Whether or not Death’s “Fuck you, Sayyid!” did just that, and landed her on Sayyid’s bad side was impossible to tell because he was Sayyid and a Rouxs and as I said, they were wily motherfuckers.
“That is hardly the way to speak to a friend,” Sayyid replied, his voice low and gentle.
“Fuck you, Sayyid!” she repeated, and glared and I wondered suddenly whether she could kill him. “Before I kill you, too. And you don’t have any extra lives to play with, now, do you?”
There was my answer to that question.
I lowered myself into that godforsaken Alice in Wonderland chair, swung my legs once twice thrice, and wished I could escape the room before things went further south.
I liked Sayyid.
I did not want to witness his death.
“I think you’re upset by Juma’s agenda and how it doesn’t comport with your own,” he began again. I shot him a look that screamed Shut the fuck up, Sayyid! but he just smiled and kept going. “We’ve discussed this before, Mistress, and Juma’s agenda does in fact work with our own, you know this.”
Wait. What? Why were the Rouxs and Death sitting around discussing me behind my back? And when did they develop their own agenda? When the fuck did they join forces?
“Juma’s agenda is to be wrapped around that man the remainder of her days,” Death snarled, and looked down her nose at me, as if something about falling in love made me less of a woman and a warrior in her eyes.
“Are you insane?” I asked.
“Juma.” Sayyid raised a finger to his sealed lips and I quieted. “Mistress, you and I both know that is not her agenda. It is maybe her inspiration and should she manage to bring down The Gate, then it will most definitely be a result of her success, but we both know that is not her sole motive.”
Death started to speak, but Sayyid was not finished.
“And even if it were, so be it. Juma has fallen in love, yes. Has she shirked any of her duties? No. Has that love made her more determined than ever to bring down The Gate? If so, then it is simply an added bonus that benefits all of us.”
“Why does any of this matter to either of you?” I asked, then reconsidered. “No. I take that back. I know why this matters to her,” and I pointed at Death, “but you, Sayyid, confuse me. Why are you and she discussing me at all? And when did your opposing agendas become one? Because last time I checked, you and yours were telling me to kill her the first chance I got.”
As my words landed between us, loud and demanding attention, Marina walked back into the room, touched my shoulder, and nodded. I was free to cross back whenever I chose. I smiled my thanks to her and breathed a small sigh of relief—I needed to be able to get out of here, I wanted to get out of here—the sooner, the better. Marina took a seat in a chair that appeared out of thin air, angled just so, perfectly placed for her to sit and partake of the discussion. I then turned back to Death and Sayyid, wondering which one would be more pissed with my revelation.
“Oh my god, you’re cute.” Death brought her hand up to her mouth and laughed. “What did you think, Juma? That the Rouxs were going behind my back to plot my demise? With you? A Poocha?”
Death waited a few seconds for my response, and when she was met with silence, she tossed her head back and laughed loud and long, and I swear if I’d had my astras, I would have jumped over that table and sliced her in half.
Instead.
“You can laugh all you want, Mistress,” I replied with cool indifference, as if her amusement didn’t cut me to the bone. “But that is exactly what happened. The Rouxs sought me out, brought me into their fold, and then trained me to kill you.”
She stopped laughing, sat up straight, and stared at me hard, and I felt a smug smile curve my lips. My words hit their intended mark, cutting her just as she’d cut me. Death cocked her head, and her chic pageboy shifted in turn and all of her seemed contemplative, as if she didn’t know what to do with me. Then her eyes brightened—in fact, they danced—her perfectly painted red lips formed a wide smile, and she winked.
“God, I love when you get all hard-core like that,” she said, her voice low and turned on, and if we were the old Juma and Death, this would have been one of those moments where she pinned me to a wall and fucked me mercilessly, but we were new versions of ourselves, twisted dark versions that disliked each other and used sex as a weapon. “Trained you to kill me?” She laughed and it sounded like murder and mayhem. “Don’t you fucking wish.”
“Your bravado rings hollow,” I replied, determined not to let her win this war of wills.
