That's the one lesson the universe will keep teaching you: that until you stop breathing, until you let go, life is loss, and loss is pain. Sometimes though, if you're lucky, you can find some grace. I'd seen it enough at funerals, a kind of beaten dignity. Maybe that's all you can hope for. Maybe that's all I can hope for.
I'd promised my parents that I'd do my best to go on, and that drove me, hard. Jesus, I'm lucky I had a chance to say goodbye, most Pomps don't even get that. Shit, I'd only managed because of Lissa. And now she was gone. Alex is waiting for me. He smiles, though I know he really wants to tell me that I look like shit. It's one of the ways he's different from his father. Don would have told me straight up.
"You got that aspirin?" I have a headache, but that's not what it's for.
He nods and passes the packet to me. I take a handful of the pills and swallow them.
"You sure that's a good thing to do?"
"It's not a good thing at all. But aspirin's the quickest way I know of to thin my blood," I say. "Have you got the suit?"
He nods. "Oh, and I got something else." He chucks a heavy black vest at me. I catch it with a grunt.
"What's this?"
"Something you didn't think of. It's Kevlar, the best I could manage."
"Good work."
"It won't protect your head, but it's better than nothing."
It's far better than nothing. The suit and the vest are even the right size. I don't ask how he managed it. I just change. The suit's an affectation really, ridiculous. But if I am going to my own funeral, if I am doing the work of a Pomp, then I want to be in a suit. I look at myself in the car door window. If it's at all possible I look thinner than I've ever been, but the suit fits well, partly because of the bulletproof vest. I almost look good. Even my hair.
Alex has managed to get me everything else I wanted. "Thanks. You did good."
"The CBD's virtually deserted." He grimaces. "I had to do a little bit of looting. For the greater good, I kept telling myself, for the greater good."
I shove everything in the sports bag (another item on the list) and dump that on the front seat. Alex is standing there, formidable as always, waiting. But probably not for what's coming.
Suddenly I'm telling him about Lissa. It's pouring out of me, and by the end of it Alex, Black Sheep or not, is looking at me sternly.
Then he grins, and chuckles. "You fell in love with a dead girl. Even I know that's unprofessional." Alex shakes his head. "But then again, Tim said you were always getting into trouble."
I laugh even though there are tears in my eyes.
Alex grabs my arm, and scowls. "Steve, if you have any chance of getting through this, and believe me when I say I want you to, you're going to have to put everything aside, or Morrigan's won. You're not dead yet, and that's got to count for something, don't you think?"
"I've let stuff slide all my life," I say.
"Yeah, but that's different. Stuff was never going to get you killed. Morrigan murdered my dad, Steve. He murdered your parents, too. Now we both know the score when it comes to death, but it still hurts. I'm still not even sure how I feel about it. But there's one thing I do know-Morrigan's trying to kill you, and he'll succeed if you lose focus." He pats my arm. "Maybe Lissa's out there. Shit, man, you've been to the land of the dead. You went there and you came back. Just stop and think about that for a minute before you face the end of days, eh?"
"It isn't," I say.
"What?"
"It isn't the end. I'm not going to die." We both know that this is unlikely, but we both know that I have to try.
Alex grins. "Yeah, bloody right, you're not."
"Maybe you should think about leaving town for a while."
"And extend the misery a little longer? No thanks, mate. If this doesn't work, I'm going to the Regatta to drink till I want to die. You think Tim's alive?"
I shrug. "I haven't pomped him, but that doesn't mean anything. Morrigan could have, or his spirit's been left wandering. I'm sure there's plenty of souls in that position."
Alex takes a deep breath. "Let me come with you," he says.
Christ, I wish he could. Alex is a thousand times more capable than me. For one, he managed to get everything that I needed. I reckon he could storm Number Four in his sleep.
I shake my head. "There's too many Stirrers." I point over toward the center of the city. Their presence is a choking foulness in my throat. "Even you must be able to sense them now. You wouldn't last a minute being so close to so many. I could brace you, but if I go under, you're gone. I don't want to have that on my conscience."
