she wasn't? How come she never was? Huh? Explain me that!
Cat, weaving his way back through the tables from the rest room, was wondering the very same thing. He had never in all of his whole entire life seen Annabelle drunk. And she drank as much as anybody, didn't she? Well, didn't she?
Did she? He thought back. Yup. She did. In fact, she was the one who had really gotten the serious stuff going with that schnapps shit. Waitaminute! Schnapps! She always drank schnapps! Maybe if I drank schna... Waitaminuteagain! I am drinking schnapps. I've been drinking it. That's how I got so polluted.
He plopped back down on his stool thinking: Mystery of the Universe!
"I need a vampire," said Carl once again at Cat's reappearance.
"In a minute," Cat finally retorted.
And they hissed at each other.
Annabelle smiled again. But not too much or she was certain she'd lose her balance, keel backward off the stool, skirts flying, and crack her head on the side of the bar like a ripe grapefruit.
And then, she giggled silently to herself, little purple butterflies would sparkle out.
She had never been so thoroughly plastered in her life. She doubted if anyone had. And the thought of actually being able to sit down and pee was her notion of heaven. But do women pee? Sure they do. No. They dew. Horses sweat, men perspire, and women dew. Right? No, that was something else.
But urinate sounded so dreadful. So unladylike.
And if she didn't risk weaving to the rest room in front of the men she was about to do something a lot more unladylike. Being a lady - setting the standard - was paramount. She bore the entire responsibility, she was quite certain, for Team Crow.
In a very real sense, more than she would ever fully comprehend, this was quite true. Annabelle O'Bannon was more than a simple regal beauty who kept her raucous men in line. She was their symbol for the rest of the world they were surely going to die trying to protect. She was why they kept going out to fight knowing damn well they would eventually lose. It had happened to everyone else. It would happen to them. But this way it wouldn't happen to Annabelle.
They didn't know this, her men. That is, they had never consciously voiced it, even inside their own heads. But it was so. It was so because she, Annabelle, was so. Just so.
She had that way with men only certain ladies and other magical creatures possessed. A way of making them sit down and eat their porridge or drink their drink. Of making them shut up and listen to someone else talk.
She could make them wear ties.
She also possessed the unique ability to actually stop violence, like the time she made Jack put that Harley down - and not on that poor moaning biker like he wanted.
None of this was getting her off the barstool and into the ladies' room. And she simply had to go. Then a thought occurred.
"Young man," she called to the middle-aged bartender, "I'll have another." Then she slid off the stool and landed, thank God, on both high-heeled feet and had weaved her way several steps toward sweet release before Carl and Cat could get over the shock.
The two men looked at one another. Another drink? Another-goddamned-drink? She was going to have another round and here they were, the two of them big tough guy Fighters of Evil trying desperately to focus on their cocktail napkins for balance, for chrissakes, and she's having another...
But what could they do? What choice did they have? It was awful and grisly to do it but the alternative was worse, giving in was worse.
Carl gulped, said, "Me too."
The bartender, bright, sober, and sadistic, asked Cat, "Another all the way around?"
And Cat, his face gray and his life passing before his eyes, nodded dully.
Annabelle's timing was, as always, exquisite. She had made it almost out of sight while the men were occupied with machismo. She paused at the entrance to the bar and, with apparent unconcern, spoke back over her shoulder, "Young man," she called sweetly to the bartender, "I guess not after all."
All three men turned toward her, the bartender with hands full of fixings. "You don't want another, lady?"
Annabelle smiled. "I guess not."
The bartender's annoyance barely showed. "You're sure?" he pursued.
She paused, seemed to take the question of chemical suicide seriously, then shook her pretty head again. "I guess not," she repeated and then she was