Last Call at the Nightshade Lounge

by Paul Krueger

  Well, they do, Bailey thought. It’s called “any cocktail ever,” if you drink enough.

  The mohawk guy stuck out a hand. “Bucket,” he said.

  “Haven’t got one,” she said.

  He laughed. “No. That’s my name. I work up in Boystown.”

  “Oh.” Bucket was rather a strange name for a person, but then again if anyone were to be named Bucket, it’d be this guy. “Wait. Boystown …” Bailey’s brain clicked. “Zane mentioned you.”

  “Only good things, I hope,” Bucket said.

  “Oh, of course,” Bailey said. “I just didn’t realize there was a whole midnight breakfast club.” Her voice had a little edge, and she shot Zane a sideways glance. Just to remind him that, ahem, midnight breakfast used to be their thing. As in, just the two of them.

  Zane must’ve noticed, or he just got tired of kissing, because he broke away from his girlfriend and puffed out his chest. “Actually, we call ourselves the Alechemists.”

  “The Alechemists?” Bailey said with a snort. “Do you guys even use ale?”

  “I told you,” said the girl. His girlfriend. Her.

  “I still think it’s a cool name,” Zane muttered. “And yup, that’s Bucket. He’s at Long & Strong in Boystown.”

  “Not ‘Long’ like that, eh?” Bucket said quickly. “It’s the owner’s last name. But I also accidentally saw him naked once, so, yeah. Long like that, too.”

  “And this is my girlfriend, Mona,” Zane said. “She works out on the West Side.”

  Mona’s smile was faint as a fingerprint on glass. “How do you do?”

  “Well,” Bailey said, “I just narrowly avoided gentle brain damage at a bar. So I guess not that different from a normal evening, right?”

  Bailey grinned and cocked her head, but Mona didn’t laugh. She didn’t even look Bailey in the eye, instead gazing slightly lower at the coat draped over Bailey’s shoulders.

  Zane gave Bailey a light punch, which annoyed her for some reason. Like he was suddenly her big brother or something.

  “Oops.” He retracted his hand and held up his buzzing phone. “One second.”

  “Zane—” Mona started to say, but Zane shook his head.

  “It’s Garrett. I have to.”

  “Can’t he just send you a textual missive?”

  Bailey frowned but apparently Zane didn’t notice Mona’s weird phrasing. He stepped to the edge of the sidewalk, his finger in his ear.

  “So,” Bailey said, “how do you begin my training? Do you start with, like, types of drinks or do you just try to figure out a personal combat style or—”

  “Whoa, there,” said Bucket, who, being closest, was the one she’d chosen to barrage with questions. “First of all, Zane’s your boss, not me. Secondly of all, Zane, who is your boss, is—”

  Bailey followed Bucket’s gaze to Zane, who was speaking animatedly and frowning.

  “—busy. But I’m sure he’ll have an elaborate training regimen already planned. You know Zane.”

  “Yeah,” Bailey said softly, her excitement fizzling as she watched Zane slowly shrink back and fold his arms. Whatever conversation he was having didn’t seem particularly warm and fuzzy.

  “It’s fine,” Bucket said cheerfully. “I mean, probably. Garrett runs a tight ship, you know?”

  “Old guard,” Mona said from Bucket’s right. She lit a cigarette. “They don’t like being told no.”

  Bailey frowned; she was hardly old, but no wasn’t exactly her favorite word either.

  “It’s probably because Halloween’s coming up.” Bucket said.

  “And Garrett won’t let Zane trick or treat?” Bailey said. Bucket laughed.

  Mona didn’t follow suit. “All Soul’s Night is one of the worst of the year for tremens activity,” she said, exhaling smoke. “It’s not just a holiday for children.”

  “Children, or ladies dressed as sexy robots or sexy vampires or sexy Statues of Liberty,” Bucket said and then frowned. “Anyway, yeah. Costumed revelers drinking, plus extra creepy-crawlies out and about”—he pronounced it aboat—“means that we bartenders have extra monster mashing to do. Gotta plan our—”

  “Hey,” Zane said, pushing past them toward the front doors. “Sorry. Let’s get a table.”

  “Table?” Bailey said. “Don’t we have to train in a, you know, bar?”

  “We’re not training you today.”

