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  “That is where you are wrong, my dear,” Shema stated. Her palms undulated and radiated intense heat into my skin, the sensation so otherworldly, I forgot to tell her to stop touching me, I forgot to hate her, I forgot damn near everything except how good it felt to have skin and blood and muscle and sinew and for all of it to come together in my body and what strength that body held, my arms and legs and chest and gut, all of me bursting with life and vitality and virility and

  and

  and

  what

  the

  fuck?!

  “Get your hands off me!” I shouted as I burst the leather straps binding me to the table and sat up, the skin of my chest open and flapping, blood everywhere, my eyes wild with pain and shock and wonder at the insanity of it all. “Goddammit, Shema. Back the fuck up.”

  She and Rani both moved away from me and the table, the former about five feet to my left, the latter in front of me, but out of my reach. Neither woman appeared afraid, probably because even capable of breaking my bonds, I was still a mess, sliced and flayed, skin hanging from me in shreds, all of me spilling everywhere.

  “I can help you, Dutch,” Shema said as she took a step in my direction, her voice low and soothing, wholly unlike the desperate woman of minutes earlier.

  “Fuck you and your goddamned psychobabble voice,” I replied. I slid from the table and moved toward the back of the room and away from those two, holding together pieces of my chest, watching them all the while. “The mere fact you’re speaking to me at all is cause for alarm. You could fucking sing to me like Maria Callas and it wouldn’t make a goddamned difference.”

  I stood for the first time in ages, on legs wobbly as a newborn colt’s but working nonetheless, no doubt due to Shema’s magic flowing through my veins.

  “What did you do to me?” I asked as I tried pushing my skin together along the seams of the square-cut sections of my chest, hoping the flesh would meld into one as it had in other areas of my body touched by Shema’s hands.

  She watched my frenzied ministrations for a few moments before taking a few more steps in my direction and gracing me with her words.

  “I helped and protected you,” she said. Shema’s voice was deadpan and dangerous and reminded me of when I was young and Kajal was tortured and killed nine times over before my eyes. Shema witnessed every single one of Kajal’s murders before finally taking mercy on my soul, touching my restraints with her black magic hands, and releasing me from that horror chamber in a sleepy Mexican artists’ town. She once again sounded much more like the mother I knew than the benevolent stranger she’d played just minutes earlier.

  “Fuck you and your help,” I said. I knew it sounded childish, but I didn’t give a shit. Fuck her. “I don’t need your goddamned protection, so back the fuck up, Shema.”

  “Dutch.”

  I stopped pressing and prodding and pushing my skin, and at the sound of my name forgot about Rani and Shema and stilled. Every brain cell I possessed, which just seconds earlier focused on hurling every curse word in the book at that cunt of a woman I had the misfortune of calling a mother before going at Rani with similar fervor, shifted. And refocused on that sound, the low lilt that rolled out slow and lazy with a slight rasp that reminded me of languid summer nights when the air was so thick, it trapped the heat and the only remedy was to strip naked and pray. For relief. For escape.

  For Juma.

  I turned toward the voice, my body reacting before my brain could piece together what was actually happening, and there she stood in all her gorgeous brown sex, alive, so fucking alive, and beautiful and strong. I knew if I touched her, she would feel warm and soft and inviting. And if I leaned close and kissed her throat, right there on that freckle, on her spot, the place that made her crazy, while I slipped my hand inside her pants and ran my finger over her panties and traced the lips of her pussy and circled her clit, real soft and slow, barely there but so. fucking. there. because I knew exactly how to touch her, she would spread her legs and make my fingers wet with her desire. And she would rub her hand along the length of my dick while she told me to fuck her like a slut and make her come everywhere.

  I knew those things to be true.

  But I also knew the look.

  That Look.

  The one she wore as she watched me hold my chest together and try not to fall apart in the face of her perfection. The one that made me forget all the sexy shit about her, the way it was never enough to be near her, I needed to be inside her. I needed to inhabit all her spaces, those made of light and dark, the stunning and the scary, and wrap myself in all her perfect imperfections. The one that let me know shit was about to get real.

