The Best Bride

10. DEMON

Hi, Éclair. It's me Nutbrun, sending you a friend request. Add me back soon. Bye.  

I hit send, and placed the phone on charge on the floor and went to sleep.  

I was back in the same hotel room in the Orient Guest House for another night of bed sleep. The room had been in the same state I'd left in the morning; windows open, light turned on and the duvet on the floor, All these signs told no one had come to check in the room, and this just made sleeping here feel secured.  

Amuna gave me the sim card the next morning and helped me insert it in the phone. The sim was full with contacts of people she knew. I deleted them all, keeping only the contacts of people I knew, those included my co-workers only. 

I checked the Saathiplus at lunch. There were several notifications notifying me about the people who had accepted the friend request that I'd sent, but nowhere had it said about Éclair accepting the request. I would have told him to accept it verbally, but that wasn't how I wanted him to find out.  

At nine that night, I checked the mobile again; Éclair had accepted the request at quarter past four this afternoon, and to my delight it was accompanied with a very short message from him;  

Hi. Thanks. Nice profile pic... welcome to Saathiplus by the way! 

The time below the message indicated it was sent at 5:13 PM - nearly one hour after accepting the friend request. It was really unnecessary, but I couldn't help wondering why he would accept the request first and then send message after an hour. Didn't he have time to reply the message while he responded the friend request? Or did his first notion was not to write anything back to me? It had been a busy day in the restaurant, so I hoped the first question would relate to him.  

I typed; hi, nice of you for liking the profile pic. It made me so hap - I stopped in mid-sentence. Suddenly I didn't feel like writing long message. I erased everything I'd typed and only typed thanks for the compliment and sent it away.  

I opened his profile picture, in which he was wearing a white shirt with the picture of skull on it and was smiling showing his beautiful range of white teeth at the camera. I stared at the picture, liking it more the more I stared. Seeing the number of likes on his statuses, he seemed to be very popular among his colleagues. 

*** 

"I see that you're new in Saathiplus." It was the first thing Éclair told me the following day the moment we met. He had a playful look on his face. "I didn't know you hadn't used it before, or had you?"  

"No." 

"What made you use it now?" 

Time to lie. "Everybody is using and talking about it. I didn't want to be a crow in the flock of swan, and so opened an account." 

Éclair leaned toward me from behind the desk and said, "Just be careful, okay? Don't add strangers."  

I already had, although I didn't tell him that. "Thanks for the warning." I looked away from him. An awkward silence followed.  

The fat lady in pink dress and wig entered the restaurant as the first customer of the day, and I strolled up to her. Since Amuna, Maya and Isaac were giving test at college at this hour; it became my duty to attend the customers. Éclair would help only when I couldn't attend all the tables. The fat lady ordered a mug of coffee and toast.  

"' Right away, ma'm," I told her, scribbling down her requests, and then disappeared in the kitchen. 

I didn't get a moment to rest after that. The customers kept coming and going out the restaurant, and I kept running in and out the kitchen. How I wished my co-waiters would come soon. But unfortunately they turned up late than any other days. It was past twelve when they came, and I hadn't eaten anything apart from the morning coffee till then.  

*** 

"The customers are finding hard to recognize our staffs due to lack of dress code," said Éclair during dinner time. "There would be change in the staffs outfit after some days. You'd all be wearing the fixed outfit which would help the customers distinguish you from others." 

Isaac and Amuna cringed behind Éclair's back at this piece of information. I found the announcement quite threatening. For the sake of wings, I couldn't simply wear any outfits, save the dresses with open back.  

"The uniform will be black and white in color," continued Éclair. "I'm sure you'll all love it. The tailor will come to have your measurement tomorrow."  

"This is a very smart decision, Mr. Pancho," said Meghna with an air of appreciating someone. "This will save us from trouble of having to worry about what to wear at the job." 

"And also the uniform will keep us in discipline," added Tris, not looking particularly at anyone. I didn't know why, but I felt like she was targeting this line to someone in our group. To Isaac? Perhaps. I wasn't sure about it. But as far as I'd seen no one had been undisciplined at the job. Probably Tris had problem with someone that I was unaware of long before I came here. 

Our group ate in silence with disapproval painted all over our face. Éclair didn't say anything, although he clearly knew we weren't joyful with his new decision. We all finished our dinner in silence.  

After closing the restaurant, Éclair and I got in the elevator as usual. 

"I know you and your group aren't pleased with the idea of putting on the uniform," said Éclair, gazing at the closed doors. "But I've to do what's best for the business." 

"Yeah, sure, you should," I said, not knowing exactly what would be appropriate words to say at the moment. And then I found them. "You can't please everyone." 

"Nutbrun, you've to understand that you can't wear wings with the uniform, okay?" He went on without waiting for my answer, "They're earning odd looks from customers. Even I'm beginning to take them as silly part of your body." 

I laughed. 

"Did I sound funny?"  

I gave a nod.  

He scowled. "Well, I was serious."  

I zipped my mouth shut. 

The elevator doors opened and we walked out in the parking lot under the starry sky.  

"Business is better than ever," said Éclair, walking down the aisle; passing a few rows of hovercrafts to reach his own; I was following him like a child. "I'm thinking to add few more staffs, you know."  

"Oh, that would be very helpful - yuck! What's this smell?" Suddenly I realized the foul smell wafting in the air. It burnt my nostril.  

"Some bird might be lying dead around he -" 

"Going somewhere?" Someone beckoned us from our back.  

Turning, we saw a figure striding toward us from the doorway. As he came closer, I realized he didn't fit in the description of human. He had two short horns, pointed ears, glinting red eyes and a long hairless tail that ended in an arrow shaped tip. 

Éclair put himself between me and the advancing figure. The smell grew stronger with each step of this mysterious creature, whose skin under his black leather clothes was deep red. There are only few creatures with red skins, and one of those creatures is a demon. 

"Whoa! It's not Halloween yet, man" said Éclair, amused. 

The demon stopped right before us. Without speaking a word, he lifted Éclair off his feet by throat, as though he weighed nothing. He had a menacing look on his red face. 

"You'll kill him!" I yelled, wide-eyed, forgetting the smell however strong it was. "Put him down!" 

The demon didn't. 

I looked up at Éclair's reddening face with increasing fear. He was gasping for air, and his legs were struggling. If the demon didn't let him go in thirty seconds, I was sure Éclair would die. 

The demon grunted. And then like a rag doll, he tossed Éclair off the sixty-story building.