(Dianne) Fox Writes

The coffee shop was small and worn, like many of the customers. Keir was neither, though he made an effort to seem like he was. He wore a decades-old t-shirt he’d found at a thrift shop with worn jeans, baggy enough to hide his tail. A brown leather bomber jacket, quite possibly older than Keir himself, was draped over the back of his chair.

He was supposed to be reading the newspaper, but really he was just skimming the headlines. Another politician making a fool of himself, another war half the world away that everyone was talking about but no one would do anything to stop, it was always the same.

He wasn’t sure why he bothered to buy the damn thing anymore. He wasn’t sure why he’d thought the human world would be different. He wondered the same thing every day, but he was there like clockwork, every morning at ten, picking up a newspaper and a coffee, chatting with the barista and the cashier.

The barista was a pretty girl half his age, with long, copper-red hair that reminded him of home. The cashier was older, maybe even older than Keir, with a sly smile and knowing eyes. The cashier watched Keir when he thought Keir wasn’t looking, but Keir was always looking enough to notice that kind of attention.

The cashier wasn’t the only one who paid him attention, either. He could feel the eyes on him. All the men who trickled in and out of the coffee shop looked at him like that at one time or another. It wasn’t their fault; they couldn’t help themselves. He didn’t mean to do it, though. It was just spillover. Being an incubus had its disadvantages.

There were more eyes on him when a tall redhead walked in. The man looked at Keir immediately, as though he didn’t see anyone else in the room. Maybe he didn’t. He headed straight for Keir’s table, not even bothering to stop at the counter for a drink.

Keir didn’t look up, but he could see past his newspaper that the man’s shoulders were oddly shaped beneath the ill-fitting trench coat. When the redhead sat down at his table, uninvited, Keir finally looked up. The redhead’s eyes were a familiar deep, dark blue.

“Your mother calls.”

Keir was silent for a long moment, trying to control his shock. To mask it, he flicked his newspaper over, so he could see the man in front of him.

“Christophe?” Christophe had been a child the last time Keir had seen him, barely fifteen years old: a scrawny red-haired boy with wings too big for his body. Wings he was hiding now, under that coat.

“Your mother calls, Keir. It’s time to come home.” Christophe used to follow him around like an adoring shadow. He didn’t seem adoring now, just distant. Maybe angry.

“What does she want?” Keir asked. He hadn’t seen or heard from his mother in four years. “I’m outcast, now.”

“You did that to yourself,” Christophe reminded him. “I don’t know why she’s calling you home, only that she is. I do not question my queen.”

I do not question my queen. It was the answer of a royal guardsman, who’d sworn his life to serve the family. “You’ve grown up, Christophe.”

Christophe gave Keir an unfriendly look. “Have you?”