I look up and Lissa’s watching me, her eyes wide.
“I was going to get Tim to pick her up,” I whisper, as though I have to justify this. Christ, what if Tim had opened the fridge?
“Oh, Steve. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s OK,” I say. “It’s OK.” But it isn’t.
Molly is dead. There’s only her ruined body, and even now it’s growing cold, and it doesn’t look like her anymore, because with Molly it was always about the way she was thinking. The way she moved. She really was a clever dog. She didn’t deserve this. She put up with so much. She never got enough walks. Molly’s gone, and I can’t make it up to her.
Lissa’s gaze stops me. Her eyes, green as a hailstorm now, are serious, and they’re focused on me. For a moment they’re all I see. Lissa saves me with that stare. I don’t know how to explain it. It’s as though she’s always been a part of my life, as though she knows exactly what to say or do to comfort me.
I’m in an alternate universe, though, and one far crueler. One where Lissa and I never connected when we were alive. Never had a chance to tumble into love, and all its possibilities. Her gaze saves me, but it also makes me bitter because I’m never going to get that chance. She’s dead, and my parents are dead, and Molly’s dead.
And that fills me with something hard, cold and resolute.
“We have to get out of here,” I say.
“Yeah, we do.”
One last look at Molly and I jump the fence behind the burning bamboo into the neighbor’s backyard. The sound of sirens is building, filling the suburbs as they rush toward my home. People are heading toward my house but I’m running in the opposite direction, and it has to look suspicious. My house is going to be on the news tonight. My face is going to be there, too, and beard or no beard, the people on the bus are going to remember that face, and the guy whose car I stole. But I try not to think about that. And while I need it, desperately need it, I have no space for strategy, except this.
I have to stay alive now.
Someone has to pay for what has been done to me and mine.
11
We’re halfway down the block when the pale blue sedan pulls up alongside us. Its headlights flash. I flinch, wondering whether or not this is it. There’s nowhere to run, just the road to my right, and tall fences to my left. No one pays this car much attention besides me but that could well change if someone starts firing rounds out of it. The passenger-side door opens.
“Get in,” Tim says.
My jaw drops.
“There’s no time to explain, just get in!”
“Can you trust this guy?” Lissa demands.
I’m already in the car, shutting the door behind me. Tim races down the road. I can sense Lissa’s displeasure emanating from the back seat of the car.
“This isn’t your car,” I say. The car smells of cigarettes. Tim has the radio on and we have a background of inconsequential jokey disc jockey chatter. It’s somehow calming where I would usually find it irritating. Bad radio hints at normalcy, and this is seriously bad radio.
“Do you think I’d be stupid enough to drive my own car?” Tim looks terrified, and wounded, like a man who has lost his parents. I recognize the look I had seen in my own face earlier. He takes a deep breath, slowing the car down to the speed limit.
“Didn’t think about that,” I say. “I haven’t really been thinking about anything.”
“Shit. Steve, what the fuck’s going on?” Tim lights up a smoke, waiting. Suburbia streaks by. My house is the only one that’s exploded, but everything looks wrong, feels wrong. The lens of losing everything has slipped over my eyes and I wonder if I’ll ever see the world in the old way again.
Tim keeps swinging his gaze from the road to my face and back again, as though it or I have answers. I’d put my money on the road. “I don’t know. I don’t know. How did you…”
“I got a call. I don’t know who from, just a male voice, it was all very confusing. They said you were in danger, and that I needed to get to your place right away.” Tim smiles, it’s a weak, thin thing, but a smile all the same. “They also said not to drive my car, that people might be looking for it. I borrowed this. It’s a neighbor’s. When I got to your house it was in flames. I saw you leap the fence.”
He sighs. “Why didn’t you call me again? That message you left, what the fuck was that?”
“I didn’t want you to get dragged into—”
“Jesus, I’m always going to be part of this. You Pomps, you snooty bastards. I’m a Black Sheep, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be some help. Shit, my parents are dead. They were murdered, so were yours.”
