The Reaper King

Chapter 2: The Orphanage pt. 2

Taking a deep breath he pushed the doors open and a rush of steam and a medley of cleaning smells assaulted him, blinding him for a few moments before the mess of kitchen aides running around cleaning, mopping, sweeping, and performing various other tasks came into view.

"Damien honey," one of the elder kitchen ladies called out upon seeing him return, "come eat first before you go back to 'em dishes sugar." She paused, taking a leisurely drag from her long ornate pipe while she knitted. She'd been sitting at one of the many simple wooden cafeteria benches that dotted the massive kitchen, while her kitchen aides and many of the nuns ran around attending to their own chores. "Taking out garbage is a tough task even for a little warrior like yourself," she said with a chuckle sizing up the boy's disheveled state. She took another slow drag from her pipe as a few of the older nuns that were sitting around her, sewing new summer uniforms for the orphanage children, cackled in agreement. There in all her glory, smoking her evening pipe and laughing with her kitchen aides sat Ma LaCroix herself.

Damien smiled sheepishly, ducking a few passing head ruffles as he spotted the most heavenly warm plate of sausage and eggs sitting on the dingy lunch table that he'd ever seen. He smirked as he spotted Ma LaCroix's slight, coy smile.

"Hag," he joked with mock frustration. He knew the food was her peace offering for the hours of gossip and joking they had definitely been doing about him before he'd gotten there. Yet still he walked with a warm, wide smile on his face, giving greetings and well wishes to many of the adults in the flowing sea of workers.

"Snooze, ya lose bozo," Ma LaCroix joked with a chuckle, bonking Damien slightly on the head, "now eat your dinner sugar."

"Thank you Ma," Damien said humbly as he tucked into his food.

"No problem in the slightest m'love," she replied with a warm smile.

Ma LaCroix was an entity that had always deeply fascinated Damien.

She was one of the three founding members of the orphanage along with two other men, a vampire catholic priest known as Father Clyde, and a retired Lance Commander of the UWM, Lord Jurovi. The three had been running the orphanage for generations.

Though she came off normally as an unassuming old creole lady, ever since Damien was even a baby he could tell that she was much more. He'd always been able to see the auras of everyone and everything around him, the ones weak enough or close to his age at least, but that wasn't special. Anyone with a soul and at least 2 working brain cells was capable of doing the same by his age. No, there was something else that he couldn't explain that had always sussed him out towards her. Ever since the moment he laid eyes on her.

Damien had never been able to sense even a drop of aura from the old woman.

Originally though, he'd just come to assume that the orphanage leaders, a few of the kitchen aides, nuns, priests and soldiers on campus, were just magicless beings or something. He was certain the lack of aura he felt from them was due to it, at least until a certain day 3 years ago.

His jaw clenched with barely repressed rage as his thoughts finally had time to settle on what had driven Damien to such fury; the event that had immediately drenched even Jessica's own immense wall of anger at Damien's lack of critical survival skills...

***

Ever since the orphanage first opened over 200 years ago, there had been many instances of violence between the orphanage children. Try as hard as the orphanage staff had for centuries to solve this issue, attempts that became too invasive of the children's freedoms either only made the problem much worse or only worked for a few years or so. Inevitably, however, problems would always come back in some way, shape or form. So the staff settled on a set of rules that had proven to be the final form they would take, working absolutely under the threat of a new, final punishment; permanent exile from the orphanage to deal with whatever the outside world had in store for them by themselves, regardless of their age. Essentially, an implied death sentence.