Lamb: the Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

the soldier. I needed to distract Justus. “Aha,” I said, “someone beat the soldier to death with a stone willie. Obviously the work of a Greek or a Samaritan—no Jew would touch such a thing.”
    “They wouldn’t?” Maggie asked.
    “Jeez, Maggie.”
    “I think you have something to tell me, boy,” Justus said.
    Joshua had laid hands on the dead soldier.
    I could feel everyone’s eyes on me. I wondered where Jeremiah was now. Was he behind me, ready to silence me with a knife, or had he made his escape? Either way, I couldn’t say a word. The Sicarii did not work alone. If I gave up Jeremiah I’d be dead by a Sicarii dagger before the Sabbath.
    “He can’t tell you, Centurion, even if he knew,” said Joshua, who had moved back to Maggie’s side. “For it is written in our holy books that no Jew shall rat out another Jew, regardless of what a weasel one or the other shall be.”
    “Is that written?” Maggie whispered.
    “Is now,” Joshua whispered back.
    “Did you just call me a weasel?” I asked.
    “Behold!” A woman at the front of the crowd was pointing to the dead soldier. Another screamed. The corpse was moving.
    Justus turned toward the commotion and I took the opportunity to look around for Jeremiah. He was still there behind me, only a few people back, but he was staring gape-jawed at the dead soldier, who was currently standing up and dusting off his tunic.
    Joshua was concentrating intently on the soldier, but there was none of the sweating or trembling that we had seen at the funeral in Japhia.
    To his credit, Justus, although he seemed frightened at first, stood his ground as the corpse ambled stiff-legged toward him. The other soldiers were backing away, along with all of the Jews except Maggie, Joshua, and me.
    “I need to report an attack, sir,” the once-dead soldier said, performing a very jerky Roman salute.
    “You’re—you’re dead,” Justus said.
    “Am not.”
    “You have knife wounds all over your chest.”
    The soldier looked down, touched the wounds gingerly, then looked back to his commander. “Seems I have been nicked, sir.”
    “Nicked? Nicked? You’ve been stabbed half a dozen times. You’re dead as dirt.”
    “I don’t think so, sir. Look, I’m not even bleeding.”
    “That’s because you’ve bled out, son. You’re dead.”
    The soldier began to stagger now, started to fall, and caught himself. “I am feeling a little woozy. I was attacked last night sir, near where they are building that Greek’s house. There, he was there.” He pointed to me.
    “And him too.” He pointed to Joshua.
    “And the little girl.”
    “These boys attacked you?”
    I could hear scuffling behind me.
    “No, not them, that man over there.” The soldier pointed to Jeremiah, who looked around like a trapped animal. Everyone was so intent on watching the miracle of the talking corpse that they had frozen in place. The killer couldn’t push his way through the crowd to get away.
    “Arrest him!” Justus commanded, but his soldiers were equally stunned by the resurrection of their cohort.
    “Now that I think of it,” the dead soldier said, “I do remember being stabbed.”
    No outlet from the crowd, Jeremiah turned toward his accuser and drew a blade from under his shirt. This seemed to snap the other soldiers out of their trance, and they began advancing on the killer from different angles, swords drawn.
    At the sight of the blade, everyone had moved away from the killer, leaving him isolated with no path open but toward us.
    “No master but God!” he shouted, then three quick steps and he leapt toward us, his knife raised. I dove on top of Maggie and Joshua, hoping to shield them, but even as I waited for the sharp pain between my shoulder blades, I heard the killer scream, then a grunt, then a protracted moan that ran out of air with a pathetic squeal.
    I rolled over to see Gaius Justus Gallicus with his short sword sunk to the hilt in the solar plexus of Jeremiah. The killer had dropped his knife and was standing there looking at the Roman’s sword hand, looking somewhat offended by it. He sank to his knees. Justus yanked his sword free, then wiped the blade on Jeremiah’s shirt before stepping back and letting the killer fall forward.
    “That was him,” the dead soldier said. “Bastard kilt me.” He fell forward next to his killer and lay still.
    “Much better than last time, Josh,” I said.
    “Yes, much better,” Maggie said. “Walking and