"What? what just happened..."
The driver's hands weren't steady on the wheel.
Maybe the passenger had never been there at all, and the anxiety had manufactured the whole thing.
Maybe fear had given him an excuse to run that his brain had been too happy to accept.
Either way: he had driven away from a client, left him alone in the dark countryside, next to something that might or might not have been a malevolent spirit.
"Heaven protect me. And protect him too, he said he was an exorcist. He'll be fine. He has to be fine. Definitely fine."
He told himself this until the guilt in his chest became something he could sit with, gritted his teeth, and drove into the city.
He was not going back.
---
Raphael watched the taxi disappear into the dark, bouncing hard over several potholes in its hurry.
He'd only stepped out to grab the tools he'd bought over the past few days, pliers, a folding knife, a torch.
