Lamb The Gospel According to Biff Christs Childho - By Christopher Moore Page 0,17

in its place two great mosques). The merchant gave us twenty thousand dollars in American money for them. It was this money that we had traveled on, and deposited at the hotel desk for our expenses. The angel told me the dimes must have the same worth as the dinars, and I, like a fool, believed him.

"You should have told me," I said to the angel. "If I could leave this room I would know myself."

"You have work to do," the angel said. Then he leapt to his feet and shouted at the television, "The wrath of the Lord shall fall upon ye, Stephanos!"

"What in the hell are you shouting at?"

The angel wagged a finger at the screen, "He has exchanged Catherine's baby for its evil twin, which he fathered with her sister while she was in a coma, yet Catherine does not realize his evil deed, as he has had his face changed to impersonate the bank manager who is foreclosing on Catherine's husband's business. If I was not trapped here I would personally drag the fiend straight to hell."

For days now the angel had been watching serial dramas on television, alternately shouting at the screen or bursting into tears. He had stopped reading over my shoulder, so I had just tried to ignore him, but now I realized what was going on.

"It's not real, Raziel."

"What do you mean?"

"It's drama, like the Greeks used to do. They are actors in a play."

"No, no one could pretend to such evil."

"That's not all. Spider-Man and Doctor Octopus? Not real. Characters in a play."

"You lying dog!"

"If you'd ever leave the room and look at how real people talk you'd know that, you yellow-haired cretin. But no, you stay here perched on my shoulder like a trained bird. I am dead two thousand years and even I know better." (I still need to get a look at that book in the dresser. I thought maybe, just maybe, I could goad the angel into giving me five minutes privacy.)

"You know nothing," said Raziel. "I have destroyed whole cities in my time."

"Sort of makes me wonder if you destroyed the right ones. That'd be embarrassing, huh?"

Then an advertisement came on the screen for a magazine that promised to "fill in all the blanks" and give the real inside story to all of soap operas: Soap Opera Digest. I watched the angel's eyes widen. He grabbed the phone and rang the front desk.

"What are you doing?"

"I need that book."

"Have them send up Jesus," I said. "He'll help you get it."

On our first day of work, Joshua and I were up before dawn. We met near the well and filled the waterskins our fathers had given us, then ate our breakfasts, flatbread and cheese, as we walked together to Sepphoris. The road, although packed dirt most of the way, was smooth and easy to walk. (If Rome saw to anything in its territories, it was the lifelines of its army.) As we walked we watched the rock-strewn hills turn pink under the rising sun, and I saw Joshua shudder as if a chill wind had danced up his spine.

"The glory of God is in everything we see," he said. "We must never forget that."

"I just stepped in camel dung. Tomorrow let's leave after it's light out."

"I just realized it, that is why the old woman wouldn't live again. I forgot that it wasn't my power that made her arise, it was the Lord's. I brought her back for the wrong reason, out of arrogance, so she died a second time."

"It squished over the side of my sandal. Well, that's going to smell all day."

"But perhaps it was because I did not touch her. When I've brought other creatures back to life, I've always touched them."

"Is there something in the Law about taking your camel off the road to do his business? There should be. If not the Law of Moses, then the Romans should have one. I mean, they won't hesitate to crucify a Jew who rebels, there should be some punishment for messing up their roads. Don't you think? I'm not saying crucifixion, but a good smiting in the mouth or something."

"But how could I have touched the corpse when it is forbidden by the Law? The mourners would have stopped me."

"Can we stop for a second so I can scrape off my sandal? Help me find a stick. That pile was as big as my head."

"You're not listening to me, Biff."

"I am listening. Look, Joshua,