“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 THIRTY-SEVEN: 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 watchi
ng 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 dark-hearted 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 THIRTY-EIGHT: 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.
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