Death - Madhuri Pavamani(ang.)

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For Rafferty you let me cry in your kitchen corrected my chaise longues and Beargue—always Beargue For the Girl Gang y’all know who you are and you know why

Why should I fear death? If I am, death is not. If death is, I am not. Why should I fear that which cannot exist when I do? —E P IC U R U S

I bring the karma you better run, run, yeah that bitch don’t play —AL M A

PROLOGUE

these layers of me many and varied rising with the new dawn kissed by the sun parched by life’s cruelties until you call feeding me love dressed in touch that calms water that cools affection that wraps me in your everything you cry out in shock despair teases the dark recesses that make up your whole as you feel the warmth of my flesh listen to the catch of my breath lick the salt of my sweat you fear my death, lover I see it in your eyes as they take in my every detail loving warm

terrified of the day I slip this skin and walk this land no more but know this as you know my every curve and hollow no grave can shackle me no earth can keep my body from seeking yours I shall claw my way upward and roam the streets for your scent your sound your soul ravenous enraged no repast shall satisfy my ache for you no wine taste sweeter than your lips we are entwined belonging to each other forever do not fear death, my lover she has nothing on us for we have each other

CHAPTER ONE: DUTCH

There is nothing like a mother’s love. Unless that mother is named Shema Mathew. Leader of the Junta. Member of The Gate. If your mother is named Shema Mathew, you are fucked.

CHAPTER TWO: DUTCH

I lay on that table like a pig headed to slaughter: powerless, panicked, aware. My eyes darted around the dark room, back and forth, back and forth, as dancing firelight tossed sinister shadows on the walls and ceiling. A voice inside my head, the rational one that always seemed to remain calm no matter how fucked up shit became—and shit was fucked up with a capital F right now—told me to breathe easy, slow, in and out, in and out, to still the pain. But the other voice, the one that lived in my skin and blood, my gore and guts, that voice could muster only short, panicked breaths, the kind that led to hyperventilation and uncontrolled panic attacks and all kinds of other shit that didn’t help my current situation. My fingertips pressed into the unforgiving wood of the table, but my hands were tied down and the exposed bone of my wrists also wasn’t helping much. The leather of the shackles felt damp and heavy against my

burning skin. Then there was that goddamned smell. Metal. Every. fucking. where. Thick, so I could taste it even. Choke on it almost. That smell was my blood splattered everywhere my eye settled. There was no place in the room without some of me splashed all over some of it. Hence the smell. And the taste. I wanted to vomit, but that would involve moving my throat, constricting it and the muscles in my stomach, and both those areas of my body were shredded and raw and left open on that table, thanks to Khan and his knives. Vomiting was not an option. “Dutch.” I squeezed my eyes shut. Tight. As if doing so helped me forget I was carved up and bloodied, sections of my body opened and exposed, all of it hurting like nothing I’d before experienced—and I’d spent a lifetime experiencing brutal bloody shit. This was different, though. This was magic of the blackest kind coursing through me while killing me, while not. This was Khan at his most vile and pernicious. This was hell. So unimaginable that I’d long ago escaped the

confines of my mind and blurred the line between fact and fiction, all in an effort to protect myself from sensation too intense to define with common words and phrases. Rational thought seemed so far out of reach, an impossibility for the impossible existence of someone I could no longer recall. Myself. Who was I? Had I rendered Dutch Mathew no longer of this world? God, I fucking hoped so. I turned my head to the side, the motion pained and slow, and tried to open my eyes again, tried to fixate on sounds that once upon a time I recognized and understood but now simply felt in my blood. “Dutch.” Faint shapes in the darkness, amorphous and misshapen, moved about the room, making sounds that somewhere in my being I knew were conversation even as I could comprehend little else. The who-what-wherewhy of the shapes mattered little to my nearly dead brain, mostly because somewhere deep inside my pulverized soul, I knew. I knew the answers. I knew they were here to deliver me, sinew and muscle and barely beating heart, to Death so she could have one last look, one last laugh

at my expense. So she could remind me Juma belonged to her and her alone and that I was a piece of shit, unworthy of two seconds of Juma’s time or attention and most definitely unworthy of her love. Then Death would smile and laugh and probably run her finger, that goddamned finger that could cut through anything, along my lips before pressing her own to mine and ending it, once and for all. I knew this—and Jesus fuck, I was ready. I wanted to shout as much to her goddamned mumbling minions, I wanted to break free of my constraints, sit up, and tell them all to fuck off and die. That I wasn’t scared of anyone: Death, Khan, Veda, the Black Copse. None of them mattered, because only she made a difference, only she existed for me, only she could make me think twice about anything in this lifetime or any of the others I might suffer. Juma. Juma. Juma. Memories of her washed over me—her honey and lemons and grass and light—as my fucked-up, barely working brain tried to lift my carved-up, half-skinned body off that table, only to be gently pressed back into the wood. By the shapes.

The forms. Those amorphous beings flitting about the room had come to focus on me because it was time. She was coming, that blackhearted bitch. Death. God, I fucking hated her because, yes, I was ready to die, I almost welcomed it, but still. The thought of never seeing Juma again, never feeling her breath against my chest as she slept or her laughter as I tickled her feet or those goddamned filthy jokes she whispered in my ear as her hand worked my dick and everything exploded. Yeah. All of that. And more. So I gave it one last shot and fought against those fucking leather straps I knew I could not escape, because they were steeped in all kinds of black magic, but I fought anyway because, fuck, I had to. “Dutch, goddammit”—a hiss of breath as harsh hands pushed me back into the table and held me down—“lie the fuck down before I kill you myself.” “Rani, please.” Another voice, one so familiar and yet not at all, filled my ears as hands and fingers danced against all the places on my body stripped clean of skin. I screamed

out in pain and terror although no sound escaped my lips. “He cannot help himself. He is suffering.” “This asshole might be your son, Shema, but do not for one second think I care about him.” Sound and words came together in a clear, concise, sensible way for the first time since I had slipped my skin and my spirit soared skyward, as if my brain knew it was time to work again. “Did such disdain develop before or after you slept with him all those years ago? Repeatedly.” Rani’s mouth clamped shut and a hush fell over the room as fingers kept working magic into the bloodied and brutalized parts of my body, kneading tissue and muscle until somehow, someway, shit made sense. Everything fused. Body and mind. Like—bam! “What the fuck?” I spoke aloud, my voice cracked and hoarse but working all the same. “Do not touch me. Either of you.”

CHAPTER THREE: JUMA

Once upon a time, a girl and a boy raced in a yellow taxi through the streets of New York City, up the curves of Broadway, hugging the outer lane of traffic, whizzing through perfectly timed green lights to find themselves deposited before a tall prewar building full of solitude-seeking celebrities and sunglasseswearing billionaires. They stepped into the elevator, and when the doors opened, they knew they’d landed in the sky. The room was white and beautiful and they looked around in hushed silence, slow smiles curving their lips as Frida Kahlo watched it all. I needed that white room, the solace before the storm. Avery’s penthouse apartment of vast and airy openness high above the madness of the New York City streets, the last place I’d laughed and lived and loved. The last place I recalled him laughing and living and loving. The last place we were together. And happy. Dutch.

I screamed his name, bellowed it for the gods and monsters of this world and all the others to hear and know and remember. And yet, not a sound escaped my lips. Nothing. Not even the slightest vibration of air moved past my lips in a sigh. On the cusp of beginning life number seven, and I could do nothing more than lie there on that cold harsh slab of marble, alone in that windowless room of madness. Because that’s what this was, right? Madness? It had to be. At least according to Jack Nicholson and the quiet, brooding American Indian and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Ken Kesey, this was madness. Nothing but quiet and white and hard slabs of marble upon which I lay perfectly still, and I wondered what Mr. Kesey would say about murderous fathers and twisted sisters and an army of mute killers, what would he think of nine lives and Death and watching your lover succumb? Was that enough to warrant a gentle but firm pillow to the face until every last bit of air stored in the lungs and blood expired and all that was left were the body and bones? Or would Ken tell me to get over myself, drop some LSD, and get back at it?

I turned my head to the right, the movement slow and deliberate and full of bone-crushing anguish, and noted the white of the walls and the muted nickel of the doorknob and the button of the lock and the worn wood of the solitary chair, and as my eyes moved around the space, thoughts and feelings and words and sounds bounced around my skull, demanding attention and action—as if to say, Let’s do this, gorgeous— and without warning my mind’s eye conjured him. Dutch. All brown skin and full lips and tatted arms. A cigarette dangled from his gorgeous mouth as he smiled, and it was a real smile, the kind that reached his eyes and let me know he was happy and light, and for a brief moment in his existence, the darkness was not swallowing him whole, chewing him up, and spitting him out wherever it pleased. For a brief moment, he knew joy. I sat up and dangled my legs over the edge of the marble slab—point flex point flex—as my blood pushed to the outermost parts of my body and my skin heated and bit by bit, I felt more alive and aware. I pushed myself off the marble and inched my body down the table to finally stand, learning the cold floor with each

of my toes my heels the balls of my feet, until I was certain and steady and able to bear my weight. A thought fluttered across my brain cells— brief but demanding some sort of testament— that I never stood this soon upon return, because I never woke alone, because I always woke in his arms, he always kissed me back to this life. Dutch. I stilled and closed my eyes and let him sweep through me, fill me with his everything. I felt love and tenderness and devotion, I heard his bark of a laugh, I tasted his bourbonsweet tongue, I smelled the musk of his sweat. My dark love, my twisted heart, my death and salvation. My soul shook as I tried to gather myself while enveloped by him. The cool of the room cocooned me, and still I remained rooted to the spot, deep in rumination and remembrance. And when it seemed I might cross back to the nonliving, that perhaps I’d never really revived, my blood and breath so inert, my heart shrouded in dark and despair, I gasped. “Ahhh.” The sound bounced along the walls, danced on the floors, kissed the ceiling as it reached

my ears and my eyes flew open and all of me became 1,000 percent present in the here and now, the death and destruction, the loss and pain, the quiet and solitude. I moved across the room toward a lone chair pushed under a desk as if waiting for someone to sit down and write a letter. The bones in my feet cracked in revolt as I walked the slow gait of the elderly or injured, my body relearning its motor functions faster than ever. The desk, a mere ten feet from where I began, was a walk from hell, and when I reached its wooden respite, I grasped the edges with both hands and leaned into it with a grateful sigh. I breathed in and out in and out, deep and full, my lungs wanting more more more but my mind focused on the one thing in the room that caught my eye as I lay on that marble slab, distraught and defeated: Dutch. In a picture on the desk. As if someone knew I would need him when I awoke. As if someone knew I would need a reason to rise. It was one of the photos I’d taken with my phone all those months ago after the night he came to me all bloodied and battered, when he’d leaned against my kitchen table that morning and smoked and smiled and charmed and all of it was beautiful. I touched the edge

of the print, traced my finger along the white of the frame, and smiled. Then, in a flash of movement, I pulled the frame apart, flipped the clips, and removed the back. I worked my fingers under the photo, between the image and the glass, until he was in my hands, all his darkness and deadliness mine and mine alone. Just as we were supposed to be: Dutch and Juma, dark and light, forever and ever. I brought the picture to my lips, pressed them to his, then slipped the photo into my back pocket—this was how I would remember Dutch, alive and full of love, touched by the morning sun, a whisper of smoke from his cigarette, his smirk a dirty dare made up of mischief and fun. That piss-poor excuse of a father, Khan, and the even more psychotic sister, Veda, had darkened and dimmed so much of his life. I would not allow them to do the same to his memory. Fuck them. I knew they’d killed him, I’d seen the murderous rage in Khan’s eyes as he came up behind Dutch and caught him unawares, and I’d seen the resignation on Dutch’s face when he realized the folly of his ways, that he should have finished off his father when he’d had the chance, that he should never have paid a second of attention to Veda and her twisted theatrics, that he

should never have looked my way. But he was Dutch, and if there was one thing I knew about him, it was that he loved me, so it made perfect sense he’d stopped and watched as both our lives ended. Similar to the sense it made now, for me to gather my strongest selves, those beings of fire and death and destruction, and push him into the furthest reaches of my consciousness—all his warmth and tenderness and love, his wicked mouth and perfect hands, every atom of Dutch needed to fade into the black of my memory banks so I could move forward. Just as we’d planned. Just as I’d promised him I would do. No matter what. A sob wracked my chest and escaped my parted lips, the sound feral and unrestrained, strains of love and despair and longing wrapped around each other and released into the white of the room, and if I’d heard that sound from another, I would recognize the unfathomable pain, for it lived inside my darkest places, my deepest cracks, and there it would remain buried forever. I held on to the desk until my fingers went numb and turned white and throbbed with pain, as if everything I felt for Dutch had transferred into the tips of my being for safekeeping.

I closed my eyes and breathed deeply. One. Two. Three . . . . . . Nine hundred sixty-seven. On I counted, determined to move forward but incapable of doing so in any concrete way that mattered. Yes, I revived and pulled all the parts of me back together and crossed the room on feet still raw and broken, but an hour later I had done little more than that. “Juma?” I pressed my fingers to my eyes as if doing so would make the familiar voice so soft and sweet disappear and I would be in the room alone again. And with that simple gesture—fingertips to lids—so full of frustration and longing and all things brown and beautiful, he returned, despite the fact I’d spent so much time counting him into the furthest reaches of my soul, despite the fact I said I would not be stilled by his memory, he returned. Dutch. And all of him swallowed all of me. Memories rushed by, Dutch tinged with gold flecks of love and light as he stood in the middle of a room and grew frustrated with me and something I had said or done. And I knew

he was frustrated with me because he pressed his fingers to his eyes in a way that let me know he wanted me to stop what I was doing but would not speak the words, because a tiny part of him never wanted me to ever stop what I was doing no matter how much it annoyed him. And so he said nothing, he simply pressed his gorgeous fingers to his eyes and waited. *** My eyes filled with tears and I sob-smiled as Dutch filled me, happy to know I could never rid myself of him no matter how hard I tried but also grief-stricken to know I would spend the rest of my days missing him. “Juma?” Kash stood next to me—so close I could feel both the warmth of his body and the chill of his Keeper-ness, that eerie sensation I picked up from every one of his kind but Dutch. “How are you feeling?” he asked. “Can you speak? Does anything hurt?” I turned my tear-filled eyes to meet his. Kash Kalish, the Keeper too gentle to Keep and so instead he worked the background

details of The Gate, especially those of Dutch’s life, loving Dutch the way a father should love a son, without expectation or guile. Whose unwavering devotion led to me. Or his following of me for those many months Dutch and I were apart. I’d sensed Kash immediately all those nights ago in some back alley of a Mumbai slum, his chill reaching me long before he did, but his countenance, the gentleness he exuded suggested I leave him be, that he meant me no harm. And so I went about my business, the business of death and revenge and all things bloody, and killed the other Keeper, the one tracking my fellow Poocha. I ripped that monster limb from limb and eviscerated him under the light of a full moon, and all the while Kash watched, never once stepping from the shadows to stop my attack. “You watched me for months,” I finally said without acknowledging his questions at all. “And never once tried to stop me.” I could tell he wasn’t expecting those words to tumble from my mouth, because he stepped back a little as if to give himself some space to look me over, study me up and down, and discern in those seconds whether my brain was functioning as it should. When his eyes reached mine, I held his gaze and waited, and

I suppose somewhere in that pause, the silence between us, he decided I was all there because he opened his mouth and engaged me in my first conversation since crossing back to life number seven. “It was never my assignment to stop you,” he said. “Only to make sure you were safe.” I let his words sink in, then almost-laughed low. “Dutch. That screams Dutch.” The simple act of speaking his name aloud, hearing my voice form around the syllable hurt my heart, but it also felt good. I needed to say his name and I needed to say it to someone who loved him as hard and as fierce as I did. Kash laughed, and the sound filled the room like beautiful music. I let it seep into my bones and understood how one could get lost in the sound of another’s happiness. I wanted to crawl into the world of Kash’s laughter and live there forever, enveloped in such joy, safe from the fuckery of this game of lives. “He was quite definite in his instruction that I was not to stop you from doing anything, my only job was to keep you safe,” Kash said. His laughter stopped short and turned into a grimace as he held his side. I saw it all and he saw me see it all, but he waved me off as if it were nothing and continued, “After following

you for a short time, I wondered just how much of you Dutch understood. “I’ve known him for a long time,” the Keeper said, and I reveled in his words and his memories and every ounce of his love for the man I loved. “Ever since he was young and full of laughter. And then when he burned with the memory of a girl named Kajal. I watched the darkness overtake him, followed by the death and women and sex. He used it like a salve to somehow protect himself from what? Feeling vulnerable? Sadness? Living?” Kash looked out the window and seemed lost for a moment, and I wondered what memory of Dutch he recalled, I wanted to hear it, I wanted him to share it with me but I knew it was his to hold tight to and keep to himself, so I remained quiet and waited for him to return. “And then I saw you and I watched you in action, over and over again because I couldn’t help myself. You were this murderous Valkyrie from another realm, and I knew you would save him. I knew you were the woman I’d been waiting for, the one who would teach him to love himself again, the one who would love him, and when all was said and done, protect him. And best of all, you needed nothing or no one to protect you, so then I got

to sit back and watch you in action, and my dear, you are something else.” Kash smiled, and this time I had a decent hunch which memories he was getting lost in, those full of blood and gore and dead Keepers. “I knew you were watching me.” My voice pulled him from his reverie. “I didn’t know why and I never really thought too hard on it, but after a while, I would seek you out in the dark corners, expecting you to play witness to my deeds.” My voice trailed off as I wondered if during all those killings, all that blood, I knew Kash was somehow an extension of Dutch. “I think deep down inside you knew,” he said, as if reading my mind. I smiled and twined our fingers. “Maybe.” Then without rhyme or reason or any sort of warning, I sobbed, and it was loud and long and all of it sounded like a cry for Dutch. “And maybe that is why I sneaked in here without anyone knowing,” Kash continued as I held his hand and cried. “Because even though everyone out there thinks you need some time to properly heal and whatnot, I know better. I know you can leave now and save him one more time.” I heard Kash’s words as he near-whispered

them while I sobbed and gulped air and swallowed lifetimes of missing Dutch, I just did not immediately put them together in any sort of sensical way. They banged against each other and crossed my brain in staccato format: singular, individual, on their own rather than a most significant phrase. Such that perhaps I heard one him save time more or him more save time one or time more save one him. Until I didn’t. “What did you just say?” I stood straight and wiped my eyes as I glanced around the room for Simone because, even though I still was not quite sure of what Kash had uttered, somewhere deep inside me I knew, and that deep place was already getting ready to do what it had to do—and step one was to find Simone. Kash reached up and over his shoulder, grimacing as he pulled my machete from the depths of his sweater and placed her in my hands. “I said you need to get out of here and go find him before they kill him.” I wanted to cry and scream and holler and whoop and let the world know Dutch was alive. That dark and dangerous soul with brown skin like a warm summer night and a dirty mouth like the nastiest sin ever and a touch so feather-light and full of heat, that

man who lit me up in places I had not even known existed, who knew my darkest selves and loved them unconditionally—my sweetness—my love did not perish on that battlefield of gore and death. But I did none of that, because I knew Dutch alive and in the hands of his father and sister was a fate worse than death. I knew exactly where they had him —Kowdiar Palace—and thanks to Veda and her need to share with me every twisted horrific detail of that table and that room, I knew exactly what they were doing to him. I shuddered aloud—choked, really—as the air became trapped in my lungs and throat, and I forgot how to breathe. “Juma?” Kash stepped away from me—still holding his side, looking rather pale—and spoke, and gone were the sweet demeanor and fatherly disposition, replaced by a stern, steady gaze that suggested shit was about to get real. “There’s no time to waste. Your parents are safe, but he is not. And I need you to go get him. Now. Before all that’s left of him is a carved-up, bloody mess.” My parents. Amidst all that had happened—my childhood home in ruins, the Black Copse, fighting Veda, watching Khan move in for the kill, that last shared moment with Dutch—I

forgot about Rufus and Mimi and the fact I had raced into that house because of them, I’d dragged Dutch down to Atlanta because of my ma and da. My desperate love for the people who brought me into this world damn near destroyed the man I loved. “Don’t do that, Juma,” Kash said, and pulled me out of my head. “Don’t do what? I don’t know what to do, Kash.” I untwined our fingers and shrugged my shoulders. “I woke up alone, on a cold bed of stone, in a bare room devoid of all life, thinking Dutch had died. I pulled myself back into this life despite the fact I believed my reason for living perished at the hands of his father in Atlanta. I crossed this room on feet that could barely stand. For him. To make good on every promise I ever made him, and now you’re telling me he’s not dead. And neither are my parents. And you keep holding your side in a way that has me worried.” Kash tsk-tsked my concern under his breath. “So yeah, I’ma need a second to digest alla that,” I let my southern show out as I held a finger in the air and waved it around a bit, trying to wrap my head around my new reality, the who-what-where-whys of everything I’d thought was true but, in fact,

was not, because all of that was wrong and what was right was the opposite of what I knew and all of it ran around in circles like a dog chasing its tail in endless inanity, pointless and irrelevant and yet very very real. “There is no second to spare, my dear.” Kash left my side and walked toward the far end of the room. He opened a door I had not even noticed, because it was painted as white as everything else in the room and faded into the background. God, this room was fucking annoying, I thought to myself as I watched Kash approach me with a holster for Simone, a jacket, and my boots. As if he had known we would have this moment together alone in the safe house and time would be of the essence, both for Dutch and for me. “You don’t even know if he’s still alive,” I whispered while I adjusted the holster around my shoulder, as if the lower my voice, the less likely the truth of my worries. “Oh, I know he’s still alive,” Kash replied. “Khan is going to want to celebrate and deliberate and elongate Dutch’s end. It’s only been two days. He’s going to need at least a week.” I shuddered at the thought of Dutch on that table alone, trapped and cut up like an

animal. Whatever hesitation might have lingered on the periphery of my words and feelings metamorphosed into a keen desire to strap Khan to that table and do unto him what he had done unto my love. I holstered Simone, and with that picture in my head, tied up my boots and slipped into the jacket Kash held out for me. “What about my folks?” I asked. A sudden urge to lay my eyeballs on them flooded my being. “I need to see them, touch them.” Kash ignored my question as he worked the locks of the window, pushing it open to allow a cool breeze into the room that chilled the air. “Rufus and Mimi are fine. Fast asleep in their beds, unscratched. I knew they were in danger, staying in that house after Veda attacked you in the backyard, and I got them out of there just in time,” Kash explained. “But Dutch, he is another story altogether—so go, my dear, now, while it is dark and there is no one here to suggest otherwise.” “Who would stop me?” I asked. “And what is wrong with you? Why do you keep holding your side like that?” “Avery, Frist, the other Keepers who love Dutch and would want to plan and plot and cross all the t’s and dot all the i’s because that

is what we do as Keepers, we always have a plan and we do our best to make it foolproof and damn near perfect.” Kash’s voice was urgent as he answered the questions he wanted to answer and ignored those he did not. “But now is not the time for such nonsense. Now is the time for action, quick and dark and deadly. Now is the time for you, Juma, to bring the pain and make it hurt like a motherfucker.”

CHAPTER FOUR: DUTCH

I contemplated the two women standing above me as the bile rose in my throat and what remained of my skin pricked with danger, and I reached the following conclusion: Nothing good could come of the unholy union of Shema Mathew and Rani Rao. The former so ruthless, she would cut her child’s throat to save herself, the latter so lethal, few dared cross her. As a unit they gave Khan and Veda a run for their money in the contest for Most Fucked-Up Duo. Shema brought her hands to her sides and I breathed easier, but I never took my eyes off her. “You need me to work those wounds,” she began, her voice a desperate whisper as her eyes flashed to the door. “Fuck you, Shema,” I replied, my voice raised because I didn’t give two shits about her or whatever she feared. I had been through hell and back, ten times over, thanks to Shema and Khan Mathew. Nothing scared me

anymore. “And keep your goddamned hands to yourself,” I said as I shifted against the leather straps, their magic still holding me hostage. “At least let me release your bonds,” Shema replied, then watched me engage in a battle both she and I knew to be fruitless. “Dutch.” Rani stepped into my line of vision, her beautiful face twisted into a sneer I knew all too well. “For once in your goddamned life, stop being such a fucking baby and let Shema help you. It’s the only way you’re escaping this place alive. And it’s the only way you’re getting a shot at killing either of us for whatever wrongs your poor conflicted brutalized soul has suffered at either of our hands—and trust me, we are so bent out of shape about your feelings, you fucking pussy. Let her help you. It’s the only way any of that will ever happen.” I fucking hated that cunt. Rani stepped away from me and smirked. She hated me just as much. “Or sit here and stew in your righteous indignation. Wait for that motherfucker you call a father to come back here, unroll those knives, and get back to work. Rage against your sister and the Black Copse and your pathetic lot in life. And then die. Because

unless you allow us—and by ‘us,’ I mean myself, the woman who takes great pleasure in fucking you up, and Shema, the woman who regrets the very day she birthed you—to help you, that is going to be your very certain fate. Next time Khan walks back in here, those limbs of yours are coming off, and then your head, and then it’s bye-bye Dutch.” I glared at Rani as a new rage flooded my being, one I had never before contemplated because I had never before considered being on the receiving end of this brand of fuckery. I expected Khan and Veda’s antics—the pain, the drawn-out torture, the perverted theatrics —what I never once imagined was this crap. The Shema and Rani Show. Until the day I ended his life with a few well-placed stabs of my blade, Rani was James’ main bitch, his go-to killer. They were thick as thieves, had been since I could recall. And they enjoyed nothing more than making my life a goddamned living hell. It was where they excelled as Keepers, not in Keeping but in keeping me black and blue and internally bleeding on a regular basis. Rani jumping ship and climbing aboard Shema’s tugboat did not happen in this game of lives. Then there was Shema, that fucked-up

woman I once upon a time called a mother. When had she stopped cosigning all Khan’s bullshit? Because he might have been the enforcer of all kinds of deceit and deception, but she was the brains of the enterprise. Shema drafted the blueprint for his madness. Shema knew from day one what went on in this room when Khan strapped me to the table, unrolled his special set of knives, and closed the dining room doors. For all I knew, she was the one who’d taught him to cut and slice and dice without killing on the spot. And now she wanted to help me? Me? The child she despised and long ago abandoned to a cadre of psychopaths? The dark fuck she helped turn into someone who could not bear being touched? The cold soul who would rather die than let her anywhere near them. Fuck that shit. And fuck her. “Keep your hands off me, Shema.” I repeated my earlier demand, and to my surprise, she listened. The woman who paid little attention to me or anything I had to say, who rarely looked my way and considered me little more than an irritant, that woman seemed to soften around the edges as my

words hit her, sharp rejections of the dim vestiges of maternal instinct she must have held on to should the day come she needed to act like someone’s mother. “Holy fuck, Shema,” Rani said under her breath, her voice tinged with something I swore sounded a little like fear. “Just leave him and let’s go. You cannot save those who don’t want to save themselves.” Shema glanced Rani’s way, returned her gaze to me, then turned back to Rani, as if waging an internal battle, one she seemed incapable of winning. “I cannot, Rani. When everyone’s cards are on the table, the fact remains I am his mother, and all this madness—this game Khan is playing with everyone’s lives—all of it has gone too far.” Shema inched closer to the table as she spoke. “Fine, you’re his mother, that I understand, but he is a goddamned fool and hardly worthy of the risk you’re taking right now with your life and mine. Look at him,” Rani growled, and they both looked down at me, strapped to that table, parts of me skinned and open, other parts healing due to whatever magic thrummed in Shema’s blood, all of me fucked. “He has his faculties thanks to you. You alleviated his pain and began healing his

wounds. He is able to think clearly and make a rational decision and guess what? This fucking genius chose death. You can do nothing more for him, so please, let’s go before Khan and Veda return for the curtain call in this charade of horrors.” The way Rani said “charade”—sherahhhhd—made it sound so beautiful when everything around us—the walls the floors the ceiling—was splattered in gore and blood and death. They stood on either side of the dining table, looking down on me, one desperate, the other tormented, and all of it, the entire scene, so fucking bizarre. From my supine position, I watched as Rani reached across the space between them and wrapped her fingers around Shema’s wrists, her grip gentle but firm. Shema moved slightly to place her palms flat on my stomach, and Rani moved with her, the women in silent sync with one another, heedless of my demands of no touching, and suddenly I couldn’t help but wonder: Lovers or friends? “That is where you are wrong, my dear,” Shema stated. Her palms undulated and radiated intense heat into my skin, the sensation so otherworldly, I forgot to tell her to stop touching me, I forgot to hate her, I forgot damn near everything except how good

it felt to have skin and blood and muscle and sinew and for all of it to come together in my body and what strength that body held, my arms and legs and chest and gut, all of me bursting with life and vitality and virility and and and what the fuck?! “Get your hands off me!” I shouted as I burst the leather straps binding me to the table and sat up, the skin of my chest open and flapping, blood everywhere, my eyes wild with pain and shock and wonder at the insanity of it all. “Goddammit, Shema. Back the fuck up.” She and Rani both moved away from me and the table, the former about five feet to my left, the latter in front of me, but out of my reach. Neither woman appeared afraid, probably because even capable of breaking my bonds, I was still a mess, sliced and flayed, skin hanging from me in shreds, all of me spilling everywhere. “I can help you, Dutch,” Shema said as she took a step in my direction, her voice low and soothing, wholly unlike the desperate woman of minutes earlier. “Fuck you and your goddamned

psychobabble voice,” I replied. I slid from the table and moved toward the back of the room and away from those two, holding together pieces of my chest, watching them all the while. “The mere fact you’re speaking to me at all is cause for alarm. You could fucking sing to me like Maria Callas and it wouldn’t make a goddamned difference.” I stood for the first time in ages, on legs wobbly as a newborn colt’s but working nonetheless, no doubt due to Shema’s magic flowing through my veins. “What did you do to me?” I asked as I tried pushing my skin together along the seams of the square-cut sections of my chest, hoping the flesh would meld into one as it had in other areas of my body touched by Shema’s hands. She watched my frenzied ministrations for a few moments before taking a few more steps in my direction and gracing me with her words. “I helped and protected you,” she said. Shema’s voice was deadpan and dangerous and reminded me of when I was young and Kajal was tortured and killed nine times over before my eyes. Shema witnessed every single one of Kajal’s murders before finally taking mercy on my soul, touching my restraints with her black magic hands, and releasing me from

that horror chamber in a sleepy Mexican artists’ town. She once again sounded much more like the mother I knew than the benevolent stranger she’d played just minutes earlier. “Fuck you and your help,” I said. I knew it sounded childish, but I didn’t give a shit. Fuck her. “I don’t need your goddamned protection, so back the fuck up, Shema.” “Dutch.” I stopped pressing and prodding and pushing my skin, and at the sound of my name forgot about Rani and Shema and stilled. Every brain cell I possessed, which just seconds earlier focused on hurling every curse word in the book at that cunt of a woman I had the misfortune of calling a mother before going at Rani with similar fervor, shifted. And refocused on that sound, the low lilt that rolled out slow and lazy with a slight rasp that reminded me of languid summer nights when the air was so thick, it trapped the heat and the only remedy was to strip naked and pray. For relief. For escape. For Juma. I turned toward the voice, my body reacting before my brain could piece together what was actually happening, and there she stood in all her gorgeous brown sex, alive, so

fucking alive, and beautiful and strong. I knew if I touched her, she would feel warm and soft and inviting. And if I leaned close and kissed her throat, right there on that freckle, on her spot, the place that made her crazy, while I slipped my hand inside her pants and ran my finger over her panties and traced the lips of her pussy and circled her clit, real soft and slow, barely there but so. fucking. there. because I knew exactly how to touch her, she would spread her legs and make my fingers wet with her desire. And she would rub her hand along the length of my dick while she told me to fuck her like a slut and make her come everywhere. I knew those things to be true. But I also knew the look. That Look. The one she wore as she watched me hold my chest together and try not to fall apart in the face of her perfection. The one that made me forget all the sexy shit about her, the way it was never enough to be near her, I needed to be inside her. I needed to inhabit all her spaces, those made of light and dark, the stunning and the scary, and wrap myself in all her perfect imperfections. The one that let me know shit was about to get real. She smiled, but it was not happiness to see

me. “Stop fucking around and let your mother put you back together.”

CHAPTER FIVE: DUTCH

I loved her like a sickness. It began in my blood and spread to my muscles and vital organs and tissue until all of me succumbed to all of her. It had been that way since the first time I spied her in the subway station, so far away and still able to pull me close and hold me to her forever. But frankly, Juma didn’t know shit. Not when it came to the mountains of fuckery within the Mathew clan. Not when it came to decades of a mother’s disdain and dismissal. Not when it came to too many moments of turning a blind eye and bloodsoaked lies. Juma was made of love and light and laughter, she couldn’t begin to imagine my reality, understand how I was filled with nothing but darkness and shit, comprehend why I would not let Shema Mathew—my own mother, for fuck’s sake—touch me again. “No.” “No?” she asked, and with a step toward me, slipped from the shadows so I could see

her. The flickering light from the candles highlighted her captivating beauty, even when she was steaming mad. Because trust me, Juma was mad. To the ordinary bystander, she probably seemed calm and accepting of my defiance of her demand. But to the man who knew every muscle on her face, each expression she conjured, understood all the shades of gray in her eyes because I studied each one, learned her quirks day and night, never tired of watching her, I knew her simple no, so rational and reasonable, almost quiet, possibly flirtatious, held multitudes of I will fuck you up when I get my hands on you, Dutch Mathew. But the fact remained, I despised my mother and everything she stood for, everything she was, everything she was trying to be right now so much that I didn’t give a shit about Juma and her growing ire. “No, Juma.” I repeated myself, and as her name fell from my lips, both Rani and Shema turned and looked at her with what could only be categorized as piqued interest. Suddenly the beautiful brown woman hiding in the shadows was all of that and so much more. So. Much.

More. “You two,” I growled at Rani and my mother as I went back to working on my aching burning ripped-apart skin, “don’t fucking look at her. She has nothing to do with any of this.” Rani ignored me and walked a slow circle around Juma, her lips curved in the most curious smile as she eyed Juma from every angle. “Oh, that’s where you are so very wrong, Dutch.” Rani stopped in front of Juma, cocked her head to the side, and laughed. “This sexy little something has everything to do with this.” If my chest weren’t open and bleeding, I would have killed her on the spot. Instead, I focused on the all-encompassing task of holding myself together while maintaining a healthy distance from Shema and her intrusive hands. “Dutch.” Juma whispered my name as her eyes swept the room and came to rest on the table, and I knew her mind filled with the horrors I’d endured while strapped to that slab of blood-soaked wood. For a split second I hated that she knew my gory details, but then she touched me and the second faded into nothingness. “Care to introduce me to your

friend?” She pressed her fingers along one of the seams of my flayed chest and smiled, pushing my flesh together as if it were every day that she found her lover a carved-up, bloody mess. “Hi, you,” she whispered, and pressed, and everywhere she touched stopped aching for a few seconds. “You’re kinda fucked up, huh? She did this to you?” Juma’s eyes flashed in Rani’s direction, and I knew if I wanted to, with one word, I could sign Rani’s death certificate right then and there. I also knew Juma knew Rani didn’t do this to me, she just wanted an excuse to kill Rani on the spot. “I did not touch him,” Rani said. “This time.” Juma caught Rani’s eye and seemed to dare the Keeper to respond, then returned her attentions to me and my shredded chest. “It feels better when I touch you like this, doesn’t it?” she asked as her fingers moved methodically along my chest, working her gentle magic into my skin and muscle and blood, making all my screaming pain dull around the edges. She hypnotized me with her hands as she played along my body with fingers that felt like love and tenderness and time. “This is nice, no?”

I wanted to speak but was caught up in her scent and her voice and her everything. She glanced at me and licked her lips and I was done, even more so than before, when Khan and Veda had me strapped and trapped or Rani and Shema filled me with magic I did not want. No, this was something altogether inexplicable and utterly Juma, this web of wonder I found myself in every time she was near. She leaned in and licked my lip, then ran her fingers along the nape of my neck and pulled me close. Her touch was both possessive and gentle, her breath was warm on my ear, maddening and sexy and holy fuck, I wished I wasn’t such a goddamned mess, because at that moment I wanted nothing more than to slide my dick deep inside her pussy, fill her completely, then fuck her long and slow and just as she liked. “Forgive me.” She whisper-kissed into my ear as she wrapped my right hand in her viselike grip while her other hand held me by the neck, immobile and stunned. “I’m so sorry, sweetness.” “Juma, don’t,” I begged because it was all I could do. “Please.” Her eyes filled with tears as she turned to her left and watched Rani for two seconds.

“Back the fuck up,” she commanded, then directed her attention to Shema. “I’m going to hold him still. Fix him.” I continued to plead. “Juma.” “Shut up, Dutch. Please.” She held me in her death grip, and I wondered whether I could escape even if I were 100 percent myself, her strength seemed otherworldly. I had dealt with hundreds of Poochas before her, and not one of them had an ounce of the power she possessed. I didn’t give a fuck, I was still going to fight her with everything in my being because no way did I want Shema touching me. I ignored my open chest and the blood and pain and I fought Juma and it was ugly. I tore at her arms and hair and anything I could touch, I wanted to rip her to shreds if it resulted in my escape. No matter that she believed she was helping me, I knew better. I knew the truth and the fact there was no way in hell Shema would ever help me. No. Fucking. Way. So I raged and Juma let me while Shema and Rani watched in shocked silence until I tired and Juma bled from all the places on her body I had attacked and the room fell into an

uncomfortable quiet. “I cannot believe you, of all people, would do this to me.” I tried the last trick up my sleeve, the weakest play to hit her in the most brutal manner. “Shema.” Juma refused to make eye contact, immune to my ploy as she held me against the wall, both of us covered in blood and exhausted. “Do whatever you must.” My mother watched us, and I sensed she did not know what to make of Juma, this woman who’d stepped from the shadows, exuding power and beauty and grace but also a very determined and terrifying savagery. There was little chance she did not know of Juma, had not heard of her from Khan or Veda, but I suspected she hadn’t expected the Juma of those megalomaniacal rants to be the woman standing before her, demanding she act. “I can do no such thing without his consent.” Shema finally spoke, and I damn near choked on the absurdity of her statement. “He will never consent.” Juma held on to me tighter, as if keeping me still would change Shema’s mind. “So stop pretending you suddenly feel all maternal toward him and just do what I asked.” “Do you know who I am?” Shema asked,

and I knew from her tone she was about to launch into one of her self-righteous tirades. “Lady, all due respect, I know exactly who you are. You are the woman who sold her son out to his psycho of a father, then cosigned the torture of that same child’s first love, and subsequently turned a blind eye to any and all violence committed against his body and soul in the name of The Gate. You’ve spent a lifetime knelt at the feet of your husband, licking the feet of your daughter, all at the expense of this man.” Juma breathed deeply, then met my stare. “I am so sorry, Dutch,” she whispered. Had she released me then and there, I would not have escaped that room. I would have pulled her to me and held her close because there was nothing I hated more than watching her weep. “You don’t have to do this—you can fix me yourself.” I tried once more to avoid Shema’s magic because as much as I loved Juma, I despised my mother, and if there was even an inkling of a chance Juma would let me go, I had to snatch it out of the air and own it. “I can’t,” she said, and pressed me into the wall tighter, as if able to read my thoughts and know my desire to escape. “You’ve done it before. Please. Juma. Hear

me.” But she didn’t hear me, because just then we all heard them. Khan. Veda. And undoubtedly the Black Copse. They were far off, most likely on the other side of the palace, but they were on the grounds and they were moving in our direction. “Fuck the whole lot of you,” Rani said, and before anyone could consider or contemplate her movements, she grabbed Shema’s hands and placed them on my bloodied and battered chest. I cried out in pain as Juma maintained her grip and Shema looked on in shock, probably amazed someone had the nerve to force her to do anything. “Shema, stop playing games and do this already,” Rani hissed. “Fix him.” “This is a chance to redeem yourself for years of horrible parenting,” Juma continued, “horrible everything.” “Good fucking god, shut up,” Rani said. “Just hold him still and stop talking to her. And you”—she turned to Shema—“this is not the time for whatever bullshit games you want to play with Super Poocha over there. You were so desperate to do right by your son,

fucking do it already.” But even before Rani finished speaking, my skin had already heated and my blood pumped with such intensity, I could feel it move through my veins, and what once was ripped and rendered useless fused into itself and healed with Shema’s magic. I closed my eyes as the woman who gave birth to me but never mothered me a day of my life did all she could to put me back together, and even though I recoiled at the idea of her magic running through my veins, I needed it. I wanted it. “Let him go,” Shema instructed Juma. “You’re impeding his healing.” “That’s impossible,” Juma disagreed. “Young lady,” Shema began, “how dare you —” “It’s okay, Juma,” I interrupted, unwilling to listen to whatever nonsense Shema intended to spew in Juma’s direction. “You can let me go.” Juma locked eyes with me for a moment, her own glassy and full of remorse—for everything she’d forced me to endure, for loving me more than I loved myself. Then she relaxed her hold, but couldn’t seem to bring herself to step away. She glanced at Shema before returning her gaze to mine.

“Promise,” I reassured as I wrapped my hands around hers and eased her away from my body. “I won’t move until she’s done with whatever she has to do to me.” Juma winced as my words hit her and I regretted uttering them, but there was so much I regretted when it came to Juma and me and us that instead of dwelling on my remorse, I shot her a half smile and leaned into Shema’s hands. This time they were cold, and what seconds earlier felt warm and full of life turned to ice as all of me became trapped in a chill like no other, everything slowed until I was certain I would die, and I wanted to laugh because all I could think of was Han Solo and that scene from The Empire Strikes Back when Lando sold him out to Vader, and Leia and Chewie watched him turned into a carbonite block because once upon a time I told Shema I wanted to be Han when I grew up, so holy fuck, maybe this was her making good on my wish. I knew I was going to succumb to whatever darkness she, that no-good bitch of a mother, had planned for me. I also knew Juma would kill her and end Shema’s reign of undercover terror, so I relaxed into her evil because I knew that any moment, it would all come to an end.

Except that it didn’t. I teetered on the edge a few moments, even dangled my toe into the blackness, and I saw things—whispery beings with barely any faces, with glittering eyebrows and voices like angels. I swore they were focused on Juma and me, but what the fuck did I know in this fugue state between life and death. Then without warning I was sucked back into the madness of doors slamming and bodies moving and questions and answers and accusations and threats, and through it all, a tiny voice in the back of my brain whispered spoke shouted MOVE ASSHOLE! until I realized with a start that I wasn’t dead. I was very much not dead. My skin was intact, all of me was closed up and healed, and none of me felt as I had minutes earlier, when my body screamed in pain and everything was raw and red and exposed. I took stock of myself and my very not-dead state as all hell broke loose around me. Because while I was under the deep freeze of Shema’s magic, exactly what Rani had warned of happened, and where once we were four, now we were many. And it was goddamned chaos, almost magical in its unpredictable insanity. And if I were a kinder soul, one not so dark and fucked up, I might

have felt concern or even fear for Shema and Rani. But I was not kind. I was dark and more fucked up than anyone could imagine, so I didn’t feel shit for either of them. Instead, I simply watched as Khan paced like an enraged lion trapped in a glass cage in some small-town, dusty-as-fuck zoo that no one visited anymore. And Veda mimicked his every move like a well-trained cub. And the Black Copse. Everywhere. Those no-tongued, muted motherfuckers poured into the room and awaited word from their psychotic queen like a wall of silent death. I watched it all in quiet stupefaction until Khan moved in my direction. Only then did I realize my motor skills were less than stellar because only then did I try to walk. In rapid succession my brain synapses popped and sizzled and cursed as it became clear whatever ice ran through Shema’s magic was still working on me. I might have looked and felt better, but my range of movement was unimproved. Almost nonexistent. I couldn’t get out of Khan’s way if I’d wanted to. And then it happened. Shema stepped between us. Between her son and her husband. And I swear time

stopped for three seconds—one Mississippi two Mississippi three Mississippi—as Khan registered shock and disbelief and all kinds of what-the-fuck because nowhere in the trajectory of his existence had Shema’s coming to my defense ever occurred. I knew this because nowhere in my existence had Shema’s coming to my defense ever occurred. The room stilled and all of us waited for the inevitable explosion because it was coming, it just remained to be seen whom it would be directed toward: Shema or me. My money was on the tall brown guy with an affinity for bourbon and cigarettes who was currently rendered immobile. Khan always did love an unfair fight.

CHAPTER SIX: DUTCH

“That magic in your hands,” Khan erupted, and pointed a long finger in Shema’s face, his voice a mixture of anger and disgust, a tone I’d never heard him take with her, “you swore never to use it on him!” “And you promised never to take it this far,” Shema replied. “I should have cut your hands off long ago,” Khan said. Oblivious to Shema or me or anyone else for that matter, he was too caught up in his disbelief and rage to consider much else. “The second I discovered your powers, I should have disabled you. Instead, you beguiled me with your beautiful face and dreams of wealth and power.” “My beautiful face,” Shema scoffed. “You’ve spent a lifetime wrapped around your Jamaican Keeper—don’t you dare speak of my beautiful face, you bastard.” My parents were two of the most vile creatures placed on the face of this earth, forever supporting each other in the most

cruel and inhuman behavior. They were made for each other, as if the gods set aside a day to design the yin and yang of fuckery and from that madness spewed forth Khan and Shema Mathew. And although I was quite fascinated by the possibility that a serious rift existed between the two, I was much more invested in my life. And Juma’s. Juma. I lowered my eyes and glanced to my left, where she remained unseen, hidden in the shadows. But I could feel her attention shift away from the spectacle of Shema and Khan and toward me, as if she knew I sought her. She touched the hilt of her machete—the move so slight, it hardly seemed she moved at all, but I knew she was ready. The problem was— unlike at her parents’ house in Atlanta, when we fought the Black Copse and Khan and Veda together—this time she would be flying solo because, try as I might, I remained goddamned immobile. I cursed the ground Shema trod, no matter that she stood between my useless body and the man who, more than any other, wanted me dead. I didn’t give a fuck. Because how typical was this shit—even when doing me a favor and saving my life, she left me a goddamned worthless mess.

“This has nothing to do with you, Shema.” Khan’s voice ricocheted off the walls. “What happens in this room is between Dutch and me and no one else. Why the fuck is Rani here?” He spun on the Keeper, and although she didn’t flinch, there was a hint of fear in her eyes. “To stop me, of course.” Shema’s lie rolled off her tongue like sweet water. “Stupid child. I’ve watched her blindly support you and James and your agenda all these years, and now what? She seeks some sort of revenge against Dutch for killing her partner? She intends to stay in your good graces and fill James’ shoes?” Shema glanced at Rani for a moment and cocked her brow before turning back to Khan, a twisted grin curving her lips. “Well, we both know Rani could never truly fill James’ shoes, could she, Khan?” Those words and my mother’s laughter— cold, accusatory, full of ridicule—were the only sounds to fill the room for long drawn-out seconds, as they bounced off the walls and through everyone’s blood and bones until they settled somewhere unholy and unforgivable. Khan’s eyes flashed with rage, and I wondered if he caught a glimpse of his reflection in one of the many mirrors around the room because

as quickly as that emotion crossed his face, it disappeared. And where he’d seemed on the brink of implosion, he now appeared the epitome of cool detachedness. He then raised a weapon none of us had noticed because it was small and hidden and nothing that bastard ever did was small or hidden, and slashed once twice thrice and again. Four times across Shema’s chest. Blood splattered everywhere and my mother crumpled to the ground. I watched her fall—her chest open and her life spilling onto the carpet and seeping into the floor—and thought to myself how strange that only in death did I regard her in a filial sense. Only in death did I consider her my mother. “Rani!” Shema shouted as her mouth filled with blood and she lay dying on the floor. “Get out of here!” But it was too late. Rani charged Khan, a blade raised high, her eyes full of death, and slashed his face, splitting open his cheek and jaw. Juma sprang from the shadows and followed Rani’s lead, machete in one hand, killing any Black Copse in her way as she felled others with what appeared to be small Chinese stars in endless supply from a small bag I’d never seen before

on her hip. And somewhere above it all I could hear Veda, cursing and screaming orders full of murder and death as I contemplated the size of the palace and how many tongueless killers could fill this space. We were fucked. This would not be like Atlanta, there would be no influx of reinforcements, no balancing of the playing field. This would be our deaths, in that goddamned cursed dining room with that blasted table. “Dutch!” Juma shouted above the fray, and threw me a blade she pulled from her thigh. It reached my hand as Veda came at me from behind, and even though one side of my brain was like, What the fuck, Juma? You know Shema’s black magic immobilized me, the other side, the one that functioned on pure instinct and adrenaline, reached out, caught the weapon, and slashed. Veda screamed as the steel sank into her side, deep and hard, and when I pulled away in surprise, both at my mobility and my good luck, she cursed and lunged and I caught her again with an elbow under the chin, followed by a right hook to the jaw. I sent her flying into the wall, dazed and confused but only for a moment, of that I was certain. The insane always revived, their crazy

forever a shield from the cruelties of this life. I wanted to finish Veda off once and for all, gut her and leave her for dead, but as if reading my mind, Black Copse emerged from every direction and formed a protective wall around her. I glanced to my left as Juma continued her slaughter while in the far corner of the room, Rani had Khan trapped and bloody, her attack fueled by what I could only imagine to be both rage and great despair. She slashed and stabbed with such speed and precision that not even Black Copse could help Khan. It was beautiful to watch, and my only regret was not standing by her side to witness firsthand the fear in Khan’s eyes as Rani stepped in for the kill. “No more!” Veda shouted at Rani. Heeding some silent command from their demented queen, Black Copse slipped from the room. Their muted movements were fluid and ethereal, a quiet blanket of death pulled back to reveal what remained of the battle. Us. “Leave him!” Veda demanded, and Rani turned to probably tell her to go fuck herself and in that second, Khan made his move. He slipped out a side door, and when Rani turned to try to catch him, Veda moved past Juma and out another door, and before any of us

could react, they were gone. We stood in stunned silence, staring at each other in shock, incapable of processing what had just happened. Or what to do next. Then Shema pushed herself upright, bloodied and gored and gutted, and with her last breath, saved us from ourselves. “Run, you fools!”

CHAPTER SEVEN: JUMA

We escaped the palace and raced through the streets of India’s Trivandrum without speaking a word to one another as a shock-induced silence befell our bizarre threesome. I had so many questions, so much anger on the tip of my tongue, but knew it was neither the time nor the place because what mattered most was our survival—me making it to my hub, Dutch and Rani reaching their portal, and all of us getting as far away from that palace as swiftly as possible. We moved deeper into the city and slowed our pace, and I thanked the gods for the darkness of the night because the streets were packed with all kinds of life and yet no one stopped to take note of our blood-splattered bodies or haunted expressions, no one wondered at the horrors performed within those palace walls. I wondered how many times in his thirty-eight years of hell on this earth Dutch had made this same journey, bloodied and battered and full of terror, and

the same city folk pretending the brutal sight of him was nothing out of the ordinary. But I kept my thoughts locked inside because I knew once I gave them voice and made them real, I would have to kill someone for allowing Dutch to be Dutch all this time, for never once stepping into his path and wondering whether he needed help. So I made eye contact with no one and just kept moving. In what felt like circles to my untrained eyes but I assumed to be purposeful on the part of Dutch and Rani—this was their town and they knew what they were doing. “Enough, Rani,” Dutch finally called out after another trip around the city, stopping near a river just as it fed into a lake of such expanse, it took my breath away. It was quiet and still, and although removed from the lights and activity and life of town, our trio remained hushed and tense. “No, we must keep going.” Rani’s voice was tense and tight and not at all inviting. I could tell she hated Dutch. “They’re not coming,” I said, as if involving myself in the conversation blocked her ill will from touching Dutch. “Whoever we’re running from—the Black Copse, Veda, Khan—not this time. Not right now.”

