I’ve never felt so clumsy, never felt so foolish, never felt so wonderful. She is warm where I have only known cold these last days. Her breath is hot against my neck.
I can’t help it, I cry.
“Thank you,” I say. “Thank you for bringing me back. Thank you for everything.”
“You would do the same,” she says.
Yeah, I would. I kiss her, breathe in the smell of her, and taste the salt on her skin like it’s some transformative thing. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I shouldn’t have shouted at you.”
“I would do the same,” she says, and pulls my hand to her breast. I can feel her beating heart now, not just hear it.
Then it hits me all over again. “Five days!” What the hell was the Death of Water playing at? And what has been going on in the world above?
“I thought it might take a while to sink in,” Lissa says.
“What have I missed out on?”
“Take me to Mt Coot-tha,” Lissa says. “Let me show you why people agreed to me calling you back.”
“Hold me tight,” I say, and she does as we shift to the top of the mountain.
There’s a hush in the air. Which is odd because the lookout is crowded, even this early in the morning. Five a.m., but you’d think it was midday.
No one is looking down. I follow their gaze, skyward. At first I think there’s a second sun above me. But that’s not what it is at all.
There’s a great comet, luminous and vast, filling the sky, a tiny tail beginning to develop. I’m at once awed and angry. HD is raging too. Marvelling at this thing’s obvious capacity for destruction—forget about a scythe. That’s small fry to this.
Rage turns to fear. There’s no doubt in my mind where this is headed. I recognize it with a grim certainty. That’s the odd rhythm I feel in the world’s pulse, all those hearts beating with the knowledge of this deathly immanence. Did the dinosaurs’ hearts beat this way at the end as they looked up and saw the Stirrer god made manifest?
“A god will light the sky,” I say.
“What?”
“It’s what the Death of the Water said: a god will light the sky. And there we have it.”
“That’s why I needed to summon you. To see if you were alive,” Lissa says without sounding at all convincing. “Tim was against the idea, until yesterday, when that showed up. You could say the End of Days is already here. Although, with that thing bright in the sky there are no days, just one long day. The whole world’s scared now, Steven. Not just those of us who know. And you’ve been away through all of it.”
“What’s Cerbo have to say about it?”
“You probably want to talk to him.”
“Anyone asked Bruce Willis what he’s going to do?” I’m still heady with lust, with the presence of her. All I can smell is Lissa, and it’s intoxicating.
“Steve, this is no joking matter. Best estimate is there’re twenty-two days until it hits.”
“Whose estimate?”
“Ours. The schedule. In less than a month all life on earth ends.”
13
The schedule said what?” I ask, even though I can feel it now, the deathly void we’re hurtling toward.
“Yesterday,” Lissa says. “Just as the comet appeared, everything changed. All the long-term projections, they shrank. At first I thought…to be honest, Steve, I thought it was you—that you had died. But then the schedule, I suppose you could say it rebooted itself. Deaths increase dramatically tomorrow, and continue to rise, but in three weeks the mortality rate of the planet is total.”
“We’re going to have to put on extra staff,” I say. “Shirley in payroll is going to hate…God, she complains enough as it is.”
“Can you please take this seriously?”
“I am, believe me I am.”
“Everything suggests, and persuasively, that it’s a planet-killer.”
“Define planet-killer.”
“Not just humans, everything but the toughest bacteria are going to have a hard time surviving when that hits. Let alone the aftermath. The air will burn, the whole world will be shrouded in dust.”
“I don’t know how I’m expected to stop it. In fact I don’t think I can.”
“Cerbo has some ideas, but I think you’re better off talking to him about them.”
“Yeah, but from what the Death of the Water has told me, we’re going to have our own problems.”
“What?”
“The comet is the least of it. We’re going to have to face another threat, this one will appear human.” I glance around: the coffee shop is doing a decent trade. The traffic down in the city is behaving like Brisbane traffic has always behaved. “Civilization doesn’t appear to have collapsed.”
