by Paul Krueger
“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 sh
ot 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.
“You impressed the hell out of me. You really could’ve made—”
“Surely”—Garrett interrupted—“surely, Zane, you’re not intimating that your petite friend be inducted into our particular, peculiar way of life?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I am.” Zane looked at Bailey, eyebrows raised. “What do you say, Bailey? You’ve got the brains for it.” Earnestness radiated from him like heat. “You’ve got the guts. I mean, you accidentally mixed a perfect screwdriver on your first try. Hell, you’d probably be able to make some major breakthroughs in theoretical magic. You could help us try to mix the—”
“Zane,” Garrett barked. “Your friend more than likely has alternative, less dangerous plans for employment.” He looked at Bailey expectantly.
“What, that computer stuff?” Zane said.
“It’s an app, actually,” Bailey said. “For music.”
“You see? There.” Garrett smiled. “Very … exciting.”
“Divinyl’s a really hot start-up right now,” Bailey said to no one in particular. “And I’d get, um, dental benefits and stuff.”
Garrett laughed. “Well, that we can’t provide, I’m afraid. Frankly, Ms. Chen, this isn’t a career for everyone. It’s not for the, ah, delicate or faint of heart.”
Bailey tightened her jaw. She looked at Zane, but he’d gone tight-lipped and silent under his uncle’s gaze.
“Yeah,” he said softly. “Cheers, Bailey.”
It wasn’t a toasting cheers; it was a “see you later” cheers. That was it. Just a good-bye. Not even a scrap of recognition for what she’d done, how goddamn well she’d killed that demon.
Underpromise, overdeliver. No one had expected her to survive a tremens, let alone kill it. And yet here she was, alive and well and about to knock out cold any memories of the one time she’d been really, naturally good at something.
That did not sit well with Bailey Chen. Bailey Chen was not delicate. Or fainthearted.
She picked up the shot glass, immediately put it down, and knew she wouldn’t pick it up again.
“Is something the matter, Ms. Chen?” Garrett said.
“Yes.” She whirled back to face the bar. “I mean, no. Kind of. I don’t think I want to forget this.” She was barely able to believe her own mouth. “I guess this is probably unorthodox for these kinds of things, Your, um, Honors”—she gave the figures behind the bar a weird half curtsy—“but I’ve thought a lot about this in the last thirty seconds, and I’ve got a question.”
Garrett raised an eyebrow. Zane rocked forward on the balls of his feet. Bailey took a deep breath.
Underpromise, overdeliver.
“How much does a novice bartender make a week in this joint?”
Zane grinned.
CHAPTER FOUR
And so, at two that same night—or the next morning, depending—Bailey set off for Nero’s Griddle on Belmont for what Zane had promised would be “an indoctrination session, but with pancakes.”
“You okay?” Zane peered at her as they descended from the Brown Line El. “You look kind of—”
“I’m fine,” Bailey said. But she couldn’t help casting a look down the two-way street and around all corners, looking for something … lurking.
“The streets are safe, Bailey,” he said. “Especially around these parts. Bartenders’ beats overlap by at least half a block in every direction.”
“I’ve killed a tremens,” she said. “I’m not afraid.” Still, she’d been immensely glad to see him when they met up at the train stop. He’d changed his tie and looked in better spirits than he had a few hours earlier.
“I’m not saying you’re afraid,” he said with a small smile. “I’m just saying you’re safe.”
In spite of herself, Bailey shivered. Zane noticed.
“So I’m going to offer you my coat,” he said. “And we’re gonna skip the part where you’re stubborn and say n—”
“God, yes,” said Bailey, reaching for it greedily. “Give it here.”
Clearly amused, he removed it, leaving him in just his shirt and vest. “I thought you weren’t one for chivalry,” he said.
“Chivalry is dumb,” she said. “But so’s being cold.”
Zane chuckled. Without his coat, his clothes traced the contours of his body quite nicely; amazing what could happen when a guy traded up from oversize band T-shirts to things with collars and buttons. “The East Coast made you weak. We’ll have to toughen you up.”
“I can go back to the cold, no problem,” she said. “You don’t forget that kind of thing.”
“Just like riding a bike.”
“I don’t think you actually know what riding a bike is like.”
“Of course not. I ride the El. What am I, a savage?”
Bailey laughed, and despite the autumn chill, she felt warm.
&nb
sp; As they approached Nero’s, she saw a couple waiting outside. One was a small, handsome young man with an acid-green mohawk. His eyebrows, lips, and ears were studded with metal, and a bright silver ring dangled from the middle of his nose, fogging with each breath. He wore a heavy leather jacket, and Bailey felt that if he were to take it off, she’d see arms covered in tattoos.
The other was a woman a little older than Bailey. She was angular and dark, with sharp cheeks and sharper eyes. Pretty. She wore her hair in black dreads that fell down the sides of her face. With a jolt, Bailey realized she was the person who’d been standing outside the Nightshade the night before, the one Zane had sprinted to meet. The woman peeled herself off the wall as Bailey and Zane approached. The mohawk guy followed a step behind.
“Glad you could make it, babe,” Zane called to them, and it was all Bailey could do not to make a face. Babe? “I thought you had to work.”
“I work where I’m needed,” said the woman with dreadlocks. She almost smiled. “So I’m here now.”
Then she drew Zane close and kissed him.
Bailey gaped. She’d believed in alcohol magic, soul-drinking demons, even memory obliteration in a shot glass, but Zane Whelan with a girlfriend? Did not compute. For most of their lives Zane had shown no interest in girls. She’d even wondered briefly if he was gay—not that there was anything wrong with that. But then came the graduation party incident, and he’d definitely shown interest in a girl, and it had been way too much.
But apparently not so much that he couldn’t get over her after four years. And make out with this gorgeous-looking stranger woman.
The mohawk guy coughed to grab her attention. “They’re better about it than a lot of the couples I’ve met,” he said. Something about the lilt of his voice sounded distinctly out-of-towny.
Bailey thought of her parents that morning and shivered. “Yeah,” she said faintly. No, she reminded herself, this is good. She didn’t want her grown-up friendship with grown-up Zane to be tainted with the remnants of his childhood crush. If only they made some kind of cocktail to make you feel better about stupid-bad romantic decisions.