A Taste of Love and Evil

by Barbara Monajem

  Gil went on. “I need to set up a rendezvous, find a safe place for the girl, if that’s even possible where the underworld’s concerned—”

  “I have to get rid of the vamp first,” Jack said, louder now, swiveling, striding the length of the building. “Compared to dealing with a vamp, the underworld is a piece of cake. Vampires are animals. They’ll do anything for blood and sex. They skew your judgment, they destroy your self-control…” A couple of truckers approached and he faced the wall.

  “Oh, come on,” Gil said. “They can’t all be bad.”

  “So,” Jack said, “how’d the meeting with the real-estate agent go?”

  Silence.

  “When you can get up the guts to spend half a day with an attractive woman in the interest of a cause you care deeply about,” Jack snapped, knowing he was being an unsympathetic jerk, “you’ll be ready to see a vamp from a hundred yards away.” But, damn. Now he had to even the balance with Gil. “Fine. I’ll get her number. But you’re the one who owes her, not me.”

  “That’s garbage, Jack. It’s all in your head.”

  “So are your fears, Gil.” We’re both fucked-up, and we know it.

  With Gil’s keyboard clicking in his ear, Jack went indoors to wait at the entrance to the restaurant for the women to return from the restroom. At least the meal was on him; that might balance out the use of Rose’s phone.

  As she and Juma approached, he put on a bland face and tried to ignore the three fools following Rose, and several others gawking from a distance.

  “How about a French braid?” Juma hurried beside Rose, brandishing a purple hair pick. Half Rose’s hair trailed about her face, and the remains of the ponytail flopped to one side. “At least let me take that rubber band out of your hair. You should never, ever use a rubber band.”

  “I’ll remember that,” Rose snarled. She would have swept past Jack if he hadn’t put up a hand. “What do you want?”

  “Hold on, Gil.” He caught Rose’s eyes and wished he hadn’t. Wished he had never met her. Wished this was over. “I need a number to give my friend in case he needs to call while we’re on the road.”

  “Sure,” Rose said, but Jack sensed her fizzling, hissing, ready to blow. What the hell had he done to cause this? The allure was making him dizzy.

  “Give me the phone. I’ll talk to him.” Rose swept a lock of hair off her face.

  Jack clenched his teeth. “Just tell me the number.”

  Rose got right in his face and said in a low, shaking voice, “Have you by any chance noticed all these guys watching? And listening?” She shoved the stray hair behind her ear. “I may be an animal, but even I can’t handle this many men at once.”

  Jack blew out a long breath. That made sense. Even manipulative, promiscuous, bloodthirsty Titania wouldn’t have given twenty-odd truckers her number. On the other hand—

  With a grunt of fury, Rose ripped the rubber band out and shook the dazzling orange waves of hair behind her. Allure rolled off her like a tsunami. At a nearby table someone dropped his coffee cup with a clatter and a splash.

  A hush blanketed the room, and one of the men moaned. “Hot damn,” said another.

  “Hallelujah,” an old man quavered. “Thank you, Jesus.”

  Jack clutched at the doorframe and fought the longing that swirled over and around him. “Bitch,” he groaned, agonized. I’ve resisted this before. I can resist it again.

  Rose’s voice broke through the dizziness and the resistance as well, leaving him with nothing but naked, painful desire. “Jack.” She gripped his upper arms, propping him up, and her aroma engulfed him. She whispered, “I’m sorry. Sometimes I lose control of my allure.” Her lips brushed his ear, and he almost came then and there. He flung his arms out and stumbled away from her, landing against a table, sucking in deep breaths of secondhand smoke and rancid oil—anything but Rose.

  “Jack!” The phone crackled from where it had landed beside the ketchup. “What’s going on?”

  “Hey!” A belligerent voice came from behind. “What are you doing, shoving the lady?”

  “Who do you think you are, calling the lady names?” The scrape of a chair, and heavy, menacing steps.

  Perfect. He was about to be beaten to death by mesmerized truckers.

  “Hold on there!” Cindy’s voice, followed by determined steps. “No brawling!

  The old man’s chair clattered to the floor. “Defending this lovely lady, I will go happy to my grave.”

