Busy night at the Waterhouse.  I tried to clear a path for Barry so no one knocked his arms off or anything while he squeezed past them.  I didn't feel like I had to go looking for her.  I just needed to get to the bar.  I punched a hole open for us and wedged in so Barry had no leaning room.  He positioned himself so his plastic body was propped against the bar and all he had to concentrate on doing was keeping his head in place...

                I looked from one end of the bar to the other, but didn't see her.  I didn't bother looking at the bartenders because I've never been able to get served here.  Maybe it's my willing personality.

                "Can I get you something?" someone asked on the other side of the bar.  I looked up with surprise, but was only less surprised to see that it was her.  The succubus was tending bar.  And that's what it takes for me to get served in this place, folks.

                "Lilith," I said plainly, which made her frown.

                It wasn't so much a frown as a playful pout that showed off her lips.  It wasn't necessary.  Pouting to show off those lips was like painting a Rolls Royce gold so everyone would know it's expensive.  "I wish you'd call me Lily," she complained.

                "I'd rather not."

                "Because of your sister?"

                I decided to change the subject.  "So, you're tending bar now!  Someone finally make an honest woman of you?"

                She smiled without showing teeth.  "There are no honest women, honey."

                "Not a very progressive attitude."

                "Give me a better setup and I'll give you a better follow-through," she said with a shrug.

                "Okay.  A mushroom walks into a bar and the bartender says 'we don't serve your kind around here!' So the mushroom says..."

                "Why not? I'm a fungi!" She finished the joke without missing a beat.  Perfect timing.  Is it a sin to marry a demon?  Just askin'.

                The bit was not lost on Barry.  He guffawed like Ed McMahan.  She regarded him for the first time, but still only spoke to me:  "Who's your friend?"

                "Barry here is a full-on mystic mojo motherfucker," I told her.  "So no funny business."

                "Wouldn't think of it.  Not with the jokes you tell.  What can I get you boys?"

                "Pina Colada," Barry told her.

                I leaned close to him.  "Barry, your arms don't bend.  You couldn't even hold a glass to your face."

                "Just put it in front of me!  I can drink it through a straw."

                I looked him up and down.  All this and a girl-drink drunk too?  Barry never had a chance in this world.  It's no wonder he sold himself to the next.  "Heineken," I said to the succubus through the side of my mouth.

                She laughed and disappeared.

                "I sense a trap," Barry said ominously.

                "Shut up, Barry," I growled.  I wondered where she went.  If it were a trap, she could just poison our drinks or something.  Under the constant murmur of the crowd I heard a soft melody.  The piano.  Someone was playing the piano near the front entrance.  That was definitely out of place.

                Before I had a chance to wonder about this Lilith returned with the drinks.  She put Barry's big frilly frou-frou drink in front of him, then popped open the Heineken so I could see her do it.  It was a demonstration of nonaggression. 

                "So what brings you here tonight?" she asked.  "I don't want to get my hopes up or anything, but I'd say you're looking for me."

                I took a drink.  A show of good faith or a test of courage.  It wasn't beyond her power to whammy a sealed bottle of beer, but I had to show her I had the stuff.  "Not on my own," I told her.  "We have a friend in common."

                "Only thing we have in common is that we don't have friends," she answered back playfully.

                "Fair enough, but just the same we both know him.  He's holed up in the old 606, but he's had better days."

                "I bet.  I used to know him, but we're not so close anymore.  He had a change of heart."

                I wanted a cigarette, but I wasn't carrying.  "You helped with that one, I think.  He said something about using it to summon the Leviathan?  That can't be good.  He called you something else too."

                "A lot of men call me a lot of things," she said casually.

                "All apt to the situation, no doubt," I quipped, "but this was a word I hadn't heard before:  Anidima."

                "That's a poet's word, but apt to the situation, I guess."

                "So what's your boss want with a monkey heart?  I thought he had his own apocalypse going.  I never read about a Leviathan in the Bible."

                She laughed.  "Jonah might beg to differ.  You should also study your Greek.  They used the word 'dragon' for any monster they didn't already have a name for.  But you're right about him having his own plans.  He's just not my boss anymore."

                "So you're a free agent now?" I asked her.

                She smirked, then shrugged.  I really wanted to kiss her.  "Well, not free..."

                "No doubt of that."  I took another drink.  "So who is that's so keen on bringing back the things from within?  I don't know what that is, but I bet it has a sinister ring to it."

                She looked concerned at that.  "Is that what they're after?  I thought the Vanara was just in the way, but his heart could be the key."

                "To the end of the world?  Nice work, sister.  Maybe you're not cut out for self-employment."

                "Look, your friend was Hanuman's hatchet-man back in the day, but he's been locked in that dusty hole so long that he was half-feral and looking to crack when I got sent to put him down.  I thought the heart was just the proof, but now..."

                "End of the world stuff, I know.  I'm not as seasoned to all this as you guys, but it seems to me you supernatural types are always playing with matches while you're sitting on a powder-keg."

                "Immortality can be boring," she said innocently.  I swear she batted her eyelashes at me.  "And lonely."

                Jesus.  "Yeah, well thanks to you I'll probably never know."

                Barry had been listening quietly like we were one of his TV shows.  He took a long sip of his drink and it instantly poured out of his neck and all over his fake body.

                "Oh God, Barry," I said in annoyance and disgust.  "You are a fucking calamity."

                "Sorry," he gurgled.

                "How does he manage at home?" Lilith asked.

                "I usually stick him in a punch bowl," I told her, taking a step away from him to avoid getting Pina Colada on my shoes.

                "Or the sink," Barry added.

                The piano music was louder now.  I didn't like it.  I didn't like anything out of place anymore, it was all starting to emphasize just how far from normal I'd slipped.  I couldn't see across the crowd to get a look at the piano player. 

                "Who is that?" I asked Lilith, ignoring Barry again.

                "Go ask him."

                So I did.

TO BE CONTINUED