I don't know if he looks angry or relieved. But I'm sure I've made the right decision. Alex is a Black Sheep, and a cop. He knows what I'm up against-and so do I. I'm trying not to think about it too much, because I need to believe that I might have a chance. I desperately need to believe that.
"Well," I say. "It was nice knowing you." I hand him a tin of brace paint. "This will keep you safe for a little longer."
Alex nods then slides the tin into a pocket and we shake hands, which seems at once ridiculously formal and apt.
"Good luck," Alex says.
"You too."
We stand there awkwardly, then the moment passes and we head to our respective cars.
Number Four is waiting for me. Morrigan is waiting, and I'm going to give him what he wants.
It's time to end this.
34
Number Four is on George Street, so I park in the Wintergarden car park. The big car park is empty but for a couple of deserted cars-all nicer than the Corolla, but it hasn't let me down yet. I'm less noticeable as a pedestrian, and I can reach George Street and Number Four directly from here. It's only a few blocks away and there's a nice circularity to it-though I only think of that once I've parked. The last time I was here I could have convinced myself that my life was normal. I yearn for that time. But it's lost to me now.
I pass through the food court where I first met Lissa and fell in love or lust or whatever it was at the beginning, just before she told me to run-in the other direction. Even then I knew to avoid Number Four, even if it was for all the wrong reasons.
Everywhere I look I see Lissa, the places she filled. I struggle to stop the rising anger that it brings, a bleak force that threatens to overpower me as much as any Stirrer.
It's now late in the afternoon and normally the CBD would be crowded with Sunday shoppers, but it's a virtual ghost town as I walk up Elizabeth Street, past empty boutique stores and bus stops. None of the pubs and clubs are open, their doors are dead mouths gaping, their windows blank eyes staring. There are so many Stirrers in the city that my senses burn with them. What I'm feeling is far worse than the Wesley Hospital. It's a deep and sickening disquiet. Get too many Stirrers together and people sense the wrongness of the situation, in the same way they could sense Lissa on the bus seat next to me. The buses and trains would have been crowded this afternoon but people have stayed away, shops have shut early and no one would have been able to explain why.
It feels as though most of the Stirrers in the city have gathered here. Better near me than out in the suburbs.
As I approach Number Four, the key starts tingling in my grip, then it begins to burn. For all its heat I refuse to let it go. I'm not Death, and the key knows it, but that's the thing, there is currently no Regional Manager. I'm hoping that I haven't set off alarms, I just don't know.
But when I turn into George Street, that's the least of my worries.
Stirrers have gathered around Number Four. There are at least a hundred of them, and that density of death is going to kill. A void of that magnitude is going to drive people away if it doesn't just swallow them up before they get a chance to run. Of course they don't just consume people. The trees along the street are wilting, birds are falling out of the sky. As I watch a possum tumbles from a tree.
A hundred Stirrers at least and they're not scared of me. I cut both of my hands, deep and hard. It hurts, but
I am so used to that sort of pain now. And I'm angry. I don't know if I've ever been angrier. The things Morrigan has stolen from me. The important pieces of my life. All I am now is pain and anger.
At their front is Jim McKean. It's appropriate that this should end with him. At least he doesn't have a shotgun now.
"Out of my way," I snarl.
"Try and stop us," Jim says. He's in a suit, not as nice as mine, but pretty stylish. I grab him with my weeping hands, and the Stirrer passes through me.
"It's my job." I let the body fall. The Stirrers pull back, wary of my blood.
Then someone points a gun in my face. I duck as it fires. I'm rolling. The Stirrer aims again, and then its chest implodes. It staggers back, dropping the gun, then steadies, looking for the weapon. There's a distant crack and a moment later the Stirrer's head is gone, too, and the body falls. I stall it before it has a chance to get up.
