Last Call at the Nightshade Lounge (6 page)

The Nightshade Lounge, as might be expected, looked different during the day. For one thing, it was way too bright. The lights that were on during evening shift made the furniture look dark brown; the sun made them gleam almost purple and showed exactly how chipped and scarred everything was. The walls looked farther away from one another and the ceiling seemed higher. Seeing it like this—clean, empty, smelling more like Pine-Sol than bargoer sweat—Bailey felt a pang of preemptive nostalgia. She was fond of the Nightshade. It really wasn’t
that
bad a place to work.

Then she caught sight of the closed bathroom door. Okay, mostly not a bad place.

Three bartenders stood behind the counter. They weren’t wearing black robes, but they looked like judges anyway. A large burgundy flag hung behind them, with the cup-shaped logo of the interlocked
C
s stitched in glinting gold thread. On the right was a wiry black woman whose bald scalp gleamed. On the left was a lumpy man whose shape and coloring reminded Bailey of a pile of mashed potatoes. Standing between them was Zane’s uncle and the lounge’s owner, Garrett Whelan.

Garrett was even smaller than Bailey, and Bailey was pretty small. (Her college friends called her a midget; she preferred
waifish
, or, when she’d had a few beers and was trying to chat up some beef-brained econ major,
fun-sized
.) The way she remembered Garrett, his
energy was as outsize as his body was petite. He didn’t walk so much as bounce, moving with the noodle-limbed energy of a depression-era cartoon. His slicked-back hair was gray, but only just; in another year or two, it’d be full-on white. His mustache was a shade darker and curled up at the corners like a hairy smile. Growing up, Bailey had seen Garrett forever parked behind the Nightshade’s counter—because when Zane was your best friend, playdates involved reading comics by a jukebox while slurping down free Shirley Temples—but now he mostly left the bar to Zane.

Bailey wasn’t sure whether the circumstances called for her to be overtly cheerful or just coolly friendly, but she hazarded a wave either way. Garrett gave her a generous nod.

“Miss Chen. A pleasure, as always.”

Bailey smiled. Garrett wasn’t her uncle, but he’d always been generous with the soda gun. Plus he had let her take a job at the Nightshade with no questions asked. (Well, besides “When can you start?”)

“Haven’t seen you around here much these days!” she said.

“Idle hands, Ms. Chen.” Garrett clucked his tongue and shook his head. “There’s little for me to do around here with young Zane at the helm. I’m occupied with establishing enterprises elsewhere.”

“Enterprises,” Bailey repeated. “Like a new bar?”

“Garrett, if you don’t mind.” The bald woman interrupted, her voice clear, high, and ever so slightly annoyed. “Let’s begin.”

Garrett took a shot glass that bore the same double-
C
symbol and banged it on the counter like a gavel. “I call to order this convention of the Chicago chapter of the Cupbearers Court,” he said to his audience of four. “
Bibo ergo sum
.”

“
Bibo ergo sum
,” everyone except Bailey replied.

“The members of the Tribunal will identify themselves for the record,” Garrett continued.

“Standing for the South Side, Ida Jane Worth,” said the woman.

“Standing for the West Side, Oleg Petrovich Kozlovsky,” said the lumpy man with a clipped accent.

“Standing for the North Side, Garrett Duncan Whelan,” said Zane’s uncle. He turned to Bailey. “And we of course are familiar, but if you would kindly oblige the Court?”

“Oh, right,” Bailey said. “Um, Bailey Chen. No middle name.”

He nodded. “And keeping the Court record for this session is …”

Zane raised his hand, which was holding his phone. “Got it.”

A frown creased Garrett’s already wrinkled brow. “Zane.”

“Come on,” Zane said. “I type way faster than I write. You can’t even read my handwriting. Plus this way we can keep the records digitally, instead of cramming up another file cabinet down in the—”

“Zane.” Garrett’s said firmly. “The humble pen and paper have sufficed since the days of the
Annals of Clonmacnoise
. And if it was good enough for Conall Mac Eochagáin to translate the record of intoxicating effects of aqua vitae on an Irish chieftain—”

“It’s good enough to do the same way for six hundred damn years,” Zane muttered.

“What’s that?”

“Nothing,” Zane said more loudly, fishing a small notebook out of his pants pocket. “Ready when you are.”

“Excellent. Now that my amanuensis has ceased his truculence, we can begin.”

