Interlude IV
Boston, Massachusetts
Caedren sits by a window in a quaint little coffee shop in the heart of Boston, owned and operated by a human family.
It’s a sour, rainy night, stars blotted out by storm clouds and light pollution.
He’s waiting for two things: his order, and for a specific person of interest to pass on his nightly patrol.
The waitress, the human family’s daughter and still in her teen years, approaches with a tray balanced perfectly on a pale hand.
She offers him an awkward smile as she sets down his chicory coffee and hot croissant, filled with cheese and ham.
His dinner for the evening, before getting to work.
“Here you go, sir,” she says airily, her tone pitched to what he’s heard humans call “the customer service voice.”
“Thank you. Don’t worry about coming back until I leave. I won’t need a refill.”
“Oh! Sure thing.” She leaves him to his order.
He picks up the chicory coffee and takes a slow sip, savoring the bright, herbal notes mixing with the dark, toasted flavor that follows.
Caedren developed his taste for the beverage centuries ago, at a time when he was living in the southern American city of New Orleans.
It’s not often he finds himself where chicory coffee is served anywhere this far north. An unexpected treat.
His watchful eyes are trained on the street outside his window, piercing the night’s darkest corners.
He sees nothing of the man he’s looking for, sets down his coffee, and picks up his croissant.
His fangs catch his tongue as he goes to take a bite.
Fuck. The useless overgrown fangs are his mark of banishment, the Courts’ idea of making an animal of him.
They sicken him; they always have. Longer than a filthy Faeral’s.
A younger Caedren had made a point of starting tavern fights with humans, hoping some drunken fool would knock the damn things out of his mouth or at least chip them down to size, but no such luck.
Eventually he came to accept that they’re magically bound in place.
He grimaces as he tears a piece off the croissant, but then the flavor of the meal kicks in.
The buttery flakiness of the croissant meets the smoky saltiness of the ham and the creamy, melted cheddar cheese.
He hadn’t had high hopes for a coffee shop hot sandwich, but it is quite delicious.
This is what Caedren loves about the human realm.
Such beauties exist under every rock, around every corner.
The world is full of pleasant surprises.
It takes him no time at all to finish his croissant and coffee, leaving him to wait.
Wait and wait again, watching the road. His wallet is in his hand, the fifty-dollar bill prepared for when the man shows.
The waitress did as commanded and never returned to the table; that merits a nicely-sized tip.
There. Someone passes in the corner of his eye.
Inclining his head ever so slightly, he sees the man he’s looking for: a lone Reaper.
A bulky, brown-haired man with pockmarked skin, tall for a human though stout from Caedren’s perspective, walking with purpose.
He puts the bill under the edge of the coffee cup, tucks his wallet away, and leaves the shop, a soft ding! to be heard as he goes. It’s time.
Caedren follows behind the man, careful not to be detected. Waiting. Watching. Looking for his moment. This is the Reaper his contact called “Darwin,” and he’s the perfect match for Caedren’s needs.
Ever since his banishment, Caedren’s tearing has been painfully limited.
Once a day at best. Even beforehand, his tearing was average for a High Lord; it was never something he could do with reckless abandon.
But this Reaper is supposedly a once-in-a-generation prodigy: tearing doesn’t tire him at all.
His contact claimed Darwin had been observed tearing multiple times in a minute, a feat practically unheard of even among High Fae, let alone humans.
As a cherry on top, the Reaper is known for having superior physical strength, far greater than Caedren’s own.
Not that he would be a threat; Caedren’s contact said he was in town for remedial training because he had repeatedly failed in combat tests.
His eyes never leave the Reaper’s back as he takes turns down different streets and alleys.
He’s clearly following a familiar route, on a patrol he must make multiple times daily.
Eventually, though, he turns down a dead-end alley and pauses against the wall, fiddling in his jacket pocket and withdrawing a pack of cigarettes.
Caedren has his window. He leaps to close the distance, quietly landing on his feet.
Darwin slowly turns, raising a brown brow high. “Who the fuck are you?”
“Hello, human Reaper,” he says, ice cold. “I am called Caedren.”
Before Darwin can finish opening his mouth to respond, Caedren draws his dart gun and shoots him with a sedative.
Not the iron suspension he used on the Faeral, which would be harmless to a Reaper, but a Fae drug.
It would likely kill an ordinary human at this dose, but for one with the modified physiology of a Reaper, it’s only enough to non-lethally subdue him.
Darwin tries to draw his blade, but the substance takes effect far too quickly.
Caedren strides forward, unhurried, catching Darwin as he falls.
He strokes his face, unwrinkled despite severe scarring from adolescent blemishes.
Reapers, Caedren has been told, are people whom The Champion finds dead or dying and changes to become some lesser version of herself, extending their lives dramatically and granting them a portion of her magic.
This one must have been on Death’s door at a young age.
This was probably his first interaction with a Fae, Caedren muses.
Fortunately for him, it will also be his last…
or at least the last one he’ll be conscious for.
He should have known to be on his guard.
“Tsk tsk… what is that Champion of yours teaching you nowadays?” With a chuckle to himself, Caedren heaves the other man over his shoulder and tears away with him.
In a moment, he’s inside his home. Grimacing, he drops the heavy man onto his couch and goes to fetch the supplies he needs: a pair of forceps, an eye dropper, and a potion of mind-numbing.
Caedren had a very enlightening conversation with his contact within the Reapers the other day.
As he suspected, Reapers come hard to mind control, but not due to any inherent feature of their psychology.
They are trained in mental shielding, and those shields require some level of conscious effort to maintain, especially for inexperienced Reapers like Darwin.
If he numbs the boy’s mind, he should become far more…
open to suggestion. Which is exactly what Caedren needs.
He goes to his kitchen table, pulling on a pair of thin nitrile gloves, and grabbing the supplies from where he set them out before leaving.
Returning to his captive, he kneels and turns on the end table lamp, then sets up on the coffee table behind him.
He pries open Darwin’s mouth, exposing slightly crooked teeth.
Caedren grasps his tongue with the forceps.
A mental nudge with his magic uncorks the potion bottle with an audible pop.
He fills the eye dropper and, hovering it over the man’s mouth, he squeezes exactly three droplets onto his sublingual mucosa.
He releases the man’s tongue and recorks the potion, then returns the bottle to the kitchen and throws the forceps and dropper into his sink.
“Rise,” he commands, letting his mind meld to Darwin’s. A few moments pass before the Reaper slowly, groggily, stands up off the couch, clearly still impacted by the sedative but compelled to wake by Caedren’s power. The new and improved Darwin turns to look at him, his green eyes glassy.
“What is your command, Master?” he speaks, exactly as Caedren willed it.
The potion is working perfectly. The effects should last two or three days, but Caedren makes a mental note to redose him daily.
After what happened with that Faeral, Caedren refuses to be burned by a lesser being turning out to have some freak metabolism ever again.
As long as he keeps a tight mental leash, Darwin will be entirely under his control.
He’ll just need to take precautions whenever he plans to sleep or is otherwise distracted.
Without his mental control, the effects of the potion would become obvious, not only risking suspicion but potentially allowing someone else to take control of Caedren’s asset.
“Infiltrate the Reapers. Learn where they are keeping the witch Mariam Leaven and the Faeral Sable. They are likely at a Reaper safehouse; you just need to learn which one. I will guide you as to every word you speak. Do not act without me. Return here as soon as you know where they are or after twenty-four hours, whichever comes first. Go, now.”
Darwin bows to him, lowly, like the human he is. And then he tears away, leaving Caedren to his own devices.