“You don’t know that, Poocha,” Rani spat at my feet, and as much as I wanted to pick up her words with the toe of my boot and shove them down her throat with my foot, I did not. Instead. “I do,” I said, my voice low and calm and quite the opposite of the ire bouncing around my brain. “I can feel them and they’re not coming.” At that admission, Dutch turned my way, and I knew a million questions coursed through his being because I knew him as well as I knew myself. I also knew he would ask not a single one of them but instead would wait until I was ready to tell him everything because he was Dutch and he loved me and I loved him and part of that love was the promise we’d made to each other of no more secrets: all the ugliness and bizarre out on the table, no holds barred. And he believed in that love and me and us more than anything, so he also believed I would tell him my truths. All of them. Admitting I could feel the Black Copse was only the beginning. Rani rolled her eyes in the darkness and I felt a tingle in my fingertips, a burning desire to to wrap my fingers around her throat and slowly squeeze the life out of her tiny, birdlike

body. She had no idea how close she was to dying tonight. “It’s difficult to describe,” I said, more to Dutch than to Rani because, as Dutch would say, fuck her. “It’s almost like if you could feel a shimmer, that’s how it feels when those muted bastards are close by. It happened at Frist’s apartment the first time they attacked us, but I didn’t understand it then, because I didn’t even know it was happening. I’ve since noticed the same sensation every time they’re nearby, it’s almost as if I’m becoming more attuned to them because the sensations are happening sooner, sometimes giving me as much warning as when a Keeper is close.” Rani laughed upon hearing those words, but the sound was mocking and cruel and I sensed Dutch knew it well, had probably heard the same a million times over based upon the way he watched her—with eyes full of darkness and death. And I was about to tell her to shut the fuck up, no one wanted to hear that noise—when he pounced. No warning, no nothing. Just one second he was still and the next he was on her and she was on the ground with his hand at her throat. I stood rooted to the spot as I wondered at his speed and strength—I never watched him

fight but he was a thing of beauty, all sinew and lean muscle and unadulterated death. It was the sexiest shit I’d ever witnessed and because I hated Rani almost as much as I hated Khan and Veda, I allowed Dutch a few moments of making her feel as though she might succumb to his unreal power and murderous ire. I wanted her to know that he could do it—the possibility existed that when she least expected it, he would kill her. I needed that fear to become part of Rani’s dayto-day existence. So I waited and I watched as she struggled under his weight and anger. And as sick as it sounded, I enjoyed myself. Because again. Fuck her. “Hey.” I touched Dutch’s back, hoping to shift his attention away a bit. “If you kill her, we’ll never know what she and your mother were up to, all that information will die with her.” “Back off, Juma.” Dutch growled his response without turning my way or hearing a word I said, and I knew it was going to take a little more effort on my part to convince him to spare Rani’s life. Not that I gave a damn about her. At all. But I didn’t want to stand in the middle of the backwaters of Kerala all

night, locked in some battle of life and death and years of bad Keeper history. I wanted to get them to their portal and me to my hub and all of us as far away as possible from Khan and Veda and that palace. I wanted to regroup and recharge and then he and I could decide whether or not to kill Rani. I crouched low to the ground across from Dutch and wove my fingers with his so we both held on to Rani for a moment and I saw fear flash across her face as my eyes met hers and it felt good helping Dutch drive a little terror into her blood. I hoped it settled into her bones and small spaces and lived with her the rest of her days and I imagined as much while I loosened his grip on her throat, and he locked eyes with me as I worked his fingers but Dutch didn’t stop me. He knew I was doing the right thing by preventing him from killing her, he might even have wanted to do the same himself but time and history and all kinds of bad shit made such sound decisions impossible. That was why he had me. When he needed a little sanity in his crazy world, I was there with offerings of safe spaces and quiet moments and do-the-right-things. I maneuvered his last finger off Rani’s throat, released her from certain death, and

watched as she struggled to suck in as much air as her desperate lungs could swallow. Dutch and I stood in silence, almost touching each other but not, as she writhed and gasped and kicked life back into herself. I sneaked a glance at him as we waited for her to calm and sensed both of us probably wished her dead. “Fuck the theatrics, Rani.” Dutch kicked her foot, his lack of patience getting the better of him. “Get up.” “Where is your portal?” I asked as the Keeper struggled to her feet, neither Dutch nor I paying her a bit of mind. “On the other side of the lake. Why?” I backed away from the two of them and pointed in the direction of the palace. “Because my hub is that way—I’m going to head there and we’ll meet at the safe house.” “Wait,” he called to me, but I was already in motion, my back to him and headed toward my destination and I knew if I stopped and turned in his direction, then I would be sucked in by his haunted eyes and weary soul, and right now he didn’t need me to wrap him in my arms and hold him close or beg him to touch me or let me touch him. He needed me to get us out of here. “No, Dutch. Get her moving and let’s do this already,” I said, and kept walking.

Away from him. Back turned. So he couldn’t see the tears in my eyes. I didn’t know why I was crying, but I was— full-on tears streaming down my face—and it was bizarre and so not me to cry as I walked away from a man, and at any other moment of my life I would have laughed and told myself to get over him, he was a dime a dozen and not worth a second of my time, but Dutch was none of those things. There was no one like him, and he was worth every second of every minute of every hour of my time. So when he made me cry—even inexplicably—I went with the emotion and let my soul play out whatever it needed to play out because that was how I worked when it came to that dark and dangerous man. “Juma,” Dutch called again, and when I didn’t stop or turn back, he chased after me. “JUMA!” He caught my arm and made me stop. I wiped my eyes, turned at the same time, and smiled, and I knew my smile was too big and too bright and looked all kinds of forced. And I knew he would see that in less time than it took me to think it, and I should have done a better job of hiding it but it was too late. He saw.

All of it. The glassy eyes and damp face and tooforced smile. And because he was Dutch and knew me better than I knew myself, he didn’t say a word. He watched me in silence and looked worried and I got the sense he wanted to wrap me in his arms and hold me close and tell me sweet lies that sounded like It’s going to be okay and We’re going to make it but he didn’t, because he knew I hated mendacity. And he knew I was crying because of goodbyes and partings and separate ways and how we swore never to say goodbye or part or go our separate ways, and yet they seemed to be our persistent state of being. Instead. “Where’s the safe house?” he asked, and his lip curved into a slow slight delicious smile, the kind that made it impossible for me not to smile, and even though seeing it right then and there made me cry again in front of him, an all-out-in-the-open-can’t-deny-this-shit-ishappening kind of cry, I couldn’t help but smile in kind—that was his effect on me. “I have no idea which safe house is being used,” he said as he wiped my tears, as if seeing me cry were no big thing. I wanted to lean into his touch and stay there forever, but I

knew if I did, I would never leave, I would want to slip inside his skin and get lost in him and now was not the time, and probably there would never be time for such escapes and pleasures and simple freedoms like getting lost in each other, so I didn’t move or react or respond in any way to his touch except to laugh low and kind of embarrassed because Dutch was right. He didn’t know which safe house because when I was there safe, just as the phrase suggested, he was cut and flayed and strapped to that goddamned table in that bloody awful palace. I sucked in a deep breath and finally replied. “Huh?” he asked as though he didn’t know it or had never heard the name, and I wondered if I’d imagined waking up alone in a white room with only a picture of him to keep me going. “Martha’s Vineyard,” I stated with certainty because the fact of it was, I did wake up alone in that white room with only that picture of him to keep me going. “Oak Bluffs. Big house sitting back from the road, long curved driveway, kind of hidden but kind of not. Pool, basketball goal.” “Yeah yeah yeah,” he said as he waved me off and stepped back and I could breathe again

because he wasn’t touching me his smell wasn’t surrounding me he wasn’t clouding all my thoughts. “I know it. I just wanted to hear you say it.” He smiled and the moonlight kissed his angles and full lips and the simple beauty of his words settled in my bones and against the judgment of my better selves, I stepped to him. Close. Closer than he had been seconds earlier. So close, I could hear his breath and feel his heat and sense the effect my nearness had on him and I knew I needed to leave but I also needed this right here. This moment of him and me and us. Because many moments before this one in the dark in the middle of India, I was dead and I thought he was, too. And now here we were. Alive as all get out. So yeah. I needed this. Even if it was fleeting and damn near illusory. I needed it anyway. “Juma.” He sighed and pulled me close, and the way my name rolled off his tongue had me thinking about all kinds of dirty shit I wanted him to do to me. “Goddamn you, Juma.” And I knew right then, he needed this, too. We both did. After being surrounded by death and its

spoils and the most horrific mayhem conjured, we needed to feel alive, to take a moment and revel in the sheer insanity of our wondrous connection to one another, to breathe each other in and hold it and oh so slowly sigh it out. “Dutch,” I whispered, and it sounded like a plea from the deepest part of my soul, that place only he knew because only he had ever touched it. “Please.” And I didn’t have to say another word or worry that he would make me ask for anything at all, because he, too, had a soul full of please just waiting to burst forth and land in my hands on my skin in my blood. I don’t remember if I had other words sitting on the tip of my tongue for him. If I did, he swallowed them with his kiss, the lightest brush of his lips with mine, the kind that ignited every inch of me, then left me shattered and useless at his feet. He held me close, his hand snaked around my neck so that all of me felt possessed by him, and all of him felt taut and alive and so fucking good, and had Rani not shifted somewhere on the fringes of my awareness, I

would have worked his jeans open right there next to that lake and let him fuck me hard and fast under the stars because I needed him inside me as close as possible, a part of me so we could breathe together as one. But she was there and she moved ever so slightly and, just like that, brought us back into the here and now. God, I hated her. So much. Dutch’s eyes flashed dark and cold as he released me and mumbled something foul to himself. He hated her, too. “Go,” he said as he glanced in the direction of the palace, and I despaired the thought of him considering that place or remembering what had happened to him within its confines. I wanted to burn it to the ground decimate it wipe it from existence, but that would change nothing. Kowdiar was imprinted on him, it birthed his darkness, held his worst selves. Destroying it would change none of that, ripping its inhabitants limb from limb might help, though. “Be safe,” he said as he touched the knife at his hip and watched me leave. “I’ll see you there,” I replied, then turned and disappeared into the darkness without a

word of goodbye or see you later or anything else resembling adieu because we’d promised ourselves no more of those words would fall from our lips to touch the ether between us, and if I intended to do anything in these lives of mine, it was to uphold each and every promise I made to Dutch. Also, I couldn’t bear his quiet pain at our parting. His eyes held so much hurt and worry, and all of it killed me but now was not the time for overwrought deaths and despair, so I hurried away, grateful as the night swallowed me. I backtracked a less circuitous path and found myself outside the golden gates of the palace in a quarter of the time it took us to leave. Under the moonlight and still of the night, Kowdiar was magnificent, a stunning masterpiece of beauty and understated grandeur, and I knew the untrained eye considered it a gem of Indian architecture. Those idiot Brits probably lauded it as one of the many jewels in their crown of imperial domination and white privilege. But my eye was hardly so naive or impressed by handcarved doors and soaring archways. I knew behind the beauty lay grievous crimes committed against unwitting souls, acts almost too heinous to be spoken aloud. Pure.

Black. Terror. “Namaste, miss, may I help you?” A voice emerged from the night, and only then did I realize my fingers were wrapped around the gold-leaf bars of the main gates, their grip so tight, the tips had turned white. My silent rage poured into those bars as if that simple act could defeat generations of perverse power and greed. I loosened my grip, then turned and smiled into the face of an unwitting night watchman, “No, thank you, sir—I’m fine.” I headed for the hub before he could say another word or alert anyone inside that I was standing outside. There would be a time and a place for such announcements—Juma Landry is here to kill all of you—of that I was certain. But this night was not it. Fifty yards away, in the back of a closed dosa shop whose owners slept on the floor with their four children and whose guard dog lay curled in repose and watched me with one wary eye but never barked a warning, I slipped into the hub and seconds later landed on Martha’s Vineyard—in the far-right fitting room of Edgartown’s Black Dog store, to be exact. It was the middle of the day and I told myself the store was crowded enough that no one noticed a random black woman who’d

never entered the store exiting it, which was laughable because, come on. Random. Black. Woman. Every motherfucker in that store noticed me, but by the time my appearance messed with their brains and they contemplated my wheres whats hows and whys, I was down the block in the parking lot chatting with a cabdriver for a ride to the house. And fifteen minutes later, I was walking down the driveway of Thirteen Jessica Lane. The safe house Kash had picked as our current hiding spot. The one that probably belonged either to him or Avery, but because I’d sneaked out a side window and escaped into the night to rescue my lover instead of rising from death and sitting around the table for some idle chitchat, I had never learned its secrets and details. Thirteen Jessica Lane stood at the end of a long and winding driveway, and at this time of the day, everything was quiet, as if the heat of the afternoon made even the birds a little sleepy. The top of the drive was more path than paved, gravel and pebbles ground hard by years upon years of cars and trucks moving over the dirt until permanent ruts formed and

grass didn’t dare try to stake a space. Majestic birch trees shot heavenward as if in competition to see who could touch the gods first, their branches and leaves curling overhead to form a canopy of lush green gorgeousness. And here and there, the sun peeked through to kiss the ground in random places—a small boulder here, a copse of purple flowers there—letting everyone know that, yes, the birch was beautiful, but I’m here, too, and y’all want to see me feel me revel in my magic. And because I couldn’t help myself— everything around me was pretty and peaceful and full of life—I did just that. I closed my eyes, tilted my face to the sky, and let the sun wash over me. And as her warmth seeped into all my cold dark spaces, the blood-filled rooms of my soul, I became lost in memories filled with children and laughter and hot Georgia nights where everyone played outside long after the sun went down and the dusk rang out with joy of youth. I remembered what it felt like to have no care in the world except not being tagged “it.” I remembered Atlanta and my ma and da. I remembered me. Juma Landry. Before all of this.

Then I opened my eyes and stepped back into the present, and despite the chaos and calamity of my reality, I thrilled at the beauty of the Vineyard and the soft of my skin and the sweet of my breath and for a few seconds I reveled in myself. A slight smile curved my lips as I stepped from the bumped-up gravel to the smooth pave of the drive and headed toward the house, my footfalls quiet and steady as I took my time studying my surroundings. Life as of late offered few opportunities to smell the roses and be easy about much of anything—this moment, this walk, all of it was special, and I was in no rush to see it end. So I meandered and dallied and did all kinds of other things one does when moving at a snail’s pace—until I came to a bend in the drive that rose above everything else and there I stopped. And stared. And after what felt like an eternity, I breathed again. And beheld brown skin and lean muscles and narrow hips that held on to a pair of jeans just so. Tatted arms and long fingers and that trail of smoke from the cigarette. Lips that knew all my spots and a smile that warned of danger and death and an eternity of love. Dutch.

I gazed upon him for long drawn-out seconds because I couldn’t resist and because his beauty, all his darkness, demanded it. That was his effect on me—even the first time I’d seen him from afar in a subway station when I knew neither his name nor any of his details and everything about him screamed danger, I couldn’t turn away. I couldn’t not watch him. It was as if I already knew he was mine. Not in an ownership sense but in that way of roaming the planet for so long alone, working your way through the world dependent on no one, and then just like that, where you’d once felt like a work in progress, you were suddenly complete. I exhaled the breath I was holding and he turned and I knew he’d been waiting for me, I could tell from the way his lips almost-curved into a slow smile, how he flicked his smoke to the ground in a way that said It’s about time, how he watched me. My presence seemed to both surprise and relieve him, the former because just like me, he probably still marveled at our interconnectedness and the latter because he was Dutch and he couldn’t help but worry. “Hey, you,” I said as I came to a stop and breathed in all of him again. “You made it.” His voice was tense and

tight, and I sensed he had probably been somewhere pacing and cursing and drinking lowballs of Old Scout until someone inside the safe house grew fed up with his carrying-on and told him to get outside with all of that. “Of course I made it, Dutch,” I said, and hooked my fingers into his belt loops to pull him close, my curves melting into his planes as if made for each other. “What did you think? I stopped back by the palace for afternoon tea?” He stared down at me hard and serious as he pushed my hair out of my face as he liked to do and trailed his fingers along my skin until his hand found the perfect resting spot curved around my neck. “That is exactly what I thought, Juma.” I started to laugh and maybe joke with him that as tempting as the idea seemed, drinks with Khan and Veda would have to wait for a more opportune time, but I didn’t because even though he stood in front of me whole and beautiful and full of life, hours earlier he was quite the opposite. I’d seen the flayed flesh and carved-up limbs, the blood and misery firsthand. He lived it. And, yes, his flesh no longer bore the marks of such trauma, but his eyes did. Silly stupid jokes falling from my lips would not exorcise those ghosts anytime soon, so I pushed my words down and saved them in

those spaces of my soul tattooed with his name in hopes that one day we soon would laugh and joke. Instead. “Well, don’t,” I said, “because I would never.” He considered me for long quiet seconds, and even though I smiled, Dutch didn’t return the gesture and I wanted to kill Khan and Veda for doing that to him. No. Scratch that. I was going to kill Khan and Veda for doing that to him. “I’m serious.” I wrapped my arms around his waist and held him a little tighter. “Never.” He heard my words and I think maybe somewhere in his newer darker self he believed me, but he’d suffered too much and all of it was so recent that even with me, he hesitated. My heart ached for him in ways I didn’t think possible, and I wanted to touch him hold him stash him away inside my skin but he wasn’t ready for all of that just yet. Right now, Dutch needed something much simpler. Dutch needed my voice my words me. “There you are, baby girl. It’s about time. This one here was about to burn a hole in the floor waiting on you.” Ma.

My beautiful tiny ferocious ma. My once - upon - a - time - dead ma. My timing - could - not - be - worse ma. I wondered what she recalled of me from her time in Death’s realm when she’d learned all my secrets and delved into my details. And how many of those details had she learned since crossing back to her life and my da? I smiled an apology and released Dutch— that poor man again pushed aside for my ma— then pulled Mimi Landry into my embrace. She wrapped her thin arms around my neck and held me tight and all of her was warm and strong and alive and as much as I despised Death and her manipulations and machinations, I sent her a word of quiet thanks as I stepped back and studied my ma. She smiled wide and full, and a particular twinkle in her eye let me know she knew. That all my strange pauses and open-ended answers had probably been parsed over and pieced together by her, and I felt a pang of sympathy for Kash—I could see Ma interrogating him mercilessly until he had no choice but to divulge my truths. Poor Kash. Ma was a force of nature to be reckoned with—I loved her, but I wouldn’t wish her upon anyone. I glimpsed Da behind her, his broad shy

smile and always-quiet soul, and held my arm out to him to pull him in for a group hug. “I love you, Da,” I whispered into his chest as he held me tight and kissed the top of my head. “Love you, too, doodlebug,” he said, using my childhood nickname, the name he’d used before I died, the name I never heard again after that bullet tore out my throat and left me a bloody mess on an operating table in his hospital all those summers ago. And right then, I knew he, too, knew about dying and Death and the many-layered lives I lived. “Rufus.” My ma sucked her teeth as she stepped back and watched us. “Leave that girl alone with those childhood nicknames so she can stop almost-crying and make some introductions.” And I couldn’t help but laugh as I caught Ma’s eye and she arched a sculpted brow in Dutch’s direction. I’d never considered myself normal, there was nothing in the timeline of my existence that seemed run-of-the-mill. Except this one instance. This moment of my ma’s being so damn obvious and embarrassing me to no end. And as annoying as she was with her raised brow and not-at-all-subtle words, she was also precious and lovable and divine.

She was so Mimi, and I loved her for it. “Ma and Da, this is Dutch Mathew.” I caught his eye and smiled. “And, Dutch, these are my parents, Rufus and Mimi Landry.” “I know who he is, Juma,” my ma said as she waved off my introductions. “I want to know who he is to you.” “Relax, Mimi.” My da laughed as he wrapped his arm around her waist. “Juma just got here.” “Juma escaped the confines of her room without any of us the wiser,” my ma replied, “took off after Mr. Tall, Dark, and Handsome, then sauntered down the driveway like all of this”—and here I knew her “all of this” encompassed as much as I imagined it did—“is normal. So let’s not pretend Juma just got anywhere, Rufus.” She wasn’t being nasty, she was just being my ma. This was the fierce Mimi who lashed out at those she loved, talked shit, and took no prisoners. This was the fireball I’d learned to step around as a child, adore as an adolescent, respect as an adult. This was the woman who knew both sides of life and knew I did, too. “Does it hurt, Ma? This life?” I cut to the chase and rather than indulge her curiosity about all things Dutch, I asked about her reclamation. She paused and smiled. “I know

you know what I’m talking about, and I know you’ve told Da what I’m talking about.” “I do know what you’re talking about, and so does your da because I tell him everything, and no, sweetness, it doesn’t hurt.” She rubbed her arms and smiled, her bangles jingling with every movement. “So now your turn—the details of Mr. Mathew.” And here I hesitated as I stood next to the man I loved harder than anything else in any of my lives, my hip bumped up against his leg, his hand resting on the small of my back, not because I was embarrassed or ashamed or uncertain but because I had never before quantified Dutch, because the words did not exist. I fidgeted, twisting my fingers and my rings. And despite the fact I was a grown-ass woman, with grown-ass woman responsibilities and problems and concerns, I hardly felt adult at all. I was tongue-tied and embarrassed, and giddy with love and—gah!— I felt the fool. So of course Dutch saved me. That man would lay down his life for me, that man had laid down his life for me. This time, a few gorgeous words sufficed. “I can’t speak for Juma, but I can tell you that she is my light in a world of pitch dark, only she brightens the way. She is my honey

and grass and love and laughter, she stops time and makes it run again. She takes away my lifetime of hurt with the touch of her hand. She owns my soul and lives in my darkest selves. She breathes and my lungs fill, she cries and I am nothing but despair. She is every reason I’ve ever needed to exist. And she is the only reason I continue.” Dutch stopped speaking and twined his fingers with mine, a slow smile curving his lips as he pulled me close and kissed my forehead. I stared him for a few extra beats and he kissed me again, this time on the lips with laughter in his eyes and I settled because I knew somewhere inside that tortured body and devastated soul, the man I loved existed and waited. For me. Always me. I smiled and kissed him back. “What he said, Ma.” I’d spoken into the silence that descended upon my parents after Dutch’s soliloquy and laughed and they laughed and I swore even Dutch laughed. Not a full belly laugh, not the way he barked out his amusement, but laughter nonetheless. It was a start and I’d take it and work on it and make sure by the time I was done with him, a little of his darkness was lifted in exchange for

some of my light.

CHAPTER EIGHT: JUMA

“Dutch!” Avery shot his head out of the sliding back door and shouted, then caught sight of me and smiled the kind of smile that never reached his eyes and I glanced at Dutch and wondered what was wrong but before I could ask, Avery was outside and pulling me into his embrace. “Beautiful brown woman from the bar,” he said with laughter in his voice, but the sound was tight and forced and not happy at all. “That’s what I called you the first time this one —” And here he nodded in Dutch’s direction, Avery’s teasing tone a sharp contrast to his tense visage. “—saw you in that shit-hole of a bar.” “Hey!” I pushed Avery and feigned hurt, and decided I would ask him about his palpable stress later, when we were alone. “I love that shit-hole of a bar. My cousin owns that shit-hole of a bar.” “I don’t care who owns that place,” Avery said as he kissed my cheek and smirked, “it’s a

goddamned shit-hole.” Pause. “Excuse my French, Dr. and Mrs. Landry.” Avery nodded in my parents’ direction, and I had to laugh at the formality. I couldn’t remember the last time someone called my da Dr. Landry—it was either Doc or Rufus, anything else sounded foreign. “We know that shit-hole very well, sweetheart,” my ma replied, and shot me a look as she wove her free arm through Avery’s and pulled him close. “Juma loves to spend far too much of her free time within its confines.” “Well, I suppose that explains how Mr. Darkness managed to catch your daughter’s attention,” Avery joked. “How he’s held on to it this long is a mystery to us all.” Dutch smirked, lit a smoke, and exhaled as a ghost of a smile appeared around the edges of his mouth, and although every inch of him seemed tense and tightly wound, underneath I could see the cracks in his façade, the slow slip back into himself, and I wondered what my ma thought of him. I knew my da liked him because Rufus Landry always felt an affinity for a quiet soul. But my ma was an enigma, forever difficult to pin down and predict. “If you ask me, I’d guess it had something to do with fate and soul mates and ‘opposites attract,’” my ma said before squeezing Avery

tight and adding, “and plain old simple love.” And there was my answer. Apparently the Landry women had a thing for Mr. Darkness. Dutch flicked his smoke to the ground and stomped it out as a distinct blush crept up his neck, coloring him embarrassed, and I realized that this meet - the - parents moment was as bizarre for him as it was for me. He, too, had probably never done this before, this normal let’s-joke-about-the-kids-being-in-love kind of thing because just like me, he was anything but normal. I died my first death at age five, and by sixteen he was a bona fide killer. And now here we were, two adults, closer to middle age than our youth, feeling like teenagers caught making out behind the bleachers after school. “What?” Dutch asked as he caught my eye, my bemused expression no doubt piquing his curiosity, and again, a bit of my worry eased as it seemed his soul took another step out of its grave dug by The Gate. I opened my mouth to share my inside joke with him and my folks when Avery tripped over my words and demanded Dutch’s attention. “We need to deal with Rani.” At the mention of her name, Dutch retraced whatever steps he’d taken to exit the

grave and landed somewhere dark and deep and, for the time being, unreachable. He tensed and grew cold and all of him was all kinds of irate. “What happened to Rani?” I asked, and my ma and da flicked their eyes in Dutch’s direction before turning back to walk into the house, and I sensed that whatever happened probably wasn’t good. “Unfortunately, not a goddamned thing,” Dutch said with a menacing growl, then turned to follow my folks into the house. “She’s perfectly fine, showered, clean, and comfortable, thanks to the Chinaman.” “She’s not dead, is what he means,” Avery corrected. “Far from it, thanks to you,” Dutch shot back, and disappeared into the house, taking his black cloud of a mood with him. “They came through the portal and he went in for the kill,” Avery said as we entered the safe house and walked into the kitchen. “I stopped him and he’s pissed. I don’t even know why I stopped him, but I did.” “You did the right thing,” I said to assure him while I watched Dutch push Rani into the room and take a seat across from her at the kitchen table. “Dutch promised me he would not do anything stupid.” I glared at my dark

and dangerous love, and he seethed and stewed and oh-so-slowly calmed. “She helped save your life.” “You helped save my life,” Dutch retorted. “If I recall correctly, and I believe I do since I was the one strapped to the table, carved open and left to die, she insisted I was hardly worth saving.” “Because you’re a fucking waste of space, always crying and carrying on like a little bitch,” Rani spoke, and I wanted to kill her. “Shut up, Rani!” Avery shouted, slamming the flat of his palm on the table between Rani and Dutch. “Enough of this back-and-forth with Dutch. Everyone in this room knows you don’t hate Dutch, everyone knows years ago the two of you carried on for months in secret, and everyone knows you joined forces with James because Dutch would not let you in.” Everyone did not know that shit, I thought to myself as I listened to Avery’s amusing but not-very-surprising lecture. “And here this whole time I thought she was a tiny lesbian,” Frist said as she sauntered into the room snacking on an apple, caught my eye, and winked. I pulled her to my side when she neared and kissed her cheek. This wasn’t the time for overwrought hellos, but I was thrilled to see the Amazonian, now-blue-

haired scientist. “Nice hair,” I said, and kissed her again. “Nice everything,” she replied, her eyes full of mischief as she gave me a long and lingering once-over. “Your parents are in the garden with Kash—who keeps holding his side and I swear if he doesn’t let me see what he’s got going on, I’m going to tie him down and examine him against his will—having their afternoon tea, which I now know is made cold and sweeter than anything one should ever ingest.” “You’re not a child of the South,” I said, “so I won’t hold your tea-drinking habits against you.” She rolled her eyes and we laughed and anyone watching us would have thought we were old girlfriends catching up with each other, rather than two women who barely knew one another but bonded over some murder and mayhem. That was our reality, though, our world, our lives, thanks to The Gate and Khan, Veda and the Black Copse. No matter how you cut it, we were forever bound in ways most could never comprehend. “Now that Juma is here and Dutch can focus and be present,” Avery said to no one in particular, “I would like some sort of explanation of what happened at Kowdiar.”

Rani shifted in her chair and stared long and hard at Avery as if engaged in some heavy calculations concerning him and whether or not she would unburden herself at his request. She hated Dutch, that much I knew, and now I also kind of knew why—or maybe I knew why —I couldn’t decide if the story of Dutch’s dismissal rang true, it seemed far too trite and childish for Rani—but her feelings for Avery seemed more conflicted and full of shades of gray. As if she liked him and respected his power and authority within the hierarchy of The Gate, but she also despised him and maybe considered him effete and inconsequential. “I would like a drink,” Rani said in response, drumming her short black fingernails on the table, not in an impatient way but in a manner that struck me as more habitual than demanding. “Let me see,” Dutch said, leaning back in his chair, “which would you prefer, freshsqueezed orange juice or perhaps a mimosa with our most expensive Dom?” Rani cocked her head to the side and watched Dutch, the two locked in some silent, ages-old battle that I knew eventually would result in someone’s death. Theirs or an innocent bystander’s, I could not tell, but if the

story ended with the two of them, sworn enemies, as the last left standing, I would not bat an eyelash. “Water is fine.” Rani smiled at Dutch and she looked sweet and sincere, but all of us knew that given the chance, she would happily slit his throat. “Rani.” Avery pulled out a chair and sat down next to Dutch. “I repeat,” Rani growled, “I would like some water.” “Yes, yes,” Avery said while ignoring her flash of temper with the air of someone who’d seen it all before. “I know. And I’ll get you some—I’ll even dig a well out back, tap my own freshwater spring, and spoon-feed it to you—but first I want your story. And I want it without all the bullshit and bad attitude, sans smug comments aimed at Dutch or any other shit you’ve got up your sleeve. I’m doing you a favor right now, I expect my recompense.” “Recompense?” Rani asked. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. Recompense for what? I don’t owe you shit, Avery Lu.” “Oh, little girl,” Avery said, and with a smile, waved a finger in Rani’s direction, looking anything but amused, “you owe me for not leaving you outside this house. With the door locked. Alone.”

Avery let his words hang in the air without further explanation because none was needed. Rani knew exactly what he meant—that without any of us, she was as good as dead. She was a rogue Keeper, alone, and we were her only hope if she intended to survive one more day in this fucked-up game of lives. She remained silent and I guessed her soul needed a few moments of quiet and contemplation to come to grips with the fact that for so long she had played the game on the other side, the wrong side. The side she had assumed to be winning when in fact she was losing the whole time. And now here she was, surrounded by the very people she’d built a life upon torturing and tormenting. Even worse, she needed their help. It was total fuckery. For her. Me? I kind of loved watching it happen.

CHAPTER NINE: DUTCH

Life has a way of conjuring all kinds of nightmarish scenarios, bundling them together in a scary-as-fuck package, then dropping it on your doorstep, ringing the bell, and taking off to hide in the bushes and laugh as you open your door and step in the shit. And even though you become numb to the repetitive cycle of excrement, you don’t forget it. You carry it with you everywhere because it takes up space in the parts of yourself kept well hidden from prying eyes, brought out and parsed over in private, alone, when no one else can hear your fear. And it’s in those moments you plot and plan and prepare for the possibility you’re ever given a chance to draw back, cock your fist, and deliver a brain-shaking blow to Life’s left cheek. I’d had plenty of those moments, sitting alone in my apartment, the lights off and the only sound my belabored breathing after surviving another once-over by James and

Rani, back when James was still alive and they were together, The Gate’s very own torture team. I’d swigged bottles of Old Scout and considered all the ways I would kill them, the songs I would hum as I butchered their bodies, the words I would speak as they inhaled their last breaths. But now, in this house in the middle of Oak Bluffs, at the end of a tree-lined lane, deep in the woods, surrounded by peace and quiet, with Rani just where I’d always dreamed of finding her, I couldn’t bring myself to reach across the table and slowly squeeze the life out of her. And not because Juma or Avery would stop me or because I’d already tried to kill her twice but because I just didn’t feel it. That need to bring some death, some hurt, some fear. To fuck her up and leave her for dead. Just as she’d done to me too many times to count. What I wanted was for her to stop bullshitting us, give us her story, and let me go to sleep. I wanted to crawl into my bed, pull the covers over my head, close my eyes to the misery, and rest my bones. It was the strangest feeling—after years of running on empty, full speed ahead with no thought or concern for the toll on my physical being—to want to slow

it all down, close my eyes, and relax. I never relaxed. And I sure as fuck never slept. Ever. I watched Juma with Frist and wondered how any of this had happened. How did that beautiful brown woman cross my path and decide to love me? How did a brilliant scientist save my life in more ways than the obvious? How did those two women come to find themselves in this kitchen, laughing and chatting like friends, when all they really knew of each other was murder and mayhem? And me. I ran my hands over my face and through my hair and inspected my palms as they came away tinged with the blood that still soaked my hair from wounds that had not yet healed, as if reminding me that even when I was safe, I was never out of the reach of Khan and The Gate. I rubbed my hands on my jeans and stood and paced the kitchen. Once. Twice. Thrice. Fuck Khan. And fuck The Gate. “She was with Shema.” The truth spilled from my mouth, my voice giving it life, making

it loud and real. I was sick of Rani’s hemming and hawing and carrying on with Avery. “She and Shema found me in the dining room. They were together and from what I could tell based on their conversations, had been that way for quite some time. “I’m not saying they’re lovers,” I said, and Rani scowled and it gave me a tinge of joy. “What?” I asked. “If you have something to say, just say it already.” “Fuck you, Dutch,” Rani spat, and sounded childish and something else I couldn’t quite put my finger on but guessed that if I knew her better, I’d say it sounded like defeat. I ignored her and kept going, telling her story my way since she still refused to reveal her own truths. “But they were connected and it was intense. Shema seemed determined to free me from that table, but this one was more concerned for their lives. She wanted Shema to get out of the dining room before Khan returned. She pleaded with her to be careful and mindful of the fact I wasn’t worth the trouble. “It was both bizarre and fascinating, and I still don’t know what to make of it.” “Your mother helped you?” Avery asked, unable to hide the surprise in his voice. “And died doing it,” I said, feeling quite

detached from the reality of Shema’s death. Yes, she was the woman who’d birthed me and shared a few moments of affection with me when I was a child, but that woman died years ago. And with her, so too lay buried my filial affection. Shema Mathew, leader of the Junta, esteemed member of The Gate, meant nothing to me. The same could not be said for Keeper Rani Rao. I got the feeling Shema Mathew meant quite a lot to her. Upon hearing my words, Rani stood suddenly and toppled her chair in the process, drawing everyone’s attention as she pressed her fingers into the table to steady herself. “Please. get. me. some. water.” Instead of fetching a glass for the tiny Keeper, everyone watched her in quiet stupefaction as she mouthed a litany of words to herself, head down, eyes closed. Finally, Juma moved toward the sink, filled a glass with tap water, and offered it to Rani. She downed the glass, asked for another, then uprighted her chair and reclaimed her seat, all in a very perfunctory manner, as if talking herself through all the motions, telling herself to hold it together, it would all be over soon. “Thank you, Juma,” Rani said, and nodded in Juma’s direction. And although she was

being perfectly polite and kind, I wanted to kill her for glancing Juma’s way, for speaking her name as if she had the right, for allowing any idea of Juma to cross her fucked-up, psychotic brain. It was infantile on my part, but in my exhausted state, could not be helped or controlled, it simply was. “Don’t.” I glared at Rani and uttered the one word banging around in my brain, holding my anger. “Or what?” Rani asked, her voice low and dangerous. “Or nothing,” I replied, too weary for a war of words with her—I knew that was what she wanted, and for once, I refused to engage. “Just don’t.” Rani considered me for long, quiet seconds, and I knew she was thinking of all the millions of reasons she had to kill me and how she probably wished she’d done the deed years ago and I didn’t even give a fuck. Because, for real, the shit between me and Rani had gone on so long, so many goddamned years of craven brutality, that even I was sick of us. “She.” Rani raised her eyes in Juma’s direction but remained focused on me. “She is your greatest weakness, Dutch, and if you’re not careful, she is going to get you killed.” I felt Juma shift and perhaps she

considered countering Rani’s conclusion, but she remained silent. “You know what’s kept you alive this long? The simple fact you didn’t give a shit about anything or anyone. And as much as I’ve always abhorred you and dreamed of the many and varied ways I would enjoy bringing about your death, I’ve also always harbored a secret respect for your fuck-it-all attitude. Even I couldn’t pull that shit off as well as you’ve done. “Until her.” Rani again flashed her eyes in Juma’s direction. “And you know what? I knew it. I told James as much.” Rani laughed at something only she was privy to, and for the millionth time too many, I wanted to hurt her. “But he insisted no woman was stupid enough to love you, because James loved Khan and knew nothing of women and how they love to love something damaged and dark.” Rani watched as her words settled into Juma’s bones, and she must have liked what she saw because her thin mouth curved into a crooked smile. “Your Poocha doesn’t like being considered so common and predictable, and from the looks of her, I’m guessing it’s rare anyone dares call her common and predictable, but

the fact she fell for you is exactly common and predictable. It’s expected. How could she not fall for you? What woman doesn’t fall for that face and the hint of trauma kissed with despair? But you,” Rani said as she turned back to me, “holy fuck, I never thought I’d live to see the day you fell for anything. And I liked you that way, it made my job of doing everything in my power to crush you so much easier because you never cared. Until you did. “Until the Poocha.” Rani leaned into the back of her chair, crossed her legs, and looked perfectly delicate and stunning, and if we weren’t all players in this game of lives—if we were regular fucks going about our business as regular fucks do— we’d probably note her pixielike beauty. Instead. “Your mother knew this. Truth be told, she knew it before I did because Shema was brilliant like that and always fifty steps ahead of everyone else. She should have been running The Gate instead of that dumb fuck she called a husband.” Rani spat those last words onto the table before us, seeming to lose herself for a few seconds to her rage and hurt, hands pressed wide to the table, head down, and eyes closed. “But I digress.” “Shema didn’t know one goddamned detail

about me,” I said, interrupting her soliloquy, uninterested in hearing more of her nonsense, wanting Rani to start speaking some truth or shut the fuck up. “Oh, Dutch, for being so smart, you’re so goddamned simple.” Rani laughed to herself. It was that same laugh I’d heard so often, sometimes from behind as James attacked with his beloved blade, Everlee, sometimes to my face as Rani carried out her own acts of brutality. I knew the sound, it was part of my being, and had the effect of filling me with rage and putting me on guard because it always signaled some fuckery headed my way. “Shema knew everything about you. The killing, the torture, the women, the incessant need to walk that fine line between life and death. She watched it all from afar.” “She fucking orchestrated it,” I said through gritted teeth as a tension headache exploded behind my eyeballs. Rani rolled her kohl-lined eyes, and it took every ounce of self-control left in my body not to reach across the table and dig them out of their sockets myself. “Twenty years later, and you’re still going on about that teenage piece of ass, Dutch? You never cease to disappoint me.” “That’s enough, Rani.” Avery touched my

shoulder and spoke before I could. “Stick to what matters or leave.” “Well, excuse me, Keeper Lu, but I think Dutch has made it pretty clear that Kajal Chaudhry is what matters,” Rani said with a sick smile just for me. “Isn’t that right, Dutch?” “But she means nothing to me, Keeper Rao,” Avery replied, calm in the face of Rani’s bullshit, “and right now, this is my show, you’re in my safe house, so stick to the script or get the fuck out of here.” “Now, now,” Rani said as she waved Avery off, “no need to be so rude. I’m simply stating facts—facts are what you want, am I right, Keeper Lu?—but this is your house and I am merely a guest, so where was I?” She touched her fingertip to the side of her head and played cute and I wondered what made her tick. Where did she get all that crazy? Was it born of The Gate or did it already live in her blood while The Gate merely acted as the conduit for its release unto the world? “Stop staring at me like that, Dutch.” Rani turned and hissed and both of us knew what remained unsaid: She knew how to make me stop staring. But I didn’t turn away, perhaps my expression changed, shifted a bit, but my attention was solely on her and whatever bullshit she intended to hit us with next. “So

back to Kajal.” “No more Kajal,” Avery said. “Jesus, enough about Kajal,” Frist agreed. “Kajal is not the point.” Juma added her two cents. Rani raised a brow in my direction and smiled. “Trained them well, I see.” I ignored her because I got it—she could no longer physically maim me, so her next best bet was mental warfare. And I could either get sucked into her twisted shit or dance along its edges. I surprised myself and chose the latter. “Yes, back to Kajal,” I replied, and as I hoped, shocked the shit out of her. “I wouldn’t describe myself as you so graciously did as ‘still going on about that teenage piece of ass,’ but I do think witnessing all eight of her murders—long drawn-out torture sessions that took days to end—still haunts me today, probably has something to do with the way I carry myself through this life, and remains a part of me.” A hushed silence fell over the room as I put Kajal’s horrific final weeks into a few choice words to share amongst friends. “And Rani, just so you and I are clear with one another—Shema participated in the flaying and raping and carnage, happily leaving her own mark with those magic hands

of hers. So forgive me if I don’t share your fond memories and hold her in the highest esteem.” I knew none of that mattered to Rani, I didn’t expect it to, but I wanted it out there. I wanted to say it, speak Kajal’s truths for her and not leave her reduced to “that teenage piece of ass.” I owed her that much. I owed myself that much. “I know what she did to Kajal,” Rani said, and maybe I was wrong, but I swore all the menace and disdain that previously laced her voice was gone, and in its place something akin to sincerity and, if I wasn’t mistaken, a bit of remorse. “What she did to Kajal and, in effect, you haunted her for years.”

CHAPTER TEN: DUTCH

There is the anger, that immeasurable fire that lives in your blood and fuels your most dastardly actions. And then there is the quiet, that moment you step beyond rage and you simply exist. In white silence. Rendered mute and immobile. Nothing. That was me—silent and still—as Rani spoke and her story became part of my being. I no longer wanted her dead, I was beyond wishing death upon others. Instead, I wanted something deeper, more profound. An escape. From it all. I sat there in that chair and watched her dark-stained lips form words that danced around my awareness, but I didn’t speak or shudder or even breathe. I simply was something.

And when I thought I might slip into nothingness, warmth pressed my skin, I felt heat along my side, and her scent engulfed me. Honey. Lemons. Grass. Light. Juma. I looked up and our eyes locked and everything I needed was right there—strength, love, laughter—and I breathed. Deep and full, my lungs gulped in as much air as they were able to and my blood pumped hard and fast, and as dead as I was seconds earlier, I was now brilliantly boldly alive and it was fucking amazing. She was fucking amazing. Her mere existence was all I needed to step back from the precipice of my white hell and get lost in her everything. Juma. My magic Juma. Because of her, my anger and darkness and every ounce of my rage found a home where they could run free and wander and bump into softer things like hope and kindness and beautiful moonsets, and dissipate into something foreign and nearly unrecognizable. I loved her for gifting me that. I didn’t deserve it—that much I knew—miserable fucks never deserved the riches they amassed, but I didn’t

care, I wanted it. I wanted her. All of her. And so I stepped back. And I breathed. And she touched my shoulder and I caught her eye and for a few seconds the world was reduced to just us two. She looked sad and happy at the same time, and as much as I hated her sadness, I was also growing to love it because it was part of what made the whole her. And the whole her was goddamned fantastic. I pulled her down and she sat, balanced, with a leg on either side of mine, hands on her knees, and when she turned back to glance at me, a gorgeous smile curved along her perfect mouth. I wanted to kiss her at that moment more desperately than ever in our togetherness because right then, right there, I fell for her. Again. Hard. But I knew one kiss would not suffice, I needed to own her, all of her. So I resisted and dialed down everything in me that was begging for all of her, I put it away to return to later, and instead I turned to Rani. Talk about a goddamned buzzkill. “Years?” I asked, my voice breaking the silence that descended upon the room the second Rani revealed that Shema had maybe half a soul. “You not only want me to believe

Shema Mathew felt any sort of remorse for what she did to Kajal—the same Shema Mathew who gave birth to me, the woman who wouldn’t know the meaning of remorse if you burned it into her skin—but you also expect me to believe she held on to that emotion for years? Years? Come on, Rani,” I said with a laugh because she was being a bit ridiculous, “you cannot be serious.” “I am.” “You are not.” I leaned forward and replied, resting my left hand on the curve of Juma’s hip, enjoying her closeness in the midst of the insanity. “I am, Dutch,” Rani replied, and there was none of her usual sneer and disdain, “and I can prove it.” Those five tiny words caught everyone’s attention as the entire room sucked in a collective breath, all of us waiting and wondering what Rani would say next. And right then I stepped outside myself and floated above it all and watched us, this motley crew of instigators and rebels and believers in good, and I looked at her in all her tiny sparrowlike cool calm and collected menace and I made a decision. Fuck her. “Get out.”

I stood and Juma stood and I slipped out from behind her and pulled on the back of Rani’s chair, forcing her out of it and upright before she could put two and two together. “Dutch!” she shouted, more out of the shock of being dumped from her seat than anything having to do with me. “Out! Now!” I ordered, and pushed her toward the back door. “None of us are going to sit and listen to another word of your bullshit, another of your lies. This is all a game for you, it always has been. First, you and James with the torture, and now you, on your own, doing your best to fuck with me. With us.” I moved to push her again, but Rani spun fast and faced me. “Do not touch me.” “Sure thing,” I said right before I pushed her again, this time into the back door. “Don’t let the doorknob hit you on the way out. We’re done here. No more. You’re on your own.” Rani didn’t move, so I reached around her and opened the door for her. “Sevyn,” the tiny Keeper said in a rush, “your wife. Keeper Suleiman. She’s a plant, a spy—all part of a plan your mother began working on years ago.” The triumvirate of fucked-up women in my life—Veda, Shema, Rani—had become a quartet the day Sevyn Suleiman entered the

picture. Until that moment, Sevyn had been little more than a blip on my radar, a capable Keeper from a renowned family of Keepers and Ren, someone assigned the tougher Poochas, someone I never had to clean up after. She stayed in her lane and I in mine and never the two lanes crossed. Until the Suleimans and Mathews decided Sevyn would make the perfect blushing bride. I fucking hated her conniving ass. Almost as much as I hated Rani. And Shema. And that bitch I called a sister. “Next thing you’re going to say,” I said through gritted teeth, “is Veda is part of your Anti-Gate girl gang.” Rani shook her head, the line between her eyes pronounced as all of her became very serious. “Never.” “Never.” I laughed in disbelief as I backed away from her and leaned into the counter behind me. “Never? Work with me here, Rani. Come on, this,” I said, and waved my hands as if catching the words she tossed into the air, “is nothing but layers of insanity. And I get it, you’re desperate because whatever plan you and Shema hatched went horribly awry back there in the palace. But if you expect any of us to believe whatever it is you’re trying to pull

over on us right now—” “Dutch.” Kash stood in the doorway, having slipped in unseen, garden shears in one hand and a bunch of black-eyed Susans in the other. “Let Rani speak,” Kash said, and nodded in Rani’s direction but his eyes never left mine. I started to protest, my mouth opened and words banging around in my head, words that sounded a lot like fuck her and batshit crazy and full of shit, but it was Kash and I couldn’t bring myself to speak those words to the gentle Keeper in the tone they demanded, so I just stared. Dumbfounded. And silent. And in that silence, I discovered the other Shema Mathew. Leader of the Junta. Traitor to The Gate.

