Managing death sds-2

by Trent Jamieson

  Then we're in a space I've only seen once before. I remember it a little differently but at the time I was fighting to save Tim and Lissa's lives. First I am surprised by my weightlessness here. The only force binding me, giving me any sense of up or down, is Cerbo's hand. We're quite close, our hands by our hips, gripping each other as children do. Awkwardly and tight.

  'Welcome to the ether. The void beyond the Deepest Dark, where the souls find flight and through which the Stirrer god approaches.'

  'Cool,' I say.

  'Indeed.'

  We're not flying so much as being propelled, and the source of that force is generated by Cerbo's bleeding fist. Around us souls drift, but we are moving faster than them. Occasionally I have to flick my body to one side to avoid striking one.

  'Careful,' Cerbo says. 'You'll lose your grip.'

  I strike a soul then. Feel it shatter around my head. It burns, then chills on contact like ice. I swing my head back, and see it re-form behind us. After that, I don't bother avoiding them. It's like travelling on the flat bed of a ute in a snowstorm. I almost start to enjoy myself. The speed of it, the freedom. Is this how souls feel, once they are dead?

  I ask Cerbo, and he shrugs.

  'We cannot go far, just a few steps into the infinite. Blood is no substitute for death. But it is far enough.' A great eye gazes down at us, and we race towards it, cold air roaring in my ears.

  We're a long time getting close to that eye. But I can't help staring at it, as I've stared at it before, though it was much further distant then, and I was on the ground, not in this weightless place; and granted a vision, not this whistling wind-bound actuality.

  'It sees us, doesn't it?' I ask, having to shout above the gale.

  'I think so,' Cerbo says. 'But we are nothing to it. I've done this a dozen times over the past three months, and every time I am much faster getting here.'

  'Three months?'

  'That's when we first noticed it. Well, Suzanne did. A change in the ether, a sudden rise in Stirrer activity.'

  'Do you think Morrigan knew about this?'

  'Well, he was dealing with Stirrers. He may have known about it for some time. Or maybe it was just a coincidence that he started his Schism when he did. Do you believe in coincidence, Mr de Selby?' Cerbo jabs his free hand towards it. 'It's impressive. Very godlike, wouldn't you say?'

  Darkness bunches around the mass, part storm-cloud, part slug. To one side souls coruscate, and seek to flee its bulk, but even as we watch, a black tentacle extrudes from it, snaps out and drags some of those souls back into its side. A thousand, two thousand, perhaps. Screams ring through my head.

  'Already it is wreaking untold damage,' Cerbo says. 'And the closer it gets, the harder it is for souls to escape. God knows what this is doing to the psychic balance of the universe.'

  We swing past the great eye. 'Remember, here it is just psychic mass. When it strikes the Underworld, and through it, earth, that mass will manifest.'

  'How?'

  'We don't know but – I'm sorry, I think but we better get out of here.' Cerbo's eyes are wide. I swing my head in the direction of his gaze; feel my heart catch.

  A tentacle rushes towards us. As it draws nearer I can see fringes of what look like blades. They ripple and flex. That merest filament of that limb would cut us to pieces. The ether has suddenly lost its appeal. What the hell is wrong with PowerPoint?

  'Hold on,' Cerbo says. 'Hold on.'

  He pulls out his knife, brings it back down against his hand and we're suddenly reversing, flipping back, moving away, faster and faster.

  And then my grip loosens. Or Cerbo releases his.

  I'm left, spinning. Losing speed. Floating in that dark, Cerbo already a diminishing shape in front of me.

  17

  Here I am, alone in the darkness, about to be sliced into pieces or snatched into the maw of the enemy. The limb of the Stirrer god belts down towards me through the ether. It's so big I really can't comprehend it. I'm less than an ant to it, but the god will have me none the less. I feel Wal tear free of my arm. He scrambles out from my sleeve, takes one look at where we are, at what's coming, and shoots back under my shirt.

  I try and shift. Nothing. Here I don't seem to have any purchase on reality. There's nothing to shift from. This isn't my normal state. It is neither the Underworld nor the land of the living. Desperate, I try again. I've virtually stopped moving. I'm just spinning a slow circle. Fuck.

  Where's Cerbo? Surely he'll come back for me.

