Last Call at the Nightshade Lounge (29 page)

“Ooh, I love it,” Sorensen said. “What are you supposed to be? A magician?”

“I’m not a
magician
,” Zane said with a flare of annoyance. “I’m Tuxedo—never mind. What’re you doing here?”

“Uh, I’m kinda busy owning this place, Houdini.” Sorensen gave Bailey a conspiratorial “get a load of
this
idiot” wink, but she
was too flustered to respond.

“Sorry, Mr. S—Bowie,” said Zane. “But I was talking to Bailey.”

She couldn’t be seductive. She couldn’t be honest. So she’d have to go nuclear—an enthusiastic, eager combination of Bowie and Jess.

“Zane Whelan?”
Bailey squealed with every ounce of ebullience she could fake. “What are
you
doing here? It’s been
so
long!”

Now Zane was the one to shoot Sorensen a look. “You—you know exactly why I’m here, Bailey.”

“Uh, why would I know that?” she bubbled. “I haven’t seen you in four years! You don’t even read my blog anymore,” she added, sounding hurt.

“Bailey,” Zane said, “you’re totally lying. And you don’t have a blog.”

“Bowie,” Bailey said, making sure to punch up his name, “does Zane work for you now?” Her eyes widened theatrically. “Oh,
right
. Of course he does. His uncle Garrett is your business partner.” She smiled up at Zane. “Bowie here is going to show me the on-site distillery. Have you seen it? You should come along! If that’s okay,” she added with a quick glance at Sorensen.

Sorensen didn’t appear to know what to make of Zane, but he nodded anyway. “Oh, uh, sure. The more the merrier?”

Zane seemed to realize this wasn’t an argument he could win, and he smiled tightly. “Lead the way, Bowie.”

Sorensen did just that, and as he walked over to the elevator button, Zane darted to Bailey’s side. “What the hell are you doing here?” he hissed.

“Going to a party,” she said airily. “Should I not be here? Because I can’t remember any reason why I shouldn’t be.”

Zane’s smile slipped. “If anyone from the Court sees you, you’re going to have a lot of explaining to do.”

Secretly glad for the chance to act brave, Bailey scoffed. “I can
take them.”

Zane goggled. “You made a cocktail.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“But you drank something before you came here.”

Bailey shrugged.

“Jesus, Bailey.” Zane shook his head so hard his mask slid down his nose. She saw he’d taped it to his glasses. “Do you have any idea how dangerous it is for you to be here?”

“Nope,” she said, “and neither do you. Wait.” She paused. “I mean, you don’t know how dangerous it is for
you
to be here. Or me, I guess. But either way we’re going to see.”

“See what? A bunch of distilling equipment? Because that’s all that’s up there. I guarantee it.”

“Sure.” Bailey shrugged. “If you’re right and nothing’s going on, then I’ll just get a nice tour. And if I’m right—”

“Elevator!”

Sorensen pointed at the sliding doors with all the enthusiasm of a toddler who’d just learned a new word, and Bailey marched right to him.

The ride was short, but long on awkwardness. Sorensen was blissfully unaware.

“So you two know each other? Went to high school together, right?” he said.

“Yup,” she and Zane chorused.

Sorensen grinned and tapped his temple. “I’ve always had a keen detective mind. Given your relative ages, it was the only explanation that made sense.” His eyes lit up with a secondary realization, and he snapped his fingers. “And you two have totally done it, haven’t you?”

She and Zane exchanged sidelong glances.

“I was gone—” said Bailey.

“—have a girlfriend,” muttered Zane.

“Oh,” said Sorensen. “That’s too bad. You should try it sometime. Or maybe you shouldn’t. I don’t really know. I haven’t banged either of you.” The elevator lurched to a stop. “Here we are!”

As the doors opened wide, so did Bailey’s eyes.

The space was huge. The mezzanine between the top two levels had been gutted, leaving a two-story loft with shining dark window walls. Catwalks hung from a distant ceiling, illuminated by powerful industrial lights. The steel stills in Sorensen’s daydreams had been giant, but they were tiny compared to these. The machinery was industrial grade, and it was loud. The air sagged from sheer noise, a tinny churning of stills at work.

Zane looked just as thunderstruck. “Holy shit,” he whispered as they stepped off the elevator. “I knew they were up here, but I—I didn’t
know
know, you know?”

