hangs up on me.
I look at my watch. It's 11:30 already. I explain what's just gone on to Lissa.
'I don't like it,' she says, which is beginning to sound like something of a running joke.
'Neither do I. But he's right. If enough bodies stir, things will tip, and there'll be nothing left within weeks.' And I'm not being melodramatic. Where Pomps are conduits to the Underworld, Stirrers are gaping wounds-they're the psychic equivalent of blowing out the window in a pressurized plane, only instead of air, you've got life energy torn out of this world and sucked into the Underworld. One or two Stirrers is bad enough, but that would be only the beginning if we didn't stop them.
I remember seeing my first Stirrer when I was five, shambling away from my father, its limbs juddering as it struggled to control the alien body which it then inhabited. I remember the horror of it-the weird weight of its presence as though everything was tugged toward it-Dad squeezing my hand and winking at me, before pulling out his knife and slicing his thumb open; a quick, violent cutting.
He walked over to the newly woken thing and touched it, and all movement stopped. It was the first time I'd ever found a corpse-all that stillness, all that dead weight on the ground-comforting.
'Not so bad was it?' Dad had said.
The first one gave me nightmares. After that… well, you can get used to anything.
Stirrers are drawn to the living and repelled by Pomps. Well, they used to be, they've been attracted to them lately, which suggests they've realized that they've got nothing to fear.
But what it means is, whether I trust Morrigan or not, I have to get to Mount Coot-tha.
16
Mount Coot-tha is broad and low, really little more than a hill, but it dominates the city of Brisbane. Inner-city suburbs wash up against it like an urban tide line but the mountain itself is dry and scrubby, peaked with great radio towers, skeletal and jutting in the day and winking with lights in the evening.
I have two options.
I consider climbing the mountain, approaching the lookout and the cafe from the back way, up the path that leads from a small park called J. C. Slaughter Falls, but decide against it. If it's a trap, that way will be guarded, though our competition has shown a marked disregard for subtlety. Besides, I'm exhausted; the pathway is too steep, and the name is far too bleakly portentous for my liking.
So I take another bus, in my sunglasses, my cap jammed firmly on my head, with Lissa sitting next to me not at all happy with my decision. I don't blame her, I'm not too happy with it either.
I arrive at 12:58, check the return bus timetable then head up to the lookout cafe. Morrigan is hyper- punctual, as usual. He is sitting at a table sipping a flat white and looking at his watch. The cafe is crowded with tourists. I slip off my glasses and cap, glad my coat is in my bag. The evenings are cold but, even here on the top of Mount Coot-tha, midday is too warm for anything more than jeans and a T-shirt. My shirt's damp and clinging to me already.
Seeing Morrigan actually centers me a little. In fact, I'm surprised by how relieved I feel. Here's something I know, despite Don and Sam's suspicions. Here's a much-needed bit of continuity. I'm desperate for anything that might bring me back to some sort of normalcy. Morrigan's gotten me out of trouble before. I can't help myself-I grin at him.
He doesn't grin back, just nods, and even that slight tip of the head is a comfort. Morrigan isn't one to smile that often though we've been friends for a long time. His face and limbs always move as though contained and controlled, and never more than now. There's a rigidity to him that is at once comforting and scary. Morrigan has always been a bit of an arse kicker, expecting everybody to lift to his level. A lot of people have resented him for this trait; some have even resigned over the years because of it.
Morrigan and I share very few traits, if any. I've never met a more disciplined man. He jogs every morning and lifts serious weights, though he has the lean, muscly build of a runner. His gaze is usually as direct as Eastwood's Man With No Name, only harder.
But for all that I have never seen him look so old, or so fragile. The last couple of days have wounded him, but there's no surprise there. The job is Morrigan's life in a way that it has never been mine. I doubt if Morrigan has ever made a friend outside of the pomping trade. This must be tearing him apart, almost literally if he's experienced as many pomps as I have recently. The front of his shirt is streaked with dark patches that can only be blood.
But he's alive. Can't say that about many of my friends these days.
'You're late,' Morrigan says, looking up at me and wincing with the movement. And all at once I am unsettled and back on the defensive.
'Not according to my watch,' I say, and stare at him with as much suspicion as I can muster.
'Enough of this bullshit. You don't trust me. I don't blame you.' Morrigan coughs and wipes his lips with a handkerchief. Blood dots the material. He looks in pretty bad shape, his face colorless, his hands shaking as they bring his cup to his lips. 'Yeah, I was winged,' he says, in response to my expression. 'I've got a cracked rib at the very least, and every time I lose a sparrow, I lose more than a sparrow.'
He pulls up a sleeve. Bloody outlines of sparrows track up his arm. The neat Escheresque pattern of birds is ruined. One of the sparrows has lost an eye and dark blood scabs the wound.
I whistle, remembering the brutal efficiency of the crows. 'How did you escape?'
'Luck, I suppose. They hit Number Four hard and fast. We're not a military organization.' He nods to the bulge at my hip. 'We're not killers. Jesus, Steven. I'm so sorry. Your parents. If only I'd seen this coming. But I didn't. The only one who could have was Mr. D, and he's gone.'
Tears come-well, try to-and I staunch them. Now's not the time for crying. We have a Regional Apocalypse to stop. 'You've got nothing to be sorry about,' I say. 'And there's no time. What's going on?'
'A Schism.'
'A what?'
'I didn't believe they were real. There are records but only a few. When a Schism is successful, there's not a single Pomp left to record anything. As far as I can tell, once they got Mr. D, they left Queensland until last. We were deemed the least threatening of the states that make up the region, I suppose.
'Look at us-two days and there's only you, me, Don and Sam left. And the other regions would stay quiet about it. These things can spread.'
'So you're saying someone has their eye on Mr. D's window office?' Lissa says, and I can tell from her tone that she has a fair idea who is to blame, and that he's sitting directly in front of me.
'Good afternoon, Lissa,' Morrigan lifts his gaze to her, shielding his eyes from the sun. I realize that Lissa has chosen the spot where she's standing in order to make it difficult for him to see her. It's not helping me, either, her body doesn't really cut out the sunshine, rather it is filled with it. She's not the wan beauty I'm used to but a luminous, translucent figure that stings the eyes.
'Miss Jones, thank you.' Her arms are folded. Well, I think they are. Her voice suggests it at the very least. 'You don't deserve such familiarity.'
Morrigan shrugs. 'Miss Jones, if that's what you want.'
'I don't want to be dead. I don't want to see my body parading about, inhabited by a Strirrer.'
'Oh,' Morrigan says. 'I'm sorry, I can't even begin to understand how that must feel.'
'It doesn't feel good.'
'Feelings are all you have, Miss Jones. And you're right, it is my fault. If only I had been more focused.'
No one says anything and the silence is long and awkward, until a coffee arrives.
'I took the liberty of ordering you a long black-asked them to bring it over when you arrived,' Morrigan says.
I thank him and sip at it, then grimace. The coffee's burnt and bitter, but it's still coffee. 'So what do we do?'
'We need to get to the morgues. We need to get to the funeral homes. We have to stop the stirring. If we can contain it here we might stand a chance.'
Morrigan's phone rings. He jumps, then flicks it open. 'Yes… No… If you must, but there isn't much time… All
