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  Death most definite

  ( Steven De Selby - 1 )

  Trent Jamieson

  Trent Jamieson

  Death most definite

  PART ONE

  THE SCHISM

  1

  I know something's wrong the moment I see the dead girl standing in the Wintergarden food court.

  She shouldn't be here. Or I shouldn't. But no one else is working this. I'd sense them if they were. My phone's hardly helpful. There are no calls from Number Four, and that's a serious worry. I should have had a heads-up about this: a missed call, a text, or a new schedule. But there's nothing. Even a Stirrer would be less peculiar than what I have before me.

  Christ, all I want is my coffee and a burger.

  Then our eyes meet and I'm not hungry anymore.

  A whole food court's worth of shoppers swarm between us, but from that instant of eye contact, it's just me and her, and that indefinable something. A bit of deja vu. A bit of lightning. Her eyes burn into mine, and there's a gentle, mocking curl to her lips that is gorgeous; it hits me in the chest.

  This shouldn't be. The dead don't seek you out unless there is no one (or no thing) working their case: and that just doesn't happen. Not these days. And certainly not in the heart of Brisbane's CBD.

  She shouldn't be here.

  This isn't my gig. This most definitely will not end well. The girl is dead; our relationship has to be strictly professional.

  She has serious style.

  I'm not sure I can pinpoint what it is, but it's there, and it's unique. The dead project an image of themselves, normally in something comfortable like a tracksuit, or jeans and a shirt. But this girl, her hair shoulder length with a ragged cut, is in a black, long-sleeved blouse, and a skirt, also black. Her legs are sheathed in black stockings. She's into silver jewelery, and what I assume are ironic brooches of Disney characters. Yeah, serious style, and a strong self-image.

  And her eyes.

  Oh, her eyes. They're remarkable, green, but flecked with gray. And those eyes are wide, because she's dead-newly dead-and I don't think she's come to terms with that yet. Takes a while: sometimes it takes a long while.

  I yank pale ear buds from my ears, releasing a tinny splash of "London Calling" into the air around me.

  The dead girl, her skin glowing with a bluish pallor, comes toward me, and the crowd between us parts swiftly and unconsciously. They may not be able to see her but they can feel her, even if it lacks the intensity of my own experience. Electricity crackles up my spine-and something else, something bleak and looming like a premonition.

  She's so close now I could touch her. My heart's accelerating, even before she opens her mouth, which I've already decided, ridiculously, impossibly, that I want to kiss. I can't make up my mind whether that means I'm exceedingly shallow or prescient. I don't know what I'm thinking because this is such unfamiliar territory: total here-be-dragons kind of stuff.

  She blinks that dead person blink, looks at me as though I'm some puzzle to be solved. Doesn't she realize it's the other way around? She blinks again, and whispers in my ear, "Run."

  And then someone starts shooting at me.

  Not what I was expecting.

  Bullets crack into the nearest marble-topped tables. One. Two. Three. Shards of stone sting my cheek.

  The food court surges with desperate motion. People scream, throwing themselves to the ground, scrambling for cover. But not me. She said run, and I run: zigging and zagging. Bent down, because I'm tall, easily a head taller than most of the people here, and far more than that now that the majority are on the floor. The shooter's after me; well, that's how I'm taking it. Lying down is only going to give them a motionless target.

  Now, I'm in OK shape. I'm running, and a gun at your back gives you a good head of steam. Hell, I'm sprinting, hurdling tables, my long legs knocking lunches flying, my hands sticky with someone's spilt Coke. The dead girl's keeping up in that effortless way dead people have: skimming like a drop of water over a glowing hot plate.

  We're out of the food court and down Elizabeth Street. In the open, traffic rumbling past, the Brisbane sun a hard light overhead. The dead girl's still here with me, throwing glances over her shoulder. Where the light hits her she's almost translucent. Sunlight and shadow keep revealing and concealing at random; a hand, the edge of a cheekbone, the curve of a calf.

  The gunshots coming from inside haven't disturbed anyone's consciousness out here.

