Four people were seated around a table in the cafe.
Brigid sat with her arms crossed, using a spoon to slowly stir the Americano that she had ordered earlier. Epona had leaned her chair back against the wall and was now staring at the ceiling, as though it contained answers to the mysteries of the universe. Maitho sat opposite Bevan, who looked from one person to the other nervously while sipping his extremely sweet latte. Earlier, Maitho had watched him empty nearly seven sugar sachets into his drink and wondered if diabetes would pay the young man a friendly visit soon. Probably not. After all, they were receiving extensions on their lives every time they saved someone. There must be a diabetes and other deadly disease protection clause somewhere in the agreement they had all made with Charon.
"Here we are," said Maitho, eyeing each person.
Epona continued to stare at the ceiling. Brigid stopped stirring, only to take a long sip from her drink. Bevan looked like he wanted to get started on the biggest New Year's party he had ever experienced in his life.
Maitho sighed, swallowing back a comment that could potentially send them all into a verbal clash. He noticed Brigid throw a long glance his way. After she placed the mug on the table, she focused all her attention on Maitho.
The group had placed all their weapons on the table and covered them with napkins they found in the cafe. In case of Maitho, he simply left, what was essentially, the cafe's fork and knife uncovered. The placement of weapons where everyone could see them was a form of truce, but the only thing it managed to do was create an uncomfortable silence. Nobody wanted to speak first, their pride overruling any semblance of rational thought they might have. Except, of course, for Bevan. Every time he opened his mouth to talk, he would glance at his team members, notice their disinterest, and clamp his mouth shut again.
"You said that you came into contact with this Jonathan Cray," said Brigid. She was either attempting to make conversation or she was tired of waiting. It didn't matter to Maitho, as long as he saw some progress in their communication.
"I did. It was tonight," said Maitho.
"And we found you tonight."
"Yes you did," said Maitho. He suddenly looked at her with a look of caution. Something about the way she said the statement struck his mind, churning his mental wheels. Despite the exhaustion he was feeling, Maitho started connecting dots. "You think this is not a mere coincidence?"
Brigid shrugged. "I hadn't thought of that until you mentioned it. But it might be a possibility."
Bevan, who had been waiting for a chance to say something, chipped in. "So you think that we were brought together for a reason? Like someone is pulling the strings behind the scenes? Someone like, maybe, Jonathan Cray?"
Maitho shook his head. "Whether that is true or not, it is still a giant leap of logic without any proof right now."
"That's true," said Brigid.
The fact that the red-haired woman to his right was agreeing with him showed him just how desperately the team of three wanted to find out more about their predicament. There existed a fragile truce between him and the team of descendants of the Celtic gods, glued together by the knowledge that they shared a common enemy. For all intents and purposes, he was a tool to the three people in front of him. With the exception of Bevan perhaps. That man looked like he would offer an olive branch to someone just because he could. And he might make the attempt to look for more olive branches if he ever ran out of them.
"Then let's work with what we know."
"You first," said Brigid, looking at Maitho as though she was daring him to oppose her command.
Maitho wanted to retort by saying that she wasn't his leader, but bit back the response. It won't do any good if they reverted to open conflict again. He realized that the bottle of water he had purchased earlier was still half-full, which was more than the optimism he was feeling about the situation he was in. He took a sip of water and placed the bottle uncapped on the table. After gathering the thoughts in his head, he summarized the events that had taken place not more than a couple of hours ago.
"Tonight was the first time I came into contact with Jonathan Cray. Just when I was about to rescue him, I got ambushed by his bodyguards, who are his children, if you didn't know that already."
"We do"
Maitho nodded. "I would like to say I barely made it out of there alive. But somehow, I think they wanted me to live."
"You escaped them on your own?"
Epona snorted in derision. Maitho looked to his left and saw the short-haired woman look back him with amusement in her eyes. For whatever reason, she did not believe that one man could have escaped the Cray family, which further proved the theory that each individual seated on the table were only alive because a crazy old man, and his two adopted psychotic children. had decided they were valuable alive. The important question is; why?
"Do you have transcripts for the sounds you use as language? Or should I guess what you are saying?"
Epona placed her chin on her hands and smiled mockingly. "Mynd yer ain business you dozy cunt."
Her Scottish accent was more pronounced than her teammates and her voice was toneless. But none of those traits explained her level of animosity. For that matter, nothing justified the degree of antagonism that two complete strangers were showing Maitho. He looked at Brigid and noticed her studying him. There was no help coming from that side.
"This isn't just my own business Epona. This is about all of us."
"Na. This is aboot whit ye kin tell us aboot Jonathan Cray, which is ferr bare-bones, 'n' us fuckin' aff efter ye give us th' info."
The table was silent for a brief moment. Bevan cleared his throat, attempting to be the mediator that he was. "She doesn't talk because most people don't understand her easi-"
"What I do know is minimal. Bare-bones, as you put it," said Maitho, cutting Bevan midway through his explanation. "But it seems to me the three of you together are no more prepared than I am."
"What if we are?" asked Brigid, rising to join the conflict.
"That's why you need a fourth member?"
"Only Bevan did."
"And yet here you are after I asked you all to return."
A few tense seconds passed. No one wanted to say anything, perhaps for fear of appearing submissive and docile. Maitho inhaled breath through his mouth, pumped his cheeks out, and exhaled noticeably. Not only did he wanted to remove some of the tension in his body, but he wanted to show that he was making a visible attempt to maintain the peace.
"Your aggressiveness is probably not meant for me," said Maitho. "So don't vent out on me. I am not target practice. If we can agree to join hands only to dispel this threat, then that can be the only thing we can agree on."
