chapter Two
THE WAKE
(Or What They Remembered of It)
WYATT was grateful that he’d played “Carry On Wayward Son” approximately nine thousand times in his years playing with The Impalers on Bourbon Street, because he was completely distracted at Johnny’s wake.
Johnny was dead and he’d slept with Stella.
He’d told Stella he loved her and she’d run away.
He wasn’t even sure why he’d said that. He had meant it more in the way of reassurance that she wasn’t alone. That he cared about her. He did love her. He wasn’t exactly sure to what extent, but he totally did.
But what kind of crap-ass timing had that been? Her brother was dead, they had just spontaneously screwed, and oh yeah, I love you.
He would have run from that.
So basically, everything sucked and he wanted to crawl into a coffin and sleep for a century. He hadn’t slept in forty-eight hours and his eyes felt like sandpaper with an overlay of crushed glass. He had actually even reached up to wipe something off his cheek at one point during his eulogy for Johnny and had discovered it was a blood tear. Never in his whole 150 years of life had he been so mortified. Except for when he’d told Stella he loved her and she’d said thanks and left. There was that.
How could Johnny have committed suicide? And how could Wyatt have blurted out some weird random vow of love to his sister over his ashes?
Stupid. Stupid, stupid. Now he was standing onstage at Johnny’s wake in a haze of grief and liquor, staring out at the crowd of vampires who were mingling, talking, drinking, dancing in remembrance of a life, if not well lived, at least fairly long lived.
Wyatt’s eyes followed Stella, worried about her. He’d been happy to handle all the arrangements of collecting Johnny and planning the wake, to lessen her burden. He’d also been quite happy to stick his dick in her. Who did that? He was absolutely disgusted with himself. The only thing he could say in his own defense was that he hadn’t experienced the death of a friend in a very long time. Clearly, he didn’t know how to do grief anymore. He just knew how to do Stella.
Now he was playing by rote, wondering if she had enjoyed their five-minute encounter as much as he had. She seemed to have been into it while it was happening. He was positive she’d even had an orgasm. He’d felt it, that tightening around his cock, that shiver of her inner muscles, and the catch of her breath before she had called out . . .
Wyatt shifted his guitar in front of his newly sprung erection. Yeah, he was a sick bastard.
A bastard who didn’t want to be there. He’d never been big on funerals or wakes. Back in his mortal days out West, someone died, you dug them a hole, and kept on riding. There was none of this fuss and bother, and the good thing about that was you had the luxury of ignoring your feelings. You didn’t have to stand around and acknowledge that you felt lousy that you’d lost someone important to you. You could just stuff your grief down inside and never deal with it. It was the man’s way of handling death.
Saxon was showing off on the keyboard, adding unnecessary notes left and right, and Wyatt wanted to hit him on the head with his guitar. He also wanted to whisk Stella off and spend a few days naked with her until this whole thing blew over.
Then he wanted to find a way to convince her that they really should be a couple.
He settled for flicking a guitar pick at Saxon, bouncing it off his shoulder, but the satisfaction was short-lived when the keyboardist didn’t even notice, too busy flinging his long hair back over his shoulder.
Then Wyatt saw Stella. She was standing by the bar, a glass in her hand, which she drained with one smooth tilt of her head. She looked pale, even for a vampire. The dusting of freckles on her pert nose was visible from across the room, and there was a droop to her shoulders, which he imagined was from lack of sleep. Every minute or two, a vampire approached her, offered a few murmured words, sometimes a hug. Stella nodded, gave tight smiles, stiffly accepted embraces. But the whole time she clung to the bar, leaning on it, gesturing to the bartender, Jacob, to fill her empty glass no less than four times.
In all the years Wyatt had known her, she’d never been a drinker. Now twice in twenty-four hours, he’d seen her tossing them back. Apparently she didn’t know how to deal with grief any better than he did. But at least she wasn’t crying. Wyatt couldn’t take it when women cried. He found himself promising everything from diamonds to puppies to unlimited oral sex just to get them to stop. Wait. Maybe he should offer Stella that anyway—the oral sex, not a puppy.
His erection throbbed again. He needed a drink himself.
What he wasn’t going to offer Stella was a look at the second note he’d found from Johnny in the cookie jar shaped like a bust of Elvis. Going off his suicide note, Wyatt had checked for the fifty bucks referenced after he had cleaned up Johnny’s ashes. But there weren’t cookies or cash in the jar. Just another note from Johnny that read, “Stella, you’re a sucka. You know I’m broke as a joke. Love, your brother.”
So Wyatt had put Johnny in the cookie jar. He figured that was fitting.
“Yo, dude, I need a break,” Saxon said over his shoulder. “I lost my ChapStick. And this is harshin’ my mellow.”
Wyatt didn’t even bother to ask what exactly was bothering Saxon. He just nodded and turned to Cort. “Five?” he asked.
Cort nodded and at the end of the song, they put down their instruments and picked up their drinks. It was a nightly ritual they were all familiar with. They had been playing together for years and while Wyatt could do without yet another set crammed with Journey, Bon Jovi, and Lynyrd Skynyrd, he enjoyed watching the crowds. It beat the hell out of playing some glittery game of baseball.
