“I’m going to come,” Xander moaned in my ear and suddenly I was back in the moment, as he came and then I came, while bodies pressed against bodies pressed against us and the music pounded in my blood. We sweated and we kissed and it was so fucking good.
Despite his darkness lingering at the peripheries of my consciousness.
CHAPTER SEVEN
DUTCH
“Get up, Dutch!”
I rolled over and moaned, feeling around blindly for my flask and smokes, anything to numb the pain ricocheting around my body, tiny points of searing madness eating me from the inside out. A smack to the cheek and I cried out.
“You are a bloody mess.”
My cousin Ish, fucking brain surgeon of the family. I pushed him away and rolled up into a sitting position, a move I immediately regretted. Ish watched me, worried no doubt.
“They’re going to kill you.”
From the corner of my eye, I spied the small yellow box and something black. I moved in their direction, grabbing my smokes and flask, thankful I didn’t have to go far. I lit the match, dragged deeply, swigged my Scout, and, just like that, things seemed a little better.
“They can’t fucking kill me.” I stepped into my boots, slowly bent over to tie the laces, and then straightened to meet Ish’s stare. “I’ve told you that a million times.”
Ish laughed, anything but amused.
“Where are my knives?”
“When are you going to tell them to fuck off?”
Ish handed me three blades.
I kissed his forehead and grinned. “I did last night.” He paled slightly and shook his head in disgust.
“Just know this, dearest cousin,” I continued, smoking with no hands as I dressed. “I might show up on your doorstep missing a few limbs, but trust: I’ll never show up here dead.”
“Cold comfort,” Ish replied as he walked me to the door. “They’re worse than the Mafia.”
“Like you know anyone in the Mafia.”
“I watched The Sopranos.” Ish shrugged as he stood in the doorway. “It’s enough.”
“At least I’ve never put anyone through a meat grinder.” I smirked as I stepped onto the street.
“Yet.”
“Yet,” I agreed.
Ish hissed, “I can go with you.”
“And let you take all the glory for putting a final end to Arjun? You wish.” I laughed and walked backward, grinning like a maniac, forcing a smile out of him.
“Be safe, motherfucker.”
I turned and tossed up a wave. “Love you, too, asshole.” I turned the corner and headed down Avenue D.
That goddamned Poocha was nearby, I knew it from the way my blood heated, and after what I’d endured last night—an all new hell invented by James and Rani, executed by every member of The Gate—I had every intention of bringing about his final death.
And quickly.
But first I had to find Frist, and I had a hunch just where to look. Sauntering into Crif Dogs, I placed my order and slid into an empty seat near the telephone booth, across from a skinny girl with raccoon eyes and pink hair.
“Oh shit,” she muttered as she gnawed on an onion ring.
“No one will kiss you after a meal like that.” I pointed at her rings and hot dog while I swigged from my flask, the bourbon easing some of the pain coursing through my body.
She smiled and licked her full lips. “Promise?”
I grinned and touched her leg under the table. “I need a favor.”
“I can tell.” A hint of concern flashed on her face and just as quickly disappeared.
“That stuff.”
“It’s not ready, Dutch.” Frist shook her head and bit into her hot dog. “It could kill you.”
“Nothing can kill me.”
Frist pointed at me, slowly shaking her head again. “You’re wrong.”
I ignored her. She was probably wrong. “I really need it.”
“And when you die from touching it, who answers to The Gate?”
“I won’t die, Frist.” I leaned forward and ran my thumb across her lips, a rare gesture of touch and tenderness coming from a motherfucker like me, but I found myself unable to resist her utterly magnificent mouth. Would she taste like onions and hot dogs? I knew she would taste like memories of all kinds of wicked sex. “And I would never leave you to answer for my sins, you know this.”
Frist pushed my hand away and wiped her fingers on a napkin. “I thought you said no one would kiss me.”
“I lied.”
“Just like you’re lying about your mortality.”
