PROLOGUE
1211 Words
PROLOGUE
Boston University History Department
7:00 A.M.
Ryan Andrews yawned as he ascended the wide marble steps of the Victorian-era department building. He still couldn’t quite believe he was here as the newest graduate student and teaching assistant to the great Professor Angus MacPherson.
Professor MacPherson was one of the world’s leading authorities on hagiography, Christian folk legends, and the Apocrypha. He had been the chair of his department at the University of Edinburgh until Boston University managed to poach him with an impressive salary and virtually unlimited research funding.
Andrew smiled. He might become a beneficiary of some of that funding today. Professor MacPherson wanted to discuss a new project with him. He hadn’t said much about it, just that he should show up here at seven in the morning, an unreasonable hour for any graduate student but well into the workday of the grizzled old professor. That man seemed to run on nothing but tea and enthusiasm.
Andrew could use some tea himself. Or some coffee. Or a whole pot. He had gone out with a bunch of friends last night, hitting a series of the local student bars. He’d even gotten the number of a cute undergraduate. Who says history students didn’t know how to have a good time?
He had passed by the department on his way home at about two in the morning and saw that the professor’s office light was still on. That wasn’t unusual. He often pulled all-nighters. Andrew figured that if he got on one of Professor MacPherson’s research grants, the bar crawls would have to come to an end. Oh well. It would be worth it. Whatever the professor’s latest project would be, it would lead to publications, and that’s what a graduate student needed. You had to make a name for yourself and start staking your claim in the academic world before you got your degree.
Because, one day, Andrew Ryan was going to be the next Professor Angus MacPherson.
Andrew got to the third floor of the building and walked down an empty hallway, his footsteps echoing on the marble floor. He had seen no one. While the janitor usually opened up at around six or six-thirty, not even the secretaries showed up before eight. He and the professor were probably the only ones here.
He mentally went over the past week’s reading. MacPherson’s graduate course on the lesser-known Christian legends had included the narrative of Bel and the Dragon from the extended Book of Daniel, an Apocryphal text found in the Codex Chisianus from the tenth century but not in the regular text of any modern Protestant Bible. Professor MacPherson, of course, had his class read it in the original Septuagint Greek, something that gave Andrew almost as much of a headache as the ten beers he had drunk last night. And he knew for a fact that the professor would ask him about the text right after saying good morning.
Professor MacPherson was like that. A big, loud, laughing Scotsman with a fringe of graying beard and crazy unkempt hair. He could probably drink Andrew under the table, but his energy went entirely to his studies. He expected his graduate students to know their stuff and rewarded or ignored them accordingly.
Andrew ran over the text in his mind, prepping himself for the pop quiz he’d get in a couple of minutes.
The text was probably written during the Persian period, when the Holy Land was a satrapy, or province, of the Persian Empire starting in 539 BC until it was conquered by Alexander the Great in 332 BC. According to the text, Daniel lived at the court of King Cyrus II and was his closest companion even though he was a Jew, and the Persians were pagan.
The first story narrates that Cyrus grew angry at his friend because Daniel mocked the worship of Bel, the Persians’ chief deity. An idol stood in the temple of Bel and given large amounts of food and wine every evening. The king pointed out to Daniel that every night, he would put a wax seal on the door with his own signet ring, and when the seal was broken the next morning, everything had been eaten. He and the priests said this was proof that Bel was a living god.
The priests, jealous of Daniel’s favored position, offered a wager—seal up the temple that night as usual and if the food was gone the next morning, Daniel would be put to death. If the food wasn’t gone, the priests would all be put to death.
Daniel accepted the wager. Just before the temple was sealed for the night, he sprinkled a fine layer of ash over the floor. The door was sealed, and everyone went to bed.
The next morning, King Cyrus broke the seal and—lo and behold!—the plates of food were empty and not a single drop remained in the jugs of wine. The king gave a cheer for his god, but that cheering stopped when Daniel pointed to the floor. The ash was covered with footprints big and small. They all originated from a secret door concealed in one of the walls.
What had happened was apparent to all. The priests, their wives, and their children had snuck in at night, as they did every night, and ate the feast reserved for the god. Cyrus had the priests and all their families put to death. Daniel then asked if he could destroy the idol and its temple. Cyrus agreed, and soon there was one less pagan house of worship in Persia.
The text continued with a story about Daniel slaying a dragon that the Persians worshipped. The people were outraged and threatened to usurp the king unless he handed the Jew over. Once the mob had him, they sealed him inside a den of seven lions, where he remained miraculously unharmed. The wild beasts didn’t dare harm a man of God.
Luckily, he didn’t have to read that part for today. He’d skimmed an English version just so he wouldn’t look totally ignorant. Septuagint Greek was still one of his weak points. Hopefully Professor MacPherson wouldn’t expect him to have read beyond the assignment.
The office was just ahead, the last on the right and the only one with a door open and a light on.
Andrew threw back his shoulders, put on what he hoped looked like a professional smile, and came to the doorway.
He raised his hand to knock on the doorjamb and froze.
The office looked like it had been hit by a whirlwind. Papers and books lay strewn everywhere. All the drawers of the filing cabinet were open, their contents dumped on the floor in a snowdrift of paper. Nearly all the volumes on the bookshelf running along one wall had been thrown to the floor too.
Professor Angus MacPherson lay slumped on his desk. His sports coat, the desk, and a large area around it was soaked a deep crimson. His face—the skin white, the mouth slack—was turned to face the door.
His glazed eyes did not see his newest graduate student, who turned and ran screaming for help down the hall.
- Writer
