Juma

by Madhuri Pavamani

She didn’t make me wonder long.

  “I hope you know I’m going to enjoy this as much as it’s going to devastate you,” she hissed and bent low, her nails glinting in the light before disappearing into Death’s chest. The room filled with horrific screams as Juma pulled out her heart and her lungs and her intestines, then tossed everything into a pile at her feet with such nonchalance that I found myself wondering in shock how many other times she had committed such a vile and gruesome act.

  Without missing a beat, and ignoring every cry of pain from her dark queen, Juma pulled out her cell phone like she was calling a girlfriend, and waited.

  “You better come get her.”

  She then turned her attention to me, as if there were not a gutted woman dying on her floor. Or a gutted Death dying on her floor. But Death couldn’t die—she was death. Or was she? Was Juma Death and I just didn’t know it? Was Death Juma pretending to be Death? Was Juma Death dying on the floor?

  Was

  Was

  Was

  WHAT THE FUCK?

  “Dutch.” Juma leaned close and pressed something powdery to my gut. “Relax and breathe like me. Watch me. Deep, long, slow breaths. Easy, easy. There you go, just like that. Long and slow, long and slow.

  “That should feel better soon.” She breathed into my skin as she removed what remained of my T-shirt and began pressing the powder into my wounds. “I got this from our magic-makers, the Rouxs. Totally evil bastards, but for some reason when I was a kid, they took a liking to me and taught me all kinds of wicked shit over the years.

  “I figured one day she would try and kill me”—she rolled her eyes toward the mass of blood and bones on the floor—“so I’ve kept this on my body at all times as of late. And good thing, because she did a number on you.”

  “Good fucking god, Juma!”

  A short, voluptuous, light-skinned woman barged into the room and looked around in a panic. Her ass was huge and kind of perfect and if I wasn’t so fucked up I would have cracked a joke with Juma about it and the fact I could imagine how many times Juma’s hands had been on that ass. But I was wholly fucked and even though the powder stopped the pain, it wasn’t healing shit yet, so this was hardly the time for any of my stupid jokes.

  “What the fuck? What the fuck?” the woman kept repeating to herself as she walked a circle around Death before dropping down and whispering something in her ear. Juma walked over to them and tossed the hacksaw-looking weapon into the woman’s hands.

  “Where did you get this?” she asked, looking up, her voice full of shock and horror.

  “Where do you think I got it?” Juma replied.

  The woman stood, and even though she barely reached Juma’s shoulder, she looked fierce.

  “You are not to interfere with the work of the Rouxs,” she hissed in anger.

  Juma laughed and touched her cheek affectionately.

  “I never did any such thing, sweet Marina.” Juma helped me to my feet and smiled as we stood together. “They sought me out and presented it to me. Years ago.”

  She walked us a few steps toward the front door, then turned back to the gruesome scene in her living room.

  “And just so you know, Marina, they taught me exactly how to use it, too,” she called back as the woman attended Death, “and told me to make it count. I was just following orders.”

  38: JUMA

  I left my building through the service entrance because I was in a rush and honestly, didn’t feel like bumping into Oscar or anyone else who might have an opinion of me or Dutch or me and Dutch. I didn’t want to hear it, mostly because I didn’t care.

  That, and I was covered in blood.

  “Juma, stop,” Dutch half-gasped, half-spoke. “You cannot go into the street like that.”

  He was giving me a funny look and for a second I thought back to those moments in time when he didn’t know about me and what I had been doing with Simone and I wondered if we were trapped inside one of those moments. But he was Dutch and I knew better—he would never look at me funny unless there was good reason. I peeked over my right shoulder into a window and stopped short.

  Yes, I was covered in blood and god only knows what else—I expected as much. What I did not expect was the determination and steel in my eyes. I looked fierce and ready and I-dare-you-to-fuck-with-me. And I liked it.

