Death most definite sds-1 Page 8

  Yeah, my inner monolog is pretty brusque. Sometimes it's like a crotchety Jiminy Cricket; you know, a conscience that doesn't whistle or sing, and is all bent up with arthritis and bitter at the youth of today. My inner monolog would write letters to the council and the local paper, complaining about apostrophe use. Heaven help me if I ever live to anything approaching a ripe old age. I'll be a right pain in the arse.

  I try to ignore it most of the time.

  Lissa keeps checking through my stuff. "Aha! I knew you kept them somewhere, how polite."

  "I'm a real gentleman," I say. Though my face is burning, I'm also wondering if Tremaine kept his stash lying around, and why I've never thrown mine out, because I can't remember the last time I looked at it, other than yesterday. "Could you stop perusing my porn… please?"

  "A real gentleman who likes Busty Trollops, eh?"

  "That isn't mine." I push into the closet and Lissa steps out of my way. I reach past the DVDs and grab a thick roll of fifty-dollar notes.

  "Hmm, you leave that much cash lying around? What, you expected to run into trouble?"

  I shrug, but maybe I had, or maybe I just like the idea, and the somewhat philanthropic notion, that anyone who breaks into my house and makes it past the porn will get a lovely surprise. "Glad I did, though. Now, what else do I need?"

  "For one, you're going to need a knife-a sharp knife, sharper than the one you use on the job. A scalpel would be perfect. And you're also going to need a pen, with the thickest nib you can find."

  "How about a craft knife? Got new blades and everything."

  Lissa raises an eyebrow. "What do you need a craft knife for?"

  I shrug. "Crafty things." I'm not going to start explaining my scrapbooking. Even I'm a bit embarrassed about that.

  "Crafty things, hah! And this place is so neat, admittedly not the bedroom-but who has a neat bedroom? Even your dog looks neat. Just who are you, Mr. de Selby?"

  "What are you talking about?"

  She shrugs. I smirk back at her.

  I'm packed-clothes, craft knife, pen with a thick nib (yeah, scrapbooking again), even some brace paint, which is my blood mixed with a couple of small tins of something I bought at a hardware store. After seeing those Stirrers on the Hill, I suspect I might need it.

  I risk a shower, Molly standing at the door, a grinning sentinel. The pressure's crap, and the hot and cold are sensitive, but I've mastered it over the years to the point that showers with regular pressure seem odd to me. Within a minute I'm enjoying the heat. Washing away a little of the terror. I even clean the morning's blood from the glass. It's an empty gesture but it makes me feel a little better.

  I have a pair of tweezers in the bathroom cabinet, and under the steamy shower I pick the beads of glass out of my palms. There isn't a lot of it, thank God, but it hurts. The blood washes away down the drain.

  I don't know how long I'm standing there beneath the water but I'm back to thinking about my family, and that starts to put me in a spin.

  "Nice tatt." I look up, and Lissa's there leering at me. "Never got one myself."

  "Yeah, I live the cliche." Most Pomps have tattoos. Mine is on my left biceps, a cherub with Modigliani eyes. It's bodiless, with wings folded beneath the head.

  It's a cherub, but it's a menacing, snarling cherub. Actually it's downright creepy looking. I know it's wanky; I had it done when I turned nineteen, had far too much money and way too much to drink. The bemused tattooist wouldn't have let me do it except, well, Tim was there. Actually I think the whole thing was his idea. And he can be so persuasive. Thing is, I don't remember him ever getting a tattoo.

  That was before I decided on the path of single-income home debt, and I was heavily into Modigliani. And I liked the irony of it, drunk as I was. Despite what you see on Victorian era tombstones, cherubs have had nothing to do with pomping in centuries.

  Most Pomps go for the hourglass, with all the sand at the bottom, or butterflies. Depends on how old you are, I reckon. We like our symbolism. Morrigan has a small twenty cent coin-sized skull tattooed on his forearm, and a flock of sparrows on his back, which extend to sleeves over his biceps. But he can do things with his that I'm incapable of-they're genuine inklings. I've seen them break the cage of his flesh and go flying around the room.

