'Hold my hand,' Cerbo says reaching out towards me.
I hesitate, and he grimaces. 'Oh, for goodness sake. You're not even my type!'
That's not why I'm hesitating, but his words push me hard enough into action.
Cerbo's hand is warm, and he grips mine hard. 'This is something new. A technique Suzanne has been developing. It's based on the subset of skills required to shift.'
I groan.
Cerbo squeezes my hand. 'No, it is not shifting per se. For one, it is more… well… cinematic, Mr de Selby. And two, it demands a little more. You'll see what I mean.' He closes his eyes. 'Whatever you do, don't let go. This is no pixie-dust journey we're going on, and I'm not Superman.'
I'm trying to imagine Superman in a green bowler as Cerbo reaches into his jacket pocket. He pulls out his knife.
I have to fight the reflex to pull away. 'What the fuck are you doing with that?'
Cerbo's eyes flick open. He regards me disdainfully. 'Don't worry, it's not for you. I've been Ankou for nearly two decades to an RM who is centuries old. You pick up a few things, but I have yet to uncover a really easy way to kill an RM without first killing their Pomps. Even Morrigan couldn't do that. This knife is for me.' He takes a deep breath, grits his teeth, and then runs the blade over the back of the hand holding mine. Blood flows quickly. 'Remember, don't let go.'
Between heartbeats, this happens: we are in the office, and then it is just a space distant beyond my imagining below us. We're vast and tiny at once, and shooting along a tunnel brighter than any glaring sun. I have to cover my eyes. Cerbo squeezes my hand even tighter. For a moment I am reminded of the All-Death's implacable grip.
Then we're in a space I've only seen once before. I remember it a little differently but at the time I was fighting to save Tim and Lissa's lives. First I am surprised by my weightlessness here. The only force binding me, giving me any sense of up or down, is Cerbo's hand. We're quite close, our hands by our hips, gripping each other as children do. Awkwardly and tight.
'Welcome to the ether. The void beyond the Deepest Dark, where the souls find flight and through which the Stirrer god approaches.'
'Cool,' I say.
'Indeed.'
We're not flying so much as being propelled, and the source of that force is generated by Cerbo's bleeding fist. Around us souls drift, but we are moving faster than them. Occasionally I have to flick my body to one side to avoid striking one.
'Careful,' Cerbo says. 'You'll lose your grip.'
I strike a soul then. Feel it shatter around my head. It burns, then chills on contact like ice. I swing my head back, and see it re-form behind us. After that, I don't bother avoiding them. It's like travelling on the flat bed of a ute in a snowstorm. I almost start to enjoy myself. The speed of it, the freedom. Is this how souls feel, once they are dead?
I ask Cerbo, and he shrugs.
'We cannot go far, just a few steps into the infinite. Blood is no substitute for death. But it is far enough.' A great eye gazes down at us, and we race towards it, cold air roaring in my ears.
We're a long time getting close to that eye. But I can't help staring at it, as I've stared at it before, though it was much further distant then, and I was on the ground, not in this weightless place; and granted a vision, not this whistling wind-bound actuality.
'It sees us, doesn't it?' I ask, having to shout above the gale.
'I think so,' Cerbo says. 'But we are nothing to it. I've done this a dozen times over the past three months, and every time I am much faster getting here.'
'Three months?'
'That's when we first noticed it. Well, Suzanne did. A change in the ether, a sudden rise in Stirrer activity.'
'Do you think Morrigan knew about this?'
'Well, he was dealing with Stirrers. He may have known about it for some time. Or maybe it was just a coincidence that he started his Schism when he did. Do you believe in coincidence, Mr de Selby?' Cerbo jabs his free hand towards it. 'It's impressive. Very godlike, wouldn't you say?'
Darkness bunches around the mass, part storm-cloud, part slug. To one side souls coruscate, and seek to flee its bulk, but even as we watch, a black tentacle extrudes from it, snaps out and drags some of those souls back into its side. A thousand, two thousand, perhaps. Screams ring through my head.
'Already it is wreaking untold damage,' Cerbo says. 'And the closer it gets, the harder it is for souls to escape. God knows what this is doing to the psychic balance of the universe.'
We swing past the great eye. 'Remember, here it is just psychic mass. When it strikes the Underworld, and through it, earth, that mass will manifest.'
'How?'
'We don't know but – I'm sorry, I think but we better get out of here.' Cerbo's eyes are wide. I swing my head in the direction of his gaze; feel my heart catch.
A tentacle rushes towards us. As it draws nearer I can see fringes of what look like blades. They ripple and flex. That merest filament of that limb would cut us to pieces. The ether has suddenly lost its appeal. What the hell is wrong with PowerPoint?
'Hold on,' Cerbo says. 'Hold on.'
He pulls out his knife, brings it back down against his hand and we're suddenly reversing, flipping back, moving away, faster and faster.
And then my grip loosens. Or Cerbo releases his.
I'm left, spinning. Losing speed. Floating in that dark, Cerbo already a diminishing shape in front of me.
17
Here I am, alone in the darkness, about to be sliced into pieces or snatched into the maw of the enemy. The limb of the Stirrer god belts down towards me through the ether. It's so big I really can't comprehend it. I'm less than an ant to it, but the god will have me none the less. I feel Wal tear free of my arm. He scrambles out from my sleeve, takes one look at where we are, at what's coming, and shoots back under my shirt.
I try and shift. Nothing. Here I don't seem to have any purchase on reality. There's nothing to shift from. This isn't my normal state. It is neither the Underworld nor the land of the living. Desperate, I try again. I've virtually stopped moving. I'm just spinning a slow circle. Fuck.
Where's Cerbo? Surely he'll come back for me.
But would I, if that thing was approaching?
I imagine him telling Suzanne, 'He was the one who let go, the fool. He deserved it.'
Maybe this was their plan after all. If that's the case it's worked. I'm a dead man.
Ah, but I've been dead before. A calm, pricked with some sort of madness, envelops me. I grin, a wide and mocking grin. Fuck it all. That rage and joy which fills my dreams flares up and out. I'm not afraid of death, I am Death. No matter that this space beyond space is not my realm.
I reach into my jacket, my hand steady, calm as though this was any stir. My fingers close around my knife – the knife every Pomp has, to draw blood to stall a stir. The thing approaching is a Stirrer god. And I know how to deal with Stirrers. I slash my knife down hard, deeper than usual. Blood boils from my skin, arcs around me. The potent blood of an RM. And suddenly I'm bound in light, a ball of it. Purer and brighter than any star.
The tentacle flinches for a moment. Pauses. I see it illuminated in that hard blood-forged light. The blades are motionless, though each seems to pulse, and I realise that for all their sharp edges they are more like flagella than anything else. The flesh beneath is not black so much as grey, the colour of ash. Beyond it the eye is watching me, and its wide pupil narrows. I can't help myself. I wink.
The universe draws a breath and then I'm racing backwards. Smashing through the cold, dark air heading