  But I knew when he looked at me funny, he meant the blood. Dutch already considered me fierce, the set of my eyes wouldn’t catch his attention. What caught his attention were the rivulets of blood running down my face.

  “Gotcha.” I winked and propped him against the wall. “You good? Feeling better?”

  He looked down at his already-healing wounds and smiled because fuck yeah he felt better. I ran back into the building and found that shitty little sink the young kids used to stash their skank-ass skunk weed under, ran some water over my hands and face, dabbed at my neck, and then caught sight of my hair. It was caked in blood. Everywhere. So I handled that, too, because it would do no good to do the job halfway.

  Then I broke into one of the lockers the security team used and stole someone’s T-shirt, laughing to myself because the fabric was hardly Dutch caliber and would probably make his skin crawl, but this was no time for sartorial snobbery.

  I came back to where I left Dutch, found him standing a little straighter, a smile curving those gorgeous lips.

  “Better?” I asked as I tossed him the T-shirt.

  “Goddamn, you are hot,” he replied as he pulled it over his head.

  “You want to fuck me?” I asked, using my weight to push him into the building and running my hand over the slight bulge in his jeans.

  “Yes.” He shook his head and I laughed. “I absolutely want to fuck you.”

  “Good.” I kissed him and stepped away from his tempting body. “Means you’re fully healed and we can get out of here. She”—and here I rolled my eyes heavenward a là Kobe—“is going to be mobile soon.”

  My words sat between us for a second, their meaning hitting both of us at the same time.

  “Let’s go,” he said, and we made for the street, hailing a taxi on the corner, and heading to an address Dutch gave the driver on the Upper West Side. We walked into the building and without a word spoken, the doorman handed Dutch a keycard and we headed up to the penthouse, the elevator opening into a gorgeous airy white open space with one enormous black and white photo of a young Frida Kahlo, hair loose, smoking and looking slightly wild and unpredictable.

  “My god,” I gasped at the beauty, momentarily stilled by Frida and her everything.

  “Yeah.” Dutch stepped next to me and studied the shot. “Avery loves her—he says he bought this space just for her ghost to rest her weary bones any time she’s in the city and needs a break.”

  I looked around the apartment, the quiet of the white in stark contrast to the energy of the city below, and could understand how anyone, not just Kahlo’s ghost, would want to spend time in this vast expanse of comfort and calm. We were both so bloody and dirty, it felt almost like sacrilege to soil the space with our presence.

  “Don’t worry”—Dutch shot me a look as if reading my mind—“Avery would rather us alive than his floors pristine.”

  I smiled but it was tight and small and I knew he could tell my mind was elsewhere.

  “I have to go, Dutch.”

  “Where?” he turned his head my way and if this was us just a few days earlier, he would have been tense and maybe even a little annoyed, but now he was simply curious. “Your folks’ place?”

  “Yeah.” I touched my blade and took an accounting of the other weapons I could quickly locate near my parents’ house because even though I was standing in an apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, my mind was already in Atlanta, devising a plan to get them out of that city and somewhere safe.

  “I have to get them out of that house. Of course, they’ll never leave.”

  “And put them where?”

  “I’m not the
re yet,” I admitted, my voice hushed, ashamed my plan was so half-baked. “I was thinking with my aunts in New Orleans, but then it puts those two old ladies at risk should Veda discover any further details about my family. I also considered my apartment, for the simple fact she might never look there because it’s almost too obvious.”

  “I know exactly where to put them,” Dutch cut me off. “West Virginia.”

  I shot him a look and laughed.

  “Because I just happen to have a safe house in my back pocket down there,” I shot back, my voice full of snark. “Don’t get me wrong, I would love to get them lost in the wilds of Appalachia, but I’m trying to be practical here.”

  “I just happen to have a West Virginia safe house in my back pocket,” Dutch replied, ignoring my sarcastic tone and stating it matter-of-factly as he stepped behind a white brick wall that reached about six feet high, dividing a portion of the apartment into what I imagined was a sleep space, returning with a clean white T-shirt, looking every bit the man he was: fully healed.