Garrett turned to Bailey. “Young Ms. Chen, it has been brought to our attention that you’ve had an encounter with a specimen of the extraplanar abomination that our vernacular has designated ‘tremens.’ Would you consider this an accurate summation of the events as they occurred?”

“Um.” It took Bailey a second to parse his meaning. “I would.” Despite her not quite clean jeans and hastily combed hair, she found
herself speaking more properly than usual. Only a night ago she’d been cleaning scuzz out of this place’s darkest corners, but as an ad hoc courthouse the bar suddenly felt as if it commanded her respect.

“Zane, were your dexterous fingers equal to the task of transcription?” Garrett said.

“Yeah, yeah,” said Zane, flipping to a fresh page. “Got it.”

Garrett nodded. “Very well then,” he said, pleased. “We’ll consider the matter concluded and move on to the administration of your oblivinum.”

Concluded?
“Actually, um.” Bailey raised her hand but then lowered it. She wasn’t in class. “What about the part where I killed the … it?”

Everyone stared.

“Yeah.” Zane looked up and set down his pencil stub. Bailey could see that, indeed, his handwriting was just as terrible as it had been in third grade. “Uncle Garrett, you left out the part where she punched the tremens into demon dregs.”

Garrett blinked. “Is this true, Ms. Chen?”

“I … yeah,” Bailey said. “I killed it, and I’m pretty sure there was another one with it, but it was too scared to come near me. Or something.”

“Impossible,” Kozlovsky boomed.

“Tremens move independently,” Worth said crisply. “The energy they produce is like a magnetic field—powerfully repellent. They simply can’t band together, least of all after feeding.” She smiled kindly over the edge of the bar, as if Bailey were a kindergartner holding up a finger painting for approval. Bailey blushed.

Okay, so she had been bragging. But even postgraduation, she couldn’t squash her innate need for hard work and recognition. “Underpromise and overdeliver”: that was her motto. She wanted everyone listening—the Tribunal, Zane’s friends, Zane himself—to know exactly how awesome it had been. How awesome
she’d
been.
For the first time since leaving school, she’d managed to succeed at something that wasn’t slicing limes or scrubbing barf.
Of course
, she thought,
I finally do something cool out of college, and it’s got nothing to do with my major
.

“And just how,” Garrett said slowly, “did you manage, as my dear nephew so colorfully put it, to punch it into demon dregs?”

“I made a cocktail,” Bailey said. “I thought that’s how this whole thing worked.”

The room went dead still.

“Impossible,” Kozlovsky repeated. He leaned over to Worth and spoke in what he must’ve thought was a whisper. “There is no way.”

“Not impossible.” Worth was regarding Bailey with interest. “Just talent.”

Talent
. The word sent a warm wave of pride down Bailey’s spine. Zane wasn’t looking up, but he smiled to himself as he scribbled out a few last flourishes.

“I’m afraid this simply cannot be true.” Garrett fiddled with an empty shot glass, his composure seeming to dissolve. “She’s never—she hasn’t—”

“It’s totally true.” Zane said. “All due respect, Uncle Garrett, but you know I know better than to leave a fully loaded screwdriver just lying around the bar. Bailey mixed that up herself. First try: nailed the proportions. She’s a natural.”

“Well,” Garrett blustered, “well. I suppose that
does
change things, but—”

“Change things?” said Zane. “Dude—I mean, Uncle Garrett—she threw together a perfect screwdriver without even—”

“What proof?” Kozlovsky said. “What proof that she did?”

“Hey …”

Bailey’s small voice couldn’t cut through the rising chatter. If there was one thing she hated, it was being talked over.

“Hey!”

Everyone shut up and stared at her. Again.

“If you need me to prove it, I’ll do it again,” Bailey said.

She straightened, a distinct, uncomfortable pride burgeoning in her chest. She was no show-off, but when she did a good job, she wanted her A+, dammit. And if she literally and figuratively kicked ass at bartending, she wanted them to know it.

After a pause Garrett spread his hands agreeably. “I merely wished to expedite proceedings, my dear.”

“Yeah, sure.” Zane rolled his eyes and made a show of shaking out his writing hand, but Garrett continued smoothly.

“You remain a dear and old friend of the Whelan family, and I thought it a kindness, considering the harrowing nature of your experience. But if you wish to … reenact your feat of the other night—”

“Make her!” said Kozlovsky. “See what the little one can do!”

“Do you want to try, Bailey?” Worth said.

Bailey thought for only half a second. “Yes. I mean, yes, please. Um, thank you.” She nodded at the bar. “I’ll need, um, some supplies.”

