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 reflection, 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?'
