Last Call at the Nightshade Lounge

by Paul Krueger

  “Wish I could … see your face … love doing that …”

  “Vincent, that wasn’t funny!” Bailey said, still rattled. When she saw the knife shards strewn across the desk, and his intact hand next to them, she couldn’t help but grin. She’d done it. “It wasn’t that funny,” she added.

  “You’re on deck, kiddo,” Vincent said. “Soon as Bucket’s back and he’s had another drink, you’re hitting the streets.”

  For the next twenty minutes Bailey was antsy. She wished the customers could’ve honored the occasion by taking it easy on her, but obviously she couldn’t tell them why she was smiling so wide; and even if she had, they wouldn’t have cared. Experience on both sides of the counter taught her that you don’t go to a bar to hear about what a great day the bartender is having.

  When the time came, Vincent lumbered out of his office with Poppy plodding along in front of him. “You two are up,” he said. “I’ll take over here. Supplies are laid out downstairs. And kiddo,” he added, pointing to Bailey, “don’t forget your keys. That one keeps losing his, and I’m not buying another goddamn set.”

  Bailey eyed all the beer taps, liquor bottles, glasses, and garnishes, not to mention the customers clamoring for them in varying combinations. She’d never seen Vincent tend bar, and she couldn’t imagine how he did it with only a dog to back him up.

  Bucket, on the other hand, didn’t seem even slightly fazed. “Come on, B-Chen—”

  “Call me that again and die.”

  “—Bailey. Let’s go be good guys.”

  As they clanked down the stairs, Bailey glanced back at the open trapdoor. “Will he be all right up there by himself?”

  “Vincent?” Bucket said. “Yeah, don’t let the blind thing fool you. He’s like some kind of Zen master, except with booze. Just worry about you. You know what you’re doing?” They stepped into the office, and he shut the door behind them.

  “I—I think so.” She’d been confident, even eager, right up until he’d asked her that question. Now she felt her poise evaporating. She stared down at the small forest of bottles and wondered which one she could trust to save her life in the face of skinless death.

  Bucket stepped up next to her and patted her shoulder reassuringly. “I know you’re scared,” he said. “But you can’t let fear freeze you up. People need us, whether they know it or not, so you’ve—”

  With quick, decisive motions, Bailey started yanking out bottles of rye, bitters, and water, and then a short thick-bottomed glass to put everything in. She turned to Bucket. “Where do you keep the sugar?”

  The two of them stepped out a few minutes later. It’d been raining all day, and though the skies were dry, the rainfall had smothered whatever heat the summer had left behind. Bailey shivered, wishing she had more than a hoodie and an old fashioned to keep her warm. Looking not even slightly bothered by the chill, Bucket bobbed along next to her. He’d drunk a mai tai that he’d practically built inside its glass.

  “So what does a mai tai do?” she asked to fill the silence. From skimming the The Devil’s Water Dictionary, she knew that rum drinks produced elemental effects, but she couldn’t remember the specifics for mai tais.

  He grinned. “Let’s hope I won’t have to show off. But if I do, well, you’re in for fireworks.”

  “So it’s fire?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “But it’s fire.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You didn’t need to. It’s fire.”

  He sighed. “You done?”

  She nodded. But to herself, she repeated: fire.

  Boystown was unusually tame. They headed south on Halsted, past locked-up leather shops and about a billion frozen-yogurt places and a dog boutique called I Ruff My Pup. The occasional stragglers weaved around the corners and ducked past them, giggling. No one was running in terror or screaming for help. Bailey stifled a yawn. A drink’s effects lasted about as long as it took the drinker’s system to metabolize it, which gave her roughly an hour to work. Slightly less; pushing it too close and she ran the risk of losing power midfight. Theoretically it’d be good to have a quiet night, but Bailey just wanted to get her encounter over with.

  “Hey,” Bucket said, interrupting her thoughts, “I gotta ask you something. It’s kind of been on my mind since you started working here.”

  “Um, shoot,” Bailey said, wondering what he wanted to ask. Bucket had been Zane’s friend first—if Bucket was even Bailey’s friend at all. He’d been unfailingly polite and cheerful since they’d become coworkers, but maybe that was just Canadian niceness. How did adults figure this stuff out?

