A Taste of Love and Evil

by Barbara Monajem

  Meanwhile, visions of Jack with Titania insinuated themselves into Rose’s mind like slimy parasitic worms. Ick. Ick.

  For lunch, Violet served them homemade vegetable soup. Then she lounged on a leopard-print daybed and made plans. “We’ll get you a bodyguard, someone who can double as a lover. I know some clean, sexy guys who’d love to service a vamp. You can come to the club tonight and pick one.”

  “I don’t want a bodyguard,” Rose said. “I had a few of those when I was a mobster’s mistress, and they were way more trouble than they were worth.” They also hadn’t kept Lou from being murdered.

  “But you need one, darling. Titania’s sure to want vengeance. She’ll send her minions after you.” Violet cocked her head to one side. “Maybe you can seduce some of them away from her. She’ll be so irate! Has she figured out you’re a vamp?”

  “No, but I’m not interested in seducing anybody else’s men, particularly not hers.” She made herself concentrate on scrolling through trims.

  “It’s probably for the best,” Violet said regretfully. “She’d lure them right back, and by then they might know our secrets. Oh! Why not seduce Iachimo?”

  Rose took a deep breath and ordered her fangs to stay still. “He’s too complicated. He has weird ideas about owing and not owing, and he hates himself for being affected by allure.”

  Violet snickered. “He’s afraid of being dumped again. After Titania dropped him, he came to me, trying to make amends for something silly he did while he was under her power, and his chagrin was too, too obvious. Now he pretends to hate her, which only goes to show he’s still obsessed. You’ll be doing him an act of kindness by seducing him. Not only will Titania never take him back, she’ll be furious when she finds out. Oh, this is an excellent idea!”

  It’s a terrible one. “Why would she care, if she doesn’t want him herself?” Turning from the computer, Rose surrendered the mouse to Zelda.

  “Because you’re a vamp, darling, and you already foiled her once. She’ll think she missed noticing something wonderful about Iachimo, apart from his money. Oh, this is such fun!” Violet wrinkled her nose. “He might get obsessed with you instead.”

  “I don’t want a man who’s in love or even lust with another woman.”

  “You’re no fun.” Violet pouted. “But it doesn’t matter, because Constantine will kill Titania, and then you won’t have any competition, because she’ll be dead.”

  Rose gave up and focused again on the computer. “Let’s start narrowing these trims down, and then we’ll start calling stores in New Orleans.”

  By the time Jack got out of Blood and Velvet, Biff had vanished into the chaos of news vans, paparazzi, and rubber-neckers. Jack took a circuitous route home and went through the attic room onto the roof.

  Several buildings away, Constantine lounged against the dormer wall of the Impractical Cat, talking to a woman who poked around in one of the potted plants situated between the tables in the rooftop garden. He glanced briefly in Jack’s direction and turned back to the woman.

  Tentatively, Jack opened his mind. Nothing, neither welcome nor threat. For what it was worth, he doubted Constantine would murder him with the plant lady looking on.

  He ducked below the parapet and semicamoed against the bricks, then dropped over the edge to the roof next door. A few roofs up and down later, he dropped his camouflage and hauled himself, in full view, onto the parapet of the Impractical Cat. Constantine merely watched him. The woman, noticeably pregnant, brandished her trowel above a pot of pansies. A fountain with copper lilies bubbled behind them.

  “Calm down, he’s not a reporter,” Constantine said. On the table next to him, a tray held a carafe and two white coffee cups. An acoustic guitar was propped below the dormer window.

  Jack jumped onto the roof. Constantine straightened. “Tallis,” he said, with the same creepy chuckle he’d had twenty-something years ago. He showed no emotion: no surprise, no pleasure, no chagrin such as Jack had sensed last night. No anger pulsing against Jack’s brain. Bloody nothing.

  “Dufray.” Running on instinct and hope, Jack held out his hand.

  Constantine slid his hand into Jack’s in the smooth, light Navajo clasp and withdrew. “This is Ophelia, Violet Du-pree’s sister.”

  Ophelia lowered the trowel. She had auburn hair and a very sweet, very vampish smile.

