The Business Of Death, Death Works Trilogy (70 page)

It hurts. Because what he has is fed by pain and anger. I drag it into me; more power, more of the essence that is now so much of what I am. I understand the truth that is the Hungry Death, its persuasive presence, and the tiny thing that is the man before me. I close one hand around his neck, curious how that might feel, and then the other hand.

And I squeeze.

He grabs my wrists. He struggles. He kicks out at me, and thrashes. But I do not relax my grip. If anything I tighten it. HD laughs, and I laugh too, until I feel Rillman’s spirit pomp through me. It bursts free, not toward the One Tree, but straight into the Deepest Dark. I watch it there, and then, something bright and eight-armed snatches out and grinds out the light within it.

I’m left staring up into the dark.

I drop Rillman’s body.

Mog drifts toward me. I close a fist around its curving snath and back away from the corpse. Let the dust engulf the body.

I’m empty, weak. I can barely stand. My hands grip Mog so tightly that my knuckles ache. It’s the only thing that is keeping me upright.

Wal pulls himself from my arm. “What have you done?”

The body is there, between the two of us. It’s answer enough.

I
shift to my office. It’s late. Ten. I can hear someone using the photocopier. Such an everyday sound.

I’m sick, but it’s not from the shifting. Mr. D was right, all I needed was practice. I smile, and spew into the bin, but it’s not cathartic. There’s no release in it. Just pain.

I slump into my throne. It’s bigger now, far bigger, all encompassing. It dominates the room like the dark seat of some dark empire, and yet I hardly notice it. I settle in, and my pain ebbs, a little. But I have worse hurts. I put my head in my hands.

All the world’s heartbeats rain down on me, all those clocks winding down, all that strength pulsing toward its undoing.

And that’s the least of it. Every time I close my eyes they’re there—those innocent deaths of which I was the cause, that final pomping of Rillman’s soul.

I sit in my throne, sobbing, drowning in the world’s pulse. Tim’s is there. So is Lissa’s. I can pick them out like threads. Mr. D once said that the sound becomes soothing—the cacophony a lullaby. Here I am, struck by those billions of heartbeats, and then I feel Lissa nearby. I drag myself from the comfort of the throne and Mog blurs, becomes the knives again. They rest, bound by sheaths knitted from evening, on my belt. I shift through the wall, and there she is.

“Steven, are you all right?” She’s been crying, too. I should have sought her out straightaway, but I couldn’t face her. I can barely face her now.

“Yes,” I say. “Are you?”

“I think so.”

Then I’m holding her and I can almost forget the pain and guilt I’m feeling. Finally she pulls from me.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” she says. A vein pulses in my head. Does she know? “You shouldn’t have come after me like that.”

“You know I had no choice. I’ve nothing left but you.”

“I know you were trying to do the right thing. But Christ, you—”

“I should have told you about Suzanne. No more secrets, right? I promise.”

She touches the knives at my belt, curiously.

“They’re mine,” I say, “and, to be honest, I don’t want them out of my sight. I’m the only RM left standing. Mortmax International is my responsibility now.”

“And HD?”

“It’s under control, I think… I don’t know. Rillman—Solstice is gone. He won’t be a problem anymore.”

In my office I can hear the unmistakable ring of the black phone. I ignore it. Lissa looks at me questioningly. “It can wait,” I say. “We need to get out of here.”

Lissa holds me tight, and it’s all I can do not to crush her in my grip, so desperately do I need that contact. “Where do you want to go?” she asks.

“Home,” I say.

I shift with her in my arms. And we are back in my parents’ place, in the hallway, Mom’s perfume as strong as ever.

“We’re going to move out of here. It was always a mistake to live here,” I say.

I can’t bear my parents looking down at me from those photos. I know how they would judge me for what I’ve done, what I am.

“Are you sure?” Lissa asks, though I can tell she’s pleased. This was
never our home. I nod. “Then we need to find a place that Stirrers can’t just stroll into,” she says.