  “Ladies’ night,” he said seriously. “Vincent should totally do one, eh? Probably counts as discrimination if he doesn’t, right?”

  Bailey laughed so hard she snorted. “I’m sorry, what?”

  “Yeah, dude,” Bucket said. “Think about it. You get more tips, and I get to show these American girls my rugged Canadian charm.”

  They’d hung a right past the Chicago Diner onto Roscoe, and Bailey shook her head while following Bucket’s lead onto a single-block street lined with apartment buildings.

  “Sorry again, but I’m so not following,” she said. “We work at a gay bar.”

  “Yeah. The mesh tank tops tipped me off.”

  “But you want to pick up girls?”

  Bucket laughed. “Duh. Why wouldn’t I?… Wait, you think I’m gay?”

  “Um, yes,” Bailey said. “You’re a man who works in a gay bar, so yes, I thought that was a reasonable assumption.”

  It was Bucket’s turn to look confused. “So Zane didn’t tell you? Or Vincent?” When Bailey shook her head, he sighed. “Right, okay, let’s set it straight. Follow me on this one because it could get complicated: I’m transgender. Oh, and there’s a tremens behind us.”

  “What—seriously?” Bailey wheeled around, but the street was deserted. Relatively well lit, even. Bucket kept walking.

  “Yeah, I’ve known since I was a kid,” he said cheerfully. “There were some rough times, but I started transitioning a few years back and I’ve never been happier—”

  “No, about the tremens,” Bailey said, trying to catch a reflection in one of the parked cars’ back windshields. “But congratulations on your transition,” she added hastily. She could hear something skittering over dead leaves in the alleyway behind them. “Um, not to be rude, but why aren’t you more worried?”

  “Well, the statistics in the trans community are sobering, but I’ve had really supportive friends—”

  “Still talking about the tremens,” she hissed. “Why the hell are you so calm?”

  He beamed. “Because you’re going to save me.”

  “Save you?”

  He nodded solemnly. “Vincent told me it was an important step in your personal journey as a bartender to feel responsibility for another life, and the safeguarding thereof.” After a moment, he added: “Duh.”

  “Shit.” Of course. She was an idiot to have expected a straightforward lesson from Vincent. “But you have to help me.”

  “No, I don’t,” said Bucket. “I’m just a wee powerless civilian.”

  Bailey thrust out a hand and sensed a kind of telekinetic phantom hand mirroring her own. Her brain pressed on Bucket’s torso, sending him staggering back a few steps, to a safe spot behind an SUV flagrantly disobeying a prominent NO PARKING sign. Her skin prickled and she turned to face whatever was shivering behind the alleyway trash can.

  The trash can trembled.

  Holy shit. Holyshitholyshit.

  “Hey!”

  Bailey had mentally grabbed Bucket by his shirt collar and flung him farther away. The tremens, small and stocky and six legged, scuttled out and immediately lashed one of its thick, muscly limbs at her. Panicked, she backhanded the air, her old fashioned-induced telekinesis swatting the tendril like a tennis ball.

  Okay. Think. Trip it? Doing so would tip it right onto Bucket, who had left the SU
V’s safe zone and was leaning against a metal fence with irritating calmness.

  “You got this, Bailey!”

  Focus, she thought. Zane had telekinetically thrown around a heavy manhole cover like a Frisbee. So maybe she could—

  The tremens scuttled away from the trash can. She had to get it away from Bucket. Imitating what Zane had done, she pointed her finger like a gun, willing her mind to attack as she “fired.”

  Kick. Hard.

  Sure enough, the tremens rippled as an unseen force hammered it; it fell forward, front tendrils flailing.

  Bailey sprang back, yanking herself ten feet down the sidewalk. She had just long enough to look in awe at her impossibly long jump before the tremens shook off the impact and wobbled upright.

  “Eye on the puck, Bailey!”

  Bucket’s voice snapped her back into the moment. They were in the middle of an ordinary street. No manhole cover close by. No convenient piece of debris. Nothing sharp or heavy or on fire enough to kill the damn thing.