The bartenders quickly assembled the necessary ingredients for the screwdriver. With shaking fingers, Bailey repeated her motions of the night before: enough vodka to set the ice cracking lightly, a glug and a half of orange juice to the rim, a quick stir. Miraculously, the drink began to glow.

“
Prosit!
” Kozlovsky beamed, his eyes wide. “This,” he said slowly, “is why I drink vodka.”

He offered her a meaty hand, which Bailey shook awkwardly, crushed in his grip.

“Yes, very impressive, young lady,” said Worth.

“Impressive indeed,” Garrett said briskly. “But we must proceed.”

Garrett turned to Worth and offered up the shot glass he’d been using as a gavel, and Worth began dripping ingredients into
it: something clear, something brown, a bunch of somethings that smelled sharp, noxious, and herbal by turns.

“Now what?” Bailey whispered to Zane. “I sign some kind of NDA and I’m scot-free?”

Zane’s mouth twisted. “Not exactly. An NDA’s just a piece of paper. And if the Court sues you for breaking it, all the magic stuff goes into the public record.”

“Oh.” It seemed sensible enough—Chicago had enough violence without people flinging around fireballs and ice beams or whatever—but something still wasn’t sitting right. “So how do you keep people quiet, then?”

“Oblivinum.” He said the word like it tasted bad.

“Obli-what?”

Zane nodded to where the Tribunal stood. After a final eyedropper’s worth of something pungent and cinnamony, Worth tapped the side of the little glass, which obediently glowed a bright purple, and slid the completed shot across the counter.

“Ms. Chen, this drink will reduce the last twenty-four hours of your life to a haze,” she said. “After you drink it, you will lose consciousness.”

“We’ll bring you home, though,” Zane said. “Don’t worry.”

“Yes,” Worth said. “And once you wake up, that will be that. No worse for the wear other than a terrible hangover.”

Bailey’s stomach flipped. “Do I have to?” she said at last, her voice irritatingly small. “What if I just promise not to tell?”

“I empathize with your trepidation, Ms. Chen,” Garrett said, “but I’m afraid that all civilians must take the oblivinum.”

“Civilians?”

“Nonbartenders,” said Garrett. “Of course, those initiated don’t require modified recollection—”

“Until you retire,” Zane said. “Then even Uncle Garrett will have to drink it.”

Garrett’s mustache twitched. “Ah, retirement. The changing of the guard. Can’t be trusted to wield power once I’ve gone gray and fusty, and the memories of all things demonic and magical must therefore be expunged.” He gave a short, cold laugh. “But yes, unless you are a bartender, you must. It would be an honor to have you as my forebear in this particular regard. I invite you to, please, drink.”

Bailey froze. Losing memories wasn’t exactly untraveled territory. She’d done practically the exact same thing many a night in college; only this time she wouldn’t have a pair of puke-splattered shoes or cute but hung-over Dan, the TA, in her bed to corroborate her patchwork recollections. And yet, when she tried to take a step toward the bar, her feet felt glued in place.

“Oblivinum and its magical effects were first attested to by the Dionysian cults of ancient Greece when mixing white wines with salt, vetch flour, sweet clover, and spikenard,” Zane said. “Naturally, they didn’t leave us an exact recipe. And that particular formulation had the unfortunate side effect of sending drinkers into a murderous frenzy. So today we use a complex but essentially harmless combination of low-alcohol distilled fruit wines to much the same effect.” He pushed his glasses up his nose. “
And
it tastes like licorice. Or so I’ve heard.”

If Zane was trying to make her feel better, it was only half working. Bailey smiled but still didn’t move.

“She doesn’t require a history lesson, Zane,” Garrett said. “Just let her drink.” He closed his eyes. “ ‘Wine goes in, secrets go out.’ Babylonian Talmud.”

Bailey gave Zane an “is he for real?” look, but Zane didn’t seem to notice.

“Bailey.” Zane’s shoulders were slumped and his eyes shone with regret. “It was nice to share the truth with you, if only for a couple hours.”

“Yeah,” she said, “it was.”

“Let’s still hang out when you’re back to, uh, normal.”

“Yeah,” Bailey said. “Normal.”

She’d always liked normal. Normal was everything she’d ever wanted: steady paycheck, cute one-bedroom apartment, cream-colored business cards that she could use for networking or winning free lunches. But here, now, compared to everything she’d just heard and said,
normal
sounded … 
boring
.