A Swirl Of Pride

Chapter 1

One

Being a Glutton demon had its perks. Most of them weren’t very noteworthy but the biggest one was the unique ability to eat all types of sin. Most days, I didn't have a preference and went along with whatever Lana served me in her restaurant. But ever since we started planning our Halloween party, I had a real craving for pride.

I glanced over my phone at the human I'd been following. A slender woman with a large purse and long grey coat weaved through the busy streets of London, acting as inconspicuous as possible. To the human eye, she was doing a great job. But to a demon like me, her bright yellow aura was a beacon that I couldn't ignore.

She bumped into a man with a foldable map, presumably a tourist, and while she apologised, her hands slipped into his pocket to pull out his wallet. The yellow in her aura intensified even more as she continued on, leaving the man clueless about what just happened.

I licked my lips at the prospect of eating and harvesting that tasty, tasty sin. While vanity was the easiest form of pride to harvest, I really liked this type of lawlessness. Not every type of theft elicited pride but when they did it for sport or fun, thinking they were above the law, that made it taste even better.

My stomach rumbled as I kept following the thief. She bumped into a woman with a stroller and an elderly gentleman eating a pastry, never hesitating much to relieve them from their wallets. With every successful pickpocket, she grew more and more smug, which added a bounce to her step. A little bit of green coloured her aura, a manifestation of her greed, but that wasn't what I was after. It was that sense of believing she was better than them and that she deserved to take whatever she wanted, that truly gave her pride that salty flavour I loved so much.

As soon as she turned the corner, she pulled the money out of the wallets and discarded the empty vessels into a bin. Without batting an eye, she continued on to the end of the street where she handed most of the bills to a beggar with a small puppy. He thanked her profusely, unaware of how she acquired the cash, and wished her a blessed day.

The thief smiled and kept on going, scanning people for easy wallets, only letting her gaze wander to admire herself in the windows of the shops.

If she'd paid more attention to her surroundings, she'd have noticed me following her around but demons were by nature unnoticeable to humans. While she continued on, the pride in her aura kept growing. I could follow her around all day but right about now, there was enough to harvest.

I reached into my handbag for my empty sandwich bag, pulling it open so it was ready to deposit the pride into it. I sped up a little, weaving through the crowd to catch up with the thief. There were a lot of people around with some demons scattered through the mix, but nobody was paying any attention to me. Everyone was too busy with their own lives, which was handy for me.

Excited that I found such a great target today, I caught up to the thief and brushed my little pride rake through her aura. Delicate yellow curls came away and cascaded into my plastic bag, coiling up together. A little bit of greed peeled away as well but I wasn’t worried. It was almost impossible to harvest pure pride so I was used to separating the sins later on.

"Hey, lady!" A man approached me from the shadows. "That's my lunch."

I gestured to my bag of pride. "This?"

The other demon nodded. "Yes. I've been following her for three streets."

"I've been following her for five streets," I argued back, tightening my grip on the bag. "You know the rules, first come first serve. Plus, I harvested it."

The guy growled. "Give it to me."

"I don't think so."

"Give."

"Or what?" I put the bag in my purse and zipped it up. "Next time, make sure the person you're following hasn't already got a demon on their shoulder."

With a scoff, I walked away from the other demon. While it wasn't an uncommon occurrence in a busy city like this to run into someone else trying to harvest from the same person, it didn't usually lead to disputes. But to come about a demon I didn't know... that was much rarer.

Maybe he was a new spawnling that wasn't familiar with harvesting etiquette yet. Maybe... but he didn't feel like he was fresh out of Hell

I glanced backwards, but the guy was already gone.

With a shrug, I continued on by the river. The deep water was murky in colour, which was to be expected in a human city, but I still liked it. I followed the path until the Forked Tail came into sight around the corner. The rustic restaurant looked inviting and cosy as always, with the wood beams and large glass windows adding to the look of the building. It was no surprise that I'd been eating here for years.

But today, I wasn't going in as a customer. Instead, I made my way around the back to the service entrance. The door to the kitchen was propped open to let some of the heat out and even before I entered, I could hear the clattering of pans and pots. The lunch shift was almost over so they were probably cleaning up and starting the mise-en-place for the evening.

"Hello?" I called in as I entered the hot kitchen. The rubber soles of my shoes squeaked on the white stone floor. Not the most comfortable feeling in the world but I learned my lesson when I almost slipped two weeks ago.

The chef scrubbing the stove looked up when he heard me and nodded amicably. "Hey, Demi. Are you looking for the owner?"

I nodded as I hung up my light coat with the other jackets in the corner. "I am. Is she here?”

"Some more decorations arrived so she was bringing them to the party room," he said, gesturing to the back of the restaurant.

