The Business Of Death, Death Works Trilogy

by Trent Jamieson

  But he’s alive. Can’t say that about many of my friends these days.

  “You’re late,” Morrigan says, looking up at me and wincing with the movement. And all at once I am unsettled and back on the defensive.

  “Not according to my watch,” I say, and stare at him with as much suspicion as I can muster.

  “Enough of this bullshit. You don’t trust me. I don’t blame you.” Morrigan coughs and wipes his lips with a handkerchief. Blood dots the material. He looks in pretty bad shape, his face colorless, his hands shaking as they bring his cup to his lips. “Yeah, I was winged,” he says, in response to my expression. “I’ve got a cracked rib at the very least, and every time I lose a sparrow, I lose more than a sparrow.”

  He pulls up a sleeve. Bloody outlines of sparrows track up his arm. The neat Escheresque pattern of birds is ruined. One of the sparrows has lost an eye and dark blood scabs the wound.

  I whistle, remembering the brutal efficiency of the crows. “How did you escape?”

  “Luck, I suppose. They hit Number Four hard and fast. We’re not a military organization.” He nods to the bulge at my hip. “We’re not killers. Jesus, Steven. I’m so sorry. Your parents. If only I’d seen this coming. But I didn’t. The only one who could have was Mr. D, and he’s gone.”

  Tears come—well, try to—and I stanch them. Now’s not the time for crying. We have a Regional Apocalypse to stop. “You’ve got nothing to be sorry about,” I say. “And there’s no time. What’s going on?”

  “A Schism.”

  “A what?”

  “I didn’t believe they were real. There are records but only a few. When a Schism is successful, there’s not a single Pomp left to record anything. As far as I can tell, once they got Mr. D, they left Queensland until last. We were deemed the least threatening of the states that make up the region, I suppose.

  “Look at us—two days and there’s only you, me, Don and Sam left. And the other regions would stay quiet about it. These things can spread.”

  “So you’re saying someone has their eye on Mr. D’s window office?” Lissa says, and I can tell from her tone that she has a fair idea who is to blame, and that he’s sitting directly in front of me.

  “Good afternoon, Lissa,” Morrigan lifts his gaze to her, shielding his eyes from the sun. I realize that Lissa has chosen the spot where she’s standing in order to make it difficult for him to see her. It’s not helping me, either, her body doesn’t really cut out the sunshine, rather it is filled with it. She’s not the wan beauty I’m used to but a luminous, translucent figure that stings the eyes.

  “Miss Jones, thank you.” Her arms are folded. Well, I think they are. Her voice suggests it at the very least. “You don’t deserve such familiarity.”

  Morrigan shrugs. “Miss Jones, if that’s what you want.”

  “I don’t want to be dead. I don’t want to see my body parading about, inhabited by a Strirrer.”

  “Oh,” Morrigan says. “I’m sorry, I can’t even begin to understand how that must feel.”

  “It doesn’t feel good.”

  “Feelings are all you have, Miss Jones. And you’re right, it is my fault. If only I had been more focused.”

  No one says anything and the silence is long and awkward, until a coffee arrives.

  “I took the liberty of ordering you a long black—asked them to bring it over when you arrived,” Morrigan says.

  I thank him and sip at it, then grimace. The coffee’s burnt and bitter, but it’s still coffee. “So what do we do?”

  “We need to get to the morgues. We need to get to the funeral homes. We have to stop the stirring. If we can contain it here we might stand a chance.”

  Morrigan’s phone rings. He jumps, then flicks it open. “Yes… No…If you must, but there isn’t much time…All right.”

  He hangs up. Lissa and I are both looking at him suspiciously.

  “Don,” he says. “I spoke to him, too. He took some convincing, but he’s swinging around to Princess Alexandra Hospital. Sam’s on her way to Ipswich. I’m going to use the Hill and get to the North—Cairns and Rockhampton. If we want Queensland to keep going we need to do this.”

  “What about the rest of the country?” I ask.

  “I’m trying to arrange some support from other RMs, Suzanne Whitman in the U.S. for one, but there’s a hell of a lot of trouble getting calls out. It’s not easy, but I don’t think anyone wants a Regional Apocalypse. That doesn’t matter—I want you to do Wesley Hospital.”

