Maybe because it was one of the favorite spots of the locals, and whenever she walked back there, she knew she was going to know someone.
And sure enough, she recognized one of the patrons seated at the bar immediately.
“Raven,” she said, greeting the bald guitarist with a cool familiarity.
Raven either didn’t notice, or didn’t care, because he smiled broadly.
“Katie Lambert. How are you feeling tonight?”
Katie knew that he had to know she was now one of them, since he’d been at the wake and in the pictures she’d seen.
“I feel fine,” she said, looking toward the other patron, a woman who looked a little mussed and frazzled. If the way she was knocking back her drink was any indication, she was.
Could this be Annalese Bonvieux? And if it was, did she want to have the conversation she was about to have in front of Raven? Not really.
But Katie approached her, a little timidly, partly because she felt nervous and because the woman really did look more than a little stressed.
“Pardon me,” Katie said softly, but the woman whipped around like Katie had shouted at her. The woman eyed Katie up and down.
“I’m sorry to bother you, but are you Annalese?”
The woman studied her a moment longer, then shook her head no, and Katie quickly realized she wasn’t going to volunteer anything more. Katie thanked her, wondering what the heck happened to her tonight to make her so tense.
Katie frowned. It couldn’t be anything weirder than what had happened to her.
Katie turned around, surveying the room again. Of course Raven watched her, and she felt obligated to wander back toward him. Why couldn’t that woman have been Annalese? Or at least friendly so Katie would have felt comfortable sitting down with her. Instead she took a seat a couple down from Raven.
He immediately got up and sat down beside her. Of course. She should have told him she wanted to just sit here by herself, surely being a vampire should give her the ability to be a little bitchy, but still she couldn’t be overtly rude. Those darn ingrained manners.
“You look lovely. Your new state suits you.”
“Thank you.” She really wished someone else was back here with them. As if in answer to her wish, Peter, the back-room bartender, appeared. Peter was in exact opposition to the front-room bartender. He was average height, with somewhat broad shoulders, but overall an average build. His ever-present cowboy hat was perched on his shaggy hair that was a color somewhere between light brown and gray.
He nodded at Katie and asked her what she’d like to drink. Katie hesitated, not certain that Peter would extend her a brief line of credit like she knew Nigel would have.
“Let me buy you a drink,” Raven said.
Katie hesitated again, then nodded. “I’ll have a vodka and tonic with extra lime.”
Peter moved over to the other bar to fix her drink.
“So I guess I should tell you that your man Cort is looking for you.”
Katie turned slightly on her barstool. “He is?”
Raven nodded, taking a sip of his own drink. Red wine.
“And I also have to admit, I couldn’t resist ribbing him.”
“How and why?”
“I gotta tell you, Katie, I’m pretty damned sick of losing all the good ladies to the damned Impalers.”
She frowned, not totally following him.
“Stella Malone to Wyatt Axelrod.”
Really? Katie supposed that made sense. Stella and Wyatt would make a great and truly stunning couple. In fact, now that she thought about it, she had sensed something between them on occasion, but she’d always been so focused on Cort that she hadn’t given it much thought. But apparently they were together now? Good for them.
“And of course, I’ve lost you to Berto Cortez.”
Peter appeared, placing her drink on the bar in front of her. Katie thanked him and took a long sip before responding to Raven.
“I don’t think you can really say you lost me to Cort. You never had me and he always did.”
His eyeliner-darkened eyes widened, and he actually looked stunned, but then he chuckled, shaking his head. “Damn, you know what, you have a good point.”
Katie smiled, too.
Raven laughed again. “You have a very good point.”
And he took a sip of his wine.
* * *
“SHE JUST LEFT.”
Cort stared at his friend.
Nigel stopped wiping the bar and repeated himself, this time slower.
Since Cort had pretty much made up his mind that finding Katie wasn’t going to happen tonight, Nigel’s words didn’t make sense right away.
“Do you know where she was headed?”
It was actually Drake who asked.
Cort just felt too relieved that maybe they were close to finding her. Maybe he could talk to her and tell her exactly how he felt.
“She’s headed to Erin Rose to meet with a woman who apparently married you last night.”
Cort looked at Drake. “But I thought you said that Katie and I didn’t really get married.”
Drake gave him a puzzled look. “All I know is you weren’t married by the priest from the bathtub. He’s a stripper who works at Bounce.”
It was Nigel’s turn to look baffled as he looked from Cort to Drake and back to Cort again.
“Alrighty, I’m not even going to try to follow that, but apparently Katie got some information that maybe you really did get married. Granted, she got this information from a local homeless man, but who knows.”
“A local homeless man?” Cort said.
“Yes, the Dancing Vagrant. He tends to hang around Frenchmen Street more than Bourbon, but he does come down this way occasionally.”
The Dancing Vagrant? Cort racked his brain. He remembered hearing that name before. Wait, that’s right. That couple from earlier, Betty and Ed, they’d had pictures of a man they’d called that name. But he didn’t recall them saying this guy had also been a part of their wedding party. Damn, more confusion.
Whatever. He knew where Katie was.
“Thanks,” Cort said, smacking Drake on the shoulder just as he was about to settle on a barstool.
“What?” Drake said, giving him an innocently confused look.
“We’re going to another bar—get a drink there.”
“Jack and Coke. Jack and Coke.”
“You, too,” Cort muttered to the bird.
“Oh, and by the way, that parrot belongs to the homeless man with Katie.”
Damn, that was almost as good news as the fact they were going to find Katie. Almost.