Managing death

I need to get out of this tiny room. The walls are closing in.

I stumble over to the door, swing it open and stagger outside. Rillman is on the floor behind me. He isn't going anywhere.

Laughter and music echo down from the floor above. I stagger to the stairs and climb up to the fourth floor. The nearer I get the more I can make out. Christmas carols? Worse than that – contemporised Christmas carols doof doof doofing.

I kick open the door. And there are my staff having their Christmas party. A big Christmas tree is in one corner, someone is giggling by the photocopying machine. Tim is talking to some bigwigs from the state government. For all this, everything seems so forced; a party going through the motions. The door slams shut behind me.

Everyone, glasses in hand, spins around, and there I am. Me with my blood staining my shirt. Me with a bloody knife in one hand. Me with the torn and gore-stained pants. Me with blood squelching in my shoes with every step.

I walk over to the bar and pour myself a Bundy – a tall glass, neat. My pinkie finger still dangles a little. I down the rum in one gulp. No one has moved, not even Tim.

'Oh, and merry fucking Christmas,' I say, waving the glass in the air. If it weren't for the bar I'm leaning on I'd drop to the floor in a heap. I nearly do, and whatever shock my presence created is broken. The whole room seems to move towards me.

'What the hell happened to you?' Tim asks, rushing from where the two government guys stand: both of them looking at me curiously. What are they going to write in their reports tomorrow?

I lift up the mess that is my left hand – though it's not nearly as messy as it was – and point at the door. 'Downstairs. Broom cupboard. Francis Rillman. The fucker tried – well, more than tried – to torture me.'

Tim's out of there, running back the way I've come. I look around me. Where's Lissa? Then I'm swaying. The rest of my staff aren't sure what they should be doing. I don't blame them. I can hear their elevated heartbeats. And then there's one I recognise.

'Steven! Oh, Steven.'

Lissa's there, she's found me, she's holding me up. I've never been so happy to be held up, to be bound up in her arms. There's stuff we need to discuss. Not here, not now, but as soon as we can.

'Where were you?' I ask.

'Your office. Jesus, Steve, I've been trying to call you. I was getting worried, but I thought… Well, you've been all over the place lately.' She touches my face. 'Oh, my darling.'

'Francis Rillman just tortured me.' I grin at her. 'I've never been tortured before. I think I did I all right.'

She walks me to a chair. The staff are all looking on. The poor green bastards, I really should say something, but the breath is out of me.

'Could you get the knife out of my back?' I manage at last.

She pulls, then reconsiders. 'Maybe we should wait for Dr Brooker. It seems to be lodged in your spine.'

'Might explain why it hurts so much.'

'It's going to be OK,' she says, wiping blood from my face. And while I don't seem to be bleeding, there's a lot of it.

'Yeah, absolutely.'

No one else seems sure what to do. I get the feeling that I'm letting them all down. I don't want to do that. After all, Rillman's taken care of. My wounds will heal and no one else has been hurt.

I get out of the chair, with a little help from Lissa.

'Sorry,' I say to my crew. 'You all party on. Really, it's OK. Someone turn up the music.'

As inspirational speeches go it really doesn't cut it.

Lissa wipes some more blood from my face. 'Steven, most bosses just get drunk and flirt with their staff at Christmas parties.'

Tim belts back up the stairs, panting. Oscar's behind him looking very pissed off. Tim passes me my phone. It's whole again. I blink at it. I can see where the glass front is finishing healing itself: the tiniest tracework of cracks. Must be a cracker of a twenty-four month plan.

'Rillman's gone,' Tim says. 'There's just the chair, and blood.' He looks from me to Lissa and back. His eyes are frantic. I can tell he wants to hit something. 'You poor bastard.'

I don't have time or the energy to comfort him. 'The guy was out cold when I left him.'

'Well, he's not there now.'

I look up at Oscar he's only just getting off his mobile. 'What happened? How did he -'

'Rillman, it has to be him, he killed Jacob. Stabbed, in his own house.'

'So who was it that I was talking to in my office?'

'I don't know.'

'That's reassuring.'

'Look, someone died today,' Oscar says. 'I'm going to find the bastard who did this and there will be payback. No one does this to one of my crew.'

I nod, a bit woozy with lack of blood. I know how he feels. I'm mad enough about this as it is, but if Rillman had tortured anyone else I would not be able to express my rage. At least physical damage is only going to be a memory to me.

Poor Jacob is dead and gone and, for all I know, he wasn't even properly pomped. That's too high a price.

'He was working for me, too,' I say. 'We'll both make the bastard pay.'

A thought strikes me. A dark one. 'Do you have a photo of Jacob?'

Oscar nods, fiddles with his mobile and passes it to me. The face I'm staring at is the face of the man who hit me. This is not good.

'That's him, the man who attacked me.'

Oscar shakes his head. 'Couldn't be. He's been dead for twelve hours.'

Great, Rillman can change his appearance. The question is, can he change his appearance only to those who are dead? Or are all the living open to him as well?

Just where might Rillman be now?

My gaze shifts from Oscar to Tim and Lissa, then to the crowd of Pomps around me.

Paranoia plus.

16

'Didn't I tell you to keep out of trouble?' Dr Brooker grunts, looking at my hand. The finger has melded nicely. Not bad for a couple of hours. The wound in my leg is scabbed up too. He looks from me to Lissa and Tim. 'I did tell him to keep out of trouble.'

I'm on a drip, blood filling my veins. I'm on my second bag, and I'm starting to feel great. Brooker had nearly fainted at the sight of me. Anyone else and I would have been dead, or at the very least in a coma, he reckons.

'This is getting irritating,' I say.

'It'd be rather more fatal than irritating if you weren't who you are. So it's definitely Rillman?' Tim says.

'Yeah, but I still can't understand why he did it. I mean, I can't have pissed him off. The bastard doesn't know me.' Rillman may not be the first person who has wanted to torture me, but he's certainly been the first to try.

'I think Rillman's testing the limits of your abilities. Trying to find out what can kill you.'

'Neill said that Rillman's been a thorn in Mortmax's side for a while.'

'Not here,' Tim says. 'There's no record of a Rillman for years in our system.' He sighs. 'Do you think that perhaps the Orcus are using you to draw Rillman out? I mean, there are links, plenty of them. If Rillman's seeking an end to the status quo you would be attractive to him.'

I chew on that for a while. 'Yeah, I'm new to my powers. I don't have any allies as such.'

'And you managed what he failed to do,' Lissa says. 'You brought someone back from Hell.'

'You pomped him. You said he seemed calm.'

Lissa nods. 'Maybe resigned is the better term. Most dead people are that. Perhaps he had decided on his plan of action. Maybe he was seeking me out. Death would be an easy way of doing that. He knows how we work, and it seems no real obstacle to him.'

'Think about that,' I say. 'Think about how reckless you might be if death holds no fear, no real consequence, and you want revenge.'

'It might make you willing to experiment more. Particularly in unconventional ways of killing an RM,' Tim says.

'You're telling me that no one has ever tried to kill an RM before?'