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 mid-motion 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 w
aited 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.
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