Here is something that I know how to do. I don’t need to negotiate my way through the corporate minefield. I don’t need to ring Ankous and get their opinions. My only focus is the hunt. It’s like my old pomping days—which, come to think of it, aren’t really all that old.
I sit in my living room and fiddle with my iPod. Slide through my backlist of Okkervil River, or Gotye—occasionally I even indulge in some Killswitch Engage. You need a soundtrack to your life, and there has always been one to mine.
I nurse a coffee in my lap, hands cupped around its heat, as the music plays. I spread my consciousness out through my Pomps, or draw their experiences into me. The things I see, and the things I’ve seen. Crap I’d never even suspected might go on, not even after years of pomping, of coming up hard against the end of people’s lives. I’ve watched pomps and stalls from Antarctica (we have two Pomps there, both part-time) to the Arctic Circle. I’ve heard the same conversations bound in different cultural imperatives hundreds of thousands of times. I’ve seen all manner of excess and stupidity, all sorts of dignity and sadness. People killed for food, wealth, status and greed. People drowning in their own hungers. And I’ve encountered such grinding desperate poverty that it nearly steals the breath from me.
Once this god is dealt with there are other problems that need attending to.
Death is just and impartial. But life…Christ. Life is the cruellest of rigged lotteries.
I let myself doze a little, try and disengage from the world. I dream of black ink, an ocean of it covering the earth in darkness. And there I am swimming.
Hands grab me, and pull.
I wake up. My mouth tasting of ink, as though I’d grabbed a pen and bitten it in half—which I’d done once, back in primary school, to impress a girl (it didn’t). I suck and spit out nearly half a tube of toothpaste to remove the worst of the taste: and still the memory of it lingers. No more sleep for me. I sit and watch my darling dream instead.
The twenty-fourth starts slowly. Like any other day, but it isn’t. We can all feel it. My Ankous are ready to act the moment something happens. I’m getting nervous phone calls from them every half-hour or so.
When my crows alert me to a Stirrer in Mount Gravatt around midday, it’s a blessed relief. Maybe it thought it could escape my scrutiny in the lunchtime rush. And perhaps it would have, if it hadn’t passed a tree in which some of my Avians roost. I think the crow that saw it was almost as shocked as me.
I shift, and follow it quietly at a distance, but it must sense me because it stops and waits at a street corner. I get a little closer and it turns its head in my direction. Dark eyes stare.
The Garden City mall is to the left of us, but we’re out on Logan Road, all traffic lights and trucks, cars and smoking buses shuffling for ascendancy. “Get any good bargains?” I say, above the rumble of a bus.
The Stirrer stops, swings its head all the way around toward me, bones cracking. It picks up speed, staring at me as it pushes the shopping cart away.
“You shouldn’t be here,” I say, shifting to its side, taking far too much pleasure from its terror.
The Stirrer bolts from me, but I shift in front of it, stopping the cart with a boot. And it stands there, realizing it has nowhere to go. It tosses the shopping cart towards me, but I have already shifted again, beside it, close enough that we could be sharing a secret. Perhaps we are.
“It doesn’t matter,” it mumbles. “None of this matters. Our world is coming back, soon enough we will no longer be hunted.”
“Probably,” I say, and slap it once on the cheek with my bloody palm. It shivers, then drops.
I look in the cart—aerials.
I look up into the beady eyes of my crow, rather than through them.
“Awcus,” it mutters softly.
“There’s hunting to do,” I say.
18
It takes a long time to organize a raid. And the day, if it is the beginning of the end, has been alarmingly free of portends. Sure the sky is lit with the great glowing orb of the comet, but there has been no increase in stirs. In fact, we’ve had a decrease. As though the Stirrers themselves are holding off. I don’t even want to think what that might mean.
My Ankous are waiting. We’re all waiting. After the last day’s sprinting, time seems to have slowed. Each hour of nothing is another knot of tension in my neck. The anxiety level in the office is insane.