I throw my gaze around the street. Alex, it has to be Alex. He's ensconced himself in a building somewhere nearby. I've a sniper at my back. The Stirrers hesitate. There's another crack; another head explodes. I stall that one, too. They know they have no choice now. The circle closes.
And they're on me. It's worse than any rugby scrum, grabbing and gouging. But I'm stronger than any of them. I'm a Pomp, and I'm damn good at my job, and I've got nothing to live for, nothing to fear. Because I've seen the other side-shit, I've ridden a bicycle down its boulevards! They couldn't get me then and they're not going to get me now.
I tear the Stirrers away from their hosts, one after another, and I pay for it in my blood and my hurt. By the end I'm hoarse with screaming, but there is an end. Unbelievably, impossibly, there is. I lie there amongst the dead, my breathing ragged, until I have the strength to pull myself out of the mass of bodies. Blood streams from wounds all over my body, but that doesn't bother me. All it says is that I'm alive. Besides, I've experienced worse in the past few days. And I know that this is only the beginning.
And then a new wave of Stirrers pours around the corner and I'm striking out with fists coated in my own blood, and every time I connect another body stalls.
I recognize these faces. Most of these people were Pomps. It's terrible work, but I know that they would have done the same, that I'm honoring their memory, however desperately and clumsily. There are tears in my eyes, and an ache in my chest.
By the time I'm done there is a pile of corpses on George Street, but that's not my problem. I know that this mess will be cleaned up, if I succeed. And if I don't, then the region is doomed anyway.
This close to Number Four the building tugs at me, drawing me in. The big Mortmax Industries sign is winking, as though unable to hold a charge. The ground hums beneath my feet, and it's not due to passing traffic. There is none. The city is empty.
We recognize each other, Number Four and I, and it recognizes the key. I've never felt this connection to Number Four before. Remarkably, the thing I sense coming from it most is sympathy.
I peer through the window. It's no longer dark. There are more people I know in there with clipboards, on mobile phones, a few are working in front of laptops. But when I say people, I mean they were people once. They're not anymore.
I've known this for some time but to see Morrigan actually working with the Stirrers still makes me shiver. Of course it makes sense. Stirrers, after all, are pure Pomps, even if they're otherworldly Pomps. It sure beats training new staff. We've been economically rationalized. Imperially screwed, as Don would have put it, a step up from royally fucked.
And here's the thing: his replacements haven't kept up their end of the bargain. We Pomps are not only easing the passage of the soul into the afterlife, we're also fighting an invasion, and Morrigan's not only sold us out, but he's sold out the whole continent.
Morrigan's pure eighties' Brisbane, never too frightened to tear down the old for the new. And I can see him getting ready to push this idea internationally as a more efficient facilitation of the pomping process. Morrigan's always been an early adopter, and the other regions' Ankous keep an eye on what he does, and, generally, take it up quickly.
I wonder how many other Schisms he's set up. These could be tripping through the world, Schism after Schism, Regional Apocalypse after Regional Apocalypse. It may explain why not a single RM has answered my calls. No region's that parochial, and the various RMs are, in most cases, happy to step in when a takeover is liable to occur.
This time it's as though the rest of the world is holding its breath, waiting to see how this plays out. Well, they don't have to wait too long, damn them all to Hell. The landscape of death and life has changed for good. I know that, but I'm after some payback.
The door before me no longer emotes any of that odd sense of knowingness. It's just a door. There's no hunger there, or maybe my own hungers are matching it, somehow canceling it out. Maybe I just don't care anymore.
I pull out my pistol, release the safety-yeah, I'm learning-and then insert Mr. D's key in the lock.
The door opens. I step through it.
35
The first Stirrer I see is Mom. She's standing there by the front desk. I grab her with one bloody hand and the Stirrer evacuates her flesh. Her eyes widen and her body drops with a soft sigh. I've no time to lay it down gently. Though it hurts me deeply, I let it fall.
There are so many Stirrers in here. They're a dull scratching behind my eyes, an infection of all my senses. My only hope is that Mr. D's peculiar key is doing what he promised and dulling my presence to them.
