The Memory of Death Read online

‘You’re not Mortmax, that much I can tell. Suits are too cheap. The government?’

  He nods. ‘Kind of. We’re a branch of the Federal police. We like to think we’re pretty independent. Maybe put that down to my arrogance.’

  He passes me a card. I consider throwing it back in his face, and it’s nothing to do with the use of Comic Sans. ‘The Closers!’

  To say we had history was being kind. Tim had suggested their formation years ago, as a kind of balance to Mortmax, and then they’d been set up after he left the government. They were shut down when their leader tried to kill me, with his razors made of shards of the Knives of Negotiation; turned out he was a little crazy. Neti’s death, too, had been a result. Sliced to pieces by the Knives of Negotiation – when he had got a hold of them. Those damn knives were nothing but trouble, sharp slice-and-dice-the-universe trouble. And the Closers – well, I thought I was rid of them. I scowl at him.

  ‘And you expect me to work for you?’

  He’s throwing his hands in the air again. ‘You weren’t the only one betrayed. A lot of us thought we were doing good work. The government thought we were too, so we’re official now. As official as anything like this gets. Someone needs to keep you lot in line.’

  ‘Us lot?’

  James laughs. ‘Typical Pomp.

  ‘I’m not a Pomp anymore.’

  ‘But you still think like a Pomp,’ James says. ‘That’s a blessing and a liability. You, the ones who lead folk to the Underworld – you’d think you’d be open to all the strangeness of this one. There’s the Knot Makers, the Shadows, the Half-Whispered Things – and let me tell you, those Whispers can claw your heart out. And that’s the merest sample; since you saved the world, all manner of … entities have come to light. You lifted a rock, my friend, and things came crawling out from beneath it. Some of them are very angry – they liked the rock.’

  I reach into the fridge, pull out a beer and open it. ‘You want one?’

  James clears his throat. ‘If that’s what it’s going to take to get you to listen to me, then yes.’

  ‘Don’t let me twist your arm or anything.’

  James laughs.

  He’s already halfway through his beer by the time we sit down at Aunt Neti’s – I mean my – table, made of the First Wood, apparently; something you’d expect to see a wardrobe to Narnia fashioned with. It’s solid and ornate, Victorian-looking until you realise the carvings that cover its legs are of spiders dismembering tiny people. Surprisingly, it’s a bit wobbly.

  James stares at those carvings, and shivers. ‘We need you. Your power, that’s something we can kind of comprehend. You’ve the knives, yes, I know about those, and more importantly, you’ve time on your hands.’

  ‘You didn’t approach Charon?’

  ‘Yes, and your name came up.’ Charon has his fingers in too many damn pies. Including mine. I don’t want those damn long fingers anywhere near my pie.

  ‘But how did he know that I was available?’

  James nods. ‘We needed you. We made deals, Charon made deals. It turns out that the Death of the Water has a sense of humour.’

  ‘Oh, he has a sense of humour, all right,’ I say.

  ‘Don’t take it personally.’

  ‘Everything to do with that bastard is personal. So, I was brought back to be your dog?’ I’m still thinking about that damn Hound, which was kind of me – or I was kind of it? It all gets too confusing, really.

  ‘No. No. No, we want you to work for us, as a real employee. I know you have this job, but you’ll have time, Charon says, to work with us too. I mean, Orpheus Manoeuvres, how many of those happen a decade – one, maybe two?’

  ‘You still want me to work for you guys, after what I’ve done to you?’ I was responsible for their shutdown, even if it was temporary.

  James smiles thinly. ‘That’s exactly why we want you. It’s all water under the bridge, believe me.’

  ‘And if I don’t want to?’

  James puts his beer down. Stands up.

  ‘Don’t insult me,’ I say. ‘Finish your beer.’

  James gives me a look, drains the rest of his beer, looks like he could easily drain a yard glass. ‘Please, consider it.’

  He puts the bottle down on the table, and the card next to it. ‘That’s my number.’

  ‘Why Comic Sans?’

  ‘I like the font!’

  ‘But Comic –’

  ‘Enough. Just think about my offer.’

  ‘I will give it my utmost consideration, mate,’ I say. ‘Now, if you don’t mind.’ I gestured at the door.