  Mom and Dad had been horrified at my ink. Going against the trend, neither of them had even a hint of iconography in their house, let alone on their skin. They'd always been a bit suspicious of my own interests in that area. Morrigan had talked them out of disowning me. After all, he had tatts too, so it couldn't be too bad.

  Thing is, Lissa isn't looking at my tatt. I feel my face flush.

  "A little privacy please," I say.

  "But we've already bonded over your porn collection. And Molly's sitting there."

  "Out," I say. "Both of you."

  "But you look so happy to see me. Well, I hope that's because of me." And she's gone. Oh dear, part of me misses her, even if it's rapidly deflating. She is dead after all. Molly turns tail, too, and I get the feeling that she's laughing at me.

  I rinse off the soap and begin the process of shaving off my beard. I only cut myself twice which means that my hands aren't shaking as much as they were. Once done, I dry myself down and dress, quickly and somewhat timidly, feeling decidedly self-conscious. Once dressed I take a few deep breaths and work on my hair. My hands sting, but they're glass-free.

  No one's come crashing through the front door. I'm careful not to pick up my phone. Maybe coming home was reckless, but I had to recharge. I needed this-I'm hungry, and I'd kill for a cup of tea. I boil the kettle on my gas stove, cupping my hands over the flame.

  It's gotten cold. I hate the cold, and I've put on a duffel coat that Lissa says makes me look like a thief. I'm tired; I can't be bothered explaining that the coat was my father's. He gave it to me when I was little. It used to be twice my size, then-height and width. The first time I could wear it without tripping over its hem was one of the happiest of my life. While I have this coat, I've still got something of my dad.

  I set two cups down and ask Lissa if she takes milk or sugar. It's an automatic gesture. She shakes her head.

  "I'm not a tea drinker," she says, and we both laugh. I open the pantry door, take out a Mars Bar, and start gulping down its various essential nutrients. I realize the last thing I ate was a Chiko Roll. I may actually manage to kill myself with my diet before someone gets me with a gun.

  "One thing I can't stand is noisy eaters," Lissa says. "If you're going to inhale that thing, at least do it quietly."

  "Anything else you don't like?"

  "I never really liked my job."

  I'm impressed by her segueing. "Well, quit."

  Lissa glares at me. "Aren't we Mr. Glib."

  I'm feeling a little better. The kettle's boiling, I pour the water into my cup. Mom loved her tea. The thought that I'll never have a cup with her again takes the breath from me. I'm not sure I want it anymore. I put it back down and step away.

  Lissa's giving me a worried look, now. Is this the best that I can get? Concern from a dead girl? Someone who was lost to me before I even got to know her, someone who should be receiving that concern from me. What's wrong with me? And here I am having a cup of tea.

  "You're scaring me a little here," Lissa says.

  "Mom," I say, gesturing at my cup.

  Lissa frowns. "Well, she wouldn't want you to stop drinking tea, would she?"

  I shake my head. I need milk for the tea. I drink my coffee black, but I take milk with my tea. Mom was very particular about that, even with tea bags-boil, then steep, then milk, but no sugar. Don't get me started on that. I open my fridge.

  "Shit."

  There's a bomb in there. A mobile phone, wrapped in a tangle of wires that is buried in a lump of explosive like a cyber tick on a C-4 plastique dog. And the phone's LCD is flashing.

  Lissa screams, "Run!"

  I'm already doing it.

  "Molly," I y
ell, as I grab my bag in a reflex action that may just get me killed. I hurtle out the back door, down the steps and into the backyard. "Moll-"

  I'm consumed by brilliance. A wave of heat comes swift on its tail. I'm lifted up and thrown into the bamboo that lines the back fence. Behind me the house is ablaze. A few moments later, the gas tanks beneath the house detonate. Molly, where's Molly? I throw my arm over my face and weep. My house, the one I've been paying off for the last six years, is all gone. Fragments of my CD collection are part of the smoldering rain falling on my backyard.

  I crawl back through the bamboo. It's digging into me, there are shards of wood that are actually stuck in my flesh. I wrench myself out of the thicket, dragging my bag. Something whines.

  "Oh, Molly."

  She's broken. Her back is twisted at an angle that makes me sick with the sight of it. She tries to rise, even manages it for a moment. She moans and slumps back to the ground. There's blood all through her fur.

