A Twist of Demon: Cocktails in Hell

A TWIST OF DEMON COCKTAILS IN HELL S.E. BABIN CONTENTS Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 CHAPTER 1 A tentacle rested on the bar, shimmering blue and green against the soft fairy lights I’d commissioned months ago from a woman named Ariel. Cash was rarely king around here, so as a trade for her services, she sent in a large shift of fairies three times a week who provided a stunning, multi-colored, and shimmering ambiance for the bar, and I let them hang around and lounge after their shift, feeding and getting drunk off my patron’s emotions. It saved Ariel money because fairies ate like a high school football team while giving my bar an ethereal and otherworldly appearance I didn’t have to shell out my hard-earned cash for. Two of my favorites–Keelie and Olive–grimaced down at the appendage and gave me a look. I shrugged and continued wiping down the bar. They weren’t here to offer an opinion, but even I didn’t love the slime currently dripping onto the highly polished oak. There weren’t enough washcloths in the world to deal with octopus drip, and even with as much as I’d seen, slime always gave me the heebers. “Dave?” I probed gently. The snoring octopus shifter didn’t budge. I wasn’t anti-tentacle or anything, just anti-tentacle on top of my bar. Hell only knew where those things had been. I once read a few passages of octopi erotica once after someone left a copy behind, and all I could think when I finished was eww and gross, and oh my gods, do not touch me with any slimy appendages. Dave usually didn’t have his tentacles out. As patrons went, he was one of the better ones, so something must have happened for him to be passed out at my bar this early with his goodies showing. “Dave?” I probed again, moving closer. “I’m going to need you to put that thing away.” He shifted, a long, thin strand of drooling falling from his mouth. I cringed and made a mental note to ensure the mop water was less water and more Fabuloso tonight. Olive and Keelie giggled above me, a high-pitched tinkling that sounded more like wind chimes than laughter. They didn’t laugh often, but when they did, it always made me happy. Such was the power of the tiny fae. Adorable, cozy, and deadly if you pissed them off. Exactly what I needed around here, considering the clientele I catered to. Swan Noveltinis sat between a tourist voodoo shop called Voodoo 4 U, the kind with plastic shrunken heads and fancy smell good candles with handwritten script spells and labels like To Get Your Man’s Head Right or, my personal favorite, Girl Boss Monday through Friday. If people only knew what authentic voodoo looked like, they’d probably keep a wide berth around even the hint of it. The owner, a frightening woman named Bella, kept all the good stuff in the back, and you had to know the password to see it. I’d met Bella once, made a quip about Twilight, and asked whether she regretted her choice of Edward versus Jacob. As payback for that stupid little joke, Belle retaliated, and my underwear left me crab-walking and red-assed for a week. Now I kept any witty quips to myself when it came to her. The other place was a little less dark, though the owner kept to himself. I rarely saw more than a glimpse of him, and when I did it wasn’t for more than a second at a time. Virtuous Vixens was a cute little shop with fairy lights twinkling in the windows and an ever-changing display of overpriced boutique clothing. I’d never gone in. My style consisted of the sniff test and whatever detergent was on sale that month. Boutique screamed dry cleaning, and my place barely paid the bills. I hoped that would change soon. When I decided to open a ‘potion’ and bookshop smack in the middle of the New Orleans’ nightlife, I thought I might get laughed out of the place, but so far it’s turned into a fun, novelty place people stumbled into on a regular basis. I used the word people lightly. There were few humans here, and the ones who found their way here had no idea they were sitting with many things that could swallow them in a single bite. Many, many years ago when New Orleans became a Mecca for things that went bump in the night, a powerful sorceress put a glamour over the entire city, or so the story goes, allowing any beast or magician who wanted to live here the ability to walk around without being recognized as other, except by their paranormal kin. It turned out to be surprisingly handy, though I still freaked out a little when I saw an unwitting human trying to flirt with a vampire, having no idea it could drain her dry in less than a minute. Even though it was noisy as hell all around us, Dave was still lost in beauty sleep. “Dave!” I said one more time, a snap in my voice not present before. When he failed to stir again, I sent a helpless look over to my one and only other bartender, a massive dude named Landry. He was a gifted bartender, and I still had no idea why he worked here for the wages I could pay him. I asked him once, and his look had me slinking off to do something else. Quickly. Landry, slinging drinks at the other end of the bar, slid a confidence potion disguised as a cosmo over to a young woman with small horns curling above her forehead. After he slid the payment into the register, he unslung the towel from his shoulders, twisted it by swinging it around between his hands, then snapped it right at Dave’s forehead. I