Blood Red Roulette

by Jana Denardo

  Table of Contents

  Blurb

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Author’s Note

  Cajun French-English Glossary

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  About the Author

  By Jana Denardo

  Visit DSP Publications

  Copyright

  Blood Red Roulette

  By Jana Denardo

  Arrigo Giancarlo’s friends think he’s a rich young man with the unusual job of paranormal investigator, working with his psychic assistant in Las Vegas. In truth he’s a two-thousand-year-old vampire and member of the Chiaroscuro, a group of Supernaturals dedicated to keeping humanity safe from the more dangerous of their kind. He’s also openly bisexual… but alone.

  When he spots Luc St. John in a bar, Arrigo is intrigued. What begins as an effort to repay the kindness shown to him in the past quickly turns into much deeper feelings for the suffering and displaced Cajun. For Luc’s part, he feels too poor, too uneducated, and too bound to his hateful family to ever be worthy of elegant and cultured Arrigo.

  An old enemy, Eleni, blames Arrigo for murdering her true love. On the anniversary of that death, she’s back to take revenge. As Arrigo’s closest friends fall victim to savage attacks, he fears nothing will keep Luc safe. Should he break both their hearts and let Luc go, or is it too late? If Luc’s already in Eleni’s sights, Arrigo knows that like most things in Vegas, the odds are against him.

  This novel took the long path. It’s for all my friends who wouldn’t let me give up on it. You know who you are. Thank you.

  Acknowledgments

  THANK YOU so much to my beta readers, Sharon Jane, Leigh, Betty, and Kira. Your hard work is appreciated as always. Thanks to Jack and the editors at Dreamspinner for helping me polish this story, and thank you to Chris for help with all the techie stuff.

  Author’s Note

  ARRIGO, LUC, and Siobhan have been with me a long time. I first met them on a vacation I took to celebrate becoming a doctor, now over twenty years ago. Back then they were featured in a series of short stories and Luc and Arrigo were only friends because it would have been nearly impossible for a first-time author to have published a story with a homosexual relationship. There was interest, but the genre magazines came and went like the tides, so their stories went up on the shelf.

  And there they sat for years. I’d think about them from time to time, talk about them with friends. On one of my birthdays, I headed off to Las Vegas and realized this would be a much better setting for their story than Louisiana, which has its fair share of vampire series. I took them back down and dusted them off. I revamped, no pun intended, one of the short stories, which Dreamspinner published.

  With distance and new eyes, I sat down with the short story series of how Luc and Arrigo met and finally wrote it the way I always wanted it to be. It wasn’t easy pulling all the threads together. There were rejections and critiques that were hard and painful but necessary. In the end, Arrigo and Luc have the story they deserve, the one they tried to tell me for all these years. It’s been a long, slow path to get to this point, but it’s been worth it.

  In taking the long path, there were detours, including a short story, Crisis in Faith. Overall, I still am very fond of that tale. It’s mostly Luc’s story, calling into focus his faith and his struggles with what it means to be a vampire. However, in retrospect there are errors in the story. This was one of the very first stories I ever published, and in my excitement, a few things were missed in the editing process. One small problem is Arrigo’s condo is wrong, being in the Skye Towers instead of the Veer Towers. A larger problem is there is a moment when Luc is overwhelmed by the titular crisis in faith and is furious with Arrigo and gets drunk and goes home with someone else. I never intended for that to remain in the story. This story dates back to the ’90s when they were merely friends, and somehow that scene slipped past me unaltered. It seems like a large thing to be blind to, but there you have it. Let’s pretend it didn’t happen, because it wouldn’t have in the way their world has been finally realized.

  Thanks.

  Cajun French-English Glossary

  allons — Let’s go.

  beck mo tchew — Bite my ass.

  bleue — Black and blue.

  bougre — Man.

  candi barres — Pejorative term for a homosexual male.

  c’est sa couillon — You are a fool.

  coo-wee — Wow.

  couillon — Idiot, a fool.

  crotte — A turd, (figurative) a disagreeable, nasty person.

  grand-mère — Grandmother.

  le vieux — Old man.

  loup-garou — Werewolf.

  mais — More, well.

  mais la — An expression of exasperation.

  mal pris — A bad situation.

  maudit — Cursed, damned.

  misère — Trouble.

  mon beau — Term of endearment: my beautiful.

  oo ye yi — Ouch, this hurts.

  peeshwank — Runt.

  pic kee toi — Fuck you.

  quoi? — What?

  quoi ca dit? — What’s up?

  quoi faire? — Why?

  tchew — Ass.

  tortue — Pussy.

  Chapter One

  THIS PLACE sucked for ghost hunting. Arrigo had suspected that even before he first darkened the door to Delilah’s Diner a few weeks before. Subsequent visits failed to sway him into thinking otherwise. Delilah’s, a greasy spoon, held on to the 1950s vibe with the tenacity of a bear trap. He should know, having lived through them.

  He squinted into the vestiges of a brilliantly red Nevada sunset, the cuts on his hands burning less now that the sun had faded. The sunlight, still blazing when he’d woken up at noon, had made his abraded skin burn and itch even more than it usually did.

