Managing Death Read online

  ‘So Rillman, what’d he look like?’ I ask, pushing her cup towards her.

  She brings it to her lips, sips contemplatively. ‘Nothing much. Bland, unmemorable. I know that sounds glib, but …’ She furrows her brow. ‘Tired, he looked tired, washed out. His hair was short, parted to one side. Wait a minute, there was one thing.’ She reaches up and touches my nose. Her fingertips are warm and I blink at the contact. ‘His nose was broken, not badly, but you could tell someone had given him a mighty whack once.’

  ‘Maybe Mr D?’ Though I can’t imagine Mr D ever hitting anyone.

  ‘Yeah, possibly. He asked about you. Seemed very interested in what you did. Hey, I might have a photo!’

  Lissa runs out of the kitchen. I hear her digging around in the bedroom, then a cry of triumph. She comes back holding a photo album, open to a page. ‘Here, here they are! Mum, Dad and Rillman.’

  Lissa’s description is apt. He’s plain, all right, not unhandsome, I suppose. But in this photo he’s smiling, and there’s not a glint of murderous intent. His arms are around another woman, tall, dark hair down to her shoulders. She’s smiling, too. Happy days.

  ‘Is that his wife?’

  ‘Yes,’ Lissa says. ‘I can’t remember her name.’

  No one remembers names, just the tragedies. What must it be like to fail at an Orpheus Manoeuvre? Not just fail, but be stopped? I understand him a little, I think. Suddenly I have to hold Lissa. I kiss her hard.

  ‘What was that about?’ she asks when I let her go, but I know she gets it too. She has to, right?

  I look back at the photo. ‘Did he seem angry at all?’

  ‘No, more resigned. I got the feeling the angry part of him was long gone. And you know how souls are, they’re a bit insipid, bloodless.’

  I reach across the table and touch her arm. ‘You weren’t.’

  Lissa smiles. ‘But that’s just me, I’m special.’

  ‘You are. You don’t know how much you are.’

  Lissa shakes her head, but she isn’t one for false modesty. ‘I should have paid more attention to him, but it was a busy day. I think I must have pomped eight people that afternoon. Rillman was the last.’

  ‘I’d have been the same. Strange, though – everything that I’ve been hearing seems to suggest Rillman could be behind the attack.’

  ‘Where’d his name come up?’

  ‘Something Mr D said,’ I lie, and it’s easier than I thought it would be. Like shifting, I’m getting better with practice.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah, why not? He’s supposed to be teaching me something.’

  ‘It’s just … Mr D doesn’t like to talk about Rillman. It’s a generational thing, none of them did. Rillman apparently put Mortmax Australia about ten years behind the rest of the world.’ She grins. ‘Oh, yeah, he also ruined a Death Moot.’

  ‘I like the sound of this guy.’

  ‘It was quite the scandal.’

  ‘Well, the chances of it being Rillman are pretty slim,’ I say. ‘You don’t come back.’

  Except we both know that isn’t true. It makes me uncomfortable to consider it, but somehow Rillman’s death, his interest in me, make me certain he is the one responsible. That he has come back somehow. It feels right. It terrifies me. Before tonight I didn’t know that humans could inhabit Stirrers. What’s a little moving between worlds compared to that? Like Suzanne said, the Underworld is more permeable than I had thought. Who and what else might be coming through?

  Lissa picks up her coffee cup and walks it to the sink. I can see her thoughts in the slope of her shoulders as she rinses the cup.

  ‘It’s OK,’ I say, kissing the back of her neck.

  ‘I’m so sorry.’ She places the cup in the drainer. ‘Sometimes I think all this is my fault. If I hadn’t –’

  She’s mirroring my thoughts. This isn’t her fault, it’s mine. I think about what Suzanne said. About the enemies I’ve made, and all because I fought to stay alive and honour the memory of my family, and because I loved someone enough to chase them through Hell and bring them back.

  We saved each other. Whether it was the right thing or not, it was the only thing either of us would have done. And hang the consequences.

  13

  The office is quiet, pre-dawn. I’ve a stack of files before me: Rillman, everything I could find on him. Which is virtually nothing. Who the fuck is Francis Rillman? What did he become?

