I make a show of going to the photocopier, try to look like everything is normal. It seems to have the opposite effect, particularly when I jam the bloody machine. Right, then, a more direct approach is needed. These people haven't deserted me, and I damn well won't desert them. I walk to the centre of the office, and clear my throat. I've heard my share of inspirational speeches.
'As you have probably heard, the South African RM has died.' The office is silent, listening. 'Well, we have a Death Moot to run. In just three days, the remaining RMs will be here. Things are going to get hectic, but I am not going anywhere. Rillman has tried to kill me numerous times, and failed. I will not desert you.'
I don't notice Tim until he's standing beside me. Lissa's here, too, now. She smiles hesitantly at me.
'We'll see this out,' Tim says.
'We've faced worse.' Lissa's voice is hard and strong. She holds my hand. 'But it won't mean anything if we don't keep pomping or if we stop stalling Stirrers. We can't let Neill's death distract us. Everything dies, we all know that.'
'And we have to make sure that that keeps happening. We have to be strong. I won't let you down.' I don't know if that's enough, but it's all I have.
'Where were you?' Lissa asks me, once everyone returns to work – inspired, or terrified, or hunting for the job pages.
'Checking out the bridge,' I lie.
Tim looks like he's about to say something, and then seems to think the better of it.
I guide them both into my office, and then the black phone, Mr D's phone, rings.
29
There's a first time for everything.
I snatch it up.
'Neti's rooms,' Mr D says in a tone I've never heard before. 'Now.'
Mr D can be direct when he needs to be.
'What the hell is going on?' Lissa demands.
'I need you to stay here,' I say. 'Both of you. It's something to do with Neti. Mr D sounds frightened.'
I head out the door, then across the office floor. I'm running by the time I hit the hall. Wal shudders on my arm and begins to slide free, his ink turning to muscle and bone. He tears from my flesh with the hummingbird whirr of a cherub's flight.
'Where are we going in such a hurry?'
'Neti's rooms. Mr D -'
'Bugger.'
I don't bother knocking this time. I open Neti's door, almost hitting Mr D in the head in the process.
'Watch yourself,' Mr D says.
'Neti?'
'Oh, she's dead. Well and truly, more than I could have ever believed.'
But that much is obvious already. There's not much of her left. Her little parlour is splattered with blood. It's everywhere. Strings of it dangle from light fittings, puddles gleam red and slick all across the floor. Is this what Rillman had wanted to do to me?
'I've never seen anything like this,' Mr D says. But I have. HD is having a grand old time, I can feel him tugging at the corner of my lips.
I try and imagine the fight. There are burn marks everywhere, just like the Stirrer safe house. And the smell of cooking flesh, not the usual wholesome odours of scones or cake – though there is some of that in the background. The spider in the corner hangs limp and dead.
Wal flits around us, looking slightly green. 'What does this mean?' he says.
'Rillman took a great deal of pleasure in doing this,' I say.
'Obviously,' Mr D says.
'Who's going to replace her?' Wal asks, puffing out his chest, and riffling through her collection of china plates. I wave him away from there.
'Something will replace her, but it will be different. And it will come in its own time. That's the way these things work,' says Mr D.
Neti looks so small, but that's because she is in so many different pieces. I'm Death, so it's beneath me to gag, but it's hard not to. Her limbs are spread around the room. Her eyes are sightless. The television chatters; an inane game show. And it looks like she is watching it. Her strength and her menace are gone. Aunt Neti is dead, and murdered with such cruel joy. HD cheers a little.
'Where are the Knives of Negotiation?' I say suddenly remembering them. 'Please tell me they're safe.'
Mr D pales. He rushes to the black cabinet, does something intricate with its scrollwork and one of its doors slides to one side. The knives' usual resting place. 'Nothing,' he says.
My brain ticks over. Rillman must have started with his stony razor, covered with my blood, perhaps to give it greater efficacy. And then, when he had incapacitated Neti, he snatched the knives and put them to quick snicker-snack use, finishing off the job. Then he probably shifted directly to Neill's office. Aunt Neti's been dead a while. Rillman had been anxious to leave in the tunnel, and not just because my Avian Pomps had arrived. He'd never expected to take so long with me.
