Last Call at the Nightshade Lounge (22 page)

She cocked her head. On the floor, Poppy did the same thing.

“What, you’re surprised I know the scientific method?” Vincent slid a freshly poured beer down the counter to a regular. “Just ’cause I’m a blind donkey working a bar doesn’t mean I don’t remember high school science, kiddo.” He nodded down to his dog. “And thanks for the vote of confidence there, Poppy. Really feeling the love.”

In response, Poppy stood on her hind legs, leaned against him, and energetically licked his hand.

Bailey weighed his words. “So what do you think caused the change, boss?”

“Told you I wasn’t sure.”

“Then hypothesize.”

“You won’t think it’s some crackpot theory?”

She put a firm hand on his shoulder. “I would never.”

“Okay.” Vincent rubbed his jaw. “Those suckers want arcane energy, and they can’t mix drinks with those stumpy legs of theirs, which makes sauced-up human souls—or animus, whatever you
want to call ’em—the best source. But what if we
weren’t
the best anymore?”

A patron flashed a hand from the end of the bar and Vincent grunted in response, scooping ice into a shaker.

“There’s something I didn’t tell you the other night. You know why I got blind?”

“Yes,” she said without thinking. She regretted being so quick to answer, but he didn’t seem fazed. “Home-distilled gin. It’s more powerful but less stable than—”

“Not
how
,” Vincent said. “Why. Why I was distilling in the first place.”

The answer slid into Bailey’s mind, and it was so overwhelming and obvious that she barely dared say it louder than a whisper.

“Speak up, kiddo,” he said. “Unless I’m going deaf now, too.”

She cleared her throat. “The Long Island iced tea.”

“Bingo.” He rattled the cocktail shaker a few times. “I never got close enough to making the full thing, to be sure. But I got close enough to know that shit is
powerful
. And if I hadn’t been too young and too dumb to fuck it up …” He poured the drink and slid the glass down the bar. “Let’s just say that if you’re old and too smart for your own good, and you’ve got the family name to keep this town under your thumb …” He shrugged his huge shoulders.

She stared. Zane wasn’t old and he wasn’t that smart. And he definitely didn’t have infinite resources; otherwise he wouldn’t have flipped out after using up Hortense LaRue’s rum.

But maybe Zane wasn’t the only Whelan with his eyes on the prize.

“Garrett,” Bailey said. “Garrett’s trying to make a Long Island iced tea.”

“Yeah, His Royal Tininess Garrett.” His expression turned ugly. “Guess when you’re staring death in the face, you start to lose your grip on your principles a bit. Good thing I can’t stare, huh, kiddo?”
He chuckled.

Her mind was two steps ahead. “And you think the tremens are attracted to the energy in a Long Island iced tea.”

“It ain’t no mojito, that’s for sure,” Vincent said, nodding at the glowing drink in Bailey’s hand.

“How did you—”

Vincent tapped the side of his nose. “What, you think I just
guess
what’s in all these bottles?”

“So you think the closer he gets, the more tremens appear.” Bailey frowned. “But Garrett can’t be distilling it himself. Where would he even find the space? Or the money?”

“I think a lot of things, kiddo,” Vincent said. “But I
know
that whoever gets their hands on that power will also be the only one able to stop a full-blown delirium.”

She shivered.

“All right,” he said. “That’s enough conspiracy theories for now. Drink your mojito before it gets warm, and go kick some eldritch ass.”

Bailey did as she was told.

THE DEVIL’S WATER DICTIONARY.
The Mojito

A concoction to assert dominance over elements aquatic

1
. Drop six mint leaves, a lump of sugar, and the juice of one lime into a Collins glass
.

2
. Muddle until the leaves are bruised and the sugar has dissolved
.

3
. Add two ounces of white rum and a splash of soda water
.

4
. Fill the glass with ice, garnish with a mint sprig and a slice of lime, and serve
.

T
he mojito is the signature drink of Cuba. The island’s extensive coastline and large aquatic beast population give local bartenders little reason to serve anything else in the field. The preparation of a mojito is time-consuming endeavor, and its drinker requires a large source of water nearby in order to take full advantage of the aquatic affinity it grants. However, the mojito’s advantages outweigh its faults: not only does it allow the drinker to control all forms of water, including ice and steam, but the mint leaves also leave a pleasant smell on one’s breath.

W
HITE
R
UM
.

Fitting for its Caribbean roots, white rum is aged in steel drums. The metal barrels have an anomalous effect on their contents; though the process diminishes the rum’s inherent power, it creates a product much more suitable for mixology
(as opposed to dark rum, which must be coaxed into playing well with others).

The exact magical properties of steel barrels have remained a mystery since antiquity, though some bartenders have attempted research into the matter. Ángel Noriega, a bartender from Santiago de Cuba, once went so far as to have himself sealed into a barrel of white rum with an oxygen tank in the hope of observing the process. When his barrel was unsealed at the 1920 summit of the Organisation Européenne des Échansons et Sommeliers in Belgrade, the shock of finding his rum-bloated corpse was overshadowed only by the immediate appearance of a mad, gin-drunk count from Italy.