  “Why not? I thought the best way to hit the ground was running.” A little jig of excitement coursed through her. She was doing something, finally.

  “Have you ever actually tried hitting the ground running?” said Bucket. “Great way to break your ankle. And down here I don’t have access to my sweet-ass health care.”

  Bailey frowned. “ ‘Down here?’ ”

  Zane sighed. Bucket grinned.

  “All right, let’s just get it over with,” Zane said. “As Bucket loves to remind us, he’s—”

  “I am a proud son of the great nation of Canada!” Bucket trumpeted, pointing a proud finger in the air. Bailey got the impression this was something he did rather often.

  Zane hung his head. Mona looked unimpressed.

  “Ensurer of health care!” Bucket continued. “Guardian of the Great White North!”

  “Bagger of milk,” Zane said, a smile returning at last.

  Bucket lost a little of his composure. “Okay, why do Yanks get so caught up on this bagged milk thing?”

  “In a weird country full of weird things,” said Zane, “it’s the weirdest thing.”

  “Tch,” said Bucket. “It’s no different from bagged water.”

  Bailey blinked. “There’s bagged water?”

  “There’s nothing the Canadians won’t bag,” said Zane, “which we can discuss more inside.”

  Despite its Roman-inspired name, the decor of Nero’s Griddle was all American. The seats were squashy booths. The floor was a giant chessboard of vinyl tiles, and neon signs hanging in the windows advertised TAS-TEE DO-NUTS. The only thing that stuck out was the jukebox: instead of playing pleasant, harmonic rock ’n’ roll from the mid-twentieth century, it pumped angry gravel-voiced death metal into the air like smog.

  “What’s the deal?” Bailey said, pointing to the jukebox as she sat down.

  “Nero’s daughter runs the place now,” Zane said. He took a seat next to Mona, leaving Bailey to sit with Bucket.

  Bailey grimaced. “And she thinks that music is adding to the ambience?”

  Mona looked up, as if she could see clouds of jagged notes floating around her head. “Ironic juxtaposition,” she said.

  “Zee!” From behind the diner counter, an aproned barista gave the table a wave. He was stockier than Zane, wore chunkier glasses, and sported a black apron folded to reveal a T-shirt emblazoned with a picture of a busty anime girl with bright blue hair.

  Bailey froze. The barista’s eyes lit up.

  “And Tokyo Rose!” he continued. “Ohayou gozaimasu, Bailey-chan!”

  Then he bowed, because of course he did.

  “Trent Fierro,” she said in a voice frigid enough to freeze the hottest latte. “You know I’m still not Japanese, right?”

  “Oh, right,” said Trent. “Gomennasai.” And he bowed again.

  Zane spoke before she could jump behind the counter and tear out Trent’s stupid neck beard, hair by hair. “Why don’t you showcase your espresso skills and whip us up a round of Americanos?”

  Trent’s grin could’ve curdled macchiato foam. “For Zee and friends? On the house. That means you, too, Tokyo Rose.”

  “What’s up with you and Trent?” Bucket said. His mohawk had wilted into a green curtain that covered one side of his face.

  Bailey didn’t even bother answering him. “You brought me to get coffee from my stalker?” she whispered furiously to Zane.

  “He didn’t stalk you,” Zane said. “He just, uh, followed you everywhere.” He frowned. “Okay, point taken.”

  “Loving the Bailey-Zane bant
er, guys,” said Bucket. “Not that helpful, though.”

  “Trent’s really into anime and manga,” Zane said. “But hey, everyone needs a hobby, right?” He grinned at Bailey, who didn’t return the smile. Instead, she turned to Bucket.

  “Sophomore year Trent decided that I was the school’s other resident expert in Japanese culture and the only one who, like, understood him. Which—two problems: I’m a born-and-raised American. Also, Chinese.”

  “Ah,” Bucket said, wrinkling his pierced nose. “Ew.”

  “I’ve never even been to Tokyo,” Bailey muttered. “And roses are the fast food of flowers.” Her dad had taught her that lesson early on, and it had stuck.

  Zane laughed. “Well, I’ll keep that in mind next Valentine’s Day.”

  “I—” Bailey’s mind skidded briefly off track as Mona’s piercing gaze fell on her. She squirmed under its intensity. “Um, anyway, let’s never speak of it again,” she said.