There is a plate of scones on the table, untouched. Neti was expecting Rillman, or someone. Like she said, she only makes scones when people are coming to her with questions. Her prescience had failed as to Rillman's real intentions.
I wonder if she wasn't working with him in some way. Maybe the Stirrer safe houses, their grid, is being used for something else. Maybe Rillman was using both sides.
I have never seen Mr D look so rattled. 'So what do we do from here?' I ask.
'We talk strategy. Rillman is killing RMs, and suddenly the focus has turned away from the real threat, the coming Stirrer god.'
'Well, that's got them scared as well.' I sigh. I really don't know who I can trust at all. But one thing is certain; Mr D doesn't have the answers.
But there's someone who does, and I might just catch her.
'I'm going to have to leave you here to clean up,' I say to Mr D.
'Of course,' Mr D says, though he is obviously affronted. 'I of all people know how busy you are.'
I give him a quick salute and shift. Eight long arms snap out at me, but only one connects. It's enough to put me on my arse. The One Tree creaks around us in sympathy with her or me, I'm not sure.
'Oh, it's you.' Several hands help me up.
'I didn't expect Rillman would visit you here.'
'How did you know, dear?' Aunt Neti asks. She doesn't look happy, but I wouldn't be either if someone I'd considered an ally had just chopped me into little pieces.
'You made him scones. You were expecting his visit.' I grimace. 'I kind of guessed it.'
Aunt Neti scowls. 'When you broke the rules, and didn't even choose me to allow your Orpheus Manoeuvre, well, that was too much.'
'Charon was just there,' I say. 'I didn't realise that there was any other way.'
'Exactly. At least Rillman understood how it was meant to be done. I was the one who helped his Orpheus Manoeuvre. I felt so guilty that it failed, not because of anything I did, but that blasted Mr D.'
'I thought Mr D was your friend.'
Aunt Neti nods. 'Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. You would do well to remember that, Mr de Selby, when it all comes falling down around you. Rillman failed, and I felt that I owed him. Besides, once you had clearly disdained me, well, what allegiance did I owe to you.
'I was happy to cover for him, to let him return to the land of the living. We REs perform Orpheus Manoeuvres all the time; we let the curtains slip between life and death. It's not such a big deal for us, because we're not really alive. But I never meant to create a monster, and certainly not one so dangerous. My indulgence never went as far as the stone knives.'
I glare at her. 'It should never have gone as far as your lies. You owed your loyalty to me.'
Aunt Neti snorts. Her eight arms wave around her, a halo of limbs, and then she's jabbing them in my face. 'And what do you owe yours to? Not much, as far as I can see. With your rule-breaking, your moaning. And when did you ever really come to me for advice? There are things you could have learnt if you trusted me. But no, you avoided your Aunt Neti, unless it was absolutely necessary. My Francis never did that. And you skimped on your duties, drinking, not showing up for work. People talk, Mr de
Selby, and your Aunt Neti listens.'
'And look where that's gotten you,' I snap. 'A place on the One Tree, and no power at all.'
The air seems knocked out of her. She folds her hands neatly around her waist, and dips her head.
'Yes… Well, it's a fabulous view,' Aunt Neti sighs. I can see she's already growing listless with death. Soon the One Tree will have her and all that will remain will be a fading memory. 'You're right, of course, but it's too late for me now. There are some lessons that you take to the grave.'
30
Evening after a long and confusing day. HD is making me jittery. The Moot's looming and I'm home. I want to be with Lissa, but that's not who I've got. The kitchen buzzes with the energy of two RMs. I wonder what Dad would think. I wonder if he would be proud. I doubt it. Maybe, if I'd let Lissa in on my secret. It's been a long day.
I don't like having the meeting here, at home. But Suzanne insisted. Lissa isn't due back for another couple of hours. There is a stir expected at the Princess Alexandra Hospital.
