The Business Of Death, Death Works Trilogy

by Trent Jamieson

  You’ve gotta like that.

  “So where are we heading?” Wal says, taking in the whole Pomp army thing as though it’s an everyday sort of occurrence.

  I’m not sure…towards Mount Coot-tha? That’s where my heart is drawing me.

  “Forward,” I say. “We go forward.”

  And Lissa, Tim, Alex and my little army stride deeper into the urban spaces of the Underworld.

  A few streets along, a dark shape walks toward us from behind a column that is coated with crackling ice. A Stirrer. There’s a collective growl from my ranks, knives out, blood ready to flow. The Stirrer wilts, waves its hands furiously. Alex steps around me. His pistol is out, he lifts it towards the Stirrer. Lissa’s by his side with her knife.

  “Don’t shoot,” it yells in a voice that is liquid and deep, far too deliquescent to pass as human, there’s a bit of bird song in it, and a touch of throat gargle. “Don’t!”

  Alex looks to me: his gun is raised, pointed at the Stirrer’s narrow head.

  I nod.

  Alex sighs, shakes his head. “Does that nod mean shoot or don’t shoot?”

  “Don’t,” I whisper.

  “Steve, a nod’s not really that specific, and if it is, well it’s normally in the affirmative, as in shoot the fucking bastard. Now, a shake on the—”

  I glare at him. “You’ve made your point, Pomp.” Alex scowls when I say that word. “Put down the gun.”

  Alex lowers the pistol, and the Stirrer relaxes. Well as much as you can when you are one against an army that is staring at you with bloody hands and tooth-grinding hatred. I fix a smile on my face.

  “I’ve been sent to guide you.” The Stirrer’s hands are out, palms forward. It’s unarmed, though the inch-long claws it’s sporting are weapon enough, as are the rows of sharkish teeth. Get those around your neck and you’ll be spraying your life’s blood all over the place.

  “Into a trap?” Wal says. I glare at him, he’s only saying what I’m thinking.

  The Stirrer smacks its lips concealing and revealing all those teeth. Takes me a moment to realize that it’s laughing. Alex lifts his pistol again, I wave it down absently.

  “Lon said you would say that,” the Stirrer says. “But he also said that if we cannot trust each other all is lost, and the abyss and torment waits for you. I can guide you along the fastest routes to Devour. The god is yet to arrive.”

  “You telling me that Morrigan hasn’t reached the city yet?”

  “No, he has been somewhat, distracted, all our reports suggest he is on the One Tree.”

  “Why the One Tree? Why now?”

  “We don’t know, but it will make your approach to Devour much easier.”

  I grab Tim, Lissa and Alex, pull them into a huddle, Wal joins us, not bothering to wait for an invitation.

  “I’m going to have to go after Morrigan.”

  “No,” Tim says. “He probably wants us to separate. We need you. And what if this Stirrer’s spinning shit?”

  “Look at you. The finest Pomps of your generation. If you can’t deal with a few Stirrers without me, we might as well give up now.”

  “And what about you?” Lissa says. “You’ll be on your own. Without Mog. Christ, Steve, Morrigan has your scythe, he drove HD from your body, what if he does it again.”

  “He won’t and this might be my only chance to face him. Besides, I won’t be alone, I have Wal here.” The cherub puffs up his chest, he’s looking decidedly, almost aggressively, chipper. “Who’s going to go up against Wal?” I say.

  Lissa snorts. And Wal grimaces at her. “She’s really not worth it,” he says.

  “I could come with you,” Lissa says.

  “No…you’re better off here. They’re going to need you, even more than I do.”

  Lissa shakes her head. Not buying it at all. Yeah, I could do with her help, yeah, I’d love to have her with me. But I can’t stand the thought of her on that tree, I can’t see her there again. And damned if I am going to lose her another time.

  “I’ll be back as quick as I can,” I say. “Hopefully with my scythe.”

  I leave them as they head to Devour, led by the Stirrer. Alone, at last, but for Wal. I punch a number into my phone.

  Silence, but I can feel it down the other end of the line.

