The Business Of Death, Death Works Trilogy (100 page)

“Morrigan’s coming,” Alex whispers in my ear. He touches my shoulder, inadvertently pomping himself. He blinks, then he’s gone.

I don’t even get to say goodbye. But I’ve no time to react.

I’ve done what I can. Enough of them get a good grip and I’ll be torn apart. I shift out of there.

Lissa and Tim have almost reached the others, and Wal has slowed his flight to keep pace with them.

“I told you I wouldn’t be long,” I say.

We turn another corner, and there they are. A hundred meters away from us, down the last laneway. The wall that I tore asunder is behind them. Behind us run the Stirrers. I’ve not slowed them by much, I’m not sure it will be enough.

My Pomps are waiting, Ari’s experienced fighters at the front, but I can see the terror in their eyes as they take in our pursuers.

Tim, Lissa and I crash through their ranks.

“They’re here,” Ari yells. “Retreat. Retreat.”

And they actually move backwards at a steady pace. Until the Stirrers meet our front. There are screams of rage and fear coming
from both sides. But it is no rout, we move back slowly, slowly. I kiss Lissa who is still catching her breath, surrounded by the mass of our Pomps passing through the gap in the wall.

“I have to deal with this,” I say and shift back to the front.

It’s a desperate fight, but I know my presence, my ability to shift lightning quick, stops us from becoming overwhelmed. The air stinks of blood and ash, and just the mildest hint, again, of the sea.

We are all through the walls. Crashing back: fighting so as not to be consumed in our retreat.

We’re out and on the plain of the Deepest Dark when I realize that Stirrers are closing around us from east and west, having poured out from secret exits (or really obvious ones that we failed to notice) further along the walls, sealing us against the wall. We’ve been trapped outside the city, which I fought so hard to break.

We’re being attacked on all sides. Morrigan is aiming to end this now.

I shift back to Lissa and Tim.

“Classic pincer movement,” Tim says, still gasping from all that running, suddenly getting all strategic. I glare at him.

“So how did we fall for it?”

“That’s why it’s a fucking classic.”

“There I thought we were drawing Morrigan out, and he was driving us towards this.”

Before us the portal shimmers, glowing with a coastal light just beyond reach, thousands of Stirrers stand in the way. We’re going to be consumed here. There’s a moment of pause, the Stirrers pull back a little and look towards the ranks of our enemy that cram the gap in the wall.

They’re waiting for something. We all are.

Cerbo isn’t too far from the wall. Ari stands with him, both are as bloody as me, I shift to them. Cerbo looks up at me, and smiles grimly.

“Well, Mr. de Selby, we did our best.”

“It’s not over yet,” I tell him.

“Not until our hearts stop beating, eh? Not until the comet falls from the sky?” He looks at his bloody hands. “What in blazes are they waiting for?”

“Not a what but a who!” Wal says, landing in our midst. He nods at Cerbo’s inkling. “Hello, Stuart,” he says. The cobra dips its head. Wal flies to my side, drops on my shoulder again.

“He’s almost at the front.”

The Stirrers part and Morrigan stands there, cocky as all hell, even without the scythe. He’s holding what looks like a bloody big broadsword. I want to tell my Pomps nearest to pull back, but there is no room: nowhere to go. We’re hemmed in.

“Let the harvest begin,” he roars, “let death in all its glory reign.”

“Pompous prick,” Ari moans from behind me. “I never could stand him.”

Morrigan swings the sword before him with all the strength of a god, heads and limbs fly.

“That wasn’t meant to happen,” Wal says, his face aghast. He beats his wings frantically, gets some elevation, before dropping back down beside my face. “We’re kind of surrounded, kiddo.”

We’re in trouble, serious trouble. I shift back to Lissa and Tim. Wal follows.

“Good enough day to die as any,” I say, and it is.

Lissa kisses me. “Always a good day to die with you,” she says, then grimaces. “Christ, how emo was that?”

“I knew an emo once,” Wal says. “It didn’t end well. It never does.”

We slide our knives across our palms, and prepare to fight.

