In the Beginning

Kyle read in a strange, rolling tongue, “En arché en ò lógos, kai ò lógos en pròs tòn théon –”

Cody glanced up from his worn copy of Lovecraft’s Necronomicon and said, “What are you reading?”

Kyle blinked, startled out of his narration, and looked up at Cody. “Pardon?”

Cody nodded at the antique-looking volume Kyle had propped up on his knees. “What book are you reading? And for the record, what language?” They all spoke Hebrew, to one degree or another, and sometimes Aramaic and Latin came in handy, but that sounded brand new.

“It’s ancient Greek,” Kyle said. “And I’m reading from the Bible.”

Cody raised his eyebrows. “The Bible?”

“Yes,” Kyle said, and he began to recite, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God –”

“The New Testament,” Cody said flatly.

Kyle shrugged. “Yes, well, I do have Gabriel.”

“What does that have to do with it?”

“Well, Gabriel isn’t named till the New Testament, now is he?” Kyle smiled and returned to reading aloud in his rolling ancient Greek, leaving Cody to puzzle over that piece of information.

Cody finally spat on his fingertips and drew some Hebrew letters, and Asrael coalesced from the shadows, blinking and looking like a cat that had been unceremoniously dumped into a frigid swimming pool.

“Yes?” Asrael asked.

“Where in the scriptures are you first named?”

Asrael raised his eyebrows. “Well, they never really named me in the Qu’ran - there they simply call me the Angel of Death. I have many names, of course. But you won’t find my name in any canonized scripture, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Cody’s mouth shaped the word Qu’ran but no words came out.

Asrael smiled and patted his shoulder. “Maybe you need to read something else.”

(297 words)