  But would I, if that thing was approaching?

  I imagine him telling Suzanne, 'He was the one who let go, the fool. He deserved it.'

  Maybe this was their plan after all. If that's the case it's worked. I'm a dead man.

  Ah, but I've been dead before. A calm, pricked with some sort of madness, envelops me. I grin, a wide and mocking grin. Fuck it all. That rage and joy which fills my dreams flares up and out. I'm not afraid of death, I am Death. No matter that this space beyond space is not my realm.

  I reach into my jacket, my hand steady, calm as though this was any stir. My fingers close around my knife – the knife every Pomp has, to draw blood to stall a stir. The thing approaching is a Stirrer god. And I know how to deal with Stirrers. I slash my knife down hard, deeper than usual. Blood boils from my skin, arcs around me. The potent blood of an RM. And suddenly I'm bound in light, a ball of it. Purer and brighter than any star.

  The tentacle flinches for a moment. Pauses. I see it illuminated in that hard blood-forged light. The blades are motionless, though each seems to pulse, and I realise that for all their sharp edges they are more like flagella than anything else. The flesh beneath is not black so much as grey, the colour of ash. Beyond it the eye is watching me, and its wide pupil narrows. I can't help myself. I wink.

  The universe draws a breath and then I'm racing backwards. Smashing through the cold, dark air heading home. But it may not be enough.

  The tentacle's pause is momentary.

  Whatever I did only stunned the Stirrer god, or surprised it; less than a flea bite. I can hear the god giving chase, a great whistling roar, louder than the wind, and above that noise the scraping of its knife fringes sounds remarkably like the groaning limbs of the One Tree.

  It's gaining. It's gaining.

  Its shadow descends over me like a wave, but a sword-gnashing wave, all cutting edges and hunger. I cringe, fold my hands over my neck.

  I drop into my office. Hit the floor hard, knocking the breath from me, and almost slamming into Cerbo, which wouldn't have been such a bad thing, I'm thinking. My breath comes quick and, with it, rage. Cerbo's on his arse pale and panting, he slides away from me, gripping his green bowler absurdly in both hands. The whole building shakes as something strikes us above. Whether it's metaphysical or not, it hits hard. I throw my arms over my head, but the ceiling holds.

  'You let go,' Cerbo says, looking at me eyes wide with fear or guilt, or both.

  'And you couldn't come back and get me?' I'm on my feet in an instant. I grab him and shake. I'm pumped. My heart is pounding, I barely realise that I'm lifting him off the ground.

  'I didn't have time,' Cerbo squeaks.

  'Didn't have time?' I shout.

  Oscar swings open the door. Tim's with him.

  'What was that?' Tim demands. They both stop, staring at me shaking Cerbo.

  I put Cerbo down. I straighten my jacket and run my fingers through my hair. 'Stirrer god, I think.'

  Cerbo nods. 'That's never happened before.' He looks at Tim, then Oscar. 'It's all right. It nearly had us, but it can't. Not here, not yet. A finger tap is not an invasion. Now, if you would excuse us, Tim and Mr Goon, there are some things I need to discuss with your boss.'

  'Yeah,' I say. 'Some things… Tim, I've just discovered something you should be able to do. It will be bloody, of course, and you really wouldn't want to do it. But -' I glance over at Cerbo. 'Jesus, what other things should Tim be able to do? I want you to teach him. I n
eed him to know this shit.'

  Cerbo dips his head. 'It would be useful. You are working at a disadvantage.'

  'You got time to talk to this bloke?' I ask Tim. Cerbo is giving him another pained look.

  'Yeah, I'll make time.' I peer at Tim, he looks a bit under the weather. Maybe he didn't stop drinking after the party.

  'Great, I'll send him through when we're done.'

  Once Oscar and Tim are gone I gesture to an office chair.

  'I really am sorry,' Cerbo says, sitting down. 'No matter what you may think, it was not my intention to put you in danger. The Stirrer god recognised you. It certainly reacted.'

  'Wonderful. I've got enough enemies without a bloody god gunning for me.'

  'Too late for that,' Cerbo says, straightening his hat.

  'It's very close now, isn't it? How long do we have?'

  'Best estimate? Twelve months.'