  A prickle runs up my spine. The place had tasted terrible yesterday. It’s not going to be any better now.

  “You’ll be a target,” Lissa says to me.

  “Weren’t you listening, Miss Jones? We’re already targets.” Then Morrigan grabs my arm. “Be careful.”

  “I always am,” I say, and almost believe it.

  We part company, I don’t know how he’s going to make it down to the Hill. It’s probably better that I don’t. I look at my watch: five minutes until the next bus.

  “I still don’t trust him,” Lissa says.

  “That’s your call.”

  “I want you alive. I want to see you through this. It’s all I’ve got left.”

  “You don’t know the man.”

  “Neither do you.”

  That hurts a little. I think of all the parties, the time he got me out of jail for some stupid misdemeanor involving beer and a fountain in South Bank. “Yes, I do.”

  I’m walking toward the bus stop when another voice stops me.

  “Mr. de Selby, I need you to come with me.”

  “Shit,” Lissa says.

  Shit indeed.

  “There doesn’t need to be any trouble,” the police officer says.

  17

  He’s a young guy, no older than me, and tall, though hunched down, maybe self-conscious like me about his height, or maybe because he has a bad back. But I don’t care either way because he is an officer of the law, and here I am on Mount Coot-tha, my house a smoking pile of wood, having stolen a car (well, borrowed a car, and only for a little while) and my own car having exploded. Oh, and I’m not happy to see him, that is a gun in my pocket. Shit, I’d forgotten about that. I consider my options.

  “Just why do you need me to come with you?” Maybe I can talk my way out of this.

  “I think you know why.”

  Honesty seems the best policy. At least the one most likely to end without bloodshed.

  “I have a gun in my pocket,” I blurt out. His face immediately tenses. “I’m going to lie down on the ground. You can take it from me, I’m not going to put up a fight.”

  “Just pass it to me,” the officer says. “Handle first. Slowly.”

  I do what he says, I’m in enough trouble already. It’s all I can do to stop my hand from shaking.

  “Do you want to handcuff me or something?”

  “Do I need to?” He’s got a no-bullshit sort of expression. I shake my head.

  Well, this is about the worst thing that could have happened. At least I don’t have to wait for a bus. Every cloud, right?

  I’m bundled into the back of the police sedan. It smells like pine disinfectant. The seat is immaculately clean, though someone has still managed to scrawl phalluses deeply into the headrest.

  The car starts up.

  “Hell of a day, eh,” he says, passing me back the gun. I hold it uncertainly. This is not how I expected it to go down. “I put the safety on your pistol, Mr. de Selby, I’m amazed you didn’t blow off your foot. Do you even know how to shoot that thing?”

  “I—”

  He doesn’t seem to care that much, just keeps rolling on.

  “Don sent me. I’m Alex.”

  “Don sent you? Thank Christ! You know Don? You know about Pomps?”

  “Half the force does, mate.” He glances back at me through the wire. “So who’s the bastard trying to kill my old man?” I didn’t know that Don had a son. Another Black Sheep.

  Li
ssa laughs. “Oh, he’s Don’s boy! Heard he was cute. Now the rumors have been confirmed.” I look at her in disbelief and she winks at me lasciviously.

  “You’re not out of the woods though,” Alex says. Glancing at him through the rearview mirror, I can see a lot of Don in him. The lantern jaw, the brilliant blue eyes. He’s the sort of person who should be going through all this, and probably would have gotten to the bottom of it by now. Me? All I have is a passing acquaintance with mortality and a crush on a dead girl. “Stealing that car wasn’t the brightest thing you could have done.”

  “Someone was trying to kill me.”

  “Yeah, like I said, not the brightest thing, but ballsy, all right. Find out who’s behind this and we can make it go away. Right now, though, you’re on your own, and pretty much regarded as Brisbane’s, if not Australia’s, biggest sociopath.”

  “I stole the car, yes,” I say, “but that’s it. I didn’t have anything to do with the rest.”

