Managing Death (3 page)

I open my eyes. Oh, yes, the ‘interventionists’ haven’t left. How much have they seen?

‘You don’t have a clue how hard I work,’ I say, but they do, and they’re right.

‘That’s just it,’ Lissa says. ‘You’re working so hard at avoiding everything that you’re going to avoid everything out of your life. You’ve come unstuck, you’re drifting, and you haven’t even noticed it.’

Tim’s nodding. I glare at him.

‘Steve, you’re even more disengaged than you were when Robyn left.’

Now, that’s just too low. Robyn’s my ex. She couldn’t handle me being a Pomp and it took me years to get over that. It took Lissa, and the loss of nearly everything that I cared about. Surely I’m not … ‘That’s bullshit!’

‘What’s bullshit is the amount of work Lissa and I have had to do to cover for you. When was the last time you spoke to another RM?’

I’d initially tried really hard to keep in touch with them. To start a discussion about a global response to the Stirrer god. Nothing, silence. The global response had been for every RM to ignore my emails and my calls. If they weren’t going to speak to me, I wasn’t going to speak to them. ‘They’re all pricks and backstabbers,’ I say.

Tim nods. ‘Exactly, and you’ve left us to deal with them. The whole Orcus, and no RM to bat for us. Thanks a lot, mate.’

‘Well, you’re my Ankou.’

Tim nods. ‘And I’ll watch your back. But I’m not here to wipe your arse. If this keeps going on … we’re both out of here.’

Lissa’s face is as resolute as I have ever seen it. ‘Do you know how hard I’ve been working? Hunting down
new staff in Melbourne, Perth, Mount Isa, Coober Pedy? I’ve run around this country, God knows how many times, trying to find you people who at the very least have a chance of not dying on the job. And you’re hardly interested. Have you spoken to any of them after their interview? Have you made yourself available to any of them?’

I open my mouth to speak: what about Meredith? But once, just once, isn’t enough of a defence. They’re right. I know they’re right, but if they could sit in this throne … dream my dreams … They’re right. ‘So what do you want me to do?’

‘Today?’ Tim asks. ‘Or from now on?’

‘Both.’

Tim beams at me. ‘That’s what I want to hear. A bit more enthusiasm would be nice, though.’

I lean back in my chair. ‘All right. All right. Where do I start?’

Lissa unfolds her arms, walks to the desk and takes up another chair. ‘The Death Moot. Let’s start with that. The business we can get to, but the Moot is a priority. You’ve got to find the Point of Convergence.’

‘Can’t we just book a hotel?’

‘Ha! This is Mortmax Industries,’ Lissa says. ‘Things don’t work that way. It’s revealed through some sort of ceremony, although I’m not sure what it entails. And Tim can hardly go and ask anyone else. How do you think the other RMs would take that?’

‘Bad. It would be bad,’ I say.

She pats the black phone on my desk. ‘You’re going to have to speak with Mr D. And after that you’re going to have to start paying attention to the business of being RM.’

I pick up the heavy handset. ‘Do I have to call him now?’

Lissa starts to fold her arms again. Tim’s face is settling into a scowl. ‘It has to be done. And today,’ Lissa says. ‘In some ways we’ve been as bad as you. We should have done this sooner. Today’s the last day you can perform the ceremony.’

More than a twinge of guilt hits me at that. They’ve been putting this off and putting this off, hoping I’d come good on my own. I can’t help feeling I’ve let them down. The business I don’t care about, but Lissa and Tim are the centre of my world.

Yet there’s part of me wondering how they could have let this get so far. Ah, more guilt! I put the phone to my ear.

‘I was wondering when you would call,’ Mr D says, without the slightest pause. There’s a large quantity of affront in his voice. Maybe the bastard has some feelings after all. I certainly didn’t witness them when he was alive.

‘Are you in on this, too?’ I ask.

‘Mr de Selby, I have no idea what you mean.’

‘I need to talk to you.’

‘Yes, you should have been talking to me for some time, but you haven’t. Oh well, it’s never too late to
start.’ He chuckles. ‘Until it’s too late. And you are running out of time.’

‘I’ll be there soon.’

‘Don’t keep me waiting.’

I put the handset back in the cradle. ‘There,’ I say.

Both Tim and Lissa stare at me.

‘Don’t you two have work to attend to?’

Tim smiles thinly. ‘Of course we do.’ He’s out of my office without a backwards glance.