C
OLLINS
G
LASS
.

Taller and thinner than the highball glass, the Collins is named after the Tom Collins, a gin-based cocktail it was first used to serve. Its eponymous inventor was a Manhattan bartender who began selling Court secrets to New York high society. In 1874, Court representatives were dispatched to apprehend him, but Collins seeded a hoax among the Manhattan public, in which people would ask friends if they’d seen Tom Collins. They would then insist that a man by that name was defaming their character just around the corner, hoping to provoke their friends into foolish action. Eventually Collins was cornered in Boston by Hortense LaRue, and the memories of him and his customers were modified by the Court. But by then the term
Collins glass
had gained too much traction, leaving it and its namesake the sole tribute to one of the Court’s earliest traitors.

Bailey knew she had to level with Zane. But after she’d slept off the exhaustion of liquor and demon slaying and conversations with Mona, Bucket, and Vincent, she woke up not at the crack of noon, full of purpose and vigor, but at some actual morning hour to the sight of her mom perched on her bed like a cat eager to be fed.

Bailey jerked upright. “What’d I do?” she said, her voice thick with sleep.

Her mom practically sparkled with joy. “Landed a follow-up interview at Divinyl, I hope.”

Bailey felt as if the mattress had been yanked out from under her. She blinked stupidly. “What time is it?”

She groped for her phone, which was missing from its usual place on her pillow; her mother continued blithely. “Well, I still see Jess’s mom from time to time, and I
may
have done a little reconnaissance.” She smiled and Bailey felt a flash of annoyance.

“
Mom
.”

“What?” Her mother looked contrite. “Hollie said Jess thinks you’d be a perfect fit at Divinyl.”

“Mom! I don’t need a copilot right now.”

“And”—her mother’s voice dropped to a conspiratorial murmur—“she told me they weren’t bringing in anyone else for the first round. I just wanted you to be prepared. I know how much you hate surprises.”

Bailey was only half listening, too absorbed in rooting around for her phone amid the mess of her bedclothes.

“Looking for this?” Her mom held out Bailey’s phone. A voicemail was already waiting, time-stamped 4:38.

Bailey snatched the phone.

Her mom peered over her shoulder and smiled triumphantly. “You put that on speaker right now, Bailey,” she said. “This could be the most important phone call you ever get.”

Not unless Jess knows how to stop a demonic onslaught
, Bailey thought. But she desperately wanted to be left alone, and pushing play seemed the fastest way to get there.

“Hiiii,” slurred Jess’s familiar voice. “I apologize for the late hour. I just got home. My town car driver’s phone died, and he was like, ‘Just give me directions to your place,’ and I was like, ‘How do you not know how to get around? Chicago’s on a grid, duh.’ And he was all, ‘I’m new in town ’cause my wife left me and’—okay, anyway, I made it alive and I wanted to call you. Oh, and this message is for Bailey. What it is, B-Chen?”

“Ugh, that goddamn nickname,” Bailey muttered.

“Language,” said her mom, pointing to the phone.

“—were super impressed by your interview, and we definitely think there’s a place for you at Divinyl, and those apple cocktail things were
so
good.” Jess hiccupped. “So, yeah, let me know when you get this so I can set up a final face-to-face for you and the higher-ups. Give me a call at, uh, this number! ’K, bye!”

Bailey’s mom flashed an enormous grin. “Can you believe it?”

“No,” Bailey said truthfully. Maybe Divinyl thought she’d been a perfect fit, but the feeling wasn’t mutual. Not if people like finger-snapping Kyle and his spicy-lunch-club cronies were going to be her coworkers. Even the T-shirt they’d forced on her was the wrong size.

“You left a great impression on them. I knew you would.” Her
mom patted Bailey’s knee.

“Yeah,” Bailey said, trying to feel excited.

With eyes sharp enough to notice a financial irregularity at fifty paces, her mom saw her hesitation. “What is it, sweetie?”

Now there was a hell of a question. “It’s just.…” Bailey paused to consider her words. She hated lying to her parents, and that was all she’d been doing lately. “I’m just settling into a groove at work. I’m meeting people. I’m starting to enjoy my job. I can actually see it taking me somewhere.”

What she didn’t add was that the bartending world’s shadow government would be none too happy about her moonlighting; that she, Zane, and the other Alechemists had barely escaped death at the hands of an extra-weird supernatural phenomenon that wasn’t playing by the rules of the magic world, and that she couldn’t feel safe until she’d gotten to the bottom of the top-down conspiracy she suspected was making deliriums descend on Chicago.

“Bailey,” her mom said.

“I’m really good at it, Mom. And it’s important work.”

“Important?” Her mother’s eyes fluttered closed. “Bailey, I’m not hearing what I just heard.”

Bailey frowned. “The tautology of that sentence—”

“You’ve worked so hard. Middle school, high school, college. Over half your life. When all the other kids were huffing spray paint and necking in the backseat of their parents’ cars, you invested in your future.”