"Thanks, Trevor." Whistling a soft tune, I exited the kitchen and made my way over to the entrance of the party space. The double glass doors were open so I stepped right in, making sure to wipe my feet on the doormat so I didn't dirty the beautiful wooden floor.

"Hello?" I called in, scanning the cluttered room. We’d been collecting materials for the upcoming party for weeks. There was a tower of unfolded tables still waiting to be set-up, towers of crates of beer that needed to be put into the fridges, and a stack of unopened cardboard boxes.

"Over here," Lana's voice sounded from behind the stack.

"What are you doing?" I questioned, smothering a chuckle as she popped up with white feathers all over her. "My, my, having some fun with an angel?"

She scoffed as she plucked some feathers off her sweater. "As if. No, one of the bags was open and all the bloody feathers are going everywhere."

"That's annoying." I peeked into the box, which was filled with bags of little feathers. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting to see, they looked exactly like I thought.

"Yeah. I already called the company but I can't get through their automated system. This is what I get for ordering from a human business." She kicked one of the boxes. "Angelfucker!"

"Woah, woah." I gently steered her away from the boxes and directed her to the new bar in the corner. "You're unusually angry."

"I'm just stressed. The party is next week and they only delivered half of the feathers we ordered. Our stamps haven't arrived yet, none of our plastic cups are here. And the printer is charging us some kind of extra premium fee for the posters, whatever that means," she ranted, growing progressively angrier and angrier. "Why is this so hard? I've been running a restaurant for decades, successfully. But this is just, just, oh I could murder an angel."

"And this is why I'm the party planner." I put her on one of the high chairs and grabbed a bottle of vodka and some glasses from behind the bar. "Here, have a drink."

Lana calmed down slightly as she reached for the bottle. The clear liquid glugged as she took a large swig and released a satisfied noise. "Much better."

"Want to tell me why you're really upset?"

The other woman tensed. "It's nothing. I just got a letter that an inspector is coming to check out the restaurant.”

I drummed my fingers on the wooden surface of the bar. "I thought we didn't have to adhere to human laws."

"No no.” Lana took another big swig and put the bottle down with a thud. “A demon inspection."

"What? For what? What about? When? Why? What?"

"I’m not sure, I thought I filled out all the forms last time for our demon-human event but they say I ticked the wrong thing and we fall under a different code and blablabla.”

I was new to the restaurant business so I didn’t know much about this kind of thing but even I knew that wasn’t good.

Lana sighed as she let her fingers dance through the ray of sunlight falling in through the large windows. “We need a new permit and to make matters worse, the inspector is coming in three days."

"Three days? But that's right before Halloween,” I counted. “That’s such short notice.”

"Yes, knowing them, they’re probably trying to get as many inspections in to hit their quota for the quarter. It’s inconvenient but no use in complaining, they’ll come whether we want to or not. And if we don't pass, no party."

"Blazes. So what do we have to do to pass the inspection?"

"I'm not sure. I've messaged someone I know but they haven't gotten back to me yet. Like we didn't have enough on our plate yet." She took another drink from the bottle of vodka and passed it back to me. With a frustrated grunt, Lana kicked one of the cardboard boxes, causing the tower to collapse and feathers to explode from the open bag. "Noooo," she exclaimed dramatically. "Why is everything going wrong today?"

A wave of affection for the other woman and her misery washed over me. I made my way around the bar and gently patted her on the head. "There, there. Why don't you call it for today and take a scalding hot bath or something else relaxing that reminds you of Hell."

“I can’t relax, I’m the owner, I have to deal with this.”

“And you will. But you’re not going to accomplish anything in this…” I pointed to her entire body. “State.”

“Fine.” She grabbed the vodka bottle from me and took another big swig of the clear liquor. "I have to clean this up first—"

"I'll take care of it. Decorations are part of my duties anyway so go and soak. Find out what we need to do to pass the inspection so we can do it."

A grateful smile played on Lana's lips. "Thank you. I knew I made the right decision bringing you onboard. The Forked Tail is lucky to have you."

"And the Unforked Tail," I teased, gesturing around at the event space where we were holding our Halloween party for the humans.

"And the Unforked Tail," she said, shaking her head.

She blew me a kiss on her way out, leaving me with a bed of white feathers on the floor. It would be a pain to gather them all but Lana had enough on her plate. Especially with the inspection coming up and the new menu. I didn't know much about running a restaurant so the lion share of making sure we passed would fall on her shoulders.

I grabbed the broom in the corner and swept all the feathers in a pile, trying not to get frustrated as they kept fluttering away. If the supplier had delivered the amount we ordered, I wouldn't have bothered to save these but with only half of our desired quantity, we needed every feather for the party. I supposed I could find an angel and pluck them but that would probably start a celestial battle and that was just not the kind of negative press we wanted right now.