'Only if you don't have a Death Moot to help me plan.'
He nods, relieved. 'The Caterers are coming tomorrow. That should be interesting.'
Tim walks back the way he came, and I take a deep breath and head towards Aunt Neti's residence. Wal starts to stir on my biceps. Wings flutter. With every step he takes a more 3D form.
Even down this end of the hall I can smell the cooking. It's a delightful and homely sort of smell – scones again, at a guess.
I close a fist to knock on the door, and the door swings open. I don't know why I bother.
'Is that you smoking, Mr de Selby?' Aunt Neti's broad, many-eyed face peers down. She squints past my shoulder, checks up the hallway.
'No, I quit smoking a while back. It never stuck with me.'
'Well, it stinks on you.' She jabs a thumb at Wal. 'Smoking cherubs, you're all class.'
Wal shakes his head furiously. 'Whoa, it wasn't me. I don't even smoke cigars, well, hardly… '
'I'm sorry,' I say. 'My cousin Tim – my Ankou – gets a bit nervous in this hallway. You know how it is.'
'Well, he should be if he keeps up with the cigarettes. I was waiting for you,' Aunt Neti says, and smiles, revealing teeth as dark as the space between the stars, and gums far too bright a red. There's a flash of an even redder tongue behind them.
I clear my throat. 'I expected as such.'
Aunt Neti titters. 'Now, you come inside, young man. And we'll have ourselves a little chat.'
I close the door behind me and enter the cloying warmth of her small parlour, hoping to avoid her embrace. No luck, though.
Aunt Neti's eight arms enfold me. She all but pulls me off my feet. I peck her on the cheek. Mr D had insisted I do that, and she beams at me again. I get another glimpse of all those teeth.
I've heard rumours that she eats human fingers. Her room leads onto a garden of immense proportions and I peer through the door that leads out to it. Part of it must be connected to the living world because it is so verdant. 'Fed on blood and bone,' she says, watching me, clapping her eight hands together. 'Plenty of it around here.' She says that far too enthusiastically.
There are other doors – leading to the other regional headquarters – but all of them are shut. Shadows move behind one of them. There is a scraping and a scratching behind another. How many people have come into this drawing room and not come out? How many live between the walls, between the realms of life and death?
Well, I'm not a person in that sense. So I'm safe here. At least I tell myself that I'm safe here. And I can sort of believe that.
The tiny spider in the corner has grown considerably. It casts a large black shadow onto the wall, and it watches me with the same intensity it did last time.
Neti passes me a plate of scones after cutting them into halves and slathering first butter, then jam, then cream all over them. 'Just out of the oven,' she says. 'And I've just opened a new jar of blackberry jam.'
Mum used to make blackberry jam. Dad would make the scones. And as Mum used to say, 'Steven would make a mess.'
Wal pokes me in the ribs.
'Thank you,' I say quickly. I pick up a scone; take a nibble at its edges. Then a decent bite. 'It's delicious.'
Aunt Neti beams. 'Of course it is, dear. I always make scones when people come with questions. I find it loosens the tongue.'
'I need to know who has been crossing over lately,' I say.
Neti frowns. 'There's been nothing peculiar, as far as I can tell. The last really odd crossing, well, it was you, dear. Since then, we've had nothing but the occasional blip, you know, of a soul not that happy about moving on. And when I say not happy, I mean raving, barking, madly unhappy. Has to be, to make a blip. But that's all. Now, eat up. I spent a considerable time on those scones. Do you know how hard it is to make the flour of Hell palatable?'
I don't ask how, just nod my head. 'This really is delicious.'
Aunt Neti beams at me. Eyes as predatory as a hawk, waiting, waiting for the right moment. The right moment for what, I'm not sure, but it's making my skin crawl, at least as much as when she put her arms around me.
I clear my throat. 'What do you know of Francis Rillman?'
'The Francis Rillman?'
'I suppose so.'
'He was highly ambitious. He came to see me once. About something… Oh, it was a long while ago. Let me think…'
'It's really quite important.'
'Oh, I know that, dear.'
'He died recently.'
Aunt Neti raises an eyebrow. 'Really, I don't think so.' She stands up and walks over to one of the closed doors. She's in and out in a heartbeat. I don't get much of a chance to see what lies beyond, but think of a scream made manifest, and you'd be partway there. She drops a book on the tiny table before her, and flips through the pages.
I try to get a look inside it.
'No, no. There is nothing as far as I can see.' She passes it to me, and I can see my name there, the last entry, written in neat printing, the letters OM next to it. 'This is my list of those who crossed over and back. It's a tiny book because it doesn't need to be that long. He's only here once, like you.'
And there he is, a line before me, Francis Rillman OM(F). Orpheus Manoeuvre Failed, I guess.
'Really? Lissa says she pomped him.'
'She must be mistaken, dear. He's been to Hell and back but once. Have another scone, you're far too thin.'
Wal reaches down to grab a scone, and she slaps him away. 'You, on the other hand, could stand to lose a few pounds.'
'Hey, I resent the implication. I'm a bloody cherub.'
'Resent away, you look like a cherub who's eaten a smaller cherub, after frying them in batter – and not just one.' She winks at me. 'Now, let's just say that, hypothetically, Lissa did pomp Rillman and that he has come back somehow. Well, I'd not be surprised. You did something similar, after all.'
I shrug. 'Similar, I guess, though I never really died. But Lissa did, and I brought her back.'
'Not without help you didn't.' Aunt Neti's laughter peals from her like a bell ringing. She slaps both my knees. 'You're an RM. You've died a dozen deaths, a hundred, a thousand, it's all you ever do.'
I hate that line of reasoning. I'm really not all that different from my previous life as a Pomp. I certainly feel as confused as I ever have.
'How would Rillman have made it back?'
'Let's see… Rage and lack of compromise. You should know they are potent enough. You had your share of those, I've heard. Don't underestimate the efficacy of either.'
23
When Lissa gets back into Number Four, looking exhausted, I drag her into my office. She vents, and I listen. Her day was long, another two stirs, and that after our assault on the Stirrers' house. And surely it couldn't get any hotter than this? Sure, her home city of Melbourne was hot, but it was a dry heat. People are dying, cooking and expiring, then cooking some more in the heat and the storms. And that's not even mentioning the Stirrers crowding around them. I feel guilty, that as I'm her boss and her partner I'm responsible for most of her problems.
Then it's my turn to vent. I talk about Aunt Neti. 'She couldn't give me much. None of them seem capable of
