I'd like to think that I could have taken over the scheduling. But a desk job's dull. Derek, on the other hand, loves it. Too bad he's doing such a miserable job.
I glance at my watch. It's going to be close. Not showing up for a meeting is the fastest route to unemployment. Punctuality, under all manner of stress and duress, is an absolute necessity in the pomping trade. A hangover doesn't even begin to cut it as an excuse.
I'm pretty sure I can make it, even riding what seems to be the slowest train in existence, but whether or not I can avoid spewing over Derek's desk is another matter. But it would be a pathetic vomit at best: the last thing I ate was that Chiko Roll.
Anyway, getting into work is going to furnish me with some answers. There's just been too much weirdness in the last couple of days. Too many things are unsettling me. If I wasn't so miserable, they'd be unsettling me even more.
I get off at Roma Street Station, ride the escalator up and out onto George Street, taking small sips of unsatisfying water as I go.
I don't notice anything is wrong until I touch the front door to Number Four.
I push, and the door doesn't give. So I push harder.
Nothing but my knuckles cracking. The door doesn't even draw its usual drop of blood. That's the way it is with Pomps. You need blood to close certain doors, and blood to open them. But not today.
Number Four is locked up tight and toothless.
My first thought is that this is Derek, that he's getting his revenge. Except the two wide glass windows either side of the door are dark. Not only that, but the brace symbol above the door has been removed. That symbol, an upside down triangle split through the middle with a not quite straight vertical line, keeps away Stirrers. It has to be refreshed every month or so, redrawn with ink mixed with a living Pomp's blood. Now it's gone, and that's crazy.
The door should have opened. The lights should be on inside. But they're not. I peer through the window to the left of the door, or try to. It's totally dark beyond. My reflection stares back at me.
I touch the door again. There should be a buzz, a sort of hum running through me on contact, but there's nothing, no sense at all that this is a point of interface between the living world and the dead one. It's just a door. A locked metal door. I glance around, there's no one I know standing around ready to tell me this is all some sort of joke.
The door leads into the vestibule of the building. There's a desk at the front. Some chairs, a couple of prints, including Mr. D's favorite painting, Brueghel's "Triumph of Death." Beyond the desk is a hallway leading to old-fashioned elevator doors, lots of brass, glass and art nouveau designs. The elevator has twelve floors marked, but our building only has eight storeys here. The other four are in the Underworld. That linkage between the living world and the dead should have me buzzing. Hell, standing this close to Number Four should have anyone buzzing.
It's the reason we don't get a lot of hawkers.
I reach toward the door again, then hesitate. Because in that moment it… changes. The door suddenly possesses a sly but hungry patience: as though it's waiting for me to touch it this time. Just put your hand up against me, eh.
Instead, I press my face against the window to the right. Again, nothing but darkness. The hair rises on the back of my neck. Then something slams against the glass.
I get a brief sensation of eyes regarding me, and of blood. A soul screams through me. It passes, as though thrown, so fast that I don't even get a sense of who it is I've just pomped. I stumble back from the window. They may have moved fast, but they'd been holding on. Their passage a friction burn, I'm seared a little on the inside.
I don't tend to get the violent deaths but I've pomped enough to recognize one. Someone has just died, savagely and suddenly. Someone I know. Maybe Tanya behind the desk, or Clive from records. Brett was always down there, too-had a thing for Tanya. "Jesus."
And then there's another one. The second death is so quick on the back of the first that I moan with the fiery biting pain of it, then retch a little. Another violent exit, another desperate but futile clawing at survival.
"Get out of here, Steven." The voice is familiar.
My mouth moves, but nothing comes for a moment. I turn toward Lissa, fight my almost instinctive desire to pomp her. At least that would be normal. But the urge passes in a wave of relief. Here she is, at last. How can she do this to me, this rising excitement, even now? But she does.
"What?"
"You have to get to Central Station," she says, sliding around me, slipping out of hand's reach, then darting in to whisper. "You need to get as far away from here as possible."
