Author's Note: I don't know why I decided to write a bunch of silly stories about Satan, but I did. It's been pretty fun. This is basically just something I've been scribbling into MS Word for the past few months off and on to deal with the quarantine blues. It's a 2020 social distancing adventure! Social distance with Satan! And a very strange coffee shop.

Uh... I guess content warning if mentions of the pandemic bother you because this story takes place during it. Part of the premise being that if you can't be around other humans, supernatural creatures are your next best option. Basically it's similar to all of those jokes about summoning a demon to keep you company during the pandemic.

I have 5 or 6 chapters of this so far. I'll try to post one once a week. After that, I'll just post them as I write them.

Yes, these are the same characters and universe from my "Christmas Letters to Satan" story.

"The Devil Went Down to Starbucks"

a.k.a "The First Rule of Angel Club"

a.k.a. "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Murder Hornets"

Chapter 1: A New Appreciation for Rear Window

Greendale Heights wasn't the most bustling part of town during the day, let alone at night when people in the quiet suburban neighborhood all seemed to be home with the lights out by ten. It was a nice place to live, albeit a fairly boring one. Modest houses on cul-de-sacs, a few spruced up old strip malls, a main road with lights, benches, and a sort of mid-century-middle-America charm in spite of all the very modern people with their very modern conveniences.

Given that it was a neighborhood consisting mostly of single-family homes, apartments were scarce. The only exception was the slightly rundown looking area over by the train tracks. It was the kind of place young and potentially-but-not-yet upwardly mobile professionals from elsewhere lived and commuted to work in places teeming with jobs in businesses that hadn't been owned by the same families for fifty years. The rent was cheap. The streets were clean. And it was convenient enough that one could spend whole days at a time in the nearby city and never have to deal with the tedium of living on the outskirts of a town that looked like it could be on a 1950's greeting card.

But it wasn't the 1950's. It was 2020, and for the past month, the normally sleepy town seemed like it had actually been completely asleep. No one left their homes. Businesses were all shuttered. Everyone was inside trying their best to ride out the worst of the pandemic, and that meant there was usually chilling lack of life in the world outside.

So, it was all the more unusual when, one rainy night at 3 a.m., Rebecca Bailey trudged over to close her bedroom window so she could finally turn in for the night, only to spot the lights on in a shop across the way. A fledgling journalist, Bailey had been up long into the night working on an article she planned to read over a couple more times in the morning before submitting it for review. She was a lightly tan woman around thirty or so with chestnut brown hair and bright green eyes. Half asleep and still dressed in her beat-up flannel shirt and jeans, she stumbled over to the cheap mattress pad on the floor of her one-room apartment and kicked it over to the window so she could look out at the goings-on below.

It was pouring rain, but she could make out that the lights were on at the small coffee shop across the way. It wasn't a standalone unit but part of a row of attached stores, all the rest of which were closed up for the night. It had a battered blue wooden sign in the front proudly sporting the name "Bringer Brews" in faded gold letters. Bailey had been in the shop a time or two when she had first moved into her second story apartment in the old building. She had remembered the coffee being good, but the place had lacked atmosphere. It looked like it hadn't been updated since the 80's. Bright red plastic-topped steel tables with matching chairs, a counter top that looked like something out of a diner from the 50's, and a circle of oversized chairs and a couch that looked like the owner of the place had hastily thrown together something to imitate Friends back when it had first come on TV.

It wasn't a place anyone ever really seemed to hang out at, leaving Bailey to often wonder how it managed to stay open all these years given that it was apparently older than she was. There only seemed to be one person ever working there, a woman with long black hair who Bailey guessed was probably in her late 30s. But now, at three in the morning on a Wednesday, the shop was lit up inside, though the neon "Open" sign was still off, leading Bailey to believe that perhaps the shop owner was entertaining some company privately.

Which still just seemed weird.