  Solstice had left a message on my phone, asking just this question, which is worrying and encouraging. Solstice obviously knows his job – and mine.

  There’s another half-bottle of rum sitting in my stomach. My head’s spinning a bit. The throne might heal my wounds but it doesn’t seem to do too much with alcohol until I stop drinking. I’m in my suit, my second-best one. I keep telling myself the drinking’s not a problem when you’re in a suit.

  Fifty-nine people have died across Australia in the last hour. My ten new Pomps have taken some of the workload off my crew – Suzanne was exceptionally quick about organising that – but the work is still constant. People are always dying.

  And the phone calls have been pretty steady, too. RMs or their Ankous. All of them wanting a piece of me, some favour, or their seat moved in the grand marquee of the meeting room.

  I look at the calendar on my desk, pushing the rubbish off it. The Death Moot’s drawing ever nearer. The catering’s organised at least, and the location.

  Of course, I could be dead by then.

  I grab a sheet of paper, write Francis Rillman? in thick black pen. Then scrunch the sheet up and hurl it at my bin.

  I’m going to have to go to the source for this one.

  I pick up the handset of Mr D’s phone. Even though the line’s dead I can feel the presence listening in on the other end. I play with the phone cord that spirals down to nothing, kind of a nervous thing.

  ‘We need to talk,’ I say.

  No response, but I know he’s heard me.

  ‘Now. We need to talk now.’

  ‘My boat,’ Mr D says, his soft voice coming through like a slither of ice in my ear. There’s slight irritation in his tone and I know that I’ve interrupted his reading. Well, too bad. His novels will be waiting for him when he gets back.

  There’s a click, and silence again. Seems I’ll be fishing, literally and figuratively.

  I send Lissa a text, tell her where I’m going. Then I take a deep breath, close my eyes and shift to Mr D’s boat.

  Mr D raises a hand in frustration as I throw my guts up over the edge of the rail – the other is gripping his fishing rod. ‘You’re not practising. You’ve got to keep practising.’

  ‘I’m not enough of a masochist.’

  ‘Really?’

  I hobble over to Mr D across the broad wooden deck of his boat, the Mary C. My foot’s throbbing. The wound’s healing fast, but it still seems to be a case of my mind catching up with my body. My nose burns with the salt of the sea of Hell, which is better than the taste of vomit. ‘And I have been practising!’

  ‘Yes, well, this is the second time you’ve seen me in three days. One would think you were having troubles.’ He hands me a fishing rod. Wal’s already holding his, knuckles white. He got it almost the moment he peeled from my flesh, seems to be enjoying the novelty of it all.

  ‘Suzanne’s made me an offer.’

  ‘An offer, eh?’ Mr D’s eyes narrow as he connects the rod to a belt around my waist.

  ‘I’ve taken it. Ten Pomps for ten hours with her. Ten hours of mentoring, of course. Nothing else, completely above board.’

  Mr D stares out at the choppy water. I can’t tell if he’s hurt, or being melodramatic. His shifting face doesn’t help either.

  ‘We’re stretched to capacity,’ I say.

  ‘I don’t need your excuses and you don’t need her advice.’

  ‘Where the fuck am I going to get it?’

  Mr D rounds on me. ‘That hurts. That really hurts. I’ve been an e
ndless fount of –’

  ‘Bullshit.’

  Wal shakes his head at me sternly. Since when did these two become so pally?

  ‘Sometimes I could just slap you, de Selby,’ Mr D says.

  ‘It doesn’t work. Believe me, mate, I’ve tried it,’ Wal says.

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ Mr D says.

  Yeah, the Steven de Selby fan club is in session. ‘Look, I don’t really have time for this,’ I say between teeth so tightly clenched they’re squeaking a little round the molars.

  Wal rolls his eyes. Considering he doesn’t really have any, it’s impressive. ‘Christ, Steve, would you look at where we are?’

  A long way from shore, I think.

  Mr D casts his line into the sea of Hell. The sinker plonks and plunges down, down, into what Mr D calls the deep tract depths. Great shapes roll out of the luminous water: proto-whales and megalodon mainly, long ago extinct, but this is Hell, and Hell teems – there’s really no other word for it – with such things. Extant memories, the seething echoes of other ages. I just wish that all the teeming stuff wasn’t so bloody huge.