  “The time is coming,” I say. “I’ll bring him to you if I can.”

  “I will be waiting.” The voice makes me jump, sounds like it’s scratching around in my ear canal rather than my phone. “Even now, all my energies are focused upon the task of drawing that doorway to me and keeping it with your Pomps. It is a mighty endeavor, but all of it depends on you.”

  “If I fail—”

  “Everything ends for a while.”

  “Then what happens?”

  “Something else begins,” the voice is warmer than I’ve ever heard it. “New doors are made and new doors are opened.”

  “We’ll just never be around to see it.”

  “We never are.”

  “I’ll bring him to you if I can.”

  “I know you will, because we have a deal.”

  “I haven’t forgotten.”

  I hang up the phone. I’ve a god to find.

  26

  The Underworld surrounds me. Though the One Tree is silent. I stand in the shadow of one of its mighty root buttresses, at the top of Mount Coot-tha. Brisbane’s Hellish clone extends below me, out to the Tethys and the black mountains of Hell.

  I’m buying a coffee from a barista with a crow growing from his shoulder. I hate wasting my time this way, with my friends approaching Devour, but there are things I have to find out here. And this barista sees most of what happens on the Hill. He may not be the most trustworthy source of information I have, but he has four sets of eyes.

  I just wish he was a little faster, I’m about the only customer. Sure, there are more people here than in the icy heart of the city, but it’s all far too quiet.

  “Your coffee, Mr. Orcus,” he says, and pushes the long black across the counter. Wal has ordered a chai latte with some sort of creamy froth.

  “Now, you can do me a favor. Have you seen this man?”

  I show the barista the photo of Morrigan I have in my phone, and he nods. Points up toward the branches of the One Tree.

  “He came through here, about eight hours ago. Bought a flat white. Seemed pissed off at something.”

  “Morrigan always does.” Wal and I exchange looks. Morrigan can’t even be satisfied becoming a god, and what the hell was he doing buying a coffee?

  The barista snorts. “Wait a minute, that’s the Morrigan?” he says. “Oh, but you’ve fucked up if the Morrigan is back.”

  “It wasn’t my fault.”

  Both barista and crow cackle. “Mate, if the Morrigan’s walking around Hell it’s your fault.”

  I ignore them. “When are you due to walk the Tree?”

  The barista stops laughing.

  “Surely it must be hard. This close to the tree, feeling its call.”

  “I manage.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t envy you.”

  The crow’s still chuckling away, and the barista stops it with a glare. “Do you want sugar with that LB?”

  I shake my head. “It’s fine how it is.”

  I leave the barista to his espresso machine and walk toward the tree, and the stairs that wend their way up its trunk.

  “Now that was just cruel,” says Wal, a frothy mustache covering his upper lip.

  “The bastard pissed me off.”

  “Still…to draw attention to it…”

  Here, where the One Tree is all, a creaking, drawing presence. I’m sure the barista can resist its call but I have made it harder for him. Unless he wants to leave the tree altogether and head to Charon’s Ark.

  I feel a little bad until I sip my coffee. Cold, and far too weak. Sympathy slips out the window and I drop the coffee in the bin.

  “He deserved it,” I say emphatically, and s
hift just a little further up to the base of the trunk and the stairs that wind around it. I remember running up these once, well, running part way up before being sick. At least this time I can shift. Need to keep the shifts small though, Mog and Morrigan are nearby but I can’t quite work out where.

  I stride towards the stairs, and around me the dead part, those who have managed to hold onto a little of the urgency of life glower at me. I’m not the most popular person here. Can’t blame them. The Hungry Death inside me takes some delight in their reaction.

  At the bottom of the stairs I turn around and look back at my kingdom. There’s still a huge disconnect whenever I consider Hell. I don’t feel like I have any true dominion over this place. The busy rush of the dead, though that is absent today, the city echoing my city, the tree above and around me. None of it is mine. If anything I’m a caretaker. I’ve no kingly ways about me, I’m not that great at the business of death.

  I remember one of my dad’s favorite lines: pomping is for Pomps, and business is for arseholes. Of course, Dad had proven remarkably good at business, too. Didn’t stop him saying that though.

