The Business Of Death, Death Works Trilogy

by Trent Jamieson

  If the world doesn’t end tomorrow, he’s going to wish it had.

  Where do you find Death?

  This I can tell you. You search bus stations, train stations, taxi ranks. Places in the nowhere between somewhere, where minutes count down. Boredom and despair are closely aligned, and they live at these stations of waiting, where you think you’re only waiting to go somewhere, but you’re really waiting to die.

  It’s the waiting that kills you. Here as much as any emergency ward, or hospital bed. Few people go out in a blaze of glory. Most just wait to die. Maybe that’s all we’re ever doing.

  My phone rings several times, but I ignore it. I need to concentrate on HD. And that’s hard enough with the portal in the earth-Hell interface and all those Stirrers running so much interference. But the thin thread of connection between HD and me never wavers. We’ve shared intimacies so deep that in many ways I’m still HD in part and it is still me.

  I check Roma Street Station. Nothing. I search the bus stops beneath King George Square, feet aching, missing my ability to shift, but hurrying fast, despite the blisters building against the backs of my heels. Everywhere people are trying to get out of the city, catching taxis, trains, the few buses left.

  And all of them wear that dazed expression that too much exposure to Stirrers engenders. If the commute home wasn’t habitual, if my Pomps weren’t helping enforce the evacuation: a lot of them would be staying put.

  And there will still be those who do.

  I can imagine people, unbraced, falling asleep in offices and never waking again; though their body will walk, their minds will plan, their hands will search out weapons.

  Stirrers drain will as much as life. They’ve a gravity that’s hard to escape and I know that more intimately now than I ever really wanted to. The brace symbol keeps getting hotter, but it’s still bearing the bulk of the load.

  Anyone I pass I brace, until I’ve no more paint.

  It’s easy work, people hardly seem to notice. The last person I paint, a woman on the corner of Turbot and George whispers in my ear, “It’s so alone, that I could cry.”

  Then the brace kicks in and she blinks, shakes her head and quickly walks away.

  I keep down George Street, where it becomes Roma Street, the blocky building of the Transit Center not far away. I pass the spot where I last saw my parents on this earth, and where their spirits fled after telling me they loved me and that it was all going to be all right, even if they didn’t believe it.

  It still hurts me a little. I’d been so alone, and I would have been dead too, if it wasn’t for Lissa. She’d pulled me past that and kept me alive. Though, as I’d found out, all of that was part of Morrigan’s plan. It didn’t matter, without Lissa I think I would have given up. I would never have had the strength to go on.

  The flashes of HD continue, moments of clarity, jumbled between headache-inducing shifts. Everywhere it goes it sets the Avians flying—spiralling above it as though it’s the choicest carrion. They sing, calling to it with throat-tearing longing. HD unleashed suits their predatory tendencies. They adore its messiness far more than mine, and I can’t say that I don’t feel a little hurt by that. But I don’t let it stop me.

  I catch a glimpse of Teneriffe, the water serene, but that’s not where HD’s attention is focused. The 470 bus rumbles past on its way to the CityCat. Somewhere in the shadows, HD crouches. It’s not right. There’s a hesitation that undercuts what should be typical predatory behavior. A red SUV pulls in beside it, throbbing with music, and HD shifts as though startled by the sound. Why isn’t HD letting rip, now it has its chance? I was expecting wholesale slaughter, not this timidity.

  It slides beneath the metal seats at the Springwood bus station. This is as far south as it has moved. I hope this isn’t a trend, an expansion of its territory. I’ve no chance of following it there in time.

  The 555 bus disgorges its passengers. Here is the usual gaggle of tired workers and kids back from the Hyperdome. It may be the start of the end of the world, but word doesn’t spread that quickly, and even with the comet in the sky, folk get on with their lives.

  I feel HD tense, then he’s gone.

  The bus stop outside Royal Brisbane Hospital. People waiting, caged in grief or weariness so deep that they don’t even see the chasm in the sky.

  A small stop behind the CityCat terminal at West End, here the shadows are deep, delineated by hard sulphurous lights. A drunk stumbles towards the toilets, but HD doesn’t follow.

