Free Last Call at the Nightshade Lounge by Paul Krueger

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 youwith 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