There’s a sound like a great wind or a rising conflagration. I turn towards its source. Behind us the root-tips of the One Tree sway. A
bluish light burns hotter for a few moments. The air rings. And hands claw their way through the dirt. What new thing is this?

Mr. D on his bicycle shoots around the front towards me. “Sorry I took so long. Charon sends his regards and these souls from the Ark.”

Finally the dead have risen, Mr. D at their fore, and they’re not as I know them. Instead of dull and uncaring, or maybe a little scared, the dead have risen and they look pissed off. But it isn’t the only change, guided by a signal I neither hear nor feel, a thousand or so Stirrers from Morrigan’s own ranks turn on their own kind.

The Stirrer rebellion has begun.

And as one we rush into that darkness, me at the front. All of my Pomps behind me. Here we are fighting not for a cause, not for a country, but for life and death itself.

Here is the triumph of Death. Here is Breughel’s painting: a last-ditch battle of the dead.

Lissa stands to my left. Tim to my right. Their hands are bloody as they grapple with the Stirrers. People scream, howl, yell. Stirrers roar, but they do not stop.

And there is death. Everywhere there is death.

Morrigan strides towards us, ignoring the fight, and I know that he’s coming for me.

“We can’t win here,” Cerbo yells at me. “You need to draw him out.”

“I know,” I shout back. “He has to go through that portal. Out there, out in the real world we have a chance at stopping him. Here we can’t. The rules are different here. We’re lacking one thing.”

“What?”

“Trust me.”

Morrigan, holding the great sword casually in one hand, steps neatly over the corpse of a Pomp. He has a bag around his waist, and seeing me now he reaches into it, and yanks out Alex’s head.

I’d kill him now if I could. I’d rip the heart right out of him.

“Alas, poor Alex. I knew his father well, the drunken fool,” Morrigan says. “Any other friends you would like me to kill? Where’s that bitch girlfriend of yours?”

I’m trying to speak. I can’t. HD pushes at me. “Oh, it looks like you’re in shock,” Morrigan says. “Look at that!” he chuckles. “I’ve shocked the Orcus. I don’t know whether or not to be honored or horrified. It’s going to be all right, Steven. You have to believe me. I’m just here to make your job easier, get rid of those you love sooner, cut out as much of the dread as I—”

Lissa hits him in the back of the head with an impressive bone-crunching sort of whack. He jerks forward and I swing Mog at his throat.

Morrigan’s hands fly out, and he grips the snath of the scythe as though it had never left his hands. There’s a gravity to those palms that I can’t even hope to match.

Lissa punches away, as I yank at the scythe. But it’s no good, we’ve been here before. I can’t pull it from his grip. Morrigan’s lips curl into the darkest, most dreadful rictus.

“Shall I kill Ms. Jones now?” The voice is barely a whisper, an intimate breath in my ear, but not lacking in threat. I get the feeling that if he could, he’d bite the side of my face and spit the bloody mess back at me.

He wrenches Mog out of my hands and swings neatly around in a circle, dancing backwards as he does: the scythe high and whistling towards Lissa’s head.

I shift.

The snath of the scythe strikes my back. Nearly snaps me in two, ribs creak, maybe break. I can’t tell. But I clap my arm over the snath: draw the shaft tight and close to my body, the blade curled towards me. It’s a clumsy move, but effective. I stand there, panting, looking at Lissa: her hands bloody, dust streaking her face.

Her chest heaves. I can feel her hurt. Still, she’s all but ready to start swinging again. I shake my head.

“Run,” I say, nodding towards the portal.

Her jaw is set. Her eyes burn stubbornly, no mockery there now, just rage.

“Run, if you love me. Run.”

And she does, just as Morrigan drives a boot into my lower back, cracking something. A howl escapes my lips and he cuts down with the scythe. I shift, moments before it strikes my flesh. Only a few meters away, but it’s enough. I get unsteadily to my feet, standing between Morrigan and Lissa, waiting to repeat it over again.

