The Business Of Death, Death Works Trilogy (103 page)

I shake my head, there’s been blood enough. “That was in the old regime. Things have changed, and considerably. I’m Orcus. The Stirrers are defeated. I think I can decide how this is done.”

HD rails inside of me. I feel it rattling the cage, it’s never liked this decision. But I know it for the wind and bluster that it is. We’ve had that fight. And I won.

And, while everything is in flux, I need to act.

Right now it isn’t strong enough to do anything, but in a year or two that strength might grow again. In a year or two it might start to work at the weaknesses I know I possess and the ones I don’t have a clue about.

HD only ever came back to me because it was frightened and it knew that it could eventually bend me to its will again. I’m not going to let it.

I’m playing my game this time.

I close my eyes and release HD into each of my Ankous, it’s a
sensation akin to pulling the finger bones from your flesh. And each time I do it, like pomping, it gets worse. I’m tearing something integral from me. And as I pass that power onto each I am diminished.

So I do it as quickly as I can. Rip the bloody bandage off. Doesn’t make it any less painful for anyone though.

As the last of it goes, I look over at Tim. The beach seems emptier than I remember it, and I realize that I can’t see the dead anymore.

Tim looks at me hesitantly and takes a deep breath. I shake my head.

“This isn’t for you,” I say. “You have a family. You never wanted this.” And I don’t want to say it, because I love him, but I don’t quite trust what he might become. “And Lissa needed it.”

“I know,” Tim says, and he sounds relieved but that relief quickly shifts to anger. He jabs a finger into my chest. “I told you to negotiate with the Water. But this, Steve. This!”

Tim looks over at Lissa. I can’t read his expression, sorrow maybe, pity perhaps, but when he turns back to me, the look is nothing but despair and rage.

“She’s going to need your help,” I say.

Tim’s lip quivers. “So, you’re gonna leave us to clean up this mess, it’s…Christ, I’ve lost my mum, my dad, and now…”

“Shit, mate…Tim. I don’t want to go. But I have to. You see that wave? The only thing that’s stopping it is the deal I made. The deal I have to follow through with. I know you thought that when this was over we’d all grab a beer, and everything would be like it was. But that was never going to happen. I’m lucky that I’m even getting this moment.”

I’m running out of time, I gently push him away. “Look after my…just look after her.” Lissa, leaning on Brooker’s shoulder, is already walking towards us, across the beach, sick of waiting. It’s hard to tear my gaze from her, but I do because I need to see that Tim is getting this, that he understands how hard this is for me. And I think he does.

“I will. Not that Lissa … she’ll be OK,” Tim says, wiping at his eyes.

I shake my head. “We all need help from time to time.” I hand him the Knives of the Negotiation. “And these. Guard these. They’ve been nothing but trouble.”

Letting them go, I realize how heavy they were. I feel my shoulders lift, and for a moment guilt rises in me, passing these blades on to a man I love like a brother. But that’s what we all do in the end: we pass everything on.

“You’re never going to let me leave this job are you?”

“Not likely, mate. You’re too good at it.”

Tim holds the knives warily. “Yeah, I’ll make sure they’re safe.”

“Hide them,” I say. “Hide the bloody things as cleverly as you can. You say goodbye to Sally for me, and the kids. Tell them that we won, and that we were all very brave.”

I hug him then, tight. I fight back a sob, and hold him. For a second, Tim’s motionless, and I think he’s never going to forgive me.

But then he hugs me back, nearly crushes me.

Behind him the Ankous, Regional Managers newly instated, look more confused than ever. Promotions are usually much harder in this business. Only Cerbo seems happy. He grins at me. I know the bastard will do Suzanne proud.

I’m just a man now.

Not a Pomp. Nothing beyond the human I was when I came into this world, and I feel as naked, as powerless as a baby. I wish I was as ignorant.

But I know what lies ahead. I walk to Lissa. She stands, leaning on Dr. Brooker. Her fingers touch her stomach, with an almost endearing hesitancy, feeling for the wounds that are no longer there. Her face is flushed with new power. There’ll be a soft voice whispering darkly within her.

I remember how Suzanne once talked about sacrifice. What it takes to become an RM. I think I finally understand her, and maybe why they chose me for this. Maybe they gave up everything because they knew that when it came to it, I’d be able to give this greater power away.

The things I know about Death are this:

Death can never be one person, one thing. When the Hungry Death ruled there was only madness and blood. Leave it for too long lodged inside me and that was where we were headed. Despite my deal, I think I would have given this up anyway.

Lissa blinks. “I can hear the heartbeats of the…this was in your head?” She touches my brow. Her fingers are warm, electric. My throat tightens.

“Yes, but it was louder. I had the World’s Pulse to contend with.” Even now I can’t resist being a show-off. Why do I always need to impress this woman?

“It’s terrifying isn’t it?” she says.

“Terrifying and wonderful.” I grab her hand, push it against my chest. “There, you can feel mine. Can you hear it?”

She frowns, then smiles. “Yes.”

“Don’t forget it.”

“I won’t.”

There has always been a wall between us. When she was dead and I was alive. When she was mortal and I was RM. Same wall, we’ve just swapped sides. She has countless days ahead. Mine are gone.

“Mr. D will help you,” I say in a rush. “One thing I’ve learned is to never leave a power vacuum. You’ll be better than me, I know that.”

“Leave?” Lissa pulls her hand from mine. “Where are you going?”

“I’m so sorry,” I say.

And, for the first time, I think she notices the wave. “What in all fuck is that?”

