The Business Of Death, Death Works Trilogy (78 page)

“So…is it the end of the world yet?”

“Not yet,” I say. “We need to talk.”

Mr. D smiles. “Obviously.” He nods at my arm. “Where’s the little fella?”

“You two together, I don’t know …”

“We’ll be good…” He clears his throat. “And it’d be nice. You know, the old gang.”

I sigh. “Very well.”

I close my eyes and release Wal from my arm.

He flies around my head, looking me up and down with those unsettling Modigliani eyes of his, blank, colorless and almond shaped, yet so expressive. He glances over at Mr. D, and clenches one tiny fist. “Just mind who you’re calling little fella, eh?”

Mr. D grins at him, and Wal abruptly turns his back on my old boss and regards me steadily.

“Hey,” Wal says.

I nod at him. “Hey.”

Both our heys say volumes. There’s hurt and anger, and forgiveness there. Yeah, and a lot of “we’re going to need to talk very seriously later.” But I’m happy to see him, happier than I ever expected.

Mr. D claps his hands together. “Right. We can’t talk here, far too dismal. And, if the world isn’t over just yet how about a round of minigolf?”

What do you say to someone you haven’t spoken to in months? Particularly when it ended so badly. Part of me wants to hit Mr. D for the secrets he hid from me. Part of me really can’t bear to face him.

Wal flies in circles around the both of us, keeping his back to me. He hasn’t spoken to me beyond that hey—which is totally killing that warm fuzzy feeling I had, and ruining my game. I haven’t made par yet, not even on the easy holes. I’ve hit every trap, fished my ball out of every chasm, every pond of blood or fire. My armpits are stained with sweat; my shoes are slick with gore, and just a bit melty.

Mr. D is a deft hand. Making two shots, no more, on even the most difficult holes.

“I didn’t know that the Underworld had minigolf.”

Wal sniffs, loudly.

“It has a lot of things,” Mr. D says bending over his putter on the thirteenth green—the ball’s about two feet from the hole. Somehow I’ve ended up holding the pin, the flag blowing in a stiff hellish breeze. “The back nine on this one is particularly challenging. Now, what did you want to talk to me about?” There’s a slight hurt tone to his voice. I’m doing my best to ignore it.

You’d think we’d been through enough that we could talk about our feelings. But we’re men, Australian men (and an Australian cherub), of course we can’t.
Cut to the bloody chase, de Selby
. I want the bad blood between us gone, but if that isn’t going to happen I need to move on. Even so, Mr. D still owes me his advice.

“What does 24 May mean to you?” I ask.

Mr. D stops, mid putt. “Where did you hear that?” It’s the first time that he looks at me directly. I catch a glimpse of serious in all those faces he contains. All the deaths various, each is registering confusion. HD finds the deathly mash-up amusing. Me, I like a good, solid, unchangeable face.

“The date keeps coming up. Do you know anything?”

Mr. D swings his putter, misses the hole. Nearly missed the ball. He shakes his head. “It’s probably nothing.”

“We both know it’s not nothing. That date. It was scratched into a table in Suzanne’s room. Aunt Neti had it marked on her calendar. Both had written the letter M by it.”

Mr. D purses his lips. “M, eh,” he says, “I don’t like the sound of that. I was hoping—” He peers at me. “What were you doing in Aunt Neti’s rooms?”

“Being attacked by spiders.”

“Oh, they’ll do that,” Wal says, still without looking at me.
“Spiders can hold onto a grudge like nobody’s business.” Not just spiders apparently.

I ignore the snark.“You said you were hoping. Hoping what?”

Mr. D waves Wal away, the little cherub’s chest puffs with the indignation. “Think about that date,” Mr. D says. “Think about just who is connected to it. You know them. You might be trying hard to forget, but you know him.”

Him? May 24…my eyes widen.
Oh, no. That’s fucking ridiculous.

