Death most definite sds-1 Page 3

  4

  Tim is far too drunk to drive me home. But sober enough to get me a taxi with what appears to be some sort of magic gesture. It's as though he plucked the car out of the night.

  Tim presses the packet of cigarettes into my hands. "Hide the evidence, eh. And look after yourself."

  "You too."

  He gives me the thumbs up. "'S all good!"

  And I know that he'll be at work sans hangover tomorrow, which brings a slight wave of resentment to the top of my rolling-drunk thoughts because my day off isn't going to be nearly as pretty. I watch him pluck another taxi from the ether.

  "Where to?" the driver asks me. I mumble directions. Tim's taxi is already off. His driver probably knew where to go before Tim had even opened his mouth.

  The taxi ride home is just swell, though a couple of times I nearly hurl again: seems my stomach has found more than that Chiko Roll to challenge it. Both times the driver is just about ready to push me out the door. I swear, one time I feel his boot on my back. But we make it, and he's happy enough to take my money, and happier still when I wave away his vague, and extremely leisurely, attempts at giving me change.

  The taxi pulls away and I stare at my place. It's all a bit of a blur really, except for the brace symbol marked above the door. It's glowing: there must be Stirrers about. Not my job, though, the night shift will be dealing with those.

  As I unlock the front door Molly's greeting barks are gruff and accusatory. She may be the most patient border collie in the world, but even she has limits. I realize that I hadn't fed her before I left. I make up for it, nearly falling flat on my face as I scoop dog food into her bowl, then walk into the bathroom and splash my face. I hardly feel the water. The space around me seems packed in cotton wool. I poke my cheek and it's as though I'm touching something inanimate. For some reason that saddens me. There's a few of Robyn's things still in the bathroom cupboard. A small bottle of perfume, a toothbrush. Three years and I've not managed to throw them out.

  Molly pushes her black and white snout against my leg; she's wolfed down dinner and needs to go outside. There's an impatient gleam to her eyes. I think she's just as sick of me mooching over Robyn as everyone else, and Molly never even knew her. I bought her after Robyn left. Yeah, rebound pet ownership-real healthy.

  "Sorry, girl."

  She's on my heels all the way through the house to the kitchen and the back door, rushing past me as I open it. The refrigerator hums behind me.

  In the backyard the air is cool. It's a typical spring evening and the city is still and quiet, though I know that's a lie because it's never really still or quiet. People are always sliding away to the Underworld, and things are always stirring. But I can imagine what it would be like to believe otherwise. I sit on the back step, smoking one of the cigarettes that Tim bought-yes, I'm that drunk-and wait for Molly to finish her business, thinking all the while about Lissa. I'd helped Terry easily enough. Why couldn't I help her? She's the most striking girl I've ever seen, but that shouldn't matter. I'm already feeling the remorse that no amount of alcohol can shield you from, because drinking is all about remorse.

  Molly trots up next to me and I scratch her head. "What's wrong with me, eh?"

  She's got no answer to offer. She's happy, though, to receive the scratching. I yawn at last, get up and leave the unquiet city outside.

  I'm drunk and exhausted but I'm restless as all hell. I walk about my house, not really connecting with any of it. All the stuff I've bought. The useless shit, as Dad calls it. The posters, the DVDs, and CDs: some not even out of their wrappers. None of it plants me here. None of it means anything. I might as well be a ghost. I wonder if this disconnect is how it feels to be dead. I'll have to ask Morrigan-if anyone will know, it'll be him. Molly follows me for a little while but can see no sense in it, or just gets bored, and wanders off to her bed. I drop onto the couch in the living room, and sit on my cordless phone. The damn thing beeps at me.

  I press the talk button and hear the familiar rapid blipping dial tone: there's at least one message on my voicemail.

  I ring through to check. Two missed calls. The alcohol steps politely aside for a moment. One of the calls is from Morrigan: too late to call him back. Besides, if it had been really important, he would have tried my mobile.

  There's a message, too. The phone crackles, which means either there are Stirrers about or we've hit a period of increased solar flare activity. Both mess with electrical signals.

