Managing Death

by Trent Jamieson

  The lights change and someone beeps at me from behind. I put the car into gear, and head out of the city … or towards the city’s heart. Depends on how you look at it.

  Ten minutes later, the Corolla lurches up the last section of winding road that leads to Mount Coot-tha’s summit. Lissa’s curled in the seat beside me. I brush the hair from her face and she smiles. It’s a beautiful smile, but every time I see someone sleeping a slither of jealousy burns within me. I shove it down. This isn’t Lissa’s fault, I have to get used to it. Besides, the guilt concerning just who I last spent time with up here takes the edge off.

  I pull into a park at the top of the mountain, let the car idle. The lights of the lookout are burning. The air is cooler up here, but it’s still warm. There’s a storm building in the west, following a pattern that has extended over these last few weeks. Heavy clouds trail fingers of electricity across the horizon. Even with that nearing disturbance I can still feel the One Tree, though its presence is somewhat muted.

  In the Underworld it would rise above me at this point, clambered over by the dead, those ready or those forced to take the next step into the Deepest Dark. Here, of course, there are just the living forests, scrubby eucalypts that sing and sigh with the approaching storm.

  I’ve been working so hard and getting nowhere. Everything, despite my best efforts, seems to be slipping out of control. Can you really learn to be an RM on the job? Maybe this is just what being an RM is really like, and Suzanne and Co. merely put on a mask of calm efficiency as they scramble about trying to keep Mortmax running smoothly. That worries me far more than any lack that I might possess. A lot more.

  The city below is luminous. Aeroplanes, their lights blinking, race towards the airport in the east, or rise from it, all of them veering away from the cloud front. Lissa wakes as I turn off the engine.

  ‘Are we there yet?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  She smiles at me. Her face is too pale. And though I never think of her this way, in that moment she seems so frail. And I have to kiss her. I just have to.

  I hold her head in my hands, feeling like a teenager again. The car park’s a popular make-out point, the city a carpet gridded with light beneath us. I kiss her and she’s kissing me. My hands trace the outline of her body. As the storm nears us, the ever-present veil of heartbeats falls away, and all I can feel is her racing heart beneath my palm. I stroke her breasts, awkwardly at first. It’s too open here, but then again, our first sexual experience was an embarrassing masturbation-based binding ritual in a car park.

  Lissa pushes against me. Clothes can’t come off fast enough. Lightning streaks the sky as if in sympathy.

  ‘Now,’ she moans.

  And it’s fast and difficult, in that tiny car, the gearstick getting in the way, not to mention the steering wheel and a seat that almost collapses beneath our weight. But we manage it. There are moments of clumsiness, moments of rhythm. We laugh at each other, forget where we are.

  The storm is already heading out to sea. The darkness seems washed of impurities, the city’s lights burn brighter. I breathe in the smell of her.

  ‘That was different,’ she says.

  ‘But good?’

  ‘Insecurity isn’t very attractive, you know.’

  With the storm gone, Lissa’s heartbeat is just one of the millions I can feel again, racing, slowing, stalling, failing. But hers is right here, by my heart; her lips so close to mine that I kiss her again.

  Oscar’s Hummer pulls up next to us, followed by Travis in a little red convertible.

  ‘We might be in trouble,’ I say.

  Lissa smirks. ‘We’re always in trouble.’

  Oscar gets out of the car, taps on my window. I wind it down and look up at him as apologetically as anyone feeling as smug as I am can.

  ‘Look,’ Oscar says, ‘if you want to die, then that’s your prerogative, Steven. But if you are killed, who is going to pay me? And this business is very much word of mouth. Are you trying to ruin my business?’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s my fault,’ Lissa says. ‘I wanted to come up here and watch the storm.’

  ‘Did you enjoy it?’

  Lissa and I exchange a look that lasts a little too long, and then a little longer.

  Oscar is blushing when I look back at him. ‘Yes, we did.’

  ‘You’re coming home, now,’ he says. ‘Please.’