  Mr D assures me we’re safe. After all, I’m the big boss around here. ‘Unlike those above, these seas are yours.’

  One of the perks of being RM. Nothing in Hell can touch me. But I’m not about to go for a dip. Wouldn’t if you paid me, wouldn’t if you gave me a cage to swim in.

  I glance back across the bay towards the coastline, salt still stinging my eyes and burning my lungs. The One Tree rises on the distant shore, its great branches extending like a leafy mushroom cloud over the entire Underworld echo of Brisbane. But out here I can almost imagine that it’s just a regular Moreton Bay fig in the distance. I peer over the edge of the boat, my free hand gripping the icy stainless steel rail.

  A great sharky eye looks up at me. I swear it winks as it glides past.

  I step away from the rail. ‘Um, pass me a beer … and maybe a bigger boat.’

  Mr D digs around in the esky. ‘How many times do I have to tell you, de Selby? You’re perfectly safe here on the Mary C.’ He slaps a cold one in my hand.

  ‘You think you should be having that?’ Wal asks, his lips pursed.

  I shrug. ‘Hair of the dog.’

  Wal casts his line into the sea, his tiny wings flapping furiously. ‘Hair of the dog, my arse.’

  As usual I can see rather too much of his arse. His chubby baby fingers grip his fishing rod, and he hovers like an obese hummingbird. How’s he going to cope if a fish takes the bait?

  This is all looking like such a bad idea. I take a mouthful of whatever brew Mr D could get on sale in Hell, some sort of generic brand that I’ve never heard of – Apsu Gold. It goes down pretty rough and bitter and tastes of ash in my mouth. Still, it’s beer.

  The boat rocks, shivers, judders, messes with my already impaired sense of balance. I swear it’s moving in a dozen different directions at once. One of Charon’s pilots is behind the wheel. Even he’s looking a bit green. Of course, he’s used to river traffic.

  Mr D has returned to his chipper and annoyingly distracted state. He sips on his beer politely and eats tiny sandwiches, cut into triangles. His rod is lodged casually under his right armpit. I’ve never known a more capable man who somehow manages to look like he doesn’t have a clue.

  Something tugs and I let it feed out, give it plenty of line. Mr D doesn’t mess around with his fishing gear. His beer might be cheap, but this is top-of-the-line Underworld equipment.

  ‘So what has she told you? What has she said that has led you to me, your old boss, your current mentor?’ Mr D asks. I’m almost shocked by his directness. Finally.

  ‘Francis Rillman,’ I say. ‘The name keeps cropping up.’

  Mr D shakes his head. ‘That is one person I will not talk about.’

  ‘But he –’

  ‘That bastard crossed me. He tried to tear down everything I had built and all … all for a woman.’

  Mr D had a terrible track record with his Ankous. After all, Morrigan followed Rillman.

  ‘I think he’s trying to kill me. Suzanne says it’s because I managed to pull off the Orpheus Manoeuvre.’

  Mr D checks his line. ‘It may have drawn his attention to you, but Rillman, I doubt it. He’s an idealist.’

  ‘And what does he want?’

  ‘An end to death itself,’ Mr D says as though it’s the most amusing and obvious thing in the world. ‘And, ironically, me dead. I told him at the time that he couldn’t have it both ways.’ I can see him inhabiting that moment. Something passes across his faces, an old hurt – a bitterness – and the amusement is replaced with an emotion more resolute. His lips tighten, he plays out more line. ‘That is all I will speak of him.’

  An end to death! As if that is possible, or even preferable. Death is pervasive and necessary: it is the broom that sweeps out the old and allows the new to flourish. Sure, I would think that, but I can’t see why Rillman would want this.

  My fishing rod dips. I let out a little more line.

  And then something is more than tugging – there’s a wrenching, hard against me. ‘Hey, I –’

  And then I’m plunging into that brimming-over-with-monsters sea. The line didn’t feed, and that line is connected to me. I’m being dragged down.

  The water’s cold and slimy. It snatches the breath from me. I’m tangled in the rod, and I’m going fast. Already the water pushes hard against my ribs.

