Managing death sds-2

by Trent Jamieson

  The knives dance figure eights before him. It would almost be beautiful, but I've no eye for beauty now. HD argues the point, but I ignore it.

  More dust, a blinding burst. He staggers, his eyes stung. I kick him in the chest. He crashes backwards, lands hard.

  'Dust? Is that all you have?' he pants, getting to his feet, wiping at his eyes with his wrists. He's half blind, but it doesn't stop him. I'd almost respect that, but I am hatred now. I am blazing anger.

  'It's all I need.' I launch more dust at him. Rillman slices through it with the knives, but it's only dust, it doesn't bleed. Not like him. He doesn't even know that he's beaten.

  He charges at me. And this time I don't care to obscure his run. No dust. Just him and me.

  'I want you to know that you made this,' I say. The blades whirr around me, jabbing towards me and away, and I weave in time with them in perfect synchrony. The poor bastard doesn't understand that they are dancing for me. 'Your desire for revenge. To cause me pain. To bring down the Orcus. To hurt me and mine. All of it. The whole fucking concatenation of hate and fear. You made it all, and now…' I snatch the blades from his hands, one, two… 'These are mine.'

  I kick him to the ground, easily. Rillman lies there, bleeding. 'What are you?'

  'You don't get it at all, do you? I'm Steven de Selby,' I say, picking him up with one hand, as though he weighs nothing. And he doesn't. No one does now. 'I am Death.'

  I backhand him casually in the face. Bone cracks. He drops to the ground, and I stand over him. I grit my teeth, and feel my face shift. It's agony and it's glorious. For a moment all I am is pain. All I am is Death.

  The knives in my hand slide towards each other, bind each other in their stony gravity, and then I am holding a scythe. It shivers with the deepest of hungers in my grip.

  Mayhem. Murder. Death, it breathes.

  And God help me, I swing the scythe above my head.

  Wal rushes in between us. 'Whoa, whoa!' He hovers there, his wings beating so fast that they lift up dust. His eyes are wide with a kind of terror that I'm unacquainted with, and they're directed at me.

  'Go away,' I say.

  'If you kill him, you won't get answers.'

  I jab my finger at his face. 'But that's just it. I am the answer, am I not?'

  All I want is death. His death. The world's death. HD cackles, like a drunk crashing towards damnation.

  Then a squeak of brakes alerts me to his presence. My old boss.

  'Stop this now,' Mr D says, sliding off his bike. His face is pale; he's out of breath. Must have been riding since I entered the Underworld.

  'You,' I growl. 'This is as much your fault as his. Letting them – letting all of them – do this to me.'

  But it is glorious!

  Mr D holds my gaze. 'Yes… They were convincing, Steven.'

  'Convincing!' I swing the scythe above his head. It would be nothing to lop it off. Mr D doesn't move. 'Is that all you can say?'

  'You didn't prepare him for any of this,' Rillman says.

  Mr D glances over at him. 'Good evening, Francis.'

  Rillman spits towards him. 'Hell must be so hungry for you.'

  'It's hungry for all of us,' Mr D says. 'It will have me in its own good time, believe me.'

  'I'd kill you if I could,' Rillman breathes.

  'You're not the only one.' Mr D places a hand on my shoulder. 'Steven, I am so sorry.'

  I brush his hand away. 'You should go now. You have no power here.'

  'None of us do, Steven. The rules that bind us do so tightly. You have choices, but what horrible, horrible choices. Leave this idiot. The other RMs are still on the tree; they won't be for much longer. Go to them, find out anything more you can.'

  'I don't need them anymore. I want you gone.' My voice is barely a whisper, but there is a dreadful force behind it. Mr D diminishes, nods.

  'As you wish.' He throws a glance askew at Wal, as if to say sorry. Then he picks up his bike and rides away into the dark. I watch him until the gloom swallows the flickering red of his tail-light.

  Rillman coughs. Wal flits in front of him again.

  'You want me to go, too? I swear I won't go so easily,' Wal says. None the less I tap my arm and he is nothing more than a tattoo, his face twisted with a bunched zippering of cherubic teeth.

  I fashion a chair out of dust, and drop Rillman in it.

  He coughs, spits blood. He's not bound. I don't need to do that.

  'You can run,' I say. 'But I will find you. Have no doubt of that.'

  He eyes the knives I've left resting on a nearby root tip of the One Tree. They're no longer the scythe. I raise one hand and that's what they become. I'm intuiting a lot, but I know I can call that scythe to me in a second, just as I know its name is Mog. In a breath, a single breath of that name, it will find me.

  He looks shiftily from the scythe to me, and back again. I dare him with my eyes. But Rillman has had enough.

  'Why did you do this?' I ask. 'Tell me and I might be gentle with you.'

