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

love with him. But why does it matter here?”
    “I can’t tell you. But there has been more commotion coming from the house of doom,” said Joy. “You have to help me. If I’m right, we have to stop Balthasar. We’ll observe them tomorrow while we adjust the flow of Chi in the library.”
    “No, Joy. Not library Chi. The stuff in the library is too heavy. I hate library Chi.”
    Chi or Qi : the breath of the dragon, the eternal energy that flows through all things; in balance, as it should be, it was half yin, half yang, half light, half dark, half male, half female. The Chi in the library was always getting fucked up, while the Chi in the rooms with just cushions, or with lightweight furniture, seemed well adjusted and balanced. I don’t know why, but I suspected it had a lot to do with Joy’s need to make me move heavy things.

    The next morning Joy and I went to the library to spy on Joshua and Balthasar while we redirected the library’s Chi. Joy carried a complex brass instrument she called a Chi clock, which was supposed to be able to detect the flow of Chi. The magus was noticeably irritated as soon as we entered the room.
    “Must this be done now?”
    Joy bowed. “Very sorry, master, but this is an emergency.” She turned and barked commands at me like a Roman centurion. “Move that table over there, can’t you see that it rests on the tiger’s testicles? Then point those chairs so they face the doorway, they lie on the dragon’s navel. We’re lucky someone hasn’t broken a leg.”
    “Yeah, lucky,” I said, straining to move the huge carved table, wishing that Joy had recruited a couple of the other girls to help. I’d been studying feng shui for more than three years now and I still couldn’t detect the least bit of Chi, coming or going. Joshua had reconciled the elusive energy by saying that it was just an Oriental way to express God all around us and in all things. That may have helped him toward some sort of spiritual understanding, but it was about as effective as trained sheep when it came to arranging furniture.
    “Can I help?” Joshua asked.
    “No!” shouted Balthasar, standing up. “We will continue in my quarters.” The old wizard turned and glared at Joy and me. “And we are not to be disturbed, under any circumstances.”
    He took Joshua by the shoulder and led him out of the room.
    “So much for spying,” I said.
    Joy consulted the Chi clock and patted a cabinet filled with calligraphy materials. “This most certainly rides on the horn of the ox, it must be moved,” she pronounced.
    “They are gone,” I said. “We don’t have to pretend at this anymore.”
    “Who is pretending? That cabinet channels all the yin into the hall, while the yang circles like a bird of prey.”
    “Joy, stop it. I know you’re making this stuff up.”
    She dropped the brass instrument to her side. “I am not.”
    “Yes, you are.” And here I thought I’d push my credibility a bit, just to see. “I checked the yang in this room yesterday. It is in perfect balance.”
    Joy dropped to her hands and knees, crawled under one of the huge carved dragon tables, curled up into a ball, and began to cry. “I’m no good at this. Balthasar wants us all to know it, but I’ve never understood it. If you want the Elegant Torture of a Thousand Pleasant Touches, I can do it, you want someone poisoned, castrated, or blown up, I’m your man, but this feng shui stuff is just, just…”
    “Stupid?” I supplied.
    “No, I was going to say difficult. Now I’ve angered Balthasar and we have no way of knowing what is happening between him and Joshua. And we must know.”
    “I can find out,” I said, polishing my nails on my tunic. “But I have to know why I’m finding out.”
    “How will you find out?”
    “I have ways that are more subtle and crafty than all your Chinese alchemy and direction of energies.”
    “Now who’s making things up?” I’d lost most of my credibility by dragging out the arcane-Hebrew-knowledge-for-sexual-favors ruse until I had actually claimed credit for receiving the tablets of the Ten Commandments as well as constructing the Ark of the Covenant. (What? It’s not my fault. Joshua was the one who would never let me be Moses when we were kids.)
    “If I find out, will you tell me what is going on?”
    The head concubine chewed at an elegantly lacquered nail as she thought about it. “You promise not to tell anyone if I tell you? Not even your friend