Managing Death (19 page)

I know I’m not getting the full story. I know they snatched this away from the cops, but I try to not let that show on my face.

‘There’s no licence or wallet, obviously, and his fingerprints have come up blank. We’re waiting on dental, but I’m not feeling that hopeful. But then there’s this.’ He pulls the plastic sheeting down to the waist.

Interesting.

Along both of his arms and his chest are a series of interlinking brace tattoos, and a couple of other symbols that may have some esoteric potency, or be a load of bullshit. It’s always hard to tell but they’re certainly the sort of tattoos that a Pomp might have. He even
possessed a bit of death iconography on a shoulder blade, a cherub like mine, though his is bigger.

‘If he was a Pomp, he certainly didn’t belong to me. I can feel it when my Pomps die.’ It was something I haven’t had to experience yet, but no doubt will, soon enough. Every RM does. ‘He’s been too long gone for me to tell if he belongs to anyone else.’ Could he belong to Suzanne? No, that doesn’t make sense.

‘Do you trust the other RMs?’ Solstice asks.

I snort, can’t help myself. ‘Do you know how RMs actually become RMs, Mr Solstice?’

Solstice shakes his head. ‘A certain negotiation,’ he says. ‘Something about a tree?’

Which is pretty good. He certainly knows more than I did when I was just a Pomp. I think back to the Negotiation, wondering why something so bloody had such a civil name. After all, two mumbling death-lusting stone blades were involved. ‘Let me just say the process doesn’t even begin to encourage trust. I wouldn’t trust those bastards as far as I could throw them. Backstabbers, every one of them. After all, it’s the only way you become RM. Back, front and side-stabbing, with a little slashing thrown in as well.’

‘And what about you?’

‘I never wanted this job. And you know, I hold that as a badge of pride.’

‘Can’t make it easy for you … lacking that ruthlessness. And yet, here you are, RM.’

‘I did what I had to.’

‘I suppose they’d all say that, wouldn’t they? Doesn’t everyone, who rises to a position of power?’

I glance at my watch. ‘Are we done? I’ve got an appointment.’

‘Yeah, we’re done.’

‘And about those fellas you want to send over. Don’t bother, we’ve got our own people.’

‘You trust them?’

‘Absolutely.’

Solstice smiles. ‘Just turn a blind eye to any cars parked across from your place.’

‘This is inhouse,’ I say between gritted teeth.

Solstice shakes his head. ‘Not when people die, it isn’t.’

I grin nastily at him. ‘That’s how death works.’

‘W
ell, would you look at that?’ Tim says. ‘You’re early.’

Tim’s sitting in his office and that’s where I’ve shifted again. ‘Right place, wrong time. At least your pants are on,’ I say.

‘You don’t have a clue what’s going on behind this desk.’ Tim lights a cigarette. ‘I thought you were reading those briefing notes.’

‘Funny you should say that. I was interrupted by a call from Solstice.’ I open Tim’s door, and wave across the room at Oscar. He grimaces at me. ‘Tim, I don’t like how the Feds keep poking their noses into our business.’

Tim sighs. ‘Steve, it’s all about accountability.’

‘It sounds like you agree with their approach.’

‘No. But I understand it.’ He ashes into a Coke can. ‘You read my notes?’

‘Most of them. But this group doesn’t feel like that. I spoke to Alex, too. He says he can’t get anything on them. This is Australia. We don’t have any covert groups.’

‘What about us?’

‘That’s different. We’re not so much covert as unacknowledged. We’ve been around since life began.’

Tim walks with me to my office then heads to reception to wait for our possible new recruit.

Oscar’s waiting outside my door. There’s a certain percentage of rage beneath his professional demeanour.

‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘Had an interview with the police.’

Oscar grimaces, though I think he’s coming to terms with me a little. ‘How hard is it to phone, eh?’

He opens the door to my office. Lissa’s sitting in one of the chairs.

I turn to Oscar. ‘What’s this with the security breaches today?’ I ask. He grimaces again and shuts the door in my face.

‘And don’t you have your own office, Ms Jones?’

‘This was the only time I knew I would be able to see you,’ Lissa says. ‘There’s not much window in either of our schedules … You look a little pale.’

‘I’ve been chasing shadows all day, not much chance to get a tan.’ I drop into the throne. ‘How is it that everybody knows about Rillman except me? Did you know he’s regularly been crossing into the Underworld? Suzanne –’

‘What about Suzanne?’ Lissa says sharply.

I try not to look guilty. ‘Mr D says she’s told him that Rillman has been making trouble for years. Just not here. Seems it took my promotion to bring him back to Australia.’ It’s another thing Morrigan has to answer for.