  Fine for you, but I wasn’t planning on checking out so soon. Jack drew in another long breath and eyed the circle of threatening faces. Cindy looked imploringly at Rose.

  “Butt out,” Rose said. “Leave him alone.” Allure flew from her, a challenge and a threat. “He’s a great guy to be a bitch for when he doesn’t have the flu.”

  “You can be my bitch any day,” said the belligerent trucker, a burly dude, obviously a good guy unless he was about to kill you. He grinned at Rose.

  “Why, thank you,” she replied, “but I’ve got all I can handle for now.” She grabbed Cindy’s phone, said into it, “Hold on a minute, please,” and took Jack by the arm. “I’ll take care of him from here. This bitch knows exactly what he needs.”

  “Lucky guy,” said the big trucker.

  So many fools, Jack thought, enraged at the triumph in Rose’s voice. I will not be one of them ever again.

  “Sick,” he blurted, his head sloshing and clanging as he stumbled beside her, fighting to shake it clear. His stomach heaved.

  “That’s your own stupid fault,” Rose accused. She dumped him at their table and stormed away.

  At the front of the truck stop in the cool outdoor air, Rose said into the phone, “Excuse me while I control my temper.” An animal, am I? So are you, Jack. A pig.

  “Take all the time you need, ma’am.” A deep, melodious male voice enveloped Rose like a comforter. Suddenly, she felt…safe. And not so much angry at what she’d overheard through the restroom window as sad.

  Until the voice asked, “Is Jack all right?”

  “Apart from being an intolerable jerk?” Several furious strides into the parking lot, that soothing voice dissipated her anger again.

  “He has many issues,” the voice said, incredibly gentle and kind. “I know it’s hard to believe, but deep down he’s a great guy.”

  Something about the man’s voice made her want to crumple. To just give in and let it all out. What in God’s name was that about? “Just because I can’t stand him doesn’t mean I should take it out on you. He lost some blood, but he should be fine.”

  “You’ve taken a weight off my mind. Thank you for driving him and Juma to Bayou Gavotte. I’m Gil, by the way.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Rose said, mollified again. “I’m Rose.”

  “You’re the vampire Jack mentioned?”

  Rose’s temper flared. “What’s it to you?”

  “Just that I’m happy to meet you, ma’am. Please accept my apologies on Jack’s behalf. Some bad experiences with vampires have scarred him, but that’s no excuse for rudeness.”

  Rose marched past a row of vehicles, glancing at her burly trucker and a friend hanging out in front of the building, watching her every move. “Vampires are human beings, not animals,” she blurted. “We’re not undead. We’re not evil monsters who drain people dry. Just because we need sex and the taste of blood doesn’t mean—” She clamped her mouth shut. Gil was a total stranger, for God’s sake. Why was she letting herself get so upset? “Not that it matters what Jack thinks.”

  “Of course it matters,” Gil said, and maudlin sadness swept over Rose. Hastily, she gave him her cell number.

  Jack’s Jeep turned into the parking lot. “Oh, no. Here they are,” Rose realized.

  “Who?” For the first time, Gil’s voice was less than soothing.

  “Bad guys,” Rose said. “Shit. Shit. How did they find us?” She whirled toward the main entrance.

  “What’s going on? I ca
n have the cops there in five minutes.”

  “No! That’ll only make things worse. Don’t worry. I won’t let them get Juma.”

  “What about Jack? He’s injured, and—”

  “He’s not that badly off.” I hope. “We’ll handle it.”

  “Don’t risk your own safety, Rose. If Jack’s well enough to function, let him protect the girl. Those guys are underworld, and therefore extremely dangerous.”

  “Fuck the underworld,” Rose said. “Gotta go.” She slapped the phone shut—and collided with the big trucker.

  “Need some help, ma’am?”

  Rose pushed herself slowly away from his chest, appraising him and his buddy, a lanky guy with horn-rims and a goofy grin.

  “Yes, please,” she said. “I believe I do.”

  Chapter Four

  Grimacing, Jack sipped the chamomile tea Cindy had pressed on him the instant Rose stomped away.

  Juma seemed genuinely anxious. “Are you okay?”