  "Steven," Dad says. "Hope you haven't been drinking." He doesn't sound too hopeful. "Thought I'd call to let you know you were right, it wasn't a coincidence. The police released the name of the gunman. Jim McKean."

  McKean…

  McKean…

  The name's familiar. Dad fills in the blanks. "McKean's a Pomp… Was a Pomp. Sydney middle management; didn't show for work yesterday. I've heard he was doped out: on ice, that's what they call it these days, isn't it? Out of character, completely out of character."

  Of course, McKean!

  I remember him. A quiet guy. Always seemed nice, and a little bookish. We'd actually talked science fiction at a Christmas party a few years back. He was a real Heinlein nut, not that I'm saying anything, but…

  "Morrigan's using his connections, digging into the why, but-whatever the reason-McKean is behind bars. You don't need to worry."

  But I am. The guy came after me with a gun. Even with Molly the house seems too… empty.

  "Give me that phone, Michael." It's Mom. "Steven, your father was less than speedy in passing on to me the details." Mom stresses the last word. "Your rather worthless father said you'd had a tough day. He neglected to tell me that you'd been shot at. You'll be having dinner with us tomorrow night. No excuses. Now, I hope Tim hasn't gotten you too drunk. We're all rather worried about you."

  The message drops out.

  I've a dinner invite for Wednesday, and I'll be there. Mom and Dad are excellent cooks. I might have inherited the pomping career but the culinary skills seemed to have skipped me. I might even have made enough peace with my stomach to be hungry by then.

  I play the message over, twice, just to hear their voices. It grounds me a little. The dead aren't the only ones who like to feel that people care. I check my mobile but no missed calls, no texts, and the schedule hasn't changed.

  I switch on the television, and flick through the channels.

  Two of them are running stories about McKean. Shots of him being taken into custody, backlit by a frenetic clicking lightshow of camera flashes. There's something not right about him but I guess you could say that about anyone who decides that today is a good day to start firing a rifle into a crowd. No one was killed, thank Christ, but not all of that is luck: he wasn't gunning for anyone else. There's nothing in the story linking him to me. Nothing about me at all.

  The sight of him draws a rising shudder of panic through me that even the weight of alcohol can't suppress. I guess it has affected me more than I care to admit.

  I turn off the television and switch on my Notebook, hook into Facebook, and the Mortmax workgroup-Morrigan set that up-and there's Jim McKean in my network: looking his usual awkward self, and nothing like a killer. I check his profile. His life/death status is up as dead. Morrigan installed that morbid little gadget a year or so ago. Pomp humor is very much of the gallows sort.

  Peculiar, as McKean isn't dead. But that slips from my mind in an instant, because there's Lissa's face in his friends list. I click on her profile photo.

  She worked for Mortmax?

  I bang my head with my palm. Of course she had. Lissa Jones. Melbourne agency. It's all here, and I must have met her before. Her green eyes mock me. Her status though, according to this, is living. Something's wrong with that gadget of Morrigan's.

  I open Dad's profile. Dead.

  Then Mum's. Dead.

  I open my own profile. Status: Dead.

  Then I'm opening all the Brisbane pages. And every single one of them, including M
orrigan, is the same.

  Something prickles up my spine.

  I switch to Mr. D's profile. It has his usual picture, a crow on a tombstone. His is a dry and obvious sort of humor. But Regional Managers are like that. Death, after all, is the reason for their existence. His status: gone fishing.

  Nothing peculiar there. Our RM loves to fish-most of the Orcus do. I've heard he has a boat docked at the piers of Hell, and that Charon's own boatmen run it. I've seen the photos of the things he's caught in the sea of the dead-the ammonites, the juvenile megalodon, the black-toothed white whale with old mariner still attached.

  Regardless, the timing is odd. I get the feeling that there's something I'm not seeing, but there's a thick and somewhat alcohol-muddied wall between the truth and me.

  I switch off the Notebook. Then look at my watch. There's no one I can reasonably call about this. So I call Dad.

  "Do you know what time it is?"

  I don't realize that I'd been holding my breath until he answers. Morrigan's gadget is wrong, thank Christ. "Sorry, Dad, but…" I mumble something drunkenly at him about the Facebook accounts.

  Dad lets out a weary breath. "That's what this is about?"