I sense another heartbeat in the building. ‘We have a visitor,’ I say. ‘Clare Ramage?’

‘She’s good,’ Lissa says. ‘One of the best I’ve found. Even has a bit of family history in the trade.’

Oscar knocks on the door, then swings it open, giving me the thumbs-up, and a woman (Clare, I’m guessing) in her early twenties walks into the room. Tim follows her.

I scan her face to see how she copes with this space. She tilts her head. Good, she can already hear the creaking of the One Tree. My mind’s not on the interview, though. I’m back at that odd morgue, trying to piece things together. Who was the assassin working for? And when did bodies stop being processed through the usual channels?

I sit through the interview trying to look interested, but it’s Lissa who asks most of the questions. I hope I appear affable and bossish enough, and not that distracted. It’s over in under an hour. Once Clare’s gone, Tim and Lissa talk it through.

‘What do you think?’ Lissa asks me. I blink at her.

‘About what?’

Lissa snorts. ‘Clare?’

I wave my hand absently at the door. ‘Miss Ramage was fine. Eminently employable.’

Tim’s phone beeps. He grimaces. ‘I’ve got to take this one.’

‘Ankou?’

‘Nah, the Caterers. Since the ceremony they’ve been calling me every bloody second hour, because somebody went and left this to the last minute.’

I don’t know whether to be offended that they’re dealing with Tim instead of me. ‘Yeah, you better.’ Tim gives Lissa a look that I can’t read, and she nods. Oh no, this better not mean another lecture for me.

When Tim’s out of the room, Lissa frowns. ‘You’re losing focus again.’

‘No, I’m not,’ I mumble. How can I explain that, if anything, I’m more focussed than ever before, it’s just the picture that’s changed. ‘Take my word for it, I’m not. Clare’s got the job, I can make her a Pomp tomorrow. Give her one more day to think about it, and to be normal, eh?’

Lissa nods, tries to pull a smile, fails. I can understand why she’s worried about me, but she doesn’t need to be. Not about this. ‘You don’t want to give her too long.’

‘Worried she’ll change her mind?’

Lissa gets up, pecks me on the cheek, walks to the door. ‘Who wouldn’t?’

‘You, me, Tim.’

Lissa laughs. Bad examples, every one of them.

I’m left alone. Lissa was the first person I turned into a Pomp: Lissa. She’d been one before, of course, but when she was resurrected back into her body, I’d had to return her powers. In those dark moments, as the Stirrers surrounded us, there had been an intimacy that was terrifying. We’d looked into each other’s soul and found an echo and a challenge of, and to, our own.

I lean back in my throne and my eyes close, just for a moment.

Knives. A swinging scythe. Mist the colour of blood.

I jolt awake. Fucking hell! A bloke could cut out his eyelids just to stop these visions.

Something catches my attention. A differently beating heart, a slight change in electricity. Someone has shifted into my city unannounced. And not just anywhere …

Now, that, I can’t allow.

I squeeze my eyes tight, take a deep breath to prepare for the unpreparable, and shift myself to Mount Coot-tha. Old One Tree Hill.

Someone’s on my turf and they shouldn’t be.

M
ount Coot-tha. Heart of the city of Brisbane, and its Underworld twin. I arrive in the middle of a bunch of tourists. None of them seem that impressed with my swearing, or the way I hop around on one foot. This shift felt like a spear being driven into my thigh. That’s something new. I thought I was getting better at it. But it passes quickly, even if I’m red-faced with embarrassment.

‘If you’ve finished your little dance,’ Suzanne says. ‘We can start today’s lesson. Though take your time, I’m finding this all very amusing.’

‘What are you doing up here?’

‘Testing your abilities, and I must say that you surprised me. I didn’t really expect that you would sense me. If I had I would have showed up in, say, Tasmania. You get a gold star.’

‘I don’t like this shifting around, unannounced – it sends a bad message,’ I say.

Suzanne’s good humour slips a little. ‘It does nothing of the sort. If you can detect me, or any other RM, then
they can detect you. They will know that you know they are here.’

‘No one can sneak up on me?’

‘Not quite,’ Suzanne says. ‘An electrical storm can shield their presence, but an electrical storm is hard to shift into, and an RM who is in the middle of one tends to be wary.’

‘And why should an RM be wary of another RM? Aren’t we supposed to be all unified?’

Suzanne raises an eyebrow. ‘Don’t be naive. RMs can hurt you more than anyone else, except, perhaps, for this Mr Rillman. When an RM comes unannounced you be ready. And try and remember if you have crossed anyone.’

