I nearly knock over Lundwall, my assistant, as I race across the floor for my office. He steps back, narrowly avoiding one of my blades. He’s holding a sheet of paper and flings it before him, shieldlike. The nearest blade neatly cuts it in two; wide eyes reveal themselves behind the cut.
“Mr. de Selby—”
I spin on my heel and glare at him, not that it’s his fault. Lundwall quails, and I feel terrible, but I’ve spiders in with my privates.
“Not now. Later, but not now!” I say, and slam the door behind me.
Right.
Sure, I don’t usually project much in the way of gravitas, never did, but that…that was ridiculous.
I strip in my office. If you can call the way I rip those clothes off stripping. More of a shredding really. Red welts are forming on my flesh, and the spiders haven’t stopped with their biting.
I’m mostly naked, slapping and scratching spiders from my flesh (and there are always more of them, every time I think I’m done, my hands encounter another one or another dozen), when the door opens.
Lissa, back safe from PA Hospital. Thank Christ!
And half of Number Four can see me dancing with my underpants around my ankles. “Shut the door! Shut the bloody door!” I yell, yanking my boxers back up to my waist.
Lissa takes her time. If anyone has shot footage of this with their phones, and I end up seeing it on bloody YouTube…nope, no gravitas, anti-gravitas if anything.
At least I may have reduced the level of fear they feel around me now.
“Aunt Neti. Spiders,” I say. “Spiders everywhere.”
She’s smirking as I get my boxers off again, searching furiously for any hangers-on. “You know, traditionally it’s ants in the pants.”
“Really, that’s the best you can do?”
“I think I’m being very reserved. You’re always so entertaining.”
“Great, I’m glad.”
One of the little fellas scurries towards her. Lissa neatly stomps her boot down. “I never liked Aunt Neti, and the stuff she put you through—all because you offended her delicate sensibilities.” She stomps another couple of spiders into the carpet. “What the hell were you doing going into her rooms anyway?”
“Following a hunch,” I say, double-checking around the jewels. “Don’t you dare open that door.”
“Never. A hunch about what?”
I’m spider-free. I think. And I pull up my pants, slip on my shirt. Lissa watching me all the while. “Had a meeting with Cerbo. And he showed me something interesting. There was a date scratched on a table in Suzanne’s bedroom.”
Lissa’s eyes narrow. She and Suzanne had history—Suzanne once slept with her father, a brief fling that nearly ended her parents’ marriage, and then, well, I’d lied to Lissa about a deal I’d made with Suzanne—it hadn’t ended well.
“No, nothing untoward,” I say. “Cerbo was showing me her chambers.” Why does that suddenly sound like a double entendre? “Suzanne had scratched this date just before the Death Moot. Aunt Neti had had the same date marked on her calendar. Her calendar covered with spiders.” I shudder.
“And what date is that?”
“May 24. It rings a bell for some reason,” I say.
Lissa reacts the same way I did, though she hides it well. The twenty-fourth is so close. It’s a shock. But then again, is it really? Things have been building, a gloom descending as surely as Neti’s little friends.
“Hmm, the twenty-fourth, nothing, no public holidays, nothing,” Lissa says. If only it was that simple, that end of the world events followed public holidays. It would certainly make scheduling in conflicts a lot easier, even if it would make it more expensive in wages—there’s an up and down side to everything.
“Yeah,” I murmur, “but there was more. She’d written the letter ‘M’ by the date.”
Lissa frowns.“Could be anything. Is there are a full moon that day?”
“No, I checked. It’s not a full moon until the twenty-eighth.” I straighten my tie. Shake out my torn jacket. Another couple of spiders tumble to the ground, emitting little pissed-off arachnid hisses. I check the lining carefully—spider free—then glance at the mirror. You’d think I was going gray, I have that much web in my hair. It takes a moment to get the stuff out with my fingers. I’m using a good gel so my hair’s looking fine, you wouldn’t know that I ran down a hall yowling and covered with spiders less than five minutes ago.
All that venom must be making me feel woozy. Blood rushes from my head; next thing I know Lissa’s leading me to the throne.
