Read Online Curse of Stigmata (The Judas Reflections) by Aiden James, Michelle Wright - Free Book Online

feet often visit this place. It was only one month ago a pious man traveled all the way from Sevilla just to lay gold at her feet.”
    “Do you seriously believe her wounds are those of Christ?”
    “Personally, I fear it’s the work of the Devil. Rachel is possessed by a demon who takes her over to give a false impression and mislead those who worship God and Jesus…. By the way, where is Isaac so late in the night? I don’t see him.”
    “He’s tending the goats,” Juan replied, when I couldn’t offer an immediate answer.
    I looked to Rachel, praying she wouldn’t open her mouth and give us away. I didn’t know Dario well enough to risk trusting him with a confession.
    “Isaac would never tend his goats this time of night, where is he? Something’s wrong, there’s tension in the air. Rachel, do you have something to say?”
    Dario approached her while my heart pounded furiously, a mixture of anxiety and readiness to react. Juan stood quietly beside her, wearing a look on his face that said he believed she’d stand by us. He was wrong.
    “They treated me very badly, especially Emmanuel who despises the very ground I walk on. He’s the one who harmed Isaac and threw him in the river. Now he plans to kill me because I won’t tell him where
my
gold is buried. He plans to steal it all.”
    “Is this true?” asked Dario, placing his hand upon his dagger. “Have you killed Isaac?”
    “There was a fight, he attacked me with an axe. It was purely self-defense, not murder.” There was no use avoiding the truth. Someone else would surely die if I didn’t come clean.
    “I saw it all. Emmanuel had little choice but to defend himself,” said Juan.
    Unconvinced, Dario looked to Rachel, wanting to hear her recollection of what had happened.
    “All I want is my coins,” I said, not liking where things were headed. “You’ll never see me again in these parts. It was impossible to negotiate with Isaac, who demanded vast sums of money I was not prepared to pay, we argued, it got out of hand.” I did my best in spite of Rachel’s onslaught of damning words.
    “You lie; the coins never belonged to you. They were payment for your betrayal of Jesus, which you discarded on the ground with guilt. Do you really expect their return to save your wretched soul? Coins, coins,
coins
are all you care about.”
    “That’s not true, I care about the fate of others,” I replied.
    “Don’t you see, Dario, he and his coins are the work of the Devil, so… now I will pray for his lost soul.” Rachel clasped her bloody hands between a rosary and began to pray. I needed to act quickly.
    “It seems I have a predicament. Emmanuel, you have committed murder, surely you can’t expect me to let you go unpunished for such a crime in spite of your immortality. Juan, you are also in trouble for complying. Rachel, so are you. Watching your father’s body being taken and then doing nothing to make your escape…. Why did you not have the intention of alerting the authorities?”
    “Dario, I’m pleading to your better nature,” Juan said, attempting to intervene for us all. “I’m your friend, surely you wouldn’t hand us over for a crime against a man who didn’t deserve to live. The way he treated Rachel was abominable. Beating her regularly, using her like a slave. Emmanuel did an honorable thing. Since then, he has nothing back in the way of gratitude. She chastises and taunts him at every turn. An undeserved punishment for setting her free.”
    Caught between logic and Juan’s impassioned plea, Dario had a difficult decision on his hands.
    “I’m being held against my will!” Rachel insisted. “Before you came in, I was bound to the bedpost. They even attempted to take me across the border in the hope of avoiding capture, until they met a passing stranger. This person knew my father who told them of his buried gold. What do they do next? They bring me back here in great haste to dispose of the body and torture me to