Managing death sds-2

by Trent Jamieson

  There's a shortcut from the bridge to George Street via a tunnel. It's well lit, though empty at this time of night. We head through it, Travis walking ahead, Oscar behind me.

  Halfway in, the lights flicker and dim, and I realise that this was a mistake. Each end of the tunnel is gated, and both gates slam shut in unison.

  I slap my head with my palm. Not again. When am I going to learn?

  25

  The lights that have dimmed suddenly flare and shatter. A ripple of glass fragments rains down and darkness engulfs us. Oscar is shielding me with his body. I hear Travis run towards us, can picture the gun already in his hand. 'Down!' he hisses. 'Stay down.'

  And I'm on the concrete still under Oscar, then he rolls to one side, ending up in a crouch.

  I try desperately to make sense of things in the dark. I can hear Rillman's heartbeat. Steady and familiar. My eyes are adjusting now. There, a slight movement down the other end of the walkway. And as if on cue, a light flickers on. Rillman glares at it in irritation.

  He walks towards us. He hasn't changed since the photo that Lissa showed me was taken, though that must be several decades old. He's unprepossessing, even in the suit he's wearing, and about a head shorter than me. He could be a bad parody of a chartered accountant, if only he were wearing a bowler hat.

  Here he is, I'm seeing him clearly for the first time (no waxen obscuring of his features, and my eyes not swollen with blood) and he's not so bad. Not so scary. Except his eyes. They gleam with a force a rage utterly at odds with his demeanour.

  'I'd call off your goons,' Rillman says. 'I really don't want to hurt anyone, except you.'

  Travis is at my side. 'Just keep out of the way,' he says to me. He has his pistol aimed at Rillman's head.

  'Guns don't frighten me,' Rillman says. That makes one of us.

  'It's not the gun you need to worry about, mate.' Oscar runs at him. It's like watching a steam engine hurtle at a minnow.

  Rillman moves out of the way, smooth as oil, but Oscar is turning, too. He swings a punch at Rillman's head, only it isn't there anymore, he's down, hunched at an insane angle. Then he's slipping around and punching Oscar twice in the sternum. The fight's confusing. Darkness and light. Shadows melding. Rillman is in several places at once. I can sense what he is doing, the bastard's shifting in tiny bursts. How the fuck's he doing that? Oscar doesn't stand a chance.

  Travis is trying to get a clear shot, cursing under his breath.

  Bone cracks and Rillman pushes Oscar away from him as though he's nothing but an irritation. The big man teeters, his arms flailing, then falls flat on his back, coughing up ropes of blood.

  I turn from Oscar to Travis. His face has tightened with dismay or anger, I'm not sure. He's stopped swearing. 'Stay where you are,' he growls at Rillman.

  Rillman laughs. He hasn't even got a sweat up and one of my guards is already down. 'Stay where I am, or what?'

  Travis shoots just above his head. The bullet ricochets down the tunnel. We both cringe. Oscar is on the ground, moaning.

  Rillman takes a step forward. And then with no transition he's in Travis's face. A perfect shift. There's a flash of silver. 'Oh, dear,' Rillman exclaims.

  I get to my feet, my arms reaching out towards Travis. But it's too late.

  Travis takes a few steps forward, one hand clamped over his neck. Blood bubbles from between his fingers, and he falls hard on his knees. Then he gestures once, weakly – with whatever strength he has left – with his free hand, for me to run. That's all he has in him. He topples forward. One less heartbeat, one less guard.

  His ghost looks at me. Blinks and shakes his head. 'I'm so sorry,' he says.

  'You have nothing to be sorry about, Travis. Nothing,' I say.

  A moment later his soul flashes through me.

  Rillman laughs. 'Always the professional, eh? Even when it comes to pomping your own staff. You better get used to that.'

  I peer at Rillman. His hands are empty. What is he cutting with? His nails are short, neat. But I guess a man capable of changing his form, of shifting from space to space, is capable of just about anything in a fight.

  My legs are like jelly, but I'm an RM, damn it! 'I've been looking for you,' I say, and my voice isn't as stern or as strong as I would like it to be.

  'Yes, but not nearly hard enough,' he says. 'You're really rather awful at all this aren't you?'

  I shrug.

  Rillman pauses, takes a step back. 'I thought you would be more impressive. All these weeks of watching you, watching those around you… For someone with such loyal friends, you're rather disappointing.'