  Shootings aren't exactly a common event in Brisbane. They happen, but not often enough for people to react as you might expect. All they suspect is that someone needs to service their car more regularly, and that there's a lanky bearded guy, possibly late for something, his jacket bunched into one fist, running like a madman down Elizabeth Street. I turn left into Edward, the nearest intersecting street, and then left again into the pedestrian-crammed space of Queen Street Mall.

  I slow down in the crowded walkway panting and moving with the flow of people; trying to appear casual. I realize that my phone's been ringing. I look at it, at arm's length, like the monkey holding the bone in 2001: A Space Odyssey. All I've got on the screen is Missed Call, and Private Number. Probably someone from the local DVD shop calling to tell me I have an overdue rental, which, come to think of it, I do-I always do.

  "You're a target," the dead girl says.

  "No shit!" I'm thinking about overdue DVDs, which is crazy. I'm thinking about kissing her, which is crazier still, and impossible. I haven't kissed anyone in a long time. If I smoked this would be the time to light up, look into the middle distance and say something like: "I've seen trouble, but in the Wintergarden, on a Tuesday at lunchtime, c'mon!" But if I smoked I'd be even more out of breath and gasping out questions instead, and there's some (well, most) types of cool that I just can't pull off.

  So I don't say anything. I wipe my Coke-sticky hands on my tie, admiring all that je ne sais quoi stuff she's got going on and feeling as guilty as all hell about it, because she's dead and I'm being so unprofessional. At least no one else was hurt in the food court: I'd feel it otherwise. Things aren't that out of whack. The sound of sirens builds in the distant streets. I can hear them, even above my pounding heart.

  "This is so hard." Her face is the picture of frustration. "I didn't realize it would be so hard. There's a lot you need-" She flickers like her signal's hit static, and that's a bad sign: who knows where she could end up. "If you could get in-"

  I reach toward her. Stupid, yeah, but I want to comfort her. She looks so pained. But she pulls back, as though she knows what would happen if I touch her. She shouldn't be acting this way. She's dead; she shouldn't care. If anything, she should want the opposite. She flickers again, swells and contracts, grows snowy. Whatever there is of her here is fracturing.

  I take a step toward her. "Stop," I yell. "I need to-"

  Need to? I don't exactly know what I need. But it doesn't matter because she's gone, and I'm yelling at nothing. And I didn't pomp her.

  She's just gone.

  2

  That's not how it's meant to happen. Unprofessional. So unprofessional. I'm supposed to be the one in control.

  After all, I'm a Psychopomp: a Pomp. Death is my business, has been in my family for a good couple of hundred years. Without me, and the other staff at Mortmax Industries, the world would be crowded with souls, and worse. Like Dad says, pomp is a verb and a noun. Pomps pomp the dead, we draw them through us to the Underworld and the One Tree. And we stall the Stirrers, those things that so desperately desire to come the other way. Every day I'm doing this-well, five days a week. It's a living, and quite a lucrative one at that.

  I'm good at what I do. Though this girl's got me wonde
ring.

  I wave my hand through the spot where, moments ago, she stood. Nothing. Nothing at all. No residual electrical force. My skin doesn't tingle. My mouth doesn't go dry. She may as well have never been there.

  The back of my neck prickles. I turn a swift circle.

  Can't see anyone, but there are eyes on me, from somewhere. Who's watching me?

  Then the sensation passes, all at once, a distant scratching pressure released, and I'm certain (well, pretty certain) that I'm alone-but for the usual Brisbane crowds pushing past me through the mall. Before, when the dead girl had stood here, they'd have done anything to keep away from her and me. Now I'm merely an annoying idiot blocking the flow of foot traffic. I find some cover: a little alcove between two shops where I'm out of almost everyone's line of sight.

  I get on the phone, and call Dad's direct number at Mortmax. Maybe I should be calling Morrigan, or Mr. D (though word is the Regional Manager's gone fishing), but I need to talk to Dad first. I need to get this straight in my head.