  “Fine, thanks.” Except that a vamp had, quite possibly, just saved his life. Again. She had certainly saved him from a roughing up. She was furious at him, but she hadn’t stood back and let it happen.

  “I don’t know what got Rose so mad.” Juma picked at the polish on her nails. “We were in the restroom, and I was going to French-braid her hair, and suddenly she went nuts. But she didn’t seem mad at me.” She looked up. “Did she?”

  Jack shook his head slowly. “She’s not mad at you.” He took a long swallow of the herbal tea. Even Cindy was annoyed. You should have told me you had the flu, she’d said reproachfully. No coffee for you. He was being told off for not lying, treated for nonexistent illnesses, and deprived of what he needed to get himself moving. He yawned, drained the tea, and filled the cup himself with warmish coffee from the half-empty carafe left behind at the next table.

  What had he done wrong? Apart from calling Rose a bitch, but that was after she’d gone ballistic. Her uncontrolled allure had directly caused his atrocious lapse of manners.

  Other people’s behavior is no excuse for yours. That was his endlessly caring mother. She hadn’t saved much sympathy for him, but she’d been even harder on herself, so he couldn’t complain. See it from the other person’s point of view, she’d always said.

  Ha. He couldn’t possibly see from the point of view of a vamp.

  Juma removed items from her backpack one by one. Lipstick. Tacky leopard-print wallet. Tampons. A package of bubble gum. “Where is that scrunchy?”

  Jack finished the cup of coffee and poured another. “I thought you didn’t like doing hair.”

  “I love doing hair! That doesn’t mean I want to be a hairdresser.”

  “What do you want to be?” He looked intently at her. A mistake. Usually he managed to suppress the hard stare that was the legacy of the short time he’d known Constantine Dufray. He tried to tell himself Rose had knocked him off-kilter, but it was another unacceptable excuse.

  “Not a hairdresser.” Juma stabbed the purple pick at him. “Leave me alone.”

  Gladly. If he didn’t figure Rose out, he wouldn’t know where the balance stood between them. First she’d gotten mad for no apparent reason. A common enough female trait, and vamps were prone to tantrums. Then she’d bombarded him with allure, rendering him all but helpless, and gloated at her triumph. And yet, she’d said she was sorry, and now that he could think instead of reacting, he knew that she’d meant it.

  Get real. Vamps don’t apologize. That was courtesy of his dad, who’d had a string of vamps over the years. Jack’s head began to throb.

  Juma scrounged in another pocket of her bag: a book light, battered trigonometry and world-history textbooks, purple nail polish, and a paperback of Renaissance poetry.

  Jack reached forward, but Juma snatched the book away. “It’s mine!”

  “Of course it’s yours,” Jack said irritably. “You like poetry?”

  She stuffed the book into a pocket of her oversized jacket. “Got a problem with that?”

  Jack sighed. “Juma, I don’t care what you do with your life, and I care even less about your taste in poetry, but I promised to help you, so I need some information. Not only your full name and address, but I need to know why your grandmother is so set on you becoming a hairdresser. Don’t your parents have a say?”

  “My mother died of an overdose when I was a baby, and my father’s still a druggie. He’s useless. I gave up on him years ago.” Juma turned the backpack upside down and shook out a rain of debris, including a wad of used chewing gum coated with lint. “Grandma thinks if I’m a hairdresser, I’ll stay in the boonies forever. Not going to happen.” She pounced on a tiger-print scrunchy. “There it is! It’ll look great in Rose’s hair.” She laid the hair elastic beside the purple pick.

  Jack watched Rose out front, yammering at Gil, while he idly inventoried Juma’s collection of junk. Zit cream, fake tattoos, SweeTarts, a transmitter…

  This time his grab was fast and sure. “You see this?” He waved the transmitter in Juma’s face. “This is how Stevie found you.”

  “What?”

  “If you ever cleaned out your bag, you would have seen it. It’s a transmitter. He’s been tracking you. Which means he knows where you are right now.”

  Juma drained white. “What am I going to do?” She reached for the transmitter, but Jack had already pocketed it. “Give it to me!”

  “Calm down, Juma. Let’s think rationally. Make a plan.”

  “Turn it off, you shit!” Juma yelled. “Smash it to bits!” She grabbed the pick and lunged in his direction. “You’re just like all the others! You want them to find me and take me away!”