The Celtic god descendants looked at each other, perhaps for some kind of silent voting process. But when Maitho looked closely, it was as though two members of the team were looking at their leader for the final word. He wasn't sure what Brigid had done to command such respect, but it looked like whatever reservations the other two had, they would not oppose her.
Finally, Brigid looked back at Maitho. "What if you are working for Cray?"
"You approached me."
Epona smiled. "'n' that is yer reason?"
"Shut up Epona."
The woman looked liked she was slapped hard across the face. Bevan's eyes seemed to bulge out of his sockets and Brigid's jaws were clenched tight in repressed fury. Maitho had been part of situations such as the one he was in many times before. For many, it might seem as though conflict avoidance is the right path to choose. It is far better to fan the flames than stoke its intensity, lest everyone within its vicinity receive the burns of its reach. But in reality, the more one appears compliant, the more free reign they give others to cross certain boundaries that shouldn't be stepped over. Perhaps the team of three did not mean any ill will. Maybe they were just spooked. And so was Maitho. But he wasn't about to let them walk all over him.
"Whit th' fuck did ye juist say?"
"I said, shut up Epona."
The short-haired woman threw aside the napkin hiding her hunting knife and grabbed the weapon. Maitho prepared for her attack. Either one of them would be badly hurt while the other received minor injuries or both of them would manage to inflict damage on each other. But Maitho thought it was far better than just accepting blows helplessly.
"That's enough."
The words escaped Brigid's mouth a little louder than her regular tone of voice. But the effect was instantaneous. Epona looked at her leader, her raw anger evaporating instantly. It was like popping a balloon with a pin, only this time, Epona's wrath was the balloon and Brigid's words was the pin. The violence simply blinked out of existence and Epona visibly calmed down. She placed her knife on the table, not bothering to cover it.
Brigid turned to Maitho. "You are not going to talk to me or my team like that ever again, or so help me."
"We have a deal if you are going to maintain the same decorum as I am supposed to. In all honesty, I already am keeping things respectful."
Brigid pursed her lips, looking pensively. Finally, she gave a curt nod, which Maitho returned. He wasn't going to get a verbal confirmation from her, since Brigid's pride as a leader was too strong. But he would settle for what he got instead.
"Let's start over again," said Maitho, hoping that he sounded as conversational as he wanted to be. "You guys first."
Perhaps each person sitting at the table realized that prolonged conflict is a directionless affair. Maybe they did not want to deal with a maniacal old man with questionable intents and start a conflict with potential allies at the same time. Or maybe they had no more steam left in them, their pent-up tension having found an outlet for release. Whatever the cause, they were eager to cut a path straight to the topic at hand.
Brigid opened the discussion. "It happened last month. We each get a target to save and a three month time limit to complete our objective. But for some reason, all three of us were asked to save the same person."
"Jonathan Cray," said Maitho.
"Indeed. We should have suspected something, but we have been in this situation for a little over a year and we still don't know what is normal and what isn't."
"He seemed to know everything about us," said Bevan, who had adopted a distraught look. Maitho did not know if the Scot's expression was because of the gravity of the situation or because of the fact that despite his best attempts and intentions, three people on the table refused to get along with each other.
"We initially suspected Charon, but he explained to us that he had no idea what was going on," said Brigid. She noticed the muffin on the table, opened the wrapper to reveal an untouched part of the cup-shaped sweet bread, and removed a small portion.
"What else did Charon say?" said Maitho.
"Nothing of importance, save for the fact that he asked us to seek you out."
"Is that how you know so much about me?"
Brigid nodded. "Initially, we were against the idea of a fourth person joining our team. We are not looking for replacements. But Bevan here convinced us that an additional member would help us greatly."
"Wait. Replacement?"
Brigid stopped chewing her muffin. Bevan looked even more distraught, as though that was even possible. Epona grit her teeth as she focused on the table. Maitho thought that he saw her eyes glisten, but she looked away before he could confirm his observations. He realized he had touched a sore spot and wanted to shift the focus on the conversation. Despite how the three people in front of him had approached him this evening, he wasn't going to dredge up wounds.
"Tell me how you found me."
There was raw emotion in the air. Whatever the team of three had experienced, it must have been difficult. From the way the word "replacement" was used and the team's reaction to his question, Maitho could only guess that there might have been four red-haired Scots saving people across the city. Whatever happened to the fourth member of the team was a topic of taboo.
After what seemed like a brief period of silence, which almost seemed like a sign of respect for a fellow team member not part of the group, Brigid spoke. "We initially searched for you in the local directory. There is no listing of a Maitho Oruba there. And so we did the only logical thing we could do. We waited at the Cray mansion."
"You were there tonight?"
"If yer wondering how come we didnae save ye, then it's fur we barely made it oan time. As soon as ah arrived, a clocked ye running towards yer motor," said Epona. "Nae that we wid hae saved ye."
"So you arrived when I was leaving. Did you notice anything out of the ordinary?"
"Nothing. I was in a car nearby," said Bevan. "We started following you immediately."
Maitho pinched his eyes. He could feel the beginnings of a migraine slowly spreading through his head. "Hold on." A thought seem to flit around in his mind. He wanted to catch it, but it was like grabbing a fish bare-handed in a fast-flowing stream of water. When the thought pushed its way into his consciousness, it was like a firework, flashing its message so bright and reverberating in his mind so loud that it drowned out the other thoughts. "You said Charon told you to look for me. After tonight, I am ready to believe that there are many others like me. Am I right or am I the first one like us you three have seen?"
A look of understanding passed between the three. Maitho immediately caught it and this time, he was not about to hold back from pressing for more answers.
"I am guessing from the looks you are giving each other that you know of others like me."
Brigid looked at Maitho. "There are. We found five."424Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3ClnCilBHc