  "Yeah, it's, I-"

  "We'll discuss this tomorrow, when you're sober."

  "But Dad-"

  "Get some sleep."

  There's a long moment of silence. Dad sighs again. "OK, there's some sort of glitch on the server. If we'd kept to the old ways… well, I wouldn't be answering a call from you in the middle of the night. I tell you, Steve, it's been a hell of a week." Which is saying something, as it's only Tuesday night. "Just a wonderful one for Mr. D to take off. Morrigan's looking into it. Now, go… to… sleep." Dad sounds like he is already, which is good or I'd be in for a lecture.

  "Sorry," I say.

  "'S OK," he says. "I'm just glad you're not hurt. We'll talk about this tomorrow." He hangs up, and I'm left holding the phone.

  Dad said I'm safe, earlier. I can't say that's how I see it.

  It's a weird world. A weird and dangerous world. When you're a Pomp, even such a low level one as me, you get your face rubbed in it. Robyn couldn't handle it. I don't think she believed in half of what I did. I don't blame her for leaving, not one little bit, nor for the hole she left in my life. She didn't grow up with all this, hadn't seen some of the things I've seen, or witnessed some of the deaths I've attended. Still, until today I'd never been shot at.

  I walk around the house checking the locks, and then double-checking the front and back door. Then I'm looking in cupboards, even under the bed. It's a drunken, shambling sort of scrutiny. And when I catch myself stumbling to the front door for the third time I snort.

  "Ridiculous."

  Molly, who's been watching all this from her mat with a bemused tilt to her head, stares up at me.

  "Ridiculous," I say again, and scratch behind her ears.

  She grins at me.

  "Safe as houses, eh, Moll?" I stumble to the bedroom, and crash onto the bed, after flipping my shoes across the room where they land with two dull thwacks against the wardrobe mirror. My reflection shivers at me.

  "Buffoon," I whisper at it.

  The bed begins a wobbly spin, even as I'm slipping into sleep. I stare at the window to steady that roiling movement. It works, but I know I won't be awake for much longer.

  One drawn out blink, and then another, and I'm sure Lissa's face is pressed against the window or through the window. Then it's just the moon, full and blue. "Luminous," I whisper, at the pale light.

  The moon says something, but I can't read her lips.

  The window rattles as a car mutters in an eight-cylindered tongue down the street. Exhaustion has its hooks in me, and I'm too far gone, and full, to find a pause from my fall into slumber.

  No wakefulness. No dreams. Just dark, dark sleep: that's where I'm headed. And Lissa, the moon, and all the questions rushing around me like Mr. D's crows, cannot follow me there.

  5

  My status on Facebook isn't the only thing that's dead.

  Someone has jimmied open my skull and poured highly flammable liquid migraine directly into my brainpan. I can taste stale vomit, a night's worth of spewing crusted to the roof of my mouth. I open my eye a crack and admit a jack-hammering Brisbane morning light that ignites all that potential pain at once. I shut my eye again. The room, windows closed, smells delightfully of sick and ashtray.

  The phone rings, and I'm immediately regretting the decision to have a handset in my bedroom. The ringing is an ice pick swinging into my forehead.

  I ignore it. Let it ring out. A second later my mobile starts up. Fucking ice pick all over again.

  I open my eyes. The light is merciless as I scramble around hunting for my mobile, and it keeps ringing and ringing and ringing. This has to be some sort of cruel and unusual punishment. Sliding out of bed, I realize that I'm still half in my jeans: the other pants leg has the pocket with my phone in it.

  I snatch out the mobile, consider hurling it against the wall, then see the number and moan.

  Mortmax. And whoever's calling has disengaged the message service, which gives me more than a clue as to who is responsible.

  I flip the phone open. "Yes."

  "Steven," Derek says, "we need you in the city. No later than ten."

  He hangs up.

  Yes, king of bloody small talk. And do I have a thing or two to talk about with him! Starting with Lissa, and ending with Terry. Derek's messed up a few too many times in the last couple of days.

  I look at the clock. 8:30.