  But its attention was wavering. She could feel it, and mentally she tugged hard at its limbs, once, twice, three times, feeling her brain recoil each time.

  Okay, you ugly demon beast. Follow the leader.

  She turned and started running, focusing her psychic energy on the space between her shoulder blades, willing her legs ever faster with the superfocus of her brain waves. But the tremens could leap, and in a heartbeat it was beside her.

  Now.

  Bailey stopped pushing herself and yanked her body laterally off the street. The tremens lashed out to seize her, but its tendril only managed to graze her forearm. She had banked hard enough to slam into a brick facade, but the brief tentacle contact sent a chill racing to her skull.

  No. She wrested back control of her head space. She couldn’t waver. Not when she was so close. Feeling the mental fatigue, she shoved the tremens toward the NO PARKING sign, the force of the collision bending the aluminum pole like a flower stem.

  Perfect. She had only one chance. Swinging her arm through the air, she forced the broken section of the post to yank itself from beneath the tremens. The sign dangled downward like the blade of a guillotine.

  Her brain burning, Bailey slammed the post onto the neck of the tremens. The impact jarred her as the beast’s neck gave way beneath the sign’s thin edge. She expected a loud squeal, but nope: just the clang of the broken signpost and faint patter as the black matter that had once been a demon sprinkled onto the sidewalk.

  Bucket, eyes wide and hands clapping slowly, appeared at her shoulder. He seemed genuinely awed.

  “Holy shit, Bailey,” he said. And then, after another moment of staring at the stinking, sputtering puddle: “Seriously. Holy shit.”

  Bailey looked at the sign. It was beyond repair, covered in whatever substance dead tremens turned into—dark and sticky as oil, with that same unnatural sheen.

  “Should we …” Her voice trailed off.

  “Don’t worry about the sign. We should go.” Bucket glanced up at the apartment windows, some of which were glowing with sleepy yellow light. “You were pretty noisy—awesome but noisy—and I bet someone’s about to call the Royal Chicago Mounted Police.”

  “Right.” Bailey couldn’t help feeling a little let down: all that hard work, and the only one who’d ever know was Bucket. She gave her handiwork a final glance before Bucket pulled her away.

  “I knew you were gonna be okay,” he told her as they hurried off. “But you took that thing down like a goddamn pro.”

  “Yeah. Thanks. Needed the therapy.” Despite the pounding in her head and the pulse of adrenaline in her veins, she managed a smile. “Just wish I could … share it or something, you know?”

  “No, I get it. But that’s why you have us, your fellow bartenders,” he said, leading her back to Roscoe. “We’re always around if you need to vent or brag or—”

  Just as they rounded the corner, Bailey ran right into Zane Whelan.

  He wore a brown striped suit and sneakers, his tie loosely done. Mona was with him. She yelped and jumped back.

  “Shit,” Bailey said. “Sorry. I thought you—”

  Zane raised a hand. “No tremens here. Just your friendly neighborhood Alechemists.”

  Bailey swallowed. “Right. What’re you guys, uh, doing here?” She realized too late that the question probably sounded rude.

  “Bucket told us what was happening tonight,” Mona said, her arms folded across her chest.

  “Yeah,” said Zane. “We didn’t want to miss your bar mitzvah.” He glanced around for approval but no one laughed. “Oh, come on,” he grumbled. “That was hilarious.”

  “I thought it was very funny,” said Mona in a tone utterly bereft of amusement.

  Bailey wasn’t so easily distracted. “Aren’t you on duty tonight?”

  Zane straightened his tie. “I basically run the Nightshade now. I decide when I’m on duty. And if Garrett’s got a problem with that, he can come back and mind the place for himself.” Before Bailey could ask where the attitude was coming from, Zane shook it off. He was positively giddy in the way that only demonic carnage seemed to make him. “Enough about that, though. Using a sign as a battle-ax? Awesome.”

  Mona shot Bailey an odd look.

  “Resourcefulness, Bailey.” Zane tapped the side of his nose. “That’s how you last in this business.”

  “Not dying also helps,” Mona said.

  Bucket and Zane laughed, but Bailey did not. Something about Mona’s eyes told her it hadn’t been a joke.