Bailey ran the numbers but quickly gave up. The setup was impossible. There was no way the city would’ve signed off on radically refurbishing two floors of the most prominent building in the Chicago skyline. No way that even Sorensen’s formidable fortune could’ve covered the entire pricetag. And there was definitely no way any of this was sustainable. Even if Apex did brisk business every hour of every day, profits would never exceed operating costs.

But, she supposed, this place was never supposed to run forever. It was all created to make just one drink.

She struggled to keep up her forced innocence. “Bowie,” she said, “how did you and Garrett make this happen? It’s just so, ah, breathtaking,” she added quickly.

Sorensen swiveled and struck a proud pose. “Bailey, other guy—I’m going to let you in on my greatest secret because it’s the answer to your question: I don’t know.” His expertly bleached teeth gleamed under the factory lights. “The truth is, I’m always guided by my instincts. Even if decisions don’t make sense, I make them anyway. They’ve never steered me wrong. And the more impossibly
I dream, the more possible things become.”

Once again Bailey and Zane looked at each other, as if to make sure they had heard the same thing. They had. And both agreed that Sorensen was nuts.

“Did Garrett help you … dream this?” Bailey said slowly.

“Yes,” said a voice that was decidedly not Bowen Sorensen the Third’s. “At the risk of self-aggrandizement, I would determine that my contributions were instrumental.”

Garrett Whelan hadn’t bothered to dress up for Halloween, but still he looked different.
Triumphant
. And as far as Bailey could see, it was because he was holding a tall glass with a lemon wheel perched on its edge, a glass containing a soft amber liquid, almost the color of black tea.

Zane swayed. “Uncle Garrett?”

“Zane. I assume Ms. Chen’s presence stands testament to the failure of your fortitude. But no matter.” He smiled. “I hope you find the following scrap of arcane trivia educational. What is the sole part of the distilling process that can’t be hastened?”

“Aging,” Zane said faintly.

“Excellent.” Garrett politely clapped against the glass. “Much as with raising children, a useful result can be achieved only with patience. Fortunately, unlike you, I have experience in that domain.”

“But none of the liquors in the Long Island are aged,” Zane said. “Even the rum—”

“That is where you err, nephew. I was meticulous in my methods. We all know the unpleasant effects that slapdash stilling can have.” Bailey’s chest tightened as she thought of Vincent.

Garrett’s lips twisted and he paused. “I tried white rum, and Brazilian cachaça, and overproof rum—everything. I’m no fool. I know what the recipe calls for. But in this case, as in most of life, older is better.

“Dark rum, not light. The conventional recipe, like you, Zane,
was errant. I was forced to bide my time as a fresh, pure batch came through the pipeline, as it were. I had to wait longer still as the rum aged in charred barrels. But by my calculations, the time has come, and in approximately”—he shook a watch from his sleeve—“twenty minutes—”

Bailey had no time to think either. She shot out her hand and her old fashioned—powered telekinesis followed suit. Garrett’s glass wavered, toppled, and tumbled to the floor, shattering.

“Party foul!”
Sorensen said, throwing his arms in the air, delighted.

The others stared. A moment ago the Long Island iced tea had been a dose of aged rum away from glowing and, presumably, granting immortality. Now it was just a dark stain on a concrete floor, garnished with glass shards and a lemon slice.

Looking disappointed but perhaps not surprised that no one joined in on his joke, Sorensen retreated and slapped Garrett heartily on the back.

“Hey, don’t sweat it, old pal. What were you drinking? We’ll get one of the bartenders to—”

“An old fashioned.” Garrett looked up, not at Sorensen but, with cold anger, at Bailey.

“Done,” Sorensen said. “I’ll—”

“Not for me, you imbecile,” Garrett snapped. “The girl. She’s had one.”

“You’re done, Garrett,” Bailey said.

Still in shock, Zane managed to glance between Bailey, his uncle, and the broken glass. “Bailey—you—” he croaked. “That was it.”

“Sorry,” Sorensen said, “but I feel like things have just gotten
crazy
intense here. What’s—”

“Shut up, Bowen,” Garrett said. “Ms. Chen. I assume, given your financial situation, that a cab from Ravenswood would’ve cost an exorbitant amount, rendering you at the mercy of the Chicago
Transit Authority. Assuming further that you came here immediately, which I imagine you didn’t, I would posit that you have less than ten minutes left of psionic potency.”

