Managing death

I peer over at her, surprised. 'I thought he was your bloc.'

'We may help each other from time to time but we are not in agreement on much. We know how to put up a unified front when we need to. But he worries me now.'

'What difference does it make?'

'When you have centuries, it makes all the difference in the worlds. Believe me, you will learn that.'

'What are your plans for me? The All-Death -'

Suzanne grimaces. 'What did that meddlesome thing say?'

'That I will be alone. That I will fall.'

Suzanne looks almost relieved, as though I've merely reaffirmed something. 'We're all alone,' she says. 'Rillman. You. Lissa. You will learn this, Steven, if you're half as smart as I think you are. The longer you live, the more alone you are.'

I turn from her, and consider the darkness of the Stirrer god above. I remember with utter clarity the immensity of its eye in that vision granted to me by Stirrer rage or my newborn power. I'd stared it down. Of course, I'd been too stupid to do anything different. Me there in that darkness, hurling its worshippers back away from the land of the living. I'd felt the strength of Orcus unity, a strength that had extended all the way down to my hundreds of Avian Pomps.

Absolutely meaningless. I knew that if it came down to it, I'd be fighting that dark alone and it scared the shit out of me.

'I don't think we have centuries anymore. Maybe my presence is what the Orcus needs, someone to add a little urgency to the proceedings to draw your attention back to that approaching hunger filling the sky.'

The look that Suzanne gives me is not nearly as patronising, though I still feel as though she considers me as little more than a dog that has just learnt to fetch.

'We know it's there. Its presence is undeniable and we are doing something about it,' Suzanne says. 'You have to believe me.'

'I really wish I could.'

Suzanne nods. 'This morning, I will send Faber to you. He will show you our latest work.'

'Seven am,' I say. 'And make sure he isn't late this time.'

Suzanne flashes me a vicious smile, and shifts out of there. I stand looking up at the dark. Wal drags free of my arm.

'I really hate how she does that,' he sighs. 'Keeping me stuck to your arm; it's very rude.'

'I don't think she likes you,' I say.

'What's not to like, eh? Eh?'

I don't even know where to begin. The next morning I shift to the office, leaving Lissa to sleep under the protection of my Avian Pomps. Oscar is already there waiting outside my office. He nods at me, lets me pass through the door.

Downstairs someone is dismantling the broom cupboard's door. I can feel it coming undone even from here, and I'm pleased.

It's one place Rillman, or anyone else who might want to lock me away, can't use.

I feel Cerbo's arrival a few minutes later. Oscar knocks on the door.

'Come in,' I say.

Oscar swings open the door. 'He says you are expecting him.'

'Yes, I am.'

Cerbo nods at me. Today he's wearing a green bowler that most people could only ever get away with on St Patrick's Day, and only a certain few of those. He carries it off with a quiet dignity.

He turns to Oscar. 'It's quite all right,' he says. 'I have no intention of killing your boss. Couldn't if I tried.'

Oscar lingers at the door a moment longer.

'This isn't Rillman,' I say. 'He's not going to be able to pull that one on me again.'

The door shuts. Cerbo raises an eyebrow at me. 'Quite the hired goon.'

I let it slide. 'Suzanne said you would show me what you know about the Stirrer god?'

Cerbo smiles. 'And that is why I am here, Mr de Selby.' He gestures at me. 'Now, if you would stand up, and come towards me.'

'I was kind of expecting a PowerPoint presentation.'

'What I have is much better than any computer-based simulation. Now, up, up! Get your rear out of that chair!' He seems to enjoy shouting at an RM.

I get out of my throne and walk around the desk.

'Hold my hand,' Cerbo says reaching out towards me.

I hesitate, and he grimaces. 'Oh, for goodness sake. You're not even my type!'

That's not why I'm hesitating, but his words push me hard enough into action.

Cerbo's hand is warm, and he grips mine hard. 'This is something new. A technique Suzanne has been developing. It's based on the subset of skills required to shift.'

I groan.

Cerbo squeezes my hand. 'No, it is not shifting per se. For one, it is more… well… cinematic, Mr de Selby. And two, it demands a little more. You'll see what I mean.' He closes his eyes. 'Whatever you do, don't let go. This is no pixie-dust journey we're going on, and I'm not Superman.'

I'm trying to imagine Superman in a green bowler as Cerbo reaches into his jacket pocket. He pulls out his knife.

I have to fight the reflex to pull away. 'What the fuck are you doing with that?'

Cerbo's eyes flick open. He regards me disdainfully. 'Don't worry, it's not for you. I've been Ankou for nearly two decades to an RM who is centuries old. You pick up a few things, but I have yet to uncover a really easy way to kill an RM without first killing their Pomps. Even Morrigan couldn't do that. This knife is for me.' He takes a deep breath, grits his teeth, and then runs the blade over the back of the hand holding mine. Blood flows quickly. 'Remember, don't let go.'

Between heartbeats, this happens: we are in the office, and then it is just a space distant beyond my imagining below us. We're vast and tiny at once, and shooting along a tunnel brighter than any glaring sun. I have to cover my eyes. Cerbo squeezes my hand even tighter. For a moment I am reminded of the All-Death's implacable grip.

Then we're in a space I've only seen once before. I remember it a little differently but at the time I was fighting to save Tim and Lissa's lives. First I am surprised by my weightlessness here. The only force binding me, giving me any sense of up or down, is Cerbo's hand. We're quite close, our hands by our hips, gripping each other as children do. Awkwardly and tight.

'Welcome to the ether. The void beyond the Deepest Dark, where the souls find flight and through which the Stirrer god approaches.'

'Cool,' I say.

'Indeed.'

We're not flying so much as being propelled, and the source of that force is generated by Cerbo's bleeding fist. Around us souls drift, but we are moving faster than them. Occasionally I have to flick my body to one side to avoid striking one.

'Careful,' Cerbo says. 'You'll lose your grip.'

I strike a soul then. Feel it shatter around my head. It burns, then chills on contact like ice. I swing my head back, and see it re-form behind us. After that, I don't bother avoiding them. It's like travelling on the flat bed of a ute in a snowstorm. I almost start to enjoy myself. The speed of it, the freedom. Is this how souls feel, once they are dead?

I ask Cerbo, and he shrugs.

'We cannot go far, just a few steps into the infinite. Blood is no substitute for death. But it is far enough.' A great eye gazes down at us, and we race towards it, cold air roaring in my ears.

We're a long time getting close to that eye. But I can't help staring at it, as I've stared at it before, though it was much further distant then, and I was on the ground, not in this weightless place; and granted a vision, not this whistling wind-bound actuality.

'It sees us, doesn't it?' I ask, having to shout above the gale.

'I think so,' Cerbo says. 'But we are nothing to it. I've done this a dozen times over the past three months, and every time I am much faster getting here.'

'Three months?'