  I wonder what he would think of me now. Mum would have been proud, but Dad, well he was always a little bit prickly.

  Nah, he would have been proud: even if he called me an arsehole. I take the first step that will lead me on a steep circuit of the One Tree, and almost at once I can sense Morrigan.

  It affects me more than I anticipate.

  “You right?” Wal asks.

  “Yeah,” I say, unconvincingly.

  “You’re a constant worry, Mr. de Selby,” Wal says.

  There’s a murmur behind me. I turn. There may not be as many of them as usual, but people are already waiting to climb the tree, and find their resting place. They’re going to have to wait a little more.

  I close my eyes. Feel Morrigan’s rage, and something more, a sadness or a fear.

  “He isn’t happy.”

  “This isn’t a happy place.”

  The tree has obviously brought back memories for Morrigan as well.

  I start taking the stairs two at a time, then shifting, moving by degrees, closer to my enemy. I pass a clump of Pomps, and they hardly notice my passage. I don’t push it, just move on. They have their journey to make now, and I have mine. There’s no rage or sadness there for them, just a steady stepping.

  The dead don’t hold onto their feelings for very long. For most it’s only a few hours, sometimes much less. For those of us familiar with the business, it’s quite often longer, particularly if there is something or someone to remind us. Lissa had managed to stay passionate, and distinctly Lissa-esque, for days. I’d said goodbye to my parents on this tree, I’d drawn Lissa back from the Underworld from here too. All of them had contained enough emotion to react to me.

  I follow the winding stairs, stopping at every branch, seeking Morrigan out. Here, among the branches, people settle down, stretch out and become one with the tree. Various stages of that absorption process present themselves to me. People bound in the barest fingertips of the One Tree, others little more than lumps in the wood.

  Every time I place my hand on the tree trunk the bark responds to my touch. Hums with an alarming electricity. It recognizes me, though that doesn’t stop it from trying to tempt me to rest, to lie down and let it do its job.

  There’s a quiet desperation in its call that I’ve never noticed before. The souls fleeing to Charon and his Ark are having an effect. The One Tree is starving, I’d even go so far as to say the One Tree’s dying.

  It’s no challenge to ignore the One Tree’s call, but I can’t help but be impressed by its single-mindedness. I recognize the Hungry Death in it. A vaster more organic Hungry Death, sure, but one still very much focused on a single outcome. How humans must irritate it, all that indecision.

  But I’m anything but indecisive today, as I climb its trunk.

  “I don’t like the look of this.” Wal says. “Or the smell, the smell in particular, it’s all too bloody burny for my liking.”

  Smoke wafts down from above, driven by a wind from the sea. A peculiar cologne-scented smoke, and lots of it.

  “Check the branches above,” I say.

  Wal, looks up. “There’s not that many of them left.”

  All of a sudden, I know where Morrigan is. It’s so damn obvious. After all, I gave the poor bastard Morrigan’s book.

  “Get to Mr. D,” I say. “Warn him.” Wal shoots up into the air.

  But I know it’s already too late.

  27

  The uppermost branch of the One Tree is hard beneath my feet, shuddering in time with the energies of a god. A big, angry god. One that likes throwing its fists around.

  I have to stop to take in the sight before me. I don’t know whether to be reassured or sickened. If Morrigan is trying to sort out grudges, his eye can’t be as closely focused on the prize as it should be. Or maybe he just knows that he can’t lose and is having some fun with it.

  Morrigan punches Mr. D in the face: over and over. My old boss shudders, his head snapping back with every wince-inducing blow. I know Mr. D’s dead, that this Underworld body is merely a psychic equivalent, but it’s all about the verisimilitude. Looking at Mr. D, it’s hard to believe that nerves aren’t firing in his body. Or that the blood running from his face isn’t blood. But maybe the difference between the two is so subtle that it really isn’t a difference at all. Just as Morrigan is a god and is still just Morrigan. Angry and wanting to take it out on whomever crossed him.

  The book I gave Mr. D to guard is open and burning. Dark shapes are rising from it and colliding with Morrigan.