  She smiled, but it was not happiness to see me.

  “Stop fucking around and let your mother put you back together.”

  CHAPTER FIVE: DUTCH

  I loved her like a sickness.

  It began in my blood and spread to my muscles and vital organs and tissue until all of me succumbed to all of her. It had been that way since the first time I spied her in the subway station, so far away and still able to pull me close and hold me to her forever.

  But frankly, Juma didn’t know shit.

  Not when it came to the mountains of fuckery within the Mathew clan. Not when it came to decades of a mother’s disdain and dismissal. Not when it came to too many moments of turning a blind eye and blood-soaked lies. Juma was made of love and light and laughter, she couldn’t begin to imagine my reality, understand how I was filled with nothing but darkness and shit, comprehend why I would not let Shema Mathew—my own mother, for fuck’s sake—touch me again.

  “No.”

  “No?” she asked, and with a step toward me, slipped from the shadows so I could see her. The flickering light from the candles highlighted her captivating beauty, even when she was steaming mad.

  Because trust me, Juma was mad.

  To the ordinary bystander, she probably seemed calm and accepting of my defiance of her demand. But to the man who knew every muscle on her face, each expression she conjured, understood all the shades of gray in her eyes because I studied each one, learned her quirks day and night, never tired of watching her, I knew her simple no, so rational and reasonable, almost quiet, possibly flirtatious, held multitudes of I will fuck you up when I get my hands on you, Dutch Mathew.

  But the fact remained, I despised my mother and everything she stood for, everything she was, everything she was trying to be right now so much that I didn’t give a shit about Juma and her growing ire.

  “No, Juma.” I repeated myself, and as her name fell from my lips, both Rani and Shema turned and looked at her with what could only be categorized as piqued interest. Suddenly the beautiful brown woman hiding in the shadows was all of that and so much more.

  So.

  Much.

  More.

  “You two,” I growled at Rani and my mother as I went back to working on my aching burning ripped-apart skin, “don’t fucking look at her. She has nothing to do with any of this.”

  Rani ignored me and walked a slow circle around Juma, her lips curved in the most curious smile as she eyed Juma from every angle.

  “Oh, that’s where you are so very wrong, Dutch.” Rani stopped in front of Juma, cocked her head to the side, and laughed. “This sexy little something has everything to do with this.”

  If my chest weren’t open and bleeding, I would have killed her on the spot. Instead, I focused on the all-encompassing task of holding myself together while maintaining a healthy distance from Shema and her intrusive hands.

  “Dutch.” Juma whispered my name as her eyes swept the room and came to rest on the table, and I knew her mind filled with the horrors I’d endured while strapped to that slab of blood-soaked wood. For a split second I hated that she knew my gory details, but then she touched me and the second faded into nothingness. “Care to introduce me to your friend?”

  She pressed her fingers along one of the seams of my flayed chest an
d smiled, pushing my flesh together as if it were every day that she found her lover a carved-up, bloody mess.

  “Hi, you,” she whispered, and pressed, and everywhere she touched stopped aching for a few seconds. “You’re kinda fucked up, huh? She did this to you?” Juma’s eyes flashed in Rani’s direction, and I knew if I wanted to, with one word, I could sign Rani’s death certificate right then and there.

  I also knew Juma knew Rani didn’t do this to me, she just wanted an excuse to kill Rani on the spot.

  “I did not touch him,” Rani said.

  “This time.” Juma caught Rani’s eye and seemed to dare the Keeper to respond, then returned her attentions to me and my shredded chest. “It feels better when I touch you like this, doesn’t it?” she asked as her fingers moved methodically along my chest, working her gentle magic into my skin and muscle and blood, making all my screaming pain dull around the edges.

  She hypnotized me with her hands as she played along my body with fingers that felt like love and tenderness and time.

  “This is nice, no?”