  “Goddamn, that feels better.”

  I smiled and this time it wasn’t tight and small, but wide and almost relaxed.

  “What?” Dutch asked when he caught me watching him.

  “You’re healed.” I stated the obvious. “And thank you.”

  “Yes, I am healed, Dr. Landry. Thank you for your magic. Again.” He moved close and pulled me to him and let me know he knew all about that first night in my apartment when he came to me ripped open and woke up a not-so-gaping mess of a man. “And do not thank me for anything. Ever.”

  “I am thanking you, sexy man.” I leaned in and ghosted my breath over his lips.

  “Juma,” he warned as I pressed into him, “keep it up and I won’t have any choice but to fuck you. And we need to get your parents.”

  “My folks can wait another five minutes,” I said as I licked his tongue. He moaned and just like that, it was on. He unzipped my pants and I worked his jeans, he pushed my panties to the side and I guided his dick, and he filled me and I sighed and he moaned and we fucked each other against that wall, hard and fast and raw until both of us came all over each other

  and everything felt alive

  and so deep in love.

  “Your parents,” he whispered into my throat after we settled and pushed away from each other, sly grins curving our lips, a certain calm enveloping our everything.

  “I’ll meet you at their place,” I replied as I checked my blades.

  “That thing you used on her,” Dutch began as he watched me prepare to leave, asking the question I knew had been sitting on the tip of his tongue for a hot second. “What the fuck was that?”

  “Something out of a nightmare,” I replied and my words stilled him because he and I both knew the details of his nightmares.

  “Why’d you do it?” he continued.

  “Because I pick you,” I replied, looking him in the eye. “Always.”

  “She’s going to kill you,” he said.

  I cupped his face in my hands and stared at him hard.

  “She wouldn’t fucking dare.”

  He wrapped his fingers around my wrists and studied me for a moment.

  “Have you met her before?” he asked with an unamused chuckle.

  “If she was going to kill me, I would already be dead.”

  That response must have satisfied Dutch because he released me and began his own preparations for our departure, pulling two small blades from his boot and checking another on his calf.

  “I’ll use the portal and you’ll do whatever it is you do to move around”—Dutch shot me a funny look—“and I’ll see you on the front step of 218 Sycamore Terrace?”

  “Hubs.” I tightened my holster and waited for him to finish. “We use hubs to move around the globe and between this life and her life. They’re kind of like portals, only they also allow for moving between worlds.

  “And someone like you,” I raised a brow in his direction, “could never follow me into a hub, nor can any unsuspecting human. For example, the Herald Square subway station to you is simply Herald Square, but for me it leads right to her main headquarters. Her office sits right underneath the PATH station.”

  Dutch laughed.

  “Of all the shitty spots to call home.”

  “Kind of suits her, you know?”

  We joked and prepped and finally found ourselves at the front door, ready to head to the elevator, out the doors, and part ways again.

  Only this time different.

  So very different.

  “You have my cell?” Dutch asked as he peered over my phone screen.

  “Yes.” I held it up so he could see my contacts. “See?”

  He scrolled through to my name and held up his phone so I could see it. “Okay, we’re good. One last thing.”

  I watched as he punched out a text, hit send, and smiled.

  “Grant,” he replied to my questioning look. “The closet full of gorgeous clothes? I want to know if there’s been any suspicious activity around your folks’ home since we left.”

  “You’ve been watching them?”

  Dutch looked up from his phone and laughed.

  “Do you know me at all, Juma?” he asked with a smirk as he read an incoming text. “Of course I’ve had them watched. Every goddamned second of every day since I learned their address, someone’s been keeping tabs on them.”