  “I dunno,” Bucket said. “There’s some pretty excellent Canadian Japanese glam rock if you’re into that kind of thing, eh?”

  A waitress appeared. “Hi, Zane,” she said before nodding to Bailey. “Who’s the new girl?”

  It took Bailey a moment to realize that she, not Mona, was the newcomer. Which—seriously? She’d been coming to this diner since she was fourteen years old. Then again, this waitress, with her earnestly lined eyes and her not quite even eyebrows, probably was fourteen. Now there was a grim thought. Bailey sat back, contemplating her mortality.

  Zane remained cheerfully oblivious to her existential horror. “The new girl’s an old friend,” he said. “This is Bailey. Bailey, this is Diana. She’s our regular waitress. Yours, too, now.”

  Diana peered at Bailey, looking somehow both bored and inquisitive. Bailey, for her part, felt unsure and intrusive, as if she’d been brought to someone else’s church and didn’t know when to stand, sit, or kneel. The other Alechemists gave their food orders, and it was only after the silence continued that Bailey realized it was her turn.

  “Um, pancakes,” she said. “Please.”

  “All righty.” Diana clicked her pen. “Coffees are coming right up.”

  “Thanks.”

  Bailey wasn’t really jonesing for a caffeine fix, but she also didn’t want to be the only person not having any. Diana went on her way, and Bailey leaned in before more chitchat could take over. “So, I take it you two, um, survived tonight.”

  “No,” said Mona, deadpan. Zane and Bucket laughed as Bailey flushed.

  “They’re both healthy and whole,” said Zane. “And pleased to have you join us.”

  Bailey glanced at Mona, who looked not the least bit pleased. Or the least bit anything else, for that matter.

  “So we’re giving her the full rundown, eh?” said Bucket with a theatrical crack of his knuckles.

  Zane nodded and then reached into his pocket. “First thing’s first: my gift to you, from master to apprentice.” He held a serious face for a moment but then giggled. “Heh. You have to call me master now.”

  “No way,” Bailey said. “No gods, no masters.”

  Zane frowned. “Isn’t that commie talk? What kind of business school student are you?”

  An underemployed one, Bailey thought. She reached out a hand. “Gimme.”

  From his coat pocket Zane pulled a slim black volume and tossed it to Bailey. The silver letters on the spine read: The Devil’s Water Dictionary.

  Bailey studied it, frowning. “So is this a water dictionary owned by the devil, or …”

  “Ha. Funny.” Zane grinned. “Every language has its own nickname for distillates. Aqua vitae. Eau de vie. Uisce beatha. Yakovita. Devil’s water is just what we here call it. Old-timey American drinkin’ lingo at its finest.”

  “Mmm.” Bailey was only half listening. She’d already opened the book and started flipping its pages.

  Zane chuckled. “Yeah, I figured you’d like it. It’s got almost every one of our secrets: our recipes, our history, the occasional scrap of abstract magical theory.”

  “Theory?” Bailey repeated.

  “Oh, yeah.” Zane’s eyes lit up. “I mean, there’s some pretty basic underlying magical tenets behind your everyday cocktails. But the really exciting stuff is what isn’t in there.”

  “Like what? Picklebacks and Jägerbombs?”

  Mona shot Bailey a look. “Like legends,” she said.

  “Like alchemy,” said Bucket.

  “Like your wildest dreams,” Zane said, with a glint in his eye.

  Bailey stared at the little book in her hands.

  “So, yeah, that’s yours,” Zane said. “It’s your sword, your shield, and your standard-issue frag grenade. A thousand books can tell you how to mix a drink, but only one will teach you how to do it right. This baby’s got the entire history of bartending infused within every page.”

  She flipped the pages and then slipped the book into her purse. She could read it later. Besides, if the telltale gleam in Zane’s eye was any indication, he was about to launch into his version of the entire history of bartending-kind.

  “Humans have sensed the connection between alcohol and magic for a long, long time,” Zane began. “Dionysic wines that granted women superstrength. Ayurvedic arishtas that cured you with fermented herbs. Sake offered to the Shinto gods for ritual purification.”

  “Those dogs with the barrels around their necks,” Bucket added helpfully.