  'And worst?'

  'Well, it just knocked on the door, didn't it?' he replies, gesturing above us.

  I look up at the ceiling, at the space that I suppose I dropped through. There's a tiny black smudge there.

  'So how do we stop it?'

  Cerbo looks at me. 'Believe me, that's what we're working on. I just don't know.'

  I glance at my bleeding hand. The wound is beginning to close but not as fast or as painlessly as I would like. 'But it's going to involve blood, isn't it? And lots of it.'

  'What doesn't in our line of business, Mr de Selby? You tell me.'

  'I want you out there. Teaching Tim what he needs to know. Show him what you did. Show him how to shift. But please, don't do anything that's going to kill him.'

  And then, with a brief dip of his head, he leaves the room. I'm alone.

  I snatch up the black phone.

  'We need to talk. And now!'

  'The markets,' Mr D says, and is gone before I can protest. All I can do is fume into the silence of the handset. The markets are crowded and run along the southern bank of the River Styx, its black water flowing languidly towards the rolling sea. The crowds that gather here and buy the produce are silent in the main. It is an eerie thing, that silent shopping. There's not a hint of haggling, no spruiking, no musicians or other street performers, though a flute is playing distantly and atonally. This is a mere shadow of a living market. A memory. The tents shift, the goods within change – kangaroo hide one moment, spinning tops or fruit the next – echoing centuries of commerce. Money is exchanged, and it is various – old coins and paper; plastic, too. I can hear the click-clack of an old credit card machine.

  Here, where there are so many dead, the red of the sky mingles with the blue glow of the dead's flesh. And far above us, a single branch of the One Tree reaches out across the river and the city. I can just make out the shapes of tiny figures up there, finding a place to rest, and a final passage to the Deepest Dark.

  'What do you think of these oranges? Too soft?' Mr D asks.

  'You're really an extremely frustrating man.' I lean in towards him, and it's all I can do to stop myself from jabbing him in the chest.

  Mr D grimaces. For a moment his face is almost as full of motion as the days when he was RM. He may have demanded we meet in the markets of the Underworld but I did not come here to look at oranges, silver jewellery, brewing ash or Troll Doll pencil erasers. Wal's not talking to me after my flight from the Stirrer god. He's fluttering around a nearby stall throwing me dirty looks and eating a dagwood dog. There's tomato sauce bearding his chin.

  'How much did you know about the Stirrer god before you died?' I ask Mr D.

  'Very little, believe me. I was out of the loop.'

  'But you knew it was coming?'

  'Only that something was coming, and then Morrigan's little Schism distracted me.'

  'Well, I've seen it up close, and let me tell you it terrified me.'

  'There was a guy called Lovecraft. Wrote horror stories.'

  'Yeah, I know who he was. What about him?' I say, irritated at this turn in the conversation.

  'Well, with Lovecraft, sure, he was a horrible racist, but he got something right. Sometimes terror is the only response.'

  'Terror. OK, so what about Rillman?'

  'Rillman really was a surprise to me. I thought him long gone.' Mr D squeezes an orange speculatively. 'I do like a good orange. Oh! Now it's gone and changed into a pear!'

  'Enough about the -'

  Then I catch something out of the corner of my eye. A movement not quite right, a little too energetic, just a little too alive. There's a man, standing by a nearby stall, who isn't dead.

  His arms don't glow with the blue light that every soul emits in Hell. Nothing living, not as we define it, should be here. I watch him, and try to act like I'm not watching him. His shoulders are broad, and he's wearing a beaked plague mask and a wide-brimmed black hat. Is this the same guy who cut the window-cleaning assassin's rope? He moves to another stall, beak bobbing up and down like a toy drinking bird, as he inspects with far too much interest what appears to be a collection of old Archie comics. I can just make out Jughead's face and crown.

  'Do you see that?' I ask Mr D.

  'See what?' He shrugs, putting down the pear.

  I'm getting the sort of vibe that if I make any movement towards our Archie-perusing beaked mate, he'll leg it. 'If you can't see him, don't worry.' Though how you can miss a non-glowing man in Hell wearing a plague mask is beyond me – even in the markets. The fellow really is going to look peculiar anywhere outside of Black-Death period dramas or fancy-dress parties.