CHAPTER ELEVEN: JUMA

I moved around the kitchen in near darkness, the wood floors of the old space creaking their disapproval every five or so steps I took, from the farm-style table covered in plates and wineglasses and other mealtime detritus to the dishwasher with its door open and racks out like a mouth waiting to be fed. The room still held hints of cardamom and coriander and, if you closed your eyes and felt for it, the energy of love and friendship. This wasn’t my house, but I had a thing about kitchens—I couldn’t leave dishes piled in the sink and pots on the stove. I needed them cleaned and spotless or headed in that direction before my bones settled in for the night. So after Rani revealed her many-layered truths and Dutch walked out the back door without a word to anyone and Kash pulled out a tray of shrimp biryani to feed all of us, and we ate and drank and chatted as the evening slipped into nighttime and the moon kissed the sky with her crescent lips and ethereal

light and all was still but those things that go bump in the night, and I tucked Mimi and Rufus into bed as if they were my grown children and they asked me about dying and living and dying again, and I assured them I knew what I was doing and I lied about any of my pain, I had to clean. Because even in the midst of chaos, a clean kitchen mattered. At least to me it did. Plus, there was something comforting in the routine of running the plate under the hot water, scraping the leftover food into the garbage disposal, stacking the plate in the dishwasher rack, and then starting again. It felt purposeful and unlike most other aspects of my life, finite. I liked my water near scalding, and with the slight chill in the night air, I was quickly shrouded in steam that kissed my face and settled on my lashes. In the dim light of the remaining taper candles burning around the room, I rinsed the last plate in the sink, gazed out the window in front of me, and searched the pitch-black-of-night woods. I sought brown skin that reminded me of summer and dark eyes full of danger and despair. I sought Dutch. I knew he was out there, walking the

island, piecing himself back together after learning of the mother he never knew he’d had until she was dead and it was too late. It was why he left the kitchen mid-conversation, as Shema’s truths poured from Rani’s lips—he needed quiet and time to process the evening’s revelations. And I knew he was fine that nothing would happen to him that no bogeyman was hot on his trail, but I still wanted him indoors next to me, I thought to myself as I pushed the last bits of shrimp tails from the night’s meal into the disposal, turned off the water, and squeezed out the sponge. And as if he sensed my need, felt me pulling him back, calling him home, Dutch stepped from the darkness, caught sight of me in the window at the sink, and stopped. Our eyes locked and we watched each other through the glass for long silent seconds as the ancient clock on the wall with kitty-cat eyes ticked out every beat of my heart. He dragged on his cigarette, long fingers at his lips and then not, as he flicked his ash and exhaled and for a moment became lost in the haze of the smoke as it danced with the darkness and blurred his brilliant perfection. Then bit by bit it cleared, and as the crisp of the night returned, so, too, did he: black hair like raw silk, kissing the nape of his neck and falling

across his eyes in its almost-too-long state, his usual stubble now a full-grown beard peppered with the salt of his grays, the only betrayal of his age on an otherwise rugged and beautiful face of angles and hollows, and his eyes, bright in the darkness and always full of dare and mischief. Even when they betrayed unease with a side order of confusion. He tossed his smoke to the ground, rubbed it out with his boot, and came inside as I gathered the last of the glasses from the kitchen table and blew out the candles. “Why did I know you would be cleaning?” He stood in the doorway and watched me, unsmiling, but his voice gentle and low. I paused and wondered whether I imagined a gulf opening between us, then pushed the idea out of my mind because it was stupid and silly and nonexistent and instead, wiped down the table with my free hand. “Because you’re as smart as you are sexy,” I said as I loaded the dishwasher. “I’m going to take a shower.” As suddenly as he appeared, Dutch disappeared into the bowels of the quiet house, leaving me alone in the clean and sleepy kitchen. I dug around under the sink for some detergent, filled the dishwasher, and set it to run. As I turned out the last light in the kitchen

and made my way toward the back of the house, I heard the very distinct sound of the shower, more staccato and insistent than the dishwasher’s hum, and headed in its direction. The bedroom was lit by a pool of moonlight coming through the window and as I crossed to the bathroom, I slipped my T-shirt over my head and tossed it at my feet, then paused to unburden myself of my shorts, right leg first then left, unsnapped my bra and dropped it to the floor as I stepped into the steamed-up bathroom and listened to Dutch sing “Mull of Kintyre.” I’d never heard him sing before, and as he reached the refrain and his baritone washed over me, I wondered why not. His voice was beautiful, deep and melodic, as if he’d trained professionally at some point. And it struck me then that perhaps I’d never heard him sing because it was something he’d done before entering The Gate. And just like that, it happened. And I didn’t mean for it to, because I told myself I was going to stop having these moments of overwhelming grief for Dutch and all he’d suffered, but I couldn’t help myself and as I listened to him sing, the pieces of my heart I’d put together since the last time they’d broken for him scattered again all over that

bathroom floor. But instead of reaching down and picking them up, trying to find each and every one of them on that bathroom tile, I did what I’d wanted to do the second he told me he was headed for the shower: I stripped off my panties and stepped inside with him. He turned and looked surprised and almost as if he didn’t want me sharing that glass-enclosed space with him, and as I traced the marks on his chest, I kind of knew why. Because even though he seemed healed—after whatever magic Shema had had running through her blood worked its way through his system and saved him from the black death Khan had begun—he wasn’t, and his body was living proof. And I’d already touched him everywhere and taken ownership of his old hurts, but these new ones belonged to him. He’d claimed them, it was in his eyes, it lived in the brown of his wet skin. “I’m fucked up,” he said as my gaze moved over the jagged cuts where chunks of him had been missing. I nodded in agreement. “Yes, sweetness, you are most definitely fuuuuuuuucked up.” A sliver of warmth remained nestled in the light flecks of Dutch’s eyes, and it washed over me as he stepped into my arms and wrapped himself around me and for the first time in our

togetherness I hesitated paused stepped out of myself and watched us because where I expected to find walls and gnashing teeth and bitterness wrapped in rage—that gulf I imagined back there in the kitchen growing between us—instead I found love and touch and tenderness. I came back to myself and the moment and pulled him close and held on to him and forgot there ever existed a second between us when he could not bear any of me on any of him. I snaked one hand up the nape of his neck and twirled my fingers in his wet hair as my other learned the death written all over his back, the scars thick and raised and full of magic to fight magic, all of it making up a most fucked-up family concoction of control. Dutch tensed as my fingers wandered his wounds but he didn’t stop my exploration, because just as he owned his horrors so would I. This was him wanting me to crawl deep inside his darkest heart and see it all know it live it. With him. And in the silence of that shower wrapped in discovery and reckoning, he proved to me again that he loved me and it was deep and it was forever. “Does it hurt?” I whispered into his skin and felt him press me closer, and if he could, I knew he would push me deep inside him to

hold on to forever, a light for all his darkness. Dutch unwound himself from me and ran his hands over my wet hair, sweeping it off my face as his eyes danced over my freckles and all of him seemed to be drinking me in with eyes that had seen too much and never enough. “Not really,” he said, and winced as my fingers kneaded a jagged angry-looking keloid under his breastbone. “Okay, when you do that, yes, Juma, it hurts.” He smiled and grabbed my wandering hand and kissed my fingers and suddenly Dutch seemed so very Dutch. “Hey.” I cocked my head to the side and he eyed me as he kept kissing my fingers and when I didn’t say anything immediately but just kept watching him because he was so beautiful and I couldn’t help myself, he kissed the inside of my wrist, on my spot, and my lips parted but all I could muster was a low moan. “Yes, Juma,” he said, and kissed me again as he reached behind and turned off the shower and the room fell quiet but for random pings of droplets of water and my ragged breath. “You were saying?” He pressed his lips to the inside of my forearm on a pool of freckles he loved as his other hand cupped my ass and pressed me into his rock-hard dick. I sucked in a groan

and gathered myself—deep breaths, girlfriend —spread my thighs just a touch and smiled because two could play this game of seduction and just as Dutch knew his dick did things to me so, too, did I know my wet pussy drove him mad. I shifted and he groaned. Checkmate. “Before you kissed my spot?” I asked, and rubbed my wet swollen lips up and down his dick and reveled in his low hiss and closed eyes and big hands wrapped around my waist. “I was going to say you seem kind of okay.” Dutch opened his eyes. “I am.” I ran my fingers through his beard and traced his full lower lip. He nipped my finger and I smiled and licked his lip. “I worried when you left,” I said because I wanted him to know. “It wasn’t about you.” He whispered his truths into that place where my throat and clavicle met in a mess of nerve endings desperate for his touch. “I needed quiet to sort out the nonsense.” He bit me, then pressed a kiss with his full lips to the tender mark and my pussy flooded all over his dick because I loved when he mixed pleasure and pain. I rocked into him,

surrounding him with all my slick heat as all of him throbbed a beat I felt in my blood, and I swear he could have fucked me right there. Instead. “I know it wasn’t about me, Dutch.” I took his face in my hands and made him see me. “I still worried.” And he did see me. He always saw me. “I know you worried and wondered where I was and whether I was okay. But you knew I would come back.” “I did,” I agreed. “I just wasn’t sure which version of you would return.” He considered me for another second and licked his lips, and I swear if he had plans to devour me, I would happily serve myself up as his last meal. Instead he leaned close—so close I could feel his heat everywhere but not so close we touched and he knew that made me crazy and I knew that was his intention. His breath tangled with mine and my lips parted and my eyes closed and I held on to him because for two beats of a second I needed to ground myself. “Goddamn, Juma.” His voice rumbled through me and I was done. I leaned into the cold wet of the tile wall behind me and felt his eyes crawl all over my tits and pussy and I was

hard and soft in all those places I needed to be hard and soft and if he wasn’t going to touch me, then I was going to touch myself. “You know which version returned?” he asked, and licked my bottom lip and held my hands to the wall so I couldn’t move and I sure as fuck couldn’t touch myself. And I knew his question was rhetorical and even if it wasn’t, he knew I couldn’t speak. “The version that likes licking your dark nipples until they’re rock hard and begging to be bitten.” And he leaned down and circled my nipple with his tongue until my back arched off the wall and I pushed myself between his teeth and I knew it was going to hurt but I didn’t care, I wanted all his pain. He bit down and covered my mouth at the same time, my cry muffled by his palm, then he sucked and licked and kissed and all that glorious pain slipped into pleasure and every second of it was heaven. “And in case you’re still not sure which version of me is standing here, dick hard as a rock, in the shower with you,” he said with a smile, crooked and wicked, and I knew I was in trouble, “it’s the version that likes touching your pussy. Soft. Just the way you like.” And he traced his perfect fingers up and down my soaked pussy then brought them to his mouth and tasted me and I moaned and it sounded

like a plea for him to touch me and tease me and fuck me every way possible. He just kissed me and smiled. Because that sexy motherfucker wasn’t finished with me. Shit, he was just getting started. “And then you know what this version of me likes to do, gorgeous?” he asked, and grasped my hand before I could touch myself and pushed it behind me and against the wall so I couldn’t move even if I wanted to. But truth be told, I didn’t want to, not even an inch. I wanted to stay trapped in this moment with this man, turned on and out and dripping pussy juice all down my leg for as long as possible, and he knew it he could see it in my parted lips he could feel it in the air between us. “This version likes to kiss your wet swollen lips up and down, and tease your clit with my tongue until you’re spreading your thighs wide open for me, and you’re pushing your pussy in my face and pleading with me to suck your clit and fuck you with my fingers and make you come hard and fast and again and again and again—‘Please, Dutch, don’t stop.’” He imitated me and I couldn’t even get mad because he was right, that was exactly what I would say. It was exactly what I said when he finished his story.

“Please, Dutch,” I said, and he licked my tongue and kissed me and I was a goddamned mess. “Please what, baby?” He pinched my nipples hard and my pussy squirted on his dick and we groaned together. “Don’t stop.” I rubbed my pussy all over his dick and I needed him inside me so I spread my legs and his tip slid in just a little. I wanted to grab Dutch’s ass and push him deeper but my hands were trapped within his own and try as I might to free them, he wasn’t letting go. Instead. “Turn around, gorgeous,” he commanded, then turned me around himself because he knew I was too much of a sexed-up mess to do much of anything but exist. He pressed my hands above my head, leaned close, and whispered, “Don’t move. Not a goddamned muscle.” Then he slid down my body and spread my ass checks wide and blew warm air all over my pussy. “Oh my fucking god, Dutch.” I arched my back and tried to grind on his face and he smacked my ass. Hard. “Not a muscle, Juma. This version of me likes to be listened to when I ask you nicely to do something.” And he waited for me to still before he

pressed wet hot kisses up the backs of my thighs, and parted my legs as I moaned his name and begged him never to stop. And I didn’t dare move a muscle, I stayed right there and let him do exactly as he wanted. And what he wanted was to spread my lips from behind and suck my clit, and he didn’t do it soft, as I liked it, he tongued me hard and his full lips owned me and he taught me in those moments of frenzied need and sex and desire that I could learn new things and I could enjoy the new things, because holy fuck did I enjoy that man and his mouth and what he did to my body. “Dutch.” I moaned into that cold tile wall as all of me tensed and became one bundle of nerve endings owned by that tongue and those lips that circled and sucked and kissed. “I’m going to come.” He spread my ass cheeks and sucked me harder and I tried to fight it and hold on and dance on the edge of the most brilliant orgasm ever, but it was impossible because his lips were so soft and wet and his tongue. Fuck. His tongue. I came hard, pressed against that wall, barely moving, his mouth all over me, his hands all over my ass, and it was intense. He kept moving his mouth over my clit and he licked my come and I felt everything tighten

again and I knew he’d told me not to move but I couldn’t help myself. This was too much, complete and utter sensory overload, the cold the heat him all over me. I tossed my head back and begged for something anything. Him. “Dutch!” And everything just kind of exploded, all of me again all over his mouth, and if you’d told me I died just then, I would beg you to kill me repeatedly. He was that magic. And relentless in his ownership of my body, as though he needed to possess every inch of me, imprint himself into every pore so there was no doubt to whom I belonged. “Don’t move,” he said as he stood and teased the shell of my ear with his warm breath and then disappeared and I knew this because where I was covered in his heat, suddenly I was not. I shifted and watched him from the corner of my eye, the way he moved like water, the fullness of his mouth, his long fingers dancing along the countertop. “Juma.” He looked up and caught my eye, unsmiling, but there was mischief in his voice. “I said don’t move.” “I can’t not watch you,” I said in my defense, and he smirked and laughed as he found whatever it was he sought in the drawer —yes!—squirted it all over his dick and was all

over me again in seconds, pushing my chest into the cold wall, his hot breath at my ear. “Good answer, gorgeous.” He kissed my neck and teased my nipple while his other hand slipped inside my pussy and found my clit, hard and exposed and waiting for his touch, and his big thick dick pressed against my asshole. “I can’t even argue with you because holy fuck, I cannot not watch you and your goddamned fabulous ass.” He pushed away from me and his hands were warm on my hips and I could feel his eyes all over my ass, hungry and so full of need, they burned right into my core. I tried to shift and let him know I wanted him inside me but that slight movement only made him grip me tighter. “Don’t.” He leaned in again and hissed and even though he wouldn’t let me do what I wanted and touch myself, he certainly gave me what I wanted as he pushed a little of himself into my ass and I gasped because his dick was huge. “Shhhh,” he said, and kissed the back of my neck as he held on to my hips and pushed into me inch by slow and deliberate and delicious inch, his thickness filling my ass and he felt so good and so big, all of him owning all of me. I relaxed into the pressure of him inside

me and just let myself go with it and my body kind of sighed and whispered, Yes, baby, let’s do this. I pushed myself away from the wall even though he told me not to move—I was past the point of caring about much of anything but him being balls deep in my ass— and gave him all of me, pushing him so far inside, I cried out but it wasn’t in pain, it was unfiltered pure ecstasy. Dutch didn’t complain or comment that I’d moved or order me back against that wall. He did exactly what I hoped and lost himself in all of me. “Juma.” He moaned as his dick disappeared in my ass and his hands wrapped around my hips and he fucked me like a man possessed. “God, you are pure sin.” And I wanted to say something, let him know how good he felt, how I loved feeling his balls against my pussy every time he sank into my ass, but I was too caught up and breathless and senseless to put words together. Instead, I functioned on pure instinct and guided one of his hands to my pussy because while he was in my ass, I also wanted him in my pussy, I needed him everywhere all over me. “Fuuuuck,” he sighed as he slipped three fingers inside me and began fucking me from both ends and I leaned into him because I

wanted him deeper and faster and harder and holy fuck, this man knew how to work me over. “Don’t stop, Dutch,” I begged as his dick throbbed and felt even bigger and I sensed he was going to come but I wanted him to fuck me a little longer. “Hold on, baby,” I said, and pressed a hand against him and forced him to slow and step back slightly from whatever cliff he was about to jump off because I wanted us to jump together—relax—and he listened. And he breathed deep. And he slowed. For about five seconds. “Don’t,” he growled in my ear as he rammed himself deep inside me, “move,” again and again and again, “Juma.” And he fucked me everywhere, and I knew it was going to happen, he was going to come in my ass and I was going to come on his hand and we were going to ride each other like nothing mattered but us and touching and fucking each other blind deaf and stupid. His balls tightened and everything in my pussy was ready to explode and I needed him to come because I was standing on the precipice, soaked and swollen, waiting for him to push me over to the other side. “Dutch, please. Fuck me. Hard.”

And he did, so hard I felt ripped in half pulled apart shredded and so goddamned alive as he groaned all lust-ridden and feral into my skin—“I’m going to come”—and shot his load wave after wave of hot sweetness into my ass and my pussy clenched around him and I came hard on his fingers—“Oh god, Dutch, please”—and we collapsed against that wall, its chill welcome against our overheated skin. I gasped and breathed and settled, and try as I might, I couldn’t recall ever feeling so complete and so lost in someone as I did with Dutch. It was deep and wild and I loved him with abandon and if this was me losing my light, then I would happily spend the rest of my lives shrouded in dark. Dutch kissed my shoulder and shifted. “Don’t,” I said with my eyes closed, cheek to the tile as my hand circled behind and cupped his ass, “not yet. I like how you feel inside me.” I smiled as he leaned into me and covered me with the warmth of his brown skin and filled me with his perfect dick and I wondered if it was fair to be so in love and so turned on and so everything with this man. “I love you, Juma Landry,” he whispered in my ear minutes later as he eased out of me and where I was so full with him and lust and

love, I was suddenly empty and he knew this so he filled me with his words instead. “The way you touch me and kiss me and love me. The way all of you is welcome and open and full of passion. “I love your legs and your thighs and your goddamned beautiful ass.” He kissed me and cleaned me up with a warm cloth while showering me in his truths. “I love that you love fucking me and touching me and letting me do all kinds of wicked shit to your body. I love that you do even wickeder shit to mine. “The fact I can be myself and make daring demands of you, that I can indulge my need to possess you and own you and make you mine.” He picked me up and ignored the surprise in my eyes as he confessed his secrets and laid me on that bed, studying me as if he were seeing me for the first time. He then crawled in beside me, tangled his legs with mine, and pulled me into his arms. “The fact you know all my ugliness and horror and are still here, loving me the way only you can do, overwhelming and freeing me all at once. Fuck. I don’t deserve you, but I want you and I love you, goddamn I love you.” Dutch traced my lower lip, then leaned close and kissed me slow and tender, the kind of kiss that started eyes open and full of

awareness before slipping into a fusion of bodies and souls and breath and time, tongues lapping and tasting and tangling around each other while everything settled but also felt so intense, and I swore I could feel him in my fingers and toes. Sighs and smiles became full of hope and promise as all of me slipped under his skin and found a home inside his darkness. “That is the version of me that came back to you tonight, Juma.”

CHAPTER TWELVE: DUTCH

Island mornings crept into my awareness, slow like the first fingers of sunrise on the beach, chasing the chill from the air with a soft kiss made of quiet warmth. I’d hear a dog bark in the distance or catch the stirrings of the town center as I enjoyed an early morning jog and waved to Mike, who ran the coffee shop, or chatted up Juju, the owner of my favorite diner and world’s best biscuit maker. Everything was slow and lazy and I couldn’t hurry the morning if I tried. Unless the island was Martha’s Vineyard. On the Vineyard I lived in a house set far back from the main road, hidden by some of the island’s oldest trees, and overseen by a crackhead rooster named Winston. He was a motherfucker, and when I stayed in that safe house, Winston was the goddamned bane of my existence. No one knew where he came from, but years ago he’d decided he was going

to live at this house and roam this property and greet every morning at 4:13 a.m. I goddamned hated Winston. There was nothing about his skinny ass I found charming: his feathers were dull and sparse, his comb was pink and scarred, and his cock-a-doodle-doo was ill-timed, off-key, and loud as fuck. And if I was on the property, he knew it, like that motherfucker could smell me, and he would set off all kinds of cacophony under my window. Perhaps if I wasn’t such a miserable fuck, I would have learned after all these years of interacting with Winston to simply tune him out—Avery and Kash did. Honestly, everyone who ever stayed at this safe house did. They found Winston unique and an oddball, and they loved the idea of the house having its own avian alarm clock. There was a lot of “Ease up, Dutch” and even more “Oh, he’s not so bad” tossed my way over the years but that was because Winston left all those motherfuckers alone, he didn’t seek them out and do his best to annoy them with his special brand of bullshit. Winston saved that magic for me. When Rani and I exited the portal near the old red barn with the broken windows and offkilter door in the far corner of the property,

the section that was wild and overgrown and felt as though time stood still but also moved too fast, I spied that bastard. He was perched on the corner of the roof watching me, at a point where a beam jutted out at a crazy angle as if the builder had come to work that morning after a night of drinking too much cheap whiskey and laid that roof. I could feel Winston’s beady little eye following my every move as Rani and I picked through the brush to meet the path running along the right side of the barn, leading toward the house and the main road. Winston didn’t move, he just stared and I swore he was calculating the seconds until 4:13 a.m. “See that piece-of-shit bird?” I asked Rani, and she looked in the direction I pointed and then back at me like I was maybe a little crazier than she’d guessed. “Someone should have killed that motherfucker years ago.” She stared at Winston again and before continuing on her way toward the path to the house, muttered under her breath, “Then the two of you have quite a lot in common.” This morning was different, though. This morning my eyes opened at 4:02, and for long luxurious seconds of perfect stillness and peace, I listened to Juma inhale exhale on my shoulder, her lips slightly parted and her

breath warm on my skin. The peppermint that always lingered on her tongue mixed with her lemons and honey and all of it was intoxicating and I knew if I didn’t unwind myself from her curves and slip from the bed soon, I would wind up slipping inside her and fucking her awake. I slid my arm out from under her and watched as she stirred and sighed and then settled back into the pillows and continued sleeping the sleep of the well fucked because after last night, Juma and I were both very well fucked. In the most literal, most amazing sense of that phrase. I sneaked a peek at the clock—4:07 a.m.— pulled on some jeans and my wrinkled and faded Cal Berkeley T-shirt, and made for the kitchen. I needed a shit, shower, and a shave, but before any of that I needed some coffee, water, and a smoke. Five minutes later, I was outside on the deck, coffee in hand, lighting my smoke, ready to watch the sun rise. Alone. Pause. Almost alone. That motherfucker Winston lurked just out of the corner of my left eye, watching me warily, probably wondering what the hell I was doing up before him. I turned his way, caught

his stare, and stuck my tongue out at him. He walked off and headed for his perch in a tree without one cock-a-doodle-doo escaping his goddamned beak. Fucked-up feathered piece of shit. I turned back to my coffee and there stood Rani, arms crossed, watching it all. “He started it,” I said, and pointed at the rooster, sipping my coffee and tamping down the dread Rani inspired every time she and I shared space. It wasn’t so much born of fear as it was my unfiltered disdain for her. Nothing about her appealed. “You and he have a thing for each other.” She sat and smoked and watched Winston watch me. “I think he might like you.” “Said the avian expert.” “Fuck you, Dutch,” she snapped, her stock response to almost anything I said. The sky behind Rani, just above the trees, began seeping into the pink of early morning and I knew it would be a warm day, the kind meant for lying on the beach next to a gorgeous girl with nothing but time on your hands. “Why are you still here?” I asked out of the blue, cutting to the chase instead of wasting precious time bullshitting with one of my least favorite people when I could be alone.

“Well, that’s not happiness to see me,” she said with a smirk, and shifted and I could tell my words made her less than comfortable. “Why are you still here, Rani?” She squirmed and I waited. “Jesus, Dutch.” “I will ask again. Why are you still here?” I leaned back in my chair and propped my feet up on the bench in front of me, smoked and sipped coffee, and anyone who came upon us, that nosy motherfucker Winston included, would probably think us friends based upon the intimacy of the hour, the peace and quiet of the locale, our solitude. But upon closer inspection, a different story would reveal itself. One of strained necks and tense hands, fingers rapping a table, lips pursed in stubborn silence. And eyes, always the eyes. Dark and dangerous and full of dislike for each other. There was nothing friendly about our gathering, and even Winston headed for higher ground, having witnessed my foul temper enough times to know ill will brewed in our midst. “Fuck you, Dutch.” “Not good enough, Rani,” I said, and shook my head, “not this time. Why are you still here?” She smoked and glared at me and I refused

to relent, because I wanted an answer to my very simple question—and then I wanted her to get the fuck out of my face. The quiet that settled between us was tense and thick and I didn’t care because just as Rani had never spent three seconds of her existence concerned for my well-being, neither had I ever given two fucks about hers. This morning was no different, so while she focused her attention on the treetops where Winston sat watching us, I drank my coffee and smoked in silence. “What do you want me to say?” she finally asked, her voice low and full of frustration. “Say?” I laughed and leaned forward, my elbows on my knees as I watched her watch anything but me. I wondered how I ever fucked her and then I laughed to myself because of course I fucked her. Once upon a time, I fucked anything with tits and a cunt that crossed my path, Rani Rao included. “I don’t want you to say shit. What I want is for you to take your skinny ass and get the fuck out of here.” “I cannot do that, you know I cannot.” “And why not, Rani?” I asked. “Because from where I’m standing, all you have to do is walk back from where we came—” I pointed to the far side of the property and the decrepit

barn. “—hit the portal, and be gone. Vámonos!” She locked her elbows and leaned into her arms, her smoke dangling from her heavily mehndied fingers as she admired her similarly decorated feet. And if she weren’t a putrid pool of sick funk, I would call the work stunning and wonder at the fact she made time for such self-care, but Rani was putrid and sick and nothing but funk, so I didn’t give two shits about her gorgeous hands and feet. “Because then I am as sure as dead,” she said without looking at me. “And?” As if I gave two fucks about her life. I cared about mine. And Juma’s. And Avery’s and Kash’s and Frist’s and the Landrys’. What I did not care about was Rani’s, now or ever. “Dutch.” She met my gaze and left whatever remained to be said, unspoken. I sucked on my smoke in that way I did when I was riding the edge of some epic blowup shit and I needed to chill. And the whole purpose of coming out here before the sun rose, of slipping out from between all of Juma’s warm, brown, sexy-as-fuck, naked perfection was to do just that. Chill. Rani and her bullshit messed with that plan in a major

way. “You need me alive and you know it.” Those words in no way improved my mood but I told myself she was speaking and explaining herself and that was a start. But fuck her if she thought it was the right start, because it wasn’t. I needed contrition and remorse sprinkled with regret and a side order of guilt. I needed a goddamned mea culpa. This bitch needed to beg. “It probably kills you to admit it because it most definitely kills me to sit here and have to ask you for a goddamned thing—” she began. “Interesting choice of words, Rani,” I interrupted her, “because I’m not really getting that feeling from you right now. Not one fucking thing about you, as you sit here and interrupt my morning—really, my goddamned fucking life—feels painful for you. True to our history, the pain is all mine.” She sat up straight, cocked her head to the side, and considered me. I knew from the squint of her eyes and the slack of her mouth that she was putting something together and perhaps the pregnant pause was her walking that fine line of say it–don’t say it. “I’m sorry you feel that way, Dutch, because it is painful. All of this is painful for me in ways you cannot begin to comprehend

because you’ve never once stepped outside the orbit of your own grief and torment to consider another because only Dutch Mathew knows real pain. You wallow and wail and all of it reeks of childish self-pity and—” I didn’t consider it, I simply moved. One second Rani was rolling out her litany of judgment and the next, I stood over her, my fingers clamped around her long neck, her voice cut off midsentence. The trees above rustled and Winston flapped his wings, then settled. And somewhere in my shitty soul I knew it was quite fitting for that motherfucker to witness me at my weakest, giving in to my darker self, letting that monster loose to do as he wished. I kept that part of me locked and chained in the deepest darkest corner of my personal hell because he reminded me I was part Khan and part Shema and capable of the most horrific, spontaneous acts of violence. And, yes, my life depended upon acts of violence, but they were justified and expected. This right here, this unleashing of my soulless self, nothing about it was justified. It just was. And I wished I could stop doing this, the wrapping of fingers around Rani’s throat, the need to feel her life expire at my fingertips, but I could not.

Two of the bones cracked in her throat—I heard them, I felt them—and her eyes bulged with pain, and instead of giving me pause and making me reconsider myself and her and the quiet perfection of an island morning, I marveled at the veins around her eyes and how they seeped into her kohl and all of it made for a most amazing design. And if I were a poet, my words would dance along the lines on her face, the tear streaks and the muckedup makeup and the near-to-bursting capillaries. But I was not a poet. I was a killer. A cold-blooded assassin with death in his heart and dread on his tongue and a lifetime of godforsaken rage with Rani’s name written all over it. So really, I was simply reveling in my true self as I watched the life slowly seep from Rani’s body and pool at my feet. This was all expected of me. “Good lord, I swear. This is what you sneak out of bed to do.” Juma’s morning voice, that low raspy drawl of southern sex, came up behind me and curled around my everything. I felt her in my skin and my toes, my fingers sang her name as she reached around me and unwound my hand from Rani’s neck. “Honestly, Dutch, how many times am I going to have to come between you two?” she asked

real slow and calm, and there was a joke in her voice as she rubbed Rani’s neck where my fingers had left bruises. “I don’t even like her,” Juma said as she took a seat on the table between Rani and me, “but now I’ve gotta rub my hands all over her. Fuck, Dutch.” I wouldn’t say I felt chagrined—I was too out of it and in my own world of fuckery and madness to think too hard on the words falling from Juma’s lips—but I did hate making her feel as if she needed to continually watch Rani and me. “Sweetheart, you broke some bones in her neck,” Juma said while she pulled out her wand, but I stopped her. I knew that little lipstick-looking tool of magic she walked around with could work tiny miracles—I’d been on its receiving end—but that didn’t mean I wanted Juma wasting an ounce of its power on motherfucking Rani Rao. “She’ll heal. Leave her the fuck alone.” “I’m not going to ‘leave her the fuck alone,’ Mr. Let Me Rise Before the Sun and Do Some Killing.” Juma laughed and even though I wanted to be mad about her working on Rani, I couldn’t because there were few things in this life I could be mad at Juma about. Instead, I leaned back in my chair, lit a smoke, and

watched her do her thing. “Answer me something,” Juma said, focused on her wand and the breaks in Rani’s birdlike neck that I should have fucking snapped in half when I had the chance instead of getting lost in the artistry of my attack, “you leave me naked and sexed up and just waiting for another round with you and your gorgeous dick to come out here and try to kill Rani?” She turned my way and stared at me hard and I knew not to say a thing, just shut the fuck up and listen to whatever words Juma had sitting on her tongue. “You are a goddamned idiot, you know that, Dutch?” “Yeah, I—” “I love you something fierce,” Juma cut off whatever admission I was about to lay in her lap, “but holy fuck, mister, stop this already. You are smarter than this and better than this, and if there is one thing I will not watch happen in any of my lives, it is you, reducing yourself to the likes of them.” Juma spoke those last words with a sneer in Rani’s direction, and I fell for her again. And fuck her for making me do that over and over. And fuck her for believing I’m better than I am. And fuck her—god, I wanted to fuck her

right then. I shook my head and she reached across and cupped my cheek and smiled because she was Juma and she knew. “Relax, gorgeous,” she whispered. “Breathe deep and just be.” “I’m sorry.” I closed my eyes and kissed her hand. “Don’t be sorry,” she replied, and returned to tending Rani. “Just don’t do this shit again. No more trying to kill the one woman who knows more about The Gate and the Black Copse than all of us put together. And she knows how to find Sevyn.” Juma closed the cap on her wand and touched Rani’s throat as the bruises began to fade and the deep brown of Rani’s skin returned. “Rani matters, Dutch. I need you to understand that and promise me I won’t have to do this again. Then I need you to get my parents out of here. I don’t like them being here. It feels unsafe.” And almost on cue, as her words fell between us, all of her stilled, the color drained from Juma’s face, and she looked quiet and scared. “They’re here,” she said. “Go now. Rani, up.” Juma pulled the tiny Keeper onto her feet and pushed her into me, the morning quiet

suddenly a rush of frenzied motion. “Please! My parents.” “Juma!” I grabbed her arm and made her see me. “The Black Copse,” she said, her eyes a little wild and frantic, her voice low and serious. “Dutch, they’re coming. Get my parents out of here. Please.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: JUMA

The world is split into listeners and directors. A good listener knows when you intimate grave danger and an escape plan, no matter how half-assed that plan might be, to heed the warning and put the plan into high gear. A good director assesses the situation, evaluates the pros and cons, and then issues orders. There are no grays, it’s a world of black and white, yes and no. Except when one director tells another director what to do. Then you enter that unfortunate middle ground where things are murky and all is questioned. That was Dutch and me, two directors dancing around some serious shit. “Your parents cannot go through the portal with me,” Dutch said as he stood there, speaking pondering questioning instead of simply listening to me and leaving. “Did you not hear what I said?” I asked as I

moved past him only to be caught around the wrist and pulled to a stop, his fingers warm against my skin. From the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of Rani and could tell she thought both of us were nuts. “I did. I heard you,” he said, “but are you sure?” I crooked my neck and glared at him and somewhere above us, the trees shook and I swore I heard flapping. Both Rani and Dutch looked to the sky and when I followed their gaze, my eyes landed upon a very old and pathetic-looking rooster and for a second I was back in my mawmaw’s backyard, chasing the chickens back into their coop while her stud of a rooster strutted around looking gorgeous and a touch intimidating. But only a moment. “Stop watching that damn bird,” I hissed, “and let go of my hand.” “Juma, come on, gorgeous. Slow down, and like you told me: breathe,” Dutch said but did not loosen his grip on my wrist. “I am not doubting what you said. I am simply letting you know my portal is not an option for them, it’ll kill them instantly.” He tugged on my wrist and made me look at him. “So I’m open to whatever else you want me to do to get them out of here. Can they use your hub?”

And if I weren’t so overcome by the sense of urgency that flooded my blood and seeped into my pores every time I felt that telltale tremor, the tingling in my toes that kind of rippled up through the rest of me, I would have softened because he wasn’t getting all alpha male on me or butting heads for the sake of butting heads. Dutch really wanted to know what I thought he should do. Problem was I had no idea. I’d never summered on Martha’s Vineyard. I wasn’t a New England blue blood or from a bourgeois northeastern black family, I didn’t know the island like the back of my hand. I was from small-town Georgia, my summers had been spent running barefoot in the woods riding horses building forts. “You know what, Rani? Get Dr. and Mrs. Landry and meet me back here,” Dutch said, and much to my surprise, Rani listened and disappeared into the house without a word of complaint. “I’m going to have Rani drive them to the ferry like any other motherfucker leaving the island would do.” “No.” I shook my head. “You cannot leave them in her hands. Only you. It has to be you.” “What about Avery? Kash?” he asked, clearly confused by and rather frustrated with my insistence. “I’m not leaving you here

alone.” “You’re not fully healed,” I said, and he shook his head in disagreement with whatever I was about to say, “and I know you’re not because I can smell it on you, I can hear your cells working to make you whole, I know underneath that magic skin your mother gave you, there’s much work left to be done. So there is no way I will put you in danger while we have ample time for you to leave and for me to make sure Avery, Kash, and Frist get out of here safely before I hit my portal.” Dutch shook his head again in silent disagreement, unable to wrap his mind around my plan, probably because my plan involved our separation. And we’d promised each other. No. More. Separation. “I never said one thing about fighting those mute assholes.” I tried to smile and ignore the fact of our pending separation and convince him my plan was the better plan because I needed him gone so I knew he was safe. Because even if I died—which wasn’t going to happen—I needed to know he would be there when I woke because if there was one thing I was certain of in this game of lives, it was that I did not want to cross back from death and

find Dutch not there. Not again. Not ever again. He started to speak and I pressed a finger to his lips. “I promise. No fighting, just escape.” Then another tremor rippled through my soul. “But you need to leave now. Please.” I knew he could not abide my begging for anything, especially not from him, and I was well aware my “please” was Manipulation 101, but these were desperate times. My actions would be forgiven. At a later date. I hoped. “You felt them?” he asked, and I nodded. “Okay.” He kissed me full on the mouth, hard, demanding. “But only because I love you.” “And you know I’m right”—I smiled —“about everything.” “Only because I love you,” he insisted as we headed into the house together to find Rani and my parents waiting, bags packed and ready. Mimi’s stern set to her brow and Rufus’ tight lips hinted at their unspoken stress and I despaired because I knew none of it was for them and their lives, their only concern was me. Avery breezed in and barked some orders —“Grab the keys, Rani”—“Let’s go, Doc”—“Mrs. Landry, let me carry that for

you”—“Juma, we’ll meet at my apartment in the city”—his voice tight and his brow grim as the room burst with energy. “Ave.” Dutch stopped him in frenzied midmotion and studied his friend, as if wondering Do I ask what’s bothering him or do I let it slide? then opted for the latter and instead asked the obvious. “Where’s Kash and Frist?” “Kash wasn’t feeling well, so he and Frist left late last night,” Avery replied, and Dutch and I looked at each other like What the fuck? and I was about to ask if Kash was still holding his side the way he had when he and I were alone in that white room when another of those tremors hit me. The Black Copse were coming. When, I had no idea, but they were definitely headed this way. “Okay, y’all gotta go.” I grabbed my da’s bag and twined my fingers with his. He caught my eye and I smiled a smile I hoped reassured him. “It’s okay, Da. I’ll be fine, but you guys really need to go now,” I said as we stepped into the morning sunshine. Avery opened the trunk of the Mercedes to toss in the bags while Rani settled my ma and da into the backseat, then climbed in herself. “Dutch, come on!” I called out while I watched the car full of folks I loved.

“I’m coming.” He jogged down the path and tossed me three blades in passing, then settled into the front seat of the Benz. I held the knives in my hands, admiring their design, their feel in my grip. When I looked up, he was watching me study his gifts. “I love you, but I’m not stupid, Juma. I’m not leaving you with just your machete.” “I told you—” I started to say. “I know what you told me,” he interrupted my lie. “Just take the knives. And be safe.” He started the car, the purr of the engine disrupting the morning calm, and again that rooster made an appearance, this time sitting on the fence across the way. And if I were a betting woman, I would say he had eyes only for Dutch. “That bird is so weird,” I said to myself as I watched them back up and I blew a kiss to my ma. Dutch followed my line of vision, caught sight of the rooster, and gave him the finger. “Fuck that bird, Juma.” And they were off. I laughed and raised my hand to wave, then watched the Benz kick up dust as they sped down the driveway, turned right at the main road, and headed for the Vineyard Haven ferry. “You love that man something fierce, don’t

you, Juma?” I didn’t need to turn to know who was behind me. I could feel her all over me and she wasn’t even touching me. Death. “That’s how you’d say it in southern, right?” She drawled out an imitation of me, and my blood ran cold. I took quick stock of my very very bad situation. And as Dutch would say, it was total fuckery. I had his three blades, but I did not have my astras—they were sitting on the bed next to my half-packed bag—those horrific weapons the Rouxs gifted me, the jagged blades that could cut her down and leave her as close to death as she was able, the one thing I kept on my body at most times, but out on Martha’s Vineyard . . . in a safe house. . . . Goddamn, I was stupid. But she was not the most able fighter, and I knew for a fact she’d failed to complete her training with the Rouxs because she considered herself above hand-to-hand combat and intended to bring a certain “grace” to the office of Death. So I could take her. At least slow her enough to hit the hub and land back in India, get lost in the crowds, and regroup. She would find me—of course she would find me—but I’d at least have a couple

of seconds to put a plan together. “Mistress, what a pleasant surprise.” “You have always been a horrible liar, Juma,” she replied, and her voice dripped disdain. I fingered Dutch’s blade, turned her way, and smiled, and in those split seconds when she and I came face-to-face for the first time since she’d tried to kill Dutch and probably would have killed me as well had I not stopped her, I decided to hurt her again. Problem was I should have made that decision a smidgen sooner. “And I have always been a horrible bitch.” Death sank her blade into my gut so deep, I could feel her hand on my body as she pulled upward in one fluid motion as though it were nothing. I wondered whether she moved through my organs and fluids and tissue with such ease because she was full of otherworldly strength or because her blade was sharp with magic. I wondered how often Death killed her most beloveds. Was this the fate suffered by those mysterious Poochas who disappeared without a trace, never to be heard from again? Was I a fool to ever consider her benevolent and forgiving? “I forgot how easy it is to gut the human body,” she whispered in my ear as she held me up with her hand and her knife. “One move in,

another like so, and bam! What a mess we’ve got here, Juma.” I could smell the metallic scent before I saw anything, the tinny odor of blood and gore coated my air passages and found a home on my tongue. And part of me said, Don’t look, Juma, what’s the point? but the other part of me, the part that loved picking scabs and coveted scars, that part had to look, that part needed to witness the gruesome affair firsthand. So I looked. And I touched. And my hands became lost in the warm squish of my intestines and the bounce-back rubber of my belly and the velvet of my blood and it was as horrific as I’d imagined, mostly because it was all me, hanging on the outside of my body like something out of Goya’s Black Paintings. I fell to my knees and realized as the body dies, certain sensations do, too. Like the tiny rocks and dirt I normally would have felt jutting into my knees in painful points and angles—they seemed irrelevant, an afterthought as I kneeled and she loomed overhead. I gazed upward and Death blocked some of the sunlight, but the parts of me that remained barely alive felt warmth on my skin

and the red-gold of the sun’s kiss on my closed lids. “Open your fucking eyes, Juma.” Death smacked me across the face with the flat of her knife. “We’re not done here.” I laughed and held my insides up to the sky. “Apparently we are.” She squatted before me, her boots crunching on the gravel of the drive as she eyed me and smiled. And I recalled a time I would have given anything to make her lips curve just so, when, like a fool, I believed her stretched truths and ignored her blank spaces, when I was young and I was hers. Death cocked her head to the side as she admired her handiwork. “I could have cut you sideways and done this much faster,” she observed, and traced her finger in a horizontal line across my belly, “but this slow suffering is much more fun. I feel very Hieronymus Bosch right now.” “Much more Goya,” I disagreed, and swayed on my knees, “The Black Paintings series, for sure.” She leaned back as if considering my opinion, touched her finger to her lips, and nodded her head. “I forgot you were a student of the arts back when you attended college like all the

normal kids.” She grinned and reminisced and I knew she was mocking me. “You could be right. I see where you’re going with that idea. The whole parents killing their children, Saturn devouring his son to ensure no greater god lived.” I closed my eyes as her voice washed through me and thought to myself, at least if I was going to die, the voice whispering in my ear was familiar. “Not so fast, Juma!” Death snapped, and forced my eyes open with her fingertips. “I’m still having fun, and you know how I love an audience.” I swayed again and dropped lower onto my thighs. “Back to Goya,” she said as she watched me with the same expression one might wear as one watched a cute puppy play with a stick. “Is that really how you see me? Godlike and terrified of your power?” I shook my head and opened my mouth. “Grrruuohhh no.” “What?” she asked, despite the fact she knew very well what I’d said. “Oh, you poor thing. It’s difficult to speak, isn’t it, with a mouth full of blood? That’s kind of what happens when you’re gutted like a pig.” “You cannot kill your Poochas,” I said in

my foggy, on - the - brink - of - death state. “There must be checks and balances in place, otherwise it’s unbridled power.” “First things first, little Miss Juma Landry,” she growled, and took my chin in her grip and gave me a nice shake. “I can kill whomever I want, even your delicious and delectable ass.” She acted as if she wanted to place her hands on my hips but couldn’t because of the gore littered everywhere. “But alas, you are right. There are some checks and balances, and they are called the Rouxs. But even they cannot control me. I am my own master—no one controls me, Juma.” “I knew it,” I said with a bloodstained smile. “You can’t do whatever you want, so why don’t you go back to wherever you came from and I’ll go inside and take care of myself.” “Fuck that shit.” Death laughed and cursed, and what blood remained in my body froze. She rarely cursed and detested when I did— which I did often and with flourish—so I knew. God, did I ever. “I told you, I am my own captain, this is my voyage. You need to improve your listening skills. It’s always been your worst defect.” “You’re not going to save me, are you?” I asked, my voice sullen and low, and I thought

of Dutch looking for me, wondering why I didn’t call or meet him at Avery’s apartment in the city, that gorgeous space of white in the sky, where all was quiet and Frida watched over everything. “I will have only two lives left.” Her eyes softened and for a flash Death seemed filled with remorse and regret as she traced her finger along the hollow of my cheek, along my lip, and down my throat. “I know, baby girl, and I’m going to have some questions to answer for putting an end to this one.” She leaned close and I smelled the cucumber and gin on her breath. “But it’s such fun and I hardly get to do it anymore. A girl gets bored, you know?” She then slid her blade into my heart— smooth precise professional—and with a sigh of satisfaction and a broad smile, finished what she’d begun. My name was Juma Landry. I worked for the woman who’d just killed me. I had two lives left. Shit just got real.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: JUMA

I choked on the chill that filled my lungs and tore through my heart with such force, I cried aloud into the pitch-black of her realm, curated with purpose by Death herself, of this I was certain. She was so petty, leaving me in a room devoid of so much, it seemed not to exist at all. And yet. Here I was, I thought to myself as I ran my fingers along my warm skin and touched my throat where the life pulsed through me. Alive and well. Okay, maybe not so well. But alive. Or existing, because could you really call yourself alive when you roamed her realm? Was I both dead and alive when I walked her halls and led my teams? Did it matter? Why was I getting all philosophical as I waited for whatever she wanted to happen next? Why

was she so fucking annoying and childish? “Oh, stop it, Juma.” Death sauntered into the room and like magic, the space shimmered with the low glow of candlelight and soft lamps. “You’re a student of the arts, not philosophy. Kindly stay in your lane.” I didn’t bother asking whether she could read my thoughts or wondering how she could sense my feelings, because it mattered little. She was Death—she knew everything she wanted to know. And she had just killed me. I didn’t feel like pissing her off any more today. “We’re just waiting on Marina, and then we can start.” She took a seat on a couch that wasn’t there until it was, along with a low-set coffee table and a tray of glasses filled with what I guessed to be the most expensive most exquisite whiskey money could buy. Only she didn’t buy it, because she didn’t have to. “Start what?” I asked as I checked my torso for hints of her savagery, finding light remnants of her work, aware the scars were intended as reminders of what she could and would do. “They won’t fade,” she said as she watched me and smiled. “I like it that way. You need it that way. Hopefully your Keeper won’t mind.” I pulled down my shirt and took a seat across from her in the very Alice in

Wonderland–looking high-backed velvet chair with gold buttons and too-high legs she’d wished into being. “Let’s not pretend you don’t know his name, okay,” I said, crossing my legs and trying to appear sophisticated on a wholly unsophisticated piece of furniture. “We’re both adults here, and these silly games are beneath us. Your problem is not with Dutch.” “How about you stop telling me what my problem is.” She cut me off with a hiss and a flash of anger in her eyes. “Let’s start right there, Juma.” I analyzed her and all her righteous irritation, the clenched fists and gritted teeth giving away how much I bothered her. She could not abide my lack of fear. She hated my independence. And even though it was easy to blame everything on Dutch, she and I both knew he was never the problem. He was simply the easy way out. He made it so she could dance around what really bothered her. Me. But I didn’t want to fight her or hash out our grievances or analyze the bullshit between us, partly because I didn’t care and partly because it was of little consequence. Not when I was sitting across from her with only two lives left.

Not when I’d died at her hands. Not when I sensed she was holding me captive. “My sincerest apologies, Mistress,” I said, and she sneered because she wanted a fight and I did not and that failure of our minds meeting irked her something fierce. “I would never dream of telling you what to feel or how to do it.” “Shut it.” Death waved her hand in the air. “Your incessant chatter is driving me fucking nuts.” “Very well.” “Not. another. word. Juma.” Death leaned forward to pick a glass off the table, and as she did, I moved away. It was instinctual, somewhere deep inside me knew to remain as far out of her reach as possible. And had I thought about what I was doing— exhibiting my hidden, underneath-the-surface fear of her—I would have forced myself to remain still and poised and pretend nothing about her gave me pause. But as I said, it was instinct, and every instinct of mine told me to back the fuck up. She smiled wide and full and I wanted to peel her lips right off her face and toss them in the wastebasket. Instead.

I did as she demanded and remained silent. “What’s wrong, honey?” she asked with laughter on her tongue, and I thought how after peeling back her lips, I would also like to cut out her tongue and spare myself another snark-filled comment from her black hole of a mouth. “Cat got your tongue?” I started to defend myself, but she raised a finger to her lips, the same finger she’d used to cut me open on many occasions, and I quieted. “Not another word, remember?” she asked, and I leaned back in my chair and silently fumed. Fuck you! I wanted to shout into the room with no walls and fake lighting and bullshit furniture, all of it contrived and for show. I wanted to tell her how immature she seemed, how her fits of anger and rage reminded me of five-year-olds melting down on the playground in Central Park after missing their afternoon nap. I wanted to rise and snarl and go head-to-head with her in some kind of sick immortal combat, despite the fact that with only two lives left, I was looking more mortal every day. Instead. I sat on that stupid chair with my feet barely touching the floor and I watched as she

sipped her whiskey and twirled her hair around her finger and smiled at me as if we were friends, as if she didn’t want me dead, as if I didn’t want to kill her. “Mistress!” Marina shouted as she burst into the room through a door I didn’t know existed until it did. “Juma died again.” “This I know, Marina.” Death smiled and nodded in my direction. From where she was standing, Marina could not see me due to the ridiculous design of my chair, so I crooked my neck around the back and waved in her direction. She caught my eye and crossed herself, a habit from her Catholic school days and something I noticed she only did when under extreme duress. “Mother of god, Mistress,” Marina muttered, and glared at Death, then stepped toward me and cupped my face in her soft hands. “You killed her.” Death nodded. “Yes, I most definitely did.” “You killed Juma.” Marina snapped her neck in Death’s direction and shouted, “You killed your own Poocha! Not only your own, but your best and your beloved. Ay, dios mío! What have you done, Mistress? What has gotten into you? Have you lost your mind?” Marina released my face and stepped back to study me, her eyes running up and down

my body as if she could tell the suffering I’d endured in the quiet of the driveway on Martha’s Vineyard. She squinted, and all of her seemed focused on uncovering my hurts. What she intended to do with them, I had no idea. “What did she do to you, Juma?” Marina asked, and Death tensed and I suddenly wanted no part of whatever was happening between the three of us. “Nothing,” I lied. “You can tell her, Juma.” Death waved her hand at me and looked bored. “Marina and I have no secrets.” Her words hit me just where she’d intended, those tender places I tried to protect but she seemed able to find no matter how well I hid them. I flinched without meaning to, not wanting to, but was incapable of stopping myself because even though Death was speaking of her relationship with her chaat, her girl Friday, the second most powerful being in Death’s realm, she was also indirectly speaking of us. And she fully intended to hurt me, much more so than when she gutted me in the driveway, because she knew her words would find a dark nook in my soul to sit and fester, she wanted them to. So she flaunted what she and Marina shared and in doing so, quietly cut me to the core because unlike

Marina, everything between myself and Death was built upon a lie. “In that case,” I replied with a smile full of false bravado and bitch, because sure, Death might have thrown me off right there, but she wasn’t the only one who could play this game. “What do you want to know, Marina? How she bore down on me without warning, knives slashing everywhere? Or how she then eviscerated me on the drive, under the morning sun, with only the trees as witness? Oh, I know. You want to know how she laughed as my insides hung on the outside, then when I asked her to spare my life, that I had only a few left, she smiled and pierced my heart with her blade.” Marina paled as my words fell at her feet, but she did not look surprised, for she knew her mistress much better than I could ever hope to, so she probably knew Death was capable of even worse. She smiled at me the way she used to when I was younger and would get bored and roam the halls, looking for someone to keep me company, finding her each and every time. She touched my hair and bent low to kiss my forehead, then turned on her heel and sat on the couch next to Death. I watched them for a second, a study of contrasts. Where

Marina was soft and curved and so very touchable, Death was all sinew and lean muscle and just plain hard. Where Marina was warm and sexy and lovable, Death was chilled indifference. And yet, the longer I watched them, the more they seemed made for each other, symbiotic in their mutual need. “Mistress,” Marina said as they both glanced my way, and again, I felt I was being held captive, only this time by both Marina and Death, “this situation is not amenable. At all.” “I know that,” Death snapped, and rolled her eyes. “I’m not so sure you do,” Marina countered. “Because if you did, you would have done as Sayyid requested, and brought her home.” “But, Marina,” Death said with mischief on her tongue, leaning away from her chaat as a look of feigned shock washed over her face, “that is precisely what I did. I brought Juma home.” “Sayyid?” I asked, unable to resist interjecting myself into their conversation. “As in Rouxs Sayyid?” “That is not his proper title, Juma,” Marina said, and shot me a look before returning her attention to Death. “And you”—she pointed at

her mistress—“you know very well Sayyid did not mean for you to kill her.” “See,” Death said, and touched a finger to her cheek, looking gorgeous and psychotic at the same time, “that’s where you’re wrong, sweet Marina. He never provided any details when he made his request. He simply said to bring her home.” “You knew what he meant,” Marina said, “and it was not this.” And here she pointed in my direction, her face a mask of disappointment and concern, and I knew all of it was for Death. “Oh, it was very much this,” Death said as she stood and glared down at Marina, “and you know why, Marina? Because I decided it was! Because I make the decisions around here. Not you, not her—” Death swept her arm in my direction, coming inches from my face with her deadly fingernail. “—and damn sure not motherfucking Sayyid.” “Calm down, Giselle.” The low voice I’d known since childhood reverberated through our bodies in that weird way of speaking the Rouxs had, where they never moved their mouths because their mouths appeared permanently shut, if they existed at all. They insisted they could move their lips if they so chose; they’d simply

decided a long time ago not to waste the energy on such simplistic, unnecessary movements. Instead, they harnessed energy and consciousness, infused it with magic, and communicated through us and with us, all the while saying nothing at all. It was wondrous and disconcerting, and every time I crossed their paths, I needed a moment to wrap my head around the impossibility of their possibility. Except tonight. Tonight there was none of my usual game of sense and sensibility with Sayyid, tonight I was all about the Giselle he pushed into the space between us. Giselle. Giselle? Giselle! I caught Death’s eye and smirked, and I swear if I were within her reach, she would have killed me all over again. “Giselle?” I asked, unable to help myself, needing to roll the name around in my mouth and spit it into the air to make it real, speak it into existence, lest she leave this room and this space and decide all of this—the conversations, the naming—never happened. I needed to make sure it happened. And so I repeated, “Giselle.”

