Clan Novel Giovanni: Book 10 of The Clan Novel Saga by Justin Achilli

Author:Justin Achilli [Achilli, Justin]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: vampires, horror
Publisher: Crossroad Press
Published: 2019-03-20T06:00:00+00:00

Wednesday, 21 July 1999, 11:18 PM

Laffitte’s

New Orleans, Louisiana

Jake sat down. The bar had a low ceiling and French doors, looking—as did all of New Orleans’s buildings—as if it had been there for over a hundred years.

Of course, most of them had.

But Jake hadn’t come to Laffitte’s to wonder at its architecture. Nor had he come to suck down prodigious amounts of tourist-grade daiquiris like the “vampires” at the other tables. No, Jake had a personal matter on his mind.

He looked around the room, which teemed with gay, frivolous, wasted life. Weekenders in for an early debauch, locals who scammed the patrons for either cash or ass, frazzled bartenders and an enormous shit-sack of a man perched behind the piano, doing his best to sing songs that the bleary drunkards knew. Half of them were torch songs sped up to double-time and the other half were what counted as “oldies.” Jake smiled at that thought. An “oldie” was a song recorded in the 1950s or ’60s. He’d been around for forty years before that—what did that make him?

It didn’t matter. None of the drinkers saw him, or cared if they did. To them, he was simply a boozy comrade-in-arms, crawling the bars for a good time and a cheap drink. He was no threat—have a drink on us!

No one at this bar had any idea what he was. Or what the woman he was here to meet was. Marcia Gibbert, fellow Kindred. She’d had a keen interest in New Orleans for the past few weeks, having arrived from—Anaheim?—just less than a month ago. Whenever she and Jake met, people thought they were a couple, a pair of eccentric, black, nouveau-riche lovers. The truth of the matter was that Marcia was looking for information on a five-thousand-year-old killer and that Jake was willing to profit from her deranged crusade. He didn’t care about whatever it was that was bothering her; she had called it a family matter and left it at that. Jake understood. As a Brujah, he knew that some Kindred were quick to make judgments based upon one’s lineage. He had her pegged for a Follower of Set. Maybe a Gangrel or even another Brujah. Possibly even Caitiff, but she didn’t seem as grungy as most of the ones he’d met had been. Whatever; it didn’t matter. She had cash, and it wasn’t like Jake could hold down a day job. Maybe he could take the morbid tourists on a midnight tour of graveyards….

Marcia walked in, stooping below the low doorjamb. Peering through the smoke, she saw Jake, who waved her over to his table with an unmarked manila envelope in his hand. Suppressing the look of excitement that wanted to flash over her face, Marcia Gibbert calmly ordered a drink to keep up the charade and joined Jake at his table.

“You find something for me?” Marcia smiled. She knew Jake didn’t have too much invested in her, but there was no reason not to be cordial.

Jake looked his guest over.

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