“Oh, there’s been riots, not in Australia yet, but there was a huge one in Paris, and a terrible one in Seattle of all places. A couple of cults have committed mass suicides…but no, not yet. Mainly because every major astronomy body has denied it’s going to hit the earth. Regardless, the day it appeared share markets took a dive and chaos isn’t far away. Everyone is waiting for it to happen. They’re just not sure how it’s going to manifest.”
Just like our Stirrer god, I guess.
I kiss Lissa gently on the cheek, then shift with her to our unit.
“We’ve got to start mobilizing,” I say, dragging her toward the bathroom. “The war’s coming. I have to see Cerbo. But, first, I’m having a shower. You and me both.”
Cerbo gets up from behind his desk, his hands are shaking just a little, there are dark shadows beneath his eyes, but he manages a smile. “Can’t tell you how glad I am to see you,” he says, reaching out to shake my hand. To hell with it, I give him a hug.
“Nearly as glad as I am to see you,” I say. We pull apart, both of us grinning. “The problem with the Death of the Water has been resolved.”
“We were beginning to worry.”
“With reason, I don’t think it meant to let me walk out of there, but I think it was worth it, and I’ve learnt some interesting stuff.”
“You’ve seen the comet, of course.”
“Yes, and from my little chat with the Death of the Water it’s definitely the Stirrer god manifest.”
“How do we fight that?”
“Far as I can tell, we don’t. That’s the Death of the Water’s job. See, here’s the thing, the god doesn’t just manifest in the sky, it walks among us too.”
“It takes a human form?”
“It takes a mortal form,” I say. “Mortal being the key word. I’m thinking that was what the “M” was all about on Suzanne’s table.”
Cerbo flicks through his notes. “I always wondered how it would appear. That thing we’ve seen in the Deepest Dark just wasn’t going to work here—different physics apply for one, and the Underworld operates to stranger rules. To meld the worlds together you’d need something showy, and something precise. A human and a comet: there’s resonance there. And the fact that we are expecting it to start on Morrigan’s birthday. Perhaps…
“Look, Morrigan was tenacious in life, and one who liked to plan. If anyone is capable of coming back from such utter annihilation it would be him.”
“No,” I say. “Morrigan may have something to do with this. Some knowledge, but that is all. First place I’m going to check though is his old house.”
“What are you expecting to find?”
“I don’t know, but I don’t think I’ll see him sitting in the parlor smoking a pipe.”
Cerbo sighs. “You’re probably right. But before you go chasing ghosts. Visit your Ankous. They’re nervous, frightened, there’s a god in the sky. See to them, before you go on your hunt. You owe them that much at least.”
So, I spend the morning visiting my Ankous assuring them that I have patched up things with the Death of the Water. I’m quick, maybe too quick, but my presence is almost enough. Ari seems pleased with my appearance at her base in Cardiff, where she is all efficiency with a hint of disdain. She h
ands me two bottles of Bundy Rum. “That is what you like, isn’t it?”
I take them from her silently, and place them on her desk. “Not anymore,” I say.
I even manage not to look at them for the rest of our conversation. I don’t know whether I’ve impressed or insulted her. Probably both.
“We’re running out of time,” she says.
“We’ve always been running out of time. Which is why you need to be ready. I’ll call you when I need you.”
“I’ll be waiting,” she says.
I know she picks up one of those bottles of rum, opens it and has a long, hard drink the moment I’m gone. And I envy her.
David, in Jo’burg as usual, seems a bit put out by my manner, and my message. I think he still blames me for what happened to Neill, his old RM. Those responsible for his murder are gone, I’m the closest person he’s going get. Why does it always turn out that way?
Jing in Shanghai is so reserved that I can’t tell what she’s thinking. I almost detect a hint of disappointment at my appearance. I shift from regional Number Four to regional Number Four. Cerbo’s absolutely right, as much as I am itching to find out how Morrigan is involved in the End of Days, Mortmax needs to know that I am back.
Everywhere I go I can feel the fear behind the civility and the regular functioning of Mortmax. These are people desperately holding on to normalcy, because it’s all they have. Time’s running down, and we’re all too aware of that.