The twenty-fourth is here and not a thing has changed in the world at large.
Several of the blokes in the office have imitated my new haircut. Even Lundwall is sporting a shaven skull.
“You’ve started a trend,” Lissa tells me.
I rub my stubbly head. Maybe it’s not too bad after all.
Things are going to happen soon and we can all feel it. I’ve found what I think is the last of the houses. Forty in all, that large a number at once fills me with rage and embarrassment. This is my city, how dare they? And this is my city, how did I let it happen? They ring the Brisbane area from in as close as Toowong, west to Darra, south to Rochedale and almost as far north as Noosa.
I’ve had people try and make sense of their location, maybe read some sort of pattern in it, but no, other than surrounding Brisbane there’s no real sense to them. Certainly no logic that we can ascertain.
Lissa has assembled thirty-nine teams of three. Three’s enough, I think, to deal with a house full of Stirrers. I’ll be taking a place on my own. Lissa’s leading a team into Ascot. Even Lundwall is in on the act, he’ll be taking a team into a place in Bardon, not far from the cemetery.
Tim’s staying at Number Four. Monitoring everything from there. Knives glint in the strip lighting, people are suited up, body armor beneath their jackets. This is as professional a raid as I’ve ever seen, and I can’t help but think of Dad in his daggy and somewhat crushed sports jacket, hunting Stirrers back in the day.
He’d have laughed at what he would have seen as overkill. But things have changed in the last six months. Different generation. Different problems. Too bloody right.
I look at my watch, it’s after one. The office is quiet but for our prep. Maybe we’ve got it wrong, or maybe all we ever needed to do was destroy a few Stirrer strongholds. Imagine if it’s that easy.
If only I could believe it.
I’ve run through our strategy twice, but I can see that people are still working it through in their minds. The northern teams are already on their way. This last bunch are inner suburbs, they can be ready in less than half an hour.
“Any questions?” I say.
“No,” Lundwall says. “We get in there, and we stall these things, seems pretty simple to me.”
“Don’t get too cocky,” I say. “They’ll be on the ceiling, maybe in the roof. Be careful.”
Lissa pats my back. “It’s OK. You’re not the only one who’s been hunting Stirrers these last few months. We’ll deal.”
“Watch out for traps, pit traps and dogs. And if anyone has trouble, call it in, and call me. I will shift there as fast as I can.”
It should be quick in and quick out.
The moment I arrive I can feel it, I’m alert to the sensation. The rot at the edges, where the Stirrers’ influence is strong enough to kill everything but the hardiest and hungriest of bacteria. The trees around the place are dead, one looks about ready to fall over in the next strong breeze. The lawn is a sere old thing slipping away to dust.
The house is a big brick-veneer building, built in the mid-eighties in a boom time. It’s in the heart of the suburb of Sinnamon Park, on the western fringe of the city. The building has a huge glass frontage, with Doric pillars leading toward the front door. It projects despair, and not just because it lacks any architectural integrity. The place is a complete mess, but it would be worse if the Stirrers’ presence hadn’t killed off all the weeds and creeping vines.
I kick open the door and—
Ears ringing.
On my arse. Coughing.
The hou
se a flaming wreck, bits of brick and glass are still raining down.
The dead tree is now on the other side of the road and it’s burning.
For a moment, all I can think of is Molly Millions, my dog. And my house, the one that Morrigan blew up. I shake my head to stop the ringing. Doesn’t work. All along the street, car alarms start their shrieking. I can barely see through the smoke. I shake my head.
I grab my phone with numb fingers, drop it, scrabble along the ground to pick it up. I try to call Tim. The line’s busy.
Lissa!
I shift to her position, the building isn’t a building anymore.
Then come the deaths.
They slam into me worse than any explosion.
But I can feel Lissa’s heartbeat.
She’s still alive!
Not here, out the back.
I race around the ruined building, and there she is, in the backyard. Up against the fence. Stunned. She blinks, wipes at her gritty face until I hiss at her to stop. Not to move. Everyone else is dead here.