  “Right,” Zane said. “But mere fermentation could get us only so far. Once Taddeo Alderotti perfected fractional distillation in the thirteenth century—”

  Bucket yawned and flapped his hand in a blah-blah-blah motion.

  Zane coughed. “Anyway, used to be that whatever you wanted, your friendly neighborhood barman—”

  “Or barwoman”—Mona interrupted—“though they were usually called witches.”

  “—could whip you up a drink for it.” Zane went on. “And I don’t mean party tricks, like we do every night. I’m talking etheric travel, incorruptible flesh, alchemy. Ancient bartenders knew how to mix humble liquors and liqueurs to create a solution for every problem that life could throw at you.”

  Bailey sensed a “but” lurking on the outskirts of the story.

  “But,” Zane said, “sometime in the eighteenth century, something happened. Overnight all that knowledge just vanished. None of the old texts survived intact, and from what we’ve been able to piece together, bartenders started dying by the score.”

  He paused as Diana appeared with a tray of steaming Americanos.

  “Food’ll be up in a second,” she said. Then she glided along to assist a table of surly kids who looked like they shopped exclusively in a leather-filled dungeon.

  “We call that time the Blackout,” Zane continued as each of them started performing their various coffee rituals. “Since then we’ve been trying to regain that knowledge.”

  “And we’ve gotten a lot of it back,” Mona said. “A lot.”

  “Yeah,” Zane said. “Physical experimentation and investigations into theoretical magic, new and better ways of distilling. We’re getting there.”

  “But?” Bailey said. She could sense he was building up to something.

  “But,” Zane said with gravitas, “there’s one big missing piece that no one’s been able to crack in more than three hundred years: the secret of the Long Island Iced Tea.”

  Bailey laughed into her coffee. When she put down her mug, the three Alechemists were staring at her.

  “Oh, God,” she said. “You’re serious. Sorry.”

  “Nothing could be more serious.”

  “It hasn’t always gone by that name,” Mona said. “Nor has it always had the same formulation. We didn’t even have cola for most of the nineteenth century, let alone premade sour mix.”

  Zane leaned forward, the familiar spark again in his eyes. “Magical energy is unlocked with alcohol, but too much alcohol will dilute it past the point of usefulness. If properl
y mixed, a Long Island Iced Tea could defy the most basic law of magic: multiple liquors working in perfect harmony to unlock the drinker’s deepest potential.”

  “Basically, the philosopher’s stone,” Bucket said. “With a lemon twist.”

  “Hang on,” said Bailey. “Deepest potential? Philosopher’s stone? As in—”

  “There are conflicting reports.” Zane interrupted. “Well, not even reports. Legends. But they all say things like increased powers, immortality, forbidden knowledge. And other talents that even the best modern drinks could never unlock.”

  Bailey nodded slowly. “So that’s why you call yourselves the Alechemists,” she said. “You’re trying to re-create the Long Island iced tea.”

  “Zane’s like Nicolas Flamel,” Bucket said, “if Nicolas Flamel dressed like a Beatle, had a girlfriend, and also had a really sexy Canadian sidekick no one ever wrote about. Oh, and, um, a Bailey.”

  “But why?” a Bailey asked.

  Everyone stared at her.

  “Why what?” said Zane.

  “Why this quest for enlightenment?” Bailey said.

  “Are you kidding?” Zane said. “Why not? You’ve seen the good we can do with the little magic tricks we know. Hell, you’re a trainee and you’ve already done some good yourself. Think of what we could do with even more.” He gripped his coffee cup tightly. “If you ask me, the Court’s too content with running things the way they always have been. The world is changing, and the court’s resources and liquor stockpiles can’t last forever. We have to be ready to adapt. To go further.”

  Bailey looked at Bucket, who’d added enough milk to turn his coffee the color of a manila folder. “You think so, too?”

  Bucket shrugged. “I mean, immortality would also be sweet as hell,” he said. “You get to see how everything turns out; you get to do all the things you’d never get around to. Spend a century saving up and then splurge on something incredible.”

  “Like wh—”

  “The entire island of Manhattan,” Bucket interrupted. “Rented out for a day. One goal uptown, one goal downtown, and every professional hockey player in Canada or the States trying to get a single puck to either one. Not,” he added, sipping his coffee-milk, “that I’ve given it much thought.”