Closing Time

12.

Four days.

They've been at each other's throats for four days in a row.

Mike's cool guy facade cracked on the third day when he slammed a glass against the countertop so hard it broke. Glass flew everywhere, it just barely missed me.

Lou's cool guy facade cracked on the fourth day when he got so furious he blew out a lightbulb. I'd actually screamed in fear when those shards hit my head.

The only good thing that came out of that was the silence. My fear had been audible enough to affect them both, and cause their fight to die after a gruff apology from both. I hid in the supplies closet for a while. I looked for the broom as my excuse. When I finally emerged, the bulb had been fixed and there was no glass on the floor. They hadn't spoken a word to me or each other after that happened.

Kind of thankful for that. It would be harder to explain away an exploded lightbulb over a broken glass.

I watched them quietly as they threw taunts and growled at each other, the heat and cold balanced itself out to the right temperature. The feeling of my chest caving in was becoming familiar now.

My eyes flickered to the door as another customer walked in. Sliding off my stool, I headed away from the hamster ball of global warming and ice age to take their order. Almost all the demons had returned, a few of them had created a bit of a fuss, but I'd shut them down. I'd had to. I can't bear more fighting.

I stayed by the register as I started working on tallying up the bills. "Welcome." I threw out absentmindedly as the bell dinged again.

The month was coming to an end. I'd had quite a run these past few weeks. Added to my salary, plus all the extra tips I'd been raking in with this overtime-not-overtime, I was golden. The owner would be visiting soon. He comes over at the end of every month to hear about what's been going on from the three of us. Usually brings gifts. I always get an expensive bottle of wine, Sasha gets new kitchen tools, Dottie gets a gift voucher or something similar which she can give to her kid. I don't even like wine. Especially since I'm doing my sobriety thing, I tend to keep it at the...

Why's it so quiet?

My hands stilled as that question crossed through my mind. My head rose to check out the reason for it.

New customers, that's nothing new. But they just stood there- three of them, all women. They around the bar with narrowed eyes. The others stared back at them, poker faces on with the mass staring contest going in here.

They are pretty hot... but maybe they don't like these demons.

"Uh, good evening." My voice cut through the tension. "May I take your order?"

All three sets of eyes flickered towards me. Icy blue sets, not black. Surprise crossed through me, my head turned to the side to look at Mike. "Are they angels too?"

"Yes." Was Mike's simple reply.

"Oh, wow." I turned back to face them, smiling a bit. "Hello, I..." My words trailed off as I saw my breath form into mist. Cold. It's cold in here.

I shivered involuntarily as I looked around the bar. Black eyes, black veins, no pupil, no white. The demons were on the edge.

"Trash." The tallest one uttered loud and clear. She was about six feet, a redhead. "Soulless trash."

"All gathered around to drool over this one piece of meat." Another spoke, looked me over. Her blonde bob barely shifted with that movement. It must be hairsprayed to hell. "There's barely enough for two."

Ouch?

"More freaks." One of the demons whispered.

"Y'all just come crawling out of the woodwork each time." Another demon, with a slight country twang. "Like bugs."