  ‘We’ll be hearing from you, then?’

  ‘Yes, you will. I take it there is some urgency.’

  ‘The caseload is growing, yes. The Carnival in Logan for one thing, but –’

  Carnival? ‘I will consider it.’

  James opens the door. He leans against it a moment, then smiles. ‘Steve, there really isn’t anyone else like you.’

  ‘Yeah, I’m one of a fucking kind. You ever try any of the other REs?’

  ‘They’re all crazy. Even Charon. Too difficult to deal with.’

  ‘Ah, you hardly know me.’

  He gives me another smile that contains a high percentage of disappointment. I’m familiar with that smile; I’ve been familiar with variants of that smile since I was a little boy. ‘That remains to be seen. Good day to you, Mr de Selby, and if you don’t call me, well, I’ll be in touch,’ he says.

  He shuts the door behind him.

  Fifteen

  There are things that I need to know. I’ve a body constituted of salt water, memories and spiders. But there are some memories I can't access, the sort that live a full fathom five down. I’ve been manipulated yet again. Do I have a note pinned to my back that says kick me?

  I wait a moment to catch my breath. It’s a long walk to Charon’s from my place. I’m sure there’re faster ways, but I don’t know them yet; instead I’d crossed the ruddy-heavened Underworld, the One Tree to my left (though its branches still overhang us) until I reached the river and Charon’s jetty.

  Charon’s working on a boat, hands, all knuckles, closed around a wooden plane that looks at least two thousand years old, sliding it along the curve of the hull, bits of wood curling up and falling away like tiny waves.

  ‘So you’re responsible for all this?’

  He stiffens, puts the plane down and turns towards me. ‘I did what had to be done.’

  ‘What the fuck was that?’

  Charon smiles. ‘I got you a new job.’

  ‘So, you sorted this out with the Death of the Water? Forgive me if I don’t quite believe that.’

  Charon’s smile slips. ‘Not exactly, no … but I think it’ll leave you alone for a while. There are greater forces than that in the world, and you’re nudging into that territory now. You’re memory given form. It was a lot of work bringing you back, drawing you from the deeps. Some of the memories are so slick and fast, like little fish. Sickness is easy; that one’s fat and slow. Loss and sadness too. Rage is a sun burning in the sky, love likewise. I’ve woven you from the seawater. I got it wrong with the first one; it was all that shining rage and little else.’

  I find it hard to believe there is that much anger in me and yet I know it’s true, as much as I don’t want it.

  ‘I’m Charon, I know magic, I’m older than magic. Once, before time itself, I crossed the waters from a dead universe to this one, and I waited, in the dark with all the monsters.’ His eyes get that distant look, then they focus again on me, and I feel the weight of that eternity. ‘Each time I tried, it didn’t work – each summoning was a different aspect of you, but not you. Then came the last and the least, and I realised that I was doing it wrong. That I needed you all together, to bind you into one. But that …’ He grimaces. ‘Like herding bloody cats with ADD.’

  Wal snorts, and I glare at him.

  ‘So am I Steve or not?’

  Charon shakes his head. ‘You�
�ll do.’

  ‘Wrong answer.’

  Charon shrugs. ‘Life, death, real or not, they’re not relevant. It lost its relevance when you became RM those years past. You’ve died on the edge of the Knives of Negotiation and come back. You’re a mist that I’ve made into a man. There are far worse things to be.’

  Yes, and I know one of them. ‘There’s another Steve, isn’t there, down there in the deeps?’

  Charon turns the page of his magazine. ‘You couldn’t completely come back.’

  ‘That’s why I still can’t remember the water: because I haven’t left it.’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘So what facet of Steve is he? I thought I had it all up here.’ I tap my face.

  ‘Ah, Steven, there’re more sides to a person than stars in the sky. Humans are ridiculously and annoyingly complex – it’s we supernatural beings that are easy to understand. I try not to hold it against humanity, but it is difficult.’

  ‘So which Steve is the real Steve?’

  Charon gives me a look that suggests that’s the sort of thing he’d expect from an annoyingly complex being. Except, I’m not all me, am I?

  ‘It depends: how do you define real?’

