The Business Of Death, Death Works Trilogy (72 page)

Not me. Not at all. In less than a week I had everything blown out
of my life in a burst of gunshots and explosions. Most of my family and friends died, killed by Morrigan—a man closer to me than any uncle. My home-and work-life were irrevocably altered. And Australia nearly passed the tipping point into a Regional Apocalypse.

To say it sucked is somewhat understating the case.

And that was before I became one of the Orcus.

And, just when I was getting used to it, as much as you ever can—the constant cumulative pulse of a nation’s hearts; the nightmares, natural and supernatural alike; the lack of sleep; the rising death lust—just as I learned to cope, it got a hell of a lot worse. The only people who really understood me, my fellow Orcus, all went and sacrificed themselves because they thought I had the best chance of defeating a god intent on the end of the world.

I certainly wasn’t consulted in that sudden promotion from Regional to Global.

But I managed, partly because I’m not completely me anymore. I’ve indulged HD only once. And I regret that indulgence…sometimes. I should never have strangled Francis Rillman. I should never have let HD take such control, nor should I have enjoyed it so: squeezing the life out of him. I’d laughed in his face.

That’s not the man my parents loved. That’s not the man I’d believed myself to be.

Should I tell her? Should I divulge, repent, whatever it is I need to do? And how does that factor into her response to my proposal? Gotta be a tick in the negative column certainly. HD is rather keen to see me come clean. It would, HD loves it when the shit hits the fan.

I glance at my watch. Two-thirty. I need to be back in the office soon, so much to do, and Lissa has a soul to pomp on the Southside around three-thirty. We hold off too long and she’ll be stuck in traffic. Death waits for no one—the M3 motorway leading south out of the city on the other hand…

The world’s pulse thump-thumps away within me. HD rattles
the bars of his cage, not a pleasant feeling when you’re the cage itself. It’s a typical situation, and sensation, these days, as is my circling of that question.

There’s an engagement ring in my pocket. I’ve slipped it, and its little red box, from jacket pocket to jacket pocket for three weeks. Can’t forget that, but I can forget my wallet.

I peer into the cafe. How long does it take to pay a bill?

Lissa’s chatting away with the barista. I’ve never known a person who makes friends so easily. She says something and the guy laughs—a little too heartily. Would he take as long to ask her to marry him? HD suggests we kill him.

No. No. We do not kill cute guys who flirt with my girl.

The barista laughs again, even reaches out a hand to touch her arm.

Never too late to make an exception
. HD’s quick to agree. A single breath and I could call the scythe of Death into being.

Lissa turns from the laughter, and looks in my direction, for a moment I think she’s read my mind, but her grin is too warm and the smile is directed at me.

Who wouldn’t want to laugh with a girl like that? She’s everything I find gorgeous and challenging and wonderful. She made my heart beat faster from the first time I saw her. Quite remarkable considering she was dead, a soul come to warn me, to tell me to run. I’d fallen in love with her before she opened her mouth, and I haven’t stopped.

She’s in her standard get up. Black and black. Black skirt ending a little above the knees, black long-sleeved blouse, dark hair, cut messy and short, framing a pale face quick to smile or frown. None of which comes close to describing how impossibly radiant she is.

Pinned to her blouse is one of her favorite Mickey Mouse brooches, classic mid-fifties Mickey stomping along merrily. For a touch of variety Lissa’s wearing purple Doc Marten boots—she has a green pair at home, but she favors the purple. There’s a knife hid
den up her left sleeve, strapped to her wrist, another in her left boot. She blinks as she leaves the dark of the cafe for the street. Her eyes, green flecked with gray, focus on me. There’s something reckless and measured in the gaze. I feel at once mocked and loved, and I want it all. How does she do that?

Lissa grabs her handbag (black) from the chair beside me, and slips her purse into the bag’s cavernous interior.

“You were laughing a lot in there.”

“I know, he’s cute, huh?”