  What the fuck is going on?

  I stop and think.

  When it dawns on me I can’t help but smile.

  “You’re mine,” I whisper. “I’m onto you.”

  That gets its attention.

  The Hungry Death’s shifting slows.

  The point around which it is moving is coming into focus. For a moment, HD is nearby, then it’s at the Cultural Center Bus Station. Then a small park near the Kurilpa Bridge. It stops there. And I know that HD is waiting for me. I’m still on George Street. And I run. How many times have I run down this street? How many times have I fled my doom? Now I’m racing toward it. The running’s hard work, I’m not the immortal creature I was a few hours ago.

  I run hard, even as a stitch tears across my stomach. Not as fit as I used to be. I reach the bridge and the edge of the river and I stop, and not just to catch my breath. I should be able to feel the water below, its connection to the Styx and the Underworld, but I can’t. It’s nothing but a bridge to me.

  I glance back towards the heart of the city. Alarm bells ring out from a hundred different buildings. And for a moment, I feel that they’re ringing for me. I can’t run anymore, but I’m nearly there.

  I step onto the bridge reflecting how just a few months ago my colleagues all sacrificed themselves here to give me HD undiluted. How would Suzanne feel about that? Here I am just a man again. There are a few people with me, staring back at the city. They don’t acknowledge me as I pass. That’s how unremarkable I have become. A man gasps, perhaps…no, he is pointing in the direction of Mount Coot-tha. This is not good. Old One Tree Hill is slickly luminous.

  And, while I may not be able to feel it I can see it, just as any regular punter can, though they won’t understand its significance. The branches of the One Tree are beginning to reveal themselves.

  Stitch or no stitch. I run. Fast as I can.

  Halfway over the bridge a force tugs at my back. I spin on my heel, lashing out with my hands. Something snags on my little finger. I yank my arm back, and my finger breaks.

  There’s a deep-throated chuckle, low and menacing. And I begin to wonder just what it was I was hoping to achieve. My head is throbbing with the presence of HD.

  For a moment there’s a breath against my neck.

  “I don’t have time for these games,” I gasp, the breath is icy, my skin crawls.

  “Games are everything,” it whispers, and I’m shocked, I’ve never heard HD outside of my skull. Just like the vision of the One Tree, it’s a moment that has me reeling. I have to concentrate not to bow down before this force. But I do not, even though I know how powerful it is.

  “Look what’s happening,” I say. “I don’t need to look. It is everywhere. The earth is full of death. And more is coming.”

  “But it isn’t yours.”

  “What of it?”

  “Aren’t you the Death of this world?”

  “I have always been,” it mumbles.

  “Not for much longer. What have you done in the last hour?”

  “I’ve—”

  I know exactly what it has done. Nothing at all. “Your chaos is the merest trifle to what the Stirrer god is capable of. Morrigan let you free, and you couldn’t be fast enough to escape me. But now, look at you, so bloody pathetic.”

  A wind blows in from across the river. It’s almost as cold as HD’s breath, and I feel it now, for all my running. The wind lifts papers, plastic bags and dust. It makes the whole mess dance, and in th
e middle of it all HD stands—not a hint of rhythm about it. It’s humanoid, hunched over. I can’t make out a face. Just the shadow. This is the Hungry Death—formless and, well, hungry.

  “I’ll claw the flesh from your bones,” HD spits. “I’ll chew and grind and crush–”

  “You’re nothing without me,” I say. “A Death brought so low that it is little more than a minor irritant. Do you think Water would laugh? Me, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.”

  “You need me,” HD says.

  “Perhaps,” I reply. “But you need me even more. How can you be Death when all you are is detritus?”

  It shifts.

  But not far. I can feel it, in the park beyond the bridge. The Gallery of Modern Art, just behind it. The gallery’s great square structure rising like some temple to a god of sharp angles, iron and glass.

  The lights on the bridge flicker. Bringing us in and out of shadow. But I don’t need vision. HD’s presence is so loud in my head, so magnetic, that I can’t help but be drawn to it.

