The Business Of Death, Death Works Trilogy (38 page)

“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 practice?”

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 realizes 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 focused 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 parlor 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 realize how badly I’d let work slip.”

That’s not true. I knew, but I just couldn’t find a way out. Can’t say that I have yet. But at least I’m trying.

“We were never going to let you fall too far,” Tim says. “We love you too much. Now be safe.”

“I will.” I shut the door behind me. If I really wanted to be safe there’s no way I’d do what I’m about to do.

There’s a doorway—and though its door is very heavy, it’s never closed—that leads to a hallway, which in turn leads to Aunt Neti’s parlor.

Every region’s headquarters has one. As I walk toward the portal, conversation in the workspace dies down. I straighten my back, check my hair in a mirror near the door. I sigh. It’ll have to do. Still no one has said a word. I turn around: a dozen pairs of eyes flick this way and that.

“Don’t you all have work to do?”

A phone rings. Someone starts typing away furiously. A stapler snap, snap, snaps.

I enter the hallway, suddenly I need to pee. But I can’t, I have to stay on the path.

No turning back now.

T
he hallway creaks and groans, echoing the One Tree. Two, three steps in and the sounds of phones ringing, the beating of hearts, the snap of staplers grow muted. Then there’s just silence, but for that creaking and groaning. The brown carpet ripples in sympathy with a floor that buckles with the stress of keeping a link between dimensions. It’s hard to stay on your feet here, but I do my best, and I don’t need to grab a wall to steady myself.

My right biceps starts burning. I take a few more steps and Wal pushes his way out from under my shirt sleeve. He flaps his wings and grins at me.

“Hello again,” he says, then his eyes widen. His little head swings from left to right. “Bugger, wasn’t expecting this.” His voice is low and quiet.

Neither was I. The last time I walked down this hallway, about a month ago, Wal didn’t appear. Something’s happening that shouldn’t. Just another thing to disturb me. At least I have company. Wal settles down on my shoulder and considers the walls and the rippling floor, his face pinched with distaste.

The closer I get to Neti’s door, the heavier Wal gets. There’s a subtle hint in the air of scones freshly baked; of butter, jam and cream. Aunt Neti’s expecting company.

I reach her front door and lift my hand toward the brass knocker which is shaped like a particularly menacing spider.

The door swings open.

“Good morning, dear,” Aunt Neti says. Her eyes dart toward Wal, and the little guy almost topples from my shoulder. “Oh, and you’ve brought a friend with you, and not your rude Ankou, this time. How sweet.”

Seeing Neti is like looking at an iceberg and knowing there are immeasurable depths beneath it. More than nine-tenths, I’m betting. And she’s terrifying enough as it is. Aunt Neti is all long limbs and bunches of eyes—eight of each. A purple shawl is wrapped around her shoulders. She straightens it a little, with a spare hand or two, and bends down to peck me on the cheek. Her lips are cold and hard, and the peck so swift and forceful that I’m sure I’ll have bruises tomorrow.

Aunt Neti bustles me inside, all those hands patting and pushing and pulling at once, so I’m not quite sure what she’s touching, just that I’m being moved from doorway to parlor and that my pockets hold no secrets from her. Her nails are black and sharpened to points, and they click click click with her pinching and prodding. It’s all done before I can even put up a struggle. I’ve gotta say it’s not that much of a stretch to imagine that’s how a fly would feel as it’s spun and bound in spider’s silk.

She shuts the door behind her. Wal’s keeping away from those hands, though at least a couple of her eyes follow him. And I’m making the decision that you always have to make when you’re talking to her: which eyes do you look at? I choose a bunch in the middle of her face. The ones with the most smile lines. They’re crinkling now.