Managing death sds-2

by Trent Jamieson

  I lean back in my throne and my eyes close, just for a moment.

  Knives. A swinging scythe. Mist the colour of blood.

  I jolt awake. Fucking hell! A bloke could cut out his eyelids just to stop these visions.

  Something catches my attention. A differently beating heart, a slight change in electricity. Someone has shifted into my city unannounced. And not just anywhere…

  Now, that, I can't allow.

  I squeeze my eyes tight, take a deep breath to prepare for the unpreparable, and shift myself to Mount Coot-tha. Old One Tree Hill.

  Someone's on my turf and they shouldn't be.

  20

  Mount Coot-tha. Heart of the city of Brisbane, and its Underworld twin. I arrive in the middle of a bunch of tourists. None of them seem that impressed with my swearing, or the way I hop around on one foot. This shift felt like a spear being driven into my thigh. That's something new. I thought I was getting better at it. But it passes quickly, even if I'm red-faced with embarrassment.

  'If you've finished your little dance,' Suzanne says. 'We can start today's lesson. Though take your time, I'm finding this all very amusing.'

  'What are you doing up here?'

  'Testing your abilities, and I must say that you surprised me. I didn't really expect that you would sense me. If I had I would have showed up in, say, Tasmania. You get a gold star.'

  'I don't like this shifting around, unannounced – it sends a bad message,' I say.

  Suzanne's good humour slips a little. 'It does nothing of the sort. If you can detect me, or any other RM, then they can detect you. They will know that you know they are here.'

  'No one can sneak up on me?'

  'Not quite,' Suzanne says. 'An electrical storm can shield their presence, but an electrical storm is hard to shift into, and an RM who is in the middle of one tends to be wary.'

  'And why should an RM be wary of another RM? Aren't we supposed to be all unified?'

  Suzanne raises an eyebrow. 'Don't be naive. RMs can hurt you more than anyone else, except, perhaps, for this Mr Rillman. When an RM comes unannounced you be ready. And try and remember if you have crossed anyone.' The Kuta Cafe at the top of Mount Coot-tha is open, and up here, there's a bit of wind, enough to take the edge off the summer heat. The last time I was here I spoke to Morrigan still thinking he was a friend. I know that Suzanne isn't; even 'ally' would be too generous a term.

  Brisbane stretches itself out around us, a vast carpet of tree-smeared suburbia. The CBD rises up in the east, a tight bunching of skyscrapers around which the Brisbane River wends, leading to Moreton Bay. A series of low, flat mountains marks the western horizon. The air is clear, a typical Brisbane summer's day.

  But sometimes I'm seeing and hearing the Underworld simultaneously, a superimposed view of the land of the dead. The ruddy river. The massive root buttresses of the One Tree. The creaking, creaking, creaking as its mighty limbs are moved by the restless winds of Hell. Wal's face shifts on my tattoo. He can almost take form here, and I know he wants to.

  'Do you want a coffee?'

  Suzanne shakes her head. 'Just a quieter place, away from all these tourists.' She winces as though she has a headache. 'It's too bright here.'

  'Just about anywhere is quieter in Brisbane than this,' I say.

  I lead her up to the observation platform. It's just us, now. Maybe our presence has something to do with that. Put two RMs together and there's always a bit of electricity. Though there are some kids running on the lookout below. The air crackles with the buzzing of cicadas, the kids' shouts and the ubiquitous creaking of the One Tree. This is my home.

  'Lovely,' Suzanne says. 'Looking down at it from here I must say what a beautiful and intimate little city you have. But it's not quite the right venue for what I have planned. Are you all right to shift again?'

  'Of course I am,' I say.

  'You're getting better at it at last.' There's a glint in Suzanne's eye. 'Deepest Dark then,' she says.

  I follow her there. And I don't throw up.

  'So, Faber introduced you to the Stirrer god?'

  'Up close and far too personal. It nearly killed me, thank you very much.'

  'Ours is a dangerous business. And none more so than when facing that god.'

  'Yeah, particularly when your guide lets go of your hand.'

  'I assure you that Faber was utterly mortified by what happened. At least you were quick-witted enough to do what had to be done.'