  Should be no problem. I should be able to shift myself out of here. Only it isn’t working. What should feel like an opening out, a broadening of perspective, mixed with the snapping of a rubber band against my back brain, is nothing but a dull ache. I can’t shift. Interestingly, my hangover’s gone. You’ve gotta take the good with the bad.

  I look up. The Mary C’s hull is a tiny square on the surface. It winks out of sight; something big has passed between the boat and me. Something huge. It’s several seconds before I can see the bottom of the boat again, and it’s barely a square at all now.

  I think I see a pale shape dart in the water, but it’s more likely the spots and squiggles dancing before my eyes. I’m still going down, and fast. I grab the pomping knife from my belt, start cutting at the line. It should be easier than it is, but I’m not surprised that it isn’t. Finally the line snaps. My lungs burn. Great dark shapes are circling.

  I feel a pressure on my shoulder, sharper than the water, and ending in five points, each digging into the muscle of my shoulder.

  I whip my head around – no one, nothing – but the grip, if anything, grows more certain.

  A whisper, straight into my ear, no wet gargles. Just a voice as sharp as that grip: ‘You’re in danger.’

  No shit.

  I thrash in the dark. The last bubbles of my breath escape my lips. This shouldn’t be happening. This is no earthly sea. This is my domain. Damn it, I’m the RM of this entire region of the Underworld. Nothing should be able to touch me here. But something has – is. And not just touching, but squeezing. I wonder for a moment if this isn’t some elaborate initiation ritual.

  No breath now. All I have is a mild discomfort, a soft dizziness running through me, and that insistent voice, and it’s permeating me more completely than my blood.

  ‘You fall, but not alone, and in the falling, darkness waits.’

  Darker than this? I doubt it.

  ‘And then you will be alone. Everything dies, by choice or reason. There is meaning in the muddle. There is blood and crooning in the mess.’

  I’m not finding much sense in the mess presented. I struggle in the grip, but it’s unyielding.

  ‘Oh, but there’s a long drop for you.’

  ‘Let. Me. Go.’ I swing my head towards the voice, concentrating, throwing everything at it: which isn’t much. Things tear within my psyche. A sickening sensation of my thoughts, of me, ripping apart. My muscles clench in sympathy. And for a moment, I catch a glimpse of something. A face. A grinning shadow, a mirror refle
ction, but so much more varied.

  ‘Such a long drop for you. Such a long fall.’

  Then the pressure’s gone, and I’m rising. A tiny, chubby pale hand is clamped around my index finger. We shoot towards the surface.

  Then out of the darkness a great maw opens. Teeth the length of my forearm loom over and under us. Wal looks at me. I shrug.

  This is not a good day.

  But this I can deal with. The megalodon’s rough teeth brush my arm, but here I cannot be hurt and certainly not by something dead.

  It’s odd, but for a moment I’m curious. A slight objectivity clouds my fear, or burns it away. This is what it is to be an RM: to be endlessly curious, to endlessly count down the hours, to peer at the life around me and not be involved in any of it other than the taking. It’s with almost a sense of ennui that I consider the rows of pale teeth flexing in the meat of the megalodon’s mouth.

  Wal’s hand tightens around my finger. His lips are moving but I can’t make out the words, just the panic and I remember where I am.

  The force that dragged me down has gone. I squeeze Wal’s hand with my thumb, concentrate on the boat and then we’re there, coughing and spluttering on the deck. I reach around and clutch at my shoulder where fingers had dug so deeply in, and dry heave out my pain.

  Mr D is waiting with towels. He chucks one at me, and then Wal. ‘What took you so long?’

  ‘I thought I was safe here.’

  He shrugs. ‘You’re not dead, are you? Not even bleeding.’

  ‘It grabbed me, the damn thing grabbed me, and then it spoke.’ I’m still spluttering.

  Mr D stops still. ‘What spoke? What did it say?’

  ‘That I would fall. That I would be alone.’

  Mr D’s eyes widen. ‘What do they have planned for you?’ he whispers.

  ‘Who? Who has what planned for me?’

  ‘Nothing. I’m sure it’s nothing. Sounds like the All-Death – the death that exists outside the linear, the now and the then. I wouldn’t worry about it too much. It likes to grab and mutter. Most of the time it doesn’t make any sense.’

  ‘Like an oracle?’ I ask, thinking back to high school and Year Ten Ancient History.