The Business Of Death, Death Works Trilogy (79 page)

Somewhere water’s crashing, somewhere bleak creatures howl and whales are singing. Somewhere saws are sawing. There’s the biting smell of wood being shaped and worked. And the even stronger scent of tar bubbling. I make my way around Mount Coot-tha. Shifting then walking, clambering over the humps of great root buttresses.

I find him in front of a…to be honest, I’m not sure what it is, but it’s big.

“Mr. de Selby,” he rasps. “It’s a pleasure as always.”

“What the hell is that?”

“It’s an Ark of course.”

Of course it is.

“What the hell do you want an Ark for?” I ask above the sound of hammering and sawing, the random outbursts of swearing.

Tar bubbles in two steel pots the size of buses nearby. The heat they’re producing is rather pleasant, Charon almost has a rosy hue, the smell not so much.

“Just a second.” Charon bends down. The fellow’s tall, easily a foot or so taller than me, and skeletally thin, he picks at the tight pale skin beneath his left rubber thong, just behind his big toe. “There you are, you bastard. Always something getting stuck in there, maybe I should reconsider the old rubber pluggers, eh?” he says, tapping his thongs. He squints down at his foot and yanks hard, I can’t help gagging a little at the sound of flesh tearing. There’s a shriek and a tiny black bug writhes between his thumb and forefinger.

Charon rises, bones clicking all along his spine, and shows me the writhing thing. “Wood mite,” he crows. “Bloody thing’s been bothering me for days.”

Thumb and forefinger close, pincer-like, and the little mite screams again. Far too loud and human a sound for such a tiny creature. It pops. Wal winces, and darts around behind me. I can’t judge
at all, I was mashing up spiders not that long ago. Yeah, and I strangled a man with my own two hands. Mite popping is a mere trifle.

Charon wipes the bloody mess all over his jeans—there’s rather a lot of it—then licks his fingers clean.

“Now, oh the Ark. I’m the boatman. I’m responsible. After all, what’s an Ark but a bloody big ferry? And when the going gets biblical, you know…”

“Responsible for what?”

“If the world goes to shit and I need to get everyone to the other side.” He smiles up at the brightening sky. “Thanks for the light. I’ve never liked working in the dark, brings back memories of the old days. There was a time when everything was dark, everything. All manner of nasties could sneak up on you, including me, often enough.”

I consider the Ark. It’s resting on the side of the mountain, the bulky boat obscuring most of the nearest stony face, shackled in scaffolding, and lodged between two massive root buttresses. Charon’s boatmen scurry like hyperactive ants all over the structure.

I’m shocked at Charon’s lack of faith in me. So shocked that I’m actually shocked at how shocked I am. “I know, it’s big and all,” I say, “but that’s not going to be able to carry every soul, surely.”

“You’d be surprised how compact souls are, mate. I’m not saying that it isn’t going to be a bit squashy, but …”

He’s got a point.

“You close to finishing it?”

Charon winces. “You’re asking about the twenty-fourth, eh? It’s going to be close. I won’t lie to you. And I may yet fail, but that’s in the offing for everything that finds itself with enough ambition to make plans.”

“You knew about the twenty-fourth?”

“You didn’t?” Charon whistles. “You didn’t, did you? All that maneuvering and they neglect to tell you that.”

No one told me anything. But I’m not about to admit that to him. I shrug.

“It’s been nice to have a distraction,” Charon says. “Was a time when all I did was wait for people to give me coin at the riverbank. Tedious, tedious business.”

“Good to have a hobby.” Mine’s stalling Stirrers, I guess. “Mr. de Selby, this hobby may well be humanity’s last hope. But surely you didn’t seek me out merely to gawp at my construction, what do you want?”

“I need you to talk to the Death of the Water for me.”

“Death of the Water, eh. Why would you …” Charon’s eyes narrow, he breathes out as though he is bearing the weight of the world on his shoulders, and he shakes his head. “Right, it’s the whole boat thing. I fiddle around with boats, and suddenly I’m best of pals with the bloody Death of the Water.”