  A flood of flitting sparrows. Each moment Morrigan seems more…whole. Not bigger, but there’s a mass to him. A definite solidity that he hadn’t had when I’d last seen him, which is disturbing: he’d so easily snatched the scythe from my grip even then.

  A final sparrow melds with him. The book turns to ash.

  Mr. D takes each punch with admirable silence for one who’s having the shit beaten out of them.

  Morrigan’s doing something that I’ve wanted to do to Mr. D on more than one occasion. But there’s an intensity to the violence that is most unlike Morrigan. The guy was a planner, he worked hard, didn’t give in to his feelings, and yet here he is letting go.

  I’m all manner of control and silence as I run behind him, clench my fist and swing at the back of his head. Only Morrigan isn’t there anymore, the bastard’s dropped to my left. I almost end up striking Mr. D instead, my fist falling short.

  Not that I have much time to register because Morrigan’s punching me in the stomach. He’s quick on the tail of that with a roundhouse to my jaw that has me stumbling back, arms flailing.

  “Hardly fair that,” Morrigan says.

  I rub my jaw. “Use whatever advantage you have,” I say, taking a few steps backwards along the branch. “You taught me everything I know.”

  “You still don’t know how to fight,” he says.

  “I make do.”

  At least he’s not focusing on Mr. D anymore. That’s something. I hope the guy’s trying to get as far away as possible.

  Morrigan squints at me. “I see you have your old parasite back inside you.”

  “No thanks to you.”

  “Pathetic really, the thing you have become.” I’m not sure who he’s talking to, me or HD. But at least he’s talking and not throwing punches.

  “And, this is coming from a god in a ghost.”

  “Oh, I’m much more than that,” Morrigan says.

  “What will you be once the world is dead, a cinder inhabited by the last of the Stirrers?”

  “I don’t need much. I’ll have an eternity to keep myself occupied.” He smiles. “I really do hate you, Steven. You’ve made a habit of having people hate you. Me, the god inside me, we’ll destroy this little world just for conceiving of you.”

  “What did I ever do to deserve that?”

  “Se
e, typical Steven de Selby. Always with the ‘I didn’t deserve this’, or ‘it wasn’t my fault’.”

  It wasn’t.

  “And yet the universe folds around you. Your capacity to stay alive and to piss me off knows no bounds.”

  “Surely you were fond of me once.” Where’s Mog? Where’s my scythe? I can feel it, so close, HD’s hunger for it burns inside me like a star.

  “I couldn’t stand you, or those overindulgent parents of yours.”

  Ah, there it is! A few meters from Morrigan.

  “Say what you will about me, but don’t bring my parents into it.”

  I gesture toward Mog. It lifts into the air, streaks toward me. Morrigan’s arm flashes out, in a movement too fast for my eyes to really comprehend, only now, Mog is back in his hands, and he has a good grip on it. I can see it struggling there, but it seems no effort for him to swing it about his head. Morrigan was always an awful show-off.

  “No, this is mine now.” He slices the scythe up at my belly. I scurry backwards, a clumsy move, but effective. In my book, any move is effective if it doesn’t lead to loss of blood. But now I’m dangerously close to the edge of the branch.

  Morrigan frowns. He stomps toward me across the branch and kicks me once in the chest, following through with a boot to the head. My teeth crack together, I blink back waves of red. HD rages inside me. Morrigan kicks me again.

  I try to catch his boot, and I catch it all right, in the face.

  “You’re nothing to me,” says Morrigan.

  I spit out a tooth, that’s going to make my dentist happy. “Same old fucking Morrigan.”

  Morrigan snorts. “I am and have always been far superior to you.”

  “Rillman thought that too.”

  “He was a hack. Nothing but a brilliant hack, and really not that brilliant. He could never look beyond his heart. He would have been a failure as an RM.”

  “You had no heart and he had too much. Maybe I’m just right.”

  “Would you just shut up and die!”

  He kicks at my face again. This time I get a good grip on the boot. He yanks his leg back, but I do not let go. I’ve seen something he hasn’t.