  My breath caught in my throat as I watched him make a phone call, all sound muted and nonsensical as he overwhelmed me for the millionth time with the simplest of gestures, just being himself, and loving me in his very fierce, very quiet way and I thought to myself if I could remain wrapped around him forever, never leaving his side, I would.

  “Are you serious?” I asked.

  “About what?” he asked as he furiously sent out a flurry of messages without raising his eyes from the screen.

  “Watching them,” I replied, “making sure my parents are safe.”

  Something in my voice must have caught his attention because he looked up from his phone and when our eyes met, he slipped the device into his back pocket and pulled me to him.

  “Yes, gorgeous, I am very serious about watching over your parents. I will not have Veda and her bullshit invading your life, and theirs, so I’ve had a team of Dosha and Keepers down there, around the clock, led by Kash”—Dutch looked almost sheepish as he relayed his truths—“who, I should tell you, and please do not get pissed off, has become quite friendly with Rufus and Mimi.”

  I didn’t know where to begin without breaking down into grateful sobs—he knew my folks’ names!—so I remained close-lipped and Dutch became nervous and in the face of my silence he covered me in all kinds of beautiful words.

  “I think he told them he just moved to the area to be closer to his partner’s grandkids and that he loves gardening and wondered whether they could point him in the direction of a reputable nursery and the rest is history.”

  “Supposedly your mom insisted he allow her to drive him to her favorite shop, they spent the whole day talking plants and flowers, came home to have dinner with your dad in the back garden, and have become an inseparable threesome since then.”

  “And when I say threesome”—Dutch smiled mischievously and I swear I dissolved right there at his feet into a puddle of love and affection for that man—“I mean it in the most wholesome sense of the word.

  “Of course, Avery is grousing that you stole his best friend and your parents have now stolen his husband.

  “Because oh yeah, somewhere in the last ten years, Avery and Kash got married and just neglected to share that news with anyone.”

  And here Dutch raised his brow and laughed and I pulled him to me, pressed my lips to his and kissed him hard and deep and full of love.

  “Shit,” he growled when I pulled away, “I should piss you off more often.”

  I bit his lip and kissed him again.

  “I wasn’t mad, I’m not mad. I just can’t believe it
, is all.”

  “I didn’t say anything because I knew a small part of you was kind of freaked out about me and mine knowing anything of you and yours”—he recalled that awful moment between us when I stutter-stepped the line between his love for me and my love for my folks—“but after Veda, I couldn’t take any chances so I just did what I thought best. And I know that goes against our current promise to always tell each other everything and . . .”

  I kissed him mid-sentence because I didn’t want to hear another word of his explanation for going out of his way to make sure my family remained safe and protected and none the wiser about his care and efforts. I kissed him because of Kash and Avery and my parents and new friendships made under the guise of protection. I kissed him because it was the only thing to do in the face of his gift of quiet love to me.

  “Thank you, Dutch Mathew, for loving me as only you do.”

  He touched my face and smiled and then ever so softly pressed his lips to mine.

  “Thank you, Juma Landry, for allowing me to love you.”

  And for a moment the world dwindled down to Dutch and me and everything else—sound, time, space—all of it became irrelevant.

  Dutch!

  Get down here now

  And in the blink of an eye, the moment passed.

  39: DUTCH

  She was gone.

  She saw that text flash on my screen and Juma disappeared.

  Not literally, but pretty fucking close.

  I watched her race down the staircase, not bothering with the elevator, and I didn’t even call to her because I knew she wouldn’t hear me because she was already somewhere else, on some other plane where I couldn’t reach her if I wanted. Instead, I pushed the button for the elevator, got off at the lobby, nodded to the doorman who was really a Dosha, then made my way to the basement and the portal. Minutes later I was dumped in the southwest corner of Piedmont Park, a copse of trees hiding my landing, with Amber Discreet waiting in her convertible fifty yards to my left.

  “What the fuck, Amber?” I shouted as I slid into the passenger seat and she screeched away from the curb. “What the fuck happened?”