I turn to Lissa. “Why didn’t I…?”
She shakes her head. “The day you had, Steve. It’s lucky you’re not dead.”
“I’m sorry,” I say to Tim. “I really am.”
“Yeah. At least you’re OK.”
As if this can even remotely be called OK. None of us are.
“Who’s in the back there?” Tim asks.
“It’s a dead girl. She’s been following me around.”
I hear a loud humph, at that from the back. “Following, well, I—”
“You two have a thing going?”
I shrug. “She’s dead, Tim.”
“She’s also right here,” Lissa says. “Like, hello!”
I frown at her. Then turn back to Tim. “Someone’s killing Pomps. She’s a Pomp, she knows how to trick up death a bit. She warned me.”
“Mom’s dead,” Tim says. “Dad, too. The family. She couldn’t have warned them.”
“I was just lucky, I suppose. Just lucky,” I say, and I know that’s not quite right but I can’t think of anything else to say.
Tim jabs a finger in my face. “The next time you call me, fucking be a little more specific, eh.” He glances toward the road, just in time to swerve out of the way of a fire engine, its lights blazing. “Maybe I could have done something.”
“It was already too late then,” I say. “If there’d been anything I could have… Christ, Tim, you weren’t the only one to lose family.”
Tim slows the car.
“They’re all gone. Your mom said that she loves you. Tim, you and Sally, and the kids, you have to—”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Tim says. “Sally, the kids, they’re already on a flight to London.”
“Aunt Teagan?”
“Yeah. Steve, we have to get you out of here. I’m safe, they’re not going for Black Sheep. I’ve checked the register. Not a single fatality in six weeks. You’re the only one in danger here. Not me, certainly not the dead girl.”
“Lissa,” I say. “That’s her name.”
He looks at me, shakes his head. “You’ve never made it easy on yourself. The ones you fall for.”
My cheeks are burning, so there’s no point in denial. Tim pretends to ignore it.
“I’m sure Lissa doesn’t want you dead. It’s crazy that you don’t run.”
I raise my hands in the air. “I know, but I’m staying. I need to get to the bottom of this. Maybe after this is done, whatever it is that needs to be done. If I live long enough. But if I stop now, and think…” My eyes start to well up. There’s a dark wave of loss towering over me, but I can’t acknowledge that now. I wipe the tears away with my thumb.
A couple more fire engines race past us. “Jesus, Steve, you’ve put on a show,” Tim says.
“I can’t have you driving me around,” I say. “Even in this car. It’s too dangerous. I’m a target. Every moment you’re with me puts you in danger. I don’t care what the guy on the phone said. I need you to stay out of this.”
“Fuck that.”
“Tim. I can’t be responsible for your death. I just can’t. You’ve got kids. A wife. You have to think of them, mate.”
Tim’s shoulders tense. “That’s bullshit,” he says. “Here we fucking go again, just because I’m a Black Sheep. Because I didn’t become a Pomp.”
“No, it i
sn’t, and you know it. Shit, if you were a Pomp, you’d probably be dead by now.” I take a deep breath. “You need to be safe. Promise me you will.”
Tim glares at me. There’s an anger there that I’d never seen before, and it hurts me to see it. Then the more methodical part of his brain starts reining in his rage. “OK,” he says at last. “Where do you want me to take you?”
I give him an address, not very far away. We’re there in a couple of minutes. No one follows us: the streets are almost empty. Tim pulls the car to the side of the road.
“Thank you,” I say. “If you can, get out of town. I think this is going to get worse before it gets better—if it ever gets better. Stay at a friend’s place for a few days.”
Tim nods, though I know he’s just going to go home and try and deal with what’s going on. “Be safe, you bastard,” he says, then turns and speaks to the back seat. “Take care of him. He’s all the family I have left, even if he is a Pomp.” I don’t have the heart to tell him that Lissa’s already out and standing on the side of the road.
“You be safe, too.” I get out of the car.
Tim glances at me, and all I see are the wounds that he’s carrying, the hurts that I recognize because they are the same as my own. It almost brings me to my knees. He slips the car into gear and shoots off down the street.