  'You couldn't kill me with your bomb. And these insults are nothing to me'

  Rillman smiles. 'That bomb wasn't meant for you.'

  'You keep away from her.'

  'She'll be mine when I have time for her. And you know there is nothing you can do.' He flicks his wrists in the manner of a magician. There is a thin line of grey light in his hands. It takes me a moment to realise what it is.

  'Surely you're kidding.'

  He's holding an old-fashioned barber's razor. But the blade is unlike any razor I've ever seen: it's made of stone and it's mumbling. This isn't good; all my encounters with mumbling blades have not been good.

  'I'm afraid not, Mr de Selby.' He waves the razor around his head. 'This took me some time to fashion. You won't believe the lengths I went to to source the materials. Indeed, I only finished it this evening. I don't really expect it to do the job, but I need to try it on someone, need it blooded with good corporate blood. And why not yours? I rather expect it to hurt.'

  He comes at me fast.

  I try to shift, but can't. Somehow Rillman is holding me to this place, and the time I've wasted in trying to get out of here, means he's almost upon me. I duck backwards, but not nearly swiftly enough. He's come in close and he swings up and under. Then down. Almost so fast that I don't see it. Oh, but how I feel it!

  The first stroke slides under my ribs, the second opens up my wrist. Both wounds blaze with agony. I kick out, and my boot makes contact, but he hops away. A dozen contradictory emotions wash across his face: hate, humour, compassion and rage among them. I can't believe I ever tried to hunt this guy. I should have been running.

  'Why are you doing this?'

  'It must be done. You need to learn, and I need to cut.'

  Blood flowers around the incision in my shirt. I slide my fingers over the wound, quick. This shouldn't be happening. But I have survived worse injuries. He jabs towards me, and this time I am ready. I swing up with my knee. Ten years of soccer as a kid taught me something about playing nasty. There's a meaty thud on contact, a winded gasp. The bastard stumbles back and I swing a fist towards his face. My knuckles strike his nose. That's gotta hurt; it certainly hurts my fist.

  Rillman blinks, steps back. His eyes narrow.

  'I'm not the only one who bleeds,' I say.

  Rillman takes a step towards me but then my winged Pomps arrive – shooting through the gates. Crows. The first one strikes him hard, just beneath the eye. Another takes a nip at his ear. Rillman slashes at the bird and the poor thing is sliced in two. But there's another one, and another.

  In the distance comes the thwack, thwack, thwack of crows' wings beating. There are a lot of crows in Brisbane. And they are filled with my anger, cruel with my pain.

  'C'mon, mate!' I growl, sweat dripping from my face, blood pouring from my wounds. I take an unsteady step towards him, pulling my hands from my belly and clenching them into fists, bloodier than they have ever been before. It's hardly threatening to an ex-Ankou, but it's all I have. I even manage a grin. 'You better finish it now or I will find you.'

  'I invite you to try, Mr de Selby. You'll only be making my job easier. I think the lesson's done for today,' Rillman says, batting at the stabbing birds around him.

  Suddenly, there's the sound of flesh slamming into bone. Rillman lets out a great whoomph of breath, stands there blinking.

>   'That's for my fucking ribs,' a newly conscious Oscar growls. 'And this is for what you did to Travis.'

  He swings again and Rillman scrambles backwards, his arms flailing.

  The world shivers a little, and Oscar's fist strikes air. Unbalanced, he falls. It's painful watching him get to his feet. I'd help, but I'm worried my bowels are likely to spill out the moment I move my hand.

  Rillman's gone. There's just the two of us and about a hundred crows looping around in that confined space, cawing and clawing at the air where Rillman had been just a moment ago, a cacophonous cloud of wings and claws and beaks. I'm getting their view, as well as my glued-to-ground vision. I have to struggle to stop them pecking at Travis.

  The gates swing open.

  Oscar looks at me. 'We've got to get you out of here…' Every word comes at a cost. The big man's tan has faded to a ghostly white.

  Neither of us look good, and both of us are bleeding heavily. He glances over at Travis, starts towards him.

  'Too late,' I say, 'Travis is dead. Believe me, I pomped him, there's nothing we can do.'

  'Ah, Jesus.' It's the first time I see anything that looks like real emotion pass across his face.