I can’t help but pout. What about me? I’m wearing my best suit here. And I know my hair looks fine. If anything I’m overdressed for West End.

I take her hand and she squeezes mine. The contact shocks me as it always does, even now. A bit over six months ago, touching Lissa would have sent her to Hell, literally. It’s what Pomps do. It’s what pomping is all about. And me, back then, so unprofessional, so immediately in love, I couldn’t do it.

It saved my life.

And it saved hers, too. I pulled an Orpheus Maneuver and brought her back from the Underworld. It was a complicated beginning to our relationship but better than no beginning at all.

We walk out from under the cafe’s awning and into the most perfect sort of autumn day. The sky is an utterly stunning blue. It should take the breath from me, put everything in context, except I can feel the weight of the ring in my pocket like it’s a bowling ball, and my context involves enemies avid for the world’s ending.

I’ve a lump in my throat.

I shouldn’t want this over with but I do. Christ!

Lissa stops, considers me and frowns.

“What?” I ask.

“You look a bit off-color.”

“I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Really, I’m fine.” Though I want to say, see what this is doing to me! “I’m fine.”

Lissa has parked the car around the corner on Vulture Street.

We’re standing on a crossroads. Now that’s gotta be symbolic. I scan the road. Nothing peculiar. There are plenty of people about. Someone’s playing a harmonica very much out of tune down the street, they’re getting a good rhythm though. I swallow, and take a deep breath. It’s time.

“Well there is something. I’ve, that is to say…Will you—”

Lissa’s hand clenches around mine.

“Run,” she says. “Now.”

L
issa yanks me ahead of her, though she’s quick to pass.

I hear the car just before I see it.

An old Holden, V8 by the deep rumble of its engine, thing’s twice the size of most modern cars. It cuts through the traffic as though there isn’t any. Brakes shriek, a car swerves out of the way and into oncoming vehicles. The collision reverberates down the street followed by even more bangs, glass shatters. People are hurt, someone’s screaming, someone’s dying. I’m running, Lissa a little ahead, looking for somewhere to take cover. About a hundred meters up the road there’s a car park, bordered by a low red-brick fence. I’m never going to make it, and if I shift out of here now, I’m going to leave Lissa defenseless.

I glance back.

The Holden’s wheels thump out a beat as it bangs up over the gutter. The chassis of the car grinds and sparks against the concrete. The vehicle takes out a bench, knocks it aside, but not without doing more damage. Black smoke roils along the street and with it the stench of burning rubber and oil. I watch the driver hunched over the wheel, his eyes flicking between Lissa and me.

Crows and sparrows descend on the scene. My Avian Pomps. I get a multiplicity of views. Including, oh dear—

I hit the telephone pole hard, knocks the breath from me. Should’ve been watching where I was going instead of what was
following me. I’m on the ground between the pole and the car, which is rapidly closing in, head ringing.

Crows descend, striking the windshield, with bone-cracking, crow-killing force.

“Up you get.” Lissa grabs my hand, heaves me back to my feet, and we run as the car slams into the pole not quite front-on. Metal roars. Its fuel tank explodes. We both hit the ground again, showered in debris. I cover Lissa with my body, wrap myself around her, as something, maybe a tire, dislocates my shoulder, and bounces down the footpath (yep, definitely a tire) and into a shop window.

Lissa’s panting as I get to my feet. I help her up, carefully studying her for injuries. Other than an elevated heartbeat and a skinned knee, I can’t sense any hurt in her. I start to breathe again.

I realize I’m leaning on Mog with my good arm. Where the hell did my scythe come from? More than a touch embarrassing, like discovering your fly is undone, you’re not wearing underpants, and you have an erection.

“Put it away,” Lissa says, trying to obscure it from the oncoming crowd with her body.

The scythe’s stony snath grows slick with condensation. In humid Brisbane, Mog’s always so much colder than the air around it.