Setting down his five-string Spector bass, he went in search of Stella and another beer. He wanted to make sure she was okay. The beer he just needed in order to survive another hour of this weird night.
He didn’t have to look far. With a wave at Raven, a pretentious vampire who played in a rival band on Bourbon, Stella barreled across the room toward him, a little unsteady, clutching her purse strap. For years, she’d been wearing a uniform of tight jeans, combat boots, a variety of rock T-shirts, and a banged-up cross-body bag in worn brown leather. You’d think it was her baby the way she always cuddled it to her breasts. He had to admit he was just a little bit jealous of that leather bag.
“How are you doing?” he asked her, reaching for her hand, wanting to touch her.
She ignored the question and his reach, leaving his hand floating in midair. “Do you have Johnny’s blood vial?”
“Um . . . no.” Caught off guard he let his hand drop. “I left it on the breakfast bar.”
Frowning, she said, “I was just at Johnny’s apartment. It wasn’t there.”
“You probably just missed it.” It was a small necklace, a tiny skull filled with a drop of Johnny’s blood. He could see why Stella would want to keep it, but it would be easy to have looked around the room and not have seen it. “So how are you holding up?”
* * *
STELLA FELT INCREDIBLY impatient with the way Wyatt was talking to her and looking at her. Like he thought she was going to collapse in a screaming, kicking heap on the floor of the Natchez. Which, granted, he might have reason to believe given her behavior the night before, but she was fine. Damn it. So she’d had a meltdown, what of it? It wasn’t every day you found your brother lying there like last night’s campfire. What was she supposed to do, toast a fucking marshmallow? She had cried a little. Screamed. Thrown a lamp or two. Had sex with Wyatt. What woman wouldn’t?
Her cheeks burned a little. Okay, probably most women wouldn’t have done that, but she hadn’t been thinking straight.
She regretted it. For the most part. Ignoring the fact that her nipples were suddenly pert, Stella shook her head. “I looked on the counter. It wasn’t there.”
“We can go there later and look for it. It couldn’t have walked away.”
There was nothing she’d rather do less than go back to Johnny’s empty apartment, but she wanted that necklace. It had meant everything to Johnny and if it were lost she would freak out. How it could just disappear was a mystery to her, unless someone else had been in the apartment at some point, which of course made no sense. She was the only one with a key. “What did you do with his . . . you know. Ashes.”
Wyatt hesitated. Then he gave her a sheepish look. “I put them in the Elvis cookie jar.”
“Seriously? That’s just weird.”
“Well, it was a good, solid container. With a lid. The head really locks into that jumpsuit collar.”
Oh, my God, was she really having this conversation? “I’m going outside.” She wanted out on the deck, in the fresh air. The March air was still crisp at midnight, not wet and oppressively hot the way it would be in another six weeks. The riverboat they had rented for the wake had a wraparound deck, and as she pushed open the door and stepped out, cool air greeted her. That was better.
Leaning over the railing, she took a deep breath, waiting for the tears to come. They kept showing up at random intervals when she was least expecting them. But there were tears now.
“It’s hard to believe he’s gone.”
Shit. Wyatt had followed her. Where had he gotten the impression that she wanted his company? She was embarrassed to be around him. She had yanked down his zipper in what was arguably the strangest move she’d made in her whole life. For no apparent reason, at the absolute worst time. It was mortifying.
Not wanting to look at him because she felt so pathetic and just not herself, Stella just said, “Yeah.” She wasn’t sure what else to say. She’d ranted and raved the night before and now she was just tired and numb and she wanted Johnny’s necklace and her bed. She wanted to wake up and have everything be normal again, her brother spending money he didn’t have and toying with the affections of mortal women, while she went about her business never knowing how large Wyatt’s penis was.
Was that too much to ask for?
“So, about last night.”
Oh, no. He was going to bring up the unbring-upable. She refused to comment, gripping the railing as tightly as possible without breaking her fingers.
“I know that what we, uh, did, was sort of unexpected, but the thing is, it’s something I’ve actually thought about a lot. It’s something I would like to, you know, repeat.”
Could someone please arrive and jam ice picks in her ears? Stella couldn’t deal with this. Like she really, really couldn’t cope. Part of her was, of course, flattered that he was admitting he’d been attracted to her. Part of her was intrigued by the idea of going another round with Wyatt.
But mostly, she was just horrified and mortified and petrified.
This so wasn’t the time or place to talk about their inappropriate dick-stick session.
“I really can’t talk about this right now.” Stella finally forced herself to look at him, lifting her purse off of her shoulder. It was irritating her skin for some reason. Wyatt looked . . . soulful. It was unnerving.
“I don’t mean it to be disrespectful. What I’m talking about is us, you know. Us dating, trying out a relationship. This isn’t about sex.”
It wasn’t? Now she was thoroughly freaked out. “There isn’t an us.”