“What happened?” she says, as I search her body desperately for injuries. She’s all right.
“Gone, they’re all gone. It was a trap.”
“Can’t be. Where’s Clare? I sent her around the front, thought she’d be safer.”
I shake my head. I just pomped her. Clare, and so many other young Pomps.
It’s happening again!
“I’ll get you out of here,” I say, holding her to me. I shift.
Phones are ringing off the bloody hook at Number Four. And no one is answering them. At least ten Pomp souls have found themselves here, confused and babbling. People are crying as they send them to the Underworld. I’ve Lissa in my arms. I stride to the sick bay. The door opens, Dr. Brooker’s not here.
“What the fuck happened?” Tim demands, running in after me.
“No time,” I say, and lay Lissa down on the bed in the sick bay.
“Is she OK?”
“Call Dr. Brooker.”
“And what about you?”
I don’t answer, just shift from the office to the first building on my list. All the Pomps I’d sent there are dead. Souls milling on the fringes of the chaos. The house is a black flower of rubble and pipes gushing water. A secondary explosion goes off somewhere. I gather their souls into me and move on.
Each house is more of the same. And at each residence I pomp more souls, not everyone made it back to Number Four. It is the least I can do, and the most. The mortality rate is nearly total. A few survive. A few I pull from the rubble. Emergency services are already on their way.
Michael. Charlize and Owen. So many. So many of my best are dead.
Lundwall’s spirit finds me, or I find him. He’s in his best suit, looking as stiff and awkward as ever.
He blinks at me. “I’m sorry,” he says, and it tears me up inside.
Why are the dead always so sorry? It’s not his fault. He should be angry. He should be trying to take this out on me. But instead, I think he’s about to cry. This was his first job out of the office. And he worked so hard.
I can barely meet his gaze, but I have to.
“You’ve nothing to be sorry about,” I say.
“Yes, but I do, I heard the click as I opened the door. Maybe if I’d yelled—”
He did better than me.
“No, it was too late by then.”
“I failed you.”
“No, I failed you.” I touch his soul. It slides through me like a razor, and I bear the pain silently.
Poor, poor Lundwall.
He’s not the first, and he’s not the last, but his pomp stays with me. It haunts me more than any death I’ve known since the Schism. How did I let this happen again?
I shift back to Number Four. Brooker and Tim are talking softly, my heart stops for a moment until I see Lissa walk from the sick bay, white hospital blanket around her shoulders. She looks OK, more shocked than anything.
I know I should go over to them. But I have just pomped so many of my best. People I sent to die. I can’t face them, not Dr. Brooker, Tim or Lissa. Instead I walk to the lift and take it down. Hoping that no one has seen me. Not really caring if they have.
19
On the ground floor, I hesitate at the door, maybe the first time I’ve ever hesitated going out.
I’m the only one here, there’s no one at the desk. Then I remember why. Bill Kemble who worked it was one of the Pomps that died this afternoon; no one’s thought to replace him. Maybe I should just get back up there. But the thought fills me with a grim panic. I have to get out, just for a little while.
This is all my fault, how can it be anything but? I was the one that spoke to my Ankous yesterday about being responsible. Sure it had seemed sexy and powerful then, and it had made Lissa smile. But right now just the thought of those words makes me want to vomit.
I never expected this to happen, but surely some part of me must have known. I search my soul, and I can find no presentiment of my Pomps’ deaths. If I could I’d take some comfort in the challenge this throws to the schedule, that it’s not set in stone. But I can’t see a joy in uncertainty, only more fear, and more pain.
Lissa’s going to be OK, but that doesn’t bring back the dead.
The lift doors closing behind me makes up my mind.
Wait too long and people are going to find me here whether I want them to or not. I lean against the front door, and stumble out onto George Street. I swear I can smell smoke. The air buzzes with the distant droning of sirens. News choppers are racing through the sky. Our raid has given everyone something to talk about. Every suburb is burning.