  Shit! I can't imagine this hangover leaving before late afternoon. It has teeth and cruel hangovery hands that are less than gently clenching my stomach, engendering an argument over which end of me is most likely going to be needing to evacuate the evils of the evening before. There are good odds it could be both at once. It's a finger-in-all-pies sort of hangover.

  How do I get myself in these situations?

  My phone chirps with a text. Tim. Hope you're feeling OK:-)

  Prick.

  Just chipper, I text back. Even texting is painful and nausea inducing.

  I fish through cupboards, and drawers, until I find something strong for the pain. I manage to keep it down. Molly's waiting, eyes lit with a weary impatience, to be let out the back door. Opening it only lets in more of that brutal morning light. I wince, leave the door open for the dog, and make the trek to the bathroom.

  Oddly enough Molly follows me. I shrug at her. "Suit yourself."

  There's blood in the bathroom. On the walls; a little on the mirror. I wrinkle my nose at it. Molly sniffs at the walls, doesn't bother licking them. This ectoplasmic blood is mildly toxic. The first time she encountered it, gobbling down what she obviously thought was a marvelous, if peculiar, free feed, she had diarrhea for two days. Now that was pleasant for the both of us. Whenever there's an increase in Stirrers this happens. These sorts of portents come with the job. I do my best to ignore the sanguine mess. Cleaning is for post hangover.

  The shower, alternating hot and cold, helps a little. I even manage to think about Lissa, wondering where she is and how horrible that state of limbo must be. Her having been a Pomp at least explains some of the why of it. She's got the know-how. Though I don't understand how she's managing-but maybe she isn't, maybe she was pomped last night. I finish my shower with that disturbing thought, and reach for a towel. The movement sets my head off again. It's as though the shower never even happened, except I'm dripping wet.

  This is hell, self-inflicted or not. I stand still for a while, taking slightly pathetic little breaths. Then get dressed, moving like an old, old man in a particularly didactic anti-alcohol advertisement.

  Molly barks from the backyard. I stumble out, and she's there with her mini-football in her mouth, wanting a game. One look at me and she changes her mind, dropping it to the ground with an expression that breaks my heart.

  "Sorry, girl," I say.

  I step b
ack from the door, into the kitchen and I consider breakfast, and then ruefully laugh that idea off. Besides, I've run out of time. I fill a bottle with tap water.

  Molly isn't too happy to come back inside, but she does. I pat her on the head, tell her how sorry I am, that I'm such a lousy fella, and make a mental note to take her for a long walk tonight, no matter how awful I feel.

  People go on about the quality of light in Brisbane. Whatever it is, there is far too much of it today. My sunglasses only cut it down by the barest fraction; the migraine ignites again. If I had a better excuse there's no way I'd be going in today. But I don't. I still have all my limbs, and I'm not dead.

  Now, Derek and I have our differences, but there's one thing I'm sure we'd both agree on: if I don't make it to the office, I'm gone for sure. I look at my watch. 9:30.

  Half an hour's cutting it fine, but I manage to catch the next train. It's crowded for this time on a Wednesday morning. Someone's mp3 is up so loud that we're all getting a dose of Queen's "We Will Rock You." That pounding rhythm is pretty much in time with my headache. I glare at the culprit but he isn't looking in my direction.

  Derek's been hunting for a reason to fire me for a while now, and I've never been a favorite of the other states' administrators either. I do tend to get into a bit of trouble. I can't help it if people don't get my sense of humor. Really, how can that be my fault?

  The only thing that has kept me in the job is that I'm good at it, and that Morrigan likes me. Morrigan's influence as Ankou can't be denied. Mr. D's close working relationship with Morrigan tends to piss off the state admins mightily-and Derek cops that because Morrigan is a person you don't want to cross. All of which pleases me no end, because Morrigan is virtually family.

  Morrigan and Dad rose through the ranks together. Dad, a traditionalist; Morrigan, an innovator. Dad co-ordinates the cross-state linkages, pomps, and helps oversee Mortmax's non-death-related industries-the various holdings in supermarkets, petrol stations and other businesses. He used to run the scheduling too, but a couple of years ago the side businesses expanded to such a degree that he had to let that slide. Morrigan had been pushing to stop him pomping as well but Dad prefers to keep his hand in.