  'I hate you,' Rillman growls. 'You got what I wanted. While Mr D was alive he locked me out. But you, you were so interesting. So naive. You were the only RM not like them. You were the one who I wanted to suffer, not just kill, because you didn't deserve what you had been given. I've been a long time in planning this, and when you won your Negotiation and changed the rules… Well, you have to realise that I had to make you pay.' He sneers at me. 'Is it any wonder that governments agreed to my requests, when I showed them what I was capable of, with but the merest sliver of an RM's powers? They've been frightened of Mortmax for a long time, the consequences of it. And they're terrified of you.'

  Yeah, they have a bloody good reason to be now. HD's pleasure radiates through me.

  'I knew it would only be a matter of time until it fell apart, and the world's governments would be left picking up the pieces anyway. The Thirteen have lurched along for an age. But everything ends.' He fiddles with his tie with his restless jerky fingers.

  'Yeah, when you murder them.'

  Rillman's face darkens. 'All of them were murderers. Every single one, and I know you're not stupid enough to believe otherwise. You want to become a murderer, Steven?'

  'I'm Death. It's what I do.' Mog quivers in its resting place. And the new and ancient part of me remembers its endless predation, its racing hunger. It would be easy to give into that. After all, it's what nature intended. It's so like humanity to shape things into much more convoluted patterns. I've a chance to break them all, starting with the death of Rillman. One enemy removed. 'And maybe it's your time,' I say.

  Rillman shakes his head. 'I've read your files, Steven, it's not in you.' He's waiting. There's a pulsing vein in his forehead and a slight smile breaks the line of his lips. Then he scowls and maybe, for the first time, I have the real measure of the man, and what I see is shocking. There is too much of my rage in there. 'You're just not that kind of guy.'

  I grab him by his lapels and lift. 'I am now.'

  This close, I can feel what it is that gives him power: the thing that Neti gave him that allows him to slip from the land of the living to the land of the dead, and back again. It shivers inside him like a second beating heart. This is a free pass between the gates of the two worlds, and it belongs to me! I don't know how Aunt Neti stole it, but I want it back. I yank him to his feet, touch his face with my hands, grip his skull hard, and draw that power from him.

  It hurts. Because what he has is fed by pain and anger. I drag it into me; more power, more of the essence that is now so much of what I am. I understand the truth that is the Hungry Death, its persuasive presence, and the tiny thing that is the man before me. I close one hand around his neck, curious how that might feel, and then the other hand.

  And I squeeze.

  He grabs my wrists. He struggles. He kicks out at me, and thrashes. But I do not relax my grip. If anything I tighten it. HD laughs, and I laugh too, until I feel Rillman's spirit pomp through me. It bursts free,
not towards the One Tree, but straight into the Deepest Dark. I watch it there, and then, something bright and eight-armed snatches out and grinds out the light within it.

  I'm left staring up into the dark.

  I drop Rillman's body.

  Mog drifts towards me. I close a fist around its curving snath and back away from the corpse. Let the dust engulf the body.

  I'm empty, weak. I can barely stand. My hands grip Mog so tightly that my knuckles ache. It's the only thing that is keeping me upright.

  Wal pulls himself from my arm. 'What have you done?'

  The body is there, between the two of us. It's answer enough.

  34

  I shift to my office. It's late. Ten. I can hear someone using the photocopier. Such an everyday sound.

  I'm sick, but it's not from the shifting. Mr D was right, all I needed was practice. I smile, and spew into the bin, but it's not cathartic. There's no release in it. Just pain.

  I slump into my throne. It's bigger now, far bigger, all encompassing. It dominates the room like the dark seat of some dark empire, and yet I hardly notice it. I settle in, and my pain ebbs, a little. But I have worse hurts. I put my head in my hands.

  All the world's heartbeats rain down on me, all those clocks winding down, all that strength pulsing towards its undoing.

  And that's the least of it. Every time I close my eyes they're there – those innocent deaths of which I was the cause, that final pomping of Rillman's soul.

  I sit in my throne, sobbing, drowning in the world's pulse. Tim's is there. So is Lissa's. I can pick them out like threads. Mr D once said that the sound becomes soothing – the cacophony a lullaby. Here I am, struck by those billions of heartbeats, and then I feel Lissa nearby. I drag myself from the comfort of the throne and Mog blurs, becomes the knives again. They rest, bound by sheaths knitted from evening, on my belt. I shift through the wall, and there she is.

  'Steven, are you all right?' She's been crying, too. I should have sought her out straight away, but I couldn't face her. I can barely face her now.

  'Yes,' I say. 'Are you?'

  'I think so.'

  Then I'm holding her and I can almost forget the pain and guilt I'm feeling. Finally she pulls from me.

  'You shouldn't have done that,' she says. A vein pulses in my head. Does she know? 'You shouldn't have come after me like that.'

  'You know I had no choice. I've nothing left but you.'