I push my way through the late afternoon press of crowds, my clothes torn and smelling of blood and fire—everyone gets out of my way. A cool wind, blown up from the river, pushes me down the street, and I let it take me.
HD’s a smiling presence mocking me endlessly, pushing me deeper into shock rather than making me more resilient.
The closer I get to Queen Street Mall, the more people I encounter. Regular oblivious folk, all of whom—if the schedule is correct, if the feeling deep within me is right—will be dead far, far sooner than they expect.
The sky is gray and cold, obscuring the pale light of the comet, though every now and then a break in the clouds lets some of the luminosity through.
Dislocated. Hungry for distraction, I stare at these poor soon-tobe-dead things.
Typically for Brisbane, the instant the temperature drops a few degrees, everyone has their jackets out, and most of them are at least a decade old. They just don’t get nearly enough wear to justify buying a new one every year (or even every decade). When winter comes, Brisbanites suddenly dress like it’s the nineties.
The eerie blue light of the comet reflects off everything. I find it grimly appropriate that this thing from the Deepest Dark should paint the city in such an unearthly luminescence.
The clouds close again, the wind strengthens and suddenly rain falls. That soaking, cool, Brisbane autumn rain that has more than a bit of winter in it. Water crashes down, not raindrops but rainstrands. There’s a thunderclap that must echo all the way out to Logan. I don’t jump, I’d seen the lightning flash, but still it startles me. Dulls my senses, like storms always do.
A hand grabs me from behind. I’m spun around and into the face of a very angry Lissa. Damn storm, it had shielded her presence from me.
“Steve, just what the fuck are you doing?”
“I can’t handle this anymore,” I say. “I tried and I failed. I just killed 110 of my best Pomps. I killed them. I was responsible for that.”
“Did you set the bombs? Did you invite the Stirrers into our world?”
“No, I—”
“No, you listen to me, Steve. I love you, but Christ you can be a whinging prick. They died because we are trying to save the world. They knew it was a risk, we all did.
“It’s a tragedy. But you, staying out here, doing nothing, running away, what doe
s that do to their memory?”
“I let them down.”
“No,” she slaps my face, hard. “You did your best. And you’ll keep doing your best. Because you’re all we have. Because you’re my Steven de Selby, and through luck, mischance, whatever the fuck it is, right here and now the whole world needs you to keep it together. And if you don’t, I’ll kill you myself.”
She kisses me hard, in the rain and the cold, in the middle of the Queen Street Mall. It’s passionate and brief, because a familiar foulness has filled my mouth. It drives Lissa back, and has me gasping.
“Are you all right?”
I cough. Spit up something dark, it swirls away in the rain.
Ink.
“Something’s wrong,” I say, then cough up more.
A sparrow smashes to the ground at my feet. I crouch down to look at it. It isn’t one of mine. Or maybe it was but it isn’t anymore. Its beady eyes are filmed in darkness. It shakes its tiny body and ink splatters everywhere. I reach to touch it, and it skips away, beats its wings and claws its way back into the air.
It flies raggedly around my head, and then the sparrow lands jerkily at my feet again. Ink spills from its feathers like an infection. Another lands next to it. And another. I call my crows, but I can feel their hesitation. They like this about as much as I do. They want to be anywhere but here.
I cough more ink.
“Out of here, now,” I say to Lissa. She doesn’t move, just holds my hand.
The first sparrow looks at me through its filmy eyes. It coughs once, loudly, then after hopping in the direction of my feet, it springs up into the air straight at my head. I fling up my hands. I’m barely moving before it’s pecked at the soft flesh between my forefinger and thumb.
The crows above me caw, but they don’t come any closer.
Sparrows, it’s always the fucking sparrows.
The first sparrow, the one that drew blood, flutters clumsily in the air a few feet from me. It gives out a peculiar little chirp, and the other birds lift into the air, fanning out around me.
The Business Of Death, Death Works Trilogy Page 66