  ‘And if I go down and liberate him?’

  ‘No, no, you can’t. That’s whole End of Days stuff there, and you and me both are sick of the End of Days.’

  I think of me still beneath the water, still suffering, though I can’t think of it; there’s a space my mind can’t go. An abyss. If anyone should take a bullet for me, it’s me, but I don’t like it. It makes me feel uneasy.

  ‘Do I know I’m even gone? Can he feel me?’

  Charon shakes his head. ‘Absolutely not. That would be far too cruel.’

  ‘You sold me out.’

  ‘I got you out of Hell,’ Charon grumbles. ‘You understand that?’

  ‘For what?’ I say. ‘She doesn’t love me.’

  Charon rolls his eyes. ‘You think she was ever going to just fall into your arms?’ he asks. ‘You were the one who changed her. You made deals without discussing any of it with her. You may have saved the world, but you changed it too. Count yourself lucky that there’s a place for you in this new thing that you made.’

  ‘If I work for the Closers, I’m working against Mortmax, aren’t I?’

  ‘Not really … sort of … a little.’ Charon shrugs again. ‘Maybe we need some more balance in the world.’

  ‘When did Mortmax become the enemy?’

  ‘They aren’t the enemy. They contain the enemy; one of them at least. That Hungry Death, even diffuse, split among the Thirteen, is an untrustworthy thing. And not just that; you see, there are other things in this Earth that you would never –’

  ‘I’ve already had that conversation with James.’

  Charon smiles. ‘Good, you needed to have it.’

  ‘I don’t appreciate being played.’

  Charon sighs. ‘I don’t appreciate your anger. I had to deal with the maddest son of a Death in the world, I had to turn all that fairytale logic on its head, and I may be older than fairytales, I may have helped in the invention of that logic, but it wasn’t easy. And not only that, but I got you a new job. Do you want to know how many people I have done that for?’

  I look at him, silent.

  Charon returns the gaze, hard. ‘I’ve done it for no one else. Since the beginning of history. Orpheus Manoeuvres, plenty of those, but this: never. And there you are whinging that your girlfriend doesn’t love you anymore.’

  ‘She wasn’t my girlfriend, she was my fiancé. I asked her to marry me, and she said yes.’

  Charon’s eyes bore into mine. ‘You’d saved the world, you were being dragged to Hell. What the fuck else was she going to say? I did this for you, because I felt you deserved it, because I felt that what happened to you wasn’t fair. The world isn’t fair, but when you save it, sometimes you get a chance to redress the balance. Don’t make me regret this any more than I already do. One thing though: I would keep away from the sea.’

  ‘Why? The Death of the Water going to change its mind?’

  ‘It could … I doubt it, but do you really want to risk that?’ Charon rubs his chin. ‘Now, you may thank me.’

  I take a deep breath. ‘Yeah, thank you. Thanks a lot.’

  ‘That is not what I mean. You will thank me, by being what you are, by becoming the job that I have provided.’ Charon growls. ‘And you didn’t even think to ask me what it cost me? Now, be gone!’

  He gestures in my direction, and I find myself in Aunt Neti’s parlour (my parlour now) alone.

  So that is what I am. Steve and not Steve, bits of the best and worst. I’m salvage, driftwood.

  We all are. I’m not quite whole, but then again, I can never think of a time when this wasn’t true. Not before my parents’ deaths, and certainly not after.

  You can get used to anything.

  I dig another beer out of the fridge, take a deep satisfaction in levering open the bottle cap with one of the Knives of Negotiation. My arm tingles and then Wal slides free of the ink. ‘She seemed pretty mad at you.’

  ‘She? Charon is a she now?’

  Wal shrugs, his wings beating. ‘It’s subtle. I mean, like all of you people he doesn’t exactly leave it hanging out there, but it’s there, it’s definitely there.’

  Neti was a woman. I’m a man. Charon was a man, now he’s a woman.

  ‘He, I mean she, thought it would be easier on you.’

  ‘Maybe I should go back and –’

  ‘Don’t make it any worse. My, but you can be an ungrateful shit,’ Wal says. He flits around the room, grabs a beer from the fridge. ‘You’ve got these nice new digs, you’re alive – sort of. And you’ve got a chance to win Lissa back. Give it time. You both have time.’

