Read Online The Golem of Hollywood by Jonathan Kellerman - Free Book Online

greasy plume of smoke, rising from the blast-scorched stone.
    He is staring at the altar.
    The smell of charred flesh and singed hair is overpowering.
    It begins to rain, cool drops against Asham’s upturned face.
    â€œMercy,” Eve says.
    Yaffa has crawled over to Nava and is pressing her bleeding arm. Adam falls to his knees to pray.
    The rain thickens, lashing loose chunks of the hillside, sending muddy currents sluicing toward the valley.
    They are all shocked, but none more so than Abel, who blinks rapidly, rainwater streaming into his open mouth, his golden curls a sodden mass.
    â€œMercy,” Eve says. “Mercy.”
    Cain hears her. He turns back, blows water from his nostrils. “What does
that
mean?”
    He faces the altar again. Asham cannot tell if he is pleased or horrified, who is victor, who vanquished.
    â€”
    D AYS LATER , THE TOP of the mountain continues to chuff smoke, a thin black line twining into the sky. It is still drizzling, the earth still drenched, the judgment a riddle.
    Having regained his composure, Abel contends in his smuggest voice that the offering was his and therefore the favor shown to him—a statement that draws whoops of derision from Cain. The storm, Cain insists, was nothing more than a coincidence, and besides, favor was clearly shown to he who carried out the deed.
    Bitter words rush in to fill the void.
    The inability to interpret a sign would seem to indicate to Asham that it is no sign at all.
    Sick of listening to them fight, she reiterates that the choice is hers.
    The men, shouting, pay her no mind.
    â€”
    A BSORBED IN HIS LABOR , Cain does not notice her approaching. She reaches the edge of the field where it borders the orchard, and he stands up from behind the wooden mule, grunting, black chest hair flat with sweat.
    â€œDon’t sneak up on me like that.”
    â€œI wasn’t sneaking,” she says.
    â€œI couldn’t hear you,” he says. “Therefore, you were sneaking.”
    â€œIf you can’t hear me, that’s your problem.”
    He laughs, spits. “What brings you all the way out here?”
    She regards the wooden mule. Deftly carved, sleekly proportional,the grips grown shiny where Cain rests his hands to steer, it is a marvelous object, turning the earth ten times as fast as Adam can. The real mule yoked to it swishes its tail rhythmically, causing the mosquitos at its rump to scatter and contract.
    Sometimes she wonders what her parents’ life was like before Cain arrived. More peaceful, surely, but also frustratingly basic.
    She would admire him so much more if he did not demand it.
    â€œHard at work,” she says.
    â€œNo time to waste. New cycle.”
    She nods. It has rained on and off for weeks, leaving puddles in the churned earth. The breeze coming through the orchard brings fig and lemon, cloying and cutting.
    â€œI wanted to ask you something,” she says.
    â€œAll right.”
    â€œOn the mountain,” she says. “You chose me to hold the lamb.”
    He nods.
    â€œWhy.”
    â€œBecause I knew you could do it.”
    â€œAnd how did you know that?”
    â€œBecause,” he says, “you’re like me.”
    Asham has no ready answer. She could say
No, I’m not, I’m nothing like you.
She could cite the womb she shared with Abel. She remembers the blood spurting and the twitching of the lamb as it died, and it repels her to know that Cain could see that in her and bring it out.
    But she cannot blame him, can she, if it was there all along.
    He moves closer to her, an intoxicating mineral reek.
    â€œWe could build a whole world together,” he says.
    â€œThe world already exists.”
    â€œA new one.”
    â€œYou have Nava for that.”
    He makes an impatient noise. “I want you.”
    She starts to move away from him, and he grabs her arm.
    â€œI’m begging you,” he says. “Please.”
    â€œDon’t