  Should he go inside the diner or to the bar at the other end of the block? He’d come there, after all, to gather more stories on the haunts inside the diner, but a drink and a chance to check out the Alibi’s bartender had more appeal. Delilah’s name had crossed his desk at his day job at Taabu and Giancarlo’s Psychic Advisement and Paranormal Investigations as a potential haunted place, but it was too far off either the Strip or Fremont Street to make it good for the ghost walk. Delilah’s rested on the sketchy side of town. He decided to add it into a book he’d been commissioned to write about haunted Vegas.

  Just make a decision on whether to go to Delilah’s or go to the
Alibi down the street before the night fades into day and you get all itchy again. He exaggerated, of course. He’d never take hours to make a choice, but if he did, at least the sunlight didn’t tear him up like it had when he was first turned. The virus that mutated them, changing people into vampires, continued to do so as the years passed, only more slowly than it had at the onset. Photodermatitis was certainly a problem for several centuries of life after infection, and their senses were somewhat altered. The virus didn’t magically make them invisible to mirrors, allergic to garlic, or afraid of crosses. Legends had only a kernel of truth, as legends often did, and the rest was wrong.

  One of the wrong ideas was that vampires never ate food. The last time he’d been to Delilah’s, he had left with his stomach rumbling a bit. He knew better. His altered physiology didn’t care for greasy food, but the salt and bite of onion rings made his mouth happy.

  Of course, there were vampires and other Supernaturals who embraced the Normal humans’ idea of how things should be. Instead of taking the small amounts of blood needed, they thrilled at death and mayhem. They kept him busy at his true job: an enforcer for the Chiaroscuro, an organization of Supernaturals that kept ill-mannered and dangerously violent Supernaturals under control. Just the previous week, Arrigo had tracked a renegade vampire to the Alibi, a biker bar less than a block away from Delilah’s. About the only thing worth noting in the Alibi had been a cute blond bartender. As for the renegade vampire, the idiot proved to be a fledgling so full of himself, it hadn’t been much of a fight. Arrigo barely broke a sweat killing him. He’d been with the Chiaroscuro for so long, fledglings posed little threat to him. Older vampires were more challenging.

  That night, after dealing with the renegade, Arrigo decided to check out the Alibi. He had wanted to know more about the family who seemed to run the place or, more specifically, the hot bartender with the wild curls, whose name he’d learned on his last visit was Luc. The gray-haired, bearded man whose appearance screamed redneck was of no interest to Arrigo other than to inspire distaste because of how he lorded over the two young men who worked the bar with him. The other man, brawnier with darker hair, bullied Luc too. Arrigo learned quickly that his name was Henri, Luc’s brother, and the gray-haired man was their father.

  Their accents were Louisianan, Cajun. Arrigo recognized the bayou accent because he had lived in the Pontalba Apartments in the French Quarter several years back. Arrigo figured they had come west looking for new homes after Hurricane Katrina like many others. He knew a whole clan of vampires who gave up the New Orleans cliché and moved to Tempe, Arizona.

  At that first meeting, Luc snagged his attention, sending a warm feeling due south. Rarely did someone stir up enough lust to cloud his Roman-soldier sense of duty, but Luc nearly made him lose track of his quarry that night. He hoped the ghosts of his ancient cadre and his personal lares, the guardian spirits Romans believed in back in his mortal days, hadn’t seen him slip up like that. He hadn’t fully given up his belief in the old ways.

  The problem with being so ancient was the nagging feeling he’d done it all, and he’d do something wild—and potentially stupid—to prove to himself there were new things to experience. Some days time went too fast, leaving him feeling alive, almost raw with sensation. On the other hand, there were weeks when time trudged by, and then he’d remember how long he’d been alone. Out of nowhere, a laugh perked up his spirit, a flash of a lovely eye ensnared him, or the sight of a well-rounded buttcheek made his heart race. Those moments were inevitable.

  The night he first saw Luc’s cherubic face, it catalyzed a reaction. Of course a night in which he’d stalked dangerous prey had been no time to try to talk to Luc. However, working at Delilah’s Diner several doors down, investigating it for his book, suited Arrigo perfectly. After stopping at Delilah’s to gather stories the day after he’d fought the renegade, he planned to drop by the Alibi to see if he could talk to Luc.

  As it turned out, he hadn’t had to. Luc showed up at Delilah’s that night. Luc and Lily, the waitress who had told Arrigo all about Delilah’s ghosts, chatted the whole time Arrigo poked around. The gentleness and concern Luc displayed with her, the promise to help her take her kids fishing like their dad used to, even his agreeing to pretend to be her boyfriend to shake off a scary customer spoke volumes. Luc was either a good guy or a crafty predator. Arrigo dealt with predators often, and Luc failed to impress him as one.

  The second time Arrigo returned to Delilah’s to learn more from Lily, the cook, and a couple other waitresses in the dead, late-night hours of the twenty-four-hour diner, Luc showed up again, sporting a busted lip. Arrigo helped with a towel filled with ice for Luc so Lily could wait on other patrons. Arrigo only managed to exchange a few words with him, Luc’s wary gaze never leaving his face. Luc only stayed long enough to confirm the fishing trip before stumbling to the bus stop.