“Enough, Juma,” Marina shushed me halfheartedly. “Yes, I agree,” Sayyid said with his ghostly maybe-he-said-it, maybe-he-didn’t support of Marina. “Enough, Juma.” If the Rouxs had a leader, it was most definitely not Sayyid. I had no idea how they were structured or organized or if the linear concept of hierarchy even existed within their confines, but I knew Sayyid was too much of an outlier to hold any seat of authority. He was the one all those years ago who found my tenyear-old self wandering alone and entertained me for hours with his weird too-white face and missing eyebrows and glittering eyelashes. I had asked him that day if I could touch him, and he laughed and told me to give it a try, so I did. For hours. We sat across from each other on some steps in a dark corner, alone, and I tried and tried and tried to make contact with some part of him, and each time I slipped through something that felt like energy and heat and cold whirling around so fast, it made pops and pricks of pain but could not be collected or contained. Try as I might, I could not grasp any part of him. Sayyid had been reprimanded then by

another of his kind with a gruff voice and angry eyes. Grud was his name—Grud is so rude—but that hadn’t stopped Sayyid from finding me again. And again and again. So often over the years that eventually Grud asked to talk to me himself and then introduced me to Larkin and Bach—like the composer?—and Maeve. And then finally the strange and beautiful Firenza, she of the large eyes and voice full of laughter, their leader if ever they had one. It was Firenza who gifted me with the gruesome and deadly astras all those months ago, and although Sayyid showed me how to use them, it was she who suggested I would need to do so at all. It was she who told me to be on guard. It was she who warned me to watch out for Death. “But I was just getting started,” I groused to Sayyid, “and fucking with Giselle is so much fun.” To her credit, Death gathered herself and appeared unmoved by my teasing and carrying on, unperturbed by the revelation of her proper name. I assumed this was because it was her name—her birth name, her given name—and was as much a part of Death as her smooth brown skin and dark stunning eyes. But to me, Giselle was new and almost

commonplace and suddenly where she had been Death or Mistress or even Dark Mistress, now she was quite normal and everyday. With three words, Sayyid succeeded where many had failed—he humanized the inhuman. “Enough, Juma,” Death added her voice to the chorus, blowing on her deadly fingernail as if to remind me there were things she could do to me and she wouldn’t mind doing any of them, over and over. “Whatever you say, Giselle.” I laughed and couldn’t help myself—I needed to say it a few more times. Death rolled her eyes, crossed her legs, and leaned into the back of the couch. Her body language suggested I bored her, and at that very moment, it hit me: This threesome had something up their sleeve. I didn’t know why that moment in time affected me in ways others did not, but it did. Death’s lack of interest in anything at all—my teasing, Marina’s reprimand, Sayyid’s revelation— struck me as odd and so unlike her. Because she loved nothing more than displaying her power for an audience, and she had a rapt one right here, but instead of her usual threats or subtle suggestions we behave, she did nothing. I recalled the time she asked me if I would like to be her. I remembered when she told me

being her wasn’t so bad. And I thought about our fight when I ripped her to shreds with my astra and she never really defended herself. All those moments and more slammed into me, and I collected them and parsed them and wondered what the fuck was going on, what was I doing here, against my will despite the fact no one would ever admit to as much, surrounded by Death, her chaat, and a Rouxs. “Why am I here?” I asked in a hurry, as though all the air were rushing from my lungs at once, my voice tinged with slight panic. “What are you all plotting?” “Put your panties back on, Juma,” Death said with a laugh, and settled into the couch, watching me as though I were a wayward child she needed to corral back into the playpen of her fucked-up creation. “No one is plotting anything.” “And I’m supposed to believe you? You are a liar and a cheat,” I hissed, and laughed and crossed my arms in disgust and irritation. “Sit. the. fuck. down.” I paused as her words moved through me and her tone suggested her patience was spent and it was time for me to do as she said, no questions asked, no snark tolerated. I glared at her and shot Marina and Sayyid withering looks, but I sat because they were my key to

crossing back to life, and I very much wanted to cross back to life and my folks and Dutch. Always Dutch. “Juma.” Sayyid looked me up and down with his all-knowing eyes, and just like every other time he stared at me, I felt naked and exposed. “There are some things to be discussed, important things, regarding you and your remaining lives.” I shifted in my seat, irritated my feet barely touched the ground, unsettled by the fact the three of them knew something I did not. “Don’t be nervous, love,” Sayyid said. “You seem ill at ease right now, and that is hardly my intent.” “Well, forgive me, Sayyid,” I snapped, “but I just died a pretty fucking horrible death at the hands of your beloved Giselle and am left now with only two lives, both of which I would like to spend on the other side of things, with other people, rather than here, with the likes of y’all, but I have the sick sense that is not an option right now.” Sayyid cocked his head to the side and glanced at Death. “I simply sought an audience.” “And now you have one,” Death replied. Sayyid shot her a hard stare before turning to Marina. “And she’s able to cross back,

correct?” “Not exactly,” Marina replied. “I myself just learned of all this, Sayyid,” Marina said as she waved her hand in the general direction of Death and me. “I was coming to inform the Mistress of Juma’s passing, only to find Juma, sitting right here. I’ve had no time to do anything with her lives.” “So if I understand correctly, nothing has been tallied?” he asked, continuing his questioning of Marina’s processes, details I had never bothered learning, because I never thought they would matter. Marina shook her head. “Oh no, it’s been tallied. She died.” And here Marina glared at Death. “I just haven’t had a chance to set up her return, I was so upset by seeing she’d died again.” Sayyid turned back to me and shot me a mournful look. “That’s too bad—I hoped we could let this one slide.” “No,” Death said, “not a chance.” “Giselle, be reasonable here,” Sayyid suggested, and again I sensed they all knew something I did not, and it made my blood run hot. “Absolutely not.” Death shook her head. “Juma is dead, plain and simple. She’s got two lives left to work with. I suggest she makes

them count.” “That is what I was trying to do, Mistress, before you so rudely interrupted me,” I growled under my breath. “No, Juma, that is not what you were doing. What you were doing was letting that man fuck you backwards and forwards and every which way but south, and you were loving him and your parents and his friends. What you were not doing was making sure your remaining lives mattered.” “They were coming!” I stood and shouted. “And you prevented me from killing all of them, wiping that driveway with the lives of those Black Copse and destroying one more finger of The Gate!” “The Gate is not your battle!” Death stood and shouted right back at me, so angry, the vein in her forehead pulsed. “Nothing of concern to Dutch Mathew is any concern of yours! You belong to me!” “Marina,” Sayyid said to the chaat, “go prep Juma to return, please,” and Marina left the room while he turned back to us. “Both of you. Sit.” “Fuck you, Sayyid!” Death barked, and the room fell quiet. I had walked these halls and roamed this realm for thirty-one years. I knew Death ran

the show, she was the Head Bitch in Charge, and all decisions proclamations reclamations happened only with her approval. Poochas, Alighters, the Rouxs, Deaders, her chaat— none of us controlled the way this place ran. Death did. And we all followed her lead. Except when we didn’t. Or I should say, when the Rouxs didn’t. Because if there was one thing I’d learned over my years of slipping into the shadows and entertaining myself, it was that the Rouxs had some power—how much, I could not tell, but enough to give pause and consider twice when crossing them. They were some wily motherfuckers, and it was probably in one’s best interest not to wind up on their bad side. Whether or not Death’s “Fuck you, Sayyid!” did just that, and landed her on Sayyid’s bad side was impossible to tell because he was Sayyid and a Rouxs and as I said, they were wily motherfuckers. “That is hardly the way to speak to a friend,” Sayyid replied, his voice low and gentle. “Fuck you, Sayyid!” she repeated, and glared and I wondered suddenly whether she could kill him. “Before I kill you, too. And you don’t have any extra lives to play with, now, do

you?” There was my answer to that question. I lowered myself into that godforsaken Alice in Wonderland chair, swung my legs once twice thrice, and wished I could escape the room before things went further south. I liked Sayyid. I did not want to witness his death. “I think you’re upset by Juma’s agenda and how it doesn’t comport with your own,” he began again. I shot him a look that screamed Shut the fuck up, Sayyid! but he just smiled and kept going. “We’ve discussed this before, Mistress, and Juma’s agenda does in fact work with our own, you know this.” Wait. What? Why were the Rouxs and Death sitting around discussing me behind my back? And when did they develop their own agenda? When the fuck did they join forces? “Juma’s agenda is to be wrapped around that man the remainder of her days,” Death snarled, and looked down her nose at me, as if something about falling in love made me less of a woman and a warrior in her eyes. “Are you insane?” I asked. “Juma.” Sayyid raised a finger to his sealed lips and I quieted. “Mistress, you and I both know that is not her agenda. It is maybe her inspiration and should she manage to bring

down The Gate, then it will most definitely be a result of her success, but we both know that is not her sole motive.” Death started to speak, but Sayyid was not finished. “And even if it were, so be it. Juma has fallen in love, yes. Has she shirked any of her duties? No. Has that love made her more determined than ever to bring down The Gate? If so, then it is simply an added bonus that benefits all of us.” “Why does any of this matter to either of you?” I asked, then reconsidered. “No. I take that back. I know why this matters to her,” and I pointed at Death, “but you, Sayyid, confuse me. Why are you and she discussing me at all? And when did your opposing agendas become one? Because last time I checked, you and yours were telling me to kill her the first chance I got.” As my words landed between us, loud and demanding attention, Marina walked back into the room, touched my shoulder, and nodded. I was free to cross back whenever I chose. I smiled my thanks to her and breathed a small sigh of relief—I needed to be able to get out of here, I wanted to get out of here—the sooner, the better. Marina took a seat in a chair that appeared out of thin air, angled just so,

perfectly placed for her to sit and partake of the discussion. I then turned back to Death and Sayyid, wondering which one would be more pissed with my revelation. “Oh my god, you’re cute.” Death brought her hand up to her mouth and laughed. “What did you think, Juma? That the Rouxs were going behind my back to plot my demise? With you? A Poocha?” Death waited a few seconds for my response, and when she was met with silence, she tossed her head back and laughed loud and long, and I swear if I’d had my astras, I would have jumped over that table and sliced her in half. Instead. “You can laugh all you want, Mistress,” I replied with cool indifference, as if her amusement didn’t cut me to the bone. “But that is exactly what happened. The Rouxs sought me out, brought me into their fold, and then trained me to kill you.” She stopped laughing, sat up straight, and stared at me hard, and I felt a smug smile curve my lips. My words hit their intended mark, cutting her just as she’d cut me. Death cocked her head, and her chic pageboy shifted in turn and all of her seemed contemplative, as if she didn’t know what to do with me. Then

her eyes brightened—in fact, they danced—her perfectly painted red lips formed a wide smile, and she winked. “God, I love when you get all hard-core like that,” she said, her voice low and turned on, and if we were the old Juma and Death, this would have been one of those moments where she pinned me to a wall and fucked me mercilessly, but we were new versions of ourselves, twisted dark versions that disliked each other and used sex as a weapon. “Trained you to kill me?” She laughed and it sounded like murder and mayhem. “Don’t you fucking wish.” “Your bravado rings hollow,” I replied, determined not to let her win this war of wills. “Oh, little girl,” Death said with another smile that felt like the coldest winter ever, “this has nothing to do with bravado and everything to do with truth. My truth. Marina’s truth. Sayyid’s truth. The truth of the Rouxs. The only one full of bullshit bravado is you, sweet Juma.” She sipped her whiskey and smiled once again and the room fell so quiet, I could hear her swallow, that gentle gulp as she washed her lies down with that brown warmth. “They gifted me the astras,” I replied, my voice strong and steady because, seriously,

fuck her and her control issues. “I know that—” “Excuse me, Mistress, but you know nothing,” I cut her off, and although her body betrayed nothing, her eyes filled with cold fire. “The astra is designed especially for your body, each point.” “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she said with a dismissive wave, “each point attuned to various aspects of my makeup, configured to attack certain components of my biology, designed to kill me and only me.” Death rested her chin on her hand and rolled her eyes. “Tell me something I don’t already know, Juma.” “You couldn’t possibly know that,” I stammered, and glanced at Sayyid, “unless he told you.” Death sat upright and gave Sayyid the once-over, up and down, up and down her eyes traveled the length of him and I hoped I hadn’t turned all her ill will for me against him because I still believed he and I were on the same side. Because I didn’t know any better. Because I was a fucking idiot. “Him?” Death asked. “Your precious Sayyid?” And she barked a laugh, and again, I wanted to cut her and silence the racket she made with that pit of a mouth. “He would

never betray you. Your precious Sayyid has much love for you. But the rest of those fucks —they’re a whole other story.” “Mistress.” Marina smoothed out imaginary wrinkles on her skirt and shifted uncomfortably, and I sensed she wanted to stop whatever Death was about to unleash. “Let’s not do this right now. Not this way.” “Zip it,” Death spat at Marina without taking her eyes off me. “Those other fucks are the ones who told me to use the astras on you.” I threw her words back at her, ignoring Marina’s growing unease and Sayyid’s sudden silence. “Those other fucks taught me their magic and made sure I was ready for whatever nonsense you had up your sleeve.” “Juma Landry, my goodness, you disappoint. Here I was, all this time considering you my best and brightest. How wrong you have proved me these last months, you silly little girl,” Death said with a sneer. “I picked you out all those years ago, lying on that gurney a bloody mess, because even in death, you shone like no other. I allowed you to roam my halls alone and explore and discover the Rouxs. I made sure you learned all the ways of their magic, the good and the bad.” Death’s voice lowered to a hoarse

whisper full of disaster and dread as she stood and seemed larger than I’d ever before noticed. “And it is I who instructed them to design the astra—every last detail of it—place it in your hands, and instruct you to use it on me.” She touched my cheek, and where her eyes had raged with madness, she now appeared calm and serene and almost gentle. “I did all of this. Me. Your Dark Mistress.” Death pointed at herself. “It was a test of your will and capability, and your limits. Get one thing straight, little Miss Thing—this was not a plot devised behind my back by the Rouxs, to be implemented by you. It was my plot, every goddamned step of it, from the first time you met Sayyid to my little tête-à-tête with your Keeper. All of it was me. All. of. it!” Death roared, and whatever kindness had been there fell from her face as she gripped my chin in her hand with such force, I felt my bones might crumble. I wanted to move, I wanted to block my ears and protect what remained of my sanity, I wanted to grasp for dear life, cling to that last shred of hope I held for her me us, I wanted to escape into the quiet of my soul, where lives were not built upon lies. I wanted to do a number of things, but I didn’t dare.

“You do not run this show, Juma,” she growled low as a bone in my jaw snapped and she held me tighter. “I do. I am Death, I hold all the power, I make everything happen. Not you. Don’t you ever forget that. Now, get out of my face before I kill you again.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN: DUTCH

Bones. According to Merriam-Webster, bones are “the hard largely calcareous connective tissue of which the adult skeleton of most vertebrates is chiefly composed.” According to me, bones are those places in your being that ached and groaned and creaked when you didn’t take care of your body the way it deserved—in my case, all the goddamned time. Bones also let you know when shit wasn’t right. Because they felt it. Deep. My bones were presently in a motherfucking state. “Relax.” Avery squeezed my shoulder as he passed on his way to deliver two steaming cups of tea to Juma’s folks. Hints of cardamom and ginger lingered in his wake and images of home flashed before my eyes, when my

grandfather was still alive and I would wake up before sunrise to spend my mornings with Rajama as she prepped breakfast and cleaned and did all kinds of servantly duties that I wanted to help with and which she refused. To shut me up and get me out of her hair, she would make me a huge cup of chai, then chatter away as she did her thing and I did mine. “They’re not Indian,” I called to Avery’s back. “Asshole,” he replied, “you people aren’t the only ones with taste buds. No one can resist a good cup of chai. And my non-Indian ass makes the best.” “Bullshit,” I said, and exhaled on my smoke, appreciating the momentary distraction of him as I checked my watch. Nine hours and thirty-seven minutes late. Or 34,620 seconds. Either way, it wasn’t good. I checked my cell for the hundredth time in the last ten minutes. “If you keep doing that,” Avery said as he took a seat across from me at his expansive dining room table and nodded at my phone, “the parentals will start to fret.” “I’m fucking fretting.” “Well, don’t,” Avery replied. “She’s a big

girl, she can handle herself.” I stated the obvious: “You keep saying that, and then she keeps showing up dead.” “Let’s not have this conversation again about Juma and whether or not she needs you watching over her.” Avery eyed me and rolled one of my smokes between his fingers. “It makes me feel very Bill Murray.” The allusion to Groundhog Day caught my attention. I looked up from my smoke and smirked. “Don’t even start hitting me with quotes, Dutch,” Avery warned. “Talk to me instead,” Rani said, pulling up a chair next to me and stealing a smoke. I glanced at her from the corner of my eye and sighed. “I promised not to kill you,” I grumbled. “Nothing more, nothing less.” “I’m going to get out of here and find Sevyn.” Rani ignored my childish comment with a roll of her eyes and turned her attention to Avery. “There’s no point in my staying here.” “Besides your safety,” Avery countered. Rani laughed and it sounded almost genuine. “Don’t get soft on me, Lu. I like you better when you think I’m a bitch and secretly pray for my death.”

“You have me confused with that one,” Avery replied, pointing at me as Rani lit her smoke and exhaled in Avery’s direction. “I have you confused with no one,” she countered, and stood, her smoke dangling from her lips as she adjusted the short blade at her hip and tightened the other around her thigh. “Sevyn needs to know what’s going on and I need to know what she’s learned of the Copse. Shema thought maybe their magic was somehow linked to Veda and that if we killed Veda, we could destroy them as well. She also felt it was a fight against the clock because magic evolves, and if left too long, the Copse could harness that magic and metamorphose into a life force unto itself, independent of Veda.” I leaned back and watched Rani through slitted eyes, still not trusting a goddamned word out of her mouth, curious as to what else she knew but had yet to relay. And I must have rolled my eyes or looked less than thrilled about anything she had to say because out of nowhere she whacked me in the head. “What the fuck?!” I sat up and growled. “Stop looking at me like that, asshole,” she replied, and with those simple words, we were back in building 238 on the Lower East Side, she and James pulling their bullshit, ripping

me to shreds as they pleased. I moved to stand and tower over her and maybe pull her into a headlock and lift her off the ground while her legs kicked and she fought for breath, but I’d promised Juma. No more trying to kill Rani. So instead I swatted her away from me, easily knocking her offbalance, mostly because she wasn’t expecting it. “Watch yourself, Rani,” I said through gritted teeth, “and do not fucking touch me.” She dusted herself off and muttered under her breath before Avery cut in and smothered whatever explosion was building between the two of us. “Hands to yourself, Rani.” “Yes, sir.” She saluted Avery and smoked and continued her preparations to depart, a slick grin curving her lips. “Anyway, like I was saying”—she glanced at me and rolled her eyes —“I’m out of here. I’ll text you when I find Sevyn.” “Why don’t you just call her?” I asked, and even though my question was so obvious, Avery must’ve been wondering the same because he stopped whatever he was doing and waited to hear what Rani had to say. “We don’t have each other’s contact info,” Rani replied as she smashed her smoke into

the crystal ashtray on the table. “Shema wanted it that way. She felt if there ever came a time Veda or Khan became suspicious of Sevyn and decided to go through her contacts, it was important they never found me. I wouldn’t have made any sense.” I laughed. I couldn’t help myself. The thought of Shema caring about anyone but herself seemed ridiculous. “Laugh all you want, Dutch—” Rani tightened her boot and sneered at me. “—but she was right. Had they found me in her phone, everything we’d planned would go up in smoke.” “See,” I said, and leaned forward, getting in Rani’s space, “that’s the problem. None of us really knows the plan.” “I told you the plan back on the island,” she countered. “You fed us a bunch of bullshit back on the island,” I replied. “Avery,” Rani pleaded, “deal with him, please. He’s getting his panties in a wad.” “Good fucking god, you two!” Avery snapped, and both Rani and I turned because as long as I’d known him—and based on her reaction, I assumed the same could be said for her—we’d never seen him so . . . not himself. “Grow up. Both of you. Rani, leave. Dutch, sit

down and shut up.” He pushed back from the table, shot us disgusted looks, and walked into the kitchen. Rani caught my eye and mouthed What the fuck? and as much as it pained me to be on the same side of anything with her, I had to agree. I shrugged my shoulders, lit a smoke, and watched as she glanced at Avery one more time before moving for the door. “Juma has my number,” Rani said as she looked back at me and blew a kiss, “and I have hers. I’ll be in touch, bitch.” And before I could say anything, she was gone. Goddamned fucking cunt-faced whore. “Stop cursing her.” Frist looked up from whatever science project she had set up in front of Juma’s parents, Dr. Landry heavily involved in the chemical madness she concocted. “It’s exactly what she wants. It’s precisely why she said that.” “Mind your own business,” I grumbled halfheartedly, and checked my watch. Ten hours and twenty-one minutes late. “Sweetheart?” At the sound of Mrs. Landry’s voice, I looked up from my how-late-is-Juma calculations. “I know my daughter like I know the woods

of the bayou,” Mrs. Landry said with a smile, and all of her was so Juma, it made my heart clench into a tight ball of something I couldn’t quite put a finger on but figured it was intense crazy mad love. “Juma is fine.” “You’re right, Mrs. Landry.” I ran my fingers through my hair and tried to calm my nerves. “I just—” “Just don’t.” And because of her tone and the fact she was a mom and she was Juma’s mom, I didn’t. Instead, I leaned deep into my chair and spread my legs wide, and breathed—in out in out—while larger-than-life Frida Kahlo watched over the entire scene in Avery’s New York City penthouse in the sky with that look of hers, that all-knowing semi-smile. The white of the room was peppered with all our shades of brown and Frist’s lavender and I imagined if Frida had her way, even in our current state of disrepair, she would paint us brighter and more lively. “Where’s Kash?” I turned back to Avery and asked as my eyes did a casual once-over of the space. “Lying down in the back,” Avery replied without meeting my stare. Frist went back to her science experiment, Dr. Landry never looked my way, and when I caught Mrs.

Landry’s eye, she turned. This crew was so goddamned transparent. “What’s up with Kash?” I asked again, and wondered if the sick feeling in my bones had more to do with the gentle Keeper than my killer Poocha. “What’re you talking about?” Avery asked as he picked up his teacup and placed it in the sink, a most convenient way to avoid making eye contact, I thought as I stood and joined him in the kitchen. I set my ashtray on the marble countertop, the clang a little too loud for comfort. “Sorry about that,” I mumbled as I checked it for a crack or chip, sucked on my smoke, and watched my best friend do his best to avoid me. “Kash, Ave. I’m talking about Kash.” He dried his cup and remained quiet. “Do you want me to go back there and find out for myself?” I asked, pointing in the direction of their bedroom, making no effort to hide my irritation with his vague responses to my simple question. “Or do you just want to save all of us—you, me, and Kash—the drama?” Avery put away his teacup and turned back to me with a sad smile on his face. He leaned into the counter behind him, bowed his head, and became so still for a moment, I wondered

whether he’d stopped breathing. When he looked back up, he had aged years, the stress of whatever secret he held evident in the fine lines around his eyes and mouth, the pale of his usually sun-kissed skin, the sag in his soul. “Kash is dying, Dutch.” Blunt. To the point. Brutal. The bones. The motherfucking bones. They always knew. I stilled as Avery’s statement settled around us, taking up space and demanding attention, wanting me to hear it and breathe it and live it —Kash is dying—no matter how cruel and full of fuckery it was. My friend was dying. That gentle soul who always took care of me and watched over me and loved me in his quiet way, even when I was being horrible and abusive and my shitty fucked-up self. Even when Avery had enough of my antics, Kash would find me and take care of me and remind me that they loved me, no matter what. Kash, who shed tears for Kajal and me and everything she and I lost in those nine murders. Kash, who respected a dive bar as much as I and had no problem spending an afternoon getting fucked up with me as I soothed my soul after a kill. Kash, who

followed Juma all those months and watched her and learned her and then just like me, fell in love with her. Sweet, beautiful Kash. “No,” I said into the space between us, my voice a mere whisper. “No fucking way.” “He hid it from me, or I should say kept it from me, because I saw it,” Avery said, ignoring my shock. “Kash is fine.” I spoke over whatever nonsense was coming out of Avery’s mouth, my mind in a state of disbelief. “When he escaped Atlanta with Juma’s parents,” Avery continued speaking despite the fact I wanted him to shut the fuck up, “he did so with a nice gash under his armpit, small enough to hide from me until he couldn’t.” Avery laughed, and the sound tore my gut in half. “The Black Copse. Those bastards you said not to worry about,” Avery said as he pointed at me and shook his head. “Their blades are magic. Did you know that? Probably not, because you are a skilled fighter and I would like to see one of those fucks touch you. But Kash. Ha, he’s a whole other story.” “Slow down, back up. This makes no sense.” I pressed my fingertips into my eyeballs and tried to digest a world spinning

too fast on its axis: Rani’s relationship with Shema, Juma’s ten - hours - and - counting late arrival, and now Kash’s slow death. “He got out of there way before we arrived, that’s not possible.” “Oh yeah, you heard that story, too?” Avery asked, and shook his head. “So did I. But the other night I got the real one. The one that involved escaping that house with Mimi and Rufus and seconds to spare, throwing them into the car, and screaming at them to lock the doors while he fought four of those things.” I stilled and stared at Avery, my mouth slack, my eyes wide, all of me discombobulated. None of Avery’s words making much sense. “Right?” Avery observed my expression and laughed, and it sounded genuine because just like me, he probably couldn’t picture Kash fighting and killing anything, especially those muted Black Copse monsters. “According to Juma’s mother, he killed three of them and maybe injured the fourth, but not before it got him, too.” I ran my hands through my hair and lit a smoke and waited for the rest of Avery’s words that I knew were going to break me in ways I least expected but I needed to hear them anyway. I needed to know what was

happening because then I needed to turn around and fix it. “Fucking Kash,” I muttered. “You could have worked on him if he’d told you. You could’ve fixed him.” Avery crossed his arms and watched me, his eyes large and glassy and all of him suddenly so small. Which was crazy because despite the fact his five feet nine inches were diminutive next to my six feet four, Avery Lu was larger than life. A rage began to build inside me as I watched my friend, my brother. He and Kash had done nothing to deserve this —their only crime was loving me—but with one swipe from Veda’s new toys, they became collateral damage in this fucked-up game of lives. “Kash didn’t know the blades were poisoned,” Avery said in defense of his partner. “He admitted he got cut, but insisted it was small and would easily heal and I believed him because I saw it with my own eyes. And then instead of watching that cut, I got caught up in the fact he sent Juma to the palace after you. Alone. Without one of us to join her, to which he laughed and called me a fool and I snapped back and called him an idiot. We bitched and moaned and acted like two old married people, disagreeing over

where to eat dinner instead of paying attention to the fact that days later his cut hadn’t healed at all, the skin around it had turned black and hard, and was full of poison. “Even if I did work on him, Dutch, it wouldn’t have mattered. This magic mimics the blood and the tissue and is slow-moving and goddamned impossible to detect until it’s too late.” “No,” I said, and shook my head as I pushed away from the counter and out of the kitchen, as if doing so, moving out of the space Avery and I shared, would lessen the veracity of his words. “It’s not too late. I saw him—he’s fine. He was just at the safe house drinking tea and picking flowers and being so very Kash, I didn’t think twice about him.” “Goddammit, Dutch,” Avery growled low and fierce, the veins bulging in his neck and his eyes flashing rage. “Listen to what I’m saying—Kash is dying—and stop making this about your devastation with that fact.” He then stepped around me, headed down the hall to the room he shared with Kash, and slammed the door. The boom echoed throughout the large white space, bounced off the walls, crashed into all the warm bodies scattered around—me, Frist, Rufus, Mimi—before it landed with an empty, very final-seeming

thud. I let that sound fill me up, become a part of my soul, then I disappeared down the hall after Avery. Standing outside their closed door, I listened to their hushed voices on the other side, impossible to decipher exact words, but able to pick up on their shared sadness. I turned the knob until the familiar click of the disengaged lock reverberated through my fingers, then I slipped inside the dark room, pressed myself against the near wall, and allowed my eyes a few seconds to adjust. Another photograph of Frida Kahlo greeted me with her curious stare, this one of the artist in her youth, all sexy and daring in a barely there, gauzelike shirt, and a seductive tilt to her hips. I saw that photo every time I came into this apartment and into this bedroom, but at that particular moment, it wrecked me. It was so Kash, always appreciating the sexier side of everything life offered, but doing so in his quiet way. I squeezed my eyes shut and swallowed a sob. This was not the time to fall apart. “Dutch,” Kash whispered into the darkness, and I went to his bedside, twined our fingers, and gulped down my shock. The deep brown of his skin was splotched black and felt hard and scaled, as though the poison encased him

in a shell of dark magic. I squeezed his hand and he grimaced. “Careful,” Avery said low as he sat on the other side of the bed, rubbing thick cream into Kash’s skin, “it hurts.” “It’s fine, Ave.” Kash turned his head to the side and watched his partner before returning to me. “I won’t break, Dutch.” And as if to prove himself right, he squeezed me back, but it was light and quick and barely there, and all of it seemed to take the life out of him. “Obviously,” I lied, and took a seat on the bed next to him. “Like I’d believe any of the shit coming out of Avery’s mouth.” Kash laughed and grimaced and squeezed me again. “Thank you.” “For what?” I asked. “For three seconds, not acting like I’m dead already,” Kash said, then closed his eyes and gasped, and his words cut Avery in all those places hidden from the casual observer, but I knew where he held his pain: the slight sag in his shoulders and the less-than-perfect beard, the lackluster of his eyes and the quiet of his voice. “Don’t get me wrong,” I said, “you’re dying all right.” Then I leaned close and listened to his breath. “But yeah, you’re not dead yet.” I laughed and Kash laughed and even

Avery, in all his anguish and devastation, had to crack a smile. “You’re such a twisted motherfucker, I swear.” Avery shook his head and continued his ministrations to Kash’s black splotches. Kash sank into his pillow and laughed again and even though all of it sounded like pain, it was flecked with spots of joy and it was those brief seconds of light that mattered. “I love that twisted motherfucker, Ave,” Kash sighed happily, his eyes closed and a smile curving his lips. I pushed his hair off his forehead and touched the skin, then reached for some of Avery’s cream and began rubbing it into a splotch forming along his temple. “Tell me if it hurts,” I whispered, and Kash nodded while Avery quietly wept. We remained that way for long, slow, quiet minutes, our threesome shrouded in darkness and despair the likes of which I knew none of us could have seen coming. Without ever saying it aloud, all of us had expected I would be the one lying on my deathbed somewhere, carved and flayed beyond repair. Never did we consider something horrible would befall Kash. “He won’t admit it, because it’s not sophisticated,” Kash said, turning his head and catching my eye, “but he likes peanut butter on

white bread with sliced-up, fried bananas, so promise me, every so often, you’ll make him one. He prefers raw sugar over the white stuff, and he likes his jeans ironed, but no crease.” Lists. Kash was making a death list for Avery, a collection of Avery’s secrets to pass along to me so I could step in from time to time and make sure the man he’d spent so much of his life loving spent the remainder of his days with tiny remnants of that deep rich tender affection. I knew a thing or two about lists, and the need to make them, so even though I realized every word spilling from Kash’s near-black lips was slow death to Avery, and cut me in ways I hardly knew possible, I didn’t stop him. I didn’t make him stop or tell him he was being foolish, because who the fuck was I to pass judgment on a dying man seeking some peace? “Peanut butter is disgusting,” I said with a snort. “I hope you don’t really expect me to make that shit.” “I most definitely expect you to make that shit, Dutch,” Kash said, and continued. “He needs a fresh collection of Tommy John undershirts”—and I shot Avery a look because he was forever maligning my expensive sartorial choices, and here he was, indulging in

forty-dollar undershirts—“and he loves chicory in his morning coffee.” “I’m not making his goddamned morning coffee, Kash,” I replied. “Not every morning, of course not. I don’t think Juma would take kindly to being usurped by my Chinaman.” Kash joked and coughed and grimaced while Avery and I watched him, unable to ease his pain. “But here and there, I don’t think she’d mind.” “She might not,” I agreed, “but I will.” Kash squeezed my hand again and smiled. “You’ll do it, I know you will.” “How about you—” Avery replaced the lid on his tube of cream, leaned over Kash, and kissed him. “—get some rest and I’ll fill Dutch in on the rest of my quirks?” Kash rolled out from under Avery and pushed himself upright, leaning into the headboard and catching his breath. His eyes looked a little wild and beads of sweat dotted his upper lip, and I thought to myself how stress and death made for horrible bedmates. “I’m not dead yet, love,” Kash said as he cupped Avery’s cheek and held his gaze, “but I will be soon. I can feel her, she’s here, in the quiet spaces of this room. The Dark Mistress is ready for me, so no sleeping. I’m not a child, I don’t need a nap. What I need is to talk to

Dutch and make sure, when I’m gone, you keep living because I can bear to leave this life, but I cannot abide taking you with me.” A wretched sob escaped Avery’s lips and filled the room with mourning and loss, the sound so real, so feral, I felt it everywhere, crushing in its unfairness and finality. And then. “Where exactly are you headed, sweet man?”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN: DUTCH

Honey. Grass. Lemons. Light. She entered the room and her scent teased my everything as that voice full of sex and mischief, murder, and a dash of mayhem curved around all my sharp edges, kissed my calamities. Juma. I glanced at my watch: twelve hours and thirteen minutes late. She wore black pants that hugged her hips and sat low on her waist, a black T-shirt with the neck cut out, chic combat boots, and a battered leather belt for her blade. I could hear her in my head—dressed in all black like The Omen—as I looked for something, anything amiss and came up empty-handed. She was her usual, magical self, that perfect

being who took my breath away every time she walked into a room. Whatever delayed her sure as fuck didn’t mess with her ability to bring me to my knees in seconds flat. “You saw your parents?” I asked in a low voice, the mood of the room controlling the quiet of the conversation. “I did,” Juma said, and smiled, touching my shoulder as she stepped around me and kneeled next to the bed to wrap her fingers around Kash’s. All of her was focused on him, and at that moment, watching her with my dying friend, it struck me that because of her and the tenderness she showered on me over and over, despite the fact I was dark and horrible and hardly worthy of her love and light, I’d been able to turn around and do the same for another. Because of Juma, I was able to hold my dear friend’s hand and touch him and comfort him without a thought. Because of her, I’d been able to grieve. “You’re a little fucked up, mister,” Juma said as she brought Kash’s hand to her lips and kissed him. “This looks painful.” “I’m fine, killer,” Kash teased, and smiled as Juma traced the splotches spreading along his arm. “You would know, wouldn’t you?” she asked as she leaned forward, pressed a kiss to

his cheek, and whispered in his ear. Kash closed his eyes and leaned heavily into the headboard. “No, Juma,” he finally replied to whatever she relayed in private. “Absolutely not.” “No Juma, what?” Avery asked as he stood, his eyes searching Kash’s and Juma’s blank expressions for some hint of what transpired between them. “Yes, Kash,” Juma said as she fixed his collar, then turned her attention to Avery and winked. “I am going to help you.” “You can help him?” Avery asked, his eyes wide with hope. “No,” I said without thinking as I tallied her remaining lives—three—and felt kind of bad for wanting her to preserve all of them for as long as possible. “It’s okay, Juma,” Kash said as he reached for her hand, “I’ve made peace with all of this.” Juma shot Kash a stern look. “In case you forgot, sweet man, I work for Death, so trust me when I say you never ever want to make peace with her. You fight the good fight because she’s a goddamned asshole, and the last thing you want to do is offer her any piece of your soul. Okay?” She cocked her head to the side and waited. “And, yes, Avery, I can help Kash,” she

added without taking her eyes off the sick Keeper. Kash watched her intently, and I knew she had him. Shit. Juma had him the second she walked in the room. “Okay, okay,” Kash said, and waved her away, all the while I knew he loved every second of attention she showered on him. “You win, killer.” Juma rubbed her hands together, kissed Kash’s cheek, then squeezed his shoulder and walked to the back of the room, where she’d dropped her bag when she arrived. She kneeled down and began digging through it, looking completely pleased with herself. Which made sense because even though as of late she was a bloodthirsty, machete-wielding, kill-or-be-killed murderer, her true self, the one full of light and wonder, was a giver of life and second chances and déjà vu all over again. She was a Poocha and this was her, getting into that groove, preparing to make some magic. That didn’t mean I had to sign off on it. “Don’t do this,” I said, standing over her as I nudged her boot with my own. “Please.” ***

She looked up at me and I felt as though she were seeing me for the first time, as if all of her was homed in on all my hurts and insecurities and fucked-up nasty shit. And even though I was nothing but trouble, she loved me anyway. “Hi, you,” she said while she wrapped her hand around my leg and smiled and holy fuck that woman could make me do damn near anything when she looked at me. “No, Juma.” I pulled free of her touch and she rose so we were face-to-face, and all of a sudden I wanted a smoke and a drink and really anything to calm whatever bullshit was brewing inside me. “Don’t do that.” “Do what?” she asked, even though she knew what. She just wanted me to say it. “Any of it,” I said, my voice hushed because I wanted our conversation to be private but also because I felt guilty giving voice to my concerns. I was willing to do almost anything to save Kash, I would even sacrifice myself if it would help, but I could not allow her to do the same. “Please.” Where her eyes had been sharp and all of her ready for action, Juma softened and I felt it as she hooked her fingers into my belt loops and pulled me close, wrapping me in her light and love. “Any of what, Dutch?”

I pushed her hair off her face and counted the smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose and realized I had learned almost each and every one of them, that was how imprinted on me she was. I touched her forehead with mine and whispered, “This. Pulling Kash back from the brink of death, easing his suffering. Avery’s. Mine. I won’t let you.” “Oh, sweetheart,” she sighed, and kissed me soft and sweet and it felt as though time lived in her touch. “It’s not up to you.” “This time, yes, Juma. Please. Let it be up to me.” It was emotional blackmail at its finest. She knew I never begged anyone for anything, I never laid my fears and vulnerabilities out in the open for inspection and dissection, but I was doing so now. I was letting her know I was thinking of the time she’d saved me from a poison blade, brought me back from certain slow death, then succumbed herself. I was asking her to hear my darkest fears and hold them close to her heart, keep them safe, give them a home. Juma traced a finger along my throat and bit her lower lip, and I could tell she was contemplating all the secrets I offered her in those eleven tiny words.

“I’m not going to die,” she said with finality. I released her and ran my hands through my hair and patted my pockets because holy fuck, this woman. I needed a goddamned smoke. I needed a drink. I needed something to cope. Instead, I had her. Juma grabbed my hands and placed them back on her hips, holding them still and, in essence, making me still as well. “I’m serious. I will not die.” She smiled bright and looked so alive, but all I could picture were the times I’d seen her anything but. “I promise you.” “You can make all the promises you want,” I replied, “but I was there the last time you saved a dying man—I was that dying man— and I watched you succumb.” She cocked her head to the side and stilled and all of her was focused on me. Her eyes flicked over my eyes, mouth, brow, hair. Everywhere. She took me in and surmised and I could see her wheels spinning as she curled her fingers into the hair at the nape of my neck and my skin goose-bumped because her touch. Her touch. It was magic. My body reacted to her even when my mind was racing around some serious shit,

mostly because my body had its own agenda where Juma Landry was concerned. “Dutch,” she whispered, and pulled me close and her skin was warm and soft and made me want to burrow deep inside her, and her breath on my ear made my dick hard as a goddamned rock. She glanced down between us, licked her lips, then pulled me close again. “Kiss me.” I wasn’t expecting those words at that moment, and pulled away from her fast. “Please.” She spoke into my hesitation and I paused only for a beat because I couldn’t bear her begging for anything. I bent low and ghosted my breath over her parted lips as her fingers knotted in my hair and she licked me, her tongue the taste of every fantasy I never knew I wanted. My dick jumped as I pressed my lips to hers and our tongues slashed against each other, a dance of passion and sex and deep fierce love. I pulled away and she smiled, eyes closed and so beautiful, and I couldn’t help myself, I licked her tongue again, lapped at the sweetness of her everything. She moaned low and just for me and I knew heaven had nothing on her. She was the reason my left lung was smaller than my right—it was all to make room for her, she was my heart.

“God,” she moaned, and it sounded like pure sex, “that was a kiss.” She smiled and dug into her back pocket and pulled out her wand. “I wasn’t kidding, Dutch,” she said, and pressed her palm into my hand and I could feel the wand’s heat. “I’m not going to die. Not this time.” I took her hand and flipped it over and watched the wand flash bright with its unknown life force. And I grinned and probably looked stupid, but I didn’t give a fuck. I was goddamned happy. “How was I supposed to know you were going to use your wand?” I asked, hardly expecting an answer to the question, not really caring either. “Do you think I run around town putting my mouth on any man who crosses my path?” She winked and stepped away from me, ready to set herself to work. “Don’t answer that question,” she said with a mischievous grin, “just know that treatment is reserved for you, Mr. Mathew. You and you alone.” She walked back to Kash’s bedside and I watched from the doorway as she spoke to Avery and Kash, showed them her wand, then cracked a joke that made all of them laugh. She was wondrous and wonderful and impossible not to fall for again and again, and

despite all the times I’d warned myself against her magic, I was so thankful my brighter selves had won the battle and sought her out in every dark corner and quiet street of my soul. “Here.” Frist came up beside me and offered me my smokes. We stood in silence, watching Juma go to work. “Can she save him?” Frist asked the question I was afraid to contemplate. I shrugged my shoulders and lit my smoke. “She says she can,” I replied, and exhaled. “I guess we’ll see.” “Come on,” Frist said as she took a step into the room, toward the bed, and held out her hand to me, “let’s watch.” I glanced at the bed and Avery’s face, his eyes full of despair and tragedy and unrestrained hope, and I shook my head and waved Frist away. “Go ahead, I’m good,” and because she knew me as she did, she didn’t ask twice. She joined the bedside vigil, and after listening to Juma’s instructions, blew on her hands to warm them, then took to the task of rubbing and kneading and massaging the spots on Kash’s feet that Juma ran over with her wand. It was a slow, very deliberate process, and after watching them work on his feet for over an hour, I slipped from the room and walked

back into the darkened kitchen. The far corner of the living room was turned into a makeshift bedroom for Juma’s parents, blocked off by some of Avery’s shōji, those beautiful Japanese partitions he collected like a sickness, stacking them in every corner of every building where he rested his head. I could hear him and Kash arguing in their quiet away about those shōji, and how Kash didn’t want them in his Italian homes, his French villas, and yet I always found them stacked safely in a corner because even though Kash said no to Avery, he never really meant it. Avery was always his favorite yes. My eyes filled and I pressed my fingers into the sockets as I sank into a low chair in the living room, leaned my head back, and let Frida watch over my dark soul. I felt weary and ached in places I couldn’t quite reach, as though they were right under my skin, and yet nothing soothed them into repose. I pulled a smoke from my pack and rolled it between my fingers as I sipped some Scout, and somewhere in all of that, Shema came to me, memories of her filled with distance and unspoken disdain. And I found it difficult to marry the woman Rani spoke of with fondness and warmth to the woman I once upon a time considered my mother.

As much as I hated admitting it, I realized with a slow start that I envied Rani that intimacy she’d shared with a woman who held me in her womb for nine months, nursed me at her breast for another fourteen, and then gradually shed the vestiges of motherhood for the prestige of The Gate. When she did choose to return to a gentler, softer version of herself, one that considered others and their stakes in this game of lives, Shema chose Rani as her holder of secrets, and I couldn’t help but wonder: Why not me? I fell asleep this way, my brain awash in unanswerable questions and troublesome thoughts, twitchy and uncomfortable. My skin crawled with unease until she came to me and cupped my face and all of me calmed and quieted. Juma. Somewhere in the early morning hour, when the light was soft and pink, that perfect shade of morning, and the city was quiet, she padded into the room, curled into my lap, and we slept. Wrapped around one another, we were shared breath, warm skin, peace. So locked in our togetherness, the singular duality of our souls, I knew when she awoke without her saying a word. “Did it work?” I asked in the hushed quiet

of the hour. Juma balled herself smaller and kissed my chest and all of me tightened, prepared for the worst. “It did,” she replied, her voice laced with exhaustion, and I exhaled my anxiety long and slow. “Thank you.” I kissed her hair and she held me tighter and we remained quiet for a few moments of total bliss. Then. “Rani texted me,” Juma stated. “She found Sevyn, and then the Copse found her.” “Please tell me they killed her,” I said as I leaned my head back and squeezed my eyes shut. Juma laughed low and pushed me. “Stop it, Dutch.” I smirked and kissed her fingers. “You think I’m kidding.” “I know you’re not,” she replied, her voice sultry with sleepiness and a hint of amusement. “But you’re going to tell me we have to help her, aren’t you?” I asked as I twirled a lock of her hair around my finger. “I’m going to tell you we need to talk to Sevyn,” Juma replied. “Fuck Sevyn,” I said.

Juma sat up and I could feel her watching me. “What?” I asked. “Dutch.” I opened an eye and met her stare. “Juma.” “Fuck me instead.” I opened both eyes and she smiled slow and wide and holy mother of god, she killed me. “Then we’ll find Sevyn,” Juma clarified as she fisted my shirt and pulled me close and her breath was warm and sweet. “But first, fuck me, Dutch.” I carried her into the bathroom, locked the door, and did just that.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: JUMA

The Hoia Baciu Forest lacked komorebi, teemed with ill will, and was considered the world’s most haunted, so of course Rani would hide there. It was obvious and amateur and if I knew her well at all, I would have said so and told her to meet me on Green Street instead, in the middle of London’s Little India for some chai and a chat because when you’re being hunted, what seems most obvious never is. I knew this. I’d spent a lifetime being hunted by her kind. The shadows that hid a body best were the bright ones, those full of shoppers and children and couples with barking dogs. Not a haunted forest in the darkest, most remote hills of Romania. “This is some goddamned fucking bullshit.” Dutch muttered behind me and I smiled because of course that man would verbalize

my thoughts in his most perfect, succinct, foulas-fuck way. I turned back, caught his eye, and offered him my hand, which he took with a grumble. “Rani’s lucky there was a portal right into this crap-hole.” “The fact you have a portal and I’ve worked this forest before is exactly what bothers me,” I said, voicing my concerns with the vulnerability of Rani’s chosen hiding place. “Those Copse assholes would love a place like this.” “Let’s not start speaking of them as if they think for themselves,” Dutch said. “I like them much more as Veda’s minions. They start thinking for themselves and we’re all fucked.” We kept picking through the woods for another mile or so, surrounded by quiet, everything so still and devoid of life and yet a strange energy pulsed through the entire place. It was like this the last time I’d worked here, crossing that creepy Deader Barlow back to his tiny castle in a valley so he could keep tracking the paranormal activity of the woods. He lasted another ten years until the things that go bump in the night got sick of him and his tools of the trade—he was found by the river with his throat ripped out and his heart missing. A fitting death for these woods.

“We getting anywhere, Juma?” Dutch asked. His clipped consonants cut through the discomfiting darkness as I stepped into a clearing high on a hillside and gazed down into the valley. He joined me and smirked. “I guess this is the moment where you tell me to stop bitching already, huh?” he asked as our eyes rested upon a small gray castle, a miniature version of Dracula’s Transylvania home. “Barlow was his name. Barlow Lefevre, from some old, wealthy French family who disowned him long before his retreat to these woods,” I explained as we began picking our way down the overgrown path into the valley below. “He was obsessed with the count.” “You don’t say,” Dutch replied, and smoked and followed my footsteps toward the dark castle. “I insisted he wasn’t right, drinking the blood of small animals and whatnot, but the Mistress didn’t care. She found him amusing and was fascinated by his study of the paranormal, so she gifted him one more chance at this life.” I spoke as we walked the path side by side, fingers twined, a rare moment alone. “And sure enough, that asshole drained every animal in this godforsaken forest. That’s why it’s so quiet out here,

nothing dares come within fifty feet of the outskirts, lest the ghost of Barlow rises, full of the hunger.” “Your stories are the makings of bestsellers.” “My stories are for your ears only, gorgeous,” I said, and kissed him fast. “Hold them safe for me.” “Always,” he replied as we came upon the last bunch of trees before the castle, and he glanced my way. “I see what you mean about this not being the best hiding place.” “Right?” I raised a brow and asked as I scanned the area, not sure what I was watching for, uncomfortable with the locale nonetheless. My fingertips tingled and I pressed them into a tree trunk to ease the sensation. I watched Dutch step into the clearing, his eyes as wary as mine, all of him ready to pounce. “It’s like she couldn’t pick a more obvious—” I stopped midsentence as the sensation in my fingertips rolled up my arm and into my shoulder, a wave of black-clad ill will. “DUTCH!” I shouted at his back but he was already running, blades in both hands, as the trees came to life with a contingent of Black Copse, ninjalike in their silence and demeanor, poison blades glinting in the moonlight. But I

had time for little else as another ripple coursed through me. I sidestepped an attack from above, sliced Simone across the Copse’s belly, then sank her deep into the chest of another on my left. I could hear Dutch dropping bodies left and right, their soundless thuds filling the valley, the scent of their strange blood accosting my senses. On we fought, my arms sliced open in three spots and bleeding profusely, my side slashed and my thigh a gaping wound, but I cared little because we were winning. The two of us cut through their numbers with such speed, I knew if they could think for themselves, those still living would have taken to the trees by now. But they were on a mission, sent no doubt by Veda with instructions to kill anything breathing, so on we fought, covered in blood and viscera and the smell of death everywhere until movement slowed and our weapons chimed out each kill for the other to hear and my body returned to itself. “Dutch,” I called to him as I killed my last Copse with a fatal blow to the neck, sending its head flying in the air as I kicked its body away from mine and spun into the black-clad killer aimed for Dutch’s blind side. I sliced once twice thrice and watched his limbs and head

drop like weights as he fell to his knees and died, all without a sound. “Thank you,” Dutch said as he wiped his brow with his forearm and the forest around us slipped back into its eerie silence. “Any time, gorgeous.” I smiled at him, then caught my breath as I glanced at his arm. “You’re cut,” I said, nodding in his direction and our eyes locked as I checked his wound and I knew exactly what he was thinking. “It’s not like Kash’s,” I noted as I touched and smelled his skin. “I don’t smell any poison, but I do smell magic.” He furrowed his brow and then his eyes widened and we spoke at once: “Shema.” “She must have known about their poison blades,” I said, “and made sure your blood was flush with the proper magic to counter it.” “Fuck outta here.” Dutch laughed and rolled down his sleeve, but I could tell the idea of Shema doing something for his benefit kind of messed with his idea of how the world worked, and he needed a few minutes—fuck that, probably a lifetime—to parse the shift. Instead. “You felt them?” he asked as he scanned the night and sidestepped around anything having to do with Shema and how she might have saved him twice in one lifetime.

“We killed all of them,” I replied when he turned back to me. “And yes, I did feel them, but it wasn’t like before where my body kind of rippled with their presence. This was a weird sensation in my fingers and built from there,” I explained, “which makes me wonder if what Shema feared is already beginning.” “They’re becoming more powerful and able to manipulate the magic?” Dutch asked as he watched me clean Simone and replace her at my hip. “Good fucking god,” he said as he stepped toward me and touched my arms, “you’re a bloody mess.” I pushed him away. “It’s okay. Their magic does nothing to me.” “Shit, it’s not the magic, Juma,” he said, and kneeled to check the gash on my thigh, “it’s your wounds. They’re goddamned deep.” I looked down at my thigh and watched as he took off his jacket and then his shirt, ripped the too-expensive tee down the middle, and tied it around my injury, the white of the cotton turning bright red seconds later. “I could see the bone,” he said, and stood to slip back into his jacket and zip it closed. “It’ll heal,” I replied, and grimaced as it smarted. “Don’t get me wrong, it feels like hell, but it won’t kill me.” “The blood loss,” Dutch mumbled aloud.