The Kuta Cafe at the top of Mount Coot-tha is open, and up here, there’s a bit of wind, enough to take the edge off the summer heat. The last time I was here I spoke to Morrigan still thinking he was a friend. I know that Suzanne isn’t; even ‘ally’ would be too generous a term.

Brisbane stretches itself out around us, a vast carpet of tree-smeared suburbia. The CBD rises up in the east, a tight bunching of skyscrapers around which the Brisbane River wends, leading to Moreton Bay. A series of low, flat mountains marks the western horizon. The air is clear, a typical Brisbane summer’s day.

But sometimes I’m seeing and hearing the Underworld simultaneously, a superimposed view of
the land of the dead. The ruddy river. The massive root buttresses of the One Tree. The creaking, creaking, creaking as its mighty limbs are moved by the restless winds of Hell. Wal’s face shifts on my tattoo. He can almost take form here, and I know he wants to.

‘Do you want a coffee?’

Suzanne shakes her head. ‘Just a quieter place, away from all these tourists.’ She winces as though she has a headache. ‘It’s too bright here.’

‘Just about anywhere is quieter in Brisbane than this,’ I say.

I lead her up to the observation platform. It’s just us, now. Maybe our presence has something to do with that. Put two RMs together and there’s always a bit of electricity. Though there are some kids running on the lookout below. The air crackles with the buzzing of cicadas, the kids’ shouts and the ubiquitous creaking of the One Tree. This is my home.

‘Lovely,’ Suzanne says. ‘Looking down at it from here I must say what a beautiful and intimate little city you have. But it’s not quite the right venue for what I have planned. Are you all right to shift again?’

‘Of course I am,’ I say.

‘You’re getting better at it at last.’ There’s a glint in Suzanne’s eye. ‘Deepest Dark then,’ she says.

I follow her there. And I don’t throw up.

‘So, Faber introduced you to the Stirrer god?’

‘Up close and far too personal. It nearly killed me, thank you very much.’

‘Ours is a dangerous business. And none more so than when facing that god.’

‘Yeah, particularly when your guide lets go of your hand.’

‘I assure you that Faber was utterly mortified by what happened. At least you were quick-witted enough to do what had to be done.’

‘Yes, I was, wasn’t I?’

Suzanne laughs. ‘There’s hope for you yet. You needed to see it up close. You needed to feel just what sort of a menace it has become. To understand why this thing terrifies us – all of us – in a way that defies the usual squabbles of the Orcus.’

‘I had an idea already.’ When did Suzanne start taking this seriously? Is she playing me? But she’s always playing me!

‘No, you had no idea. This thing will be beaten, or it will destroy us. Life, and the Orcus. We thirteen have not faced such a threat in lifetimes beyond counting. There is nothing written about such a thing. But there are murmurings. It, or something very much like it, was defeated before. There are things you need to know. You’ve a rich heritage of which you are barely aware. Starting with the basics. Do you know why pomping hurts?’

‘Because it does. It makes sense, there’s that whole exchange of energy thing. If we’re going to take something out of our universe and put it into another, of course it’ll hurt.’

Suzanne looks at me, and laughs. ‘Physics has nothing to do with what we are about, Steven.’ Suzanne shakes her head. ‘No. The pain is an additive, something the Orcus constructed through ceremony and hard work, and then entered into the process. Pomping used to be pleasurable, addictive.’

‘That would have been dangerous.’

‘You have no idea. Before there were thirteen, pomping was a nightmare. One you perhaps know too well.’

My ears prick up at that. Nightmares. She sees it and smiles.

‘Yes, we all have them. You’ve heard of the Hungry Death?’

‘Just a few stories, stuff Dad would tell me when I was a kid.’ But the way Dad had told them, I’d never taken them seriously.

‘They’re just stories now, but there was a time when they weren’t.’ Her voice slows and grows sonorous and rhythmical. ‘Long ago, before you and me. Before the world is the shape it is now, or shape it was before, there was only one Death. And it was called the Hungry Death because it was always hungry.’ She crouches down and trails a finger in the dust of the Deepest Dark. Following her is a dusty wake, now thirteen trails, which then rise and race around her fingers. They coalesce into a form – vaguely human, vaguely Stirrer. She seems to shake her head at the whimsy of it, flicks her hand and the Hungry Death is just falling dust again, but it’s broken a little of her rhythm, for a moment she is just
the cynical RM again. ‘If only it was that easy to dismiss. That painting of Mr D’s, the lurid one by the peasant.’