  'Well, you're worrying me now,' Mr D says, and looks ready to turn around. I slap a hand onto his shoulder.

  'No need for that,' I say. 'You're not the target. Besides, how would they kill you? You're already dead.'

  'There are ways and means, believe me.'

  Hmm, maybe I need to know some of them.

  'Don't you get any ideas,' Mr D snaps. 'What's he doing now?'

  'Anything but looking in our direction,' I say.

  Then he's gone. I refuse to let that stop me. There is some muddy sort of swirl where he was, a sort of crazy wake-black hole combo. I look from Mr D then back to that murky mass. It's shrinking, and fast.

  I know I'm going to regret this. I sprint at the swirling, what I guess – hope – to be a gateway and dive into it.

  Silence. Icy fingers clutch my heart and squeeze – my left arm throbs. It's a real effort not to yell with the sick, deep pain of it.

  Then I come out of the dark, skidding on my belly, feeling oddly refreshed. I spring to my feet, my fists clenched.

  I'm still in the Underworld. Mount Coot-tha rears up beyond the river. The One Tree creaks, casting its great shadow over everything. I recognise this place! I can see the old gas stripping tower – the structure that was in part responsible for me becoming what I am. I remember the agony of the summoning ceremony I performed in its living-world clone to enter Hell and call a trapped Mr D to me. How did I ever endure that? I just did, I guess, I had no time to react or think it through. Maybe I could again, but knowing what to expect, I doubt it. How the hell does Rillman manage it time and time again? Who's helping him?

  The masked man stands by the tower, waiting for me, shifting his balance from foot to foot.

  I stride towards him. 'You!' My hands are balled up at my sides. I'm bigger, meaner, faster. I'm an RM. This is my territory. I loom over him. Finally, I'll get some answers! A grin goes rictal across my face. 'No point in running.'

  'You're right,' he says, in a voice I can't quite place, dancing to my left and around me.

  And then I'm on my arse, blinking. My nose is bleeding, my head throbs. I have the far-too-fucking-familiar taste of my own blood in my mouth. Whirring wings flash just outside of my line of vision.

  'You all right?' Wal shouts, his voice thick as treacle in my ears. I blink; he's blurry and indistinct. And still holding onto the dagwood dog.

  'The prick sucker-punched me!' I say.

 
Wal grins. 'Well, you have to be a sucker first.'

  Thanks. Yeah, another comment from the poster boy of my fan club. 'Do you always have to be like this?'

  'What are you saying? When was I any different? Grow a sense of humour.'

  I have to admit that he does look concerned. You don't often see an RM stunned and bleeding in their region. It's not particularly good for my ego, especially as this is the second time in two days. At least no one else has seen me this time. 'He seemed to know what he was doing,' I say, as Wal flies around me, searching for any other injuries.

  'No shit.' He lands heavily on my shoulder and I get a spatter of tomato sauce down my shirt front.

  'Have you ever seen him before?'

  'I don't have X-ray vision.'

  I sigh. 'Just what help are you?'

  'I'm here, aren't I? Even with a god driving down on us in the dark of the ether, something I'd rather not experience again, by the way – I'm here. And you know I always will be, you whiny bastard. We're stuck together, and I've got your back.'

  'Yeah, look, I'm sorry.' I struggle to my feet. Wal flies from one shoulder to the other. The movement makes my head spin. 'I've got work to do.'

  'Be careful,' Wal says. 'I can't look after you up there.'

  'I'll do my best.'

  'That's what I'm worried about.'

  18

  Tim's on the phone shouting at somebody. He hangs up when I slide a chair next to his desk. I look at the dark rings under his red eyes.

  'You really look like you had a big night last night,' I say.

  'And you look like you've just been punched in the nose again,' he shoots back.

  I touch my hand to my face. Yep, blood. 'Just spent the morning chasing someone through the Underworld. Turns out I should have ducked when I caught up with them.'

  Tim passes me a box of tissues. 'Who do you think it was?'

  'Not Rillman, at least. It felt too different from him. An Ankou, I think, but I couldn't get a good enough fix on them. At least they didn't stab me. There's something almost honourable about a good old punch to the face.' I apply tissues. 'Talking of Ankous…'