  HD slouches there in the middle of the park. Standing still, crows circling above it. This time I don’t run. I don’t need to.

  Death waits for me, and it won’t need to wait for long.

  22

  The lights that border the park are strobing in time with the throbbing of my broken finger.

  HD has moved again. Further into the shadows, I can feel its gaze upon me. I get intense and thankfully brief flashes of myself from his perspective. I know that I am either going to win this monster back, or it’s going to kill me.

  “I’m here,” I say.

  HD shifts around me. First to my left, then to my right. Shadow things dart down from the sky. There’s a detonation of darkness, a shifting night-bound form rises before me.

  I am looking into my own eyes. A shade, a mirror thing.

  Crows line his limbs, they cover his body like a cloak. They caw and they click and they groan. I stare into hundreds of beady eyes. It’s impressive, this living cloak of Avians, but also remarkably empty. Is this all HD is capable of?

  “You need me,” I say.

  The crows lift from its limbs. “No I don’t.”

  “Yes you do. Without my form you’re just a concept. You’re too used to operating through others, generation after generation, we’ve bound you. And now,” I grin, “now you can’t handle being free. Look at you here, you desired this with all your heart. You tried your hardest to break free and, when it is finally given to you, you’re cowering in the dark. You’re the Hungry Death. You’re the nightmare, and yet you hide.”

  Crows strike me, drawing blood, but I keep going. HD and I are wrapped too tightly around each other, it can’t hurt me as much as it would like. A bird strikes my eye. Something bursts, my vision darkens. But I don’t need sight. All I require is will. “You need me.”

  I keep moving. Fluid runs down my face.

  Fingers grab at me, and suddenly I’m being lifted into the air. I struggle in that grip, but can’t get free. The Hungry Death walks to the riverside and throws me in. Cold water closes above my head. I splutter, break the surface, and gasp for breath. I’m bleeding all over, I can only see out of one eye, at least a couple of my fingers are broken. My lungs burn in my chest. My clothes grow heavy, pulling me down. I struggle out of my jacket and swim to the shore.

  HD hasn’t moved.

  “Is that all you’ve got?” I snarl as I drag myself from the water.

  He grabs me again, throws me back into the river.

  I’m slower coming out this time, shivering and cold, but I still manage it.

  “I’m going to keep coming,” I say. “I’m going to keep coming because I need you. I need you to stop Morrigan. And you need me. The world is ending, but it’s not your end. People are dying, but it’s not your death. You need me because your enemy is burning in the sky, and without me you are nothing but dust and shadows and bird shit.”

  HD strikes out at my face, I duck beneath it, then spring up fists clenched and hit back hard as I can. It’s not ready for it. Its nose crunches beneath my knuckles. I’m shivering and frail, but I’ve just broken HD’s nose. The smile I’m grinning isn’t Death’s rictus. It’s mine, fuck it. It’s mine.

  “You need me,” I growl, and punch HD in the face again, hard enough that its neck snaps back. “You fucking need me.”

  HD tries to grab me, to hold me. But I punch it hard in the stomach, dancing out of its reach.

  Crows swarm around us, like a cloud of gigantic mosquitoes.

  I can sense their hesitancy, their unwillingness to come down in support of either side now I’ve shown that I’m prepared to fight, that I’m not done with yet. But this hesitation is only going to last so long.

  HD kicks out with its long legs. It’s a movement almost too fast to see, but I manage to evade its clawed foot. With the punches that follow I’m not so lucky, but I’ve realized that it doesn’t matter. HD’s blows rain down on me, but they do not hurt. Not much. Not as they should when Death is arrayed against you. I swing out again, and knock the Hungry Death under its chin. It’s like punching a child. HD falls flat on his arse.

  It weeps, the huge gasping tears of a drunk.

  “Ape. Ape. You stupid fucking clever apes. I was DEATH! I devoured. But then you devoured me, your thirteen. So reckless, so mad. I was meant to devour. I am meant to devour!”

  The sight shocks me. I step back a little. The crows circle us, a great dark mass blocking out the comet, and obscuring the city.

