Last Call at the Nightshade Lounge (11 page)

He waved her off. “Ernie,” he called, “you don’t see anything, right?”

Ernie, now spread across three chairs, rolled over and scratched himself.

“See?” said Zane. “We’re fine. Now grab your coat. Or hell”—he gestured toward the back room—“I’ll get it for you.”

Her coat reeled into the room as if on an invisible fishing line, depositing itself neatly over her shoulders.

“Trina!” Zane called.

“Scrubbing,” Trina said from the bathroom.

“You said it was a pretty quiet night, right?”

Trina poked out her head. “Yup.”

“Congratulations,” Zane said. “You’re promoted back to bartender!”

“Thank God,” Trina said.

“You’re welcome.” Zane gave her a thumbs-up. “Can you handle the post-closing-time patrol? I’ll do one final sweep now, but—”

“
We
will,” Bailey said firmly. “I’m ready.”

The old fashioned glass floated away from Zane’s lips, and he frowned.

“What?”

“Put me in, boss,” she said with more bravado than she felt. “Let me take my first smoke break.”

THE DEVIL’S WATER DICTIONARY.
The Old Fashioned

A potable to lend physicality to the will of the mind

1
. Drop a sugar cube into an old fashioned glass and let dissolve in a little water
.

2
. Add four dashes of Angostura bitters
.

3
. Pour in two ounces of rye
.

4
. Stir well with a bar spoon
.

5
. Add an orange twist and one very large piece of ice. Serve
.

T
he old fashioned is the premier whiskey cocktail. Its telekinetic properties make it incomparably versatile; a creative bartender can make use of its effects in offensive or defensive contexts and even beyond patrols, particularly in situations concerning high shelves.

The modern old fashioned was codified at the first National Symposium of the Cupbearers Court in 1852. Although this status has previously invited a cultural pushback, young generations of bartenders quickly found principles to be far less practical than moving things with one’s mind.

R
YE
W
HISKEY
.

American whiskey, which is made with a mash of at least 51 percent rye, was rediscovered in 1790, toward the beginning of the Great Hangover. Credit goes to Joshua Cromley, a Virginia distiller who, while drunkenly attempting to drive off a census taker, accidentally made his own horse explode.
Rye whiskey soon became the preeminent weapon of the fledgling country’s defense against the unnatural. Subsequent rediscoveries gradually taught modern man how to temper the liquor’s raw power and, in doing so, saved the lives of countless horses.

A
NGOSTURA
B
ITTERS
.

Special preparations of botanically infused alcohol and water, bitters act as a lens to “refract” energy. Angostura bitters in particular were rediscovered in the 1820s by Johann Gottlieb Benjamin Siegert, a German doctor in Venezuela. Working from fragments of an old text, the doctor thought he had merely invented a new kind of medicine that tasted extremely good. It wasn’t until ten years later, when the concoction was displayed in England, that a bartender properly attributed Siegert’s discovery to the mixological arts.

O
RANGE
T
WIST
.

Fruit garnishes are inherently the freshest part of a finished cocktail. The matter of the old fashioned’s garnish was settled at the first National Symposium in 1852. The legendary Hortense LaRue, then merely an amateur bartender who had bluffed her way inside, bested all comers by presenting an old fashioned garnished with an orange peel. When the proponents of the lemon and the cherry protested that she must have cheated, and that as a woman she had no place at the court anyway, LaRue responded by mentally seizing the two objectors and juggling them for nearly a quarter of an hour.

The mean streets of Ravenswood were hardly mean, but Bailey had never felt more wary of them. Damen was quiet, the lights of the Hibachi restaurant and the insurance company and even the place that sold Italian beef sandwiches all dark for the night. Cars passed, but not many, and when they got to the broad intersection of Lawrence, they crossed under the glare of a red light.

“Are you sure you want to do this, Bailey?” Zane walked purposefully, but he still seemed a little nervous when his gaze fell on her.

“I’m sure,” Bailey said, imitating his patrol-swagger walk as best she could. “Why? Are you scared?”

Zane hesitated for only a half second. “No.”

“Okay.” Bailey nodded crisply. “So teach me.”

Zane blew out a breath. “Right. So a bar’s typical patrol radius is six blocks in every direction. It’s big, but the zones overlap. Better to have too many bartenders prowling than not enough. So Nightshade territory goes—”

“North to Foster, west to Clark, south to Montrose, and west to … Western.”

Zane blinked. “Right. I forgot you have the home turf advantage here.”

Bailey shrugged. “I can find my way around just fine. What I
don’t
know how to do is hunt.”