'I never thought I'd see the day,' Suzanne said. 'But here we are, a Recognised Entity is dead. Killed not by one of us, nor by our enemy, but by that stupid, vengeance-craving man.'
'And with those knives. He can wreak bloody havoc with them,' I say. 'Maybe we should consider cancelling the Death Moot.'
'No,' Suzanne growls. 'The Death Moot goes ahead. To cancel it would set an alarming precedent. We're better off together, stronger. Unless, that is, if he manages to kill us all… Well, that thing that we contain, it won't be contained anymore.'
'Where would it go?'
Suzanne's smile is wide. 'Imagine your dreams, imagine that made reality. That shadowy, lurching Hungry Death; that relentless slaughter. De Selby, it's in us all, it's in everything living. But in us… us twelve, now… it's magnified, personified. Death is part of life, but without anyone to control it… all that power is not a legacy I want to leave for the world. Still -'
'Still, if it's going to happen, it's better to be dead than deal with it,' I say.
Suzanne shakes her head. 'If that sort of thing occurs then we've a major biblical sort of problem – actually, nastier than anything in the Bible. Death won't save you. Maybe I'm wrong, Steven, but it terrifies me, and it should terrify you, too.'
'I don't think I know enough to be terrified.'
Suzanne frowns. 'Ultimately that's what it's all about, our business. Managing Death, keeping the Hungry Death under control and following laws more conducive to life. Whenever we fail, whenever we let it slip out of control, bad things happen. That's just the way it works. Our governments may want to impose their own system of management on this, no matter that they don't have nearly the unified approach that we possess. We're older than any system of legislature or governance. If we fail at our business, they have no chance of filling the void.
'You may not trust the Orcus, but believe me when I say that there is a certain purity in what we do, in what we had to give up to become this. You just lost your innocence in a different way. It was torn from you. For the rest of us, we tore it from ourselves.
'We chose this path with our eyes open. We knew the cost of what we did, of those that we killed. I loved my family, I loved my friends, but I knew I could be a better RM than my predecessor. Did I ever tell you that he was my lover?
'I killed him to become this, because he was weak, because I could see battles far ahead that I knew he wouldn't be able to fight. He confided in me, bared his shortcomings, and the only way I could see to deal with his weakness was to take the job from him, and the only way that I could do that was via a Schism and the Negotiation. Do you know what it is like to not just lose the ones that you love, but to deliberately take them away? It eats you out like a cancer. But what choice did I have?
'Ask yourself what Morrigan might have seen coming, what fears drove his decisions. I dare say it was more complicated than just a lust for power. You know us, we're not all bad, we went into this knowingly and passionately and with a desire to change the world.' Suzanne lowers her gaze. 'You know history, the violence that made each of us Death. But don't you ever fool yourself into thinking you can understand us.'
'You're murderers, one and all,' I say.
Suzanne nods. 'Oh, yes, we are. And all of us suffer for it. This job is our punishment as much as it is our prize. This business and the Hungry Death inside us, it's horrible isn't it? I pity you, sometimes, Steven, that you don't even have the comfort of your passion to protect you. Oh, how that must hurt, and there is no one to share it with. This job isn't about giving up everything for your love, it's about giving up your love, for everything.'
'And where does that leave you?'
'I didn't say it was the right choice, but it was the choice we made. I'm not expecting sympathy, or even understanding. Just acceptance. This is what we have done. All of us suffer, that is the only thing that truly links humanity. We exist, and I truly believe this, to reduce the quantity of suffering in the world even if it means we must bleed ourselves.'
I couldn't look at her. Love and family, even in the face of suffering, are the most important things to me. The only things I had left to believe in. And maybe that is being selfish. I know it's selfish. How can I be an RM if I can't give them up?
She grips my hand. 'Oh, Steven. There's so much you still don't understand. I pity you. The lessons of your time are far crueller than anyone could expect.'
'Don't pity me,' I say, and I've never seen her look so amused.
She grabs my face, jerks my head towards hers, and kisses me hungrily. Her lips are as cold as mine, her heart as silent and stealthy as the one in my chest. For a moment I am intoxicated.