  The amount of blood flowing through my fingers suggests that Rillman may not need to come back to finish the job. As a Pomp I would be dead – there's no way I could have handled this sort of injury – but my body burns with energies, long tendrils of power slowly repairing flesh and bone. Every Pomp in my employ will be feeling this as I draw strength from them. I might have a couple of resignations tomorrow. Wouldn't blame anyone.

  All that crackle and pop is making me dizzy. I laugh with the head rush of it all – and it hurts. Rillman wasn't joking. I hunch into my wounds, look around me.

  'Can you walk?' Oscar asks me, looking almost ready to fall on his arse himself.

  'Can you?'

  Oscar grins the pained grimace of a wounded bear. Not dead yet. 'See if you can shift out of here. Go and get some help,' he says.

  The wounds are already knitting. I try to shift and all I get for my trouble is a bad headache. I gulp a few deep breaths and straighten my suit, then we stumble out of the tunnel and onto the street. I call Tim; it goes to voicemail.

  Then I call Lissa. She doesn't answer her phone, and I realise why. I feel the stall that is distracting her. She's forty kilometres south of the city, too far away.

  I key in Suzanne's number. 'I need your help. Now.'

  And she's there in an instant. 'Oh, dear,' she says. 'What has Rillman done to you?'

  She looks up and down the street. 'Where -? Never mind. This shouldn't have happened.'

  'Brooker,' I say.

  She nods. 'This is going to hurt,' she says, and holds both Oscar's and my hand.

  In his surgery, Dr Brooker almost falls out of his chair, when he sees us. 'What the hell happened here?'

  'I've been cut up by a bloody barber's razor made out of stone, is what,' I hiss. 'Oscar's the one you have to see to.'

  'I know my job.' Dr Brooker looks at me, then Suzanne. 'Take him to his throne. I'll take care of Oscar.'

  'One more time,' Suzanne says, and we shift again.

  She leads me gently to my throne. And the moment I sit down I can feel things healing faster. It hurts though, and she wipes my brow with a handkerchief that she's pulled from a pocket.

  'You'll be OK,' she says.

  'How can I be? No one's safe. He said he wanted to hurt me.'

  'He can't, not really.'

  'Lissa -'

  'She's safe. I have her watched. Now, tell me what happened.'

  I run through the ambush, the fight. The injuries that Rillman sustained.

  Suzanne considers this. 'He'll go and lick his wounds. Rillman isn't an RM. He will need some rest after doing the things that he did in that fight, to heal his injuries. Throw in the couple of savage punches to the head that Oscar delivered and Rillman will be quiet, he has to be. He may have wanted to hurt you, but it has cost him, too.'

  'What do you mean you have Lissa watched?'

  Suzanne laughs. 'She's too important a person in your life not to be watched. You have your Avian Pomps. Well, I have my own means. She is safe.' She tilts her head. 'As a matter of fact she's almost here.' She jabs a finger in my chest. 'Don't think that this gets you out of a lesson. I'll see you in the Deepest Dark later tonight.'

  She shifts just as Lissa opens the door.

  Lissa looks at me. 'Was somebody in here?'

  'Suzanne. I needed her to shift me here,' I say. 'I'd get up, but -'

  'Jesus, if she -'

  'No, Rillman. He killed Travis.'

  'What?'

  'The bastard was fast. He got us just after we walked off the bridge. We hurt him, but Travis died. Oscar looked pretty bad when I left him with Brooker.'

  Lissa rushes towards me and grabs my face. 'And you?'

  'I'm fine. I'm fine. Though I've got my twinges. How was your day, my love?'

  'Far, far better than yours. Why Suzanne?'

  'Tim can't shift yet, certainly not well enough to get me back here. What would you have me do, catch a bus?'

  Lissa scrunches up her face. 'You know how I feel about her.'

  'Yes, but she saved Oscar's life. I did call you first.'

  'OK, enough. Now tell me everything.' I sit in the throne, the heartbeats of my country playing around me. Thirty more people die in the space of my healing, though I'm angry over only one of them. Travis shouldn't have died for me. I've already looked into the schedule; his name is flagged as too early. He had another thirty-eight years.

  My wounds have knitted well, though they're quite red and inflamed. Not bad for a couple of hours. I stretch in my chair, look over at Lissa. She's let me grump for a while now. She's rubbing at her brow like she has a headache and looks ready to collapse.