“I need that stuff.”
“I heard you the first time.” She stood and dumped her tray. Her legs were so long and her skirt was so short.
I should have been focused on Arjun and bringing about his death, but for a few seconds all I could think of was how good those legs felt wrapped around my waist.
“And don’t look at me like you might kiss me.”
I stood and pulled her close. “I would never. But I might fuck you.”
Frist smiled, and for a fleeting second—blink and it was gone—pressed her lips to the base of my throat. “Well, in that case, let’s do this.”
Back in her apartment, I settled into the couch and lit a smoke. Frist moved about her tiny lab, her delicate fingers mixing all sorts of powders and gels and god knew what else until a puff of smoke rose from a test tube.
First paled and her eyes flashed wild as she glanced my way. “Cover your mouth and nose and close your eyes.” She sprayed something in the air, the smoke turned a bluish pink, and she breathed deeply.
“All good?”
“Yeah, we’re cool,” she replied. “Just shut up and go to sleep. This is going to take a while.”
I sliced my hand through my hair and over what was quickly becoming a beard, and sighed. “I don’t have a lot of time, love.”
Frist glared at me, her eyes dark and dangerous. She hated being called love because it reminded her of her and she did not want to ever think of her. I knew this, and even so, I called her love.
Because she knew I didn’t like to be kissed and she did it anyway.
And because I was an asshole like that.
“Go the fuck to sleep, Dutch.”
Since she was the last person I wanted to make angry—okay, maybe not the last, since she was not James or Rani and would never have thirty-three people beat and torture me endlessly through the night as I screamed and writhed in pain and horror and then eventually quieted because it no longer mattered and no one cared—I did as she demanded and fell into a fitful, pain-filled, nightmarish sleep.
“Shhh, Dutch, shhhhh.”
A faint, familiar voice reached into my subconscious and tried to pull me out of the sick and diabolical nightmare through which I was running. The rhythm of the words comforted me—the sound so feminine and soft, almost melodic—and I settled and calmed and breathed easy. And finally I stepped out of the shit that had become my sleep.
Opening my eyes to semidarkness, I started, momentarily incapable of placing myself, gathering my bearings.
“Hey, hey, Dutch. It’s okay. Shhhhh.”
Frist.
I breathed deeply and turned on my side so I could see her figure. She wouldn’t touch me. She knew better, but she’d call to me until I woke, quiet and calm, just like she always did when I dreamed.
Her eyes were glassy and I knew she was crying. She hated watching me sleep, but more than that, she hated that she could not touch me, comfort me, pull me into her arms and soothe my soul.
But the damned could not be soothed.
“Please don’t cry,” I whispered, “and for fuck’s sake, don’t make me say please.”
Frist smiled and wiped at her eyes. “Who said I’m crying?”
I smiled but remained silent. I was horrible at filling blank spaces with empty words, so instead I reached for her, my hand fitting perfectly at her waist as if the space were carved out for me, an
d pulled her close. She sighed and wrapped a long leg around mine—a touch I permitted her, and only her. One hand remained under her cheek while the other rested on her hip, for she knew I could not abide more.
“I’m sorry,” I leaned close and whispered against her throat.
Frist moaned, and my dick grew hard. Her voice, that low growl of desire, always undid me.
“For what?” She arched toward me and then stopped. And I knew at that moment that she wanted so much more than I could give her, deserved so much more than me.
“I shouldn’t have fallen asleep for so long.” I trailed my tongue down her neck and between her breasts before lifting her shirt over her head to gain full access to her most perfect nipples. They were hard and begging for my mouth, and when I scraped my teeth over them, she shuddered.
She lifted her hands above her head and intertwined her fingers. I pulled off my belt and helped her, wrapping the leather around her tiny wrists and cinching the end. She watched my every move with those big eyes of hers, the black makeup smudged with sleep, making her sexier than ever. Her pulse quickened when I tugged on the leather. She was bound and at my mercy, and a part of me, the part that wasn’t yet dead, hadn’t yet been destroyed by The Gate and my life as a Keeper, desperately wanted to kiss her, linger on her mouth like I had nothing else in the world to do but learn the sweetness of her tongue and the softness of her lips.