Yes, it would be easier. She would understand me in ways that Lissa can't hope to. We could have this forever.
But the thought lasts only for a moment. I pull away, wipe my mouth with my sleeve. Bloody hell, what was I thinking?
'No,' I say.
Then I hear the intake of breath. Recognise the new heartbeat in the room.
'What are you doing here?' Lissa's eyes are wide with hurt, but they're ready to ignite into anger. All it needs is someone as unsubtle – or cruel – as Suzanne to set it off. Or someone as stupid as me.
My cheeks are burning. It's not as if I did anything wrong… Other than lie to her. Just how did that happen again?
'I'm surprised he didn't tell you,' Suzanne says. 'I made him an offer he couldn't refuse, and well…' She looks at me slyly, 'He didn't refuse it.'
'You bitch!' Lissa snarls. 'You can't keep out of my family's business, can you?'
'Business is business, Lissa. Nothing more. What happened between your father and me… I understand why you might blame me. But -'
'I don't blame you.' Lissa's right hand clenches into a fist. 'Oh, hang on a minute, yes, I do.'
'That's enough.' I raise my hands in the air, step between the two of them. 'It's all just a -' And Lissa's fist connects with my jaw. She looks from me to Suzanne and back again. I'm not sure who she meant to hit. I don't think she is, either.
'You bastard,' she says – that's definitely aimed at me. 'You had to go and do this.'
And she's out of that room before I can open my mouth.
I rub my jaw, spin on Suzanne. 'You set me up! You arranged for her to come home!'
Suzanne's face hardens. 'You didn't see this coming?'
'No, I didn't.'
'Why the hell did you flirt with me?'
My face is burning. 'I never -'
'You did. The coat, the lingering looks.'
'I thought I was just playing your game.' And then rage explodes inside me. 'Piss off, now. GO!'
'I'll let you get away with that, but only because I feel a certain element of sympathy. Particularly with what lies ahead. But you will never talk to me like that again.' Suzanne shifts away.
I'm left in the empty room. I run to the hallway. Lissa's nowhere to be seen. Out onto the verandah, and then onto the street. Heat
slaps me in the face nearly as hard as Lissa's right hook.
I don't mind the pain. I deserve it.
Where the hell is Lissa? I close my eyes, feel her heartbeat. She's back in the kitchen. I run to her.
'You lie to me about not meeting her, about not accepting her offer, and then you're kissing.' She wipes at her eyes. 'If you want to be with one of them, I can understand that. They're your people now. But to try and keep us going, while – oh, Jesus, Steven. I never thought you'd be such a prick.'
'Yeah, I'm a prick. I won't argue with you. I'm an absolute arsehole.'
'Agreeing with me isn't helping your case.'
'But I love you.'
'Did you take up her offer?'
'Yes, but I had no choice.'
'You could have chosen to tell me about it,' Lissa says. 'You could have told me everything. I'm a grown-up. You could have trusted me with this.'
'There's no lies between us,' I say, which is technically a lie. Why do I keep digging myself deeper and deeper holes?
'Just half-truths.' Lissa shakes her head. 'So, Steven, you got your ten extra Pomps. But you lost one as well. I'm not going to take this. Not now. I'm leaving.'
'OK,' I say, because I don't know what else to say. I'm sick with shock. 'But I love you.'
'Maybe you think you do. But this isn't love. These lies aren't love.' She steps towards me. Her heart is racing at 130 bpm, and then it slows, shifts down to eighty. 'Now, you know what you need to do?'
'No.'
'Do I have to spell it out for you? I'm resigning.'
'But -'
'If you don't do this I'll hate you forever.'
'We need you. Mortmax needs you.'
'Don't you dare play that card. You'll do all right. You have her help, after all.'
'I don't want her help.'
'It didn't look like it when I walked in.'
'Lissa -'
'Just do it!'
I look into her eyes, and she holds my gaze. I reach over and she grabs my hands. It was such an easy gesture once, but now so awkward. My hands shake. She's closed to me, but then she opens up, and I can feel her anger as a visceral thing, a burning agony. It shocks me, even though I was expecting it.
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