“I don’t really work that way,” I said with a shrug of my shoulders while I wiped the bloodstained sweat from my brow. Dutch barked a laugh and I figured he was recalling some Poocha that gave him fits. “Tell me about it. Learned that shit the hard way— it’s gotta be limbs and heads and main arteries and even then, you’ve gotta hit every main artery. I know a thing or two about how your kind dies.” We stared at each other, the hunter and the hunted. At least under typical circumstances, but there was nothing typical about Dutch and me. We really were the oddest of odd couples. “Why were you late to Avery’s apartment?” he asked as he checked the wound on my shoulder, and I wondered how long those words had been sitting on his tongue, waiting for the right moment to drop them in my lap, never finding one until now. There was so much worry in his dark eyes and I didn’t want to add to his list of things that kept him up at night, nor could I lie to the one person to whom I’d sworn my everything. This—the dying and the lives and the running out of lives—was part of me and a very pertinent part of loving me. “I died.” Blunt. Laid out there so nothing could be

minced or misunderstood. Like a punch to the gut, and I saw him lose breath, then recover. “I knew it,” he said, and all of him filled with a sadness the likes of which I could not contain. “I just hoped I was wrong. Those Black Copse motherfuckers.” “It was her.” I cut him off because he was so very wrong. “The Mistress. She killed me.” Again. The blunt shit. This time it blew him off-balance and he had to steady himself to remain upright. “What the fuck, Juma!” he exclaimed, hardly asking a question, simply needing to give life to his shock. “She was supposed to retrieve me for a meeting,” I explained as if it were every day Death took it upon herself to end one of my nine lives. “So that’s what she did. And we met and conferred and all of it was so very strange, like there is some plan that everyone was in on but me.” Dutch ran his long fingers through his hair and paced a circle, then lit a smoke. “Juma, please. The nonchalant tone is like slow death. Talk to me,” he begged, and I reached for him, and unlike back at Kash’s bedside when he pushed me away, this time he melted into my touch. “You have only two lives left.” “She is upset with me and my loving you

and my not trembling every time she looks in my direction. The Mistress doesn’t know what to do with this version of myself and cannot abide her loss of control,” I said, ignoring his countdown of my dwindling lives. “If it makes you feel any better, Dutch, I don’t think she came looking for me with the intent to kill me.” “And yet, that is precisely what she did,” he replied. “She is . . .” I paused a moment and he waited as I considered my words. “Emotional.” Dutch sat with that for a moment, then much to my surprise, laughed. And pulled me close and kissed me hard and all of me felt ridiculously loved. “I hate this shit,” he said, then kissed me again, “but I appreciate the candor.” “Always,” I replied, and kissed him back because he was beautiful and there was nothing I liked more than the feel of some of him on some of me. He pulled away and pushed my hair off my forehead and I could tell he was counting my freckles, making sure each one was where it was the last time he’d counted. “What am I going to do when—?” he started to ask, and I pressed my finger to his lips because I didn’t know what would happen

when I died my last death so I had no convincing way to comfort him and tell him he would survive and persist and keep on keeping on. It was easier to just be quiet. Instead. I smiled brightly and cracked a dirty joke while he lit another smoke and checked my thigh one more time. “Satisfied?” I asked after he bandaged me up again and stood. “Yes, Miss Landry, I am,” he replied, and even though the state of my lives or lack thereof was hardly satisfying and I knew he would be watching me like a hawk, doing everything he could to hold on to these last two a little longer, he smiled and I loved him for it. “So now that you know I’m fine, let’s get inside the castle.” I held on to his arm and we moved as one. “Rani’s here somewhere, otherwise Veda wouldn’t waste her time.” “Forget Rani,” Dutch growled, and I stopped walking and forced him to do the same. “No. I’m not going to forget Rani, Dutch. We have to find her. Please stop listening to your lesser selves and home in on the you who has plotted and planned for years to topple The Gate. Listen to that man and know that his

ideas and ideals share some common ground with Rani’s, as bizarre as it sounds.” I tightened my hold on his arm and forced him to look at me. “And I promise you, there will be a reckoning for her and everything she has done, but now is not that time. Now is when all of us—you, me, her—we’ve gotta be on the same side of this shit. Okay?” Dutch grimaced and fidgeted and I understood, I got it. That woman—that monster—made his life a painful hell for years and for no good reason. She was twisted and sick and I hoped when her time came, every bad deed she’d ever done to this man, every hurt she’d carved into his beautiful dark soul, came home to roost. I prayed her death was full of torture and pain. I also prayed it didn’t happen anytime soon. Because we needed her and whatever information she and Shema had gathered over the years. “You win, Juma,” Dutch said in defeat. “And I know you’re right, I just fucking hate her.” “I know, sweetness,” I said as I took his arm, and we continued down the path toward the front of the castle. “I hate her, too, but right now we kind of need her, so don’t fuck this up, okay?” “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Dutch lit a smoke with

his free hand and caught my eye and said, “You’re goddamned annoying, you know that, right?” “But I have a nice ass,” I joked, and he laughed and it touched the corners of his eyes and I thought for the millionth time in our shared existence: Good god, this man is stunning. As we neared the front of the castle, I directed him toward the left side. “Over there, the side door.” “Why would the side door be open?” Dutch asked as we approached. “Why wouldn’t it?” “Oh, I don’t know, Juma. Maybe because this isn’t our castle,” he said as he smoked and snarked, and I ignored him because I knew he was worried about Kash and hurt by his mother and wanted his sister dead and his father destroyed and I could go on and on but the bottom line was none of it had to do with me. “It’s no one’s castle anymore, Dutch. Trust me, the door is open.” And sure enough, when he pushed on the old oaken handle, it gave way with ease, he opened it wider, and we stepped inside. “Jesus fuck,” Dutch gasped as I held my breath and gave my body a few seconds to adjust. “Bats. I goddamned hate bats.”

“You and Bruce Wayne,” I said with a chuckle, and started walking down the darkened hall. “Come on, let’s get them and get out of here.” Dutch jogged to catch up, following me up the main spiral staircase, then down a long hall lined with paintings of small, dead animals. “Told you,” I said, and pointed to them in passing, “total fucking weirdo.” “You’re right.” Dutch stopped in front of one as a bat flew overhead and he ducked. “There’s a self-portrait, mid-feast.” He made a face and pointed at the painting, then turned back to me as I waited for him to catch up. “Can you feel her?” he asked. “Yeah, she’s here. They’re both here,” I replied, and he pulled out his blade. “We’re close.” “Gear up,” he instructed with a nod, and I pulled out my machete, noticing my arms were nearly healed. “Basic fight rules, sexy. Always be ready for the worst.” And we headed down the hall as the chills I felt whenever Keepers were near increased. “They’re in that back room,” I whispered and pointed, and together we moved in silence, part of me wondering why we seemed to be hunting them, the other part never once

doubting our instincts. We didn’t know Sevyn, and what we knew of Rani was anything but good. Handling them with care, trusting them no farther than we could throw them, was selfpreservation. We reached the last doorway and stopped on the threshold, paralyzed and dumbstruck. Bleeding profusely from a gash running the length of her jaw and missing a hand and part of her lower arm, Rani turned and met our stunned stares. “What the fuck took you assholes so long?” she asked, then dropped in a cloud of dust onto a nearby pile of rugs and furs and god only knew what else. Neither Dutch nor I moved as Sevyn turned her head and laughed and the sound chilled me to my bones. She lay sprawled on the floor, her long legs bent at horrific angles that made my stomach turn, a bone jutted from her thigh, its ragged edges screaming for attention. Her left arm was missing and her right appeared broken in three places. “I gutted her,” Rani said, “from behind. She’s lying on her insides.” “Holy shit.” Dutch took a step into the room, Rani raised her weapon, and he stopped. “Do not feel sorry for her, Dutch,” Rani

snarled. “Don’t you dare.” Sevyn laughed again, and even though I had no idea what was going on, how our reality had shifted since we were all together last, something about her tone made me want to kick her in the teeth and shut her up. “Fuck you, Rani,” Sevyn rasped, all bloody and guttural. “You too, Dutch. You simple, stupid pieces of shit.” Dutch glanced at Rani once more with her outstretched weapon and her bloodied, brutalized body, then stepped around her and toward Sevyn’s prone figure. I watched from the doorway as he bent low and shifted her slightly, studying her back before meeting my gaze. “She turned,” Rani said as she watched Dutch. “I told Shema not to trust her.” “What do you mean?” Dutch asked. “I mean she’s working with Veda,” Rani explained. “How do you think Veda knew we were here?” Dutch shot her a look. “Maybe because it’s the most fucking obvious place to hide?” “Because your wife told her,” Rani shot back. “This forest is deep and dark, and no one in The Gate knows about this castle but me and James. And he’s dead.” “Why did either of you know about this

castle in the first place?” Dutch asked. “Barlow Lefevre,” Rani replied, and I quietly wondered at the interconnectedness of my and Dutch’s worlds. “Some creep James crossed paths with once and used for disgusting projects for The Gate, until he was no longer necessary. Then James killed him. Left the body down by the river, throat shredded and his heart torn out. Said it added to the legend of the place and would keep folks away. Ever since, the castle has essentially been ours.” “I love what you’ve done with the space,” Dutch said, his tone flat and dour. “Fuck you, Dutch,” Rani replied, and I could tell where this was headed. “Both of you shut up and let’s focus on that one.” I nodded in Sevyn’s direction and she spat at me. “Fuck you, Poocha,” the dying Keeper growled and snarled but could do little more in her current state. “Shut up, Sevyn,” Dutch and Rani said in unison, then Dutch turned his attention to Rani. “So, what’s the story?” “She’s been working with Veda and her allied Keepers for a while now, reporting back all our movements and plans,” Rani explained. “It’s how the attack in Atlanta happened, and

the Vineyard, and now this here. Veda knows where we are because of her.” Dutch stood and looked around the room, as if piecing the bits of the story we knew together with what we were seeing. “And how do you know this? Sevyn just whispered it into your ear?” “She cut it out of me,” Sevyn replied. “Only when it was apparent nothing else would work,” Rani defended her actions. “I’ve never trusted her but Shema did, so I remained quiet all this time. But we got here and she was acting funny, asking a million questions about you and Juma and where were Avery and the parents.” “But that makes sense,” Dutch interrupted, seeming to play a bit of devil’s advocate. “She wanted a status report.” “Agreed,” Rani replied. “And I duly filled her in, and then she filled Veda in, which is how those fucks attacked you in the woods.” She looked us over and I assumed, based on our blood-covered state, presumed as much. “Then she asked about Kash and the poison, and whether he was holding up, and that simple question gave me every answer I needed. “None of us knew anything about the poison blades of the Copse. Except her.” Rani

pointed at Sevyn with her blade and I knew if she’d had the energy, she would rise from her seat and cut the traitorous Keeper again. Sevyn unleashed another of her godforsaken laughs and I wished Rani had finished her off, once and for all. “You might have killed me, Rani,” Sevyn gasped as blood dripped from her lips and all of her stood on the precipice of death. “But you’re too late to stop the madness. This game you all are playing is deadly,” she seethed and spat. “I chose Veda’s side because I knew right away, she was going to win. You cannot stop this dark magic. No one can.” And before any of us could say a word, question her about anything or anyone, she took her last blood-filled breath and expired, eyes wide open, lips curved in a sneer. I stared at her for a moment in her sick twisted repose and recalled that time in Avery’s kitchen all those months ago when I’d first met her and how beautiful I found her. So regal and sophisticated. Little did I know she was weak and spineless. But Dutch did. His first instinct had been to keep her at arm’s length, never making her privy to the inner workings of our circle. “You can say it, you know.” I caught his eye

and nodded in Sevyn’s direction. “A little ‘I told you so’ seems quite fitting right about now.” I started to laugh because talk about fortyeight hours full of fuckery, from Death’s evisceration of me in that driveway to Sayyid’s strange behavior to Kash’s trauma to the Black Copse and now Sevyn—it was almost too much to believe and if another soul whispered these truths into my ear, I would have cursed them for showering me with lies. But the fact of it was this was real and it was happening and holy shit, it was insane. And I started to relay that to Dutch and Rani until I didn’t. “Oops.” Her voice curled around my hips and slipped down my throat as her blade entered my back and exited my chest. “Am I interrupting something?” Veda. I thought to myself Not again as I held on to her blade and it sliced the delicate skin of my fingers. Then she cut upward and sharply to the left, hitting all my vital spots, and I knew she was well trained in the art of killing a Poocha. I spat blood and held on to my pain as she cut the main artery in my thigh, unwilling to give her the satisfaction of my cries. And I

cursed my body’s inability to feel her Junta nature, to know she was upon me before it was too late. This girl, I swear, I thought to myself as I fell to my knees for the second time in as many days, someone needs to fucking kill her. And then without another sound, I died. My name was Juma Landry. I had one life left. Motherfuckers needed to get ready. I intended to make every goddamned second of it count.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: DUTCH

“You know, I’ve done this a few times now, and I still cannot get over how easy it is to slice through her body.” In moments of extreme duress, some say time stopped, others acquired superhuman strength, and still others turned inward. I was overcome by quiet calm, the kind that was so still, I felt as if my blood stopped pumping, the beats of my heart hit pause, and all of me waited. “It’s as if she’s human, and yet she’s not.” In those moments, I could tell you what a drop of rain sounded like as it hit the pavement from three stories up. I could describe the blue of the sky on a clear day when everything was crisp and color felt sharp. I could remember sunshine-warmed waters during those early hours of the beginning of beach season. “You’d think the Dark Mistress would

make them a little sturdier, no?” That was before honey and light and lemons and grass. That was before touch and tenderness and time. That was before Juma. I watched the shock on her face as the blade cut into her back and shredded her vital organs. At first it all seemed unreal, as though maybe these woods really were full of paranormal activity and this castle with its fucked-up paintings and bloodthirsty owner was haunted. But as she gripped the blade and bled all over the steel, everything became painfully clear. Veda sliced her up and over and I knew Juma was dead before she dropped to her knees because Veda was a professional when it came to all things fucked up, and slicing and dicing the woman I loved seemed to rank high on her list. Were I to think long and hard on it, I might have wondered at Veda’s obsession with Juma—why did she give a fuck? her beef was with me—but this time around, I didn’t think long or hard on shit. I acted. It was instinct. Primal. Feral in its enactment.

And fast as fuck. Veda uttered her bullshit “ . . . make them a little sturdier, no?” and I was across that dark vast room and upon her so fast, I wondered whether she realized I moved at all. She was walking a circle around Juma, admiring her handiwork, going on and on about how easy it was to kill Juma when I launched at her, blade in my right hand, and I swiped Juma’s machete in my left. Veda spun right and parried my first blow, slipped under the second, but my elbow caught her off guard and I landed a strong blow to her jaw. Her head snapped back, I jabbed my blade into her side, and the room filled with her screams, Malayalam curses and cries filled the dank castle as I withdrew my blade and went back for more. Almost as tall as me, her legs just as long, Veda held her side and kicked me in the kneecap, the blow buckling my joint but I didn’t feel it. I didn’t feel anything but foul dark rage. It coursed through my veins and filled my ears, fueling every move I made in her direction. I stepped over Juma’s lifeless body and came back at Veda, another jab of my blade to her right while I dragged Simone over her left thigh. She bit my shoulder and I pushed her

off me, delivering another blow to her cheek as she fell back and hit the floor with a thud. But I knew my sister, she wouldn’t be down for long. And I was right. As soon as that bitch hit the ground, she was up again and flying at me. She cut across my lower right arm as I swept Simone up and over, slicing through her wrist as we passed one another. I could see bone in my arm, but that damage paled in comparison to Veda’s near-severed hand. “You unbelievable piece of shit!” she shouted as her hand dangled at the wrist, then lifted her weapon and lopped it off herself. “You thought that was going to stop me, Dutch?” She laughed and grabbed a scrap of dirty cloth lying on the table in the corner of the room to wrap her stump. “Come on now, big brother. You know me better than that.” What I knew was the unending, bullshit chatter was part of her strategy. It was Psychological Warfare 101 and it reeked of immaturity and unsophistication, and if I were a different man and she were a different woman and we didn’t have years under our belts of despising each other, if we weren’t from one of the most fucked-up families in the history of fucked-up families, I would have

maybe felt sorry for her. I might even have taken her aside and let her know when up against skilled fighters, the best killers from The Gate, the coldest deadliest motherfuckers walking this planet, pointless chatter was certain death and she was better off moving in silence. But I was Dutch Mathew and she was my sister, Veda Mathew, and there was no fucking way I was going to help her do anything but die. “Are you sad about your girlfriend?” Veda asked, and moved behind Juma, kicking her lifeless body, hoping her words and actions would get a rise out of me. “How many lives does she have left now, Dutch? Three of them belong to me.” I glanced at Sevyn on the floor and wondered at the symmetry of the tableau, she and Juma lying opposite each other, casualties of this game of lives. There had to be some meaning in it, a message from the gods of death or life or fuckery—because trust me, there was a god of fuckery, there had to be. And when I died and went to wherever the dead go, I fully intended to seek out that bastard and let him know I was not amused. Veda moved to kick Juma again and I slid into her sideways, from an angle she least expected, and took her feet out from under

her. Before she could recover, I was on top of her, my knees pinning her arms to the ground as I wrested her blade from her bloody fingers. “Rani!” I shouted into the dark space and heard the injured Keeper approach. “Pull Juma back with you and cover her.” My gaze never left Veda as I shouted to the last person I ever expected to side with in a battle. Rani was a mess but with her one hand she grabbed Juma around the ankle and pulled her back into the dark corner. “That’s so cute.” Veda craned her neck around me and sneered. “Let me guess, Dutch. Every time sexy brown thing over there dies, you go and find her and nurse her back to health?” She laughed and spat in my face and it took all of me not to wipe her smirk away forever. Veda caught me staring at her and her eyes widened. “What, asshole? Don’t like me talking about your girlfriend? What are you going to do about it, Dutch? Huh?” She went on and on like this and I knew she was goading me into something, anything at all because she believed that would be her chance to wrestle me off her and either kill me or escape, but that wasn’t happening. Now or ever. That didn’t mean for those five, six minutes Veda was cackling like a maniac about

slicing Juma to bits and the black magic running through her veins and how Khan was going to string me up and feed me alive to the vultures I didn’t want to take my knife and cut out her tongue, because I did. I thought of about six different ways I could do it. But she and I were past that shit. “Dutch! Come on, kya?!” Rani shouted from behind me. “Kill her already before her goddamned voice kills us both.” Veda kicked the ground, her legs free and mobile as my knees kept the rest of her pinned to the ground, but fuck that shit. I leaned back, reached under my shirt to pull out my short blade, and sank it into her thigh. No words, just action. She screamed and cursed and swore I would die for any further transgressions against her person—she literally used those words because once upon a time Veda went to law school and firmly believed speaking such nonsense made her sound smart—but she couldn’t move and that was all that mattered to me. Unlike Rani, I had no problem with her carrying on. I’d tuned her out the second her blade sliced through Juma’s chest. “You don’t honestly think this pussy is going to kill me, do you, Rani?” Veda laughed

as she changed tactics, engaging Rani when she couldn’t get a rise out of me. And part of me applauded her scheming, it was rather brilliant going after the Keeper with the shorter fuse. The other part of me didn’t give a fuck because if Rani got any ideas in that head of hers and started acting a fool like Veda, I’d just kill them both. I’d been wanting to kill Rani for a while now. And I fully intended to kill Veda. In due time. “I know you’re smarter than that, Rani,” Veda said to the back of the room as I pressed my knees into her arms harder and she grimaced but she didn’t move. “You know Dutch is too soft to finish this fight. You know it’s going to be up to you and whatever you were plotting with my stupid mother. You didn’t know I saw the two of you, noticed you over the years, spending all kinds of time together, whispering like lovers, did you?” “I even told Daddy,” Veda kept up her onesided conversation, “to watch you, that you were making moves on Mummy, probably manipulating her with sex and power and whatever else Mummy wanted out of this life. But he just laughed and told me to take his word for it, even you wouldn’t want to fuck

Mummy.” Before I could consider Rani’s reaction to Veda’s rants, before it even crossed my mind to think she cared or was listening at all, Rani pounced, pushing me out of the way in a desperate bid to get at Veda. But she had only one hand and when she realized the minimal damage she could inflict with it, she stood and resorted to the steel toe of her boot instead. Smashed into the side of Veda’s cheek, again and again, until I put my body between Rani and Veda and made the one-armed Keeper halt her assault. Veda’s eye socket and left cheek appeared broken and sunken in, but it made no difference. As soon as Rani backed off and I shifted, Veda spat blood and continued her verbal assault right where she’d left off. “See? I told you, Rani.” Veda spat at me, blood and spittle mixing with all the other gore caked on my jacket. “Total and complete pussy. He won’t even let you kill me!” I watched Veda and wondered how she and I shared blood and bonds. Where did the similarities exist? Was there ever a moment in this life where she mattered to me? “I cannot wait until the next time Daddy straps you to that table. I’m going to be there and I’m going to help him and you know what,

motherfucker? I’m going to carve you up myself, with my hands and my own set of knives, you pathetic piece of shit.” I smacked her across the mouth with the back of my hand because Rani was right, this bitch needed to shut the fuck up. And for five, maybe six blissful seconds, the room fell into a hushed quiet and it was goddamned glorious. Until her laughter cut through the peace. So I hit her again, this time a fist slammed into her already-crushed cheek. Veda spat blood and laughed. “Bitch,” she sneered. “I want to see you kill me. Fuck you, Dutch, and all your soulsearching, life-contemplating bullshit, forever worried about who gets to live and who must die and how all of it wears down your oh-soweary shoulders. Boo-fucking-hoo. Daddy was right, I should have been a Keeper, not you!” Veda caught my eye and for a second she and I saw each other for our true selves. And then that second passed and she opened her mouth and I knew it was going to be more of the same insane bullshit. “Fuck you, Dutch.” Without a word or much fanfare, I dragged Simone across the delicate skin of Veda’s throat, cutting her deep, slicing her larynx, silencing her post-curse. Her eyes bulged with

the realization her pussy-ass big brother had the balls to damn near decapitate her. Then she gasped, choked on her own blood, and died. The words of Mark Twain came to me in that moment of fratricidal silence—“But death was sweet, death was gentle, death was kind”—and I hoped Veda’s was the exact opposite. I stood and wiped Simone on my jeans, then slipped her under my belt, and stepped around Veda’s body. Rani joined me and after a few beats of fraught silence, I looked over and met her stare. “Didn’t think you had it in you, bitch-ass motherfucker,” Rani deadpanned. “Fuck you, Rani,” I replied. “You wish, asshole,” she said with death in her eyes, and all of her sounded serious but maybe somewhere in there, between the spaces of our words, existed bits of strange affection. “Khan’s going to buy a brand-new set of cutlery to deal with you after this.” I shot her a look and she shrugged. “How does it feel?” “How does what feel?” I asked as I kicked any weapons near Veda’s body into the far corners of the room lest she pull a Glenn Close à la Fatal Attraction and rise one last time.

“Ridding the world of the menace that was your baby sister,” Rani replied as she watched me move around Veda’s body until I circled back to her side. “For all the noise she was making, her death was rather poetically silent.” I looked down at Rani and almost-smiled. “Fitting.” “Timely.” “Necessary.” “And so goddamned satisfying.” Rani smiled wide. “The way you cut her open without a word of warning. Thank you, Dutch.” I raised a brow and shook my head in slight disbelief. “You’re welcome, Rani.” “I still fucking hate you,” she added. “But I do appreciate the art of your kill.” “Good,” I concurred. “Because I hate you, too. Now, let’s get out of here. It smells like shit,” I breathed, and coughed. Rani glanced at our kills sprawled on the floor, bloody messes of gangly limbs and long hair, brown skin and big eyes. “We can just leave them, right?” she asked. “That was my plan,” I replied, and checked my phone. Juma had been dead one hour and seven minutes. Too early to start making my lists.

As if able to read my mind, Rani glanced in Juma’s direction and asked the question I often found dancing along the furthest edges of my consciousness whenever Juma passed: “Is she coming back?” “I hope,” I replied, and moved to Juma’s side. “Stop.” Rani wrapped her stump and collected her weapons scattered around the room. “Stop what?” I asked as I felt for Juma’s pulse. “I saw her look at you,” Rani said with a grimace. “She’s coming back.” “A fact you apparently find quite pleasing,” I said as I pulled Juma into my arms and stood tall. “It’s kind of gross,” Rani stated as she watched me, and I girded myself for some bizarre lecture on sticking with my kind and how Keepers need to perpetuate ourselves and all kinds of other bullshit I’d heard repeated over the years. Instead. “All that affection makes my skin crawl.” I laughed and waited for her to slip into her jacket, took one last glance at Veda—even though I knew she was dead, I couldn’t help making certain—and departed. As soon as we stepped into the dark and stinking hallway, I

could hear those goddamned bats overhead, as if they knew I hated them and made a point of dipping and swooping to keep me on my toes. “Come on, Rani,” I called out as she followed behind, chuckling to herself, at my expense no doubt. “I want to get out of here and to the portal.” “Three things I’ve learned since rescuing you from the clutches of Khan,” she said with what sounded like laughter in her voice, “you are disgustingly in love, you’re not the pussy I always suspected, and you’re fucking weird about animals.” I glanced back at her like Huh? “You’re afraid of bats and you talk to roosters. Case closed,” she replied, and even if I wanted to say something, I couldn’t because she kind of had me with that one. For god’s sake, I had pointed out Winston to her, mostly because I needed someone else to acknowledge his bullshit. “Also, I hope you’ve considered the fact that you can’t take her through the portal with us.” Rani’s blunt truth sucked the life out of me. I knew I couldn’t take Juma through the portal, but the words were bumping around inside my skull. Rani gave them life and, without meaning to, made everything feel very goddamned real. And impossible.

“You did consider that, right?” Rani persisted. I pushed open the door to the castle and we stepped into the dark night, walking in silence for a few minutes, moving around the bodies of Black Copse Juma and I had killed earlier, as I wrapped my head around the current situation. “It’s pretty far to walk to the next town,” Rani continued. “And not like lover girl’s a slight thing.” Rani’s eyes ran over Juma’s body and came to rest on her hips. “Jesus fuck, shut up.” I stopped walking, turned sharp with Juma in my arms, and her feet wound up kicking the tiny Keeper. Rani grimaced and shot me a dirty look, but remained quiet, and even though I knew nothing had changed between the two of us—she hated me and I goddamned motherfucking hated her—there seemed the chance that in another time, another place, where lives weren’t made of steel and blood, and we weren’t birthed into a cesspool of shit and viscera, we might be friends. Or at least maybe wouldn’t have spent the bulk of our lives gnashing teeth and spitting venom. “The Dosha warn against attempting to take a live body through the portal,” I spoke aloud as an idea took shape in my head. “We

are forbidden from transporting anyone ‘not of The Gate.’ Those are the words of our oath.” Rani stared at me with a look on her face like she was waiting for me to utter something intelligent. “Juma’s dead,” I stated the obvious. “Juma is not of The Gate, Dutch,” Rani warned. “She will be ripped to shreds.” “But she’s dead,” I repeated as we walked along the path headed in the direction of the portal, the dark woods quiet but for the sound of our footfall. “I heard you the first time,” Rani hissed in irritation. “Your desperation is making you stupider than usual.” “No, Rani, desperation is forcing me to think outside the box,” I said, countering her logic. “No one has ever tried it because no one has felt the need, probably because no Keeper has been stuck in the middle of this godforsaken shit-hole of a forest with their dead lover in their arms. This is not desperation, this is fucking brilliant.” Rani stopped walking and I turned back to find her staring at me. “What?” I asked. She approached and I noticed how gaunt and pale she appeared. Anyone else would ask if she was all right, see if she needed anything,

maybe find out what had happened back there in that dark room in that decrepit castle when she fought my traitorous bitch of a dead wife. It was her bad luck she was stuck out here with me because I didn’t give a fuck about any of that. I just wanted to get the three of us into the portal and out of Romania. “This is not brilliant at all,” Rani said as she jabbed her remaining pointer finger in my face. “You are messing with her life.” “She is dead!” “Just walk, Dutch.” Rani stepped around me and headed up the path. “Be a man for once in your goddamned life and walk her out of here.” Rani touched the tree that was too large to really be a tree but was also strange enough to be right at home in this place of no life, little light, and maleficent energy. A door cracked open and awaited her entry. The portal. The one portal in The Gate with no Dosha and an exit to anywhere you wished. This place was such a shit-hole that if you were unfortunate enough to wind up here, the least The Gate could offer was an exit ticket straight to an empty beach in the Maldives. “We’re getting somewhere, Dutch,” Rani whispered, and I wondered if the trees had

ears. “Shema always believed Veda was the key to it all. Cut her down and Khan would tumble with ease.” “Fuck Shema,” I growled. “Fuck you!” Rani snapped. “How dare you speak of that which you know nothing? Carrying around so much anger is a waste of time. Put it toward killing Khan instead.” “The fact you believe Shema’s bullshit proves you’re a fool, Rani,” I replied, hardly moved by her emotional outburst. “Veda’s death will not crush Khan’s resolve, it will only fuel it. And if you believe the Black Copse is tied to Veda, I have no words for you. The Black Copse is all Khan, he birthed them, he controls them. The fact he allowed Veda to run the show for a minute was nothing more than a perverse performance piece for his own amusement. Trust she was little more than a figurehead. He always assumed he would bully or blackmail me into accepting that crown of rot and malfeasance, his mistake was never considering I might kill him first.” My words shocked Rani into silence. “You and Shema were so worried about Veda,” I scoffed. “You fools should have been worried about me.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN: DUTCH

It was true. Those idiots spent years focused on everything and everyone but me. They liked nothing better than to harp on my lack of desire for unfettered power or my distaste for all things gratuitous—it was a means to justify their bad acts. Those committed against me and others. It allowed Khan to eat his meals at the same table where he carved me for the kill. It made it easy for Shema to set aside her role as a mother and turn a blind eye to the sins of the father. It puffed up James’ chest and satisfied Rani’s need to feel strong and capable and equal to her male counterpart. It validated Veda’s very existence. And more than anything, that version of Dutch Mathew—the tormented world-weary soul—afforded me every second of every day since I’d crossed paths with Juma.

That version of Dutch Mathew, the one they expected and needed, made it so my evolved self could fuck up all their twisted and deranged plans. Khan never expected me to give myself over to The Gate, but I did so for Juma. James never expected me to kill him, so he let down his guard and found himself on the wrong end of a blade. And Veda, sweet charming Veda, so convinced I didn’t have it in me, until she learned I did. And no matter what Rani told herself every night as she closed her eyes and tried to sleep, pondering all the hows whats wheres whys of her fucked-up existence, the truth of it was for all their plotting and scheming, she and Shema spent all their time focused on the wrong Mathew child. Veda wasn’t going to destroy The Gate with her army of mute killers. I was. And I was going to do it with a ragtag crew of misfits. But first I needed to get the fuck out of that forest. “Where are you headed?” I asked Rani as she stood on the cusp of the portal, seeming uncertain of so many things, most of all how to handle the likes of me. “Back to Trivandrum and the palace,” she finally replied. “I want to be in the area when this news reaches Khan. And I want to track

the Black Copse—the information Sevyn passed along can’t be trusted anymore. Plus—” She held up her bloody stump. “—I need a new hand. And I know a guy.” She winked and laughed but she wasn’t joking, she really did know a guy. I knew him, too. He was the best at what he did, but he was also a Crooper and dangerous as hell. “Be safe,” I warned as she stepped into the tree. “You don’t mean that,” she turned back and replied. “You’re right,” I agreed, “I don’t.” “Fuck you, Dutch.” And before I could tell her the same, she was gone and it was just me and Juma and whatever ungodly creatures inhabited that forest. I looked around at the dark trees reaching up to touch a brightening sky and for a brief moment I wondered whether any fingers of the sun ever managed to touch the forest floor. Then I brought my gaze back to the portal. I could hear Rani in my head, imploring me to take the safer route and walk to the next town, wherever the fuck that might be. But even louder was the reality that Juma was dead, lifeless, not breathing at all, and had been so for two hours and nineteen minutes. And the rules governing the use of portals, and

the dangers inherent to the same, applied to living breathing beings. Juma was most definitely not a living, breathing being. “What do you think, gorgeous?” I asked as I shifted her weight in my tiring arms. “Give it a shot or ‘be a goddamned man’ and walk you out of this place?” I waited—as if she would answer me—even though I knew exactly what she would say: Fuck Rani and let’s do this. I touched the tree with my hand and the portal door swung open, and I knew once I stepped through, that was it. Either she and I would wind up on the other side, in Galicia outside Santiago de Compostela, near my watermill house, or she would be ripped to shreds and I would be left wondering how to fit together all the missing pieces. I closed my eyes, kissed her cold lips, and then stepped through. My ears filled with the whir of a million machines, light of every color popped and flashed until it all throbbed in unison, my insides felt as if molten lava pulsed through my veins. And through it all, I held on to her until everything became too much and time moved so fast, it stood still and I lost track of even myself. The air sucked out of me so fast and then—bam!—I got it all back, my

blood cooled, I settled. “What the fuck, Dutch?” *** Riz Kalif. He of the gruff voice that sounded like too many late nights smoking cigarettes, drinking wine, living fast. My favorite Dosha, those guards of The Gate’s portals. My trusted ally and friend. I opened my eyes, looked down, and gazed upon brown and freckles and breathtaking beauty. Ass and thighs, thick brows and full lips. Juma. And then she washed over me, all her familiar scents teasing my senses as if to say, Hey Dutch, we’re all here, it’s all good. I held her close and steadied myself, thrilled she’d made it, relieved we both had. “How’d you even?” “I don’t know, Riz,” I said, the Dosha as stunned as I to see Juma in my arms, “except to say she’s dead.” “Oh shit, I’m sorry,” Riz replied, and where seconds earlier he’d looked utterly stunned, he now looked a little broken. For me. He and I went way way back, to the days of Kajal and

crazy rescues and ill-fated plans, so he knew the significance of a dead woman in my arms. “Nah, nah.” I waved off his concern. “She died before we portaled,” I added, as if that made my news any less heartbreaking. Riz shot me a look and I knew he couldn’t quite gather what I was trying to relay, he wasn’t seeing the silver lining to my current state of disrepair. “She’s a Poocha. It’s the only reason I brought her with me,” I said, trying to explain the situation to him, to me, to us. “It’s the only reason I was able to bring her with me. The portals are limited to ‘members of The Gate’— that phrase comes with the inherent assumption users of the portals are alive. Or at least I took it that way. Regardless, she’s not alive right now, which is why she made it across with me.” Riz, with his big eyes and long lashes, his smile that made the women of this pilgrimage town crazy, considered my words, then smiled wide with comprehension, and all of him returned to his usual cheery, welcoming self. “You’re insane, you know that, Dutch?” He slapped me on the back and chuckled. “Don’t fall for any of these women, and when you do, it’s the kind you’re supposed to kill. Like I said, totally insane.”

“It’s been suggested here and there that I might have some issues,” I said, and he laughed again as we walked to the front door of the carriage house where Riz had lived and worked for the last eight years. The main house sat about a thousand feet up a gravel path, an old watermill some architect and his potter wife had lovingly renovated before promptly dying when the kiln in her studio suddenly exploded, killing them both instantly. Avery scooped up the place for a song and gifted it to me nine years ago for my birthday. I didn’t covet many things, but the watermill was one of them. The carriage house though, in its current state, was another story. It was a mess, newspaper and files tossed everywhere, plates of what appeared to be days-old tapas picked over and forgotten, bottles of unfinished wine scattered about. And the smell. Damn near as bad as the castle. “Party or research?” I asked. The Dosha did a once-over of the room and looked a bit sheepish. “A little of both. You know how it goes: I get this idea and—boom!— it must be handled.” I did know—Riz was smart as fuck and, besides Frist, one of the deadliest minds I’d ever met.

“What was the idea?” I asked. “You know how you gave me some of that powder Frist made for you?” he said as we stopped at the front door. “I tweaked it.” “You did what?” I shifted Juma in my arms because I wanted to hear this. “Nothing bad,” Riz tried to reassure me, a hint of panic in his voice. “I just made it more immediate. Frist’s version was good, but it took seconds to act, seconds that could be the difference between life and death. My upgrade is instantaneous, melts motherfuckers ASAP.” “But it can still only be used by me?” “Yeah.” Riz nodded. “If you want it that way.” “I do.” “Then yeah, sure,” Riz replied. “You got it.” “Nice work, just make sure no one else catches wind of your extracurricular activities,” I warned as I glanced around the room again. “And call someone today to handle this. I’ll pay for it.” “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” He waved me off with a laugh. “Everything else good? Nothing to report?” I asked, and the Dosha became all business. “It’s been quiet the last eighteen hours. Before that, I was getting reports from as far as California and as near as Paris of Copse

everywhere, stealth attacks on Keepers and various portals. No sightings of Khan or Veda, but some strange chatter about your uncle organizing an underground cadre of subversive operatives, including your aunt.” “Shema’s sister?” I asked. “Yeah, what’s up with that?” Riz asked. “Her side of the family always despised Khan’s.” “They still do,” I replied, “but they’ve got some common ground now. Khan killed Ish, so none of what you’re saying surprises me.” That blunt truth fell from my lips fast and harsh and part of me regretted allowing its escape. It was the first time I’d told anyone about Ish, the first time I’d even acknowledged my cousin’s death. No one but Avery, and by default Kash, knew of his death—I hadn’t even told Juma—and as those words became part of my story, the public one everyone would know, I realized I still wasn’t ready to talk about it. “Fuck, man,” Riz said as he leaned against the wall, clenched his fist, and ran his other hand through his hair. “I didn’t know. I’m sorry. Ish was like your brother—” “It’s okay,” I cut off Riz and the condolences because now was not the time for talking about Ish and I wasn’t really sure there

would ever be a time and Riz knew me well enough to pick up on my tone of voice and shut the fuck up. Instead. “Veda’s dead.” It was hardly a smooth segue, but it got Riz off Ish and made it so I didn’t feel like collapsing in on myself, slipping into some dark shit and not coming back for a while. “Fuck outta here!” he exclaimed, and just as I’d hoped, forgot all about Ish. I nodded toward the door and he opened it for me. “You’re going to need to be ready, watch for everything, and kill anything that feels slightly off. Ask questions later.” “How? What?” he asked, confused and amazed and damn near speechless. I started down the gravel path and called back to him, “Not ‘what,’ Riz. Who.” I tossed him a smile to let him know exactly who was the who. He stood in the doorway and watched me head toward the main house, his laughter breaking up the quiet of the morning. “Insane, Dutch!” he called out. “Batshit insane.” I laughed to myself as I pushed open the door, praying Riz had not wandered up this way and destroyed the main house as well. The entry room was awash in sunlight and a hint of lavender and I thanked the gods above

I would not have to walk back down the path and kick Riz into next week. I liked him. A lot. The last thing I wanted to do was beat his ass and make him clean my house. I turned back, nodded in his direction to let him know I was cool, then kicked the door closed. And even though I wanted to lean against the wall and catch my breath, I knew better. I needed to keep moving, keep time with the fucked-up energy coursing through me because otherwise there was the serious likelihood I would collapse from the insanity of everything exploding around me. Juma’s deadweight suddenly felt like too much, and after carrying her for more than an hour, it made sense. The adrenaline of all the fucked-up decisions I’d been forced to make in the last 120 or so minutes of my life was beginning to wear off and reality was setting in. And with it, exhaustion. Without another thought, I took the stairs two at a time, strode down the long hall, and entered the master bedroom. It was a gorgeous space full of the first rays of the morning’s golden sunlight and the soothing sounds of the small river that ran by the house and wound along to meet the main

path of the Camino de Santiago and the smell of fresh verbena from the garden outside, but right now all that mattered to me was the California king-size bed in the middle of the room, with its gazillion-dollar mattress and thousand-thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets and pillows that cooled your head to the perfect sleep temperature. It was the bed for sleeping, where you curled up and lost yourself to the deepest dreamland your mind could uncover. And you stayed there for as long as possible, the bed demanded it. I laid Juma down and settled her in, pulling back the comforter and sheets and situating her in such a way I could eventually crawl in beside her and wait. I began untying her combat boots while I punched out a text. I’m here Watermill how’s Kash? Up and about like nothing happened ur right she’s magic total fuckery in the woods Rani told me good news + bad

will touch base when J returns I checked the time on my phone and pulled off her boots as I ran through my calculations. “Juma,” I said to her as if she could hear me because that’s what you did when the woman you loved kept dying on you, “you’ve been gone now for two hours and forty-nine minutes and I don’t know what you do when you’re gone but I hope she’s not fucking with you.” I looked to the sky when I said “she” because it seemed appropriate, and not in a godlike or heavenly angels kind of way, but in a Death - I - am - everywhere - and - nowhere at - once kind of way. Juma did it, too. And whenever it happened—one of us would mention Death and look skyward—we would share a smile because who the fuck knew why we did it, but it was some funny shit nonetheless. Stepping back from the bed, I watched her and then realized with a start that both she and I were covered in blood. It was dried and flaky now, caked into our clothes and our skin, but still. I wet a washcloth, grabbed a clean Tshirt from my drawers, and sat back down next to her. I wiped a fleck of blood off her cheek and along her throat and while I worked,

painstakingly studying all of her to make sure I didn’t miss a speck, I made another list. 10 Facts About Juma I love her laugh. I love her thighs. I love her eyebrows. I love her shoulders. I love her smile. I love her ears. I kept going as I lifted her shirt over her head and threw it in the trash can, removed what remained of her bra, and touched the skin of her chest and stomach, all of it closed, with a few fading lines all that remained of Veda’s savagery. It seemed quite fitting that for all Veda’s carrying on and theatrics, the result of her behavior was quite temporary. At least this time. After grabbing the clean T-shirt off the bed, I pulled it over Juma’s head, slipped her arms through the sleeves, and then settled her back against the pillows. Her lower body seemed to heal at a slower pace, apparent when I removed her jeans and cleaned the wound on

her thigh. It wasn’t fresh by any means, but the skin was still raised and tender and several shades of pink. I finished working on Juma, then stripped off my own clothes and headed for the shower. Twenty minutes later, I crawled into bed clean and fresh, with a copy of Jhumpa Lahiri’s Namesake in my hand to keep me company while I waited. I pulled Juma onto my chest, opened the book, read a page or two of Gogol’s story, and made a mental note of thanks for a non-Indian name so much better than his. I remember closing the book because my tired eyes were burning and blurry and thinking how warm her skin felt against mine. The soft of Juma’s curves was worth lifetimes of madness, and I would suffer them willingly if it meant every night was spent like this, curled around each other in repose. And I thought maybe she stirred, but then told myself of course she didn’t. I wanted her to stir and my exhausted brain was trying to convince me she stirred, but the properly functioning parts of me knew better. And I fought sleep because I wanted to be awake when she woke, because I’d promised her to always be there when she woke, and by being there I meant awake and aware and focused on her. Not asleep. So I did everything

I could to keep my eyes open and my brain switched on, until my body caved and I succumbed.

CHAPTER TWENTY: JUMA

I woke with a start, a quick gasp of air sucked in so deep, it was almost too much. My eyes darted around the space, awash in the last throes of evening sunlight, warm and safe. Hints of lavender and verbena wafted through the air, and the sound of slow-moving water added to the soothing mood of the room. And there, right next to me, was all I really needed to ever feel safe in any of my lives. Dutch. Eyes closed, breath slow, every inch of him beautiful. I wanted to touch him, kiss him, love all up on him, but most of all, I wanted to watch him, memorize every single one of his details so when I was no longer of this world and these lives, I would have him burned into me in such vivid memory it would seem as if he were with me always. A stifled sob escaped my lips and tears

streamed down my face and I kept all of it quiet because I didn’t want to wake Dutch, but I couldn’t help getting lost in the despair of losing him forever. I cried and cried and cried some more. Then I gathered my many selves and quieted and calmed because, yes, this was my last life, my last go-round with this gorgeous soul, this man I loved hard and deep and fierce, but damned if it was going to be filled with sadness. It was going to be wondrous and magic and full of laughter and kisses and time. And we were going to revel in love and life and the impossibility of each other. So I wiped my tears and curled up next to him, my beautiful sweet dark-hearted Keeper, and I watched and I learned and hours later, I knew. He would be mine evermore.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: DUTCH

When I opened my eyes again, it was dark outside and a lone candle bathed the room with its warm flickering kiss of gold. I turned my head and there she was, quiet and awake and so very alive. She smiled and, as always, made me trip all over myself and land at her feet in a pile of arms and legs and my cold black heart, overcome by the steal-my-breath love I felt for her. Juma. Good god, always Juma. “Hey, gorgeous,” she whispered, her voice raspy and hoarse and even though I knew it hurt her to speak, holy shit that sound was sexy as fuck. My dick went rock hard on cue, pressed into the soft skin of her belly, and demanded her attention. “Well, hello to you, too.” She looked down and laughed and fuuuuuuuuuck, she was magic.

I dragged my finger along the skin of her throat and she stretched and curved into my touch and I could do this forever because watching her move when she liked the way you touched her was otherworldly. I pressed my lips to the freckles right on her pulse point —I couldn’t not kiss her—and listened as she moaned low and long, and my dick throbbed in time to the rhythm of her voice. “Does it hurt?” I breathed into her ear because it made her crazy, then pulled away from the soft of her skin and watched as she steadied and shook her head but didn’t speak and I knew it hurt. “Liar.” I smiled and she smiled and for long quiet seconds we got lost in each other. “Dutch—” she whispered. “Shhhh.” I traced the outline of her smile and cut her off midsentence, lips parted, about to say something until my touch reduced her to half-closed eyes and wholly turned on. She was goddamned sin and the best kind of savior and I wanted to spend long, languid hours worshipping at her altar. She sighed as my fingertips danced along the rise of her clavicle and I leaned close to her mouth because I wanted to capture that sound with my lips but I also wanted to watch as she waited for my kiss.

Her tongue flicked out and touched her lower lip and I could smell that faint sweetness of her mouth and god, I knew she would taste like heaven. I wanted to lick her, learn her all over again. Instead I tangled my breath with hers until she whimpered in frustration and I pulled away with another smile. She wanted me all over her as much as I wanted to be all over her. It was written on her face when she opened her eyes and locked with mine and wrapped her gorgeous thick thigh around my waist and pulled me close. My dick rubbed against her panties and I groaned and pressed myself into all her wet warmth as she circled her hips in a slow dance of beautiful fuckery. “Juma,” I closed my eyes and moaned before I pushed her away, “behave before I come all over you without fucking you at all.” She licked her lips and her nipples pressed through the thin material of her T-shirt as my words worked magic on her body, fucking her mind, leaving her pussy swollen and wet. “I can smell you,” I whispered into her ear as she sighed and pressed against me, her nipples rock-hard points begging for something, anything from me. “I know your pussy is soaked and your clit wants to be sucked,” I said as I traced circles against her

skin, crisscrossing her nipple, my touch brief and barely there. Juma’s body undulated in time with my touch, all of her desperate for more. “Dutch.” “What, baby?” I almost licked her lip, and she whined as I played with her nipple. “Please,” she opened her eyes and begged, and all of her screamed to be fucked, but at the moment I wanted something much more immediate. I dipped down and grazed her nipple through her shirt with my teeth while she watched my every move, her lips parted and eyes on fire. “Oh god, Dutch.” She fisted her hands through my hair as I lifted her shirt and exposed her breast. The brown of her skin always made me a little crazy, but it was the softness that killed me every time. I could touch her forever and even that wouldn’t be enough. I pressed my lips to her ribs and kissed up the side of her waist until I reached the perfect curve of her breast. She held her breath as I flicked my tongue over her rock-hard nipple and she rose off the bed, her back arched, giving herself to me to do with as I pleased. And what I pleased was to suck and tease her until she begged me to stop. Which of course she wouldn’t because she

wanted me to do all these things to her—the nasty, the sexy, the painful, the raw. And then she wanted me to do it all again. I lifted her shirt over her head, then stood mesmerized as she lay back down, naked but for her slip of panties that were so soaked, they outlined the shape of her lips. I knew if I spread her knees wider, I would see her clit pressed against the silk, hard and waiting to be sucked. But right now was all about her perfect tits and licking and teasing and biting her left nipple until it was as hard as the right. “Oh god,” Juma groaned, and held me in place with one hand as I tongued her down, her other hand cupping her breast. I bit her nipple, then fit myself between her thighs and rubbed my throbbing dick all over her and she was a goddamned sexy mess of sweat and precome and pussy juice and holy fuck, I needed to slow down before I forgot myself and shot my load all over her thighs. None of that schoolboy shit for this goddess. So I dialed everything down, caught my breath, and calmed. Juma sat up as I leaned over her, caging her in with my arms and legs, and kissed me. And although in that moment she seemed made of heavy breath and pure desire, her kiss

was tender and light, a flutter of softness against my mouth. I closed my eyes to the need for her, the possibility that I might capture her when she least expected and fit her under my skin forever. She touched my hair and my brow and cupped my face and I recalled that first night in Frank’s when I wanted all of this and more, then laughed off the possibility as I threw curses at all her perfection, certain none of her could ever be mine. Now as her warm breath teased me everywhere, her lips hinted at kisses, I reveled in the fact I belonged to her in ways I could not imagine, had yet to learn. My dark found a home in her light. “Hey, mister—” She leaned back into the pillow and rapped on the side of my head. “— where’d you go?” “That night I saw you in Frank’s,” I replied as I held her gaze and bent low to circle her nipple with my tongue. It was dark and hard as fuck and fully insistent I suck it and lick it and suck it again. She watched me the whole time, lip bitten and eyes wild, and I knew she would watch me do anything to her body. “Remember that envelope?” I released her nipple and watched it glisten with my saliva and heave with each of her deep breaths and even though I’d just asked

her a question that she was probably going to answer, I was much more interested in her other nipple. She was, too. I licked it hard as she tossed her head back and fisted the bedsheets and begged for all kinds of unintelligible things. Then I bit her and she screamed and I could smell her pussy everywhere as her desire flooded the room and all of it—the sounds, the smells, the feel of her skin, the release of her sighs—shot straight to my dick. Slow down, Dutch. The words banged around in my brain as I fought the urge to ram myself so deep inside her, I might become lost forever in her soft wet heat. Instead. I eased her legs apart and made a space for myself, resting my head on her belly, the wet heat of her pussy warm against my chest. She tangled her fingers in my hair and we both breathed and settled. “The envelope,” I finally spoke. “Oh yeah,” she replied, her voice low and husky and sounding a little more like herself than before. “How could I forget that envelope you kept pushing around that booth? My excuse for talking to you.”