  'Are you all right?' I ask.

  'Yeah, the new staff are great. So that's one thing.

  And the other states, especially Sydney and Perth, are doing well, oddly enough.' She sighs. 'I know accepting Suzanne's Pomps would reduce the stress on us, but I don't want you to do it.'

  Guilt buzzes inside me. I should feel better about it, somehow justified that me taking up Suzanne's offer was really necessary. How much longer can I keep up this lying? 'Well, looks like we're going this alone. Travis is gone and Oscar isn't getting out of a hospital bed for a while,' I say.

  'Yeah. But we're used to that. Weren't you kind of expecting it?'

  'No, I wasn't. Call me optimistic, but I really wasn't.'

  It's so easy to have these things taken from me, RM or not, no matter how hard I work – or don't. Ah, fatalist much, Mr de Selby?

  Lissa strokes my face. There's an ache deep in the back of my throat and it becomes a burning when I look into her eyes.

  I rise from the throne, slowly; every movement has its quotient of pain. I kiss her briefly, pull back and stare at her. Lissa's lips tremble and her face is lit with something that I can only hope I am the cause of.

  'It always comes down to us,' I say, trying to inject more hope into my words than I feel. Then I kiss her again, a longer lingering contact this time. 'What the hell are we going to do?'

  Lissa sighs. 'What we always do. Keep going. We can't hide from Rillman. He can chase us anywhere. Besides, neither of us is the hiding type – it didn't work with Morrigan and it won't work with Rillman. Tomorrow's Christmas, then it's three days until the Moot. We live our lives and we fight,' she says.

  Hiding certainly didn't work with Morrigan. But he never wanted me to die – until the end, when he was ready and my running was done. Rillman's motives are so much darker and murkier.

  There's loss on the horizon, and we're bolting towards it, faster and faster. Rillman, the Stirrer god, the Hungry Death, the bloody Death Moot. All of it's terrifying me. Lissa must see it there in my face, because she rests a hand against my cheek, bears a little of the weight of my head for a moment.

  'It's
Christmas tomorrow,' I say. 'I can't believe it. To be honest, I'd forgotten.'

  'What? You're telling me you haven't got me a present?'

  'Of course I have!'

  She smiles, eyes flaring. Gorgeous, utterly gorgeous.

  'Just kiss me again,' she says.

  And I do.

  26

  The Deepest Dark is a soothing chill against my newly healed flesh. I've showered and pulled a T-shirt and jeans over my scars. It feels odd to be here, out of a suit. Sure, I'd worn a tracksuit down here once, but that feels like it was an age ago.

  'You're looking good for a man who nearly died tonight.'

  'Thank you again for your quick assistance.'

  'I have a lot riding on you, Mr de Selby.'

  'Things are coming to a head,' I say. 'I can feel it. I need to know how you know so much. And I need to know just what is important.'

  'These sessions aren't about how I know things, but what I know. I assure you that you will have access to an incredible network of information. Not just Twitter, not just Facebook, or Mortepedia. Give yourself time.'

  'What network? And what the hell is Mortepedia?'

  But Suzanne puts a finger to my lips. 'You know about the Hungry Death now.' I push her hand away.

  'Yeah, let's call it HD, for short.'

  Suzanne sighs. 'And you know that, once, pomping was a pleasurable thing. But do you understand why we use blood?'

  'It has to be blood, and your own, and it has to hurt,' I say. These are things I learnt from my parents, as every Pomp does. And it feels good to say them. 'The drawing of lines in the sand must always have consequences. It costs to fight battles. It's not just HD that drives this. You told me as much, when you told me how it was defeated. It's the will to make a difference despite the cost, and the realisation that you might fail. If failure costs nothing, perhaps we would be too reckless. If it didn't hurt to stall a Stirrer, perhaps we would just rush in with no plan, our guns blazing and find ourselves surrounded, cut off, defeated.'

  The grin Suzanne gives me is huge. 'Blood isn't just life, it represents how delicate life is. Now, symbols are very important in this business, as you already know. The brace symbol, for one. But something as simple as a gesture can be powerful. If you give yourself to it.' She raises her hand, and dust lifts from the ground and follows her, fanning out, then condensing into a tight tube that spirals around her arm. 'Try it.'