  I wanted to speak but was caught up in her scent and her voice and her everything. She glanced at me and licked her lips and I was done, even more so than before, when Khan and Veda had me strapped and trapped or Rani and Shema filled me with magic I did not want. No, this was something altogether inexplicable and utterly Juma, this web of wonder I found myself in every time she was near.

  She leaned in and licked my lip, then ran her fingers along the nape of my neck and pulled me close. Her touch was both possessive and gentle, her breath was warm on my ear, maddening and sexy and holy fuck, I wished I wasn’t such a goddamned mess, because at that moment I wanted nothing more than to slide my dick deep inside her pussy, fill her completely, then fuck her long and slow and just as she liked.

  “Forgive me.” She whisper-kissed into my ear as she wrapped my right hand in her viselike grip while her other hand held me by the neck, immobile and stunned. “I’m so sorry, sweetness.”

  “Juma, don’t,” I begged because it was all I could do. “Please.”

  Her eyes filled with tears as she turned to her left and watched Rani for two seconds.

  “Back the fuck up,” she commanded, then directed her attention to Shema. “I’m going to hold him still. Fix him.”

  I continued to plead. “Juma.”

  “Shut up, Dutch. Please.” She held me in her death grip, and I wondered whether I could escape even if I were 100 percent myself, her strength seemed otherworldly. I had dealt with hundreds of Poochas before her, and not one of them had an ounce of the power she possessed. I didn’t give a fuck, I was still going to fight her with everything in my being because no way did I want Shema touching me.

  I ignored my open chest and the blood and pain and I fought Juma and it was ugly. I tore at her arms and hair and anything I could touch, I wanted to rip her to shreds if it resulted in my escape. No matter that she believed she was helping me, I knew better. I knew the truth and the fact there was no way in hell Shema would ever help me.

  No.

  Fucking.

  Way.

  So I raged and Juma let me while Shema and Rani watched in shocked silence until I tired and Juma bled from all the places on her body I had attacked and the room fell into an uncomfortable quiet.

  “I cannot believe you, of all people, would do this to me.” I tried the last trick up my sleeve, the weakest play to hit her in the most brutal manner.

  “Shema.” Juma refused to make eye contact, immune to my ploy as she held me against the wall, both of us covered in blood and exhausted. “Do whatever you must.”

  My mother watched us, and I sensed she did not know what to make of Juma, this woman who’d stepped from the shadows, exuding power and beauty and grace but also a very determined and terrifying savagery. There was little chance she did not know of Juma, had not heard of her from Khan or Veda, but I suspected she hadn’t expected the Juma of those megalomaniacal rants to be the woman standing before her, demanding she act.

  “I can do no such thing without his consent.” Shema finally spoke, and I damn near choked on the absurdity of her statement.

  “He will never consent.” Juma held on to me tighter, as if keeping me still would change Shema’s mind. “So stop pretending you suddenly feel all maternal toward him and just do what I asked.”

  “Do you know who I am?” Shema asked, and I knew from her tone she was about to launch into one of her self-righteous tirades.

  “Lady, all due respect, I know exactly who you are. You are the woman who sold her son out to his psycho of a father, then cosigned the torture of that same child’s first love, and subsequently turned a blind eye to any and all violence committed against his body and soul in the name of The Gate. You’ve spent a lifetime knelt at the feet of your husband, licking the feet of your daughter, all at the expense of this man.” Juma breathed deeply, then met my stare.

  “I am so sorry, Dutch,” she whispered. Had she released me then and there, I would not have escaped that room. I would have pulled her to me and held her close because there was nothing I hated more than watching her weep.

  “You don’t have to do this—you can fix me yourself.” I tried once more to avoid Shema’s magic because as much as I loved Juma, I despised my mother, and if there was even an inkling of a chance Juma would let me go, I had to snatch it out of the air and own it.

  “I can’t,” she said, and pressed me into the wall tighter, as if able to read my thoughts and know my desire to escape.

  “You’ve done it before. Please. Juma. Hear me.”

