bothered to show up at all? When you don't sleep there's an awful lot of time you can spend drinking, even if it's not filling up the hole left by all that loss, and the guilt that I'm letting those nearest to me, and equally wounded, down. Which, of course, leads to more drinking. It's how I've dealt with all the major dramas of my adult life.
Home and work, everywhere I look there are gaps. Reminders of friends and family gone, snatched away by the chaos of Morrigan's Schism. And as for the work itself, I don't know how to lead people. Where do you learn that? Where do you pick up all the arcane and complicated tricks required in the running of a business like mine? Despite Tim's notes there's no manual. I have Mr D, but I don't know what questions to ask, and he isn't that great at answering the ones I do. I'd suspect him of being deliberately evasive, except he's always been that way.
And Lissa. Where do you go after what we've shared? Surely happiness of the forever-after sort is deserved. I'd settle for a few years of it, but there's no prospect of that. We've a dark god coming.
Suzanne's offer is looking very attractive. Maybe it's not too late to fix this. To be what I need to be.
Brooker works in silence for a while, cleaning then binding the foot. 'All done,' he says at last. 'You'll need to sit on your chair for a while.'
'My throne?'
'Don't start putting on airs and graces. When I was a kid we called the shitter a throne.' He sighs. 'But that's the one. It'll heal you much faster than you can on your own.'
There's shouting outside. It's an achingly familiar voice, an achingly familiar heartbeat, even if it is racing. My ears prick up. Dr Brooker grins. 'I'll just get her for you.'
The door flings open and nearly bowls him over. Dr Brooker doesn't even bother calling her on it. He knows better than to get between us. She's in her usual black get-up: a Mickey Mouse brooch on one collar of her blouse. I don't get the appeal of Walt Disney characters – give me Bugs Bunny any day – but I'm so happy to see her.
'Are you OK?' Lissa asks. She grabs me tight enough that my ribs creak.
'Yeah, I am.' I groan in her embrace. 'Well, I think I am.'
Brooker nods. 'He's fine.' He's already packing up his bag: good doctors are always in demand. 'As far as I know, nothing can really hurt him, just slow him down a little.'
'Define hurt. My foot's throbbing!'
'Well, the glass was part of Number Four, I'd say that's why it hurts you so much.' He rubs his chin thoughtfully. 'Or it could be that your body is still getting used to what it has become. The pain may just be old habits dying hard.'
I wish they'd die a little more easily.
Lissa pulls back, looks at me, and winces. Oh, I'd forgotten about the ear. It starts to sting, but now no more than a scratch might. The top of the ear is already growing back.
Tim peers through the door. Dr Brooker delivered him as well. 'He OK, Dr Brooker?'
'Nothing a bit of rest won't fix. He's an RM: both wounds will heal quickly, not like the rest of us idiots.' Dr Brooker looks at me. 'Just be careful.'
His phone chirrups, signalling another emergency, or a game of golf. He merely looks at it, grunts, and with a curt nod, leaves the room.
I glance over at Tim. 'OK, we're six hours into the working day and I've already been shot at. I want to know why, and I want to know now.'
'I'm already on it,' Tim says, pulling his phone out. 'I'll call Doug at my old department.' Doug Anderson is a good choice. The man has more fingers in more pies than anyone we know. He took up Tim's role as policy advisor and head of Pomp/government relations. 'The last time this happened… '
Call me a pessimist, but I have a terrible certainty that this is going to be worse.
And why's Morrigan in my dreams again? He's gone, and there's no coming back for him. As Mr D said, after the knife fight of the Negotiation, Morrigan's soul was obliterated.
I can't be feeling guilty about that, surely?
9
Seems I'm stuck in my office. Despite her concern, Lissa couldn't stay long. Her hand is bandaged again, another cut, another stir. And she's always on the hunt for potential Pomps. That's hard work. Like Tim said, we advertise, of course, but that's not easy either. The job titles are deliberately vague, the interview process detailed and convoluted. None of us earlier generation Pomps ever had to interview for the job. Our families had all worked for Mortmax for generations, probably since the last Schism.
There's just too much work to be done. People never stop dying, and there are not enough of us to make sure the transition is smooth.
For all its healing attributes, the chair itself really isn't that comfortable. Not enough lumbar support or something. I'd rather sit in a recliner, but no recliner I know is going to knit me back together as quickly. A fella could go mad with all this sitting, Rear Window style. I'm used to being on my feet, out and about: pomping the dead, and stalling Stirrers.
I keep having to remind myself that that is in the past now. The first thing I can do is check on my staff. Make sure I'm not letting them down anymore.
I close my eyes; connect with all my Pomps, the 104 people that I have working around the country. My other Pomps, my Avians – the sparrows, crows and ibis – work as good eyes but they are hard to control and their 'process' in stalling a stir involves a considerable amount of pecking. I find directing them gives me a migraine which makes practice somewhat unappealing. Generally they're left pomping the spirits of animals, those big- brained enough to cage a soul.
The window's already repaired, and the floor has digested the broken glass. I wonder what else it might just eat. The building is self-healing; the glass had apparently grown back within a few minutes of me blacking out. Looking at it, the glass appears thicker – dark filaments line it, some sort of reinforcement, I guess. Number Four has grown paranoid.
A familiar face pokes around the door wearing a big grin that fails to obscure the concern behind his eyes.
'Don't people knock anymore?'
'What a mess,' Alex says.
'No, this is what my office usually looks like bar the blood and paper.' I glance around; the glass has already gone. 'In fact it looks a little neater than usual.'
Alex is dressed in his uniform. He is a Black Sheep but, unlike Tim, I couldn't lure him back into the fold. He lost family like the rest of us in the Schism. His father Don saved my life and Alex kept up the tradition. He got me out of town when the worst of the Schism was going down. He saved me later, too, when I came back from Hell, thinking I had failed in my Orpheus Manoeuvre, and lost Lissa. Without his help, Australia really would have sunk into a Regional Apocalypse. I feel a bit guilty that I haven't been keeping in touch with him nearly enough. But seeing him always reminds me of Don, and my parents, and Don's girlfriend Sam. I can't help wondering what he thinks when he sees me. He's my link into the Queensland Police Force. I trust him almost as much as I trust Tim.
'So this is the first time this has happened?' he asks.
'Well, not exactly,' I glance at Alex, we've been through a few bad times together. He knows that I've been shot at before. 'Not since October, and the Schism.'
'Two months.' He shakes his head.
'Yeah, no wonder I was getting used to not being shot at.'
'You're understandably shaky.'
'No, I'm pissed off. It happens whenever people start shooting at me. Bloody hell, Alex, don't pull this shit on me. I don't need you telling me I'm all right feeling nervous. I need to know what's going on.'
Alex sits down. 'I'm more worried about this than you could believe. People shooting at you tends to lead to scary places.' Right now, the way Alex grits his jaw brings Don back to me. I miss the old bugger. I miss them all. 'You've an alarming tendency to draw trouble to you, Steven.'
'I'm trying not to make it a habit.'