The wave top keeps spilling over and it’s getting worse. I realize that, as I’ve walked up the beach, it’s followed me.

The wave higher than the Gold Coast Towers thrums like a three-hundred-meter tall guitar string. Its tip, on the verge of breaking, reaches over us. Those who aren’t Pomps or RMs, regular folk like me, have already run for cover. Pointless, of course. If this wave breaks, the whole city, and those glass and steel citadels within it, will be ground out, drowned in sea and rage. But all of us cling onto whatever extra moments of life we can manage. I understand that as well as anyone.

And this is imposing in a truly terrifying way. It’s an effort not to cower beneath the wave, but I refuse to.

All this spectacle for one man.

“Please excuse me,” I say to Lissa. “I have to sort this out first.”

“You don’t need to be so threatening,” I say to the Death of the Water. “I keep my promises.”

Water’s voice is a whisper in my ear. Its actions are loud enough. “You’re done. You’re just a mortal now. You don’t come with me, calamity will prevail and death and death and death.”

HD would have loved this, it’s probably grinning like mad in his thirteen new hosts. I resist checking the faces of my old Ankous.

“Now that’s just nasty,” I say. “I need ten minutes, you can’t want more trouble with my people.”

I turn back and survey the beach. All my Pomps are there. Not one of them has fled. They might look as terrified as I feel, but they haven’t deserted me.

“Ten you shall have, for I am patience. I am cold and measured in my waiting, the steady engine of the currents and the slide of—”

“That better not be part of my ten fucking minutes,” I say.

“What’s he talking about?” Lissa says.

“I’m saying goodbye, my love.”

Lissa’s eyes widen. For a moment I think she’s about to throw a
punch at my head. Her hands clench and unclench, fury and grief vie for dominance.

“You prick, you made a bloody deal?” she says. “You went and made a deal with the sea?”

“I had no choice. Life came from the sea, and death. I needed it.” I sound stronger, braver than I feel. How can I let the mask slip now?

“And look what it’s done,” Lissa demands. “Yes, look,” I say pointing at a sky no longer lit by a comet, the Gold Coast almost as quiet as New Year’s morning. Crows are singing in the distance. I don’t know what they see, but I can imagine it. “We’ve won. That’s all that matters.”

I reach out and take Lissa’s hand. “Will you walk with me along the shore?” I glance over at Tim, but his back is to me. The Ankous, RMs I mean, are looking on with amazement. They’re weary, all of them. Tired, blood-spattered, shocked by the force of HD inside them. Each blinks as though newly dead. Most of them know more about Death than me, about the role of an RM, but none of them have experienced this.

Some try and come over to me and Lissa. Tim stops them with an arm wave.

“Not now. Later,” I hear him say. “Not now.”

He knows how to manage ministers, he knows how to manage RMs. I feel a momentary burst of pride. Tim herds them away from the water, but he doesn’t turn to me.

We’ve said our goodbye.

“You can’t,” Lissa says at last. I can see her trying to process this on top of everything else, our victory, her new power.

“I have to.”

I knew it was heading this way. That was the deal that I had made. The plan I had planned. Sure, part of me had hoped otherwise, but everyone does when they’re dealing with Death, no matter what Death it is.

I don’t like seeing my girl cry. I don’t. I don’t want to say goodbye. But she’s got part of me inside her now, part of what I was, and if she’s more wicked as a result, she’s stronger, too.

And she always was stronger than me. I saved her once, pulled an Orpheus Maneuver, but only because she was resolute enough for the both of us. Lissa will be better than me. I gave it to her, just as I was given the Orcus: because she will do what is right.

“You knew this was coming,” I say. “Some time, sooner or later. You had to. Listen, please, you have to hear this out, because I don’t have much time. You can’t bring me back. You’ll tear the world down if you do, the world we’ve just saved.”

“You stupid, stupid man,” Lissa whispers, but there’s no hatred there, just shock, and she kisses me. And the kiss doesn’t feel quite real, because I’m desperately trying to take it all in. Store the memory as deeply and clearly as I can.

The feel of her lips.

The taste of her mouth. The tongue that searches for and meets mine. It should be a perfect kiss, but it can’t be.

Longing, exhaustion and fear ruin it.

I want to hold her, and hold her and hold her. I want to devour and be devoured. And to laugh and to make a life with her. I want these things forever. But I can’t have them. No one gets that. Not even a man who was Death.

I have to stop.

Why are there always more words to be said? Why can’t I just leave it at a kiss? “Look after Tim for me. Don’t know what he’s going to do now that I’m not around.”

And it’s as though I’ve summoned him. Tim’s walking in our direction, almost breaking into a run. So much for last goodbyes.

Hands tug at me, pull me back towards the face of the water. I look from Tim to Lissa.

“We’ll get you back,” Tim shouts, eyes frantically searching the shoreline as though the answer might lie along the water’s edge. “I swear, we’ll get you back.”

“I don’t think you can,” I say. Lissa’s perfectly still, caught between moments on the cusp of a despair she didn’t see coming.

There’s rage there too, and I can’t blame her. I’m familiar with that pain. Living is pain as much as it is anything. I guess it’s remarkable that we find any happiness at all.

But we do.

“Here, I am,” I say to the Water. “Here I am, the last one. The balance that undoes all that I’ve ruined.”

“It will hurt,” the Death of the Water says.

“I am familiar with hurt.” I wish the words didn’t catch in my throat, that I didn’t stumble over them, that I sounded less frightened.