I look at her. 'It used to be. This is about as close to a Brisbane storm as I've seen in years. But it feels wrong.'
We just grin and bear it, and I find myself almost knocked on my arse on several occasions, but it isn't enough to stop us. • • 'So they've built a fence around it,' I say. 'A high, rattling, shaking in the wind, fence.'
There are Moreton Bay figs thrashing in the wind behind the fence, which looks like it could take off into the air at any moment.
'You can climb over it.' Lissa is already on the other side, a broad smirk on her face. 'It's hardly a fence at all. Hardly any barbed wire.'
'Yeah,' I say uncertainly. I hadn't actually noticed the barbed wire. The rain is streaming off the figs that rise up behind the fence, their root buttresses like knuckles bunched above the ground. I remember reading about this now. They're the reason this tall, portable (possibly too portable) fence has been erected-the trees are unsafe. The tower just happens to sit directly behind them. Metal spotlights shudder stupidly in the wind, making shaky shadow puppets of everything.
It seems some sort of fungus has gotten into the roots of the trees. It's visible even as I near the top of the fence, a dark stain penetrating the wood. I wonder what that might be like if it ever affected the One Tree. The fence can't support my weight, it wobbles, creaks, and then slams onto the muddy, but hard, ground. I'm face down in it, and winded.
'Well, that's one way to do it.'
'Yeah, really elegant. I'm a bloody Pomp, not James Bond.'
I get to my feet, slowly. Nothing seems to be broken. I check the straps on my backpack and wipe mud from my jeans. Great, just great. I take a couple of deep breaths, then consider the tower. 'So how do we do this?'
Lightning strikes the tower before us. I'm momentarily blinded, my ears ring. There has to be a better way- with less thunder and great balls of fire. Lissa's unaffected by it all, and I'm reminded again that she's not of this world anymore. The storm, the lightning, all of it is an inconvenience.
Then a Stirrer drops from the nearest tree and comes barreling toward us.
'Steven!' Lissa shouts, and she's suddenly in front of me but, of course, it crashes through her. If I hadn't bound her to me she'd be gone.
I don't have enough warning to do more than tense as its shoulder slams into my stomach. I crumple over its back then hit the muddy ground again, with a groan.
'You should never have come here.' I recognize the voice, Tremaine. The Stirrer looms over me. 'But I'm glad you did.'
Hatred breeds hatred. Stirrer Tremaine has it in for me far worse than the living one ever did. 'Morrigan will be here soon, but I can kick the shit out of you before that.'
'Have a go, Flatty,' I say, hardly from a position of strength.
Tremaine swings a boot at me and I grab it, catching it mere centimeters from my face. The kick jolts through my body. He yanks his foot, but I'm holding on tight and I've got a good grip. I push him hard. He's on his back. I stagger to my feet, I have to finish this quickly. I need to get into the tower before Morrigan arrives. I kick him, then bend down. I slap my hand against his face and realize that he's wearing some sort of mask. I feel his smile beneath it.
'Not so easy is it?'
My hand yanks the mask free. He punches me in the stomach and I throw up all over his face.
Seems that blood isn't the only way to stall a Stirrer. He gasps then shudders, and is still.
'Christ,' Lissa says from behind me. 'You're an innovator.'
I'm too shaky and sore to be embarrassed. The rain is crashing down with even greater force and my stomach is an ache that extends all the way to my mouth. And I know what I've been fighting for-just another gateway to pain. To make it even worse, a soul pomps through me. People never stop dying. The taste of blood is added to the delightful mix of vomit and terror.
'We have to get this over and done with,' I manage.
'Follow me, mud boy,' Lissa says quietly, her voice carrying easily above the storm.
We circle the tower once. It's metal, a rusty red. Up close it looks even more like a lighthouse than anything as industrial as a gas stripper.
'Follow you where? There's no way in, besides it'll be full of baffles and gas-stripping stuff. Maybe we need to do this outside?' I've decided I really don't want to go in there. I'm feeling sick with fear. 'Yeah, out here would be better.'
Lissa shakes her head. 'Put your hand against the wall.'
I brush a hand across the cold metal, hesitantly. 'See, nothing.' I'm lying though, there's a definite buzz to the metal, and the moment I touch it I can hear bells tolling in my skull.
Lissa gives me her darkest grin. 'I'm sorry, Steve. But this isn't that easy. You know it isn't. Keep your hand on the wall. And you're going to need the craft knife.'
I pull the knife from my pocket.
'There's a reason why this is so hard to do.'
I understand that. We can't be encouraging people to cross over into the Underworld, even to the edge of the Underworld. It's easy enough to enter Number Four. Sure it requires a little blood, but only a pinprick, because that is an entranceway sanctioned by Mr. D. This is something else. This is a back doorway and its lock is much more complicated, much more demanding.
Lissa points to a spot on the back of my hand. 'There,' she says.
I know what to do. I drive that craft knife right through to my palm. I tear my throat with the scream.
The tower jolts and I leap back, my hand burning. The wound has healed, but darkly, and where the wound was is now a smoking scar. And where my hand was there is now a door. It opens inward with the force of the wind, clanging against the inside of the tower.
'Go the magic and shit,' I growl.
'You always this cynical?'
I nod, peering through the doorway. It's dark in there. 'Sometimes, but mostly only when I'm half frozen to death and covered in mud, and I've just driven a knife through my hand. After you.'
Lissa walks through and I follow, closing the door behind me. It's an effort against the wind, but when it shuts it stays shut.
26
So what do we do now?' I shrug the pack from my shoulders.
We're in the gloom of the tower, in a space that shouldn't be. We're somewhere between worlds-a bubble of time and space, its surface marbled with possibilities, and far too many of them are grim. Whether I succeed or fail has never mattered more than now. The walls of the tower are marked at regular intervals with glowing brace symbols. No Stirrer could enter this place.
The air is rank with a back-of-the-throat burning odor of cat piss and vomit. Magic door and what not, it still bloody stinks. There's crushed up fast-food wrappers and soft-drink cans cluttering the floor, and a used condom opposite the door-hardly a clinical place for what I imagine is about to be done. But then maybe that's the point of it. Maybe it has to be rough and raw, and there's certainly something in the air, a little like the quiet expectancy of the doorway to Number Four.
The rain is loud against the metal walls, and the trees outside sound like they are thrashing in the storm as though the riverfront's become some giant's moshpit. Inside the tower, everything rattles and creaks and groans. What's more, there is a bell tolling in the distance: really bloody portentous. I feel like I'm on some sort of carnival ride, one that is exceedingly fast and poorly maintained.
'It's going to hurt,' Lissa says. 'More than the knife through your hand.'
'I know it's going to hurt.'
'No, you don't. You just think you do.'
'Look, are you trying to talk me out of this? If that's the case I would have been more open to persuasion