“Interesting guy,” Lissa says. “Now, tell me, why are we here?”
“My car’s round the back.” I point at the nearby garage. “It’s supposed to be fixed.” I jingle my keys. “We’re going to be on the road in no time.”
We’re just turning into the mechanic’s—the place is closed for the night, just the cars waiting to be picked up—when there’s an almighty explosion. A wave of heat strikes me. I smell what’s left of the hair on my arms.
“Don’t tell me,” Lissa says.
“Yeah.”
Bits of my car fall from the sky. A dark shape streaks out of the flame toward me. It’s a crow—a big one—and its wings are aflame. It races toward my head, a shrieking, flapping comet. An omen if I’ve ever seen one. I cringe and duck, throwing my hands up before my face. But it’s already gone.
I swing around to Lissa, her pale blue face lit by the fire coming from my car, her mouth open. She looks as horrified as I feel.
“What the hell does that mean?” Lissa asks.
“It means that wherever we’re going, we’re walking for a bit.” I look around at all that flame, and the dark sky filling up with smoke. My environmental footprint has broadened considerably this evening. “Maybe we should start running again.”
Things can’t get any worse, except I’m certain that they will. It’s the first new law of the universe according to Steven de Selby’s life: things always get worse—and then they explode.
12
So I’m dead,” Mike says to me and blinks, his eyes wide.
The newly dead blink a lot.
It’s more from the memory of the flesh than any brilliance in the afterlife. There’s no walking into the light or any of that nonsense, their eyes are just adjusting to a new way of seeing the world. It’s a doors of perception sort of thing.
I have an inkling of what that feels like now, because my world has had its doors and its walls blown open, one after the other with all the ruthlessness of a carpet bomber. I’m feeling a little more than angry. Which isn’t the kind of thing you want to bring to the job, it’s wildly unprofessional. If this is even a profession anymore.
“Yeah, Mike.” I glance around, not sure if anyone is following us. “I’m sorry to say it but, yeah, you’re dead.”
“Well, this wasn’t what I was expecting.” He’s a bit hesitant. I can’t get near him, maybe I’m not helping that much. I’m not really in the mood.
Mike is the fourth dead person who’s found me since my car exploded, and that was only an hour ago. Two others were Pomps, the third a punter like Mike. I hadn’t seen the Pomps since last year’s Christmas party; one of them had gotten a little amorous with the bar staff. Poor bastard—that stuff sticks to you—even dead he couldn’t look me in the eye. With them gone I’m probably the only Pomp in the city. Maybe the only Pomp in Australia. And every dead Pomp means more work for me, more of that dreadful pain.
“I’m sorry,” I say again to Mike, and I really am.
“Don’t be. I’m OK with it,” Mike says, shrugging. He’s not a Pomp, just a punter, a regular dead guy. “It was hurting at the end. This is much better. I’m really OK with it.”
“Good.” I’m not OK with death, but I’m trying to cling to my flesh and bones. Shit, I catch myself, I’m being so unprofessional.
“So who is she?” Mike points a thumb at Lissa.
“I’m dead too, Mike,” Lissa says, even manages a smile.
Mike nods. Lissa lets this sink in. He blinks, looks her up and down. He obviously likes what he sees. Once again I feel a little tug of jealousy. “You cool with it?” Mike asks.
Lissa sighs. “What you gonna do, eh?”
Mike laughs. “Yeah.”
I reach out a hand, pat his wrist and he’s gone. I grunt with the pain of it, hunched over. Then I cough.
Every one of these is getting worse, and there’s only ever going to be more of them. Souls always take the path of least resistance. As the number of Pomps fall, the souls of the dead are going to go to the closest Pomps they can find, and they’re going to come in hard and fast. Sure, some will use Stirrers but if I had a choice of a nice well-lit hallway or a cave dripping with venom, I know which one I’d pick. Doesn’t mean I like it.
