A Taste of Love and Evil

by Barbara Monajem

  Chapter Thirteen

  Fury roiled up and Rose’s fangs slotted down. Her fingers curled into claws and she spoke through a wall of rage. “You what?”

  Violet stood her ground, hair billowing, breasts quivering under her nightgown, and opened her eyes incredulously at Rose. “Now, now, don’t get all worked up.”

  “Not get worked up?” Rose advanced toward Violet in a haze of allure, keeping her hands at her sides by sheer willpower. “Do you have any idea what your scheming does to other people? Do you even think about the consequences?” She towered over Violet, seething, and Violet’s own allure gathered in response.

  “Tony!” Zelda cried. “Vamp fight! Help!”

  “Stay out of this,” Rose snapped. “This is between your mother and me.” The cat tore out of the room.

  She snarled at Violet. “You should be ashamed of yourself. You’ve driven poor Miles into bankruptcy, but of course I can’t let that happen, so I’ll have to sell myself to some mobster to rescue him. And you almost got Jack killed!” It was all Rose could manage not to spit in Violet’s face. “Jack was right. You should be flogged!”

  “Nah,” Tony said. “Violet’s not into punishment. She hasn’t even come round to bondage yet.”

  “Don’t make dumb jokes, Tony,” Zelda pleaded. “Do something!”

  “That insufferable two-bit jerk!” Violet’s fangs slotted down as well. Hands on hips, she glared at Rose. “So he did find you yesterday. I spent the whole day worrying about you because you didn’t show up and didn’t show up, and I didn’t have your number, and Jack didn’t answer my calls, so I worried about him, too. I’d like to cut him in pieces and sear him on the grill and eat him up. How dare he mess with me like that.”

  “How dare you mess with me?” quivered Rose. “I slaved over this dress, and now you tell me you don’t want it? I should deck you, here and now!” She shook with the effort to hold back.

  “All right, all right,” Tony muttered. “You take your mom.”

  Before Rose could process anything, because all she could think was how to get out of there without slugging Violet, Tony had his arms around her from behind, and she couldn’t move. “Let me go!” she panted, twisting and turning in his grip. He tightened his arms so she could scarcely breathe. Zelda grabbed Violet’s arm with both hands and dragged her toward the couch.

  Rose went slack and dug an elbow into Tony’s ribs, and it almost worked.

  “Jesus.” Tony tightened his arms again. “I don’t want to hurt you, baby, but I can’t let you attack Vi.”

  “I trusted her. I kept her secrets and protected the gown for her. I thought she was my friend.” She swung herself off the floor, but Tony hardly budged. “Let. Me. Go.”

  “This doesn’t work for you, I guess,” Tony said. “It always helps Vi get it under control.” He sighed. “Promise you’ll calm down if I let you go?”

  Zelda squashed her flailing mother into the sofa. She grabbed a porcelain giraffe just before Violet threw it. “Tony, help me!”

  “Come on, Rose,” Tony said. “Vi’s about to make a godawful mess, and she’ll be grumpy as all get out when she has to clean up after herself. Do you promise?”

  “I will not calm down!” Rose let out an ear-shattering shriek. “Jack was right. Vampires are self-centered, manipulative, violent freaks.”

  “Uh-huh,” Tony said. “We all suck.”

  “Stop with the jokes already,” panted Zelda, as Violet’s fingers curled around the stem of a Tiffany lamp. “She’ll never get over it if she breaks this lamp.”

  “I don’t give a damn about your lamp!” Rose hollered. “I thought I would find—find friendship here in Bayou Gavotte. I thought I’d find people who would love me, and who wouldn’t shun me because of my fangs, and—” Her voice broke on a sob.

  Silence blanketed the room. Slowly, Tony’s arms loosened. Violet’s fingers relaxed. Zelda, tight mouthed and white, straightened the lamp and set it in its place.

  Rose burst into tears.

  “No, no, darling!” Violet started crying, too.

  Tony turned Rose to face him, and his arms closed gently around her. His voice tickled her ear. “Hey, sweetheart, we do love you.”

  Violet’s arms came around them both from one side. “We would never shun you,” she said, a throb in her voice. “Never, ever.”