Every year, since I can remember, there were parties, great big family (when I had a great big family) gatherings. If we didn’t have it at our place—he’d take us all out to dinner. I remember smoking cigars with him on the balcony at the Siana Restaurant near Eagle Pier staring at the Story Bridge out over the river. I remember when I was five and I baked him a cake. He said it was the best cake anyone had ever made him—even if I’d burnt one side of it to a crisp.

“Yes,” Mr. D says, nodding.

“It’s Morrigan’s birthday.”

“Hell of a coincidence,” he says, sounding like he doesn’t believe in coincidences at all. And neither do I. Morrigan is gone. Someone’s trying to distract us from the truth. “And maybe it wasn’t a coincidence. Maybe they were planning him a party. Maybe they all expected him to win.”

That could be possible, after all I have Morrigan’s birthday in my Google calendar—I’m terrible at remembering birthdays, and even worse at remembering to check my calendar.

Oddly enough, Morrigan, while stern and utilitarian about everything else, did love his birthday. Only last year we’d all gone out to Cloudland in the Valley. All of us, descending on that place, it had been a hell of a—the memory of that happier time almost knocks the wind from me.

“Morrigan’s gone,” I say. “He died at the Negotiation, his soul was destroyed: you told me yourself.”

“Yes, no soul for him. But quite a coincidence, wouldn’t you say?”

I have a terrible thought. What if Morrigan had been the one needed to defeat the Stirrer god? Surely not. The idea’s ridiculous. There has to be another reason.

“If he has something to do with this …” I trail off. That’s all I’ve got.

“Yes, he’s gone. But he may have notes. May have plans somewhere. Maybe he was getting ready for the apocalypse.”

“We checked his computers.”

“But did you check the right ones? If he had plans he wouldn’t have left them lying around. As contemptuous as he was of me, I know he wouldn’t have risked discovery,” Mr. D grins wickedly. “I could be quite imaginative in my punishment.”

I nod my head. “I’ll look again. Carefully. I thought this was all over.” The idea of Morrigan holding the key to the world’s salvation has a neatness to it that appeals. Finally the evil prick might actually do some good.

“It’s never all over for you.”

“Another distraction,” I say. “Between this and my dispute with the Death of the Water…”

“Your what?!” Mr. D waves his putter in my face, I gently push it aside.

“I’ve pissed off the Death of the Water.”

“Oh dear. You are going to have to sort that out now. Now, I mean. Right this instant.”

“The Water is mad.”

“The Water is Death. It could drown the earth. Do you want to lose every city on the coast? If it hasn’t happened yet, then it is being incredibly restrained. Crete, they had a minor dispute with the Water once, and you know what happened to them, no more leaping bulls.” Mr. D drops his putter and shakes me. “Steven, I know we’ve had our differences, but you should have come to me sooner.”

“You lied to me.” I yank myself from his grip, and Mog’s back in one hand, the putter in the other. I chuck the golf club away.

Mr. D’s eyes flick from the blade to my face. He raises his hands, shifts backwards a little. Even Wal is keeping his distance.

“What choice did I have?” Mr. D demands. “Suzanne’s plan had merit. You were the perfect candidate. And if I had told you…”

“What? I would have been informed? I would have been able to make a decision?”

“No, she might have gone with someone else. The moment a person knows that they’re being groomed for anything, their attitude changes. I like you, Steve. I didn’t think you deserved to die.”

“Well, I—”

“You have to speak to the Death of the Water. You can’t afford to waste any more time. The Stirrer god is coming. It may even get here on 24 May. Right now its presence is building, don’t tell me you can’t feel it. And as it builds your own powers will be disrupted. Your ability to detect Stirrers for one, maybe even your ability to control that monster inside you. Bad things are coming, wicked things, but if you don’t sort out your differences with the Death of the Water then there may not be anything left for the god to destroy.”

I know all this. I take a deep breath, resist the urge to strangle Mr. D. “How do I speak to the Death of the Water? Take a bit of a dip?”

“No. No. No.” Mr. D searches his pockets. “Damn, I thought I had a number. Charon should have it, they’re good friends, I think. I mean it makes sense.”

