“Maybe we should have gotten a coffee first,” I say.
Tim crushes a cigarette beneath the toe of his boot. “No time.”
“Why did you choose the bridge?” Oscar asks. He studies first one bank of the river then the other, then pushes his face into his broad hands. There’s clearly not enough escape routes—unless you want to dive into the river. There’s plenty that way.
“Technically it won’t really be the bridge, not as Brisbanites see it,” Tim says. “The marquees will be set up in the space between the Underworld and the living. You’ll have quite a view of the city, and the Underworld equivalent, without really touching on either.”
“There’ll be two marquees?” Oscar asks, and I can tell he’s even less happy.
“One for the Ankous, to bitch about the RMs, and the other, the big top if you will, for the main show. Both will be air-conditioned, of course.” Tim mops at his brow with a handkerchief. “Maybe the next Death Moot could be in Antarctica.”
I grin. “No, they did that in 1963. It wasn’t a hit. Too many bloody penguins.” I remember Mr. D’s stories about that one. Said it was so cold his knees ached for the whole Moot and then a week afterward.
Oscar shakes his head. We’re not much help.
“Water beneath bridges is a traditional interface between the lands of the living and the dead. And Mortmax Industries is all about tradition, but I didn’t make the decision,” I say. “I just bled over it.” I pat Tim on the back. “Both of us did, didn’t we, buddy?”
Tim shudders. “Don’t remind me.”
“And there’s still a little more blood needed,” I say. “We’re going to disappear for a while Oscar, but don’t worry. We will be back.”
Oscar shrugs. “We do what we can, boss. I’m aware there are some places that we can’t follow you.”
After a couple of joggers have passed us by, Tim and I pull our knives from beneath our jackets. Tim counts down silently to three and we cut our palms, heart line to thumb. I walk to the western rail of the bridge, Tim to the eastern and as one we plant our bloody palms on the bare steel.
Metal thrums. And there is a sound like someone scratching a record, a painful scritch! that runs across the heavens.
Oscar throws up his hands, and then he’s gone. But it’s really us who have gone.
The sky darkens, then brightens. The whole city contracts, expands and contracts again, as though reality has grown rubbery. And suddenly it is only Tim and I on the bridge. There is no traffic on the expressway, and no people here or on the streets below. The city is quiet. Oddly enough there are birds in the air and the river is teeming with fish. Its surface bubbles, the water itself a murky reddish brown, the same color as my palm print on the rail. The bridge itself is luminous, silver and white, and a bright sun burns in the sky.
“Well, I never,” Tim says. “How’s that for magic and stuff?”
“Now, where are these Caterers?”
A bell tolls, loud and clear. It echoes and vibrates through the bridge so that it’s almost a bell itself.
“There, I think,” Tim says.
A right hand, pale, long-fingered and neatly manicured, materializes in the air between Tim and me. Then another. And another until a dozen hands are present. Then left hands being to appear. And twelve men, or women—they’re as androgynous as Ziggy Stardust—stand before us, all slightly shorter than me, all carefully dressed in white suits. A pair of them scurry to the center of the bridge and start taking measurements, pulling tape between them, scrawling notes down onto clipboards.
The Caterer nearest to me dips its head. He seems to be the boss.
“Mr. de Selby. A pleasure.” He claps his hands. “And what a glorious venue. Shiny, new. Nothing of the gothic about it, and you would simply not believe how tiresome all the gothic is.” He spits out the word as though it were a bitter poison, revealing neat but very sharp teeth.
The rest of the day is spent walking over nearly every inch of the bridge, marking sections with our blood, anchoring, as the Head Caterer calls it, this reality with our own. With too much blood, the bridge may sink into the living world and the Death Moot will become a crowded affair, and Mortmax will not only be paying the Caterers but also Brisbane City Council for illegally building marquees on this public thoroughfare. With too little, this reality might just drift away and the Moot with it.
Oscar calls me a couple of times, but there is no hurry in the Head Caterer, just a methodical preparation of the bridge. I can respect that, but there are several more pressing situations I should be applying myself to.
