from the spirits.

  “Now, now! Quickly, quickly!” Tullia cried out. “Remain by me in the present hour until I achieve the ends I desire. This child is destined for greatness, and I pledge to train him for spiritual service to the Great Goddess. May every member of his family come to great harm, so that we may wield our influence on him unhindered, and may the wealth of his family be laid at our feet, now and forever.”

  Jacob wanted to move, tried to move, but his feet suddenly felt like lead and he couldn’t quite lift them. He had to get out of there, had to go for help, yet he was unaccountably immobile. It seemed to require a monumental effort just to turn around, but he finally did. Jacob started to leave, sneaking through the thicket toward the spot where he had left the horse. He would ride like the wind back to Polycarp’s, enlist some help, and return to rescue Victor from the evil that penetrated this forest.

  He had only made it a dozen paces into the woods when he felt a crushing blow to the base of his skull. Jacob fell to the ground face first, tasting the moist earth as his open mouth bit into the dirt. He gagged and tried to get up, but couldn’t get his arms under him to support his weight. He rose a few inches, collapsed again, then unseen hands rolled him over.

  Jacob opened his eyes and looked up. All he could see were leaves and branches spinning and swirling above him. He could not move at all now, could not even blink his eyes.

  “Is he dead?” It was a woman’s voice Jacob heard. The witch’s voice.

  “If he’s not, he will be soon.” That was Damian speaking.

  Jacob wanted to protest, wanted to scream, “I’m alive. Leave me alone!” But he was paralyzed. Not a single muscle would respond.

  He felt a hand, a woman’s hand, touch his face. Her fingers brushed over his eyebrows and downward, closing his eyes. He heard the witch uttering thanks to Artemis for answering her prayer so swiftly.

  Then Jacob blacked out.

  Sometime later, he came to briefly. He opened his eyes, but his vision was gray and blurry. He sensed rather than saw that the forest shadows had deepened, and he felt t
he damp earth all around him, closing in on him. He seemed to be in a shallow depression in the ground. He tried to move, but couldn’t.

  Then Jacob felt the first shovelful of dirt strike his face, and he knew his enemy was burying him alive.

  10

  WHILE THEY WAITED FOR POLYCARP to return, Antony watched Marcellus pace the floor of the small dining room. The medical officer had probably not stood sentry in over a decade, a fact that would not be readily discerned now: he maintained an upright and unyielding posture as he took six paces in one direction, then reversed direction for the corresponding six paces. The routine movement helped Marcellus concentrate, Antony supposed, although it had the opposite effect on him.

  Distracted, Antony turned his attention to John, who was reclining on one of the sofas. During their trip Antony had learned that unless the old man was actually snoring, it was uncertain whether his closed eyes meant he was resting or praying. Given the news they’d received at their arrival, Antony guessed John was praying at the moment. He recalled the Apostle’s prayer from the previous evening. John had said something to the effect that God would reveal “secret things.” Perhaps they’d already seen an answer to that prayer, Antony admitted to himself; at least they now knew where to find Victor. How to get him back was another matter, however, and Antony wondered if God had a plan for that. It was strange to find himself thinking about a God who supposedly intervened in the affairs of men, a God who could right wrongs and reveal secrets. A few weeks ago the possibility would never have occurred to Antony.

  At his request, Rebecca had gone to the kitchen with Linus to find something for them to eat. Antony hadn’t wanted to tire her further, yet he had thought she needed something to do. His mother always responded to a crisis with a vigorous burst of cleaning or cooking, as if by tackling such mundane matters the things outside her control would somehow be straightened out in the process.

  Before they’d reached Smyrna, Antony had been worried that Rebecca was becoming ill. Then after she’d heard the news about Damian taking Victor to some sort of pagan priestess, she had looked positively ashen. Perhaps he should go and check on her now, Antony decided. Rebecca was probably fine, but he needed an excuse to get away from Marcellus’s focused pacing. And besides, Antony simply liked being in the same room with her.

  He walked out of the dining room, intending to wander to the back of the house and find the kitchen, when he heard a loud knocking at the front door. Young Linus was in the back with Rebecca, so Antony went through the atrium to the courtyard at the entrance of the house to see who had arrived. It would likely be some of the church leaders whom Polycarp had gone to summon.

  As he approached the door, Antony could hear two men arguing.

  “I still say it was a mistake to let her in,” one of them protested hotly. “She was only pretending to be a believer.”

  “We didn’t know that at the time,” the other man responded in a more patient tone. “Besides, what’s done is done, and there’s no way to—”

  The voices broke off suddenly when Antony opened the door. The two men looked sheepish as they realized that a stranger had caught them disagreeing. Antony noted that the two bore a strong resemblance and shared the same short, compact build, with muscular arms that threatened to split the seams of their tunics.

  For a moment Antony didn’t know whether to invite them in. He figured the pair were part of Polycarp’s church, but since the Christians met secretly, Antony wasn’t sure how to broach the topic. Then he understood they would have a similar apprehension about him, so Antony introduced himself, saying he had come from Ephesus to see Polycarp.

  “You must be the one whose baby was kidnapped. I’m Plautius, and this is my brother, Sergius.” Antony recognized Plautius’s voice as belonging to the more objective of the two speakers he’d heard outside. The man wiped a callused hand on his work apron and extended it to Antony, and his brother did the same.