I blink at her, expect her to disappear, but this time she doesn't. In fact she seems much more together than I have ever seen her-a layer of confusion has been sloughed away and replaced with a desperate clarity.
"Hurry. We don't have much time. Someone is killing Pomps." She smiles at that, then frowns, as though the first expression was inappropriate. "You're the first one I've managed to save. And I'm getting tired of repeating myself."
The door picks that moment to open. Just a crack. A cold wind blows through it, and it's not the usual breath of air conditioning. From within comes the distant rasping of the One Tree, the Moreton Bay fig that overhangs the Underworld. That sound, a great sighing of vast wooden limbs, dominates the office. Hearing it echo out here in the street is disturbing. Christ, it terrifies me. It's as though Hell has sidled up next to the living world and has pulled out a bloody knife. I hesitate a moment. I know I should be running but those two pomps in quick succession have scattered my thoughts. And this is meant to be a place of refuge. There's a gravity to that doorway, borne of habit and expectation.
Lissa swings in front of me. "Don't," she says. "You go through that door and you're dead."
And I know she's right. It's like a switch finally turns off in my brain.
I sprint from the doorway, glancing back only when I'm at the lights (fighting the urge to just run out into the traffic, but there's too much of it and it's moving too swiftly) to see if anyone, or any thing, has come through the door after me. I get the prickling feeling that someone's watching me.
I blink, and the door's shut again, and that sensation of scrutiny is gone. I take a deep breath.
"Roma Street Station's better," I say, trying to keep focused, even as my head throbs. This really is a bitch of a hangover.
"What?"
"Central's too obvious. If I was looking for someone trying to get out of the city I'd go to Central."
Lissa appears to consider this. "You're probably right."
I know I'm right. Well, I hope I am. I need to have some semblance of control, or I am going to lose it right here in the middle of the city. We're on George Street, heading to Roma Street and the train station, stumbling through late-morning crowds: all the business and government types up this end of the city, heading out for their coffees, oblivious to what's going on. People are being killed. My people. It can't be happening. Part of me refuses to believe it, even now, but those violent, painful pomps tell me otherwise.
I could feel resentful, but that's going to serve no useful purpose. The further I get away from Number Four though, the better.
To the left are the council chambers, reaching up into the sky, looking like a Lego tower of Babel constructed by a not particularly talented giant infant who none the less had big ideas. Just to my right is Queen Street Mall where, only yesterday, I was running for my life. Who'd have thought it would become something of a habit? Behind me, the state government building looms shabbily, a testament to, or rather an indictment of, eighties' architecture.
Tim works in that building.
"Where are you going?"
I turn around heading toward Tim's building, hardly realizing I'm doing it.
Lissa's in my face, hands waving, sliding backward to keep out of my reach. "Are you stupid? This is the wrong way."
I stop and stare at Lissa. How do I even know I can trust
her? But there's something there, surely. Something in her gaze that tells me I can.
"No, it isn't."
"I don't want you to die."
"I know," I snap. "That much I get." And I don't want to die either, not with her around.
Her face creases with irritation. "You're making the concept easier for me, though." She slides to my right. Turns her back on me. I'm almost relieved; the fire in that gaze would consume me. She passes into a patch of light and is almost completely devoured by it. But then she's out and staring at me.
"Well? Aren't you going to keep moving?"
We cross George Street, pass the stately sandstone edifice of the Treasury Casino. The street's not as crowded on this side, away from the shops. There are a few buses coming and going and people are heading toward the government building, or office towers; suits and skirts of the power variety. The Riverside Expressway is a block away, and a cool breeze blowing up from the river carries all that traffic noise toward me. Traffic, not the creaking of the One Tree.
I get to the glass doors which front the government building and stop. A couple of blocks down, the door to Number Four is waiting. My skin crawls-that sense of being watched again. Still, I hesitate. I reach into my pocket, pull out my phone.