“Oh, little girl,” Death said with another smile that felt like the coldest winter ever, “this has nothing to do with bravado and everything to do with truth. My truth. Marina’s truth. Sayyid’s truth. The truth of the Rouxs. The only one full of bullshit bravado is you, sweet Juma.”
She sipped her whiskey and smiled once again and the room fell so quiet, I could hear her swallow, that gentle gulp as she washed her lies down with that brown warmth.
“They gifted me the astras,” I replied, my voice strong and steady because, seriously, fuck her and her control issues.
“I know that—”
“Excuse me, Mistress, but you know nothing,” I cut her off, and although her body betrayed nothing, her eyes filled with cold fire. “The astra is designed especially for your body, each point.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she said with a dismissive wave, “each point attuned to various aspects of my makeup, configured to attack certain components of my biology, designed to kill me and only me.” Death rested her chin on her hand and rolled her eyes. “Tell me something I don’t already know, Juma.”
“You couldn’t possibly know that,” I stammered, and glanced at Sayyid, “unless he told you.”
Death sat upright and gave Sayyid the once-over, up and down, up and down her eyes traveled the length of him and I hoped I hadn’t turned all her ill will for me against him because I still believed he and I were on the same side.
Because I didn’t know any better.
Because I was a fucking idiot.
“Him?” Death asked. “Your precious Sayyid?” And she barked a laugh, and again, I wanted to cut her and silence the racket she made with that pit of a mouth. “He would never betray you. Your precious Sayyid has much love for you. But the rest of those fucks—they’re a whole other story.”
“Mistress.” Marina smoothed out imaginary wrinkles on her skirt and shifted uncomfortably, and I sensed she wanted to stop whatever Death was about to unleash. “Let’s not do this right now. Not this way.”
“Zip it,” Death spat at Marina without taking her eyes off me.
“Those other fucks are the ones who told me to use the astras on you.” I threw her words back at her, ignoring Marina’s growing unease and Sayyid’s sudden silence. “Those other fucks taught me their magic and made sure I was ready for whatever nonsense you had up your sleeve.”
“Juma Landry, my goodness, you disappoint. Here I was, all this time considering you my best and brightest. How wrong you have proved me these last months, you silly little girl,” Death said with a sneer. “I picked you out all those years ago, lying on that gurney a bloody mess, because even in death, you shone like no other. I allowed you to roam my halls alone and explore and discover the Rouxs. I made sure you learned all the ways of their magic, the good and the bad.” Death’s voice lowered to a hoarse whisper full of disaster and dread as she stood and seemed larger than I’d ever before noticed. “And it is I who instructed them to design the astra—every last detail of it—place it in your hands, and instruct you to use it on me.”
She touched my cheek, and where her eyes had raged with madness, she now appeared calm and serene and almost gentle.
“I did all of this. Me. Your Dark Mistress.” Death pointed at herself. “It was a test of your will and capability, and your limits. Get one thing straight, little Miss Thing—this was not a plot devised behind my back by the Rouxs, to be implement
ed by you. It was my plot, every goddamned step of it, from the first time you met Sayyid to my little tête-à-tête with your Keeper. All of it was me. All. of. it!”
Death roared, and whatever kindness had been there fell from her face as she gripped my chin in her hand with such force, I felt my bones might crumble. I wanted to move, I wanted to block my ears and protect what remained of my sanity, I wanted to grasp for dear life, cling to that last shred of hope I held for her me us, I wanted to escape into the quiet of my soul, where lives were not built upon lies. I wanted to do a number of things, but I didn’t dare.
“You do not run this show, Juma,” she growled low as a bone in my jaw snapped and she held me tighter. “I do. I am Death, I hold all the power, I make everything happen. Not you. Don’t you ever forget that. Now, get out of my face before I kill you again.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: DUTCH
Bones.
According to Merriam-Webster, bones are “the hard largely calcareous connective tissue of which the adult skeleton of most vertebrates is chiefly composed.”