I stress that I’m doing everything I can, and they all say they believe me, but I can’t see too much of that in their eyes.
I even manage to get some more Pomps out of each region, though no one is that keen to give me too many, even though we’re rubbing up against the twenty-fourth. I’ve found that while I may be Mortmax’s CEO I’m not all-powerful. Not even Mog can make me that. These are hardened Ankous, they know how to stand up to one of the Orcus, and their skills haven’t slipped now that there is only The Orcus.
They are deferential but I know that they mumble behind my back. That as much as they hope otherwise, they doubt I am up to the job. And several of them are not above considering another Schism. Corporate culture doesn’t change overnight. And unlike Australia—where it pretty much did, because in one night Morrigan slaughtered just about everyone in the business—they may have lost their Regional Managers, but they didn’t lose anyone else.
If they could, there’s not a single one of them that wouldn’t slash my throat for a chance at the top job. Not a single one—from Cerbo to David and Christine. Except Tim, of course. That’s the other vexing thing, though. Tim gets a much easier job of it. I feel that they respect him, much more than they’ve ever respected me. The same goes for Lissa. They approach my two closest friends with a warmth, a genuine warmth. Tim and Lissa are seen as deserving. Tim and Lissa have reputations. And they didn’t spend the first three months on the job in various degrees of drunk.
I know I should have worked harder at changing that perception, and maybe I have a little, but they still think I’m an absolute fucking dolt. As far as they see it, a slacker has taken hold of the reins.
Morrigan’s house is in the outer suburbs, near Eight Mile Plains, about twenty minutes south of Brisbane’s CBD. It’s my house now. I’d been surprised to discover that he’d left it to me in his will. You can’t say that Morrigan didn’t plan for every eventuality. I guess he never expected it to turn out this way, and it had been really hard for me to resist burning his house to the ground, just like he did mine.
His house is in one of the few streets in Brisbane that are lined with deciduous trees, and they’ve already dropped most of their leaves. Gives the area a mood that a lot of Brisbane doesn’t have, feels a couple of degrees colder here too, though I know it’s an illusion. When the wind blows it crackles. The street is almost charmingly eerie, an otherworld sort of Brisbane, here in one of the southernmost tips of the city.
And it’s quiet. Far too quiet for late morning in the burbs. I realize then that I don’t hear any heartbeats. That’s not right. Unless something is blocking them. My skin prickles. Stirrers.
I don’t know why I haven’t noticed it until now, but the house next to Morrigan’s possesses an awful lot of aerials. And the one behind his does too, not to mention the one on the other side. That stops me. I check the lawn beneath my feet. It’s dead, dry compacted soil. Other than my Avians there are no birds moving in the sky overhead. There’s a shrill dog barking a couple of blocks away. But it stops even as I listen. My skin tightens, I can taste something familiar and unpleasant in the air: faint, hidden, but no less recognizable for it. And now that I am standing very still I can feel them.
Five months ago, Alex had come across a house in the inner burbs, its roof crammed with aerials, its rooms covered with arcane symbols and filled with Stirrers—like a share house of the Undead. Lissa had suggested the place had been used to create a thinning in the earth-Hell interface, the offshoot of which was the generation of storms, storms that dulled my senses to both Stirrers and the assassin/torturer of the season, Francis Rillman. After we had, I had…dealt with Rillman, we’d scoured the city for similar hiding places, and come up with nothing.
Two months of concerted hunting and while the number of stirs had gradually increased, we’d not found a single residence. Until now.
Morrigan’s place is surrounded by them. How did my Avians miss this? They’ve caught sight of Stirrers all up and down the coast. All I can think is that they’ve been established only recently—it’s been a couple of months since I last came here. Mr. D is right. The presence of the approaching Stirrer god is doing more than increasing the anxiety levels at work. It’s also reducing my perceptions.
I close my eyes to get my nearest Avian’s view. It’s of my back from below. Funny, I didn’t think I had a crow that close. I turn around and look across the lawn. I can’t see anything, but the Avian is watching me. I summon it. Nothing. I walk towards it, growing taller in its sight.