Totally. “Number?”

“Phone number.” He gives up his hunt. “Have there been a lot of drownings lately?”

I frown. “Yes.”

“I think you should check the papers. See what has been happening. If there have been more than usual it will be apparent.”

I know exactly how many there have been, and I know how many are left—just one. But I don’t dare tell Mr. D this.

“You have to keep up-to-date with what your other half is doing. Get the figures right so you know just what he has been taking. He will come in all aggrieved. The Death of the Water always feels unappreciated.”

“So I’ve pissed off something that already has a chip on its shoulder?”

“Not a chip, more like a slab. Oh, and don’t make any stupid deals. Certainly none you’re not prepared to go through with.”

“I’ve no intention of doing anything stupid at all.”

Mr. D smiles grimly, his face shifting faster and faster. All manner of deaths passing over it. “Doesn’t matter what your intentions are. You’ve pissed off a Death. Not a co-worker, or an underling—that’s a whole other empire out there, a bigger one than yours, and it’s angry.”

M
r D has a point, and it’s really only backing up what Tim said the other day. If I don’t sort out my issues with Water, I’m never going to be able to deal with the god that’s coming. I’m only just realizing what that’s going to cost me. And if it’s really going to manifest on the twenty-fourth, I better be ready and all allied up. I don’t know what it is about me that finds putting things off so attractive, but it keeps leading me deeper and deeper into trouble. And it’s not as if I can put off the end of the world. That’s coming regardless.

Yet here I am, a man who has made enemies with his only ally, and not done anything to see a cessation of the argument. On top of which I then chose to hide from my mentor, whose advice will be pivotal in the upcoming conflict. And I’ve yet to ask Lissa to marry me. What the hell kind of man am I?

I close my eyes, focus on Charon, and shift. I end up in a small ferry terminal jutting into the Styx. I look out across still, dark water. It’s quiet, no lapping of waves against the shore. I squint into the murk. There’s no ferry and there’s no Charon.

The river is silent. Motionless. It alarms me, that quiet. There’s too much of the End of Days in it.
End of Days. End of Days. Everything’s the End of Days!
I whistle a couple of bars of Hank Williams’s “Ramblin’ Man” into the dark, and the sound is swallowed up. But at least I’m grinning now.

I crouch down and stare at the river, and discover why it’s so silent. The water’s frozen. The ice cracks and groans in time with the One Tree.

Where the hell is Charon? All I can do is follow the memory of his presence like a scent. And in doing so I realize he permeates the Underworld almost as completely as I do. Here he has sat at a riverside cafe, or stood on the walkway of the Go Between Bridge, at the top of the gentle arch admiring the river, with which he shares such an intimate relationship, below. Everywhere there is a hint of him: a memory that strikes me. I can almost hear the flap of his rubber thongs and taste the choking smoke of his cigarettes.

I shift, and Wal with me, through the Underworld, from one ferry stop to the next, watching as the lights go on, the traffic starts its moving, the Tree creaks even louder, and the dead do the things that dead people do—shadow stuff, reflections of all the living things and their movement in the living world.

The river quickens. Liquefies. Cracks snake across the frozen face of the water. As I watch, lumps of dark ice start moving, rushing with the river out to the sea of Hell.

I’m responsible for all of this.

Little old me. Maybe the sun does shine out of my arse after all.

I pause for a while to watch my Underworld flower. The sky continues to brighten. The river flows. Somewhere, nearby, birds sing the melancholy tunes of the land of the dead.

“Impressive isn’t it?” Wal says, dipping chubby fingers into the water.

“I’d have never believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.”

“You better get used to it. With great power comes—”

“Yeah, I know. I’ve grown up since you last saw me.”

“Really? You could have fooled me. No offense intended, of course.”

Charon’s in none of his usual haunts. The docks are empty. The river is busy with baroque CityCats—the catamarans running up and down it, filled to capacity. There’s never a shortage of the dead. Where is he?