  I could walk around to Number Four, Mortmax's office space in Brisbane. It's on George Street, four blocks from where I'm standing, but I'm feeling too exposed and, besides, I'd probably run into Derek. While the bit of me jittery with adrenaline itches for a fight, the rest is hungry for answers. I'm more likely to get those if I keep away. Derek's been in a foul mood and I need to get through him before I can see anyone else. Derek runs the office with efficiency and attention to detail, and he doesn't like me at all. The way I'm feeling, that's only going to end in harsh words. Ah, work politics. Besides, I've got the afternoon and tomorrow off. First rule of this gig is: if you don't want extra hours keep a low profile. I've mastered that one to the point that it's almost second nature.

  Dad's line must be busy because he doesn't pick up. Someone else does, though. Looks like I might get a fight after all.

  "Yes," Derek says. You could chill beer with that tone.

  "This is Steven de Selby." I can't hide the grin in my voice. Now is not the time to mess with me, even if you're Morrigan's assistant and, technically, my immediate superior.

  "I know who it is."

  "I need to talk to Dad."

  There are a couple of moments of uncomfortable silence, then a few more. "I'm surprised we haven't got you rostered on."

  "I just got back from a funeral. Logan City. I'm done for the day."

  Derek clicks his tongue. "Do you have any idea how busy we are?"

  Absolutely, or I'd be talking to Dad. I wait a while: let the silence stretch out. He's not the only one who can play at that. "No," I say at last, when even I'm starting to feel uncomfortable. "Would you like to discuss it with me? I'm in the city. How about we have a coffee?" I resist the urge to ask him what he's wearing.

  Derek sighs, doesn't bother with a response, and transfers me to Dad's phone.

  "Steve," Dad says, and he sounds a little harried. So maybe Derek wasn't just putting it on for my benefit.

  "Dad, well, ah…" I hesitate, then settle for the obvious. "I've just been shot at."

  "What? Oh, Christ. You sure it wasn't a car backfiring?" he asks somewhat hopefully.

  "Dad… do cars normally backfire rounds into the Wintergarden food court?"

  "That was you?" Now he's sounding worried. "I thought you were in Logan."

  "Yeah, I was. I went in for some lunch and someone started shooting."

  "Are you OK?"

  "Not bleeding, if that's what you mean."

  "Good."

  "Dad, I wouldn't be talking to you if someone hadn't warned me. Someone not living."

  "Now that shouldn't be," he says. He sounds almost offended. "There are no punters on the schedule." He taps on the keyboard. I could be in for a wait. "Even factoring in the variables, there's no chance of a Pomp being required in the Wintergarden until next month: elderly gentleman, heart attack. There shouldn't be any activity there at all."

  I clench my jaw. "There was, Dad. I'm not making it up. I was there. And, no, I haven't been drinking."

  I tell him about the dead girl, and am surprised at how vivid the details are. I hadn't realized that I'd retained them. The rest of it is blurring, what with all the shooting and the sprinting, but I can see her face so clearly, and those eyes.

  "Who was she?"

  "I don't know. She looked familiar: didn't stay around long enough for me to ask her anything. But Dad, I didn't pomp her. She just disappeared."

  "Loose cannon, eh? I'll look into it, talk to Morrigan for you."

  "I'd appreciate that. Maybe I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, but it doesn't feel like that. She was trying to save me, and when do the dead ever try and look after Pomps?"

  Dad chuckles at that. There's nothing more self-involved than a dead person. Talking of self-involved…"Derek says you're busy."

  "We're having trouble with our phone line. Another one of Morrigan's 'improvements'," Dad says, I can hear the inverted commas around improvements. "Though… that seems to be in the process of being fixed." He pauses. "I think that's what's happening, there's a half-dozen people here pulling wiring out of the wall." I can hear them in the background, drills whining; there's even a little hammering. "Oh, and there's the Death Moot in December. Two months until everything's crazy and the city's crowded with Regional Managers. Think of it, the entire Orcus here, all thirteen RMs." He groans. "Not to mention the bloody Stirrers. They keep getting worse. A couple of staffers have needed stitches."

  I rub the scarred surface of the palm of my free hand. Cicatrix City as we call it, an occupational hazard of stalling stirs, but the least of them when it came to Stirrers. A Pomp's blood is enough to exorcise a Stirrer from a newly dead body, but the blood needs to be fresh. Morrigan is researching ways around this, but has come up with nothing as of yet. Dad calls it time-wastery. I for one would be happy if I didn't have to slash open my palm every time a corpse came crashing up into unlife.

