by side with the people who he intended to kill.
It explains why he had been so easy on me over the years. He needed a patsy, someone he could manipulate. My, but he did a good job. I don't know how I feel about that right now, but it isn't good. I still can't believe that it came to this.
Less than a fortnight ago, Morrigan was as close to me as my parents, I was just heading back from a funeral, and I had no idea what it was to be in love. Things change so quickly. This job should have taught me that. All we have are moments and transitions. You never know what's going to come next.
Morrigan's body dissolves, and all I'm staring at is one of the creaking upper branches of the One Tree, marked with the faintest memory of Morrigan, one shadow hand, its palm outstretched.
I glance over at Mr. D. 'Where did he go? I mean, am I going to have to worry about him coming back?'
'Good heavens, no.' Mr. D jabs a finger at the branch and Morrigan's shadow. 'Morrigan's nowhere and everywhere. He took the most deadly lottery in the world and he lost. Morrigan's soul has been as close to obliterated as anything can be in the universe.' Mr. D snaps his fingers. His grin is chilling and satisfied, extremely satisfied.
I don't know what to say, or whether I'm pleased that I didn't know that I was fighting for, not just my life, but my afterlife as well. Who am I kidding? Like Mr. D told me, what feels like months but was just a couple of days ago: It's best not to think about it.
If I had known what I was probably going to lose, I'd never have been able to empty my brain. Not even that close to death. Killing is an emptying, and an absence of fear, an absence of empathy. It's also a state I never want to experience again.
'This is all going to change,' I say. 'It can't stay this way.'
'You're the new Death, that's your prerogative,' Mr. D says, with a generous shrug. 'You can do what you want.'
'Paradigm shift,' I say, and I like the sound of that.
'The Underworld's your oyster, de Selby.'
'Thanks a lot.'
'You're welcome.'
Then it hits me, worse than anything that Morrigan ever managed to throw at me. 'Lissa's not a Pomp anymore.'
'That's right.'
'And she's surrounded by Stirrers.'
Mr. D frowns. 'Yes, you better do something about that.' Like I said, Mr. D has no real sense of the pressing nature of certain events.
'How?'
'Oh, I think you'll find a way, de Selby.' Mr. D waves a hand airily, then he is gone. Though I know he hasn't gone far from this empty triumph of death, I want him gone forever. But the truth is, I'm more terrified of his absence than I'm prepared to admit. Better the Death you know. Except I'm Death now, and I don't know anything.
I glance around me, at the great branching Moreton Bay fig that devours the hill below in rolling roots as wide and as tall as monstrous pyroclastic flows, and around which teems the suburbs of the Undercity of Brisbane. Cold salty air crashes against me. This place is as much mine as anyone's. It can bend to my will, but all I want is to get back to Number Four.
Easy, right?
38
What do you know, it is. Even if, as Wal once said, I have no ruby red slippers and my home is a smoldering wreck.
It's easy and painful. Shifting tears at my limbs. My flesh feels raked over. I scream. So much for an element of surprise. Every gaze is on me.
Lissa is in trouble, Stirrers surround her. Not that she's too worried. My girl appears to be pretty handy with a rifle. But, there are so many of them. And Tim's still stuck in his chair, though he's worked one hand free. He smiles at me.
'Hey,' Lissa says, and she sounds so very, very happy. 'You made it.'
'Yeah. Where did all these guys come from?'
'Pending Regional Apocalypse,' she says, matter of fact, and shoots another Stirrer in the head.
'Not anymore.' I lift my hands, a motion perhaps too cinematic, too contrived, but I'm new to this shit. 'Get out,' I snarl at them, and my voice is louder and stronger than I remember it.
The Stirrers turn toward me, and they howl. It's a cry of distilled rage, a sound too much like the one I made in my fight against Morrigan. They are many, but I am Death here. I am the master conduit of this region, and I understand what that means at the most visceral level. I really do, and that almost shocks me to a stop. But the momentum's still building, and it's that momentum that takes me.
One of the Stirrers, Uncle Blake, still in his golf gear, raises a gun and fires. The bullet passes through me. It hurts, but then the hurt is gone.
'It's too late for that,' I say. 'Far too late. You didn't get what you wanted. You got me.'
Oh, and they have my Pomps. I call them now and they come crashing down George Street, where another wave of Stirrers has gathered. The crows are pure death, as powerful as anything I have ever encountered. We are here. We are here, they caw. They beat at the sky with a thousand midnight-dark wings. For a moment I'm viewing the world through thousands of eyes, hearing the whoosh-whoosh of wings finding rough purchase in the air. Amazingly, I'm dealing with the vertiginous vision easily.
The crows descend in a storm of claws and beaks, and every Stirrer they touch is stalled.
It's hard keeping them under control. These aren't human Pomps, they're easily distracted, and the way they stall these bodies is different, more violent. It is a steady tearing of flesh from bone. But there are so many that the Stirrers can't keep up, they can't fill bodies fast enough. And the crows are taking their toll.
I can taste the meat, feel it pulling away from dead bones. It should turn my stomach but it doesn't. These crows are mine. I am so intimately connected to them that this act, this devouring, seems natural. I wonder if this is what Mr. D had referred to as the Hungry Death.
But it isn't enough. Number Four is full of Stirrers, and the region itself, from the Cape to the Bight, is far worse than that. There are hundreds of them throughout the country. I look over at Lissa.
'So, are you open to becoming a Pomp again?'
'I want a raise,' she says without hesitation. 'A big one.'
'Sounds good to me.' I grab her hand, and transfer my essence into her, my fingers tingling as energy runs down my arm. For a moment I feel like I'm not just touching her flesh, but her soul again. It's frighteningly intimate. And the transfer is two-way, I feel something of her in me, something that gives me strength.
'Hey,' Tim says, free now. 'I want to help, too.'
I raise an eyebrow. 'Are you sure?' I'm not sure I really want to share that experience with anyone else, just yet.
'Just do it. Now. Do whatever the hell it is you have to do before I change my mind.'
I glance at Lissa. She nods. We're going to need all the help we can get.
I reach over and hold his arm. The ability slides into him. He seems to fight it for a moment-a lifetime of Black Sheepdom I suppose-then gives in to it.
There's usually much more ceremony than this, not to mention contracts to be signed-and a bit of gloating, after all he was a Black Sheep-but we don't have time. Now, I have two Pomps. It's hardly an army, a once-dead girl and a Black Sheep, but I feel my strength increase, and the Stirrers are pausing, staring at us with their flat, undead eyes.
I open myself up to the Stirrers in Number Four, and I pull them through me. It is like nothing I have ever felt before. It is terrible and gorgeous at once. It is life, and it is life's ending, and there's so much wonder, so much