I raised a brow upon hearing that admission. “I was such a fucking asshole,” I recalled as I traced my finger along the jut of her hip bone. She laughed and held me tight. “I didn’t know that when I was sitting at the bar, trying to think of ways to talk to you.” I shifted so I could see her eyes. “Bullshit.” “The second I walked into Frank’s that night and saw you in that booth, all angry and dark and so fucking beautiful, I was yours.” She dragged her finger along my lower lip until I captured it and sucked and her lips parted but no sound came out. I released her finger and pressed myself into her pussy and she leaned back and moaned and spread her legs wider for me, but we weren’t there yet. I ghosted my breath over her panties and the scent of her desire damn near killed me on the spot, then I gathered myself and what little self-control remained, and kissed the inside of her thigh instead. “You were saying—” I settled back into my spot and reminded her. “—the second you walked into Frank’s.” “I wanted you, right then and there,” she replied when she could speak again, the hint of a slow smile in her voice. “All of you. Like

I’d never wanted anyone. Ownership of your body wasn’t going to be enough, I knew that. I wanted your soul. I wanted your darkness and that simmering rage and I wanted to show it some love, give it a home inside me, wrap it in all kinds of tenderness, kiss it to sleep at night,” she said, and twisted my hair around her finger, “so when I saw the envelope, I took it as a sign.” “Of what?” “I was supposed to talk to you, the universe wanted to bring us together.” She chuckled low. “Then you snarled and spat at me and I knew it was on.” I laughed as I recalled that evening when we knew nothing more about the other but the simple fact that whatever existed between us was enormous and overwhelming and motherfucking intense. “That envelope had your name inside,” I confessed. Juma sat up on her elbows and stared at me. “I didn’t know it then,” I said. “I tossed it in the street that night, a kind of fuck-you to The Gate.” “And then what?” she asked, still watching me intently. “Then I had dinner with Khan and he

informed me of its contents,” I replied, as vague as possible because I still wasn’t ready to talk about all the details of dinner that night, especially those involving Ish. Juma knew the important shit, the stuff that affected her. The rest was mine, to share in due time. She touched my face and tipped my chin in her direction and all of her looked so sad because she knew what took place whenever Khan and I sat down together and she knew it firsthand, and as much as I hated that shit, I also kind of loved it. Because it didn’t scare her. If anything, it made her larger than life and terrifying in ways I would never have imagined her capable of. She was Juma—love and light and magic. But she was also murder and death and devastation. And I loved all the pieces that fit together to make the whole. “Don’t be sad for me,” I said as I leaned up on my hands and knees and kissed her belly. “I have everything I need right here,” I spoke into her skin as my lips trailed up her side and under her breast and over her nipple. “Dutch,” she sighed, and begged, “please,” as I squeezed her nipple between my thumb and forefinger while I sucked the other, “don’t stop.” But I did. Because this moment was all about revelry

and her and time. And I knew we didn’t have much of the latter left, and I wasn’t going to dwell on that fact but I sure as hell was going to enjoy her and make the moment goddamn wonderful. So I stopped and sat back and just watched as she lay there, a jumbled mess of lust and craving, and all of it was for me and holy fuck. Juma opened her eyes, caught me watching her, and smiled a smile full of mischief and sex, love and madness. And I thought to myself, There’s no more perfect curve than that of her lips. “Kiss me,” she whispered so low, I wasn’t sure I’d heard her right. I cocked my head to the side and she winked and goddamn, this woman. She made my dick jump with the most mundane of movements. “Dutch Mathew,” she said louder, and I swear each word pumped all my blood into my groin, “please,” a slow wide gorgeous smile, “bring that sexy-as-fuck mouth over here and kiss me.” I moved up her body until we were face-toface, all her softness pressed into my planes, our bodies wrapped around each other, brown and browner, and I framed her face with my hands. She closed her eyes and I kissed her

lashes, she sighed and ran her hands over my ass. “You are so beautiful,” I whispered as my lips learned her jaw and the hollows of her cheeks and her eyes and the tip of her very perfect nose. I kissed her freckles and her skin flushed, my tongue teased at her lips and they parted with desire. “I love you, Juma Landry,” I breathed against her mouth, and the slow burn for her that had lived in my blood ever since the moment I saw her in the subway station turned into a full-blown out-of-control fire. I pressed my lips to hers and everything ignited. Time fell away and I lost my sense of sound and sight and smell, my world became one of taste and touch as I parted her lips and curled my tongue around hers and kissed her as though we had forever. Juma felt warm and tasted like summertime. Her small sighs as I took my time exploring her mouth pulsed through me and became a beat deep in my blood, my own jazz song called “Love.” She tangled her hands in my hair and wrapped her legs around me and we kissed a kiss of laughter and death and so many tomorrows. “Dutch,” she gasped as my lips traced down her throat, my tongue licked along her clavicle and teased her nipples, “what are you doing to

me?” Her hand held her breast as I sucked and she cried out for more and she wanted everything faster, but I wanted time. Lots of it. And I wanted it to move slow. I took her hands in each of mine and pressed them into the bed and our eyes locked. “I’m fucking you, Juma, every goddamned inch of you,” I stated, and she opened her thighs and her scent curled around me so intense, I could think of nothing but eating her pussy, my tongue inside her, the sweet of her desire all over my mouth, and I had to catch myself before I lay waste to all my plans of going slow and taking my time and instead bent low and lapped at her swollen lips and rock-hard clit. “Dutch,” she closed her eyes and moaned, and I dipped down and licked her tongue and she licked me back. I kissed her hard and demanding because otherwise I was going to fuck her fast and right there, and that wasn’t happening. Not this time. I pulled away from her mouth and bit her tit and got her attention. “And when I really start fucking you, Juma,” I said as I pressed her hands tighter, “when my dick is deep inside your pussy, even that is going to be long and slow. That’s what I’m doing to you, beautiful.” I bit her other tit,

then sucked it hard and stiff before I began moving down her body, my lips finding all my favorite pools of freckles, her body becoming mine all over again. She was lost in a world of touch and heat and I loved doing that to her, I loved listening to her moan as my hands cupped her hips and my lips kissed her thighs open wider and I breathed hot on her panties. She cried out and lifted herself off the bed so her pussy was close to my lips, on my lips, letting me know she wanted something from me badly. “What do you want, baby?” I asked, teasing her, my lips moving over the wet silk that separated my warm lips from her wet ones. “Ohhhh,” she gasped as I licked her through the soaked material and my hands found her ass. “Dutch.” I blew on her panties and licked again. “Yes, baby.” I slid her panties to the side and all of her was swollen and pink. “Please”—she moved my hands off her ass and guided them back to her hips—“take them off,” and I obliged, sliding the slip of material over her beautiful hips, down her legs, and tossed on the floor. I moved between her thighs and allowed myself a second to revel in the beauty of her pussy, wet and engorged and begging for my tongue all over it. And I wanted

to kiss her but I also wanted to smell her, I wanted her scent all over me, imprinted on my skin. I dipped my nose close to her pussy and breathed deep, relearned her scent, let it soak into me again. My dick throbbed against the bed, demanding to be buried deep inside her, surrounded by that scent and all her slick heat. Instead. I pressed my lips to the seam of hers, then pulled away and tasted her on me, her juice a nectar of the gods. And I wanted all of it. I wanted to suck it down, swallow all her desire, but this wasn’t about me, it was about her, so I calmed and collected myself. Then real slowlike, pressed another kiss to her lips and listened while she breathed deep and heavy and all of it beat right into my dick. “Your pussy,” I said, and kissed her again, lower, my lips on hers, nothing more, “is goddamned beautiful,” and watched as she touched herself, her fingers soft against her clit, wet with her juice and holy fuck she was the most wicked sensual gift I could never have dreamed in my wildest fantasies. I moved close, watched her touch herself until I couldn’t take it a second longer, and sucked her finger into my mouth, getting lost in the taste of her pussy on her. Juma sat up on her elbow and watched me

suck on her finger, her eyes heavy-lidded with craving and want and when she pulled on her finger, I let her go because I knew what she was going to do and I wanted her to do it because I wanted to watch us watch each other get her off. Her fingers went right back to her clit, circling slow and soft as she spread her thighs and never once took her eyes off me. I glanced down to watch, then back at her, before I dipped down and followed her finger with my tongue. She bucked at my touch and I backed away, then dipped down again because she tasted like heaven and I needed more of her in my mouth, on my tongue. I followed her finger, soft just the way she liked, and real fucking slow, then I sucked her back into my mouth, released her, and sucked her clit. She fisted the sheets and my hair and begged me to kiss her soft, so I flicked her clit with my tongue and then just as she asked, I kissed her. Soft. Barely there. My lips pressed up and down the line of her pussy, and here and there, my tongue slid inside and all of her was wet and hot and so turned on. “Duuuuuuutch,” she sighed as I spread her

lips with one hand and held her thigh open with the other and lapped at her pussy, the flat of my tongue pressed against her clit then dipped inside her, fucking her slow, eating her out as though she were my last meal and I was going to savor every second. Her legs started to shake and I pulled away. “Juma,” I growled low and kissed her clit. “Do not come.” I gave her a second to settle and collect herself and calm, then I blew on her pussy and licked her and started working her again, this time not so soft and not so slow. She spread her thighs wide and she was wet and swollen and her clit was huge, rock hard, and demanding my tongue and my lips. I sucked her hard and she rose off the bed and I wrapped my arms around her thighs and held her to me, merciless with my mouth as she swore she was going to come. Her legs shook and her pussy dripped and all of her became tight and focused and on the brink of something explosive and right there at that place the precipice of lust and desire I stopped. And flipped her over, spread her ass

cheeks, and licked her very perfect kind-ofpink, kind-of-brown asshole. Around it, over it, inside it. Juma lifted her hips off the bed, her ass high in the air, and begged me to do my thing, “Don’t stop Dutch,” and I didn’t. I dined on her ass and stopped only when I thought I might lose myself in all her tight perfection and slide my dick in deep and fuck her hard and make her pussy come with my fingers as I was balls deep in her ass, when I really wanted to make her come with my tongue. I pushed her thighs wider and whispered, “Slide up,” so I could slip between her legs and let her ride my face. I situated her on top of me, put my hands on her ass—god, I loved her motherfucking ass—caught her eye, and smiled. She traced my lips with her finger and looked positively fuckable and you couldn’t tell me a more perfect creature existed. Ever. “What are you doing, Dutch?” A slow smile curved her lips as she asked the question she very well knew the answer to. “What does it look like I’m doing?” I smirked and squeezed her ass while I pushed her closer to my mouth. She rose a little and shifted and her pussy dripped on my chin and my dick jump so hard, it slapped my belly.

And we both laughed the laugh of two people about to fuck each other stupid and senseless. I slid my thumb along the line of her lips and she closed her eyes and rocked real slow. “You like that?” I asked, and she hummed in agreement, so I did it again and watched as she shifted closer to my lips and squeezed her nipples and I knew I had her just where I wanted her. I pulled on her hip and she followed my lead, finally resting her swollen wet lips against mine. And for two seconds, we froze. Time stood still and neither of us dared breathe. Then I slid my tongue inside, found her clit, and it was on. I held her as she lost herself and fucked my face, all of her moving to the rhythm of my tongue on her clit. “Dutch.” She knotted her fingers in my hair and soaked me in her desire and I sucked and licked and circled as she spread her thighs wider and showed me exactly where she wanted to be touched. I kissed and sucked her as she moved against my mouth and begged, “Don’t stop,” and all of her was fast and tight against me as I slid a finger into her asshole and another deep in her pussy and fucked her everywhere. She arched her back and cried out that she didn’t want to come but held on to my face with her hand and kept fucking me

anyway. And I knew she was going to come, I fucking wanted her to come. I wanted to feel her pussy clench around my finger and taste the flood of desire as her orgasm ripped through her. I told her as much, “Come on my face, Juma,” and she rocked against me a few more times, then did just that, her release hard and long and beautiful, before she collapsed next to me and purred soft and low, all of it sounding like satiated bliss. Lying next to her, I cupped her face and kissed her so she could taste herself all over my tongue. She lapped at my mouth, discovering all the places hints of her lingered, savoring the taste of our fucking as she wrapped her leg around me and pulled me close. I rubbed my dick against her clit and covered myself in her come as she spread her pussy lips and begged me to slide inside. “Please,” she whispered into my ear, her breath hot, her pussy hotter, and my dick wanting all of it, “fuck me, Dutch,” and my tip disappeared inside her before I pulled out and caught my breath because holy fuck, her pussy. “Don’t stop, baby,” she begged, and jutted her hips forward so she could wrap her pussy around my dick and I had to place my hand on

the flat of her belly and push her away. “Shhhh,” I whispered as I rubbed against her and slid inside her, then back out and she groaned and spread her thighs wide so all of her was open to me. Then she used her fingers and opened herself wider and both of us looked at her pussy—wet and swollen and begging to be fucked—then watched as I guided my dick deep inside, inch by slow murderous rapturous inch. I slid deeper, bumped up against her cervix, and listened as she gasped, the sound swelling my dick even more. I licked my fingers, found her clit, then started fucking her long and slow as she held me and her warm breath tickled my skin and all of her felt like the wild magic. “I love you, Juma.” I kissed her throat as I slid in and out of her and she cupped my balls and kissed me hard and called my name over and over and I wanted to fuck her forever so I could listen to the way my name danced on her tongue when I was balls deep in her pussy, but I also wanted that other moment. The one where her pussy clenched tight around my dick and squeezed up and down me as I moved against her and released inside her and our orgasms tumbled around each other, shattering us in new ways each time. So when I

felt her toes dangling over the edge, instead of calling her back to me and seeing how long we could wait, I started moving faster and held her tighter and she gasped my name and swore, “I’m going to come,” and I knew she was, I could feel her. I fucked her harder, faster, my dick so deep inside her, my balls smacked her ass each time, and told her to come. “It’s okay, baby, come all over me.” I wanted her to come. “Oh god, Dutch!” she cried and arched into me and everything went dark and silent as my dick exploded everywhere inside her and nothing made sense as I kept fucking my orgasm deep into her pussy, and she milked every drop of me, grinding on me until we had nothing left but sweat and kisses. We stayed wrapped tight around each other, our climax rendering us silent and exhausted but unwilling to let each other go. I pulled the blanket over us and remained buried in the warmth of her pussy as we breathed deep, closed our eyes, and settled into the wonder of us.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: JUMA

This place is called my heart there’s a seat for you across from me I’m saving it forever

CHAPTER TWENTYTHREE: JUMA

I didn’t know how much time passed before Dutch and I slid apart from one another, I didn’t really care because really, I wanted all the time, I wanted to claim it own it put my name all over it so no one else could steal another second away from the two of us. Because we’d already had too many seconds taken by others, time that should have been spent walking on the beach, laughing over dinner cooked together, wrapped around each other in the quiet of the night. So the ones we had left, I intended to guard them be selfish about them observe territorial ownership of them, and anyone who crossed our path would know: Do not fuck with the time we have left together. And that reality made me sad, the kind of sadness I could feel in my toes and that lived in my bones, but now was not the time for it. Now I needed to live for all we had left.

Together. I rolled onto my side and watched him as he smoked and rested his hand on the inside of my thigh and everything about that man spoke poetry to me, words filled with wonder and love, tender kisses and too-little time. I thought about my notebook in my apartment that I hadn’t seen in far too long and wanted that book to jot down my thoughts and that airy space that I called home but also, didn’t really care about any of it because all that mattered was right here right now. “I love you,” I whispered, and even though my throat no longer ached with the newness of crossing back to this last life, I spoke low so as not to disturb the peace settled around us. “So much.” “I know,” he replied, and waited a beat before flashing me a grin full of mischief and light and even as I laughed, a little of me broke inside. “How very Han of you,” I said as I gathered myself and did my best to sound light. “And so very wise and Leia-like of you,” he said, then leaned over and kissed me. “You are such a nerd.” I laughed as he put out his smoke, shot me a look full of shock, then swept me into his arms and out of bed. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.” And

then he swallowed my reply with a long deep kiss that I felt in the soles of my feet as he carried me downstairs. “Put me down, Dutch,” I said, and laughed and pushed at his arms. “No, Juma,” he said, and laughed because he knew I thought my butt alone weighed too much to be carried and I knew he thought that was the dumbest shit ever. “Where are we going?” I asked, resigned to the fact he wasn’t letting me down. “Outside,” he replied as we walked through a kitchen that he probably never used for much more than walking through to the next room. “I have no clothes on,” I noted as we reached the back door. “Nor do I,” he stated the obvious as he put me down and stepped into my space so I was pressed between the wall and his rock-hard dick. He moved against me and I moaned and all of me was wet and turned on and even though he’d just spent hours fucking every inch of my body licking sucking touching me everywhere, I wanted him to do it again. I spread my legs and he groaned. “Remember the first time you pressed against me like this? And touched my pussy and almost made me come?” I asked as I

guided his fingers to my clit and he mumbled a reply I could barely understand and we both recalled that morning in my apartment. “This time,” I said, and wrapped my fingers around his thick huge dick and guided him inside me, “I want you to finish what you started all those nights ago.” “Good fucking god, Juma,” he breathed into the skin of my neck as he wrapped his hands around my hips and fucked me against the wall, hard and fast, his dick working me deep as though he owned me, as if he needed to be owned. I climbed his body, wrapped myself around him, and held on to all his brown tatted gorgeousness. He rammed into me again and again and again and I begged him never to stop and we came all over each other, fast and hard and so goddamned brilliant, just like our love. “See?” he asked when he pulled away from me a few minutes later, looking all smug and sexy, “that’s why I brought you downstairs without any clothes on.” I laughed and followed him into the kitchen and we both downed two glasses of water in silence. The moon was big and bright and cast the space in an eerie glow. “Moonset,” he commented, and nodded out the window. “I was going to show it to you

before you so rudely laid waste to my plans, making me fuck you against the wall like that.” I spat my water and he laughed and did the same and I thought to myself, Maybe these final moments together during this final life together won’t be so brutal after all. “I hope you know, Juma Landry, I have every intention of fucking you and making you laugh every goddamned second of this last life we have together.” He knew. Without my saying a word, he knew. Of course he knew. My eyes filled and all of me felt the weight of his inevitable loss and he shook his head no as the tears I’d been fighting ever since I crossed back to him spilled over and rolled down my cheeks. “No, gorgeous,” he said as he wiped my tears, “that is neither laughing nor fucking.” And he smiled a sad smile but it reached his eyes and it bathed me in love and I cried harder. He pulled me into his arms and listened as I cried and kissed me and told me all sorts of beautiful things he would always love, such as the way I snorted when I laughed and my insistence on chocolate syrup on the bottom of my bowl of coffee ice cream and my love of bad pop music. And he promised to

walk around the city holding my hand and kiss me every second he got and read me Neruda as I brushed my teeth, and eventually I had no more tears. And even so, we stayed like that, wrapped around each other, kissed by moonset in the quiet of his kitchen. “You cannot focus on what we’re going to lose,” he whispered into my hair. “You have to be present with me now, here, rooted in our moments until we have no moments left.” “I know,” I breathed into his chest. “Plus—” He kissed my hair and wrapped himself around me tighter. “—everyone knows you’re a much bigger badass than I could ever hope to be, so if they see you fall apart, everything will collapse.” I laughed and punched him and he laughed and wiped my wet face. “Much better.” He kissed me and glanced outside, shaking his head as he released me from his embrace. “Juma, Juma, Juma. First you make me fuck you, then you make me hug you, and now look, the sun is rising.” And he was right, the sun was peeking up on the horizon, giving everything that pinkish morning glow. I smiled and watched him as he dug around in the fridge. “I know you’re not complaining,” I replied.

He turned around and the backlight from the fridge made him seem angelic, and I knew it was corny but my breath caught in my chest anyway. Dutch Mathew was all kinds of beautiful. “I am most definitely complaining,” he said with a smirk, then went back to the fridge, pulling out eggs, cheese, and milk, a bunch of vegetables, fresh herbs. He dumped them on the butcher block counter and stared at me with mirth in his eyes. “What are you doing, Dutch?” “What does it look like I’m doing, Juma?” He turned away from me to open a drawer and pull out some pans, then grabbed a carafe of oil from a cabinet near the stove, heated the pans and the oil while he grabbed some utensils. All the while butt-ass naked. “I didn’t know you could cook.” I sidled up next to him and he rested his hand on my ass, looked down at me, and smirked. “This is going to come as a shock, but there’s more to me than this fabulous dick,” he replied, and handed me a knife, “and nothing smart out of your gorgeous filthy totally fuckable mouth, just chop those herbs.” He then reached into a high cabinet, pulled out a mandoline, and started slicing the

potatoes. I stood mesmerized as his hands moved with such speed and confidence and I knew he told me to stay in the moment with him, but I couldn’t help feeling tied up in knots as I thought of all the meals we wouldn’t eat together. “Stop it, Juma.” Dutch paused all his movement, turned to me with glassy eyes, and whispered, “Please, gorgeous. Right here. With me. This moment.” I kissed his shoulder, leaned into him, kissed him again, then grabbed some rosemary and started chopping. He went back to the potatoes, checked the temperature of the oil, and grated some cheese, all the while sneaking peeks at me. “What?” I finally asked. Dutch placed the mandoline in the sink, grabbed a bright red tomato, and handed it to me. “Chop this.” I took it from his hand, washed it, and went to work. “Jesus fuck.” He took the knife out of my hand and nudged me out of the way, “Stay over there, princess.” “As in Leia?” I asked as I stepped away, leaned a hip against the counter, and watched him go to work. “As in Princess I-Don’t-Know-How-to-

Cook,” he said as he glanced my way and smiled, then leaned over and kissed me. “God, you’re annoying.” “But you love me—” I bit the rim of my glass and smiled and he pulled me close. “— even though I don’t know how to cook.” “I love your ass,” he corrected as his hand rubbed all over my behind. “And me,” I insisted, mostly because I loved hearing him say it. He leaned close and my lips parted and he licked me and why was everything with him so goddamned electric? “And you, gorgeous. I love you. Always you.” He kissed me again, then turned back to prepping the food. “Even if you can’t cook for shit.” “Your hand was just on my ass,” I noted with a raised brow as he cracked eggs and poured in some milk. “And all up inside your pussy as well. I didn’t hear you complaining then,” he replied as he layered cheese in the bottom of a pan, then poured his egg and milk mixture over it. “Fair enough,” I agreed, but he moved toward the sink and started washing his hands anyway. “Better?” he asked. “Better,” I agreed, and he shook his head,

amused with me as he went back to prepping our meal. “Should I do anything?” I asked. “Grab some plates,” he said, and nodded in the direction of the cabinet, “and some champagne out of the fridge. The flutes are next to the plates, and the silverware is in the drawer in the island.” I set the table and poured us some champagne, then sat down and watched him move around the kitchen like a professional, everything fluid and certain. And I wondered if it was because he’d spent so much time in a kitchen cooking for himself and others that he exuded such confidence or was it the Keeper in him, that deadly killer that made him the best at damn near everything he touched. I figured the latter. With a fucked-up family like his, he had to be the best to have survived this long. “Dutch!” I suddenly exclaimed, and he spun around and all of him looked ready to kill anything moving. “Your sister. What happened?” He stared at me as though he couldn’t quite believe the words coming out of my mouth, then breathed deep, leaned against the counter, and tried to recover. “Don’t ever do that again, okay?” he said, and pointed the spatula he was using at me as

he spoke. “I’m serious. Unless you’re in trouble, and I mean last-life kind of trouble, do not call my name like that. Unlike you, I don’t have a bunch of lives, Juma, and you goddamned almost killed me.” I shot him a sheepish look and blew him a kiss, to which he rolled his eyes, grabbed our plates, and returned to the stove without providing any news on Veda, which led me to believe she’d gotten away and he would fill me in on the details after we ate. She had already ruined so much for us, I couldn’t blame him for not wanting her to also ruin our morning. Dutch piled our plates full of steaming eggs with tomatoes and cheese and fried potatoes drizzled with masala and rosemary. It smelled so amazing, I forgot about Veda and instead became fully focused on my empty belly. “Bon appétit.” He lifted his glass in my direction and we clinked, sipped, and dug into the food. It was a simple meal but so delicious, as if I’d never eaten eggs and fried potatoes before sitting down to this table. I told him as much, and he cracked a joke about my lack of appreciation for his culinary skills, then admitted it wasn’t him at all. “It’s mother nature,” he replied in between mouthfuls of food. “Every item I used was made fresh on the property, from the chickens

to the cheese.” “Is this what life is like with you?” I asked. “Constant surprises? Killer by day, chicken farmer by the light of the moon?” He poured us more champagne and enjoyed my teasing. “Yes, princess, this is exactly what life is like with me. Nothing but mayhem and moonsets.” I pushed back from my empty plate, sipped my champagne, and watched him. There were so many questions bumping around in my brain, I didn’t know where to begin. “Start with the simplest ones,” he stated, and I gawked. “Oh, come on. I know how your brain works. Shit, I can see it working right now. So ask the easy questions first and the rest will just flow.” “Where are we?” I began. “Northwest Spain. The town of Galicia, where the Camino de Santiago pilgrim pathways end.” “And whose house is this?” I continued. “Mine.” I didn’t know why, but that answer surprised me. I looked around the room and the space with new eyes, wondering how much of the man I loved lay buried in the details. “I like peace and quiet and being alone,” he continued, “and all of those exist here. Avery

gave me this house as a birthday gift almost ten years ago. Only he, Kash, Frist, and now you know it belongs to me.” “When is your birthday?” Dutch raised a brow and shot me a look. “That cannot possibly be on your list of things you need to know.” “It is at the very top.” He considered me, and I knew he was weighing his response, I could see it in his eyes and I figured his birthday wasn’t the happiest occasion. I almost wanted to tell him it didn’t matter when he started to speak. “Most Keepers I know will tell you their birthday is the day they entered The Gate, which happens sometime during your sixteenth year, depending on the cycle of the moon and the time of your actual birth,” he said, and twirled the champagne in his flute, tiny air bubbles dancing everywhere. “I’ve never once uttered the day I entered The Gate. My birthday is November sixteenth. And I hate gifts.” “Who said I was going to get you a gift?” I asked. “I just plan on fucking you all day.” He leaned forward and under the table ran his hand up my thigh, and all of him was just so damn edible. “Next question, princess.” “Is that my new nickname?”

“Maybe.” “I hate it.” “I know you do,” he said with a grin, and kissed my hand as it rested on the table and I loved him so hard. “How did we get here?” I asked. “That—” He rapped the table with his finger, the thunk-thunk deep and rich. “—is an interesting story.” “Do tell,” I replied, all ears for all his words. “I used the portal.” “You what?” I asked, certain I did not hear him correctly. He nodded his head. “Yeah, Rani kind of looked at me the same way when I told her my plan. She also yelled at me about it—I think she’s taken a liking to you, because she was royally bent out of shape when I brought up the idea.” “But . . .” I paused. I wanted to hear more because I liked the way his brain worked and I had a feeling he went out on a limb, way outside the box for this shit, I just didn’t know where to begin. “The way I saw it, you were dead,” he began, “and the oath we take when we become Keepers includes the use of portals and how it’s restricted to members of The Gate. Rani

was all caught up on the fact you’re not of The Gate, but I was more focused on the fact you weren’t alive. And in my mind, the phrase ‘of The Gate’ is a direct assumption and reference to live members of The Gate. “No one ever tried bringing someone dead with them, because most members of The Gate don’t run around falling madly in love with the very being they’re created to kill,” he continued, “so I took a chance, prayed to all the gods out there, and portal’ed right into the carriage house on the back of this property.” I shot him a look and he added, “Oh yeah. Another thing about our portal in that godforsaken shit-hole—you can leave and go anywhere you want. So I chose this house that no one knows exists. Also, unlike Rani, I thought you’d want me to give the portal a shot.” “What did Rani want you to do?” “Walk out of the forest and to the nearest town,” he replied. “Fuck Rani,” I said, and he smiled the kind of smile that broke my heart. “I told myself you would say that.” I leaned across the table and kissed his mouth, soft and tender and full of love. “Thank you for getting me out of that forest and away from all things Barlow.”

He cupped my face and kissed me back. “Any time, gorgeous.” “Where’s Rani?” I asked as I grabbed another bottle of champagne from the fridge, popped the cork, and poured us new glasses, “And what happened with her hand?” “India, lurking in the shadows,” he said, then added with a chill, “and she knows a guy who can help with the hand.” I considered his words and his tone and figured that guy wasn’t the kind of guy you wanted to have to know. “He can fix her?” I asked. Dutch nodded. “He can.” “But?” He lit a smoke and watched me as he exhaled and he knew I knew he didn’t like that guy. “He’s not the guy you ever want to have to know. He’s what we call a Crooper—a soul collector—and his price is steep.” He didn’t need to say more. I already knew whatever Rani was doing in India would likely be more bad than good, I also knew I didn’t really care. “Sevyn?” “Traitorous bitch is dead,” Dutch snarled, and smoked, “Besides the guy with the hand, she’s part of the reason Rani went back to Trivandrum, said Sevyn’s intel on the Copse is

for shit, meaningless drivel and lies.” “She’s right,” I agreed, then added, “Sorry.” Dutch cocked his head to the side and seemed to wonder at my apology, then waved me off, the smoke of his cigarette making zigs through the air. “Don’t, Juma.” “Yes, Dutch,” I insisted. “I should have trusted you.” “You didn’t know, no one did.” “Doesn’t make it any better,” I replied. “You can always fuck me,” he said with a grin. “That’ll make it better tenfold.” “I would fuck you regardless, now I’ll just add some extra oomph to it.” “You’ve got more oomph hidden in that pussy?” he asked, eyes bright and mischievous as he followed my every move, watching me as I pushed away from the table, came around to his side, and crawled into his lap. “Boy,” I said as I wrapped my arms around his neck and tangled my fingers in his hair, “you have no idea,” I rocked into him and he hissed, “all the oomph up in this pussy.” “Is that so?” he growled low into the tender skin of my throat and I still had the Veda question for him but fuck her and her Black Copse bullshit, this was so much better. He kissed me and bit me and threw me off guard with all his warm breath and tease and touch,

because one second I was grinding on his lap and then next, I was seated on top of the table, ready to be his next meal. “About this extra oomph.” He kissed the inside of my thigh and grinned. “I like the way it smells.” “The oomph?” I asked as I watched him press wet heat up my thigh and felt my pussy drip all over the beautiful wood of his table. He wiped it with his finger and licked. “Tastes good, too,” and I groaned and he pushed my legs open wider and kissed my clit, his full lips warm and soft as he sucked and licked me. I locked my elbows, leaned my head back, and gave in to his ownership of my body. Again. “Fuck me, Dutch,” I begged, and he slipped his fingers inside me and worked his magic while his lips performed tricks of their own and my legs started to shake with the orgasm building in my toes. He knew how I liked it and fucked me and sucked me harder and deeper and faster and I begged for mercy and forever and now—“Make me come, baby, now”—and he kissed me as my back arched into the fast and furious orgasm that rippled through me, wave after wave of delicious devastation courtesy of his magical mouth. He kissed my swollen lips again, then

leaned his head on my thigh and allowed me to settle. “Tell me how Veda escaped while I’m still high off that orgasm and it won’t really fuck with me,” I finally spoke—eyes still closed, head tossed back, totally chill—into the postcoital quiet. Dutch ran his hands up and down my thighs and it felt so good and I knew it was all in an effort to lessen the blow of her epic fuckery. “Juma.” He started to speak and I wanted to shut my ears to his words but I knew I couldn’t, that we had to face our truths, all our truths—even the ugly ones—head on if we planned on fighting this fight and emerging from the battlefield victors in this horrific game of lives and souls and eternal ever-afters. “Veda’s dead.”

CHAPTER TWENTYFOUR: DUTCH

Growing up, there was always that kid who never got the joke, even the simplest bullshit went right over his head and everyone had to explain the joke in such detail to him that when all was said and done, the joke wasn’t even funny anymore. The kid that was just kind of slow on the uptake because his head was stuck in a book or focused on the upcoming football match. Here and there, I was that kid. And this was one of those moments. I’d had no clue Juma spent most of her night and all the morning thinking my bitchass motherfucking cunt of a sister was still alive. I didn’t realize when I forgot to answer her question about Veda and instead gave her a quick lecture on ways not to put me in an early grave, she’d taken that as a sign Veda escaped and I just didn’t want to talk about it yet.

I wanted to eat breakfast. In peace. Ha. That woman. As she would say: I swear. I loved her like a sickness, but she should have said something. Anything. One tiny hint of what was banging around inside her head. Instead. “You let me fuck you upside down and right side up and eat your pussy every time I looked at it, and the whole time you were worried about Veda?” I bit her thigh and she jumped. “Oh please,” she said, low and sexy, and her head leaned to the side and her eyes closed because she’d just come all over my mouth and my table and was feeling relaxed and nice. And now that she knew Veda was dead, she was feeling really motherfucking nice. “She was not even a thought.” I wrapped my arms around her thighs, rested my hands on her perfect ass, and pulled her close. She was swollen and pink and so fucking wet and my baser selves wanted to dive back into her and make her come again, but I promised Avery twelve hours. I just needed twelve hours with her alone and then we would resurface. Our clock was ticking down fast.

“Good, because now she’s dead so she really shouldn’t be a thought,” I replied, and kissed her thigh and when she leaned forward and looked down at me every cell of my being collectively sighed then knelt to pray at her beautiful brown most-perfect feet. “Did it feel satisfying?” she asked, and her eyes sparkled and fuck if I didn’t love her twisted killer instinct. “Honestly?” “Honestly,” she replied, and ran her fingers through my hair, her touch sending chills down my spine and goose-bumping my skin. “Yes, Juma,” I admitted with a wide smile, “it felt fucking amazing, but not for the reasons you might think. It wasn’t about childhood ill will or her being the favorite or the bond she shared with Khan. I think I’ve been so divorced from the idea of our being siblings, blood-related in any way, that nothing about her death reflected back on righting any familial wrong. It was more the quiet of my kill. The art of it. I wish you could have seen it because that’s where the beauty lay. She was so loud and obnoxious and carrying on because she believed I wouldn’t kill her. And then I did, a quick drag across her throat with your blade, and she was done. No fanfare, just death.”

Juma smiled and ran her hands down my arms and all of her seemed pleased. “It was a good death,” she stated, and I couldn’t agree more. “The best.” “But no poof—” Juma snapped her fingers. “—and the Copse vanished into thin air, huh?” I shook my head. Juma knew as well as I, the Black Copse was never tied to Veda. “Dammit, Dutch,” she said, then leaned back and watched me, “and here I was hoping we could spend the remainder of our days hiking the Camino de Santiago and fucking like rabbits.” “And teaching you to cook,” I added, and she grimaced. “No.” Juma leaned down and kissed me. “The only reason I want to be in that kitchen is to watch you swing your big dick around while you make me a meal.” I could spend multiple lifetimes listening to her say dirty shit to me. “Fair enough,” I consented. “I’ll cook so long as dessert is your pussy.” Juma’s eyes flashed fire and she ran her hands down her thighs and all of her was glistening and sexy and fuuuuuuuuuck, I loved her. “Stop talking dirty to me, Mr. Mathew.”

“Never.” I leaned close and sniffed her and licked her and goddamn, we needed to put some clothes on. “I like you walking around, a soaked swollen mess, thinking about all the ways you want my tongue on your pussy.” I sucked her clit and she pulled on my hair. “Do not make me come,” she demanded, her voice choked with sex and lust, and it shot right to my dick. “I won’t—” I leaned back and kissed her kneecap. “—just wanted a taste,” and she kissed me because so did she. “You are so dirty,” I hissed, and she smiled and agreed. “I am so dirty. And so full of champagne, I think I’m going to pee all over myself.” I laughed and moved back so she could hop off the table and use the bathroom. “It’s over there.” I pointed to the far side of the living room as I gathered our plates and glasses and started cleaning up our mess. “The first door on the hallway.” I checked my phone—we had seventy-three minutes before check-in, and it felt like the last seventy-three minutes of my life. I scrubbed the pans and rinsed the mandoline and I thought to myself that at least when it was all said and done, I would have spent my last carefree moments loving her like nothing else mattered.

I pressed my hands into the countertop until my fingertips turned white and squeezed my eyes shut as the steam from the sink blanketed my face, and for a few seconds I lost myself to the despair of losing her and wondered whether I would be able to wake up and walk around without her or would my life become reduced to lists of all the ways I loved her and all the ways I never got a chance and holy fuck, our love was maddening in its epic beauty and its undeniable cruelty. “Hey.” Juma bumped me with her hip, turned off the hot water, and twined her fingers with mine. “Right here. With me. This moment. Remember?” I had been so deep into myself, I didn’t hear her slip back into the room and I wondered how I appeared to her at that moment. I smiled bright and squeezed her hand, but inside, all of me was broken. “Oh, Dutch.” She kissed my shoulder and wrapped her arm around my waist and for a few minutes we agreed to quietly swim in our grief. Together. And then the moment passed because the fact of it was that goddamned clock and our seventy-three minutes were now probably more like sixty-eight. I kissed the top of her

head and when she turned her face up to me, I bit her lip and smiled. “Can I ask a question now?” I finally broke our grief-induced silence. She turned, leaned her back into the counter, and sipped on her water, looking all kinds of beautiful without even trying. “Hit me, gorgeous.” I glanced at her sexy-as-fuck hips and asked, “When did you put on panties?” and she laughed, then threw me a pair of boxers. I raised a brow as I slipped into my underwear. “Someone’s been snooping.” Juma raised her hand and did not look one bit shy. “Ummm, yeah, that would be me.” “Well, thanks,” I replied as I dried our plates, “it’s becoming painfully apparent that if you’re naked, I have to be fucking you.” “Dutch,” she kind of whispered, kind of moaned. “Juma.” “Behave,” she warned, and her cheeks flushed and my dick jumped. “Or what?” “Just,” she started to speak and touched her throat and her nipples were hard and I knew her panties were already ruined. “Please.” I loved her and all her insatiable desire and

proved as much by respecting her wishes when really, all I wanted to do was cross the space between us and slide right back inside her. “As you wish, princess,” I replied, and she smiled and both of us calmed. “Want to get dressed?” “No,” she said, and from the set of her jaw, I knew she wasn’t kidding. “I know we have to, but you asked if I wanted to and honestly, I don’t. Left to my own devices, I would spend the rest of my days naked, in this beautiful house with you. But I know what I want matters little, so, yes, Dutch, let’s get dressed.” She was sad and stubborn and pissed, and the combination crushed me because I wanted to fix all her hurts and knew I couldn’t, so instead I pulled her into my arms, wrapped myself around her, and held her tight. “What you want matters to me, Juma Landry.” I felt her smile against my chest and release a long, deep sigh. “Thank you, Dutch Mathew.” Then, like any other couple in the history of coupledom, we headed upstairs to shower, brush teeth, shave, and perform all the other mundane things couples did when getting ready to greet the day.

I texted Avery while Juma wandered through my closet, amazed I stocked it with stuff for her—“Why would you do that?” “Why wouldn’t I?”—blown away I paid attention to her tiniest details—“How did you know I wear PF Flyers? Gah! I love cheap bras from Target.”—rendered to tears as she pulled on a FEMINIST AS FU C K T-shirt and black cargo pants—“You remembered I hate jeans.” I pulled her off the floor, kissed her, and sent her downstairs with orders to make a pot of coffee while I tried texting Avery again. When I joined her fifteen minutes later, she was tearfree and almost-smiling. “I tried calling Avery,” she let me know as I poured myself some coffee and joined her at the bar, “let him know we’re okay. I also talked to my folks, let them know I’m alive.” “But not that you died?” I asked as I scrolled through my phone for any new messages. “Rani said all is eerily quiet at the palace.” “He knows,” Juma stated, and I knew she meant Khan and the fact I’d killed Veda. “Yeah,” I agreed, “he knows.” I caught her eye and it flashed a little mayhem and murder. “I suppose this is when it gets a little interesting.” She flashed a smile that screamed

death, and I choked down my breath because anything else would have resulted in all kinds of silly proclamations of falling for her. Again. “Because up to this point, shit has been such a goddamned snorefest,” I joked, and lit a smoke and she laughed and sipped her coffee, and minus the kind of twisted conversation, as I said before, we were just like any other couple in the history of coupledom. Except. “Okay, a real question for you.” I changed the subject. “What happened this time when you died?” I leaned back in my chair and asked because in the game of not-quite-twenty questions, it was still my turn. Juma’s sunkissed skin paled slightly as my words settled around us and she fidgeted, biting her lower lip in consternation. “You’re on your last life, I cannot imagine the Mistress was too pleased with that fact.” “The Mistress is not pleased with much about me these days,” she replied, dancing around the details of my question with her vague response. “Tell me something I don’t know,” I shot back, my words laden with double entendre. “Okay,” she said, and sipped her coffee and without doing much more than existing, she looked sexy as fuck with her makeup-free face

and still-wet hair. “They’re plotting and planning, and all of it involves me.” “You mentioned that back in the forest of doom,” I replied, refusing to become alarmed by any of Death’s antics, knowing a thing or two about the bullshit she liked to engender. “Yeah, but I was being dismissive back there, Dutch. Playing it off as if it were nothing because I didn’t want you worried, but the last couple of times I’ve been back, folks who have known me since forever have been real funky around me.” “How so?” I asked. “It’s hard to say because no one is talking to me, they’re all talking around me.” “Which is weird in and of itself,” I offered. “Exactly,” she agreed. “Couple that with all the shifty looks and odd comments, and I know something is up. I thought they were going to kill me, but realized how stupid that was—they don’t need to do that, they could just keep me there forever, never allow me to cross again.” “You make it sound like crossing involves paperwork,” I said with a smirk, and she cocked her head. “It kind of does,” she replied, “to the extent there’s a process and it’s rote and if it doesn’t happen, I don’t come back. Plain and simple.”

“What about your friends?” I asked, and at the same time wondered whether she had any friends over there, Juma seemed so solitary on this side of life. “What do they say?” “That’s the beauty of all this and makes me think whatever is going on has been under way since the day the Mistress found my little fiveyear-old body dying on that gurney in that hospital in Atlanta, lying there with half my throat missing—” “Jesus fuck,” I interrupted her without meaning to but couldn’t help myself—I knew she’d suffered something terrible, I just had no idea she was so young when it happened. The words just kind of tumbled out of my mouth. “Jesus is going to fuck you up if he ever meets your brown ass,” she pointed at me and joked, then turned serious again. “I don’t talk about it, because it haunts me. It was violent and scary and hurt like the dickens—trust me, getting shot in the throat is not a day at the park.” I watched Juma set down her coffee cup and press her hands together, and all of her wanted to be talking about anything besides being five and getting shot and I couldn’t blame her. When I was five, I lived on the beach and had a dog named Sawyer, my mornings were spent learning to surf, and at

night I played chess with my grandfather. I sure as fuck wasn’t lying in a hospital somewhere, conversing with Death. “You think she picked you purposely?” I pulled her back into our current story and out of the one involving too-young girls, guns, and Death. She smiled and it was a combo of sadness and relief, and for the time being, considering our most fucked-up circumstances, that wasn’t so bad. “She’ll deny it, but it makes perfect sense. I’m convinced it’s the reason why I, unlike any of my friends, have intimate relationships with the higher-ups in her organization, for lack of a better way to put it.” “Meaning you know people no one else does,” I surmised, then waited for her to continue. “Exactly. Kind of,” she fumbled around, “they’re not exactly people, but, yes, I know things no one else does, and I think that was on purpose.” “That woman, the curvy one you called that afternoon Death attacked us,” I couldn’t recall if Juma had mentioned her name, but holy shit could I recall her ass. “Marina,” Juma replied with a knowing laugh. “She of the fabulous ass. Everyone notices her ass, very few get to touch it.”

“I take it you are one of the very few?” “Oh yes, I am, Dutch, and trust that ass is as squeezable as it looks,” she replied, and we both enjoyed a few seconds of levity. “No other Poocha knows her like I do. We all deal with her, but with everyone else, the relationship is all business: meet with her, she assigns you a Deader, and when you complete your reclamation, she gives you your next one. Then there’s me, the girl who grew up playing in her office, went to the salon with her for pedicures and manicures, chatted late into the night with her about boys and sex. But Marina’s not even the half of it, Dutch. “Remember that weapon I used?” she asked, and I wondered how she thought I could ever forget it. That multipointed star ripped Death to shreds, left her a mess of blood and horror on that floor, and made it a goddamn walk in the park for Juma to rip out her heart. “Yeah, vaguely,” I joked, and she smirked because we both knew nothing about that scene was vague. It was Technicolor and surround sound ten times over. “It’s called an astra and I got it from the Rouxs,” she started to explain. “I don’t even know how to describe them to you except to say they create the magic necessary to be

Death. And they’re animate, like you can see them but you can’t touch them, and yet, they’re not ghosts. There’s energy flowing through them, it pops and crackles and hurts if you try to capture it. And they speak but they don’t, like their mouths never move but you know what they’re saying. “Being around them is both strange and wonderful and I’ve spent years with them, learning their magic and their ways, becoming so intimate, they gifted me the astra and told me to be ready to use it on the Mistress, that I would need to use it on her and to carry it with me always.” “What the fuck, Juma.” “Right,” she laughed, but that wasn’t happiness in the sound. “So goddamned weird. But I had just met you, and the Mistress was being all kinds of nasty and mysterious, and then the shit with my ma and learning the web of lies she wove around me, so their admonition started feeling not so weird. I thought the Rouxs just liked me and maybe wanted someone to let Death know she needed to stop fucking around with folks. So I took that astra and I practiced.” “What do you mean ‘practiced’?” I asked. “Kash knows,” she replied. “I used it on Keepers, he saw me use it on them. Kind of

like test runs until I felt as comfortable with it as I do Simone. But that’s not even the point. The point is after she killed me on the Vineyard that afternoon, and I crossed back and met with Marina, Sayyid—the Rouxs I’ve had the most dealings with throughout my life —I learned that all of what I just told you, every word of it, was orchestrated by her, from the moment I crossed paths with the Rouxs to that fight in my apartment. She planned all of it, every motherfucking step.” I leaned back into the counter, blown away by the enormity of what she was saying, if what she was saying was true. “Let’s say you’re right,” I began collecting my thoughts out loud. “I am right!” she exclaimed, her face a mask of righteous indignation. “Sorry,” I corrected myself. “I’m playing devil’s advocate, not doubting you,” I explained, and she waited to hear what more I had to say. “What’s the end game? What’s she trying to get out of all of this?” Juma crossed her arms and shook her head, watching me as I lit a smoke. “That’s what I can’t for the life of me figure out. I know she’s up to something, she’s always up to something, but nothing makes sense.” “Unless she’s setting you up to be Death,” I

said, but as the words left my mouth, I knew they were foolish. Juma’s laughter suggested she agreed. “You have met her, correct?” she asked, and I knew every word of her question was rhetorical. “Because then you would know there is no way that power-hungry beast is giving up any of her domain to anyone, and sure as fuck not me. She lives for being Death.” “But maybe the Rouxs are the real ones in control?” I suggested. “No sweetness,” Juma disagreed, “that was my first mistake, thinking they were pulling the strings. They are as powerful as she allows them to be—no more, no less. I’m telling you, Dutch, it’s all her, she controls everything. But there’s more.” I ran my hands through my hair, smoked, and grabbed a glass to pour some Scout because I couldn’t imagine what was coming next. “And it’s not good,” she added, and twisted her fingers and fuck. Just fuck. “You say that as if up to this point it’s been all farting unicorns and pretty rainbows.” She snorted and I couldn’t help but smile. I loved Juma snorts. “It’s about you,” she began, then corrected. “Not you per se, but your kind. Keepers. And I

don’t know if this is true, because she was ranting and screaming and threatening to slit my throat with her goddamned fingernail and I was trying to stay small because of the whole one-life-left thing.” “Oh yeah, that thing,” I teased, and appreciated that here and there we could joke about the devastating end of us. Then she grew tense and all of her was serious and I braced myself for the worst. Funny thing was, even when you thought you’d heard it all and you were ready for some bad shit, you hadn’t and you weren’t, and nothing could really prepare you for whatever was coming next. “When you die, Dutch, I know what happens.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: JUMA

I want to greet death with laughter a filthy joke whiskey neat and a smoke I’d learned over years of reclamating Deaders that people fell into two camps: those who feared death and those who did not. Both tended to hold the same ideals, follow similar belief systems, conduct themselves in a mostly moral fashion. The main difference I’d discerned was an ability to maintain a sense of humor and levity when discussing all things end-of-life, something the latter camp did quite well, the former not so much. Speak to both camps, and what you’d quickly learn was a similar distaste for the state of Purgatory. Limbo.

Abeyance. No matter what they called it, no one wanted to be left hanging, unable ever to achieve some rest for their weary soul, forever wandering, no place to curl up, breathe deep, and be at peace. The unknown-ness of it terrified, it was like the black hole of death and no one wanted any part of it. Keepers were no different. Those deadly assassins who lived breathed bled death, over and over, nine times and then, why yes, please, let’s do it all again. Even they wanted finality. All of us did. “What happens, Juma?” Dutch asked, and because I knew him as I knew my own breath, I could tell he was trying to prepare himself for whatever was lingering on the tip of my tongue. “Nothing,” I replied, and it might have sounded as if I were trying to be all mysterious and cute, but I wasn’t. Nothing fucking happened. And he relaxed some of the tension in his shoulders eased he breathed a little deeper because he didn’t know the blank spaces that existed within nothingness, the dark that could exist within light, the terror of uncertainty. Until.

“There’s a room, but it’s not really a room because it’s a construct of her mind and dependent upon what whim has tickled her fancy that day,” I started to explain, and in my mind it made sense but I could tell my words were landing around his feet all scattered and illogical and either I needed to try to explain her to him or I just needed to lay it all bare and let him pick over the bones of another one of her disastrous masterpieces. I chose the latter. “Let me back up and start again,” I offered, and he agreed. “Yes, please do that.” “When Keepers die, unlike the Deaders I reclamate or those folks who stay behind and construct their own afterlife, you all are relegated to a kind of no-man’s-land, a place in between, a room where you just walk in circles.” “What?” He sucked on his smoke and shook his head in disbelief. I ignored his question and posed my own. “What did you think happened?” “What did you think happened?” he shot back, and because I loved him and swore never to play with his emotions, I answered him. “I thought you were treated like anyone

who’s unable to cross back,” I admitted. “You were given a talking-to by Marina and Death about what was expected of you in terms of conduct and morality—not much—and the parameters of your afterlife—pretty much anything but reclamation.” “But instead?” he asked. “Instead—” I twisted my rings and bothered my lower lip. “—it’s just a white room that feels enormous and confining, too bright in the deepest dark, bodies neverending.” “In other words, hell,” Dutch deadpanned. “Her version of hell,” I corrected, “which might change every hour on the hour or never at all.” “Because she’s in control,” he repeated my words from earlier. “Always.” “How’d you learn this?” he tapped an unlit cigarette on the table and asked, and I knew he would hate the answer but we’d come this far, I wasn’t about to start lying to him now. “Because she likes to use you in any way possible to torture me.” I held his gaze as my truths landed between us, the ways she invoked his name in an effort to destroy me, “and so this time around, she wanted me to know where you would wind up.”

I couldn’t bring myself to speak the rest. “When I die,” he finished my sentence for me, putting out there the very phrase I could not. “Fuck her, Juma. It’s this kind of nonsense she and Khan go back and forth about and all of us wind up collateral damage to their bullshit. You yourself agree, she is in control, it’s her rules, she curates everything.” “Yeah, I did say that,” I said, “because it’s true. It’s all her.” “So that room is all her, too.” Dutch pointed at the table and seethed. “She made that room for her own shits and giggles.” I sensed he was about to go off on a rant and then his phone rang out, the sound startling both of us back into the modern world of emails and text messages and all things beep. He slid his finger across the screen and let the call go to voice mail, silenced his notifications, and then turned back to me. “You know what I think, gorgeous?” He stood and put out his smoke, then held out his hand to me and pulled me up from my chair. “I think first we finish with that motherfucker Khan, then we turn our attentions to your cunt-faced boss, and handle her, too.” “A little murder and mayhem, Dutch and Juma style,” I stated aloud. “I like it. So

Mickey and Mallory Knox of us.” “Ha!” he laughed, his head tossed back and all of him full of light and I thought back to that morning I awoke alone in the awful white room on the slab of cold marble with just his photo to convince me it was worth it, that all the madness had some reason. He looked so beautiful in that shot, much like now—loose happy relaxed—and I wanted to capture it in a jar with some holes poked in the lid and keep it on a shelf for me when that moment came and the two of us were no longer one. Instead. “DUTCH! DUTCH! You there?! DUTCH!” I looked around in shock as the voice coughed and crackled and came through the walls via some radio frequency that wreaked havoc on my newly crossed bones and blood and all of me felt ready to rip it out of the walls, if only I knew its origin. “Shit. Hold on.” Dutch squeezed my shoulder and walked toward an ancientlooking hand-carved box on the wall, turned the knob, pushed a button, and spoke. “Where’s the fire, Riz?” “Turn your phone back on. Frist has been trying to reach you all morning,” the voice replied, but Dutch was already dialing her up on his phone.

“Frist . . . hey, hey, hey—stop crying and slow down.” Our gear was tossed on the kitchen table and I started wrapping my holster around my waist as Dutch spoke to Frist, fitted another around my shoulders, sheathed Simone at my hip and two of Dutch’s smaller blades on my back. I knew whatever had happened was bad and we needed to go. I scrolled through my phone, ascertained the coordinates for Dutch’s house, then located my hub in a back room of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela—a quick run from the house. It was an allpurpose hub and would get me anywhere I needed to be, and I thought to myself at least something in this life made sense. Dutch ended his call and, without a word, set about gathering his gear from the collection scattered atop the kitchen table. His favorite holster was tangled around two shoulder holsters, all of it looking like a mess of knotted leather straps. I watched him as he quietly tried unwinding the pieces, all of him determined and focused on the task at hand. Then I saw his hands shake and I moved into his space. “Here,” I said, and took the leather from him, “let me help you.” He waited patiently while I unwound all the leather and rescued

his holster from the pile. He didn’t smoke, he didn’t move, he just watched me, and I knew something was horribly wrong. Moving back in front of him, I wound the dark timeworn leather around his hips, low-slung and not too tight, just as he liked, buckled him, then rested my hands on his hips. When I glanced up, he was watching me, his eyes unreadable pools of dark devastation. He grasped me behind the neck and pulled me closer and I braced for whatever lay before us. “We have to go.” He kissed the top of my head and released me. “Kash died.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: JUMA

He stunned me speechless. And immobile. Dutch moved around the kitchen and ran upstairs, his footsteps overhead loud and determined, and when he returned, I was still standing at the kitchen table, right where he’d left me. “Juma—” He touched my hand, his voice all business and certain. “—come on, gorgeous,” he instructed as he looped a bag across his body, checked his blades once more, and readied to leave. “Dutch,” I finally pushed his name across my lips and he stopped what he was doing. “Where’s your hub? Do you know or is there something I can check for you?” he asked as he approached me, and I wondered at his calm and capability during a moment when I knew he felt as if everything were collapsing around us.