  And I really can’t argue with that.

  There’s time enough for everything. Time to heal old wounds, time to start a new job, time to find out about all those crazy things James was speaking of. I can’t help it. I smile, just a little, and Wal smiles back.

  ‘Welcome back, you bastard.’ He raises his beer high. ‘Now, up ya bum!’

  ‘Yours too,’ I say, seeing far too much cherub arsecrack in the process.

  *

  The American RM shakes his head. ‘So Steven is back?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘No Steves plural now, just one.’

  ‘To put it bluntly,’ Cerbo says, ‘is he an enemy or an ally?’

  ‘I don’t know, but I need you to do something for me,’ I say.

  ‘Anything.’

  ‘I need you to research Aunt Neti, I need you to find out any weaknesses.’

  ‘The Knives of Negotiation for one,’ Cerbo says.

  ‘Yes, well, Steve has those now.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘We couldn’t keep them. That’s his role, to protect them. Very powerful forces decided to apply pressure.’

  Cerbo shakes his head. ‘Those damn knives. They’re nothing but trouble; worse than the Hungry Death itself. At least that is contained.’

  ‘Just do the research.’

  Cerbo nods his head. ‘There’s nothing I like doing more. Do you want to bring your Ankou in on this?’

  I shake my head. ‘Tim can’t be trusted. He’s too close to Steve. He took him the knives. To be honest, I’m not even sure I can be trusted.’

  Cerbo gives me a big grin. ‘Ankous that can’t be trusted. Enemies in the Underworld. Why, it’s just like the old days.’ He rubs his hands together. ‘I’ll get to work.’

  ‘Be fast and thorough,’ I say.

  ‘You expecting trouble?’

  ‘This is Steve we’re talking about.’

  ‘Yes. The one who saved the world, who gave us his powers. The only one of us alive who has ever performed a successful Orpheus Manoeuvre, won a Negotiation, become Death of the Entire World and defeated a god.’

  ‘Exactly, though he did have help.’ First time I ever saw Steve,
I was dead. I was his successful Orpheus Manoeuvre.

  ‘I really thought things would calm down after the End of Days. Hardly any Stirrers, no revenant gods, just good old-fashioned pomping and time for a holiday.’

  I smile at him, show too many teeth. ‘Do you really want to get bored?’

  Cerbo laughs and shifts back to Boston and his books. The man really loves research.

  I drop into my throne, feel my senses heighten with its power, and turn and stare at Bruegel’s Triumph of Death. It’s the original, and it’s still startling. I wonder if I’m not staring at the future. There’s something premonitory about it, but in our line of business it’s easy to see that. I look down at my palms, smooth where once they were rough with the scars of my trade. I’d sent more Stirrers back to the Deepest Dark than just about anyone. Steve took those scars from me, when he made me this.

  The first time I saw him, standing there hunched and sullen in the Wintergarden food court, I’d seen something, some potential among the sadness. I’d never realised that it would lead us here. Maybe if I had I wouldn’t have bothered.

  ‘Steve, why did you come back?’

  Sometimes you get what you want, and sometimes that’s the worst possible thing in the world.

  Sixteen

  I’m yanked from a dream of the sea – of hands and falling bicycles, and her, my Lissa who isn’t my Lissa anymore, calling out across the dark – by a rising mumbling coming from the parlour.

  Two-thirty, my alarm says. That damn mumbling. It plays on my mind. Over and over, a chattering insistence. I sigh; I know I’m not going to get any more sleep. I drag myself out of bed, and to the suitcase. To be honest I don’t know what to do with the knives – where they might be safe, or how I am expected to protect them – and I realise the challenge that I had set Tim, somewhat irresponsibly. But I have them now; he kept them safe, he managed it, and I'm far more powerful.

  I thumb the combination, open the case.

  And there they are. Beautiful as death. They’ve tasted my blood. They know me, and I know them. Ah, the memories.

  ‘Hello. Hello,’ they say.

  I take out the knives; they’re heavy, somehow heavier than they were in the suitcase, as though the world itself gives them mass. They feel like the weapons of a god, which is pretty much what they are. They shiver in my hands.