“It’s not hunting,” he said. “But okay. Uh, look for busted lights.” He pointed to a neon nail salon sign that flickered between dead and near dead. “Tremens love shadows.”

“I thought tremens were sensitive only to sunlight,” she said.

“They are,” said Zane. “But they also take advantage of darkness. They know how bad our night vision is. Dark helps them get behind you.”

“So why don’t we all just carry flashlights?” Bailey said, hugging herself. Not that she was scared, because she wasn’t. Home turf advantage, after all. “We could send them out with census forms or something.”

“The Court tries to keep on top of writing to the city to get more lights installed,” Zane said. “All under the guise of concerned citizens, of course. But—”

“But at the end of the day,” Bailey finished for him, “we’re still in Chicago.”

“You’re goddamn right we are. Inefficient, recalcitrant, and glorious.”

Zane kept walking, but Bailey had stopped on the corner of Ainslie, then she took a sharp right down the side street.

“Uh, Bailey? Where are you going?”

“If tremens hate light, we’re not doing any good staying out here,” she said, gesturing toward the streetlight bathing them in an unflattering industrial orange. “So let’s go where it’s dark.”

Zane hesitated but followed.

“What else should I be looking for?” Now Bailey was the one walking with purpose. Maybe it was the alcohol pumping in her veins, but she was itching to fight something. Learn the ropes. Kick ass. Although she wished she had something to take notes with.

“Well,” Zane said, “hedges with loose branches. Alleyways with debris they could use as shelters. Ectoplasm.”

“Really?”

“No,” Zane admitted. “Here, look.”

They cut up Winchester, checking under cars and in the alcoves of apartment buildings. But nothing was there. They didn’t see a single living thing—if tremens counted as living—until they hit Winona, where a cab casually rolled through the stop sign.

“Those are important, too.” Zane nodded at the taillights.

“The cabbies?”

“The people,” he said. “Don’t get so focused on hunting prey that you leave innocents unprotected.”

The wind whistled down Winona, and again Bailey shivered. “Is it always this boring?” she said.
Thank you, whiskey
. “I mean, sorry.”

But Zane seemed unmiffed. “No, I get you. The grind can get dull: making a drink, getting magic powers, using them to punch tremens until they explode …”

“But that’s not dull at all.”

“No,” Zane said with a grin. “It totally isn’t. But it’s still a routine.”

“Ugh.” She puffed out a pouty sigh. “I guess I thought this whole patrol business would be more, I don’t know, superhero-y.”

“You mean, you come out dressed for battle, something snarly and homicidal obliges you and shows up, and you summarily kick its ass?” He laughed. “Not so much. In this case, it’s really to your benefit to go looking for trouble.”

“Right.”

“Mona swears she can sense them. A disturbance in the Force or something. She gets so determined about that stuff. I love it.”

Bailey stiffened at the
L
word.

“Anyway, I told her—”

“
So
,” Bailey said before she could stop herself, “you and Mona, huh?” She gave a cursory glance under the bed of a white pickup.

“Yup.” Zane gave a little sigh as he peered down a narrow alley. “Me and she, she and me. Jury’s still out on what our celebrity-couple
name will be. I’m thinking Zona because otherwise it’d be Mane and—”

“How’d that, um, happen?” Bailey interrupted.
Just be chill. Casual. Absorb all this information and make it as normal as possible
. “She doesn’t seem like your type.”

“I have a type?”

“Well, sure.”
Five foot nothing, Chinese American, a little drunk on experimental old fashioneds
 … When Zane frowned a little, she back-pedaled. “Okay, not really. But I see the way you are now …”

“Hmm.” It wasn’t agreement or disagreement, just acknowledgment. “She kind of came out of nowhere, honestly. I was out in Humboldt Park one night, catching up with a guy I know who’s stationed out there—at a bar, I mean. Cantina La Estrella? Makes a killer margarita.” Bailey shook her head, and Zane kept on. “Anyway, she was working a shift with Hector. He went out to patrol, and things got busy back on the home front.”

Bailey blushed but then realized that he really meant
at the bar
. “So you jumped behind the bar and helped out?”

Zane did a palms-up. “I tried. You should’ve seen her. She didn’t need my help. Shaking, stirring, salting rims. She’s really good, Bailey. Almost superhuman.”

Bailey gave a noncommittal
mmm
.

“And then, when I saw her fight for the first time …” He heaved a contented, faintly visible sigh into the chilly air. “I gotta tell you, Bailey, she might be the best bartender I’ve ever seen. Better than Garrett in his prime.”