  Oscar’s driving behind us. I have Okkervil River on the mp3, Will Sheff’s voice, shouting out the lyrics to ‘For Real’, filling the Corolla. It’s all menace and yearning but right now it sounds as romantic a thing as you could ever imagine. Another storm is building. It’s going to pour again soon. The Brisbane River is beside us, shining with the reflected glow of the city. The skyscrapers rise up to our left. Southbank’s massive ferris wheel is a circle of fire to our right across the river. The water calls to me a little. I’ve been an RM for such a short time, but I’m already aware of just how many things are connected to death, how many places act as interfaces or linkages between the Underworld and the living world.

  The rear-view mirror shows me Oscar hunched over the wheel of his Hummer. His face is hard; then a lightning burst in the sky above conceals it. Travis is driving a little way ahead. I don’t know what they think they’re going to achieve if something actually happens on the freeway.

  I take our exit from the M3.

  And then I sense it. Something wrong. A force or a presence that didn’t exist a heartbeat ago. And it’s coming from beneath us. I rest my left hand on the dashboard. There’s an odd beat, a rhythm, running counterbalance to the song.

  ‘Bomb! Out!’ I’m already slowing the car. I can feel it building, racing towards a crescendo of shrapnel. There’s a little piece of me, the Hungry Death, I guess, that’s loving it.

  Lissa looks at me. She opens her door: the road is streaking by. There’s no time. Up ahead, there’s nothing coming, the road is clear. I yank my seatbelt free. The car’s slowing, but not enough. The vibration shifts, increasing in pitch. The explosion, all that potential energy, is about to be exhaled in fire.

  Lissa leaps and I do something I didn’t believe was possible. I visualise it, as Suzanne must have with me, capture the movement in my skull, and then I shift beneath her. Fold her in my arms. She doesn’t struggle against me, merely accepts that I can take this punishment. I hold her, bind her in me. She’s warm and still against my cold flesh.

  We’re out, and rolling. The ground is hard and toothed. My clothes tear. The road bites, it digs its dirty teeth in deep. And ahead of us, the Corolla, slowed almost to a halt, explodes in a series of sharp detonations. Bits of our little car are tumbling from the sky.

  I lie on the road, panting. Lissa gets to her feet; there are cuts all over her arms but I’ve taken the worst of it, thank Christ. She grabs me by the wrist and drags me from the oncoming traffic. When we’re at the edge of the road she drops next to me. And then the storm unleashes all that rain, that blinding rushing rain.

  Oscar’s already pulling in behind us, windscreen wipers racing, hazard lights flashing. Cars are slowing, but Travis is out directing traffic. I’ve never seen anyone do it with such panache. When a man’s that big, people pay attention.

  ‘You all right?’ I shout at Lissa. Things are leaking within me, even as I feel flesh and bone knitting. The rain’s soaking me. Lissa crouches down, kisses me hard and squints; our communication is more lip-reading than anything else.

  ‘Did you leave the fuel cap off or something?’ she mouths at me.

  Bones shift. Ribs slide back into place, organs repair themselves: I’m getting better at this. It itches like hell, though.

  ‘Yeah, and I also left a bomb in the glove box. Sorry.’

  We look over at the Corolla. It’s a flaming wreck billowing black smoke. I feel that it saved our lives.

  ‘Jesus!’ Oscar says. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Fine. We’re both fine,’ Lissa says. As
though none of this is new to us. And it goddamn isn’t.

  Solstice is down among the wreckage almost before the ambulances and fire engines get there, his face set in a grimace. The storm has come and gone; the air’s so thick you could serve it with a ladle.

  Traffic creeps past. Gawkers mostly, peering at the wreck, and the various hues of flashing lights.

  ‘Jesus, de Selby. It just goes from bad to worse with you, doesn’t it?’ He kicks at the wreckage with one steel-capped boot. ‘I’d understand it if you had a car worth blowing up, but this piece of shit …’

  That offends me more than it ought. But at least with Solstice on the scene, I don’t have to answer too many stupid questions: just put up with his jibes. Alex is here, too, keeping in the background, looking worried. He’s talking to Lissa. Taking notes, and studiously avoiding Solstice.

  ‘Are you getting anywhere with Rillman? Isn’t that your fucking job?’ I demand.

  ‘The guy’s a ghost. The records just stop. No surprises, I suppose. But you know all about ghosts. Do you think this Rillman could be a Stirrer?’