“I just want to establish—”
“No! No establishing!” Tension whipped through her like a hurricane and she gripped her bag in her hands, suddenly wanting to pummel him until he went away. Until all of this just went away. Gone.
“But—”
“Gah!” she shrieked.
Wyatt’s eyes went huge. “Okay, damn, calm down. We won’t talk about anything important, how’s that? We’ll talk about the weather. It’s a nice night, isn’t it?”
Okay, now he was being petulant. It wasn’t her problem. Even if she felt a tiny bit bad. A lot bad. It wasn’t his fault that this was lousy timing. It wasn’t his fault Johnny was dead and Stella had thrown herself at him.
Feeling contrite, she said, “I’ve had better nights. But thank you for being here for me. I do appreciate it.”
His stiff shoulders relaxed. “You’re welcome. Let me know if you need any help with Johnny’s apartment.”
Yet another thing she didn’t want to think about. Going through Johnny’s stuff. Which reminded her. She reiterated, “That necklace wasn’t there, Wyatt. I would have seen it.”
“It has to be there. But what are you going to do with it anyway? Take Johnny’s blood and clone him?”
Oh, no he didn’t. “Excuse me?” she asked, her voice steely and unnatural even to her own ears.
“It’s there,” he insisted.
Stella followed up on her earlier impulse and whacked him on the arm with her purse.
“What the hell? What’s the matter with you?”
“You’re the matter with me! How could you even say something like that to me?” She hit him again, for good measure. Her purse tipped on its side and all its contents spilled all over the deck of the boat. “Shit!” She started chasing a rolling lipstick.
He bent over to help her and she held her hand up. “I’ve got it!”
Wyatt hesitated a second, but then he just shook his head. “Fine. You know where to find me if you need me.”
Stella sat back on her butt on the deck, deflated, watching him stomp off. He had a valid question. What the hell was the matter with her? She was pissing off the one person who was offering to help her. The other guys in the band had given her condolences but not a single one had offered to help with the arrangements for the wake or with Johnny’s effects. Just Wyatt. And she was shrieking at him like the banshees her mother had always told her about back in Ireland when she was a little girl.
After she cleaned up her purse mess, she should probably apologize. Or at least buy him a drink. Grappling around, she found her wallet, her keys, her compact. It was a bitch to apply makeup as a vampire because her skin was so pale, but she’d perfected the art of touch-and-go. Light powder, a swipe of nude lipstick. That was everything except her phone. Looking around, she didn’t see it. Fabulous. Her cell was gone.
Then she saw it had rolled along the deck, fallen off the edge, and down onto a dirty corner of the lower deck, which was closed off for their event. Stella sighed. Just what she needed. She knew she couldn’t reach it. Her options were to find a staff member and see if they would let her down onto the lower level. Or she could morph into bat form and snag it.
If she hadn’t consumed a large quantity of alcohol she might have reasoned out that option two wasn’t really much of an option as bats are generally not equipped to hold cell phones. She realized this a minute later and did what any drunk vampire would do—she tried to morph back on the tiny landing, promptly fell, and wound up face-first in the Mississippi before she was even sure what had happened.
It was cold. Wet. Dirty. And smelled like rotting fish and grease. Without hesitation, she went back into bat form, terrified she might swallow some of that seriously unhygienic river water. Granted, it wasn’t Dublin at the turn of the century, which had been a complete cesspool, but she was convinced there was a fair amount of funky in the Mississippi. As a vampire, she wasn’t going to catch a skin disease, but that didn’t make it any less gross.
Being in bat form wasn’t necessarily her favorite thing. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d done it. Probably in the ’80s right along with her last sexual activity. She’d been in a phase then involving teased hair and a love of spandex. Sometimes it had been nice to escape high-maintenance fashion and fly around.
Now she just wanted back to herself.
Only when she tried to morph back on the deck, she couldn’t.
What the hell.
She tried again.
Nothing.
It would seem she was drunker than she had realized.
Fabulous. She got to fly around until she sobered up. Just what she always wanted to do. Maybe she could lick some coffee to speed up the process.
When Wyatt reappeared on the deck a minute later, calling her name, she hid, suddenly embarrassed. She didn’t want him to see her like that. Which was stupid, but she was stupid. That’s what had been established in the last twenty-four hours. She was a big old idiot.
Besides, he would wonder why she didn’t change back and as a bat she couldn’t exactly tell him.
“Stella?” He stopped on the deck and looked around. When he spotted her purse, he swore.
He picked it up.
And that was the last thing Stella remembered that night.
Wyatt put Stella’s bag over his shoulder, calling her name again. He was worried. She never went anywhere without that purse. And there was nowhere to go on the deck but in the water. Leaning over, he scanned the river. No sign of her. But her phone was a few feet down on a ledge, and he reached for it, snagging it with one hand.
Leaning over made his head spin. Damn, he felt weird. Drunk, but a strange kind of drunk.
Woozy.
Climbing up onto the railing, because it seemed like the thing to do, Wyatt yelled, “Stella!” at the top of his lungs, suddenly feeling like he might have lost her forever. “Stella!”
And that was the last thing Wyatt remembered that night.