  'Yes, I was, wasn't I?'

  Suzanne laughs. 'There's hope for you yet. You needed to see it up close. You needed to feel just what sort of a menace it has become. To understand why this thing terrifies us – all of us – in a way that defies the usual squabbles of the Orcus.'

  'I had an idea already.' When did Suzanne start taking this seriously? Is she playing me? But she's always playing me!

  'No, you had no idea. This thing will be beaten, or it will destroy us. Life, and the Orcus. We thirteen have not faced such a threat in lifetimes beyond counting. There is nothing written about such a thing. But there are murmurings. It, or something very much like it, was defeated before. There are things you need to know. You've a rich heritage of which you are barely aware. Starting with the basics. Do you know why pomping hurts?'

  'Because it does. It makes sense, there's that whole exchange of energy thing. If we're going to take something out of our universe and put it into another, of course it'll hurt.'

  Suzanne looks at me, and laughs. 'Physics has nothing to do with what we are about, Steven.' Suzanne shakes her head. 'No. The pain is an additive, something the Orcus constructed through ceremony and hard work, and then entered into the process. Pomping used to be pleasurable, addictive.'

  'That would have been dangerous.'

  'You have no idea. Before there were thirteen, pomping was a nightmare. One you perhaps know too well.'

  My ears prick up at that. Nightmares. She sees it and smiles.

  'Yes, we all have them. You've heard of the Hungry Death?'

  'Just a few stories, stuff Dad would tell me when I was a kid.' But the way Dad had told them, I'd never taken them seriously.

  'They're just stories now, but there was a time when they weren't.' Her voice slows and grows sonorous and rhythmical. 'Long ago, before you and me. Before the world is the shape it is now, or shape it was before, there was only one Death. And it was called the Hungry Death because it was always hungry.' She crouches down and trails a finger in the dust of the Deepest Dark. Following her is a dusty wake, now thirteen trails, which then rise and race around her fingers. They coalesce into a form – vaguely human, vaguely Stirrer. She seems to shake her head at the whimsy of it, flicks her hand and the Hungry Death is just falling dust again, but it's broken a little of her rhythm, for a moment she is just the cynical RM again. 'If only it was that easy to dismiss. That painting of Mr D's, the lurid one by the peasant.'

  '"The Triumph of Death"?'

  'That's the one. Picture that. You got it?' I nod my head. 'Now imagine that painting, but there is only Death. And it is everywhere. The Hungry Death was a walking, shifting apocalypse. Random and violent in a… I suppose… more focussed way than our world actually is, and I would suggest that you'd agree that ours is a pretty random and violent one.'

  'What happened to the Hungry Death?'

  'You know. Close your eyes, and you know.' I do nothing of the sort, just stare at her. She blinks.

  'I don't blame you,' Suzanne says. 'When I tell you there were thirteen warriors who went to battle with it, do you start to get the idea?'

  I stare at her, dumbfounded.

  She sighs. 'OK. Thirteen warriors. They fought the Hungry Death, and what a battle it was, fire and brimstone, storm and earthquake. All of that, real "Book of Revelations" stuff. They fought it. And they defeated it. Six times. And each time it came back. They cut it into pieces. And it came back. They ground its marrow to dust and it came back. They even ground its marrow to dust and turned it into
some sort of paste, and yet it did no good.

  'Finally a seventh, desperate battle. And this time, the earth a wasteland about them, the world a wound and the dying everywhere, they had begun to question why they had even tried fighting it in the first place. They held that Hungry Death down and this time they devoured it. Thirteen warriors, and each of them absorbed one-thirteenth of the Hungry Death's essence. And it has stayed that way through time.

  'You see, it was never truly vanquished. Death cannot be. The Hungry Death lives on in each of the Orcus. It is our power, and the thing which each of us fear. That is what you dream about, Steven. Death untrammelled, blood and knives and the scythe. We all dream these dreams. It is why we don't need to sleep – its power sustains us – and why we don't want to.'

  I blink. 'So I somehow ingested a thirteenth of the Hungry Death?'

