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

mean.”
    “Never fails.”
    The merchant scratched his pointed beard with a monkey foot. “I’ll meet your price on these worthless monkey feet if you throw in a handful of newts.”
    “Deal,” said the crone.
    The merchant opened a satchel he had slung around his shoulder and dropped in his monkey feet, then followed them with a handful of newts. “So how do these work? Make them into tea and have the camel drink it?”
    “Other end,” said the crone. “They go in whole. Count to one hundred and step back.”
    The merchant’s eyes went wide, then narrowed into a squint and he turned to me. “Kid,” he said, “if you can count to a hundred, I’ve got a job for you.”
    “He’d love to work for you, sir,” Joshua said, “but we have to find Balthasar the magus.”
    The crone hissed and backed to the corner of her booth, covering all of her face but her milky eye. “How do you know of Balthasar?” She held her hands in front of her like claws and I could see her trembling.
    “Balthasar!” I shouted at her, and the old woman nearly jumped through the wall behind her. I snickered and was ready to Balthasar! her again when Josh interrupted.
    “Balthasar came from here to Bethlehem to witness my birth,” said Joshua. “I’m seeking his counsel. His wisdom.”
    “You would hail the darkness, you would consort with demons and fly with the evil Djinn like Balthasar? I won’t have you near my booth, be gone from here.” She made the sign of the evil eye, which in her case was redundant.
    “No, no, no,” I said. “None of that. The magus left some, uh, frankincense at Joshua’s house. We need to return it to him.”
    The old woman regarded me with her good eye. “You’re lying.”
    “Yes, he is,” said Josh.
    “BALTHASAR!” I screamed in her face. It didn’t have the same effect as the first time around and I was a little disappointed.
    “Stop that,” she said.
    Joshua reached out to take her craggy hand. “Grandmother,” he said, “our ship’s captain, Titus Inventius, said you would know where to find Balthasar. Please help us.”
    The old woman seemed to relax, and just when I thought she was going to smile, she raked her nails across Joshua’s hand and leapt back. “Titus Inventius is a scalawag,” she shouted.
    Joshua stared at the blood welling up in the scratches on the back of his hand and I thought for a second that he might faint. He never understood it when someone was violent or unkind. I’d probably be half a day explaining to him why the old woman scratched him, but right then I was furious.
    “You know what? You know what? You know what?” I was waving my finger under her nose. “You scratched the Son of God. That’s your ass, that’s what.”
    “The magus is gone from Antioch, and good riddance to him,” screeched the crone.
    The fat trader had been watching this the whole time without saying a word, but now he began laughing so hard that I could barely hear the old woman wheezing out curses. “So you want to find Balthasar, do you, God’s Son?”
    Joshua came out of the stunned contemplation of his wounds and looked at the trader. “Yes, sir, do you know him?”
    “Who do you think the monkey’s feet are for? Follow me.” He whirled on his heel and sauntered away without another word.
    As we followed the trader into an alley so narrow that his shoulders nearly touched the sides, I turned back to the old crone and shouted, “Your ass, hag! Mark my words.”
    She hissed and made the sign of the evil eye again.
    “She was a little creepy,” Joshua said, looking at the scratches on his hand again.
    “Don’t be judgmental, Josh, you’re not without creepiness yourself.”
    “Where do you think this guy is leading us?”
    “Probably somewhere where he can murder and kill us.”
    “Yeah, at least one of those.”

C hapter 11
Since my escape attempt, I can’t get the angel to leave the room at all. Not even for his beloved Soap Opera Digest. (And yes, when he left to obtain the first one, it would have been a good time to make my escape, but I wasn’t thinking that way then, so back off.) Today I tried to get him to bring me a map.
“Because no one is going to know the places I’m writing about, that’s why,” I told him. “You want me to write in this idiom so people will understand what I’m saying, then why use the names of places that have been gone for thousands of years? I need a map.”
“No,” said the angel.
“When I say the