I shook my head and held up my hand, curious as to my inability in the face of all his can-do motion. He took my hand and kissed my fingertips and when our eyes locked, I knew the thread holding all of him together was as thin and frayed as mine. “I know where I need to be,” I gathered myself and replied. “The cathedral. I already mapped it—I know where I’m going. You just worry about getting where you need to be.” He shook his head. “No. I’ll walk you to the cathedral.” “I was going to jog over there,” I replied. “We’ll walk over there together,” he said, and it sounded final. But still. “It’ll be faster if we—” “Juma!” Dutch cut me off and his eyes flashed fire. “Drop it. Kash is dead, so whether we arrive in ten minutes or thirty is not going to make a goddamned bit of difference. Got it?” I wanted to say sorry for all kinds of things too many things everything as he stood there looking dark and dangerous and more devastated than I had ever seen another soul, but I knew the last words he needed to hear were those that might draw attention to his outburst. I was fine with his outburst. Instead, I followed him out the door and watched as he

locked it behind us. “Got it.” I stepped onto the gravel path and into the sunshine. “It’s a nice day for a walk anyway.” Without another word to each other, we headed into town, him lost in his thoughts, me lost in the duplicitous nature of our reality. Everything around us was vibrant and warmed by the sun, so different from our dark and death-filled lives. The brook along the side of the road gurgled around the bend and the air hinted at long hot nights full of laughter and friendship. I wanted to imprint the quiet beauty of this place into my deepest selves, a favorite moment for when I had nothing left but my memories. “That house right there.” Dutch dragged himself out of his grief and back into the moment and pointed to what appeared to be a carriage house. “Once I drop you at the cathedral, I’ll come back here, step in through the side door, probably curse at the Dosha for leaving the place such a fucking mess, and portal back to Kash’s house,” he said, then added, “and you.” I reached for his hand, twined our fingers, and smiled the kind of smile I felt deep in the furthest corners of my soul. He was beautiful and alive and I loved him desperately. And I

knew all of it mattered little, that we were mere pawns in this horrific game, nothing more, but still it bore noting. A little testifying, as my ma would say. Dutch brought my hand to his lips and pressed warmth and tenderness into my skin, and right then I knew if I could prevent him any more hurt, if we could destroy Khan and undermine his reign of torture and terror—no matter the consequences to myself and my nearly nonexistent collection of lives—it would all be worth it. He was worth it. Dutch. My sweet dark dangerous Dutch. We entered the town square looking much like any of the other folks walking about, finishing their pilgrimage, enjoying a beer in the afternoon sun. Just a man and a woman, wrapped in the cocoon of each other, happy and in love. We enjoyed the anonymity of the crowd, getting lost in the nearness of each other, taking the longest route possible to the front steps of the cathedral, where we both stopped and stared. I glanced his way and wondered if he, too, felt that we’d probably never be back here together. I squeezed his hand and he cupped my face and all of him felt like love. He pressed his lips to mine and

swallowed my sob. “Right here. With me. This moment, gorgeous,” he whispered in my ear, kissed my tears, and led the way into the cathedral. We wove through the crowds and disappeared into the back and even though he could have left me right at the front door, I knew he also could not. He needed to watch me disappear and I needed him to know I would see him as soon as I exited the portal. “Back at the house—” Dutch started to speak what sounded like an apology, and I pressed a finger to his full lips. “Just tell me where I’m headed,” I said. “Nothing else matters.” And he kissed my fingertips, then pulled out his phone. “I’m texting you the address to Avery and Kash’s château in Aquitaine,” he explained as he typed. “They have a secret portal on the property, kind of like the one I have back at the house, so I can be there in minutes, but I worry about you.” “Don’t.” I smiled and pulled out my wand and he chuckled low. “You have got to be kidding me.” He took it out of my hand and it throbbed with light and heat as it always did whenever he held it because I think it secretly loved him. “This

piece of junk also serves as a magic carpet.” “This piece of junk does all kinds of things.” I snatched it back with a laugh, and for a couple of beats of time, amazed at the wonder of us, two souls locked in a world of such grief, yet able to find tiny random moments to laugh, share a joke, feel alive. “And will get my fat ass right to your doorstep.” Dutch pulled me to him and kissed me hard. “Do that. Please. I love your fat ass.” He smiled and it suggested all kinds of wickedness and all of me fell for him for the millionth time in our togetherness. He kissed me again, then let me go and I walked toward a black door about ten feet from us. I put my hand on the knob and turned back to him. “No one’s ever watched me enter a hub.” He smiled once more, jammed his hands in his pockets, rocked back on his heels, and looked tall, brown, and gorgeous. “That’s because no one’s ever loved you like I do, princess.” “I really hate that nickname.” “I know you do,” he replied with a smirk because he knew I was lying through my teeth. All of me found it mellifluous when that word rolled off his tongue. My eyes filled as I stood

there and took all of him in one more time and I told myself, Hold it together, Juma. I blew him a kiss and without another moment’s hesitation, stepped into my hub, coming out the other side minutes later to find myself in the middle of a dark movie theater, showing Jean de Florette to a near-empty house. I slipped out the side emergency door and into the bustling village center during an afternoon teatime full of busy sidewalk cafés and fresh fruit vendors. Wandering down to the farthest cart, I bought the most perfect red apple I’d ever seen, then headed down the winding road leading out of town, just another brown girl enjoying the late afternoon sun. After a half mile or so, when all I could hear was the sound of my own footsteps and one random, lonely bird calling to another, I took out my wand, twisted the top to mark the proper longitude and latitude points, pushed it in, and—BAM! I was stretched flat, rolled over, and ironed with the hottest coals while a New Orleans brass band playing off-key and up-tempo blasted in my ears and my eyeballs filled with the fires of hell. Then as fast as it had begun, it mercilessly ended and I was dumped in a painful heap in the middle of a field of swaying green grass and small purple

wildflowers. Ahead of me, up the way looking all majestic and beautiful stood Château de Lunas, a twelve-bedroom, sixteenth-century masterpiece, complete with its own stone-clad chapel and ten-horse stable. Avery and Kash’s home. Kash’s final resting place. My heart hurt just looking at it. Then the rest of me followed suit as the strangest sensation began in my toes and rippled upward and I wanted to scream a warning, text it, anything, but it was too late. I stood in shocked horror and watched as a black ribbon of death wrapped itself around the enormous home and began climbing the façade, pushing its way inside through doors and windows, raining down hell on those who had already suffered too much. The muted concerto of the Black Copse, with Khan Mathew as its new maestro. I considered how prescient we’d been, Dutch and I, standing before that cathedral in Galicia, faces to the heavens, kissed by the sun, and full of a heartbreaking awareness that our time was nigh. We didn’t speak on it, but he and I knew, we simply chose to focus on all our remaining right here, with me, this moment instead. And as that black ribbon of the Copse wove its web of devastation and

death against the backdrop of a beautiful French sunset, I thanked the gods we’d had those last moments together, his touch, my laugh, our broken beautiful smiles. A tear rolled down my cheek and went unnoticed because for seconds or minutes or maybe it was only fragments of moments, it was as if I ceased to exist and I wondered if this was what my final death would feel like or maybe this was my final death or maybe I’d never existed at all. Then a cry from inside the home caught on the wind and reached me in that field, shaking me from my stupor, and where seconds earlier I had been rooted to the green of the earth, I now rushed forth on wings of fury, my tongue breathing fire, my blood a black death all its own. I drew my blades and charged into the middle of the madness, slicing stabbing cutting killing anything moving. They flew at me from every direction, those nefarious bastards of silence and doom, and I sensed they recognized me from that forest of dread and all things evil and on a most basic level, somewhere in their collective psyche existed a growing comprehension that to

continue their campaign of muted death, they would need to kill me first. And it mattered little whether they acted under the auspices of Khan or of their own volition, their magic ran deep and dark and it had metastasized into something far more terrible than any of us could have expected. I slayed as many of those beasts as possible as I made my way toward the house, hacking and clawing at them, my war cry as savage as their silent screams. We danced this death around and around while underneath all that madness a strange shift seemed under way. And where they came at me full of cataclysm and aggression, now they seemed something altogether more horrible. An exodus. Like a black carpet of death they swarmed and where they had once sought my blood on the tips of their steel, they now simply sought to flee. And where they usually seemed so orderly and contained, they now evoked unrestrained disarray, as if they knew not what to do with themselves and so tumbled and tossed all about, running to and fro, willynilly, all in an effort to escape that house on the hill and make for the woods. Hands to my face and blades drawn in protection, I moved through the madness, eyes full of their black

capes and black eyes. Until. His boots caught my eye before the rest of him registered in my awareness because I was overcome and hardly expecting it. Custommade Ferragamo steel-toe shitkickers I had called them that evening on the Vineyard when we all chatted around that dinner table late into the night and I joked that only he could dare to wear such expensive boots and not look a fool. Avery. Dutch’s dearest friend and protector. Caring soul with a deadly roundhouse. Widower. And now captive of Khan and his mute minions. Lofted high atop those waves of black, bloody and unconscious and most likely full of poison, I saw him and watched him being stolen away. And where I was once determined to make it inside that home on the hill, I was now running away as fast as my feet would carry me, straight into the chaos of their evanescence, determined to snatch Avery back from Khan’s clutches. So long as I never lost sight of the white of his shirt, I kept running through that green grass dotted with purple flowers.

And running. And running. Until the last wisps of their black faded into the woods and they were gone. And so was he. I stopped at the tree line, bent over and out of breath, and screamed loud into the evening sky, my rage lifted to the heavens, my grief on display for an audience of none. This was the only way to give it voice, acknowledge the lifetimes of hurt trapped inside myself, and not sink others into the abyss of my heartbreak. I had to grieve when no one was watching. And when there was no more shout left in my lungs and the skies had heard enough of my carrying on, I gathered myself, pulled all the pieces of me tossed about that field back into my body, breathed deep, put one foot in front of the other, and trudged back toward that house. The quiet the Copse had left in their wake was still and devoid of life and as I stood in the bloody remains of Avery and Kash’s home, I felt terror like no other. Everywhere I looked lay bodies dead or dying, and what must have been a house of love and friendship and all things magic was ripped at the seams and covered in the carnage of Khan’s creation. “Dutch!” I called out as I stepped into the

grand foyer, machete in hand and ready, despite the fact I knew the evil beasts had fled, called back from wherever they’d come, leaving behind little more than their foul stench and black blood. Stock-still, I listened to the distinctive sound of steel meeting steel and felt the chill of Keepers and knew whatever battles continued raged between those who’d picked sides long ago in this twisted game of lives. “Dutch!” I called again because I needed to find him and let him know I’d made it to this hamlet in a meadow at the end of a long and winding dusty road near a town of the sweetest fruit and a lonely classic film. I needed him to know I was here and very much in our moment. I needed him. And so I kept myself to the darkened corners of the house, pressed against walls and made small, and continued my search. I called his name again and again until my throat scratched and my ears rang with the sound of steel meeting steel and bodies going thunk. And the old me, that version that had a shit-ton of lives to live, would have stopped to pause on one of those thunks and recalled a night many nights ago when a man full of dark and danger exposed all my vulnerabilities and made me cry, then conveniently collapsed at

my feet. But this me, last-life-to-live me hardly noticed those thunks, this me just kept searching and calling. A flash of lavender outside the window caught my eye and there at the back of the house overlooking a beautiful blue pool and what felt like miles of manicured gardens stood that brilliant woman of science and cunning and mystery with an RPG on her shoulder, a gas mask at her hip, and death in her eyes. Frist. Mowing down the last of the fleeing Black Copse as they tried to escape out the back windows and evade her massive gun filled with weaponized powder, and for a moment I lost myself in the beauty of her one-woman attack. It was like liquid death. Then the moment passed and once again, all of me became about all of Dutch. I crossed back to the foyer and ran up the majestic spiral staircase that soared two floors and appeared to touch the stars. I paused on the cusp of the second floor, and for two beats of a moment, the black of my boots in contrast to the blood red of the floor captured my attention and I thought, Avery definitely did not choose this carpet color, and choked down

a sob. But before I could fall victim to the grief of my memory of his being carried away on the cloud of black death, I took a step forward. And another. And another. And then I heard him. Dutch. I would know his footfall, his breath anywhere. Up up up I went until I found myself alone —so high, I felt able to touch the rafters and kiss the stars. “Dutch,” I whisper-rasped his name into the quiet the still the solitude and wondered whether my desperate mind had conjured him because suddenly he seemed nowhere at all. And I panicked because what if like with Avery, I was too late and he had already succumbed and what I heard was his ghost tickling at the edges of my subconscious? What if he, too, was stolen by those muted motherfuckers? And while I combed this house for a trace of him, he was already strapped to that table back in that palace, suffering all kinds of untold horrors? Fear clouded my judgment as I crept along the hall, weapons drawn, heart cracked and bleeding everywhere, awash in despair for his maybe, maybe-not fate.

Until. My breath trapped in my lungs and all of me ceased motion of any kind and I locked eyes with those reflected back in the mirror across the hall. Dark pools of untold danger that I had known to dance and laugh and express immeasurable love but now remained hooded and betrayed little more than brief recognition. Dutch. He was standing near the back wall of the room to my right, placed in such a way we could see each other reflected in the hall mirror. He fisted his blades in each hand and held my gaze, so still and serious, the only betrayal of emotion a clenching and unclenching of his jaw, and in a flash I gathered he was not in that room alone. I remained rooted to my spot and watched his reflection, blood-splattered and bruised, with a gash splitting his brow and another his lip. Injured but alive. Very - much - in - this - moment alive. And even though part of my soul soared with this realization, the rest of me—that being who rose from the ashes of her despair to kick off her own purposeful reign of death and destruction, dismantling The Gate one Keeper at a time—slipped into the shadows and

reassessed. Because of the design of the room, one way in one way out, I really had only two options: play the aggressor or a game of wait-and-see. I knew which I preferred, but there was Dutch to consider. And he seemed in no position to comment. I ran along the hall toward the back window and looked down into the backyard, that last space I’d seen Frist and her weapon of mass destruction. But she had since taken off and was pacing along the far tree line, giving those monsters the run of their lives—she would not be helping me anytime soon. I turned on my heel, pulled out the small blade on my boot, and grasped it between my teeth. Then I heard him. “You fucking piss-poor waste of space.” The words. The disdain. The goddamned accent I would recognize anywhere. Khan. I stood a little straighter and laughed to myself and thought, This motherfucker really wants to die. Then I took off down the hall to finish that monster once and for all.

CHAPTER TWENTYSEVEN: DUTCH

In a timeline made up of moments that felt far too ephemeral, this one topped the list. So much of Juma and me was too short or never enough, which was why it made perfect sense that the one time I’d prayed our seconds apart would drag out into long minutes into hours maybe more, there she was, standing in the hallway, staring at me with eyes of oblivion. Back in the cathedral in Galicia, as she held that doorknob and looked at me with tears in her eyes, and all of me shattered at her feet because I could not bear her sadness, her voice shook with a tremor and she told me she’d see me soon. And sure enough, that’s what she did. We were apart maybe forty-five minutes. Forty-five very significant minutes made up of quiet condolences and tears, and then Avery and I shut off from everyone to be alone with Kash and our despair, and then everything exploded in a black cloud of the Copse and

Khan. Forty-five fucking minutes. I’d wanted hours. Because Juma had only one life left, and I sure as fuck didn’t want it wasted on these assholes. Because I loved her and wanted to protect her from all things evil. Because Juma was beauty and light and I needed just a few more moments of her. Instead. Those eyes—big and kind-of-brown, kindof-gray, and so fucking intelligent—stared back at me from that classic gilt mirror in the hall. Eyes that didn’t miss a beat, caught even the slightest shift. Eyes that saw all the shit I spent lifetimes burying so deep, even I didn’t know where to find it. Eyes that knew. Right here, this moment—shit was fucked up. No two ways around it. Eyes that let you know she was ready for a little murder and mayhem, care of a manypointed astra and a blade named Simone, so bring it, motherfuckers. Juma might not have known the details of what was happening inside this room, but the way she stood stock-still and held my stare and barely breathed at all let me know she knew it wasn’t good. And that I shouldn’t act

the hero, that this play was a two-person show. And then she was gone. I wanted to shout a warning sound an alarm, do something anything to get her the fuck out of there, send her far far away, but I didn’t dare. I remained as is, motionless, and seemingly focused inward so as not to deflect attention from myself and place it elsewhere. On her. Or in her vicinity. Because the truth of it was, right now, while Juma remained on the other side of the four walls of this room, doing whatever she was out there doing, Khan and his fuckboys had no idea she even existed. Khan and his fuckboys thought it was all about them. “It is amazing to me how the simplest of tasks when dealing with you requires mountains of effort.” Khan paced and panted, and all of him looked like a caged beast despite the fact this motherfucker was free as a bird. He kept running his hands up and down the end of his leather whip and I couldn’t help wishing a little of its black magic would seep into his skin and rot him from the inside out. Then I laughed to myself because that asshole was already rotten through and through. “What the fuck is so funny, Dutch?” “I was thinking about how decrepit you are inside,” I replied, my tone conversational and

light, as if I weren’t in a room outnumbered fourteen to one, looking right into the face of certain death. “Shut the fuck up,” he bellowed, and cracked his whip and opened the side of my face. Much to his chagrin, I pretended it was no big thing, and even though it hurt like a million little fires lit up my cheek, thanks to Shema, his magic could do me no more harm than it did himself. I, too, was immune to the darker arts of The Gate. “I can’t decide if I should kill you now, or bring you back to the palace and strap you to that table once more for posterity’s sake.” “Without Veda there to assist you, I would imagine it wouldn’t be the same,” I replied, invoking my dearly departed twisted sister, knowing it would break him and infuriate him and get under his skin like nothing else. “Don’t worry, she didn’t suffer. Much.” Crack. To the other side, this time a deep gash to my brow. “You don’t know the meaning of ‘suffer,’ Dutch,” Khan hissed, and recoiled his whip. “I’ll show you the meaning of ‘suffer.’” “You’ll have to kill me here because there’s no fucking way you’re getting me back in that goddamned palace.”

Khan stared at me and then laughed. And when his fuckboys realized it was okay to join in the merrymaking, they started laughing as well. But it was a nervous sound and I knew Khan—in seconds he would become annoyed. “Shut up!” he shouted in their direction, and they quieted and some quaked and all of them looked nervous and not sure what to expect from their madman leader. “How do you blindly follow this asshole?” I asked no one in particular and all of them at once as the room fell into a hushed silence. I knew they would say nothing, I simply wanted the words out there for Khan to sit and stew over and go a little crazy about the fact he could not bend me to his will. And it struck me how similar Juma and I were to one another, both locked in battles of wills with forces so central to our lives, so full of unchecked power and hungry for the capitulations of our souls at their feet. The god of fuckery, that asshole I was going to have some words with whenever I escaped that despair-riddled white room Juma educated me on, definitely had his fingers all over whatever magic brought Juma and me together. I only wish we could have figured out why. “‘Blindly follow?’” Khan asked, then ripped out another laugh. “Is that what you think of

them, Dutch? Mr. Moral Authority and All This - Killing - Hurts - My - Soul? That I’ve somehow bullied them into being here, standing at my side? That by my side isn’t exactly where they want to be, near the seat of power, helping to steer The Gate into tomorrow?” I’d lived through hundreds of these moments before, where Khan got to lecturing and listening to the sound of his voice and falling in love with the bullshit he spewed, and maybe if I were able to remain quiet and let him finish, much of my life would have been different. But fuck that shit. “Follow or die seems to be the way it works around you,” I replied, and shifted slightly to the right as a few of the fourteen inched my way. I knew most of them, had known some of them my entire life, as they’d been family friends and around since I could recall, ties going back generations, long lines of interwoven bullshit. Others seemed fresh and new, like eager puppies with little desire beyond pleasing the master. All of them were motherfucking assholes upon whom I wished long and agonizing deaths. “I’ll tell you who’s going to be doing some following around here, Dutch,” Khan spun suddenly and bellowed, “you are, because we

have unfinished business!” “Fuck you, Khan,” I spat, and fisted my blades, ready. “Fuck me?” he asked with a laugh as he paced, and snapped his whip at my feet and I realized that without Veda around to do his dirty work, laugh, and call him Daddy, Khan seemed older and not so larger-than-life. The rage that had fueled him all those years, twisted his brain, carved out his heart and served it up in some devil’s deal he signed many lifetimes ago, all of it remained, but now it made him appear almost comical in his ranting. And maybe that was partly due to the fact he’d already taken so much from me, there was little else I feared at his hand. But the other side of the coin was that now, I, too, had taken something from him. We weren’t equals, but I had definitely earned a notch in his belt of pain. And it might have been anathema for him to admit, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t the goddamned truth. I knew it, and so did that bastard. And that knowledge gave me a spark of hope. Not that I would make it out of this room alive, nor would he. But Juma might escape, and that’s all that really mattered. Because, yeah, she and I talked around her last life and

pretended her death was something we could manage and be okay with. And all the beautiful moments we had together made our permanent parting less devastating. Plus, we were bringing down The Gate and Khan and all things evil and dark, so losing her was understandable and justifiable and maybe even expected. We got it. We understood her death was a result of being mere pawns in this game of lives. Truth be told, though, there was not one fucking thing manageable about a life lived without Juma in it. Not one. But I could never tell her that, because I didn’t want her doing in the shadows and away from me what I knew she would do anyway— try to protect me, save me from a fate I could never outrun no matter how much evil she destroyed. I knew if she saw me breaking apart over her deaths, losing pieces of myself every time I lost another piece of her, that she would slip from my side at night or stay away for longer periods of time to hunt and stalk and kill. I wanted whatever moments we had left to be spent together, and so I pretended I could handle losing her, that the lives we’d lived together were enough. But there would never be enough Juma

Landry. Never. I could be promised every morning, noon, and night with that woman for eternity and I would argue for more. So yeah, standing there trapped in a game of too many against one, in that home ransacked and ravaged by dread and doom, a tiny part of my dark heart cracked open and let in a little light because there was a slim-tonothing shot that motherfucker Khan was done. His reign of terror would come to an end in this room of oversized Renaissance paintings, golden candelabras, and Versace rugs, and someone else would take over and although I had no idea who that individual might be, at least it wouldn’t be a goddamned, cursed-as-fuck, blackhearted Mathew. Sparks of hope. One day someone would write a poem of the man with the spark and the hope and how the two came together and led him to entertain feats of greatness and bravery and inspired him to believe in the impossible, and what a dangerous state of grace that was. One day someone would whisper the truth: that neither the spark nor the hope were the roads less traveled, they were the ones to avoid at all costs.

One day wasn’t today. “Yes, Khan,” I replied, “fuck you,” and as one of the fuckboys tried to slip into the shadows behind me, I slid my blade across its throat and silenced it forever, all without taking my eyes off the rest of those spineless bastards in that room. Khan raised a brow and nodded in my direction. “Somewhere buried under all the bitching and moaning and pussy antics lives a killer after all.” “The Mathew blood runs deep in these veins,” I replied, and his eyes flashed and I knew without speaking her name, his mind filled with his precious Veda and her death at my hands. “Like I said, she didn’t suffer—it’s not really my preferred style when bringing an end to my victims, Veda included because, yes, Daddy,” and here I imitated her voice and her very special way of saying “Daddy,” my inflection so very her, “your precious Veda was one of my victims.” He charged into me, cutting off my Vedafilled soliloquy when he could bear to hear no more. For an old man, Khan moved fast and still wielded the strength of an ox in those bones. I landed in the wall with a thud, the air momentarily knocked out of me and per all our other father–son moments, he used this

one to pound his heavyweight-fighter fists into my sides. Bap! Bap! Bap! Fast and powerful, made-you-see-stars kind of painful. But that fucking spark of hope. Made me let him keep going because I knew he would tire and he would do so faster than he expected and when he did, I would kill him. Just as I’d killed Veda. I wouldn’t announce that shit or make a big thing about it. I would just let him wear himself out on my body, my thirty-plus-years-younger body that was lean and strong and had lifetimes of training under his very hands to withstand whatever he dished out. And when he was breathing hard and needing a break to rebuild his energy and begin again, I would drag my blade across his throat. Just as I had Veda’s. Because he didn’t expect it. And because hope. I had a little of it—that goddamned spark— and was going to use it to my advantage. And all of it was going to be to Khan’s disadvantage. So I let him pound away at me because his time was coming. The clock on his cesspool of a life was ticking down. Until. “Khan!” That voice. I knew it well.

My uncle Darsh. Khan’s youngest brother, just twelve years older than I. We were closer in age but couldn’t be further in disposition and stature. Where I stood tall and lean, he was short and fat. My speed and capability as a Keeper seemed only to highlight his ineffectiveness and worthlessness as a Ren. And he hated me for all of it. Which was perfectly fine because the feeling was mutual. I despised that motherfucker the second I exited the womb, promptly vomiting all over him the first time he held me. “Yar!” he bellowed into Khan’s hunchedover back. “Take a look,” and his voice sounded smug and dangerous and somewhere in the depths of all my darkness, that spark of hope flickered and fought. “This one’s a goddamned beauty, she is.” And then went out forever.

CHAPTER TWENTYEIGHT: DUTCH

do not speak to me of darkness and evil and things that go bump in the night for I have spent lifetimes shrouded in black nightmares have throbbed a beat in my veins and moonsets have trembled upon the mere mention of my name only speak to me of her with her darkness is light evil is magic and the nighttime is for all kinds of tenderness and touch with her there is life moments full of laughter

and everything matters with her I am home

CHAPTER TWENTYNINE: DUTCH

Merriam-Webster defines “déjà vu” as “something overly or unpleasantly familiar.” Then as a courtesy to its readers, the dictionary gives an example of the phrase in a sentence: “The team’s poor start to the season was déjà vu for its long-suffering fans.” I wonder if that example would remain the same if the good folks at Merriam-Webster walked in my shoes? “She” was Juma. As soon as Darsh uttered his “This one’s a goddamned beauty,” I knew it was her. Even though I told myself that if I didn’t look, it wouldn’t be her, or if I made Khan remain focused on me, it wouldn’t be her, or if I didn’t hear her voice or her breath or her footsteps, it wouldn’t be her. I still knew it was her. Juma. Always Juma. Even when I didn’t want it to be Juma, it

was. Khan straightened and stood tall, and where seconds earlier he had punched the energy and life out of himself, now he seemed bright and refreshed. His eyes flashed death and despicable acts, and I recognized it all because I’d seen it before, played nine times over many moons ago, in a small Mexican apartment on a quiet lonely street where my youth perished in a vortex of screams and blood and all things horrific. But I was young then, and so new to the ways of evil and Keepers and all things The Gate. And Shema was at his side with her hands of black magic and her look-the-otherway eyes. And Kajal was by no means Juma. No one was Juma. So I grabbed the knives that had fallen to the floor and I reached him before he could reach her, slashing and stabbing his chest and arms with vengeance and fury, determined to render him sliced and diced and full of screaming pain. His shirt turned red with the blood I drew as he held his chest in shock and cursed. And his fuckboys attacked just as I had known they would, but I had already landed my fatal blow. Plus, I was ready for those bastards. Under over and around I moved, too fast for them to know where or when I would

attack, dropping them like the motherfucking flies they were, immune to and unaware of the slashes and gashes to my body, my blood splattering everything, a most deadly masterpiece in the making. All to reach her, assuming she needed my help. I knew nothing of her state—I still had not looked her way because I was certain to do so would be the end of me. Instead, I remained a ball of furious fierce motion, cutting and stabbing, moving everywhere, never stopping. Killing. Killing. Killing. Until I got their numbers down to eight, a fight I could handle with ease. Until the only sound filling my ears was that of their dying moans. Until. “One more move, Dutch, and she is dead,” Khan growled into my consciousness. “Don’t stop, Dutch!” Juma shouted over him. “Kill them all.” Then I heard him hit her. And I knew I should have listened to her and kept slashing and attacking until all of them were felled by my knives and their blood soaked the walls and floors, but that sound. His fist meeting her cheek, steel into soft and the crack of bone. I

knew that sound, it kept me up nights and woke me from sleep, it fueled my rage and lived in my blood. I couldn’t not hear it. I couldn’t not stop all forward motion. It was my sound. Not hers. And he knew it. The remaining fuckboys were on me in seconds, and had me splayed, arms wide, legs kicked apart, immobile and at my weakest. Basic training, day three as a Keeper for The Gate. “Tie her up,” Khan said to Darsh without taking his eyes off me, “to the wall. And make it tight.” Juma lashed out at Darsh, bit and scratched him, kicked and flung about, until he stabbed her in the rib cage with his short knife and abruptly put an end to her fight. I knew her—there was no way she would scream and afford anyone the gift of her pain —but her eyes registered shock and a touch of horror and all of me wanted to kill everything moving. Thing of it was, I’d played this game before and already knew fighting only made it worse. “Khan,” I shouted, “let her go and do what you will with me! I killed James and Veda, I’m the one you want, not her.”

Khan placed his hands on his hips and stared, as if he were considering me for the first time when he and I both knew he never considered me at all. “I must admit, Dutch, as often as I’ve bemoaned the fact you are my son and sole heir to all this power, as much as I despise the air you breathe into your lungs and exhale back into the world, I admire your gift for gab.” “This is no gab,” I promised. “I swear, I will do whatever you like, just let her go. There is no need to start any needless nonsense between The Gate and Death when you and I can settle our differences, just the two of us.” Darsh finished tying Juma up and came to stand next to Khan, the two of them looking like a brown, sinister version of Abbott and Costello. “Ready to see how many lives this pretty thing has left?” Khan asked his brother. “No!” I shouted, and although I knew better, I fought the fools holding me down. “Do not fucking touch her.” Khan laughed. “The symmetry of this moment begs me to touch her. It’s Kajal all over again. I mean, look at her, Dutch,” and here he moved out of the way so Juma and I had unimpeded views of each other. She mouthed to me that she was okay, and I was

sixteen all over again. “I almost wish Shema were here to see this—she would be amazed at the similarities. And disgusted by the fact our son the Keeper has a sick obsession with fierce, independent, beautiful Poochas.” Khan ran a finger down Juma’s cheek as she closed her eyes and moved as far from him as she was able. I kicked and spat and fought like hell as I called upon the gods and even begged for Shema and her magic, anything to put an end to this nightmare. And somewhere in the mix of all that madness and indiscriminate fury, the red of my rage, I heard her calling to me, begging me to calm. “Dutch.” Juma said my name and it sounded like love and time and tenderness, and we had no more of the latter and lifetimes of the former, but I couldn’t bring myself to focus on any of it, I was too far gone. And still, she persisted. “Dutch. Please. Dutch, listen to me.” “Son,” Khan spat the false endearment, drowning out her voice, his lips curled in a wide smile, “I believe this is what they call life coming full circle,” and he grabbed a fistful of Juma’s hair and bared her throat as his free hand fisted a shiny blade and I shouted and begged as my ears filled with his maniacal

laughter. And underneath all the noise, the sheer insanity, Juma called to me. “Dutch.” Her quiet incantation became a steady beat in my blood until I calmed and stilled and all of me became focused on her and she knew it, she could feel it. And even though her head was pressed into the wall at the most awkward angle, she found me in that room and we locked eyes. “Right here, Dutch. With me. This moment,” she pleaded, and I did exactly as she said and I stayed right with her, in the moment. I stopped fighting and listened to her and intermingled in all the many right here, with me, this moments she uttered, lived our goodbyes. Our love. Our kisses and laughter. All of it existed in the spaces and the breaths and the silences. And because I loved her more than I had ever loved anything in my life and wanted her to believe I would be okay, that I would survive this madness, I held her gaze as Khan drew his blade across her throat and I watched as the life poured out of her and her eyes closed and her head sagged gently to the side and she took one final gasp and died. And

even though I knew she was gone, I could not bring myself to turn away from her. She was my love and my life and all things good, she made the impossibles of my existence possible, she breathed light and laughter into my darkness. She was my everything. Nothing or no one could make me turn away from her. In life. Or death. So I stood and I watched her and I waited, and when her skin turned ashen and began to flake, a telltale sign she’d suffered her final death, Khan turned to me, shrugged his shoulders, and laughed. “Well, that was too goddamned easy. I suppose she’s not like Kajal after all.” Then he gathered his fuckboys and they departed and I pulled myself together, untied her body from the wall, and sank to the floor with her in my arms.

CHAPTER THIRTY: DUTCH

There was no timeline for grief, no maps, no patterns. When it ripped through you, it was as if everything stood still and moved too slow and moved too fast, and all of it became nothing. Where you began and where you ended were immaterial, because your existence was beholden to nothing but grief. I had no idea how long I remained on that floor with Juma in my arms, I only remember being touched and shrinking into myself and holding her tighter only to find she had become more ash than body, and watching as parts of her became part of me, her ash blending into my skin until it was impossible to know where she began and I ended. And by and by, all that remained were the physical things, the clothes and jewelry and belt, parts of the whole woman, details that mattered little until they were all I had. “Dutch.”

I looked up from my now-empty hands to find Frist, my lavender-haired mad scientist kneeling before me with glassy eyes and a tremble in her lip. I reached out and touched her hand and her cheek, and then wiped the wet of her tears. “You know I hate it when you cry, Frist,” I said with gravel in my voice, and she laugh-cried and held my hand and I felt like dying all over again. Instead. “Come on.” I kissed Frist’s hand and pocketed Juma’s necklace, took a deep breath and stood. And when I did, the morning light filtering in through the windows captured the ash that fell from my clothes and floated in the air, and it glinted and glittered as if it were dusted with magic and all of it seemed so very Juma. I caught Frist watching me and I smiled because even though I felt like death, there was life that needed to be lived, promises that needed to be fulfilled, shit that needed to be handled. And it couldn’t get done if I was falling apart. “Where are we going?” Frist asked, and pulled me out of my head and my thoughts and Juma. Juma. Juma. I paused and gathered my words and told

myself I could speak them, I would speak them, and it would be okay. “Dutch?” Frist touched my arm and considered the action before doing so, and I loved her so much in that moment because even though it was okay for her to touch me, I could handle it without lashing out, I appreciated her thoughtfulness. In a lifetime filled with thoughtless acts, it was the tiny kindnesses that made all the difference. “You okay?” “Yeah,” I replied and lied, and she knew it was a lie, but she went along with it anyway. “I’m okay. I just need a second,” I said, and walked away from her and toward the wall where Juma had been tied. The red of her blood caught my eye and suddenly I needed to be close to that wall. And I knew it had been hours since she was bound there and her blood had dried ages ago, but I pressed the flat of my palm to the wall and closed my eyes anyway, and for a few beats of time, felt close to her again. The nearness was all in my head but such details were irrelevant. What mattered was the space and the fact it was the last place she had been alive. I needed to touch it. Then I could move on. Long minutes later, when I turned back to face Frist and let her know what we needed to

do next and why and how, because I knew she would ask all those questions because Frist always asked those questions, there stood Rani. The two of them so quiet, one so tall and pale and purple and the other so tiny and brown and black, both of them watching me with eyes I couldn’t read and didn’t bother trying. Face-to-face again with the diminutive Keeper, my ages-old nemesis turned halfnemesis, I recalled our last conversation where she commented on Juma’s love for me and how it kind of made her skin crawl, and then I stopped myself because I couldn’t go down that road yet and make it back alive. Instead. “I see you got your hand.” I nodded in her direction and she lifted it and almost-smiled. “I told you,” she replied, “I know a guy.” “I thought you were going back home to watch Khan,” I maybe accused her, maybe didn’t. “That’s exactly what I did,” she shot back maybe defensive, maybe not, “until it was time to deal with the hand,” and she raised it again as if to prove her point. I furrowed my brow and noted. “Heavy price to pay for a hand.” “That’s the same fucking thing I said,” Rani replied, then looked around and added, “He

said none of this was the price.” We let those words settle around us for a few seconds, the enormity of their truths a black cloud that could weigh us down, if we allowed it. But as I said, I had promises I fully intended to keep, so black cloud or no, soul collectors and their foreshadowing, it was time to get going. “I told you not to fuck with that guy,” I maybe joked, and Rani rolled her eyes and neither of us looked happy but both of us looked all right with the presence of the other. “Fuck you, Dutch,” she replied, then turned to me and added, “And you did warn me, but if we’re going to right the wrongs of this world, and rescue fancy-ass Avery while we’re at it, I’m going to need a hand.” I shot her a look and was about to make some asshole comment or another when she and Frist crossed the threshold of the room and walked down the hall, and for several long quiet seconds where all I could hear was the beat of my heart and the sound of my breath, I remained rooted to the spot. Unable to move forward or backwards, just stuck, and I knew it was because this room was the last place Juma breathed and spoke and lived, I just couldn’t admit it yet. Frist turned back and stopped walking and

waited. And when I didn’t join them, she spoke. “I saw her, Dutch. She was running across the field, charging straight into the madness of the Black Copse’s departure, and I watched her kill anything moving. She was chasing Avery. And she almost got him.” First smiled at the memory and I envied her that vision and not the one that made up my last of Juma. “So let’s bury Kash and go get Avery,” and here my face must have flashed every worry I held for my best friend, “even if we’re too late, we’re bringing him home so he and Kash can be together.” I saw Rani and Frist ahead of me, waiting patiently, and I heard Frist and the words she spoke, and inside my head a voice explained to me to put one foot in front of the other and then the other and then the other, but I couldn’t make myself leave the room. Because the other voice in my head kept saying it could feel her everywhere, this was her space, her ashes littered the rugs and her blood painted a tapestry on the wall. And even though I did not want to succumb to a macabre milieu of dust and gore and last-breaths-taken, I felt it happening. “DUTCH!” I jumped, yanked out of my dark reverie.

“Stop acting like a pussy and get the fuck out of that room,” Rani shouted, “before I walk back there and drag you out! And you and I both know what happens when I’m forced to touch you.” I stared at the tiny Keeper long and hard and wondered where she got off speaking to me in that tone, using those words, threatening me. I’d been so good about keeping my feelings for her in check and under control. I’d even joked around with Rani a little, tried to keep things light between the two of us. But for real, I goddamned despised her. And she knew it. She knew her voice grated on my last nerve and made my ears ring with murder and mayhem. She knew she rattled me. And now she would have to deal. I crossed the threshold and headed in her direction, my stride steady and determined, all of me wanting all of her dead. Her birdlike neck was the perfect fit for my hands, easy to wrap my long fingers around, give it one nice, long squeeze and—snap!—no more Rani. These thoughts filled my head as I neared her, and I could tell she sensed what I was thinking, her eyes betrayed a hint of fear mixed with a little panic because unlike all the other times she’d bullied me or taunted me

with her voice and her words, this time neither James nor Juma was around to prevent me from putting a very finite ending to her bullshit excuse of a life. Then it hit me. I’d left the room. Thanks to Rani and all her fuckery, I crossed out of that terrible space I’d shared with Juma. And even though part of me died back there, I managed to escape with enough of me left intact to finish what Juma and I had begun that first night we spied each other in Frank’s. “Fuck you, Rani,” I growled as I passed her in the hall and made my way downstairs. I could feel both Frist and her watching me take the staircase two steps at a time, winding my way to the main floor, and when I reached the bottom, I looked up, smiled a smile full of death and danger, and gave her the finger. Rani rolled her eyes and almost-smiled, then spat over the ledge instead. “Fuck you, Dutch.” And even though damn near all my life felt finished and what wasn’t would never be the same again, I thanked the gods above and took comfort in the persistent and consistent bullshit of one Rani Rao.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE: JUMA

“Juma! Come! Now!” Marina barreled into me as I walked down a hallway that seconds earlier had felt so familiar, covered with Picassos and Mapplethorpes, artwork I’d spent hours lying beneath and contemplating as a teenager during the quiet moments I spent alone in Death’s realm, but was now miles long, narrow and dim, lit only by sporadic naked bulbs casting an eerie low light. The air chilled and goose-bumped the skin on my bare arms, and where the walls had once been a soft linen I’d loved running my fingers along as I slowly made my way wherever I was headed, now they appeared to bleed. “Is this my final resting place, Marina?” I asked with a tremor in my voice as I realized the hall was everything I could not bear. “Has the Mistress decided this shall be my hell? After all the years I loved her and devoted

myself to her, is this how I am to spend the rest of eternity?” I asked as the sob that escaped my lips quickly turned into a fullblown panic attack. I dropped to the floor and leaned into the bloody wall, my tears coming fast, my breath faster. “Juma.” Marina took my tear-streaked face in her warm hands and made me see her. “Listen to me, mami.” But I was past the point of hearing much of anything anyone in this place had to say to me. I had just died my final death, and quite frankly, they could all fuck themselves. “She has left me a world with no light, no art music books. She has stolen everything I loved and even that is not enough for her,” I cried. “What will she steal next? My memories?” Because I knew and Marina knew I knew. The Mistress could do it. She would do it. I had seen her do it to others. Day by day, a layer of themselves taken away, one detail at a time, until nothing remained and they were but a whimpering pile of flesh and bones in the middle of the floor. It was a hell far worse than anything Dante had conjured and the Mistress took pride in every long, neverending, tortuous second of it. This hallway was only the beginning, of

that I was certain. “Juma, I need you to listen to me, okay?” Marina asked, and all of her looked kind and soft, and she was so warm to touch, but I knew better. “No!” I pushed her away from me. “I spent years listening to you, believing you loved me and that was why you spent time with me, cared for me in ways you didn’t care for anyone else around this place. I thought I was special,” and as the words fell from my lips, I laughed at their foolishness, “when really, I was just a goddamned fucking idiot.” Marina’s eyes filled with tears as my words hit her in all the places I wanted them to hit. “You are a liar of the worst sort,” I hissed through my tears. “I expect the Mistress to be so duplicitous, she knows no other way. It is her nature. But you? You, Marina, have broken my heart beyond repair. In this place of darkness and despair and all sorts of ends-ofthe-road, I thought you loved me. But you are no better than she.” And as I sat there and cursed her, called her all sorts of horrible names, accused her of all things terrible, Marina listened to every word. And cried. “Stop shedding your bullshit tears,” I demanded. “All it makes me want to do is rip

off your head and stomp your face. I feel nothing for you and your sadness except pity and disgust. Years, Marina! Years of coming to you, seeking your advice and your comfort, and all along you were in cahoots with her, plotting some savage end for me. Go!” I stood and shouted and all of me seemed to take up the hallway as my sudden rage filled the space and threatened to burst everything at the seams. “Oh, please, Juma. Do stop all this carrying on, it’s giving me a goddamned headache.” Death crossed her arms and looked bored with the scene playing out before her eyes. She then glanced down at Marina and said with a sneer, “And you, I told you I would come find her. I knew you would go soft like this, crying and letting your precious Juma manipulate you into all sorts of nonsense.” “SHUT UP!” I shouted, and flew at her, but Death was faster and had me around the neck and against the wall in seconds flat. “Relax, Juma, and I will loosen my grip as I imagine after having your throat slashed, this is not the most pleasant experience.” She smiled as she spoke, and I hated her for it. “Only because you so deem it,” I choked out. “Who the fuck else is forced to bring their suffering from life into death but me?”

“Language, Miss Thing,” she said with a sneer, and held me tighter. “Fuck you!” I spat, and much to my surprise, Death released me. “And for the record, Juma,” Death spoke, and for the first time in what felt like forever, all of her looked soft around the edges and everything about her felt sincere, “it is not only you. The death scar—” And here she touched her throat in the same place as my scar. “I would never do that to you. All of you carry them, every Poocha who has suffered a final death. It is something I have fought the Rouxs on since I can recall leaving behind my life as Giselle and becoming Death, and have yet to be able to convince them otherwise. They are fucking bastards and angry I can kill them with impunity, so wield what little power they have over me whenever they are able. Final death scars are unfortunately their domain.” “Why are you telling me this?” I asked as she turned on her heel and walked down the hall, uninterested in me and my questions. “Marina!” Death shouted without turning back to us, “bring her and let’s go. I am antsy and there is a tall, dark, beautiful man on a beach with lots of sun and very little clothing awaiting my arrival.” Then without another word, she was gone. I stared hard down the

long hall and wondered where she’d disappeared to now. Rolling my eyes, I turned back to Marina, opened my mouth to speak, but no sound came out. I was shocked into silence. Gone was the bloody-walled hall of naked lights and endless dread, and in its place were my Mapplethorpes and Picassos, all my favorite chairs to curl up on and read a book, miles of shelves covered in my treasured novels and collections of poetry, and beloved, beaten-up, dog-eared dictionaries everywhere. A low table littered with Frida Kahlo’s artwork and her diary occupied space with a sewing table and a gorgeous old Singer machine, while “In a Sentimental Mood” wafted through the air and my treasured photo of Thelonious Monk hung on a nearby wall. Whiskeys from around the world, buckets of cherry ChapStick, vases full of tulips. So much of my life and my memories and my loves lay scattered everywhere, preserved and well maintained by her, for me. I wanted to cry and laugh and cry again as I took in the endless space of hundreds of moments that mattered to me. And then I saw it. In a corner left to itself, spare and

beautifully lit, curated with such perfection, it could only have been done with much love and time and attention, was my life with Dutch. Private moments and quiet moments, laughter and tears. My photos mixed with other shots made up of my memories of him and me and us. So much time and tenderness, so many of the moments I held in my heart, all there for me. Saved. Forever. I left Marina and walked into the space and time fell away as all of me, this new me, the version that would never be allowed to cross back and touch or kiss him again, would never feel his breath on my skin or hear his low laughter, that me fell to her knees and succumbed to the loss of him. “Dutch.” I’d told myself I wouldn’t say his name aloud because then it was all too real, but sitting in this space, surrounded by him, I couldn’t help myself. I needed to say it and not just in my head, but loud. And clear. My voice needed to vibrate with the one syllable that held so much of me in it. “Dutch.” I bent over and sobbed and thought of him and our last moment together, his eyes never

leaving mine, as I died tied to that wall like an animal. And as much as I hated knowing that his final memory of me was so brutal and tortured, I also loved knowing that in the end we stayed true to our promise to each other: Right here. With me. This moment. “Juma.” Marina’s gentle voice called me out of my despair. “We have to go, baby girl. The Mistress and the others are waiting.” I sat up, wiped my face, and caught sight of my favorite shot of Dutch. The one from my apartment that morning, his head tossed back and laughing, the light kissing the hollows of his cheek and the line of his jaw, the smoke from his cigarette curling around him just so. It was the shot that inspired me to rise from death all those weeks ago, cross that white room alone, and face whatever my future held. And it did so again as I glimpsed it and heard his voice in my ear: Let’s do this, gorgeous. I turned to Marina and stood and asked, “What others?” and she held out her hand and smiled, and suddenly I was ten again and sad and crying about something or the other, and she came to me and smiled and promised to make it all better. “Just come,” she replied, and even though my thirty-six-year-old self knew there was nothing she could do this time to make it all

better, I took her hand anyway and together we walked.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO: JUMA

I am love the magic wild unrestrained kind of love that keeps you up at night and makes mornings worth rising for I am love and I am yours

CHAPTER THIRTYTHREE: JUMA

We walked in silence for what felt like miles and unlike every other time Marina had led me down hallways and passageways I’d never before seen and I asked a million and one questions about the whats wheres and whys of the route, this time I didn’t care. I was too caught up in Dutch and that room of memories. “Did the Mistress do that?” I asked, and before I could explain myself, Marina answered. “Yes.” “Why?” “Because she loves you.” “But she hates Dutch,” I replied, and Marina stopped walking and made me do the same. “The Mistress has never hated Dutch,” Marina said as she touched my hair and her eyes scanned my face and all of it felt very

maternal. “Long before you and Dutch crossed paths, the Mistress came upon him dying some horrible death in some hovel on a back alley in Havana and she saved him because she knew.” “Knew what?” I asked. “That she wanted to fuck him?” Marina laughed and even though I didn’t want to join her, I couldn’t help myself. “Yes, knowing her, and knowing him”— Marina raised an all-knowing brow —“probably. But it was more than simple sex appeal. She knew he was special, different. Unlike all the others. So please, dismiss this idea that she hates Dutch. She might hate that you love him as you do—” And here Marina smiled and all of her felt like the old Marina, the one who loved me something fierce. “—but she doesn’t hate him. Not at all.” “She hates me,” I despaired, and surprised even myself at the sadness in my voice. “Oh sweet baby girl, you have no idea.” Marina kissed my cheek and her eyes filled as she tugged on my hand and we started walking again. Two iron doors down and one chainlink fence away, which even Marina found bizarre but neither of us said a word because it was the Mistress and this was her world, we found ourselves before a building that rose from the dust and I swear to the gods above,

looked exactly like the Supreme Court of the United States. “What the fuck?” I whispered, and Marina laughed. “She’s become very obsessed with all things jurisprudence.” Marina rolled her eyes and pushed open the door and despite what the building looked like on the outside, the inside was a whole other story. “Good fucking god,” I said under my breath, and Marina pinched my side and snapped, “Language,” as we walked up the aisle carpeted in a thick, sink - your - foot - five - inches leopard-print shag rug straight out of Pimp Style 1971. “She’s also reliving the seventies,” Marina added. We entered a smoke-filled room of lava lamps and free love, bean bags and sexy music, and I turned to Marina and shot her a look because for real, this was some bullshit. I didn’t need any of this. I needed time alone to contemplate my new self and all the ways I would keep myself busy and occupied to avoid succumbing to the loss of my parents and my freedom and Dutch. Always Dutch. What I did not need was a room full of people fucking each other while Marvin Gaye

crooned about getting it on. “I am out of here.” I turned on my heel and prepared to leave. Where to, I had no idea, but definitely out of here. “Leaving so soon, Juma?” The lights came up and Death stepped into view and where there had been a room full of men and women doing all sort of things to each other’s bodies, and moans and sighs and so many too many “I’m going to comes,” now it was just me, Marina, the Rouxs, and Death. Gone was the music, the smoke, the leopard shag rug, and in their place was a long, mahogany table straight out of a New York City “big law” conference room in the sky. And seated on one side of the table were the Rouxs, many of whom I knew, a few I didn’t. Marina took a seat at the near end of the table and instructed me to sit opposite her. Death watched everything from atop a black leather barstool, a few inches above everyone, undoubtedly on purpose. I glanced up and down the room, cocked my head to the side, and hesitated. “I’ll stand.” Death smiled and it reached her eyes and after so many months of stepping around her foul moods and nasty temper, the woman standing before me, looking beautiful and

warm, seemed more deadly than ever. “I think you should sit, Juma,” she replied, and nodded to the seat. “Life contains a few moments when you should be sitting, and this is one of them.” “But I’m dead,” I replied, and she laughed and I forgot how much I loved the sound of her laughter and wondered if I was about to embark upon an eternity of her laughter. If so, I hoped it would not always be at my expense. “Yes, you are very much dead,” she agreed. “But still. Sit.” Her tone demanded nothing less. So I sat. And I pressed my hands together, closed my eyes, and breathed deeply, as if beginning a yoga class instead of receiving my eternity’s sentence to Death and her realm. I gasped down a sob as I thought of Dutch and sitting on our yoga mats early in the morning together, the sun warm on our backs as we saluted the day with chaturangas and crow poses. “Juma.” Marina reached across the table and squeezed my hand. “It’s okay, baby girl.” And I smiled because no matter what she had conspired with Death, I couldn’t help but love Marina. She was my mommy all those moments I spent away from my real ma, she lived deep in my bones, her name hummed in

my blood. I couldn’t hate her if I’d wanted to. So I squeezed her back and sucked up my tears, sat tall and awaited my fate. Firenza sat at the center of the Rouxs, with four others flanking her on either side, and I knew I was right about her being the most powerful of the lot. Seated at this table, she certainly gave off the air of supreme authority, and I could only wonder what she and the rest of them had in store for me. And I knew this right here—the quiet, the seriousness, the gravity—was why no Poocha ever spoke of their final death. This shit was terrifying. “I don’t mean to be rude,” I broke the silence and Death rolled her eyes, “but could we do whatever it is you all are going to do to me so I can go?” Death chuckled. “What exactly do you think we’re going to do to you, might I ask?” “I don’t know, Mistress”—I shrugged my shoulders—“probably punish me for falling in love,” and I hated myself for doing it, but I sobbed and the sound bounced off the walls and it was wretched and I couldn’t help but think that even if one didn’t believe in love, if they heard that cry, they would feel sympathy for the poor soul who did. “Juma,” Death spoke my name but I couldn’t bring myself to make eye contact with

her, because I could not bear the mockery I knew I would see reflected in her stare. And so she commanded, “Look at me.” “I would rather not, Mistress. Just tell me what’s next and we can be done. Please.” Then the room fell quiet and I knew everyone, including Death, was waiting for me to listen to her because she was Death and everyone listened to her, but I could not. All I could see was Dutch’s sad smile and our Right here. With me. This moment, so like all the other times I had to pick between Dutch and anyone else, I chose Dutch and stayed locked inside our imaginary moment, head down, filled with unspeakable despair. “Do you know the reason I chose you all those years ago?” she asked, breaking my stubborn silence and for the first time in our togetherness, giving into me. I shook my head and focused on my hands in my lap, still unwilling to meet her gaze. “Because even as a young child, you emanated fierce protective feel - it - in - your - toes love. And that was the kind of love I needed.” I raised my eyes and met her stare and she smiled and it was so damn sad. “Don’t get me wrong, I was by no means being altruistic when I chose you, but I need you to know I would never punish you for

loving the way you do,” and I shot her a look because the words coming out of her mouth did not at all comport with her behavior. “I mean, of course I fucked with you because all of that vulnerability you walk around with makes my skin crawl, but punish you for love and being able to love? Never. “Especially when it’s that love—the deepseated, utterly ridiculous emotional attachment you hold for your mother and father and your love for Dutch—that’s going to make you say yes to my offer. Which isn’t an offer at all, but it sounds better when I make it seem as if it is.” I pushed away from the table and rose to stand because something about everything that fell from her lips gave me pause. And I needed to stand and parse it for a beat or two. “Juma.” She spoke my name nice and slow and it sounded like a warning. I held up my hand and closed my eyes and nodded. “I know, Mistress. You want me to sit. Just give me a second.” She gave me ten seconds and then she repeated my name in that same tone and I sat. And waited while she bit and bothered her lower lip, all the while watching me, and as each second ticked by, I became more uneasy with her unease. She was Death. She was not

supposed to be ill at ease with anything. “Oh fuck it,” she said, and tossed up her hands after long drawn-out minutes of her fidgeting, and I saw Marina go pale as a sheet and Sayyid look skyward and the rest of the Rouxs shift about, and I thought to myself, This is it. This is when everything that is already so bad becomes a million times worse. Death stood and grabbed a bag off the ground that I knew was not there seconds ago, and held a sun hat in her other hand, and all of her was already somewhere else. “I quit. The job’s all yours, Juma. Knock ’em dead,” and she laughed at her own bad joke, looking girlish and excited, then blew a kiss to the Rouxs, offered up a “Toodle-oo, cunts,” and—poof!— she was gone. “That bitch,” Firenza growled, and everyone looked startled, with Death’s abrupt departure or Firenza’s foul language, it was difficult to tell. “What?” she asked as we stared at her, all of us too shocked to know what to do with ourselves. “It was not supposed to happen this way at all. I was supposed to make the announcement and Giselle was to sit by and listen, and only depart once the torch had passed.” She slammed her hand into the table and cracked the wood and I jumped because I

never knew a Rouxs held such power, probably because I never saw them lose their shit because I never saw Death quit on the job because because because. “Yes, yes, Firenza,” Grud interrupted Firenza’s exasperated lecture, “but all of us knew whom we were dealing with—Giselle has always beaten her own drum and danced to her own song. What’s done is done, no sense crying about it.” What the fuck was happening? I looked around and wondered while they argued and bitched and no one but myself seemed surprised by Death’s announcement. “But there are procedures and she knows all of them,” Firenza continued her complaining, “in particular for the power shift.” “My goodness, who cares?” Grud shut Firenza down and I started to think maybe he was the one in charge. “The power has already shifted,” and the room fell quiet as all eyes landed on me. I leaned back in my chair and looked at all of them and glanced at the doors on either end of the room, expecting Death to saunter back in any moment now and announce she was just fucking with me and holy shit, I was an idiot. Then she and Marina and the Rouxs

would all have a good laugh at my expense, someone would explain to me what my afterlife consisted of, I’d say thank y’all very much, pass along my goodbyes, and go back to that room full of my life with Dutch to stay there forever. Instead. Marina stood and pushed back from the table, and the look on her face made my blood run cold. “Marina,” I said, and she smiled, “please sit back down,” and again she smiled and looked a little apologetic, but she didn’t sit back down. “Juma, don’t be scared. You’ve got this.” “I’ve got what?” I asked, my voice rising in slight panic as Marina waved her hands around the expanse. “All of this. It’s yours now.” “I don’t want it!” I shook my head and stood, my fingers pressed into the table so hard, they turned white, my legs shaking. “Oh, but you do, baby girl,” she replied, “yes, you do.” But she was wrong. I wanted no part of any of this. Nothing. Nada. None whatsoever. “Giselle used your—” Marina began.