“I’m doing your job for you,” Lissa says, as I straighten with the slow and unsteady movements of the punch-drunk. It seems a long way up to my full height. And there’s blood in my spit: a lot of it. My mouth is ruddy with the stuff.
“What the hell do you mean by that?”
“Some punters need talking down. That guy didn’t even need it and you still couldn’t manage to be professional.”
I raise my hands. “Whoa, you’re being much too hard. For Christ’s sake, I don’t even know if there’s a job now.”
Lissa flits around me. “As long as they keep coming to you, you do your job.” Her eyes are wide and set to ignite. “You didn’t want this? Well, neither did I, boy. But we chose this, none the less, when we chose to do what our parents did. Without us, without you, things are going to get bad and fast. So do your job.”
“Yeah, well, easy enough when you’re not experiencing each pomp.” I can feel the sneer spreading across my face. “I’m bruised on the inside. My job is going to get me killed.” One way or the other it will, I’m certain of that now.
“Maybe, maybe not,” Lissa says. “But you’ve got to keep moving, and you’ve got to keep sucking it up. Death doesn’t end.”
“What the hell do you think I’m doing?” I demand, while not moving at all. My hands are on my hips, and I’ve a growl stitched across my face, my jaw bunched up so tight it hurts.
“Stopping, wandering aimlessly, a little bit of both.” Lissa counts out on her fingers. “Oh, and I could throw in some misdirecting of anger.”
She’s right of course, but I’m not going to admit it.
I’m walking toward the river—there, that’s a destination, everything in Brisbane leads to the river, eventually—through the pedestrian and cyclist underpass near Land Street, concrete all round. The traffic of Coronation Drive rumbles above. Cyclists race past me, all clicking gears and ratcheting wheels, thunking over the seams in the concrete, each thunk jolting me into a higher level of stress.
All these people are in a hurry to be somewhere. Going home, they’re the last wave of the working day, the sunset well and truly done with. Until yesterday I was one of these restless commuters, my phone always on, hoping that it wouldn’t ring with a change of schedule.
“You know, I had a home once,” I whisper. “Had four walls, a dog and a bloody fine CD collection. Shit, I didn’t care about the CDs or the house, but
Molly. Molly.”
“We’ve all lost things, people we care about,” Lissa says. “I’ve got feelings, too. It’s all I have. If you give in to your losses you may as well give up.”
I walk around in front of her. She stops, and we hold each other’s gaze. “What was your place like?” I ask.
“It was nice, near the beach, not far from a tram line. Oh, and the restaurants.” She stops. “Bit of a pigsty, though. Never really got into the whole house-frau thing.”
“No one’s perfect.”
Lissa smiles. “Would have driven you mad.”
“I’m sure.” I want to say that I would do anything to be driven mad by her. But now’s not the time.
I pull my duffel coat around me. The evening’s grown a gnawing chill. A wind is funneling through the underpass, lifting rubbish, and it swirls around us like this is all some sort of garbage masque. For a moment it passes through Lissa’s form, spiraling up almost to her head. She blanches, shifts forward, and the rubbish topples behind her, leaving a trail of chip packets, cigarette butts and leaves.
“Well, that’s never happened before.” There’s something delightful about her face in that moment, something starkly honest that hurts me more than any pomp. I want to touch her cheek. I ache for that contact, but all we have are words.
“Look, I’m sorry about before,” I say, startling a jogger, one of the few I’ve passed not listening to an mp3. He looks at me oddly, but keeps running.
“So am I,” Lissa says. Suddenly a part of me wants to take another jab at her, because maybe it would be easier if she hated me. After all, I’m going to lose her. But I clamp my jaw shut.
I reach the river end of the underpass. There’s a seat there and I slump down into it and stare at the water, the city’s lights swimming like lost things in the restless dark.
“I think that little fellow wants you,” Lissa says.
I look up. There’s a tiny sparrow perched on the ledge behind me. I look at it more closely. It’s an inkling. One of Morrigan’s. Its outline is an almost ornate squiggle of ink.
Death Most Definite (Death Works #1) Page 9