I wanted to part them and slowly explore her, tease her, touch her . . . brown skin . . . and run my hands through her short hair, grabbing some of it in my fist and pulling her close. I pulled back from Frist for a second, shocked almost. The mysterious woman from the subway station, intruding on my thoughts, weaving some sick magic into my darkest acts.
“Dutch?” Frist broke the tense silence.
I shook my head as if to shake away any thoughts of the brown beauty I didn’t know, had never known, would never know, and instead focused on Frist. Dipping low, I sucked on her nipple and traced my fingers against her pussy just the way she liked, and when I knew she was going to come I bent low and licked her. She begged for more, cried really, as she lifted her hips off the bed to meet my mouth. I gave her what she wanted because she was Frist and I wanted her to feel good, but I couldn’t stop wishing the pussy I was eating belonged to someone I’d glimpsed from afar and knew nothing about. I sucked and licked and fucked Frist with my tongue and she came all over my face, and the whole time I wanted to taste the desire of a complete stranger.
Fuck that brown woman and her wicked magic.
I jammed myself into Frist’s pussy and came hard, collapsing against her in physical and mental exhaustion. I unwound my belt and released her delicate wrists so we could sleep the sleep of the sated. Without touching.
Hours later, Frist reached for me, and I jumped.
“Dutch.”
I caught my breath and fell back against the pillow. “I’m okay.”
“I’ve got the stuff. It’s ready for you.”
“Thanks.” I draped my arm across my eyes and waited for my breathing to slow, my heart to stop racing, my skin to stop burning where Frist touched me. Not literally, but sometimes the figurative was just as deadly.
“It could still kill you.”
“Not gonna happen, no matter how badly you want it to.”
I turned to Frist and grinned, pushing a strand of pink hair out of her eyes, tracing my thumb across her lip. She didn’t want me dead, her eyes said as much, and just like that, my dick was hard again. She glanced down and licked her lips and without a word spoken, we understood we wanted the same thing. Straddling her from above, my dick looming in her face, I angled toward her mouth. She did the rest, sucking me while I fucked her face and fucked her pussy with my fingers. I had every intention to make her come first, but then she started swirling her tongue around the head of my dick and teasing the tip while she cupped my balls and her teeth grazed my shaft, and not coming became an impossibility. I exploded, waves upon waves into her warm mouth.
And for five
four
three
two
one
seconds
she had me floating above all the shit in my life.
I slipped from her mouth. She pressed a kiss to my thigh and our eyes locked. Hers were big and sad and glassy and full of all kinds of fuckery because I was a walking nightmare, a ball of hurt and pain and murder and mayhem that I held inside and shared with no one because I had no one.
“Oh, Dutch,” Frist whispered and silently cried.
I wiped her tears, pulled on my clothes, and prepared to depart before she pulled and tugged and poked and made me feel things I had long ago convinced myself I couldn’t feel, shouldn’t feel, wouldn’t feel.
Because I was a Keeper, my soul was black, and I was fucked.
“Don’t be sad for me.” I lit a smoke.
She moved away from the bed, the silver of the moonlight slipping through the pink of her hair, touching her breasts, kissing her pussy.
“I won’t.”
I followed her as she picked her way toward her lab.
“I’m used to my life.”
“I know.”
“I’m good at it.”
“I know.”
“I just have moments . . .”
Frist glanced up, and for a few seconds neither of us breathed.
“I know,” she finally said as she handed me a small vial, our hands touching in the exchange.
“ . . . and they’re usually with you.”
“I know.”
She leaned forward and pressed her full lips to mine. Before I could stiffen at her touch, she stepped away from me.