  A stir is always a bad thing. Unsettling, dangerous and bloody. Stirrers, in essence, do the same thing as Pomps, but without discretion: they hunger to take the living and the dead. They despise life, they drain it away like plugholes to the Underworld, and they're not at all fond of me and mine. Yeah, they hate us.

  "Well, I didn't see or sense one in Logan. Just a body, and a lot of people mourning."

  "Hmm, you got lucky. Your mother had two." Dad sighs. "And here I am stuck in the office."

  I make a mental note to call Mom. "So Derek wasn't lying."

  "You've got to stop giving Derek so much crap, Steve. He'll be Ankou one day, Morrigan isn't going to be around forever."

  "I don't like the guy, and you can't tell me that the feeling isn't mutual."

  "Steven, he's your boss. Try not to piss him off too much," Dad says and, by the tone of his voice, I know we're about to slip into the same old argument. Let me list the ways: My lack of ambition. How I could have had Derek's job, if I'd really cared. How there's more Black Sheep in me than is really healthy for a Pomp. That Robyn left me three years ago. Well, I don't want to go there today.

  "OK," I say. "If you could just explain why the girl was there and, maybe, who she was. She understood the process, Dad. She wouldn't let me pomp her." There's silence down the end of the line. "You do that, and I'll try and suck up to Derek."

  "I'm serious," Dad says. "He's already got enough going on today. Melbourne's giving him the run-around. Not returning calls, you know, that sort of thing."

  Melbourne giving Derek the run-around isn't that surprising. Most people like to give Derek the run-around. I don't know how he became Morrigan's assistant. Yeah, I know why, he's a hard worker, and ambitious, almost as ambitious as Morrigan-and Morrigan is Ankou, second only to Mr. D. But Derek's hardly a people person. I can't think of anyone who Derek hasn't pissed off over the years: anyone beneath him, that is. He'd not dare with Morrigan, and only a madman would consider it with Mr. D-you don't mess with Geoff Daly, the Australian Regional Manager. Mr. D's too
creepy, even for us.

  "OK, I'll send some flowers," I say. "Gerberas, everyone likes gerberas, don't they?"

  Dad grunts. He's been tapping away at his computer all this time. I'm not sure if it's the computer or me that frustrates him more.

  "Can you see anything?"

  A put-upon sigh, more tapping. "Yeah… I'm… looking into… All right, let me just…" Dad's a one-finger typist. If glaciers had fingers they'd type faster than him. Morrigan gives him hell about it all the time; Dad's response requires only one finger as well. "I can't see anything unusual in the records, Steve. I'd put it down to bad luck, or good luck. You didn't get shot after all. Maybe you should buy a scratchie, one of those $250,000 ones."

  "Why would I want to ruin my mood?"

  Dad laughs. Another phone rings in the background; wouldn't put it past Derek to be on the other end. But then all the phones seem to be ringing.

  "Dad, maybe I should come into the office. If you need a hand…"

  "No, we're fine here," Dad says, and I can tell he's trying to keep me away from Derek, which is probably a good thing. My Derek tolerance is definitely at a low today.

  We say our goodbyes and I leave him to all those ringing phones, though my guilt stays with me.

  3

  I take a deep breath. I feel slightly reassured about my own living-breathing-walking-talking future. If Number Four's computers can't bring anything unusual up then nothing unusual is happening.

  There are levels of unusual though, and I don't feel that reassured by the whole thing, even if I can be reasonably certain no one has a bead on me. Something's wrong. I just can't put my finger on it. The increased Stirrer activity, the problems with the phones… But we've had these sorts of things before, and even if Stirrers are a little exotic, what company doesn't have issues with their phones at least once a month? Stirrers tend to come in waves, particularly during flu season-there's always more bodies, and a chance to slip in before someone notices-and it's definitely flu season, spring is the worst for it in Brisbane. I'm glad I've had my shots, there's some nasty stuff going around. Pomps are a little paranoid about viruses, with good reason-we know how deadly they can be.