  Tonight he’d try again at the Alibi after stopping at Delilah’s, using the diner as his excuse for being in the area. He could only imagine the bad reactions in the biker bar if someone thought he’d shown up to see Luc.

  Once he arrived at the diner, Arrigo had second thoughts about going into the Alibi. This sort of bar probably thrived on gay bashing, and he was not in the mood to get into a fight with people he’d gladly drain down to the last drop. His inner predator didn’t need that sort of challenge. He glanced up and down the street, first at Delilah’s, then the Alibi. Tabernae remained unchanged for the most part since the days of his youth. Call it what you will: taberna, tavern, pub, bar, diner even, people had always needed a place to gather, to eat and drink. In a way, the Alibi reminded him far too much of his mortal days: rough people, bad booze, and even rougher prostitutes waiting nearby. A shiver ran through him. Some things Arrigo wanted to forget forever.

  While Arrigo mentally debated on doing the smart thing and going home, Luc walked around the corner of the bar with a hose in tow. That made things easier. Arrigo didn’t even have to go into the bar with its sticky floors and miserable clientele.

  Even though he knew he was probably asking for trouble, Arrigo sauntered across the street. Luc attacked the gritty, broken sidewalk with the stream of water from the hose, but no amount of cleaning could make the Alibi look more enticing. Luc wore torn jeans with ragged stringy hems, a plain blue T-shirt thin enough it was nearly see-through, and a worn-out pair of canvas tennis shoes with the uppers duct-taped to the soles. As he closed the distance, the booze and vomit hit his senses before the copious puddle of it came into view outside the Alibi’s door. “Bonsoir,” Arrigo said, remembering Cajuns spoke a form of French thick with slang he only half remembered. The trouble with living so long was that languages became dated and he knew so many, he struggled to keep them all straight.

  Luc looked up, surprise in his expression at hearing French. His face taking on a curious expression, he stared at Arrigo, almost eye to eye. Despite how much taller humans had grown, Arrigo thought he might have an inch on Luc.

  “Looks like a real mess there.”

  “Damn drunks,” Luc said, hosing another blob of vomit into the street. He gave Arrigo a wary look. “Need help? Hey, you’re the guy from the diner. I never got your name.”

  “Yeah, that’s me. I’m Arrigo, by the way. It’s a little too hot for this kind of work.”

  “Luc.” Luc shrugged, going back to his hosing, taking care to avoid Arrigo’s feet. “Has to be done.”

  Arrigo took stock of where the other two men who kept Luc on a short leash were, looking into the bar to assure himself they were busy with customers. Smiling, he peered intently at Luc. Luc tried to break eye contact, uncomfortable, as most were, with such a direct stare.

  “Come with me, Luc,” he whispered.

  Luc, moving as if in a daze, followed him into the shadows behind the bar. The stink from the alley’s trash bins made Arrigo’s eyes water a bit. Rotting, leftover bar food, sopping paper products, and the smell of piss almost killed his appetite, but he h
ad been looking forward to this drink for weeks; he couldn’t let himself be put off. He had to take a little blood frequently. Arrigo found more satisfaction if the “donor” roused attraction in him. It was one of the reasons he regularly clubbed at the Scarlet Kiss, a Goth-vampire bar. The crowd there skewed young, so looking twenty-one as he did came in handy. He got carded a lot of places, which was a pain in the ass, but at the Scarlet Kiss he didn’t look old enough to make them suspicious. Arrigo didn’t feel much guilt over the drinks he took from his “donors.” After all, they would have no ill effects from it. Unlike mortals, he didn’t have to kill things to survive. That fact provided solace. At least with the vampiric ability to confound the senses and commandeer someone’s will, however temporary, most would never know anything happened and in a place like the Kiss he didn’t have to bother with that. That was why he liked picking up people in clubs; they would discount any bruising as a hickey or other drunken shenanigans.

  Standing still, eyes unseeing, Luc didn’t move as Arrigo pulled him closer, feeling the muscles in Luc’s arms. Arrigo nuzzled the surprisingly soft skin of Luc’s neck, taking in the smell of him, the scents of sweat, grease, and hot spices. Using his acute vision, he picked out fading bruises, like grasping fingers, on Luc’s neck. Arrigo stopped himself. He couldn’t prey upon someone already victimized. Arrigo wanted even more to make a connection with Luc. This biker bar was hardly the place. For that matter, he didn’t know if Luc was gay, straight, or bi, in spite of eavesdropping at Delilah’s. He knew easier ways of finding a date, but Luc possessed some intangible quality Arrigo found compelling. His gut rumbled as if wondering why he shouldn’t take a drink. It was simply his nature, and no one would be the wiser or hurt. Arrigo hated the rare times he felt conflicted like this. Passing on his meal was the right thing to do. He wished he could read minds and know what had happened to Luc—though he had suspicions based on past visits to the bar—but his psychic abilities only extended to making someone docile and giving them a bit of retrograde amnesia so they couldn’t remember being snacked on.