There it is, or what’s left of it. A crow’s skull at the base of the nearest telephone pole. Charred tendrils of flesh and feathers cling to the bone. I crouch down, and pick it up. A flash of light, my fingers sting. I drop the skull and it shatters, taking its vision with it.
Not good at all.
The game has changed and I don’t know the rules. Something has flipped while I wasn’t looking. Perhaps the Stirrers have merely been in hiding. The thought’s terrifying and oddly exhilarating. At least something is happening. While the Stirrers did nothing there was no way we could fight them. Now they are in motion, now we have a chance to hit back.
I whisper Mog into being, the knives slide from their sheaths, and wrap around each other, swift as a breath, and I’m holding the scythe. I walk across Morrigan’s yard, leap over the fence to the house closest, and straight onto a dead lawn that collapses beneath me. I throw my arms out towards the edge of the pit, but it’s too late. I fall and fall hard.
A wooden shaft drives through my ribcage and out my shoulder. I’d scream, but the breath is knocked from me. My weight is dragging me down the spike, leaving a dewy red stripe of bubbling blood as it goes. The damn thing’s driven through a lung. I’m faced with the sick-making sensation of my skin healing around the wound, and then breaking again as I sink. Each time it does, I dry heave, which only tears my flesh even more. My boots touch the ground and start bearing my weight.
Mog’s just out of reach and I whisper it to me. There’s something comforting about the contact, though even moving the muscles required to close my fingers around it is agony.
Not that clever, I think. I try and breathe, manage a few shallow breaths, spots dance before my eyes. The wound’s pushing against the wood trying to heal it away, as if it might somehow crush it. Give it time, days or weeks, and it probably will. But I don’t have days or weeks. The shaft extends three feet above my head. I try to stand on my toes, but the merest movement upwards hurts bad enough that I almost black out. Can�
�t pull myself free, but I can shift.
I do, just a few feet. The pain almost drops me to my knees, blood gouts from the entry and exit points. But only for a moment, my skin closes over the wound, these are regular wounds, no supernatural toxins, and my body deals with them swiftly. Muscle heals. Jesus, it hurts and I stand there unsteady on my feet, helped only by leaning on the shafts around me. They must have built this late at night, maybe coopted whoever came along to check up on it. Snap someone’s neck, inhabit the body with a Stirrer, and you’ve got another worker. The invasion’s begun. I raise my head and stare up at the comet in the sky.
Once I can breathe clearly, I notice the smell. There’s a dog down here with me. No, two dogs.
They’re remarkably well preserved, but that would make sense. Not much can live near a Stirrer for long, not even bacteria. They draw life through to the Underworld like vacuum cleaners. Keeps their bodies smelling fresh too. I peer down at the dogs. One looks like it may have choked to death, its collar twisted tight around its neck. I imagine the poor things’ last moments. Don’t need to imagine too hard. Fucking Stirrers.
One of the dog’s eyes open. It growls at me, it twists it head hard, snaps the brittle leather of its collar, and jumps to its feet.
Not a zombie dog, surely. I take a step back and yelp as the other dog’s teeth clamp around my ankle. I swing my scythe as best I can in the cramped confines of the pit. The snath of the scythe connects with the head of the dog that is wrapped around my leg. Dog jawbone breaks and the pressure’s released.
I’m already whispering the Knives of Negotiation back into existence. Better for this sort of fighting. The first dog leaps up at my throat. But I’m ready for it, I neatly sever its head from its body. These knives are sharp. Sometimes I forget just how sharp. The look of shock on the Stirrer-dog’s face is almost comical.
The other dog backs away. I throw my knife at its skull, splitting it in two.
I’ve never seen this before. I didn’t even know that Stirrers could inhabit animals. Is it really a Stirrer inhabiting the corpse or a Stirrer-dog equivalent? Regardless, it’s a worrying development heaped onto a whole series of worrying developments.
The Business Of Death, Death Works Trilogy Page 61