  Zane’s excitement subsided, and he reached into his coat pocket. “Hey, guess what? I got you—well, I found something, and I—I thought of you.” He shoved a slim plastic something into Bailey’s hands.

  “A CD?” It took Bailey a second to recognize what it was. The cover depicted four brooding men in black: long and lopsided haircuts, makeup tears running down their cheeks, a stylized logo that read “4DL” superimposed beneath them.

  “For Dear Life?” Bailey cracked a grin. “Zane, I think we’ve both way outgrown—”

  “Look inside.”

  She flipped open the case and her eyes widened.

  “Holy shit.” The familiar face of the disc winked up at her, but it featured something her old copy had not: four signatures in black marker. “How did you—”

  “They came through town while you were out,” Zane said, as if her four years in Philly had been a long trip to the store for milk. “I got backstage passes. I, uh, brought Mona.”

  Mona nodded. “It was loud.”

  “Anyway, that’s yours, and don’t try to give it back to me.” Zane lowered his voice. “It’s a gift.”

  As it happened, Bailey had been about to protest. This was too much. She and Zane had listened to a lot of music in high school, but For Dear Life’s discography was the true sound track to their teenage years. And even though most music fans their age had moved on from “no one understands me” angst punk to experimental acoustical lo-fi indie whatever, Bailey still carried her torch; 4DL’s single “Dark November” was in regular rotation on her playlists. In fact, she’d acquired an unfortunate reputation in college as “that girl who always puts on ‘Plastic Eyes’ at parties.” Apparently Zane felt the same way. About the band, anyway.

  “It’s not, you know, all filtered up or whatever,” Zane said. “But—”

  “Thanks,” Bailey said. “Thank you, Zane.”

  Zane grinned. “That’s only part one. Part two will have to wait till tomorrow. It’s a surprise.”

  “Oh. Um …” Not really sure what to make of that comment, Bailey instinctively reached for her purse to stow the album. But her purse wasn’t dangling from her shoulder; she’d left it at the bar, where she and Bucket were technically still on duty. “Actually, we should probably get going.”

  “No problem,” said Zane. “Mona and I will walk back with you guys. We’ll drink up until closing, and then we can hit Nero’s and celebrate properly.” He
nudged Mona. “What do you think, baby?”

  Baby. The word thudded off Mona like a bird off a window. Bailey resisted the urge to make a face.

  Mona just turned to him, almost smiled, and said, “I can’t think of a socially acceptable way to disagree.”

  On the way back, Bucket regaled them with a dramatic retelling of Bailey’s fight, one in which he played all the characters himself and changed the story’s emphasis as he saw fit.

  “So then Bailey is all ‘Monster, you interrupted a super interesting chat I was having with my good buddy Bucket about gender and personal identity, so I’m gonna fuck you up,’ ” he said, pitching up his voice into a passable imitation of her own. “And I’m standing there like, ‘Oh, shit, this tremens won’t even know what hit it.’ You know”—he added in an aside—“because telekinesis is invisible and tremens are dumb.”

  Bailey laughed. “Skip to the good part,” she said. Her walk had a bit of a strut, and why not? After tonight she’d earned it.

  “Which good part?” said Bucket.

  “Oh, you know,” she said, pretending to modestly examine her fingernails, “the part where a tremens thinks it can just show up out of nowhere—”

  “Tremens!” Bucket yelled.

  “Exactly,” Bailey said.

  “No, I’m serious!” Bucket’s eyes were wide, his voice hoarse. “Tremens!”

  He pointed up at a busted-out streetlight just as the demon launched itself toward them.

  “Shit!” Bailey jumped back, witless and terrified and completely forgetting she was supposed to run toward these things now. “Zane! Mona—”

  But like her, they had both jumped out of the way. Bucket, on the other hand, jumped forward. He spread his hands and blasted twin columns of pale blue flame, as if his arms were jet engines. The sudden heat ignited the air with a small snap, then a giant crack!, and finally a brilliant explosion that sent the tremens flying, its hide scorched.

  “Holy shit!” Bucket said, sliding into a wide defensive stance. His hands were wreathed in tongues of fire, which had cooled from blue to orange. “Did you guys see that?”

  “Hard not to,” Mona said drily.