By early evening, Tim and I are feeling a little anemic. And Tim is sick of Caterers bumming cigarettes off him. But the Head Caterer is clapping his hands with joy, and already one marquee is constructed.
“This will be the best Moot in our ten thousand years of catering,” he says. “The location!” He points to Mount Coot-tha in the northwest, the shadowy hint of the One Tree. “The air, so vibrant, and yet so suggestive of death. You have done well with this city. I promise you, people will not forget this Moot.”
“Ten thousand years?” I say. “You’ve been doing this for ten thousand years?”
“Yes, and thank goodness for climate control these days. You would not believe just how feral it used to be. Cold in winter, boiling in summer. Terrible, terrible.”
We shake hands, sealing the deal with a little more blood. Then the Head Caterer goes off to direct the positioning of a freezer in the kitchen set-up.
There’s a door made of pine, in the middle of the bridge, nothing more really than a frame. One of the Caterers leads us to it.
“Access point,” the Caterer says. “You come and go through here. Got pizza and beer coming if you boys would like to stay.”
We beg off, it’s Christmas Eve after all, and walk through the door. We’re back into our reality. There’s no Narnia-esque time transition, it’s night in the real world as well, just an ear-popping step into a jogger-crowded bridge. We both leap out of the way of an oncoming cyclist. The door that we walked through is gone. Oscar’s waiting patiently with Travis and Tim’s burly bodyguards.
Lissa’s not due home for another couple of hours. Oscar insists that we walk back to Number Four. Tim has a hair appointment in the Valley so we part company on the bridge, Tim heading to the nearest taxi rank with his security.
There’s a shortcut from the bridge to George Street via a tunnel. It’s well lit, though empty at this time of night. We head through it, Travis walking ahead, Oscar behind me.
Halfway in, the lights flicker and dim, and I realize that this was a mistake. Each end of the tunnel is gated, and both gates slam shut in unison.
I slap my head with my palm. Not again. When am I going to learn?
25
The lights that have dimmed suddenly flare and shatter. A ripple of glass fragments rains down and darkness engulfs us. Oscar is shielding me with his body. I hear Travis run toward us, can picture the gun already in his hand. “Down!” he hisses. “Stay down.”
And I’m on the concrete still under Oscar, then he rolls to one side, ending up in a crouch.
I try desperately to make sense of things in the dark. I can hear Rillman’s heartbeat. Steady and familiar. My eyes are adjusting now. There, a slight movement down the other end of the walkway. And as if on cue, a light flickers on. Rillman glares at it in irritation.
He walks toward us. He hasn’t changed since the photo that Lissa showed me was taken, though that must be several decades old. He’s unprepossessing, even in the suit he’s wearing, and about a head shorter than me. He could be a bad parody of a chartered accountant, if only he were wearing a bowler hat.
Here he is, I’m seeing him clearly for the first time (no waxen obscuring of his features, and my eyes not swollen with blood) and he’s not so bad. Not so scary. Except his eyes. They gleam with a force, a rage utterly at odds with his demeanor.
“I’d call off your goons,” Rillman says.
“I really don’t want to hurt anyone, except you.”
Travis is at my side. “Just keep out of the way,” he says to me. He has his pistol aimed at Rillman’s head.
“Guns don’t frighten me,” Rillman says. That makes one of us.
“It’s not the gun you need to worry about, mate.” Oscar runs at him. It’s like watching a steam engine hurtle at a minnow.
Rillman moves out of the way, smooth as oil, but Oscar is turning, too. He swings a punch at Rillman’s head, only it isn’t there anymore, he’s down, hunched at an insane angle. Then he’s slipping around and punching Oscar twice in the sternum. The fight’s confusing. Darkness and light. Shadows melding. Rillman is in several places at once. I can sense what he is doing, the bastard’s shifting in tiny bursts. How the fuck’s he doing that? Oscar doesn’t stand a chance.
Travis is trying to get a clear shot, cursing under his breath.
Bone cracks and Rillman pushes Oscar away from him as though he’s nothing but an irritation. The big man teeters, his arms flailing, then falls flat on his back, coughing up ropes of blood.