No, I can't draw him into this. Not yet. I put the phone away.
I have to figure this out. On my own, or with the help of my kind. This isn't Tim's problem, he's a Black Sheep-government liaison or not-and my best friend, and there's no way I'm going to drag him into whatever this is. He made his choice not to be involved in the business years ago, and I'm going to honor that. Besides, I doubt there is anything he can do.
I turn around, walk back down the street in the direction of Roma Street Station, keeping to as much cover as I can. Lissa's presence makes me stand out in a crowd-to those who know how to look, anyway.
I think about that damn disconcerting door, and whoever it was I pomped. The pomps had been too fast for a visual, but the souls seemed familiar somehow. Perhaps Morrigan, or Derek? I can't imagine either of them dead.
The day's warm but I'm shivering in my suit.
Lissa looks at me. "It's going to be all right. Take some deep breaths. Try and calm yourself down, Steven."
"You really think this is going to be all right?" I growl. She looks away. "How the fuck is this going to end well?"
"You have to believe it will, or you might as well just sit down now, and do nothing. Wait for whoever it is to find you, if you want. Let me tell you now, they won't be gentle."
"I'll get home, and we can sort this out."
"No," she shakes her head stridently, "you don't want to go home. They'll be there. I went home, and it was the last mistake I made. I can't tell you how angry it makes me, to have died this way."
I look at her more closely; she's starting to fade a little. I need to bring her back. "Why didn't you tell me that you were a Pomp, Lissa? I found you on Facebook last night."
"I'm surprised it took you that long," she says.
"Well, what with the shooting, and the running, and your appearing and disappearing… I'm a Pomp, not a detective. And then I had a lot to drink." The hangover's circling again and, in the busy street, everything's starting to tilt into the surreal. Lissa gives me a look that could pass as sympathetic but for the edge to it. Her gaze holds me and, stupid as it is here and now, I'm thinking how beautiful she is. My kind of beautiful-and I'd never really been aware that I'd had a kind of beautiful before I met her. Why now?
"I'm sorry," she says, "but death is… confusing. Painful, scary, everything moves so fast. I was shifting from Pomp to Pomp. With the first one I was fine, not that it helped him-knife to the back, horrible. But by the time I got you-and I wasn't controlling who I ended up with-I was rather… scattered."
"But how did you shift from Pomp to Pomp in the first place? That's not possible is it?"
"Look, I was desperate, and dead, Steven. Who knows what's possible?"
"How long has this been going on?"
"I know about as much as you. Two days at least. You saw me those first times. I was confused. You grounded me." She swings her face close to mine. I could just… I mean I want to… Those lips. There's a charge shooting up my spine. An ache I thought I'd never feel again.
Enough.
"That's my job. You know how it is," I say, and step away. She doesn't. How could she? Lissa is so far out of my league. I'm actually feeling a little lousy about not recognizing her from the start, because I did know her. Not personally, but enough that I realize that I recognize her. There aren't that many Pomps working in Australia. "You work in Melbourne."
"Um, I used to work in Melbourne," she says slowly. "No one does, now. They're all dead. There's a whole Night of the Long Knives thing going on."
I must be looking at her blankly because she slows it down even more. "You know, the Night of the Long Knives? Hitler gets an out-with-the-old-and-in-with-the-new attitude and kills his Brownshirts' leaders-"
I clear my throat. "I know about Nazis. I've got the History Channel, watch it all the time. You think this is an inside job? It doesn't make any sense."
Lissa regards me with those striking green eyes of hers, and I'm feeling stupid. "Think about it, Steven."
How can I think about anything when she's looking at me that way?
"Anything else doesn't make sense," she says. "Whoever's doing this has to understand our communication system, our computers. We don't outsource any of that."
We stop at the corner of George and Ann, waiting for the lights to change. Big trucks and maxi-taxis roar by, dragging curtains of dust and diesel fumes. I don't hear the phone, just feel it vibrating in my pocket. Number Four, the LCD says. I show it to Lissa. She looks from the little screen to me, and back again.