Lissa stays a moment, touches my arm. ‘It had to be done,’ she says. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be. You’re both right.’ I grab her wrist as she pulls away, and squeeze it gently. Flesh and bone. I doubt I’ll ever get used to being able to touch her. ‘I’m just happy that you care enough to do this.’ I’m not sure that I sound all that convincing. I’ve got to see Mr D. I’ve suddenly got work to do.

Lissa bends down and kisses my cheek. ‘Dying isn’t the only way a girl can lose someone,’ she says.

I want to ask her if that’s a threat, or a fear, or a promise. Talk of Robyn has got my head in something of a spin. I could do with a drink.

Instead, I get to my feet, prepare myself for my shift into the Underworld and say, ‘Don’t worry, you haven’t lost me yet.’

I let go of her wrist and, looking into her eyes, I disappear – or she and the office do. I’m not sure which it is. One reality is exchanged with another, the air folds around me, changes density, and taste. Light, sound, all
of it is instantly different. I’m bathed in the red glow of the Underworld.

The shift is hard. This one makes me sick, literally. Mr D pats my back until the vomiting stops. ‘You do understand that it gets easier the more you practise?’

I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. ‘Yeah, but it’s the practice that’s so hard.’ He passes me a glass of water, obtained from a small tank by his chair. I gulp it down, and take in my surroundings. This is Hell of course, but what a view. I’m standing on one of the uppermost branches of the One Tree. The Underworld equivalent of the city of Brisbane is beneath us, suburbia stretching out to the dark waters of the Tethys, the CBD’s knuckles of skyscrapers constrained as Brisbane is bound up in a ribbon of river. The air is loud with the creaking of the One Tree. It permeates everything in the Underworld. The One Tree is the place where souls go to end their existence. It draws them here from across the Underworld and absorbs them, down into its roots and into the great secrets of the Deepest Dark. It’s a Moreton Bay fig tree, bigger than any city, with root buttresses the size of suburbs. It’s also where my old boss hangs out. Dead but not dead, he waits here to act as my mentor in all things RM.

There’s a cherub by the name of Wal fluttering about my head. He looks a little plumper than I remember him, but I wouldn’t say that to Wal. He’s rather sensitive, comes from spending most of his existence as a tattoo on my arm. In fact, it looks like he’s already pissed off.
His Modigliani eyes are narrower than usual. It’s been a good couple of weeks since I was in the Underworld, and it’s only here, or close to it, that he can manifest. He gets rather shirty if he can’t spread his wings. I do my best to ignore him. I only have enough strength for one intervention today.

‘You know why I’m here?’ I ask Mr D.

‘It’s the 20th of December. Must be getting hot up there. I was always fond of Christmas in Brisbane. Are the cicadas singing? Have they put up the Christmas tree in King George Square?’

‘Yes, but –’

‘It can be very lonely in Hell,’ Mr D says, and his face, which notoriously shifts through a dozen expressions in a second, grows even more furious in its changes. ‘Particularly when you are in someone’s employ. Specifically to advise that someone. To steer them through the roughest channels of their job away from the snares and the rocks of Orcusdom. To save them making the same mistakes you did. And yet, they never visit you. Never call. Never ask for advice.’ He nods to his armchair, the single piece of furniture on the branch, and the stack of old science-fiction novels beside it. ‘I’m running out of things to read, and without you I can’t even go fishing. When did you last drop a mercy pile of books down here? When did you last reply to one of my invitations on Facebook, or comment on an update? You’re not even following me on Twitter.’

‘He really is rubbish, isn’t he?’ Wal says to Mr D. ‘I can’t fly, can’t do a thing when I’m stuck on that arm. And would it hurt to use a little deodorant, mate?’ He lands heavily on my shoulder. Talk about the weight of opinion. And I’m not too happy about being that close to all that pudgy nakedness.

I raise my hands in supplication and defeat. This all would have been a lot easier if I’d had something to drink beforehand. ‘You’re right. Both of you are right. I’m sorry. I’ll do better. I have to.’

‘I forgive you,’ Mr D says, grinning a dozen various but magnanimous grins. ‘But you owe me.’

I clench my jaw, try not to make it obvious. ‘Yeah, I owe you. But, finally, I’m here to make you work.’

Mr D dips his head knowingly. ‘Yes. You need to find the Point of Convergence. Without it, you can no more have a Death Moot than you could hold the Olympics
sans
stadium. And without the Point of Convergence you cannot engage the Caterers.’

‘I thought we could just hire someone from a restaurant.’

Mr D chortles, exchanges an amused glance with Wal. ‘And they would be able to enter the nexus between the living and the Underworld, how?’