Sometimes she wondered if her newfound pandemic work-from-home lifestyle was turning her into Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window, but it wasn't like she had anything better to do. She turned off the lights to her drab half-moved-in-half-in-boxes studio and knelt on the disheveled mattress to get a better view of the people in the coffee shop. Looked like two men and one woman, the shopkeeper herself nowhere in view. It took Bailey a moment, but she recognized one of the people. He was a young black man of average height, probably also in his 30s. Short hair, round almost boyish face, clean shaven, muscular build, cute from the right angles but aloof whenever Bailey had run into him on her way home from work. He was one of the few people she had seen go in and out of the coffee shop on multiple occasions. She'd seen him through the window sitting at the counter stools and talking to the owner.

The other two people, she didn't recognize. One was a tall white woman with freckles and loosely curled red hair down to her waist. She looked like she could have been a model, though her fashion sense was drab and almost Puritan-looking. A heavy black skirt went down to her ankles while her top was completely covered by a long-sleeved white shirt that buttoned all the way up to her throat. Bailey was certain the woman couldn't be comfortable in it. The man beside her was dressed similarly, though he was wearing black pants rather than a skirt. He was even taller than she was and had long-ish blonde hair that barely touched his shoulders and a neatly trimmed beard to match. There was something almost rugged about him despite his modest dress, and Bailey thought he was very attractive. Almost looked like a Viking. She wondered idly if he and the woman were a couple.

Bailey flopped backwards onto her mattress, her head hitting the pillow as her back landed on the case with her wireless earbuds.
"Damn," she muttered, grabbing it out from underneath herself and setting it on the wood floor beside her with her tablet. She briefly considered watching a video or something to help her get to sleep, though she just wasn't in the mood for it that night.

As she listened to the sounds of the heavy rain, she found her mind wandering back to the people at the old coffee shop across the way. It didn't look like a drug deal given that the lights were all on and it was easy to see everyone through the transparent storefront. If they were friends, it was still an odd place to meet up at that hour of the night. A writer by profession, her mind was always coming up with bizarre and fanciful ideas about the mundane. She couldn't help it. It was just how she was wired.

But as far as her theories about the coffee shop went, nothing really made sense if she thought too hard about it so Bailey decided to just assume they were members of some strange witch coven or something. The thought amused her, and she pondered on it for a while longer before falling into a dead sleep. She was exhausted.

Bailey called in sick to work the next day. She figured between the nearly eighteen hours she had spent on the article combined with not getting to bed until three, she had done more than enough for her publisher for a couple of days. Besides, she had gotten the article in on time and it wasn't like she had ever really missed work before. After a little more sleep, she woke up again and rolled off the mattress feeling like she had been hit by a truck. Apparently, all of those hours the day before sitting on the floor hunched over a laptop on a makeshift table made from a cardboard box hadn't been the best thing in the world for her back. She stretched and showered and then threw on some jeans and a flannel shirt before leaving her apartment and going down the stairs to get outside.

It was a dreary humid morning with an unpleasant chill in the air, some of that chill that sometimes lingered into April. Bailey hugged her flannel tight around herself as she walked down the street, wishing she had thought to check her weather app beforehand and bring a coat. She figured it would be all right though because she didn't plan to be outside long.

It was well past what would have been the morning rush before the world had closed down. She knew she probably shouldn't have gone in anywhere, but she was going stir-crazy just being in her house all the time. She figured it probably wouldn't hurt to pop into one of the nearby places and get breakfast to go since some places were at least still open in that capacity. Maybe she could justify it by telling herself she was supporting local business or something.

Of course, the strange meeting at the coffee shop was still on her mind, and though she knew she was being ridiculous, Bailey decided to head over there and get a bite to eat or at the very least a hot cup of coffee to get the chill out of her bones. Bringer Brews wasn't much to look at, but at least it was always clean and had pretty good coffee. Plus, the world was just so strange these days that very few things could be considered truly ridiculous anymore.

