“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 self-preservation.
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 r
ugs 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 forty-eight 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.
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