Right now though, I don’t care about the scythe. I round on her. “Don’t you ever come back for me. Putting your life at risk like that,” I say. “I can look after myself.”

“Look after yourself.” Lissa snorts. She’s about to say something else but she doesn’t, there’s a dead man standing next to us.

He scratches his balding head and blinks the newly deceased blink, shocked at what has happened, seeing the world as a dead person sees it. The shock will quickly fade, that’s a living thing. Vengeful spirits, well they’re rare, apathy is the rule of thumb for the dead.

What are often considered angry spirits are usually only the dead that haven’t been pomped—confusion mistaken for rage. The
dead’s concerns are suddenly and drastically different to those of the living, the most pressing being how to get to the Underworld.

The answer is standing beside him. Right now this guy doesn’t know what the hell is going on, but I can tell it is dawning on him.

“What…” his voice fades away. “Am I?”

“Yeah,” I say. “Can’t talk now.”

I feel bad, I feel positively awful, but I don’t have time for this. I reach over and touch him, if a sensation like pushing your hand through slightly stinging smoke can be described as touching. The pomp is quick, barely an ache. But it doesn’t mean I don’t suffer in other ways. This man shouldn’t have died. Stirrers are messing with the schedule—if it really was a Stirrer in the V8 and not just some guy who didn’t like the way I looked. Once again they’re ending lives before they’re due, adding confusion to an already confusing prescience.

“Efficient,” Lissa says. “But hardly compassionate.”

“Don’t try and change the subject by critiquing my pomping skills.”

Vulture Street is dense with smoke. People are already running to help, stopping a few meters from Lissa and me. Hesitating, because here, the smoke is thicker. Though it’s not only that. I’m Death, and now, having seconds ago pomped someone, I’m projecting all sorts of feelings that those unused to death find threatening. We’re a deathless society in the main. A reminder that this is merely an illusion is always shocking to punters. Of course, it could just be that I’m holding a bloody big scythe made of stone in one hand.

“Sorry, it’s my job, remember,” Lissa says. “One of them anyway.”

“What to critique me?”

“No, finding and teaching Pomps. I’ll admit there’s a critiquing element. But I’m not changing the subject, I never change the subject.”

“Yes, you are.” I glower at her. I’m good at the glower. Practiced at
it. HD is even better. You can’t face down that combined glowering. Well maybe Lissa could, but not this time.

She shakes her head. “When I see you in trouble, I just—”

“I know. I feel the same. But try not to get yourself killed.”
What the hell are we arguing about?
“Are you OK?”

“I’m fine,” she says.

“Then could you help me pop my shoulder back in?”

Lissa goggles at me. “Your shoulder?”

“Yeah, it’s dislocated. It’s starting to hurt a bit.”

“Steven! You should have told me sooner.” She grabs my arm, and wrenches with sick-making force, there’s a satisfying pop. Certainly feels better, but I heal quickly.

“You did that well,” I say. Lissa never ceases to surprise me.

“Of course I did,” she says.

I will Mog to become the two Knives of Negotiation. The scythe shrinks, breaks in two. Both knives mumble a quick hello. I slide the first blade back into its sheath beneath my jacket, the second I keep out. It mumbles at me in the baby talk of death. For some reason civilians never notice the knives—just like they never see the dead—the scythe on the other hand…

We approach the wreck of the car. Within it, what’s left of the driver is tugging at the seatbelt. It’s definitely a Stirrer. I can see the sharp edge of a fractured humerus jutting through a tear in its shirt-sleeve. Even now the Stirrer draws life through itself, an uncontrolled and continuous pomping that sucks the souls of not just the dead, but the living, too. If you’re not braced or a Pomp, hang around a Stirrer long enough and you’re gone, soul drained away, and there’s another Stirrer shambling about, or driving cars at me and mine.

I turn towards Lissa. She already has her blade in one hand. I fling my arm out to stop her racing past me. “Let me deal with this,” I say. “I don’t want you getting too close to that car.”