As Bailey entered the shop, a bell rang, and she looked up to notice that there was an actual bell tied to the door. Stepping through the entryway really did feel like going back in time. What with the scuffed-up linoleum floor that was trying to look like red and black tiles and the bright red tables, it reminded Bailey of what some places had looked like back in the early 90s when she had been a small child. The place smelled like a mixture of coffee and the way newspapers had smelled almost thirty years ago. There was something soothing about it all, and she found herself wondering why she hadn't frequented this place more often in the year she had been living in the building just across the street. Going back in time had a hell of a lot of appeal these days.

She was just about to take a seat at the counter and put in a to-go order when she noticed she wasn't the only patron there. One of the people from the night before, the young black man she had recognized from around town, was seated at the counter as well, hunched over his coffee and talking with the waitress in hushed tones. They both went quiet as soon as Bailey came over and took a seat down on the far end from where he was seated. The waitress took one look at her and, rather than taking her order, turned and walked into the back. The woman had actually seemed surprised that she had a customer.

Bailey suddenly felt very awkward as she sat there on her stool, wondering what that had been all about. Her thoughts were starting to shift from thinking this was some sort of cool witch cult to seriously wondering if she had just walked into a place that was a front for some kind of money laundering scheme.

"Don't mind her," the man at the counter said with a pleasant laugh as he looked over to Bailey. "She makes a damn fine cup of coffee but her customer service skills are severely lacking sometimes."

"No, it's okay," Bailey said, still feeling a little awkward. "I'm sorry if I interrupted whatever conversation you were in the middle of."

The man just waved away her concern. "It's totally fine. It wasn't anything important. Just talking about everything going on in the news. I'm Mike, by the way."

He held out a hand to her, and Bailey shook it.

"Bailey. Well... Rebecca. But I just go by Bailey."

"Bailey it is then," he said with a genuinely warm grin. Then he turned to looked behind the counter and called out with a good-natured laugh. "Hey it's okay, get out here. She doesn't bite."

"I'm coming. I'm coming," the waitress said with her annoyance barely hidden. She looked over at Bailey. "Sorry about that. Long night. Can I get you anything?"

The waitress was a lightly olive-toned woman of about average height. She was actually fairly attractive up close, even if she looked a little harried at the moment. She had a red apron on over a red sweater and black jeans. Her long black hair that stretched down to her waist was pinned back in an almost careless manner, and her square-framed glasses made her eyes look even bigger than they already were. And they were certainly striking eyes. Amber gold. Almost unnaturally so. Like a wolf. Bailey's writer brain lingered for a moment on the unusual description. Perhaps the month-long deprivation of social contact was getting to her so far and she was living far too deep in her own head these days, but she decided that the waitress definitely had eyes like a wolf and made a mental note to add the words "werewolf coffee shop" story to her brainstorming journal later.

Now that Bailey was thinking about it, all four of the people she had seen at this place since the night before had been incredibly good looking, even Wolf Eyes herself.

"I'll just take a medium coffee," Bailey said. "Milk, no sugar."

The waitress smirked a bit. "This isn't Starbucks, kid. We've only got one size of coffee."

"Then I'll take that one I guess."

"Good choice." She turned and pointed to the pot of coffee and stack of cups on the counter behind her. "Go get it."

Bailey stared at the waitress expectantly until she realized that she was serious.

"You want me to go back there and get the coffee myself?" Bailey asked, much to the annoyance of Wolf Eyes.

"What do I look like? Your servant?"

Bailey was about to reply that she looked like a server and that customers generally didn't go behind the counter and pour their own drinks, but she decided not to argue. She just got up, walked behind the counter, and grabbed a Styrofoam cup and took one of the coffee pots off of its heater and poured some coffee for herself.. She then put it back on the heater with a steamy bubbling hiss that filled the air with an even more intense scent of the fresh brewed coffee. Then she poured some milk into it, put a lid on it, and walked back to her seat.

"Dollar-fifty," the waitress said.

Bailey looked over to the old manual cash register and figured that was a good sign they probably didn't accept Apple Pay. Then again, the place didn't even seem to have a credit card reader. Thankfully she had two dollars in the pocket of her jeans, which she pulled out and set on the counter.

