Conversations with the Light Bearer (Religious Satire)

CHAPTER XX - Into the Woods

CHAPTER XX

INTO THE WOODS

The engine roared to the twist of the key, coughing hard for water, then dying out once more. Henry came back in the evening, driving his 1979 Volkswagen Microbus—a stubborn, aging, smoke-belching machine refusing to resign to the twenty-first century. A nauseating smell of stock diesel and thriving molds lingered within, a spicy whiff of leftover pizza and sweaty socks shoving down my nostrils like a hellish aftertaste. Henry tried to balance it out with a pair of Little Trees, but even then the smell of garbage and old age could not be matched.

"Did you have to bring this old beast?" I asked, fixing my necktie.

Henry twisted the key once more. It was no good. "You wanted a ride, right?"

"I meant an actual, breathable ride." I turned to the side-mirror to check my teeth. "Not this age-old hippie van from your lost days."

"Bear with it," he said. "My sister borrowed the Sedan for the weekend."

Damn relatives. I sighed. "Fine. So can you get it to start?"

Henry spun the key once more. "Veronica needs a bit of love to start," he added. "You can't rush her." After a few more attempts, Veronica belched and farted, quaking with the libido of a horny young wench. The priest smiled as he kissed the steering wheel. "See?"

I rolled my eyes. "Great." I popped the glove compartment open. "Got a map of the city?"

Henry pulled down his visor and the folded paper fell on his lap. "Here."

"Now let's see . . ." I unfolded the map, reading the street names and symbols.

"Magic? Divination?" he asked. "Got her hair or something to point her in the map?"

"Yes. Magic." I took out my phone. "But more like twenty-first century magic."

A line formed on Henry's brow. "What?"

The present I had given Dani right before Mammon entered the scene proved quite useful, if not for the impeccable timing. A GPS bracelet, the merchant had called it, and it took only one press of the button to locate her. "Found you."

Mortals may not be innate with magic, but they can certainly make their own.

****

A wolf howled in the distance. Close to midnight, the pale amber moon loomed large and heavy on the pitch black sky, like the eye of a colossus watching eternal over the world. The air felt cold and our breath colder, the stony road flanked by obsidian trees reaching out like a net of sharp claws. For hours Henry had been driving the van in darkness, lost in this damn maze of a trail. Soon the headlights found a fork in the road, no different from the first or the second or the third we had passed before. Beyond the thrumming engine and the rolling of tires on stone, a wolf howled again, now much closer, while yellow eyes flashed between the branches, the forest ringing to the song of owls and bats and other creatures of the night.

"I think we should've turned left," muttered Henry under his breath. "Yes, yes. Left."

"I think we should stop," I answered, looking over the side mirror. "See that tree with the big hole? We passed by this road four times now."

Henry kept his foot on the gas. "A lot of trees here, Vincent. Close your eyes for a while. Take a nap. You must be getting tired."

"Tired? I'm not the one driving, Henry." I tossed an unlit cig out the window.