Death

by Madhuri Pavamani

  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 alway
s 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 T-shirt 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, eve
ry 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.