  'I know you were trying to do the right thing. But Christ, you -'

  'I should have told you about Suzanne. No more secrets, right? I promise.'

  She touches the knives at my belt, curiously.

  'They're mine,' I say, 'and, to be honest, I don't want them out of my sight. I'm the only RM left standing. Mortmax International is my responsibility now.'

  'And HD?'

  'It's under control, I think… I don't know. Rillman – Solstice is gone. He won't be a problem anymore.'

  In my office I can hear the unmistakeable ring of the black phone. I ignore it. Lisa looks at me questioningly. 'It can wait,' I say. 'We need to get out of here.'

  Lissa holds me tight, and it's all I can do not to crush her in my grip, so desperately do I need that contact. 'Where do you want to go?' she asks.

  'Home,' I say.

  I shift with her in my arms. And we are back in my parents' place, in the hallway, Mum's perfume as strong as ever.

  'We're going to move out of here. It was always a mistake to live here,' I say.

  I can't bear my parents looking down at me from those photos. I know how they would judge me for what I've done, what I am.

  'Are you sure?' Lissa asks, though I can tell she's pleased. This was never our home. I nod. 'Then we need to find a place that Stirrers can't just stroll into,' she says.

  I can tell Lissa wants to talk this through, all of it. And I want to as well. But there's a weight of exhaustion pulling on her. She's worn out with worry, with the hell that has been this last week. And we have time. There's no Death Moot or Rillman to concern us now, and the Stirrer god isn't here yet.

  'Try and rest,' I say. 'We have so much to do, but not now.'

  I walk with her to the bed. Lissa's fast beneath the sheets and even quicker to fall asleep. I stand there looking at the person I have risked all for, and for a moment I feel better.

  I call Tim.

  'Jesus, what happened to you?' he asks. 'I came to the office, and you'd both just left.'

  I don't want to talk about it. Tim's going to have to trust me. 'How are the Ankous?'

  He's a while in answering. I can't tell if I've offended him, which probably means I have. 'They're all right. In shock, but that's understandable. Mortmax has suffered its biggest, loss… gain… Shit, I don't know, what's happened? What the hell do we even call you?'

  'Steve,' I say. 'I'm your cousin, remember?'

  'Steve. Solstice's offices, they were worse than anything Morrigan ever did. The rotting dead. Their rage and, God, their laughter. That's what's going to stick with me the most. They laughed as we stalled them, every single one, as though it didn't matter. I'm fucking terrified.'

  I'm more than familiar with that laughter. 'Sometimes it's a reasonable response. Listen, Tim, we're going to have to start mobilising,' I say. 'The Stirrer god is coming. But we will be ready.'

  'Are you OK? You sound -'

  'I'm exhausted,' I say. 'Bloody knackered. I'll call you tomorrow. We both need to think, and to rest – that most of all. You can't do anything if you're tired.'

  'I thought you couldn't sleep.'

  'I can now,' I say. 'You should, too.'

  'One more thing,' he says. 'The black phone in your office keeps ringing.'

  'Don't answer it,' I say. 'I can deal with that tomorrow, too.'

  I hang up, and take a shower. But I can't wash HD or the thing I've done from me. Wal is on my biceps, and he looks frightened. When I'm done, I walk to the back balcony, the towel wrapped around my waist.

  Another storm rolls in from the south, but this one's soft and earthy, and while it may hide a stir or two, it's just a storm. I watch it build for a while. Rain falls, light spatters at first, and then it's a real downpour.

  Lightning bursts in the distance. I wait for the thunder to come rumbling through the suburbs, and when it does I turn to go inside.

  Something catches my eye.

  They must have been there for a while, silently waiting for my scrutiny: a shivering darkness spread across the lawn. Sharp beaks. Slick black feathers, glossy with the rain. A thousand crows, at least. And they have bowed down low, their wings extended.

  'Awcus, awcus,' they caw.

  I dip my head.

  HD seems pleased, all this laid out for it and me. I raise a hand, gesture towards the sky. As one they beat their wings into the angry air, and batter hard against the rain. The vast murder of crows breaks from the ground, finds the night sky and is gone. I could have dreamed the whole thing, but for the dark feathers fluttering down.

  Awcus.

  I walk into the living room and pour myself a drink, a big one.

  Lissa's asleep when I stumble back into the bedroom. The rain hammers on the iron roof but it's ebbing. HD roils within me, grinning its ceaseless grin. But I force it down. I'm tired and on my way to being drunk. I can't stifle a yawn. I settle next to Lissa, slide my arm around her. So tired. She moans something in her sleep, then calms.

  The dying rain and Lissa's breathing are the most perfect sounds in the world. I'm not sure when sleep claims me.

  Death. Mayhem. Madness and blood. The metronomic sweeping of the scythe.

  But I sleep soundly.

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