“Now get the fuck out of my house, Dutch.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
DUTCH
The night was warm, and although it was late, folks were out, crowding the streets and sidewalk cafés. I weaved through pockets of humanity as I made my way up Avenue B. My blood hummed with the knowledge of that motherfucker Arjun—he was close. I had been in the area for at least ten hours and he hadn’t even bothered leaving, which made me think he was living there. Again.
I loved the East Village just as much as the next idiot, but this asshole took his obsession to a whole other level. Over the last six years he’d lived here, and met his death, three times. And still, he kept coming back for more.
Stupid fuck.
Arjun Overbay was not always my Poocha. I inherited him when he killed his original Keeper, Archer Madison. From the minute I entered The Gate, I hated Madison, and the feeling was mutual. To say I was hardly sad to learn of the Keeper’s death would have been the understatement of that year. That shithead Madison had gone out of his way to make my entrance pure hell, singling me out for his special attentions as soon as he and I met.
I was sixteen, and instead of heading off to university with my childhood friends, I left for The Gate and my new life as a Keeper. There was no training, no school to attend to learn to keep, no professors to teach the art of keeping. It just happened—one day you were a kid, running the streets, playing football with your friends, and the next you were a Keeper, slicing a knife across someone’s throat, killing for The Gate.
And dealing with fucks like Archer Madison.
It was that abrupt, the metamorphosis from average adolescent to diabolical killer. Because deep down, under all of the sweetness and the wonder and the introspection that was your person, under the angst and the awkwardness and the confusion that made you who you were, was this sick, black, soulless motherfucker just waiting to rise to the top. He had always been inside you, biding his time, knowing he would get his chance. He just needed to be patient. And once he came out, well, that innocent boy who spent hours with Rajama the cook, learning her culinary secrets, or trailed after Kumar the driver on one of his many errands, or dared to love Kajal, the beautiful girl next door with the eyes like a storm and the lips that tasted of cherries and honey and spice? That boy disappeared so quickly you
wondered whether he’d ever even existed or was simply a figment of your overactive imagination.
It was jarring and bizarre how easy it was to become a killer. But then again, it was in my blood, as I came from a family of The Gate. The Mathews of 1 Rambala Way had ruled The Gate since anyone could recall. We were one of “those” families; most called us royalty. Me personally, I thought we were just fucked. It was the only logical explanation for our kind. My parents and sister disagreed but that was because they were goddamned psychos, fueled by bloodlust and greed. They cared little for my thoughts on the matter, had no time and even less tolerance for what they liked to call my “fuckery,” and were beyond exasperated with what they considered my transgressions. In the face of all of that familial disappointment and disdain, I did my best to remain silent, keep my lips sealed, and refrain from speaking any sort of blasphemy against my father, mother or sister. It was the noblest thing I had ever done, but that wasn’t saying much.
I was hardly noble, not by any stretch of the imagination.
Nothing about killing without question screamed nobility. And to do it over and over and over again, in the sickest of fashions, the most heinous murders one could think to commit, well, there was really nothing more to say.
Except that I was fucking brilliant at it.
One of the best.
So yeah, I wasn’t noble, I was just fucked. It was what made me so good at what I did, why I was assigned the Arjuns of the world, and also why the Ranis and Jameses of the world despised me.
Because my soul was blacker than anyone else’s, I was more fucked than anyone else, and most of the time I didn’t give a shit.
You couldn’t if you wanted to survive.
I turned down 5th Street and kept walking west, headed in the right direction, smelling Arjun everywhere. And right about now, I should probably explain that most Keepers couldn’t follow a Poocha by smell, but it was always one of the first things I learned about mine—their unique, very subtle scent. Early in my career, during my second assignment, the sly and sexy Nora Vox, I realized that every time she was in the vicinity, I picked up a hint of rosemary. Nothing powerful or overwhelming, just a whiff, enough for me to suddenly wonder if I was hungry and then wonder why the fuck I thought I wanted to eat.
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