  But she didn’t hear me, because just then we all heard them.

  Khan.

  Veda.

  And undoubtedly the Black Copse.

  They were far off, most likely on the other side of the palace, but they were on the grounds and they were moving in our direction.

  “Fuck the whole lot of you,” Rani said, and before anyone could consider or contemplate her movements, she grabbed Shema’s hands and placed them on my bloodied and battered chest. I cried out in pain as Juma maintained her grip and Shema looked on in shock, probably amazed someone had the nerve to force her to do anything.

  “Shema, stop playing games and do this already,” Rani hissed. “Fix him.”

  “This is a chance to redeem yourself for years of horrible parenting,” Juma continued, “horrible everything.”

  “Good fucking god, shut up,” Rani said. “Just hold him still and stop talking to her. And you”—she turned to Shema—“this is not the time for whatever bullshit games you want to play with Super Poocha over there. You were so desperate to do right by your son, fucking do it already.”

  But even before Rani finished speaking, my skin had already heated and my blood pumped with such intensity, I could feel it move through my veins, and what once was ripped and rendered useless fused into itself and healed with Shema’s magic. I closed my eyes as the woman who gave birth to me but never mothered me a day of my life did all she could to put me back together, and even though I recoiled at the idea of her magic running through my veins, I needed it. I wanted it.

  “Let him go,” Shema instructed Juma. “You’re impeding his healing.”

  “That’s impossible,” Juma disagreed.

  “Young lady,” Shema began, “how dare you—”

  “It’s okay, Juma,” I interrupted, unwilling to listen to whatever nonsense Shema intended to spew in Juma’s direction. “You can let me go.”

  Juma locked eyes with me for a moment, her own glassy and full of remorse—for everything she’d forced me to endure, for loving me more than I loved myself. Then she relaxed her hold, but couldn’t seem to bring herself to step away. She glanced at Shema before returning her gaze to mine.

  “Promise,” I reassured as I wrapped my hands around hers and eased her away from my body. “I won’t move until she’s done with whatever she has to do to me.”

  Juma winced as my words hit her an
d I regretted uttering them, but there was so much I regretted when it came to Juma and me and us that instead of dwelling on my remorse, I shot her a half smile and leaned into Shema’s hands. This time they were cold, and what seconds earlier felt warm and full of life turned to ice as all of me became trapped in a chill like no other, everything slowed until I was certain I would die, and I wanted to laugh because all I could think of was Han Solo and that scene from The Empire Strikes Back when Lando sold him out to Vader, and Leia and Chewie watched him turned into a carbonite block because once upon a time I told Shema I wanted to be Han when I grew up, so holy fuck, maybe this was her making good on my wish.

  I knew I was going to succumb to whatever darkness she, that no-good bitch of a mother, had planned for me. I also knew Juma would kill her and end Shema’s reign of undercover terror, so I relaxed into her evil because I knew that any moment, it would all come to an end.

  Except that it didn’t.

  I teetered on the edge a few moments, even dangled my toe into the blackness, and I saw things—whispery beings with barely any faces, with glittering eyebrows and voices like angels. I swore they were focused on Juma and me, but what the fuck did I know in this fugue state between life and death. Then without warning I was sucked back into the madness of doors slamming and bodies moving and questions and answers and accusations and threats, and through it all, a tiny voice in the back of my brain whispered spoke shouted MOVE ASSHOLE! until I realized with a start that I wasn’t dead.

  I was very much not dead.

  My skin was intact, all of me was closed up and healed, and none of me felt as I had minutes earlier, when my body screamed in pain and everything was raw and red and exposed. I took stock of myself and my very not-dead state as all hell broke loose around me. Because while I was under the deep freeze of Shema’s magic, exactly what Rani had warned of happened, and where once we were four, now we were many. And it was goddamned chaos, almost magical in its unpredictable insanity. And if I were a kinder soul, one not so dark and fucked up, I might have felt concern or even fear for Shema and Rani.