  “I know that, Dad’s told me. It’s going to take time for people to cotton onto what’s happening. And none of it’s been helped by most of the bodies disappearing. Regardless, there’s nothing we can do about this. This is your domain, and totally beyond our jurisdiction.”

  “But people have died. They’re after your dad, too.”

  “Yeah, I know, which is why I’m going to help you—though this is entirely unofficial.”

  “I don’t have much time,” I say.

  “I know,” he says. “So where can I take you?”

  I tell him, and five minutes later we’re there. I get out and thank him.

  Alex grins. “Don’t worry about it. Just remember to keep the safety on that pistol—until you need to use it.”

  I watch the car pull away. “First break of the day,” I say. “And it only took until 2 pm.”

  “Yeah,” Lissa says, as we walk through the hospital grounds, heading straight for the morgue. It almost feels like coming home. “But what are we heading into?”

  We both have a fair idea. The Wesley’s feeling even worse than it did yesterday. Bile’s rising in my stomach. My body’s already reacting to this place and the creatures it contains.

  And it gets worse as we get closer.

  A park borders Wesley Hospital on one side, the train station on another. Coronation Drive is nearby, I can see the tall jacarandas that line the river. The Wesley is a private hospital but a big one, with new works always being constructed. Cranes and scaffolding generally cover at least one side of the building.

  It should feel like a place of healing, not this sick-inducing death trap.

  “Thank God,” says an orderly, a fellow I recognize. His eyes are wide and wild. I can smell his fear. “Where have you lot been?”

  “Busy, John. Busy.” I don’t have time to go into the details.

  “At least we have these,” John says. He lifts his sleeve, there’s the bracing symbol tattooed on his arm. It’s a good idea. Most orderlies working the morgues and mortuaries have them. You only need to see one Stirrer, and feel its impact on you, to change your mind.

  “How many?” I ask.

  “Seven.”

  I swallow uncomfortably. I’ve never seen that many Stirrers together in my life. This is bad, really, really bad. It’s one thing to hear Morrigan talking about Regional Apocalypse, it’s another, much more visceral experience, to face it alone.

  “We’ve got them tied down. But someone is going to hear the screaming. You’ve got to—”

  “I know what I’ve got to do,” I say, a little shortly. I don’t really want to do it, but I have no choice.

  Dealing with seven Stirrers strapped to gurneys is not something I’m looking forward to. The first thing I encounter are their screams. Another orderly comes at us. “You need to do something!”

  “That’s what I’m here for,” I say.

  I walk into the room. Lissa follows me in, though she keeps her distance from the gurneys. A Stirrer could draw her straight through to the Underworld. I don’t want her here with me—it’s too dangerous—but, Christ, I’m glad she is.

  Their presence (or absence) is choking. It’s like stepping into a room with no air. It’s freezing in here and condensation has turned to ice on everything, a sort of death frost. The Stirrers are flailing on the gurneys, held down tight, but not tight enough for my liking. I look at Lissa. She shrugs. She hasn’t seen anything like this either.

  I’ve heard about the world wars, how these things were common at the front where there was so much death gathered in one place. But this is inner-suburban Brisbane.

  I sigh. Take out my knife and slice open a fingertip. Once the blood is flowing I reach out toward the first one.

  “Can’t stop us,” it whispers, and then the others are taking up its cry, their voices not quite right. More gurgle than chant.

  “This isn’t good,” Lissa says.

  I look at her. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  “Just thought I’d say it.”

  “Can’t stop us,” the Stirrers chime in.

  Yes I can.

  I press my bloody finger to each Stirrer’s hand. They still for good.

  But the last one, a bulky fellow, snaps a hand free of its constraints. His fingers clench around my wrist. Bones creak and I wince. I yank my hand free and swing my blood-slicked fist at his face.

  “Can’t stop us!” he howls, then is gone, my bloody touch stalling him. I get out of that room as quick as I can.

  That took more blood than it should have. The Stirrers are getting stronger.

  I glance at John. “These won’t stir again, and I’ll return if I’m alive.” I don’t tell him how unlikely a proposition that may be when charted against the days—no, the hours—ahead. “But there will be more. I rather suspect that everyone who dies will be… reinhabited.”