  I'm running to her side, and she looks at me with her beautiful eyes, and there's terror and pain there. This isn't fair. It isn't fair. She doesn't understand what's happening. She tries to rise again. "It's OK, girl," I say, and I rest my hand on her head, and her breathing steadies a little. It's the only comfort I can offer her. "Molly."

  I don't know what to touch. I don't know how to hold her, what's not going to hurt her anymore. She's shivering, and I stroke her head. "Molly, good girl."

  What's left of my house burns, flaring up when something particularly flammable catches alight. My face is hot, and I stroke my dog's head. Shit. Shit. Shit.

  Molly takes one more shuddery breath, and is still. And she isn't my Molly anymore. Something passes through me, gentler than a human, but it hurts regardless.

  I look up and Lissa's watching me, her eyes wide.

  "I was going to get Tim to pick her up," I whisper, as though I have to justify this. Christ, what if Tim had opened the fridge?

  "Oh, Steve. I'm so sorry."

  "It's OK," I say. "It's OK." But it isn't.

  Molly is dead. There's only her ruined body, and even now it's growing cold, and it doesn't look like her anymore, because with Molly it was always about the way she was thinking. The way she moved. She really was a clever dog. She didn't deserve this. She put up with so much. She never got enough walks. Molly's gone, and I can't make it up to her.

  Lissa's gaze stops me. Her eyes, green as a hailstorm now, are serious, and they're focused on me. For a moment they're all I see. Lissa saves me with that stare. I don't know how to explain it. It's as though she's always been a part of my life, as though she knows exactly what to say or do to comfort me.

  I'm in an alternate universe, though, and one far crueler. One where Lissa and I never connected when we were alive. Never had a chance to tumble into love, and all its possibilities. Her gaze saves me, but it also makes me bitter because I'm never going to get that chance. She's dead, and my parents are dead, and Molly's dead.

  And that fills me with something hard, cold and resolute.

  "We have to get out of here," I say.

  "Yeah, we do."

  One last look at Molly and I jump the fence behind the burning bamboo into the neighbor's backyard. The sound of sirens is building, filling the suburbs as they rush toward my home. People are heading toward my house but I'm running in the opposite direction, and it has to look suspicious. My house is going to be on the news tonight. My face is going to be there, too, and beard or no beard, the people on the bus are going to remember that face, and the guy whose car I stole. But I try not to think about that. And while I need it, desperately need it, I have no space for strategy, except this.

  I have to stay alive now.

  Someone has to pay for what has been done to me and mine.

  11

  We're halfway down the block when the pale blue sedan pulls up alongside us. Its headlights flash. I flinch, wondering whether or not this is it. There's nowhere to run, just the road to my right, and tall fences to my left. No one pays this car much attention besides me but that could well change if someone starts firing rounds out of it. The passenger-side door opens.

  "Get in," Tim says.

  My jaw drops.

  "There's no time to explain, just get in!"

  "Can you trust this guy?" Lissa demands.

  I'm already in the car, shutting the door behind me. Tim races down the road. I can sense Lissa's displeasure emanating from the back seat of the car.

  "This isn't your car," I say. The car smells of cigarettes. Tim has the radio on and we have a background of inconsequential jokey disc jockey chatter. It's somehow calming where I would usually find it irritating. Bad radio hints at normalcy, and this is seriously bad radio.

  "Do you think I'd be stupid enough to drive my own car?" Tim looks terrified, and wounded, like a man who has lost his parents. I recognize the look I had seen in my own face earlier. He takes a deep breath, slowing the car down to the speed limit.

  "Didn't think about that," I say. "I haven't really been thinking about anything."

  "Shit. Steve, what the fuck's going on?" Tim lights up a smoke, waiting. Suburbia streaks by. My house is the only one that's exploded, but everything looks wrong, feels wrong. The lens of losing everything has slipped over my eyes and I wonder if I'll ever see the world in the old way again.

  Tim keeps swinging his gaze from the road to my face and back again, as though it or I have answers. I'd put my money on the road. "I don't know. I don't know. How did you…"

  "I got a call. I don't know who from, just a male voice, it was all very confusing. They said you were in danger, and that I needed to get to your place right away." Tim smiles, it's a weak, thin thing, but a smile all the same. "They also said not to drive my car, that people might be looking for it. I borrowed this. It's a neighbor's. When I got to your house it was in flames. I saw you leap the fence."