  “Despite the weapon, she’s much saner than Violet.” Constantine pushed an intercom button in the wall. To Ophelia he said, “Jack lives in New Orleans, but when he’s in Bayou Gavotte, he stays over that new little pottery shop. He owns the building.”

  So Constantine had been keeping track of him. Was this a positive?

  “Poetic Options? Gil makes wonderful pots,” Ophelia said. “I’d like to commission some planters.” Her brow creased. “Is he all right? Vi says she vamped him last night, but I hope he doesn’t expect it to develop into something permanent.”

  “Not at all.” Jack couldn’t help smiling. “He had no problem reading Violet.”

  Ophelia looked dubious but returned to messing with the pansies. A voice crackled on the intercom, and Constantine asked for more coffee and another cup. He sat at the table, and Jack took a chair opposite him.

  “Tony Karaplis is on his way over.” Constantine poured a coffee and pushed it across to Jack. “Why were you in Blood and Velvet?”

  “I was looking for a bug. Trying to figure out who overheard a phone call the day before yesterday between me and Violet Dupree.”

  “Who shot at Tony?”

  “His name’s Biff. He tried to kill me yesterday.”

  Constantine’s face hardened. That look worked better on an adult than on an eight-year-old kid, but Jack didn’t like it any better than he had back then. Implacable, devoid of any emotion…No, it wasn’t the same. The hatred ruling the eight-year-old had been replaced by something much more complicated, and the look Constantine gave Ophelia now was almost tender. “Sorry, babe. You about done?”

  “Two minutes.” Silence reigned except for the trickling of the fountain and the clink of cups on saucers. A dumbwaiter in the wall appeared with a fresh carafe and another cup. The coffee was excellent.

  Jack, too, was more complicated than he’d been back then, especially since the fiasco with Titania, when he’d been smitten with such self-loathing he’d wanted to curl up and die. Meanwhile, the tabloids had blazed with scandal about Constantine and his druggie-actress wife, first her wild life and then her death. His own misery had opened him to Constantine’s, and it had hurt like the devil, so he’d shut it off and kept it off. But maybe he shouldn’t have. Maybe, instead of wallowing in his own hell, he should have sought out his old friend, who was doubtless in a far worse one. Rose would never ignore—no, abandon—a friend like that.

  Ophelia brushed off her gardening gloves, packed up her tools, and kissed Constantine on the cheek. “Take care of yourself, sweetie.” She nodded good-bye to Jack and went through a door around the side of the dormer.

  “She’s always been down on violence, but now that she’s married a cop, she has conflict-of-interest problems, too.” A silence. “Do you know why Biff tried to kill you?”

  “No.” Do you?

  The telepathic link didn’t work both ways. Constantine couldn’t receive Jack’s thoughts, and yet the flash in Constantine’s eyes looked almost like pain. Cautiously, Jack opened his mind to see if Constantine was sending. Pain, indeed. Hell’s own fury, more like.

  He shut it out with a ripple of shame. He couldn’t bear to let Constantine know of the moment he’d feared Constantine had sent Biff to kill him. Jesus God, especially not after last night, when countless people were blaming him for all those deaths and injuries at the concert. Indirectly they might be his fault, but he had not intended them. Of that, Jack was entirely sure.

  Constantine gave him a look that would annihilate most people. “What do you want from me?” His voice was tight and hard. Malevolence reverberated all the way down J
ack’s spine. “ ‘Vending Revenge’?” Constantine quoted the title of one of his viler songs and stretched with a lazy agility in contrast to his eyes and voice. “Unnecessary. I have reasons of my own to kill Biff.”

  Shit, no. “I don’t want him dead. I want to know why he shot me.”

  “You’ve always been too soft, Tallis. You want me to off someone else? Is that it?”

  A thought of Titania dead, of Rose safe, crossed Jack’s mind. He shook it away. “Damn it, Dufray—”

  “This morning, Violet asked me to kill some vamp she doesn’t like. You’ll have to wait your turn.”

  Jesus Christ. “No, I want—”

  Tony Karaplis appeared through the same door by which Ophelia had left. Constantine poured Tony a coffee. “You guessed it. Tallis was my friend back on the Rez.”

  I’m still your friend, damn it. How many other people have you told about me?

