The Business Of Death, Death Works Trilogy (33 page)

The penny drops.
Ker plunk
.

I realize how I’ve been manipulated. I glance over at Wal, and he shakes his head. Seems the idea’s just struck him as well.

Everything was done to drive me to this place. I would have died a week and a half ago if Morrigan hadn’t wanted it to end up here. He shaped everything, probably even Lissa’s ability to stay in the land of the living. I don’t know how I know that but, here, on top of the tree, I’m certain of it. Lissa came and went too conveniently. Now I understand why Morrigan looked so shocked to see me in the Underworld, and why he had grown so angry at me attempting the ceremony. It hadn’t, as I’d thought, been a remnant of avuncular concern. If I had died then, he’d have been forced to fight one of the other more capable Pomps. And he’d counted on me. Of course, he’d adjusted quickly. He’d known I would pomp Mr. D on the side of that road, and had even hurried it along by getting my Stirrer father to fire at me.

I understand now why Mr. D hadn’t known about the crows. By that stage Morrigan even had control over them. And why Lissa survived “unnoticed” around all those Stirrers. I was never meant to die, just to believe I was going to, until he had me where he wanted.

I think about all those other Pomps better able to challenge Morrigan physically or experientially. Morrigan was behind every step I’ve taken and, looking at it, I can sense his smiling presence in everything. He’s known me all my life, knows how I think.

The dickhead even used me as bait.

“You did this because you thought I’d be the easiest one to beat,” I say.

Morrigan looks over at me like I’m a pet he’s extremely fond of. “Steven, you were my best choice. Why do you think you’ve managed to keep your position as a Pomp all these years?” He shakes his head. “Even then, you nearly ended up killing yourself a half-dozen times. Why did you go home? That bomb wasn’t meant for you, just to keep you away so you wouldn’t have a chance to regroup. I needed you running, not thinking, because even
your
brain starts to consider things eventually.”

Morrigan planted that bomb there himself. Now I know why Molly hadn’t seemed worried when I got home. She knew Morrigan, he’d actually taken her for a few walks a couple of weeks ago. My hands clench to fists.

Mr. D motions for me to stop. “Not yet, boy,” he whispers. Then, more loudly, he says, “Of course, Steven is quite different now. Your attempts at engineered mayhem were perhaps a little too realistic. I rather think you underestimated him. Now, you have to face the consequences.”

Then it sinks in. What this is all about. The heat of my rage chills.

“I don’t want to be RM,” I say, and it sounds a little whiny. “That’s never what I wanted. I was just trying to survive, that’s all.”

There’s a gasp from all the attendant Deaths. It’s as though they can’t understand why anyone wouldn’t hunger for this job. Mr. D did and Morrigan does, but they have known me in one way or another since I was child. My ambitions have never been as focused or as cruel.

Honestly, I hadn’t even thought about it. Maybe I’d had some hazy idea that after beating Morrigan (not that I’d ever really believed that I could) all the other Deaths would gather together and vote on a new Regional Manager. But I’d really only been thinking about the corporate veneer, not the rough and callous beast that lies beneath it.

OK, I’m screwed.

Mr. D brings his bleak eyes to bear on me. “You want to give all
this to him? You want Morrigan to get away with everything he’s done, and become the new RM?”

I don’t say anything. My gaze slips from Mr. D to Morrigan. There’s a bad taste in my mouth that has nothing to do with Stirrers. Bloody Morrigan. He knew I wouldn’t want this.

Morrigan smiles. “Then it’s easy. The Negotiation’s done. I desire this, I have the will, and I most definitely have applied the way. Send me back,” he says to Mr. D.

Our old boss shakes his head; he even waggles his finger. “That’s not how it works,” he says. “No, we’re talking about death here. And death is brutal.”

“No,” I say. “I’ll do what it takes, but I don’t want to be Regional Manager.”

Mr. D sighs. “Look, Steven, it’s time you grew up. You’ve drifted along, cashed your checks and done your job, but little more. If this job hadn’t existed, you’d be a video-store clerk, getting angrier and more bored. Sometimes the world hands you something and you have to take it.”