  He sighs. "Why didn't you call me again? That message you left, what the fuck was that?"

  "I didn't want you to get dragged into-"

  "Jesus, I'm always going to be part of this. You Pomps, you snooty bastards. I'm a Black Sheep, but that doesn't mean I can't be some help. Shit, my parents are dead. They were murdered, so were yours."

  I turn to Lissa. "Why didn't I…?"

  She shakes her head. "The day you had, Steve. It's lucky you're not dead."

  "I'm sorry," I say to Tim. "I really am."

  "Yeah. At least you're OK."

  As if this can even remotely be called OK. None of us are.

  "Who's in the back there?" Tim asks.

  "It's a dead girl. She's been following me around."

  I hear a loud humph, at that from the back. "Following, well, I-"

  "You two have a thing going?"

  I shrug. "She's dead, Tim."

  "She's also right here," Lissa says. "Like, hello!"

  I frown at her. Then turn back to Tim. "Someone's killing Pomps. She's a Pomp, she knows how to trick up death a bit. She warned me."

  "Mom's dead," Tim says. "Dad, too. The family. She couldn't have warned them."

  "I was just lucky, I suppose. Just lucky," I say, and I know that's not quite right but I can't think of anything else to say.

  Tim jabs a finger in my face. "The next time you call me, fucking be a little more specific, eh." He glances toward the road, just in time to swerve out of the way of a fire engine, its lights blazing. "Maybe I could have done something."

  "It was already too late then," I say. "If there'd been anything I could have… Christ, Tim, you weren't the only one to lose family."

  Tim slows the car.

  "They're all gone. Your mom said that she loves you. Tim, you and Sally, and the kids, you have to-"

  "I'm not going anywhere," Tim says. "Sally, the kids, they're already on a flight to London."

  "Aunt Teagan?"

  "Yeah. Steve, we have to get you out of here. I'm safe, they're not going for Black Sheep. I've checked the register. Not a
single fatality in six weeks. You're the only one in danger here. Not me, certainly not the dead girl."

  "Lissa," I say. "That's her name."

  He looks at me, shakes his head. "You've never made it easy on yourself. The ones you fall for."

  My cheeks are burning, so there's no point in denial. Tim pretends to ignore it.

  "I'm sure Lissa doesn't want you dead. It's crazy that you don't run."

  I raise my hands in the air. "I know, but I'm staying. I need to get to the bottom of this. Maybe after this is done, whatever it is that needs to be done. If I live long enough. But if I stop now, and think…" My eyes start to well up. There's a dark wave of loss towering over me, but I can't acknowledge that now. I wipe the tears away with my thumb.

  A couple more fire engines race past us. "Jesus, Steve, you've put on a show," Tim says.

  "I can't have you driving me around," I say. "Even in this car. It's too dangerous. I'm a target. Every moment you're with me puts you in danger. I don't care what the guy on the phone said. I need you to stay out of this."

  "Fuck that."

  "Tim. I can't be responsible for your death. I just can't. You've got kids. A wife. You have to think of them, mate."

  Tim's shoulders tense. "That's bullshit," he says. "Here we fucking go again, just because I'm a Black Sheep. Because I didn't become a Pomp."

  "No, it isn't, and you know it. Shit, if you were a Pomp, you'd probably be dead by now." I take a deep breath. "You need to be safe. Promise me you will."

  Tim glares at me. There's an anger there that I'd never seen before, and it hurts me to see it. Then the more methodical part of his brain starts reining in his rage. "OK," he says at last. "Where do you want me to take you?"

  I give him an address, not very far away. We're there in a couple of minutes. No one follows us: the streets are almost empty. Tim pulls the car to the side of the road.

  "Thank you," I say. "If you can, get out of town. I think this is going to get worse before it gets better-if it ever gets better. Stay at a friend's place for a few days."

  Tim nods, though I know he's just going to go home and try and deal with what's going on. "Be safe, you bastard," he says, then turns and speaks to the back seat. "Take care of him. He's all the family I have left, even if he is a Pomp." I don't have the heart to tell him that Lissa's already out and standing on the side of the road.