  “Cool it.” He flipped the pick out of her hand and put it back on the table.

  The trucker who’d objected to Jack’s language must have been waiting for an opener. He clomped over. Cindy hurried in their direction as well.

  “Harassing the ladies again, dude? You need to be taught a lesson.”

  Jack put on the most inoffensive face he could dig up and read the trucker’s name tag. “Nice to meet you, too, Walt.” He held up the transmitter. “You know what this is?”

  “GPS transmitter. What of it?”

  “A seriously bad dude is looking for my young friend here. He put this transmitter in her bag. She wants me to destroy it. I’d like to look at our other options first.”

  The trucker scowled at Jack and then at Juma. “You look mighty young to be on your own. Where are your parents?”

  “In jail,” Juma said. She blanched under the stare Jack gave her.

  Walt’s eyes flicked to Jack and again to Juma. “That’s a drag, but shouldn’t you be in school?”

  “I’m sixteen. I don’t have to go to school if I don’t want to.”

  Cindy slipped into the booth beside her. “You don’t like school?”

  “I didn’t say that. But he has no business telling me what to do, and neither does Jack.”

  “They’re just concerned for your welfare, honey,” Cindy said. “We all are.”

  “Everybody says that,” Juma retorted. “But do they listen to what I want? No. Never.”

  “So, Walt,” Jack said, “what do you think we should do with the transmitter?”

  The trucker pondered and shook his head. “He’s right, kid. If you destroy it, he’ll figure you found it. If your story is legit…” He paused meaningfully. “Better to have him think you’re in one place when you’ve really hightailed it somewhere else.”

  “You could leave it here,” Cindy said, “like it fell out of your bag, maybe.”

  “Better yet, get someone to take it in the wrong direction,” Walt said. “Sure to be someone here who can help. And then”—he stabbed a finger at Juma—“go back home where you belong. This fella may be okay.” He pointed at Jack. “A lot of guys aren’t.”

  “Walt’s right,” Cindy said. “You lucked out with Jack.”

  A Jeep turned into the parking lot. Jack’s. Rose ha
d seen it, too, and was hurrying back inside.

  “The bad guys are here,” Jack said. “Time for plan B.”

  Pale and trembling, Juma crammed her belongings into her backpack. Jack turned the transmitter over and over in his hand. “Juma, go to the kitchen with Cindy.”

  Cindy dumped the last of the teenager’s stuff into the backpack and zipped it up. “Don’t worry, kid. We’re all on your side. Should we call the cops?”

  “No. Take her to the kitchen. Keep her out of sight.” Jack headed for the front doors, hating the decision he’d had to make, hating to have to ask Rose for anything.

  She banged through the doors and walked smack up to him. “Listen, Jack—”

  “She’s hiding in the kitchen,” Jack said. “There was a transmitter in her bag.”

  “They’re both here, Stevie and Biff.”

  “With luck, we can tackle them separately.” Jack forced the next words out. “You distract them, I’ll take them down.”

  “Right,” Rose said flatly. The thugs were getting out of the Jeep.

  “We’ll corner them in the women’s showers,” Jack said. “Best if I can get in there unseen.”

  “Tell me what to do,” Rose said. The thugs were striding quickly toward the building. “Let’s go.” She took off toward the women’s section at the rear of the building.

  Walt the trucker hurried up. “Anything I can do?”

  “See those two guys?” Jack backed away after Rose. “Country boy with a ponytail and a blond in a Tigers shirt. They ask you any questions, stall a little, act dumb, but don’t get in their way. Rose and I can handle this just fine.”

  “What do you mean, ‘just fine’?” Rose hissed as he caught up to her at the hallway to the showers. “I have no idea how your camouflage works.”

  “Stay ahead of me. Walk in a straight line right next to the wall. The rest we play by ear.”

  It was smooth sailing along the corridor. A woman carrying a sports bag zoomed past without noticing Jack sliding semicamoed behind Rose. They passed the entrance to the toilets and came to an open area with sinks down one wall and shower stalls down the other, and a woman in a bathrobe about to dry her hair. Rose hesitated, moved sideways to the right…and they were screwed.