I can tell Lissa wants to talk this through, all of it. And I want to as well. But there’s a weight of exhaustion pulling on her. She’s worn out with worry, with the hell that has been this last week. And we have time. There’s no Death Moot or Rillman to concern us now, and the Stirrer god isn’t here yet.

“Try and rest,” I say. “We have so much to do, but not now.”

I walk with her to the bed. Lissa’s fast beneath the sheets and even quicker to fall asleep. I stand there looking at the person I have risked all for, and for a moment I feel better.

I call Tim.

“Jesus, what happened to you?” he asks. “I came to the office, and you’d both just left.”

I don’t want to talk about it. Tim’s going to have to trust me. “How are the Ankous?”

He’s a while in answering. I can’t tell if I’ve offended him, which probably means I have. “They’re all right. In shock, but that’s understandable. Mortmax has suffered its biggest, loss…gain…Shit, I don’t know, what’s happened? What the hell do we even call you?”

“Steve,” I say. “I’m your cousin, remember?”

“Steve. Solstice’s offices, they were worse than anything Morrigan ever did. The rotting dead. Their rage and, God, their laughter. That’s what’s going to stick with me the most. They laughed as we stalled them, every single one, as though it didn’t matter. I’m fucking terrified.”

I’m more than familiar with that laughter. “Sometimes it’s a reasonable response. Listen, Tim, we’re going to have to start mobilizing,” I say. “The Stirrer god is coming. But we will be ready.”

“Are you OK? You sound—”

“I’m exhausted,” I say. “Bloody knackered. I’ll call you tomorrow. We both need to think, and to rest—that most of all. You can’t do anything if you’re tired.”

“I thought you couldn’t sleep.”

“I can now,” I say. “You should, too.”

“One more thing,” he says. “The black phone in your office keeps ringing.”

“Don’t answer it,” I say. “I can deal with that tomorrow, too.”

I hang up, and take a shower. But I can’t wash HD or the thing I’ve done from me. Wal is on my biceps, and he looks frightened. When I’m done, I walk to the back balcony, the towel wrapped around my waist.

Another storm rolls in from the south, but this one’s soft and earthy, and while it may hide a stir or two, it’s just a storm. I watch it build for a while. Rain falls, light spatters at first, and then it’s a real downpour.

Lightning bursts in the distance. I wait for the thunder to come rumbling through the suburbs, and when it does I turn to go inside.

Something catches my eye.

They must have been there for a while, silently waiting for my scrutiny: a shivering darkness spread across the lawn. Sharp beaks. Slick black feathers, glossy with the rain. A thousand crows, at least. And they have bowed down low, their wings extended.

“Awcus, awcus,” they caw.

I dip my head.

HD seems pleased, all this laid out for it and me. I raise a hand, gesture toward the sky. As one they beat their wings into the angry air, and batter hard against the rain. The vast murder of crows breaks from the ground, finds the night sky and is gone. I could have dreamed the whole thing, but for the dark feathers fluttering down.

Awcus
.

I walk into the living room and pour myself a drink, a big one.

Lissa’s asleep when I stumble back into the bedroom. The rain hammers on the iron roof but it’s ebbing. HD roils within me, grinning its ceaseless grin. But I force it down. I’m tired and on my way to
being drunk. I can’t stifle a yawn. I settle next to Lissa, slide my arm around her. So tired. She moans something in her sleep, then calms.

The dying rain and Lissa’s breathing are the most perfect sounds in the world. I’m not sure when sleep claims me.

Death. Mayhem. Madness and blood. The metronomic sweeping of the scythe.

But I sleep soundly.

S
o Book Two. Who’d have thought?

Once again, for the last stages (after the big grub of a first draft), a huge thank you to my publisher Bernadette Foley, my structural editor Nicola O’Shea and my copy editor Roberta Ivers. This was foreign ground to me, and you’ve made the whole process a lot less scary than it could have been. If the book’s a butterfly it’s because of the chrysalis you lot wove … maybe I’m taking that metaphor too far.