  Zelda snuggled up to them on the other side. “Group hug! Vamps stick together.”

  The cat purred and rubbed against Rose’s legs.

  That did it. Rose wept all the way down Tony’s shirt.

  “We’re your family, darling,” Violet said, and Rose sobbed even harder.

  Violet patted her on the back, let go, and said in a wobbly voice, “Tea. We need tea.”

  “Greek coffee,” Tony said, his big, kind hand caressing Rose’s hair. “Or mud, as Zelda calls it. Go get your checkbook, Vi, and set the girl’s mind at rest. You don’t have to screw any more mobsters, Rose.” His shoulder shifted under her cheek. “Unless you want to. Your choice.”

  Rose pulled slowly away. Her voice emerged as a paltry squeak, and she blinked at Violet. “You don’t want the dress, but you’re still going to pay me?” She wiped her eyes.

  “Of course I’m going to pay you,” Violet huffed. She straightened her nightgown, eyes mournful on the Elizabethan gown. “I could kill Titania for wasting all your wonderful work, but I’ll make it up to you. Was Iachimo rude to you? Don’t believe a word he says about vamps. His only experience is with that bitch Titania and her horrible friends.”

  Juma was most of the way down the stairs when Jack parked in the courtyard again. “Where are you going?”

  “Away.” Juma headed for the alley. “You don’t like me and Rose is gone, so why should I stay?” When he followed, she rounded on him. “Back off, dude. If you so much as touch me, I’ll scream rape!”

  Guys usually freaked at this. Jack pinned her with his harsh eyes and said irritably, “I don’t dislike you, Ms. Porcupine, or I didn’t until you threatened me.”

  “Whatever. I’m leaving, so you can forget me and my one stupid chance.”

  “Unfortunately, I can’t do that without upsetting Rose. She doesn’t give up on people as easily as I do.”

  Juma snickered. “I get a second chance ’cause you want to get laid?”

  The jerk actually reddened a little. “Look at it that way if you like. I’m trying to reach a friend in Baton Rouge, a professor at LSU, who might be able to take you in.”

  This sounded promising—really promising—but Juma couldn’t let that show. “So you’ll be able to maul Rose without being interrupted by a teenage bitch.”

  “That would be an added advantage,” Jack said. “What happened to making breakfast?”

  “I started it, but then I thought you’d gone for the cops.”

  “Cops are a complicated, red-tape-ridden last resort that I avoid at all costs. Come on, let’s go eat.”

  She was hungry, and judging by his extremely cool car, Jack wasn’t such a bum as he’d seemed yesterday. He also noticed way too much. Two minutes later, he said, “If I take you to Baton Rouge, you have to promise not to steal my friend’s books.”

  Now it was Juma’s turn to blush, which was weird, because what did she care what Jack thought of her? She rummaged in her backpack, took out Jack’s copy of An Old English Grammar, and put it on the bookshelf where it belonged. Resentment swelled up, but he was already cracking eggs into a bowl.

  “I’m going to be straight with you,” Jack said a minute later. She huffed at this standard lie and considered walking out again, but the grits bubbled and spat and the bacon smelled great, and Stevie wasn’t likely to show up at this time of day.

  “You couldn’t have a better ally than Rose.” Jack whisked the eggs. “Not only does she give second chances, she refused to tell me what you confided to her yesterday.”

  “Go, Rose!” Juma said, then realized she’d been had. “Give me a break. I’m not
really surprised she blabbed.” That was a lie, and of course he knew it, which made it even worse. She’d lost her edge with Rose; now she was losing it with Jack, too. “How else could you know I told her anything?”

  “She’s the kind of woman people confide in,” Jack said. “It didn’t matter in the end, because I went to the Threshold last night and had a talk with Stevie.”

  Juma sprang up. Her chair clattered to the floor. “He’s on the way here to get me? I could have gotten away!” She grabbed her bag and made for the door.

  “Juma.” Something in his tone made her turn. “I am not in cahoots with Stevie. I rescue people. I don’t give them up to creeps who handcuff girls to their cars. Perhaps I should have said I forced him to talk.” A smile lifted one corner of his mouth. “With a gun sticking into his ribs and my other arm choking him.”