I sprint down the hallway past a half dozen Stirrers. There's one at the desk, my Aunt Gloria, Tim's mother. That almost stops me in my tracks, but only for a moment. I hope Tim's somewhere ahead of me, and that he's unharmed. If he isn't, I've failed her.
Aunt Gloria's body doesn't notice me until I've leaped over the tabletop and grabbed her arm with my bloody fingers. It's another hurtful but final stall. Aunt Gloria's body slides from her chair.
The elevator door opens. It's empty. Stirrers are coming down the hallway after me.
I jab the button for the eighth floor. If Morrigan is anywhere it will be there. The door shuts and up I go.
The elevator door pings open. My cousin Jack sees me and his eyes widen. He comes at me with a ring binder. I dispatch Jack quickly.
"Could you please stop neutralizing my staff?" Morrigan asks. He's standing at his desk, his fingers resting on a glass paperweight of the world. He picks it up and puts it down. My gun is trained on him.
"Don't listen to the bastard," says a familiar voice from a corner of the office.
Tim's alive! I look over at him. He looks a little disheveled but is otherwise all right, even if he is tied down to a chair. I see where Morrigan has marked him with a brace. He's proofed against the Stirrers. That's a relief.
"You OK?"
He nods his head. "Better than expected."
"My staff haven't harmed him," says Morrigan.
"Your staff? These are Stirrers. They don't work for you." I glare at him.
"You're wrong there, Steven. We have an agreement, and it is to our mutual benefit. I don't think you understand how powerful I've become."
"Powerful or not, you can't trust them, surely?"
"It's not about trust," Morrigan says. "They do exactly what I tell them to do. They are under the strictest controls. My controls. You see, there's always a problem when you try to fuse an organic process with a bureaucratic one, Steven. Everything is open to corruption, but nothing more so when there is an ill fit, when two separate processes collide."
"Tell me about it," I say. "People start getting murdered in their beds. Friends turn on friends and family. It's definitely a flawed system. You should just kill everyone, then everything's smooth and simple."
Morrigan ignores me. "But I've managed it. Efficiencies will be improved. The Stirrers are much better than human Pomps. You keep them under enough control and everything works well."
"So what you're saying is tha
t death works best without the living to screw it up?"
Morrigan nods his head. "All those noisy rituals, all those dumb beliefs drawing us away from the truth, and shaping the Underworld until it's a mess. You've been there, Steve. You can't tell me it works."
The truth is I can't, because if it had, I'd still be back there, drawn into the One Tree. "So, it has some problems," I say.
"Problems, Jesus!" Morrigan hisses. "I'm steering us toward uniformity here. My region will be like no other, and then the others will slip into line. There will be new efficiencies."
"You're trying to control Stirrers here. They don't care about your efficiencies."
"Poppycock," Morrigan says. "Total bullshit. You want to know what I did? I dragged Mortmax Industries up by the bootstraps. Turned it from a small family business into a well-oiled machine. I may have been born into pomping, Steven, but I chose this path. I didn't just drift around, expecting everything to fall in my lap.
"Have you ever worked a proper day's work in your life, Steven? Have you ever sat there, planning, setting out the future?"
We both know the answer to that, and there's a small part of me that's blaming him. It's not like he ever encouraged me to apply myself. "But I also never planned on killing everyone, never decided that the way forward was fucking contingent on slaughtering my friends."
Morrigan jabs a finger in my face. "We work for the Orcus! The way forward was always going to involve death. You're not a child, stop acting like one."
I step back. "Yeah, then what about the Stirrers on George Sreet? The Orcus would never allow that. Remember what this job is about?"
"You don't know what you're talking about," Morrigan says, but he doesn't seem as certain as he did. And he's shuddering, the bastard is as worn out by all the pomping as I am. And that shouldn't be happening if the Stirrers were actually helping him and not just waiting to devour Australia.
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