“Take it easy,” she says.
“Don’t know how many times I was bitten. Normally I could handle this, I’ve recovered from much worse.”
“These toxins aren’t mortal toxins, Steve. It’s all right, this’ll do the trick.” I drop into the throne.
At once its energy fills me, accelerates my powers. The venom boils from my flesh. Toxins steam from my shirt, staining the material.
I blink. Lissa’s staring at me in wonder or dismay, I can’t really tell which.
“That was new,” I say. “Stab wounds, I’ve dealt with plenty of those, but spider bites…”
“First time for everything,” Lissa says.
It’s certainly not the first time that she has saved me. I want to kiss her, but she’s got her serious face on. The date’s picking at her thoughts as much as mine, there’s something prickly and familiar about it. But it’s not coming to me.
“I think you’re going to have to take this to Mr. D.” She looks at the black phone on my desk. It is a direct link to Mr. D. I don’t want to use it.
“Yeah, I suppose.” Mr. D and I have had something of a falling out. He kept too much information from me when I was trying to organize the Death Moot—not least of all was what the other RMs were planning. That I was at once bait in a complicated trap, and heir apparent. “How was your pomp?”
“Terrible, turned into a stall, Stirrer started walking down the corridor, almost made it to the lift and—don’t you be changing the bloody subject. You’re going to have to sort out this issue of yours with Mr. D.”
I admit that our mentor-mentee relationship had been somewhat compromised, but he started it. “He nearly killed us all.”
“Yeah, and he’s tried to apologize several times and you keep cutting him out.”
There’s more to it than that. Mr. D and Wal are the only beings aware of what I did to Rillman. When I think of Mr. D my guilt is drawn in the starkest of stark relief, and it hurts.
I’m not a murderer.
Except I am. And part of me, not just the murderous HD, enjoyed it.
I’m Death but I don’t want to be a monster.
After I killed Rillman, the black phone rang for three days straight. And I didn’t answer it. At first I told myself that it was just because I was too busy. There was so much to sort out, Ankous to placate and new regions to discover and get a grip on. Not to mention funeral services for all the RMs who had been killed.
I was Orcus.
My responsibilities had increased twelve-fold. So, I just let it ring, no matter how uncomfortable it made everyone in the office. And you could see it, the mood shifting from muted jubilation at the destruction of Rillman’s Stirrer stronghold, even at the sudden elevation of their employer (though no one, including me, was sure what that meant), to shocked efficiency (Stirrers kept on stirring, and that damn phone kept on ringing), to grim trudging on. The phone would stop, people would just about start breathing again, and then it would begin ringing once more. Mr. D’s determination impressed even me.
On the second day, I’d thrown it against the wall. Didn’t halt the ringing, just left a great scar in the handset. I could have answered it instead. I almost broke, but I didn’t. If Mr. D could be stubborn, then so could I, damn it.
Three days of ringing. Then nothing.
I’d not bothered calling him again. I really hadn’t needed to, what with the combined experience of
thirteen Ankous to draw on. I’d learned more in a single conversation with any of them than in the many, convoluted attempts at teaching that Mr. D had made. But that didn’t mean they had a complete understanding of what I was. Only Mr. D knew, at least in part, how it felt to be me. He’d grappled with HD, and dreamt my bloody dreams. And he’d functioned for over a century.
But I couldn’t talk to him. He would look at me, and his eyes might judge or they might not, but regardless they were the eyes of someone who knew I’d killed Rillman.
He is, after all, one of my few connections with the past. All through my life he was there, a constant background figure, a little scary, yes—he was the Big Boss after all—but reliable.
Mr. D was the RM of my parents, and their parents too. They’d deferred to him. He was the ultimate source of wisdom in the company, and the Australian figurehead.
I may have found him lacking. I may have issues, built up over the systemic failure of his business, and the way he had let two Schisms occur and not told me about either of them. Mr. D was flawed. Seriously flawed, but I couldn’t talk, could I. Not really.
I pick up the black handset. Silence. The scratch is rough against my palm.