  ‘No. Stirrers don’t operate this way. They’re not nearly as subtle.’

  Solstice taps a blackened hub cap with one foot. ‘Do you call this subtle?’ He sighs. ‘Look, you’ve had a long night. Maybe you should go home. Rest up, get ready for all the questions I’m going to be asking you when I get my head around this.’

  He thumps my back, and stares over at Alex. ‘And tell that hack cop we don’t need him here.’

  ‘He’s here as a friend.’

  ‘He’s a fucking nuisance, that’s what he is.’

  I walk over to Alex. He’s glaring at Solstice.

  ‘What did the prick say?’

  ‘He’d like you to leave his crime scene.’

  ‘His crime scene?’

  ‘Alex, he has a point. Besides, the less he’s thinking about you the better. Have you found out anything new?’

  ‘Just how much I hate bureaucracies. Getting anything on these Closers is next to impossible. Look, the less I find the more worried it makes me,’ Alex says. ‘And then the harder I look. I’ll find something.’

  ‘Good,’ I say. ‘That’s what I like to hear.’

  Oscar gets us home quickly. I can’t help thinking that, in a way, we’re lucky. If that bomb had gone off in the garage, Oscar, Travis and Lissa would all be dead. If it had gone off at the lookout there’s no telling how many casualties there would have been. And all because some ex-employee who predates my time with the company has a vendetta against me. Because I succeeded where he failed.

  When we pull into the driveway, something else grabs my attention. This day just isn’t going to end!

  ‘Are you feeling that?’ I ask Lissa.

  ‘Yes, it’s not what it should be, but after today, I recognise it.’

  We both look at the brace symbol above the front door. It should be glowing. It’s not.

  ‘What are you two talking about?’ Oscar says.

  ‘You’re going to have to stay in the car,’ I say to him. ‘This is something you can’t handle.’

  Lissa and I slide out of the Hummer and hurry up the front steps and onto the verandah. I have the door open in a moment, and we slip inside my parents’ house. Now, I used to sneak in here a lot, when I was dating. I know every single creaking floorboard, every single shadowed alcove. Lissa follows my steps. We reach the living room with barely a sound above Lissa’s racing heart and the whisper of our breathing.

  Here the sensation, the taste, is stronger. But not as strong as I’d expect.

  I signal to Lissa and she nods, pulling out her knife.

  I creep through the living room, then into the kitchen. Lissa is behind me, the only person I would ever trust with a knife in that position.

  It’s sitting there, in one of the kitchen chairs.

  ‘Get out of here,’ I snarl.

  The Stirrer smiles. Blood has settled along its cheekbones. Its eyes are dead: blank. It turns towards us clumsily. Every movement must be difficult for this creature. It can’t have inhabited the body for very long, no more than a couple of hours, maybe much less. ‘You don’t recognise me, do you?’

  ‘Am I supposed to?’

  The Stirrer nods towards Lissa. ‘I took over her … remains.’

  How could I forget? When Morrigan murdered Lissa, this Stirrer used her body. It had even come to me and tried to make a deal.

  ‘You bitch!’ Lissa almost leaps over the table. I’m normally the one doing something stupid. I grab her arm, and it’s a strain to keep her here with me.

  ‘Not yet,’ I say.

  The Stirrer’s grin is a challenge to us both. ‘You need to listen to me,’ it says. ‘Things are accelerating, but we are not as unified as you might think.’

  ‘Is that what you told Morrigan?’ Lissa demands.

  I can feel the Stirrer now. Its absence. I can feel the things it is drawing away from the world; it’s like a cloud that has passed over the sun.

  ‘Morrigan was a mistake. It got out of our control.’

  I notice the brace symbol tattooed on its thumb. This Stirrer shouldn’t exist. And it shouldn’t have passed through all the safeguards that I have set up throughout the house.

  But here it is staring at me, in a body I do not recognise, for all its Pomp tattoos. Who did he work for? The relief I feel that it’s not one of my Pomps is followed quickly by guilt.

  ‘I found him outside your home.’ It lifts its head and I see the red line slashed across its throat. ‘I just took what was convenient. You really should clean up more frequently. My host has been dead for some time.’