"Keep the change," she said as she watched Wolf Eyes bypass the cash register and pocket the cash.

"Thanks."

As the woman left, Bailey sipped her coffee and turned to a stack of newspapers at the end of the counter. She picked one up and pulled it closer, figuring maybe she'd read the paper for what was probably the first time in the past decade. She was so used to getting the news on her phone now. It only took a quick glance the cover story though to make her realize why the waitress and Mike had been speaking in such hushed tones about it. For the first time in weeks, the headline wasn't dominated by news of the pandemic or economic shutdown. Apparently, a body had been found. Deep in the woods of the local nature preserve.

It was the body of a young man, probably one of the local college-age kids, and it had been defaced with occult symbols carved into the flesh. Bailey thought she was going to be sick as she looked at the graphic imagery in the newspaper photos. Though they had covered up the worst of it, her mind was still putting a pretty horrific picture together based on the words of the article combined with the images they did show.

"It's all very unfortunate," Wolf Eyes said, her back turned to her patrons.

"They're saying it's the work of Satanic cultists," Mike said, looking over at Bailey.

With everything going on so far this year, Bailey had all but forgotten about the incident similar to this one that had happened back in January. Her heart skipped a beat as she kept reading and saw that the preliminary medical examination found that the time of death had likely been around two in the morning. Now she was really hoping that whatever the late-night meeting in this shop had been, that it had just been some money laundering scandal. The witch cult idea suddenly seemed a lot less cool.

"It's bizarre," Bailey said, suddenly unwilling to look up at the man in front of her. "Just really bizarre. Kind of thing that would turn a small town like this on its head given most people here have known each other forever."

"Kind of thing that will cast suspicion on any of the rest of us who didn't grow up here," Mike said, his voice deeper and grim.

"I don't know why these idiots think 'Satan' wants human sacrifices," the waitress huffed as she began sweeping up behind the counter. "Like there aren't enough damned souls in Hell. What does he need another one for?"

"Actually," Bailey said, wondering if she should just shut her mouth and get out of the shop right then, "Most Satanists don't really believe in Satan. I mean, I'm sure some of them do but… I've written about it. They like the idea of Satan as a free-thinking archetype rather than the Christian Boogey-man."

The waitress glared at Bailey looking like she had just been slapped across the face.

"Did you really just try to explain Satanism to—"

Mike suddenly reached out and grabbed one of the waitress's hands. It seemed to calm her down, at least momentarily, because she no longer looked like she wanted to deck Bailey across the face.

"I'm sorry," Bailey said, not sure if she had just insulted a couple of Satanists or if maybe the waitress had been really Christian or something and didn't appreciate anyone referring to the Devil so flippantly. "I didn't mean to offend. I've just interviewed some people from a couple of the Satanic churches over in the city. No one seemed to be a real believer, but I guess I can see how not all Satanists are cut from the same cloth."

She had no idea what she was saying anymore. Alarm bells were going off in her head. Between seeing Mike and the two strange people in this building around the time the murder had taken place, the waitress's supposed "long night," and now her reaction, Bailey was starting to get a really bad feeling about these people.

"No," Mike said suddenly, releasing the waitress's hand. "We apologize. It's a disturbing piece of news, and you are right about most Satanists. She's just had a few run-ins with some less pleasant ones over the years."

"I'm not a fan," the woman said flatly, pouring a cup of coffee that was, presumably, for herself.

"We knew the victim," Mike said. "We got a call last night very late that the police had gone to investigate a commotion in the woods and found him at what looked like some kind of ceremonial site."

"He was still alive," the waitress said. "Still alive for ten minutes when they found him." She shook her head tiredly. "Distant relation, but I was the next of kin and apparently the emergency contact in his phone."