Francis had struggled as I choked him.
But I hadn’t let go.
There’s nothing down the end of the line.
“We need to talk,” I say. “Do you think we can do that?”
Not a sound. Not a breath.
I put the phone back in its cradle, Lissa looks at me curiously. “I’m going to have to visit him myself. He’s not answering.”
Lissa shakes her head. “You two! Make this right. Now. We need him.”
I don’t know about that, but part of me misses him.
“Do it,” Lissa says. She kisses me hard, I’m not too enthusiastic in my response, would she kiss me so wildly if she knew what I’d done to Rillman?
Lissa pulls away with a grimace, eyes searching mine. “All right. All right,” I grumble.
She grabs my hand, then inspects my shirtsleeve, unable to hide her disappointment. “Don’t tell me you lost one of the cufflinks I gave you.”
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“Out of here. We’ll talk about it later.”
I kiss her once, noncommittally on the forehead, then shift to the topmost branch of the One Tree, and Mr. D.
He’s not there. A cold wind’s blowing in from the coast. And it’s dark, darker even than Hell had appeared from my window. Something’s not right. And my best shot at getting an answer is gone.
Maybe my mentor has finally succumbed to the pressure of the One Tree’s call.
Maybe Mr. D has given in to death.
If that’s the case it’s all my fault.
8
Why is it so bloody dark here? I don’t ever remember it being so dark. I shiver as I walk over to Mr. D’s rocking chair, nudge it gently with a thumb and watch it rock backward and forward.
Lissa’s not going to be happy.
I slump into the rocker, push myself up and down, knees almost touching my chest. My knives slide stealthily from their sheaths, and in a moment I’m gripping Mog, resting the snath across my lap.
The Underworld is the only place that I really feel comfortable holding the scythe. Here it becomes a natural extension of myself. And here I don’t have Tim and Lissa looking at me, judging me. Yeah, maybe in Hell the Orcus with a scythe looks less like a poseur. I don’t know.
Of course there are worse accessories than a scythe. A beret for instance. I remember the summer that Tim wore a beret. Ha! I reckon you either have to be a French poet or Sylvester Stallone to pull that look off, not a fresh-out-of-uni business graduate. I have no idea what possessed him to wear it. He looked like an even spottier Rick from The Young Ones. Yeah, I gave him a lot of shit for that one.
Maybe I just paid out on him the whole summer because he’d managed to finish a degree, and I hadn’t. Ah, the things I put my friends through.
So where do I go now Mr. D is gone? Charon, I guess. I need to talk to him anyway. Like Neti was, he’s a Recognized Entity, and I guess he’ll be aware of that date. I can’t tell if I’m feeling sad or relieved, I grip the scythe tightly and swing it upright.
“So you’ve gotten over the whole drama of being Orcus, eh?” comes a voice from behind me.
I’m on my feet and slicing the scythe in a broad circle around me without even thinking. The air crackles, a streak of light follows the movement.
Mr. D shuffles backwards, he’s holding a candle in one hand. The flame flickers in sync with his steps, but it doesn’t go out. Not even when the scythe blade passes right through it.
“Settle down,” he says, waving a finger at me. “You could take out an eye with that thing.”
“Only if I wanted to.”
“Well, if that’s the case, why don’t you? Your silence has been almost as blinding,” Mr. D mumbles, he hobbles past me, and drops heavily into his rocker.
He doesn’t look all that great. Looks like he’s been sleeping rough, to be honest, he doesn’t smell that great either.
“As a matter of fact,” he continues, “your avoidance of the Underworld has set an alarming precedent, a chain of events…you know how these things go.”
“Dark here,” I say.
“It’s dark here precisely because you have been avoiding your duties. The sun doesn’t shine out of your rear end, as much as you’d like to think it does, but it may as well. You are Death; the Underworld requires your presence. Three months of this darkness building…you wouldn’t believe how hard it is to read when all you have, other than the odd candle is the illumination of the dead. I’m not saying that you have to live in the Underworld. But just a bit of time would make a lot of difference.” Mr. D gestures skywards. “See, it’s already starting to lighten up.”