“Death,” I cut her off, my voice loud clear and motherfucking determined. “Her name is Death.” “Giselle used your deep, abiding love for your parents and then for Dutch to her advantage because that love kept you beholden to her until she knew you were ready to take over,” Marina explained in a voice so calm, you would have thought we were discussing the weather or a crossword puzzle answer or the best place to get a manicure under twelve dollars. Anything but this. “But what she failed to mention was that in doing so, and choosing you as her successor, and grooming you, and doing everything in her power to make sure you would be an even better Death than she,” Marina said with a smile, and her eyes filled with tears, “Giselle gave you back your life. And your loves.” Loves. Love. Dutch. It was a fact, since that night all those many nights ago, in that dark bar with that foulmouthed beautiful tortured man, any time I heard the word “love,” my mind immediately went to Dutch. This moment was no different. “No.” I shook my head in disbelief.

“Yes, baby girl,” Marina insisted. “You gave her freedom and she gave you love.” “But I don’t know the first thing about any of this,” I stammered. “Juuuuuuummmmma,” Sayyid spoke my name in that long lazy way of his, “you are making me look really bad right now.” And the Rouxs laughed in that way of theirs where you could tell they were amused, you could feel it in your toes, but their mouths never moved, and all of it was so fucking weird. “What do you think I’ve been doing all these years? Spending countless hours with you on darkened stairwells and hiding inside closets because I enjoy the company of ten-year-olds so much? And find teenage girls the epitome of pleasant?” I didn’t respond, and quite honestly, nothing he said registered, as I was too busy watching the walls of the room transform before my eyes. Sayyid glanced around and smirked. “You’ll have to promise me that you’ll work on controlling your moods,” he begged and almost-teased. “He’s incredibly good-looking, but I don’t think we want to spend the rest of our time working with you, staring at shots of Dutch Mathew every time we turn around.” My face heated as a blush crept up my

cheeks, but slowly the walls faded into a subtle bamboo design more fitting to the room and the mood than photos of Dutch everywhere the eye landed. “You’re already a pro, young lady,” Grud noted with a wink, and I looked around for Marina’s approval to find her seat at the table empty. “Where’s Marina?” I asked. “She’s gone,” Sayyid replied, and I stared at him hard because what. the. fuck. “Marina?” I asked as if he and I were speaking of two different women. “But she can’t leave,” I half stated, half whimpered. “She can,” Sayyid disagreed, “and she did.” “But she’s my chaat,” I whispered, and all of it sounded like a desperate plea for some serious help. “Marina was Giselle’s chaat,” Sayyid explained. “You will have to find your own, for she has fulfilled her duties and I believe is headed to Eleuthera, where she hopes to spend many long nights wrapped around one Mr. Kravitz.” And despite all my fears and trepidation, I burst out laughing. It could not be helped. “Do you know Mr. Kravitz?” Sayyid asked, confused by my sudden amusement.

“I do,” I replied, then added, “I mean, I don’t but I do, kind of. Oh, forget it, Sayyid.” I tossed up my hands and laughed again. At everything. Not just Marina and her hunt for Lenny, but also Death and her “Toodle-oo, cunts” and the walls of Dutch and leopard shag rugs and holy motherfuck of god. My name was Juma Landry. I died nine times. I was never coming back. And then I became Death.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR: DUTCH

The nature of a Keeper is to plan. Every assigned kill is plotted out with extreme precision, maps are created, cell phones are tapped, likes and dislikes are learned, random details are memorized, and only then do we make our move. It can take weeks, sometimes months, to execute an assignment. It took three hours for Rani and me to act. Once I managed to leave that cursed room where Juma died her final death, Frist and Rani recovered Kash’s body from one of the basement walk-in freezers where Frist had hidden him when she realized we were under attack. While they attended to Kash, I checked the grave site. True to form, Avery picked the perfect resting place for his love, on a higher elevation in the field so Kash could forever look down upon his beloved home and treasured gardens. We brought Kash out,

spoke words over his body, Rani and Frist cried, I covered him with the very land he loved, and we prepared to depart. “I need a little of the stuff,” I told Frist as I gathered my blades and Juma’s machete, and Frist tossed me a holster. “It’s hers and it’s made for that knife,” Frist explained as she poured powder into a vial. “I went back. Figured you’d want it.” The gesture, the holster, everything was thoughtful and kind and I should have said thanks but I couldn’t bring myself to utter a word of emotion. I grunted something or other, wrapped the holster around my waist, and left it at that. “Don’t let anyone else touch it,” Frist said as she handed me the vial and nodded in Rani’s direction, watching the tiny Keeper sharpen her blades. “It’ll melt her in seconds flat. Just in case.” “I heard that,” Rani mumbled as she tied her boots. “Precisely my intent.” Frist winked at me and I almost-smiled but again, the whole emotion thing. Almosts were as good as anyone was getting from me for the time being. “Mimi and Rufus—” I began. “Are in town, cozied up together in a small

bed-and-breakfast,” Frist cut me off. “I will retrieve them when I’m done here and we’ll head to Juma’s apartment. I’m sure they’re going to want to go through her things.” I nodded. I couldn’t say much else. “I’ll be kind, but I’m not going to lie to them,” Frist continued. “The sooner they know, the better.” I finished my preparations and met Frist’s stare. “Agreed.” “Okay then, good,” she replied, and stared at Rani and me, and her eyes filled and I shook my head no. “I’m sorry, Dutch.” I wiped her tears, kissed her cheek, and turned to join Rani by the closet next to the front door. The portal, conveniently located so it never seemed odd when one popped in or out of the house that none of us would ever pop in or out of again. I looked around and tried to recall all the good times in this home, but knew the darker stuff, the nightmarish shit, would own my memories. “You ready?” Rani asked. “Dutch,” Frist called out, and I turned back one last time to take in my brilliant beautiful purple-haired scientist, “when you get back, I want to hear all about Khan’s last moments.” “Over a Crif Dog and greasy onion rings so when I kiss you, it stinks?” I wondered, and

she smiled. “Need you ask?” I almost-laughed and Frist cried and I couldn’t bear her tears, so I turned back to Rani and instead of saying goodbye, I touched Rani’s hand and we stepped through the portal. Seconds later we were on the far side of the lake, right on the outskirts of Trivandrum in the middle of the morning. “What’s the plan?” Rani asked as we made our way to my favorite spot to grab a chai and a smoke. “There isn’t one,” I replied. “I know where he is every morning: sitting in that goddamned dining room, eating a late breakfast and reading reports. I’m going to go in there and kill him.” We walked and drank and smoked as Rani considered my words and a mangy dog joined us, curious and convinced we had a snack. Rani tossed him her toast and he left us alone. “Sounds like a plan to me,” she finally replied, and I raised a brow because I knew she was lying. “I’m serious. I like the simplicity of it. What’s the point of all kinds of carrying on and storming the barricades bullshit? Veda’s dead and now it’s his turn.” Rani inhaled-exhaled on her smoke as her words settled around us. She glanced up at

me, squinting her eyes in the morning sun, and I briefly wondered at this version of us and how two people who spent much of their lives cursing and maiming each other now existed in some sort of bizarre, yet rather fitting and almost karmic, alliance. The gods were some twisted motherfuckers. “Kill Khan and they’re a nonissue.” Rani spoke into the morning, her statement pulling me out of my head and back into reality. “How do you know that?” I asked the question I didn’t want answered. “Because they didn’t disappear when you killed Veda,” Rani replied, “but from what Frist told me, I don’t get the impression their magic has evolved as much as Shema thought it would, which leads me to believe Khan and his black-magic makers are still in control. While you’re dealing with him, I will handle them.” Rani smiled and it was all death. “You’ll never get to them, those tunnels are impassable, Khan made sure of that,” I told her because I myself had tried years ago to explore the tunnels under the palace and find Khan’s enablers. “Impassable for you, yes,” Rani agreed. “For me? Not so much.” And here she held up her hand. I stopped walking and considered

her and that hand in the morning light. “What did you do, Rani?” “Let’s just say I paid a little extra to the soul collector.” She made a fist and admired her hand. “Those tunnel walls Khan thinks are impenetrable are nothing for this hand. His black-magic makers are in for a motherfucking surprise care of this hand.” “I told you not to fuck with that Crooper.” I shook my head and we kept walking. “Stop reminding me what a pussy you are,” she hissed, and smoked as we turned onto a small side street that ran along the back side of the palace. “Just take care of dear old dad, and I’ll do the rest.” We stopped at the back gate, looked both ways, and then slipped inside. The side doors were open, they remained open at all times because—as Khan liked to roar to anyone willing to listen—if someone wanted to kill him, Khan welcomed the opportunity. The back side of the palace belonged to the servants and dog trainers and was quiet at this time of the day. No one saw us and even if they did, they would never say a word. Everyone around these parts detested Khan and would celebrate his death with a party like no other. “This is where I leave you,” Rani said, and stopped in the dark hall before the carved

wooden doors leading to the basement wine cellar and the tunnels she sought. I glanced at her hand again and she shadow-boxed my face and I knew that hand was her certain death. “Why’d you do it?” I asked. “Why’d you trade your life for a wall-busting hand and a few moments alone with Khan’s dark-hearted magicians?” “Don’t get all sappy on me, asshole,” she replied without answering my question. “Just tell me.” She started to say something and I figured it would be full of snark and sidestep anything remotely related to an honest answer. Instead. “For Shema. Plain and simple.” She shrugged and managed to look both fierce and sad at the same time. “She would have done the same for me.” “She wouldn’t,” I replied, and Rani smiled. “For you, definitely not. For me? Always.” Then Rani turned on her heel, opened the doors, and headed downstairs, middle finger in the air as she departed. “Fuck you, Rani.” “Fuck you harder, Dutch.” And she was gone. I pulled my phone out of my pocket to check the time and everything stopped as I

peered into the screen and upon a photo I took of Juma sleeping one morning. My screen saver. Despite the fact she’d told me never to be so corny and lovelorn, I could not help myself. With her, I was hopelessly lovelorn, awash in all things Juma, finding her perfect, flaws and all. I had forgotten about this photo and my screen saver, and without warning I was back in her apartment, the morning light capturing her beauty, kissing her curves, rendering her impossible to resist. I’d taken that photo, then crawled back into bed with her, covering her in kisses, wrapping myself around her, and falling back to sleep. The memory stole my breath—one long gasp and I was back in the dark hallway of the palace. I leaned against the wall, gathered myself—You got this, Dutch—and took off for the far staircase used by the servants. I reached it, cracked the door, and listened. Silent but for the shuffle of papers, a random rustle and shift. Khan was alone, most likely reviewing the previous evening’s reports on Keepers and their assignments, Junta proclamations, and the like. Back when James was still alive, they would do this together most mornings, but from what I could tell, James had yet to be

replaced. There was no new secret lover. Yet. I moved up the stairs like stealth death and slipped into the room unseen and unheard, the beauty of using the servants’ entrance. I could have slammed the doors and he would not have looked up, so trained was he in ignoring those he deemed less worthy. Khan’s back was to me as he sat in his favorite chair at the head of the table and suddenly everything seemed too easy. Where was the Black Copse? Where were his trusted foot soldiers? Where was my uncle Darsh? Where was any motherfucker who could have this motherfucker’s back? And then I breathed easy and settled and almost laughed out loud to myself—this, all of this, was the beauty of hubris on full display with Khan as the lead actor in his own Greek morality play. He was such a cocky asshole, a staunch believer in himself and his way and all things Khan Mathew, that he never once considered someone would dare enter his domain and try to kill him. And he sure as fuck did not think that someone would be me. I pressed myself into the shadows and looked around the room. I knew the four points on the table like the back of my hand, and even though I was an inch or so taller than Khan, the difference in height was negligible.

He would easily reach each leather strap. It was a matter of disabling him with enough speed, strength, and surprise that I could strap down his arms. Once that was accomplished, the rest was simple. I’d lived through it enough times to know the routine by heart: roll out the knives, select the perfect one for flaying skin, begin on the left side of the chest, and work clockwise around the body. Collecting my darkest selves, I prayed to the gods above and below that I would not be held accountable for my actions. I knew I would probably die trying to escape this place, that there was little chance my deeds would go unnoticed. I simply hoped when I wound up in that horrific white room Juma described to me in such vivid detail, there would be no “extras” awaiting me and the white room itself would be considered punishment enough. I began a countdown in my head—one two three—as I fisted my short blade in my right hand—four five six seven—and Juma’s machete in my left—eight nine—breathed deeply, filled my head with thoughts of Kash and Avery and Juma—ten—and pounced. In one motion, I jabbed my short blade under his right arm while my left curled around his neck, lifted him from his chair, and slammed him onto the table, flat on his back. The air

knocked from his lungs and in seconds I had him strapped down around his wrists, my blade still jutting from his side, as I moved down to strap his legs. As I worked one strap, he came around with his free leg and kicked me in the side of the ear, clipping my ear, and for two or three seconds, I saw stars. But my adrenaline was pumping and I recovered fast, slashing Juma’s machete across his thigh and stilling him long enough to strap that leg to the table. And then the bellowing started. Khan raged and roared and called on every soul in his service. And I expected as much and honestly, I didn’t give a fuck. I strapped his other leg down, checked each corner to make sure they were secure, then I planted myself behind the main door and while he cursed me up and down, backwards and forward, I waited. Khan could carry on until he was blue in the face, I wanted to make sure whoever came through that door to heed his call died at the end of Juma’s blade. Minutes ticked by of listening to his bullshit and waiting by the door to kill anything coming through it when it struck me: I could make that asshole shut up. I had been so caught up in getting him strapped down that I forgot how simple it was to also make

him quiet. I walked a circle around the table, both watching him and listening for approaching footsteps, and when I reached his right side, I snatched my short blade and pulled it from his side. He bellowed and raged again, spat in my face, and tried to scare me but I saw it. It was brief, just a flash, but I saw it. And he knew I saw it. Fear. “Isn’t so much fun being on this side of things, is it, Daddy?” I said, mocking his precious Veda and laughing as he tried to buck against the leather straps. “You fucking piece of shit on the bottom of my shoe, the terror that will follow you the remainder of your days,” and he went on like that, spewing such nonsense as if he weren’t the body strapped to the table. I let him carry on as I moved around the room, studying him, watching him, and listening, always listening for someone, anyone coming to his aid. And when I made it to the left side of the table and stopped and listened to the words coming out of his mouth, the hatred and the disdain, a calm washed over me and I thought to myself, I could sit and listen to him all day and it wouldn’t make a bit of difference because I am standing and he is strapped down and

that is all that matters. Until. “ . . . your fucking whore, that Poocha piece of ass Juma Landry, cunt-faced bitch died like the animal she is.” And faster than I knew I was capable of moving, I jerked open Khan’s mouth and cut out his tongue. I’d done it many times to verbose Poochas well versed in the art of driving me nuts, hopeful they would carry the pain of the dismemberment into their next life, so when we crossed paths again, they would make sure to be less chatty in my presence. But Khan had no more lives, so in case he wondered whether he was ever getting up from this table, I pretty much answered that question for him right then and there. I tossed his tongue into the fireplace, rested my hip against the table, and listened while he screamed and shouted and cursed and choked on his own blood, all with the smug satisfaction of knowing he would never ever again utter her name. “My god!” The dining room doors flung open and there stood my uncle Darsh, short fat bastard. Before he could make any sort of move one way or the other—escape or attack—I was up and standing next to him, my eyes on the hallway and his on the dining room table. I

stuck my head outside to make sure no one else was headed our way, then closed and locked the doors behind us. “What the hell have you done?” Darsh turned to me and shouted, his eyes wild with panic and rage. “First, I came up the servants’ staircase and sneaked into the room directly behind him—” I nodded in Khan’s direction before returning my attention to Darsh. “—which was fucking brilliant—this asshole didn’t even look up, that’s how used to ignoring the servants he is. Then I stabbed him under the right arm while placing him in a choke hold with my left, slammed him into the table, and locked him up.” “You piece of shit,” Darsh growled, and I pointed my bloody knife in his direction. “That’s what your big brother said, too,” I replied. “Of course, before I cut out his tongue. Ever since, it’s been this kind of noise nonstop.” Darsh shot me a look and said something in Malayalam to Khan that I only kind of understood, then started unfastening the leather straps nearest him. I fisted Juma’s blade in my left hand and gave him a chance. “Don’t do that, Darsh.” “Fuck you, Dutch,” he spat back at me, and

continued working the straps, his hands shaking with rage. I watched him struggle for a few seconds more, then I lifted Juma’s machete and dropped it right on his wrist. His hand fell to the floor with a thud, and blood shot out of the stump and he watched it in horror before he, too, started shouting and cursing and carrying on, much like his elder brother. “You Mathew brothers need to get a goddamned grip,” I replied as I cleaned Juma’s blade on my jeans and sidestepped Darsh’s oncoming, easily avoidable, blatantly obvious attack. He lunged and missed and lunged again and just to amuse myself, I swung Juma’s machete and slashed his kneecaps. Both of them. One after the other. And I must say, it felt really fucking good using her weapon to carve up that asshole. “Stay where you are, Darsh—” I pointed the blade in his direction. “—or this is going to get really ugly really fucking fast.” Darsh looked stricken and unsure of what to do next, glancing in his elder brother’s direction for some advice before remembering his elder brother was in worse condition than himself.

“What is it you want, Dutch?” Darsh finally asked. “Want?” I asked because I couldn’t believe he was serious, that he really thought I wanted something from them and that’s why I was here. Knock, knock, just thought I’d stop in and say hello to the fam. Get the fuck out of here. “Yes,” Darsh replied, and all of him was so goddamned earnest I wanted to kill him on the spot, “what do you want? Maybe there’s something I can do for you.” I leaned against the buffet where Khan liked to unroll his set of knives and listen to them clink against each other, rubbed my chin as though I were contemplating Darsh’s question, and watched that asshole study my every move. Because he really thought I was considering his request. He really believed there was a chance he would survive this têtea-tête. Fuck him and his tongue-less brother. “Well, up until yesterday, I just wanted to be left alone,” I said, my voice low and conversational. “I wanted Khan to back the fuck off, I wanted Veda to stop harassing my friends, and I wanted the Black Copse to go back to whatever pit of hell they emerged from. Now I want Juma.”

“Juma?” he asked, and it took every atom in my being not to fly across that table and cut out his tongue as well for saying her name aloud. “Yes, Juma,” I replied through gritted teeth, “the woman you tied to the wall at your big brother’s request and then stood by as he killed her. Ring a bell?” I asked, and his very dark brown skin turned a much sicklier shade. “Yeah, her. The Poocha who died her last death at Khan’s hand.” Darsh gulped and it was loud. “I also want you dead,” I added, and this time I did exactly what I wanted and flew across that table, crashing into him, knocking the fat fuck right on his back. “Dutch, please.” He held up his remaining hand and I slashed through it, hacking at him right and left and he begged for his life and I ignored every word until there were no more words coming from his mouth and he was reduced to a bloody, unrecognizable mess on the floor. I was covered in entrails and brains, and all of it belonged to that bastard. And even though I knew he was dead, I kicked him in the side a few times because I could. I then bent over and rested my hands on my knees, closed my eyes, and caught my breath. And everywhere I saw her.

Juma. Laughing, talking, singing, looking over her shoulder and winking at me. But when I opened my eyes, it was just me and the Mathew brothers. And even though one of them was dead and the other was headed that way, I felt no better because the fact remained, she was still gone. Khan watched me from the table and I got the sense he was putting together some sort of plan, maybe calling the Black Copse using the powers his black-magic artisans entrusted him, I had no idea. Whatever he was up to, it irked me, and as I passed him to get to the buffet and his special set of knives, I jabbed my own short blade into one of his eyeballs. “Don’t fucking stare at me, Daddy,” I sneered, and imitated dearly departed Veda. Khan kicked and bucked and cried out and all of it sounded guttural and bloody because when your tongue is unceremoniously chopped off and thrown into a fireplace, everything sounds a little guttural and bloody. And I noted how similar he was to me when I was strapped to that table and desperate to escape the hell of his knives and oh, the fucking irony. “Khan—” I found the knives and began unrolling their velvet casing as my hands

shook and started to sweat. “—I believe yesterday when we were all gathered at Château de Lunas, you started a discourse on the circular nature of life.” I glanced back at him and he refused to look my way, but I knew he was scared. I could see the pulse in his throat, throbbing like mad, and even though looking at those knives made my stomach turn, I knew I had to do this. I picked up one with a mother-of-pearl handle and held it up to the light so he could see it, too, then returned to his side at the table. He eyed the knife and glanced at me, and when we made eye contact, he spat. It didn’t go anywhere because he had no tongue, and from what I could tell, without a tongue, spitting seemed pretty difficult, but that was hardly the point. The point was his intent. The point was that even strapped to that table, thighs sliced and diced, tongue cut out, and an eyeball missing, that bastard still wanted me dead and thought he could very likely kill me himself. Despite the fact that I was the one holding the knives. My hands shook and I didn’t know if it was with rage or fear, but he saw it and he assumed the latter. And he laughed. As I stood over him with a flaying knife at the ready, he laughed, and that sound forced me to act

because I knew I could not live with myself if I allowed that sound to fill my ears for years to come. My mouth filled with bile as the stench of death flooded my senses and found a resting place in my darkest selves. I took the blade and cut into his shoulder with the skill of a surgeon, the skin delicate and easy to pull away from the muscle. So long as one worked with the right tools. I paused, caught my breath, and afforded Khan a few extra moments of terror. The knife dripped with his blood and the steel glinted when I moved it just so, and all of it was sharp and meant for this kind of work. The sickest. The most twisted. The horrific. I glanced at him once more, strapped to that table, his shoulder flayed and all of him belonging to me to do with as I pleased. Then I smiled at the irony of this game of lives and got back to work. My name was Dutch Mathew. I killed my sister. I planned to kill my father. I was my own worst monster.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE: JUMA

I pressed my head to the closed door, squeezed my eyes shut, and turned the knob. The air felt warm, like a summer night, and a hint of New York City drifted through the air. My New York City. Tribeca. Bubby’s pancakes and sheep’s milk ricotta from Locanda Verde. Bike messengers and yapping dogs, chubby babies with delicious cheeks and bright smiles. And coffee. I could smell coffee. From the doorway I could see my farmer’s table and the kitchen window with views into the apartments across the street and downtown and the Freedom Tower. My photos. Clothes. The pack of smokes I stole from Dutch and hid inside the drawer in my table that only I knew existed because, as I said, every girl needs a few secrets. All of it was home. My

home. And now my office. I strode into the room, reached under the table, and pushed on the drawer just so. It slid open and there sat the yellow box with blue letters. I closed my eyes and saw him. Dutch. And when I opened them again, my walls were covered with him. “Juma.” Sayyid came up behind me, his voice slightly raised with a touch of admonition. “And here I was just about to say I liked what you did with the space.” I rolled my eyes, and the walls reverted to their original design and Sayyid smiled. “That’s my girl,” he said, and looked around. “This space makes you happy.” “It’s my kitchen,” I replied, “from my apartment in the city.” “And those?” He eyed the smokes in the drawer. “Belonged to Dutch.” “Ahhhh,” was all he said, and the old me would probably have poked and prodded him until he explained the many layers of meaning in his “ahhhh,” but this me—DEATH—didn’t really care. I had bigger things bumping around in my brain. “Sayyid?” I asked as I closed the drawer

and shut away Dutch for a bit. “Yes, Juma,” he replied as he walked around the room, picking up my things, running his fingers over them, feeling their energy, as I’d known he would say if I asked. “I need to see the white room,” I stated, leaving unspoken how I knew it existed and the fact it was filled with Keepers suspended in some kind of hell fabricated by her for reasons unbeknownst to anyone but her. Because once upon a time, this was her domain to do with as she pleased. But now it was mine, and I wanted to see that white room. Sayyid stopped messing with my stuff and turned back to face me, his too-white face bunched into a question, his glittery brows moving in confusion. “What white room?” he asked, and those three words made my blood boil. I’d handled all of this—Giselle’s abrupt departure, Marina’s disappearance, my new status—so well up to this moment. But I could bear no more bullshit. “Don’t fucking lie to me, Sayyid.” The Rouxs cocked his head to the side and looked at me funny. “I would never.” “You spent the last twenty-something years lying to my ass!” I yelled, and he stepped back

as if my words reached out and slapped him. My walls turned red and dripped and I was transfixed by my rage visualized. Until I wasn’t. “So let’s not pretend you’re suddenly Honest Abe.” “Honest Abe?” he asked, and the walls shimmered with images of President Lincoln and the back of his head blown off and Jesus, I needed to get my emotions together. I closed my eyes, pressed my fingers into them, and breathed deep. And literally told myself to calm, imagined myself stepping back from the edge and inhaling long and hard, clean fresh air into my lungs, and by and by, the room returned to itself. “Sayyid,” I whispered. “Please.” “Juma,” he said as he came and stood in front of me, ducking down and forcing me to see his eyes, “I do not know this white room of which you speak.” Despite the fact I’d promised myself to hold it together, my eyes filled. I bit my trembling lip and over and over told myself not to cry, suck back those tears. And somewhere a hint of Dutch drifted into the room, his soap, that clean smell I loved when I tucked my head into the crook of his neck and inhaled, and I succumbed. My shoulders shook and the tears spilled

over, but I didn’t make a sound. Sayyid watched me, allowing me the moment to sink into my grief and my newness, and when I was finished and my eyes seemed dry, he wiped my cheeks and asked, “Why don’t you tell me about this room?” And he looked so sincere, like the Sayyid of my youth, my strange friend in this realm of few friends at all, and so I did. “The Mistress—” I began, and he corrected me right away. “You are the Mistress now.” “You know what I mean, Sayyid.” “I don’t, Mistress,” he replied. “You’re confusing me further.” “Oh my fucking god, are we really going to do this?” I asked. “We are really going to do this,” he replied, and his lips curved into a slight smirk and if I were able, I would have punched him. Instead. “Giselle,” I stated with emphasis and he smiled and I continued, “told me there is a room of white, that feels both endless and cramped, bright and so very dark, teeming with Keepers. I need to find that room.” “She told you that?” he asked. “Why?” “She wanted me to know what would happen to Dutch when he died,” I replied, and shuddered to think of him suffering so deeply

in death, when he had already done so much suffering while alive. “Of course she did,” Sayyid replied, and his eyes looked hard and serious. “There is no such room of anyone’s creation, especially Giselle’s. She lied to you.” “But she said—” I started to explain. “I’m sure I can imagine all the lovely things she said, but the fact of the matter is no such room exists. Keepers are treated like any of the dead who are not granted reclamation, with some limitations on their afterlife. But nothing like the eternal damnation you’ve described. Dying is enough, there is little need or purpose to make it much worse.” “That conniving . . .” I let the rest of my thoughts remain confined to my brain—Sayyid didn’t need to hear such maledictions fall from my lips. “‘Conniving brilliant bitch,’ I believe I’ve heard many call her,” Sayyid offered with a laugh, and something about his tone and his understanding allowed me to move past my anger and focus on what mattered. “So then you could find a Keeper for me, right?” “I can find anyone for you, Mistress.” “Anyone?” I asked. “Anyone.”

I pulled out a chair and took a seat at the head of my table and rested my forearms on the table, fingers flat and splayed wide. I studied the brown of my hands and the tattoo on my forearm and bit by bit I eased into the realization that I could do damn near anything. I stood and grabbed a pen and piece of paper off my desk in the far corner of the room, scribbled two names, and handed them to Sayyid. He read my notes and nodded. “Bring them to me,” I stated. “I have some business to handle.” Sayyid folded the paper and nodded once more. “Yes, Mistress.” He left and while he was gone, I leaned back in my chair, shed all pretense, and indulged in what felt like my most magical ability: the conjuring of Dutch. I made my office transform from prints of jazz masters and a gorgeous photo of Ma and Da, white walls and a painting of Zora Neale Hurston, to my beautiful dark-hearted lover and memories of us. “Ahem.” I sat up and blinked hard and Dutch disappeared. I caught Sayyid’s eye and blushed. “Thank you, Sayyid,” I finally spoke, and he

nodded, then stepped aside so I could see for myself the two names on that paper. My eyes rested on one, then the other, and although my pulse raced with emotion, my face betrayed nothing. “Veda Mathew,” I called out, and she rolled her eyes and I didn’t even care, because she was terrified. And she was fucked. “Step forward. And wipe that look off your face.” “Fuck you, Juma,” she shot back, and started to say something else, then collapsed to her knees instead, writhing in agony, screaming without making a sound. And all because I wished it so. Because I was Death and this was now my domain. I rose from my seat and walked in her direction, crossed my arms, and leaned against the table in front of her. “I like this vantage point,” I stated, “me looking down on you. It feels quite karmic.” Then I leaned close and grasped her chin and she stopped writhing in pain as I held her in place. “Because you have learned nothing from any of your experiences in life or death, and are as horrible as I recall, I am stealing your tongue and with it that annoying voice of yours. You should never have called me Juma. You do not know me and we are not friends. “I am Death. Remember that, Veda.”

I released her, she fell back on her heels, and I watched as she tried in vain to rise. She glared at me with eyes full of rage and panic and all kinds of what-the-fuck and I couldn’t help laughing, she was such a fucking asshole and tormenting her was such fun. “Also, any time you’re in my presence, you will remain kneeling.” I glanced at Sayyid and he nodded his approval. “And finally, for the remainder of your days, I am confining you to a room of white. It shall feel bleak and doomed, empty and crowded, so very bright and the darkest dark you can imagine. It is madness and I want it to seep into your bones and find a home in your blood. I want every beat of your heart to pulse with its insanity and I want your voiceless cries to bounce off the invisible walls. I want you to die a million deaths in that room and then do it all again. And again. And again. “And I want you to know that I will never feel bad about cursing you to a hell of my creation. I will revel in it and think of ways to make it worse. And trust when I say, it will get worse, Veda. This is just the beginning. I’m only hours into my powers. Imagine the horrors I will learn to conjure ten, twenty, fifty years from now.”

I smiled and kissed her full on the mouth and all of me felt bursting with power and righteousness and a hint of Giselle. And when I released her and she spat, I laughed because, as I said, this was only the beginning. “You can take her, Sayyid.” I glanced his way and he stood with Veda. “You’ll be fine?” he asked as I stared at the man before me long and hard, my eyes crawling over every inch of him, learning him inside and out. “Yes, Sayyid. I’ll be okay,” I replied, and he left with Veda and all of me that had been so full of anger and rage, simmered and calmed and finally sighed, long and low. The room grew quiet and still as we stared at each other. “That was quite fitting, Killer.” The soft lilt. The nickname. The Keeper too kind to keep. Kash. I released a sob and wrapped him in my arms and cried as he held me and asked, “It’s okay if I call you Killer, right?” And I laughed and cried at the same time and replied, “You better not call me anything else,” and we stayed like that for a few moments longer, lost in the wonder of our new

selves. “You wear Death well—” Kash held me at arm’s length and ran his eyes over my face before releasing me and smiling wide. “— Killer.” I fidgeted and felt nervous, twirling my rings round and round my fingers as I tried on his compliment for size. “You think?” Kash nodded. “No thinking involved, love. This role was made for you.” And I couldn’t miss the irony of his words. But that was a conversation for another time, and based on our surroundings, he and I would have all kinds of time for such chitchat. “I’m so sorry, Kash.” I felt like crying again as I recalled watching Avery disappear into the woods, atop a carpet of black death. “I never expected you to die. I never expected any of this.” “There is nothing to apologize for,” Kash said, and tipped my chin up to meet his eyes. “Nothing. You did what you could and eased some of my suffering, but that poison on those blades is the blackest of black, and it came back for me when none of us was looking. And I realized it was my time, plain and simple. The Dark Mistress made her decision, and there was nothing any of you could have done

about it. She told me she liked me too much to let me slip through her fingers again.” “She did what?” I asked, wondering if I’d heard him correctly. “Oh yes,” he chuckled. “The Dark Mistress and I have a long history together, mostly based upon me finding myself too many times in over my head and then having to plead my case and talk her out of bringing me here. And up until now, she’s let me live, tossing out an irritated but loving ‘Fuck you, Kash’ as she walked away. This time was different, though. She was different, a determined aura about her. And when she came to see me, I knew I wouldn’t be sweet-talking her into much of anything.” I leaned against the table and shook my head. The Mistress—correction, Giselle—was too fucking much. “You make it sound like y’all drank whiskey and played poker the whole time.” “Chess, Killer,” Kash smiled and corrected. “I am a chess man and she’s a quick study, so that’s what we did. Until it was time for her to go.” I raised a brow. “You knew?” “I did,” he said. “I told her she couldn’t have picked a better successor, and strangely,

that seemed to soothe her a bit. She’s a temperamental mess, that one.” “That’s a very diplomatic way of putting it,” I laughed and agreed, then turned serious and asked, “So you’re okay?” “Of course I’m okay,” he replied, “or as okay as anyone is going to be with leaving behind their loved ones forever. I miss Avery desperately and I hate that our last days together were filled with such pain and sadness. I always had this romantic idea of dying wrapped around each other after a night of lovemaking under the stars.” His voice trailed off and I let him lose himself for a bit in thoughts of his lover and their life together. “Kash?” “Yes?” “Would you like to see Avery again?” He shook his head and waved me off. “It’s not possible, Killer. I’ve already begged and pleaded my case—I even made her cry and feel bad about separating us the way she did. Her hands were tied, as are yours. I am a Keeper and we are forbidden reclamation.” “Yes, yes, I know,” I agreed, “but I am Death and I need a chaat.” He shot me a confused look so I explained.

“Did you ever meet Marina? The short, beautiful woman with the weight of the world on her shoulders and never enough time?” I asked. “And the most memorable ass I’ve ever seen?” He smiled and I could tell he was seeing Marina in his mind’s eye. “Yes, I met her.” “I need a Marina,” I replied. “I want you to be my Marina.” “But she never left this place,” he replied. “In fact, she rarely left the Dark Mistress’s side.” “That was her choice,” I explained. “Marina wanted to leave everything from her past life in the past, so she stayed here and made this place her home. Her only home. But she could go anywhere she wanted, anytime she wanted. She was a chaat, Death’s assistant, and the second most powerful being in this place. I need you to become my chaat, come with me to that goddamned palace, and help me settle some scores.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX: DUTCH

I stood over Khan, stared at my shaking, blood-covered hands, and said a prayer for Avery, Frist, and even that mini-monster, Rani. I recalled Kajal’s smile and Kash’s laughter and Juma’s kiss. And awash in all that was good in my life, I dived deep into my heart of darkness, came face-to-face with the evil of my birthright, and cut.

CHAPTER THIRTYSEVEN: JUMA

They say love makes you do the damnedest things. I say love inspires feats of greatness. I knew Dutch would be in that dining room with his monster of a father. I knew he would somehow strap Khan to that table and exact his revenge. What I did not know or expect to find was the scene I stumbled upon: Dutch, standing over his father, flaying the man alive, sobbing in silence over each cut he made. And even though I intended to sit back and watch Dutch do unto his father what his father had done unto him too many times to count, and I intended to enjoy every blood-filled gruesome second of it, I knew I could not. It was simple, really. Because even though I had thought each cut to Khan’s body would heal Dutch’s soul, in fact, it was having the opposite effect, and as I stood in the shadows watching the scene play

out before me, I knew what I was really watching was the slow death of the man I loved. The man I had spent so much time cajoling out of the darkness, convincing him he was worthy of love and tenderness and soft kisses on his throat, protecting him with my own life, that man—that beautiful loving darkhearted man—was wielding that knife and killing himself just as certainly as he was killing Khan. And I could not stand another moment of pain in the timeline of his existence. So I stepped from the shadows and I acted. “Hey, gorgeous,” I whispered into the space between us. Dutch looked up and met my eye, his breath trapped in his chest, all of him covered in blood and gore while Khan kicked and shouted and beat at those leather bindings with all his might and the whole scene made me sick. “Juma,” he whispered, and it sounded like a question and a prayer, wrapped around each other and kissed with a promise. I smiled and thought all of me would break into a million pieces watching him do just that as he kept cutting and pulling back skin and cutting some more. And for a moment I could not tear my eyes from the macabre scene, then a tear

splashed into a droplet of blood and all of it shook me to my senses. I wrapped my fingers around his and he stilled and all of him felt so very alive and alert and I wanted to cry because I never thought I would get to touch him again, but now was not the moment for touching and tenderness. Now was horrific and gruesome and if I didn’t act soon, this room would witness three deaths instead of two. “Give that to me.” I spoke low and gentle as I tugged on the knife, and he shook his head no. “This is my job,” he insisted, and continued flaying Khan’s chest and weeping in silence and in all my lifetimes of witnessing so much wretchedness, no sight shook me as deeply as the one playing out before my eyes. “He is my cross to bear.” “Not if doing so kills you in the process,” I said, and he looked up from what he was doing and I wasn’t sure if he even saw me. “Oh, Juma,” he sobbed, and shook his head, took two steps down, and started working on Khan’s hips and thighs, then paused and glanced back at me. “Don’t you know I’m already dead?” And there was my answer. I walked around to his side of the table and

stood close to him and pushed all into his space because I needed him to know I was real and not some figment of his overly distraught and exhausted mind. I needed him to feel my energy when I spoke and know the soft of my breath. I needed him to see me, really see me. “Dutch.” I spoke his name with clarity and turned his way to meet his stare while my fingers twined with his and all of me was very fucking real. I smiled, real slow and wide, the kind of smile that reached my eyes and I felt in my toes because, yes, this scene was horrible and fucked up and so sick and twisted, but it was also gorgeous in all its cosmic justice and I wanted to jump up and down and shout from the rooftops that, yes, sometimes bitch-ass motherfuckers had to pay. Instead. “Right here, Dutch. With me. This moment.” I pressed my forehead to his and kissed him and slowly unwound his long perfect fingers from around that knife, all the while whispering to him, “Right here. With me. This moment.” And finally he relaxed and a sob escaped his lips that sounded like sadness and relief and too much grief for one soul to hold, and I knew right then that was why he had me. We would hold that grief together and we

would survive.

CHAPTER THIRTYEIGHT: JUMA

I killed that man. Khan. I taught him a thing or two about how cyclical life was and let him know there was nothing cyclical about Kajal and me. “We are hardly one and the same woman,” I leaned down and whispered in his ear, “but damn if there isn’t something gorgeous about all this bullshit coming back around to roost on your shoulders.” I stood again and he looked me in the eye and he knew right away: I was Death and my vengeance had his name written all over it. I then picked Simone off the ground and tossed her from my left hand to my right and back again, and recalled how she and I were made for one another, that Sayyid had designed her to be slightly smaller than the typical machete and her grip unique to my fingers alone. I smiled and kissed her, then

nodded to Dutch and he stepped aside and without another word, I slid her across Khan’s throat and in one gorgeous stroke, rid the world of his cancer. It felt good. I felt good. I could get used to being Death. “Mistress?” Dutch finally spoke. But I could not get used to that man calling me that name. “Don’t,” I whispered, turning to Dutch. “My god,” he gasped, and it was a slow sound that curled around my thighs and kissed my hips and I lost myself in its melody. Then he touched my cheek and I sobbed and kissed his hand and cried while all of him tried to piece together the reality of me. “You are real,” he continued as his eyes moved over my face and made sure each of my freckles was in the same place as the last time he counted them and his hands cupped my cheeks and he bent close and I breathed deep and wondered what he was doing. “Peppermint,” he stated with a smile that reached his eyes, “you still have a hint of it on your breath, Mistress.” “Don’t,” I repeated, and he leaned down and kissed me and it tasted like time and love and forever knotted together.

“Oh, but I must,” he whispered in my ear, and I could hear laughter in his voice, “unless you prefer princess, of course.” We leaned away from each other and it was quiet for a breath, and then both of us burst into laughter and the sound of us was wondrous. “I prefer Juma.” I said my name aloud, and it danced in the air between us and washed over Dutch and something about the curious smile that curved his lips let me know he agreed. Then he looked around the room and I did as well and it was blood and terror and death and we stood in the middle of it all as the reality of us crept up our legs and wrapped itself around our arms and twisted and turned and tightened around our necks. Dutch looked at me and I at him and neither of us spoke because there was too much to say but who knew where to begin and it was terrifying and beautiful and scary and magic. It was us. Lifetimes of us. Hundreds of thousands of years of us. He breathed deep, and I knew he was trying to gather himself and stop the madness of considering what any of this meant: I was Death. He was the leader of The Gate. Between us resided so much power and

potential and— “What now, Juma?” Dutch’s voice intruded upon my wild racing near-frantic thoughts in a most delicious manner, slowing everything down to a more calm and quiet pace where nothing really mattered but him me us. “Now?” I asked, and looped my fingers into his belt and pulled him close. “Now I would like you to take me back to that perfect house of yours in Galicia, remove all my clothes, and fuck me. Everywhere.” It was not the answer he expected because like me, his mind was curling around the reality of our new reality. “I meant,” and he started to explain, and I swallowed his words with my kiss. “I just thought,” he spoke as we parted, and I kissed him quiet again. “Avery—” he worried. And I replied, “Is safe and I made sure he’s comfortable and well cared for.” Relief washed over him and he almost smiled, then paused. Because he was Dutch and he couldn’t help but worry. “The Gate—” he stated. And I pressed a finger to his lips and replied, “Will be here tomorrow and the next day and the next.”

And although he went quiet, his furrowed brow told me his mind was still in flux. “Dutch.” His name on my lips felt elysian, all of him felt like home. “Right here, gorgeous.” He relaxed. “With me.” His brow smoothed. “This moment.” And he smiled and he kissed me and he agreed. “Yes, Juma. This moment with you right here.” My name was Death. My bones and blood would nourish multitudes. My breasts would suckle generations. My heart belonged to one. Dutch Mathew. Always Dutch Mathew.

GLOSSARY Alighter: work with Poochas to assist in the reclamation of the dead. Fixers of memory and circumstance, Alighters often work in teams around the globe to wipe memories and clear the way for a Deader to return to life. Astra: the jagged, many-pronged blade of the Rouxs, designed to and capable of injuring Death. Black Copse: an elite, subversive group within the Junta, led by Veda Mathew, and determined to be similar to Keepers, in that they can rise to the rank of Ren and possibly one day lead the Gate. Deadly, black-clad, silent killers. Chaat: Death’s girl Friday. Main job is to listen to and parse the Deaders’ arguments for returning to life and determining which are worthy of being presented to Death. Also hands down the Poocha assignments and any other tasks Death might need handled. Crooper: soul collector. Deader: nickname for the dead used by Death, her Poochas, and the Alighters. Dosha: magical beings charged with guarding Points. Considered the lowest caste within the

Gate, the group with the least power and influence. Gruup: the age at which someone in Death’s employ stops aging. Junta: the enforcers of the rules created by the Ren, the second most powerful group within The Gate. Keeper: deadly assassins of The Gate, trained to hunt and kill Poochas. Only Keepers may become Ren and lead The Gate. Poocha: Death’s reclaimers, those beings who help the dead cross back into life. Poochas have nine lives and are the archnemeses of Keepers. Death chooses who shall become a Poocha. Reclamate: the act of bringing a Deader back to life, crossing them from death to their old life, the main function of a Poocha. Ren: the highest authority within The Gate. Only Ren can rule The Gate. Only Keepers can become Ren. Rouxs: (pronounced Rucks) practitioners of all sorts of magic, especially the dark arts. Creators of Death, whom they imbibe with powers and abilities, limitations and vulnerabilities.

Acknowledgments This book was written in an insanely short amount of time—I remember asking writer friends if it was really possible to finish it and even though they said yes, I knew they were lying—and during a period when my lawyering life demanded 1,000 percent of my attention. Book deadlines from your publisher and twenty-four-hour demands from your client conveniently ignore the fact you have a nineyear-old to care for, a little boy wandering through the kitchen or standing next to you in line at Stop & Shop, chattering about baseball All-Star games and Thanksgiving in Atlanta and Christmas at Daddy’s house and are we going to Jamaica this year—No, we are not going to Jamaica this year—and theorizing on Supreme Leader Snoke. They don’t care that while you’re pulling all-nighters to produce documents to the government and the next day making sure you finish at least three chapters of your book, that same nine-year-old is pretty much caring for himself. And doing so without a moan or groan because somehow someway he gets it, he knows his mommy needs to write. It’s what

makes her who she is, it completes her. And she might not be mommy of the year or classroom mommy or soccer-baseballbasketball mommy, and she’s kind of a mess who forgets everything and is scattered and wild, but he loves her despite those truths. Even if he sometimes gives her the sideeye. So this go-round, the only person deserving any sort of acknowledgment is my little human, my heart: Dash. Thank you for complementing my new soul with your old one.

About the Author

AU TH OR P H OTOGR AP H © R OB E R T H ITE

Madhuri Pavamani is the author of the paranormal romance trilogy The Sanctum. A southern girl with northern sensibilities and a slight twang, who still uses the word “y’all” but never “fixin’,” she has an affinity for writing twisted love stories and dark poetry. A graduate of Barnard College, and incapable of leaving the bright lights of New York City, Madhuri works in Manhattan, but rests her

head in New Jersey. She loves whiskey, tattoos, Bukowski, and yoga. To learn more about her, you can follow her blog at madhuripavamani.wordpress.com, follow her on Twitter at @madhuriwrites, on Instagram at @madhuriwrites or “Like” her on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/madhuriwrites/. You can sign up for email updates here.

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Table of Contents Title Page Copyright Notice Dedication Epigraph PROLOGUE CHAPTER ONE: DUTCH CHAPTER TWO: DUTCH CHAPTER THREE: JUMA CHAPTER FOUR: DUTCH CHAPTER FIVE: DUTCH CHAPTER SIX: DUTCH CHAPTER SEVEN: JUMA CHAPTER EIGHT: JUMA CHAPTER NINE: DUTCH CHAPTER TEN: DUTCH CHAPTER ELEVEN: JUMA CHAPTER TWELVE: DUTCH CHAPTER THIRTEEN: JUMA

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: JUMA CHAPTER FIFTEEN: DUTCH CHAPTER SIXTEEN: DUTCH CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: JUMA CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: DUTCH CHAPTER NINETEEN: DUTCH CHAPTER TWENTY: JUMA CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: DUTCH CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: JUMA CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: JUMA CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: DUTCH CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: JUMA CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: JUMA CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: DUTCH CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: DUTCH CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE: DUTCH CHAPTER THIRTY: DUTCH CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE: JUMA CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO: JUMA CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE: JUMA

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR: DUTCH CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE: JUMA CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX: DUTCH CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN: JUMA CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT: JUMA GLOSSARY Acknowledgments About the Author Copyright Page

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. DEATH. Copyright © 2017 by Madhuri Pavamani. All rights

reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010. www.stmartins.com Cover design by Crystal Ben Cover photographs: woman © Luba V Nel/Shutterstock.com; texture © ilolab/Shutterstock.com ISBN 978-1-250-12721-1 (ebook) First Edition: September 2017 Our eBooks may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, ext. 5442, or by e-mail at [email protected].