According to me, bones are those places in your being that ached and groaned and creaked when you didn’t take care of your body the way it deserved—in my case, all the goddamned time. Bones also let you know when shit wasn’t right.
Because they felt it.
Deep.
My bones were presently in a motherfucking state.
“Relax.” Avery squeezed my shoulder as he passed on his way to deliver two steaming cups of tea to Juma’s folks. Hints of cardamom and ginger lingered in his wake and images of home flashed before my eyes, when my grandfather was still alive and I would wake up before sunrise to spend my mornings with Rajama as she prepped breakfast and cleaned and did all kinds of servantly duties that I wanted to help with and which she refused. To shut me up and get me out of her hair, she would make me a huge cup of chai, then chatter away as she did her thing and I did mine.
“They’re not Indian,” I called to Avery’s back.
“Asshole,” he replied, “you people aren’t the only ones with taste buds. No one can resist a good cup of chai. And my non-Indian ass makes the best.”
“Bullshit,” I said, and exhaled on my smoke, appreciating the momentary distraction of him as I checked my watch. Nine hours and thirty-seven minutes late.
Or 34,620 seconds.
Either way, it wasn’t good.
I checked my cell for the hundredth time in the last ten minutes.
“If you keep doing that,” Avery said as he took a seat across from me at his expansive dining room table and nodded at my phone, “the parentals will start to fret.”
“I’m fucking fretting.”
“Well, don’t,” Avery replied. “She’s a big girl, she can handle herself.”
I stated the obvious: “You keep saying that, and then she keeps showing up dead.”
“Let’s not have this conversation again about Juma and whether or not she needs you watching over her.” Avery eyed me and rolled one of my smokes between his fingers. “It makes me feel very Bill Murray.”
The allusion to Groundhog Day caught my attention. I looked up from my smoke and smirked.
“Don’t even start hitting me with quotes, Dutch,” Avery warned.
“Talk to me instead,” Rani said, pulling up a chair next to me and stealing a smoke. I glanced at her from the corner of my eye and sighed.
“I promised not to kill you,” I grumbled. “Nothing more, nothing less.”
“I’m going to get out of here and find Sevyn.” Rani ignored my childish comment with a roll of her eyes and turned her attention to Avery. “There’s no point in my staying here.”
“Besides your safety,” Avery countered.
Rani laughed and it sounded almost genuine. “Don’t get soft on me, Lu. I like you better when you think I’m a bitch and secretly pray for my death.”
“You have me confused with that one,” Avery replied, pointing at me as Rani lit her smoke and exhaled in Avery’s direction.
“I have you confused with no one,” she countered, and stood, her smoke dangling from her lips as she adjusted the short blade at her hip and tightened the other around her thigh. “Sevyn needs to know what’s going on and I need to know what she’s learned of the Copse. Shema thought maybe their magic was somehow linked to Veda and that if we killed Veda, we could destroy them as well. She also felt it was a fight against the clock because magic evolves, and if left too long, the Copse could harness that magic and metamorphose into a life force unto itself, independent of Veda.”
I leaned back and watched Rani through slitted eyes, still not trusting a goddamned word out of her mouth, curious as to what else she knew but had yet to relay. And I must have rolled my eyes or looked less than thrilled about anything she had to say because out of nowhere she whacked me in the head.
“What the fuck?!” I sat up and growled.
“Stop looking at me like that, asshole,” she replied, and with those simple words, we were back in building 238 on the Lower East Side, she and James pulling their bullshit, ripping me to shreds as they pleased.
I moved to stand and tower over her and maybe pull her into a headlock and lift her off the ground while her legs kicked and she fought for breath, but I’d promised Juma. No more trying to kill Rani. So instead I swatted her away from me, easily knocking her off-balance, mostly because she wasn’t expecting it.
“Watch yourself, Rani,” I said through gritted teeth, “and do not fucking touch me.”
She dusted herself off and muttered under her breath before Avery cut in and smothered whatever explosion was building between the two of us.
“Hands to yourself, Rani.”