Wal’s laughing too, holding his belly. ‘Oh, he’s beyond bloody naive!’

‘Yeah, beyond naive,’ I say, feeling sick. Which is either the residue of the shift, my embarrassment at not knowing this and the fear of all the other things I don’t
understand, or just possibly the throbbing filament of rage that is firing up in my brain at all this mockery. ‘And I will continue to be beyond naive if you do not educate me.’

‘Right,’ Mr D says, ‘the Point of Convergence is revealed through a ceremony. This is what you need to do …’

By the end of his instructions, I’m less than pleased.

He gives me a hearty pat on the back. ‘You’ll be fine, son. Be careful with those Caterers, though. You don’t want to piss them off. Oh, and the canapés, you want them to do the canapés – they have this thing they do with an oyster …’

Son? Mr D never calls me son.

Maybe boy, or Steven, or de Selby. Just what is he up to? This is why I’ve barely used him as a mentor. Too many riddles, too much in the way of diversion – and I don’t think he even realises he’s doing it.

He hands me a piece of paper and a pen. ‘Oh, and I need you to sign this.’

‘What is it?’

‘A release. A legal and magical document. It allows me at least a modicum of movement. Sometimes I would like to be able to visit my friends. Aunt Neti is down there, as are the markets. How am I supposed to sample the Underworld if I am trapped here on the branches of the Tree?’

Seems fair enough. Maybe a little
too
fair.

I glance at him suspiciously and he smiles, almost looks innocent, but for the tumble of faces that follow. Mr D can never settle on just one.

Still, out of guilt at my neglect of him, I sign it.

‘Don’t be a stranger,’ he says, and looks at his watch. ‘You better get going. I can’t believe you’ve left it so late.’

Neither can I. The one thing I don’t want to mess up is a Death Moot. Ruin this, and I’m on my own. And that Stirrer god is approaching. The End of Days is approaching, and it seems I’ve gotta jump through a whole lot of bloody hoops to stop it.

‘Oh, and next time? Some books, please,’ Mr D says. ‘Now shoo!’

Another shift.

Back in my office.

I take a deep breath. Maybe it is getting easier. Then I throw up in my wastepaper bin, noisily and messily.
Bloody shifting
. I rinse my mouth out with cold coffee, put the bin as far away from the desk as possible, to be dealt with later, and walk out into the open workspace of Number Four. People are busy coordinating pomps, getting the right people to the right place. The floor beneath us would be just as hectic, though they deal with the business end of Mortmax: the stuff that finances all of this. Our shares are doing quite well at the moment, so Tim tells me.

I knock on Tim’s door.

‘Enter,’ he says somewhat officiously.

I poke my head in. Tim’s having a smoke. He juts his jaw out, daring me to comment. I don’t take the bait.

‘Lissa out on a job?’ I ask.

‘Yeah. There’s a stir expected at the Wesley Hospital.’ I remember the last time I was there. Seven Stirrers and me, one of the few Pomps left alive in Brisbane. Still gives me the shivers.

‘I miss her when she’s not around.’

Tim snorts at that. ‘Ah, young love. Give it time. The missing goes, along with all the sex. Believe me.’ Yeah, right, I know how much he misses Sally. Young love, indeed.

‘OK, I just wanted to tell you that if anything goes wrong with this whole Convergence Ceremony thing it’s your fault.’

Tim stabs the cigarette butt into his ashtray. ‘That bad is it?’

‘I have to see Aunt Neti.’

Tim smiles wanly. Aunt Neti freaks him out. Maybe it’s the eight arms, or the murderous glint in her eyes. ‘You going now? Do you want someone to come with?’ It’s the least earnest sounding offer I’ve ever heard. But no surprise there. Our first meeting had been rather memorable, Aunt Neti’s predatory eyes focussed on the both of us as she recounted tales of particularly bloodthirsty Schisms. She’d been very annoyed when Tim didn’t finish his scones. His joke about avoiding carbs had fallen curiously flat, and the air in Neti’s
parlour had chilled considerably. I thought she was going to tear his head off.

‘Yeah, I’m going now. Better to get it over and done with, obviously. And thanks, but I need to do this one alone. I want to.’ At least I can manage to sound like I mean it.

‘OK.’ Tim can’t hide the relief in his voice. ‘On the plus side you’ve only got a short walk.’

A short walk to Hell; well, a particular part of it. ‘I’ll talk to you when I get back. I’m going to need your help with the ceremony,’ I say. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t realise how badly I’d let work slip.’