  'Absorbed is perhaps the better term. The Negotiation, why do you think it is so brutal? To become an RM you must appease the Hungry Death, blood must flow, and it is the only way to draw it out of a previous RM. And once it's within you… Surely you have felt it there? Not just in the dreams. Don't you sometimes feel its delight in death and destruction? It's the Hungry Death that makes it easier for you to deal with the things that you must see and do. And through you, it makes it easier on your Pomps.'

  'So what's the All-Death? It spoke to me, and not just in a dream.'

  'It's an aspect of the Hungry Death, too. We use it, of course, to generate the schedule, because it exists outside of time. Through it we know who is to die and when. It knows so much, and bereft of the Hungry Death, it is relatively benign.'

  'It didn't feel benign when it grabbed me.'

  'I said relatively. It remains a part of the Hungry Death.'

  'So what was it, this thing in me before it became the Hungry Death?'

  'Something like the Stirrer god, perhaps. We don't know. This all happened a very long time ago. Generations before even the oldest RM, before even the invention of writing.'

  'And all it wants is death?'

  'Yes, but not in the way that the Stirrers do. Which makes me believe it really isn't like them. You must be able to feel it, the pure joy it takes in death. Stirrers wish an end to life, this needs life to sustain it. I know you feel it.'

  Yes, I do. Why wasn't I told about this earlier? Mr D with his all-in-good-time. My dreams have been such a horrible space, not least because of the pleasure I find in them.

  'To think of such a cruel thing in here,' I tap my chest.

  Suzanne pulls my hand away. 'You mustn't think that. It isn't cruel, merely inventive. Couple that with a clever and cruel creature like Homo sapiens and you have all sorts of madness, all sorts of ways of killing.' Suzanne's eyes gleam. 'It is better that it exists inside us, spread across the world, and that it is only fed every few generations in a Schism and a Negotiation. Think of the ruthlessness that we forestall with our existence. Our world, our myriad of societies, exist merely because we have given people time. We have given them the space to live longer, to develop culture and technology. Death remains, as does genocide and madness, but it is not all encompassing.'

  I remember my Negotiation. The Orcus gathered around Morrigan and me in a circle, the hunger in their eyes. I now know where most of that came from. Come the next Negotiation will I look that way, too?

  'So I rule the land and the sea around Australia as Death, because once there were warriors and they killed Death itself.'

  'No, you cannot kill Death, only shape its form. And no, you do not rule the sea.'

  'Why hasn't Mr D explained this? Gaps, gaps! I've got so many bloody gaps in my knowledge. What does, then?'

  'Water, and the force within it. We've made our agreements with that force to cross the seas. But we have no power there. It does with those souls who die within its substance what it will. I hope that you'll never have to deal with it. Water is a cruel negotiator.' Suzanne shivers. 'And that is your lesson for today. The Stirrer god is powerful. But there is a power within us, too. The secret is to use that power without destroying everything those first warriors fought for.'

  'And how do we do that?'

  'I have a plan.' Suzanne puts a finger against my lips. 'But that is for another time.' I'm still thinking about plans, and Deaths of the sea, when I shift back to my office. Right on target. Tim obviously senses my return because he gives a ragged cheer from his office.

  There's a message on my phone. Lissa.

  'Call me, babe, when you get the chance.'

  I dial her number. She answers before the first ring.

  'That was quick,' I say.

  'I was just about to call you again. Where have you been?'

  I mumble something about Death Moot prep, feel a pang of guilt. If only she knew. Maybe I should just tell her about the deal with Suzanne now.

  'Steven, we may have a problem. Actually there's no may about it.'

  'What is it?'

  'Stirrers. Something new. I suppose you could call it a nest of them. I need you to come here.'

  'A nest? Why the hell can't we feel them?'

  She gives me an address in Woolloongabba. It's a couple of suburbs south of the city. About ten minutes' drive away if the traffic isn't too bad.

  I look at the schedule. There's no one spare. Besides Lissa and I should be able to handle them. I hesitate to shift there. If I can sense a shift they may be able to as well.

  Oscar's standing outside my office door. I open it and he looks at me. 'Going to need your help – and Travis's.'

