The Fangover (4 page)

“What now?” Wyatt asked, peering out from under his arms, which he had folded protectively over his long hair. “What the hell is that?”

“Wait, this one is a what and not a who?” Katie asked, staring up at the flying blurs.

A what and not a who
. Why did Cort suddenly feel like he’d been dropped into a Dr. Seuss book? At least that would explain why nothing was making sense this evening.

Even though he knew it was probably a lost cause to try and understand this new turn of events, Cort squinted to make out what had just joined the bat.

And as expected, his deduction only added to the confusion of the evening. “I think, I think that’s a . . . parrot.”

As soon as he said the word
parrot
, the bird flew down from the ceiling and landed on Cort’s shoulder, the shoulder of the arm that was around Katie. Katie screamed and jerked away. The parrot lifted its crest and cawed in shrill response.

“Crazy train . . . crazy train,” the bird squawked in a weird falsetto voice.

Katie squealed again, then fell back into her hysterical laughter. Yeah, this was all going very, very strangely.

“Rad, dude, a talking parrot.” Saxon nodded, approaching the bird.

The bird eyed him with skeptical, beady, black eyes. “Jenny, I’ve got your number,” it said, then cawed loudly and ruffled its feathers.

“I don’t think that bird likes me,” Saxon said, looking wounded again. He ran a hand through his tangle of surfer-blonde hair.

“What happened to your forehead?”

Saxon frowned, touching the place where Cort stared.

“What is it?” the mussed blonde asked, looking around at all of them, panic clear in his eyes. “What
is
it?”

Wyatt leaned in to inspect the large pinkish mark. “It looks like a burn. In the shape of a cross.”

“A burn? From a cross?” Saxon hurried off to the bathroom to inspect.

“Okay, this is officially crazy,” Wyatt said, watching Saxon leave. “Cross burns. Parrots. Fledgling vampires. Craziness. Oh, and let’s not forget idiots trapped in bat form.”

Wyatt looked up at Bob the bat, if that was actually who the bat was. It no longer flitted around the room, but now hung from the dusty chandelier in the center of the living room ceiling. But it did shriek loudly at Wyatt’s comment.

The bird cawed again, nearly deafening Cort.

“I think it’s safe to say that none of us have a clue what happened last night,” Drake stated.

“Except I’m definitely a vampire,” Katie said slowly, and Cort noticed she was no longer staring at the parrot, but rather her hand. “
And
apparently I might be married as well.”

She lifted her left hand to display a gold wedding band. A gold wedding band that had “Hers” etched onto it. The rest of the guys, including Cort, reluctantly looked down at their own hands. Oddly he wasn’t terribly surprised when he saw that he, too, had a golden band glinting on his left hand.

And, of course, etched in the band was the word “His.”

“Are we
married
?” Katie asked, her voice pitchy again, hysteria creeping back. This time, the same sensation was creeping up on him, too.

Married. Damn, he’d never even managed to ask this woman out on a date. They couldn’t possibly be married. This was crazy.

“That probably means you crossed her over, too,” Wyatt pointed out.

“No, it doesn’t,” Cort said automatically, even though he wasn’t sure. “And I’m sure I didn’t marry her either.”

He was even less sure of that, what with the matching rings and all.

“I didn’t marry you,” he repeated to Katie as if saying it again would somehow make it true.

Katie rightfully didn’t look convinced, and for just a moment, Cort could have sworn an emotion akin to hurt flashed in her dark blue eyes, but he couldn’t be certain.

“Damn, I feel rough. I need some blood,” Drake said, but before he could leave the room, Saxon returned, blocking his exit.

“It is a cross burn. That’s really messed up.”

“Just chalk it up to one crazy-ass night,” Drake said, moving around him. “At least you have all your teeth.”

“I have a permanent scar, dude,” Saxon said, distressed, lifting his bangs. “You know wounds from religious relics take forever to heal.”

Drake shrugged and left the room.

Drake was never long on sympathy.

“It doesn’t look that bad,” Katie said, the hysteria somehow gone and replaced by genuine empathy.

Amazing. She’d just discovered she was undead, and she was still being her kind, generous self.

“Thanks, man,” Saxon said, smiling appreciatively.

Well, at least his troubles seemed soothed. Too bad all their problems weren’t so easily dismissed.

“But we should probably try to figure out what happened,” Saxon said. “You know, retrace our steps or something. But first maybe we need to assimilate what we do know.”

Cort raised an eyebrow. Who’d have guessed that the out-there surfer dude would be the one trying to act the voice of reason. Maybe the burn had seared some sense into him. And despite his typically odd choice of wording, Saxon was right. They needed to try and piece together what they knew. Maybe that would jog their memories.

“Okay,” Cort said. “The last thing I remember was being on the riverboat. We took a break and headed to the bar for a drink.”

“That’s the last thing I remember, too,” Drake said as he strode back into the room, with a wineglass filled with blood. “I remember toasting Johnny with Raven.”

“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.

Saxon lifted his hair from his forehead again, jabbing his thumb toward the ugly, red burn. “I was a little distracted.”

“Let’s wake him up. Maybe he knows something,” Wyatt suggested, shouldering his way into the bathroom. He flipped on the light, but the priest didn’t rouse.

“He seems drunk or something. Maybe we should let him sleep it off,” Cort said, his first instinct being that he didn’t want to know what this priest might have to say. But then he realized he—and Katie—needed to know the truth.

He glanced at Katie, who worried her bottom lip, clearly as nervous about what the priest might say as he was.

“Don’t do that,” Cort said softly. “You could nick yourself with your new fangs.”

She stared at him for a moment, but stopped.

“Try to wake him,” Drake said, gesturing to Wyatt.

Wyatt stepped forward, only to stop again. “He has Stella’s purse.”

“What?” Drake said.

“He has Stella’s purse. Why would he have that?” But Wyatt didn’t wait for an answer. He reached down and tugged it out from underneath the priest’s limp arm. The man’s hand flopped to the bottom of the tub with a
thud
.

“This isn’t good,” Wyatt said, staring at the tatty old messenger bag like it was one of Stella’s limbs rather than just an accessory.

“I have to go look for her,” he said, again shouldering his way past the rest of them.

“Shouldn’t you wait and see what this guy has to say?” Cort called after Wyatt, who was already striding toward the door.

“Call me if he tells you anything.” The apartment door slammed.

“He’s too tense, man. It makes me weary.” Saxon sighed.

“You make me weary,” Drake said, then pushed Saxon into the bathroom.

“Hey! Dude,” Saxon muttered.

“Wake him,” Drake said again, gesturing toward the unconscious priest.

“Why me?” Saxon said. “I’ve already got battle scars. He could throw holy water on me or something.”

“Just do it,” Cort said, getting impatient.

Saxon hesitated a moment longer, then nudged the priest’s leg with his Vans-clad foot. The priest didn’t respond.

“Wake up, Father,” Saxon said and prodded him again. Nothing.

Saxon turned back toward them and shrugged. “What do we do now?”

“Three for one. Three for one. Craaazy. Craaazy.”