"You better answer it."
I don't know what I'm going to hear, don't know if I want to hear it. I lift the phone to my ear. "Yes?"
"Steven?"
Finally, someone I know. "Morrigan, thank Christ." In the background, above Morrigan's voice, the One Tree creaks. Morrigan is definitely in Number Four.
Words pour out of me. "I tried to get into work. The door was locked, wouldn't shift, and then the door was something else." I sound like a child, reporting to their head teacher. Lissa watches me and my face burns, though there's no judgment in her expression.
"It's lockdown in here," Morrigan says. "Only we haven't done the locking. I don't know who it is. There's three of them. Stirrers from the feel of it, but not like any I've encountered before. For one, they're using weapons. They've not yet made it into the main offices. You're lucky you couldn't get inside, believe me. Everyone in the vestibule is dead."
"Do you want me to come back?" Something shatters. A gun fires. Even down the phone the sounds have me flinching.
"No, that would be… unwise." Morrigan's voice lowers to a whisper. "We're holed up here. I'm trying to get some word out. Just keep away. Derek's here. If we can keep them out of the main office, I can still keep track of people."
I hesitate. "I'm not far away… I could-"
"You'll do no such thing," he snaps. "You keep away, Steven. Keep moving. You did good running. They'd have just gotten you too. We're losing Pomps."
"I know, Lissa told me."
He's silent for a moment. Then, "Lissa-Lissa Jones is with you?"
"Not exactly."
"Oh." I can hear the sadness in his voice. Morrigan knows everyone. He may be based in Brisbane, but he has a lot of influence in the other states, too. You don't get to the top without knowing the people beneath you. "You listen to her, Steven. This is worse than I thought. If Lissa's gone, Melbourne's gone, too, probably Sydney as well. She'll help you. I need you to stay out of this. Tell her, I'm sorry."
"Maybe Tim-"
"No, keep him out of it. The last thing we want is the government involved. If they trample over this the whole country's going to circle the drain. He's your cousin, Steven, but he's not
one of us. He made his decision."
"OK, no Tim."
"Good lad. Steven, I should have seen it coming."
"Seen what?"
"I'd found references in some books, though I never believed-"
The phone dies, there's nothing down the end. I smack it with the palm of my hand.
"That's not going to do anything," Lissa says.
"Makes me feel better." I jut out my lower lip, and scowl. Just how petulant can I be? My face reddens again but Lissa's ignoring the show, considering the problem like I should be. After all, I'm the living one here.
"Is there some drift?" she asks.
I shake my head. "No, the signal's strong." I show her the phone. "The under and upper worlds are in sync. They're almost rubbing up against each other."
"Maybe that's why all this is happening. All this death. All these murdered Pomps."
"It's not murder," I say. "It's assassination."
And then I have a terrible thought.
Something so obvious that the realization hits me hard and cold.
"Gotta call Mom and Dad."
"Too late, Steve," says a voice at my ear.
It's Dad, and Mom is with him.
"Been too late for at least half an hour," he says.
6
This is the moment I've dreaded all my life. I'd always imagined it differently. But here it is, as it is for civilians: unexpected, sudden and utterly terrible.
Dad's in his usual attire-pants, and a light tan sports jacket. All of it crumpled. He's even wearing his favorite fedora, hiding his thinning hair. Pomps are well dressed in the main. Most of the time we're in a suit, black, of course; comes from going to so many funerals. But Dad could get away with wearing a pink Hawaiian shirt to a funeral. Charisma, I guess. He dresses sloppy, but it's charming sloppy. I've never really understood it but people tell me it's there. Everybody loves my dad.
"It's not your fault, Steve," Dad says. His face is lined, but those lines were drawn by smiles. It's a generous face, though he's already losing that-the emotions are slipping away to the One Tree. He frowns. "Did you have a big night last night? You sounded like it on the phone."
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