'Aunt Neti?'
'Yes, even when I didn't want to. And then RMs noticed. They tried to kill me, too, and each time I died, I came back, different, stronger.
Around him swings the tiny dragon, Smauget, its red eyes aflame. It darts towards my face. There's a blur of movement, a shrill yowl, and Wal has snatched it from the air. The dragon hisses and snaps, its tiny mouth going for Wal's jugular, but the little fella is ready for it. He catches it by the throat, and they tumble to the ground.
'Leave this to me,' he says, from between clenched teeth. 'You deal with him.'
Rillman holds the knives at a distance from his chest, as though even he's afraid of what they are. I don't blame him. I understand their will intimately. The knives blur the air like light sticks waving in the depths of a cave.
They whisper and snort, Hello, hello.
'I am better armed now. These things kill RMs like you wouldn't believe. They're simplicity itself. And here, you don't have any Avian Pomps to protect you,' Rillman says.
'Why did you kill them?' I ask.
'Who? The RMs, well, you know that they deserved it.'
'Not them. This isn't about them.'
I lift my hand. Dust shapes itself into a plane. Dust people tumble from it.
Rillman almost drops the knives. They shudder in his hands. 'What?' The emotions that play across his face shock me. It's almost as variable as Mr D's. Joy, sadness and a mad hunger mix and meld across his features, and it would almost be comedic if he wasn't waving knives in my face. Then I realise that Rillman isn't well at all.
I could almost pity him.
'Your Stirrer drones,' I spit. 'The ones with Lissa. I took them out, and then the Hungry Death came. I wouldn't have been there but for you. Its presence within me wouldn't have destroyed that plane.'
Rillman snorts. 'You RMs, always ready to blame anyone but yourselves. Lissa was meant to die. To make you understand. To teach you the mechanics of pain. And my attacks on you? That was their purpose, too. To hurt, to blind, to scare. I take it that you managed to save her. Too bad about the others, eh? They were your doing.'
'I understand pain.' HD snickers. It's intimate with pain as well.
'Ah, you only think you do. Maddie, I killed her. But I could have brought her back. And there he was, your Mr D. Smug and useless. There he waited, in the dark that slides along the borders of the Underworld. And with a fucking grin on his face, he hurled her back. I was done, then. I was spent; no chance of another Schism. He had nothing to fear from me, but he hurled her back. And even now, dead, he is not dead. And you have made it so. The favoured one, the fucking coddled one. The man who didn't want to be Death. How can you expect to do anything? How can you expect to hold back anything?'
'That's it,' I say. 'It starts and ends here. And the rest? The rest we will have to see.'
A little calm returns to Rillman, a crooked smile. 'That's what the Orcus said, and there's very little left of any of them.'
'I'm something altogether different now,' I say.
The knives flash towards me, but I'm ducking and weaving. It's motion absent of thought, fed on instinct. I've fought with these knives before. My movement is fast and sinuous. Something is hardening within me. A dreadful resolve, a chuckling vastness. The knives slice the air millimetres above my face, then to my left and right, never quite touching.
Rillman growls.
I gesture at the dust around my boots. It flashes up in a tight spiral between us – Suzanne would have been pleased – and into his eyes. My fist follows it. Rillman stumbles back. Wipes at his nose with his wrist. A knot of blood and snot stretches from his nostrils to his arm, then breaks.
His heart beats loud in my ears, and it's no longer that familiar steady rhythm. It's pounding, racing – 160 bpms at least. His pupils are dilated. I know he's on something and it's raging through his body like fire. He comes back at me, fast. But something is burning through my body, too.
The knives dance figure eights before him. It would almost be beautiful, but I've no eye for beauty now. HD argues the point, but I ignore it.
More dust, a blinding burst. He staggers, his eyes stung. I kick him in the chest. He crashes backwards, lands hard.
'Dust? Is that all you have?' he pants, getting to his feet, wiping at his eyes with his wrists. He's half blind, but it doesn't stop him. I'd almost respect that, but I am hatred now. I am blazing anger.
'It's all I need.' I launch more dust at him. Rillman slices through it with the knives, but it's only dust, it doesn't bleed. Not like him. He doesn't even know that he's beaten.
He charges at me. And this time I don't care to obscure his run. No dust. Just him and me.
'I want you to know that you made this,' I say. The blades whirr around me, jabbing towards me and away, and I weave in time with them in perfect synchrony. The poor bastard doesn't understand that they are dancing for me. 'Your desire for revenge. To cause me pain. To bring down the Orcus. To hurt me and mine. All of it. The whole fucking concatenation of hate and fear. You made it all, and now…' I snatch the blades from his hands, one, two… 'These are mine.'
I kick him to the ground, easily. Rillman lies there, bleeding. 'What are you?'
'You don't get it at all, do you? I'm Steven de Selby,' I say, picking him up with one hand, as though he weighs nothing. And he doesn't. No one does now. 'I am Death.'
I backhand him casually in the face. Bone cracks. He drops to the ground, and I stand over him. I grit my teeth, and feel my face shift. It's agony and it's glorious. For a moment all I am is pain. All I am is Death.
The knives in my hand slide towards each other, bind each other in their stony gravity, and then I am holding a scythe. It shivers with the deepest of hungers in my grip.
Mayhem. Murder. Death, it breathes.
And God help me, I swing the scythe above my head.
Wal rushes in between us. 'Whoa, whoa!' He hovers there, his wings beating so fast that they lift up dust. His eyes are wide with a kind of terror that I'm unacquainted with, and they're directed at me.
'Go away,' I say.
'If you kill him, you won't get answers.'
I jab my finger at his face. 'But that's just it. I am the answer, am I not?'
All I want is death. His death. The world's death. HD cackles, like a drunk crashing towards damnation.
Then a squeak of brakes alerts me to his presence. My old boss.
'Stop this now,' Mr D says, sliding off his bike. His face is pale; he's out of breath. Must have been riding since I entered the Underworld.
'You,' I growl. 'This is as much your fault as his. Letting them – letting all of them – do this to me.'
But it is glorious!
Mr D holds my gaze. 'Yes… They were convincing, Steven.'
'Convincing!' I swing the scythe above his head. It would be nothing to lop it off. Mr D doesn't move. 'Is that all you can say?'
'You didn't prepare him for any of this,' Rillman says.
Mr D glances over at him. 'Good evening, Francis.'
Rillman spits towards him. 'Hell must be so hungry for you.'
'It's hungry for all of us,' Mr D says. 'It will have me in its own good time, believe me.'
'I'd kill you if I could,' Rillman breathes.
'You're not the only one.' Mr D places a hand on my shoulder. 'Steven, I am so sorry.'
I brush his hand away. 'You should go now. You have no power here.'
'None of us do, Steven. The rules that bind us do so tightly. You have choices, but what horrible, horrible choices. Leave this idiot. The other RMs are still on the tree; they won't be for much longer. Go to them, find out anything more you can.'