  I incline my head at his tattoo. “You might want to brace as many rooms as possible with this.” I give him a tin of paint. There’s a few drops of my blood in it and it should provide some limited protection for the hospital at least.

  John frowns, as he pockets the paint tin. “And where will you be?”

  “If I can come back, I will. I’m just not sure that it’s an option.”

  I’m still a bit shaky as we walk out of the hospital. Stalling takes a lot out of you. One or two is bad enough, but seven is off the chart. Morrigan was right, we’re nearing some sort of tipping point. The Stirrers can sense something is wrong. I can imagine the queues of Stirrer souls just crowding around waiting to get into newly dead bodies. Humans have become prime real estate in a way that hasn’t happened since the darkest days.

  A basketball center’s to the right of us, on the other side of the train line. There must be a couple of games going, I can hear the screech of shoes, the indignant shriek of whistles.

  “We need to get the system up and running again,” I say to Lissa.

  She shakes her head. “Sorry, you need to get the system up and running.”

  “Well, running might be a good idea,” says a familiar voice. Don’s ghost is standing by Lissa. They circle each other.

  “Where’s Sam? Is she alive?” I demand.

  Don shakes his head. “I don’t know.”

  “I’m sorry, Don. Really, really sorry,” Lissa says.

  Don fixes her with a stare. “You know how it is.”

  His form flickers. He blinks.

  “What the hell happened?” I ask.

  Don grimaces. “I feel stupid.” His irritation is without much edge, though. He’s already sliding away into the land of the dead, though he manages to fix me with a stare. “It’s Morrigan.”

  “I knew it,” Lissa says. “All that polite bullshit. All that sympathy. What an absolute dickhead.”

  “The bastard tried to pomp me, too. But I managed to—” he glances at Lissa. “Christ, how do you keep this up?”

  “It gets easier.”

  Don shakes his head like he doesn’t believe her.
“Morrigan’s decided he doesn’t need to hide now. And there’s something you need to know: every time a Pomp dies, he becomes more powerful. Whatever presence or energy they have, well, he gets it. That’s something he let slip.”

  Which means he must be pretty powerful now if there’s only him and Sam and me left.

  “But I was speaking to Morrigan this morning, at Mount Coottha,” I say, feeling the blood drain from my face. Then I do what anyone would do in that situation—start with denial. “It can’t be him. He didn’t look powerful at all. He told me—”

  “Well, he’s a fine actor. Must be, to have pulled all this off. Steve, the bastard shot me,” Don snaps. “How much more of a definitive delineation of betrayal do you need? We have to get you out of here, out of the city. Morrigan’s holding off on killing you now.”

  “I met Alex,” I say. We’re running out of the car park and onto the road, then around under the train tracks and into the basketball court’s car park. My head is spinning. I really thought I could trust Morrigan. It had been a good feeling, having a central point in all of this, the idea that someone was guiding the ship again, and now…

  Don grins. “My Alex, a good boy. Total Black Sheep. I love the kid. Was going to go to the footy with him on Sunday. Broncos match. Hate the Broncos, but the boy’s dead keen.” Don shook his head. “I couldn’t believe it, about Morrigan, I mean. I started trusting him when you made it alive down off Mount Coot-tha. I think that was the plan all along. No offense, Steven, but Morrigan reckons he can kill you off when he likes, when the rest of us are done with. But he doesn’t count—”

  Don’s gone with a soft sound like the ringing of a tiny bell, a sparrow cutting through him, pomping him, its wings whirring. I’m still blinking at the sight of Don sliding out of non-corporeal existence, trying to understand why Morrigan might be keeping me alive. The bird flits past me.

  It’s one of Morrigan’s sparrows. The inkling twists sharply in the air and hurtles toward Lissa.

  I’m running at her, trying to get in between her and the sparrow. If it gets there first then I’m alone. I just make it, the sparrow hits my chest hard enough to hurt. It thumps off and onto the ground, and I stomp down. Little sparrow bones crunch beneath my boot. And then it sinks away into a tiny puddle of ink and feathers.