  “You need me.”

  “All right. All right. I need you. I am you. AND I HATE IT! Inside you I am all potential power even if it is constantly checked. Here…here, I am nothing.” He scrambles back against the low retaining wall. Garden plants behind him. “The sky’s too big. How did it get so big?”

  I reach out. “Give me your hand.”

  He does, without hesitation, holding mine with a desperation that I didn’t quite expect.

  The air shimmers. I feel his presence enter me, the merest nail point of pressure. Then another. And another. A thousand tiny slivers, a million, and more. He slides roughly into every cell of me. HD doesn’t make it easy, but perhaps there is no other way.

  Then those tiny slivers burst. The sensation’s worse than the roughest of pomps. Imagine every cell of your body being sliced open by the edge of a sheet of paper: slow and long. Last time this process occurred in increments and even then it brought down a plane. This time it’s all at once and it’s horrible.

  The lights that line the park flare then shatter. Glass tumbles—a brittle fractured rain. I fall to my knees and howl.

  The cry that tears from my throat, raw and loud, stills the earth. It echoes back at me down from One Tree Hill, from the sky and the ground. It runs through my body like the memory of thunder. I gasp, one last weary gasp.

  All is still. I can breathe again.

  When I look up, I can see with both eyes. I’m whole once more—how did it ever come about that I required the madness of HD inside me to be whole? Crows cover the park around me, and there’s something unapologetically regal in their bearing.

  “Awcus. Awcus,” they say.

  I spit blood onto the grass, it sizzles there, as thought it were alive. “We’ve a war to fight,” I say. They lift into the air, a storm of wings and caws.

  And I hear it. That familiar rhythm, the one that nearly drove me mad, but is now so welcome because it means we still have a chance.

  The World Pulse beats in my ears. I’m Death again.

  And people are dying nearby.

  Pomps, my people.

  23

  I shift into Queen Street Mall. Screams and shouts, gunfire and smoke, and all of it lit with the cold blue light of Hell and the comet.

  The battle isn’t going well. Stirrers have taken control of Queen Street Mall, from the portal all the way up to the edge of George Street. Lissa’s at the front, her bloody hands closing around a Stirrer’s throat. I kic
k its legs out from behind.

  “Their heads,” Lissa says. “Touch alone doesn’t do it anymore, you have to mark their heads it’s the only thing that works. It’s a bitch of a job though!”

  Someone sighs, soft and sad, nearby. I turn my head. Catch a glimpse of one of my Pomps—Gale, North Sydney—having her throat torn out.

  Lissa slaps her palm against the Stirrer’s head and it drops to the ground, just as Gale rises clumsily, a Stirrer now. Lissa’s ready. She brushes Gale’s brow and stalls her too.

  I shift to her side—already people have come between us—and without a word, Lissa passes me a knife from her belt. I slide it fast across my hand. And I fight as I’ve never fought before. I shift and strike at the nearest Stirrer, then shift on to the next. I’m stalling them as swiftly as I can, and each stall is horrible and hard. But my appearance has made a difference. The tide of the battle turns.

  I lift my hands, and a hundred crows sweep over my shoulder and into the melee. I follow, bloody fists swinging. The Stirrers fall back.

  I can hear Ari yelling in the distance, her Welsh accent booming across the mall.

  We fight and time passes in blood spilt and Stirrers stalled. I can’t tell how long, except that it feels both endless and over all at once, until there are no Stirrers left, just the remnants, their corpses bubbling. My Pomps let out a ragged cheer.

  Lissa hugs me. “We could have done with that sooner,” she says.

  “I came as fast as I could.”

  “HD?”

  “We’ve come to an agreement. Whatever Morrigan did won’t happen again.”

  “So, you’re stuck with him?”

  “Yeah, and I can deal. What happened here?”

  “About half an hour after you left there was a rush of them through the portal.” Lissa sighs. “We weren’t ready for their numbers. Didn’t help that our dead ended up…you know.”

  “Yeah, fighting for the other side.”

  “Steve, it was horrible, I never thought I would have to do that again.”