Bailey said nothing. Technically he was wrong, but he was still right. In fact, thanks to her small body mass and lack of fat, she probably had even less time than that. Already she felt the magical warmth cooling around the edges. “Ten minutes is more than enough to stop you.”

Garrett nodded. “I can’t dispute the veracity of your contention,” he said. “So instead, I proffer this counterquery: is it sufficient time to stop
her
?”

“Stop wh—”

A blunt object clocked Bailey on the back of the head. She reeled forward, her vision filled with cascading stars. She tried to marshal her psychic powers and catch her fall, but someone caught her first: Zane. The red lining of his cape flared around them as he pushed her upright. His face was pale. Two feet away a figure with bowed head crouched like a tiger, wearing not a costume but a bartender’s outfit: black McNee’s T-shirt and white towel tucked in a belt. Bailey didn’t need to see the face to know that Mona and her thick-soled boots had been the one to kick her down.

“Babe?” Zane said weakly. “What are you—”

But before he could finish, he and Bailey were under attack.

Mona bounded forward, but Zane was rooted where he stood. Fortunately, Bailey’s mind was already in high gear.

“Move, you dapper idiot!”
She shoved him aside and gave Mona’s bootlaces a telekinetic yank, but it wasn’t enough to topple her. She rolled forward and, with a low sweep of her leg, aimed a kick that Bailey barely jumped over.

With everything she had, Bailey pushed back. This time Mona slammed into one of the four giant stills; a metallic clang rang through the loft like a cathedral bell.

Garrett was already receding into the darkness. Bailey tore after him.

“Bowie, get the other bartenders up here!” she yelled. “I’ll explain later!”

“But—”

“Go!”

Garrett had disappeared. From the quick rattle of footsteps, it sounded as if he’d taken to the catwalk. With shaking hands, Bailey snapped open her purse, gestured, and lauched her projectile—a billiard ball swiped from the abandoned Long & Strong, where she’d fixed her old fashioned. But Bailey’s mind was too frazzled to keep the ball on target, and it caromed off one of the catwalk’s rails.

“Bailey!”

She had barely caught the ball before Zane tackled her to the
ground. A whip of water lashed out where they’d stood, and Mona, who’d surrounded each of her arms with a long liquid tendril, wound back for another strike.

“Come on!” Bailey scrambled to her feet, pulling Zane behind a still as a second lash cracked from Mona’s arm.

“What the everloving
fuck
.” Zane was breathing hard. “What the hell is she doing?”

“I don’t know,” Bailey said.

“This can’t be happening,” he said. “I saw it. The Long Island iced tea. But … Garrett—Mona—she wouldn’t—”

“Newsflash, Zane. It can and she did.” Bailey poked her head out in time to see Mona shoot a shard of ice toward them like a glittering arrow. Mentally she swatted it away. “Do you want to keep sitting here and saying it isn’t?”

“I’m going through a lot here, okay?”
he said. “My uncle and my girlfriend are trying to, I don’t know, kill us. Why would they even—”

“Because I was right.” Bailey dumped her purse and sent another pool ball—the sixteen—careening off the metal fixtures crisscrossing the huge open space, distracting Mona until Bailey could track down Garrett. “Your uncle’s taking over, and he’s bringing people down with him. First Vincent, then us. If he gets that drink, this place will be swarming with tremens.” She was practically shouting over the clang of flying icicles hitting the stills and the roar of the machinery. “The Long Island will pull them here, and the drunk people downstairs will be a buffet. There aren’t enough bartenders to stop them. And your uncle, the man who made this all happen, will be un-fucking-touchable.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah.” Bailey sensed the sixteen ball wobble. “I’ve only got a few minutes left in me. Get downstairs. Make sure Sorensen evacuates the place. I guess I can hold them off—”

“Mona and Garrett? They’re two of the best bartenders in Chicago.”

“And what would you do about it if you were here?” Bailey snapped. “You’re sober, which is synonymous with
useless
, so if you want to help, come back with something in your system. I’ll cover you.”

And then, for good measure, she kissed him.

Zane blinked when she pulled away. “Bailey?” he said. “What the hell was that?”

She smiled bittersweetly. “That was for me. Go.”

He nodded.

She nodded back.

Then together they surged out from behind the still.

Icy hail flew at them from every direction. Bailey ducked, gesturing at their point of origin, and her six remaining billiard balls zoomed in that direction. Instantly her temples throbbed. Controlling multiple flight paths felt like her brain was juggling pieces of itself.