“Yes, sir.” She saluted Avery and smoked and continued her preparations to depart, a slick grin curving her lips. “Anyway, like I was saying”—she glanced at me and rolled her eyes—“I’m out of here. I’ll text you when I find Sevyn.”
“Why don’t you just call her?” I asked, and even though my question was so obvious, Avery must’ve been wondering the same because he stopped whatever he was doing and waited to hear what Rani had to say.
“We don’t have each other’s contact info,” Rani replied as she smashed her smoke into the crystal ashtray on the table. “Shema wanted it that way. She felt if there ever came a time Veda or Khan became suspicious of Sevyn and decided to go through her contacts, it was important they never found me. I wouldn’t have made any sense.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help myself. The thought of Shema caring about anyone but herself seemed ridiculous.
“Laugh all you want, Dutch—” Rani tightened her boot and sneered at me. “—but she was right. Had they found me in her phone, everything we’d planned would go up in smoke.”
“See,” I said, and leaned forward, getting in Rani’s space, “that’s the problem. None of us really knows the plan.”
“I told you the plan back on the island,” she countered.
“You fed us a bunch of bullshit back on the island,” I replied.
“Avery,” Rani pleaded, “deal with him, please. He’s getting his panties in a wad.”
“Good fucking god, you two!” Avery snapped, and both Rani and I turned because as long as I’d known him—and based on her reaction, I assumed the same could be said for her—we’d never seen him so . . . not himself. “Grow up. Both of you. Rani, leave. Dutch, sit down and shut up.”
He pushed back from the table, shot us disgusted looks, and walked into the kitchen. Rani caught my eye and mouthed What the fuck? and as much as it pained me to be on the same side of anything with her, I had to agree. I shrugged my shoulders, lit a smoke, and watched as she glanced at Avery one more time before moving for the door.
“Juma has my number,” Rani said as she looked back at me and blew a kiss, “and I have hers. I’ll be in touch, bitch.”
And before I could say anything, she was gone.
Goddamned fucking cunt-faced whore.
“
Stop cursing her.” Frist looked up from whatever science project she had set up in front of Juma’s parents, Dr. Landry heavily involved in the chemical madness she concocted. “It’s exactly what she wants. It’s precisely why she said that.”
“Mind your own business,” I grumbled halfheartedly, and checked my watch. Ten hours and twenty-one minutes late.
“Sweetheart?”
At the sound of Mrs. Landry’s voice, I looked up from my how-late-is-Juma calculations.
“I know my daughter like I know the woods of the bayou,” Mrs. Landry said with a smile, and all of her was so Juma, it made my heart clench into a tight ball of something I couldn’t quite put a finger on but figured it was intense crazy mad love. “Juma is fine.”
“You’re right, Mrs. Landry.” I ran my fingers through my hair and tried to calm my nerves. “I just—”
“Just don’t.”
And because of her tone and the fact she was a mom and she was Juma’s mom, I didn’t. Instead, I leaned deep into my chair and spread my legs wide, and breathed—in out in out—while larger-than-life Frida Kahlo watched over the entire scene in Avery’s New York City penthouse in the sky with that look of hers, that all-knowing semi-smile. The white of the room was peppered with all our shades of brown and Frist’s lavender and I imagined if Frida had her way, even in our current state of disrepair, she would paint us brighter and more lively.
“Where’s Kash?” I turned back to Avery and asked as my eyes did a casual once-over of the space.
“Lying down in the back,” Avery replied without meeting my stare. Frist went back to her science experiment, Dr. Landry never looked my way, and when I caught Mrs. Landry’s eye, she turned.
This crew was so goddamned transparent.
“What’s up with Kash?” I asked again, and wondered if the sick feeling in my bones had more to do with the gentle Keeper than my killer Poocha.
“What’re you talking about?” Avery asked as he picked up his teacup and placed it in the sink, a most convenient way to avoid making eye contact, I thought as I stood and joined him in the kitchen. I set my ashtray on the marble countertop, the clang a little too loud for comfort.
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