“Things aren’t going as you hoped are they?” Morrigan says. “I feel for you. It’s terrible when plans go awry, when the reins start slipping no matter how tight a hold you have. It burns the fingers, stings the soul.”

My chest and back are sticky and bruised. They’re healing quickly but the hurt is deep enough that I can’t speak. I try for a snarl instead. Not a good idea, it only comes out as a wheeze.

“There’s only so many times you can get between her and the inevitable,” Morrigan says, leaping towards me and flipping the bottom of the scythe at my head. I fling up my hands. Too late, it connects. Hard. Teeth loosen in my mouth, my ears ring. I almost drop to my knees. “Perhaps we should just get it over with, eh?”

At least I am still between him and Lissa.

He gets a good grip on the shaft, takes a swift backswing and there’s a peculiar thunder like someone’s slamming two bags of machine parts together.

Morrigan lowers the scythe, looks up, and catches a bicycle in the face. He hits the ground hard in a cloud of dust.

“I told you I still had a few tricks up my sleeve,” Mr. D says from behind me. How long has he been standing there? He grabs my arm and starts dragging me away from Morrigan.

Morrigan rises to one knee, dark blood streams from his face. He looks to Mr. D. “This all you got?” he demands, Mog arcing above his
head. It catches another bicycle, an old Malvern Star like the one I used to ride as a kid, and sends it hurtling into the ground.

“I thought it was pretty good, actually,” Mr. D says, dragging me faster. “Bikes, I’ve always had an affinity for them. And I’ve been here long enough to know how to fiddle around with reality a little.”

I know this. Here at last is my dream. I can’t help but smile.

And the bikes plummet, a downpour of bicycles. A penny-farthing takes out a Stirrer nearby with an explosion of gears and wheels. A Stirrer tumbles. Blood flows. But the Stirrers aren’t the only casualties.

“No!” Mr. D pales. “No, that wasn’t—”

But it is.

The bicycles fall, and they strike Stirrers and Pomps indiscriminately where the fighting is thickest. We don’t miss out though. A ten-speed racer crashes down between us. Knocking a chunk out of my arm, and driving Mr. D to the ground. Dust is thrown up into the air with each fall, so that I can’t see more than a few meters in front of me.

“Pull back,” I yell. Not that it’s really necessary, everybody’s already getting out of the way, until there’s only Morrigan standing in the middle of the downpour, laughing and cutting bicycles from the air.

“Really. That wasn’t meant to happen,” Mr. D moans. There’s a bloody gash along one of his cheeks. I can see bone beneath.

We’ve managed to escape the main fall. Lissa and Tim aren’t that far away, their heartbeats loud in my head. I want to be with them. I don’t want to be here consoling this buffoon. Even if he did just save my life.

“When will they stop falling?”

Mr. D looks at his watch. “A few minutes—no more. I’m so sorry.”

“You do realize that we’re winning don’t you?”

Mr. D is silent.

And we are. We’re winning here. I can see that. The bicycles, the
dead army and the betrayal of the Stirrer rebels have shifted our fortunes, but this, all of this is meaningless unless I defeat Morrigan himself.

Just once I’d like to do something that doesn’t come to a battle to the death. That people hunger for this role: it strikes me as crazy.

“Why are you smiling?” Wal asks me.

“Things are working out.”

“It’s not that sort of smile.” But yes it is.

The wind has changed in the world beyond, it’s no longer the metallic rot of the city. This is all brine, all cold ocean winds with a hint of traffic fumes.

The sea is life, and here is life knocking on Hell’s door. I’m not surprised when half a dozen seagulls break the surface of the portal, calling mournfully as they do. I’ve no doubt they’ll make a living on the scraps of the Underworld, they’ll mark the sky above the sea of Hell.

Yet I can’t help feeling sorry for them.

They’re quickly gone into the Deepest Dark, but the battle remains. And the wind lifts more dust into the air. Choking clouds of it, disadvantageous to both sides. My eyes sting, my lungs burn. I try to hurl it all away, but the dust has grown fickle, the world beyond has enchanted it—or I’ve just lost my knack.