Thanks again to everyone at Avid Reader Bookstore (and the cafe) for being amazing, and for still putting up with the least available casual staff member in the universe, and to Paul Landymore, my SF Sunday compadre who never lets me get away with much. Thanks also to the city of Brisbane, with whom I have taken even more liberties—particularly concerning her bridges—and to my Aunty Liz, who isn’t going to like the swearing but switched me onto fantasy when I was a very young lad. All those Greek myths and tragedies: you can’t get a better gift than that.

Thanks to Diana, who has to put up with everything, and still loves me.

And thanks to you, who have followed me onto Book Two. I hope you liked it.

BOOK THREE

THE BUSINESS OF DEATH

PART ONE

THE OTHER EMPIRE

All earth was but one thought—and that was death.

“D
ARKNESS
”—L
ORD
B
YRON

I
know he’s pissed off even before I see him on the shoreline. The text he’d sent me was something of a giveaway.

Steve. Here. NOW!

As if I’m some sort of dog to be called to heel. The Hungry Death rails inside me and suggests we cut him off at the legs about an inch beneath the knees. Me, I know my cousin—it really wouldn’t stop him.

Of course, it wasn’t his first text of the day. Or his last, which read:
NOW MEANS NOW!

Anyone but Tim (OK, and Lissa too) and I’d ignore a message like that. It really is the most passive aggressive form of communcation. He only does it when he’s having a tantrum.

A few minutes before I’d stalled a Stirrer in Chermside, outside David Jones of all places, took it down so swift and so casually, that no one noticed. Just me and the body left leaning, eyes closed, on a bench. A perfect stall—I’d considered buying a couple of new shirts to celebrate, but those texts just kept coming. They were worse than Stirrers really—blood and touch can’t banish them.

I’m Steven de Selby.

I’m the Orcus. The Thirteen who became one. CEO of Mortmax Industries. A guy with enough titles that even my eyes glaze over reciting them all. What it boils down to is this: I’m Death.

And I’m still learning on the job. I have to. There’s no one to
replace me or share the load. Maybe down the line, but not yet. Doesn’t help that I’m not on talking terms with my mentor Mr. D, and, sure, we might both be to blame for that. But it’s left me alone and I feel it.

Things I know about Death:

I’ve no great power, but there’s a fairytale madness lodged in me like a splinter around which the flesh has grown swollen and obdurate. I call it HD, short for Hungry Death, in the hope such familiarity gives me a little control. I’ve a scythe called Mog, which could cut out the heart of the world—a heart built of billions of beats, each of which I can hear whether I want to or not. The World Pulse.

I watch the world through my eyes, and the eyes of my Avian Pomps. Birds, but only certain ones—crows, lots of them; sparrows, not so many, their loyalties are a bit prickly; and the odd ibis, and what ibis isn’t odd? It’s something about the ridiculous beak, I think, or the honking.

I can shift through space. Shift between here and the Underworld, and the Deepest Dark—that basement of Hell where life’s cruellest troubles are bred predatory and long-toothed. But I can’t shift through time. I am as intimately bound in its threads as anyone. I’m the sand in an hourglass that can never be tipped over. I can only go one way.

I can be hurt, but not killed. At least I don’t think so. But to say this has been thoroughly tested is…well, it hasn’t been. As for the hurt—it hurts!

And I preside over a multi-national business and a world on the edge.

How completely on the edge it really is I’ve only understood these last few months. To think that once I considered Stirrers to be little more than a nuisance. But that was before I became familiar with their god. The one racing towards our world, through the Deepest Dark, its sole purpose to grind us off the face of the planet, scrub it
clean of every hint of life, and return its unliving worshippers as the sole form of earthly existence.

Every day I feel it getting closer. It’s a weight in my bones, a certainty of death coming on a grand and almost unthinkable scale.