  Cool! “He deserves to be choked, but that doesn’t change anything. You had to be nosy and find out about me, instead of letting me live my own life.” She slumped, letting her bag fall. “What did he tell you?”

  “That your last name is Loveday-Smith, that you come from Destrierville, and that your grandma owns not only a hairdressing salon but half the town. Given a little time, I would have found that out on my own. Far more important, he told me she doesn’t want you to go to college.” He picked up her chair and set it for her. “What I want to know is, why not?”

  Nobody ever believed her, but what Stevie said was gospel? “Because she wants me to be a hairdresser. I told you that.” She sat again.

  He went back to the stove. “Does she want you to take over the store when she dies?”

  “How should I know? Anyway, with my luck, she’ll live to be a hundred.”

  “Have you considered going to hairdressing school first, then to college afterward?”

  Every adult asked that. “It’ll mess up my chances for scholarships, and Grandma won’t pay for me to go to college. I said I’d go to a state school if she insisted on being cheap, but she refuses to pay for anything. She says education is a dangerous waste of time and I’ll have a better life at home, but I’ll die of boredom in the boonies.” She glared at Jack’s unbelieving expression. “You don’t understand. If I give in one little inch, I’m doomed. I can’t let Grandma win.”

  After that, it was question after question, but the food was good, and he had plenty of Crystal sauce. Why did you quit school? How long have you been out? Where do you want to go to college? She told him what she’d told Rose. “I’m totally screwed as far as scholarships are concerned. I can’t enroll in school anyway, because Grandma will find me the minute the new school sends for my records, and she’ll make me come home.”

  “No, she won’t,” Jack said. “I’ll enroll you in a private school and have them ignore the courses you had to drop midsemester. You’ll be put on a fast track for graduation, if that’s what you want. And if you’re afraid of staying here because of your grandma, I’ll send you to school in Europe.”

  Jack bit back a smile. This was the advantage of offering something awesome: now Juma couldn’t help wanting to believe him.

  “You can’t send me to school in Europe. You can’t even send me to a private school here.” But her tone was less incredulous than her words, due, Jack assumed, to her having seen his Porsche.

  “Sure I can,” he said. “My rescue operation gives me access to special scholarships for that sort of thing.”

  She worked her way silently through breakfast, her mind clearly far away. He lost a bit of ground when Nan, the professor in Baton Rouge, e-mailed that she would be at a conference all day but that tomorrow would be fine. When he showed Juma the e-mail, she scrutinized the address, checked the LSU Web site to verify Nan really was a prof there, and calmed down again.

  “You can stay with Gil while I run errands,” Jack said. “He’ll give you some work to do. I assume a little money for books would come in handy.”

  Juma gave him one of her skeptical looks, but she couldn’t disguise the eagerness behind it. The kid was such a literature freak. He would have to confront the grandmother and find out what was really going on.

  They found Gil fiddle-farting around in his store preparatory to opening. Juma went straight for a shelf with books and magazines.

  “I couldn’t ignore what my voice revealed,” Gil said before Jack had a chance to open his mouth.

  “I understand that, but I don’t have to like it.” The hypnotic quality of Gil’s voice might be useful, but his interpretation of women’s confessions wasn’t always accurate.

  “Violet is skewed, but she means well,” Gil said. “My voice and I were in complete agreement about how to handle her.”

  Jack snorted. “You think you did the handling?”

  Gil said stiffly, “My voice and I, yes. Just because you can’t deal with a vampire doesn’t mean no one can.”

  Jack let that pass, but as always he wished his partner wouldn’t talk as if his damned voice were a separate being.

  “She wouldn’t deliberately harm a rescue,” Gil said.

  “Perhaps not, but as long as she’s feuding with Titania, anyone in her orbit is endangered.” Jack called Juma away from the bookshelves and introduced her.

  The girl’s eyes widened—women’s always did—as she looked Gil up and down. “Hey, Gil. For an old guy, you sure are cute.”

  “Poor old Gil’s always fighting off one woman or another,” Jack said. “Be kind to him this morning and don’t join their ranks, okay?”

  Juma made a face. “I don’t really like sex. I only do it if I have to. This is a majorly cool store.” She wandered to a display cabinet, but not out of earshot.

