Page 10 of Whiskers on Kittens

She saluted me with her glass before taking a sip. “You could indulge her for a barrel. I’m sure your friends won’t mind the harvest.”

“You’re siding with her?” Ernesto complained.

“Of course. Where else am I going to get Scotch like this without having to work for it?”

I raised a brow at my friend. “You do have to work for it, bitch.”

“She’s the succubus who dared you to get the collar, isn’t she?” Heaving a patience-worn sigh, Easton sat at the bar beside Amy, took a long look at the offerings, and focused on my bourbon collection. “Is that really a 1984 Blanton’s Single?”

Ah. He’d spotted part of my Blanton’s collection. I grinned, plucked the bottle off the shelf, and put it in front of him. It had a few drinks left, as it was one of the more popular beverages guests invited to my bar wanted to try due to its scarcity. “Are you the brave type who wants to try it?”

With amusing reverence, he picked up the bottle, examining the old label that declared the year, bottle number, and where it’d been stored. “There’s not much left.”

I went to the back of the bar, to the blank section of wall, wood-paneled to better match the den vibe, and found the one piece of wood that would pop open the door leading into my storage room for my spirits and liquors. I waved for the lot of them to follow me. “Corporations love giving gifts after the dust has settled. They know I’m working to balance things for everybody, and they’re afraid of pissing me off. As such, I am gifted with a variety of things—usually alcoholic things. The Blanton’s collection came to me in batches through several companies, one of which was an auction house for things like wines and spirits. Watch your step. While I have the racks bolted down, I don’t want to hear any damned crying if something gets broken.”

The cellar, larger than the den, housed hundreds upon hundreds of bottles, and I guided everyone through to the very back where my Blanton’s collection resided. “I have six bottles from 1984 that are unopened, I have the one on the bar, and there’s another opened one under the bar because I forgot I had one on the shelf. That’s fine because the one on the shelf is about done. Whenever the corporations I work with often come across older bottles of Blanton’s, they find their way to me as a gift. I report the gift to the government, too—and remind them I report the gift. If you wanted to do a yearly flight of Blanton’s, we could, although you’d be exceptionally drunk by the time you finished.”

“She doesn’t even drink much.” Ernesto headed to my rack of imported spirits, and he pointed up at my collection of sakes. “I lust for these.”

“You may not have my Japanese collection.”

“You have duplicates.”

I snorted. “Become friends with Japanese companies working in the United States, then. Those are mine, and I earned them. Maybe if you made me an entire barrel of wine for my cellar, I’d consider giving you some of the extras—or putting in a good word with the makers in Japan.”

“Cruel,” Ernest complained.

I rolled my eyes at the vampire’s antics. “Curious about any other types, Easton?”

“Johnny Walker.”

The test amused me; in most stores, Johnny Walker capped out around six hundred, unless one made an adventure into their special offerings. I had several such offerings, and I guided the lycanthrope through the racks. “All right. So, you know those uptight British folks across the pond who get all ceremonial whenever their monarchs do something? Including age?”

“I’m aware.”

I pointed up to the top to the one bottle I doubted I’d ever open. “That beast is the Diamond Jubilee special. I had to tango with Johnny Walker once, and they opted to give me a complete collection including that bottle. I’m complete up to two years ago, and Johnny Walker has warned me if we cross paths again, I’ll be brought up to complete status again. I don’t know if they like or hate me. They gave me ten bottles of all their lower line stuff, five bottles of the rest except for the Diamond Jubilee, of which I have three. They specified something about three bringing good luck.” Wrinkling my nose, I pointed at the other two bottles. “I’m of the opinion they felt they couldn’t let the first bottle become lonely. Do you know who is not drinking those bottles? Me. I hate Johnny Walker. They made me do a flight test with them, and I had to pretend like I liked it. My virus was crying after the first round, and my stomach was pleading for mercy after the third. Nobody walked out of that flight, Easton. And I mean nobody. They cracked one of their Diamond Jubilee bottles to finish that rodeo, and I blacked out about a quarter of the way in. I’m pretty sure I was vomiting alcohol in a five-star hotel bathroom.”

“I’m concerned.” The cop eyed the collection, and he whistled at one of the offerings on the lower shelf. “What do we have here?”

“Touch my Maker’s Mark and you lose a finger, wolf,” I growled. “You can have a cheap Maker’s Mark, but that’s mine.”

Easton raised a brow and held his hands up. “And this is me not touching the Maker’s Mark. What’s special about it?”

“That’s the bottle I’m cracking to say goodbye to single life,” I informed him. “And the only person I’m sharing that one with is my partner. My momma and papa gave me that bottle.” I crouched next to him, pulled the bottle off the shelf, and smiled at it. “It’s autographed by the distillery owners at the time, and there were only a hundred bottles made. My parents asked me if I had any contacts over at Maker’s Mark. I do, so I gave my contact a ring, told them my parents had a question about their alcohol, and let them do their thing. That got them onto the buyer’s list for the bottle.” I turned the bottle so he could see my name written on it. Then, I turned it around, which had a note wishing me well when I finally escaped single life and to enjoy a round on them. “Out of all the things a company has ever done for me, this one actually means the most. My parents paid market price for the bottle, fair and square—which was way over what they could afford. But Maker’s Mark went the extra mile and had it special delivered, by the owners, because they thought it was sweet my parents wanted to do something special just for me.”

“That’s fantastic.” Easton kept his hands to himself, but he read the labels, smiling at the bottle. “I don’t drink much, but I do drink. I view myself as someone who wishes I could become one of those people with a fancy room dedicated to interesting bottles of alcohol.”

I laughed, put the bottle back in its spot, and gave it a loving pat. “I love my cellars. I could put the bottles on the walls, but I love coming in here and being able to just admire everything.” While I wouldn’t crack that specific bottle of Maker’s Mark, I had a few others that the company had given me over the years, and I picked out one of their rarer offerings. “To make it up for you, we can crack this beauty. I’ll only have a little as I have to work, but we can talk about our job over drinks. Once I get the vampire and succubus out of here, you can explore the house, relax, and do whatever it is cops need to do while getting ready to hit the road. I’ll get the report finished, and we can roll out in the morning.”

“Are you sure I can’t have just one?” Ernesto whined.

“Touch my sake and you’ll be short a hand, vampire!” I got up, went to Ernesto, and hissed at him, pointing at the cellar entry until he left my sake bottles alone. “You don’t even get to dream of having any of my duplicates until I have my entire bottled barrel of that wine. The only sake you’ll ever see is basic liquor store offerings. You hear me? Out of my cellar!”

“Cruel! Ruthless!”

“In possession of my sake. A deal’s a deal, Ernesto. You’ll get me an entire barrel’s worth of bottles of that wine, and then I’ll see about hooking you up with sake. But until then, you’ll deal with it and like it!”

Amy snickered, dragged Ernesto to the bar, and made him sit down. “She has sake on her shelf. See? It’s up there. She’ll give you a little of that to firm her status as the winner of that exchange.”