“You don’t have to,” Morrigan says. “We can negotiate.”

Mr. D nods his head. “Of course you can. The problem is that this Negotiation is done with knives. And it has begun.”

The other Regional Managers draw in close, their black cloaks flapping in the wind like a murder of crows. There is a deep and awful sense of anticipation. Blood lust glints in their eyes, brighter than hair in a shampoo commercial. This is the moment they’ve been waiting for, the reason calls have remained unanswered, why Australia hangs, teetering on the brink.

I look down at my feet where a stone dagger, the length of my forearm, lies. The damn thing wasn’t there a moment ago. It shivers with a hungry anticipation that is palpable and more than the sum of the gathered RMs’. The only one not hungry for this is me.

Morrigan fits in here. He knows this game, he will excel at it.

“You either pick it up, or there’s no resurrection for you, Steven,” Mr. D says, impatiently. “Hurry.”

Morrigan has already snatched his dagger up from the ground and is running at me. All right then. I get the feeling that this isn’t one of those cases where, if I die willingly, I get the job and Morrigan is hurled into the depths of Hell.

Do I want this?

Do I really have any choice?

I crouch down quickly and snatch the blade up. It’s heavy but well balanced, as though it wants to cut, its point dipping and rising, seeking out Morrigan’s blood. The hilt’s cold, with a spreading iciness that runs up my arm and envelops my flesh. Morrigan is already on me, swinging his dagger down. Out of the corner of my eye I can see Wal, up against Morrigan’s flock of sparrows. He’s snatching at them, but they’re fast. His skin is already flecked with tiny wounds.

A storm explodes about us as I meet Morrigan’s strike. It’s a violent raging gale, cold and laden with stinging raindrops. Morrigan has attacked me with such force that I stumble. Somehow I’m meeting his next strike, then I realize that the dagger is guiding me, because there’s no way I should have been able to block that blow. There should be a stone dagger jutting from my windpipe. My knife is already slicing through the air, cutting off another jab.

Oddly enough, and this is the hardest thing, winning this is going to be a matter of trust. If I fight against the dagger I am going to slow my response time. I realize that I’m not exactly going with the flow when Morrigan’s blade draws a red line across my chest. I pull away just in time. The cuts mark my skin millimeters above my nipples.

It burns like hell. I’m lucky that this competition isn’t to the first blood. By the end of it there’s going to be so much of it. Our hearts are pumping and the knives slice deep.

I back away.

A sudden gust hits the branch and it flexes. Now it’s wet and slippery,
and I stumble backward and fall, which is what saves me as Morrigan slashes out. My cheek flaps open, a raw line of pain across my face. Better that than my eye.

Morrigan’s hungry for it and I’m just me—I’m hesitating, fighting the blade. It’s only going to be a matter of time. My death is imminent and Morrigan knows it. The bastard is grinning like the Cheshire Cat.

I think of Lissa, everything that she has had to endure, and just what Morrigan might do to her if he wins. I want her. I want to be with her. My lips curl, and my cheek tears a little more. Salty rain rushes into the wound, splashing against my teeth. I get back on my feet.

Fucking Morrigan
.

He swings up and under at my chest and I grab at his wrist and catch it before the blade strikes my skin. I don’t even know where that move came from, but I hold his wrist and twist, muscles juddering in my arms.

He winces, and I loosen my grip, though I’m still holding on too tight for him to pull away. I duck away from his flailing free hand, but not before it strikes me in the side of the head.

His eyes narrow. “That’s the story of your life, Steven. Do you really want this?”

“I want to live. I want my family back.”

“Neither is going to happen. So just give it up.”

He punches down on my wrist and snatches his hand from my grip, but as he pulls away, my knife hand is swinging around and it catches him in the middle of his palm.

I yank the blade toward me, tearing flesh. “How’s it feel?” I growl. “Hurts doesn’t it?”