I thought it was my eyes adjusting, but he’s right. It’s as though someone is slowly, slowly dialling up a dimmer. The sky above us grows ruddy and luminescent.
“This is all because of me?” I ask.
“Who else? You are Death. And this is your Underworld.” I walk to the edge of the branch. Down below me the city packs away the dark and reveals itself. Skyscrapers, apartment buildings, forests and suburbs stretching on to the limits of my sight. And through it all, the thick dark thread of the river. Was it really running down without me? All I thought I had to do was send souls here. Once again, it’s rather more complicated than I believed.
“I thought you’d succumbed to the One Tree’s call.”
“Not yet, though I’ve had to struggle. Not easy to justify your existence when your function is denied. Steve, how did we end up like this, again?”
“You, it was …”
Mr. D is looking at me intently, calmly. Annoyingly calmly.
“What I mean…” I clear my throat, cough into my fist. “I was ashamed.”
“Yes, well…I didn’t provide much help. I could have been better. And, you see, Suzanne had her plan. I wanted to say something. I didn’t expect it to end the way it did. What you did to Rillman—I can’t condone it. But I didn’t help the situation. We made you what you are, Steven. But the thing about you—and it’s very much to your credit—is that you’re never quite the blank canvas that people believe.” Mr. D reaches out a hand. “Friends, eh?”
We shake hands, and both of us smile. And avoid looking in each other’s eyes. This is about as emotional as either of us are going to get. But, it’s a good moment. And you don’t get too many of those.
“So…is it the end of the world yet?”
“Not yet,” I say. “We need to talk.”
Mr. D smiles. “Obviously.” He nods at my arm. “Where’s the little fella?”
“You two together, I don’t know …”
“We’ll be good…” He clears his throat. “And it’d be nice. You know, the old gang.”
I sigh. “Very well.”
I close my eyes and release Wal from my arm.
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He flies around my head, looking me up and down with those unsettling Modigliani eyes of his, blank, colorless and almond shaped, yet so expressive. He glances over at Mr. D, and clenches one tiny fist. “Just mind who you’re calling little fella, eh?”
Mr. D grins at him, and Wal abruptly turns his back on my old boss and regards me steadily.
“Hey,” Wal says.
I nod at him. “Hey.”
Both our heys say volumes. There’s hurt and anger, and forgiveness there. Yeah, and a lot of “we’re going to need to talk very seriously later.” But I’m happy to see him, happier than I ever expected.
Mr. D claps his hands together. “Right. We can’t talk here, far too dismal. And, if the world isn’t over just yet how about a round of minigolf?”
What do you say to someone you haven’t spoken to in months? Particularly when it ended so badly. Part of me wants to hit Mr. D for the secrets he hid from me. Part of me really can’t bear to face him.
Wal flies in circles around the both of us, keeping his back to me. He hasn’t spoken to me beyond that hey—which is totally killing that warm fuzzy feeling I had, and ruining my game. I haven’t made par yet, not even on the easy holes. I’ve hit every trap, fished my ball out of every chasm, every pond of blood or fire. My armpits are stained with sweat; my shoes are slick with gore, and just a bit melty.
Mr. D is a deft hand. Making two shots, no more, on even the most difficult holes.
“I didn’t know that the Underworld had minigolf.”
Wal sniffs, loudly.
“It has a lot of things,” Mr. D says bending over his putter on the thirteenth green—the ball’s about two feet from the hole. Somehow I’ve ended up holding the pin, the flag blowing in a stiff hellish breeze. “The back nine on this one is particularly challenging. Now, what did you want to talk to me about?” There’s a slight hurt tone to his voice. I’m doing my best to ignore it.
You’d think we’d been through enough that we could talk about our feelings. But we’re men, Australian men (and an Australian cherub), of course we can’t. Cut to the bloody chase, de Selby. I want the bad blood between us gone, but if that isn’t going to happen I need to move on. Even so, Mr. D still owes me his advice.
The Business Of Death, Death Works Trilogy Page 57