A Taste of Love and Evil Read Online Free PDF Page B

Gavotte. Stevie’s a bouncer at the Threshold.”
    Jack cussed under his breath.
    Juma smiled to herself. Stevie would never take her near the Threshold, but Jack didn’t need to know that. “Stevie says Biff is his ticket to big things in the underworld.” She snickered. “Not if Biff has any brains.”
    Rose slewed her head around. “Underworld?”
    “The organization that controls the clubs in Bayou Gavotte,” Jack said. “Go on, Juma.”
    “I’ve heard of those clubs.” Rose winked at Juma. “Kinky stuff, right? And vampire clubs, like Blood and Velvet.”
    Juma grinned. “It’s the coolest vampire club in the world!”
    “You’ve been to Blood and Velvet?” Jack’s voice dripped disapproval. What a party pooper.
    “Of course not,” Juma said in her best Sunday-school voice. “I’m underage. A guy I know had his canine teeth filed to points so he could work the bar, and one of my girlfriends swears she’ll go there the second she’s eighteen to look for a real vampire. Her absolute favorite fantasy is doing it with a vamp.” Before Jack had a chance to butt in, she said, “Grandma says it’s a good thing they’re just superstition, because if they were real they’d be evil—but I think vampires would be cool!”
    “Definitely cool,” Rose said. Juma waited for Jack to start sermonizing, but he said nothing, and then Rose said, “Who makes up the underworld? The local mob?”
    “No,” Jack said irritably. “They’re a group of vigilantes who make sure their rules are followed and the clubs prosper.”
    “Sounds to me like the mob,” Rose said.
    “They’re not the mob,” Jack retorted. “There is no mob in Bayou Gavotte. The underworld punishes people who don’t follow the rules, even makes them disappear sometimes, but they don’t profit from it except in a general way, in that they keep the town safe for tourists and clubbers in general.”
    For a truth freak, this seemed a lot like splitting hairs. Not that Juma had any objection to Bayou Gavotte, her favorite place in the world.
    “What do the cops think of the underworld?” Rose asked.
    “As long as the underworld works quietly, the cops are grateful for their existence,” Jack said. “Ten years ago the place was chaos. Underage kids got into the clubs and gothurt, tourists weren’t safe in the streets, and enrollment at Hellebore University had fallen catastrophically. Now the club owners do their damnedest to keep the kids out, the crime rate is spectacularly low, consenting adults can experiment with bizarre sex in whatever degree of safety—or danger—they choose, and Bayou Gavotte is known as a center of the arts.”
    Yes! And I’ll go to college there if it kills me.
    “All because the underworld can do what the cops, strapped by legalities, can’t.” Jack shrugged. “Is it right? I don’t know. But it’s effective. What else, Juma?”
    “Nothing, except Biff was mad because Stevie made him miss his hit. Wait, was that you?” She swiveled. “You don’t look hurt.”
    “The bullet barely touched me,” Jack said. After a pause: “Rose patched me up. Where did Biff go?”
    “Back inside the hotel to look for you once the cops were gone. They took his Caddy, but he didn’t seem to care. I bet it was stolen. Why are they after you?”
    “I have no idea.” Jack lay down and covered his face again. A moment later he raised the pillow. “How many times have you run away from home?”
    “Lately?” Juma countered. “Or in my whole life?”
    Jack made an exasperated noise in his throat.
    “That sounds rough,” Rose said. “Do you want to talk about it?”
    “Of course she wants to talk about it,” scoffed Jack. “That’s hardly the point.”
    “Of course it’s the point. If we know what’s going on, maybe we can help.”
    “We already know what’s going on. She runs away, she gets hauled back home. She runs away again, she gets hauled back, ad infinitum. It has to stop.”
    Despair