I turn from Oscar to Travis. His face has tightened with dismay or anger, I’m not sure. He’s stopped swearing. “Stay where you are,” he growls at Rillman.
Rillman laughs. He hasn’t even got a sweat up and one of my guards is already down. “Stay where I am, or what?”
Travis shoots just above his head. The bullet ricochets down the tunnel. We both cringe. Oscar is on the ground, moaning.
Rillman takes a step forward. And then with no transition he’s in Travis’s face. A perfect shift. There’s a flash of silver. “Oh, dear,” Rillman exclaims.
I get to my feet, my arms reaching out toward Travis. But it’s too late.
Travis takes a few steps forward, one hand clamped over his neck. Blood bubbles from between his fingers, and he falls hard on his knees. Then he gestures once, weakly—with whatever strength he has left—with his free hand, for me to run. That’s all he has in him. He topples forward. One less heartbeat, one less guard.
His ghost looks at me. Blinks and shakes his head. “I’m so sorry,” he says.
“You have nothing to be sorry about, Travis. Nothing,” I say.
A moment later his soul flashes through me.
Rillman laughs. “Always the professional, eh? Even when it comes to pomping your own staff. You better get used to that.”
I peer at Rillman. His hands are empty. What is he cutting with? His nails are short, neat. But I guess a man capable of changing his form, of shifting from space to space, is capable of just about anything in a fight.
My legs are like jelly, but I’m an RM, damn it! “I’ve been looking for you,” I say, and my voice isn’t as stern or as strong as I would like it to be.
“Yes, but not nearly hard enough,” he says. “You’re really rather awful at all this aren’t you?”
I shrug.
Rillman pauses, takes a step back. “I thought you would be more impressive. All these weeks of watching you, watching those around you … For someone with such loyal friends, you’re rather disappointing.”
“You couldn’t kill me with your bomb. And these insults are nothing to me”
Rillman smiles. “That bomb wasn’t meant for you.”
“You keep away from her.”
“She’ll be mine when I have time for her. And you know there is nothing you can do.” He flicks his wrists in the manner of a magician. There is a thin line of gray light in his hands. It takes me a moment to realize what it is.
“Surely you’re kidding.”
He’s holding an old-fashioned barber’s razor. But the blade is unlike any razor I’ve ever seen: it’s made of stone and it’s mumbling. This isn’t good; all my encounters with mumbling blades have not been good.
“I’m afraid not, Mr. de Selby.” He waves the razor around his head. “This took me some time to fashion. You won’t believe the lengths I went to to source the materials. Indeed, I only finished it this evening. I don’t really expect it to do the job, but I need to try it on someone, need it blooded with good corporate blood. And why not yours? I rather expect it to hurt.”
He comes at me fast.
I try to shift, but can’t. Somehow Rillman is holding me to this place, and the time I’ve wasted in trying to get out of here, means he’s almost upon me. I duck backward, but not nearly swiftly enough. He’s come in close and he swings up and under. Then down. Almost so fast that I don’t see it. Oh, but how I feel it!
The first stroke slides under my ribs, the second opens up my wrist. Both wounds blaze with agony. I kick out, and my boot makes contact, but he hops away. A dozen contradictory emotions wash across his face: hate, humor, compassion and rage among them. I can’t believe I ever tried to hunt this guy. I should have been running.
“Why are you doing this?”
“It must be done. You need to learn, and I need to cut.”
Blood flowers around the incision in my shirt. I slide my fingers over the wound, quick. This shouldn’t be happening. But I have survived worse injuries. He jabs toward me, and this time I am ready. I swing up with my knee. Ten years of soccer as a kid taught me something about playing nasty. There’s a meaty thud on contact, a winded gasp. The bastard stumbles back and I swing a fist toward his face. My knuckles strike his nose. That’s gotta hurt; it certainly hurts my fist.
Rillman blinks, steps back. His eyes narrow. “I’m not the only one who bleeds,” I say.