Bailey suddenly fell a knot forming in her stomach. She just felt awful now for coming up with all sorts of crazy ideas and speculating about these people for her own amusement the night before. Witch cults, money laundering, werewolf coffee houses, all of her ridiculous fantasy scenarios… it had just been some poor woman getting a call that someone in her family had died. Mike and the others had probably come by to comfort her.

"I'm so sorry for your loss," Bailey said, at a loss for any less clichéd words. Hallmark didn't make cards for the families of victims of ritual sacrifice.

"It wasn't that big of a deal," the woman replied, taking a long sip of her own coffee. For all that she claimed it wasn't a big deal, she still looked kind of shaken by it. "Just a distant cousin I barely knew."

Bailey had a feeling that wasn't the case if he had her saved as the emergency contact in his phone, but she didn't say anything. She was already feeling pretty bad about her earlier suspicions.

"Are you still serving breakfast?" she asked.

"All day," the woman replied. "We don't exactly do lunch or dinner."

"Bacon and eggs?"

"I'll fire up the grill." She turned and did just that before heading to the back to get her utensils. She probably hadn't expected to get any more customers that day and had shut it down early. Bailey once again wondered how this place stayed in business.

"I know I've seen you around here before," Bailey said, turning to Mike. "I live nearby."

Mike nodded. It seemed all he had was an empty coffee cup and half of a buttered roll left. "I'm here a lot."

"The coffee is surprisingly good." Bailey wasn't sure what else to say, and the coffee truly was incredible, which made it all the more surprising that even before the pandemic this place never seemed to have any customers. Then again, she still felt like there was something off about these people, even if she couldn't quite put her finger on it.

Mike laughed and shook his head before gesturing to where the waitress had disappeared to. "The coffee is good, but I mostly hang out here to see her. People around here are kind of close knit and not too fond of outsiders, especially now. She and I are kind of from the same neighborhood so she's just more comfortable to be around than most people."

"Ah, I see. Well, I really am sorry if I'm intruding. I'm just going to take my order to go anyway. You know, social distancing and all that." Bailey was pretty sure she wasn't supposed to be in there and sitting at the counter at all, though the place was so empty she figured there probably wasn't much harm in it.

Mike nodded, looking like it had slipped his mind for a bit and he was only just now being reminded of the pandemic orders.

"I'm actually kind of surprised this place is still open," Bailey continued. "But I guess if it can do takeout, then that makes sense."

Mike just looked at her curiously. "I'm actually not sure why Cici is keeping this place open."

The waitress came out of the kitchen, glaring at him from behind.

"Don't go calling me by your stupid nickname around the customer."

She seemed to quickly brush it off though and got to work on the bacon and eggs for Bailey.

"What does 'C. C.' stand for?" Bailey asked, finding her social filter was a bit more worn down than she had realized. Though, after having been as lonely as she had been the past few weeks, it made sense that she'd want to talk as much as she could to the first people she saw.

"It's not initials," the waitress said, quickening her pace like she wanted to get Bailey out of there as soon as possible.

Bailey decided not to inquire further. She just sat on her stool and drank her coffee as she looked around the outdated coffee shop. While normally she would have found a place like this rundown and off-putting, there was something strangely comforting about it right now. It was like an escape to a simpler time, a sheltered haven from the nightmare that was the present. And despite how run down she assumed it would be, it was actually in pretty good shape and meticulously clean. Between the smell of the fresh coffee and the old-timey décor, there was something about the place that just made Bailey feel peaceful and safe.

Of course, she would probably feel even better if Cici hadn't been so standoffish. The waitress put a Styrofoam container on the counter in front of Bailey.

"Here's your to-go order."

"Oh, thanks." Bailey slipped her a ten-dollar bill and the waitress gave her back the change. "It was nice meeting both of you."

Cici looked skeptical but Mike nodded, smiling.

"It was very nice to meet you, too, Bailey. I hope to see you around again."

Bailey got up and grabbed her food before heading for the door.

"Bye!" she called as she left, leaving Mike and Cici alone once more.

The waitress just glared at the man once Bailey was gone and out of earshot.