  ‘What do you have to say?’ I ask, still holding Lissa back. She’s shaking with rage.

  ‘Not all of us are happy to see our god approaching. Some of us are scared. Some of us may be willing to change sides.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘To see the sun again. To live among you, godless. After all, this place was ours long before it was yours. You who live owe us that much –’

  ‘That’s it!’ Lissa snarls, and shakes free of my hand. ‘We don’t trust Stirrers around here.’

  She slides her knife over her palm and slams it against the Stirrer’s face. There’s a soft detonation, the air gathers something about itself, and takes the motion from the corpse. The body drops, all smug smiles and jerky movement taken from its limbs. I look down at it. There’s no hint that a Stirrer ever inhabited the body.

  Then it smashes into me. The Stirrer’s soul. It’s as though I’ve curled myself around a ball of razor wire. I drop, and howl.

  I close my hands around the scythe.

  It feels so good, doesn’t it?

  And it does.

  Now let us kill.

  Something shakes my shoulder, jolts me awake. My head rests on a cushion and Lissa is holding my hand, whispering soothing nonsense.

  ‘You had me worried there.’

  ‘It’ll take more than a stall to kill me, no matter how rough. Why’d you wake me from the first decent rest I’ve had in ages?’ I murmur.

  ‘You were screaming. And then you started to chuckle.’ Lissa doesn’t laugh. I blink at her. ‘When did that start happening?’

  ‘Just then. A stall has never hurt like that before.’

  Lissa smiles grimly. ‘I’m glad you spared me from it.’

  ‘You’re welcome. The Stirrers are definitely getting stronger. And I don’t like what that suggests. But next time, maybe we should let the Stirrer speak.’

  ‘I don’t trust ’em,’ Lissa says. ‘Especially ones that take over my body and talk about what we owe it.’

  ‘I understand, but –’

  ‘No buts. That Stirrer was in our house. It should never have been here.’

  Christ, I wish I could see things in such black and white ways. It can only mean that the Stirrer god is nearing. I have to sort this mess out with Rillman and fast; the sideshow is obscuring the main event.


  Lissa frowns and crouches down by the corpse. One of its palms is marked in black ink with a bisected half circle.

  ‘Do you recognise that?’ I ask.

  ‘Yeah, it’s the same symbol our electrical friends in their safe house had on them.’

  ‘I think the Stirrers have found themselves something that counteracts the brace symbol.’

  ‘Something that simple? It’s hard to believe it has any efficacy,’ Lissa says.

  ‘The brace symbol is simple too. It has to be. Mr D told me that the universe rails against complexity, it likes to break the curlicues and the squiggles down.’

  ‘He’s a poet,’ Lissa says, with a wry grin. ‘Maybe he has something to say about all of this. Maybe you should go and find out.’

  ‘Are you going to be all right here?’

  Lissa raises her bloody palm. ‘As long as this works I will.’

  If you lose your trust in blood, what do you have left? Up until the last couple of days I would have found it impossible to believe anything could trip up the old ways of stalling. Yet here we are.

  ‘Be safe,’ we say simultaneously.

  ‘I was expecting you. I could feel it, don’t ask me how. Maybe we’re developing some sort of link. After all, you are the closest thing I have to a living relative,’ Mr D says, with two cups of steaming tea on a table by his chair. I don’t bother asking where the new furniture came from. The One Tree creaks around us. He’s just put down a copy of Fritz Leiber’s novel Our Lady of Darkness. He’s halfway through the book, I see. I slide a chair over to the table. There’s no point rushing Mr D. Even if I’m in a hurry, he isn’t.

  On the uppermost branch above us is where my Negotiation took place. A Negotiation involving more pain than I’d ever thought possible. I keep finding new limits to that. My capacity to contain it has increased and the universe seems intent on filling it.

  On the branches beneath us people clamber and climb, finding places where the tree is happy to absorb them and pass them on to the Deepest Dark. Every soul has a different spot, a different length of time to be spent in the Underworld. But Pomps, once they pass, don’t spend much time here. Maybe the One Tree is frightened that we’ll mess it up.