  “We closed our blacksmith shop and came as soon as we heard,” Sergius said.

  “Actually, I’m not the father,” Antony said as he shook hands. “I brought the baby’s mother here. Polycarp must have told you about her brother, Jacob, who tracked the kidnapper to Smyrna.”

  “Where is he?” Sergius asked. “We came to help him rescue the child—”

  Plautius interrupted. “We came to pray with Polycarp and then determine what we should do next.”

  “We know what to do,” Sergius insisted. “We need to get to Tullia’s house as fast as we can.”

  Antony hadn’t even moved the two men from the courtyard into the main part of the house, and they were already at it again.

  “We shouldn’t act hastily,” Plautius said. “If she has the baby, she won’t harm him, as long as we don’t threaten her. You know Tullia loves children and has always wanted one of her own.”

  “That’s what worries me. She’s probably cast some demonic spell on him already. Just like my Cornelia. I hold you personally responsible . . .” Sergius’s voice trailed off, leaving his accusation unfinished, and leaving Plautius with a pained look.

  Antony sensed that Tullia, who must be the witch to whom Damian had brought Victor, was also the source of a longstanding point of contention between the two men. Taking advantage of the sudden lull in their conversation, Antony ushered them inside, but before he could get more information out of them, Polycarp showed up with two other deacons—whose names Antony promptly forgot as yet another man, this one named Verus, arrived.

  The entire group crowded into the dining room with John and

  Marcellus about the time Rebecca and Linus returned with a tray of food. Rebecca looked dismayed when she saw how many people had arrived and how little food they had prepared, but by that time Antony was not inclined to eat anyway.

  “Thank you,” he whispered to Rebecca. “We’ll have to eat on the way. Marcellus and I are about to follow Jacob and see if we can find Victor.”

  Polycarp addressed the group that had gathered, expressing his concern that Jacob had already left. “I’m afraid he doesn’t know what he’s getting into,” the bishop said. “I should have told him more about Tullia, but I never imagined he would rush off like that.”

  “He’s very impulsive,” John said, “and it gets him into trouble. Sometimes Jacob listens to his anger more than he listens to God.”

  “He’s been gone a couple of hours,” Antony said. “If the situation is as dangerous as you fear, then we need to leave now.” He agreed with Sergius on that count. Antony had had a very uneasy feeling to begin with, and the brothers’ discussion about Tullia had done nothing to alleviate his anxiety.

  “We need to pray first,” Polycarp said. “It’s essential.”

  Antony didn’t want to seem rude, but he was convinced that further delay could be ruinous. “We’re running out of time,” he objected.

  “Which is exactly why we need to pray,” John replied. “We’re not battling flesh and blood, but powers and principalities, and we need God’s guidance and His protection.”

  For the second time in as many days, Antony found himself in a group of praying Christians. However, the experience was different from the previous evening’s bedtime prayer. This time Polycarp anointed Antony and Marcellus with olive oil as he prayed. Afterward, Antony’s forehead felt hot where Polycarp had touched him, and that warmth began to suffuse throughout the rest of his body. The bishop also anointed Plautius and Sergius, who had agreed to accompany them to Tullia’s house, and Verus, who also volunteered.

  After that, John prayed boldly and eloquently, and although

  Antony did not fully comprehend everything John said, he felt the power of the Apostle’s prayer. John evidently believed that this Tullia woman was evil; in his prayer he rebuked the spirits of darkness that surrounded her and said something about opposing the spirit of witchcraft through the power of Jesus Christ.

  When John concluded his prayer, the five men prepared to leave. Antony saddled the hor
se John had ridden from the highway. Plautius and Sergius had also arrived on horseback; now Marcellus and Verus doubled up with the two brothers. The animals would help them get to Tullia’s house faster, even though they would not be able to reach a gallop traveling through the hills.

  Just as they were leaving, Rebecca ran outside. “Don’t leave without this,” she said, reaching up to hand something to Antony. His eyes met hers as he bent down to accept the offering, and she blushed slightly as their hands touched. “You haven’t eaten all day,” she reminded him.

  Rebecca quickly turned and handed the others a similar package: a cloth napkin with food enclosed. She must have wrapped the snacks while they were saddling the horses, and Antony appreciated the gesture. While they were praying, he’d forgotten how hungry he was.

  As the horses ambled down the hillside, the riders nibbled on cold mutton and crusty bread. They also discussed their mission, and Antony pieced together the relationship between the two disputing brothers and Tullia, who turned out to be a relative of theirs—a second cousin, Antony surmised from the conversation.

  Plautius described Tullia as a troubled soul who was always seeking spiritual sustenance. Sergius said she had never been anything but a troublemaker bent on mischief. While they disagreed on Tullia’s motivation, they both admitted that she had caused a great deal of trouble for the church.

  “Several years ago,” Plautius said, “after I became a Christian, I shared my faith with Tullia. She was very interested and asked me many questions about it. She seemed so eager to learn about Jesus that

  I finally suggested she come to our meetings. I vouched for her to the church leaders, and she was accepted as a catechumen.”

  He explained to Antony that a catechumen was a new convert who worshiped with the church while undergoing a period of instruction in the elemental principles of the faith before being baptized. Only those who were baptized could participate in the Eucharist, the sharing of bread and wine as a memorial to Christ. Antony did not want to get sidetracked into a doctrinal discussion, so he urged Plautius to continue with his story about Tullia.