  His annoyance must have shown, for Constantine said impatiently, “Tony won’t tell anyone. He’s kept my secrets since I was a kid.”

  “Thank you,” Jack said ungratefully.

  Constantine shot another vicious blast his way. When Jack didn’t flinch, Tony blinked with surprise. “Told you,” Constantine said, not letting up one iota. “You want—?”

  Jack took a breath. He’d always stayed calm in the face of Constantine’s rage, but he was beginning to be pissed off.

  That’s not an appropriate response. His mother’s patience blew through his brain in all its exasperating sweetness. Look at it from the other person’s point of view.

  Impossible in this case, but his aggravation dissipated, and he managed to blurt the whole sentence this time. “I want to use Bayou Gavotte as a refuge for battered women.”

  Tony nodded in approval. Constantine just looked blank.

  “That’s what I do when I’m not running fundraisers for my old man. I rescue abused women, and sometimes children, too, but I want someplace tighter and safer than New Orleans and Baton Rouge. I need to know I have underworld support. That abusers won’t be given a second chance if they show up here.”

  “Sure,” Constantine said. “You’ve got it.”

  As easy as that? Tony twisted the ends of his moustache, looking amused and pleased, but Jack felt Constantine’s hostility circling like a hawk waiting for its prey to break cover. No, this wasn’t over. They drank their coffee while Jack explained his ideas for the accommodation of the rescues and the education of the kids. Tony seemed interested, Constantine not at all. He kept glancing toward the window, clenching and unclenching his hands.

  “For God’s sake, kid, pick up the damn guitar.” Tony drained his coffee and left.

  Constantine stilled his hands and kept his eyes on Jack. “You’ve been seen at the Threshold.”

  Damn. “Seen?”

  Constantine’s mouth quirked ever so slightly, and immediately Jack’s heart warmed: the boy he had known back then—and yet, not. “No, not you, only the chaos you left behind more than once. Biff was supposed to be keeping an eye on things, but you’ve been a hell of a lot more useful. I know why you rescued those people, but why were you there in the first place?” Constantine’s thought penetrated Jack’s brain: Don’t lie to me. A threat or a plea? Perhaps both.

  “You know why. How could I be sure Bayou Gavotte was safe? You’re not always here to scare the shit out of everyone.”

  Constantine again: Not enough.

  Jack sighed. “And I didn’t know what kind of person you’d become. Now go get the damn guitar.”

  “You still don’t know.” The rock star stood slowly, fetched his beloved guitar, and sat again, laying it softly, silently across his knee. He was the same boy, and yet…changed.

  Jack said, “Jeez, man, I’ve missed you.”

  “Consider yourself fortunate. I’ve been a lousy person to know.” Constantine’s fingers curled around the neck of the guitar. “I still am.”

  Jack’s childhood grievance reared up. “That may well be, but it was two fucking years before I knew you were still alive, shithead. Couldn’t you have knocked just once to say hello?”

  Constantine held the guitar close, his fingers motionless on the frets and strings. His voice chill, his eyes flat, he said, “No.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Rose tried Miles again a couple more times without success. Perhaps he had spent the day consoling himself in a museum or visiting his wife’s grave. Late in the afternoon, Rose and Zelda were looking at fabrics on the Internet while Violet leafed through magazines, when a knock sounded on the front door.

  Violet picked her way through the sketches and magazines that littered the floor. “Biff, honey,” her voice fluted from the foyer. “What are you doing here?”

  Biff? Here?

  “I’m busy now,” Violet added. “Come to the club later and have a drink. We’ll talk, and who knows, maybe I’ll change my mind.”

  Zelda rolled her eyes and returned to the fabrics. Biff must be a regular visitor.

  “I need your help, Vi.” Biff lowered his voice to a despairing croak. “I’m in such deep shit. I fucked up a job last night, and Constantine’s livid.”

  Rose’s fangs slotted down. “Oh, honey, no!” Violet cried. “What are you going to do?”

  “If I don’t find the guy we were after, there’s no telling what Constantine might do to me.” Their voices told Rose that Violet was taking Biff into the kitchen.

  “Tell me all about it,” Violet said. “Maybe I can help.”

