The maid shook her head and continued on her way. Those nearby ignored him. Wayne closed his eyes and listened to their prayers.
“They’re just gonna let us starve. You heard the governor, Ren. All he cares about is his rusting reputation.”
“We’re supposed to have the good life. Harmony made this land for us all. But do we get to enjoy it? No. Its riches only mean that the fine folk get more outfits and big houses.”
“Something needs to change in this city. I ain’t out of work like those fellows at the steel mill, but Harmony…”
“Sixteen-hour shifts. I leave before my little girl gets up, and she’s in bed before I get back. See her once a week, I do.”
“We work and die so we can give it all up to the same people. They own the building we live in. Ain’t that the scam? Work for them all day, then give it all back at night for the privilege of bein’ able to survive another day to keep workin’.”
Weighty prayers, those were.
Wayne kicked back away from his table and walked to the altar at the front of the room, with its bottles on the rack behind shining in the light. Gas lights. Real traditional, this temple was. He settled down at the altar between a fellow with suspenders and another with arms so hairy he had to have some bear in him. Grandfather, at least.
“Whhiskey,” Wayne said to the priest behind the altar.
The man gave him a cup of water with a lemon in it instead. Rusts. Might have laid the accent on a little too thick. Wayne settled back, sipping his water.
The men here at the altar, they didn’t complain. They just stared, holding their cups. Wayne nodded. Those were silent prayers, the kind that you could read in their eyes. He reached out and plucked the cup from the next man’s hands and gave it a sniff. Plain rum. What fun was that?
He reached over to bear-fur and plucked his drink from his fingers as well, and gave it a sniff. Both men turned toward him as he downed the rest of his water, then mixed their drinks together in his cup. He gave it a squeeze of his lemon and a pinch of sugar from behind the altar, then added some ice, placed a coaster on top, and shook like his life depended on it. Which it might, since the fellow with rugs on his arms had just stood up and cracked his knuckles.
Before he could start pounding, Wayne spun a cup toward each man and settled back in thought. The cups settled into place, and the altar fell silent. Hesitant, the men reached out and tried their drinks. Suspenders tried his first.
“Wow,” the man said. “What did you do?”
Wayne didn’t reply, tapping the table with one finger as hairy-arms tried his drink and nodded appreciatively. Living among the fancy folk had taught Wayne a few things. Fancy folk couldn’t ever do anything the ordinary way. Sometimes he thought they acted strange just so they wouldn’t be like regular folk.
But they did know how to get drunk. He’d give them that.
The priest came over to investigate the disturbance, but both men just wanted more of what Wayne had made. The priest listened to them try to explain it, and then nodded—looked like he’d worked some fancy parties, or had some rich folk come in.
Wayne slipped something onto the altar. A couple of bullet casings.
“What’s this?” the priest asked, setting down the cup he’d been wiping. “Is this … is this aluminum?”
Wayne stood up and gathered a few things from behind the altar, then piled them in the priest’s arms. He had ice, fortunately, from a delivery earlier. That was getting cheaper and cheaper these days, with shipments down from the mountains. The fellow also had a nice collection of spirits and some fixings. Enough for Wayne to make do.
Wayne pointed for the man to follow him, then began working his way through the room. He stopped at each table, taking their drinks and reworking them. Those with beer got juice or soda water, mixed carefully and transformed. He always left them with something like what they’d started with, but new. Fresh. He added ginger to some—worked real nice with lemon—and bitters to others. He tried to use something from every table, and only got cussed at a couple of times. Before too long, he had the temple feeling far more companionable. In fact, he’d drawn something of a crowd.
The group cheered as he settled down at a table in front of a tall, pretty woman with large eyes and long fingers. The drink he made for her wasn’t actually anything special—gin and lime, with some soda water and a hint of sugar—but the secret ingredient … well, that was something special. A pouch of blue powder he’d found at the party earlier that night. He’d traded some sand for it.
He mixed the powder into the drink with a hidden twist of the fingers, shaking, before finally adding the lime. As he slid the cup in front of the woman, the drink’s blue liquid swirled and moved, then blushed to a deep violet, the color moving through it like growing mists.
Those around him hushed in awe, and the woman smiled at him. He gave her a grin back. He was taken, yes, but he needed to keep practicing his flirtin’ or Ranette was likely to start ignoring him.
And then the skin of the woman’s cheeks shifted to blue, then violet, just like the drink had. Wayne jumped back from the table as her skin returned to normal. She took the drink with a sly smile and sipped at it. “Nice,” she said, “but I usually like something with more kick to it.”
The others in the temple were retreating to their pews. They’d enjoyed the show, but were looking forward to enjoying their liquor even more. They didn’t seem to have noticed what the woman’s skin had done. Perhaps Wayne had been mistaken. He hesitantly took the seat back and looked at the woman, whose eyes—clear as daylight—shifted from blue to violet, then once again to blue.
“Well hang me,” Wayne said. “You’re that immortal, ain’t you?”
“Sure am,” she said, sipping her drink and holding out her hand for him to shake. “Name’s MeLaan. Waxillium told me to say ‘all yellow pants’ to prove it. You did well here tonight. When I first arrived, I felt like the place was going to burst from all the anger. You might have stopped a riot.”
“It’s just one pub,” Wayne said, shaking her hand, then settling back in his chair. “One outta hundreds. If a riot is brewin’, I can’t stop it with some girly drinks.”
“True, I suppose.”
“What I need to do,” Wayne said, “is get the whole city drunk.”
“Or, you know, advocate workers’ rights to bring down working hours, improve conditions, and meet a base minimum of pay.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Wayne said. “That too. But if I could get everybody drunk, think how much happier this city would be.”
“So long as you get me drunk first, I’d be fine with it.” She held out her cup to him. “Top a lady off, will you?”
Wayne frowned. “Now, this ain’t right. You’re some kinda demigod or something. Shouldn’t you be moralizin’ at me?”
“Lo, behold,” MeLaan said, wiggling her cup, “bring an offering to your deity in the form of one blue sunset, extra gin. And ye shall be blessed.”
“I think I can do that,” Wayne said. “Bloody hell, maybe I am religious after all.”
The immortal demigod took a throaty slurp of her beer, then slammed the mug down onto the table, grinning like a four-year-old who had been paid in cookies to rat out her sister. Wax studied her as she looked Wayne in the eyes and let out a belch that could have woken the dead. Beside Wax, Wayne nodded in appreciation, looking quite impressed. He then downed his own beer and belched back at MeLaan, easily twice as long and loud.