Rillman takes a step toward me but then my winged Pomps arrive—shooting through the gates. Crows. The first one strikes him hard, just beneath the eye. Another takes a nip at his ear. Rillman slashes at the bird and the poor thing is sliced in two. But there’s another one, and another.
In the distance comes the thwack, thwack, thwack of crows’ wings beating. There are a lot of crows in Brisbane. And they are filled with my anger, cruel with my pain.
“C’mon, mate!” I growl, sweat dripping from my face, blood pouring from my wounds. I take an unsteady step toward him, pulling my hands from my belly and clenching them into fists, bloodier than they have ever been before. It’s hardly threatening to an ex-Ankou, but it’s all I have. I even manage a grin. “You better finish it now or I will find you.”
“I invite you to try, Mr. de Selby. You’ll only be making my job easier. I think the lesson’s done for today,” Rillman says, batting at the stabbing birds around him.
Suddenly, there’s the sound of flesh slamming into bone. Rillman lets out a great whoomph of breath, stands there blinking.
“That’s for my fucking ribs,” a newly conscious Oscar growls. “And this is for what you did to Travis.”
He swings again and Rillman scrambles backward, his arms flailing.
The world shivers a little, and Oscar’s fist strikes air. Unbalanced, he falls. It’s painful watching him get to his feet. I’d help, but I’m worried my bowels are likely to spill out the moment I move my hand.
Rillman’s gone. There’s just the two of us and about a hundred crows looping around in that confined space, cawing and clawing at the air where Rillman had been just a moment ago, a cacophonous cloud of wings and claws and beaks. I’m getting their view, as well as my glued-to-ground vision. I have to struggle to stop them pecking at Travis.
The gates swing open.
Oscar looks at me. “We’ve got to get you out of here …” Every word comes at a cost. The big man’s tan has faded to a ghostly white.
Neither of us look good, and both of us are bleeding heavily. He glances over at Travis, starts toward him.
“Too late,” I say, “Travis is dead. Believe me, I pomped him, there’s nothing we can do.”
“Ah, Jesus.” It’s the first time I see anything that looks like real emotion pass across his face.
The amount of blood flowing through my fingers suggests that Rillman may not need to come back to finish the job. As a Pomp I would be dead—there’s no way I could have handled this sort of in
jury—but my body burns with energies, long tendrils of power slowly repairing flesh and bone. Every Pomp in my employ will be feeling this as I draw strength from them. I might have a couple of resignations tomorrow. Wouldn’t blame anyone.
All that crackle and pop is making me dizzy. I laugh with the head rush of it all—and it hurts. Rillman wasn’t joking. I hunch into my wounds, look around me.
“Can you walk?” Oscar asks me, looking almost ready to fall on his arse himself.
“Can you?”
Oscar grins the pained grimace of a wounded bear. Not dead yet. “See if you can shift out of here. Go and get some help,” he says.
The wounds are already knitting. I try to shift and all I get for my trouble is a bad headache. I gulp a few deep breaths and straighten my suit, then we stumble out of the tunnel and onto the street. I call Tim; it goes to voicemail.
Then I call Lissa. She doesn’t answer her phone, and I realize why.
I feel the stall that is distracting her. She’s forty kilometers south of the city, too far away.
I key in Suzanne’s number. “I need your help. Now.”
And she’s there in an instant. “Oh, dear,” she says. “What has Rillman done to you?”
She looks up and down the street. “Where—? Never mind. This shouldn’t have happened.”
“Brooker,” I say.
She nods. “This is going to hurt,” she says, and holds both Oscar’s and my hand.
In his surgery, Dr. Brooker almost falls out of his chair, when he sees us. “What the hell happened here?”
“I’ve been cut up by a bloody barber’s razor made out of stone, is what,” I hiss. “Oscar’s the one you have to see to.”
“I know my job.” Dr. Brooker looks at me, then Suzanne. “Take him to his throne. I’ll take care of Oscar.”
“One more time,” Suzanne says, and we shift again.
She leads me gently to my throne. And the moment I sit down I can feel things healing faster. It hurts though, and she wipes my brow with a handkerchief that she’s pulled from a pocket.
The Business Of Death, Death Works Trilogy Page 45