What a Terrible Day!

What a terrible day in 79 CE when the Amphitheater of Pompeii was buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius! And what a great amphitheater it was. For example, it was built of stone rather than wood, and it could accommodate upwards of 20,000 people. 

But there had been another terrible day 23 years earlier, when Miriam’s brother Binyamin, the illustrious gladiator known as Agrippa Fortitudo, was slain in that amphitheater. Shortly afterward, Sergius, Binyamin’s manager, his brows rammed together, brought the news that death had claimed Binyamin and that the ship bearing his sealed coffin had just docked in Alexandria. As if to reassure Miriam, Sergius reported that Binyamin died fearlessly, with pride in the glory of Rome.

And so, the time had come for Miriam to keep the promise she’d made to her brother. She paid for his body, held a splendid funeral for him at the Great Synagogue, and despite her distress over his career choice, commissioned Sergius to erect a monument to honor his accomplishments.

Imagine then Miriam’s shock when eight years later, a shadowy, broad-shouldered figure, his forearms ringed with gold bracelets, strode into her peristyle: “I must have fainted because in what seemed like a moment later—I really don’t know how long—I saw the ghost of my dead brother bending over me.”

Find out how Binyamin managed to return in “The Bodyguard”, the first story in The Deadliest Returns. Just click here.