“Well, Mr. D said…I mean, it makes sense doesn’t it?”

“Makes sense? Makes sense?! Not one little bit! I cross rivers. I don’t do oceans. I don’t even like salt water all that much, and part of that is because of him. Give me a nice broad river like the Styx, where you can see the shore on the other side—it might be shrouded in mist, it might be obscured by the whole life-death interface, but you know it’s there. But oceans, that’s long-haul merchant marine kind of bollocks. Do I look like a merchant marine to you?” I open my mouth to speak, but he doesn’t let me answer. “No. If you have a problem with the Death of the Water, then you’re going to have to sort that out yourself.”

“What about that?” I say jabbing a thumb at the Ark.

“That, my dear Orcus, that is different. That’s a
last
resort. And do please note the stress on the word last.”

“But—”

“I can’t be seen taking sides, for one—though I can see it has a point, you did take away its souls. And I’m busy. I’ve a bloody Ark to build.”

“So you think it’s hopeless?”

Charon sighs. “Just being a realist. You can’t blame a bloke for that.” He coughs, fumbles in his jeans for a packet of cigarettes, plucks one out with the same efficiency he’d used on the bug, then jiggles the packet under my nose.

I wave them away. “No, I guess you can’t.”

“Steven, you’re going to have to start sorting out your own problems. You’re the top of the rung. You’re the one with the view. You know things that the rest of us can’t, not even beings like me.”

“I s’pose,” I say.

“Time you act like you do, eh.” His face softens then, and he reaches into one of the pockets of his voluminous jeans, pulls out a tiny notepad and pen, one of those you’d expect to buy at a slightly twee stationery shop. Actually, is that Hello Kitty?

He scribbles something on the notepad, rips out the page and pushes it into my hand. “That’s the Death of the Water’s number.”

“I still can’t believe the Death of the Water has a phone.”

“Well you do, don’t you, Orcus?”

Fair enough.

“Call that number when you’re ready to talk. It’ll be waiting. Water’s always waiting for something, bitter monstrous thing.” For a moment, Charon rests a bony hand on my arm. “You know, the Death of the Water could have stopped you at the outset, I think. But he didn’t. He let you take those souls from him, so you would owe him. He’s a devious watery prick. You be careful.”

“I will.”

Charon doesn’t look convinced. “Now, if that’s all, please leave, I’ve got a boat to build.”

I have to ask, before I go. “So what do you think happens on the twenty-fourth?”

“I’ll have my Ark finished so that it doesn’t matter.”

D
espite Mr. D’s advice, I decide not to call the Death of the Water straight away. I’m tired, suddenly it feels like too much, I need some time with Lissa. I need to talk to her before I set up anything else, just in case it all goes horribly wrong, as things in my life have a tendency to do.

Restless, and impatient, I wait for Lissa to come home. I walk through our rooms, which are empty in the most part, characterless but for some clutter, because we haven’t had time to fill them with ourselves yet. It’s hardly a soothing environment.

Lissa had chosen the new apartment. Twenty stories up and a few streets down from Number Four. Convenient and far harder to infiltrate than a Queenslander—although pretty much anything else is, no matter what you do you can never really secure a house designed to be open to the air. The door to the apartment has been replaced with one that is more reinforced than most tanks. It once opened onto a broom cupboard that was used to imprison both Mr. D and later me, so, yes, I know it works. Though it’s been modified so I can shift in its presence. The unit’s walls, floors and ceilings are marked with enough brace symbols to make even the toughest Stirrer quail.

It’s an easy stroll to work from here. I might be able to shift, but I enjoy the walk, and the connection it offers with my city. It would be too easy to shift from the unit to Number Four, never seeing the
light, and lose contact with everything that I’m fighting for in the process. Death is meaningless without life.