  'Not a problem.'

  'How fast can you drive that Hummer of yours?'

  Oscar gives me one of the biggest, maddest grins I have ever seen.

  21

  I don't expect to see Alex, but he's there with Lissa. Both of them look pretty grim.

  There's no small talk. Lissa leads us up onto a flat rooftop above Vulture Street, a major tributary to the M1, the motorway that feeds into and out of the city. The traffic is building rapidly.

  The Stirrers below us move with a confidence that only comes from inhabiting a body for weeks. They're sitting on the front verandah of the house, drinking what look like stubbies of beer. The house could be like any other in the suburb, or Brisbane, for that matter. It's a classic Queenslander, verandahs all around, tin roof. Very much like my parents' place. But this one has known better days; the paint's peeling so badly that we can see it from here. There's a pile of rubbish in the backyard, but that's common enough. The only odd thing about it is the roof – it's crammed with aerials, peculiar prickly bunches of them. What the hell do they need those for?

  We're across the river from the city centre. I can feel Number Four, and just down the road is the Gabba cricket stadium. It offends me that this is happening so close to where we are based, and even more that it's almost next door to one of the greatest cricket pitches in the world. How could Stirrers have grown so brazen? But I guess if I had a god hurtling through the ether towards earth, I'd be brazen, too, and perhaps pressured to perform. To make good, and ensure that my god was pleased.

  What worries me more is that I can't taste them in the air. There's nothing. If anything, the space they occupy is too neutral. It's neither living nor dead. Are those aerials responsible for that?

  The air is still and humid. Sweat sheens Lissa's forehead. Oscar and Travis are feeling it, too.

  'What is this?' I ask. 'The aerials. The house being so near the heart of the city. Why?'

  'Yeah, I've never seen anything like it,' Lissa says. 'And we still wouldn't have, except for Alex.'

  'Alex?' I look over at him. 'You found this?'

  'Yeah,' he says. 'I tried to get in touch with you. When I couldn't, I called Lissa. Should have known she'd be able to get onto you.'

  'I've been a little busy today. Sorry,' I say, guilt pangy and all.

  Alex nods; looks like we've all been busy. 'I've been looking into the Closers and this address came up several times. Something about a safe hous
e, or being locked into the grid. I came and had a look, didn't get too close. You can tell why.'

  'How'd you come by the information?'

  'Slightly illegally,' Alex mumbles, not quite able to meet my eye. It's not the way he likes to work at all. 'Been digging around emails in the Closers' server.'

  'Seems he has quite a knack for the cyber-espionage,' Lissa says approvingly.

  'Yes, well.' He blushes. 'That's just between you and me. I really shouldn't be here, but I want to see this done properly.' Alex is about as straitlaced as they come. For him to do any digging would have been painful indeed.

  'You did good.' I paint a brace symbol on Oscar's wrist, Travis is already done: the paint is simply red acrylic mixed with my blood. The brace symbol is a potent guard against our 'problem'. It used to be, at any rate. 'You have to wonder how long this has been going on.' I nod at Stirrer House down below. The implications are somewhat frightening to consider. How many other Stirrer houses are there out in the 'burbs and country towns? Places where we don't keep as much of a presence?

  Lissa grimaces. 'A while, at best guess. I'd say three weeks, maybe four.'

  Solstice knew about this and he didn't tell us. Just what game is he playing? I'm going to have to give that bastard a call. Looks like the war may be building up again.

  'That Stirrer god of yours is getting closer, isn't it?' Alex says.

  'It's always drawing closer, but distance is a weird thing, in the Deepest Dark.' If only he could see it as up close as I have.

  I look around at the assembled group. 'Oscar, Travis: you two call this through if we have a problem. I don't expect one, but then again, I didn't expect to come across a Stirrer safe house in the middle of Brisbane. Alex – do you want to come down with us?' I tap the brace paint. Alex nods grimly and submits to being painted.

  Oscar and Travis don't look happy, but they're not going to be any good to us down there. In fact they could be a liability, even with the brace paint.

  'So, how are we going to do this?' Lissa asks.

  'Frontal assault will work best,' I say.