“Raven,” Cort said, realizing the way he said the man’s name sounded much like Seinfeld when he addressed his unpleasant neighbor, Newman.
But the truth was, Cort did not like Raven. Raven was a vampire, too, except he fancied himself as some sort of Goth prince of darkness. Cort found him pretentious, self-indulgent, and frankly outright silly.
He tried to find the poser vampire amusing since he really was rather pathetic with his outlandish clothing, tattoos that tried too hard to be deep, and then there was his harem of women. Raven had a group of women who actually agreed to let him feed from all of them. They were sort of a combination sister wives/all-you-can-eat buffet.
But what really had Cort gritting his teeth about the jerk was that Raven had recently taken notice of Katie. Cort hated the idea of Katie being involved in that. Or involved with Raven, period. Or any other male, for that matter.
Wait, what was he thinking? He certainly hadn’t made any moves to get her himself.
Well, except for maybe last night. They were now wearing matching wedding bands. That was a move. A big one.
But there had to be a simple and reasonable explanation. It had to be some sort of joke or something. He couldn’t imagine, no matter how gone he was, that he’d get married like this.
But then again, he’d vowed to never cross over another mortal, not without their absolute consent, and even then he wasn’t sure he’d do it. Immortality was a blessing and a burden. At least it had been for him.
“I vaguely remember going out onto the deck to talk to Stella,” Wyatt said, frowning. “Where is Stella? I would think she’d be with us.”
Bob the bat chose that moment to swoop down from the chandelier, buzzing close to Wyatt’s head again.
“Saxon! Call off your moronic buddy,” Wyatt shouted, his hands going back up to protect his hair.
“Bob, you so need to chill,” Saxon said toward the ceiling, but the bat had disappeared into the other room.
“If we are done with this little trip down amnesia lane, I’m going to get some more blood,” Drake said testily, then unconsciously fiddled with the place where his fang had once been.
“Wait,” Cort said, “so we all blacked out around the same time.” He then turned to Katie. “Do you remember anything?”
Katie was staring wide-eyed at Drake’s now empty wineglass. It probably was unnerving to watch someone sip blood like it was a fine cabernet. Or maybe she was longing for a glass herself. If that was the case, that desire was probably freaking her out even more.
She tore her gaze away to look at Cort, narrowing her blue eyes as she tried to focus. Yeah, she was definitely fighting a craving.
“I remember coming onto the riverboat to give you all my condolences about Johnny.” She squinted more. “You were all doing shots, making toasts to him. Cort—you asked me to join in. I did a couple, but then said I couldn’t do any more. So you decided to go back onstage and play Johnny’s favorite song.”
“‘Freebird,’” all of the remaining bandmates said in unison, except for Saxon who said, “‘Jessie’s Girl.’”
They all stared at him and he shrugged. “I’m scarred, man. What do you want?”
“Do you remember anything more?” Cort asked Katie.
She nodded slowly.
“I think I remember you”—she looked at Cort—“pulling me up onstage to sing along, and then . . .”
She thought a moment longer, then shook her head. “Then that’s all I remember.”
“I think I should go to Stella’s place and check on her,” Wyatt said, clearly concerned for their sound woman.
But before Wyatt could even hit the hallway, a low, muffled groan came from farther down the hallway.
Wyatt spun back to them. “Did you hear that?”
“I totally heard that,” Saxon said. “Maybe it’s Bob coming back into human form.”
Another groan sounded, this time louder.
“That doesn’t sound like Bob though,” Saxon said, tilting his head. “He’s from Boston.”
Cort was pretty certain that you couldn’t tell a person’s accent from their moan, but as usual, it didn’t seem worth the effort to point that out to Saxon.
“Let’s just go check,” he suggested instead.
Carefully all five of them moved into the hallway, creeping forward as if they expected someone to jump out at them. As if they weren’t all vampires who could easily defend themselves from well, just about everything.
Except memory loss, apparently. And it turned out, memory loss was very unnerving. None of them were acting like themselves.
First they peeked into Drake’s bedroom, which was cluttered with a large assortment of leather clothing and guitars, but appeared empty otherwise. Next they all looked into Cort’s.
The bedding was a tangled mess, and random clothing littered the floor, but it, too, seemed empty.
“This is where I woke up,” Katie said. “Or rose. Or whatever I do now.”
Yeah, well, whatever she wanted to call it, being in his room also seemed to imply that whatever happened to her last night, Cort had been involved.
Drake gave him a pointed look, clearly thinking the very same thing.
“Oh, you aren’t off the hook yet,” Cort murmured to his roommate, only to see Katie shoot them both a dirty look.
They sneaked farther down the hallway, then came to a dead halt as another moan echoed toward them. Very close now.
“The bathroom,” Drake mouthed.
Cort and Wyatt nodded. Saxon did his usual hang-loose sign, and Katie’s eyes were huge
They all hesitated until Cort nodded and stepped forward. They moved as one behind him. When they reached the bathroom, Cort couldn’t see the source of the moaning. Not at first. But then after a few moments, he realized there was something or someone sprawled in the bathtub, the shower curtain half over him—her—it—whatever.
Cort squinted, certain he couldn’t be seeing what he thought he was seeing. Even with his excellent vampire vision.
“That looks like a priest,” Wyatt said, confirming exactly what Cort was telling himself he was absolutely not seeing.
“Why would there be a priest in your bathtub?” Saxon asked.
“That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?” Drake said, but gave Cort and Katie another pointed look.
“Huh?” Saxon said, clearly lost.
“Actually, I think the bigger question is how you didn’t notice him while you were in here,” Cort said to Saxon.