He kicks up and catches me hard in the crotch. I stumble back again, the tree shaking beneath my feet. Mr. D looks on, his face expressionless. The other Deaths are motionless, captivated. Each
face is a rictus of pleasure. There’s blood in the water and the sharks are circling—their eyes might be blank and cold, but their jaws are working, widening into that most devouring sort of smile.

I slide on my arse away from Morrigan. The stone blade is slick with rain and blood but I hold it tightly. All I can taste and smell is the iron scent of my beating heart. Morrigan casually kicks me in the chest, and ribs break. I’m nothing but pain, and searching eyes.

“You really drew this out, de Selby,” Morrigan says. “Just like your bloody father, he never knew how to get to the point. It’s only fair that I draw it out now, at the end. And to think you took up the blade. You even considered that you might be able to make it as one of the Orcus.”

He kicks me again. And my chest is on fire, a liquid fire that has me gasping. “Look at them, boy! Look at them! They’d eat you alive in under a minute.”

Then his boot finds my mouth, once, twice. I spit out teeth.

My mouth can barely contain all the blood in it. I can’t catch my breath. All I’m breathing is ruddy and choking. My vision spots as Morrigan transfers the blade from one hand to the other. My brain is empty but for the pain. I can’t even move.

He drives the knife toward me. I weave—well, fall—to the right. Oh, the pure broken-ribbed agony of it. Surely there’s not much life left in me, there can’t be. But there’s something, a wild and raging vitality, and it burns inside me. I can barely see, my eyelids are swelling with blood, everything is torn and battered from the toes up, and it doesn’t matter. This is what death comes to. This is what it is all about.

Morrigan scowls. “Just die. It’s over, don’t you get that? It’s over.”

Wal’s in trouble too. He’s a blur in the near distance, hemmed in by all those sparrows. He’s snatching them out of the sky, and hurling them down. But there’s more than he can handle. Inky wounds streak his flesh. Sparrows are snapping at his wings. One breaks, and
he falls. The sparrows are all over him, smothering him, pecking, devouring.

I scramble backward, trailing blood, and spit out another tooth.

Well, fuck it. It’s over.

I smile. Nothing else. Just that broken grin. Morrigan charges at me, driving down toward my chest with his stony knife.

My breath roars in my head. My mind goes blank. I duck away from his blade.

Morrigan stumbles, and in that moment—in the absence of my own will—my own stone knife guides me, subsumes me, so that all I am is something cutting and deathly. There’s a force, ancient and hungry, bound by its own cruel covenants, and it propels my hand. The blade glides forward, almost languidly, and it slams into Morrigan’s left eye with a wet detonation.

He screams and I push the knife in further. I get to my feet—I don’t know how, but I do—and he stands with me. Morrigan and I are one thing, swaying, unsteady, joined with a dreadful intimacy by the bloody length of the knife.

“Not enough,” he mumbles, but there is no force in him, just the soft exclamation of a dying man. “Not enough.”

I don’t know if he is talking about him or me. His words mean nothing. He’s carried on my blade, blood bubbling from his eye. I wrench his knife from his loosening grip and slash it across his throat. I’m screaming. All I am is death, violent, terrible death. There is no room for me, just this.

It scares me. I see the edge and somehow step back. I let go of the knives. And it’s me again, and I’m horrified.

Morrigan’s body spills blood as it topples to the broad limb of the tree. It shudders once, then is still. And he lies there, an old man, bent and broken and bloody, and I killed him. The Negotiation is ended. Jesus, how did it end up this way?

“Good work,” Mr. D says.

“No, it wasn’t.” That’s all I can manage. My breath is whistling through the hole in my cheek. Every heaving breath is agony, and it feels like I’m leaking fluids from every pore and orifice. As the rain lightens and the storm heads out, deeper into the Underworld or out of it altogether, I’m ready for death myself.

Mr. D pats my back, and the touch is gentle, but even that hurts enough to send a painful shudder through me. “Yes, it was. You know, you’re the first person to ever win a Negotiation who hadn’t engineered it in the first place. I don’t know what that means, but—”

“Some fucking negotiation!” I spit blood. It splatters across the rough bark of the tree.