  Gil whispered, “You’re leaving her here?”

  “Just for today. Nan will take her, but not until tomorrow. Juma wants to earn money for books, so give her something to do.”

  “What if someone from the underworld shows up?” His voice rose. “Did you hear the news? There was a riot at Constantine Dufray’s concert last night. Ten people killed and thirty-seven injured! They’ve cancelled the rest of his tour. There’s a TV news van outside the Impractical Cat, and the paparazzi are cruising up and down the street.”

  That explained Constantine’s behavior last night. “Big drag, but what does it have to do with us?”

  “It’s the violence. He carries it around with him wherever he goes.” Gil rearranged the pottery animals in the window. “He lives here, Jack. How can it possibly be safe? Even Violet says he’s dangerous. By the way, she wants me to make figurines for her garden.”

  “That’s great,” Jack said. Working with clay helped ground Gil. “Don’t worry about Constantine. I’ll figure that one out one way or another.”

  Gil grunted. He switched the positions of a rabbit and a frog. “And now you’re leaving me with a runaway,” he muttered. “You know how vulnerable they are.”

  “This one’s tougher than most.”

  Gil was whispering again. “Where’s Rose? Can’t she take care of her?”

  “Rose is at Violet’s place. I tried to convince her to stay away from that damned feud, but she’s stubborn and she doesn’t trust me.”

  “We both know whose fault that is.” Gil tidied the bits and pieces on the counter.

  “Yep,” Jack said. “I fucked this one up so bad I’ll never be able to right the balance.”

  “Maybe you should forget the balance for once.” Gil rolled up a wire clay cutter that had been unpacked by some customer. “Maybe you should—”

  “Right,” Jack interrupted, “and maybe you should meet with the real-estate agent this afternoon.”

  Gil dropped the clay cutter back into the bin, where it promptly unfolded itself. “It’s not that simple.”

  “It is that simple.”

  “Jack, you don’t understand—”

  They’d been here before, over and over. “You’re right, I don’t.”

  Across the shop, Juma flipped through a magazine. Flick. Flick. Stiff, anxio
us posture. Listening hard.

  “She’s a scared kid,” Jack said. “She’s afraid her nasty old grandmother will come and take her away, and she doesn’t know whether she can trust us or not.”

  “Of course she can trust us,” Gil said, but he was still whispering, and probably intended to whisper all day.

  “Why should she believe she can trust us?” Jack said. “Her parents haven’t been much use to her, and her grandmother sounds like the archetypal witch. She’s just a kid and she’s all alone.”

  “For some reason,” Gil hissed, “that doesn’t reassure me one bit.”

  Jack left the shop, encasing himself in a light camouflage that rendered him nondescript and largely unnoticeable, and headed toward the clubs. A brisk breeze chased through the streets, past closed bars and open cafés and antique shops. The gift shop and salon in Blood and Velvet would open soon. Meanwhile, Violet Dupree’s house was close by. So what if he was a fool? At least he knew it.

  He slipped into camouflage as he approached the purple house. Rose’s van was too conspicuous, but at least the black Mercedes was still here. With Tony Karaplis around, Rose should be safe enough. Tony owned the Greek and Italian restaurant not far from the Impractical Cat. A former bruiser and quite a ladies’ man, so the gossip said. Generally well liked, but Jack doubted he was one of Violet’s boyfriends. Violet seemed to favor buff young guys.

  No movement showed in the front windows. Jack threw himself in rapid semicamo from a live oak to the cypresses lining the driveway, and from there over the locked gate into the back garden. Anyone glancing out the window would do no more than a double take.

  A calico cat, preening itself on the flagstones, bolted across the yard when Jack landed inside the gate. Jack went from tree to bush to the larger-than-life statue of Violet’s near-naked sister carrying a ball and chain, her hair flying in the wind. The statue’s fangs were too big for her mouth, but the rest of her was appallingly alluring, even in cold stone. In the months since Jack first saw the statue, its surface had weathered to motley greens and grays, perfect for camouflage. He climbed the pedestal and wrapped himself around the statue from behind, his prick nestled against her buttocks and his arms beneath her breasts.