Full Boar

Chapter 12: Putting Together a Team

They made an odd pair on the bus, the two of them.

The first one, sitting against the aisle, was a large man with sunny hair, tied back in a ponytail, his angular jaw covered in a close-cropped and straw-hued beard. He leaned back in his chair for most of the trip, jacket off and lying on his lap with a paperback thriller he occasionally picked up and read. His T-shirt almost managed to cover the elaborate linework of tattoos that swirled around his biceps and triceps.

Of course, the T-shirt didn't manage to hide the prodigious muscle. He got stares from the other passengers. To the women, he was worth a stare. Worth enough that they ignored the man next to him.

That man was everything the tall, broad, and blond man was not. Short, skin with more wrinkles and crags than old leather, the man hadn't gone bald so much as let his wiry black hair migrate from his scalp to his jaw. He fidgeted in the jeans and t-shirt he wore, plucking at the sleeves. He didn't talk much, merely stared out the window, eyes wide like a child.

"Owen," the large man said. "Owen!" He hissed the name, before jabbing an elbow at the old man next to him.

"What?" the smaller man asked. He blinked. "Sorry, I keep forgetting to... pay attention." The larger man couldn't really blame him, to be honest. Owen wasn't the old man's name; his actual name had not been used in centuries.

"Our stop's next."

"And how do you know that? You said you're not used to this area, Bjorn."

Bjorn snorted. "I've been keeping track." He pulled out his smartphone and showed the older man. "There's a map on here."

"I see. Ensorcelled, then? Some earthy spirit that collects your footsteps?"

Bjorn sighed. "Something like that." He had tried explaining to the old man how it worked, using GPS satellites to track one's location, but the man didn't get it. He was shocked that anyone had pierced the dome of the heavens and utterly refused to believe man could build a vessel to swim in the ether beyond it. So Bjorn just told him the cheap burner phone the old man carried had a half-dozen spirits bound to it, and that Bjorn's personal smartphone was a wizard's tablet with a hundred thousand different arcane sigils within. In a way, it kind of is. Just... sigils inscribed with silicon and not blood.

The bus squeaked to a halt, and Bjorn rose and slung his jacket over his shoulder, offering his hand to the old man. The man scowled and muttered somethin in an old language, something like a cross between Gaelic and Latin.

Bjorn scowled, grabbed the man's leathery arm, and yanked him out, dragging him forward. "Come on," he growled. "What did I say?"

"You're an addled warrior, you have no right to—"

"Quiet!" They made it outside the bus, and Bjorn grabbed their bags from the compartment beneath it. "Walk," he ordered.

They did, and they walked four blocks towards Independence Hall before Bjorn spoke. "You can't use your home tongue."

"And you say this," the old man said, "because—"

"It's been dead for centuries," Bjorn said. "But it isn't entirely unknown. Someone catches you swearing in Gaulish? Could blow our cover if they're Wary." He paused, glanced around to make sure none could hear them. "Understand that, Orgetomaris?"

"Fine." The man glared. "This is an unnatural city. Where is the nearest grove? I must prepare."

"Can't do that. Philadelphia park authorities aren't exactly going to be too keen on you harvesting mistletoe and slaughtering white bulls by an oak," Bjorn said. "The man who hired us did provide some stuff back at our hotel."