Page 19

I headed over and parked myself on the stool next to his, then ordered a whiskey from the barman. A quick side-glance revealed folded sunglasses on the bar in front of him, short dark-brown hair, a shadow of stubble on his chin . . . He was the same guy I’d seen in the lobby when we’d arrived, not one of the LARP attendees.

“Pretty crazy, huh?” I smiled, and as he side-eyed me with silvery vampire eyes, I thumbed at the crowd filling the bar. “Fun, though. Are you uh, dressed up too?”

“Me?” His smile was soft and genuine, and his accent had a thick Minnesota drawl. “No, it was never my thing.” He sipped his drink, then took more notice of me. “What about you?”

“Oh yeah, sure. I’m uh . . . So, you know that crazy hotel in San Francisco?”

“The one where the heroes stopped that nasty sorcerer? I sure do.”

“Yeah, so . . . I’m uh, pretending to be the manager, uh . . . Adam, I think his name is.”

“Adam, huh? No, I don’t remember seeing him.”

“You know, the nice human guy? Turns out he’s sometimes a dragon?” Did my little laugh sound fake enough, but also real?

“Oh yeah, you betcha!” He held out his hand. “I’m Wesley. Nice tah meet’chah.”

“Oh.” I shook his hand, finding it warm and gentle. “Hi. I’m Adam. I said that already. My real name is Adam, though, uh, same as the hero human guy, I guess.” Wow, pretending to be me while also pretending not to be was a minefield. At least Wesley didn’t seem to mind.

He chuckled. “Honestly, I got no idea who the Adam guy is, sorry. That was more Eddie’s thing.”

“It’s fine. So uh . . . is Eddie here?”

Wesley’s smile faded. “Ah, no.” He craned his fingers over his glass and swirled its contents. “He uh . . . he left. Apparently.”

Okay, I may not be the most observant when it came to emotions, but there was definitely something going on here. Unlike Victor, Wesley wasn’t trying to hide his feelings, and he seemed . . . sad.

“Hey, so . . .” Wesley turned on his stool to face me. “Strange question. Have you seen anything weird here?”

How was I supposed to answer that? Weird like dead bodies vanishing, like frozen people, like Larimer’s one long eyebrow? “Uhm . . .”

“It’s just . . .” He looked away quickly, thinking, then met my gaze dead on. “Okay, so this is going to sound insane but Eddie . . . he came here a week ago, was staying just for the night. We uh . . . We’re together, or I thought we were, but then he ups and vanishes. An’ he does that sometimes, but never without telling me. He moves around a lot. He has a creepy history podcast, travels all over, but I don’t know . . . this time? It just feels . . . off.” He scanned the chatty crowds in the bar, now with a different purpose, as though suspecting them of something.

“Yeah,” I agreed carefully. “Something is definitely off about this place.” I had to be careful. Wesley seemed nice, and nothing like the vampires I’d met before, but we had only just met. Still, if he suspected the Stephanie Hotel was more than weird, maybe we could help each other out? It wouldn’t hurt to have a local on our side.

“Did you hear about the new management?” I asked.

“I did.” Wesley shuffled closer. “They came in a few weeks ago, made a big splash about buying the hotel, bringing tourists in, don’cha know? Never met them personally, though. The locals don’t stay here so they didn’t see anything wrong. Then with Eddie vanished, I started to look closer⁠—”

“Everything all right here?” the barman asked, leaving my whiskey.

“Sure. Uh, can you put it on the room?”

“What room are you in?”

“Thirteen.”

“Sure thing.” The barman headed off to serve other customers.

“That’s the room Eddie stayed in,” Wesley said. Then he whispered, “You gotta be careful. There are eyes everywhere.” He nodded over my head, and a quick glance back revealed a camera spying from the corner of the bar.

“Yeah, we noticed.”

“I know it sounds crazy, but I don’t think Eddie left. I can’t reach his phone, and he’s not online. He stayed at this hotel and then vanished the next day. I think something happened to him.”

“Did you try the police?”

“They said they talked to the hotel and Eddie checked out. I don’t believe it.”