I like our new home, really I do. The first couple of months of our relationship had been spent at my parents’ house in the burbs. But that had proven to be less than ideal. My place before that was crammed full of stuff: CDs, DVDs, but Morrigan blew all of that up and I haven’t bothered collecting them again, beyond a few obvious classics. Once you’ve lost everything the appeal of accumulating stuff fades. Maybe Suzanne and I aren’t all that different after all.

Last year I would have never understood Suzanne’s single room, now I can see myself having something similar in some distant future, if I’m allowed that—too many things become memories and too many memories grow barbs.

When we’d sold Mum and Dad’s house I’d sold the furniture as well. The sight of it was too painful. Here we have a bed, a few chairs around a dining table. All basic stuff, because we were too tired and busy to do anything else.

It doesn’t mean you can’t have a little art around you though. I’ve a Decemberists poster in the living room, keep meaning to frame it, currently it’s in a state of gradual fall, held up with not nearly enough Blu-Tac. But even though we don’t have a lot of stuff we’ve not avoided mess. Lissa’s managed to scatter most of her clothes throughout the flat. I resist the urge to pick them up. I guess she’s more comfortable here, that it’s a
good
sign.

I admire our view and watch the bats trade places with the birds, feel the weariness of crows and sparrows seeking shelter. Some of them grumble, but they’re obedient to my will. I need every eye open. An avian catches sight of something peculiar, and I can be there in a moment.

The river winds away below me. From this vantage point the two major bridges are visible, the iron post-industrial bulk of the Story
Bridge to my left, and a hint of the white concrete of the Captain Cook Bridge to the right. These two bridges span the brown water of the Brisbane River and feed the traffic of the southern suburbs, and beyond, into the city. Seeing them both makes me ache a little. They’ve led me in and out of trouble all my life, they’ve promised the excitement of the inner city, and the boredom of the outer suburbs. From here, it’s obvious that Brisbane is a city of hills, of bends and suburbs that curl into each other like shells. It should be messy, but it isn’t. And I love it.

There’s been a constant pressure on me to move Mortmax’s global headquarters to some more central location, or, at the very least, Sydney. But I can no more do that than tear out my heart. Brisbane has settled in me as deeply as old HD ever can.

This is my city. And it will always be my city.

I look from the lights, down to the shimmering river, this brown coil of water runs into the not-too-distant sea and the first problem that needs untangling.

I hear Lissa’s beating heart before she opens the door to the unit. It’s no effort to pick it from the multitude of heartbeats, just as I’d always recognize her face.

She’s holding a bag of Chinese takeaway in one hand. My stomach rumbles.

“I can hear that from here,” she says.

“And how was your day?”

“Besides saving my boyfriend from assassination, and stalling Stirrers.” She counts them out on her free hand, “Let’s see, there was one at PA, another at the Wesley, and two down in Logan. Oh and I saw you dancing around in the nude. I’d say it was pretty normal, and you?”

“We need to talk.”

Lissa puts the bag down on the table, her brow furrowed. “Sounds serious.”

“Well, it is.” Doesn’t help that my stomach chooses that moment to rumble again.

“All right. Do I need to sit down?”

“Maybe.”

She doesn’t, just walks towards me. And I have to reach out and touch her hand, fingers slowly stroking her knuckles. I know how sore her palms must be.

“I’ve done bad things that I need to set right. Tomorrow I’m going to talk to the Death of the Water, and I’m not sure that I’m going to make it back.”

“Death of the Water?”

“Yes, I may have pissed him off when I pomped those souls in the plane crash.”

“So that’s the bad thing? Saving those souls?”

“It was impolitic. And I said bad things, not thing.”

Lissa’s eyes narrow. “I got the plural, Steven. You can’t call that a bad thing. Do you know what the Death of the Water does with its souls?”

“I know it’s not good. But I didn’t think it through. It was power as much as guilt that drove me to it. Those souls were my responsibility, and I sent them there, however inadvertently, but I think I really snatched them away because I could.”

“So now you need to make peace?”

“Yeah. If I don’t do this…well, we need it. We need an ally.”