  Rose bit her lip hard, drawing blood, and yanked the fang back out. She slung her handbag over her shoulder. “Zelda, take notes about what you like best. I’m going to run an errand or two while your mom’s busy with her friend, but I’ll be back.”

  “You’re bleeding.” Zelda stared as Rose licked the blood off her lip. “Something’s wrong?”

  “Damn fangs,” Rose said with an unhappy laugh. “Always getting in the way.”

  But that wasn’t all that was in the way. A Ferrari—must be Biff’s—blocked her into the driveway. She almost gave in to terror. Constantine wanted Jack dead. Any moment now, Biff would tell Violet whom he was after, and she’d tell him where to find Jack, and Biff would go after him.

  I’ve got two minutes’ start and no vehicle. She ducked beside Biff’s car and let all the air out of one of the front tires, stretching her hamstrings as she did so. Then she took off running.

  The distance from Jack’s, which had taken five minutes this morning, took maybe ten minutes at a run, dodging pedestrians and traffic and garnering stares all around. Damn. She swerved a block before the Impractical Cat, detoured an extra block around behind it, and headed toward Jack’s from the opposite direction. She ducked into the alley, dashed across the courtyard, and took the stairs two at a time.

  The door was unlocked. She charged inside. Where was he? The shower was on, the bathroom door ajar. She tossed her handbag onto the couch and lunged into the bathroom. “Jack,” she said, her chest heaving. “Jack, you’re in terrible danger. Those thugs—”

  He was facing the wall under the shower, his head thrown back, rinsing off. Slowly, he turned.

  She wrenched open the shower door. Gaped, catching her breath and losing it again. Swallowed, still panting from the run, or maybe because he looked so damn good. Oh, God, he was stunning in his nakedness. Water poured over his muscled shoulders and biceps, ran in rivulets through his chest hair, swirled across the flat delicious plane of his abs, looping his navel. His penis swelled as she stared. Her fangs slid happily down, and she pushed them hard into place, piercing her thumbs. Blood welled out and she licked it, quivering for what she really wanted and needed: Jack’s blood. Jack’s taste and smell and touch, right here, right now.

  She couldn’t be thinking about sex now. “Jack, you have to leave. Any minute they’ll—”

  Those hard eyes caught hers, traveled a tad lower and lingered on her mouth.

  Rose’s fangs bucked. Jack’s aroma tantal
ized her nostrils. Her tongue curled in anticipation of the taste of his skin, his mouth, his blood.

  Biff was going to kill him.

  She stalked straight into the shower, grabbed his hand, and pulled. “Come on! There’s no time to waste.”

  “Right.” But he didn’t budge, and his eyes were heavy now, roaming over her breasts as if he could see right through her clothes. Duh. Her nipples jutted against her wet T-shirt. She yanked it away from her breasts, wringing out the fabric.

  “Jack, listen to me. You don’t understand.” She shook the water from her face, let go of her shirt, and tugged at him again. “Forget my boobs—”

  Gently, he took hold of her T-shirt. Twisted it in his hand. Slowly, inexorably, pulled her under the shower. Water, warm and seductive, ran down her face, coaxing her tongue out to lap at it. He bared his teeth in something between a grimace and a smile. Sucked in his breath in a long, long hiss.

  She had to talk sense into him. Into herself. She splayed her hands against his chest and pushed. “Jack—”

  He growled. Why must she have this stupid effect on men?

  “Jack, there’s no time,” she heard herself saying, but heat flashed through her groin, and she didn’t try to stop him when he peeled the T-shirt up to expose her breasts. She really did have great underwear, but Jack’s dark gaze was intent not on the lush rose satin but what it concealed. Desire fueled desire; a torrent of heat flooded her belly. Her lips ached for his kisses, her fangs for the rich taste of his blood. In a gesture made automatic through years of pleasuring Lou, she cupped her breasts like an offering.

  Jack growled again: appreciation, anticipation, haste. He pulled her T-shirt over her head, snapped her bra open, and let it fall, consuming her with his eyes.

  What had gotten into her? She’d never be able to stop him now. With a sob, she gave up on controlling her fangs. She pried off her shoes. “We can’t do this now.”